City Council Meeting   2/1/2021

or is there another 12 slots available for public comment then?

Ryan, I've enabled screen sharing.

Great.

Yep.

We should be getting started shortly.

I'll repeat a couple of the announcements I made earlier because our audience has grown a little bit.

If you need the agenda, you can go to charlottesville.gov slash agenda, and you can download the agenda or the entire packet.

We've got some opportunities for public comment.

We have four people signed up in advance.

Andrew Jaspin, Laura Goldblatt, Maddie Green, and Kimber Hawkey.

There are 12 additional spots.

under Community Matters.

Separately, if you wanna comment on the consent agenda, the mayor will call for comments on that as well.

We have one public hearing tonight, Union Station Partnership.

If you wanna speak to that item, wait until it comes up.

And then we also have an SUP for 1000 Monticello Road.

If you wanna speak to that item, it's not a public hearing, so you should do that during Community Matters.

I rise here, okay.

Ms.

Thomas?

Mayor Walker?

Yes.

Vice Mayor McHill?

Yes.

Councilor Hill?

Yes.

Thank you.

So I call the regular council meeting to order.

We'll have a moment of silence.

Mayor Walker?

Present.

Vice Mayor McGill?

Here.

Councillor Hill?

Here.

Thank you.

Could you get the second to Ms.

Okay, Mayor Walker?

Yes.

Vice Mayor McGill?

Yes.

Councilor Hill?

Yes.

Next up, we have announcements.

The Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission's Emergency Rent Relief Program

The Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission, TJ, PDC, administered the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development, DHCD, Emergency Rental and Mortgage Relief Program, the RMRP, with Federal CARES Act funding appropriated through Congress.

The TJ PDC along with its community partners distributed emergency rent and mortgage assistance to qualifying households in the city of Charlottesville in the counties of Albemarle, Fluvanna, Green, Louisa and Nelson through November of 2020.

The program was designed to support and ensure housing stability in the region during the coronavirus pandemic.

RMRP

that is the Emergency Rental and Mortgage Relief Program is now administered by DHCD through contracts with Deval LLC and Virginia Housing to seek emergency rent and mortgage relief renters and homeowners can contact area code 703-962-1883

that's 703-962-1883 or visit applications.deval.us to submit an online application.

Landlords can visit

virginiahousing.com backslash RMRP to seek relief on behalf of tenants.

And I also want to remind people that at our last meeting, we reminded people that our community development block grant funding was for the Ridge Street priority neighborhood area, which is includes but is not limited to Raymond Road for South Street, Second Street Southeast,

Ridge Street, Sixth Street Southeast and Langford Avenue.

If you need home repairs, you can qualify and call Corey Demchak at 434-817-2447 extension 26.

Sorry, just a small correction.

The initial flyer, the phone number was slightly off.

The correct phone number is 703-962-1884.

For the Thomas Jefferson Planning District?

Correct.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

And next up, we have a COVID update from the health department and Ryan McKay is here in Dr. Bond's place.

Good evening and thank you.

You can.

You're going to share it, correct?

Right.

There we go.

Thank you.

All right.

And thank you again for having me.

What I would like to do is go through and just provide a little update about where we are in regards to transmission throughout the community and the district as we are still in the midst of heavy transmission and burden throughout the community and then talk a little bit more about where things stand in relation to the vaccine and vaccination distribution and dispensing.

So as of today, you can see here our total cases since the beginning of the pandemic beginning in late March and early April.

Our hospitalizations specific to the district and then within Charlottesville and then again total fatalities in the district and then fatalities in Charlottesville.

You can see on the top graph on the right hand side where we've been since January 1st.

We did see and experience a surge not only in Charlottesville but throughout the health district consistent with what we saw throughout Virginia and the United States following the longer holiday period both from between Thanksgiving and through the New Year's holiday.

The opportunities for more social gatherings

pushing things indoors obviously created more opportunity for disease to spread.

Certainly we experienced that here through the health district.

Certainly important to note that while we are doing our best to continue to contact every single individual who has contracted COVID, we have had to take an abbreviated approach to our case investigation and contact tracing where there are times that although we are making that phone call or sending a text message to get in touch with someone,

We don't always get in contact with that individual.

And so we've tried to push the information out to the communities on what individuals should do if they are experiencing COVID, have tested positive, or have come into close contact with someone in regards to quarantine for that 14-day period.

Over the last couple of weeks, we have seen a downward trend, both in the percent positive from test results, and have also seen a downward trend in the total number of cases and case incidents per 100,000.

So we believe at this point, after three weeks or so of a downward trend, that we worked our way beyond the surge, but also recognize that there's always that potential for increased cases and transmission in the community.

And here is just another update on our breakdown of the demographics as it relates to cases.

We continue to see a disproportionate amount of impact on our community's color, Black and African Americans, and the Latino community.

And obviously, this will be sort of a driving force in how we approach vaccine distribution so that we can support communities that have been disproportionately impacted by the disease.

As far as testing and present positivity in the health district, you can see here the number of test encounters that we've had.

Testing remains to be widely accessible provided certain circumstances are met.

So individuals who have symptoms who may have been in close contact

We continue to provide testing in all of our localities each week, and testing has become a little bit more readily available now that we've gotten through a pretty big surge in demand following the holiday season.

You can see our percent positivity rate is down to 5.1%.

Across Virginia, for a number of weeks, we saw increasing cases and increasing transmission and burden throughout each of the health regions.

For the week ending 1-23, our region, the northwest region, is more in a fluctuating state, and I think this is reflective of where we've seen a decrease in the number of cases and percent positivity in a lot of the health districts in this region.

For outbreaks, VDH does maintain an outbreak page.

You can see here where we are in terms of Charlottesville related to outbreaks predominantly in medical facilities or nursing homes and assisted living.

The number of cases are listed there and then the number of deaths.

The asterisks would indicate that it's a number less than five.

And so for privacy reasons, we won't list that particular number if the deaths are between one and four.

So a little bit about the vaccine.

I will admit sort of the nature and how the vaccine works is not in my expertise.

I will say that this is an mRNA lipid nanoparticle.

So it attaches to certain proteins in an individual's body to create sort of instructions on how the immune system can respond and develop antibodies and protection against the vaccine.

This is specific to the Pfizer vaccine, the Moderna vaccine, which is the vaccine we've been predominantly administering in our community clinics.

Both work in the same way.

These are vaccines that require two doses.

The Pfizer vaccine is the first dose, and the second dose is 21 days after that first dose, and then the Moderna is 28 days after the first dose.

So depending on the individual vaccine that a person receives, they'll have to come back for a second dose.

And we work through our scheduling internally to make sure people have access to that.

And I can explain a little bit more about that later.

There are other vaccines on the horizon, but we don't know how readily available they will be.

Some of those vaccines, like the Johnson & Johnson, is actually a one-dose vaccine, but the efficacy on that vaccine is less.

I think it's at about 65%.

So as more vaccines become available, we'll obviously have to educate our communities about those vaccines, the benefits in comparison to the ones that are currently out there and in the hopes that we can expand access as more vaccine becomes available.

Virginia and the Virginia Department of Health is using a phased rollout, much like the rest of the country, based on some federal guidelines that have been put out for states to follow, to adapt, or to adjust depending on the need.

So we initially rolled out phase 1A at the end of December and early January, primarily focusing on health care personnel and then residents of long-term care facilities.

Healthcare personnel associated with the hospitals would receive access to the vaccine through their employers through UVA Health or Sentara Martha Jefferson and then community health workers would receive access either through us but then in an expanded partnership through Sentara Martha Jefferson.

That Phase 1a also adjusted a little bit as we moved on throughout Phase 1a.

Other groups were included.

For example, social workers in Health and Human Services were added to that Phase 1a listing very late into that particular phase before entering Phase 1b.

Long-term care facilities and assisted living facilities receive their vaccine through a federal program where CVS and Walgreens received a distribution of vaccine where then they would go into those facilities and provide access to the first and second dose.

Very quickly after we entered Phase 1a, Virginia and the Blue Ridge Health District entered Phase 1b.

And this really expands significantly the number of people who can have access to the vaccine.

So in Virginia, if you combine the populations of Phase 1a and Phase 1b, that represents just over half of the entire population of Virginia.

And so this is a significant increase in the number of people who get access.

It also means that the demand for the vaccine has increased significantly.

The allocations provided by the federal government, even right now, are really geared towards a phase 1A population size.

So you can imagine that it's going to be really difficult to provide widespread access and vaccinate large numbers of people in a short period of time, given the amount of people that now have access.

So for Phase 1B, we have frontline essential workers, people age 65 and above, people age 16 to 64 with underlying health conditions, people living in correctional facilities, homeless shelters, and migrant labor camps.

Some examples of the frontline essential workers, teachers and educators, corrections officers, people who work with homeless populations, fire, hazmat, law enforcement, and then working further down, postal workers, individuals who work in grocery stores.

These are all individuals who have been really at the front lines and being more exposed and more at risk.

But you can imagine the number of people that it's going to take to get through 1B and the amount of time it's going to take given our current allotment.

It's going to be a matter of months before we can provide that widespread access to all of those individuals in that particular group.

For example, we have over 40,000 people who have accessed our online survey to indicate their interest.

And these are individuals 65 and above to receive access to the vaccine.

So it's a large number of people.

It's going to take time.

Right now, we're just not getting the allocation, and I'll show this in a minute, of the vaccine needed to vaccinate all of those individuals.

And then future phases to come will be other essential workers as we get into 1C.

But again, we're still trying to wrap up 1As, and we're trying to provide more meaningful access to 1Bs as vaccine allocation increases over time.

So where are we right now?

All of our plans are going to be dependent on the availability of vaccine.

Right now, Virginia is receiving about 105,000 doses per week for over half the population.

Those 105,000 doses are allocated to health districts based on per capita.

formula.

So right now we are receiving 2850 doses each week.

That's for the entire district.

That's for everyone.

So if a primary care provider, pharmacy, or even our hospitals want to administer the vaccine, we have to allocate this amount to all of those individuals or to all of those entities that want to dispense it in each of our localities.

So that pie is small, and as we break up those individual slices, those slices are going to be small as well.

It's a real difficult challenge for us to be able to provide that widespread access given the amount of doses that we're receiving.

We are ready and able right now to provide greater access.

We've built up an infrastructure both internally with our staff, training volunteers, working with our partners at Sentara, Martha Jefferson, and UVA Health to be able to dispense the vaccine.

But right now, it's just a matter of the availability of that vaccine to provide more access.

Listed here are some examples of what we've been doing.

So we have our vaccination center on Hydraulic Road at the old Kmart location where we're prioritizing phase 1A healthcare, phase 1B frontline, fire, police, corrections, home and shelter staff, and then daycare, preschool, and K-12 educators.

We've partnered with the city and Albemarle County to have them open and operate a site at Charlottesville High School

where they're providing access to phase 1A city employees.

So this would be people in health and human services, social services, and then phase 1B educators.

Through UVA, we've been able to send them line lists of individuals, 75 and above, and eventually in different chunks, 65 and above to get access to the vaccine.

They've vaccinated several thousand individuals in that age group who are particularly at risk of severe outcomes if they catch COVID.

And then at Seminole Place, they're opening up the site.

They did a soft launch yesterday at the old big lots where they will continue to vaccinate individuals in Phase 1A and Phase 1B.

And then finally, Sentara, Martha, Jefferson initially have been providing access to Phase 1A community health workers who are unaffiliated and affiliated with Sentara, Martha, Jefferson, and now are working through Phase 1B, 65 and older through their patient providers.

We recognize that this isn't the end of what we need to do.

We need to do much more access to the vaccine in locations where people are, where they live.

Not everybody has great access to these locations or maybe don't feel comfortable going to these larger locations where we're trying to provide max vaccination.

So working with community partners in the city to identify locations, to get support with registration processes,

and really to conduct outreach, to build some trust, to build some education so that people feel a little bit more comfortable about getting the vaccine amid something new.

I imagine there's some fear out there and some distrust about this new vaccine.

And so making sure that we're working with those community leaders who can support what we're trying to accomplish but also identify ways that make this more accessible to individuals near where they live or where they live so that they have more meaningful access to the vaccine.

Here is where we are as a state in terms of vaccination.

About a week ago, we were 50th in the state in distribution.

We've moved up into, I think, the top 20 at this point after a pretty significant push last week where health departments, health districts, hospitals who had inventory of vaccine were directed to get near zero inventory so that we could improve access.

Obviously, this big push comes just in front of sort of a lack of inventory for ongoing increased access, but I think we've made adjustments, especially at the local level, to increase capacity at our location at Kmart, but also with our partners at UVA and Sentara to make more meaningful access to all of our communities.

Here you can see the total doses received, administered by vocation, so facility type like hospitals, local health departments, medical practices.

You can see that hospitals have done a tremendous amount to provide access, largely within their healthcare community, but more so in the last couple of weeks providing access

to the community.

For example, UVA at their ECR near the hospital providing to 75 and above.

Moving on, testing is still available and still a necessary aspect of all of this.

So we're continuing to see cases.

There's certainly a need and demand, particularly if vaccine rollout is going to be a little bit slower given the current supplies.

So on the left here, you can see what kind of testing is happening throughout our health district, but more specifically for individuals in our community.

Church of Incarnation, Mount Science First African Baptist Church, and then we're conducting testing at Charlottesville High School on Friday evenings.

And then just some simple reminders about what we can do to continue our downward trend of cases as we try to get more vaccine and roll that out.

Masking is still critically important.

Maintaining distance is critically important.

Smaller gatherings, particularly within your household if it can't be outdoors.

All of these things that we, for the large part, I think have been very successful with as a community since the pandemic began are going to be critical for keeping case counts down while we try to roll out more vaccine.

All right.

Thank you for that update.

Thank you.

All right, next, we have recognitions.

Mayor Walker?

Yes.

Vice Mayor McGill?

Yes.

Was there another, no, there wasn't another announcement.

All right, next up we have the consent agenda.

Ms.

Consent agenda one, minutes, December 21, 2020, closed and regular meetings.

January 14, 2021, special or emergency meeting.

Number two, Ordinance, Human Rights Commission Ordinance, Recommended Amendments, second reading Appropriation Number three, Substantial Action Plan Community Development Block Grant Coronavirus 3 Budget, second reading Number four, Appropriation, Approval and Appropriation of CDBG and Home Budget Allocations for FY 2021

through 2022, A, Appropriation, CDBG 2021 through 2022, Budget Allocations, second reading, B, Appropriation, Home 2021-2022, Budget Allocations, second reading, five, Appropriation,

Housing Opportunities for People with AIDS and HIV, Grant Award, $20,000, first of two readings.

Six, Appropriation, 2020 Local Emergency Management Performance Grant, Supplemental, $99,608, first of two readings.

Seven, Resolution, Financial Resolution Supporting Friendship Court Phase 2, one reading.

8, Resolution, Reallocation of State of Good Repair Bridge Funds to the Melbourne Road Bridge over the Norfolk Southern Railway, $220,930.

Thank you.

We can do it when we split them up because there are several things on here that we'll have to move around.

So that will become item 12.

Yes.

Okay.

Great.

So if you're in the audience, you'd like to speak to council about one of the items on the consent agenda, click the raise hand icon in the Zoom webinar.

If you're on via telephone, you can press star nine to get in line to speak.

Each speaker will get three minutes.

First up is Walt Heinecke.

Walt, you're on the city council, go ahead.

Yeah, can you hear me?

We can, go ahead.

Oh, great.

Yeah, I was just going to ask that you move the human rights ordinance off of the consent agenda, but it looks like you've just done that.

Next up is Tanisha Hudson.

Tanisha, you're on with city council.

Oh, I think they've already removed it off.

So I'm good.

No other hands, Mayor Walker.

All right.

So I think so there

I guess there'd be one vote to move item the ordinance number two to item number 12 for the agenda to general business.

Then I would like for us to move for a separate vote the December 21st closed and regular meeting minutes and then the appropriation B under four.

if we can add that, that can be added together and then we should be good to go.

All right, so I'll move to adopt the consent agenda without item number two, the December 20th

Ms.

Thomas.

Sorry, I have to record this also.

Okay.

Okay.

Mayor Walker.

Yes.

Vice Mayor McGill.

Yes.

All right.

Thank you.

Because you're abstaining, I guess, from the first one.

Mayor Walker, you're abstaining?

Yes.

Vice Mayor McGill?

Yes.

Councillor Hill?

Yes.

Mayor Walker?

No.

Vice Mayor McGill?

Just very briefly, Mayor Walker, Council, good evening.

There was a question about cameras on South 1st Street.

I did speak to Chief Brackney.

Those cameras were placed there by CPD in response to the gun violence in that area from, I guess we call it November and December.

Did want to talk about a few quick items for the public.

Wednesday from 3.30 to 5.30 the council will be having a budget work session February 9th at 5.30 p.m.

there will be a joint hearing with the city council and the planning commission concerning CIP budget

and finally wanted to thank the local Girl Scouts for putting up some umbrella stands at the downtown transit center for the public.

I had not really read or seen much about that but wanted to highlight that effort.

Thank you.

Is that new?

It's a joint meeting of the council and the planning commission.

It's the planning commission's regular meeting, but they're gonna be going over the CIP.

So we'll be joining them for that public hearing.

Or whoever can, three of us minimum.

All right, next up we have Community Matters, and I'll turn it over to Mr. Wheeler.

Thank you, Mayor Walker.

And as everyone joins tonight, keep in mind you'll have three minutes for your comments.

Please let us know your place of residence.

and Andrew, you're on the city council.

I'm Andrew Jaspin with the city of Charlottesville, long time resident of the Greenbrier neighborhood.

I've actually signed up tonight so my 12 year old son, Abraham Jaspin can address the council about matters of local little league baseball.

Good evening and thank you for the opportunity to speak to the council.

My name is Abraham Jaspin.

I am a 12-year-old student at Walker Upper Elementary in the city of Charlottesville.

I have been playing at Central Liberal League at Penn Park in the city in Siles and Tebow as a four-year-old.

I am hopefully about to start my final year of literally baseball at the majors level as a 12-year-old on the fountain club team.

However, I have not been able to play an actual baseball game in the city of Charlottesville since the fall of 2019 when I was 10 years old.

Last year, my entire 11-year-old season in the majors was canceled because of COVID-19.

It has been almost a year and a half since my friends and I have played a Little League baseball game in the city of Charlottesville.

Over the past year, we have been allowed to practice but not play games.

Some kids lucky enough to play travel baseball can go out of town to Harrisonburg or Richmond to play games, but we can't play games here in Charlottesville.

Just a few miles away from here in the counties around Charlottesville, kids were able to play baseball last fall and are getting ready to play this coming spring.

For all of my friends who play baseball, we are jealous that so many kids are playing flag football games in the city, playing soccer games in the city, playing basketball games in the city, and using the skate park in the city.

But we are still not allowed to play baseball games.

It would mean a lot to me, my teammates, my friends, my family, and all of the baseball players in the city if we could play games this spring.

Playing baseball games will help kids have the fun we all missed, and we really miss having fun this past year.

We will follow all the safety rules that the governor of Virginia recommends, our coaches and parents will too.

Kids in Virginia were playing baseball games safely last summer and fall, and so many other parts of the state.

I hope that City Council will allow our three local Middle East, Central, McIntyre, and Monticello to play baseball games in the City of Charlottesville in the spring of 2021.

Next up will be Laura Goldblatt, who will be followed by Maddie Green and then Kimber Hawkey.

If you'd like to get in line for one of the other 12 spots,

Just click the raise hand icon in the zoom webinar.

And if you're on via telephone, you can press star nine.

Okay, great.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

So I'm calling.

I'm calling.

I'm speaking tonight because I'd like you.

I'd like to urge you to reject the special use permit for 1000 Monticello Road.

at least as it is currently written.

At the moment, I think that the permit would adversely affect the neighborhood for several reasons.

One of those is because I think it doesn't meet the affordability that we need at this time.

And as we've seen

with the COVID-19 crisis, our affordable housing crisis is also a public health crisis.

Earlier in this meeting, Councilors McGill and Payne talked about the number of people who need emergency rental and mortgage relief.

And we know now that it's

incredibly important that we address our affordable housing crisis.

And so in its current writing, it does not provide enough affordability, but also given good recent legislation statewide that everyone has to accept Section 8 vouchers, that's great, but it doesn't attach any vouchers to any of the units, which means that there are none of the units that are necessarily affordable.

Additionally, in my role as a CRHA commissioner, I was in a recent training with Delphine Carnes

and she's the lawyer for CRHA.

She was asked about whether the construction of market rate housing, which is what we're going to see at 1000 Monticello Road, helps to address the lack of affordable housing.

She responded with an emphatic no and said that trickle down housing simply does not work.

It just means you're growing towards gentrification in the worst meaning of the term.

She also said creating affordable housing is not easy and it requires a commitment.

And so I'm asking you tonight as city councilors to make that commitment and to say that

One of the things that we need to demand of developers is affordable housing.

The only way we're going to start to see a lack of displacement and that we're going to see Charlottesville be more inclusive and welcoming is if developers really have their feet held to the fire and have to do it.

So I believe that this building would adversely impact the neighborhood.

As a resident of Belmont, I'm tired of seeing my neighbors pushed out and it's time for this city to take a stand.

and to insist upon more affordability as a way also to address our public health crisis.

Next up is Maddie Green.

Maddie, you're on the City Council.

Can you hear us?

Hi, can you hear me?

We can.

Maddie Green Great.

Thank you for your time.

My name is Maddie Green.

I live on Chesapeake Street, and I used to walk by the 1000 Monticello Avenue site every day on my commute to work.

I would like to reiterate the comments of Dr. Goldblatt and the Charlottesville Low Income Housing Coalition.

Additionally, I work in partnership with Legal Aid and the DSA Housing Justice Volunteers, and on their behalf, I would like to ask the counselors to deny the SUP permit

for this site.

Having worked on educating tenants about their rights during this pandemic and trying to prevent unnecessary evictions through outreach and going to court, I can speak to the trauma and life disruption of being displaced or evicted at this time, and it happens week after week in our city.

The history of Mr. Holtzworth on this site for displacing the majority of the disabled and elderly residents is particularly troubling in Charlottesville, given the lack of alternative available housing that is both accessible and deeply affordable for those who are living on fixed incomes.

To meaningfully address this past error, the proposal could have attached vouchers to provide deep affordability to some of these units, but the SUP, as it's written, does not.

Additionally, the owner and developer refused to address the affordable housing needs of the city by not partnering with nonprofits, not utilizing tax subsidies,

nor ensuring that affordability terms were beyond the minimum requirements when the planning commissioners explicitly asked for this during their first review of the SUP permit.

I believe that building market rate and luxury housing is simply not a special use of this land and therefore the site should only be used for what it is currently permitted by right.

We all know we live in a small city and therefore we need to hold room in this small city for projects that do meaningfully address our collective history of displacing the vulnerable of our community for capital gain and therefore only grant permits to projects that do help us build a city that is truly inclusive to those of all needs and all income levels.

Next up will be Kimber Hawkey.

Kimber, you're on with city council.

We can.

Thank you, sir.

Good evening.

I'm a resident of Belmont, and I speak to you on behalf of my family.

Again, we're faced with a faulty SUP application in our neighborhood where outside money, interest, and profits are controlling and negatively impacting the neighborhood.

This is not affordable housing.

The rents are too high for too little.

both in unit size and years of affordability, especially when this is free land for the applicant.

There's been a failure of the system that I have to point out.

Neighborhood Development Services has misrepresented the site in its documents and they are clearly biased in favor of developers.

Neighbors have not been properly notified and the citizens are being systematically denied their right to participate in this process.

Additionally, the developer has provided a new and improved site design plan, yet he clearly stated he was under no obligation and made no promises that he would follow the improved design plans.

We also hear the code word intention, and that means I'm not going to do what I say.

There's a faulty SUP system here.

The SUP should make this system better, not set a bad precedent of high market rents for matchbox units, as this application does.

Again, the history of the applicant is terrible.

Remember Mrs. Cole, who was evicted, blind elderly lady who complained bitterly of her eviction and died within the year of being displaced.

He has proven, Mr. Holwith, that he's not a community partner.

And if you say yes to this SUP, it says this, you're saying, hey, evict old and disabled and then you can make more money after that.

Where's the accountability?

There's a safety issue as an ingress, egress is being blocked.

The building is going to be plopped down in part of a driveway.

And this is something that was actually stated would not happen in our area.

It appears as if the city is going back on their promises.

And finally, I must point out the environmental justice issue here.

There is not only one tree at risk on this site.

There are numerous trees both on the property line and adjacent to the property that will either be cut down, killed during the construction or because of heavy equipment and such.

We have all these green goals.

When are we going to live up to them?

only a block away as you if you looked at the pictures I sent to you, a beautiful wood was destroyed by Adam Frazier and the construction of the junction.

Now we have a huge chunk of cement and asphalt where it was a beautiful canopy of 100 year old trees and their habitat and everything.

And that's gone now.

And it's just horrific.

There's an obvious negative impact on the neighbors, of course, with congestion, pollution, lack of parking.

With increasing assessments, we're paying more taxes, yet we're getting less livability.

Where is the promise change that we keep voting for when we vote you people into council?

Those were the four speakers who signed up in advance.

We have an additional four people at this point who have raised their hand.

First will be Tanisha Hudson, followed by Brandon Collins, and then Walt Heineke.

Tanisha, you're on the city council.

Good evening.

So I've been doing some research, and Mr. Blair or Lisa Robertson, since neither of you will answer my calls or return my phone calls, and y'all being real petty about that, but that's a whole other conversation.

I wanted to ask, isn't there something in the state code that says you can't give

City managers a certain amount of years within their contract.

You can only do a standard contract, but not years.

So how was Chip able to walk right in with two years?

He was considered for this job with no rigorous interview process, no public input, no other candidates besides Mike Murphy that you all were going to bring back.

And in other localities, an interim goes through a much more rigorous process.

Also,

How is the search firm process going?

Has anyone picked Charlottesville up yet?

I see you twitching, Heather.

Or did they just tell you no?

Which one is it?

Did anybody pick us up yet?

Has anybody said, hey, we'll find your next city manager?

Probably not.

And I would like that state code question addressed tonight, please, so you can be transparent, open with the public about it.

Please don't make me for you the last five city manager's contracts, including Chip's new contract.

Because I remember on the special meeting and I went back to watch it where Heather made it clear that he was the city manager.

So he's not an interim.

He was brought in on two years on a two year contract to be the city manager.

so y'all need to really like address some things because I don't think that y'all were really clear and you know if I have to spend my money to FOIA this stuff I definitely will so I suggest you all get on it.

Thank you.

Next up is Brandon Collins, who will be followed by Walt Heineke.

Brandon, you're on with City Council.

Good evening, City Council.

My name is Brandon Collins.

I'm a lifelong resident of Charlottesville.

I have three children who have lived here their entire lives.

And I work for the Public Housing Association of Residents, FAR, which is the Resident Council and Resident Advisory Board for Public Housing in Charlottesville.

And FAR is also a founding member of CLIC, the Charlottesville Low Income Housing Coalition.

I would like to speak in opposition to the special use permit for 1000 Monticello Road and I think it's important for you all to consider that you know when you a special use permit is not a requirement nobody has a right to that special use what what they should be doing is either showing that they won't have an adverse impact

or that they can provide some benefit to the community.

And I think if you look at the past actions of the property owner, you can see that the adverse impact has already occurred and is likely to occur in the future with displacement.

And I think there's a case to be made that the landowner is not a good community partner.

In fact,

People are now paying much higher rents.

They've moved to the county.

One moved out of state.

One elderly woman died after being displaced from that home.

Numerous folks put out of that property, and now the landowner wants to build additional housing.

And the affordability requirement under the ordinance

really doesn't require anything less than market rate and by any standard that's not affordable.

And I think there is no community benefit to this project and the adverse impact on the neighborhood could be severe.

And I hope you all will consider that and I hope you will oppose the SUP.

At this point, we have two additional hands raised.

Next up is Walt Heineke, who will be followed by Don Gathers.

Walt, you're on with City Council.

Thank you very much.

Good evening, members of Council and Mr. Blair.

I wanted to talk a little bit about the Human Rights Ordinance moving forward.

But before I do that, I just wanted to remind you on that SUP issue, the vote was very close in the Planning Commission.

So I think that's an indication of taking a deep look into this one.

On the Human Rights Commission, I did want to say, you know, I have appreciated the fact that you have moved so quickly to get the Virginia CARES Act amendments into the ordinance for the Human Rights Commission.

I just think that we can do a little bit better before we seal this one up.

And I think it's a couple of low-hanging fruit

kinds of changes that will really increase the effectiveness and the efficiency of the Human Rights Commission to actually achieve its equity goal in this town.

I go under the assumption that if it's not in the ordinance, it usually doesn't happen.

And that comes from eight years of watching the Human Rights Commission in action.

So there are a couple of issues that I think you're going to get to today when you talk about these things.

But I think we can do better in terms of the section on the major studies of discrimination and clarify that it shall be done rather than may and ask for quarterly reporting on it.

I think we can do better by encouraging or allowing some language that

encourages the city to use to get into a FIPA work share agreement with the EEOC if it doesn't conflict with the Values Act, leaving that opportunity open for the future.

We never know what's going to happen in the future with Virginia legislation.

It may go back to primordial days at some point.

And then I think the reduction in size is another issue

that'll improve the efficiency and the functioning of the Human Rights Commission.

You know, 16 is unruly.

I think seven to nine is good with some subject matter experts who are subject matter experts in employment and housing, or if they're not subject matter expert spots, maybe some community members that have experience with discrimination in employment.

And then lastly, I think we should hire an attorney with civil rights experience.

I know that's a touchy one, but I think it adds stature to the office and the enforcement approach.

I think the first director had this experience and she

was moving on getting into a FIPA agreement with the EEOC.

And I think the right attorney will be dedicated to enforcement.

I know there's an issue that it's difficult to get minority candidates in Virginia into that kind of a role, but I think it's worth making an extra effort to have an attorney who's a person of color.

Our eighth speaker is Don Gathers.

Don, you're on with city council.

Good evening, everyone.

Good evening.

Just real briefly, I too wanted to rise in opposition to the SUP.

I just don't think, I don't see where it does anything to address our constant elephant in the room, the affordable housing issue.

And I don't know

If it has ever happened, and if so, when, that we actually say no to a developer.

I understand the necessity for the tax base and the need for those funds to come in.

But I mean, at some point, it would just be good to just say no sometimes.

I mean, not all money is good money.

And if it's something that's detrimental or even if not detrimental, if it's not truly beneficial to the greater good of the community,

then I think that it would be an appropriate time to say no.

Also, I have a question about the city manager issue as it relates to the search firm.

If indeed the 40, 42,000 that was on the table, if that was actually paid to them, would just like some information on that.

And just want to say that I thank you all for the comments from the previous meeting about

the dysfunction that is and steps forward that you hope to take to try to resolve some of that.

And we'll certainly be watching and hoping that that's addressed and corrected.

The city is here for you.

If there's something that we can do to help move that needle of progression forward amongst you, then let's do that.

All right.

Thank you all.

Appreciate the work you do.

We have two hands raised.

Next up will be Chris Meyer, who will be followed by Mary Bauer.

Chris, you're on with Council.

Good evening, Councilors, and thank you for the opportunity.

I hope you are all doing well.

Chris Meyer, 124 Oak Lawn Court.

I just wanted to bring up the issue of the school reconfiguration contract.

I know

There were some questions about it at your joint meeting with the school board last week.

And I am very happy to see a preliminary amount of money put into the CIP.

But we will not know how much that actual reconfiguration will cost until again, at least halfway through this reconfiguration contract.

So I'm hoping I know that there was last March, hopefully it was supposed to be announced.

Sorry, it was supposed to be announced last March.

who was going to be or which firm was going to win the reconfiguration contract.

We are now almost 12 months past that time.

I do realize COVID happened, but I am hoping that that contract can be announced soon and that the consultants or the architecture firm can be hired.

and then give us a number in a couple of months that can be used for council to make an approval and get us going on this or at least the first view and vision of that.

I think it's important that happens in the next couple of months because also the political races that will be happening and that the future city councilors are aware and make commitments during that post political races to support the schools and the reconciliation.

and our 10th speaker is Mary Bauer.

Good evening.

Thank you.

My name is Mary Bauer.

I live at 606 Monticello Avenue, and I am the new-ish chair of the Human Rights Commission.

And I just wanted to briefly encourage council to, one way or another, pass the proposed amendments to the ordinance this evening because

It actually affects human beings who have complaints pending now.

There are some urgently needed changes to bring the ordinance in line with the State Values Act.

whether we make you know every change that makes this ordinance perfect tonight or not I think is to me not the question the question is can we make these urgently needed changes we have spoken with HUD and we are preparing to speak with the EEOC about changes that will be necessary to the ordinance to enter into a FIPA or FAP agreement there will be additional changes needed in order to do that we've been told that by HUD

So this isn't our last shot at this ordinance.

We know we'll be back and probably fairly quickly once we've worked that through with the federal government, assuming the recommendation is to move forward.

So my plea to you this evening is kind of one way or another, let's get these essential provisions passed this evening, please.

And we've got room for six more speakers, up to six.

If you click the raise hand icon in the Zoom webinar, we will bring you on to the webinar.

Going once, going twice.

All right, thank you.

I just have a few quick things.

Relative to the search firm, know that that full contract wasn't pursued and there was an invoice of $5,000 that the city was charged for work that was completed to date.

The contract status with the school reconfiguration, it's our understanding that

There are still some loose ends in terms of final negotiations.

Until that is done, there can be no announcement of a selection.

But I want to also comment on that there's delay and that last March there was a conscious decision for many things to kind of go on pause.

And then we kind of re-energized those efforts late in 2020.

And so that's why, you know, it certainly recognizes a year, almost a year that has passed, but there was certainly a planned pause in that as we were trying to figure out what was going to be happening relative to the budget for several months of the year.

And in terms of the contract for Mr. Boyles, that's something that we certainly can provide to Ms.

Hudson or to anyone who asked for.

I know that others have requested it and it's been provided as a public document without anyone having to be charged.

And I think the bigger concern there, because all the city managers' contracts should be something that I think have been made public in the past, at least...

through Mr. Jones' contract.

So that's just something that all of those things should be out there.

I mean, we've said this quite a few times, but I'll just speak for myself only.

In terms of the rigorous process, I have stated multiple times that ideally,

There should have been a more rigorous process.

I think the other four counselors got feedback on what to do with the process that we were in.

As been noted in the news, I didn't think that the search firm that we had chosen was the best search firm.

and I'm sure because that it's I'm being blamed for the reason that that didn't work out either.

I think also there was some advice there given that maybe this is a process that after the next council council is the new counselors come on which both Heather and my counselor Hill and my seat will be up.

at the end of this year, then you will have a better opportunity to get a better city manager or at least better applicants for that city manager position once, I think, primarily if I'm not in this role.

So that part of the process is not something that I was on board with, knew a lot about what that process looked like.

And

So I don't have the other four counselors would have to answer that.

I will move forward with the, based on that information, the decision to move on with a person and that maybe continuing with any process wasn't the best process.

After those decisions have been made,

I do think where we've ended up now, whether we had gone through a better process, whether there have been more favorable conditions to get us here, I hope that what we'll see over the next couple months that

with Mr. Bulls is that there can be some moving forward because over the past year or so, we haven't been able to get much done.

And so if we are going to be able to do some work on behalf of the community, which is why all of us are here, I think there's great hopes that we'll be able to do.

you know to do that now in terms of the state code I think what we've been told before and what we were trying to move forward to the community has been asking a lot based on the amount of severance we paid out over the past few years was to figure out a way to get away from that process and also understanding that we can't hold a future council to any decision

just like when we came on there were some changes that were made.

So we had some discussions about how to move away from the large severance package and I think I said at one point that Mr. Bowles did not even though he was very aware of the situation that we are in at no point during any discussions with him did I feel

as if he attempted to take advantage of the situation that the city is in in any way.

And I think you'll see that when you review his contract.

So one, we had to get someone here.

And in getting Mr. Bowles here, who was leaving a job that is working well for him, we ended up with the contract that we have.

And

I think the only thing that I would say to that is that I, if it had been me on the other end, I probably would have advocated for more favorable terms for myself.

And I think you'll see that, you know, in his contract.

So hopefully the FOIA part of this won't happen.

I think I answered Mr. Gathers' question too, or Councilor Hill did in terms of the

Payment for that.

And then someone else asked about whether we were moving forward with a search firm.

And I think, again, that decision on what next steps would be like would be something that is being determined to be best made after the end of the year, after the November elections, to see how that turns out, or even before that, if I'll run again.

And then what

the new counselors will fix as a date from moving forward.

And I know that it is Mr. Bull's intentions to be an applicant in that pool, but we had a discussion and he fully understood that he was really taking a risk here and that there were no guarantees in that position.

So I think I've...

If I may, just a very small point of clarification.

Mr. Boyle's contract is public.

It's been reported on by the Daily Progress and can be found, that document can be found in the reporting of the Daily Progress and is publicly available.

All right, no other comments?

Okay.

All right, so we're moving on.

So we have 20 minutes, we're probably not gonna get through nine, so it's probably best for us to take our break, eight o'clock break now, and then come back and move.

We do have a hand up for a comment.

I think, or is he speaking?

Is Mark Cavett, you're on the city council.

Can you hear us?

Okay, let's try it now.

Thank you for recognizing me.

I had some technical difficulty with Zoom, but I've got that solved now.

But I'll read you a letter that I sent you all that I wanted to also read tonight.

For years, I've been interested in development in the city.

As I said many times, I'm not against development, but it needs to be appropriate for the project for the neighborhood.

I'd like to remind city council that you do not need to automatically approve an SUP that comes before you.

Also want to warn you to be aware when you hear the words from a developer is there their intent or plan to do something.

A plan should be submitted and finalized in writing.

said, intent is not enforceable.

We've had numerous projects done in the city that were not what Council or Planning Commission thought was going to be built because those words were used, intent is not, again, enforceable.

On the SUP tonight, coming before you, the applicant said to the Planning Commission he was under no obligation and making no promises that he would follow the improved design plan.

My concern with this project is as follows.

The AMI should be lower and affordable housing should be for a longer period of time.

This should be achievable since there is no land cost.

Design should fit into the neighborhood using traditional building materials such as what was submitted in the last design update.

Planning Commission pointed out that they did not like the windows on the original plan and a submission was made with different windows.

Again, the applicant has indicated he will not guarantee using the updated plans.

Phil Bar should be involved in this process also.

The building is too high for the neighborhood and one floor should be removed.

I expect there will be a parking issue resulting due to the number of apartments and lack of street parking, especially when the restaurants are busy at night.

I have a concern if we are going to see a trend of closing or not requiring too ingress, egress on future developments.

Staff has said that there would be requirement on such larger projects.

now would be done on a case by case basis.

Mayor Walker, Tanisha Hudson has raised her hand again.

No, if we have someone new, but it's still the three minutes per person.

Understood.

Okay.

All right.

Oh, okay.

Sorry, I've been here.

All right, so I'll call this meeting back to order.

Thank you members of council.

This is a special use permit for additional residential density at 1000 Monticello.

The application what I do want to point your attention to for those that have even if those that had seen the public hearing is the

The conditions on the special use permit have been modified to reflect the discussion of the Planning Commission had.

So if you just look at the staff report, you would see possibly only two conditions.

One, the condition one of up to 42 dwelling units per acre being permitted.

and condition two, which was the affordable housing condition that was negotiated with the city staff and the attorney's office and the applicant.

The planning commission opted to add conditions three and four.

I do want to read those for everyone who's listening in on the meeting.

Condition three is all referenced affordable units will be located in the new building.

and condition four is that the architecture shall be substantially the same as the proposed elevations provided by the applicant dated December 23rd if you've been following this item there have been two sets of drawings that were submitted there was a lot of objections to the original set that were submitted in

that were seen at the November meeting.

So at the January meeting, the applicant presented some additional drawings, some new drawings.

And so this was just an attempt to specify exactly which design we were looking for.

So that is the changes to the application from when you have seen it.

I'm happy to answer any questions you have about this.

I can certainly do that.

That's fine.

I think staffs, at least the direction I've always had from council is to keep it short.

But I'm certainly happy to go through the particulars of this item just for everyone who's involved if people are coming into it new.

This item was initially brought to the Planning Commission at their December agenda.

So this is a request for additional residential density on the site.

As you guys are aware, probably aware, 1000 Monticello Road already has a development on it.

So that project as it's currently developed has more units than what the zoning would allow.

The project was built in the 70s and then was rezoned in 2003 when the neighborhood commercial corridor was created.

as a part of the Belmont and added to a portion of its zone.

Belmont was zoned for that zoning district.

This is when all the mixed-use zones were created in 2003 as a part of the 2001 COMP plan.

So the site has maxed out its density.

In fact, it's over its maximum density as a non-conforming use at this time.

So any additional residential units on the site require a special use permit.

The neighborhood commercial corridor,

permits up to 43 dwelling units per acre per special use permit.

Some of the details about this, obviously, I heard a little bit of the matters from the public.

The project would go over top of the entrance on the north side of the site.

so it would take off one of the ways that you access this site all of automotive access would then be on Bainbridge which is I think the wider of the two intersections the current one is a shared driveway so they won't be taking that entire driveway just a portion of it the

building would go over there.

It is a by right building.

The height that is shown in your drawings is permitted under the code currently.

They're not asking for additional height as a part of the special use permit.

They're not asking for reduced setbacks.

They can build this building under the current zoning without any special permission from council.

So really what we're looking at is what's the internal use of that building.

Just gonna see if there's any other items.

We did talk a lot about, we did mention traffic.

I know that there's, I know one comment from Matters of the Public was that, you know, the two ways in, two ways out section of the code, which we did, Council did change

fairly recently within the last few years.

That applied only to developments of 50 units or more.

This project does not hit that number, so it wouldn't have been required to have two ways in and out under the old code anyway.

They do propose all parking on site.

There's been some comments about the trees on the site.

I think the applicant indicated at the previous meeting that there would be one adjacent tree that's on an adjacent site but overhangs the site fairly substantially that probably will be negatively impacted.

There are no trees on this site that are impacted by the building.

The trees are fairly small, the ones that are planted for landscaping, and they're in front of the existing building.

so they would not be impacted.

Any tree that's within the limits of disturbance is required to meet tree protection standards under our site plan ordinance.

And then I don't know if there's kind of any other items.

I think the people who spoke for matters to the public did a pretty good job recapping their opposition that was that they articulated in the public hearing.

So I'll let their comments speak for themselves.

Staff does recommend approval based on the scope of what we're looking at.

Our review is the additional residential density on the site.

So objections about the height of the building, objections about the materials of the building.

Those really didn't factor into our analysis very much.

Additionally, past actions of an applicant are not something we take into account.

you can actually kind of get into some trouble with that when you do that and also this project would not trigger 3412 so there's no affordable housing requirement on this site the condition that the applicant has proposed is something that they have voluntarily put on this so that hopefully just kind of clarifies where the analysis was going in terms of you know why we recommended approval

And like I said, so that's all I have to say.

3412 is only instituted when the floor area ratio is greater than 1.0.

And for anyone who is suddenly confused by what I'm talking about, it means the amount of square footage contained within the buildings

Total square footage, not floor area, is equal to or greater than the total amount of square footage on the site.

So if you look at this site, fairly substantial front yard.

There's a lot of parking.

Most of the buildings, the buildings on site now are one and two stories.

So altogether, this project does not have enough square footage within all of its buildings, including the new building.

to make it over that line of having enough floor area to equal the entire site of the lot that it is on the land area.

So that's why it doesn't trigger the automatic requirement.

Okay.

Thank you.

Mr. Willow, do you?

Maybe the 15 minutes if that's needed.

Justin Schimp, you're on with City Council.

Good evening, Mayor Walker and Council.

Thank you for the time.

I will try to take all 15 minutes of it, but I do appreciate your...

wanting to know all the details and some of them certainly the planning commission the two meetings discussed a lot of this in great detail but just to rehash the critical pieces of it is the project is for 11 additional units the initial submittal was for nine of those to be affordable at 80 percent AMI it was suggested that the 65 percent was a much better number and that's also consistent with the city's housing policy

which is the FMR rates for the if you trigger section 3412 that's the percentage so we revised the application to be

of five units at the 65% of the FMR rents, basically, for a period of 10 years.

So that's the affordability.

And as was mentioned, the ordinance, the code does not require any in this particular application.

The owner voluntarily stepped forward with that particular offering, and it's written into your special use permit approval.

Should the council choose to approve it, it is

Lockdown in writing.

The other thing we did that has not been done in the past was to take these standard operating procedures for the city affordability, which outline how these things are implemented, and we modified it with a blessing of the city attorney's office and attached it to the resolution such that

the exact conditions that govern these things such as the requirement to accept vouchers and other things run with the special use permit and there can be no doubt later on about what was agreed to I know that's been a problem with some projects and we do not want that I think that takes me to one of the main complaints you heard about the from the public was that we had said oh yeah we're not guaranteeing any of this and

I had brought that up for the explicit reason that I wanted to make sure the Planning Commission did put conditions that guaranteed what we had said as it was at the meeting there were two conditions added that essentially locked down the site to the plan put forth in the public hearing which is the

the building the affordable units being in the new building and the architecture of the building so any concerns that folks have about that not being addressed the Planning Commission did address that and the second building that was shown with the more traditional Belmont architecture is what gets built out of this project one of the things we run across in a lot of these projects is the idea of you know adding density does it help the housing situation

what you'll find certainly and I've seen in my years working around here in Belmont investors have come along snatched up single family houses converted them into rentals and that has happened

over time because of a lack of available housing period.

So the 11 units themselves help with that situation, but the five units that are affordable offer a really significant subsidy to those other folks who are trying to get into a more affordable housing unit.

I think that adding the density to this site

helps secure this is what it is now.

With this approval, the developer could not go and tear down existing buildings and build new luxury condos.

Approval is only valid for the building in addition as is attached in your packet.

So if anyone's worried that you might be opening up a way for the developer to take this out of density and make it into something else, it can't be done.

Not without coming back for a different special use permit, which you would have the option of not approving.

The last thing I wanted to say, because I've been tackling this affordable housing issue, attempting to for a long time in these projects and these meetings, it's very difficult to get affordable housing into developer projects.

And I know certainly that five units is not going to solve all the problems in the city for the number of affordable units needed.

But for those who are out there and say, oh, well, you know, this isn't to cut it.

I would just remind everyone of there are going to be five families, households in this situation for these units that receive a subsidy in the range of $50,000 over a 10-year period.

And so if you make $40,000 a year, say, and you can't get a voucher or you can't get a voucher because they're not available and you make a little less than that.

This is an affordable unit.

You are basically receiving a subsidy of $50,000 over your term there.

And that is significant to people.

So will it solve every problem?

No, certainly not.

But for those families who occupy this building, I think it'll mean a lot to them.

I hope that's something that we can think about with these little projects is that it's two, three, four, five households that benefit

are still a good thing.

So I think that's one of the topics I want to cover.

I'm happy to go over any more details for the site plan or things like that for those who want to go into those details specifically.

All right, thank you.

The NCC district allows, let me make sure I get the particulars correct on this, it allows 23 dwelling units per acre so I'm gonna have to pull up my calculator to make sure I get the numbers absolutely correct.

So the NCC allows 21 dwelling units per acre and the site is currently listed at 0.81 acres.

So that would give you a biorite density of 17 units.

And this one is currently at 23.

There's 23 units on the site.

So yeah, 17 residential.

NCC also allows for commercial activity.

It is a mixed use zone.

So you can do retail, obviously restaurants, because this is kind of the edge of the NCC district and all of the Belmont kind of commercial zone is zoned the same way.

Correct.

If they were to submit a site plan and they did not want to do a special use permit, they would have to be doing some sort of commercial or, you know, you can look at it like

The area is designated as neighborhood commercial is the actual land use designation.

That was a new category that was placed into our last comprehensive plan.

trying to kind of capture these areas that are sort of business oriented today, but they're different than our principal business districts like the downtown area and West Main Street and the corner and 29.

So it really it tries to talk about kind of keeping a scale that is similar to our neighborhoods in some fashion, you know, the maximum height in

across the city there's no zone that allows for building you know allow every zone in the city allows at least 35 feet in height so when you look at this bill this property where they're allowed to go to 45 it's a 10 foot difference so that's I guess that's

This building actually is below the by right height in the zone.

But it is higher than, say, an R1S district.

So an R1S house is capped at 35 feet.

And I know this is not an architectural control district.

Is it, it's not in, I know there's like a national historic district in the area.

It's adjacent.

That came up at the Planning Commission meeting in January and they did, you know, the map did come out.

So the Belmont is, Belmont has a state and federal historic district.

And this is right on the edge.

I don't think it's actually included.

If it were included, there would also be the question of, you know, is it a contributing or non-contributing structure?

This development is not 50 years old.

There are some ways that a structure can be considered contributing even when it's not 50 years old, but this one doesn't comply with that.

And two additional questions.

One, you know, I know it came up a discussion of the Planning Commission.

They had reworked the sort of architectural design, and it's been offered to try to provide some assurances that that design is committed to.

The

The way so the drawings we've when we draft these conditions we very specifically refer to a specific document with a specific date so when this site plan is submitted one of the things they will have to do is include all of the conditions you know should the special use permit be approved well it's the plan that has a special use permit needs to

put that special use permit within their site plan and show that they have it and especially if they're utilizing whatever has granted them.

And those conditions are a part of that.

That whole resolution is added to the site plan and they have to demonstrate compliance with all four of those conditions should the SUP be approved.

And this one very specifically mentions a specific document in the packet that they have to demonstrate compliance with.

The issues that I think the items that the Planning Commission were very specifically interested in was the differing finishes on the front facade, particularly at the second floor.

There's kind of two floors of one finish, and then the third floor has a different finish and has a slight offset.

They really liked that and they wanted to make sure that that was memorialized as best they could.

So that's one of the items that was key to them.

Then last question for staff is just, you know, I know they've offered affordable units that go beyond what's required in the sense that, you know, the billing does not trigger any affordability requirement.

I know we can't base our decision based on not exceeding, you know, that formula.

But just out of curiosity, what are the

What were the terms again of the affordability?

Is it 10 years or longer?

So that was one of the big issues when this item came up in December was how staff really we didn't mention the affordability in the staff report by and large because of the issues that you just cite that we really struggled with the idea of being able to enforce it.

And they had laid out their kind of guidelines for it.

They didn't really mesh with the cities.

And I think as, you know, certainly Lisa Robertson can stop me at any time if I go astray here, but part of the concern that we have is, you know, when we're in a rezoning application situation, we have a proffer statement and the proffers are very clearly, you know, something that's offered by the applicant and affordable housing proffers can be a part of that.

When we get to the situation we're in now with a special use permit that does not require the units under Section 3412 of the code, but the applicant wants to do something, it puts you in a really weird spot.

And so we just kind of laid that out and said,

They're writing their own thing.

We're not requiring anything, and we can't really tell them how to do what they're trying to do here.

But the applicant agreed to defer, and part of what you see is the quote of our SOP for affordable housing.

That was in response to this.

It was to give our zoning administrator and our zoning staff

specific language and a condition that refers to another document that's also in the packet here, 10 pages of regulations that make it very clear for us to be able to track these things, to be able to do the annual reports, all the stuff that's going to come to the city's housing coordinator

If there's ever a question about whether or not they're living up to it, we have the documentation and the language to go to, and they know it as well as we do.

If at any point the applicant finds this to be too cumbersome, they can either come back to the City Council and ask for an amendment to their SUP.

Or they can give up the units and I guess, you know, you can convert a building over all the commercial and walk away from it if they have to.

And the final question, maybe for the applicant, I don't know if you could answer it as well, but either is fine.

I have some questions surrounding that too and based on the step back in that I guess third level are those the square footage of those I guess third and that fourth maybe part in the back is that different from the bottom half and

what is the intended square footage for those units that will be under the 65% AMI requirement?

Sure.

The square footage of the building, there's a difference.

There's some one bedrooms.

There are, I think, one or two studio types.

There's some two bedrooms.

And they range from 375 to 400 and some odd square feet as the one bedrooms.

And the twos, I think, were 750.

There's some variability in that as far as which units are exactly which.

So in the standard operating procedure, I believe it requires a mix proportional to the building.

So for example, if we put in

So just a question for staff, is that something

based on that it's just going off of what they have presented.

How do you all enforce that?

As a part of the condition that is proposed in the resolution that you're voting on tonight, they quote these procedures and agree to follow them.

And so since that is a part of our standard operating procedure, then we can certainly enforce that and review that as a part of the site plan.

And even part of the, I think ultimately that also needs to be reviewed as part of the building permit because we can do a unit layout and a site plan, but we need to carry through to the building permit review as well, which is the actual building document that comes in.

and gets them the ability to build a building.

But yeah, I think it's enforceable as written.

It's something that as it moves through the process, we need to be mindful of and make sure that there's enough documentation in all of the documents that come forward so that it's not overlooked.

I would just also add that I think part of the reason that regulation is in is because of some of the larger projects that you've seen in other cities where an affordable affordable unit the affordable units are put on a separate entrance in a separate side of the building and very large buildings and there was a concern about you know they kind of derogative derogatively called you know the poor door

where all the affordability is.

And so the city has never been interested in those type of projects.

With a building of this size, it'd be awfully hard to incorporate additional core features into the building to kind of segregate the affordable units from the market rate units.

Yeah.

Absolutely, residential parking requirements in the city, any units that are one and two bedrooms are required to have one parking space and there's a number of ways that developments can meet those parking requirements.

Anything over two bedrooms, the three and a four bedroom, they're required to have two spaces.

So there is a three bedroom unit currently on site.

So overall for 34 units on site, they would be required to have 35 spaces.

That is an element of the site plan review.

They have to demonstrate that they have those spaces either on site or that they've acquired spaces within a certain distance of the site on street spaces don't count towards that requirement.

Okay.

I think it's roughly 34 or 35.

We are losing a space and adding a space basically to what's there.

Maybe it's two spaces, but essentially it's roughly the same number.

Okay.

And I should probably add there are some reductions that our code allows for proximity to bus stops and things like that.

So if people go out and look for 35 spaces at the end of this and there aren't any, then please come look at the site plan and we'll see if they did a reduction.

The reductions, you can't get so many reductions, but you can.

There are a few in the code that sometimes will allow for one or two spaces on either side of the

I have a couple of questions.

I'm curious, the regulations that are attached in our packet, I guess they're page 105 and so on, or page four and so on of the resolution, they make reference to

So the city standard operating procedures on page 105.

Um, it says any, any CA use required by city code 3412 shall be subject subject to the city standard operating procedure.

Bryan, I can answer that, I think.

Okay.

So basically, were the project square footage to change to become such as it requires 3412 triggers, this is just acknowledging that any of those units would meet the full standard of 3412.

And really, the only difference between 3412 and what's attached is

to your resolution is that 3412 gives the option of a cash payment in lieu, and then for our affordable units, we have removed that option.

So it's just sort of acknowledging that should the, for example, if some building was made larger, right, same number of units, but trip the FAR requirement,

So just to be clear on looking at the regulations that are attached as pages 4 through 13 of

of the resolution or page 105 and so on through 117, I guess, of our packet, the paragraph on page four or 105 that says administrative, we can effectively cut that out.

Yes, I guess there may be some

sort of carry over from the other code.

We copied the current SOP and modified it to make sense in this particular application since the SOP as it's written in a whole would say that no affordable units were required for this project.

The real reason for my question is this.

I heard a reference earlier that I interpreted as meaning that there were a set of standard operating procedures that are not a part of this resolution that would apply.

But in fact, that standard operating procedure does not apply because it only applies to units required by Code Section 3412.

Right?

Yes, that's correct.

Okay.

So the other question I had looking at all of this is, did I understand you to say that there were going to be five units that were affordable at a 65 percent of AMI?

That's correct.

Okay.

I don't see 65 percent anywhere in this document.

Ah, sorry.

I sort of supplement 65 percent.

The technical term is really the FMR rate.

So that's a different number HUD puts out that at the moment equates to about 65 percent.

That's sort of one of the different terminologies.

Okay, so the only number that I see any place in here is 80 percent.

80 percent appears a number of different times.

Where do we have anything that says 65 percent or even alludes to it?

But that doesn't say anything about 65 percent versus 80 percent versus anything else, and you've got 80 percent in a couple of other places in these regulations.

Sure.

Well, again, so the 65 is approximately that.

That's a, that's a rent set forth by HUD, which right at this day, it equivalates to the 65% AMI if you were to calculate it in a different direction.

So I see, so that's, that's the maximum monthly rent for the five units is that it's page 109 B1.

I don't know.

I might have to call on Kelsey quickly.

There may be other qualified tenants.

Sure, so Councilor Snook, there's a difference between in the SOPs and how we adopted that to be applicable to this project.

There's a difference between the qualified tenant and the income that they can make to actually qualify to rent in the unit and then the rent that can be asked.

So we did not change

who can qualify as is outlined in the standard operating procedure.

But we did place the maximum monthly rent.

We did change that under section, I believe it's 2B to say that the maximum monthly rent for a CAU will be established based on the HUD fair market rents by unit bedrooms.

CHAIR POWELL.

Sure.

So the HUD FMR is a published standard for the maximum allowable rent that could be charged for and qualify for voucher holders could be eligible to rent in those units.

And so taking that HUD FMR standard and also their standard that affordable housing is

less than 30% of monthly income.

I think I'll have to take your word for it on the algebra because I was trying to visualize the equation as you were speaking and I was not having much luck.

I'm trying to figure out one of the things you said that it is currently 65 percent of AMR.

I guess I'm just trying to figure out whether when you say it's affordable to 65 percent of AMI is that it happens to fit that statistical window right now, but last year it wouldn't have and next year it won't again.

I mean, what does this number mean?

Is it all permanent?

Kelsey, I'll just jump in real quick.

We just got a message from someone out there looking at the latest data.

So for 2021, looks like they've updated the numbers and now the HUT FMR is 57% AMI equivalent.

So essentially, obviously, people's incomes year to year may change, right?

That would change the computation of your percent AMI.

The HUD fair market rents is a number calculated differently, but has historically always been in that range.

I don't know if I've seen it as low as 57%, but it's

you know, 50 something, 60 something in that range in, I don't know, three, five, 10 years, we look at the data.

We thought it was just cleaner to have a set rent so that way the owner has knowledge of, hey, in the city, here's the rent.

for this unit, regardless of whether it's one person, two people, and you get into the AMI range, it gets a little tricky because if two people rent a one-bedroom unit, you can charge them more.

And so we thought that was not really fair or keeping in with our intent.

And so the FMR seemed like a way to ensure the unit was always an affordable price whether one person or two people lived in it.

Okay, well, I guess those are the questions that I had.

I've got sort of philosophical things I'm still trying to mull through.

But I guess I wonder if anybody with city staff

either who is on the call or in this meeting or could be available at some point during the business day in the next few days to figure this out.

I just want to make sure that this isn't going to be something that we're going to sit there and look at it three years from now and say, boy, those guys really took us.

That's not 57 percent.

It's coming up to 80 percent again.

How do we know that?

I don't know that.

Well, whatever they submit today to council, what council approves in terms of the fair market rents, that's what we are going to hold them accountable for.

And secondly, every year,

for the fair market rent every June, June of every year, HUD publishes a new fair market rent.

And the variation in terms of increase is usually very slight.

And that is how they adjust their rent rates.

And then we hold them up on that.

They can't offer 65 percent fair market rent this year, and next year it goes up to 80.

Now, we're going to hold them towards what Hart publishes every year.

And secondly, in terms of enforcement, every year

they have to provide a report to the housing coordinator and that report will include the demographic profile of the person renting the unit including the rent the person is being charged and some other demographic information that we need to report back to the city council.

They can't arbitrarily increase the rent on their own.

It has to be paid to all the fair market rents.

I guess my question is whether to say that you're going to adhere to a standard

To answer your question, Councillor Snook, I'm looking through the fair market rent, the way that HUD calculates that, and they use a five-year kind of group of data from the American Community Survey.

The fair market rent, to make a very long explanation shorter, is pegged to the rent rates in your community.

So if suddenly the rents were to spike in Charlottesville for a few years, you would see an increase.

The current, they've just put out the FY 2021.

Those are the latest ones that they've done.

And I noticed for a one bedroom unit, it actually dropped $5 from the previous fiscal year.

Two bedroom, it went up $4.

So I'd imagine you've got to, you know, the variation is going to be fairly small.

You can't rule out the fact that, you know, if there were suddenly some reason a large number of units that came online and were rented at, you know, a much higher rate, they would potentially push the average.

But given that we're

This is based on the entire HUD, our entire area.

So it's not just the city, it's the county, it's Louvanna, Green, Nelson as well factoring into this.

So to move the average that much would require a pretty large blip statistically.

The AMI can certainly move around as well, but they haven't pegged the rent to that number.

They've pegged it to

I guess I should just note my concern is more with having something that we understand, that we know when we're getting took and when we're not getting took.

And so that's when things get characterized by reference to things that A, aren't in the document, but B, change plenty on their own, I get a little concerned.

I will say that looking at the overall purpose of special use permits and so on, the issue is not

I mean to me the issue is are we as a city better off if we have 11 units five of which are affordable at this roughly 65 percent of AMI and it's not so much a matter of profit is bad and we want to keep people from making much profit

We want to have more affordable housing units, and this is a way to get five more affordable housing units as well as six other non-affordable units.

I think, if I remember correctly, at the Planning Commission, the proposal had been, I think, for nine affordable units at 80 percent.

That's correct, yes, that was the original, and we modified that.

Actually, one more thing about FMR is important, and one of the reasons we selected it, is that the vouchers use the FMR as the level.

So in theory, if you linked it to people's income, incomes could rise such that people would essentially be in between vouchers and our affordability, whereas the vouchers follow the FMR.

Okay.

Well, the point I was going to make was that I had said, I believe, during the planning commission meeting, I had thrown out the idea of supposing instead of nine units at 80 percent of AMI, you go to, I think I said seven units or six units at 60 percent or something.

And I don't know whether my comment was the inspiration for you, but I'm glad to see that you moved in the direction

that we want, which is to have more deeply affordable units.

And this represents a step in the right direction from the step that had been represented back last fall.

Well, I would like to reply to one aspect of your commentary and questions, and that would be you raise a good point.

about enforcement and just in general housing in the city.

And I think some of this got sidetracked by COVID.

But I do think Ms.

Robertson, Mr. Ikafuna, Mr. Haluska, and Mr. Sayles, before he left for the CRHA executive directorship, there was talk back

If you recall back in the long ago era of February of last year when there was an ADU ordinance proposal and others about an establishing an affordable housing program and that again to serve more to your to your point about there are all these disparate

aspects of affordable housing.

And I think you'll hear more about this when the affordable housing strategy is introduced that there does need to be some coordination.

And again, I do want to point back to that there was a proposal back last winter, right before COVID came to the community again by Mr. Ikifuna, Mr. Haluska, Ms.

Robertson about

that idea of a program.

And that may be helpful as you navigate this in the future.

No, I know it's not germane to this specific project, but we definitely echo that, just the importance of actually getting an affordable housing program plan, the zoning rewrite, because clearly the system as is, is not producing, you know, the units and outcome we want by any means.

And likewise, I know it's not germane, but it came up, I'm just curious about it is, you know, when there's units, you

again not just this project but any project when there are units that are proffered that would qualify for someone with a voucher is there any communication with CRHA to at least just increase the awareness that these units are online and voucher eligible because I know we've had proffered units through an SUP process that I think they didn't find a tenant for upwards of a year in

Yeah, to answer your question, yes.

We just started that recently because historically developers

usually opt to donate money or to pay money in lieu of affordable housing.

So it makes it a little bit difficult to actually generate affordable housing.

So the money goes into affordable housing fund.

And that is allocated out to a nonprofit organization because developers, they don't opt to provide the conventional units on site or elsewhere.

We don't get that opportunity to reach out to CRHA, but we started doing that last year with the 600 West Main Blue Moon Diner.

They are producing two on-site affordable units, and we got CRHA involved in terms of

discussion related to voucher or what have you, also helping to screen the potential beneficiaries for that particular two units.

So going forward, provided the developers are dedicating affordable units as opposed to paying funds into the affordable housing fund, we'll be doing that going forward.

Right, well, there could certainly potentially be opportunities with, you know, the units in Dairy Central or other developments.

Again, this doesn't go towards my decision or anything like that.

It's just a clarifying question of kind of how this works since it's a whole new concept that's being brought forward.

So if it's being, I keep hearing about it so that it will be more permanently affordable for vouchers with understanding

with bringing forward not based on income, a recipient's income or a tenant's income, but instead basing the rent on what would be that one third of, which would work out to be about what 65% AMI would be basing the rent itself

on fair market housing rent so that somebody could use a voucher.

Yeah, I believe so.

With the AMI calculation that we use, obviously, the adjusted median income in the county and city combined

Right, like 60% AMI right now is $39,480.

Correct.

And 30% of that is $11,844 divided by 12 is $987.

Yeah.

And so the, yeah.

For a one bedroom is $1,082.

Right.

It's in the upcoming fiscal year, it's $5 below that.

Actually, it's dropped.

Oh, okay.

Right.

And so, yeah, this just puts the rents at this number.

Regardless, you know, the people have to qualify via the process that's in the SOP that they've attached to this.

So you can't have...

People making 120% AMI coming in and grabbing one of the one bedrooms, the affordable one bedrooms in this development.

for HUD fair market rent.

But I mean, so that's what I was more, the only problem that, I mean, and again, this is not something I can base my decision on, and I know this 100%.

I mean the only problem with a lot of this is I don't you know having actually tried to help people find apartments with Section 8 vouchers a lot of the time someone someone who I was helping at least their credit wasn't that great there might be some other issues in their past that was also and so even if the rent was even affordable

there was additional issues on top of that.

And so there is, I mean, what is there in this, in these operating procedures that kind of make sure that preference is given?

So it does say, though, that somebody at 80% AMI could rent one of these 60% AMI or 65% AMI rentals, correct?

That is the way I'm understanding what Lloyd was talking about, that the only reference in there to AMI at any point is about 80% AMI.

But that's the maximum amount.

That's somebody making like, what, 60-some thousand, 80-some thousand, 75 or something like that.

Okay.

I just wanted to make sure I understood that piece.

Thank you very much.

And my tone of voice is just so that it's not angry or anything.

Just to be clear, I think if you're talking about 80% of AMI and we've talked about AMI being in the $80,000 range, that's the AMI for a family of four.

No, 80% AMI is $91,000 right now.

$93,900 is AMI for Charlottesville.

So 80% AMI is, I'm sorry, $52,600.

for one person.

I don't have any more questions.

went through two of these Planning Commission meetings and actually rewatched some of them over the weekend and appreciate the questions that have already been raised by my colleagues.

There is one other point that I wanted to touch on because it was touched on both in a letter to us and also a comment that was made at the Planning Commission, the suggestion that this was somehow going to be high priced student housing.

That doesn't seem to be very likely to me.

It seems to me that we have tried in Charlottesville a couple different times recently to have small units available for people who don't have the need for 500 or 600 or 700 square feet, much less than 1,000 or more.

Okay.

Well, if I may, I know we've gotten a lot of...

Feedback from the community.

And there's a lot of history here under our current system.

We're not able to make a decision based on that history and some of the feedback we've gotten.

I will say just because an SUP is in front of us doesn't mean we have to approve it.

It's our policy decision.

And we can evaluate all SUPs on the merits and make a policy decision there.

And, you know, I would say, given the adverse neighborhood impacts, the fact that it doesn't conform with our comprehensive plan, the existing zoning there and under our current ordinance for the criteria of

you know the standards for issuance I think there's a strong case to be made that there are adverse neighborhood impacts on the surrounding neighborhood including under that ordinance you know displacement of existing residents and businesses again the issue of not conforming with a comprehensive plan and current zoning and that is absolutely our policy decision to make and based on those adverse neighborhood impacts

Right.

Ms.

Chair Walker.

Vice Mayor McGill.

Okay.

Councilor Hill?

No.

Okay, so that carries three to two.

For denial, yes.

Thank you all.

I do have one question before we move on, because we've had SUPs and had public hearings in the past at this meeting too, right?

I just want to just I'll be more mindful of it when I look at the agenda after the agenda setting meetings, but I just think that, you know, making sure that one of the questions that I forgot to bring up was, you know, in this COVID time, how was the

the notifications to the community and how did those community meetings go?

And I didn't ask that, but that's something that I've been trying to be consistent to make sure that occurs.

So even if this comes back before us, before we can engage in the normal way, it'll be helpful.

to know what those meetings look like and how they have been attended and what was the feedback from the neighbors.

So sorry about that.

It just when I saw the public hearing here, I remember that that was a note that I had over the earlier that I forgot to ask.

One reading.

Evening, counselors.

Chris Engel, director of economic development here.

I'll present this next item to you briefly.

This item, in summary, deals with a loose end from a development agreement that was entered into between Union Station Partners and the city of Charlottesville back in the late 90s.

this was at the time before the transit station is currently configured on Water Street was built and the owner of the property Union Station partners in the city were endeavoring to build such a facility at the West Main Street location commonly referred to as the Amtrak site in order to do that a development agreement was entered into between the parties to endeavor to seek a federal grant to help with the process

Part of the requirements of that federal grant was a local match requirement that could either be property or cash and in lieu of providing cash the parties agreed to transfer a parcel of land so that that could serve as the local match and that is the parcel that the mayor just referenced that's commonly referred to in your document here as lot number one

it's about eight tenths of an acre and it is in the area that most people would associate with the parking lot for for the Amtrak station in any case back in 1999 the parcel was transferred to the ownership of the city for no consideration

The Union Station partners retained all other rights to the property so they continue to use it as a parking lot and continue to generate you know any activity that they had on that property that was revenue generating went to the Union Station partners and not to the city

The federal grant was obtained and a portion of those monies were put in place to outfit the building on the site, the historic red train station building and make it suitable for passenger traffic in and out of that facility.

Phase two of the development agreement was for a much larger development on the parking lot area.

That ultimately did not materialize after a number of years of effort to try and make that happen.

It ultimately did not materialize and the development agreement stipulates that if that were to happen that ultimately the parcel would be reconveyed to the original owner Union Station Partners LLC.

Some years obviously have passed and

that has come to our attention here more recently.

About a year ago, there was additional conversation about tying up this loose end, if you will.

And we received notice from the Union Station Partners about this interest.

There was a meeting.

at which there was an agreement to bring this before the council by a date in early 2021.

So that is what brings it before you tonight.

City Attorney Lisa Robertson has helped draft the document as well as the resolution, which you'll see here.

which basically reconveys the parcel back to the original owner and it deals with two easements.

It vacates easements that are there now that are no longer accurate and it rededicates a public access easement for purposes of accessing the train station proper which will be established

and new dedicated public access easement will be established as part of these documents.

So that's a summary.

We do have representatives from Union Station Partnership on the call today if needed.

This is scheduled for a public hearing.

OK, thank you.

Okay.

Thank you, Mayor Walker.

If you'd like to speak to Council, click the raise hand icon in the Zoom webinar.

If you're on via telephone, you can press star nine.

Okay.

So we'll close the public here.

Okay.

All right.

Second.

Ms.

Thomas.

Mayor Walker.

Yes.

Vice Mayor McGill.

Yes.

Councillor Hill.

Yes, I'm sorry.

I thought you heard me.

Sorry.

All right, that carries 5-0 for approval.

Yes.

Good evening, everyone.

I wanted to present on the West Main Value Engineering.

I did want to acknowledge that we understand you're going to have a work session on the CIP in general, of which we imagine that West Main is going to be a portion of that.

But we did want to get back with you on the value engineering measures.

I provided a memo that summarizes the report.

It's still quite long.

I did include three attachments.

One is the complete report.

in case you had any questions.

Another was an exhibit that shows what we're kind of proposing with the Silva cells as one of the measures.

We'll talk about that in a bit.

And then the third attachment was a project overview.

So it was just a two paragraph explanation of how we look at the project, what we considered, what we were trying to address.

And then it has a list of let me see.

six different improvement categories and different bulleted to try and explain what we're trying to accomplish with West Main.

So just to jump in, I'll give you a little overview on value engineering.

The idea is not to re-scope the project.

The idea is with the value engineering process is to have an independent firm review the work that's been done and see

ways we could improve the project while still maintaining the benefits that we were envisioning, ensuring that the purpose and need were being met, that city council's vision, that public comment, all of these were still being addressed, but maybe in a different way that could lower or reduce costs, improve the overall project and just identify maybe other potential benefits that we haven't yet developed.

VE is required on larger projects per the state code of at least 15 million in construction costs but overall it's just a good idea to do value engineering for these larger projects you can do it in at three different stages so it could be conceptual it could be at 20 percent or it could be at around 70 percent and that's where we tend to do them is when we have advanced the design enough that we have enough details and enough

So we had a pretty good estimate at that point that we could identify what savings we would be accomplishing.

The PE measures that we adopt, this is up to City Council's discretion, staff's discretion.

We are not required to get VDOT's approval or direction on this.

It will get filed with them.

So just wanted to let you know who the final decision maker is.

We did look at the overall corridor since obviously we're going to be doing similar improvements in each of the phases.

So we want to make sure that we did a comprehensive look.

Of the 15 areas of recommendation that the project team identified, which they looked at the plans and came up with these ideas, we're recommending approving 10 of them just outright.

and then five we believe need further investigation, but they should be considered.

So, moving through pretty quickly, the measures we've agreed to or we're recommending for approval are just one, general environmental, ensuring that the funding matches the document, matches the requirements, that we're not doing too much or too little.

We agree with that.

Cultural resource monitoring,

It was identified early that there might be a need to have a full-time oversight for cultural resource monitoring.

Since that time, we have coordinated with the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, and there is no need.

It's already a disturbed urban corridor, so we're not thinking there's a lot of archaeological deposits that we could be disturbing.

Outfall analysis, number eight.

This is another idea that they came up with that is also connected to number seven.

We cannot do number seven and number eight and combine those cost savings.

It's going to be a little mix of one or the other.

So, the outfall analysis is just a process of surveying the current stormwater system and ensuring that we can meet the two-year and 10-year capacity at the 1%

and that were contained within a man-made system.

We're not out falling into a natural area.

So that analysis has also begun.

It's pretty preliminary at this point.

Water kind of falls obviously according to gravity.

The bridge is the high point.

So we really focused on phase one and two which were fully funded and we left out three and four to date.

There are seven outfalls

in phase one and two.

We believe that two outfalls are going to require some form of detention.

So we've begun that and that's where we get into the exhibit that we provided.

It shows yellow areas where the silver cells were previously proposed.

The blue is a good estimate of what we would need to do in order to meet detention.

The Silva cells are solving three issues.

It's detention, it's treating water quality, and it's also providing enough soil cell or soil capacity to improve the landscaping.

Those are the benefits, the negatives or the

The two concerns that we have are, one, we don't have any silver cells anywhere in the city.

So this is a new product.

It's proprietary.

It's kind of expensive because it does so many wonderful things.

It can complicate utility relocation because these are plastic tubes that are sorted on a plastic platform and are supporting the sidewalk or the pavers in this instance.

in order to get in there and replace a tree or do utility work there's quite a bit of excavation so that it complicates maintenance and it complicates construction as well.

So we're a little concerned about that and we're thinking pulling back might be a good idea and focusing silver cells where they will truly have a huge impact where it would be either for detention or for trees.

All right so jumping along to number nine seating we have a custom bench that's being proposed that is being provided by a local supplier it's concrete and it's kind of wavy it's also expensive so one of the suggestions was to replace let's see 19 of the custom benches with the other bench style

Both benches have been reviewed by BAR and have been, you know, preliminarily recommended.

So, it's not that we would get an unattractive one.

It would just be a more cost-effective bench.

And we would put these special benches where it would be high impact, and that would be in the triangular park area, sometimes called Midway Park.

Another idea was to reduce the seating by 20 percent down from

85 to 73.

Still a lot of opportunities to sit.

Number 10 was the boulder slices.

This was another aesthetic treatment that maybe had we focused on the cost, we wouldn't have proposed, where we're slicing a bunch of stone and we could save, oh, a couple hundred thousand dollars by just having boulders.

So you're still getting the same look.

This would again be in Midway Park.

We're recommending incorporating that.

Cantonary lighting.

This is string lighting that would be placed over the roadway on poles.

And it's in three locations at either end of the corridor and then also at the bridge.

An example of it, the only one we have is the downtown mall.

They do tend to be in more pedestrian environment.

I asked our designers, would it be possible to put that in Midway Park, scoot it over so you're not conflicting with vehicles and having the issue with maintenance and because of the trees that would all kind of conflict with each other.

So we are recommending removal of that because we don't think it's going to have a lot of impact for the design.

Number 12 was the bus shelters.

They were suggesting that we get away from such a specialty item and go with our standard bus shelter, but adapted with solar lighting, maybe a different color, adapted for West Main.

Staff had already looked at that idea, it just wasn't reflected in the estimate, so we were already moving towards that to begin with.

Number 13, 14, and 15 is fine grading, trench boxes, curb and sidewalk removal.

We took the original estimate and have now transferred it into a VDOT system that's with the road and bridge specs that outline what's included with certain line items, what might be incidental, and these appear to be overlaps.

We just need to make sure when we look at the estimate that

We are truly estimating the correct thing with each line item.

We're not duplicating things.

So that was an easy thing to recommend.

The five items that were

considering investigating is just general roadway MOT.

We don't have a detailed MOT, so when we adopt it, the study team recommended several suggestions such as minimizing the pavement patch along utility corridors and reconstruct with the rest of the roadway so we're not paving, disturbing, paving again, installing multiple utilities concurrently.

That's going to be a lot of coordination.

but something we should definitely consider shifting vaults and other structures off the center line.

Again, it will ease in construction, lower our maintenance of traffic costs.

So, we're recommending that as well as the concrete duck bank.

We're currently proposing that all the undergrounding of utilities be encased in concrete.

That is only required for the electrical lines.

The other lines could be set in stone with the concrete top.

So, we're going to consider that when we move through coordination with the private utilities.

Same with depth of the cover.

Because West Main is so crowded, we're going eight to nine feet deep with this undergrounding.

So, if there was a way to reorganize things, still meet separation requirements, that's something we're going to consider as well or recommend we consider.

Spare conduit.

The city is paying 100% of the undergrounding of the private utilities.

So the idea is when we are undergrounding, we do not want to have no extra conduit because if something were to go wrong with one of those, we're out there digging up the road again.

But sometimes the utilities ask for more conduit than is really necessary or recommended.

So, we thought we would talk with the private utilities of either reducing the number of conduit or approach them on a cost saving or a cost sharing approach.

If you want this many conduit, how about you help us defray some of the cost?

And then number seven, the silver cell replacement, which again is kind of related to the analysis.

I went a little into what silver cells did.

Some of the alternatives is underground detention pipes or basins.

We're not enthused about that idea from an engineering standpoint.

They have considered nutrient credits.

So if we're not able to get all the water quality requirements met on site, some of that can be dealt with nutrient credits.

It's cheaper and it does

Place the water quality basins or treatment.

It may be a better location than downtown Charlottesville.

So that is cheaper as well.

And then there's also the idea of suspended slab and root paths.

And that again is to improve the landscaping, the health of the trees.

So you would tunnel through the dirt and allow the roots to be able to go through without going through compacted dirt.

and then you would have the sidewalk rest on concrete.

And again, that helps with compaction as well.

So maybe that is a better idea or a better alternative than silver cells throughout the corridor.

So that is the long and short of it.

Thank you again for another report.

I do want to point out, because Jeanette, you mentioned that the end of the materials provided, the third attachment was the project overview, which I know might be helpful for some of our newer colleagues when we were talking about just getting some background and just some understanding of what are this delivering on and why this might have gotten initiated.

So I appreciate that outline.

Don't have any questions, but just two comments.

One is

Separate from the issue of feasibility for this specific project, I do think the question of Silvacells is an interesting one long term for the city when we think about climate change in managing stormwater with the increased extreme weather events we're going to get.

I do think long term it may be something that we just really are going to have to think about more seriously as part of our climate action planning and just preparing for the changes that climate change is going to create for stormwater runoff.

The second is just a discussion point for all of us as council is, you know, as council, we requested this value engineering study.

You know, I think it's making some clear recommendations for ways to save a little bit of money.

Exactly.

It doesn't really change the fundamental budget challenges that this project is going to create, particularly if the cost goes up from closer to 50 million compared to where we are now.

And so I think we're just in the same place as a council where we're going to just really need to be honest about we're not going to be able to fundamentally change the impact of this project with value engineering.

And if we cut blanket amounts from the CIP for this project,

We're probably going to sacrifice the actual vision and intent that guided creating this, which is to create a very different kind of pedestrian oriented corridor that's almost an extension of the downtown mall.

And so I think, at least from my perspective, we just have to, as a council, decide

At least for me, the reality seems to be really we're all in or all out in terms of the value added of this overall project and the vision guiding it.

I don't think we can make blanket cuts and the value engineering isn't going to change our budget situation very much.

And I'm just still at a point where

I do actually see the vision behind the original project and the value there.

I think it would be a positive thing.

I just find it extraordinarily difficult to place that above our other budget priorities in housing, school reconfiguration.

And I think when we get into our CIP discussions, we're going to see that we can eliminate this project, and we're still going to need to reprioritize

other CIP priorities and revenues if we're serious about making school reconfiguration happen, which could run up closer to 100 million.

It's not even in there yet and existing to our affordable housing commitments.

So I just think that's realistically where we are as a council.

And again, I do actually see the value and vision.

I just can't put it above schools, housing, other infrastructure needs and

That's just where I see we're at.

I think it's clear to me that the value engineering can save us a little bit of money, but it's not going to change our fundamental budget situation.

And I think that would be important if that is a direction that we can be clear on tonight so that this discussion doesn't even necessarily have to take up any more of the CIP time.

It's just staff has talked about that there are some improvements that they have to make whether they do these or not.

And so beyond that discussion,

There shouldn't even and I don't even know what part we play in that discussion, but in terms of moving forward with West Main Street phases, you know, and planning for, you know, all all of the phases that I think that's what staff has been consistently asking.

I think that the big, and I know we talked about this several months ago, but just understanding

What does it look like to not just maintain this corridor and get it where it used to be, but what does it take for it?

There are just some clear improvements need to happen.

If we don't go all the way, what does that look like and what is the cost associated with that so that we understand that we have to program that, just like with the schools.

If reconfiguration just can't happen because the amount is just so significant, we know that the schools need significant capital investment, and we put $50 million on that right now, saying that we know that whether it's reconfiguration or not, we need to put tens of millions of dollars into this.

I'm not saying this is that big if we don't go through with the plan as it's proposed, but I still believe that this corridor is vitally important.

and it's not working for pedestrians and bicyclists.

And so I think just understanding what staff's perspective on what an alternative would be and what are the costs associated with that alternative.

And obviously, if you don't underground the utilities, it's a pretty big difference in price.

If you just say, we're not going to do that part of it.

I believe Marty Stillman has given a cost estimate of roughly $3 million.

And yes, you would be replacing signals and improving heaving sidewalk, repaving, repainting.

These are things that we've been holding off thinking West Main was going to happen.

So that would essentially maintain the corridor as it is.

You're correct.

It would not change things.

looking at curb extensions or something along those lines we haven't looked into that so that's a possibility but yes without this was going to be an expensive project this is a heavily developed corridor we're going to have to maintain not only pedestrian traffic but also vehicular traffic while trying to actually complete the work it was going to be expensive regardless so just want to let

You know, kind of throw that out there.

I know we came up with the chart explaining the money that's on there, the state and the federal money that is being applied, the 11 million that we just got funded for phase three.

We were going to have that discussion with the CIP.

If you want to make the decision now, then staff's all ears, certainly.

You can do phase one without doing phase two or three or four, or you could just do phase three.

Now would that make any sense?

How would that look?

Exactly.

So do you want to do it all?

Do you want to do a portion?

I know phase one was the difficult part of getting any kind of grant funding because of what it does to it maintains vehicular operations, but it doesn't improve it.

So reconfiguring that intersection of Ridge and West Main

That's the reason why that was all revenue sharing.

There was no smart scale attached.

That was the hang up last time.

We're trying to get funding for this whole corridor.

And do we, we heard, so we did that funding did all those projects got approved.

They're recommended.

It's going to be difficult for the CTB to explain that their prioritization system

that they've decided that something that scored pretty high would get moved down.

We will not know definitively until June.

So there are still public meetings and discussions, but West Main scored pretty high.

Let me just say,

I knew that we were going to be talking about value engineering.

It did not occur to me that we would possibly be having a vote on whether we were going to kill the project.

I don't want to have that discussion tonight, although I know some people might wish to have it tonight.

I will repeat what I asked for a few months ago which is that I would really like to hear at some point the sort of detailed presentation of why this is a good why the project is a good idea what all the different things are I mean none of us who are on council right now were on council at the time the project was first approved

We don't know a lot of this stuff.

I personally don't know a lot of this stuff.

I've read a lot of things that people have thrown at me, and that's great.

But I said a couple of months ago, I'd like to hear the sales pitch.

And I still haven't heard the sales pitch.

I've heard all the reasons why no, haven't heard the reasons why yes.

I think maybe one thing I'll say from going back to when we first arrived and some of the comments that we heard from staff about this particular project, I think it'll be a very hard it would be probably very difficult to get maybe that

the reasons why continue to continue from staff.

I'm not saying that they don't find any value in the project.

I just think that there have been some challenges along the way.

this has been a project as everyone knows that was championed by a former city council member and staff was doing I think a lot of as instructed at the time so it's up to us to say whether we are continuing with moving forward with this project there has been a lot of advocacy from you know like bike pad

what that would look like.

There were the conversations with UVA around their, I think, $5 million contribution.

What would happen with that if not?

Because there were some conversation around the Brandon Avenue development that was kind of tossed in with what if you invest in West Main Street.

and I think at this point we know what it would look like and what it would do.

I think it's our decision to even to Heather's or Councilor Hill's comments is

If we even have the resources to say at this time for staff to come back to us and tell us, so what would another project look like?

Is that where we want to invest time and energy in also in this moment?

Or do we want to figure out if we can even do

these other things that we say are a top priority and then come back to this.

I know that the statute conversation we did fly a family in and pay for them to be here to have a conversation with them.

So that is something that I think, you know, if we decide not to continue a part of the conversation that we do have to figure out how to clear up.

But I think some of the other, even if you're going to switch to a totally different project and come up with what is the scope of that project, we're still asking for staff and saying that we have the investment at this time.

And my question is, do we?

Even if they went and put in probably hundreds of hours trying to figure out what could possibly be next.

If we did not go to this, what could Project B look like?

Well I do want to let you know Mr. Brown is on the call as is Mr. Dawson that I did ask Public Works today and we do have a budget work session on Wednesday this was based on some emails from Councillor Hill and Councillor Snook

There will be a presentation Wednesday if that's the council's desire to give the quote unquote best case or best argument for continuing with this.

However, if the council wants to discuss it more fulsomely tonight and make a decision, that's fine too.

did wanna let you know that staff has been made aware today and the Public Works Department will be able to provide if the council wants to hear a presentation on their best case for the project continuing.

But I would also add to the mayor's point,

I think we are getting to kind of the end of the road so to speak not to quote boys to men too much tonight but we are kind of there I mean in terms of the CIP and the decisions that are going to have to be made as stated in the city manager's comment February 9th is going to be a council planning commission work session on the CIP so

I would certainly like to know what the alternative is.

I know part of what this project was sort of building on a synergy, I suppose, was although it wasn't to be a cost that we were incurring directly, it was that there were certain, I guess, the water and sewer lines that the water and sewer authority wanted to replace underneath there that although we weren't paying for, they were going to do it at the same time and

and save money in a way that redounds to our benefit.

I don't know the details there, but I think that that's another detail that would be important to know is if we decided not to go ahead with the project that digs up the center of Main Street, what does that do to the RWSA?

and they're all at their end of their useful life.

And the gas is proposing to go from a low pressure system to a high pressure system.

So they need to be able to maintain the existing service while doing a new high pressure line.

And once that happens, then they can move and replace the water line.

So basically you're looking at the same plan, whether West Main happens or not, this needs to happen.

Could it happen at, you know, a couple years from now?

West Main would not be driving it?

Yes.

But the city has been not doing certain activities thinking West Main was going to happen.

So it's the utility relocation, it's the repaving, it's the restriping, addressing ADA ramps, et cetera, because we didn't want to go out, replace something with new only to tear it up again.

Yeah, this is Jack Dawson.

Just to sort of tie two comments I heard together there.

There is some substantial cost and sort of delayed maintenance and some other projects, especially in the utilities realm, that needs to get done on West Main.

And while we're not prepared to quantify that exactly at this point, it's obviously much less than what the city is committed to if we were going to go four phases of this project from a cost standpoint.

But I...

That being said, to do something in between basic utility replacement and maintenance and what we're doing right now is probably infeasible based on what you've been hearing.

You know, when you move the water line, now you're digging to move the gas line.

There is no happy medium between

what we're looking at now and what the bare minimum is.

And it's not, you know, this project has been underway for a long time.

It takes a long time to develop these plans.

And while we do that and while the consultants do that, we don't sort of track all the various hypotheticals that could happen if we swap this for that.

So we can't necessarily generate all that information, but it is an extremely complicated project.

And from a very...

high level view that there isn't really a happy medium between doing bare minimum maintenance and doing the full streetscape.

That's doing the utility replacements of the upgrading the gas line, upgrading the gas water sewer.

Yeah, yeah.

And then again, when you do that, as soon as they repave, we have to do the upgrade the ADA ramps and all those things.

But that's, you know, that's, again, that's bare minimum.

and council members know some of the other things to be associated as Mr. Dawson and Jeanette had just identified a lot of what this project involves you're not going to see a lot of it is the underground stuff that's where we have the biggest costs that's associated with the project right the other components are associated with that which we're receiving the funding funding for are the things that you do see where you're narrowing the right or the roadway

in other words you're putting on a road diet you're doing various roadway improvements you're providing for pedestrian accommodations bicycle you are losing some on-street parking as well in this area the overhead utilities are being put underground that was what Jeanette was referring to with regard to conduit systems so a lot of those things that you see right now

that are above ground are going away, but it's create a certain appearance that the average pedestrian as they're walking along are not going to see.

So much of that work, again, is going to be underground.

Referring to the things that we've been putting off,

you know again the street resurfacing the ADA ramps improvements the traffic signals have reached the end of their service life those are all things that again we were going to incorporate as part of this project but if we don't move forward with that we're still going to have to address um Jeanette had mentioned about the estimate provided by Mr. Sillman is around 300 million for some of those things you know about three million

about three.

What did I say, Jeanette?

Sorry.

I like adding zero sometimes, but yeah, about three million.

And

You know that that's just the the quick calculation trying to get an idea of what we need to perform there.

And that's all work that we do have to do with some of the stuff that with regards to the resurfacing when the utilities come in to do the work, we're going to do that paving anyways.

But that's just to maintain put back what we've got right now.

So there's a lot of different things.

And as Jack had indicated, you know, once we start into this on this particular project, it's going to it's going to be a project when it's finished.

Aesthetically, from what I understand, that's what they're the project goal was trying to do was to give an appearance for when pedestrians and bicyclists or people who come to visit the town, a focal point.

that's the objective of the project itself and there's a lot of work that goes into it as I said a lot of that work is stuff that the pedestrians and bicyclists and those who come are not going to see because it's going to be underground but there's a cost that's associated with it some of us we do have to do with such as the gas and the water mains

It's certainly not my expectation we're going to vote or make a final decision tonight.

We feel like we want staff to have to put a new presentation together.

Uh...

Okay, what, we're talking about two days from now?

You would get me again, is all I'm saying.

Hey, all right.

I know, I know.

Can you look at the project overview, perhaps?

That was an attachment that I know this was a long agenda item that was trying to kind of condense and explain what the project was and what the benefits were.

Well, part of what I was concerned about, you all have indicated that it's either sort of the bare minimum, 3 million, 4 million, whatever, or it's not.

And the it's not case was $30 million and is perhaps headed towards 40 or 50, and we're not quite sure what that number is going to look like.

We have a little over three million.

Phase two, we have four million.

Phase three, it's fully funded, so 11 million.

So three plus four, seven.

So 18 million is state and federal at this point.

Phase four, we're looking at roughly 10.5 million in total cost.

There has been no discussion about

where that funding is going to come from.

We could do a smart scale application this year.

We could do another round of smart scale funding in two years.

And we also have that 5 million UVA contribution that's outstanding that until I got direction from you all, I didn't want to pursue with UVA.

Of that 10.5, 1.5 of that is undergrounding.

So that does need to come either from local contribution or from UVA funds.

Right now the total cost of the project for all four phases is $52 million, of which 33 of that is presently identified as local money.

About $23 million.

I don't have it.