City Council   4/2/2018

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Thank you.

All right, I call this meeting to order.

Good evening.

Stand for the pledge of allegiance.

All right, items five and ten on the agenda have been withdrawn by the applicants, so there will be no public hearing on those two items.

Five.

Five and ten.

Okay, so there will be no public hearing on the release of the sewer easement on Rialto Street and then applicant for item 10-12-06 Carlton Avenue rezoning request will be returned to the Planning Commission for changes.

Dr. Bellamy?

Here.

Ms. Hill?

Here.

Ms. Walker?

Here.

Mr. Signer?

Here.

Thank you, Mayor Walker.

Ms. Jojo Robertson came and spoke about concerns that she had about the back row here in the city council chambers and accessibility.

This was an issue that she raised with some of the councilors and

Vice Mayor Hill had talked to staff about this.

We are actually in the process of having designated spots back there to address accessibility issues and we're just in the process of putting together the signs for that.

and we should have everything ready for

the next steps of the Human Rights Commission.

There will also be a presentation from the Human Rights Commission at the next meeting in April as well.

So I just wanted to provide an update to the public on that.

And there's also been discussions about the Civilian Review Board.

There were some discussions about the Civilian Review Board by various speakers at the last City Council meeting.

As Council knows, there's a forum coming up.

on April 24th beginning at 5.30 at the Jefferson School Heritage Center to hear from the applicants for the CRB.

And it's an opportunity for folks to hear about them.

All right, so we'll start with the community matters.

My name is Liz Reynolds.

I live at 910A Cottage Lane in town.

I've only lived here for about two years, and it's been a pretty pleasant experience.

But I think it has been a pleasant experience because I'm white, upper middle class, and well educated.

Shortly after moving here I started going to a group that explores whiteness in America and in our town and I think because of that I've really noticed very sharply the divides in this town.

I also was a substitute teacher in the city schools for a year as well as a private school in town and the educational

Segregation here has become really stark in my opinion.

I think because of that, I've gotten interested in housing and access to housing in this town.

I was able to attend a conference two weeks ago on affordable housing that was at City Space.

And I learned a lot there.

I learned about UVA's impact on our housing accessibility here.

I'm a renter, so this is directly applicable to me.

I'm also really interested in the public housing opportunities in this town.

So I learned a lot about Section 3 of the Fair Housing Act there and the way that Chicago in particular has been implementing more stringent standards for Section 3 accessibility in their town.

I know that there are already some connections between FAR and Chicago's delegates from that system.

And so I would really like to encourage counsel to pay more attention to Section 3 and how that could

be implemented more in our town.

And I think in closing, I just want to say that if I feel insecure about my future in this town, I don't really see a way that I could ever buy a house here.

And I'm a white privileged person.

I would like us all to pay more attention to the security of our most vulnerable citizens.

I think that would make me happy.

Mary Kerry, city resident.

There's been a lot of jokes going on around in the city here the last couple of weeks.

One is the Second Street Project and another is that they've been putting you out there, Mr. Signer, leading the crowd.

Make sure everybody get one this time, Mrs. Bellamy.

Before I say anything to say anything about it, I want you all to look at it, because it might be a joke and then it might be true.

I don't have a slice idea, but it seems like it's, well hold on, you're taking up my time.

So what I'm saying is,

It says that you don't like the way me and Ms. Parker address this council.

That's the way I look at it.

I can't help it.

You're messing with my time now.

But anyway, and it also says that you and Ms. Galvin and Ms. Hill are going to block Ms. Walker and

and when Mr. Bellamy's not here, even if he's here, we already know y'all gonna stick together.

We knew that before Nikau got on the candidates list.

But what I'm here to say is tonight, I've been living in Charlottesville for 71 years.

Downtown has been historic for years.

It's not historic anymore because I live on South Street at Midway Manor.

You come down there and dig a hole up there on South Street, you're going to mess up this whole city.

But then you got a slumlord that's greedy.

He can't take care of what he got now.

He's given y'all proposals that he's not going to live up to because he had never lived up to anything he said.

He's made a lot of promises and like, you know, like you spit in the ocean.

Those are his promises.

And when Mr. Bellamy put out this feed on Facebook trying to get everybody's opinion on things, people didn't even want to go in and talk about it because it was so ridiculous to even put it up.

So all I got to say is, y'all do what you gotta do.

But you never have listened to the city, the people in Charlottesville.

I don't know whether you're going to do it tonight or not, but you need to listen.

because you're gonna hold this city in hostage for four years before it get back to normal.

Thank you.

Ms. Carey, I just want to respond to this.

This is a fake account.

It's a satire account.

I was not involved in creating this.

Evan Brown, city resident.

Good evening.

My name is Jeff Fogel.

I live in Belmont here in Charlottesville.

I came to speak again about stop and frisk.

I was not here last week.

I did watch on Channel 10.

You all expressed concerns about what was happening in stop and frisk, and what did you learn from the police department?

Unfortunately, nothing.

The report they gave you, and I think it should be embarrassing for them and for you Mr. Jones to present a report like that to you and to consider that a report about stop and frisk.

If you received reports like that from every agency in the city, you might as well throw in the towel because you're getting no information, none of it's true, you have nothing to base it on, and they're spitting in your face.

What you learn from the police department is what they didn't say.

They don't give a damn about the racial disparity that is the face of racism in this city.

And they haven't given a damn for five years.

They haven't done anything, not a single thing.

and some of it must be ascribed to their boss, the public safety director because apparently he doesn't answer questions but he hasn't done a thing.

We've been talking about this issue for five years.

We've had very graphic statistics for five years.

Nothing's been done for five years and it is a perfect example of racism in this city and its face and nobody wants to do anything about it.

You all made some comments two meetings ago to the police department about your concerns about these numbers.

What did they take away from it?

We don't give a damn.

We don't work for them.

What do we care?

We didn't do anything wrong.

We don't even want to look at it.

And let me point out two things also that I think are bothering to me.

One is this distinction that they claim between dispatched and officer initiated stops and frisks.

If an officer goes by a corner and sees some people making a lot of noise,

versus an officer being a neighbor calling dispatch and saying there's somebody on the corner making a lot of noise.

What is the difference?

The same officer has to make the same decision in either event.

It's only a question of where the source of information comes from.

We're trying to look at the decision-making processes of the police when they stop and frisk people, 173 of them who did nothing last year.

We cannot get at that with the way the police department is approaching this, the way the director of public safety is approaching this.

And your comments went unheard by the police department.

What they're going to do is to try to come back to you and explain it.

And the explanation is going to be something like, oh, the places where we do that are the places we get most calls for service.

And I remember, Ms. Galvin, you also expressed a concern about places where there were shots fired.

Nothing but nothing entitles the police to stop innocent people and frisk them on the streets of our city.

Nothing.

I don't care what's going on.

No crime justifies stopping innocent people.

And that's what we're looking at here.

Mr. Fogel.

So one of the things that I'm interested in hearing is what would be your proposed solutions in regards to what we heard in the report?

And if you allow the public safety director to pick the new police chief, having not been concerned about the problem of racism in the police department, you're making a big error.

Think of the council, it behooves the council to appoint the police chief and to have the police chief report directly to the council.

That's number one.

Number two, obviously in the process of choosing a police chief, however that comes about, this issue has to be addressed squarely.

Right on, and we have to hear ideas from that person.

That person has to be clued in advance as to what the issue is and to come prepared with responses for how they intend to deal with it.

And then,

We need to do a little more investigation of the police department in order to find out why this is happening.

The issue about getting access to the narratives without any identifying information was the key to analyzing the decision making process.

But nobody wants to give it up.

Not protected by anything.

You don't have to give it up under FOIA, but if that's your standard, we will only give up what we have to, you don't believe in transparency.

So you've got to have transparency, you've got to look at those things, you've got to change who the police chief is reporting to, and you've got to choose that police chief yourself.

I'm not sure where we are in regards to the two minutes, but I just want to make sure I understand you clearly.

So initially, who we pick as the police chief is critical.

It would behoove the council to select the police chief and that individual report directly to council.

While Mr. Long is coming, can I ask a question, Mayor Walker of Ms. Rice?

In the event in which we have, if we need to respond, is it possible for you to put up our two minutes so that we don't go over, just the counselor respond two minutes?

My name is Paul Long and I live at 100 Ridge Street here in the city.

and I'm here to talk about the Dewberry Hotel.

Last Saturday's Daily Progress had a front page article that the Board of Architecture Review gave them permission to add an additional story to the hotel to make it more profitable.

Mr. Dewberry has owned that site since 2012.

That skeleton of a building's been up since, for the last nine years, and it's a disgrace to the city.

and I'm not an architect like Ms. Galvin, I'm not an engineer but I'd like to say is that building a skeleton?

Is that architecturally safe right now?

Or is it deteriorating?

And I've been past that building in the morning as have other people and we see a variety of rats leaving and being in and around that building.

I think it's a health threat.

I think the city council should give Mr. Dewberry a certain date to begin work on that building maybe in the next three or four months.

If there isn't work started, I think the city council should use the right of eminent domain and condemn that building and tear it down.

Thank you.

Ms. Hill and I share.

Thank you, Mr. Jones, for addressing my concerns and thank you, Ms. Hill, for making sure that was taken care of.

I really appreciate that.

Mr. Jones, I have another idea.

People that can't afford like printing papers off but are community members,

Maybe there would be a way that they could access city, you know, I don't want to put on nothing to Ms.

Page that does so much already, but maybe there would be a way they could access stuff because ink and printer and stuff, it costs a lot and that's how come there's not enough copies.

Just an idea.

OK, so I did some investigating and I want you to look at the graph that you have in front of you.

And if there's not enough out here, I can leave this one here and you can take a picture with your phone.

But it's kind of what I call politics as usual.

So if you look at it, I'm still upset about the the amount that you gave the downtown business association.

Anybody else?

I didn't mean to uprise the community, whatever.

I didn't really.

Since November, if you look, sales in Charlottesville decreased six to seven months prior to August 12th, decreased.

Since November, sales have increased for three months.

In January, sales were up 3.4%.

Businesses made in Charlottesville, 87 million in sales.

That's 87 million, an increase in 2.9 over January 2017.

Now, does the Downtown Business Association need, how can they account for the $75,000?

How can you all account for it when there's people that can't afford housing?

I'm asking you, Mr. Bellamy, you are not here.

The meeting that this was voted on, I don't know if you can,

take this money back and ask for accountability or that the chance that you can vote on it because I do believe it would be a different vote because Mr. Bellamy and Ms. Walker have seen the people at Crescent Halls living in cesspools of crap.

They've seen that.

There's video of that.

This is unacceptable.

Eighty-seven million we're talking.

Don't you tell me you need money.

Don't you dare.

No.

You don't know what it's like.

I see what it's like.

Now we're going to talk about accountability, if you read what I found out.

Kathy Galvin, I'm not saying at all that in any way your scruples would go toward Ms. Fenton, but Ms. Fenton did give you a $500 donation for your campaign.

That to me is not saying that you would vote for her, but what I'm saying is I'm a- No!

Both of you work for UVA.

There's Brandon Avenue.

You should re-cruise yourself for that vote.

Kristin Sakus re-cruised herself when her husband was going to get money from Virginia Organizing.

All right, you received $15,000.

Your wife is a professor, you $14,000.

I know.

Kristen recruits herself, Mike Signer, Mr. Woodard.

This is what we need to look to.

Our people need help, not these rich folks.

That's it.

Why rich people?

Mayor Walker, may I please talk about respond to the the my position.

I'm an adjunct faculty at the School of Architecture at University of Virginia.

I've been teaching there since probably 2005, 2006.

And it is my understanding that any one of us can talk about city council policy

as long as it's identified that we have worked with the organization that we're discussing.

And that does not mean that we have to recuse ourselves.

This was discussed at a budget work session not too long ago.

Virginia Organizing and Ms. Zago, she did not recuse herself.

I was there at that meeting.

I want to say a couple things too.

So the rule as I understand it is that you recuse yourself when a decision would benefit you uniquely as opposed to a group of which you're a part.

So if you are a property owner in an area of town which is going to be affected by a zoning rule where there's a lot of other people who live there, that's one thing.

If it would affect you, if you had a unique property,

I was let go from my position at teaching at the Batten School after August the 12th.

I was going to be teaching there and instead I taught at the Politics Department.

I'm no longer on contract to teach at UVA.

I may in the future, but presently I'm not teaching there.

But even if I were, I don't think there would be grounds for either recusal or any other recitation, I don't think.

My name is Rick Jones.

I'm with Management Services Corporation in Charlottesville.

I just want to take a quick moment while I'm here to speak on behalf of West Second Street.

I know there are a lot of other people here who can't speak.

If you want to just raise your hand and let everybody know that you're here.

Our corporate office is located directly Caddy Corner to the West 2nd Street site.

We enthusiastically welcome Keith and his mixed use development and urge its approval tonight.

I've known Keith for over 25 years.

He served as I did for six years on your Housing and Redevelopment Authority.

He's a major supporter of the arts in Charlottesville,

is a respected, successful, honest, local real estate professional.

In 2007, he was the only investor to step forward to preserve Dogwood Housing, Eugene Williams' 58 units of affordable housing located in 73 Charlottesville properties.

And he has since continued to renew his housing assistance payment contract.

every five years, most recently I think last November.

Former City Councilor Kendra Hamilton at the time stated about Eugene and Keith, quote, I'm struck by the notion, by the vision of these two men.

We have preserved more affordable housing in one stroke than in my entire four years in office.

Madam Walker, would you mind trying to allow him to finish?

As the staff report mentions, the city quote, the city's council strategic plan goal 3.1 is to quote, engage in robust and context sensitive urban planning and implement implementation, which is exactly what Keith Woodard is doing.

The $945,000 increase each year in city revenue that West 2nd will generate would pay the US median inflation adjusted monthly rent of $980 in full for 80 Charlottesville citizens.

Or it would pay the annual debt service on a new $19 million affordable housing community.

In addition, Keith has agreed to build a new project on Harris Street

that will have eight affordable dwelling units, which will be kept affordable for 10 years.

Your city staff has recommended approval of this special use permit.

BAR has approved it on a five to one vote.

Your planning commission approved increasing the residential density on a five to one vote.

I'd like the same 45 seconds that the last speaker had.

Your Director of Economic Development has recommended approval and cited 13 benefits to the city.

This wonderful project will provide a permanent home for the city market, create 102 public parking spaces, and ensure that downtown Charlottesville will continue to be the quote economic hub of the region end quote.

I sincerely hope that you will agree and appreciate your hearing.

Mayor Walker, members of the City Council, my name is Michael Kaplan.

Charlottesville is my hometown.

I was born in the University Hospital and went to Venable Elementary.

Grew up on Westview Road.

My father was a professor at the law school, and my mother raised five children.

And in 1958, my mother was one of the 10 mothers who reopened the Charlottesville public schools after the governor closed the schools rather than integrate.

This is my hometown.

I care deeply about it.

When I was a little kid on special occasions, I got to go to downtown Charlottesville and it was magical.

I got my first jacket there and my first football there.

and I care deeply about the future of downtown and the economic vitality and the welfare of everybody who lives downtown.

I remember downtown in the 60s and 70s when it was in economic decline and fewer and fewer people were going there and it lost a lot of its magic.

And this city council in 1974 voted to approve a bold and creative strategy to convert downtown Main Street

into a pedestrian mall.

That was a very exciting placemaking experiment, but it was also very controversial.

There was significant opposition, but the city council voted to power through.

Creating a pedestrian mall was a risky plan.

It took decades of fine tuning to achieve the placemaking triumph that is now one of the finest urban parks in America and a powerful component of the city's economy.

The City Council again last year voted a bold and visionary placemaking plan to further energize our downtown by redeveloping a barren parking lot as a mixed-use destination.

My family was thrilled when we learned about a new opportunity to live downtown.

We told our friends and everyone is excited by the news because so many people want to live in the downtown village of Charlottesville.

No, not only if you're rich.

Not only if you're rich, give everybody a chance to be heard.

Give everyone a chance to be heard.

I'm going to tell you the truth.

We all want to support the markets and the cafes and the theaters and the shops and we all want the downtown economy to flourish.

We want to support the merchants because a vital Charlottesville economy is what funds our public services.

It's what funds our public housing.

We have to have that tax revenue

to deliver the services we all insist on for our city.

I believe West 2nd will do that.

This is a great American city and I believe West 2nd can make it better.

The energy of this project is going to inspire other projects throughout downtown and that tax revenue from this project alone, nearly a million dollars could subsidize the rent of almost a hundred families every year and open affordable housing

across the city.

You don't have to just live where affordable housing is built.

If you get a rent subsidy, you can live anywhere you want.

I have done this work, thank you very much.

A project, this is a complicated project with great financial risk and I think we owe it to West 2nd to allow them to fine tune the complex details of this project to assure that it's a success.

I respectfully urge you to approve the SUP amendment.

A lot of people are going to be enriched by this important placemaking experiment.

Please vote for the SUP tonight so that construction can begin as soon as possible.

Roy Van Dorn.

My name is Roy Van Dorn.

My office is my company is City Select.

We do hospitality marketing.

Our office is in downtown and we've been doing this for 20 years.

I'm also on the board of the Downtown Business Association.

but I'm speaking on this by myself.

I would like to advocate that you look favorable upon the West 2nd project for four primary reasons.

One, downtown has lost a portion of its market share to other developments and we need for better employment, for offices, we need more downtown population

The gentleman that spoke before me was very eloquent about having a downtown population for daytime population that's helpful for lunch and for shopping and for vitality downtown.

We've all seen it when NINJIC moved and SNL came in and when we had World's Rise, how much that changed the downtown tempo.

during the day.

And having more downtown daytime population through a quality project is great.

We also need downtown population at night, residential.

That helps our dining and our entertainment.

And if we can do it all in the same property, that's a little bit of alchemy.

I think so.

We also need to think about my second point is the tax base.

Again, the two prior speakers talked about the difference between

between $6,500 a year collected and almost $1 million.

And then when property values increase, that will be greater than $1 million.

That money goes for a lot of important things.

The third thing that I would like to talk about is event space.

One of the things that Charlottesville will eventually have is two new hotels.

One is called Home 2.

which is over by ACAC and that will open in about 30 days and potentially the Dewberry will open up soon if it gets under construction.

Having this downtown space for events is extremely helpful to attract people where they can actually go to an event and walk to their hotels.

That's going to encourage a lot of downtown employment and vitality and we are missing that kind of cog downtown.

And lastly, I want to speak on sustainability.

That's a term that people use all the time, but we've seen projects, big projects, where the financial viability wasn't thought through and were left with a skeleton.

In this case, I think Keith has done a great job in coming up with a plan that works, and we can be assured

So my name is Rebecca Deeds.

I'm here representing Preservation Piedmont.

Preservation Piedmont is deeply concerned about the scale of development of the proposed West 2nd building and requests that you reject the current amendments to the special use permit proposal.

Since it appears that you have the votes to approve, we urge that you specifically condition it on BAR review of impacts on the neighborhood and any recommended adjustments.

We know that a large majority of our community is concerned about the scale of development along West Main Street, and we believe that many more will be concerned if the proposed West 2nd building is constructed as proposed here.

While we support affordable housing goals, we do not believe that this building meets the underlying goal of being compatible with its neighborhood.

Specifically, the building has a maximum height of close to 130 feet, perhaps the highest building in the city.

The new design from the street makes it rise 107 feet or nine stories before a step back.

We urge that you not give up the requirement of step backs of 80 feet on the South Street and Water Street walls, which the original design required.

With a step back at 107 feet, it would appear to be just an extremely tall and imposing building wall with no relationship to the adjacent historic area.

This will cast a true pall over

the adjacent buildings including historic South Street and will even extend its shadow onto the downtown mall.

This building will keep the north side of Water Street in shade all year long, but we believe it will cast a shadow all the way to the mall in the winter.

It would also have adverse impacts on Garrett Street and the adjacent South Street historic district of buildings which are one to four stories high.

According to our calculations, on December 31st, the sun has a peak altitude of 28 degrees.

A 100 foot tall building casts a shadow 357 feet long at this time.

If you add 20 more feet, the shadow is 429 feet.

It's 310 feet from West 2nd Project property line to the center line of the mall.

Why would we want to endanger the downtown mall?

When amendments were made to the height ordinance for downtown around 2007, some calculations were the rationale.

Why would we change that now?

We would not object to increased density on this site in order to make the project work.

but we do not believe the public interest will be served by approving the plan that is currently before you.

Nevertheless, should you approve this project, we urge that you condition it on a full and fair review by the Board of Architectural Review, including the impacts that the increased height and street wall will have on the adjacent neighborhoods, commercial and residential, historic and non-historic.

Thank you for having me city council.

What I want to talk about is, there's two kinds of people that live in our community.

We have the overly wealthy people and then we have the people who haven't had access to their bare minimum needs.

Now, City Council, I know that you want to serve these people that need your help, but unfortunately, we have an overbearing state law called the Dillon Rule that's preventing you from increasing minimum wage, preventing you from increasing the wages of our city workers,

is preventing you from doing a lot of things that you want to do because the state's stopping you from doing your job.

And perhaps our city can create a lobby or a coalition.

I'm not sure what you're able to do within your legal abilities to challenge this state law.

Is there some way we can work with our local delegates to, you know,

Re-appeal this law.

I just wanted to bring it up.

So Mr. Lavelle?

Yes, sir.

Lavelle, excuse me.

Just for clarity, and thank you for your comments, but we just want everyone to know that there's no dealing rule, quote unquote, that prevents us from raising wages.

the city workers.

In fact, we've done so over the past few years.

And Ms. Saikos, years prior, with the help of our current mayor, Walker, and then this year, there's also a push to have a raise in terms of our, the wages of our city workers.

If I may make one comment, I also, just to clarify for Mr.

Lavelle, because I understand that you are talking about wages all over for private businesses as well.

That was the distinction that Mr. Bellamy was making.

And I will say that on individual cases, I believe it was the Democratic Party in the House and the General Assembly that has been pushing for the statewide

living wage of $15 per hour, and that has not changed.

Thank you.

My name is Eva King and I am a vendor at the Charlottesville City Market.

I've been a vendor at the market for the past four years.

The Charlottesville City Market, as I'm sure you're all aware of, is a really central feature in our community in Charlottesville.

significant driver, economic driver, has over a hundred vendors every weekend between April and November.

And I am here to urge the city council to come to an agreement that will make sure that the Charlottesville city market gets a permanent home.

There's uncertainty right now, you know, where is the market going to be if this development doesn't happen?

Where does the market go?

Are we going to be sitting on a steep parking lot or something?

So I realize that there are multiple

multiple priorities that have to be balanced between the developers and other priorities here.

But I would really like to urge the city council to come to an agreement regarding the west second development that will ensure that the Charlottesville city market has a permanent home and that this project goes ahead.

And that's all I have to say.

Hi, I'm Blair Williamson.

I have a small retail shop on the downtown mall.

Um, and I want to speak in favor of the West second project.

Um, although there will be, you know, significant construction, I think the downtown mall is the jewel of Charlottesville and we need to continue to, uh, build, let

Let businesses come in to increase people coming to the downtown mall.

I'd like to say, you know, a rising tide raises all ships.

And I'm, as the owner of a small business, I can tell you it is super important, not only for our, for the tourist traffic that we get, but for the local economy to come down.

$15 an hour.

The

I think it brings good tax base to the downtown.

I think that tax money will allow you to have flexibility to do other things that you want to do that will be good for the community at large.

I love that it provides a permanent home to the market and I just urge you to approve it and move forward.

Brendan Hassler Brendan Hassler, County Resident

I would like to take a moment to address the, frankly, amateurish and illegible presentation given last meeting by Officer Terry Dupuis on the CPD statistics regarding the so-called investigative detentions more commonly referred to in the general parlance as stop and frisk.

Specifically, I would like to address the fact that out of 125 stops with frisk conducted by the CPD that they presented at the meeting last time, 91 of those stopped.

73% were black folks.

This, I may remind you, is a town that has a 19% black demographically.

And I believe at a previous meeting, Jeff quoted a figure that was 60 to 70% of all people in towns that have stop and frisk policies get stopped are black.

So it seems Charlottesville is finally above average, and I hope every one of you is as ashamed of this fact as I am.

What distressed me most upon talking with people who saw the presentation is that some of you had approached this discussion not as discrimination on behalf of the CPD, but rather as an unfortunate statistical fluctuation.

And I want to emphasize just how utterly ludicrous it would be to dismiss the allegations of bias when you look at the numbers.

After the meeting, I went home, I did some elementary probability theory and I calculated the probability that in a town that is 19% black, that any random group of citizens could just happen to be 73% black.

And I found that probability to be, rounded up, 10 to the minus 36%.

For those of you unfamiliar with scientific notation, that probability is a decimal point, 35 zeros, one percent.

Because I feel we humans struggle to process these numbers that are really large as well as numbers that are really small.

I'd like to put that into perspective.

It would be more likely for any one random person to be struck by lightning six times in a single year than it would be for the CPD to randomly pull those numbers, as well as it would be more likely for any one random person to be attacked by two sharks and three bears in the course of a year.

It is also more likely that out of everyone you see here in the first three rows tonight, that eight of us would die in the following year of canoeing accidents.

That's not to say none of what I'm saying could have happened.

However, if it did happen, you would adjust your mental framework to accommodate such an unlikely event happening.

If someone were struck by lightning six times in a year, you would have to think, well, maybe they're outdoorsy.

Maybe they lay copper wire atop the Rocky Mountains.

If eight of us did die in canoeing accidents over the course of a year, well, maybe we all took a river trip to the Grand Canyon during a historical drought.

You would adjust your mental framework of the problem and adjust how you respond to it.

And back to the example at hand, I mean 10 to the negative 36%.

I mean, good heavens.

I couldn't even consider for a second that it had anything to do with the CPD stop and frisk policy.

And until you change this, you are leaving Charlottesville's black residents 10 times more likely to be stopped by police for merely existing than the city's white residents.

So what are you going to do to attack this problem?

So, so Brandon, Brandon, Brandon, Brandon.

I had a question for you, sir.

So, thank you for your presentation.

So, sir, officer, I'm just going to ask though, I need to be allowed to be able to answer my question, so if we could please ask this gentleman to allow me to talk, please.

Thank you.

So, thank you for your presentation, specifically for the data to back it up.

Very compelling, to say the least.

I think Jeff Fogel already gave you some and I do believe part of the reason I hate to say, Dr. Bellamy, that part of the reason I think you guys were elected was we were hoping that you would be kind of in the solution department already.

But I would like to echo what Jeff Fogel said.

We need this comprehensive CPD.

We need transparency about how it's put together and we need more control over who our next police chief is going to be.

because frankly for the fact that we had for a period of time interim police chief Gary Pleasance.

Gary, I'm glad I gassed them, Pleasance.

We need that kind of transparency in selecting who's going to be in charge of this.

We need accountability at the top.

I'll just echo Jeff Vogel Solutions.

Good evening, Councillors.

My name is Andrew King.

My name is Andrew King, and I'm a long-time customer and vendor at the City Market.

And I wanted to really say that the City Market's an important part of the downtown experience.

It's been a great, great thing that I've enjoyed being a part of, and I've enjoyed getting to know all the different vendors from around the region.

Many of these vendors really are reliant on the

the market for their livelihoods and right now the market is in a state of flux and the city market management has worked extremely hard to come to a solution based on the uncertainty and I just wanted to really ask for the council to consider all the multiple stakeholders who are in play around the city market

You have the residents who are there and the many people who take advantage of it as well.

And I would hope that you are able to merge on a conclusion or a solution that does support the city market and keep it in Charlottesville and give it a permanent home in the coming years.

Thank you.

My name is Jason Kessler.

I'm a Charlottesville resident.

I'm not going to need the whole time.

I just have a few things.

I have a few basic questions for you, the ones who are making so many important decisions regarding our rights and safety.

Please answer with a show of hands.

You all are seen as leaders by the mobs that have overtaken this city and run off the businesses.

Many call them Antifa.

If a federal judge grants me an injunction to hold another rally in support of the monuments, will you ask them not to block access to the park and remain non-violent?

Will you ask them to be non-violent?

A show of hands.

Okay, my next question.

How many of you would support my right to peacefully demonstrate in Lee Park?

A show of hands.

And how many of you think it's important to protect the safety of the free speech of conservatives, pro-monument speakers, and even alt-right speakers in Charlottesville?

Is it important to protect their safety?

We have a rule against directly addressing counselors, so you're free to make a statement.

Don't interrupt me again.

My last question, I ask for your hand, not your opinion.

Okay, my last question is to the mobs that have taken over this city and I want to ask if these citizens who have been so loud in suppressing other people's rights will pledge to be non-violent and allow us to speak?

Pause it please.

Brian Lambert, Charlottesville, Virginia.

I'd like to cede my time to Chris Wayne.

Y'all know there was a threat against the council.

Y'all know that there shouldn't have been a mass shooting or somebody with a bomb on.

Did y'all know that?

Oh my God, it's the other one.

Okay.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight.

I'd like to tell everybody hello and I'm here tonight to speak about priorities.

A lot of people come up here and talk about how the priorities of this city are not in line with what they think they should be.

I think on some of those issues they are correct.

Some of them I do not agree but some of them I do agree.

I think somewhat the police are a little overzealous in the city.

I think some of their concerns are founded but I do think also some of them are not.

I think it's wasteful to spend thousands of dollars to try to cover up priceless monuments.

I'm sure if you've all seen the news, that's why I've been here.

Priceless, yes.

They're worth more than your anything.

They're worth more than everybody in this building.

They are history.

One of them is made to the exact specifications of the horse that is the only one on the planet that's like that.

This is out of order.

Excuse me!

Are you Chris Wayne?

Okay.

Sorry ma'am, I just felt the peanut gallery needed to be told for a minute.

I apologize.

I understand there's a protocol and I would like to stick to it.

Shut the fuck up, Jason!

What are you doing?

I'll shoot you one more time before you act.

But if you fight, I don't want to arrest you.

You show me what your police department is about right here, right now.

Why you got your ass closed?

Sit down.

Now.

Them dumbass statues.

You should have voted to take them out.

You're ignoring it!

You're ignoring it!

Let's have a seat.

Let's have a seat.

Let's have a seat, please.

Nancy, excuse me.

We're going to have to remove this situation.

We're going to have to remove them.

We're going to have to remove them.

Everybody, please stand up next to the stage.

A mass shooting, where even somebody should have came in here with a bomb and blew the city down for us.

And that's why we are so upset, because there was already a strength of the city council.

You guys took the whole council out with the knobs to make it look.

But when people of color make the rookies, you kick the people of color out, that's fair.

He said he would do us like he did those statues We're here.

They don't give a fuck.

They don't give a fuck about us.

What the fuck do you think they don't give a fuck about us?

The motherfucker's double-crossed, the coldest-ass shit, the fucking sweet-ass white shit.

They're like these motherfuckers' great young friends, us.

How many fucking times do I think that I'm going to fuck off the way I know their fucking life?

What the fuck?

But I ain't scared of no motherfucking fuckers.

How is this going to get us through?

I'm sorry.

What the fuck, man?

What the fuck are we gonna do?

What about being a fucking citizen of Charlottesville?

Why?

Why?

Why?

Why?

I'm tired of fucking... What about dying?

Being on the fucking front line?

For my fucking people?

You know where the fuck the problem is?

Bodies against weapons!

No weapons!

And y'all fuckin' do us like the fuck y'all do!

Fuckin' ass shit!

I can't fuckin' sleep that fuckin' night!

I'm fuckin' cheap, I gotta stay protected every day!

The fuck?!

Fuck the police!

Pursuant, would you make that motion pursuant to 2.23711A7?

So moved.

For legal advice regarding how to handle the remainder of the meeting.

Oh my God!

and Jack Brown.

So I have a policy, you can do it, you can do it at all times.

.

.

All right so it is my duty as mayor to now read rules on how a meeting and before I read them I'll just say what I had hoped would happen was that and I will remind everyone if you all remember me on the other side

of this as a citizen at the meetings.

I was usually in the back if there was something that I felt needed to be said, especially I think the meeting after August 12th.

I made comments up here, but I'm usually in the back.

I say what I have to say.

I'm back in the back, and I'm just observing.

So I don't work like

this and have never worked like this.

I do think people have a right to express themselves.

I'm not one, this is very difficult.

For me, I was hoping that we would find a flow

to where people were doing things different naturally, that they felt like if there were people who on up here representing their values, that they will respond differently.

While it has been better, it has been very difficult to conduct the meetings and have business take place.

I really don't know the answers because I know every reason why it's happening and then I know what and how other people feel about, and even for me, about making this time valuable and getting business actually done, right?

With that said, do I want to sit up here and tell people how to respond?

I don't want to be that person.

I mean, that makes no sense to me.

Speak with signs.

I mean, I think if you have something to say, there's a time to say it.

There's a space, you know, to say it.

But anyway, that's where we are.

So I was just, I probably can't even say that.

Anyway, rules.

Remarks and action that disrupt the council meeting and remarks from persons other than counselors, the city manager or city attorney, which are outside the purpose of matter by the public, community matters, a staff report or other presentations associated with an agenda item are not permitted.

The presiding officer shall call an individual to order when that individual goes afoul of these rules.

The following are examples of the remarks and behaviors that are not permitted.

Interrupting a speaker who is addressing counsel at the speaker's microphone and a speaker who has otherwise been invited to address counsel during community matters or a public hearing.

Interrupting a counselor who is speaking.

Shouting and talking either individually or in concert with others in a manner that prevents the speaker or counselor from being heard or that otherwise hinders the progress of the meeting.

Blocking paths for emergency exit from the meeting room, engaging in any conduct that prevents a member of an audience from seeing or hearing counselors during a meeting.

Standing on tables or chairs within a council meeting room.

Threats of violence towards counselors, city staff, or members of the public.

Engaging in conduct that is a criminal offense under the city code or the Virginia code.

Campaigning for elected office or promotion of private business ventures.

My intention was to allow people to find

their way for us to move through the events that happened last year.

Feel like we were moving towards solution and work through that.

I don't even raise my kids like this to the point where I'm telling them what to say.

I want them to be vocal.

I want them to have a voice.

At the same time, it is very difficult up here.

The call for us ignoring the threats on the front row, we couldn't even hear what he was saying.

I don't think anyone up here, I'm sitting closest, knows what the threats were.

Okay, and so that would be impossible to force something that I didn't hear him say.

At the same time, doing the West Second Street, everyone knows my original votes on that.

There were, I don't agree either.

I haven't, you all know that, but that's not the point.

We just had to end up giving each speaker more time to finish.

They have a right to speak.

They have a right to voice their concerns.

How this has to work is that if you disagree, what is the strategy that you come up with so things will be different in the area if you feel differently about that?

And screaming, yelling, bottles, crinkling, all of that stuff is not going to change that.

it's a different level of dedication and commitment and strategy and we don't have that yet.

So these are the rules.

I have to, néon, not let things flow and hopefully people find their own way and néon, no matter who it is, what's going on, we have, we're being videotaped.

in the front row now.

And all the energy that was just directed towards was exactly what was hoped for.

Exactly.

And so that's where we are.

There will be reminders.

I'll be reminding.

And we'll just be firm with everyone.

All right.

and there's clapping, and I want, because you all didn't clap, from people who have been very vocal in the community on radio shows, if you're listening to them, about the fact that I haven't been handling these meetings well, okay?

So we just gave them another round of discussions to have.

All right, so is Chris Wayne,

in the building because he did not finish his time.

So is Chris Wayne in the building?

You're talking out of turn?

You're talking out of turn.

So is Chris Wayne in the building so that he can finish his time?

All right.

So that's the end of Matters by the Public or Community Matters.

Item A, minutes for March 19th, 2018.

Item B, an appropriation HB2 smart scale grant funding for Barracks Road and Mystery Intersection, $8,640,866, second of two readings.

Item C, an appropriation Charlottesville Fire Department Legacy Vending Machine Funds, $4,314.94, second of two readings.

Item D, an appropriation, reimbursed funds to the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau, $35,517, first of two readings.

All in favor.

All right now.

5-0, vote passed.

All right, so next we have the public hearing on the city council proposed budget.

Mayor Walker, what we will do is provide an update to the City Council on the amendments that have been discussed over the course of the last couple of weeks since I proposed the budget.

Good evening.

We're going to go ahead and do a quick presentation just on the budget as it's amended right now.

Thank you, Brian.

So at our last work session, City Council worked on another of items in the budget related to the amendments.

So I'm just going to quickly go through the amendments for everybody.

For the decrease in revenues, we decreased the carryover funds by $79,000 that represented the

Strategic Initiative shares of the Arts Coordination piece.

We actually reduced that expense, and you'll see that later on.

Increased revenues, taxes, sales tax was increased by about $302,000, meals tax by almost $23,000, and tax on bank stock by $25,000.

We have another carryover fund piece that's going to help pay for the residents on the job program of $106,400.

And then meals tax increased on the designated revenue side.

This is the transfer to debt service fund.

in the amount of $5,725.

That increased the revenue by $383,406 for a total fiscal year 19 amended budget of $179.7 million.

On the expense side, we had several expense changes since the proposed budget.

For city departments, we reduced public works, streets and sidewalks professional services by $58,042.

Arts and Coordination Planning was reduced by $200,000, so there's a total of $50,000 in the budget for next year.

City Ride Reserve, this was to help fund the increase to the CHAP program, which I'll talk about in a moment.

That was reduced by $127,195.

Participatory Budgeting, this doesn't take the money out, this just moves it to another cost center, and I'll talk about that in a minute.

For increased expenditures, this is the other side of the residents on the job program reserve, 106,400.

The living wage is increasing next year from 1379 to 1440 for a cost of 115,000.

We had to put an increase of a total of 100,000, that's these three items, for increased utility expenses for next year.

Participator budgeting, this is that amount again 100,000 is just going to be moved to its own cost center.

Homeowners tax relief program is increasing by 109,500 and we'll talk about that in a minute, I have a slide about that.

And then two items related to the youth internship program which increases the stipend and the amount total cost of 43,000 and then increases the capacity for city youth which increases the budget by 46,000.

and then there were several area non-profit and outside agencies that council funded at the last work session including the Public Defender's Office, Jaunt, Sembereros, Foothills, TJAC, On Our Own, Local Food Hub, George's Healing House, Lighthouse Studios and the Piedmont Family YMCA and then the designated expenditure on the meals tax side of 5700 for a total expenditure amendments of $383,416

for a total budget of $179.7 million, which is balanced with revenues.

So what is in, oh this is the CIP, excuse me.

So one item we did do in the CIP, which is of importance, is we moved some money out of citywide IT strategic infrastructure into the Meadow Creek Valley Trail railroad tunnel for $50,000.

That didn't change the total CIP, it just moved some project dollars around.

So for the affordable housing program, what's in the budget now is the maximum house value will now be $375,000.

Income ranges, which you can see under the current program how they're structured.

The new structure would be 0 to 20,000, and the grant would be $1,000.

2001 to 35,000 would be 750, and 35001 to 50,000 would be 500.

There's also changes to delinquent tax policies.

So if you're delinquent, you don't have to be caught up by December 5th.

You just have to have an active payment plan with the treasurer's office by December 5th.

And then we had to identify around $110,000 to accommodate that.

So the new budget proposal is $569,500.

Oops.

So we're tentatively scheduled for one more work session and we can talk tonight about whether that's necessary or not.

If not, that's fine.

We can wrap this up tonight and we can have our budget approval on April 10th at 5.30 p.m. in the second floor conference room.

Yes, with the change in it.

So all those amendments we went through were able to accommodate the $109,000 increase.

And that was mostly the city wide reserve additional dollars and the public works dollars that we identified.

and those, I believe the public work dollars were savings that we thought we could have taken at the proposed budget and we just didn't.

I'm happy to see you.

If you could go back to the grants page for a second.

Just wanted to give you some kudos as well as

Mr.

Divers, is Todd here?

Yes, he's here.

Thank you for working out the new proposal in terms of three tier limits.

So just so everyone knows, this will have a very positive effect in terms of those receiving grants or maybe paying taxes on their homes.

And the new proposal, those are the three income limits for those who missed the budget meeting.

But thank you.

Seems like this will definitely be able to help a lot more of our citizens.

I want to thank Mayor Walker for driving so hard at this equity-driven idea.

I mean, it really is.

It doubles this relief.

I think it's significant for a lot of people who live here and do, and the rising costs of housing are hurting them.

I'd just like to say one more comment on that.

Thanks to Mayor Walker, I didn't realize the significance of going from two to three tiers until she brought it up.

So even though that made a more challenging accounting problem for you, I do think it was a really good revealing exercise for all of us to see where the need really was.

So again, thank you.

And I know Vice Mayor Hill was very strong in getting this off the ground, too.

Council, I'd wait to make that decision until after the public hearing.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Belvron.

All right.

Yes.

So I open the public hearing first.

Well first I'd just like to say I'm very encouraged to see them moving to the three tiers.

I think having that at zero to 20,000 at the $1,000 level is a really positive change.

I know before that I was concerned that increasing it by just 100 or so dollars just wouldn't really make a large impact.

That goes a long way to actually making a positive impact on home ownership for people.

Again, I would just reiterate, as many people have brought up in the past, I think there's an opportunity to strengthen the Human Rights Commission by adding into the budget

civil rights attorney for the Human Rights Commission.

I think there's room in the budget.

I think it's a feasible expenditure.

And it would need to be accompanied by resolutions that further empower the Human Rights Commission.

But I think that's very feasible and that together it can be the seed of beginning to empower the Human Rights Commission over time and have it be a more active part investigating workplace and housing discrimination in the city.

And then I have a specific

Question about the budget is I've seen reports about there was an expenditure for a new staff member who's going to be doing community outreach.

I think there was some discussion about elevating that to an assistant city manager position that would have some role in development or city planning.

I'm just curious, was that finalized?

And I'm just curious more about what is the role of this office?

What is envisioned?

Yeah, I mean it seems like a pretty significant change that would have a pretty significant change on development.

So just curious to know more about that.

Thank you.

I spoke of an experience that I had with the Human Rights Commission last week.

I'd like to speak of another experience in which before you were even on city council, you were there and Dr. Bellamy, you were there.

And I did give this, not this council, well I think you were still here.

But anyway, I gave you all a petition to reopen Sage Smith's case.

And I actually had gone to the Human Rights Commission

and I had a petition that I worked very hard on and I had something written out that I worked very, very hard on.

I presented it, if you remember Dr. Bellamy, at the Human Rights Commission.

I was told, at that time, I got binders, I thought it was going to be fancy, everybody got a binder with all the information in it, gave it out, got very emotional like I usually do over these things and I was told that I would get a letter in the mail.

about what I had given them.

So I waited and waited.

I didn't get a letter in the mail.

So I reached out to the individual over the Human Rights Commission at that time.

And she didn't get back with me, didn't get back.

Reached out to another person.

And the response that I got, and I felt, and I have screenshots, so.

that I can share with you is why would I care about Sage Smith and I have these screenshots and I'm like what you know and is it because I'm a middle-aged fight woman what is it I care I have always cared you know and

I always reached out to his family.

Now this is how this Human Rights Commission is being run, and that's my personal experience.

My other experience in which I begged my friend to come tonight, I'm kind of glad she didn't, but to talk about how she had been called the N-word, and Dr. Bellamy, you know who this person is, she actually came to the town, when you would have your meetings, when you first were elected, you would have them at the centers, she actually came to the town center and stood up and said, I need help.

this is happening.

However, she also didn't get any closure.

Why don't we have a civil rights attorney?

Why don't we have it but we're giving money to people that are marketing.

Marketing what?

And for what?

When you have your most vulnerable citizens that are being called these names and told they're going to be hung by trees and stuff like this and where I'm told, and I'm going to send it to you,

The screenshots where I'm told, why do you care?

And I never got a letter, never got a response.

We need an attorney.

We need to do it now.

We're Charlottesville first class city.

Let's do this.

Take that money and get an attorney.

Mayor Walker, I'm sorry.

After we've read the meeting rules, we've made it very clear in terms of individuals making noises and disrupting while people are speaking.

With your permission, I'd like to let yourself know as well as the officers know that these two gentlemen, or excuse me, this gentleman seems to be making a great deal of noise.

I'm hearing him.

Now, this gentleman with the ball head while Ms. Robertson was speaking, so if possible, could we give him a warning in the event that he continues to make this noise, he'd be removed?

Hi, I'm Dina Gould, the Director of Lighthouse Studio, and I'm really here just to thank City Council for funding Lighthouse Studio's Vinegar Hill theater community programs.

I didn't know if questions would arise tonight but I really just wanted to say we are proud to be located at the entrance of our city's downtown area and this funding will allow us to continue our programming that provides arts education to local youth, brings visitors to our downtown area and fosters important dialogue about community issues like race and equity.

I had more to say about the ways that this will impact our organization and our community in such a positive way and given tonight's delay I'm just going to say thank you very much.

I'm going to follow up with an email to all of you.

Thank you.

That's the last person we had signed up.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak?

It's the public hearing on the proposed budget.

Thank you for the opportunity again.

I feel like the budget this year would be a lot better if there weren't egregious expenditures like TARP games that don't need to happen, police stuff that doesn't need to happen.

Priorities.

That's what I spoke of before, before everybody was interrupted.

And priorities are still the issue.

If you have major violent crimes going on, and you forgo those for nonviolent things, you're going to have people coming back and saying people are misusing the police force.

That's why everybody's here.

They said the same thing.

I know we're on opposing sides of the field.

But I think that's the common ground.

And if we can get back to effective expenditures of money, then a lot of these problems will go away, and we'll find the unity returning.

Thank you.

Would anybody else like to speak?

All right.

So we're going to close the public hearing.

Yes, Mayor Walker, I'd like to make a comment with regards to the question about the Assistant City Manager position and then the Community Engagement Specialist.

First of all, the Assistant City Manager position was a position that was approved last fiscal year.

It simply was the job description was never finished.

It's in the process right now and it needs to get put out on the street.

The role of the Assistant City Manager

is to have a position with authority to assess where we are not fulfilling our goals as a city with a vision.

Fed by its people, informed by its people, and then enforced by zoning that makes sense, that is in sync with its vision.

Right now we have a situation where our zoning ordinance has been out of date since 2003.

It causes an awful lot of work for this council, this community.

We're going to be working on that tonight.

We do need internal to government someone who understands how to be a change agent.

And that is a very important position to look at

especially when you're dealing with not just the sustainability aspects of our community but also the equity aspects.

Zoning is a critical tool.

So when somebody is an assistant city manager level, they have the view across multiple departments.

It's not just stuck in one department.

The multiple departments are important because they have an impact on everything regarding the built and the natural environment.

So it's not just NDS, Naval Development Services.

It's not just public works.

It's not just public utilities or Parks and Rec or economic development or the fire department.

It's all of it.

Somebody has got to look at it all of it holistically and make sure that when projects come through, they are meeting the vision of this community.

We have this also strategy in our comp plan from 2013 for small area planning.

There's about 10 areas.

That is a golden opportunity to meet our affordable housing needs.

We have not been able to execute those in a timely way because we haven't had a dedicated change agent to make sure that they're happening in a holistic way with a ethos about community engagement that permeates the entire kind of culture of the bureaucracy.

So community engagement, informed zoning that implements the vision,

and coordinating departments so that we're all pulling towards a common good.

And there are still questions.

I still have questions about that position and whether that position is needed in that way and whether there's other ways to get that work done without having a third assistant city manager.

Mary, I just wanted to emphasize that was from last fiscal year, not this fiscal year.

I know, but there is a new council and we do have some input.

Just very briefly, thank you, Mayor Walker, in regards to, I think Ms. Robertson brought up the point, so does Mr. Payne, in regards to the Human Rights Commission and a civil rights attorney of sorts.

This council, at our last budget meeting this past Thursday, Wednesday or Thursday, we've had two consecutive ones, but we did decide to put funds aside, or not aside, but decided to further examine whether or not that position would be something in which we would bring forth

after hearing from the Human Rights Commission and receiving their yearly report which will be at the next meeting as well as there will be opportunity for community members to speak to their report as well as how they feel about the position so please be in attendance at our meeting on the 16th and I'm not sure if that's when we'll make an exact decision but we are prepared to further explore the possibility of a civil rights attorney.

Hearing from Charlotte and Ms. Green who is currently the director

and seeing what route we could possibly go.

One issue, if I may, I know Ms. Green will speak more about it, but in regards to a civil rights attorney, I met with her last week.

One of the issues that we may have to think about is in the effect if we have an actual attorney in that office, a civil rights attorney, we may run into the issue in regards to people who advice is provided for.

Finding the determination of whether or not they're actually receiving legal advice or whether they're just receiving information from an individual who works at the office and we have to be very careful about making that difference and other localities or municipalities throughout the Commonwealth

They shy away from having quote unquote civil rights attorneys for that very reason because one could provide some information to you and then you could turn around and say well the city the civil rights attorney told me to do x, y, and z and it wasn't the right thing to do and then there's a lawsuit so doesn't mean that we won't go that route we'll have that conversation on the 16th but just want to make sure that you all are aware.

You were going through, it says two, three and four?

I mean the same issues that we talked about two weeks ago with the, you're talking about the tax levy.

So the annual tax levy, we're not proposing any changes to our tax levy.

And the budget appropriation falls under the same guidelines as the budget itself.

Yes, so we would need that and then also for the budget appropriation.

OK, well, so moved.

I don't have the motion for it.

I just have the agenda.

Second.

Excuse me.

Ms. Hill, seconded.

No vote.

So this is just the first reading?

Yeah.

Just the first reading on the budget.

I'll second that.

and that's it in terms of actions.

I personally don't feel the need.

I feel comfortable with what was presented by Ms. Pilgard and Mr. Jones.

So I would like to propose that we do not have a budget session on Thursday.

Right, $105.

I think Mr.

Divers was snapping because he wants the meeting, or I don't?

All right.

Thank you.

And thanks again to Ms. Bogart for your hard work.

There's an application that's been submitted to City Council by a limited liability corporation by the name of 1170 Emmett Street LLC.

They own a parcel of land at the corner at the intersection of Barracks Road and Emmett Street and they are planning to construct a new retail project on the site.

It's going to be the site of a new CVS store.

They've received approval of a final site plan and one of the issues that needs to be cleared up is the location of an old storm drain easement.

In 1960 the city acquired a storm drain easement for a storm water pipe that's located on the property.

In your agenda packet attached to the proposed deed of dedication and vacation is a plat that shows you

the approximate location of the old 1960s easement which is shown by a long dashed line.

This application seeks to abandon a portion of that easement which is shown on the plat between location A and location B.

As part of the project, a new privately maintained storm drain pipe will be installed and protected by a new 20 foot wide private drainage easement.

The remainder of the storm drain easement is not affected.

That's the dash line below location A and will remain the responsibility of the city.

And in addition, or in sort of compensation for

the vacation of that area.

A new parcel of land about nine hundred and seventy nine square feet in the area will be dedicated as part of the Barracks Road public right of way that will allow for some significant changes to the Barracks Road area at that intersection in the future, hopefully pursuant to some state and possibly federal funding as well.

There will be a new public utility easement 5 feet in width across the property near Emmett Street that will be granted to the city.

There will be a public utility easement 10 feet in width across the property near Barracks Road, which will be granted to the city.

And there will be a variable width public access easement across the property that will allow for an additional sidewalk on Emmett Street.

And that right of way would be granted to the city as part and parcel

of this action if you vote to approve it.

So the recommendation of staff after having received comments and input from utilities as well as NDS is that you should approve this ordinance.

It's before you tonight for a first reading.

All right, so we'll open the public hearing.

OK. Would anybody like to speak?

All right, so a closed public hearing.

Mayor, I'd like to move that a council adopt an ordinance authorizing the partial release of a stormwater storm drainage easement

All right.

It's just for first reading.

Yeah.

No.

All right.

So we're down there.

All right.

So we're moving on.

to the Omar Shaw Historical Society lease of the McIntyre Building.

Good evening, mayor, council.

So I'd like to just present a quick update of the chronology of what's transpired since September 18th of last year when we first came before you about the lease renewal.

Since then, the Historical Society was to come back on March 1st of this year to discuss the 10 goals that council had required of the lease.

They came before you on March 5th to discuss those goals.

and subsequently you allowed them to have an extension of the lease and come back this evening to discuss what goals they had met.

There had been some correspondence between the city and the historical society that specifically addressed the appointment of the one-third of board of directors.

Council appointed Board of Directors and some of the concerns that the Historical Society had had with that.

Specifically, the letter from Chloe Barefoot from the Historical Society Executive Director, he indicated that they would like Council to consider one Council member as ex officio to the Board in lieu of Council appointing one-third of the Board members.

The Historical Society felt that they had done quite a bit of work

over the course of time since the resignation of the previous president.

With that, basically they say they've met the 9 of the 10 goals with the 10th being appointment of one-third of their board.

Okay.

Well, I'd like to say, I imagine, Madam Mayor, we may hear from Mr. Barefoot to answer questions, but this is the right time.

There's an additional idea that's come up among council that I thought I might ask Mr. Obrador for what you think about it in the city's point of view and Mr. Jones and raise it, which is after having talked to Mr. Barefoot, I think that we're all, or many people are excited about the leadership

and qualifications that he'll bring here.

A compromise on this contested item about the role of council would be that, as I'm reading this, and I'll make a motion about this later, that council shall appoint one-third of the board of directors if we added there for the first year of this lease.

So it would only be for a year period while many of the different issues that got us to this place could be resolved under the

Supervision of these appointees, call it a probationary or a stewardship period, probationary probably, but then it would go away.

And then it would, it would enable, it would, it would eliminate the concerns about sort of political appointees and perpetuity being on the board.

It would, it would reduce the concern of the precedent about council kind of willy-nilly appointing members on nonprofit boards.

This is a very special case because it's a real sweetheart deal of a lease in a city-owned building right next to a very historic park.

So I wouldn't layer in anything like that.

If I could just point out the lease that's in front of you that's been recommended staff was only for a one year period.

So you would be

I just want you to know that.

And I think the reasoning behind that was to give the new leadership the opportunity to get the society off the ground, to build it up, and then we would come back and have a discussion with them towards the end of this.

I mean, we could say, I'm trying to, because the lease incorporates by reference these items, you know, A through J in it.

Whatever the language would be that would, it could be counsel shall appoint one third of the board of directors whose terms shall expire at the conclusion of this lease.

And then

I guess my concern would be that if you write I guess it would but I guess the danger would be if you're just renewing the leases then it creates a little more work on the back end because it would be baked into the

I think it would be anticipated, and Ms. Robertson can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it would be anticipated that you'd have, if you were going to have an extension, it would actually, we'd actually have a brand new lease that we would present to the city, to the city, and it would be, we'd have another public hearing on that.

I don't have a question, I just have an alternative idea for a motion, but that can happen I guess when we have our discussion about it.

It doesn't involve Mr. Ogedarver.

Although I would like to say this because if we can bring Mr. Barefoot to the podium, the alternative idea was to have two

Are we discussing already?

I understand Ms. Galvin's point, but I think Mr. Signer's

We've worked pretty diligently in terms of working with Mr. Barefoot and I feel like the proposal that you just put forth in regards to the one year to a certain extent, that gets us to where we need to be.

All right.

So we're going to open the public hearing.

Good evening, Mayor Walker, members of council,

Mr. Jones, Genevieve Callender City resident.

I wanted to come tonight to say that I support renewal of the lease given the recent efforts of this society.

to meet counsel and the public's concerns.

A few months ago I was here and I expressed strong reservations to you and I sort of wanted to clear the air tonight and express to you that I'm very encouraged by recent actions of the Society.

I had an opportunity last week to meet with the Society's new Executive Director and I believe the Society is moving in a much better direction and I believe that they will work hard to be relevant

inclusive and to act in the best interest of our entire community and return the society to a respected position in our community.

Thank you.

Would anyone else like to speak?

Good evening, K-Slaughter City resident, Mayor Walker and members of council.

I also want to support the extension of the lease to the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society.

I think that their new board, their executive director deserve our confidence.

I am really excited about the new energy in the Historical Society.

And I, as a lapsed member on purpose, have rejoined

because I believe that this new revived society can add a lot to our community.

Evan Brown, city resident.

I just want to come up here and say that I would hope you all do not support this new lease negotiation.

None of you all mentioned it, but it is in the agenda that, let's see, essentially the budgetary impact would be the city losing $105,090 in lost revenue a year.

We were just at the nonprofit CIP budget work session with

Tons of folks begging for money.

And honestly, probably all those folks deserve as much better than the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society, mainly because of their lack of complete leadership and accountability over the summer.

And now we have someone, Will Lister, who was a financial supporter of the lawsuit to keep the monuments.

I don't know if that's really

A great look for the Albemarle Historical Society given the historical meaning of these monuments and what happened this summer.

If you think about it, they may actually be, at least Will Lister, financially responsible for what happened this summer.

And he even said that this rally should continue to happen.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Jim Wooten and I live at 2616 Jefferson Park Circle.

I hope you all received the written statement of support for the Albemarle, Charlottesville Historical Society.

I emailed you.

Did anyone not receive that report?

I won't re-hash all of the

History in that report, but I was active on the society's board for 14 years from the late 80s until 2001.

And it's at that time that the opportunity to rehabilitate and preserve the McIntyre building first came about.

And with the collaboration of the city, Jefferson Madison Regional Library, private foundation funding, this little organization

who was basically in a two room building on Court Square saw a tremendous opportunity.

Our foundation support gave $700,000 to the restoration and preservation of this building and to the programs of the society and I feel as others have said tonight

that the society is back on the road to being the organization that represents many, many of the communities of Charlottesville in programming exhibits and in outreach.

I just want to speak in support of that and close by saying that throughout the time I was on the board, we worked very closely with the late Linda Peacock of the city.

and although she had no official designation in the board's bylaws, she always knew exactly what the society was doing, how we were operating and always kept the city council apprised of that.

And I think, however, this partnership between the city and the society works out, I would love to see that level of communication that Linda Peacock once maintained restored once again.

I could speak real briefly.

I have a question.

about just accountability.

I mean, in past discussions about the historical society, the discussion got to the point of wondering if there was fraud being committed.

There was discussions of whether items were being sold on eBay that were owned by the historical society.

So it certainly seems like the new board could obviously not get worse than that.

seems to be moving in a positive direction, but the question I still have is, is there going to be accountability for what the previous director may have done?

Again, I don't know what went on, but there seem to be credible questions about whether fraud was committed and if someone or some board defrauded the city,

Moving in a more positive direction so that it isn't happening anymore is very important, but it also seems important to have accountability for the people who took those actions.

And the question I would have is, is the board just going to want to clean things up and move forward, or are they going to want to have accountability for what happened in the past?

And I think making sure the board can impose that accountability is important because

These were specific decisions, a specific person or specific people made that have specific consequences.

And I think it's important to send a message that if you defraud the city, there's going to be accountability.

And again, I don't know exactly what happened, but there seems to be credible questions that it could have.

And if there's credible questions, I want to make sure that the board is investigating that.

All right.

Thank you.

Would anyone else like to speak?

So I think if I may, many of the suggestions that have been raised are valid to say the least, but we've had a great deal of conversation in regards to reviewing past policies, past actions, and I think we've been satisfied in regards to the answers that we've received, and there is essentially completely new leadership with the historical society.

and I will be the first to say that me and Mr. Lester may disagree in regards to the monuments but I think that he has done a really good job in regards to trying to get the foundation of the historical society back to where it needs to be.

The governance is indeed where it needs to be.

Mr. Barefoot I think also may be one who I don't know if he and all his boards quote-unquote agree on every issue but he also in my personal opinion is one who is more than capable

of leading that organization.

I also think it bodes well.

Miss Keller, an individual who is very, very vocal in regards to her displeasure of how the organization was being ran, how she came and spoke tonight about how she also is comfortable, which has been the sentiment for several people throughout the community, including one Mr. Irvin Jordan, an individual I have a great deal of respect for.

So I just think it needs to be said and

And if I may, if I just want to explain why I put forth this other alternative idea is because it was I too had spoken with Mr. Barefoot and I've spoken with other nonprofit agencies who are very concerned about the precedent set for a local government body appointing members to a nonprofit board

boards that had not been mandated by state or federal government to do so.

So there is a distinction to be made between those boards that are required by state or federal law to have a locally appointed member and those that are private nonprofits.

So what the concern that I heard was that this was potentially setting a precedent that could have unintended consequences of the city starting to

have policy input on multiple nonprofits all over the city, and thereby lessening their freedom and their ability to do their own mission.

So that's why I was paying attention to these comments.

If it's felt that Mr. Signer's compromise, whereas the appointments end in a year, that this is actually a probationary period,

I can see that working.

I just wanted to share with the council where I was coming from.

I'd like to go ahead and make a motion to pass the lease as it's drafted here, and then we can have any further discussion pursuant to the motion.

OK, I think I'll speak very briefly about this, because I already talked about it before.

There's a distinction between being a member of a fiduciary board, where you have a mandate to do things like examine budgets and rules, and where you are responsible for what the board does personally.

It's fiduciary.

And that's different from being an ex officio member, where because you're not voting, you don't have a fiduciary duty in the room, dissipating and carrying information back.

and that's different from having an advisory board, which would be a great innovation.

Mr. Barefoot and I talked about that some too.

But I think where the reasons that I'm not that concerned about setting a precedent of counsel, and I hear this.

I think it's a great concern.

And in a city with 700 nonprofits and a lot that come to the city for aid and the Center for Nonprofit Excellence, we need to care about best practices for nonprofits and be cautious in ways in which we're getting involved.

But this is distinguished in a couple of very important respects.

I spoke about those before.

I don't foresee this.

Willie Nilly Council just involving itself in dozens of nonprofits like this.

It's a limited case.

It's limited further if this would be for a year.

And it would actually enable these fiduciaries to take a very close look under the hood at what is happening to get this organization back on foot.

It helps that there are a couple of new board members.

It helps that Mr. Barefoot is on

is there but there still are fundamentals that are laid out in the plan where we got to make sure that this organization is going to be sustainable and that some of the errors that were spoken about earlier are rectified.

We have one quick question.

No, these would be voting.

These would be as originally envisioned.

It's a third.

So it's up to you all.

However many board members there are, we get a third of those for that year.

And then the lease has to be redone.

They can go away after that year.

No, for me, the main difference was I just, when we were thinking about who was going to fill those seats, I just know I, for one, I would have been fine coming in overseeing like just how all this was functioning, but I didn't think that who I am and my history or lack of history in this community would make me an appropriate person as a council person to sit when I think there's far more appropriate people.

And I am comfortable with this because it's going to end in a year, at least it's at that point where we get feedback from both perspectives.

The board as leadership of the historical society and then what we get from these

Appointments.

But it ends in a year if the organization is doing, I mean, favorably.

Yeah.

All right.

So all in favor?

How did you vote?

The vote carries 5 to 0.

When would you like us back in to make a presentation?

Because I know in my letter I had suggested December, but I also heard January mentioned we're totally flexible and can do that whenever.

I would like to be able to go back to my board and say they'd like us back, some kind of annual review.

December or January, either one.

Thank you for your confidence and we're looking forward to working with the city very closely and I'm very much looking forward to demonstrating to this little city I love the real value of this organization and they will see it.

All neighborhoods and all walks of life.

Thank you.

Alright, so next we have the West 2nd Street Special Use Permit and

I mean I can hold her.

Five minutes.

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The End

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All right.

So we are at the West Second Street special use permit.

All right, so this matter involves an application

As you may recall, the

The application came before you back in February at a public hearing previously.

And when it was before you on February 5th, a counselor made a motion to approve the application.

The motion received a second and some discussion.

but it did not receive three affirmative votes so the motion failed.

So you have not yet acted on the application and that's what you need to do at some point.

The application has involved two aspects which

have generated quite a bit of public debate.

One aspect is the height of the building or more specifically a revised development proposal that adds a story to the building.

and what we need to make sure that everybody understands is the relationship between this application and the timing of your amendment of the city code to remove a provision that allowed the overall height of a building to be determined by a method that involved averaging the height of all the walls of the building.

Back in December of 2017, you amended the city code to delete that provision of the city zoning ordinance, which has been causing a lot of difficulty for everyone.

However, this particular application came in about two months before that decision was made by city council.

This was not the only application to come in before you changed the ordinance.

There were some others.

So what you have is an application in which the zoning ordinance calls for the height of the building to be 101 feet, but this application is allowed to make use of the old method of height measurement instead of doing

a measurement under the current provisions of the ordinance which are fairly newly adopted since last December.

The people who have been reviewing this application including the BAR are aware of the previous

Methodology for Measurement of Height.

Back in November of 2017, when the BAR was notified of the special use permit application and the request to amend the previous approval, the application, every time someone files a special use permit application, it gets referred to the Board of Architectural Review if it's within a design control district.

and in November the Board of Architectural Review voted to recommend approval of the special use permit with a proviso.

And that proviso is that they wanted to review the height of the building in the context of massing and its street context when it comes back to them for a certificate of appropriateness.

So what they were saying is that they understand that there's a methodology to determining the overall height of the building.

And even if the applicant has the ability to fit some additional space within that overall measurement, which might include an additional story, the BAR still conducting business as usual will have the ability to review massing of the building, what that looks like,

and how it presents itself in relation to a particular adjacent street.

So I'll take questions about that later if you have some, but I'm going to move on to the issue of affordable housing.

When this application was before you,

In February of this year, almost the entire discussion that evening revolved around affordable housing and whether or not the particular affordable housing criteria that are imposed by the city zoning ordinance

were going to result in the most desirable amount of affordable housing that you'd like to have and even whether or not the election that the ordinance allows a developer to make, either cash or units, was one that you were hoping it would make.

Typically, a developer has until the time of a building permit application to decide

whether or not it wants to provide units or a cash contribution to the city's affordable housing fund.

Since we were last here, as you noted in your packet, there are two options for which you have resolutions in your packet.

Option one would involve a cash contribution by the developer to the city's affordable housing fund

in the approximate amount of $316,000.

And it would involve, that's the minimum requirement of the zoning ordinance.

In addition to that cash payment, at such time as the city were interested in partnering with the developer

to enter into a rent subsidy agreement, additional units up to 16 units would be constructed off-site pursuant to that agreement with affordability of those units to be determined by subsidies that would be provided by the city.

Option two would involve a specification within the special use permit

of the developer notifying you of his election to construct eight required affordable dwelling units for the period required by the ordinance.

And then in addition, pursuant to a similar rent subsidy agreement with the city, eight additional units would be constructed pursuant to a rent subsidy agreement worked out with the city.

If the city desired to do so under that option, the eight required units under the zoning ordinance could also be subsidized so they would be affordable to a deeper level of affordability.

Those are the two options.

If you choose to utilize either one of those options,

There is a proposed special use permit resolution, one for each option, with conditions that

match each option and then in either case if you are interested in the type of partnership represented by the rent subsidy agreement we've given you a resolution by which you could authorize the use of the affordable housing fund as a source of the rent subsidies and the use of that would be subject to a written grant agreement that contains terms and conditions acceptable to the city's finance director

consistent with some of the programs that the city already manages and that rent subsidy agreement would be developed administratively to be utilized in accomplishing those off-site units to be developed.

I don't know what other questions you may have, so that's my description of the status that this is coming forward in tonight.

Ms. Robinson, I would like, I know there may be discussion.

I don't know if we've had, I don't know if anyone has any more questions because we've talked about it, but if not, I'd like to make a motion and then us have discussion after the motion is made.

and it's regarding the addition of Water Street elevation to the SCP language.

It doesn't hurt anything because other bordering streets have been mentioned.

If you'd like to do that for clarification, that might help clarify for the Board of Architectural Review that they have the ability to look at all of those.

Thank you.

That's my other question.

There's two things we have to decide on here, right?

Could you just explain that for all of us?

Right, so first you should choose which of the special use permits you are interested in considering.

Option one is the cash contribution.

Option two is the eight required affordable dwelling units.

So you should make your choice as to whether you're interested in one of those and then once you've decided on that you should separately decide whether you'd like to adopt the resolution that's been included so that the city could begin working on

So I'd like to make a motion that the city amend a special use permit as requested by the applicant number SB 17-0007 for proposed mixed-use development on Water Street proposed by Market Plaza LLC.

Option two.

Second?

It's very minor.

Okay.

The issue for me somewhat though is will BAR then bring it back and then we have to deal with the back stuff.

I mean, no, okay.

Just wanted to clarify.

Okay, I'll accept your friendly amendment.

So now discussion.

So one of the reasons why, personally, and I know we'll get to the next portion in regards to the rent subsidy, which in my opinion all of these go together, but I firmly believe that this is the proper project

for us to choose and some individuals will be pleased others will not but one of the reasons amongst others which I will explain why I believe now I'm fully prepared to go along with this project as many of you saw Mr. Woodard and I were having a great debate during the last time he brought this up and the fact in which before we were only talking about maybe seven units or eight maybe we can get nine we now will be able to based off what we just heard

In addition to if we're able to move forward with the rent, excuse me, the subsidy, I have 16 affordable housing units.

May I finish please?

16 affordable housing units which will immediately, after those units are built, we'll be able to have individuals who are currently on the city's waiting list for the voucher list.

They'll be able to have access to those vouchers, be able to get into those units.

We've already designated that those individuals will have

Major first priority to getting to those units.

And I think the fact that we can bring 16 families who people who are currently get phone calls, Facebook messages, text messages from who say, Hey, I need a place to stay right now.

Um, sick of being on this list.

I can't find a place to stay like this will help alleviate that issue.

I know other individuals have stated that.

Well,

16 units is nowhere near enough, which I agree.

We should be looking towards building several more units.

But this is a step in the right direction.

While this public private quote unquote partnership that we're kind of moving towards, while this may be something new for Charlottesville,

I've been like literally traveling around the Commonwealth and then even going to other states over the past four or five months looking at how they deal with the issue of affordable housing and this is something that happens in several other localities, places where they don't have the housing shortage that we have.

because they take on different projects like this.

The city currently, quote unquote, doesn't have the ability to just go, like we can't just go buy a lot and build.

We have to have partners.

That's why we work with CRHA.

And that's why I'm liking, or excuse me, I'm looking forward to us working with individuals, not only like Mr. Woodard, but others who will indeed

Look to build housing.

We can't have it both ways.

We can't say we need to build more housing.

People say y'all should build more housing, build more housing.

And then when we look to strategies for us to build more housing, say that we shouldn't build it that way.

In addition to the fact that we'll get 16 units for 20 years,

that potentially $950,000 in tax revenue, which we'll have discussions about on how it can be spent.

But I've heard members directly from Farrar Public Housing Association of Residence, people within the community who have been strong housing advocates use the idea that we should be able to flow the bond, or the city should flow the bond, or the city should be creative.

Well, in order for us to do those things, we have to have a funding mechanism.

And I'm not saying that we're just going to do that right here, right now.

Although the CRHA has its own bonding capacity to be able to have their own ability to be able to purchase bonds and or flow bonds.

So if we have a certain amount of revenue that is coming in for us to be able to do something like public housing redevelopment and or build more units, this is a win for the city.

Again,

I can't speak for anyone else, but I know how it feels when individuals call me in the middle of the night or send me messages saying I've been desperately trying to find somewhere to stay, and I can't.

Well, we're trying to build units.

So for that reason, I firmly support and wholeheartedly support this project.

I think, again, it's going to be good for the city.

Do anything about the fact that the city already went into an agreement with Mr. Woodard years ago.

The city has invested nearly $3 million into this project, money which I don't want us to see us waste.

So again, we're going to get 16 units.

Mr. Bellamy, thank you for that explanation.

In looking at this, there are

five issues that I am weighing and this is a complicated decision.

There's a lot of, a lot of the land use things we've seen, anybody who watches us, they're like the strongest sentiments on both sides a lot of the time and it, it feels like it's a good and evil thing and a lot of the time it's not.

It's just a very complicated decision where you're weighing pros and cons and

Here are the grounds that I'm looking at.

When we did our housing study, which we invested a lot of time in, a lot of money, and I would urge anybody who look at it, who cares about housing in the city, to look at it carefully, because it had a lot of important findings that were counterintuitive.

A lot of them were about supply and demand at the different brackets of housing in this city.

and it found that we were undersupplied at the top bracket of housing, which meant that a lot of people who had more money were dipping into the lower housing stock and that meant that there were fewer of those bungalows that, you know, a lot of people with a middle income could afford, so they're being crowded out and then they have to buy the housing.

It's a cascade effect that is cheaper and then the people who really need housing are

are out of luck.

And that meant that we need more supply, but specifically at the top so that those richer people are not taking the housing that should be available to more to more middle income people.

That was the finding of the study that we commissioned.

And it was an important finding.

A lot of the facts about housing are counterintuitive things that look like gentrification.

actually can end up making housing more expensive because the supply gets more limited and then it gets more expensive, especially in a place that's in demand, which the city of Charlottesville is, because our population has gone up 12% in six years.

It's our job to look at this study and really think about it and how does it apply in public policy.

So that's one of the ways that I look at the way that what the housing in this project would do given our needs and given the costs that we're seeing, the skyrocketing costs.

Number two is that the

This was really complicated and it was designed by a prior council.

They were looking at four different uses that were going in this one parcel.

Maintaining the existing parking, doing mixed use, which means commercial and residential, doing residential in the way that we just talked about, and doing the farmer's market.

and there was a farmers market study which said we do not want the farmers market to move more than a block away from the downtown mall.

The farmers market could go to the Albemarle County office building, it could go to XR Park, it could go to, but nobody wanted that because they want it right next to the downtown mall.

But where are the other parcels that are going to do the farmers market in crowded downtown Charlottesville where there's not really a lot of space to do a farmers market?

and where this property will be used at some point, will be developed at some point.

Now I guess that gets you to the real policy debate which is do you want to develop it at all?

Should it just stay a parking lot, city-owned parking lot in perpetuity and have the farmer's market there?

That is not what the prior council decided on and a lot of money and resources have been invested in undergrounding utilities and all these other and one of the things that they wanted to do was improve the farmer's market even if the stalls would shrink and some of it would change they would have

utilities and water there.

Right now you just back your truck on, it has no infrastructure at all.

That is, it is free, it is loosey-goosey, but it doesn't have a lot of infrastructure to improve the experience and the resources for a lot of the vendors that did want more resources in there.

So that was a lot of what this prior council in this RFP was balancing, and it's complicated.

And then that gets me to the fourth thing for me, which is precedent.

In general, to me, it is really difficult for a city council to be reworking or undeciding prior schemes, especially if they were complicated, especially if money has been spent.

There was a lot of deliberation, a lot of thought, a lot of research.

There was a task force on the farmer's market that met for a year, and they weighed all these different things, and they delivered something that was going to, by the nature of it, go over multiple councils, because it's longer.

A council lasts for two years.

So if we establish the precedent that we're going to rework, frequently, prior decisions of prior councils, especially where you're spending millions of dollars, then that is a mess.

It can create a mess for lots of different things, especially just planning and infrastructure for a city.

It can create a mess.

And so I'm very reluctant to

create that mess.

And the final thing is housing resources.

Foreign Mayor Dave Norris is here.

In the last meeting where we talked about this, I spoke, if there is a way that we can cabin the revenue that is coming from this and dedicate it, that creates a very unusual precedent for a city because you don't generally think of general fund revenue as, as tracked.

It goes into the general fund and it goes to whatever prior council wants to use it for.

So that, because it sets a bad precedent if you're carving up your revenue towards special purposes because then where does it stop, really?

But in this case, this is an unusual property because it's on city property, it's a public-private partnership that's designed for a public-private end.

and I think that we can establish a limiting principle here where we say we will use this revenue toward a specific purpose and Mayor Norris's idea was not just let's just track the revenue into the affordable housing fund, it's let's use it as leverage because if you cover

the debt service, then you can get like a 20, you can get a multiple that's huge.

So if this revenue is covering a bond, a lot of details will be worked out and that will require probably an ordinance that could establish a, we could even do tax increment financing district in this one area, which will just say the revenue goes toward this one purpose, but, and we got to get a lot of details right.

It may end up

But I think that there's enthusiasm in this council to use this revenue for the screaming out need that we have in this community right now is affordable housing.

So we can do all those things at once.

It's not perfect.

It's complicated.

It's multi-year.

But that's why I would support Mr. Bellamy's motion.

Thank you.

Well, thank you for everyone's comment.

I do support Mr. Bellamy's motion.

and a lot of good points have already been made.

So thank you.

I don't have to say them.

And I do want to point out, though, that Preston Avenue is is an opportunity to get ahead of the development wave.

It's something that happened in West Main Street, which then does lead to increases in land value.

So getting affordable housing, a 16 unit affordable housing piece on

in the Preston Avenue area is critically important to do it now, right now.

So I think and to have somebody build it and have it be actually in writing is extremely valuable.

I also want to point out that when we receive our housing production strategy next month, I believe, in that is going to be the creation of a tax increment community benefit district on Preston Avenue.

It's patterned after the Columbia Pike model in Arlington, Virginia.

where the increment of change in revenue before and after improvements and actually in the wake of property tax assessments, a certain percentage can be captured and then directed specifically towards projects that need low-income housing tax credit financing on Preston Avenue.

So we're getting ahead of the development wave on Preston.

I believe this project is a really good first step, and we are

actually getting a new policy tool in place when we talk about the production strategy next month.

So I'm going to talk a little bit about how significant the urban design standards were that were put in place for this competition.

They exceeded anything that was built within our existing zoning and still today.

And I think it's important that even though I

We all hear the concern about the building height.

There are other aspects of this project that actually do a lot of things right from an urban form standpoint.

So the block itself is 250 by 250.

It's a typical city block size.

The building itself will be about 200 foot long on West Water Street.

Compare that to the flats, which is about 400 feet.

The Flats was not designed with an urban design standard that required a break after 200 feet or 100 feet so that that's why it's a monolithic block of building that looks so huge.

So the nature of the block pattern itself downtown is an asset.

Second, the fact of the matter is it is not a block, a fully built out block because of the Market Plaza.

It is an L-shaped building.

with two legs that are going to be very narrow, no more than 100 feet wide.

And the leg that faces South Street is stepping down from a 10-foot story to a 5-foot story.

The old warehouses looking on to the plaza will actually not be, they'll be about 100 feet away from the tallest part of the building, at least.

and the idea is that it's going to create a big piazza.

It's going to be surrounded by building.

Think about places that you've been to, Copley Square in Boston, places perhaps in different parts of Europe.

It does create that enclosed public space, which is a very, very good asset, a very good community gathering space for Charlottesville.

There are currently no sidewalks, wide enough for two people to walk down.

on no street trees to cool the air and absorb the CO2 emissions.

No habitable spaces with windows and doors along the ground level activating Water Street.

And the telephone poles and overhead wires that once cluttered the meager sidewalk and marred the skyline are now gone, thanks to this project.

So I just want to end by saying that the standards imposed on this project by the design competition, thanks to

the Planning Commission, the Place Design Task Force, and this council made this a better design building, and it's giving the Board of Architectural Review a far better building to work with than anything that we give typically in our architectural control districts.

So, and it is in keeping with our comprehensive plan.

This part of the city has historically been reserved for the height and density subject to B.A.I.

review,

to support the small retailers on the mall.

There's about 150 businesses on the mall that really need people living there and working there.

So the last time I went around I was on one of the votes against the project and we were given pretty limited guidelines on what we could base our vote on and for me I certainly hung my hat on.

one of the driving factors of being the vendor market.

And because of the vendor market, it's made it a real challenge financially when you're having a better part of a block in an open air plaza.

And much as that's an amenity, it does really restrict us in terms of where you have places to put space.

And that's why the building goes up.

And also in terms of what types of housing mix we can have in there to make the project viable.

And I just felt strongly that if we couldn't make the market be in a place where we felt like it was going to be thriving and successful, then

Maybe we really should be considering going back to the drawing board.

Clearly, I see that there's support for this project, and so I want to focus my efforts now on making sure that I'm going to continue to be representative for that market community.

And I will say, I feel like the developer and his design team have made a lot of efforts in progress in really creating that two-way dialogue and hearing.

There's certainly vendors that feel differently.

There's certainly vendors that have always been in support of it.

But there are a couple of vendors who were the loudest critics of this project in the last couple months as we've had a chance to kind of really think through this

and I went to the annual vendor meeting, could see their perspective shifting as I have because I really do believe that we can find some common ground and it's going to be different in the way that it is but I really feel that I have a lot more confidence than I did a couple months ago.

The other piece for me though is the massing of this building and I really want to challenge this council to empower our board of architectural review to really be

driving the decision making and what design recommendations should be made to ensure that we get the aesthetic from the person walking on the street to be very similar to where, to get more closely to where we were the first time that this was brought in front of council in the first SUP because I do see that there are a number of changes and it's not so much the building height for me but it's really just the massing in that street wall and those setbacks.

that I think of or some people have addressed during the public comment portion are of a concern and it obviously includes those shadows and I'm just I'm not an architect and I'm not an urban designer but I just I know there's many times that the Board of Architectural Review will make a decision and that decision then gets appealed back to council and I'll just say that it would take a stretch for me to support an appeal that will come back I think we really need to be empowering those groups that have

that expertise to be driving that decision making.

And third for me the concern is just making sure that we have an expedient timeline by which this project is pursued.

As you know we have other projects that are going to go out in that corridor and I really don't want to see us disrupting the downtown area for a decade when you consider the project that's going in the arena all within that tight vicinity.

So I just I'm hopeful as a city that we can help to support

keeping this moving forward in a fast way, but also just really putting ownership like on the developer side to make sure that this moves forward in an expedient way so that we're not disrupting.

I certainly is.

This has been a project that we spent a considerable amount of time just reaching out to a variety of stakeholders on and probably lost the most sleep on so far.

And council is just deliberating this twice now.

So I just hope people recognize that we certainly don't take these things lightly.

And there's a number of stakeholders with many times competing

perspectives, but I also recognize a lot of work has been done to get us here and a lot of investment has been made both private and public and I just don't want to lose that hindsight.

So anyway, that's where I am and why I'm at where I'm at.

One question in regards to your comments, Ms. Hill, the point in regards to

There's going to be a great deal going on.

So we want to make this project be as expedient as possible while ensuring that it's aesthetically pleasing and where we want it to be.

They're going to have it regardless.

This is just a part of the process.

I'm just saying that when they make the recommendation that we support their recommendation.

Well, I can't say whether or not

I'm just letting you know that if it came back to an appeal to us, I'm just going to be very poor.

It would be a struggle for me to support an appeal.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Let's see.

So I still don't support the project for the same reasons that I expressed before.