Planning Commission Meeting   10/13/2020

We are now live, and I think we are ready to begin our deliberations for the evening.

All right, great.

Thanks, Hosea.

Yeah, I had a couple of things I just wanted to mention.

The first is that since we last met, we had a pretty good collaboration in our office and facilities management at UVA with your facilities management at the city to provide some additional COVID-19 social distancing signage on the corner, mostly in the form of dots on the pavement, which were not there before.

identified a need and came up with a solution and turned it around.

We would have turned it around in about a week, but it rained.

And so they had to delay installation for a few days.

So even still, it was, you know, I thought it was a pretty good effort of collaboration and getting stuff done in a hurry.

So I just wanted to mention that and thank the city for the help, you know, with getting that done.

Also, just internally, we've been,

kind of on hold since COVID hit with our update to our grounds plan, which you might remember was last done in 2008.

So it's been a while.

And so we're now starting to move, get that moving again.

So we've started some prep work on that.

And then we've continued, in terms of city UVA collaboration, we continue to comment and interact with

It's both the Emmett Street Smart Scale Team and the Fontaine Avenue Smart Scale Team.

So we've been able to have touch points with you guys on that.

And then coming up in the next Board of Visitors meeting for us is in December.

So I'm not sure exactly what's on the docket for that one, but that's the next one.

And we have a new member, Liz Russell.

Welcome.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I'm so excited to be here.

My name is Liz Russell and I have not served, I have not represented the Planning Commission on any committees yet, so I'll just give a little background as myself.

I am currently the Assistant Director of Facilities and Planning at Monticello.

I am originally from the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

but I lived in New Orleans for several years and I've lived in the area for 10 years and in Charlottesville for 8.

I've recently, well it was 2017, I completed a renovation of a 101 year old house in Belmont.

You might hear the train in the background going by.

Educational background is in historic preservation from Mary Washington.

And in 2013, I graduated from the urban environmental planning program at UVA, the master's program.

I serve on several boards that are dedicated to housing in the built environment.

And for two years, I've been a big sister to an amazing 12 year old girl who is in the county school system.

In this role, I am really looking forward to shaping a more equitable community that offers opportunities for all residents to succeed.

As a planner, I feel like we have a duty to recognize that historically land use and zoning practices have had negative impacts, especially on people of color in our nation.

And we know that's true right here in Charlottesville.

I do strongly believe in the power of community engagement and the duty of elected and appointed officials to act with the best interest of the community in mind.

I come from a preservationist background, and I believe in the power of place, the power of stories, and the value of the built environment, but I don't think that we have to think of

Jeffersonian as being the only historic architecture that has merit.

I certainly don't think that gets a misconception.

I also feel that older housing stock should and is part of the affordability and sustainability conversation.

I'm looking forward to having those conversations in regards to our comprehensive plan update.

And I'm just really excited to work with the fellow commissioners, council, staff, developers,

and this wonderful community to see Charlottesville, help see Charlottesville live up to its full potential.

Thank you.

Welcome, Liz.

Glad you're with us.

All right.

Well, let me say welcome, Commissioner Russell.

Good to have you on board.

So, the last month, we had a few meetings.

One was my first meeting of the TJPD Commission, C would be redundant, where we discussed a few things.

The big one is the COVID rental relief program that they've been running.

got awarded another round of funding from the state.

So that's good.

More people can get rental relief.

If you need rental relief, go to their website and you can apply.

And we got some interesting stats on applications coming in.

It seems like in the city in particular, many applications coming in are also getting funded from other programs that we're running.

which is great and so yeah it's been a fairly successful program so far it seems.

Let's see, PLACE it's also continuing to meet to agonize over its future so we had a meeting

I guess it was last Thursday, a little while ago, to again sort of see what the future of place is after some resignations of the chair and vice chair.

Everyone sort of came to the realization that, you know, since the end of several major projects from several years ago,

It's been a little bit visionless recently.

And so we're kind of trying to come up with some ways that the committee can be helpful as a sort of brain trust of talented individuals who work in architecture and industry to help the city achieve its goals.

I think those are the only meetings I've had since our last one.

So that's all I got.

Yes.

In September on 16th, I attended the Citizens Transportation Advisory Committee for the Thomas Jefferson Transportation District.

They've reviewed their smart scale funding that work that they're collaborating regionally with VDOT and

Hoping that the city becomes a recipient of some of those funds.

A lot of discussion about how COVID has affected streetscapes with restaurants encroaching in on previously non-prodestrian areas.

And there was no actions taken, but it doesn't look like that's going to end anytime soon.

And I think that was about the extent of that meeting.

There were no actions taken that affect the city directly.

First, I want to start off by saying welcome to Liz or Ms.

Russell.

I'm glad to have you.

And I don't have necessarily a report.

I do have three announcements I would like to make.

So on October 1st, the CDBG slash home proposal opened up.

So if anybody is interested in applying for those funds, please go to the city's website.

The application is available.

Also on October the 22nd, we have our annual CIP committee meeting coming up.

That's going to be from 1 to 3.

Yes, sorry.

Yes, that is for the school board.

the annual school board CIP committee meeting.

We'll be meeting October 22nd from one to three virtually.

And then lastly, I'll be attending the registry task force meeting, which will be October 28th from four to five.

Welcome to Ms.

Russell.

We are stronger with you.

Uh, the, uh, civil plans together, uh, met on

doesn't matter what it meant.

We discussed land use ideas and housing ideas, including some interesting demos that I think you'll probably see today.

Nothing, oh, and reformatting the hack, which comes up.

Hello, and also welcome to Ms.

Russell.

The Board of Architectural Review met on September 15th.

We had four certificate of appropriatenesses granted and two were deferred after we requested more information.

We had two preliminary discussions on future projects and then we had a wonderful follow-up visit to a very unusual house on Hartman

Mill Road to inspect an outbuilding that's being proposed for demolition.

But the house itself has a very checkered and long history and is very tucked away.

The Tree Commission met September 23rd.

We mostly spent our time reviewing metrics for the past three fiscal years.

and those metrics were telling us that we have missed our annual goal of we the city has missed the annual goal of planting 200 trees a year.

We've only planted about 110 on average and yet at the same time the city has removed because of decay and storm damage and development about a little over 100.

So we're going nowhere fast

Over the 10-year period ending in 2014, we've lost 5% canopy from 50 to 45% tree canopy and that 5% equates to about 420 acres of trees.

And then looking at neighborhoods and tree canopy, we identified Star Hill and Tenton Page

as neighborhoods that have less than 20% tree canopy, which is a critical high stress level of lack of tree canopy.

40% is healthy.

And it has repercussions not only on health, but also economic repercussions and costs of energy.

And well, mostly just cost of energy.

Andy, but the health benefits or the health deficits are severe.

Thank you.

Great.

Good reporting.

Thanks.

So the Parks and Rec hasn't met much, but I got some really great news I'd like to share with you.

Last week at the Virginia Recreation and Parks Society Conference, we got a major award.

And the award was for the best new facility for a city of our size.

And that was the award for the skate park.

And as you guys know, I've been talking to the skate park quite a bit.

So I am, I am pretty geeked that we were able to get this award.

So want to congratulate Vic and the entire Parks and Rec team for the work that they did to get us this award.

I am pretty proud of those guys.

So good for them.

Let's see, on September 15th, the budget staff hosted a meeting.

And that meeting was attended by Councilor Snook and Councilor McGill.

And I represented us at that meeting.

We learned that there is about $129 million that we're looking to spend on capital improvements between 2022 and 2027.

Today, I believe that we're looking at allocating about $50 million of that $120 million to the school system.

This may iterate, but that was a current thinking back on September 15th.

The rest of the money, number approaching 80 million bucks will be used to work down the backlog of existing things that have already been approved by council.

The thinking is, we will not have any new projects until we get a chance to work down that backlog.

And the thinking is, we don't want to, and this is thinking, it may iterate, because there was a second meeting with other members of council that I didn't make.

But at that meeting, the thinking was, again, working down the existing backlog.

There's a lot of backlog we've got of approved stuff that we haven't got to that we're going to work down.

And the thinking is that in the COVID-19 environment, we want to be very cautious about adding new things until we get to get our hands on what's going on with that.

And again, we've got $80 million worth of projects in the backlog that we need to work down.

So the thinking from staff is we'll work through that.

Missy, there is a work session in public hearing on the December meeting, right?

Yes.

She says yes.

So I think that's it.

I'll just piggyback on that since you started talking about that.

The CIP is definitely going to be a bit different this year.

It's different definitely on the staff side.

We have a shortened scoping and mainly the idea is to focus on the items that were approved in last year's.

CIP and only make small adjustments as needed to that, given the fact that it took a little bit longer to get to this point because of, well, just the world that we're in.

The hearing for the CIP this year will be in December.

Since we don't have a specific work session at this point in time, we're not going to have that.

They'll provide all the overview.

We will have a brief session with Ms.

Russell to bring her up to speed on the basics of the CIP.

Since she's new to the commission, but the budget staff will come and give the presentation in December.

It appears generally things are going to look very similar to what they looked like last year.

from a CIP standpoint.

And like Mr. Mitchell said, not new things, just trying to get a handle on the things that we have now.

So we'll be looking forward to that in December.

But before that, in November on the 10th, we are going to have a joint work session with City Council on our regular day.

We have one public hearing for that meeting, and then we anticipate the rest of the meeting to be dedicated

to a joint public hearing with our consultants on the housing plan.

So the housing plan of the Charlottesville Plans Together project is coming, has a good draft and that should be out for public consumption in the next week or so.

And at that point in time, there'll be probably about a month's time where they're going to be reaching out to different groups and taking them through the draft and receiving comments.

And one of those opportunities will be on November 10th with the Planning Commission and City Council to get some feedback on that.

with the goal of taking the housing plan to council late this year for some endorsement so that the next steps, which end up being some of the things we'll be talking about later tonight with the consultants, making sure that the chapters and the goals and objectives that come through that if

The housing plan is in shape where people feel like it's the direction we can go in.

It will speak to that next document.

And so we'll have some time.

There'll be some timeframes and how that's going to work that the consultants will talk with us a little bit about tonight.

But that's just a primer.

We'll be having a pretty

Lively discussion, hopefully, or at least getting a lot of good education together.

I will note we've, we've got a lot of behind the scenes kind of things going on.

Chair Mitchell and I met with representatives of the county, and we're talking through some potential for conversations.

from a joint standpoint, and we'll let you guys know how that's coming together once we get there.

But we're trying to get back to kind of our normal world and our not normal world.

And, you know, we'll take it step by step.

but otherwise we have, I'll note this since I noted it in the pre-meeting in case someone wasn't there, we have site plan conferences virtually now and so there's a number of those that have been scheduled, there are a lot of mailings

and virtual opportunities to participate in that process that are going on and so with the last grouping that we got in we are currently back up to speed on different applications and so everything in our office at this point is moving forward

in some sort of manner.

So we anticipate that probably at the first of the year we'll start to have a little bit more robust agendas.

So, you know, just something for us to keep in mind.

So Mr. Rice, you may or may not be aware that we are not recording.

Yeah, this little button up at the top that says it's paused.

Okay, maybe it's just mine.

Okay, cool.

All right, we are now ready for matters to presented by the public that are not on the formal agenda.

So if there are folks in the lobby that would like to talk to us about

The work that we're doing that is not represented on the formal agenda, and that would be the Family Day Homes piece that we're going to talk about.

This would be an opportunity to do that.

Okay, Chair, we have about 22 in attendance today.

And if you'd like to address the commission during this time, just please click the raise hand icon or if you're joining us by phone, press star nine.

We will call on you on the order of hands raised.

And once we enable your audio, please unmute your mic.

You'll have three minutes for comment.

All right, we've got all three Councillors.

Ms.

Sure.

And it might be worth mentioning, so the Broad Street discussion is not a public hearing, right?

So if anyone wants to talk on that, now is the time.

Yep.

And no hands raised, Chair.

Right, we will be in recess until six.

All righty, I didn't realize this was muted.

I see Councilor Hill, Snook, and Payne.

Welcome, guys.

Good to see you.

All right, I think we are now ready to begin part two of our deliberations.

And we've got one application that we need to review.

The application number is ZM20-10-05.

and this is for family day-owned child care.

The proposed amendment, the proposed is an amendment to chapter 34 of the zoning ordinance.

And the objective is to, one, bring us in line with the state code, but we'd also like to update the use matrix to allow family day homes to provide care for one to four children as a by-right

in all zoning districts allowing residential use.

We'd also like to allow family homes to provide care for five to 12 children as a provisional use in all zoning districts allowing for residential use.

This is particularly important in the COVID-19 era where we're all struggling to find ways to work

and to make sure that our children are cared for and educated.

And I want to thank Ms.

Stolzenberg-Yates for leading the way and getting the conversation started.

So Ms.

Yes, I'll be providing the report.

I did want to make sure that we cross all of our T's dot our I's and have council call themselves formally to order for the hearing.

I can call counselor order.

All right.

All right.

So this is a proposed text amendment to provide updates to the use matrices definitions and add a new section to the zoning ordinance to provide revisions for family day home use.

So in a

The Commission brought this forward as an item for us to work through and review.

We brought a draft to the Planning Commission in August and we've made some revisions based on some of the comments and discussion that was held at that point in time.

I do want to give an overview of the changes that are being proposed for this code.

In addition, I'm a resource for this, but also our Zoning Administrator Reid Broadhead is on the call and will be able to assist with questions as well.

He as well as our assistant zoning administrator spent a lot of time putting together information on this because they spend the time enforcing these things and making sure that people are complying and getting the correct permits and such and they have a lot of experience with this with other types of permits and so that was very valuable as we were moving forward with this.

So there are a number of updates to the matrices, the zoning matrix that would take place.

So it would clarify for family day home, one to four children would be a by right use in all areas that allow for residential.

In addition, there would be an allowance for family day home five to 12 children as a provisional use in all areas that allow for residential.

occupancy and these numbers are based on the state legislation changes that have occurred and so that will get us in line with that and it will allow for some clarity for moving forward if you're one to four there's one route that you go if there's five to twelve there's a different route that you go if you're in a different if you're

12 plus, it's a whole different realm, but we're not talking about that this evening.

We also had proposed some changes to the definitions in order to clarify this.

Under the definition for family day home, we added in language that noted that the residential use must lawfully be established prior to having the family day home.

So you have to have a legal residence there in order to have a family day home.

and that definitely makes it super clear, you gotta be a resident.

And for occupancy, we noted clarity that one to four family day home is considered a residential occupancy and that is in line with the state as well.

We added a section that's specific to the provisional use section that relates directly to family day

home and has a number of provisions that one would have to adhere to in order to do that.

Just as a reminder to everyone, a provisional use permit

means that if you, as someone in our community, can adhere to all of the code regulations that are laid out in the code, you fill out an application form, you turn it in, and then it's analyzed, and then you can move forward.

Right now, in order to do this for Family Day Home in the five, well, five to,

to 12 range, you have to go through a special use permit process, which is costly.

It's time, requires a lot of time.

And, you know, there was a thought that having something that's a little bit more straightforward, that notes what the rules are, and if you can adhere to the rules, then you can move forward.

There are also state licensure requirements for family day homes that are five to 12.

And so there are a number of things that someone is already having to do in order to become a provider.

And there are a number of public input opportunities as part of this process too.

And so though we wouldn't be going through the public process

such as a special use permit process, there is still a public process that's involved to allow the neighbors to know what's being requested to happen and there's a procedure to go through for that.

So one of the big things that was a discussion point for you all in August was working through hours of operation and that tends to be where

You know, there's a lot of discussion because this is a, you know, it's an added item to a neighborhood.

And so trying to be conscious of allowing it as well as having some parameters for the community is pretty important.

So we started out at the meeting in August with the boundaries that we have for our home occupation and for some of our other items.

And then through discussion with the commission, item three, which I'll read really quickly in the provisions, noted that no clients or employees shall be allowed to visit the property on which a family day home is conducted earlier than

6am or later than 11pm, the family day home may operate up to 12 hours within each 24 hour period.

So it allows for a flexible time frame.

but it does keep in mind that this is a use that is in addition to your standard residential use and so it keeps that in mind as well.

So as I noted, both Rita and I are available for questions.

This item is before you this evening for public hearing, so we may have some speakers.

At this point, we haven't had any speakers prior to the meeting that have provided any additional comments.

I will have discussion a little later after the public comments, but does anyone have any questions for Ms.

And one quick question.

My big concern is so some places had 5 to 12 child family day homes as by right before and under this change they'll change to provisional use permit thinking about like R3, McIntire Ridge, and the B districts.

And I get that provisional use is not a very high burden, but what was the driver behind adding that additional step in those districts?

It was more consistency based since the numbers changed from our current code.

So our current code says one to five and then six to 12, which is not in line with where the state is.

And so in the process of aligning those numbers,

It made sense to do that.

It wouldn't be an onerous burden on someone because they're having to do many, many more things in order to get their state licensure anyway.

It'll just be one more opportunity for, mainly for tracking and understanding where these locations may be.

Sounds good, thanks.

One question that I have is, it's been, geez, at least 25 years since I've personally had to worry about childcare.

But as I recall back then, one of the big problems was always how somebody who needed extended hours would cope.

and in particular, the discussion often dealt with people like people who work a night shift who needed basically some place to stash the kid all night.

And now under this scheme, that would seem as I'm understanding it to not be permitted in at least any either one to four or five to 12

And I guess my question was, A, is that still a significant need in the community?

B, are we meeting it successfully?

Well, and we spent quite a bit of time talking about that as well.

That was part of the discussion with the commissioners in August concerning multiple shifts that different individuals may have.

And trying to accommodate that as well as trying to account for the fact that this is

an additional use in a residential area and trying to kind of buffer between the two of those things.

And so our thinking with this is that the one to four is allowable by right.

Anybody can do that.

And there's no time restrictions on that.

And so if you have something that's very small and you have

You know, the need for an overnight opportunity, that wouldn't be something that we would be regulating at all.

So what are the rules

that would apply to, I'm just using an example, a place like Westminster Child Care Center, which clearly has more than 12 kids.

So some of the daycare centers in the city, some of those are by special use permit and they have time limitations that are built into the special use permits.

Well,

I, you know, anecdotally, I know that UVA has a program that does work with people who are on that late shift from a daycare standpoint and a lot of smaller, there's smaller opportunities within the community.

We haven't been made aware of a contingency of,

people concerning that need.

That was also one of the questions and concerns that I had when we talked about this the last time was the hours of operation for those people who are essential workers who either don't get off until 11 o'clock or are working the overnight shift and that may be going in until 11.

Well, if this moves forward by provisional use permit, then they would be within the parameters of what the code gives.

And so the code provides for a five to 12, it would provide for any 12 hours that they chose between the 6 a.m.

and 11 p.m.

So they would have some flexibility and the person who's doing the family day home would provide us with what their plan is for how they would work through that and if they decide that that isn't what's working, then they can give us a new plan.

This is mainly just trying to understand where these locations are.

They are also going to be regulated by the state.

So the five to 12 are regulated by the state.

They're going to have to go through all state requirements at that point in time.

As a staff, after we had the discussion with the Commission, we spent a lot of time trying to troubleshoot all of these different types of scenarios.

And this was one that we spent a lot of time on because we know we have a lot of

people in the community that do have shifts that are different.

But we thought that leaving it completely open-ended was not a good way to do it to start.

And that if someone was to have overnight, have daycare overnight, that it would more likely be in the one to four range

which is Bi-Rite and then if we found that there was something significant occurring in the community where we needed to revisit that at some other point in time that we could look at it through that lens but we haven't had we haven't had discussion from or concerns from folks specific to that

Any other questions?

I do have one other question.

I know that the definition of family day home

talks about serving 1 to 12 children exclusive of the provider's own children and any children who reside in the home.

Is there a similar definitional phrase that would apply to 1 to 4?

OK, so it applies either way.

That's fine.

Yeah, gotcha.

Thank you.

Any questions from you, Ms.

Hill?

Hey, Mr. Payne.

Okay.

Any comments, Bill?

UVA?

No, I'm okay on this one.

Okay.

All right, if there are no more questions or comments, I'm going to open it up to public comment.

So we are now in the public comment session.

Anyone in attendance would like to speak at this time, please click the raise hand icon or press star nine if you're calling in.

Sure.

So what really opened my eyes on this field recall was a New York Times article describing the issue and realizing that we are a smaller area where we already had significant child care provision problems when things were normal and fine.

Now things are harder.

So my hope in initiating this was to find a useful way to solve this problem.

From what I see, this solves that problem.

I think the staff have done a perfect job.

Well, you can make a motion, and if people want to chat more afterwards, we can do that.

So please.

I wish to move.

to recommend approval of the zoning text amendment to the text of chapter 34, zoning ordinance of the city of Charlottesville, 1990, as amended to provide updates to family day home uses to include section 34-420, 34-480, and 34-796 use matrices to allow family day home one to four children as a by right use in all zoning districts, which allow residential use to allow family day home five to 12 children as a provisional use in all districts, which allow for residential use.

to update section 34-1200, definitions under family day home, to confirm a lawfully established residential use prior to implementing a family day home and under occupancy residential to clarify that the family day home one to four children use is considered residential occupancy.

All right.

Is there any more discussion?

It is now.

No.

Like I said, other than, you know, it sounds like we're able to have some flexibility if we have, if we find that we have that need for that overnight shift.

So that was my only concern.

Ms.

Sure.

Ms.

Ms.

Russell.

Aye.

Aye.

All right, the motion passes.

Ms.

Robertson, Ms.

Creasey, Reed, and Mr. Soliades, congratulations and thank you guys for your leadership on this.

I think this is important.

Thank you, and if you don't mind, Chair Mitchell, I'm going to duck out at this point.

Oh, really?

Sorry.

Okay.

See you.

Thanks.

Right.

So I think Mr. Alpe is leading this conversation.

Yes.

Whenever you're ready, just let me know.

I think we're ready to go.

All right.

Commissioners, tonight,

You're out of your public hearing and you're now holding a work session.

And this work session is gonna be on a proposed development located at 1613 Grove Street extended, 1611 Grove Street extended, and zero Grove Street extended.

The subject property is approximately 0.65 acres and is currently undeveloped, but actually it's covered in a lot of kudzu.

The subject property has frontage on Valley Road extended

The applicant is proposing 20 units of residential development within four buildings.

In order for the development to proceed at this density and building style, the applicant would need to one, get approval of a rezoning from the existing R2 residential two families.

to our three residential multifamily.

And as a reminder, the city cannot impose any conditions on a rezoning request, but the applicant may offer proffered conditions if they desire.

At this time, no proffers have been put forward by the applicant, but the applicant has put forward a development plan related to the rezoning, which is tied to the development, which is attachment A and C in your packet.

The developer would also need to get approved a special use permit to increase the density from a buy right 21 DUA.

And that buy right is if the rezoning went through.

So if it was rezoned to R2, which you can only have two units per lot, to R3, you actually get into your density range.

So you would have a buy right density of 21.

So they would need a special use permit to go from 21 DUA to 30 DUA to have 20 units.

and adjust the setbacks.

You can see the chart on page two of the staff memo.

And as a reminder, the city can impose conditions on granting an SUP.

These conditions should mitigate the impact for the use, in this case, the increased density is the use, if any are needed.

They would also need approval of a waiver to the city's critical slope zoning ordinance.

If you look on page five of the staff memo, you see the red shaded areas that indicate critical slopes as defined by the zoning ordinance, and the blue is defined by the subdivision ordinance.

The applicant is currently working with the city engineering department to ensure this information on that map is correct.

There's some question whether that map is correct, so they're currently working with the city engineer on that.

At your work session tonight, the applicant will give a presentation and provide you with more background information.

Keep in mind, this is very early in the process and the applicant has yet to hold a community, the required community engagement meeting.

After the presentation, staff and the applicant are available to answer questions as you talk about ways the project, you know, areas you want the applicant to focus on.

The question and the staff memos are meant really as a guide

The goal of this work session is to give the applicant feedback so they can better shape their proposed development as they move forward.

Great.

So, questions for Ms.

Delphi.

Are we ready for the applicant?

I take it from the silence that we're ready for the applicant.

Good evening, everyone.

Matt, I think you'll put my presentation back up.

Is that how this will work?

Thank you.

I'm Justin Shim.

It's good to see all of you all again, different format than last time.

I haven't been to the City Planning Commission in a little while.

I've been busy in Albemarle working on some different housing projects and making some progress there on how do people rethink density and housing types and how that affects the communities.

We've got some good projects approved there, some pocket neighborhoods and a really interesting rezone we did up on 29 North.

But good to be back in the city and I'll just do a brief presentation I have

give you our take on how this site lays out and what we proposed, how it fits in our mind, what should be there.

If you can go to the next slide.

Yes, thank you.

So, quick zoning overview.

I realize that the staff report you have has much of this in it.

Zoning you're familiar with will be R2,

You'll see we're right across the railroad tracks from a variety of higher density zoning districts, and this is one of the few undeveloped parcels left in that entire neighborhood, which is a mix of duplexes and single-family houses.

An interesting side note, when I first moved to Charlottesville to go to UVA from Amherst, just south of town,

Back in years ago, I lived right across a valley road extended from this site in one of those little duplex buildings there.

So I have some familiarity with it.

It's been a number of years, but hasn't changed a lot over time.

Next slide, please.

Here's our site plan.

And what we did here is the colored buildings there represent the footprint of the structure to see the overlap, the parking a bit.

We're trying to

Give additional green space and usable recreational space for tenants by occupying some of that impervious area with building above.

I'll cut some better illustrations and renderings that show this well.

Next slide, please.

Quick summary.

As you heard, we're posing four fiveplexes, a missing middle sort of housing type that

Truthfully, it's really hard to find a home for.

We end up with zoning districts that are the mixed-use types, and those just want to be four- or five-story apartment buildings, and that's fine, but there's a need for this sort of housing product, and we viewed this site as one where we could give it a try, and I'll go into some of the other reasons why this works here.

There are some step-back modifications, although if you were to go back to the site plan,

The main modification really is there's a 50 foot building setback from sort of any structure in R3 to a low density residential, which is, you know, maybe if you had a six or eight foot site story building would be appropriate.

We're talking about heights just above the R2 by right.

So we're asking for a reduction of that down to as little as 14 feet on one side.

And I have a section that I'll show you kind of illustrating why we think that's reasonable.

And then on the side towards the railroad tracks is actually a city right of way.

there that would normally have a 25-foot setback, and we're looking for a five-foot setback.

That's part of our special use permit.

So if we could then press two slides forward.

One of the interesting things about this housing type is it's really not a lot different from, let's say, the other more traditional things you've seen.

I looked at the Stripling Avenue plan that I think you all saw a few weeks ago, and there's a series of town homes in that.

And so, for example, a three-unit townhome building is 60 by 40, 2,400 square feet.

Our building is, I think, 2,200 square feet, roughly, a little bit of a regular shape, and then a duplex might be 1,500 square feet, roughly.

So we're kind of in between those two, but we house five units in place of three in the townhome in a pretty similar structure size.

I don't know if we can go to the next slide.

Rough sort of perspectives on this.

I have some cross sections to walk through.

These we added in since the original submittal.

One thing I did want to point out was the treatment along the stream.

There is a stream along the front of the property and

Our vision for that would be to build a retaining wall on the building side, which you can see in this image, and then restore the other side with some new plantings to really stabilize and improve the stream bank.

The site's essentially overrun with kudzu, and the stream has a variety of old concrete boulders and other things in it that I don't think are doing a lot of those opportunities for improvement, as they do have a fair amount of width on the street side to work with.

You know, these structures are truly trying to fit in that missing middle frame, which you can see here.

They look a bit like a large house.

It's parked underneath.

It's three stories and has some bedrooms up in the attic.

But maybe it's a little taller than your normal Park Street, you know, large house that you see or on Locust Avenue.

But it's not this similar in form from a large single-family house.

We just happened to fit five

families of type or individual sets of individuals into the structure.

The perspective at the bottom sort of looking back towards the railroad track view kind of cutaway and shows our parking.

We've got a between the two buildings a covered sort of community space that's got a trellis basically and then a tree in the middle of it so we've got a space there for folks and there's other recreational spaces around which we can talk about but obviously it'll be more detailed in a site plan.

If you go to the next slide

Similar view of the whole of all four units.

I think the ones that we provided earlier give a little better illustration to stream the wall, but this gives you a little sense of the buildings behind up in the cul-de-sac as to where they're located relative to this structure.

And the next slide.

These cross sections are probably the most helpful to illustrate how this type fits into this location.

I think what you'll see is that section A is looking from

Valley Road extended your left looking up towards the house behind and there's such a grade drop that we would essentially cut our units into the hillside and we lose a whole story of change and a retaining wall in the back.

So compared to the units behind, we're sure even though we're taller in structure height, we sit 20 feet lower in grade

And therefore, we don't have any sort of overshadowing effects, which could be the case a different lot with these size structures.

Even still, I say that we're talking about 40 feet versus the 35 foot normal maximum height.

So it's not a big difference, but they are larger.

We recognize that's a potential impact.

We also think this site lends itself very well.

Similar to the view, looking straight onto the units, there is a duplex, a traditional duplex to our right on that section BB.

It's a decent distance away, and it also sits up on a hill, but that gives you some idea of the scale of that structure and the distance it is from our particular development.

And there's one more slide.

Yes, I think I'll end with this one just to give you some sense of what we're thinking about landscaping and particularly along the stream.

There's some photos on the left of some of the species that would be more appropriate for that stream bank than what's there.

And so we would imagine essentially building a wall on one side at the edge of the stream bank where it already is, we would impact the water and then we would widen out the stream bank and stabilize the other side.

I think collectively, if you look at the staff report, Matt had a few questions and one of them was about the density and the form.

And if I could just leave you with the thought of, you know, density is, I don't know, I've grown to really dislike it.

It has been a tool used for a lot of, frankly, evil purposes at times over our history of zoning.

And as I've been through this in the last 10 years working sort of projects,

We never really changed the buildable footprint of a site based on density.

The lower the density is, the more money people have that live there is essentially the end result.

So when I look at something like this, I look at, yes, it is above sort of the comprehensive plan number, but that's a number.

And the question is, is the form, is the purpose,

fit with the comprehensive plans we're really trying to get at, which is housing for a broad variety of folks in the community.

And I think this does that.

And the other one question that came up that I thought was important is the environmental impacts.

And I hope that you could just illustrate from the pictures and see from our intent with the stream that we feel like we can really come out far better after development than what's there now from an environmental standpoint with protecting the stream, both during construction, but critically,

afterwards, making it something more suitable.

So I think that's the main bullet points I wanted to go over.

And I am happy to answer any questions that you all have.

And I'm interested, obviously, in your opinions as we move forward with this.

Yes, no changes that could improve it, things of that nature.

All of the above.

Yeah I mean that would fall within the code there's not a two for this dense of a development we got rid of the

Hi, Justin.

Thanks for sharing.

Sure.

Well, I think we have, I have to remember the unit cap.

I think we have some one bedrooms in there and I'll be upfront.

We haven't gone through like what price point each unit is at.

The idea is to provide some variety.

I think this would be like a one bedroom sort of situation or two bedroom is inherently designed for folks working around the neighborhood.

There are four bedrooms that I think are probably more student oriented.

So this neighborhood is sort of some of each.

I was a student and I lived there, but I had roommates who were not in the same building.

And so I do think that there'll be a mix in this building.

It probably leans a little bit student-wise, but because we have a mixture of units, there's certainly opportunity for other folks who need housing in the area.

But we haven't pinned down, nor have we proffered, an affordability component yet.

Thank you.

I did just want to say that I have some heartburn knowing that we have a housing crisis that you just told me that you are about to ask for a special use permit for student housing.

That causes me a little pain right here.

So I'm just being completely transparent.

UVA has the structure for their students.

And at this point, I feel like as a city, we should be focusing on housing the people of the city and not necessarily providing new housing for students that is off ground.

But that's just my thoughts.

Are you talking to me?

Well, that is a good segue, I think, because, Justin, one thing that

kind of stuck out to me was that you referenced in your application the Cherry Avenue small area plan.

And I think that that, well, I don't think that that was a document developed reflecting the plan that reflecting the

vision of those in the Cherry Avenue, you know, vicinity but mainly that study focused on the Cherry Avenue corridor.

So there were some items that you pulled from that report that, you know, around affordability, comprehensive, you know, meeting elements of the comprehensive plan that don't

aren't entirely, you know, they're not really relevant to that area of the Cherry Avenue master plan of this particular site, because that was tertiary to that report.

So if we were to look into the Cherry Avenue small area plan, you would see, you will see the residents commenting on their desire that new development be in keeping with the existing

We don't have an objection to really limiting four bedrooms and going with, you know, units that are more local oriented.

It has this odd thing of increasing our density, right?

So it'd be a higher number, but in the exact same number of bedrooms.

So that's not at all objectionable to us.

So if that's where that

needs to be.

I think what we find, you know, like say, and I obviously haven't tried to rent an apartment around there in a long time, but because there is still inadequate infrastructure for students, they do trickle out to lots of neighborhoods, which takes away housing from others.

And the university may eventually, hopefully will provide adequate housing for all the students, grad students and everything.

But until that happens, it's always gonna be an issue.

But that said,

Our design focus should be more towards families and folks, you know, not student orientated.

I don't, that's not objection to us.

And I do understand that the, you know, small airplane didn't really touch this property.

There is a desire of folks to, you know, broadly respect the form and development in their neighborhoods.

And I totally get that.

And I think

What we're trying to do here is just push that boundary a little bit to get some more density and some more housing supply in an area where it works without building an eight-story building overshadowing a neighborhood.

We totally get where those complaints are coming from on a reasonable site.

I also, in that site plan, I was curious if there, that's an unusual design.

I'm not, you know, I've not seen that overhang parking strategy.

Is there any local precedent for that?

I think there probably are a

a fair number of structures.

Where that happens, you don't see it as much because I've done a cut section sort of showing that.

I think of a few small, more student housing oriented places around the university where there's an eight or 10 unit building that has parking underneath it.

I'm actually working on a building on Druid Avenue that we're going close to construction that has that same configuration was tucked under parking.

So I think it is now becoming, it's becoming more normal.

When you get into the densities of this sort of 30 units an acre, you want to go that way if you want to preserve some green space around the lot, basically.

Justin, did you call it tuck under parking?

Yeah, that's what I refer to it as.

Okay, because you see a lot of that in tidewater and in the beachy areas where the houses are elevated.

So Lambeth Lane has a great example of that over near that Capcava Gamma redevelopment we just looked at a couple months ago.

I think it's 1883 Lambeth Lane or something.

In California, they call them a dingbat.

A what?

A dingbat.

We've got that in Wirtland too.

To be clear, there are units in the first floor.

So it's not in the whole, this whole building is not parked underneath.

So I'd like to chime in on that, on the whole student housing thing.

So to be honest, I'm surprised that you're even thinking about this as student housing, all the way out here, in a sense, like, obviously, geographically, it's not that far, but

like until and unless there's that pedestrian connection underneath the railroad, it is actually like extremely far.

So when you say student, do you mean undergrad or do you mean like grad students or that sort of thing?

Well, that would be great to see.

I don't know that's going to happen right away.

I was an undergrad student when I

lived there and I would bike sometimes and I would walk sometimes.

And it is a bit of a trip, but that's what I did.

So I think probably these days you probably would see more, you know, grad students that were my roommates thinking about were two grad students back in that area.

So yeah, I think that is, it's really a question of, you know, you have these, we're always encouraged to do four bedroom units the way the code is written, right?

Because a four bedroom unit counts the same as a one bedroom unit density.

So

You know, we're happy to provide more kitchens for folks and get away from that kind of, you know, shared space kind of thing.

Yeah, I mean, I would personally say I'm not

So I think there's a fixed amount of students, right?

We know how many students there are going to be.

They're each going to take up one bed, probably.

So if there's enough beds near UVA, they'll gravitate towards those, and they won't spill out.

And an apartment is an apartment, and it will become a regular housing apartment.

and if we don't let there be enough beds near UVA they'll spill out and take up more space and they'll either take up existing homes or they'll take up new ones but I would also say that like I don't view a four bedroom as necessarily being a student housing like situation because

Almost every young renter, whether they're a recent graduate of college or even of high school and going out in the world and trying to live away from their parents, is going to find roommates and find a three or four bedroom and split the cost of it.

so that, you know, they're not living with their parents, right?

So, you know, I see that as much appealing to people in their like early to mid 20s as it does to a student.

And again, with that caveat that like students are going to gravitate to be as close to UVA as they can, which this seems relatively far in terms of travel, unless there's a tunnel, in which case it instantly becomes like a prime spot.

I'd also say, or I'd ask, so I noticed there's like some new duplexes across the street that appear to be three stories plus like, you know, an attic type situation on top of that.

Do we know what the dimensions of those are?

I mean, I don't know if anyone here is concerned about massing or if anyone can hear me.

It seems very quiet here.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, yeah.

Following up on Roy's comment, and it's the thing that

One of the first things I start to pay attention to is the massing and the site development and its context to the neighborhood.

And I have to say that this, I think Mr. Shemp has done a very good job in breaking up the

the building into four pieces, four units, residential type units that have a cohesiveness to them.

And because they sit in this depression on the site itself is depression.

I think underneath that kudzu somewhere there is a depression that

The height isn't as noticeable as it would be if it was on the top of a hill, say.

So I think it responds well to the site, to the context, and the size of the buildings, this missing middle.

Pleased with that part.

Now, this doesn't have anything to do, though, with parking and four bedroom units, and all of them will probably have a car.

Lots of other cars on that street, too, I've noticed.

The duplexes all seem to have way more than just two cars associated with them, with four and five.

So it looks like a very busy street.

And this doesn't have anything to say about the density or the parking or the traffic on the street.

This is such a strange site because it's either the edge of Fifeville or it's the connection between UVA and Fifeville.

And those tell very different stories on transportation, on cars, on traffic, on how many units are appropriate.

Without that tunnel, I could see an argument for it, but it's strange because it's at the end of the street.

With that tunnel,

It may even be too small, because then the comparison is BICE and a duplex.

Which, you know, BICE, big tower.

And it becomes about mediating that difference.

One of the things we have looked at, and I haven't finished fleshing it out, I'm afraid I'm going to run into some trouble, is there is an old ride away

of Grove Street headed back on towards Fifeville essentially.

In an ideal world, if we could tie down, it goes past our property, but I believe it was terminated at some point between us and the next street where you can then walk us Grove Street because then walk down to 9th Street and up towards the hospital.

So we did, we look originally at that route and we'll still continue to explore that.

That certainly would be our

If there could be a trail that we could contribute to our build that would get folks from us, that direction would be ideal.

I'm not sure that's going to be possible with the way the right-of-ways have shaken out.

And there are some utility easements back there we may be able to use.

We have to investigate that a little more.

But I think really it's going to be folks, you know, biking or going out to the bus if they want to use an alternate transportation route.

I think the bus stop is right at the end of the street, if I remember correctly.

So there are some other transportation modes there.

but we do not, not the tunnel, which I agree would be wonderful and is an excellent idea.

We don't have as direct pedestrian connections as we'd like, but we are still exploring the idea of a connection along the edge of the railroad tracks down to Grove where it connects in the street.

That would get you a pretty decent connection to Fifeville in this location.

No, I just agree with the whole,

I like to think of Fifeville as that, but you know.

We have, yeah, we have Brandon Avenue close by, which you know we've been talking about

Yeah, a few thoughts more related to the site itself.

I think it's good to see the opening up of that Rock Creek, you know, drainage way.

I think the devil's in the details on that in terms of, you know, we've done a lot upstream of there to provide storage and quality improvements to the water that we put into that watershed through our work at

like Bond House and the New Student Health and then South Lawn Project a number of years ago.

So as you come down, yeah, it's great to see that continued improvement.

I think there's a lot you can do with, you know, the stream channel meander versus plunge pools and stuff that I'm sure Justin's well aware of, like,

the intricacies of that.

So it's not just putting landscape trees in and stuff and grasses.

There's a lot of engineering within the waterway itself that is beneficial.

Yeah, I think the density is fine.

I don't know what to say about the student versus non-student use of this eventual development.

I don't know that a whole lot of students live there currently

in that neighborhood, some do, and they probably are looking for a lower cost of housing than they can get elsewhere, unfortunately.

But I see, yeah, I mean, I think it's more realistic to think of it as like young professionals like was mentioned, you know, working at the hospital or grad students, things like that, or a small family that might be

working at UVA somewhere or elsewhere.

I guess the thing that did come up that I need to mention is the tunnel, which is on the city's bike and pedestrian plan, as was noted in the packet for this.

So when we took over control of Brandon Avenue and redeveloped that,

One of the city requests was that we look at and do a study of the feasibility and location for a tunnel like that, or not even a tunnel.

Like, I think that it was described as a non-at-grade crossing or, you know, whatever that is, like the opposite of an at-grade crossing, either over or under.

because there's a lot of, as you know, there's a lot of topography differences along that stretch.

So we did that and we, you know, in coordination with the city and they have, especially we worked with Amanda Ponce really closely on that.

So if, Justin, if you haven't talked to her about that study or that, it would be probably a good thing to consult with her.

But we ultimately, through our work with that, came up with a recommendation that really the best place for that tunnel would be like essentially connecting Monroe to the north, Monroe Avenue to the north with Paton Street.

I don't know if I'm saying that right.

I think it's Paton or Paton, which is a little to the east of where we're looking at here.

The reason for that was in the eyes of our consultant that

The type of tunnel you build could potentially be a lot cheaper than what you'd have to do at the Valley Road extended location.

It'd be a lot shorter, potentially, tunnel.

And really, it connects better with the health system.

and overall to do it a little to the east.

So that would seem like a good benefit.

So that, I just wanted to point that out.

So whether you're, yeah, so that's where we fell on that.

And of course, this would not necessarily be a UVA project to put the tunnel in.

We don't have any plans to do that.

So just get that out there as well.

Yeah, I mean, it's density wise, I think it's good.

I can always obviously use more housing in this in Charlottesville.

The only thing that I would add is that I would not let the tunnel factor into my thinking because that tunnel is years away.

It's nowhere, nowhere.

It's in our vision, it's not in our budget.

and getting the right of way of the easement from the railroad is going to be a nightmare, no matter who does it.

There are a number of things that I really like about this.

One, I like what you're doing to protect Rock Creek, at least the concept that you've got to protect Rock Creek, I really like that a lot.

And just getting rid of the invasive vegetation would be a big boom for that neighborhood.

Haven't seen anything like that in East City in a long time.

It's just overrun with cuts.

No problem with the height.

I think the way the landscape sits, the way the place sits, the massing is not a problem.

And I just like adding to the city housing supply and this does that.

Hopefully, by adding to the housing supply, we then begin to bring down or normalize the prices elsewhere in the city.

The one thing that gives me a little heartburn, and again, we'll work through this as we iterate and as we talk to the people who live in the area, is the very narrow street there.

And adding more traffic in that area is going to be problematic.

I went through there around 5 o'clock.

yesterday, and there were a lot of people walking around, there were cars going back and forth, and you had to slow down, really, really slow down to be respectful to the pedestrians and all the other cars were coming back and forth, because it's that easy to get two automobiles going both ways in that street.

So something you'll need to think about as you move forward.

So many other thoughts.

Yeah, I just wanted to follow up.

Earlier you said you're talking about punching through grocery and extended to regular grocery.

There was a right-of-way and it still, you know, our property fronts on the residue of it.

But as I chased it down to the east, it looks like the city at some point abandoned a piece of it, which then means I have to go on the railroad parcel

which physically has popped.

I have physically walked from this site down in the direction, but you'd have to trespass on the very property and we don't want to be doing that.

So not that I didn't do it when I was in school, but we don't want to be designing for that clearly.

We would like to make that and I'll keep chasing that down, but my hunch isn't going to run into a wall.

Gotcha.

Yeah, there's a number of homeowners that I forget how many there are.

I see three or maybe five.

So it goes further down, it may end as well.

But yeah, there's an option to do that.

I don't

The one house is, you know, it's pretty close to the back there, depending on who's in there, they may not want to trail 20 feet off the back of their house.

That's what I think the property line is.

But again, it's a possibility to rely on other folks to want to cooperate.

OK, and then my other question kind of touched on it, not that I would make any decisions based on this.

I mean, I used to walk along the tracks down to Shamrock.

You can go up the street and on and walk down.

Again, not saying I recommend that, but I did it.

Former Maywood resident in the JPA neighborhood?

It has happened many times.

But again, that's something we want to encourage.

Counselor is Schnook Amber Payne.

I have two thoughts.

First of all is that it's not only not to be encouraged, it's also illegal actually to be walking on the railroad tracks.

The one thought that I had

was that I was talking with some folks who own a lot of apartments who cater specifically to students.

And they are very concerned that the university's expressed desire to house more students on grounds is going to put a real damper on their business.

to the extent that they were likening it to.

I think it's Longwood that did this down in Farmville where they said basically we're going to be housing all of our students on grounds and the apartment people down there basically went belly up because they were so, you know, their business model was so much oriented towards students.

So the first thought that I would have is

without knowing what the future is going to hold either between now and the time you would build or between now and say five years down the road when the entire economy of student housing may change in Charlottesville.

You might not want to get too locked into a particular design that is going to have to cause you a lot of problems if you decided you wanted to make it more hospitable towards non-students.

That's really my only thought.

The other thing I would say about the notion of the

The tunnel is that I talked to a number of people who live over in that area who say their big problem right now is that the people who are doing all the construction work at the university park in their neighborhood and then hop over the railroad tracks.

And if you're going to put a tunnel through there,

It's not going to be universally welcomed.

I will just say that because there are going to be an awful lot of people who are going to suddenly decide, hey, there is an area there where there's no permit parking.

I can park all day, no problem.

And all of a sudden, the people who actually live there can't park there.

So there are some challenges there that we as the city, the Planning Commission and City Council, are going to have to address.

Really, no matter how we go, whether there's going to be a tunnel, whether there's not going to be a tunnel, that's a problem.

I say that not to Mr. Shimp, but I say it to the counselors and the planning commissioners here, that that's a neighborhood that is really having a lot of pressure from people who work at UVA, whether they're UVA employees, they work there and find that that's the only place that they can park for free.

And it's causing a lot of problems in that neighborhood.

I don't really have a ton to add that people already haven't said.

As others mentioned, at least the idea and concept of preserving of that creek I think is a very positive thing of others have said.

Definitely curious to see a lot more details specifically from what I've seen, not too worried about like the height or massing or those issues.

Generally, I think this kind of missing middle is good and is an interesting way to perhaps get there.

Although I do understand the concerns about who will actually be occupying this development and a question of whether it's meeting the biggest needs.

And as you mentioned, I think our zoning code certainly encourages development that's not meeting those needs.

Other than that, again, don't really have much to add that others haven't said.

I guess a final thought I had is just, I attended some of the Cherry Avenue small area plan meetings.

And it should be said as well, some of the conversations of whether these would be occupied by students versus young professionals.

And I know in some of those conversations,

Definitely, I think part of the conversation is not just UVA students, but young professionals moving into neighborhoods who are displacing residents and being still part of that pattern of people who have lived in the neighborhood for generations or years.

not being able to live there anymore.

And I just think, in thinking about housing needs, I think UV, you know, there's some of that tension still exists with young professionals, not just UVA students thinking about their income level, the type of housing they're going to live in, and the type of housing that families would need and occupy versus the type of housing someone in their 20s getting ready to make 50, $60,000 a year or whatever.

Great.

Mr. Mitchell, I just have maybe just an additional thought.

And perhaps I'm posing this more to commissioners.

And as the new voice in the room, maybe this isn't even a comment for Justin.

But Justin,

I know that I think you're someone who thinks creatively and I appreciate that and I appreciate the thought that you gave to this site and especially to the protection of Rock Creek or the restoration of Rock Creek.

But I guess I'm a little perplexed to the group as to why we aren't talking about affordability like in every single development that comes before us.

And not, it seems like, I don't think this is what we feel, but it sounds like we're saying, let's have the development happen and then let the market forces figure out who's going to live there.

And I just think that's such a miss site if what we are saying is there's a housing problem, an affordability problem, and not in this next sentence saying how do we

How do we incentivize developers to help us with that?

And so we have to think creatively too.

Maybe this isn't the point in which that's the feedback provided, but I would think since Mr. Shemp is asking for a special youth permit as relates to the density increase, we should be really thinking about how can we meet the charge of adding affordability.

I just,

Let's throw that out there.

I also want to say that in regards to the street, I think it's important to know that while there are sidewalks proposed on the development proposal, there are no sidewalks on the rest of that street.

So it would be a sidewalk to nowhere.

Can I step in with a quick comment?

Your, Commissioner Russell, your description of how the housing market works is quite accurate, actually, around here in the USP.

Normally speaking,

and then depending on the flow of UVA students or people with new jobs in the hospital or whatever else may be occurring, people kind of come and go into those as the market decides.

And certainly in all of my discussions, I don't know if this is your first meeting maybe, but all the discussions

around other projects I've done.

Affordability is definitely part of it and I probably should have come a little more prepared about that this evening but I was trying to get past the first question of like how you know what size structure works here and then there is an interesting question of how do you make things work for the folks who really want to house and I can tell you I'd be very even as someone I am building a few little duplexes in Charlottesville myself and I

I would be happy to see the university go ahead and house everyone.

It would mean a lot of the, you know, investor developer class folks would probably lose some money in the immediate future of that, but it would provide much better housing for the community if that dynamic was changed.

The one way we can control things, I'll give you an example, I'm working with Virginia Housing on some projects and they do financing packages for small developments like this, where you can get very attractive interest rates for the term guaranteed affordability as part of your project.

So even you don't have to do a hundred unit tax credit deal to get the affordable housing project.

So I'm not promising I can do that in this particular one, but certainly we do look for those opportunities, but that's really the best way that I've found

to enter into really affordable housing is you have to have help from a land trust or a Virginia housing type group who can kind of subsidize that difference because the banks frankly don't care, but they're looking for you to maximize your profit on your project.

And so when you're going that route, it's hard to get something approved and build it doesn't.

And that's just the fault of the system right now, but there are ways around it.

And we do try to think about those things.

And I think I've heard that's an important consideration here.

Okay.

Yeah, I had one just quick thought after that great conversation there.

And that's the right of way, the Grove Street extended right of way that's apparently there.

And now that we know Justin mentioned that it's kind of cut off on one end.

So I'm wondering if there's been thought about how that right away might pair up with this project in a way that the city could get something it would like, maybe some more affordability in a way or something, and then Mr. Shimp could get something that he would like, maybe more units or something like that.

Just throw that out there.

I mean, I know we have a lot of these paper streets in our city and some of them are more likely to get used than others.

Yeah, I think that's a really good point, especially if there's no way to connect it to anywhere.

So what's the point of it?

But let me push back a little bit on that idea of like Virginia housing loans, because as I understand those, those tend to be for like 80% AMI projects, where I know you know this, Justin, you know, we're looking for affordable affordability at deeper income levels, or percent AMI.

And

That's actually a really good point from Commissioner Russell.

And finally, just to state the obvious, which everyone already knows, but I think it highlights the fact that at these deeper affordability levels, 0% to 30% AMI, probably even 0% to 50%, 60%, the market is not going to provide it.

The free market is not capable of providing, and it won't provide it.

And the only way we'll ever get there is with partnerships with nonprofits in public subsidy and land trust model as well, which is related.

But I think that definitely permeates everything and is a challenge, but one that we have to rise to and goes far beyond thinking about just what the market dynamics are.

And sometimes I just wanted to make a sidebar because that was the first comment that we made about this project was the affordability of it and what were we taking into account of that.

And while I'm not saying that we have to always dive deep into the

zero to 10, 20, 30%.

But what I am saying is that as someone who is serious about affordable housing, I wanna see housing available to the people who actually serve the community.

Like our teachers need to be in our neighborhoods.

Our firefighters and police officers need to be in the city and not in the outlying counties.

So sometimes it's not all about 20, 30% AMI, but definitely if you're building at 80% AMI or you're telling me about a project that you have already stated

that is geared towards UVA students.

All right, Justin, you've got a lot of stuff here.

Just real quickly, just to Rory's comment, Virginia House does have 50% AMI programs.

I'm trying to do two of them in Nelson, where I have little properties near my house.

So it is out there.

I think it's a good program.

But to Counselor Payne's point, it is very difficult to get into those lower, I'd love to see all housing projects built that way.

It's just the projects I'm working on that can't get built if they don't have some component of marketability and profit, because that's what it takes.

And that's just the world we live in at the moment.

but we will certainly try to do what we can in terms of sportability items.

I think, I guess I did not hear any strong objection to scale or density.

The only thing you may be missing is working with the neighborhood density and what the traffic patterns are gonna look like.

recognizing that there are no sidewalks in that neighborhood beyond what your developments are going to look like.

So be ready for that.

And I would say four bedroom units, eight of them.

All those, if they're set up as the normal prototype of each bedroom having its own bathroom, that's going to be students or professionals.

That's not going to be a family.

So doing more two bedrooms, at least there's the opportunity of families getting those units.

But the four bedrooms, they're going to be students.

maybe young professionals too.

So I got to question that a little bit.

No?

I think the bathroom configuration will influence that quite a bit, too.

Yeah, it depends upon how it's designed inside.

All right, Justin, I'm going to have to move this along.

Anything you want to add?

No, I think I've got some good guidance moving forward and we will adjust our plan accordingly and send it back in for the public hearing process.

Thank you all for your time.

Why don't we take five minutes before we move into the comp plan.

So five minutes.

This is the question for this person.

Good to see you all as well.

Mr. Ikebuna, are you going to preamble or are we just jumping right in?

Let me unmute, thank you.

No, I mean, I'll go ahead and open it up and we'll hand it over for the evening.

We have another opportunity to talk with our consultants from our Charlottesville Plans Together project.

A lot of exciting things that are going on and we've had lots of discussions working with the consultant on our end and

We've got definitely a number of steps that are coming up and you guys will see kind of how the schedule is moving along as part of this discussion as well.

But I must say we're getting into high speed.

on this.

So we definitely want folks to be as engaged as you can be.

There'll be some opportunity for gaining feedback and all of this is going to continue to be building over the next couple of months.

So hopefully that segue is good.

I think I'm turning it over to Jenny Koch and her team for

The evening, Mr. Rice will be providing advancing of slides as part of the project as we go this evening.

Missy.

And thanks to all of you for taking time to meet with us tonight.

I want to say welcome to Commissioner Russell.

Looking forward to working with you on this effort as well.

I'm going to try to keep us moving forward in this discussion.

We're aiming for 9 o'clock at the very latest.

But I trust that you'll slow me down if there's something you want to get into in more detail.

if I'm trying to speed through it.

There are a few others from the team on the line tonight.

You'll hear mostly from me, Jenny Koch with RHI, and Latoya Thomas from Brick and Story towards the end of the presentation.

But Dina Roadside from RHI, Sarah Kirk from HRNA, and Lee Einsweiler from Code Studio are also on the line tonight.

So thanks, everyone, for joining.

But with that, we can go to the next slide, please.

Thank you.

So on the agenda that we included in the meeting packet, we included links to meeting materials and engagement summaries that we might sort of reference throughout our discussion today.

Some of them are really lengthy.

We, you know, as we said, we don't expect that you all sat down and look through all of these, but they're there.

you to look through if you're interested in that.

We also include throughout the presentation several references to where people can find the slides for tonight because we want to make sure everyone knows where to find them.

They're on our website and I just wanted to mention I caught the discussion in the pre-meeting about how we're hosting a lot of information on websites off of the city's page and how we're going to handle that after this project is done and so that's something I just want to note that I'll be

working with the city to make sure that we can transfer everything from our page and our YouTube and all those other things to the city once the project is finished.

So with that, please go to the next slide.

We don't need to talk through this in full, but the key items we want to discuss with you are going through some project updates and draft schedule updates as Missy just mentioned.

And then we want to get into some proposed sort of guiding principle themes for the plan.

and then some proposed initial revisions to the vision statements that lead off each of the chapters of the plan.

We're not trying to exhaust you with this, as I mentioned, but we know many of you were really involved in those discussions in 2017, 2018, and we started with those drafts where they're available.

And so we wanted to make sure that we're walking through these updates with you so you can flag anything for us that may have been discussed previously.

We want to make sure we didn't cut out anything.

That was a big focus of a discussion in the last round.

Jennifer, do you want us to interrupt you when we have questions?

Sure.

Sure.

Don't wait till the end.

Yes, please.

All right.

Thank you for that.

So just a few things to note in terms of what's happened since we last met with you on August 11th.

So when we met in August, we walked through some draft findings from our May and June engagement activities.

And since then, we've finalized the engagement summary and sent out a notice to our email list and others about that.

So that's on the website, both in summary form and the survey data are posted.

We've also been since that time working on refining draft housing recommendations and potential comprehensive plan revisions in anticipation of the next community input checkpoint, and we'll be discussing all of that in more detail tonight.

Lastly, we've held, as you heard from some of the commissioners, we held two steering committee discussions on August 24th.

Our meeting focused on initial discussions around potential comprehensive plan revisions, again, much of which we'll be discussing later tonight.

And then on September 10th, we had a work session where we used Zoom breakout rooms and broke down the draft housing recommendations in small groups with the steering committee.

And so there,

input from that meeting has been taken forward we're incorporating that into the draft housing plan and we're just undergoing some staff review of that right now and as Missy said that I'll be ready to go out for public comments in the coming weeks and we look forward to your comments at that point.

If you have the next slide the other thing we wanted to mention tonight was some proposed updates to the schedule so

As you might recall, during the first community input stage, it was meant to kick off earlier than it did, and then we had to delay it due to COVID.

We ended up also extending that original community input point even from that delayed point, because it was finding that it was more difficult to reach people as expected during that time frame through the pandemic.

We extended out a bit.

So all of that has pushed things back a bit.

recognizing that the amount of data we received in that first community input point meant it was great.

It's certainly not a problem to receive a lot of information.

You know, we got a lot of survey responses, a lot of discussions were had, but we wanted to take time to really look at all of that.

And so all of that led to a bit of a delay in sort of analyzing those early stages of what are some of the priorities that are coming out when we're talking with people about affordability.

And equity.

And so what we've done is the schedule that you're looking at reflects sort of a one month shift in the final draft of the comprehensive plan and

There's also some sort of small tweaks within each of those bars, but largely we're sort of looking at the end point there.

One of the other adjustments we made was in those key community input points at the bottom.

This proposed schedule combines what we were showing as the second and third community checkpoint and pushes back that combined second period a month as according with those delays we just mentioned.

That second bubble is shown on the screen now in terms of community checkpoint is what we're going to be talking about coming up in the next month.

So we just want to get your input on this overall schedule, recognizing that this is a very ambitious schedule, even accounting for the delay there, recognizing

There's a lot to be done, in any case, in a normal year, in a standard year, as just things take a bit longer in our current situation.

So this schedule, I would say, sort of assumes that review of the draft housing plan in October and November leads to some really clear community input, community sort of base conclusions about the direction for some of the significant land use changes.

So when we get to the land use piece in early 2021, those discussions go fairly smoothly.

What we're proposing is that we would move forward with this or something that we tweak based on your input tonight.

And then after the next community checkpoint, we have a check-in and say, okay, how did that go?

How does it look?

What's the community sentiments around some of these proposed revisions or some of these proposed housing recommendations?

So the zoning update, there would be a section when we are finalizing, once we've gotten some final input on the housing piece, the zoning team will start what they call a sort of diagnostic

So what is the actual deliverable that we're going to get in the middle to end of February where you talk about prepare for zoning update?

What deliverable are we getting?

Sure.

I'm happy to.

The principal thing that we promised contractually, at least, is that we would prepare guidance by looking at what is proposed and determining whether your existing code can produce that.

And if it can't, then what needs to change in the existing code in order to be able to produce it?

And what are the steps that we would take to get there?

So it is a diagnostic of not just sort of fluffy best practices, but really just looking directly at

You said you wanted this.

In order to get to that, we need these changes, these kinds of changes in the code.

And then we would begin in drafting those changes.

So it's just a way to kind of check in one more time.

Did you really mean it?

So by the end of February, we will have gotten to the diagnostic phase.

We'll understand what we got to do.

and then beginning March, then you start doing the actual work to fix the zoning problems we've got.

I have an objection.

If we want to be very clear as part of the RFP process that this is not a zoning update, we don't love our zoning and want to change it slightly.

We hate our zoning and we want to replace it entirely.

I think that's what they're attempting to do in the diagnostic phase.

It is anticipated to be a replacement.

The extent of the replacement will be determined in that diagnostic process because it will recommend the path forward.

It could be that there are certain districts today that actually remain functional.

Maybe the development standards are inappropriate in those districts and we change those, but there may be some fundamentals which continue to be acceptable moving forward.

I'm concerned about that use of your time.

It would be helpful to not say zoning update on the slide if you don't mean it.

I'm happy with calling it new zoning all you want.

I'll make that update on the schedule.

It's easy for things to slip.

Thank you.

I think you're right, Alex.

I mean, yeah.

All right, so if we go to the next slide we want to give some brief updates about the affordable housing plan we know there's a lot of interest in seeing that so if you go to the next slide.

As I said, Sarah is on the line she can answer any questions that you might have.

at this point.

But first, I just want to walk through a few updates and next steps for this.

So we've got a draft plan that is incorporating input from the steering committee, review of recommendations at our work session, and is now going through staff review.

We're not planning to discuss the plan and recommendations in detail today.

But like I said, it'll be coming out for full review in the coming weeks.

And then we'll be meeting with you and with counsel to discuss that plan in mid-November, November 10, I believe.

So we wanted to let you know that today.

Make sure that's sort of in your mind as the next step.

And then I wanted to just note as far as

making sure it's clear how we're thinking about the affordable housing plan being connected to the comprehensive plan including the future land use map and then the next steps for the zoning right.

So while the affordable housing plan document as you'll see in the coming weeks does not cover the full breadth of topics covered in the housing chapter, it covers a lot of it, but we want to just note how those goals and recommendations in that plan are going to be incorporated into the comprehensive plan.

So

One thing is there's sort of a vision for affordable housing that's stated in the plan.

And we've used that in revising the vision statement for the housing chapter of the comprehensive plan.

So you'll see that in a bit tonight.

There's also several recommendations in the housing, affordable housing plan that will be incorporated into the housing chapter of the comprehensive plan as goals and strategies as they fit in.

There's also for each of those recommendations,

in the affordable housing plan, there's a time frame and action steps for those actions.

And so those will be utilized in the implementation chapter of the comprehensive plan.

And that also includes steps for our team as we go move forward for the comprehensive plan or for the zoning rewrite.

So you'll be able to see in the affordable housing plan some explicit notes on how we'll be incorporating the housing plan into the comprehensive plan.

And then importantly, for this group, when it comes to the future land use map, the affordable housing recommendations related to land use contain some specific guidelines around how different strategies or tools related to land use and zoning, for example, how those might be sort of geographically focused or sort of targeted in areas around the city based on certain criteria or guidelines.

But the Affordable Housing Plan does not contain specific maps that show those areas.

It doesn't get into that level of detail because after we've had a discussion with the community about the housing plan and these guidelines and these priorities in the plan, we want to take that input and translate that into the future land use map.

We didn't want to have that map at this point.

But I'm sorry, when I read the draft recommendations, which I took as the draft, the affordable housing plan, it looked like there were some maps in there.

So if you looked through the steering committee work session materials, you're right, there were some maps in there.

And we added a note to that that they were just for discussion because we wanted to sort of illustrate at that point what it means, for example, if you're trying to focus on transit corridors, which was one of the things that was mentioned.

Any other questions about this plan at this point?

Well, we look forward to having that discussion with you all in the Council as we move forward into November.

If you go to the next slide, then we'll move on to what is the largest chunk of our agenda tonight, which is talking about some initial revisions to the comprehensive plan, proposed revisions to the draft plan.

So if you go to the next slide.

Tonight we're in this section, we're going to walk you through some of our initial ideas related to updating the comprehensive plan, sort of high level vision statements and some guiding principles for the plan.

As I mentioned, we know people are really eager to look at the housing plan, the affordable housing plan and the future land use map.

But we think it's really important that we establish some of these organizing principles first before we start to get into that completely.

and that was something that was sort of reflected when we talked with community members.

There was, you know, wanting to see a specific sort of vision in place before we, you know, look at the land use, for example.

So as we go through the discussion today, you know, obviously happy to get your thoughts today, but I want to note we're happy to have any additional input if you want to provide it throughout, you know, the next week or so.

We know that you do not have a ton of time to look through all of this and we don't expect that you can react immediately to everything.

So if you go to the next slide.

So I'm assuming most of all of you are very familiar with the structure of the comprehensive plan, but just to sort of center us all on what we're talking about here and for anyone who is joining us who might not be as familiar.

This is the basic structure for the existing 2013 comprehensive plan.

So we'll be narrowing it down to two topics for tonight, but all these pieces will be thought about as we move forward in this whole process.

So if you go to the next slide, what we're talking about tonight is the community values section and the topic specific chapters, which is what we're calling those different chapters of the comprehensive plan that have the titles you see in the bubble here on the screen.

So if you go to the next slide, we're starting with community values.

So on the next slide, we

You want to discover sort of what role those play in the plan right now.

So in the current 2013 plan, there are a set of community values that come at the beginning of the document, and they sort of set the stage for the rest of the document.

You can see on the right here the sort of brief statements.

There's more details after those statements.

in the plan.

But for the purpose of the 2013 plan, these values were the City Council 2025 vision statements.

So one thing, as we know, City Council is undergoing an update to their strategic plan right now, and we assume they'll have potentially some updates to these coming in the coming months.

We also know that for each sort of plan process that's happened previously, there's been different ways that sort of guiding principles have come out for the comprehensive plan, sometimes in partnership with the county, for example, or excuse me, with the council, sometimes separately from council.

But one thing we,

wanted to think about as we're thinking about potential revisions to the comprehensive plan is we think there's a way to use these initial statements at the beginning of the plan to really tie together some connections between goals and strategies in the rest of the document.

You know, clear connections can be made if you dig into the plan between different strategies.

But one of the things we heard in our community engagement process was that people recognize the connections between a lot of topics in the comprehensive plan.

And they want to see that reflected directly in the document.

So if you go to the next slide, please.

So to recognize this sort of desire to see interconnectivity between sections of the plan, we're proposing creating a set of guiding principles that are specific to the comprehensive plan.

There would be a set of overarching priority areas for the plan.

They could clarify different connections between topics and goals.

The example we used with the steering committee when we talked about this was the Minneapolis Comprehensive Plan has a structure where they have a set of priorities up front and they tie all strategies to those priorities.

So if you're interested, you might want to take a look at that example.

I think there was interest from the steering committee in this thought, even having some sort of table up front that lists the community guiding principles for the comprehensive plan and then says which strategies tick the box for each of them, really showing those connections explicitly.

So we've done some initial thinking about what the themes might be for these guiding principles.

We've tried to make sure they were all overarching, that they didn't focus on any one topic.

Oh, thank you, Lyle, for connecting to that in the chat.

That they didn't connect to just one specific chapter topic area, but that they were all cross-cutting phrases, for example.

So if you go to the next slide, please.

We've got here the 2013 community values on the left, and then our initial draft proposed sort of themes for guiding principles on the right.

So in a final document, these would be, I think, the structure that was laid out for the community values in the past was useful in terms of having sort of a short phrase, and then a slightly longer explanation for what that really means, right?

Because if you look at these, it's not immediately clear maybe what some of these mean.

So we've included them sort of streamlined here for our discussion, but they'll be given more context as they become refined.

I mean, I don't think we've lost it.

I think it may be in resilience and it may be in balance in sustainability.

But I do want to be certain we haven't lost the environmental concerns.

Yeah, I think it comes out a bit in both of those.

and even could come out in connections between different green areas, for example, different open spaces.

But yeah, I think the way we're thinking about it is resilience would really focus on the capacity to change and innovate in the face of

issues that come up, for example, our current situation.

So that would be resilience.

And then balance and sustainability, we're thinking is that traditional, if you think of the sustainability legs, balancing the different pieces that you need to keep things running.

So balancing environment, economy, equity, social equity, all those pieces, making sure that those are considered

The way I'm reading this seems to me that we are looking at actual trade-offs where there could be environmental trade-offs for economic development here.

I think the way that I was thinking about it is that we're saying

talking about balance is that I think just making sure that those are being weighed, that any sort of action, you're taking a look at how it might be impacting these other areas in the plan as you move forward.

I don't necessarily think the old school focus on green city is the right way to word that.

I think that's yesterday.

But I still think that there's value in having some emphasis on the environment that's more clearly articulated.

And it looks like it's taken a back seat

Yeah, that's certainly not our intention.

So we could work to make that more clear.

I'm not the only one.

Yeah, I was thinking about that, too, because that wasn't immediately clear to me from what I'm seeing.

I'm really thinking about health and how that connects to people.

I think that's something talking about sort of

Yeah, and I'm not just thinking about health.

I'm thinking about tomorrow and what we do today, how what we do today impacts my great grandkids, the world that my great grandkids are going to live in and the environment that they inherit.

Jennifer, is the idea that each one of these bullets that your proposed themes are each one of the

Yes, yes.

I think they would have at least a few sentences.

I do like the fact that you've reduced the number of bullets.

I just don't want the, and again, whatever the latest buzzword is, and it may be caught up in balance or resilience.

I just don't want the focus on our waters, our streams, reduced carbon footprint to get lost, focused to make those things happen.

Okay, I'm sorry.

No worries.

What I was gonna say was is that definitely it's been streamlined, but I'm having a little take back because I feel like just looking at the proposed things or for guiding principles, I know it may seem like it's in layman's terms, but I don't get anything from that.

I feel like when I look on the left, I understand completely exactly what those values or themes are.

I have no clue.

Even though you've taken out some of the words and the bullets, to me it's just, it's very distinct on the left.

It is very wide open for interpretation on the right.

And then I guess that's when I think Mr. Heaton asked, were you going to do some bullet points?

I absolutely agree with

With you, I think it's like it's saying everything and then losing, losing something in that.

But if the idea is that each of the topics tie into these guiding principles, then I understand that a little better how each each individual chapter could speak to equity, resilience, balance, you know, all these things.

I might also say that a comprehensive plan is a planner's document.

And the words that you're using are more like a promotional brochure about Charlottesville.

And so and I get that because that's how you get down to the but yeah, I think if we're looking at it as a as a planning document,

It can be more specific if we're thinking, or excuse me, vague and then get specific.

Well, I just feel like we're in it, and I know we've been in it for a while.

And if I've been in it, and I'm not saying I'm the brightest apple in the bunch, but I don't think I'm the dullest, and I'm having a hard time visualizing, think about somebody who knows nothing about planning, who may be seeing something like this for the first time.

To me, it would be a turn off, because I feel like if I have to put too much effort into something, one, two, three, four, five, six, or seven bullet points, I'm not gonna wanna be

I'm not gonna be intrigued to wanna know more for it to be effective because I'm already at a roadblock.

Well, I don't think we should be creating a PR piece, but I do think it should definitely be where not only planners and staff and city council can understand it, but that our citizens know exactly what's going on.

Because to me, that's where the questions and the discrepancies coming down.

The public can understand the jargon.

So I appreciate them for trying to make it more public accessible.

It's just that I just feel like if you're looking at that left column,

and then you're comparing it to the right.

Yeah, I completely agree.

I think whether it's for the implementers or for the public reading it for the first time, either way you benefit from having clarity and like accurate summaries of the things.

Otherwise you're just diving into whatever the details or the bullet points are anyway.

Again, I think like, not to pile on too much on the same thing, but like the balance and sustainability in particular, like the balance to me, you know, anytime you have guiding principles, you're balancing between them.

So it seems a little bit odd to specifically hedge with that one, you know, specifically the environment.

I guess I don't really know or understand why that would be, and in particular leading with it.

And resilience, to be honest, I have.

pretty much no idea what that means.

And then the other thing is on the left, we have smart citizen focused government, which is something I think we are quite bad at right now.

And maybe this is more of a plan thing.

I mean, sorry, guys, but we all started this meeting talking about how we couldn't find any of the PDFs of the things we reviewed six months ago.

But like, okay, I'm back.

So I don't know if that needs to be a theme or if it just needs to get into the plan or if it should be in the strategic plan instead.

Like Rory, that right there directly hits the nail on the head to my point of we need smart citizen focused government.

And I do feel like we are not perfect, but we are moving the needle to try to get to that.

All right, so I guess when I'm here, I totally, I understand I think what you are saying and I agree.

I think we need to add, especially if we're talking about in the next phase of community engagement, we need to have some more context with these.

We don't just wanna give statements.

And we also just need to maybe give some more consideration to the phrasing we're using for these.

I hear you there and making sure that we don't wanna lose these sort of points of emphasis.

But I think some of it comes out of, we didn't wanna necessarily have

Maybe an obvious point, an image would help.

Jenny.

It's actually a question.

The guiding principles, I'm curious about their genesis.

I mean, I think a little bit of both bringing our experience from other places.

But all of these came out as things that are important in the conversations we had earlier this year, I would say.

So we started with that sort of looking at what we heard and went from there.

OK.

I mean, I think when we give more context to it and the statements are longer, we can try to be more specific or make sure

Well, yeah, just tying it to Charlottesville, letting it know that this is not a stock document that can be applied to any city and but that it is tailored towards the needs of Charlottesville and what the consultants have found out about Charlottesville and those needs.

Thank you.

And I guess what I'm hearing is I haven't heard any sort of pushback against this idea of having some guiding principles that we can tie to different sections of the document.

Definitely.

I know we've kind of been like tearing it apart, but I'm a firm believer if I can chastise you, I can praise you.

I like the guiding principles.

Understood.

Thank you.

Great.

So with that, I'd like to go to the next slide.

Thank you for that discussion.

So at this point, we'll switch to talking about those topic specific chapters.

So if you go to the next slide.

So again, looking at the bubbles on the right here, this is what we're referring to as the topic specific chapters.

They're really the meat of the comprehensive plan.

We've highlighted two in green just to note that those were not updated.

They were not drafts from 2018 that we reviewed in terms of having gone through the whole review process with you all.

The text of them anyway.

We've got the land use map.

but the community engagement chapter will be a new chapter as well.

So we just wanted to point those out before we can get into the discussion there.

But in general, just to sort of remind us of our charge, our charge was to start from the 2018 drafts or where they're available and really give some focus on equity and affordability and have discussions with the community and see how we can make sure that's incorporated into these documents.

So I mentioned at the beginning of the meeting, but one thing we really want to make sure of today as we're talking with you is that we didn't change the intent of statements where they had gone through a really rigorous process or sort of removed any key elements that came out of that 2017-2018 process.

So those of you who were there, please don't hesitate to flag those pieces for us.

Next slide, please.

So just a few notes before we get into the details there.

These vision statements for each of these topics really set the stage for each of the chapters, which, again, are those in the bubble.

on the previous slide.

So as we've tried to show on this graphic on this slide, the vision in each chapter leads to specific goals related to that vision.

And then within each goal under that vision, there's several strategies for achieving the goal.

So sort of a layered structure within each of the chapters.

Within this, there's three different updates we're going to be looking at throughout this process.

And two of them we're going to talk about today.

We've already talked about.

the sort of chapter vision statements, excuse me, the community value statements, but within this topic specific vision statements, those two we'll talk about today.

So one type of revision we're looking at is looking at the chapter names, those sort of boxes that were in the previous bubble to make sure that they are clear themselves about what's actually in the plan, or if there's ways that we can tweak those for clarity, we propose some today.

So that's sort of one step above the vision statement.

But looking at the vision statements themselves is the most significant edit we're going to talk about today.

You know, we've reviewed them for

content related to equity, affordability, things that have come out in the discussions we've been having with the community and with our steering committee.

And also just trying to sort of review them for focus and clarity, I would say.

I think there's a lot of really good information in those statements and within the chapters, you know, the goals and strategies that follow, but we try to sort of center them and focus them in certain areas.

And so

It'll be good to hear your thoughts on those.

The third piece that we're not going to talk about tonight but will be a future discussion is the goals and strategies that come after the vision and so those will be updated the next phase along with the land use map when we really start to look at the details of how we get some of these visions achieved.

If you go to the next slide, please.

So again, just the list of the chapters we'll be going through.

I just want to take a second and point out one specific change that we wanted to talk with you about, which would be looking at the land use chapter and the historic preservation and urban design chapter and potentially taking the urban design piece out of that urban preservation, excuse me, historic preservation and urban design chapter and putting that in with the land use chapter.

And the reason we're suggesting that is because

It will help to streamline some of the recommendations that we'll be using for the zoning rewrites, for example.

You know, land use and urban design can be tied together more closely if they're in the same chapter and there's a lot of overlap that I think will come out in those future phases.

You know, I think we talked with staff about this and we certainly understand why there was some

There's connections between staffing in these areas, and that's sort of part of the reason why they're connected.

So we'd love to hear your thoughts about that.

Well would the land use

So you'd be able to find the urban design.

I'm a little bothered by

The implication that historic preservation doesn't have to do anything with urban design or separating it and losing that connection because I feel like historic preservation is more than the

preservation of individual buildings, that there is an essential critical component that has to do with the context of historic districts and their urban characteristics.

So I'm

Liz, this is also in your wheelhouse.

Yeah, I echo those statements.

It makes me wonder.

And I have specific comments on the historic preservation slide that I think we're losing something in what it is that historic preservation can do in regards to urban design and in regards to land use.

And if it becomes too

It seems to me when we went through it that we think there are elements of the historic preservation chapter that could still include design.

Having urban design split out from land use, you might look at the land use chapter and wonder why there's not more about form in there or some elements of urban design.

And then maybe it's more difficult to find that connection if you're looking and it's in the historic preservation urban design chapter.

So there might be a way to include some like land use and urban form and have some elements of that in that chapter and keep some of the design pieces in historic preservation.

Well, I know Lizzie said you had some comments on historic preservation vision, so maybe some of this will come out as we're talking about these different vision statements.

So if we go to the next slide, we just had some thoughts.

I think you know what's coming now, what we're going to talk about.

I just wanted to give some context to where our revisions came from.

So they incorporate input from the August 24th Steering Committee meeting.

We sort of went through, showed the current vision statements, then had a brainstorm about what folks thought what they would like to see included in the vision statements.

It also incorporates all the sort of input that we got in May and June in those engagement processes.

So we don't need to go through tonight and talk about specific

Jennifer I'm sorry I had one quick question on the slide previous to this it was about one of the

Thank you.

It says urban environmental sustainability.

Well, that was the title of the draft chapter.

So I don't know if someone else wants to speak to that from the last process, but we are actually proposing a change to that title.

OK.

Thank you.

Great.

So if you go to the next slide, please.

We'll start with menus.

And so as we mentioned, there was not a new draft of the text, the chapter from 2018.

So what we started with was the 2013 statement, which is shown on the left.

And then on the right, you can see our initial thoughts about revisions in bold.

And all these, or most of them anyway, are some key statements we want to pull out.

But obviously, we're happy to have your view of all of this.

Would it be useful for you all if I read these?

It does sound like that.

I'm glad the human activities went away.

And that was part of what we were looking at in these revisions was wording.

And obviously we've all gone through this where we think about the wording a lot and we adjust it.

And I think there are certainly probably reasons why certain words or phrases were used, but our intent was to try to clarify that and we might not have done so.

And that'll be good for you to point out in us in the revised statements as well.

Any thoughts, not to interrupt anyone who's still reading, but any thoughts on this current

Well, two quick thoughts.

Move to strike section two, starting and density in appropriate areas.

We never do anything in inappropriate areas with planning commissions.

Second, unique neighborhood characteristics are to be celebrated.

I'd like something specifically about there about diversity.

We have neighborhood diversity and that's worth celebrating.

And all of it.

Okay.

And I'm going to state the obvious in the racial and economic inequities.

I'm assuming that that is what we're referring to as the community values from the previous 2013.

That was not a direct one-to-one replacement of that sentence from 2013, but we were trying to sort of enunciate what we heard from the community.

So I guess in a way, we are trying to say what we thought the community was saying to us about what they want to see in that future land use vision.

So I like it as a whole.

I'd like to hone in on the support provision and use of expanded transportation options clause.

I feel like it's, well, I don't know what provision means really, but also expanded transportation options seems vague.

Maybe we should say, or I mean, depending on what we mean by it, but I think we mean something like, you know, sustainable and efficient transportation options.

I think we want mode shift.

We don't want people to have choices.

On the right, the bold last sentence, the word considered seems to have, to me, has very little teeth to it.

I'd love to see that replaced with preserved.

Like, we can... I just don't want it to be considered and then disregarded.

Yeah, there isn't just development and then just preservation.

They, you know, they, they're, because we're seeing them as two different things.

So therefore, this, this sentence to me says,

Preservation and NIMBY, not in my backyard.

Oh, well, I don't mean preservation in terms of historic preservation.

I'm meaning it in terms of preserving the character, preserving the unique neighborhood characteristics.

I'm not aesthetic, but I do.

Well, my question before we even explain that, and Jody, I'm kind of with you, but here's where I have that heartburn about that, is because if in our comprehensive plan, we always talk about preserving Charlottesville's character and those things that make us special to Charlottesville, but then prime example, we have developments that we approve that do not necessarily preserve the character of the neighborhood,

it is constantly changing so at this point it's almost like do we need to redefine what the character of Charlottesville is because I personally don't feel like a lot of the decisions that we've made here lately have preserved the character of what I perceive Charlottesville to be.

Now part of that could be that we need to get away from some of that character because it does seem like that if we hold on to all of it we're definitely not moving forward when we're talking about racial and economic

I mean, it's similar, but to me, it does not preserve the character.

And the thing is, do we necessarily want to preserve the character because most of our houses that are of the older stock in Charlottesville will not hold the capacity of what we need for our housing market.

Yeah.

And to me, that sort of, that exact, that particular phrasing

Maybe it's just where I live, but the conversation I think of is like north downtown, you know, from like Jefferson on up where

or from Market On Up where the specific design and buildings is like a nine-story apartment building or like Altamont Circle, but that phrasing has historically been used to say nothing should be allowed here that's taller than two stories.

I like the word respect that I think Commissioner Russell said.

I'm fine with either one.

It seems wishy-washy.

I was thinking supported.

I'm thinking too, maybe I'm not worried, maybe I'm not

you know saying it in the right way but I'm also thinking of protecting neighborhoods where that are subject to forces of gentrification that those you know more modest and historic but modest homes housing residents who've lived there for generations not be

threatened by being forced out by these larger, newer developments.

Well, okay, thank you all for that.

I've been taking a lot of notes.

I think we have some clear ways we can look at that.

No, you're good.

Got it.

So I guess I'll propose we go to the next one that works for you all.

And this is housing.

So we lengthened it a bit, as you can see, but it seems to be warranted.

So we've called out again some of the points of emphasis here.

We've used some of the statements that are found in the Affordable Housing Plan that you'll see there, because we obviously need a direct connection to that.

So I like these a lot.

One thing I might consider as missing here is something I've really learned and didn't really know going into this whole gig is that kind of across the city we already have these very diverse housing forms in every single neighborhood.

So some of that comes out in the affordable housing plan so that'll be more in the whatever follows after this vision statement.

So we don't, yeah, that thought is that will come out in the rest of the chapter in that affordable housing planner strategies for that.

Okay, thank you.

One thing that I just like to throw out there, when we talk about affordability and displacement of people from their neighborhoods, something that I don't even think that you can fix, but definitely I would appreciate you bringing it to council, is when you have new development in an older neighborhood,

Your property assessment goes up.

If I go to the bank and I get a loan based on my income for my property, because that's what the bank says I can afford, then why is it that when new development comes in my neighborhood, my assessment goes up and I can no longer afford it because now I'm being assessed at the income level.

of the person who moved down the street.

If I wanted to go apply for a loan for the house down the street, the bank would say I couldn't afford it.

So I just think that is something that we have to keep in mind if we're going to make clear steps to addressing displacement of people from their neighborhoods.

And I think in our housing, Sarah had to jump off the call, I think, but they can speak more to how that might be incorporated into the housing affordability plan, because that document will be a lot more detailed, have some of that background information, and it's likely incorporated in there.

We definitely heard that.

I'm not 100% on this, because I'm seeing this for the first time.

Got it, yep.

Thank you for that.

All right.

Well, with that, I would suggest we move on to the next one.

Again, recognizing that we'll be talking about these more as we move forward in this process.

This is the Historic Preservation and Urban Design, or that's what it's called in the 2013 version.

As we mentioned, we propose to separate Historic Preservation and Urban Design, and we've renamed it here Preservation of Community History and Legacy.

So I'd love for you all to read this, and then we can talk more about what you think about this.

That language is a bit jarring to me, history and legacy.

Yeah, I think our intent was to pull out sort of what in the text or what that should mean in terms of community history and legacy, you know, expanding that to, you know, sort of be important to all people in Charlottesville, recognizing that neighborhoods have different histories or people have different histories that should be considered.

And so we want to make sure that intent won't come out in the title.

It's an important conversation to have, and it's something that the preservation community is grappling with at large.

It's traditionally been a movement that's honored only and offered incentives even because of the honoring for a narrative that has historically left out a lot of people.

And historic preservation needs to do better in that.

You know, but I believe that the values that older houses offer are worthy of talking about even in, you know, in regards to what older housing stock does for

the affordable housing picture for the sustainable, you know, not contributing to new, continuing to new building construction, but preserving what we have.

You know, I don't think we always, everyone always thinks of preservation in that, through that lens.

I do.

And I do not think, is it this page?

I think it is on this page.

I don't think we make that connection.

You talked earlier, and I know you talked with some of the panelists about making those connections between the different chapters.

And I think there's something lost here in just seeing preservation as shading pretty things.

And so I am trying to compare what we're envisioning

For Charlottesville to other cities that have historic significance, I don't think we're shooting for Williamsburg.

Now we do have a historic district, right?

But these words would be for the whole city, right?

This is not just describing an historic district.

So I think that maybe

Maybe that's a big picture issue that this comprehensive plan could truly help Charlottesville decide are we trying to be a Williamsburg?

Or do we see ourselves more as a vibrant city that acknowledges, tips its hat to the wonderful history

but isn't trying to be history.

Does that make sense?

So, you know, I wonder if

We should take more of a direct focus on architecture and the built form itself rather than kind of history as a general concept.

It seems like in terms of historic preservation,

I mean, you really are sometimes going for two different things.

I think usually in the context we're talking about it, we're talking about like, you know, old buildings and like the built form of downtown, which, you know, I think most architects and certainly I think is, you know, far superior than most of the built forms we build nowadays.

As anyone who's seen me walking down the mall yelling, you know, that building's illegal, that's illegal to build.

can vouch for.

And so like, you know, maybe to lose some of that baggage, it would be better to take that explicit focus on exactly what we're looking to preserve with this chapter.

I mean, on the flip side, right, like outside of the Planning Commission, we have like the Historic Resources Commission, who is trying to look at, you know,

actual history or like history of people in the community, which I think is also important.

Yeah, Rory, I think you're spot on.

We can't forget this is a planning document

And so to aim it at structures, tangibles instead of intangibles, I think is important for a document that's used the way this one will be used.

It doesn't mean we can't reference intangibles, but it's really not helpful to a planner who's trying to interpret it seven years from now.

And I would like to propose a counter argument that the architecture of any period today, a hundred years ago, is tied to the culture that created it.

And what you're proposing is to separate the visual

Say more about how that relates to an established historic district.

defined, described, and understood?

Or is it the comprehensive plan?

Both.

I'm going to play devil's advocate here and say that if we're going to dig deep to say that the architecture defines the history of the people and their thoughts and who's making it, I don't know if I can feel comfortable moving forward saying that I want to necessarily preserve that history.

Because a lot of the historical buildings

There's a wonderful rich African American history that's here.

I never said that.

I said that if we're going to use that statement then we need to be careful about the statement because some of the historical buildings

of Charlottesville do not reflect everyone who's now here.

And if we're trying to move forward, then we need to be cognizant of that.

I never said that we don't have good rich Black history, Latino or anybody else.

I literally only said that if we're going to use the statement that the building reflects the architecture's thought of doing that time period, we don't have a great history

of us being reflected in those time periods, hence as to why when we were just in the other chapters, we've had to mention we want equity.

We want racial equity.

It's not a statement of intent.

I don't know why you think it doesn't include you.

It's not representative of who I think we want to be if we're moving forward.

If I may, we've had decades of urban renewal, like everything that John West breathed on is gone.

Everything that Jefferson breathed on is there.

We have told one story.

Well, no, I think it's not too late because we haven't chose to protect certain areas.

We have not chose to put local design controls on areas like Henson Page, like Faisal, historically African American communities, though they are recognized at the national level as being historic, we at the local level do not impose design regulations in the same way that we do north downtown.

So those areas are safe

from demolition and maybe they stay single family zoning while other areas unnecessarily incur burdens of developmental pressure.

So that's an inequity that in fact preservation if applied correctly could help remedy.

It can help preserve what stories and physical, you know, architectural history we do have that reflects a different

I just want to make sure that we are careful with our words.

Well, Liz just says it better than I do.

No, and I don't think it's just you.

I just think it's in general.

And I think maybe it could be because we come from two different perspectives.

Not saying that I know you respect my perspective, but we still come from two different perspectives.

I absolutely agree.

I think if we back up a little and just start with what does

What does sensitive design offer?

It offers all the things that when we walk through a well-designed historic neighborhood, we feel a certain way because it has these things that everyone in new development is trying to do.

Human scale, relationship to the street, front porches that offer conversation.

It's everything Jane Jacobs talked about in The Life and Death of American Cities about good urban design.

This is all very important conversation, and I'm so glad we're having it.

But, you know, if we maybe back up, what is the role of respecting the qualities that these older neighborhoods, houses, and, you know, not on the individual level, but as a whole, offer to residents, and how do we

make efforts to keep those.

All right, so we're going to rework this a bit.

Which, you know, I appreciate all these comments.

I think

We did perhaps get too far away with this, especially in the first statement from the design intent with this.

But I think that reflects the conversations we were having with the community, wanting to see all sorts of narratives reflected in the city.

And so I think we want to think about ways to keep that as we're

We're looking to address this.

I guess one final question here, and I know we're at 8.40, so I want to keep us going.

But we talked earlier about splitting historic preservation and urban design.

Other thoughts after looking at this about whether we're open to bringing urban design into the Linus chapter, whether we bring sort of all of this into the Linus chapter and expand that.

whether we have some elements of design in both chapters.

I think personally, I'd need to see more of the proposed goals, I guess, and strategies.

And then maybe it becomes clear.

No, I agree with you.

This is just the

The very top and, like I said before, the devil's in the details.

I was actually against the idea when I first heard about it, but now I'm sort of falling in love with it because history, design, and land use, they're all haunted by the same ghosts.

They're all dealing with the same issues.

Yeah, I'm thinking the same thing, Lyle, that

that why don't we, I mean, these are old terms and words I've seen in comprehensive plans of other places.

I like the idea we go ahead and own the ghosts that they all carry, but then with the details, the bullet points that follow these mile high statements, we really need to be specific about what we mean

historic districts and preservation of character, things like that.

Well, and I'm coming to the viewpoint that just this conversation shows that

preservation on the surface is interpreted to be one specific thing when actually it is far more than that and it affects the entire city and it affects urban design.

Jennifer, are you aware of another municipality that has

Got a few.

Just as a point to keep in mind as you work through this particular issue, when we have zoning, when we have a toolkit to implement this plan,

It will have a spectrum of tools.

It'll have, you know, dials that are turned up and down that do different things.

And preservation is, you know, total preservation is at one end of the spectrum and transformation is at the other end of the spectrum.

And we'll be coding for every point in between.

So one of the important things to think about is try not to box these things too much into being a different conversation when they are, in many ways, part of that same conversation.

Historic preservation could be about the preservation of a use of land, for example, not even a structure.

So they all end up on this same spectrum.

What specifically Code Studio, our firm, needs help with is how we're going to be turning those dials as we move forward and how many we give you.

How incremental do you want them to be?

How coarse or how fine-grained do you want them to be?

That will be part of that conversation coming out of the diagnostic before drafting can begin

because this is a project in which really the drafting has to happen, you know, principally once and then get, you know, tuned up, refined, et cetera, but move forward.

This is not one where we can put a draft on the table and have everybody throw up their hands and say, we don't like that at all.

Where did that come from?

So we definitely need the strength of these

If I may offer some advice on the zoning code review, we've done the most recent work on West Main and downtown.

It's not perfect, but I think it's the strongest stuff we've got.

Yeah, and I mean, one last thing I'll say is, to me, I can't get away from this dichotomy between what we're looking for with historic preservation.

You know, I'm looking at a map of our historic districts, and there's certainly some that are preserved because of their form, right?

You know, like the downtown corner.

have good land use patterns that predate the automobile.

Then I'm looking at Park Street and Gildersleeve Wood, and they have absolutely garbage urban forms.

But some rich white people lived there once and built some cool houses.

So maybe we want to keep those for their architectural qualities.

But to me, it's

There's a really big difference between whether we're preserving things for their, you know, old urban form that can't be built anymore because we have a whole bunch of regulations that require accommodating automobiles and, you know, whether we want to preserve a building because Thomas Jefferson ate dinner there once.

All right, so what I'm hearing is we should look at combining land use chapter with this historic preservation and urban design chapter.

Is that correct?

Yeah, I'm really interested in a new tool, a tool that, you know, or are using a tool in a different way.

I think that's because we are in a different time.

I agree the first, when it comes out, you can't throw it back.

You've got to let that first draft stand with roots all the way into the document.

Yeah, I think there's certainly room for that in the structure of the plan.

Jenny, just speaking for myself, I'm open to the idea of exploring it.

Got it.

I guess in terms of moving forward to the next phase of community engagement, we need some sort of path to follow for that, I think, to propose for people to weigh in on so we can have some review of these initial statements in the coming weeks is the plan.

And so I think we will need to take one direction on that for now, but that doesn't mean it needs to be the final in the end, if that makes sense.

Okay, let's go to the next one.

Because I know recognizing we're at 10 to nine.

This was one that I think is really important to look at because there's not an existing community engagement chapter, but that was part of our charge going into this was to create one.

One thing I'd like to say here, sorry for always speaking first on these.

I don't know if I'm just skipping ahead and cheating.

But especially in that third paragraph, I think is where I'd put this.

I think a big part of community engagement needs to be not just about soliciting input, but about broadcasting what's happening.