Planning Commission Work Session   10/28/2025

Well, that's the threshold.

That's the threshold.

Preston was impossible.

I think the right lane of Preston, going all the way to McIntyre, they've been trying to make that right turn.

That's why whenever I come to these meetings, it's like for 15 minutes a day or something, or half an hour a day.

Whenever I go to these meetings, I'm just going to bike, drive, take a walk.

Yeah, I think it was state rules, and you go to the purchase store, I'm like this.

Yeah.

Welcome everyone to tonight's work session.

Awesome, thank you Missy and good evening commissioners.

My name is Tori Kanalopoulos I am a principal planner on the long-range planning team with neighborhood development services at the city and this evening we have a work session on the environmental regulations and policy review project and

And as you can tell in the audience, I'm joined by many colleagues, including in public works, utilities, parks, the Office of Sustainability, and NDS to help answer any questions that you may have this evening.

And I'll start up here for the presentation, and then I'll join you all at a table for the discussion portion.

Next slide.

So this is the agenda for this evening.

I'll start with the project objectives.

So that's what we're looking to achieve with this project.

Talk about the background, why we're doing this project, and why at this time.

I'll talk about some of the related city plans and programs, both that have been adopted and that are going on concurrently.

And then I'll walk through each of the six project topics at a high level and some of the key takeaways that we've identified to date.

And then we'll open it up for your feedback on the draft project phasing and topics and also cover next steps.

So just to summarize what we're looking for at this work session, now that we've completed an internal review of existing conditions and current policies and regulations,

We're looking for your feedback and then also council's direction on the proposed phasing of project topics.

We want to make sure that we're headed in the right direction and see if anything's missing at this point.

And there will be future opportunities for input as we dive a little deeper into more specific topics.

But this is kind of looking at the overall project scope.

Next slide.

So objectives for the project, balancing community and comprehensive plan priorities of housing choice and affordability with also protecting the natural and built environments, increasing community resilience, especially to the risks identified in the community vulnerability assessment, such as flooding and extreme heat,

Ensuring alignment between regulations and across the different topics and then making sure prioritization and implementation are done equitably So potential project outcomes include updates to the city codes including the development code updated policies for the comprehensive plan Updated programs and policies and then coordination across the various plans and programs next slide

So looking at this project, why we're doing it now,

It's relevant to both the comprehensive plan and the development code.

So comprehensive plan implementation priorities include implementing zoning changes that support housing choice and affordability, protect the natural environment, mitigate the effects of climate change and increase walkability, implementing the climate action plan and preserving and enhancing the natural environment.

And from a development code standpoint, there have been some challenges with implementation, especially for some of the smaller infill sites that have less room

for required infrastructure and for other improvements.

There are some other identified challenges and opportunities to take a look at, including mitigating and preparing for the impacts of climate change, planning for infrastructure replacement and upgrades, and then that coordination across the different plans and policies.

Next slide.

So the top half of this slide may look familiar.

This was from the NDS work plan for FY26, which was shared in a presentation in June to council.

And since the work plan presentation, NDS has been coordinating across various departments to document existing conditions, policies and regulations,

key takeaways and areas for collaboration across all of the project topics.

NDS has met with staff from the Office of Sustainability, Public Works, Utilities, and Parks.

And additional departments will be involved at key points, including the city manager's office, city attorney's office, communications, and emergency management.

And we also held an internal project kickoff meeting in August.

Next slide.

The project scoping that we've been doing has included looking at the adopted and ongoing related plans and programs and incorporating relevant initiatives.

So resources from these plans and programs include maps and data, community and developer input, and staff technical expertise.

We also want to make sure that we're being consistent across all of these.

So I won't go into a ton of detail or cover each since they were provided in advance.

But I did want to highlight in the climate action plan actions include code update recommendations and coordinating on land use and transportation.

And for the flood resilience plan that was adopted in 2023, we've recently received a community flood preparedness fund grant.

to take a look at updating the floodplain management program and Utilities has been working on stormwater modeling with the Moores Creek Watershed Complete and Meadow Creek and Rivanna River in progress.

Next slide.

And again, additional related plans and programs that are going on right now.

So we'll share data, recommendations, and knowledge across the different teams as these move forward.

And these are the main ones that we are kind of tracking along with, but there are some other ones that we'll also be paying attention to incorporating as relevant, including the regional solid waste plan update and the regional water supply update.

And as a community member recently pointed out, also incorporating our recent initiative to join the Biophilic Cities Network.

So again, I want to highlight the Flood Preparedness Fund grant and also the Urban Forest Management Plan, which will be important to inform tree canopy and preservation requirements and street tree requirements.

This will also, this project will also inform updates to the comprehensive plan policies, which we will be reviewing next year.

Next slide.

So I'll now walk through each of the six project topics in order of the proposed project phasing.

These recommended areas of study were put together based on our review of existing conditions and current regulations with input across departments, comprehensive plan policies and recommendations,

state code requirements and constraints and related city plans and programs as we just reviewed.

So I also want to mention that while NDS is leading the coordination for this project, the work that I'm going to walk through and describe is being completed by a variety of staff across many departments.

So I want to recognize their work and collaboration and how this effort really spans across many staff.

So for stormwater management, we've identified looking at stormwater requirements.

One thing that we've heard input on is that for bi-right infill development, smaller lots that require stormwater management may not be large enough to fit bi-right housing that's allowed.

Development lot coverage, but also fit on site stormwater management.

Developers are also able to buy off-site nutrient credits to meet water quality requirements, which benefits larger watersheds, but not necessarily our local waterways.

So that may be something we can better incentivize and encourage.

We'll also take a look at stormwater management infrastructure needs, including those identified in the flood resilience plan and through community input.

Next slide.

For floodplain management, we would look at the city's floodplain management program.

As mentioned, that will be part of that grant that the city received.

And then looking at floodplain development regulations.

So the city currently complies with FEMA's minimum requirements for the National Flood Insurance Program.

and cannot go below those standards without risking compliance.

The city can adopt higher standards which would need to be balanced with other city policies and goals.

Changes have to be justified on the grounds of protecting life and property from flood risk and balancing allowed higher density that's allowed by right with protecting the natural and built environment.

Next slide.

For tree canopy, we would look at the city's requirements for tree canopy, street trees, and tree preservation.

There's been comments from the development community about fitting in required trees to meet canopy requirements on smaller infill sites.

Those canopy percentages are set by each zoning district, and there are maximum percentages limits that are set by state code.

We've also looked at the need for improved guidance for tree protection and preservation, including during construction, which would be led by the Parks Department, and also looking at the preservation incentives which do not seem sufficient for developers to choose tree preservation versus planting new trees.

We'll also have updated data and recommendations from the Urban Forest Management Plan looking at tree canopy and the urban heat island effect and how those vary by each neighborhood.

For example, canopy coverages range from 21% in 10th and Page to 67% in Barracks Rugby.

And all of this work will also include coordination with the Tree Commission and build on work done by community partner organizations such as Relieve Charlottesville and the Tree Stewards.

Next slide.

For stream buffers, we would look at the water protection ordinance and regulations for stream buffers.

There are three waterways that have a regulated stream buffer, which are the Rivanna River, Meadow Creek, and Moores Creek.

And those buffers have to be at least 100 feet on each side of the stream and must be maintained and incorporated into development design.

If we did make updates to those buffers or looked at other streams that should have buffers, there would need to be a data-driven rationale behind it.

And we'd also need to consider administration, enforcement, and property and development impacts.

We can also take a look at incentives and voluntary measures that protect streams, especially as there are many streams on private property and property that may never develop.

Critical slopes are defined as 25% grade or greater in area of 6,000 square feet or more and within 200 feet of a waterway as shown on the critical slopes map.

So they are generally not allowed to be disturbed, but there is a special exception process for that request.

And we've looked at developing more objective and clear criteria for that review process.

The comprehensive plan also only has one recommendation related to critical slopes and their value is not clearly defined.

There are quite a few initiatives going on related to energy efficiency, including the Office of Sustainability leading the development of high performance building standards.

There are also a variety of existing tax incentives for certain energy efficient buildings and solar.

Of course, there may be more challenges with changes at the federal level for tax incentives that could slow that uptake.

and Virginia localities cannot require energy efficiency requirements for development that are more stringent than the building code, but they can have higher standards for projects that need legislative review and can also offer incentives and model best practices.

The city is also working with a consultant on an EV charging plan and anticipated of increased demand for EV charging in the city and regionally.

So that's another opportunity for coordination.

Next slide.

So this is a summary of potential project outcomes, and final outcomes will depend on data and findings, best practices, staff technical expertise, commission input, council direction, and community input where needed.

For all of these topics, we would expect increased community resilience, equitable prioritization and implementation, and relevant updates to the comp plan where needed.

So I've covered most of these in previous sections, but just to summarize briefly, they'd be focused on code and policy updates, such as updated stormwater management requirements, an updated floodplain management program, and tree canopy and preservation requirements.

Next slide.

So this is the proposed grouping and phasing of topics starting with stormwater management, floodplain management, and tree canopy together, and then stream buffers fitting in as staff capacity allows.

The proposed phasing is based on input from staff, alignment with related plans and programs, and also the impact on comprehensive plan implementation, including the development code.

The first phase of topics is especially important for addressing challenges with infill development and with tracking parallel initiatives such as the Community Flood Preparedness Fund grant and the Urban Forest Management Plan.

A lot of these topics, of course, overlap and are interconnected and can be addressed at the same time, and we can make revisions based on the feedback we hear from you all and from City Council.

Next slide.

So these are the two questions that we have for you all for discussion this evening.

Do the recommended areas of study, so the six topics that we covered in the presentation, capture the key areas needed for the six topics?

And are there additional topics or supporting information that should be included?

So basically, are we headed in the right direction and what seems to be missing, if anything?

So I'm going to briefly jump to the last slide and then come back to this one for discussion.

So these are just the next steps, which we can also return to at the end, but just to make sure we cover them.

This is anticipated to be about a two-year project.

Certain components will be finished much earlier in the process, and others may be significantly more long-term, depending on the needs and recommendations that come out of this project.

So we'll have a city council work session on November 17th to get their direction, and we'll share your input at that meeting as well.

Then we'll scope more detailed work plans by topic based on that grouping and phasing.

We'll establish internal stakeholder groups and technical committees to keep working across departments.

And as we develop a public engagement plan, we'll determine specific areas for community input.

So we recognize there are many community organizations and committees we can work with and draw on their expertise and community connections.

We also want to hear from and understand community members' lived experiences.

And we would want community input on major policy changes and any significant proposed updates.

So we'll be working on a project website and engagement platform that will keep updated so people could sign up for email updates and see what kinds of meetings and questionnaires are available once we have those ready.

So I'll go back to the previous slide.

and have these two topics for your all's discussion.

We can also start with kind of general topic questions if that would be helpful.

I know we got a few about stormwater management in advance so I'll come join you all at the table and turn it over.

I think there's value in us giving a little more thought to what we do when we don't get to the water.

There have been many years since I've been in Charlottesville that we've had

had water issues.

And if you remember last year, there were a lot of local fires as a result of the paucity of water.

So I'm wondering if we should give some thought to investment in drought mitigation, things like groundwater recharging systems, that kind of thing.

But what I'd like us to do, if we could, is put together

That sounds like a good answer to the question number two.

Do we want to go around, or do people, if anybody just wants to jump in?

I can jump in.

I was curious, has this topic in the pipeline, are you going to bring it up in the loop hack or any of the kind of the three party sort of meetings?

Sure.

We've been doing more internal scoping so far, but we would definitely like to do regional collaboration and engagement as we move forward.

And if it's OK,

Crystal, to kind of call on you.

We've also been working with the Office of Sustainability and kind of coordinating on resilient together.

There was also a question about

And Hosea, I was just saying, I think your comment about the paucity of water, and something too, I will communicate that.

Because I think the same issue happens at UVA, too, where there's a lot of talk about stormwater management.

No, I'll be clear.

You guys are not looking for any sort of policy direction at this point.

We're just looking for topics that might be missing.

I don't know if this is, this might be one step farther off the pavement and into the weeds than you want, but can I get it, I mean obviously with some of these topics there's a sense of what are we thinking in the particulars.

So for example, what sort of thought do we have about our

Floodplain issues.

And where are we pointing to this?

Because we've said, well, do we want stricter guidelines still?

Is the present guideline about the one foot rise anywhere in the city the appropriate one?

How do we balance that for density?

Have we started thinking and having those conversations yet?

And then the National Flood Insurance Program, to be radical about it,

In my industry, the way it's described is that it, that's what I'm looking for.

It sucks.

And there is, I mean, are we looking for things as dramatic as, does it make sense to self-insure for construction there?

Can we meet and do better?

Because by definition, the city's better funded than the National Flood Insurance Program, so there's that.

and things, or am I sort of like getting far too in the weeds of where are we thinking of how we're going to approach some of these?

Similarly, I mean, it seems like a lot of these things are dovetailing on infill lots.

What's the possible on stormwater control on a 6,000 square foot block?

How much, I mean, part of me says, yeah, let's just pump that, I mean, because it's starting to happen.

You know, we've come up with something else.

So I guess is there, is there like a next level of

And this may go back to the scoping of how we're going to integrate these things.

What happens in what order?

How do we actually start this actual analysis?

And I don't know if any of you have any.

There's a question in there.

I'm happy to respond just to all the things you just said are the same things that we've said out loud in staff meetings.

On the grant-supported floodplain program management, I think our goal is to start with lay of the land, like baseline assessment.

What are we doing?

What are we not doing?

Where are there some gaps?

What are some best practices in comparable communities?

How is that relevant or not?

So I think we don't know what we don't know about whether we should change things or we shouldn't.

Like we're being honest.

We're saying maybe we have a best of class program and maybe not.

If we don't, where are the gaps and what are some strategies to fill those and what are some policy options for the city to consider?

I think it's fair to say that floodplains

as defined by the floodplain maps are only one universe of flooding and so I think there's also the opportunity to talk about floodplains and stormwater management as cousins and that's where a lot of the coordination on these different topics and lumping them together by some themes is going to be hopefully

Gotcha.

And then sort of at a 90 degree angle for that.

To me, it has seemed that it might be of great benefit to grasp early on, what are the point and shoot solutions available?

What can we go to city council and say, these three things in order,

We've accomplished this, and we know we can do this.

As opposed to, all right everybody, get your knee pads out, we're going to go crawl down to Richmond and beg for the authority or a change in statute and sort of implement.

I think we're still trying to tease apart, are the best opportunities programmatic or are they policy?

And I think we haven't yet finalized the scope of work.

And so I think this conversation now is really helpful.

And I would offer an invite.

If somebody says floodplains, what are the questions that come to mind?

OK, so floodplains.

Should we be looking at the idea of, it's 7% of the city's land, how much of it is otherwise developable and buildable, and what do we have to do in terms of guarding the floodplain for what it is and what it's used for, and what utility we can get out of the dirt that's on it?

Because I mean, we're talking about, I mean, if everything's density related, we wanted to ask that question, right?

And then the second thing is, what do we

Can we go our own way if we elect to opt out of the National Flood Insurance Program?

Can we elect to go our own way if we opt out of the National Flood Insurance Program?

Which I'm not saying, I say it very casually, but there are methods of doing it.

As far as I can tell, no locality has done it right.

And I'd give that to the lens, you know, building houses on floodplains and what do I gotta do to get the flood insurance for it?

So, that's a few of my narrow growth.

There you go.

I have things for your questions.

Stormwater, very much on my mind.

I'd love more information about that.

I appreciate the information you've already sent.

I would love a whole work session just on that topic.

That would be spectacular.

The items for number two, capital spending.

Some of this we can just throw money at.

And if there's high value and low dollars,

Let's throw the dollars please.

But I don't know what those are, where those are, how to do it.

But if you do, or when you do, please tell us.

Wildfire prevention, fire on the mind.

We haven't had a bad wildfire so far, which is so great, but we might.

So I'd like that on the list for sure, and I expect our friends in fire would feel the same way.

Now a number of people who've worked on this stuff that I'd like to say their names, because they could be useful contacts for you.

Kay Slaughter, she wrote the critical slopes ordinance that we had.

The first in the state, everybody else copied it because it was way ahead of its time.

I think she had a specific nightmare scenario in mind she was trying to prevent.

I don't know what that was, but that may be helpful to me.

And just how she's thinking about this, I think she's still around.

Karen Firehawk, former planning commissioner.

She's now a planning commissioner in the county.

Traitor.

But she did a ton of work on this, updating our comprehensive plan during her time.

And it was where all the skeletons are buried

Diane Dale, who served on our steering committee for the comprehensive plan, was singing this song all the way along and was very frustrated that we just didn't get to it.

We kept pushing it back.

But she has thought about this problem for years.

And if you can calm her down, I think she'll have a lot of useful things to say.

And just generally, I've already emailed you about the Nature Conservancy today.

I guess I have a couple things.

First off, welcome.

Welcome to the dark side.

You're not a traitor.

You made the right decision.

So I think, you know, one thing I'd like you to think about as you approach many of the different sort of objectives here is how, and some of these, I've sort of touched on this in the slides, but it's really how to best utilize the public right of way.

I think, you know, at this point we have

pretty rigid standards for what goes into the right-of-way and pretty limited use of it.

I'm looking at the open data portal, green infrastructure, stormwater and public infrastructure map, and I think there's one bioswale in the right-of-way that I can find.

It's the one on 5th Street across from Tonsler Park.

That one was built well over 10 years ago, I guess, but isn't super well maintained.

I'm not sure that there is a process to maintain it.

You know, I don't know if they just we just sort of dumped it on parks and said hey mow the grass or if there was ever really any effort to you know, keep

In addition, tolerant plants in there that would filter the water.

When you have one swale, it's probably hard to have a process to do that.

But ideally, we could have many swales.

And when we're talking about stormwater management, when we're talking about tree canopy, and when we're talking about our transportation plan and traffic calming, making smarter use of the right-of-way for a lot of this infrastructure

is going to be pretty important to doing it well.

It's also pretty difficult and is going to require really thinking through what the standards should be, whether for public or private development of this infrastructure, and when and how it can be accepted by the city and maintained by the city.

but you know I think you do see other cities that have done a really good job of this.

Seattle has all sorts of amazing in the right-of-way stormwater infrastructure and be good to learn from their examples.

Additional topics so you know some of this has sort of touched on climate

Certainly adapting to climate change is important here.

But my hope is that it will also be central to sort of every piece of this as you think through it.

And really not just thinking about the very specific costs and benefits of each individual program or requirement, but how it fits into that larger whole city-wide, region-wide, and globally.

And I appreciate that you guys put the regional context into your presentation, earlier presentation.

I think it's really critical.

I think the hardest thing about this whole effort is going to be, you know, it's all about balancing, right?

You use the word balance many times.

You're going to get a lot of pressure from the public and maybe, you know, even some points that are election officials where, you know, it's very easy to focus

It is a spectrum and we need to be landing somewhere in the middle, somewhere that takes all of those costs and benefits and trade-offs into account and lands somewhere that sort of adequately addresses all of them.

I don't envy you in trying to thread that needle, but I hope you'll keep sight of that.

To add to that, and I'm thinking of sort of particularly this sort of came up in

All right, we've got to coordinate this infill development with the possibility of where we're using stormwater.

How do we fund the off-site credits for some people?

I mean, maybe there's a way that the city can provide some assistance in upfronting some of that cost to be taken out on the sale on the back end, because these smaller infills are smaller operations doing them.

But at the same time, we're looking at the development code.

and we're looking at the building code that we don't have any power over despite Lyle's best efforts and for all of those things to come together in a sensible way you know I mean we can't simultaneously be pinging people for stormwater fees and then saying but your build-to's got to be X so let's get those stormwater fees in of impervious area so I think that threading that needle is going to be pretty tricky and that's really

coming from every possible direction on that.

I have a couple comments, I suppose.

I think on question one, one area that is closely related to many of these topics is resilience.

And I wonder if

There would be a way to incorporate thinking about resilience both in terms of our infrastructure, how does it respond to different kinds of environmental disasters or effects of climate change.

So infrastructure, property, and people.

I think there is some interesting research on one of the predictive factors of making it through a natural disaster well is your community.

I think we all know that the way our neighborhoods are built can impact how many friends you have that are your neighbors, and then how many of your neighbors you know impacts how well you do in a disaster.

So maybe there are things we can take back to the zoning code from a look at resilience.

and other measures of, this is something I think about, I think the main disaster, I don't know if you call it a disaster, but I think about is power outages in the wintertime, like what happens if power goes out, and in my mind I can walk to that store, I can get some groceries there, and so do people have access to things they need in certain situations, and

That's one thing.

Another thing is

And everything, especially the environmental issues, are not limited to borders.

So there is a lot of regional stuff at play.

We live in a watershed.

With how many jurisdictions, I don't know.

So I would just suggest, as you're cataloging things, doing existing condition studies, if it is reasonable to take inventory on a regional level,

I would encourage you to do it.

So for example, thinking about tree canopy issues, I think we often talk about this a lot.

There's kind of a balance between we want infill in the city, we want to preserve our tree canopy.

If infill in the city turns into greenfield development in the county, likely the tree canopy hit is much greater than if you have to clear a site in the city.

What does that look like?

You could probably use, there's like ground cover data, I forget what it's called, that doesn't come in the boundary of the city, but comes in more of a grid.

So that's just an idea of just looking at general trends with population growth, tree canopies.

I want to echo Rory's comment about the public right away.

Also thinking about trees and thinking about the biophilic cities thing.

Where you put stuff matters.

A backyard tree is good and benefits everyone.

Developing a sidewalk tree probably really benefits a lot of people who walk there.

And so how do we get more stuff close to where people are and will benefit from those things?

Yeah, that's all I had for now, but I

Yeah, thanks for the presentation.

Just subject to the resilience, the planning district has gotten done some work on that relatively recently on the regional level.

One of the more interesting things about it is the perception of leadership on how resilient they are or aren't.

And sometimes when you look at that and you look at the dispassionate responses to you, you're like, are you kidding?

I mean, some of it is

Well, sort of self-deluding in some respects.

I can sort of dig up what their work has been last year for the most part, a couple of studies on it.

But apparently we use the word resilience a lot in commission packets.

So I haven't been able to pull it out.

Yeah, and I think that's probably worth chasing.

And I agree with you.

Yeah, so thank you.

And I'm excited to see all the city people here.

And maybe you have comments that we could hear, too.

I mean, if anyone has something to add, I would love to hear it.

I guess my thing is it all is great on the tree commission.

I like seeing all of that, and we've been talking about that a lot, because that is the focus.

I guess I'm wondering,

When you get to the community engagement part, I like the word resilience, even though it's overused, because it could be human.

It can be systems, whatever.

So then talking to people and to, I guess, thinking about money and priorities in which neighborhoods are first or whatever,

I looked at the 81 pages.

It was a lot.

It's awesome.

But I wonder if there's a way to make some graphics that kind of group these things.

And then maybe there are scales to each of them, like block scale or street scale versus regional scale in some kind of way that people don't get totally overwhelmed, like just even the sidewalk

You know, just a little image of a sidewalk and you're like, oh, here, you know, this is an example of what a great thing a tree could do along a city.

You know, so some way of I think this works really well with everyone in here.

But if it goes out to like neighborhood associations or, you know, people that haven't maybe thought through how these things intersect, there could be

Could be some kind of matrix, something to kind of make a digestible, like one page, like here are all the things we're thinking of at these different scales.

And maybe circle if there's a grant, you know, this is going first because there's money, you know, whatever.

But I think for me, that was what I kind of was getting out of it, like it's all wonderful.

But if housing is an issue, the development, you know, like what are the things that are right now kind of the biggest hurdles

So that could be first.

And then also things that are fundable right now, obviously, move up.

And then some of the things are really important, but maybe are on a longer track in the way you all are going to prioritize all of this.

I don't have a whole lot to add.

I definitely want to echo the efficiency of the right-of-way and revisiting our standards and design manual as necessary.

Are we working with the fire department?

Thinking specifically about trees, but I'm sure it probably comes to play with other components of this.

Because even our best plans can be wrecked by fire regulations kind of out of our

They're a partner in all this.

And then I wasn't sure if this is part of the steep slopes discussion, but are we looking at redefining what a steep slope is?

I know there was talk about man-made versus natural, but just even the feet away from waterway, is that a right number?

Yeah.

I don't have a whole lot to add.

But as Betsy said, if you guys have questions for us, I mean, this has been a short work session.

Yeah, I think that could be helpful to go around and do introductions, departments and kind of relevant programs and projects you all are leading.

Don Shrager, I'm the utility department stormwater utility administrator.

I'm a project manager for the stormwater model that Tori mentioned.

When we started into this, besides modeling the current conditions, we also decided to do a capacity study.

So our last discussions with the consultant were to set it up so we can program a dishing

Both say I can vote in.

I currently serve as the long range planning manager.

I think I can speak to a couple of things.

So Tori has already mentioned the five-year comp plan review.

And so this work will inform that.

And there are a number of projects going on within the city outside of what she has already shared that will also influence that.

And of course, the 10th and Page and Rose Hill plan.

This is more so aligning with the comments from

Commissioner, sorry, Rotter.

Yoder.

Rector.

Rector.

Sorry, I didn't want to mispronounce your name.

Engagement is our bread and butter, if I can say it like that.

It's immensely important to planning overall, leaning into or highlighting the work that sustainability has done with the Resilient Together plan, and communicating

Resilience, sustainability to them.

We know there is still a disconnect, and we are trying to bridge that gap now that we are here as long-range planners and being really intentional about that and the action behind it.

Thank you, Jose.

I'm Crystal Rittervold.

I'm the director of our Office of Sustainability.

We, I think we have had involvement historically or currently in a number of the items that were presented, that Tory presented.

As an office of sustainability now, I think one of the things we're seeing is a growing acknowledgement that this is all interdisciplinary work and that if we don't do that intentionally, we're not going to get it right.

And if we don't communicate about it intentionally,

It doesn't matter what we land on if the community hasn't been part of informing it or understanding why the choices are being or the decisions are being made.

So, yeah, I would like to think that our team is a resource to the various efforts that are underway.

And, you know, really talking about this Resilient Together effort, a number of you were part of the presentation to the Joint City-County Planning Commission, but it's about

creating a strong, safe, and healthy community in the face of a changing climate, right?

And so whether that's infrastructure pressures or paucity of water or increased wildfires or smoke like, you're right, we need to, we can't not look at all of this through that lens.

And so I think the time is really kind of unique to wrap our arms around it.

Hi, good evening.

My name is Steven Gaines.

I'm an urban forester with Charlottesville Parks and Recreation.

Obviously, I spend a lot of time thinking about tree preservation and tree canopy.

I work very closely with the tree commission.

I have a lot of ideas.

And Brennan Duncan.

I'm the city engineer.

I think this is actually my first time before you in that role.

I've been in it about a year

and

You know, several of you have kind of had questions both online and even just saying like, hey, we could do a whole session on stormwater.

So I wanted to talk to kind of some of the information and possible misinformation that might be out there.

First of all, like with our new development code, I think a lot of the effort in the development code was to take out barriers to development.

And people thought, OK,

All the barriers are gone or a lot of the barriers are gone.

Now I can build to the full extents of this property.

There are still, we took away parking requirements.

That doesn't mean there's not gonna be any parking on stuff.

It just means we're not requiring it.

You still have certain aspects that you have to fit on these sites.

Stormwater is one of them.

Utilities is one of them.

Trees is one of them.

Open space requirements.

So there's a lot of requirements that are still on these sites.

You know, people see that as like, oh, well, those are restrictions.

Well, you know, we have to have water and sewer sites.

You have to provide room for that.

The city acts as the state's, I guess, enforcement administration of the statewide

Stormwater program.

So that is something we can't just get rid of.

We are more strict than the state, but a lot of that was because those state regulations were written for counties, for large tracts of land out in the county.

When we wrote our previous version, we updated it, but the previous version was done with the 6,000 square foot because so many sites were going unregulated.

So we're open and we agree with our new zoning code trying to shoehorn the state regulations into these smaller infill sublots and that kind of stuff.

It's not a perfect fit.

We recognize that.

We're willing to look at it, but it doesn't mean they're going to go away.

We really to Rory's point.

We really have to look for those opportunities to rebalance for a better word You know there there may be opportunities right now.

You know single-family Detached doesn't have to do anything

you know we we may be able to require them to do something that would help offset releasing some standards on other projects so that's the kind of stuff that we're looking to you know address with this I guess that's kind of you know they're

One of the issues I saw was about credits and stormwater credits and sounds like there might have been a misunderstanding between stream restoration credits versus actual stormwater credits.

The city does allow, we were required to allow again as administrators of the statewide permit we have to allow developers to buy the credits but that is only on the

Quality side of things they're still required to do quantity and really when we're talking about Mitigating price that's where the cost is at is because they have to detain that water on site so that they're not Flooding their downstream neighbors So that's you know the quantity or the quality portion of it.

Yeah, it can be expensive but

The alternative is you just go buy credits in what would have been a $20,000 or $30,000 stormwater facility.

Now they're paying $1,500 for stormwater credits.

Another point of that was that we do prefer that they do it on site.

Again, we can't require it because most of the credits that we see are down in Goochland and that kind of stuff.

We do not see locally any

For lack of a better term, benefit to that.

It's just the way it is.

We've talked about internally in the past creating some kind of local more regional stormwater facility that we could sell credits out of or something.

Again, it's just been talks for the last 10 years that I've been here.

There's just way more open land and stuff down in Goochland and ultimately statewide what they're trying to protect is Chesapeake Bay and

That kind of stuff.

So we're only one small piece of that.

But as we're looking at the benefits or cost benefits of all this, like should we be looking at requiring something more?

Maybe it's not all of it.

Maybe you have to do some of it on site versus none of it and just buy credits.

Because yeah, like I said, we don't really see the benefits of that.

I have a few other thoughts.

They're not exactly on the topic of questions.

I try to stay on those because I usually don't at all.

I guess to a couple of Brennan's points, I do wonder how we could structure incentives around credits or on-site treatment, whether we can give zoning bonuses for doing on-site treatment, whether there's any way to incentivize upstream credits versus downstream credits.

You do sometimes see them getting it from Ivy Creek, right, which would at least feed into the Rivanna, which sort of helps us.

It doesn't help with your random unnamed waterway creek in your neighborhood, but it helps with our general local water quality.

I don't know if there's a good lever to pull to help with that, though.

Some thoughts on utilities capacity and a capacity study.

I think it would be really helpful to everyone, as the city, to developers, to the public, for the results of that to be made public, to know where there's maybe spare capacity, and potentially maybe we could tailor regulations to be a bit looser when places where we have lots of excess capacity and a bit tighter in places where we're running out of capacity.

and then of course, you know, obviously to focus infrastructure upgrades on places where we need it most.

And yeah, I'd love to see that made public.

The other thing I would ask utilities, I'd love to see it public.

I know you guys probably aren't gonna do it.

The like locations of underground utilities.

I know there's a map and people can like request little snippets of the map, but we don't post it all publicly because of like 9-11 or something.

When we talk about trees in the right-of-way especially, I feel like the thing that we hear all the time is, well, we can't do that because there's underground utilities there.

But I've seen a couple of these little snippet maps and there are some places, some corners where you could do a little bump out with a tree.

The utilities are clustered to the other side of the street or whatever.

It would be great to try to identify potential locations for trees, for depaving, for bioswales across the city more systematically.

The only way I would think you could do that would be with the map.

And maybe we just do that internally within the city so you don't have to give it to the public.

I do wonder how real the security concerns that initially made it private are in 2025.

I think that's all I had on specific topics.

I did have one more thought on the phasing, the groups of phasing, maybe two more thoughts.

So it seems to me that the stream buffers and critical slopes, like they're in separate phases here, but they really feel to me like one thing, right?

Like they're all about protecting the waterways.

The critical slopes are defined as being near the waterways.

And I understand the critical slopes.

I'm looking back at our January 24th, 2023 work session where we last talked about this.

And critical slopes were like before we had the states from water standards, right?

And so that was how we prevented erosion into our waterways, made sure slopes were stabilized.

And, you know, every time we have a hearing where we do this discretionary review of critical slopes and we say, well, these are good conditions to apply and, you know,

Jack and Al Brennan are like, well, we have to make them do all these things for stormwater management anyway by state regulations.

And so I don't really have much for you.

And I think our goal in 2023 was to maybe try to differentiate places where we really don't want to be developed ever, like stream buffers not within the three.

We only have three stream buffers now, but we should have probably many more.

versus slopes where we need to be careful about development and apply appropriate oversight and sediment control and whatever to make sure it's done right.

I think originally we needed a discretionary review because that was the only way to impose those conditions and now maybe it's not.

I think the plan back in 2023 was looking at

Seeing what's really obsolete from having these state firmware requirements in place and what really needs to be done today.

And I thought the idea was that we would mostly be moving towards stream buffers and away from critical slopes rather than just tweaking critical slopes at the margin.

These are both sort of public outreach and I was just thinking about as you begin to draft how to engage the public, one area that could be an exciting opportunity is to sort of engage with some of the city schools and some of our youngest residents of the city.

I feel like you will have a very excited audience there around these topics and also maybe an audience that's not really aware of these things and you could help sort of cultivate

from the ground up, sort of support for these environmental issues, because I think you'll have a lot of fans within the schools.

And I think that would also maybe be an interesting way to pressure parents into rain puddles and other things that may come up over the dinner table.

And on topic of sort of public appearances, I had the same issue when we were looking at the zoning

I would suggest instead of sort of stacking and saying this was based on input from the staff because you may have people who feel strongly certain communities think critical slopes are critical because there's developments that are about to happen or people who feel like

The whole challenge we have right now is around energy and the fact that we need to decarbonize quickly and having good infrastructure is critical because we don't have to worry about stormwater if we're not making as much carbon.

So I feel if there's a way to shift to like a prioritization matrix or something that they're all equally important but some have more risk, some have more complexity and they're presented in a way that we're trying to prioritize the ones at the highest risk in maybe the lowest complexity or

Just to shift it away from these were subjectively ranked because, you know, again, I think depending on who is looking at them, they may shift.

I think I can now share.

An issue I think this relates to Michael's point that may be helpful to understand is feasibility.

Some areas we're just not going to see in field development in 100 years.

Some we'll see it in like two years.

So prioritizing those more feasible locations for review I think will be very helpful and may get at sort of neighborhood and specific concerns.

and also just high land costs where we are putting substantial public resources services.

And maybe we want some revenue and some housing back.

I think another question I have with timing, which maybe then goes to phasing, is with all of these other studies in play, I think often we probably want to be making decisions based on the best possible data.

And that might mean having to wait for the study to complete before we make decisions based on it, right?

What I'm thinking about primarily, though, honestly, the utility capacity one seems pretty relevant here.

But I think back to the 2022 canopy study.

And I've done a little digging into the data underneath that, because I couldn't explain.

I was trying to understand the root of the 5% canopy loss, 5% of the city's land area in canopy loss, the study was claiming.

comparing that to the acreage of, like the aggregate acreage of that versus the aggregate acreage of development or, you know, invasive

methodologically flawed.

And I know we're doing a new study with a different vendor that is hopefully pretty close to completion and hopefully will be a lot better.

And so I don't know what the timing on when we expect results of that is going to be, but it seems like something that would be good to have before we really start to dig into

You know, without thinking of that broader picture.

But, um, yeah.

Well, things were delayed significantly with the grand business.

Yes.

And that's really just getting back on track.

But I would say we will start making more headway quickly at this point.

Reports that we were trying to generate have been generated.

There's gonna be

Probably significant surveying, just to see the public opinion about what's important.

Yeah, but I think your gut is right that there may have been some differences between the methodology in the different canopy assessment years.

And so one of the things we tasked the consultant with was to do an apples to apples.

And so hopefully, we'll have something that we intervention, which might have been part of one of the data sets.

OK.

Thanks.

I have one.

But I think, and this goes more to the development side of these small lots and infill, because that seems to be where there's pushback right now.

I don't know if it would be worth doing, I don't know, just like outreach to small builders or like toolkits for like, if you want to save this tree and you have that, like just sort of like some technical

And maybe it's just being able to walk in and advertise office hours and be like, hey, bring us your lot and let's chat about it or whatever.

But I think there might be opportunity in advocating for single lots that want to double or triple.

because it seems like what we were hearing the other night in the planning commission, I think there was a builder on critical slopes, you know, and it's hard and there's not the same expertise as like these developers coming from Texas or something, you know, who like come and they're like, here we go, this is what we do, you know, boom, and they have this huge team.

So just, I guess thinking about how to be more encouraging with

working with members, whoever might be interested.

I think another thing I throw out there is beyond the sort of high-level phasing of all the different like major pieces, the more we can find easy wins and implement them immediately rather than preparing a package.

One that comes to mind, you know, I was looking back at that work session where we reviewed the development review manual

because I remembered we had that whole discussion about when stormwater management requirements apply and trying to figure out when they apply.

But the manual originally set the line between minor and major at, I think it was six units originally.

And we rolled it back to two based on the idea that stormwater management requirements would trigger, even if it were less than 6,000, for three units.

But it sounds like that's not the case.

So bumping up the unit count, but also putting in a 6,000 unit threshold would allow some of the smaller developments to get through without a major development plan, and therefore

It's been very helpful feedback.

I think maybe one question that I would add in for you all to consider now if you have some thoughts is just generally how you'd like to be kept updated and also thinking about previous work sessions you've all had on really technical topics, what's worked well that we can kind of keep in mind from like

Excellent question.

So I've got a thought about the last question.

Yeah, I was going to say the same.

Make planning commissioners do the reading.

Just assume that they're not, and then you have to go through everything on the slides.

Because they do read their agendas, right, everybody?

I appreciate that you guys did that with this one, with the sort of longer detailed one.

I will say I did not fully realize that that was what was happening.

I wasn't sure if we were going to go back to the presentation.

You know, saying, here's some background information.

Go read this on your own.

Here's what we're going to go through, I think is helpful.

I think having those discussion topic slides like that is

I think for a particularly complicated topic, having a few points during the presentation where we'd stop and chat.

And then the tricky part is we're all going to go off topic at the very first one and start talking generally.

So don't let us do that, but then have a general time at the end so that everyone can get their general comments out.

Yeah, I wanted to address a couple things.

So capacity studies, just to let you all know, we are looking at those across all the utilities right now.

And that will inform our standards update.

We are looking at that as we go through this zoning process and this increased zoning and what changes we need to make across all of our utilities to allow for this increased zoning.

But we have to finish these capacity studies first.

The maps,

I will revisit that.

I'm not going to make any promises.

I'm not going to tell you that I'm going to give you the answer you want, but I will revisit that for you.

And then as far as drought management, we do have a drought management plan with Rivanna that we've worked on.

And we just actually, it was just submitted to DEQ in 2025.

So the hard part about that is we do not do fire flow tests every year on every country.

We do inspections.

As long as it's within the past year, then the fire marshal can accept it.

But if we need to go do a test, obviously we have to schedule that.

Yeah.

I think even just having outdated tests available, where then they can be like, well, has there been any development nearby?

Is it probably going to pass next time?

Sure.

Just to help people make decisions really quickly and with less manual intervention from you guys, too.

I have one follow-up.

The comment about stormwater facilities in the right-of-way.

So that has been a city-wide policy as long as I've been here.

More so because we don't want private facilities in our public right-of-way that then the city has to maintain.

We don't have the staff, the resources, the expertise to be quite frank.

Most of our Parks and Rec staff are doing the roadside mowing and stuff.

We don't want them inadvertently going in and, you know,

Mowing down something that's supposed to be planted with specific species and now it's just all gone.

So that's kind of the main reason for that.

We have done some city projects where we've done you know some kind of in but even us recently have reverted to going the route of just buying credits because

We don't have the space to do it and project costs and whatnot.

We're working on a VDOT project.

It's a lot of money to go buy eminent domain in somebody's property in order to put a stormwater facility on there rather than just buying the credits.

So it's something that I'm willing to look at, but that's kind of a thread that if you pull on, there's a lot more behind it as far as how much staff and stuff we would need to do

I think it's probably not an all or nothing thing too, right?

If we were thinking about more swales or whatever in the right of way, at some point you reach a critical mass where we just decide to fund that.

And that's just part of our water protection program.

Having detention facilities that we clean out to the right of way, obviously, is probably much less logical to have.

And maintenance is not well done.

It's a staffing issue.

It's a resource issue.

So we're looking at doing a study to identify them all.

What it will take to bring them all up to standard now and what it would take to actually put a program in place to keep them maintained.

And it's just a maintenance issue.

They're there.

They work, but they're there.

I mean, I think it's particularly tough because we have a few dozen of various BMPs, right?

And there are some different types, fewer of some.

There's like 200 or 300 citywide.

Oh yeah, I mean private and public but like all of those are required to be inspected like every five years so they're on a kind of rotating schedule.

Does the city have to inspect the private ones?

Okay.

Public ones get inspected each year.

Right, every year.

We have 20.

Of the public ones?

I have a fun fact to share with you.

is the 20th anniversary of the rain garden in Greenleaf Park.

That was a voluntary demonstration project.

Happy birthday.

No, but it was a grant funded project that the Environmental Office and Parks collaborated on and actually did the actual construction in-house.

So there was a lot of like,

Muscle and sweat and questioning of what we were doing.

All right.

So I just want to say that yesterday was International Black Cat Day, and I'm really

Regretting that we didn't hold a meeting then because I had a great send-off.

But today is what, Oki Day, which is the 83rd anniversary.

And it means it's literally called the anniversary of the no, which was October 28, 1940, wherein Benito Mussolini insisted that Greece would have to allow Italian and other access troops onto their soil for certain strategic areas.

And at 3 AM, his ambassador went to the prime minister of Greece and demanded that.

And the reports were that he said that the entirety of the meeting was the ambassador made his pitch.

And the prime minister said, no.

That's it.

Actually, it turns out that what he said was, allors, c'est la guerre.

Well, then it's war.

And he was right, because two hours later, Italian troops stationed in Albania launched an attack in Italy.

That's a downer.

It's also 103rd, so I'm not doing that.

It's also the 103rd anniversary of Mussolini's March on Rome.

You see a theme evolving here, where he took over the Italian government.

That's a downer.

But it is, as a palate cleanser, or I was trying for a palate cleanser, it is National Immigrant Day, but, well, 2025.

Finally, for a real palate cleanser,