Planning Commission Meeting   12/8/2020

All right, we are ready to begin.

I think we are now in order.

So why don't we begin with virtual report outs from the virtual diocese.

Let's begin with the university.

Anything from you, Bill?

Yeah sure, hope everybody's doing well tonight.

I just wanted to mention there's a Board of Visitors meeting on Friday this week and the two items, well there's a few items, but two for approval and review.

One is the School of Data Science at the Ivy Corridor.

It's going to be

considered for design approval, so that's pretty exciting.

That'll be the first big building on that site.

The other is just a review of some athletics complex buildings, one for football buildings, Olympic sports, and McHugh Center renovation.

So that's something that they've been working on over in the athletics department.

One other thing that's on there is more related to the community.

It's the water treatment plant that sits up on O'Hill.

Also, it's more procedural because that's land that we lease to the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority through a long-term lease, but their upgrades to some of their facilities are also being considered.

Those three things.

And if you're interested in following the meeting, there's a live stream available.

Just go to the BOV website.

No committee reports.

All right, so I think we just had a TJPDC meeting.

The big update there is with the rent and mortgage release program.

Overall, we had I think $1.46 million in all of TJPDC dispersed as part of that program for rent mortgage relief, so that's good.

So that in the coming months is going to be transitioned into what they're calling Rent Mortgage Relief Program 2.0.

where instead of going through the PDCs that then like find sub-grantees like nonprofits to actually disperse the funds, there's going to be two single points of intake statewide, so one for tenants and one for landlords.

provided by a contractor called Devall company, D-E-V-A-L.

So I think there'll be one more round of local disbursements, and then it's all gonna be running through that centralized platform.

So the good news is there's more funding coming.

The bad news is, yeah, we'll see how that goes.

So also some pretty cool work being done by TJPDC.

Sarah Pennington, one of their staffers, won an award for it in a program called Telework VA.

So her focus before was in transportation demand management and trying to get people out of their cars.

Obviously, a lot more people not coming into the office at all now, and she's helping companies kind of transition to that.

with the goal of hopefully making work more flexible and less reliant on commutes in the future even after COVID ends.

So those are the big two updates I've got.

We missed our place meeting last month because it wasn't noticed, but this Thursday in two days we will have another place meeting once again to discuss the future of the committee and what its task is if it has one.

I don't have any council or commission reports.

I did get involved a little bit with the Rivanna River Advisory Committee.

They are having a meeting tomorrow night of the South Fork Advisory Committee, where they're going to be looking at setting up some water, some stream monitoring, as well as monitoring of pollutants.

Ms.

Good afternoon or evening everyone and Merry Christmas.

So on Friday, November 13th, as part of the rare street task force, we walked the neighborhood.

And as we were walking the neighborhood, looking at some points or areas of concern that the task force had raised, we also spoke with different neighbors that we saw in the neighborhood to get their input on what they felt the concerns and needs were.

The next meeting where

the task force members had to do a little bit of homework and we will be prioritizing what the priorities are for the task force is December 16th at 4 p.m.

Also on November 12th we had our CDBG task force meeting.

We had several applicants and FAR and LVCAA were in our public service sector.

We also had LEAP and Habitat being awarded funds and I'm not going to go into too many details because we do have Erin on the line

and she's gonna be going over that shortly.

And also just for full transparency, at 6.30, I will be excusing myself just for roughly about an hour.

Rising fifth graders at Walker Upper Elementary School have orientation tonight.

Really?

The Seville Plans Together Steering Committee met on November 23rd and reviewed a presentation that may seem very familiar to you about the draft affordable housing plan.

I posted that into the chat.

It was the same material, but it was better the second time.

I know, I know.

I eventually get to it.

Thank you, Chair Mitchell.

Since the last time Planning Commission has met, I met with the Board of Architectural Review on November 17th.

We had five certificate of appropriateness applications that were approved.

We deferred one of the application for 612 West Main Street, the new apartment building on West Main.

We had two pre-application discussions.

And then just a sort of an enticement to pay attention next month to our BAR.

We're going to have, for the first time, awards given out to projects since 2017.

I don't think it's taken that long to find projects that are deserving of awards, but we just got out of the habit of doing it.

So that'll come out next month.

On December 1st, the Tree Commission met.

We spent a great deal of time going over our month-to-month annual calendar, making adjustments for the world of COVID and

shuffling our objectives and then putting new emphasis on certain things.

We had a wonderful report

from the Charlottesville area tree stewards, Mark Zonhofer with the tree stewards.

He's the representative on the tree commission, went over many of the things that they've done over the last year.

And then third, we had a report on the CIP operating budgets

and then the annual report to city council.

It came up during that as we were thinking about the 490 some acres of trees that the city has lost between 2004 and 2014.

That equates to about three quarters of a square mile.

And when you have 10.4 square miles in the city of Charlottesville, that's an awful lot of trees to lose.

And we're going the wrong direction for, quote unquote, the tree city.

So just something to consider.

OK.

Let's see what I've got.

Lou Peck.

So 1,120.

I went to the LUPAC meeting.

The LUPAC group is the city, the county, UVA, and the water and sewage authority.

And the focus of the LUPAC group is to focus on environmental and land use issues that all three of us plus the water and sewage folks need to be worried about.

And we at that meeting were represented by Alex and a couple of other city officials and me.

There were a couple of report outs regarding landfill diversion, a report out regarding the water and sewage safety yield study.

But the thing that I think is most pertinent to the work that we do was the report out or the discussion was actually a back and forth discussion on smart scale.

Smart skills is what we call streetscapes.

Think Fontaine, think Emmett streetscape.

And Ms.

Russell, they pretty much echo the issue that you talked about last month.

You mentioned that we've done a lot of work on Fontaine, getting ready to implement that, but we got that all the work up to the county line.

For example, there's a sidewalk.

They'll go all the way up to the county line, but nothing after that.

So we spent the bulk of our meeting talking about

What we can do better when it comes to these smart-scale projects.

What we can do better is let's do these streetscape projects that we work on.

And at the end of the day, we agreed that going forward, we would engage all three entities, where appropriate, UVA, Albemarle County, and the city, on all these smart-scale slash streetscape projects so that we don't have another Fontaine issue happening, where again,

We, the city, does all the planning it needs to do up until the county line, and we've not engaged the county.

So a commitment was made to begin engaging all three important entities in the process at the conceptual level.

So Ms.

All right, well we are still continuing forward in our current state.

We have a number of individuals continue to work from home and then we have folks pop in and pop out to

to make sure that all of our items are addressed.

So as I have been able to say in our last couple of meetings is that we have a path for each application to continue to move through a process.

And that is something that we're definitely grateful for.

We're prepping for the meeting with the County Planning Commission in January.

Again, a reminder that is January 26th, which is Tuesday, fourth Tuesday.

at 5.30.

And this Thursday, myself, Alex and Hosea will be meeting with folks on the county end so we can refine the agenda for that.

But we're excited to have that opportunity.

And we'll look forward to talking more about housing with our regional partners there.

So definitely a plus there.

Hey then, Mr. Rice, we are ready to go with matters to be presented by the public that are not on the formal agenda.

So, public, this is your opportunity to talk to us about the work that we do, but talk to us about things that we're not going to be talking about later on in the evening.

If it's something you want to talk about relating to the bug grant or the own button,

or the SUP.

Please wait until we get to those agenda items.

Thank you, Chair Mitchell.

If anyone would like to address the commission during this public comment opportunity, please click the raise hand icon or if you're joining us by phone, press star nine.

Once we enable your audio, please unmute your mic or star six by phone and you will have three minutes for comment.

We currently have one hand raised and Mr. Mark Cavitt.

Mr. Cavitt, I will enable your audio.

Please unmute your mic.

Mark, are you there?

Mark, you're unmuted, but we can't hear you.

Mark, now you're muted.

You may want to unmute again.

All right, you are now unmuted, but we're not hearing anything.

All right, Mark, why don't we come back to you a little later on, maybe when we're having the other things.

Sorry about that, Chair Mitchell.

Yeah, Mr. Kevin, if you could hear us perhaps,

Phoning in as well might help.

We do have one other person with their hand up, and that is Mr. James Rucker.

Mr. Rucker, you're on with commission.

You have three minutes.

Very odd indeed.

Mr. Rucker, can you hear us?

Please put your hand down if you can hear us.

So I'm not even sure if they can hear us, Chair Mitchell.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Well, since you've got the floor, Mr. Stolzenberg, you had some comments about the minutes.

Yep, I've got one small amendment, which is just substituting CSRP on page 23 of the minutes to CISRAP or C-S-R-A-P, whatever that stands for, Charlottesville Supplemental Rental Assistance Program.

And that's the only change I got.

All right, all in favor, raise your hand.

Any abstentions?

Any objections?

All right, the minutes are approved.

So a word to Mr. Rice and Mr. Cabot.

Reminder, I did see something pop up in chat.

We will be talking about the SUP a little later on in the meeting.

And that would be when we would want you guys to speak to the SUP.

If that's what you're attempting to talk about, let's wait until we get to the SUP.

That's going to be one public hearing later in the meeting.

Well, we can certainly try this one more time.

If anyone else would like the opportunity to speak during this public comment opportunity, please click the raise hand icon or star nine on your phone.

That is crazy.

We do.

I don't know that we're going to have ample time.

Why don't we go into recess for 13 minutes?

Back at 6.

Cool.

I like that shirt, Jody.

It went off again.

I was giving tours at 730 this morning and it was cold outside.

So I wanted to be comfortable.

I like it.

And yours as well.

Chair Mitchell, I just sent a chat message to the panelists and attendees sending out a phone number in case we're still having audio issues.

Still think it might be an extraordinary coincidence, but hopefully, whatever it is, it's temporary.

I think we are ready to begin again.

Counselor Hill, is counsel in order?

Is council in order?

Yes, I'm so sorry.

I'm just switching over to my other device.

But yes, we are here in order.

Very good.

The first item that we're going to review, and we will have public comment on this item, relates to the recommendations made by the Block Grant Task Force.

The first name is the Community Development Block Grant Coronavirus Recommendations, allocations of the funds related to that.

The monies associated with this grant will be used to facilitate projects that prepare for and will mitigate the impact of the virus.

We're expecting about $335,000 in grants from HCD for that

We will also review the task force's recommended allocation for the traditional block grant.

We are expecting an allocation of around $419,000 for that.

We anticipate that we'll be using this money to do improvements on Ridge Street for economic development for housing activities.

and for public service projects that benefit moderate to low income citizens.

And the last piece, the last recommended allocations that we'll review will be for the home funds.

The home funds will be used to facilitate home ownership rehabilitation and will be used for down payment assistance for moderate and low income citizens, moderate to low income citizens

And we're expecting around $80,000 to be allocated for that.

So three things about the way we're going to manage our conversation.

We will have one combined staff report for all three items.

We'll have one combined public hearing for all three items.

But we need to have two votes.

The first vote will be related to the block grant related to the virus.

The second vote will be related to the traditional block grant and the home funds as well.

So we'll vote on the home funds and the traditional block grant together.

And we will vote on the block grant related to the virus separately.

Everybody got that?

I see nods.

Okay, very good.

Thank you, Mr. Mitchell, you did a good job explaining that.

So I want to briefly give a background.

So as an entitlement community each year, the city of Charlottesville is awarded the CDBG and home grants through HUD.

All localities are required to complete an action plan for the grants that detail the goals and objectives to be carried out on for the upcoming fiscal year.

This year, due to the global health pandemic, the city was issued a special allocation of CDBG known as the CDBG CV3.

And moving forward, I'm just going to call that CV3 so that there's less confusion.

This was made available through the CARES Act.

And according to HUD priorities, CV3 dollars are meant to fund activities that will prevent, prepare for, and respond to the coronavirus.

So again, tonight we'll be talking about three separate grants.

First is the CV3 totaling $335,024.

Second is the CDBG totaling approximately $419,367.

And the third is the HOME Fund totaling $80,594 approximately.

So the city placed a request for proposal on September 30th and began accepting applications between October 1st and October 16, 2020.

All project proposals were told to support a viable urban community through the provision of decent housing, provide suitable living environments and provide an economic opportunity for low and moderate income citizens and also prevent, prepare for and respond to the coronavirus.

So we got that CV3 aspect in there.

Applicants also had to undergo a 30 to 45 minute mandatory technical assistance meeting with me prior to submitting an application.

So during that session, we went over the grant requirements that were expected and mandatory for all sub-recipients that if they undertook the grant, this is what was expected of them.

So during that session, we covered what could be bought with federal dollars,

federal paperwork requirements, filing requirements, so how long do you have to keep paperwork stored on site, contract requirements, so submitting an audit, scope of work budget requirements.

We went over an application workshop, so how do you fill out an application for the CDBG and HOME grant, environmental review requirements, scoring rubrics, and the grant guidelines.

I met with a total of 12 applicants, and we received a total of eight applications

During this process, some applicants, as I was meeting with them, decided that they wanted to use this time to learn more about the grant process and revisit applying next year in a different grant cycle.

And others learned that, oh, maybe this activity doesn't actually, you know, fit the criteria and they're going to revisit and apply in a different fiscal year.

The CDBG task force was provided with an evaluation criteria.

So a rubric, grant guidelines and application and staff notes from myself.

And they made the review and gave me their scores on each application.

The rubric was used and created several years ago with input from a previous task force from a previous CDBG and home task force.

And it was also created by with

help from the HUD subrecipient training manual.

So both input created the CDBG rubric.

One change that was made to the scoring manual this year to address HUD's 24 CFR 57902A, which is a HUD timeliness entitlement regulation.

All entitlement localities must follow when undertaking a CDBG and HOME grants.

Essentially, a certain dollar amount must be spent by the end of the program year.

As a compliance change to the rubric, any applicant with outstanding funds from a prior fiscal year would not be receiving as strong of a consideration during the review process.

That didn't mean that they couldn't apply.

They could still apply.

They just wouldn't be receiving the full score.

The main purpose, again, was to encourage applicants to increase their spending rate during the grant program year.

to help the city stay in compliance with the HUD spending timeliness and recruit new applicants into the CDBG and HOME program.

So today, following the public hearing, staff is going to be asking planning commissioners to make a funding recommendation to take forward to city council concerning the following two budgets.

The CD3 budget allocation for fiscal year 2021

and then the CDBG and home budget allocation for 21-22.

Under CV3 project recommendations, the task force made the following recommendations for economic development and public service activities.

Under economic development, the task force made the funding recommendation for community investment collaborative for $130,970 for the micro enterprise COVID response program

This is aimed to help support 24 micro enterprises with grants of up to $4,000.

Under public services, the task force recommended to fund Charlottesville Redevelopment Housing Authority, also known as CRHA, up to $91,485.94 for the eviction diversion program.

This program is two-fold.

So the first is to hire a housing stabilization coordinator.

And the second portion of the activity is to fund 100 COVID-related emergency rents for CRHA residents.

The second CV3 public service activity that was put forth as a funding recommendation is the Habitat for Humanity COVID-19 Response Program.

So this is a mortgage rental relief program for 75 to 100 city residents.

And then the fourth item budgeted for the CV3 program is the administrative and planning portion of the grants set at $67,004.80.

This is used to pay staffing, citizen participation, Davis-Bacon environmental reviews, section three for the next six years of the CV3 grant.

I did say six years, it's a six year grant for CV3.

For the regular CDBG, so different grants, no more CV3.

The task force made the following recommendations for economic development.

So we have two applicants for economic development.

The first is Community Investment Collaborative for the financial management program.

This application will be assisting 15 to 20 entrepreneurs, and the funding recommendation was set at $32,056.28.

The second economic development application for CDBG is set at $29,238 for the Local Energy Alliance Program for the Assisted Home Performance Workforce Development Program.

This activity will be hiring two staff members for the Assisted Home Performance Program.

The two staff members will be paid at initially $15 an hour minimum and will be taking weatherization training courses to receive a class certificate.

So the two staff members will later be receiving a pay increase later on at the end of the receipt of their certificate.

Under CDBG Public Services,

The task force recommended Public Housing Association of Residents to receive $34,000 for the resident-involved redevelopment to help prevent homelessness among residents of public housing.

And the task force also recommended the Literacy Volunteers of Charlottesville and Albemarle for a funding proposal of $25,000 or funding recommendation of $25,000.

The Literacy Volunteers of Charlottesville and Albemarle is proposing to help

to develop or provide beginner-level workforce development tutoring program for 30 illiterate city residents.

Under the CDBG housing section of the grant, the task force made a funding recommendation to fund the LEAP program again for the assisted home performance program at $65,199.32

So this portion LEAP will be providing 20 low income households with energy efficient upgrades for the assisted home performance program.

The CDBG dollars will be used in tandem with the home dollars and I'll get to that in a second.

Once again, the task or the CDBG admin and planning portion of the grant is budgeted at $80,000

$873.40.

This is 20% of the entitlement, which is a HUD standard.

This is used to pay for staffing costs, citizen participation, equipment costs, Davis-Bacon Section 3, and all the citizen participation requirements for all the activities as well.

For the Ridge Street Priority Neighborhood, as Ms.

Dowell mentioned, the Ridge Street Task Force has been holding monthly meetings since starting back in December.

Once the task force comes up with an activity, we will come back to the Planning Commission for public feedback and input, which will then be later presented to city council and adopted as part of the larger budget.

For home, so we have three activities that were put forth for recommendation.

The first is the Albemarle Housing Improvement Program, AHIP.

The task force recommended a funding

The task force recommended funding AHIP at $37,352.

This is an activity that will be funding one homeowner rehab within the Ridge Street priority neighborhood.

This is for one of the historic Tonsler homes.

The second activity is set to fund Habitat for Humanity at $24,000.

This is to provide for down payment assistance activities at $6,000 each.

And then the third activity again is the assisted home performance program with LEAP.

This is to be paired with the CDBG dollars to provide 20 energy efficient upgrades for the assisted home performance program.

Yep.

So again, there are two motions today.

The urgent one is the CV3 because of the coronavirus.

And then the second one is the CDBG and home

for fiscal year 21 and 22.

I am available for any questions you may have.

I can go into some of the programs in a little bit more in depth.

I did wanna let Ms.

Ms.

I don't have any questions.

Thanks.

Ms.

I don't have any questions.

Is now a good time for me to make my statement?

That would be good.

So I am able to participate in the discussion around the

CDBG-CV3 funding.

However, regarding the CDBG and home funding,

I have a statement that I would like to ask Ms.

Tracy reflect in the minutes of tonight's meeting.

I am a member of the governing board of AHIP, which will stand to receive funding under these budget allocations.

Because of this, I may have a personal interest in the transaction that is before the commission tonight for action, and I'm disqualifying myself from participating in that transaction.

Thank you.

Yeah, and I think Aaron did a great job of answering the questions that I did have, but then raised another one at the end.

So you said the AHIP funding is for the Tonsler home?

So I don't have the exact address on hand just for privacy reasons.

We weren't given the address up front during the task force discussion.

I can, if the task force does move forward with the funding and is approved later on, I can send you that address as we're coming, working through the environmental review.

Okay.

Yeah, I think I had seen somewhere in the minutes that someone asked if it was, you know, going to be a rental home with a wealthy landlord versus a low-income homeowner.

And someone did say it was going to be a homeowner.

So is that right?

Okay, so it's probably not the one I'm thinking of then.

I sent that one to the chat just now, but that's all good then.

Erin and Roy, sorry to interrupt.

Yeah, gotcha.

Okay.

Yeah, the one I was thinking of, I want to say it's still vacant and was like getting run down.

There was a story about it a couple years ago.

But it sounds like it's not that one.

Hey, Ms.

Dow, you got the floor.

Do you have anything else?

I would like to add that we did, I think Erin admitted one small big portion of our application process this year is that we did update the scoring rubric a little bit.

And it also made it much more easier as someone on the task force.

to be able to flow through the application and the scoring rubric actually matched up this time.

And not saying that before, it wasn't perfect, but it was very easy to be able to have all of the information for that particular portion of the scoring rubric in order.

So I would like to give her those kudos that she forgot to give to herself.

I do think we had good discussion.

It is always hard when it comes to allocating funds when people, every project is good for the most part, and it's just about how great you can make it look on paper.

Thank you for answering my many questions on this topic.

So they didn't actually change.

They were just added into the rubric so as to stress the importance of timeliness.

Let me pull up the citation here.

The 24-570-902, each year when we're given a grant entitlement, we're supposed to spend down

a rate of 1.5 by the end of the year.

If we don't match or if we don't meet that rate, one consequence that the city does face is a possible decrease in next year's funds.

So as one change, one change that was made into the rubric this year is adding a outstanding funds portion, like section to the rubric.

So any applicants

who wanted to apply this year with any unspent CDBG and home dollars.

They were welcome to apply, but if they had $5,000 left unspent from a prior year, that would negatively impact them.

The whole point of adding that in there was to encourage applicants to close that account so that the city could maintain timeliness with HUD.

and so that we could boost up our grant allocation for upcoming years.

Now, also one of the other things that it's part of the application is the applicants have to submit a timeline of how they plan to spend the budget.

Correct.

Anything else?

No, thank you.

No questions.

Just wanted to say, though, that I in reading the materials for the meeting tonight and listening to the presentation, I'm just very satisfied and impressed with the objectivity and the thoroughness of the process of the evaluation process that the city has gone through.

and the program has gone through.

Any questions from council?

I have no questions.

I have none either.

Right.

Mr. Rice, I think we are now ready to open it up for public hearing.

If anybody in attendance would like to speak to this public hearing, please raise your hand.

Click the raise hand icon or press star nine if you're joining us by phone.

And we have one person or looks like a couple people with their hands raised.

First is Kimber and Haki.

And you are on with commission and you have three minutes.

Please unmute your mic.

Hi, how are you?

Yeah, actually, we're going to be talking about that next.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you.

But thank you.

And the good news, Jim, is the audio is working gay.

Don't know if I did much, but thank goodness.

OK, next, looks like we have local energy.

Yeah, this is Chris Meyer, sorry, from the Executive Director of the Local Energy Alliance Program, or LEAP, we're an applicant.

And Aaron, I think did a great job of summarizing our

Proposals.

We did, as I think you might have noticed, have multiple proposals to the different buckets of funding because we believe that multiple activities that we deliver to low-income residents in the city, again, fit the scopes of work that are funded by the different

projects.

I will mention, and again, I don't think it would be a natural proposal necessarily for the economic development portion of the grant, but we do anticipate growing, and this is I think a growth sector for the state generally, and wanting to hire more local

residents and specifically out of the Ridge Street neighborhood to then serve their neighbors in this community.

So when we talk about hiring those positions, those people would be the ones delivering the services that the city is talking about and the services being attic installation, replacing HVACs, doing analysis for reducing energy costs.

and other types of home improvements in that sense.

So now we'll just say, we traditionally have received funding and currently receive funding from the city to do this under the capital improvement budget, but that fiscal year allocation this year was not included.

So we are technically running out of funds to continue to do the energy efficiency work we do from the city funding.

Receiving funds under the CDBG would, of course, allow us to continue to do that.

And we applied because we don't know what is going to happen with the capital improvement budget going forward.

So being able to have security around receiving funds from these buckets, of course, will ensure, again, I don't have to worry about what's happening in the capital improvement budget.

Thank you very much.

Right.

With that, I will close the public hearing.

And before we continue the discussion, I've actually served on the Block Grant Task Force before a number of times, and I've seen a lot of these.

All many further discussion by the Commission.

Is there a motion for the CB3, which is the virus?

We have a motion.

Is there a second?

I thought there was a motion.

Yes, let's say that.

So, motion's made by Mr. Solliase.

I'd like to second.

I would like to say it, yes, thank you.

Any more discussion?

Ms.

Yes.

Ms.

Dow?

Aye.

Ms.

Hi.

Right.

You know, again, excellent piece of work.

Congratulations.

The next item is the traditional block grant and home fund.

Is there a motion?

Is there any discussion about that?

I have a motion.

Ms.

Solliate.

Second.

Any further discussion?

Ms.

Sure.

Ms.

Dow?

Aye.

Mr. Heaton?

Aye.

Mr. Stolensburg?

Aye.

Ms.

That's right.

Thank you.

Yes.

So we move to recommend as outlined by the task force.

And once again, this is great.

This is one of the better reports and better deliverables I've seen from this group.

So thank you guys.

Grateful.

The next item is a special use event.

The application number is SP20-00001.

The subject project of this application is located at 1000 Monticello Road.

This is the Belmont Heights buildings.

The area is currently zoned Neighborhood Commercial Corridor, NCC.

Multi-family dwelling buildings are allowed by right.

The density can be up to 21 units per acre.

And I think, and Brian will correct me if I'm wrong here, the by right height is 45 feet.

And you can correct me if I'm wrong on that later.

There are currently 23 units on the site.

The applicant would like to build an additional 11 units.

This would take the number of units to 34 units and bring the density to 42 units per acre.

That is 21 more units than allowed by Wright.

I think

that the height that they're asking for is only 41 feet.

So that falls within the current barite height.

The applicant has proposed, and we'll check more about this later, as a condition of approval that nine of the units, nine of the 11 units that they'd like to head be affordable units per HUD guidelines.

And again, we'll talk a little bit more about that later.

I am.

Thank you, commissioners and counselors.

So as Commissioner Mitchell stated, this is a special use permit for property at 1000 Monticello Road.

It is commonly known as the Belmont Heights Apartments.

The request is for additional density and that's the extent of the request.

The property is currently non-conforming as to the zoning.

It has above the by right density now.

It's been a long-standing development so the NCC zoning in 2003 probably made it non-conforming.

So it currently has above the by right density But they are asking for 11 additional units to the 23 that are already existing on site Which would take the total density to 42 dwelling units per acre which the NCC permits zoning permits up to 43 dwelling units per acre be a special use permit and

The standard of review is found in section 157 of the zoning ordinance.

We've gone through an analysis of that including the comprehensive plan.

There's a lot of comprehensive plan goals that this project does seem to support or seems to support the project.

A couple of the concerns that have been raised and I would just want to highlight

Primarily what we've seen is one that this is a taller building on this corridor.

As I stated in the staff report, it seems to be in line with the height of the adjacent industrial building, the Virginia Industries for the Blind building adjacent to it.

But it does have a visual impact on downtown Belmont.

It would kind of be at the end of the downtown Belmont corridor.

So it would kind of be, as you're looking down Monticello Road from that commercial district, you would see this building and it would be

Three stories on Monticello.

That is a correction that needs to be made on page 10.

I mentioned it being four stories and stepping down to three.

If you can look at the elevations, I got that backwards.

It's three stories on Monticello Road.

The site slopes away from Monticello Road, so it would pick up a fourth story as it moves into the site.

Adjacent property owners as well have mentioned traffic concern.

In looking at the analysis of the additional 11 units when it comes to traffic generation or trip relocation based on adding units to the site, you can see from the traffic generation numbers, it's a fairly small number of units in the peak hour, but there is some kind of growing concern along the entire

the entire corridor there, particularly the adjacent Monticello, there's been the Jimmy Detter property as it's known, or the Belmont Apartments property and the impact of that on that corridor along with this and kind of the cumulative effect of all of these things.

So we've mentioned that, you know, that's one of the things that traffic engineering will have to maintain, but the attributable increase to that traffic on the corridor from this project is fairly small.

There is a change to the access of the site.

Currently the site is accessed off of Monticello Road and Bainbridge.

As a part of this, the building site is that access from Monticello Road.

So right now they share access with an adjacent business.

So this isn't an entire driveway cut going away in the process, but it does get narrower as a part of the construction of this building and all traffic then accesses off of Bainbridge Street.

Parking, the applicant does propose to show all parking spaces on site.

The total, if they are to build 34 units, they would be required to do 35 parking spaces because one of the existing units on site is a three bedroom unit, which requires two spaces.

Everything else requires one.

And I think I will

I'll stop my analysis there rather than rehashing my entire staff report just to say that staff is recommending approval of this based on the comprehensive plan goals that it satisfies as well as the ability to mitigate the impacts along that corridor.

and I know we do want to touch a little bit on the proposal contained within the application regarding nine of the 11 units that are being constructed on the site proposed to meet the HUD definition of affordability initially.

There's language in the proposed condition that the applicant put forward capping the maximum amount of rent increases per year that is not in compliance with the city policy.

So staff elected to not put that condition into the staff report but rather use the language that was suggested by our attorneys that if that all affordable units both those that would comply with 3412 but also any above that would just comply with our policies so that we can adequately enforce that

And as a side note on that, in the course of writing the staff report and looking through our comprehensive planning goals and trying to ascertain

which goals were to be included in the staff report, there's a section in our comprehensive plan about supporting existing affordable units.

And so I did ask the owner if they had any supported units and they kind of replied that they did not have a formal program, but they do have subsidized units within the development informally.

And so that just kind of brought a thought that I'll kind of put as an aside, which is how we treat

private owners that are doing some sort of affordability or want to do some sort of affordability but don't want to work within the parameters of the existing programs we have but want to go above and beyond.

Something to keep in mind because it just kind of popped in my head so I want to make sure that it pops in your heads as well as we work on that type of stuff.

All right, why don't we do what we always do, start with the left and go to the right.

Mr. Palmer, any questions?

Can't find the mute button.

No, I don't have any questions.

Ms.

Rory clarified my question about dwelling unit density.

I was trying to just figure out the net change.

I can go ahead and handle that.

These were the original documents that were submitted to the city.

There have not been updates to that.

Okay, okay.

I, you know, I have some concerns about the changes to the, you know, one's experience in the historic downtown Belmont, because as you noted in your staff report, it will become a focal point, it will alter the skyline.

I was just looking on a street view and wondering if the trees that are

could be buffering views right now are part of that parcel.

I can't tell just by looking if they're proposing to remove a lot of trees that might be screening views right now, or if those trees are on the adjacent property.

And I'm sure you're aware then though of the, when this parcel was purchased in spring of 2019, there were 10 longtime residents of the buildings, 14 residents received notice of the end of their month to month lease.

They had to move, the apartments were renovated by the

current applicant, and we lost some units that were functioning as affordable housing.

So in the conversation around what are we asking, what provisions, what are developers doing to keep housing affordable and how should we view them?

I think it's important to understand the whole picture in the story of this site, which was that there was affordable housing

Yeah, I mean that that is the big question.

about this project to me.

It's 34-157A4C pretty clearly asks us to consider displacement of existing residents.

And I mean, I guess you could make an argument that, well, we kicked them all out like the week before filing the application, so it doesn't technically count.

But I don't think it makes sense to approach this in that way.

So I guess my question for you is if you could add any color to what you just said about like informally subsidized units within the existing project.

I can pull up the email.

Like I said, it was done in context with in terms of trying to ascertain if there was a goal in the Planning Commission

in the comprehensive plan that they met, which is the retention of and expansion of existing units.

The applicant did state the four of the long-term tenants are significantly subsidized.

at 600 per month rent abatement and one at 350.

So that's you know in talking with the applicant that they just came up in that sense so that's that's kind of the numbers they're talking they're they're doing.

I've had a couple emails back and forth and you know the applicant indicated that or the owner indicated that they aren't

particularly not huge fans of going through some of the public subsidy programs but and so that's kind of where my comment came up about you know if you had people who just want to do their own thing but you are proposing that in a special use permit how do we formalize that and that's been a long-term issue that we've had to deal with

of people who, you know, how do you separate the people who actually want to do it from the people who are just promising and then are going to pull it back once they get the opportunity because they don't have anything legally binding.

Okay, yeah, I mean, I hope the applicant plans on clarifying that because, yeah, I mean, if there are, if these residents were able to come back after these renovations, that would make a pretty big difference than if they got, you know, all kicked out.

And I guess the follow up question I'd ask in relation to that, you know, the question about how this will work administratively with what they offered

And I guess it doesn't matter for those units because they're not the ones being offered, but rather for the new ones.

So we've got this paragraph, this very vague paragraph that says ambiguous things.

We're going to apply a condition saying that it has to abide by the adopted standard operating procedures.

As the motion is drafted right now, or as the proposed is drafted, the language from the applicant is not carried forward.

So if it's not referenced in the resolution that city council approves, it was a note in the application, but it has no kind of standing.

But per Ms.

Robertson's comment in the pre-meeting, if it's going beyond our statutory authority, which is 34-12 and the formula in it, they're voluntarily offered by the applicant, but obviously we need some way of handling it administratively.

So what we are saying by adding this condition is that we welcome any additional affordable units above and beyond what's the minimum that's required by 3412 but the developer will need to use our definition of affordability and in terms of the administrative requirements of

our standard operating procedure, affordable units provided will be subject to those regulations.

So that includes if a unit's provided, they may have to enter into some sort of agreement, making an enforceable commitment to a period of affordability that's allowed by the regulations.

They need to use our definition of affordability and that sort of thing.

We're not requiring them to commit to any particular number of units by this and they really aren't offering a very specific number but they are saying that they are willing and offering to do some and this condition just says that when you get to the site plan and building plan approval stage and you're determining your final number of affordable units that you're going to offer

Okay, so let me rephrase that just to see if I, I guess I'm understanding right.

So they're gonna have to do maybe one or two units by 34-12 in the formula in it.

They've offered to do additional units up to a total of nine.

And the condition we're adding is saying that

If you offer those units, then you must go through the same administrative procedures and terms as the required ones.

and as a practical matter, that's the same result as if you didn't have this condition because they're really not committing to anything and we don't really know, we wouldn't have enforceable provisions.

So when they put that paragraph into their application,

Like, it doesn't actually mean anything.

It's not a promise.

Let's ask Justin when he gets up.

Yeah, yeah, right.

I've got a little heartbreak about this now as well.

So let's wait till we get the applicant.

You can quiz him when he gets up.

Where was I?

Who was Jody?

Yeah, where were we?

I don't have any questions for Mr. Haluska.

Yes, you did.

With special exception, is there a traffic study that is involved in this change, especially if you're raising the density?

And then Rory didn't bring up anything about parking.

So I just had a question about that.

The guidance that we have in the city is we do not require traffic studies for, I think it's for developments that do not generate more than 500 trips a day.

So they would not.

No, no, no, not even close.

And an 11 additional certainly doesn't because you have an existing traffic pattern with the current 34.

So 11 apartments.

The last time I looked at the IT manual, which was several years ago, it's seven trips per day per apartment.

And public feedback, I've seen concerns about setbacks, I've seen concerns about height.

And as I understand, the applicant is not requesting for changes to setback or height.

That is correct.

The building that they show is by right under the NCC district regulations.

There's no required setbacks adjacent to zoning that is not low density residential, which they are not adjacent to any low density residential zoning.

And they are allowed to build right up to the property line on the front.

In fact, I think there's a requirement that they do for a portion of the building anyway.

Okay, I think I've gone through everybody.

I'll be presenting tonight, Chair Mitchell.

Can you all hear me okay?

Yes.

Okay, perfect.

Okay, perfect.

All right, so I am just going to, my name is, I guess we'll start off, my name is Kelsey Schlein.

I'm a planner with Shimp Engineering.

Justin Shimp, the engineer on the project is also joining me tonight.

We're assisting the owner Piedmont Realty Holdings with this special use permit application.

So we have a few slides prepared just to go through the project a bit.

But I'd like to just start off by responding to just a few questions and concerns that were raised by the commission.

So I think in regards to affordable housing, the condition that's proposed in the narrative to have 80% of the units constructed, which

is proposed to be nine units designated as affordable to those making up to 80% AMI.

We put that in the narrative as a proposed condition with the full intent of constructing nine affordable units to that definition.

And so

However, we can move forward with a condition that has some teeth to it so that we actually construct that we're willing to do.

But I just wanted to provide assurance and clarity that that was put in the narrative and the project narrative as a proposed condition for a reason and because it was a commitment that this owner wanted to bring forward.

And then another thing that I just wanted to hit on before just going through a few slides is the history on this property.

And although it's my opinion that it personally does not affect the evaluation of impacts from this proposed special use permit, I think it has been

It does deserve just some talking points and it clearly is important to the commission to discuss this.

So when Piedmont Realty Holdings acquired the property in February of 2019, it had been acquired from Core Real Estate and 12 of the units when they were acquired by Piedmont Realty Holdings

had already, the rents had been buried to go to market rate.

So when the property was acquired, 11 of the units were renting at less than market rate, but 12 were renting at market rate.

All residents who had an interest and who had a history

paying relatively timely rent were offered the opportunity to move back in.

And I think it is important, we did receive,

A few just quotes that I feel like are important to bring up from residents who lived there before and then who moved back in.

And so one tenant says, I never dreamed of living in an apartment that is this nice.

The owners not only allowed me to move into one of the renovated apartments, but they kept my rent the same and they paid for my move.

That's from a tenant who's lived there since 2009.

Another tenant who lived there since 2012 said, the owner helped me move into a renovated unit with a new deck and this has been a great place for me and my two sons to live.

I like the neighborhood and there's a lot of care put into making all of us more comfortable.

So we can discuss that certainly more in depth if the commission feels it is necessary, but I did feel it was important to just touch on that since it was discussed.

So now going into our slides and the proposal for the 11 units that's before you tonight.

Can we go to the next slide, please?

Thank you.

So the existing conditions, the views looking south and north on Monticello Avenue, this is just showing a general footprint location of the building, how the building is sited on an existing entrance, an existing parking area.

And so we're really just maximizing on existing impervious surface.

taking advantage of a housing opportunity in this currently underutilized portion of the site.

Next slide.

So this is just showing the proposed building footprint in relation to the rest of the site.

The existing entrance, as Brian previously stated, is proposed to be removed with this.

And so kind of establishing a more continued street frontage there along

Monticello and lessening the breakup and the potential pedestrian conflict points with multiple entrance points to the site.

Next slide.

So this is the preliminary site plan that was submitted with a special use permit application showing how the parking will remain interior to the site.

The proposed building will be taking advantage of that existing parking area as its future building site and will be adding a parking space to comply with the city's parking regulations.

That was certainly a concern that was brought up at the community meeting.

Everyone wants to ensure that they have a convenient parking space and access to their residence, so we are not requesting any waivers to the or any shared parking agreement that's not being pursued at this time, just complying with the ordinance as set forth in the city regulations.

Next slide.

And it's just more clearly called out some site elements, the just existing sidewalk network on the property and the building site.

Next slide, please.

So as far as a building footprint comparison, the scale of this building

is pretty reserved.

It's an approximately 1700 square foot building footprint and we just pulled some building footprints from nearby residences on Belmont Avenue from GIS to just show a to scale comparison of the proposed building footprint with some existing footprints in the neighborhood.

Next slide.

So this is the rendering of the proposed multi-family building.

The team at Design Develop, I think, did an excellent job at working with a scale that is certainly respectful along Monticello Avenue with just three stories proposed there, a little over 30 feet.

with a very generous step back towards the rear of the site increasing to the proposed maximum height of just over 41 feet which as Brian said is within the by right regulations of the neighborhood of the NCC district.

Next slide.

And just a few more elevations and renderings here so you can see how the building would function internal to the site as well.

Next slide.

So just a recap of the project proposal, 23 existing units on the property with 11 additional units proposed, 34 units total for a density of 42 dwelling units per acre.

It is our full intent for nine out of the 11 additional units to be designated as affordable to households making up to 80% AMI.

And so,

Again, sorry that our proposed condition in the project narrative perhaps didn't capture that commitment to affordability.

Next slide, please.

And so that's all that I have for you.

And we're available, Justin and I are available for questions.

All right, why don't we just do the left to right thing.

So we'll begin with the university.

No, I'm good.

Thanks for the presentation.

Russell.

Well, I appreciate the building footprint comparison.

I don't think anyone is concerned about the scale of the footprint.

People in the neighborhood are concerned about the height, the incompatibility with adjacent buildings.

I understand that it jumps from two stories abruptly and then goes back down and that is giving me a little bit of, I'm having some reservation about that.

Maybe I missed this in the staff report or just forgive me for my ignorance.

I'm wondering how will affordability be offered

to residents.

I mean, what typically a developer offers affordability because they're taking advantage of a subsidy and that's, you know, helping to finance.

Typically we're kind of using the precedent that we often work with in other localities and the owner keeps records of the rent and then upon request of the city, the housing coordinator, those records must be provided to the city to ensure

that affordability as committed to in the special use permit condition are being adhered to.

That's not my question.

Sorry.

My question is more so from a financial structuring standpoint, what is the incentive here in this developer's

You know, how is he affording this construction if it is not being subsidized through some sort of affordable component?

Sure, I understand.

This is Aya.

ideal a lot and trying to build these small buildings and I think you know part of it here is the certainly a difference in we're using a pretty small you know underutilized but not necessarily expensive portion of land just pretty unusual around here right normally a huge barrier to any kind of affordability is you can't afford the property even barely for market rate units, but in this particular instance

The developer has the opportunity, essentially, to add onto this parcel without a lot of additional land basis.

And I think that's what makes it, that's why it feels comfortable offering this level of affordability.

That may be, I'm sure that folks to come forward with housing vouchers and things, that's sort of a form of subsidy in a way, giving it even deeper affordability.

But I think in this sort of instance, you can build this project without additional subsidy for fairly unique reasons.

But that's what we think is happening.

Thanks.

I always wonder if Commissioner Russell has any idea what Chair Mitchell's talking about when he says left to right, since she's never got to sit up there in a row next to us yet.

All right, so let's start with the existing units, because I think what I just heard was promising and helped delay some of my concerns.

And I'll say, up until that conversation, I was leaning pretty heavily towards no.

So 11 of the units had not been reset to market rate at the time the current owner purchased the property.

Micheline said that of those, the ones that had a history of timely rent payments were offered the opportunity to return.

So first question is, how many was that?

And then the second question is going to be, how many actually returned?

So I think I just I

provided the tidbit about the tenants who had a standing history of timely rent payment because there's three tenants who were not offered the opportunity to move back in.

And so I just wanted that to be clear.

There was a reason for that.

There are currently

Okay, at the same rent they have for?

So there are four, and this kind of goes back to what Brian said, four of the long-term residents are significantly subsidized, three at $600 per month rent abatement and one at $350.

So I do know that the one veteran's rent for $1050, I'm not certain what the one

kind of additional long-term resident currently pays.

I would also, again, just bring up that I think before these units were renovated, a lot of the tenants were paying $300, several hundred dollars a month in utilities to pay for heating in the wintertime.

So although the base rent

The net rent may be more than it was before that they were renovated.

The gross rent accounting for utilities, and especially given the fact that the owner does provide internet with the current rent, it isn't significantly more expensive than the gross rent, including utilities that were paid before.

Yeah, that was really helpful.

So rapid fire now, when you say $600, $350 rent abatement, is that a reduction on the rent, which is $10.50 for a one bedroom?

That is a good clarifying question.

And that is the language that I have.

And so unfortunately, I can't provide you

It typically means a reduction though.

So if the rent is like 10, 50 or 1100, 600 off would be about, you know, five, 600, or if it actually is happens to be 600, it's about the same.

But I believe it typically is used to mean that reduction in, but in this case, the math might work out pretty close to the same either way.

It's my understanding because of personal relationships that he developed with them throughout the renovation process.

He knows these people.

He knows how long they've lived there and knows their financial constraints.

And that's my understanding as to why it's being offered currently.

It's a personal subsidy.

There's no other subsidy.

Okay, and what are the lease terms?

Are they on a lease now?

Okay, thanks.

All right, so last sort of expensive question.

You mentioned that utilities are much lower, which is a good segue into the point that I was going to make, which is that when you talk about rent,

When HUD makes those definitions of 30% of your income, utilities are, or at least core utilities are included in that amount.

I believe so.

I'm just looking at our definition.

Okay.

Okay, yeah, I mean, certainly, if we do come up with some way to make you abide by the standard operating procedures, that is going to be part of that.

And so what I'm showing here is just the VHDA income amounts divided by 12 and multiplied by 30%.

And on the right, we have the same chart, except the actual numbers end up differently.

This is from the Affordable Housing Plan, so you don't think I'm totally making this up.

I don't know why the numbers are different.

We'll have to talk about that later with them.

But I mean, to answer Commissioner Russell's question, it seems to me that 80% of

AMI convert into rent, you know, assuming that you're, or depending on how you convert that into a unit size by household size, isn't significantly below market.

And so it does seem reasonable-ish that it would be financially supportable.

So then I guess my second question or however many questions it's been for you is,

How are those apportioned in terms of units to households?

If you've got a three-person household, does that mean you get a two-bedroom for $1,700 a month?

Or sorry, for $1,500 a month?

Or is that a three-bedroom?

I'm getting a little confused here.

Sorry.

Yeah.

So is it, you know, one bedroom reduction?

Or is it, is it even by household size, like it would be if we were in the SOP?

Or are you just saying, let's take, you know, 80% AMI ignoring household size, and, and going from there?

Lyle's counting.

That was the seventh question, apparently.

I think, oh, well, so again, just drawing on past, you know, this, you all recall, I've been a part of a few of these projects.

We've tried to go in with some affordable housing properties or conditions, and it's sometimes complicated for the reasons we're discussing now, I think.

That's why standardizing this would, you know, as far as

you know requirements in the 3412 section to pick up all these things would honestly be a lot cleaner than having to have these discussions all the time but as it is you know we don't trigger the 3412 requirement so with this building so therefore we're trying to get to affordability a different way and I think it's our understanding that you know it's per bedroom we propose one bedroom units so we would expect that to be the

household cap size.

I see your point, right?

I could, if I could fit three people into a one bedroom unit, I could up the rent based on that household size.

And I don't, that's not our intent to try to play some game like that.

I also think it's just from a record keeping standpoint, you're keeping track of, oh, well, did

You know, did the boyfriend move in last month?

Did that change the allowable rent in the reporting facility?

It would be a lot cleaner to say it's a one bedroom.

We go by the one unit.

Here's the number.

Okay, so I mean, I agree that this would all be a lot simpler if we just had one policy in stock to it.

I have a

on a screen.

I'm not showing you guys a tweet.

It's from December 2018, where I say it's unclear whether the SOP will apply.

But the SOP is also quite clear that the lesser of the high home rent limits, fair market rent, which is the 45th percentile of recent Ubers, or 30% of the imputed household income for 80% will apply.

So when you say that you want to subject yourself to 34-12, does it mean that you want to subject yourself to the rest of 34-12 and not that paragraph?

I think how we phrased it is that we would go by what we have put into the application narrative.

which is the calculation we provide, which is the 80% AMI on the area, which may be different than the other.

If the commission decided they wanted to condition it differently, really it's up to planning commission, city council can impose conditions as seeing fit.

We put it out there where we think this makes sense for us.

It is a different number, I think.

Yeah, so that's the problem, I guess.

Because it sounds like counsel is telling us that we can impose a condition, but it doesn't actually mean anything because we're going beyond our legal authority in 34-12 in that formula to apply it.

So it really does matter kind of what you're saying.

And what you wrote in the paragraph in your application is that the very first year, it will be affordable at 80% AMI.

And after that, it's going to increase faster than inflation and most likely not be affordable starting in year two.

Because of the 3% increase.

3% increase.

Right, I see.

Yeah.

We're going to have to give some other guys a chance to get in the game.

I'll let God anyway.

OK, good.

The only question I had was about the neighborhood input when you were

when you surveyed or polled and what the conversations were about the height and the viewscape in the neighborhood and is the new construction within the setback for as high as it is?

Was there any kind of understanding of how, because it's out closer to the road, it would really narrow

the viewscape of the road.

That's, yeah.

I don't recall in the neighborhood meeting, and Justin and Brian were on it as well, specific VISTA comments.

There was just a comment about when

operating motor vehicle on the road, would the proposed building height conflict with site distance in some manner?

And so I think that's the only comment that we've been made aware of as far as... Not necessarily neighborhood aesthetic.

Well,

Yes, I guess neighborhood is, I'm sorry, I think I was just focusing exclusively on on view sheds.

But, I mean, there, there were comments about

Scale of building the setbacks, that as well.

Justin, did you make any alterations in design because of those concerns or comments or did you see them as well?

So, you know, one, just keep in mind the building's only something like 20 feet wide at the street front.

This is a little bit unusual in that height.

I think we'll be kind of not noticed a whole lot because of that.

But then the comments about, there were several comments on the street.

There is kind of, like I said, a somewhat limited visibility corner coming around there, but it's because of the grade on the other side of the road.

So you come around that corner, there is sort of a limited visibility, but our building will have no impact on that.

We're on the outside of the curve, so it won't impact pedestrians and things.

It was commented by one of the neighbors that when people park along that side of the road in front of this property, people slow down driving past it, which is a positive.

So I think that's one of the things that we did here.

but increased sort of street parking in that location will actually help with concerns about people going too fast in that section.

I don't know how much of an issue that is, but it was brought up and it was discussed related to the on-street parking being a mitigating factor for that.

Mr.

No questions for Mr. Shimp or his assistant, no.

Thank you.

The only comment I'll make, it's not a question, but just something to get my colleagues thinking about and maybe Ms.

Robertson thinking about.

The applicant has suggested that

They would be willing to accept some verbiage that allowed us to lend more teeth to the ability to have nine affordable units to this.

So I can get behind this if, in fact, I get some sort of guarantee if that's legal, if it's not, Ms.

Robertson could stop me.

I can get behind this if, in fact, we can do, you know, 34-12 and then in parentheses somehow under that guarantee the nine affordable units.

So just something to think about as we get to that part of the meeting.

I have no further questions at this time.

So I have a couple.

There's 23 existing units, correct?

I'm just pulling up

One three bedroom.

And there are, there's, yeah, so it's a mixture of, I don't have the exact breakdown of one and two bedroom units.

Correct.

Who?

I don't know how many people are in each household that were came and left.

I don't know that.

I would say five.

Okay, so then the most conservative estimate, one person per unit, about 80% of people who live there no longer do.

Not to my knowledge, it was the owner isn't accepting the vouchers.

Okay.

This may be a question you're not able to answer either, but it was stated earlier that the applicant is not interested in making use of existing subsidy programs or partnerships with nonprofits in order to provide affordable units.

I believe so.

I'm uncertain to that as well.

I mean, I would just imagine it's an experience or a lack of perhaps an introduction to those organizations.

OK.

Because I just know in our experience, I think it's pretty clear that it's not possible to construct affordable units at lower AMI levels for a long period of time without making use of either those nonprofit partnerships or making use of subsidy programs.

Those are all the questions I had.

I guess the final comment I would just make relates to the architecture of the building.

I do think the design is dramatically out of place, not just in scale, but in terms of its basic architecture with the units there.

Thank you, Mr. Rice.

If anybody would like to speak for this public hearing, please raise your hand.

And we do have a few hands raised.

First is Mr. James Rucker.

Welcome.

You got three minutes.

And it was Mr. Roettger and Mr. Cabot that were having difficulty getting on before.

It appears so.

Mr. Roettger, I don't know if you've referenced the phone number that was there earlier.

I can send that out again.

Thank you.

Some of the issues I was concerned with have been addressed.

I'm just going to go down my list of items.

First, I wanted to say the SUP does not need to be automatically granted.

It's not like getting a driver's license is a privilege, not a right.

Architecturally,

should fit into the neighborhood, not stick out like a sore thumb.

Concerned with height and does building fit into the traditional neighborhood style?

I'd be a little less concerned about it if it was more of a traditional style building than what's being proposed.

Parking, I believe, is going to be a concern.

I don't believe there will be sufficient parking and parking on the street can be very difficult in that area.

difficulty for larger vehicles in the parking area.

If someone needs to drive a large vehicle, I wouldn't want to get caught back in there.

And on my street, we've had numerous times, because it's a dead-end street, we've had numerous times where people have had their cars hit.

And most of the times they don't know who it is that did it.

It's a vehicle, a large vehicle that comes down the street, that gets caught in the street and doesn't know that it's a dead-end street, basically.

How long will affordable housing last?

Is this really a carrot to get to SUP?

Since the complex is already coming in, making the life affordable, is the project being used to offset a development elsewhere?

What are the numbers?

What will the posed square footage of the units be?

That's all I have.

Okay, up next, we will take Kimber and Haki.

You are now on with commission, three minutes.

No, we got you.

Can I just ask before before I start talking, I'd like to know how many people have actually been to that site?

Everybody.

Okay.

Um, well,

I first want to also address the history of the new owner of the Belmont Heights.

They actually did evict the previous tenants.

I think Michael, you were in the protest march about that.

They were elderly and handicapped that were evicted.

They didn't leave voluntarily.

They were evicted from that site.

There was one elderly lady who was blind who complained greatly about being evicted and the stress about having to leave.

She was not allowed to move back in and she actually passed away shortly thereafter.

So that's the other side of the coin.

First of all, this is a historic area on the National Register of Historic Places.

It's got historic buildings and residential character.

The NCC that exists there does, but the true intent of that code was to allow for small-scale mom-and-pop businesses and not for this type of building.

It's obvious as well that the project is inappropriate because they're offering so many affordable units.

In the past, it was always, oh, we can only do one or two.

That's all that's financially feasible.

But all of a sudden, 9 out of 11 may be, because now it sounds from the discussion that who knows how many units will be affordable in the end.

There doesn't seem to be a real guarantee or commitment to, or an enforceable commitment to those units.

We all know what intent means, i.e.

you can't enforce it.

This 9 out of 11 unit, it's a bait for the Planning Commissioner and Council to accept an inappropriate development.

In the end, we might end up with a bunch of shushu shushi apartments in the heart of Belmont.

So there's no accountability, no guarantees.

And so how can you pass such an inappropriate building?

In the past in this area, there have been promises regarding buffers, setback, parking.

These all have been violated in our area, as if you know your history, you will know what I'm talking about.

How do you intend to enforce promises this time?

The other big question is about affordability.

80% of AMI in Charlottesville is well over $1,000 a month.

So I personally don't find that affordable.

In addition to that, how long will they be affordable?

In my opinion, they should be affordable in perpetuity.

But again, that's a big question.

History has shown us that the intent is not enforced.

It was stated in the discussion that the development is currently in violation of its biorite density.

So my big question is, why are they not being penalized for that rather than allowing them an SUP to go even further down that road?

That seems strange.

Lack of accountability again.

So basically, the new owner and developers, they're looking to cram a three to four story building on a hill, the architecture and height

is radically different from the surrounding buildings.

And they're cramming it into a driveway area and part of a small parking lot.

The building will block off an ingress and egress.

And this was precisely the topic of multiple resident comments last year, I believe it was, against doing that.

And at the time, the city assured us that, oh, there would be no closing off of ingress, egress when there were safety issues involved.

This is a safety issue.

Safety visit vehicles are big

Big vehicles cannot, like a fire truck, couldn't get in and out of there.

So there's the problems of traffic flow, lack of setback, lack of parking, loss of parking in the current parking lot, and little on-street parking possibilities.

Impact on the resident experience and issue of safety is all of concern here.

I'm surprised that no traffic study is done.

It's very important for everyone to remember that we're looking at cap shop

supposedly doing another huge development right there, right next door.

And I believe it was over 900 car trips a day for that development.

So this is just the first of a domino effect in that area.

I would just ask that the Planning Commission consider all of these very real realities for residents here in this neighborhood and show some concern for our safety

and Quality of Life.

Thank you very much.

Okay, it looks like we still have Mr. Rucker that is going to attempt to join us one more time.

And Mr. Rucker, you're on with commission.

Mr. Rucker, if you can hear us, just please unmute.

While we wait, I was hoping we could just review the street view that's being discussed.

Can you see my screen?

This is looking from, you know,

kind of the commercial corridor of Belmont.

There is the existing building.

And so when I just, you know, I think it's important to understand that when, yes, this is a narrow building, but we'll be looking at it, one in Belmont, we'll be looking at it from an angle and therefore seeing more of its height and facade than actually went right up close to it.

And I,

You know, I think residents are right when they are stating their concern about the views from the views of scale.

Okay, two points, both a matter of protocol.

Thank you.

I think that was very, that's very helpful to look at.

Usually during public hearings, we just kind of let the public talk and we don't interrupt them and engage.

I do appreciate that you were, and I am grateful that you were filling time while we try to figure out, just so you know, in the future, we just kind of let the public go in a wonderful opportunity to do what you just did.

And again, it was very helpful would be after the public is finished.

Looks like we have Ms.

Williams that is here with us.

And Ms.

Can you hear us?

I can hear you.

We can.

You've got three minutes, Julia.

Hi.

Thank you.

Thank you, commissioners and planning commission.

I would like to echo some of the previous comments.

The architecture is a significant one, certainly for me.

I'm sorry, I'm just reading it today for the first time, but it doesn't sound like there's much that's enforceable about the affordable housing in the existing units.

So that really can't be weighed as a compelling reason to offer the SUP, it seems.

It's only what they're offering with the new development.

It's a shame that we can't offer 80% of the total complex, but I understand it's 80% of the additional units.

But anyway, I find that a little bit

Heartbreaking in that we, in 2019, just recently lost so much affordable housing.

I wish this could be more of a leverage point and not using a voucher program or something that maybe can be extended for multiple, you know, really guaranteed is this is a long-term affordable housing.

I'm not quite sure what the solution there is, but it does seem like that's a really major concern.

The other thing is that if there's any way to include in this accessible housing, I think we have a deficit of that as well.

So I don't know if first floor units are considered as accessible, but we're certainly not seeing in the parking layout an indication of accessibility.

So that would be another concern.

And then just a quick question.

I attend the neighborhood association meetings and I know this did not come to the neighborhood association.

So was the neighborhood input you got from a formal meeting that went to the whole neighborhood or just to the residents within 500 feet?

How was this brought to the neighborhood?

We're not going to get into a back and forth.

We may address that after the public hearing is over.

That's all I have.

Thank you so much.

Okay.

I believe we do have Mr. James Rucker on the phone with us, so we will attempt to patch him in.

Mr. Rucker, are you with us?

Please unmute by pressing star six.

Mr. Rucker, if you can hear us, please press star six to unmute.

In the meantime, is there anyone else in the lobby that would like to speak?

And if you answer me, you are muted, sir.

And it looks like we do have two Jackson with us and you are on with commission.

You have three minutes.

I wanted to echo my, uh, concerns that have been expressed by Mark Cavett and Kimber and Julia.

relative to all of these aspects, the affordable housing, the architecture, the height, the egress, the safety issues, which I guess is the egress, the parking.

It just doesn't seem to me that those issues have been addressed in a way that is appropriate for potential residents and for the existing neighborhood.

Mr. Rice?

Yes, that's great to hear.

Fantastic.

Thank you, Missy.

All right, thanks a whole lot.

I appreciate it.

I guess this is addressed to Mr. Shemp and Ms.

Schlein.

My wife and I own 1022 Carlton Avenue.

It's across from Peacock Garage, and we bought it in 2006, and we renovated it.

and I've always kind of had a water problem there.

It's not terrible, but when it rains really hard, we get water in the basement.

And about five to 10 years ago, I was getting a lot of water in the basement, more than I'm getting now, but I'm still getting it.

And I put some dye in the stormwater drain for the parking lot of Belmont Apartments and the dye came through in my apartment.

And so I know that I get water from

from the Belmont Apartments property.

And I'm still getting it.

And I just wondered if you guys could possibly, as part of the SUP, agree to work on the stormwater, all the stormwater that comes off your property, not just from the parking lot, because the smaller of the two buildings, the closest one to me, that water from the roof on both sides actually goes into the,

into the lawn just up the hill from me.

And I'm sure that that's part of my water problem.

And I know I'm taking the focus away from affordable housing, which I think is important also.

But I think I really wanted to see if you guys could address this.

And I'll stay on the line.

I'd love to talk about it.

We are in a public hearing session.

And so we typically do not have a back and forth.

We may have a chance to chat about that after the public hearing.

Mr. Shipp, if you just note that maybe if we've got time, I'll give you a chance to comment on that.

And Mr. Luska, I'll give you a chance to remind people how we noticed this as well.

The other speaker asked about that as well.

Mr. Price.

And if there's anybody else in attendance that would like to speak on this matter, please raise your hand.

Let's see, where are we?

We are now back to us.

So very quickly, out of respect to the two questions that we got, Brian, can you remind us how we noticed this?

And do we go beyond the 500 feet perimeter?

So for these in the current situation, typically for a public hearing, we have two required notifications that we do per state code, which is a mailing to anyone, any landowner within 500 feet of the property.

as well as an advertisement in a paper of record.

We in the current times have been adding to the 500 foot mailing all addresses within 500 feet.

So not just people who own property but also people who reside in that area who may be renters.

Additionally, we do signs on the property.

I know we were talking about that in the pre-meeting.

We post those.

It's mentioned in our city code.

It's not a state code requirement, but we do that.

I was looking at the address mailing list on my computer just a few minutes ago.

We had the Bell Mall Content Neighborhood Association.

We have a PO box for it.

So that would have been where the letter went.

If that's incorrect, then obviously we need to

Yeah, I spoke to Mr. Rucker several days ago regarding this issue and that's kind of what I mentioned was the site plan, the special use permits really about the additional density on the site which there is some question about if this building is built on top of an existing hard surface

The stormwater impacts from the actual construction of the building are probably going to be zero in terms of the overall capacity.

But I did make Mr. Shimp and Micheline aware of Mr. Rucker's concerns regarding that property and if there was an opportunity to do something about that issue that would come up in the site plan issue.

And obviously what we kind of mentioned was,

If construction is going to happen, that's the time when you're going to be able to do the best amount of work on this.

There's also the question of whether or not the existing system that may be on there

Before I give Justin a chance to speak, I don't think I closed down the public hearing.

If anybody else would like to speak on this matter, please raise your hand.

Or if you're joining us by phone, press star nine.

All right, with that, we will close the public hearing.

Forgive me for that recent protocol.

Yes, I think well first off I'll be sure to go see the neighbor Mr. Rucker there in the next week and just see what's going on I think there probably are some things we can we can do so that's that's fun We'll look at that and Brian's right it's a site plan issue, but we want to be good neighbors We'll see them see what happens going on then.

I think it sounds to me like There's a pretty serious concern among a few folks with the architecture of the building.

I don't know if that You know if we're out.

There's no design control district here and

but at the same time, we're not opposed to changing that either.

So if that's something that can be conditioned or some, you know, following architecture, we don't mind amending that and be taking a deferral and coming back and addressing that.

Cause I think there's some questions about that and we feel like we could answer them if that's something that the Planning Commission thinks makes sense.

And same thing also on the housing.

It's not that there's also some lack of clarity at the moment in what a condition would be.

And we don't want that to be a concern for anyone either.

So I defer to you all in some ways to tell me what you think is best.

But if necessary, we're happy to take a quick break on this, work with the staff on clarifying what the condition is that everyone feels comfortable and everyone agrees to what it means.

And that can come back for the planning commission.

You all may or may not agree with it, but at least there'd be no doubt

I mean, anybody of what we're saying and how it'd be enforced.

So that's my two big takeaways from what I've heard so far.

With the permission of my colleagues, I would like to suggest that from my perspective, some sort of language that's got teeth in it, some sort of language that you're gonna have to live with no matter what regarding affordable housing and nine units be included in those affordable housing units.

And some terms, some guaranteed number of years would make your application a little stronger from my perspective.

I would, if I, and I'm gonna put Joe, Mr. Leandro's, but I would like to get his thoughts on the architectural stuff.

You've been reading my mind, Chair Mitchell.

I've been waiting for the opportunity to say it at the appropriate time.

I have no problem with the increased density

that's being requested.

I do have a problem with the architecture and I believe that we do have the right to as a commission to express our concerns through the potential adverse impacts on particularly the massing and scale of the project.

With all due respect to staff, I would disagree that because the Virginia Industries for the Blind building is also tall, that that means this can also be tall.

The difference to me is that that tall portion of the Virginia Industries for the Blind building is over a block away

It also sits back about 25 feet from the sidewalk.

There are trees in that landscaped area, lawn area.

This building that's being proposed is less than five feet away from the sidewalk.

And there is no opportunity for putting trees to help mediate the architecture.

And in fact, the architecture is designed in such a way as to emphasize its height with the vertical

windows and the dark areas joining them together in these tall vertical stripes, less than five feet away from the sidewalk.

That is just completely different than the context that it's being designed in.

And while

The State and National Register Historic District for Belmont, I don't believe includes this particular site.

It looks like it is across the street.

and goes up to Bainbridge and then continues on the other side of this site.

But we're still in the context of this national and state historic district.

And I have to agree with Councillor Payne.

It does look to me suspiciously like the beginning of a long series of developments that

a development of the site that will change the architecture completely.

So I have serious concerns architecturally with the project, but as I said, I don't have those same concerns with the density request.

Well, I'd be happy to accept the deferral on the project and if anyone else wants to make any last helpful comments as were just made that's always useful to us, I think.

You know, I certainly understand the architectural standpoint for folks are coming from.

Yeah, that's what we're doing.

That's why I'm going from left to right so everyone can speak up.

I'm good.

Well, I apologize for the breach in protocol of interrupting the public session.

Oops, I didn't mean to share that.

I didn't know where my map went.

But I guess if we're asking the applicant to consider the architecture, consider the context, and consider the surrounding historic district,

It would be with the awareness that it will be prominently viewed from that historic commercial core.

New buildings in a historic district should not look old, but they should be in keeping with all the things that Commissioner Alejandro spoke to.

Okay, so before I say my opinions, I'd like to add that there was one comment in the public hearing that was kind of a question that wasn't part of the ones we've mentioned, and it was about accessibility.

I was hoping either Mr. Hleska or Mr. Shimp could, or Ms.

Great, thanks.

And that's required by federal law, as I understand it.

All right, where to start?

Quickly, I'll talk about architecture, which, as you all know, is probably not my top issue here.

But these trees are on this old church property.

And it seems to me that those screen the thing what you guys are talking about.

And to me, I mean, we're talking about three stories on street level.

I think if we're afraid of three stories at street level,

We're kind of be in a pretty bad shape if we actually want to build housing in this town and end our affordability crisis.

Building housing in this town is not going to solve the affordability crisis.

So let's just understand that.

No, you need to build more housing and solve the unaffordability of market rate housing and then add subsidies for deeper AMI levels, which I guess is really getting at my point here.

A couple people have talked about the high percentage of affordability or

not proffered, but offered affordable units, nine out of 11.

And so that makes it seem implausible.

And I just want to go back to what those actual numbers are in terms of rent, where for a two bedroom apartment at 80% AMI, that's 1690 in monthly rent.

And I mean, the fact of the matter here is that market rate

for an apartment versus a house is often affordable at that workforce housing level.

That's why we need to focus our subsidies and our efforts on lower

AMI levels because, again, those are much, much harder to reach.

And so we do solve that affordability problem at the 80% level by building apartments, which are more naturally affordable just on the market than, you know, less debt as far as forms of housing.

and I mean to me that really makes it odd to me that the nine new units are being offered as affordable when you're not really giving us that much for those but what you are doing apparently totally of your own volition because of personal relationships is holding five apartments at a deeply affordable level

at 30% AMI or even below.

And I mean, I would really like to see some way of making sure that those last and aren't fully conditioned on the good heart of Drew Holsworth.

Not that there's, I guess, apparently he's done a lot better than I thought he did based on the media.

and over half the problem happened before he bought the place from the previous owner who bought it from the towing people but I mean that's the real afford of like actual affordability that you're offering here and it sounds like it's happening anyway so I guess I'm a little confused about why you wouldn't just put that in the thing I mean I guess it's something about paperwork and adhering to it or something but that's a little confusing to me

but I mean I note again this is an SUP for density, not for height, not for setbacks, all of which are prescribed by right in the NCC zone and I think we need to

make our decision on that front.

And to me, building more housing, cramming housing onto driveways and parking lots is exactly what we need to be doing in the city, both for our housing crisis and for our climate crisis, where that land needs to be used more efficiently and allow people to live in places like this that are rich in amenities and walkable and great.

And I really don't think that's going to destroy the neighborhood to build this.

You know, my biggest problem was with that, like section three of the, you know, SCP evaluation conditions, which is displacement of existing residents.

I think the extent that when you come back, you can

Well, A, we can independently validate those testimonials you gave us and maybe Siebel tomorrow will go back and do a follow-up story and tell us what really happened.

But it's certainly better than what it seemed to be the status quo a little bit ago.

And B, if you can actually get some assurances about those into whatever proper statement or whatever it's called,

Gary!

Thank you.

I think everybody has the same old points that we go back to in terms of aesthetic and architectural review and neighborhood continuity and

But I guess the thing that's troubling me most is we have someone who's trying to address what they have heard the city and the leadership and the council saying about affordable housing.

And the way this developer has tried to address it is to up the number of apartments that would be offered at least initially for affordable housing.

So what I would say to Justin is I do think it's going to be deferred tonight.

I think that, um, we need to get our act straight about what, what we're looking for with affordable housing.

And finally, my age old issue that, and I, this is where I, Rory, you spoke the truth.

Uh, this is a growing city.

It is going to have to go up.

And so we just have to find a way to use the language that allows us to do that.

I didn't realize this was a design review panel.

I'm having a heart attack here.

I know.

Yeah, if we're so troubled by buy right density, we're going to have a really hard conversation when we talk about actually addressing affordable housing in this city.

That height is buy right.

Those setbacks are buy right.

That design, they can do whatever they want.

If they want to build a mansion that looks like just a black box,

They can do that.

Please don't.

But yeah, that's your right.

I'm not saying it's not broken.

I'm not saying it's not stupid, but them the law.

Given the current circumstances and what we're talking about here, which is 11 new homes,

80% affordable is pretty good.

That's a lot better than we normally see.

And that's exciting to see.

I'd like to see more of that.

That actually gets us towards our 4,000 that we're in the hole on.

That would be great to make that kind of progress.

I'm pessimistic on that right now due to our budget crisis and things kind of falling apart in a few ways.

Yeah, mining free land for affordable housing in general, pretty good idea.

Putting it next to a school near shops near, you know, exciting places to be where you don't need a car.

Pretty great.

I was disappointed to see that it's fully parked, but I'm not shocked that the neighborhood wants it to be fully parked.

There is a, you know, there's a dynamic tension there.

If you build it, they will come.

If you're scared of people driving, parking is a good way to make sure people drive.

If people have to pay to park, they might buy a car to put there.

Eventually, long term, we have to do something about climate change and parking is not going to get us there.

Broadly excited to see this.

I'm told by the consultants that 10 years is not a useful number of years to be thinking about for affordable housing.

We should be thinking about 99 years, which we've never discussed on this virtual dais or even the real dais.

I'm interested to know if that's possible in the real world or if that's just consultant math.

If it is real, 99 years would be very exciting to see.

80%, 99 years, oh my God.

But who knows?

Anything else to add?

No.

Well, just to point out that this because we are giving the right as the commission to discuss adverse impacts, possible adverse impacts.

whereas the law of the right or by right heights and setbacks are general for a district, but given this right to

To discuss the impacts of any SUP application is an acknowledgement that every development is unique to the particular site and to the particular context.

And one size does not fit all.

So Rory seems a bit dubious about our ability to craft some sort of language

that would lock us into nine affordable units.

I frankly think it can be done and I'm hoping that Justin and team will work with Brian and team and Lisa to craft some language that guarantees us the nine units of those 11 units that we need and locks it in for a time period, a term that is reasonable.

So with that, I'm going to ask council if they've got any input.

I would just mostly agree with what Mr. LeHindro said earlier.

My major concerns are clarity around AMI levels, length of affordability, and

The enforceability of it, as well as the aesthetics and the architecture, not just the height, but I think the design of the building is just dramatically out of place with those other two buildings in the area, and I do think that the built environment matters.

And I would just, final last comment would just be, I know it's not always feasible and much easier said than done, but the only way we get it really even 50-60% of AMI is partnerships with nonprofits like the Land Trust or other housing nonprofits.

in order to get at those lower AMI levels and have it be for a longer length of time.

Because the reality is if we're building a couple units at 80% of AMI for 10 years, they can all go to young professionals making $50,000 a year and make functionally no impact at all on affordable housing.

I think most of the thoughts that I had and the concerns that I would have raised have been covered.

I really appreciate the thoughtfulness of my colleagues and planning commissioners.

It really for me just looks at just the appropriateness of this and was it really going to be achieving the goals that we set out for it to achieve and how we strike that balance.

I have two questions.

Go ahead.

You can go ahead, Justin.

Well, in this kind of building, I suspect I can't, I don't know if it's for certain, we can answer this next time around, but

You're going to build every unit kind of the same per floor.

So if we have, you know, nine out of 11, essentially you would not build different units to make them affordable.

It would be going backwards as far as saving money in that regard.

Well, okay.

Nine get a discount, two do don't.

Yes.

I wonder, would it be possible or desirable, or would it get us closer to any goal?

Supposing you said, we're only gonna make seven of them affordable, we're all gonna make it, we're gonna make them all 60% AMI.

We know that the problem is in the marketplace is not really getting more 80% AMI units, though that is a problem, it's not the problem.

The problem is trying to go for deeper affordability.

We can look at that between now and next time.

I know my experience matches what Councilor Payne, I've heard him say many times in the province, once you get below 80%, you're really just not doable without a government subsidy, basically.

That's how these things are built, which is good, but it can happen.

I think the goal of this is to try to make

It would be a greater benefit, I think, to Charlottesville if we could, any way we possibly can get some deeper affordability into the situation.

And if it, if we've got an opportunity here with a trade-off to where you get more market rate units, again, you can do the math and figure out what works and maybe it doesn't work at all, but I think that would be an interesting study to run.

Ms.

Robertson, we don't need a vote.

We just need to ask for a deferral.

Is that right?

Or Ms.

It would probably be best if you voted.

The applicant is suggesting that that would be

fine with him so he's agreeable to it.

Mr. Chair, I recommend that we defer this application.

Moved and probably second.

Any further discussion?

Ms.

Sure.

Mr. LeHindro.

Russell Aye And Mr. Mitchell Aye Right, so we shall... Thank you, thank you very much.

My teeth are floating.

So I'm going to take a five minute break.

Hopefully you guys will as well.

When we come back, we'll have the consultants on.

So five minutes, and then we'll begin with the consultants.

I'm gonna leave that all.

Who's that back?

I can't see.

We've got this.

Joe, can we go back to the individual thingies?

Or is it me that did that?

It changes, I think, when screen sharing changes.

Everybody's here, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, we lost Tania, right?

Who did we lose?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Tania is gone.

All right, Ms.

Creasy, I think we're ready to begin.

I think this is going to be an update, and it's going to be a dialogue between us and the consultants.

And I think, Jenny, you're leading this meeting, are you not?

And you're, uh-oh, we can't hear you.

And you're not on mute.

Joe, we can't hear you.

Jenny, you might want to check your audio settings.

Rough day for audio today.

OK.

Great.

Well, thanks for having us.

Great, okay.

Oh yeah, okay.

It says I'm controlling your screen, but I don't see the slides up.

I shared the wrong thing.

Let's try this again.

Perfect.

Thank you.

That's better.

So let's see.

I'll make sure.

Okay, great.

Thanks, Joe.

So we've got some slides up here.

These were included in the packet.

I did make a few small tweaks this morning to add the final public engagement numbers since we gave you the draft slides before we finalized engagement.

So I'll point those out.

I know we've been talking, or you all have been talking a lot about housing and affordable housing tonight, which is obviously very important.

But the goal today is, we are trying to think about, I wanna give you an overview of our engagement process and some initial thoughts on that.

And then we wanna start thinking about next steps related to land use.

So I wanna note upfront, our housing team members are not on the call with us tonight.

HRNA is not here, so I just wanted to make sure everyone's aware of that.

since I know we're in kind of a housing mindset.

But if there are questions, we're happy to work with you to pass those along.

In terms of engagement, so we had an engagement process through November.

As I'm sure you are well aware, the public comment period ended December 2nd, after December 2nd.

And so what we had out at that point was the draft affordable housing plan and the draft initial comprehensive plan revisions.

To let people know about these opportunities, we had a variety of different outreach methods.

I think we've already talked with you about this a bit.

I do want to note again, one change this time around was that we had the peer engagers out.

There were three paid community members who helped us distribute flyers and door hangers and also had a lot of really great conversations in neighborhoods and parks and whatnot.

But otherwise, a lot of these outreach methods were similar to those we used in the first phase of engagement in May and June.

We had some sort of lessons learned related to that.

And so we we built on sort of that first phase of engagement.

Through November, we had a virtual meeting page up on our project website.

On that page, as you know, you could go there and view all the materials either on the website or by download.

We also had four webinars throughout the month.

We had online drop-in meeting opportunities, an online survey, a toll-free phone number.

As you recall, we also had a work session with Planning Commission and Council on November 10.

And as Mr. Solla-Yates mentioned earlier, we had a Steering Committee meeting on November 23 for the Seville Plans Together Steering Committee.

So it was a busy month.

To give you a little insight into who we heard from in the month, with all these different activities, we had really quite a range of engagement.

Overall, just to be clear, we did have a little, we had less engagement than we did in May and June.

This is for, I think, a lot of reasons.

There's a lot of burnout happening with folks right now, virtually.

Not only I'm sure with some of you are feeling that, but community members are certainly feeling the strain.

But also given that we were asking folks to review materials, review a draft affordable housing plan, review comp plan materials, and then provide feedback.

It was a different type of survey, for example, than in May and June when we were asking people for their visions for the future of the community.

So very different phases of engagement here.

So we had, in the end, 274 responses to the survey.

We had about 55 email and website comments.

And that includes letters, longer letters, shorter emails and whatnot.

We're still working through those.

With the webinars, I think we had somewhere between 12 and sort of 30 people at each event.

There were polls throughout each webinar asking some questions, really high level, about people's priorities.

And then we had a Q&A session at the end of each of those events as well.

I've mentioned the peer engagers.

We'll be including some information in our summary about what they ended up doing and the conversations they had.

And then I'll note we had the toll-free phone line, which we had in the first phase of engagement as well.

And we tried this time around to have a virtual drop-in sessions, which were available by phone or Zoom.

Folks could drop in.

And we did not have much participation in those events.

It's something we might try again and try differently, maybe different messaging around that or whatnot, but we wanted to try out something else, sort of trying to mimic the cafe conversations that we were hoping to have in person, which obviously we couldn't.

I wanna give, just as I mentioned, we're working on summarizing everything we've heard.

Yeah, and we're still looking at the survey data since it did just close sort of mid-late last week.

Yeah, well, that's certainly something that we, for example, with our peer engagers, we worked with them to sort of target neighborhoods we hadn't heard from as much in the first phase, for example.

So we're still trying to assess how successful that was.

I will say what I've seen so far, it looks like we've got pretty good spread in terms of demographics, percentage wise, even if not raw numbers, as you can see.

They're lower.

And on that point, I think last time we talked about survey results, we talked about potentially weighting the results or reweighting them to match Charlottesville's demographics.

Let me see here.

I'm just making a note of that.

I think what we did, so on that realm, and I'm happy to work with, I'd like to work with you maybe to make sure I'm understanding correctly what you're thinking.

But for example, what we did with that first phase was in the affordable housing plan, for example, they sort of cited where some themes came out, for example, for people who identified as black or African-American, home ownership was a bigger issue than it was for folks who identify as white or Caucasian.

or Asian American, for example.

So, you know, we tried to pull out sort of qualitatively some of that information, but I understand what you're saying, sort of waiting demographics to match Charlottesville's results, sort of more of a quantitative way of doing that.

So we can work on doing that.

I would say with given we got fewer survey respondents this time, you know, it is hard to make any maybe more difficult to do that, but we can look at the demographics and see how that might work out.

Any other questions about the engagement process?

I do have a slide on some initial sort of input we got, but OK, I'll move on.

So we're working on a summary, but I wanted to pull out just a few items that we've heard at some of the meetings, the webinars, the steering committee, and some other discussions.

And these are very draft things.

We are still very much looking into what we heard.

So we just wanted to pull out some of these.

So for example, when we look at the survey data, that sort of quantitative data asking people to sort of rate how well the priorities

goals that we put forth matched with their vision for the future of Charlottesville.

There was overall general agreement with the direction of both the affordable housing plan and the comprehensive plan revisions.

And that's not to say that everyone agreed with everything and we're just going to move forward with it.

There are open-ended comments in there that we're still working through to see how people might be requesting that we think about tweaking the plan.

We heard a need to clarify terminology.

We had a lot of conversations about that on the webinars.

For example, I pulled out soft density here as only one example, but you know, sense of place, for example, things like that.

We're gonna, we want to make sure this plan is accessible to everyone.

And so we're going to just keep on tweaking some of that as we move forward.

There were a few on here about the affordable housing plan.

You know, we heard people would like to see more explicit support for homeownership and we've got some recommendations toward homeownership in the plan.

We're working on making those stronger and more clear.

There were questions and concerns about the funding recommendations in the plan, and we're working on addressing those moving forward.

And then, of course, there were also concerns about potential impacts of recommendations on existing residents, you know, particularly those who may be at risk of displacement.

And so the plan did some thinking about that, but we want to make sure it's clear what we're proposing as we move forward, because we certainly don't want that to happen.

We don't want to make those issues worse with the plan.

As I said, this is really rough.

This is a rough summary.

I would say these are just some initial themes that came out to me.

Any questions about this?