Planning Commission Work Session   2/23/2021

Alrighty, good evening and welcome to the February 23rd Seaboard Planning Commission planning session with Seaboard Plans together.

Sure.

I guess I can introduce who's on the call tonight from Seville Plans Together and by way of that introduce some new faces.

So tonight we have representatives from RHI, Roadside Harwell, and Brick and Story on the phone.

I think Lee from Code Studio may join us in a bit.

HRNA will not be on the

the call tonight because we're talking about the future land use plan, the comprehensive plan piece of that.

But from RHI tonight, we have myself, Dina Roadside, both of us you've met, and then we also have, I'm glad to say, Ron Sessoms and Max Pastore, who are both urban designers and urban planners with RHI, and they will be leading us through much of the discussion tonight.

I'm glad they're here to talk with you all and they can tell you more about the methodology we use and some of our thinking.

Did I miss anyone from the team who's on?

I don't think so.

Great.

With that, should I go ahead and get started?

Great.

Thank you.

If you'd like to pull up the slides, Joe, that would be great.

Thank you.

You can go to the next slide.

So our goal for today is to really have a robust discussion of this future land use framework that we've sent along in this presentation.

Starting with some initial discussion about the history of development in the city, existing conditions, previous planning processes, and other

aspects that really fed into our development of this future land use framework.

This is, as you all know, our first discussion of this initial framework.

And the framework we're going to present to you is a draft concept.

It's meant to be, as we keep saying, a framework.

It's not a full plan.

So it'll be fleshed out and further defined next time you see it.

That'll be defined based on our conversations today as whether other input we may get from staff as well as the steering committee in the meantime.

I'll note before we move on this, this is a work session.

So we do want to hear from you have this be a really interactive session.

We've already gotten several comments.

So thank you for that.

And, you know, we'll be happy to discuss those further as we go along.

That being said, you know, noting that we have quite a bit to get through and we only have two hours and we don't want to go too too far over that.

You know, I want to be able to leave some time for community comments in the end.

And of course, a lot of robust discussion for us all when we get to that future land use framework.

So I will be playing the timekeeper and trying to keep us going on that.

Well, obviously allowing for discussion throughout.

Next slide, please.

Oh, sorry, you can go one more.

So this is our updated schedule reflecting what we hope will be our next steps.

That includes having not only a discussion tonight and likely another discussion with you, but having a community discussion about the future land use map as we get into April.

That community input point will really be focused on the land use map, whatever that looks like at that point, but it will also be a chance for folks to review other revisions to the plan, not only to the land use

piece, but to the other topic specific chapters.

So as we work toward that, we're meeting with you tonight.

We have a meeting with the Steering Committee on March 8.

And so I think we haven't talked about timing about this with a DS yet.

But if possible, we'd like to have another check in with you, obviously, before we progress to the full public engagement.

But that is our intent is to have a really thorough process here to talk about this land use map as we move forward.

and this is on the website if you wanna take a closer look.

Next slide, please.

So I want to just give some brief thinking points as we go into this discussion tonight.

As the Seville-Pensica process is really three things that are all really related.

It's the affordable housing plan piece which we talked about a lot and which we're talking with council about on March 1st, hoping that we will have an endorsement of that concept.

That affordable housing plan piece will then be pulled into the comprehensive plan piece and then once the comprehensive plan is fully adopted we'll be rewriting the zoning ordinance but the comprehensive plan future land use map might often look to some like a zoning map but it's not as I think you all are well aware but the future land use map is really meant to be a tool to describe the plan's long-term vision for the location

and character of development in the city.

And so, you know, we say here, it's 20 to 30 years, but it really depends on the jurisdiction.

What folks decide to say is sort of the vision here.

So that might be something that we talk about tonight.

It's also a guide for development.

It's not a requirement unless the city chooses to treat it as such.

It can be used when, you know, evaluating development proposals, but it's not legally mandatory.

So the comprehensive plan, you know, we said what it is, but it's not, you know, as I said, a rewrite of the zoning ordinance, but that will be a next step in this process.

You know, we know that the zoning ordinance is really how these things get implemented and it's really of great interest to a lot of people, but we want to make sure we have the more holistic concept in this comprehensive plan piece before we talk too much about the specifics of zoning.

Before I move on from here, I will ask, does anyone else from the consultant team wants to add anything more to this or any of this initial discussion before we jump in?

Okay.

Great.

Well, with that, I will propose that we move forward.

Ron will give some historic context and talk about some existing conditions.

And then if there are questions as we go, feel free to mention, but we will stop at a couple of points and open up for discussion.

Next, please.

So as you look to the future of Charlottesville, it's important to take a look at the past and how the city has evolved over time.

Next.

Charlottesville, as we all know, has had a very storied past.

Charlottesville was founded in 1762 and incorporated shortly after the Civil War.

Two major elements that led to the development of the city in its early days was the establishment of UVA and the extension of the Virginia Central Railroad to the city.

Next, please.

From that incorporation post-Civil War, just like many other cities throughout the United States, there was a series of ordinances enacted that really began to create restrictive covenants within the city that segregated races within the city.

This is something that was not uncommon amongst many American cities and it's important to note that many of these, any of these, none of these ordinances are

active today.

However, they do begin to tell the story about the demographic distribution throughout the city as it exists today.

In the early 1920s, the city enacted its first zoning code, which allowed for up to two units per acre instead of one or two units per property.

Next, please.

In the 1950s, the city saw the development of several plans, one being the city's first comprehensive plan in 1958, which led to the city's first urban renewal project, which proposed the extension of the downtown mall and the elimination of Vinegar Hill.

The elimination of Vinegar Hill was quite significant.

It was an African-American community.

With that community being raised in 1964, there are residents that are still alive that remember the urban renewal project that took away their neighborhood.

So it's important to recognize the history.

Sometimes it's good and sometimes it's bad, as in the case of Vinegar Hill, to understand what were some of the major planning projects that has led to the development of the city over time.

Next.

By 1991, a new zoning map for the city is introduced, which broadened single family zoning within the city.

By 2008, the current zoning code was adopted, and by 2013, the current comprehensive plan was adopted.

And as you know, this planning process will lead to the update of that 2013 comprehensive plan.

Next, please.

So is there any questions or feedback on the history portion of the presentation?

And I will note just before we move on, we know it's not an exhaustive list of every zoning amendment.

Yeah, some some major milestones, exactly.

City of Charlottesville is a compact urban city encompassing over 10 square miles but 50,000 residents and it's important to know that Charlottesville does not lay within isolation.

The city lies within the county and the urban ring is a joint master planned area around the city of Charlottesville which you can see on the map to the right with those proposed land uses

that was developed as part of the One Community Project, which served to unify the borders of the city with the county.

The plan is calling for many different types of land uses, residential, UVA expansion area, office, mixed use areas, the US 29 corridor, the Pantops area, and the south and western edges of the city are proposed to become

more intensively developed over time.

Next, please.

The city is one that is rich with amenities.

Charlottesville is the county seat for the county.

It's also a primary destination for shopping and other community amenities that bring people to the city.

This map begins to show the distribution of community amenities.

Downtown is the city's core and serves as the city hub.

It's home to retail, places for people to live.

Again, the city is a county seat for the county, a seat for the county.

So there are many civic institutions located downtown.

And then balancing that is the US 29 corridor to the north, which serves as a major shopping destination for the city and the surrounding county.

The Pantops area to the east is an emerging amenity cluster.

The new Martha Jefferson Hospital is located in the Pantops area, and it's creating a new employment and destination node on the city's eastern edge.

Next.

Next.

Charlottesville is a place of employment.

You can see from the census data here that employment is concentrated around downtown.

Again, you can see that some of those civic uses are large providers of employment for the city, UVA, of course, to the west, and then along the US 29 corridor to the north.

The smaller context map to the left of the main image, you could see what happens around the city.

So if you look to the city, you want to understand where there are employment centers that are located within proximity to the city.

So to the north, again, that US 29 corridor employment hub continues to the north.

And then you can see on that map around the Martha Jefferson Hospital, there's another major employment hub on the east side of the city.

Next.

Charlottesville is a place where people live.

This map here shows the planning districts identified by the city.

These are not neighborhoods.

These are the city's planning districts that provides opportunity for coordinated planning efforts throughout the city.

And it's important to understand that where we do have neighborhoods that they're all different.

They're in different, they vary in size, community context, history, and certainly demographics throughout the city.

Next.

And again, the city is a place to live and it is served by diverse neighborhoods.

In this map, which is still under development, you may see some residential properties which were omitted on this map and we're working to make those corrections moving forward.

But here we wanted to just show the diversity of housing types within Charlottesville.

You can see there's no

Complete area that's one singular land use.

Low density single family land use is a dominant residential type.

However, there are medium density land uses and higher density land uses as well, which make up those neighborhoods.

Next.

Here you can begin to see what I mean about single family spectrum of lower density residential development to the spectrum on the other end of the spectrum, which would be the higher density residential, which would include apartment buildings and other more substantive development types.

And then in the middle we have townhomes, duplexes, triplexes, and quadruplexes, which are, you know, a medium density land use type that provides affordable housing types to community residents.

Next.

Charlottesville is a place of transportation.

On this map, we have identified corridors based on average daily traffic.

We know that we are a city that not only depends upon cars to get around, but we're also a transit-oriented city.

Many of these major corridors have transit facilities, and as we begin to look to future land uses, we want to look at where people and how people move throughout the city.

You can see the darker shade of blue, the more intensive the traffic, or intensive the corridor is, down to the lighter shades, which are less intensive.

So you can begin to see how the downtown is a major hub, and then you have major corridors leading from the hub out to places like US 29, 5th Street, High Street, and McIntire Road, and the 250 Bypass.

Next.

And the city is a place of open space and nature.

So here you can begin to see the distributions of parks and open spaces, which because of the city's compact size, parks and open spaces are relatively walkable within the city.

We have larger neighborhood parks, primarily located throughout the city center area and to the south.

And then the city's larger, more city-wide parks are located to the north.

The Rivanna River is a major natural resource on the city's eastern edge, and there are a number of tributaries that extend from the river, which provide natural corridors that connect parks and open spaces throughout the city.

An important natural resource of the city is its topography.

As many of you know, the topography within the city of Charlottesville vary.

It has a very rolling type landscape, and that has influenced how the city has developed over time.

Next.

The city is fairly developed.

Again, 10 square miles, most of the city is developed, leaving only 3%, approximately, of the existing acreage, of the acreage of the city undeveloped.

So as we begin to look at the future land, you see that taking consideration that there's not a lot of opportunities for greenfield development in the city.

So if we can't grow out, we have to grow up.

Next.

And there are a number of projects in the pipeline within the city, including residential, commercial, retail, and office.

As you can see here, about 1,600 residential units are either approved, under review, or under construction within the city, which is a big deal, especially considering that the city has such a shortage of housing and housing demand is so high in the city.

And also supportive land uses, including commercial development to support those new residents and existing residents.

as well as places for employment.

We're seeing an increase in office development as well.

Next.

So that concludes our overview of existing conditions.

Well, one thing I wanted to note just when we were on the vacant sites slide was one thing, and this just occurred to me as we were going through, you know, there's vacant sites and then, you know, there's also the consideration of underutilized sites, which obviously can mean many different things.

But these sites that we're showing on here are including parcels that are completely non-developed, not necessarily underutilized sites.

Yeah, that's right.

This is Bill Palmer from UVA.

I mean, I think one thing that we may want to put on there and I can help you get that on there would be

High-density UVA housing that's actually in the city.

We have a few of those that would, just so when you look at that map, if it does end up in the final plan, that it does show that density that does exist around UVA that might not necessarily be privately owned, but is nevertheless high-density housing for students.

Things like Brandon Avenue,

Yeah, and I can totally help you get like where those actually are and what the densities, you know, within a ballpark density.

I know you kind of go off parcels, units per parcel or whatever, or units per acre.

Yeah, that's right.

No, that would be very useful information for us to plug in.

The only other thing that I'll note is that a lot of those sites that have not been built on yet have not been built on because they're very difficult to build on their own different slopes.

What about city-owned properties?

And we can do that, just to confirm.

I'm sorry, I just had one quick question.

Yeah, I think that's slide 21.

Yep.

Perfect, thank you.

Is there any way, and I'm not sure if anybody else is interested, but just for my own personal kicks and giggles, is there any way we can get some type of analysis or breakdown of the price points of the units?

Like are, cause I will be interested to know like where we are.

We say we have 890 plus units, but are they some affordable, all high end, all low income?

I think, do we need Missy to respond to that, Ron?

And that's fine, too.

Yeah, the information that they've used for this is a development review sheet that we have been maintaining that notes what's under review, what's approved, what's built, what's under construction.

And so it gives basics.

It would give a basic description of what is proposed for that site.

It probably wouldn't get into the details of the price point of units at that point in time.

We wouldn't necessarily have that information until construction is underway.

If there was, and maybe not for the consultants, but if that was something that we could work on getting that data for them for that would be awesome.

And I appreciate it.

All right.

Any other thoughts on the existing conditions?

Yeah.

So there are a number of neighborhood studies and small area studies that have been completed throughout the city.

We've noted five key plans or studies that have been implemented throughout the city, which are either approved or underway.

And they all have underlying themes that provide some similarity.

Many of them talk about increasing affordable housing opportunities.

Attracting and retaining employment and businesses, including or making sure that we preserve the community character within many of these, particularly the neighborhood areas.

And then also the theme of environmental stewardship, making sure that we are being sustainably

proactive as we begin to develop the city over time.

So looking at all these five plans, they begin to create some implications of what the future land use might look like within the city, because many of them have a land use component to them.

So we'll be using that as an important starting point as we begin to look at future land uses within these study areas throughout the city.

Next.

The affordable housing plan, as you all know, is due for approval soon.

It has some key recommendations as far as increasing affordable housing stock within the city, and this is something that we've been taking quite seriously as we begin to look to the future land use.

So if you can see here, there are four key elements of those recommendations related to land use.

Increasing the production of multifamily within the city, allowing soft density in single-family neighborhoods.

And again, that soft density would include things like accessory dwelling units, so allowing more than one unit per lot within residential areas.

And then the third point, I spoke a little bit about that a moment ago, the ADUs providing flexibility in the permitting process to allow the production of more of those affordable units.

And then also the inclusionary zoning, increasing the production of affordable housing as part of particularly larger new developments.

Next.

Sorry, before we hop into that, I just wanna ask, make sure, are there any other plans that you think we missed?

Just out of the list,

It's not really a land use plan.

It's a transportation plan.

But the regional transit plan is crucial.

There's also the Broadway blueprint plan that the county is currently working on right at the edge of our border.

Yeah.

Can we go back to slide 24?

Not certain how to even articulate this, because I don't want it to be misconstrued.

But the bullet that talks to multi-family by right, it ends with a comment about

speaking to reverse entrenched patterns of racial segregation.

We just need to be very careful the way we talk about this.

I served for a number of years on the housing authority and there were lots of folks that were a little worried about our community neighborhoods becoming multicultural because they worried about a repeat of Vinegar Hill where

We attempted to do mixed use, mixed income, very diverse, to build communities that were like that.

But as a result, we broke up ethnic communities.

And again, that made a lot of people nervous when we talked about it that way, because again, it brought vinegar hill to people's minds.

So just keep that in mind as we think about it.

The way we present that, when we think about what our real intent is,

Actually, I've been thinking about that too.

I think that gets to equity.

Who gets change?

Who gets higher density?

I mean I know this has come up before too with how we talk about this stuff.

If this slide were to be presented to stand on its own, I know we've talked about there's sometimes layman's terms for like soft density and inclusionary zoning, just understanding

Yeah, well, just for some clarification.

So this is a page directly from the Affordable Housing Plan.

So we just we just pulled it in to give some of that context.

But in that plan,

Everything is, there's definitions as a glossary.

But point taken, I think, you know, that's good for us to remember in the future, we need to make sure the context is fully in there.

I also want to note this is the version of the recommendations prior to the version we sent in for next week's council meeting.

So there has been some some wording changes to this slide since then.

This is Jody.

Just one more thing.

Yeah, that's a good point.

I mean, I had, I had another thought to think, I don't know how we want to treat that.

But it may be a matter of just updating the UVA boundary that shown there.

So some of those areas that aren't currently covered

in those previous slides by the UVA Boundary could have that blue hatch on them, things like the Ivy Corridor, Brandon, our health system, which are all UVA owned and being developed as such.

I don't know how people, how you guys think about that.

I don't want to tell you, say we have to do that, but we may want to, you know, more accurate, it's basically more accurately showing

I think we did get the same feedback by email from a community member as well.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think well, we use maybe an older layer of a UVA boundary.

So I think if we will talk to that.

Yeah.

That being said, I'm going to suggest we go on to the next piece.

All right, thank you.

So I'll reduce myself again.

My name is Max Mastori.

I'm with RHI, with the SIBO Plans Together team.

Nice to meet you all.

I'm just going to speak about the small portion about the zoning portion of the residential part of this presentation.

Unlike the rest of the material that's been presented up to this point, we've really been talking about up to this point, really just the land uses, right?

So that's things that are kind of more general.

What kind of housing do you want to see?

What kind of development do you want to see at a very high level?

It doesn't always have legal power behind it.

But for this portion that I'll be talking about, we're talking actually about zoning, which does have legal power to it and does say what can and cannot be built on property.

So we wanted to just kind of bring this up because this is really we think we're a lot of there's a lot of interest and ideas related to soft density that's that gets kind of involved here and again just to repeat the idea soft density is anything that is kind of the stuff that's between your single family house on the one end of the spectrum and your apartment building on the other so that's like quadruplex or quadplexes triplexes duplexes townhomes anything that's kind of in that missing

middle, so to speak.

So basically, the map that you see on the screen speaks to all of the areas that you could theoretically have a residential unit in by the zoning code.

So anything in that light yellow cream color is basically anything that's exclusively residential.

So that's, again, your single family detached all the way to your multifamily.

But you can't have any sort of mixed use.

You can't have apartments on the ground floor.

You can't have commercial uses on the ground floor, that sort of thing.

And so that purple color is where the mixed use comes in, where you can still technically have your residential above, but it also allows for different uses too.

At least much closer.

Yeah.

We can.

Yeah.

Although the Western lands that are shown as UVA is not actually owned by UVA.

That's all foundation properties.

But that's not in the city.

So I don't.

Yeah.

Perfect.

That's good to know.

But yeah, the city portion of this is is accurate.

And just as a high level, the green stuff that you see on this map is your open spaces, your parks.

Blue are school properties, and that does include public and private schools.

Next slide, please.

So kind of digging into the bigger, taking a step deeper into the residential stuff, particularly about your single-family detached housing.

So the stuff that you think of as, you know, not your townhomes, not your duplexes, you know, a house that does not share well with anybody else or any other property.

So that is a good chunk of the city still.

If looking at just the total area of, or total properties within the city, not total land area, but properties, it accounts for just over 52% of property in the city.

So it's a good chunk of property.

And again, pretty much it's anything that's shown in gray within that is anything that is not that zoning class.

So that's anything that could be from commercial to other types of residential zoning, but it's not,

Single family detached.

Next slide.

And then what we try to do is overlay on top of that in red, you can see these red kind of squares and dots everywhere.

Anything that's red is a property or property parcel that has something other than a single family detached house on it, even though the area is technically zoned for that.

So the red would be things like duplexes, apartments, condos, other types of small-scale multifamily housing, things that you might not even notice on the ground.

Maybe there's a door in the back for a basement apartment or something like that and you just can't tell.

Sometimes it is a bit more visible, but a lot of this sort of what we call missing middle or the types of housing that we don't typically build anymore today or post-World War II, those duplexes, the triplexes and things like that,

probably do exist for a variety of reasons within the city within these districts but a good chunk of them I would imagine are probably pre-World War II.

So a lot of the stuff that we did traditionally before zoning was really had a lot of teeth and did a lot of regulation so it's just something to think about when we when we kind of talk about the idea of missing middle housing going forward whether that's the affordability or housing affordability plan and things like that

This is not a new concept.

This is a really old tradition that in fact exists within these residential districts already.

Next slide.

And so this slide has a lot of information on it.

And I want to just kind of go through quickly some of the methods behind the map this year, so to speak.

But basically this map tries to explain kind of through our own analysis of where

you could theoretically build an ADU based on the provisional use system that exists today.

So it's not technically by provisional meaning you can't just kind of put in an application and it's approved.

You do have to go through a separate little process.

It's not like building a single family house necessarily but it's still not terribly cumbersome.

But the idea here is that basically anything in Brown is for you couldn't build an ADU theoretically

because most either the zoning is just not lined up for it.

So in most cases, what that means in this map is it's a residential university zone.

So that's the area that's kind of hems in.

You can see the kind of the brown solid portion that is kind of showing Venable and JPA and Lewis Mountain.

Those are just a specific type of residential zoning that explicitly does not allow for ADUs on it.

Everything else that kind of shows that speckly stuff, that is mostly to do with ownership.

So something that we did as a very blunt instrument to understand whether or not you can build an EDU is whether or not it's owned by an individual.

So if typically, you know, with ADUs, there's an owner-occupant requirement.

So if someone wants to build an ADU on their property, there's a requirement that that person lives either in the main house, the principal dwelling unit, or in the backyard in that ADU or wherever it is in the property.

So anything that's brown, that's not the Venable or Jefferson Park Avenue or Lewis Mountain, that would be because it's either owned by an LLC, it's owned by a church, it's owned by some sort of organization that's not an individual.

And I think, so generally based on that kind of that high level of analysis, we found that roughly one out of every three residential properties could actually permit an ADU in these zones.

Next slide.

I think that's the end of it.

And again, recognizing that the future land use map is not zoning, but the goal here is to put out a land use map that will then lead to potential to looking at the zoning.

So, you know, we want to make sure we know what's in there now as context, but we're not putting this out here to say the future land use map needs to be exactly in line with the zoning at all.

That's not that's not why we're showing this.

We just want everyone to know what's what's in the zoning right now.

Oh, thank you for that note.

Okay, well, thank you, Max.

So we, as Jennifer mentioned, we started with the work that has been done in the past as an important starting point to understand how the city is being thought of as far as future land use planning.

This was an analysis completed by the previous Planning Commission that looked at the links between employment and housing.

and how we can begin to correlate where major points of employment are located within the city, where people live, and connections in between, and how there may be opportunities for new growth nodes within the city.

So in this diagram you can see downtown is a major hub.

Very, if you remember back when we showed the diagrams that have employment node,

and you can really begin to see downtown as a major employment center for the city.

This diagram really begins to illustrate that as a central hub with a series of smaller community hubs around that center extending all the way out to the US 29 corridor and those periphery areas and we had mentioned that there are emerging

employment clusters around, particularly around the southeast area of the city.

And I want to note, Ron, before you move on from that, if you don't mind, we know there was a lot of other analyses that went on.

I believe the planning commissioner who did a lot of this work is on the line watching.

Thank you, Kurt.

That's right.

Next.

In 2018, there was some thinking around what the future land use map could be.

And that thinking is illustrated here.

This is the map from 2018.

So you can see that the areas in purple are higher intensity areas, areas in yellow are lower intensity.

So this diagram begins to illustrate some early thinking about where intensity of development can occur throughout the city.

So you can see here the downtown core is more of a high intensity place stretching along West Main Street towards the university and then up McIntyre Road to the north towards US 250 and then of course along the US 29 corridor where it is a major

destination corridor today, but there are underutilized properties along that corridor and underutilized properties could be low density commercial uses such as shopping centers that may be ripe for development.

So this plan really began to look at that area as a potential growth zone.

And if I could interrupt you again, Ron, I'm sorry.

Just like the previous map, we know there was a lot of other work that happened during this time.

We've been using this map as an example because this was sort of the last map that was, I believe, discussed in a larger public process.

But we know there has been other work done.

There's not only in terms of the key, thinking about the definitions of these places, but also different levels of intensity maps that showed different areas that had been discussed in some planning commission meetings previously.

Yeah, that's important.

Next.

So we have completed community engagement as part of the overall comprehensive plan update process.

There are key themes that have been derived from those community engagement activities.

The ones you see in pink specifically relate to land use planning.

Again, introducing affordable housing throughout the entirety of the city, recognizing the need for racial equality related to where people live and avoiding gentrification, displacement, and recognizing historic land uses, creating and identifying safe, strong, sustainable neighborhoods for everyone,

We want Charlottesville to be a very inclusive place and that's something that we need to build into our land use planning thinking.

Utilizing tools for land use and urban design elements, including increasing density where appropriate to allow for flexibility in housing types.

Promoting walkability and bikeability and proximity to transit.

We know that Charlottesville is a very compact city so there are a lot of opportunities to create a very walkable transit oriented place and that's something that we've recognized as part of this engagement.

and then parks and park connectivity.

Charlottesville has a lot of neighborhood parks and trails and other natural resource amenities, so we want to make sure that we're building in opportunities for connectivity to those special places.

Next.

And then as part of the comp plan,

exercise, we are developing vision statements which serve to guide the different elements of the comprehensive plan.

Here are a few vision statements related to land use planning, which are under development.

These were the last iterations based on the November 2020 draft.

And we're currently updating this vision statement as well as the other chapter vision statements based on the input from November and December.

Next.

So from there, we have begun to distill planning objectives.

And this is something that will evolve.

I think we're gonna learn a lot from our discussion tonight that we can begin to refine these objectives and add to them.

But for now, we have identified six.

We wanna build upon the land use recommendations included in the city's previous planning efforts.

Many of these small area plans that have been developed

As part of the city planning processes have included extensive community engagement and the community has spoke to how they want their neighborhoods to be shaped for the future.

So we want to use that as a starting point for our land use planning and incorporate as much of that knowledge into the land use planning process as possible.

We want to create equitable opportunities for density increases throughout the city and make sure that we're distributing density citywide as much as possible such that it becomes an equitable place.

We want to consider increasing density around community amenities such as shopping, employment centers, and transit.

We want to promote a walkable inclusive place so those are very important elements to make sure that we have connectivity too.

We want to develop opportunities to infill at vacant properties or redevelop underutilized land within the city.

We know that we're very limited on vacant properties, and as we mentioned earlier, many of the vacant lands within the city are not really prom for development, so focusing on where there's areas of underutilized property is going to be important.

And then we want to maximize access to public open spaces, as well as continue the synergy between what's happening in the city and what's happening in the surrounding county areas.

Sorry, Ron.

I think we had a question on the agenda.

So I want to make sure we stop and just open it up briefly to see if there were any thoughts on those objectives.

We can also have the discussion as we go on.

I'm actually still thinking back in existing plans.

Our bike plan, you should be considering.

And I just pasted that in chat, 2015.

Got it.

Thank you.

Okay.

I want to make certain we haven't seen what Rory is attempting to suggest.

Yeah, well, I mean, I just think

We should be clear about what we're starting from, right?

You know, our goal here is to make a new map regardless.

But, you know, I think we we've discussed a lot over the last few years that our plan is going to was to start kind of where we left off.

So, you know, at the very least, you know, I know post.

So the last thing I as I understand it, the last map that we presented in public

was at the early December 2018 council meeting.

And that was the more intense map.

And there was a meeting, a work session after that, where I think we had agreed to roll the map part of it back, but keeping the sort of legend of the other map.

And so this map with this legend is sort of the right colors in the right places, but meaning kind of very different

Yeah.

Yeah, I think, okay.

Do others agree with that?

I took notes on that because I'm a maniac.

So this is Jody.

I had an email conversation with Jenny earlier pointing just out what Roy just put out, that that was the 2017 map from very early on.

In fact, we were still doing public engagement.

So that was a draft before we even started meeting

aggressively and talking about how we can increase the development densities and incentives that would help.

And we went through a lot of iterations.

November 18, a draft map there that I have a copy of shows far denser mapping suggestions for the different neighborhoods.

So

really.

I was bothered by the quote on that slide that said that there was really no increase in density being proposed.

No, we had gotten to the point of knowing we needed to increase density and we were working very hard on that and we had draft maps that showed the direction we were going in.

Understood.

Yeah, the comment on the slide was definitely in reference to that, the previous map, but understood that you will have those discussions and recognize that need.

So thank you for mentioning that.

With that, I think let's, let's dive into the land use framework, Ron.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

Go back one slide.

So taking in all the information that we learned, we developed this draft land use framework.

And again, this is not a solidified plan.

It's just a representation of some early ideas and thinking, combining some of the analysis that we've done, information contained in existing neighborhood plans and small area plans, and also the analysis completed by the previous planning commission and the maps from 2017.

So on this map, you can see one, the corridors that stick out on the map, which we're calling these urban mixed use placemaking corridors.

We're trying to think about ways that we can concentrate development along key areas of the city that could be ripe for development and also begin to support higher density land use, which in the end would support the city's objective to increase affordable housing throughout the city.

So we identified a series of linear corridors throughout the city, one being the US 29 corridor, JPA, Preston Avenue, McIntyre Road, West Main Street, High Street, Fifth Street, and 250 towards Pantops' major

corridors that we believe could be the beginnings of areas that could support higher intensity development.

The width of those corridors for that more intensive development could be one block from the center line of the road or it could be a five-minute walk.

I think the details of how

Density develops along those corridors are to be determined and we want your feedback on that.

But we have identified corridors that could support higher development intensity.

Connecting those corridors or anchoring those corridors are nodes.

So downtown, the strategic investment area, US 29, the River Road corridor, Fifth Street, the Fontaine area, Belmont, we've identified these areas as potential major nodes.

So thinking about the analysis that the previous planning commission created where you're beginning to create linkages between housing and places of employment,

You begin to see how that is starting to flesh itself out, you know, the US 29 downtown areas being those major employment hubs of the city.

And then we have these mixed use corridors that began to connect all of these different high intensity nodes together.

And then we also included smaller, more neighborhood scale nodes.

So you can see the smaller circles distributed throughout the map are creating those secondary neighborhood scale nodes so that we can get some sense of place or places of orientation within some of these neighborhoods that

could create places where you can get a gallon of milk or you can have other employment, small employment type opportunities, but we wanted to create opportunities outside of the major nodes for those community amenities.

Again, those corridors that connect the major nodes are places of transit.

So all of these corridors have or currently have transit access.

So we are proposing more intensive uses along corridors with transit.

And then we're also taking advantage of those underutilized commercial properties, particularly along US 29.

We have some of that type of land use along River Road where it's less developed and then along McIntyre Road in the industrial area just to the west of McIntyre Road where some of those properties are already

beginning to turn over use.

And before we jump in, I know there will be a lot of discussion on this.

I wanted to see, Ron, if you wouldn't mind maybe speaking just really briefly about the rationale for where the smaller nodes are located.

I think just to make sure everyone is aware, we know there may be other ones you all would identify or you might suggest adjusting these locations.

Yeah, certainly.

Cherry Avenue, along the Cherry Avenue corridor, we have identified a neighborhood node at that location, which is a result of the Cherry Avenue small area plan, which calls for a small neighborhood node with a mix of uses, so we've identified that on the plan.

Monticello Avenue gateway that we're calling on the south end of the city, there are some

On ULA's property, there is an exit ramp from Interstate 64 at that location.

So that could be a prime gateway into... One second, please.

I think someone may have started up a vacuum.

He'll be right back.

I don't watch it.

Yes.

I want to let him pick up where he left off instead of trying to be Ron.

Here we go.

So sorry about that.

We have the office maintenance staff beginning to clean the office and they turn on the vacuum cleaner, so I didn't want that distraction.

But again, Cherry Avenue, Monticello Avenue, Gateway, Cherry Avenue South, along the Cherry Avenue corridor, there may be an opportunity to create another node, a small neighborhood-oriented place that could begin to anchor kind of the southwest area.

outside of the Cherry Avenue neighborhood.

We have Woolen Mills, which has already been identified as a place that could become a community place.

Downtown Belmont, an area that already has some commercial development.

We think there's an opportunity to build upon that by creating a neighborhood scale place there.

And then to the north, as you can see,

In the mapping, the Preston Avenue, High Street area south has a lot of potential for in-field development.

Looking north from High Street, Preston Avenue, particularly along the US 250 corridor, because of the urban form, these are a lot of low density residential communities.

With more suburban land use configurations, we did want to identify some places that could support more of a small neighborhood node condition.

So Dairy Road, there's a ramp from US 250 to Dairy Road that could be an opportunity, as well as Locust Road.

We've identified that as a potential node and

Thank you, Ron.

You can talk more about that too, but I want to note there was a question from Gary about the UVA node, the blue bubble on UVA, and what that might be called or what we're envisioning with that.

Yeah, so the bubble for UVA is a product of the employment center node, and we just diagrammatically located a circle because it's a major node on the western periphery of the city.

I think some of our discussion about including those areas around UVA that has the higher intensity residential uses today

We want to pull that in, but UVA and the area around UVA could certainly be a node that could support more intensive uses around the UVA area.

Yeah, I mean, that makes sense.

We've talked about what a couple of months ago that it is a unique

feature of the city.

Other university towns do have zoning and or nomenclature that talk about the interface between the city and the university and some things that might be different in that area.

So I'm really glad to see that it's a different color.

I don't think it should be just because of employment.

I do think you have to treat it as a unique possibility for

Yes, thank you, Liz.

Liz noted that the Woolen Mill node appears to be maybe shown over the cemetery, so we should reconsider that location on the map.

Thank you for mentioning that.

It sort of brings up a bigger question as to the rationale behind creating nodes where there may be, I'm not sure if the intent was to maybe have that closer to

Woolen Mills, New Development, or Mead Park, like where there is some, you know, sometimes there's farmers market there, like I just don't know what the rationale there is.

And also with the Locust Road Gateway, that seems to be in the location of a very tight on off ramp at 250.

Yeah, so the Will and Meals, I think diagrammatically we should shift that circle over, but there is a semi-industrial in parts of that area.

There are some large parcels in that location, so we thought that there would be an opportunity to consider some mix of employment and perhaps residential uses as part of that area.

as an overall concept.

Locust Road, Gateway, we're being visionary.

This is a forward-thinking plan.

We have not set a horizon year for what the comprehensive plan would be, but perhaps in the future if we have a plan that says we want to create a place here at this location, maybe in the future we can begin to take steps to make that happen.

So it may be a tight

exchange interchange now, but you know if the conditions are ripe enough and it's something that we want to make happen, perhaps we can identify opportunities to make improvements that can make that implementation possible.

And again, if we figure that some of these nodes may want to take out, we can certainly do that.

We can move them around.

So I want to point out that in the Planning Commission's work from a couple years ago, we were proposing or in the process of adding a category called neighborhood amenity

Is what you're proposing here something similar or inspired by that discussion, that proposal?

We were actually identifying areas of the city where it would go within without specifying exactly where it would go, but recognizing neighborhoods that needed to have a low density

Exactly.

So that's exactly why I want to include these smaller circles, which are juxtaposed to the larger downtown core and the strategic investment area.

So we did envision these to be kind of smaller scale, neighborhood-oriented, contextual places that could support small employment, perhaps some neighborhood retail, again, a place to buy a gallon of milk,

etc.

that could support these neighborhoods, especially if we begin to think about increasing soft density.

So one color that I did not discuss much on this plan is the yellow.

So we're showing equal distribution of soft density as one approach throughout the city.

So if we begin to think about

Soft density, more units per lot, etc.

And with the soft density, you know, on

It could work out that, for example, on the future land use map, there is a more broad soft density throughout the city, similar to this, and in the zoning, the zoning rewrite, the next step, there can be discussions about how

that looks.

I mean, so soft density, which is a term now we know we want to make sure we define that every time we talk about it.

But soft density is basically missing middle housing, right?

So it's everywhere from those ADUs, duplex, triplex, quadplex.

That's why we say soft density, because it's shorter than saying that.

But so

When we say soft density in the yellow here, that encompasses all of those, but we're not saying that all of these areas should all have quadplexes, for example.

I want to make sure, Jody, that did we respond to the sort of what you had mentioned about the previous process?

I wasn't sure.

I was just pointing out the difference, but that we had a similar idea and saw a similar need to what you're recognizing.

So I'd like to kind of better understand, you know, what the kind of what the placement and the size of each of these nodes kind of means.

Like, you know, to me, I'm going to try to get like, can you guys see my mouse if I move around?

So for me, downtown, it seems to be on downtown proper.

I don't know if that's working either.

But downtown, as we saw from our jobs map a couple of slides ago, is the very largest, most thing everyone's super attracted to.

And so to me, it doesn't really make sense to include this area just above.

or to not include.

Whereas it's basically the same dimensions for downtown as it is for McIntyre Road, even though one of them is the job for the whole city.

And then I think we also need to pay attention on some of those corridors, especially McIntyre Road and the northern part of this street to the topography, which I think make it pretty difficult to do significant development along there.

And it kind of seems to me that like we're, or you guys kind of base this off of where the purple areas are in the previous map.

And that's kind of forming the basis like I just want to be really clear that like you know that the purple that was on

You know, near McIntyre Road there, that was the Harris Street kind of industrial corridor.

And then the kind of very northern part of that is McIntyre Plaza, like more of a mixed use.

There's apartments and retail and stuff.

And then, you know, like downtown Belmont is actually kind of more over here.

And then we had this purple area over here where there's like over here, there's like, you know, retail, that sort of thing, kind of strip malls.

And then there's that big scrap yard.

And I think that's maybe what you're going for with the woolen mills dot there.

So I just want to be clear that, you know, that's more in this area.

I also feel like Avon Street is a little bit omitted here.

like, you know, kind of along here.

So there's a lot going on in the county on their side of Avon.

And, you know, I think that probably makes sense as something of a corridor.

And I also feel like in the Cherry Avenue plan, you know, that is seen more as a corridor and with more than kind of that like little note, like even now there's more than that small node there.

So sorry, my Zoom upgraded and now everything's weird and I can't find my adaptation menu, but I will try to get that back so I can get rid of all these markups.

No, I think you're absolutely right.

In this first iteration of the framework, we want to be, we're being specific and unspecific at the same time, and non-specific at the same time, so we generically drew some of these ovals and areas as

Very general, without getting too precise, but I definitely see, you know, moving forward, we will begin to scale to fit these areas where appropriately needed.

And then you pointed out the downtown Belmont, I think that's a really good observation.

So that circle was getting at encompassing the existing downtown Belmont area, as well as some of those underutilized properties near the railroad tracks.

So we

Drew, a generic circle to encompass the whole thing.

I forgot to mention the Ivy Corridor.

Bill mentioned it earlier.

UVA is going to develop a lot of that, but the parts that are still private, it's going to make sense, I think, to put some more density there.

Also up at the Greenbrier intersection with the county.

And then with corridors, you know, I almost wonder if it always makes sense to have a full link all the way along the corridor.

Like I can imagine JPA coming down, JPA extended, you know, eventually getting to the really big retail area at the end of Fish Street.

which it seems like the 5th Street block kind of ends a little short of.

Like, you know, the beginning parts of JPA I can maybe, you know, see, you know, being part of a denser corridor.

I don't know about the whole extent of it.

And then, you know, maybe somewhere down the line like where Press Spring Beach Club is could make sense as a node in the more distant future.

I guess I'd like to understand what the rationale is for a corridor rather than

Yeah, I think those are really, really good observations.

The rationale behind the corridors, we're creating these, what we're calling the placemaking corridors that connect these major nodes or places, points of destination.

So if you're a visitor along the US 29 corridor, you're coming from the north out of the county, if you want to get downtown, you would likely take either Preston Avenue to get downtown or

U.S.

250, so then McIntire, U.S.

250 is a limited access roadway, so we didn't include it as a corridor, but your major gateway could include McIntire, which is a direct point of access from 250 to downtown, and they begin to create the front door image of the city of Charlottesville.

Right now you pointed out that some of these major corridors aren't as attractive as they may

could be today, but as we begin to implement projects along these corridors as opportunities for streetscape enhancements and other placemaking opportunities to create, to really define what those placemaking corridors are and how we can create more transit-oriented corridors.

Perhaps in the future, Preston Avenue could have a BRT or some other transit-oriented use.

We just started to identify the makings of what some of these transit oriented places could be.

And I think you made another good point about corridors versus nodes.

Perhaps Preston Avenue is not just one linear high intensity place.

Maybe there are places along Preston Avenue that are defined as an opportunity.

And we, you know, on Preston specifically, we know there's been a lot of discussion about Preston and Grady.

I don't know if you all have, you know, opinions on that, whether that should be a node.

I know it was in previous plans.

It was sort of shown in some plans as a node.

So, you know, that's building on what Ron said about Preston.

I'm glad you mentioned the transit, you know, it's not only the corridors are where transit exists now, but it can also then help focus investment in transit, as well as, you know, bicycle, pedestrian amenities, amenities, too.

So yeah.

I'd like to get maybe some more people's opinion on the Cherry Avenue stuff that Rory was talking about, whether that corridor might warrant urban mixed-use placemaking corridor status based on the small area plan that's been developed.

And then also along that line, the Cherry Avenue node, whether that might rise to the concentrated mixed-use node or not.

Well, we can also consider having different scales of corridors too, you know, especially if, if it is identified in the small area plan, you know, we will be looking at incorporating that, assuming that that all moves forward.

So we'll want to make sure it's identified in some way on this.

But in reference to Bill's point, does anyone else have thoughts on the Cherry Avenue thing?

I agree with Bill's point and I have my own point to make if we're done with Bill's.

Maybe not.

Let's deal with Bill's a little bit longer.

Relating to William Mills, what are you suggesting as it relates to Cherry Avenue?

Oh no, I was saying, I felt like, you know, based on the small area plan that's been developed for Cherry Avenue, it feels that it might rise to a higher level than something like Willam Mills or Locust Road Gateway.

I mean, if you've been over in that area, you've seen how much development's going on, how much commercial development's going on over there.

And you've seen how many open spaces there are that could be developed.

I'd hate to

I'd hate to demote Willam Mills.

I know we're focused on the cherry, haven't we?

Sorry.

Yeah, I wasn't trying to demote Willam Mills at all, because I think you're right.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah, and I mean, maybe it's more of a downtown Belmont slash Willam Mills type zone in there, because it does kind of bleed together.

I just don't want to promote Cherry Avenue at the detriment of Willam Mills, because there's just so much that can be done over there and so much that's already happening.

So I'm thinking about sort of major nodes, major land uses, just big places on the map, places people go for work or for other reasons.

And the two that jump out to me that I don't see here, UVA Medical Center, just gigantic.

It's the most intensive land use in the region.

And I think in many ways is distinct from UVA.

and also Charlottesville High School.

It's a huge footprint.

It's all government owned land, gigantic parking lot, and all I think single family zoning around it.

Yeah, yeah, we'll take a look at that.

And yeah, I would definitely recommend taking a look at some of those later maps that we made.

We were specifically thinking about, you know, kind of where to put new nodes and particularly, you know, where to put like, you know, smaller little mixed use things, kind of neighborhood amenity type things.

And I think we had used like hatch marks or something.

So I know we're having some general discussion.

I just want to note we did have three sort of discussion questions in the agenda.

So I'm just going to say them and then we can continue the discussion and you can respond to those if you'd like.

The second question was... If I can recommend, because I know how we are.

We'll forget and we won't get all your questions answered.

I will do that.

So does anyone have thoughts on whether this aligns generally with the discussions that have taken place in this process?

And I would say the previous discussions you had leading to this as well, because those have been part of our discussion throughout.

All right, seeing some thumbs up.

OK, and we know that doesn't mean you necessarily agree with everything that's on here, but you're saying the general framework, you're OK with that.

I didn't know if you were going to ask this specifically, but I just was remembering the discussion about having a different type of designation for the UVA area.

So whatever that means, it's there.

So I like it.

Yeah, and I'd like to piggyback on that.

This kind of fits into the next question sort of too, but somewhere between.

Like, I do think we should really think about the UVA area in a special way.

You know, I think

One of the biggest concerns that people have all over the city, and particularly in neighborhoods adjacent to UVA that are not UVA neighborhoods, is this idea of UVA students kind of just trickling out and expanding and putting pressure on surrounding neighborhoods.

And especially as UVA grows, as it did a lot over the last decade by over 2,000 people on grounds, and it's going to continue to do,

and we we have areas that are like student areas right like JPA and like the Rugby Road area and and then there's you know some little kind of tucked in kind of historic areas that are like professor oriented in there as well but like

If we can take those existing student areas and fit a lot more students and stuff in there, that's going to relieve a lot of that student pressure on the outside.

And, you know, in a lot of ways, I think we've seen that with the West Main developments, we've heard from the school district that

There are a lot more families in 10th and Page and in Fifeville from where students were spilling out.

I think what people dislike a little bit about the West Main development is that we let the students spill out of their existing areas, right?

We took some new areas and we said these are students now.

And I think people even maybe even dislike that more than maybe the built form of that area if it were non-students.

And so

I think we really overlooked those areas, you know, 14th and Rugby and JPA and Fontaine.

Thank you.

Okay.

Bill, did you want to add to that?

Yeah, I think that's probably a good point that Rory just made.

Those areas that he mentioned were up zoned, I don't know how many years ago, 20 years ago or so, and did result in a lot of larger apartment buildings on

14th Street area.

But yeah, like, like you're saying, it sounds like you're saying maybe re-examining that and not just saying, oh, well, it's already been up soon.

Maybe that's enough.

Yeah, and something that came up kind of last, last March or so but ended up getting derailed by COVID with

A student housing developer was that like, even in those up zoned areas, like along 14th street, the university high density zones, it doesn't even allow the highest densities in our use matrix, or even the two highest densities in our use matrix.

So we, a lot of those are kind of older ish, you know, large parking lot kind of

what we think of as our R3 zone now.

And then there's also areas in there that that didn't really get up zoned so much.

Or there's even some that are like, you know, R1U and R2U, but they're full of students like and so, you know, those zones ban any house with more than three unrelated people.

but like every single one of them has six or more unrelated students living in them, which just ends up with bad all around, you know,

They have no leverage against their landlord to report violations to the city because the landlord can say, oh, you're living here illegally anyway.

You know, you'll just get it.

We can just evict you or the city will kick you out.

I've heard some horror stories there.

It's bad.

Thanks for, yeah, well, I think we'll look at ways to reconsider, consider more of that area around UVA.

And I just wanted to, it's kind of, well, what got me thinking about it is when Lyle noted UVA medical area being considered, and I don't know if what he meant was being considered as a node or place of

increased intensity, but we should also take into consideration the legacy of UVA and the hospital property, especially on encroaching in those historically African-American neighborhoods.

And that sort of leads into a bigger picture question, which we don't have to get into right now, which is how, when the entire area is shown as this soft density everywhere, the question then is,

Taking some notes.

And that gets to sort of that third question that we had, but I think we can, I would say we can talk about that now.

I think,

And well, first of all, on your UVA point, point well taken, you know, we know there's a legacy, not only Vinegar Hill, Gospel Hill, it was also part of the history there and other history with UVA.

So keeping that in mind, I think, is a good point.

But as far as the soft density conversation goes, as we touched on really briefly earlier, we've got this shown all over.

Now it's sort of an underlay to this whole map.

And it could be that the comprehensive plan explores outlining specific areas that could be threatened by, especially the higher end of soft density.

but it could also be that there's an underlay of soft density in the comprehensive plan and the zoning can then take on that and look at how we might target certain types of density on that scale of soft density to certain areas or make sure that some areas are more protected if need be.

So I think

That's my sort of vague answer to your question.

But the other piece of this that I want to make sure we remember is that the Affordable Housing Plan exists in tandem with this.

And land use is one piece of this.

And we know that if land use and then the comprehensive plan land use map changes and zoning changes that can lead to potential displacement.

and other impacts, but there are sort of subsidy tools, tenants rights tools, other tools that are being proposed that can both help, I'm sorry the cat is going crazy, I'm sorry if that's coming through my microphone, you know I think that can help to

to strengthen some communities against those unintended or other impacts of those zoning changes.

And it can help people to benefit from those changes as well.

So I think we're keeping those in mind with land use changes.

But yeah, which is to say, I think we need to consider that continuing as we go forward here, how we can make sure that we're considering those potential consequences of soft density.

That was a long answer to your question.

Yes, I thought that was an interesting study.

I saw you posted that on Twitter.

I took a look.

I think it's so Portland, as many of you may know, did look at sort of changes to their single family zoning.

And so then they looked at what are the potential impacts of that and

They did note, they noted that while it was less than they might have anticipated, there were certain neighborhoods that were more potentially impacted, but they talked with that potential mechanisms to mitigate those circumstances.

So I think just as a conversation we just had, we need to keep that in mind as we, as we move forward.

But thank you, I would suggest folks take a look at that.

I found it interesting.

Let's see, I know we have about 10 minutes left for general discussion.

We do want to leave some time for community input.

But I do want to make sure that we hear from all of you.

There are some of you we haven't heard from too much.

Yes, well, I have something I'd like to ask.

How does this conceptual draft that you have on the screen

Yes, so that's something that we, yeah, thank you, yeah, I can speak to that.

So that's something that we definitely consider as part of the development of the framework.

So the US 29 corridor, you can see that this development bubble extends out past the city, that US 29 is shown in the urban ring area as a mixed-use corridor.

supporting higher intensity use, certainly higher intensity than what's shown today.

Hey.

Thank you.

Thank you.

than the US 29 corridor that's shown today.

So we did extend that mixed use opportunity into the city, taking into consideration that urban ring recommendation.

Again, along near Fontaine, there are recommendations for more office and industrial uses on the west side of the city.

So continuing that JPA corridor out towards those potential future uses.

is something that we considered same as Fifth Street.

The community college is located on the south side of the city, so providing opportunities for people to live close to the community college as well as other more office and institutional uses planned on the south side of the city.

And then the Pantops area on our amenities maps, we call that out as a as a potential major growth area or

another area of more intensive development similar to the US-29 downtown area anchored by the hospital.

So we did extend that 250 corridor you can see here extending from River Road out to the edge of the city that leads

back to downtown via High Street.

And I would also add, you know, we, with the affordable housing plan, we sort of coordinated with the county and our intention with this is that we will have a discussion with the county planning, you know, group as we move forward here to say, here's what we're looking at, you know, just to get their thoughts on that, you know, it's certainly a recommendation, the affordable housing plan to coordinate with the county as that moves forward.

Excellent.

I'm glad to hear that.

Looking again at the Preston there, Preston's got a weird history, and I hesitate to even bring it up.

So it was originally supposed to be a, well, originally, during urban renewal, it was supposed to be a six-lane highway, just really getting those cars through.

And the neighborhood freaked out.

They said, no, we don't want to be a six-lane highway.

We want to be a neighborhood.

We scrapped the plan.

We killed the project.

We stopped that sort of wide highway right there at Washington Park and at the sort of like weird triangle thing that's there at 10th Street.

And from then on, it wasn't a major corridor for the city.

It was a neighborhood corridor.

And it's been designated a neighborhood corridor in streets that work.

It's an uncomfortable history.

It's definitely a story of privilege and race because the lower income and African-American community on Preston did not get that luxury.

They got knocked out.

Don't know how to handle it.

Yeah, I think that's good to point out, Preston.

And we also want to keep in mind that intensity can occur in different forms.

So, you know, it may not be wholesale wiping out, you know, a block to make way for larger development.

It could be infill, you know, perhaps if there are larger lot residential uses along Preston Avenue, they have opportunities to infill or densify existing lots.

So,

I think that builds on that discussion we had earlier with Cherry Avenue potentially adding that as a corridor and there might be different sort of scales of corridors and that might be something we consider with with Preston as well.

What are the next steps?

And have you thought ahead about what the final goal is?

Are we going to have a land use future map that has hard boundaries to the different zones, districts within it, or a fading boundary?

It's a good question.

Our intention is not to have a land use map that looks like this.

So just to get that out of the way, this is just a framework for discussion.

Obviously, the version that you all used in 2017, 2018 had that more of a gradual scale of intensity.

And this is something we have talked about, whether

We should show more solid lines.

Yeah, I think you're bringing up a really good point, and I started to allude to it and point to, you know, thinking about how wide, for instance, the corridors, how wide, how far back do we go from these corridors?

How defined do we be?

You know, is it parcel width along these corridors?

Is it one block?

Are we tearing development back based on the five-minute walk more intensive along the corridor and then more medium and moderate intensity moving away from the corridor based on the five-minute walk?

I think that's something that we should talk about now and whether or not we want to show something that's more definitive.

Keeping in mind that this land use map will be used as a basis for the zoning map, which will be more detailed and begin to break these areas down in a more fuller context.

So I think for us it'll be interesting to hear from you all how you envision the future of land map to look.

The maps that we've seen from 2017 to 2018 have been more of a faded spectrum of intensity of uses.

But then we know from the 2013 comp plan, we had more parcel aligned future land use recommendations, which we think that's probably the realm that we want to lean towards.

I was going to turn it around and say that I was looking to you all as the professionals to make recommendations to us based upon your experience in other areas and other cities.

And so I was hoping that we were going to get some sort of guidance, direction, recommendations from you all.

to answer that question.

I'm just wondering if Ron or Jimmy think that a faded map, doesn't that give us more flexibility?

And to my colleagues, don't we want more flexibility?

I don't know the answer.

I'm just asking you guys.

And my recollection, though I obviously wasn't on the commission at the time, was that the reason we moved to the faded map in the very beginning of this process was because

the rigidity of that 2013 map was kind of causing some problems like you'd be right across the street or right next to a different designation in the comp plan and you know even though it made basically as much sense for your parcel to be like the next door parcel is you know just because that happened to be where they drew the line when we come

to review zoning decisions, we have to say, oh, this parcel is X designation.

And the faded or the transition, it reflects the fact that when we're thinking about this, we really are thinking about the broader

You know, where, what is it near, you know, what amenities can be accessed from this place.

It's not such a parcel by parcel thing.

And though, of course, you know, the zoning ultimately will be.

I think Lyle was trying to make a point as well.

I'm just thinking about this.

It's a big issue.

Generally, I'm really not a fan of the parcel by parcel land use map that we had that we're still working off now from 2013.

And so, and Jenny, I promise to get the meeting back to you.

But for now, can I get Ron's professional opinion and then yours as well, please?

I think you made a really good point on flexibility.

When we show the faded, kind of the gradient from the corridors, specifically the corridors, those areas, because they touch so many residential areas and the neighborhoods outside the corridors are so dynamic.

When we do have more of the faded technique, it allows more flexibility in the zoning.

planning process to define how the more intensive development along the corridor step down to the existing neighborhoods.

So it does provide for that.

Getting down to a more parcel-based

recommendation, we can be much more specific.

And even thinking about this map, if we were to say that we want soft density at some scale throughout the entirety of the city, and then this is specifically where we want more intensive uses based on those parcel boundaries, taking into account underutilized properties, property size, where more concentrated development is taking place today,

We can begin to define the corridors.

Maybe there's maybe a maximum of three or four colors that we use.

A yellow for existing residential, a purple for intensive, more high intensity uses along the corridors and at the nodes.

and then maybe a more moderate and a lighter purple to show the gradiation from the center line of those streets.

So I think it's something that we're going to have to investigate moving forward now that we kind of have a general consensus of, you know, this is a general idea, plus the comments that we received today.

and then we'll go back and refine this framework and then we will look at how the map is structured.

And so I'd like to go back to Jody because Jody's been the leader of this effort for a number of years from the old board.

Yeah, I'm not the leader.

I just survive.

That's all.

Yeah, I mean, that was the lay people who were on the commission back years ago.

That was our thinking, that we were concerned about, with hard boundaries, having one property owner on one side of the boundary say, why aren't I in it?

And one on the other complaining about being in it.

when we really were just wanting to get across the general locations and not wanting to get down to going parcel by parcel.

I'd also like to, if I could call upon our other professional, Lee Einsweiler from the zoning team.

He's listening in.

So I do, and I guess I perhaps would be pushing back the other direction, Jody.

So if zoning is plan implementation,

then make a plan and have the zoning implemented.

That's not to say there should be a one-to-one zoning district to land use map direct translation.

There should always be two or three categories perhaps available that are options for that area.

And there might be height options even within those general categories.

So it should always be a palette of things that you can do

But I think the majority of the community, especially when you're talking about the difference between pure residential areas and corridors or nodes of commercial activity, they want to know where the boundaries for those are today.

Not to say that they shouldn't change, not to say that they don't have options to be different in the future, but they'd rather have you amend the plan map

and then move forward with the zoning have the more general conversation at the plan map level if you're going to do something radical enough you know because otherwise what we typically see is very clever typically attorneys you know wielding the plan

against the surrounding neighborhoods' wishes, et cetera.

And you really get a very problematic conversation.

I would rather have a one-time problematic conversation at the time of this adoption.

Now, the big difference in this process we're going through right now is we do intend to follow along with a change to the zoning map right behind this.

That is a blessing and a curse, as you all know, but it is an opportunity for us to very clearly say, here's where we're starting to implement the future land use map, right?

And we can continue to implement the future land use map, you know, as we go on.

A soft boundary that reaches into a single family neighborhood from a corridor, for example, is really hard for neighborhoods to understand.

If you take the block face along the road, if you take the full block, if you take a block and a half and change as zoning typically would on a back lot line, all those things make some sense to people.

Not drawing those kinds of boundaries in many ways seems to leave their neighborhood edges without protection and that is worrisome.

I think given that we're close to the end of the meeting, and I don't know that we want to have an extended discussion about this, I think we can take the input that you all gave, recognizing that you

would maybe prefer that more fluid boundary.

And then taking these notes into account, I wonder if we can give some thoughts before we move forward to all of you on how we think that might work, what our proposed approach would be.

It could be that there is some sort of combination of approaches that we can use here.

Well, I could just say quickly,

I appreciate what Lee is saying.

What I worry, though, is that it's going to be difficult to make significant changes in our future land use map.

if we're going to be stuck with hard boundaries that will be falling back to what they are now because to do anything more aggressive is just going to create a lot of controversy and a lot of questions and we're just gonna have to go parcel by parcel.

I worry that it's gonna create

Tremendous issues for us if we try to do something more expansive and then put hard boundaries on it.

Well, I would also say, Jody, that it's going to come down to that in the end anyway.

And I think where we are anticipating

you know changes, growth, height variances, extended things like that.

I think we do need to say where that's going to happen and then in some way you can just say to a property owner adjacent to this space that is changing will have options that people who are not adjacent to it will not have.

Because we need to identify those places where we think

Well, we will happen.

And I think what we found last time is that we kind of wrestled with this idea of transition zones where we go from the dense center and the mid-rises to down to your smaller apartment buildings, your 12-plexes, your 8-plexes, down to the 1-plexes and 4-plexes of your most residential areas.

And I think we did, in the end, before it ended,

realized that we do need to differentiate that transition and that kind of softer gradient from the use and the potential for mixed use and commercial use, which I think is why in one of our last meetings, we ended up going back to specifically designating mixed use or commercial use areas with those hatch marks as a category kind of separate from the intensity of the built form.

Okay.

Again, I think we,

We can take what we're hearing from you all tonight, I think, and maybe propose what we think the best approach would be.

Ron, does that make sense to you?

Do you think we have enough?

Okay.

And we can do that before we fully flush out the

more specific future land use map which Jody to answer your question from probably 20 minutes ago is the next step us to sort of take what we heard from you and make this more less of a

rounded edge map and something that gets a little bit more specific.

But before we move on, I do want to ask Ms.

Dowell if you have anything you want to say before we go to public comments.

And I'm happy to, you know, if there's a couple other comments.

Otherwise, I think we'll want to go to public.

But Ms.

Thank you for the opportunity.

I also agree with what was said.

We do need to have some designation of the zoning change from where the intense density to the lower intensity and then make sure that our key is very definitive on describing to the layperson in just a quick glance what each zone represents.

in the intensity of the zones.

But otherwise, yes, I definitely agree with Ron on that.

I also think that we need things to be delineated.

And we can't say just, well, this is a delineation.

And if you're across from it or adjacent to it, then we can do special circumstances.

I think we need to draw our lines, figure out what we want to define as what, and then stick to that.

So that way, like,

I'm sorry, I'm trying to find his name on the board.

He didn't have his picture up, but I think it's- Oh, Lee?

Yes, Lee.

We do need to have, sorry, the delineation, so therefore people know if we are planning, then let's plan and then implement.

Not plan, withdraw, or go back on the plan and then say we need to come up with something else, I think.

But I do feel like we're on a good path to that.

Great, thank you.

Sorry, just a couple of principles that we were talking about in 2018 that I suddenly recall.

Sort of an idea of like facing like that

there shouldn't be radically different uses directly facing each other, which is actually a lot of work.

And I guess lots of piggyback on Lyle, we were referring to like the habitat site,

on I think that's Harris Road, Harris Street.

Sorry, I forgot if it's Road or Street.

But that site sits like way down below street level.

So there's one thing that would be of value to me and maybe this is to LaToya, Ms.

Thomas.

It's going to be important that we are deaf when he talks to, we handle this definitely when he talks to the equity issue.

Maybe at some point there's value in your coming to the commission to talk about the equity issues and how you are planning to

articulate the equity issues as relates to Charles Jones.

Yeah, no, and we've, we've started some preliminary conversations just around what, what the conversation publicly around land use and particularly, you know, bringing in the idea of equity and what that means in a land use context.

What that rollout looks like.

And key points, as you think about this, key points would be gentrification would happen in Vinegar Hill, desegregation, how you manage that without haunting people with what happened with Vinegar Hill.

Thank you.

One last thing, and I'm sorry I meant to add this earlier, but I didn't want to keep holding the conversation up.

But I noticed I heard you say that the community engagement process is over, which is fine.

I'd just be interested to know.

your outcomes from that community engagement.

I guess I just want to try to compare it to the information that, or demographics of the people who responded from the first round that we as a planet, the first round of planning commission questions and community outreach and how it compares to the information or demographics that you gathered this go round.

And I think that's important.

So that way, the next time we have this comp plan update, we're not back at the same square one.

Sure, yeah.

So I would say the communication process is not over as a whole, but the second phase is over.

So I just want to get that out very clearly, which may have been what you meant.

So we do have summaries of community engagement from the first phase, May and June, and we have a summary from the second phase, which was November into early December.

So we do have documents that summarize all the activities that were completed, as well as what we heard and who we heard from when we have the demographic information.

And so I would be happy to make sure you have those.

And I don't have them in front of me right now.

Absolutely.

And I'd appreciate that.

I definitely wasn't expecting you to have that one.

I think it's going to be a learning tool for everyone moving forward.

If we had to hire a consultant because we couldn't hit the benchmark, I want to make sure that if the consultants hit the benchmark, what did they do to hit the benchmark?

Did we really reach the demographics that we were looking for?

Because that was the initial halt in the comp plan update anyway.

And so that way, when we're back in this situation or with any of our community engagement moving forward,

Yeah, so maybe the best time to talk about that would be, we can summarize that when we come to you with the next phase of engagement, when we're talking about that.

So I have some lessons learned.

Yes, thank you.

So one last thing, and I won't go into too much detail on this because I think the information is embargoed for a while.

But UVA, which is probably, their footprint is probably one-third of

The footprint is in each city is beginning to think about affordable housing.

And they're beginning to think about that beyond just what goes on with the students at UVA.

Again, I can't go into lots of detail, but it's embargoed.

But I would ask you to reach out to Bill and to Alex.

Great.

Yeah, we're certainly aware of the more general goals that they have, but it would be great to get some more specifics if we can.

Yeah, I mean, as you guys know, this was announced about a year, a little under a year ago, about a week before all the lockdowns from COVID happened.

And as a UVA initiative to support affordable housing,

in the region.

And so it kind of got put on the back burner until we got our act together.

And at this point, there's been a consultant hired to start kind of, they've been referred to as like a sherpa in a way to kind of help us through this process, help UVA understand like,

What would make the most sense, having made a statement of intent to, you know, to have this, to do this, you know, how do we implement it?

And so I know that project process is just starting.

Alex, anything else?

Alex?

I think,

Mr. Palmer noted the status of UVA process.

We had a Lupeck meeting last week.

I think we were provided an update in terms of the hiring of the consultant by UVA.

I haven't said that and as we move forward, think RHI and staff, we have to touch base with the Office of University Architect, you know, regarding

some of the project and initiatives they have on the Ivy Corridor and what have you.

I think there's a lot going on at UVA right now in terms of planning and development.

We can't talk much about it yet, but I think by the middle of March, the information will be no longer embargoed.

And I think there's value.

chatting with their consultants.

I think we had, we already had some kind of consultations with UVA and our consultants, you know, and also the foundation, UVA foundation regarding development and housing.

So we continue that discussion, you know, as we move forward.

So, Ms.

No, thank you all for this discussion tonight.

I would suggest we go to public comment.

We have committed to that and I want to open up for that.

And I will note, given that we're past time, I think we will take note of the questions and comments and we can respond after the meeting.

We can make that available.

We can send out some notes about that.

No, we just take the comments and respond later.

Thank you, Chair Mitchell.

If you would like to address commission during public comment, please click the raise hand icon or star nine if you're joining us by phone and you'll be called upon in order of hands raised.

When called upon, please unmute your mic.

You'll have three minutes for comment.

And our first speaker is Bill Emery.

Bill, you're on with the commission.

Bill, welcome.

Good evening, everyone.

Of course, I'm a huge fan of planning.

And I hope that you guys can give the members of the public some tips on how this plan will be.

modified as we go along because like in the Willow Mills, we first asked for a small area plan in 1988.

Still haven't gotten it.

And it's very, you know, disturbing to see the node in the middle of the graveyard.

You know, we're ready to talk.

We have a lot of information.

We have 50 years of institutional memory and

and of course, Deanna Roadside and all the, Jenny and all the planners are our favorite people.

So we look forward to working with them, but it's just really unnerving so far.

Anyway, that's all I have right now.

No, thank you.

And again, I'll thank Ms.

And I also just add to that this will also, I know we don't need to have this discussion now, but a thing we will need to explore is how the affordable, any of these plans, how the future land use map interacts with both our historic districts

And in the case of Wollan Mills, that's under our conservation district, which is different and interesting and perhaps something we could explore when we're talking about the ways that a neighborhood could both be protected and change.

Thank you.

Mr. Price, before we move on, when you get a moment, would you start the clock?

Folks have three minutes.

Sure.

Next up, we have Kimber Hawke.

Kimber, you're on with the commission.

You have three minutes.

Hello.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for hearing me.

I was really glad to hear Lee talk about the impact on neighborhoods because it often seems like a lot of these decisions are being made from the outside and being imposed on neighborhoods.

I'm speaking from my household, by the way.

I live in the Belmont neighborhood with my husband.

It just doesn't, we're questioning amount of extensive community engagement that has been done.

I know that we filled out a survey online, but we didn't see anything about mentioning historic preservation, tree preservation, and green space preservation in the materials.

And I know other people are concerned about that.

So we're just concerned not to see those issues being raised as well.

It would be helpful for the community to see the information.

What percentage of the population actually gave input here?

And how does that break down per neighborhood as well?

As far as I look at the map, I see the designation of quote unquote downtown Belmont.

That's something that was imposed on this neighborhood probably starting maybe 18 years ago.

And I can't really remember when.

But when we moved into Belmont, there was no quote unquote downtown Belmont.

And it really comes off as the city

looking to co-opt our historic residential neighborhood as an extension of the downtown mall, which it is not.

It is a neighborhood in and of itself and always has been.

And I would suggest maybe something like Belmont Center instead, because we are not downtown.

Listening to Belmont Center being designated as a major node is concerning.

How do the residents who have lived in Belmont for generations feel about that?

We have not seen the getting a gallon of milk thing happen here in Belmont.

We've seen a lot of restaurants that have negatively impacted us with the destruction of trees, noise, the smell, stopped up pipes and issues of parking.

And again, you know, maybe one or two small restaurants would have done this area well, but there's just been a lot of push for that restaurant type of business.

that brings in old people from outside the neighborhood.

We're also concerned about, we've never seen a small area planned for Belmont, as Mr. Emery pointed out.

Where is that?

And if it doesn't exist, why hasn't that been done?

And how do we involve the neighborhood in that?

We were concerned to see the purple as high intensity areas.

It seems to be that floodplain is still in that purple area.

So we have questions about that.

And I think that's probably about all.

Thank you very much.

And, oh, I would, we would love to see the emails of the planning commission back on the website so that people can send emails and have more of a real conversation with the planners.

Thank you, Kimber.

Next, we have Crystal Passmore.

Crystal, you're on with commission.

Hi, I tricked you.

I'm not Crystal.

I'm just borrowing her laptop.

I am Josh Karp.

I am married to Crystal.

I live in Rose Hill, renting over here.

I have one quick comment and one

Last quick comment.

Quick one.

So I've been reading and thinking a lot about displacement and zoning and gentrification.

And I think I want to commend you all for talking about it and taking it seriously.

One I believe so far is that the best way to prevent displacement is to have policies that explicitly prevent it.

If evictions are a problem, we should make evictions hard to perform.

I don't think that not allowing people to build smaller homes on less land will prevent displacement.

I think I would love to hear more about your plans for tenants rights because we don't do well with them and we should do better.

Sorry, comment too.

I was looking at the intensity map and I think there's some good stuff there, but I was struck by, and I think other people mentioned this during the call, some of the areas that are marked for high intensity are frankly kind of crummy for reasons that are not likely to change anytime soon.

So if you walk around Harris Street, you will pass, I think it's a concrete manufacturing plant,

You will pass a gas station, landscaping store.

Landscaping is fine.

I don't so much want to live with my small child next to a concrete facility with heavy loading trucks driving in and out all the time.

Wouldn't want to walk there.

There aren't, I don't think, continuous sidewalks there.

Probably wouldn't want to bike there.

Similarly, high intensity on barracks.

I think makes sense.

barracks is a busy, loud, highly trafficked, lots of cars on it.

Again, I would not want to cross it with a child or on a bike or frankly be around there on foot in any way.

So I think absolutely like a lot of housing there, but I would not want to put all of the smaller, cheaper housing in parts of town where frankly, people don't want to live.

I think when you're looking to build to a lot more density, the best places to put it are the places that are desirable.

That is going to include lots of downtown, I think more than you have on the map right now.

More of Belmont, and to me, I'm a parent of a young child, I think about this a lot, near schools.

I really, really want to be able to walk my kid to school without getting in a car or crossing a major road, or spending half a million dollars on a house.

And right now that is not really possible in town.

I would just think broadly about allowing people to live where people want to live and not in industrial car-focused parts of town.

So don't take anything out intensity-wise, but you might want to add more homes, more intensity close to places where people actually choose to live.

Well, thank you.

That was helpful.

Appreciate that.

Next, we have Neil Williamson.

Neil, you're on with commission.

Neil, welcome.

Neil Williamson with the Free Enterprise Forum.

I believe I've spent at least 50 months on this project and with all of you, and I appreciate tonight's conversation.

Number one, change is hard.

Number two, change is needed.

I'm a little concerned by some of the comments regarding the zoning may kind of modify what the comp plan says.

I think we need to make big changes and think big.

We are very concerned with tonight's quote, non-specific nature.

I know we've got to start somewhere.

I know that's the case.

We're just really looking forward to more specificity in the future.

The community needs

objective metrics regarding the impact of these changes.

I know that's hard at the comp plan level, but the community needs to understand what you're proposing.

Specifically, how or what objective metrics would be impacting the dovetailed affordable housing plan?

You've got an affordable needs assessment.

How does this fit with that?

Will there be enough units?

Could it work?

These are knowable answers, and I hope that we can get to them.

Finally, I really hope that this will result in the mantra, more housing, everywhere, for everyone.

Thank you, sir.

I do appreciate that.

Thank you.

Next, we have Lise Stossel.

Lise, you are on with commission.

Okay, thank you for this meeting and all the information that you shared.

What I have is actually a series of questions.

So, if I can interrupt you, we will note your questions.

We won't answer them tonight, but we'll note the questions and someone from staff, forgive me Alex, will

OK.

All right, so I'm just going to fire away.

The first question is, what changes are you envisioning for the river road corridor?

I was part of a web seminar, webinar, Zoom call specifically about the river corridor.

And I guess my specific question about that is, is there a possibility to move the industrial

features the industrial uses away from the river and develop it as the natural and recreational resource that it is.

Yeah, I see that there's apartment buildings going up there now.

I think that it would be great to change that whole area into mixed use, residential, affordable housing, you know, a nice place to live, public school nearby, beautiful area.

And why do we have to have, you know, these heavy industrial

businesses there that could easily do their work and their business elsewhere in the city.

We have a responsibility to really celebrate the fact that we've got this beautiful river and not have it hiding behind

these industrial businesses.

So I don't know how much capability you all have in changing that, but that's just my input.

Next question is, what changes would you envision for the Woolen Mills node?

I know that there's this new refurbishment of the Woolen Mills, but I don't really know what you have in mind in terms of anything beyond that.

And then, would it be possible to move the large metal recycling industry out of Willen Mills to the Avon Street extended industrial area?

Does it need to be adjacent to the railroad tracks?

That part of Willen Mills could be much better utilized as residential or mixed use.

That could be a great place for the Willen Mills node, actually.

And then just one minor point, on your map you've got something designated as the Locust Road Nose.

That's it.

Appreciate it.

So at least I'll ask Joe, Mr. Rice and Ms.

So Ms.

And Ms.

Ms.

Creasy?

That works fine.

Next up, we have Kurt Kiesecker.

Kurt, you're on with commission.

Hey, Kurt, you can come back anytime you like.

No, I'm happy to watch and listen and thanks for letting me speak and well done and great job.

I miss you guys.

I was just going to add a couple quick comments or maybe in the form of questions, but I think you know the thrill of the process is taking big ideas and translating them into some kind of action that can kind of carry forward and so that mix of

Big concepts, which everybody, when we talk to each other, we seem to all be on the generally the same page with the big concepts and then we move into the details of how to take action or implement.

It gets harder.

So I'm jealous because that's the fun part and challenging, but I think one of the tools that you can continue to use if you

There's something between that land use plan and the zoning map and it's those big idea diagrams and so as you guys continue to have these meetings and speak with the public don't forget to use the framework plan and the concept diagram to help instill I think some similar thinking because we all agree I think generally on the big ideas it's just you know so which brings me to my next point which Jody kind of touched on with the faded edges to the lines versus the hard edges

in the land use map.

And I think what we were finding back in the day was that the hard-edged property line land use map, the hard edges were debated too.

They weren't solid.

They were just as faded.

We had so many processes that allowed those land use edges to move around.

I think we were thinking we would facilitate more clear conversations about something intent-wise with less concentration on the property lines.

and more on the ideas.

And what is evident, I think, is that sometimes the property lands were arbitrary, that they didn't conform to topography, which goes to what Lyle was speaking of, and they didn't conform necessarily to cultural, historic or other boundaries that we're all aware of as residents of Charlottesville.

Some of those soft edges, while they would push debate later in the process for proposals from applicants in the future, I think the softer edges in terms of the planning with these big ideas would allow more flexibility to get, be kind of responsive to the boots on the ground.

What we know is there when we're walking around in our, and not just kind of dictated by the depth or the size of certain parcels.

So,

Anyway, have fun.

I'm going to tune in again.

And I look forward to, I miss seeing everybody on the street and talking on the downtown mall about these things.

These are good conversations to have over sandwiches too, but thank you for letting me attend and I'll keep on watching.

You're all doing great.

Have fun.

Thank you.

We frankly would do better with you.

So if you want to come back, come on back.

And so, Jenny, I would encourage you to keep Jen and Kurt involved in your deliberations.

They and Tania and Jody have also put lots of effort into making this thing work.

So please make sure that we don't lose their institutional knowledge.

I just want to get this done.

I won't start again.

All over again.

Sorry.

Actually, looks like she had just disconnected when I clicked her name.

And now we have Caroline.

Caroline, you're on with commission.

Thank you for this informative session.

I just have a quick question.

I was having difficulty identifying the location of the nodes.

It didn't seem like a lot of the streets were identified.

It's probably a little bit of both.

OK, well, thanks very much.

OK, it looks like we have Emily back.

Hey, Emily, thank you for agreeing to chat with us.

Well, thank you.

Appreciate the opportunity and sorry about my technical mishap there.

Mr. Rice, thanks for your help getting me back on.

I wanted to just raise a couple of things and so many of the comments have brought up some really important issues.

If I recall correctly, COVID really stood in the way of the community

involvement work that was originally planned for the consultants.

And I think the response rate for Black people was only 16%.

And I think most of those folks were related to some focus groups that were organized around Black homeownership.

which is certainly an important issue, but only one of a few.

And I wanna just draw attention to the fact that we have a really limited number of city neighborhoods that continue to have a high percentage of black people living there.

And we need to preserve our cultural diversity.

We need to really slow down and stop if at all possible the displacement

happening for black families.

And so I think that the zoning was referenced a couple of different ways in the affordable housing plan.

And I know that's not what we're here to talk about tonight, but one of the ways said that the planning process that you all are engaging in with zoning needs to consider which neighborhoods will be most important for up zoning.

And where do you want to build the sort of

duplex up to quad or small apartment buildings.

And I would just like to comment that the coalition, Charlottesville Low Income Housing Coalition, really hopes that you will not do that within the predominantly black neighborhoods that still exist.

So areas like 10th and Page and parts of Fifeville and Prospect and Rosehill and

Other neighborhoods need to be protected from increased density.

And so I hope that you will take that into account.

And next we have Mark Rinaldi.

Mark, you're on with commission.

You have three minutes.

Mark, you are now muted if you would unmute.

Mark, you're still muted.

Well, maybe we can come back to Mark.

I'll go ahead and leave them on the line.

So do we want to move on to the next speaker since he's having trouble?

I'm very sorry.

I actually did not intend to comment.

I inadvertently raised my hand, so forgive me for that.

I'll save my comments for another time, but it's been a very interesting conversation.

If anybody else would like to address the commission at this time, please click the raise hand icon, or if you're joining us by phone, press star nine.

Okay, so then I think we can wrap it up with comments from the commission, comments from the commission, giving our consultants guidance.

So I'm just going to go from left to right, as we do in the, I'll start with Bill.

I don't think I have too much to add other than what we've already talked about.

I did throw a link in the chat to a news item about the affordable housing plan.

So some of that, you know, like in terms of who the consultant is on that is in there.

So that's public.

I just encourage you if you have questions about any of that or the university's planning or how we want to portray some of the university aspects in this land use section, just please reach out to me and I can either help you with that or get Office of the Architect and other personnel there involved as needed.

Ms.

Russell.

Ms.

Russell.

Ms.

I don't think I have any more questions.

And I think we've really, what we've done here is set a good framework for our next dive, and we can start to take a deeper dive.

What do we mean by soft density?

Where does it go?

Really drilling into the details.

Ms.

Yeah, I don't also don't have too much.

I think one thing I'd add is, you know, one of those goals in the affordable housing plan was to create multifamily by right beyond soft density in those historically exclusionary, you know, segregated white and high amenity areas.

And I really don't see that quite yet in this framework.

Reverend Heaton I would concur with what Rory said if you want to call it an equity zone or how are we going to introduce the emphasis on affordability and equity in the city if there is no way to put that in the zoning and I don't know that I have an answer to that but I do think the

The plan should reflect some aspect of the city's movement towards affordability and equity.

So that's the only thing I would add.

I think everything else tonight was really good.

I like the UVA different color.

And I like the idea that we're going to have to move toward a lot designation.

The soft edges don't work in the end.

For the most part, I've already stated the few little questions or issues that I've had.

I think we are moving indefinitely in the right direction.

I just want to make sure that the demographics that we were looking for to respond to this plan have been captured.

I do know COVID has played a big factor in this, but that was to me the whole purpose of having this second go around.

The other thing that I did want to just reiterate is that I also noticed, we had talked about originally, I think, and this is what Rory was mentioning, out in the Greenbrier neighborhood, it doesn't look like much has been changed as far as the intensity goes.

And so that's where that equity and inclusion is going to have to be reflected in the map.

But I say you're doing a good job, and I appreciate the hard work.

I think the public comment really nailed it.

I emailed a little bit earlier.

Adequacy, equity, and access to schools and parks.

If we can really hit that, I think we've got it.

And Mr. Landrieu.

I'm working on it.

Wait a second.

So at this first broad brush concept level, looking at the

the first draft plan by the consultants and looking at the guidelines or the concepts that are listed, increased dense mixed use at key nodes, a hub and spokes framework, transition from more dense development to softer density, maximize access to transit.

These are all things that we were working on

three years ago.

So it's heartening to see that we're following in this same kind of direction.

But as I know and as you all know, the devil's in the details from here on out.

So good luck.

So the idea of

with equity in mind is important.

I was not artful earlier and I probably wouldn't be even more artful now when I worry about the fact that we've got desegregation in the guideline.

It's important, but we have to keep them on the culture here.

What happened with Vinegar Hill when they desegregated for the sake of

doing all kinds of wonderful things for the city.

So let's just keep that in mind as we present this to the public.

We do want to increase density because increasing density brings more equity housing, but we just need to make sure that we market this correctly.

The other thing is infill development is gonna be challenging because

Infill development will be expensive because we have to do all the work that we need to do to mitigate the negative impacts to our environment, our streams, our creeks, our waterways when we build on these properties.

And I would have no idea what the number is, but I'm sure our engineers do.

How many of those properties that are like vacant are on critical slopes that feed into our creeks and streams?

We need to protect those.

So Jenny, it's your ball.

My question to you and your team would be, did you get what you needed?

Not tonight.

I think I would say I think we've got a lot of good feedback.

I'll have to go back and read through my notes again because we've been taking sort of feverish notes here, but I think we've got a lot to work with both in terms of how we can refine the plan at this stage and then come back and have a check-in point with you before we have a larger public engagement phase, which

will involve a variety of activities as our other engagement phases have.

So when we come back, we'll try to address the issues we've talked about tonight and progress it along.

So the only question I then ask, and I hate to put the staff on the spot, but their opinions are the opinions at very most.

Ms.

Creasy, Ms.

Rainey, Ms.

Delphi, Ms.

Takafuna, you guys, do you have what you need?

So, Lord, I'm not sure I'm allowed to ask you guys if you have input, but I'm just going to do it because I will.

I'm gonna think about it a little bit, and I will end up, I'm sure, emailing a couple of questions to Jenny and others.

You're better than me.

Michael, you cool?

I think Michael's cool.

Jenny, thank you.

In your note taking, did you get Lloyd's quote that had something to do with leadership and longevity or survival?

I really want to take that home, too.

That was good, too.

But earlier in the meeting, Jody said something about leadership and longevity or survival or something.

It was survival.

Hey, Jimmy, just want to say thank you.

This is great.

I'm tickled with the ads of Matt and Ron.

They were very helpful.