City Council Meeting   8/17/2009

We're going to start with the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Ms. Kochis, would you call the roll please?

Here.

We're going to start with some announcements.

I have a few upcoming events I'd like to note.

First of all, this coming Saturday, August 22nd, we have a very special event along with members of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, judicial staff, our local delegate, David Toscano, dedication for the new Juvenile Domestic Court Building,

at 411 East High Street at 10 o'clock in the morning this Saturday.

The public is welcome to attend and a reception will follow.

Just as a general reminder, next Tuesday is a day for much celebration for parents and much weeping for children.

It is the beginning of the new school year.

at the end of summer vacation, but the reason why I mention it is to make sure that everybody's careful and watch your speed on the roadways.

We'll have a lot of children walking to bus stops and waiting for school or walking to school for that matter, so please be alert for them.

This is on Wednesday, August 26th at 5pm is a rainbow workshop.

The city of Charlottesville is sponsoring a rainbow workshop.

The cost is $45 and you get a free rainbow.

Come learn about the benefits of rain harvesting and this is going to be taking place at the Charlottesville pavilion at the east end of the downtown mall.

You do not need to be a city resident to participate.

So again, Wednesday, August 26th.

For more information,

or to register call 970-3260.

And lastly, we are once again holding a free public concert, a September concert for peace on September 11th.

This is an annual event held in conjunction with International Cities from 4 to 7 p.m. Friday, September 11th at Central Place on the downtown mall.

We have a number of local acts, performers, music resource center, some local poets.

It'll be a very special event and we encourage the public to attend.

A couple of items to be added to our agenda tonight.

We have asked staff to give us an update on the feasibility, the judging feasibility study for the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir, so that will take place at the end of tonight's meeting and our other business, and also a discussion about state stormwater regulations and a letter that we're proposing to send to the Department of Conservation Resources.

I'm going to make this to echo the announcement at the most wonderful time of the year.

It's going to happen next week when our children go back to school.

But also, to warn parents that over the weekend, if you had a child that was in 8th grade this past school year and will be going to the 9th grade this fall, you should have received the SOLs.

And if you look at those SOL scores, how they're weighted almost looks like something we would program into your GPS system.

So if you're having a hard time understanding those scores, because the scores are important,

call Eric Johnson, the principal at Beaufort, and he can be reached at 245-2411 if you have any questions about your child's SOL scores.

Thank you, Ms. Edwards.

Any other announcements or other business?

We have one proclamation before us tonight that was brought to us once again this year by the Charlottesville chapter of the National Organization for Women in honor of Women's Equality Day.

And we're very pleased to once again make this proclamation.

I'm not going to read the entire proclamation, but I'll read portions thereof.

Whereas many decades of effort by workers for women's rights were required to obtain passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, giving women the right to vote in 1920,

and whereas in 1848, 161 years ago in Seneca Falls, the need was recognized and proclaimed, but after great effort, there is still no reliable protection in the U.S. Constitution for women against sex discrimination in general and whereas in the past years, laws and policies in the Commonwealth of Virginia have unjustly discriminated against girls and women in general or against particular classes of women, such as in matters of reproductive rights, sexual assault, marital property, and sexual harassment.

and although some laws and policies have been somewhat at ease, such improvements can be, have been, and are being reversed.

Whereas, in many other ways, the task of providing equal opportunities to men and women and the task of removing burdens which far unjustly in women

as compared with men remain uncompleted.

Now therefore be it resolved that the City Council of Charlottesville, Virginia does hereby proclaim August 26, 2009 as Women's Equality Day in remembrance of all those women and men who have worked to develop a more equitable community which acknowledges both the real similarities and the important differences between women and men with liberty and justice for all.

And here to receive the proclamation is Coby Hoffman.

Oh, sorry.

I'd like to thank you once again.

I know you have passed these proclamations off and on since the mid-70s and very consistently in the last decade and we really appreciate the fact that you look at distinctions and try to see if there is discrimination or not and to act on it.

We are now going to open our meeting to matters by the public.

We have quite a few people sign up to speak.

So as always, if you, if somebody has already said what you intend to say, feel free to simply say ditto when you come forward.

The first, and when you come forward, again, please keep your comments to three minutes to state your name and address.

My name is David Steinberg and I'm from the county.

I wonder what some people are thinking when they call laying down asphalt development.

Saturday, I stood on Melbourne Road looking at the lush woods at McIntire Park's north end, more shades of green than I could count.

Development is in the eye of a beholder, of course, but to my eye, that diverse woodland is extraordinarily developed.

A geologist told me I'm right, and that it's over half a billion years old.

If I could compare that piece of good earth to a body part, then I'd call it part of Charlottesville's lungs, breathing in CO2, breathing out oxygen for us to breathe again.

It's a cooling place.

Take, for example, the words meadow, creek, park, and way.

On the one hand, they're a pastoral poem, calling to mind lazy days, watching butterflies, hand dangling in water.

But what does that poem have to do with the proposed roadway?

Not much geographically, nothing if you're talking about your experience.

If you've never gone walking along the creek, just do it.

I promise you'll have a great time.

I'm not recommending that you walk along 29.

I wouldn't even dare you.

The name chosen from the proposed word means that every time someone mentions it, a poem about a beautiful, pleasant place comes to mind.

It's inevitable.

So I wonder if the language of our discussion is loaded in favor of supporting the loss of something fragile and irreplaceable.

I wonder if a prefabricated verbal memorial is being foisted on us.

Our community is thick with substitutes for things we once had but lost.

Before Meadow Creek Road was a road, it was part of a meadow.

If we want it to happen, our legacy will be lost and little rhetorical ploys.

Every time people say this word's name, it will encourage imagining that a long vanished swath of meadow, stretch of creek, swath of park are still there.

But let's not install substitutes.

Thank you very much.

Good evening, I'm Jim Moore.

I live at 1213 Hazel Street.

I represent a group within our community that uses the McIntire Park Golf Course.

and we have, as I requested, we have prepared about 12 of the players have been interviewed on video.

Some of them work two jobs and can't be here for City Council.

I know at least one City Council member was kind of surprised that I couldn't show this, so I'm going to ask Ian if I can show it to you, this video that we've prepared.

We don't have time tonight, but we certainly would welcome you as any other group that wants to offer a community presentation.

We would certainly welcome and encourage you to do just that.

We've never allowed a group run by the public to show a video.

It's just not something we've ever done before, and we do limit the comments to three minutes.

Okay.

Five years ago, this group was under threat from the master plan that was done for McIntyre Park.

At that time, the citizens committee that did the plan decided to replace the golf course with an arboretum.

against our objections, against a petition that had 691 signatures and against their own citizen survey which showed two to one that people wanted to reserve the golf course.

Under threat of a lawsuit, this was concluded in the master plan in the form of almost a footnote.

It was not recommended, it was not reviewed or considered by the committee.

but this time around we understand from statements some of you have made that now we're under threat by the botanical garden people and instead of becoming, turning ourselves into political action committee we decided in January to produce a little documentary just to, so our players can explain in their own terms what this low cost recreation means to them

which is now when there are a few low-cost reparations left in the city.

Generally, we hear that the park is underutilized.

This is ironic considering that the city's own statistics show that it's quite active.

and this is the only part that currently fulfills all of the Parks and Rec's new service philosophy identified in their needs assessment.

It's also the only part that actually its revenues exceed its cost of maintenance.

Our golfers range in age from one, because trailers are welcome and not uncommon, to people in their 70s.

We represent most races, all income classes, and feel this is the type of community that is included in Council's vision statement.

One more thing.

No fertilizer, irrigation system or pesticides are used in the maintenance of this park.

And it survived the past 10 years after being ignored by the city, not promoted, not even recognized, and is maintained primarily by volunteer labor.

Thank you.

My name is Len Taylor and I live at 101 Montrose Avenue.

I'm the first team coach.

I'm a volunteer attendant at the Mike and Tyla golf course.

I've played golf at Mike and Tyla for 50 years and I'm a native of Charlottesville.

I've lived here all my life.

Now I've heard the mayor and a few other people say that there wasn't many people playing golf at McIntyre and they were probably right because if you were to walk to McIntyre, say 1995, the glass was this high that nobody was playing

The reason for that was, if I were to go out there, and I was a council member, or if I was from the recreation department, I would say, look, we have to do something about this.

We've got to get the glass cut.

We've got to put some money out here to promote this golf course and get it going.

But nothing was done.

Nothing was done at all.

It got worse.

About five years ago, the first two programs came aboard.

And they already had a job.

They had to get the glass cup.

They had to do three or four greens, put new composition on them.

It took a while to get it going.

But McIntyre Golf Course is alive and going today.

We got

Volunteer people to work there to promote it.

A lot of people come in there to play golf so they've never heard of the golf course.

We don't need no of us here.

We've got people coming in there by the dozzles now.

The first two programs is using it.

Two years ago I started the Ladies League there.

A lot of enthusiasm with that.

The next thing I'm going to do is start a men's league.

Marcantile is alive and doing, this golf course is.

Now, the reason is, the first T program took it over and got it going.

Now, the first T program is a great program for kids 5 through 17.

Believe me, I've been in it for 6 years and I know.

They've been promised a golf course.

It'll cost 5 to 6 to 7 million dollars to go out and buy a land and build another golf course.

Then you've got to hire 8 or 10 people to keep it going.

McIntyre is already there.

Now I've talked with the director, Professor T. Phillips, they would pass around as the executive director.

They're telling me that they can

Go to McIntyre, spend three or four thousand dollars or maybe a little bit more on the clubhouse and use it for their headquarters.

And they don't have to do anything.

They can operate with the first tee just like it is for a while.

As they get more money, they'll do a little bit more to it.

And I would like to say this last thing.

I hope that you'll consider and commit to the first tee

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Chris Collins.

Are you?

It says R. Clyde Collins.

I'm assuming it's here.

My wife told me I get more respect that way, which is too informal.

Thank you all, great designers of architecture.

We both have an initial, then a middle name and a last name, so I feel we're at the same place, one or eight rows in court.

And actually, I've been much impressed by the presentations on McIntyre Park, but I'm here for a different reason this evening.

I was then founded when I read in the paper that many of the candidates for county office are opposed to having a thorough evaluation of the dredging potential of the salt fork of the Rivanna Reservoir.

I came here to thank you Mr. Mayor and Holly and others for taking the leadership and saying we want this evaluated, we do not want it de-railed, we don't want it hijacked and why, says the city, now that we've agreed to pay for a large part of this, you're still saying you're a hostile audience but you don't want to really get the results and take the facts and see what better plan might come from both an environmental and an economic commercial point of view.

So I would urge you that given that fact from these county officials and from the Rivanna's continued apparent opposition to the judging study that you think about creating a special task force oversight committee for this special study which we city residents are paying for in large part.

I don't think we can leave it to the vagaries of the Rivanna any longer

or to the county officials who often dominate the discussion on the webinar while in the Sioux Authority.

So I'm here to thank you all for your leadership, for persisting and actually contributing taxpayers' money to say let's get a fair shake on this and that now that you've done this, let's not let it get derailed as I say, create some sort of an oversight committee I would suggest

and if the city is strongly represented to make sure that the thing we're paying for we get and that is an honest evaluation of the capacity of judging to make the future well surprised of our community.

Thank you.

Maybe I should tell you my middle name.

My middle name is Betty Cignamini.

So I'd also like to, I'm a city resident, and I'd also like to thank you all very much because I think

you are displaying what the citizens value most and that's good government.

And I think the reason we're here now is because citizens who have no financial interest in the water supply plan, who are merely trying to see good government at work have spent a large part of their lives for the last two years studying this water plan.

It probably would have been better if we'd all been engaged earlier.

But I think now that we do know that our consultants have been fired and that much of the information they supplied is incorrect, it's often hard, I appreciate, for government officials to admit that mistakes were made and that they don't have the accurate information.

And that's why I think I hear from so many people.

You know, there's so many people in our community who had never come to city council and speak.

It's just, it's not that they're not paying attention.

They're out there at home right now a lot of them watching.

And they might like to speak, but you know, they're doing other things in their lives.

So I hear from them now because people know who I am, they stop me on the street and thank me and I appreciate that.

But what they really value is what they see the city council doing.

Because a lot of them don't have a lot of money right now.

I mean, the economy has changed.

And what they really want most is that if you spend their money for projects that you get the best information you can get.

That's what they ask.

I mean, they'll trust you and they'll pay taxes and they'll respect their government if they feel that you honestly and sincerely are going to get the cost estimates that we need, that we know now we don't have.

And for whatever reason, they don't see that happening in the county, but they see that happening in the city.

And I hear a lot of people say, I'm glad I live in the city.

and a lot of common people say I wish I lived in the city.

So maybe this is going to be a new economic stimulus for us too.

Pointing out to our neighbors what good government really is.

Colette Hall, 101 Robinson Lane, Good evening Mr. Mayor and Councillors.

Mr. Mayor, I have a question and I think you are the only one that can answer it.

I could have had a one-on-one email conversation with you, but I know there are other citizens who would like an answer.

When the latest master plan was approved by City Council for McIntyre Park, the two soft ball fields were converted to one rectangular field.

I mean, this is the plan.

A few months ago, you had a meeting with softball players and assured them the base ball fields would remain even if the value was built.

Did you say if or another master plan was written and approved by City Council?

I was not at the meeting.

The city knows now, with its highly unlikely and foreseeable future, that lights will be installed at Darden Tower Park, and so softball must end at dark, making for a lack of softball field availability.

I am impressed that children and women have softball leagues, but who must also vie for their variable spaces?

and then another item, this is on the city council agenda, which is item number N. Reservation, supporting grant application for state funding for multiple use trail, broad walk around 255 past, and it's the first of one reading, so I wanted a chance to look up the information that's from this and bring it forward tonight.

background.

The Parks and Recreation Department is submitting a grant application to the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation for funding to construct an elevated boardwalk as part of the 250 bypass commuter trail previously funded by council.

Is this the same trail crossing that is planned by the 250 design engineers?

I thought that federal monies was paying for that interchange in pedestrian crossings.

So I'm confused what this trail, this boardwalk is.

And last but not least, Vice President of the North downtown residents association board, I want to publicly thank Vice Mayor Taliaferro,

for attending the Birdwood community meeting with the city regarding the proposed 250 interchange solution for their neighborhood.

Thank you, Ms. Haaland.

We'll be happy to address those questions in a few minutes.

Mayor Norris and members of the City Council, good evening.

My name is Paul Long.

I live at 1410 Grady Avenue here in Charlottesville.

And I have come here tonight to make a few very brief remarks about the Charlottesville City Council's vision for 2025.

This is a very lofty document.

It contains some very worthwhile goals and objectives.

But I cannot help but think in reading over this document that it was crafted by professional upper middle class residents of the city

who were satisfied with their status in life and who were satisfied with the status quo that exists here in Charlottesville.

Now there's nothing wrong with being a professional, with being a member of the upper middle class, of being satisfied with one's lot in life, especially when so many people have worked so hard to achieve their goals in life.

But there's a different reality for many residents of Charlottesville than the one that is presented in the council's vision for 2025.

There are scores of residents of Charlottesville who work in countless service positions at the University of Virginia and the various hotels and restaurants that dot our city.

They are never going to be able to aspire to the genteel upper middle class lifestyle that is described in the council's vision for 2025.

and yet their concerns, their aspirations, their struggles should be part of that document and of the projected vision of the city of Charlottesville for the future.

It is time for the city of Charlottesville to reinvent itself.

Far from being a small southern college town,

whose sole claim to fame is that the University of Virginia is located here and I have nothing against the University of Virginia.

It's a great institution.

The city of Charlottesville should take seriously its claim to be a world class city.

We need a public transit system that operates at full service levels seven days a week including illegal holidays and which provides extensive service for the surrounding counties

We need to encourage Fortune 500 companies to move into the city so that our young people who have the ambition and the drive to go to college and receive their degrees or receive other professional training can come back to the city to work and live.

Unless our young people are interested in working in the healthcare field in some capacity or in academic research or teaching at the University of Virginia,

We're the professional jobs for our young people to go to when they have finished their education or their training.

We're the jobs in the law, in commerce, in fashion, in the communication industry.

And even though this is not strictly within the purview of this council, after the untold greed and selfishness of many of our businesses in the 1990s and the meltdown of our economy that we have witnessed in the last two years,

At the federal government, you can spend $750 billion to bail out AIG, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Wachovia Bank, General Motors Corporation, Ford Motor Corporation, and countless other businesses and industrial giants.

And the federal government can step in to help our workers in the Charlottesville area and across the country to earn $30,000 or less and can never afford a mortgage for a house here in the city

and the cheapest price that I've seen in the county's real estate brochures is $300,000 to help them buy a house and become home workers themselves in the city of Charlottesville.

Thank you, Mr. Warren.

Good evening Mr. Mayor, members of council.

I wanted to speak to you just very briefly this evening about the development of the regional legislative program.

This will be the 2010 edition.

I'm visiting the local governing bodies in the region here during August to request and seek input and legislative recommendations.

We're going to be drafting the legislative program and sending that out to you within the next month or so.

and then would hope to come back and visit you again in October to seek your concurrence with the program and we'll be scheduling a gathering with our legislators for some time in the middle part of October to present the program's priorities.

As far as those priorities are concerned, we're certainly cognizant of the state's budget and revenue woes and the impact that that has on you here at the local level.

and certainly that would be our top legislative priority probably for a couple of years to come.

I think the real challenge is going to be in making the case that since so many state programs are carried out at the local level that this is certainly not the time to be extending requirements or shifting costs to localities.

We should be going the other way and giving localities more flexibility or easing requirements.

I think that a focus of the discussions at the legislature and certainly

I'll focus on this in the legislative program.

It's going to be on education funding.

You probably are aware that the state cut about $600 million in its support for public education this past general assembly session.

And though cost pressures are still there, I think public education is going to be a target for cutting again this year.

If the state were to continue the cap on educational support personnel that it instituted this past year,

that would save the state about $750 million, but you know at the local level that those positions will stay in place and that they will probably continue to need funding.

Stimulus funding, which helped to kind of shore up the budget in many respects, including the education budget this past year, will be plugged in for fiscal year 11, but once we get to fiscal year 12 that money will be gone.

Beyond the money matters, I would expect the program to focus on land use related issues.

We've had some discussions at the state level during the past couple of weeks and months about urban development areas and there's also been some revisiting of the profiler impact fee legislation that you may remember from a couple of years ago.

The stormwater management regulations are out there right now for public comment and given the diversity of opinion on those, this could certainly be

something that could span legislation as well.

In addition to this short list of priority items, the program will also continue to contain ongoing policy positions and ongoing concerns.

If you have any items that you would like to see in that list, any input or suggestions that you have for the program, if you can get those to me in the coming weeks so that they can be incorporated into the draft, I would appreciate it and I'll be working with your staff in the meantime on things as well.

Thank you for your time this evening.

Good evening.

My name is John Cruikshank.

I live in Earlysville, Virginia.

I'm representing the Piedmont group of the Sierra Club.

And just in case you haven't seen one of these in your neighborhood, I brought one along.

There are a few of them on these yard signs up in some front yards in Charlottesville.

So I just wanted to make sure everybody was aware that there is some support for our movement to save McIntire Park.

I'm here once again to ask you to change course.

on the Meadow Creek Parkway, the McIntire Road extended and the interchange.

I understand that next month you may be voting on a permanent utility easement necessary for a road to be built through McIntire Park.

I urge you to vote against this easement.

There was an incredible amount of confusion about the McIntire Road expanded.

First, VDOT submitted a plan for a road without a southern terminus.

It was a road that ended in the park and didn't connect to any other road.

Now they've submitted a ten-year-old plan

that has an at-grade intersection that the city council has already rejected.

There's a lot of confusion and this is the time to start rethinking the course that you've been taking and also maybe rethinking the role that VDOT has played in this.

I believe that the majority of city residents are opposed to the construction of a road through the park.

1,327 people have now signed the Sierra Club petition.

This petition asks you, the city councilors, to abandon plans for the Mutter Creek Parkway and to preserve McIntire Park.

I believe the majority of the people in this city are really against this.

I talk to people, I rarely ever talk to anybody who tells me that they really want that parkway.

There are a few.

But I think that this would be a good time to have a referendum on the issue at the next election.

and it will prove how unpopular this road really is.

People want the park.

They want the golf course.

They want the natural area.

They don't want another road.

Please stop the parkway.

Good afternoon.

I guess it's evening, huh?

Good evening, Stratton, Salitas, 704, Grave Street.

I agree with the comments that R.C.

Collins, if I have that right, made, and Ms. Mooney as well.

I consider the dam to be the second biggest

Scam in this area, what with the dramatically underestimated cost of the dam, the dramatically overestimated cost of dredging, and also the grossly overestimated amount of water that we'd need for the 50 year, what I call the 50 year sprawl plan, which apparently now has become the 70 year sprawl plan.

But I wanted to talk about the other

project about, as Mr. Cruikshank has said, there's a great deal of confusion about.

I would say this confusion is not entirely accidental.

And just as a starter to this conversation, you know, the media constantly talks about how this is a 40 year old road.

Actually, it's a 50 year old road.

The first plan, it was a part

a master plan that was written up in 1959, this is before vinegar hill the purpose of this plan, the stated purpose of this plan was slum removal to relieve traffic congestion and to increase parking and back then of course when they thought about traffic congestion and regional growth and such the city could annex the county or parts of the county now of course

Moving cars through the city is not in the city's interest at all, even economically.

So very shortly after that 1959 plan was put out, then cars to destroy Vinegar Hill were put out under the guise of urban renewal.

And of course nothing happened on that property practically for 15 or 20 years except Ridge McIntyre where it was put in right away.

and then they waited a couple years and then came the big public statements about the road through the park.

But that road through the park was there in that 1959 plan.

So I think that trouble in truthfully acknowledging our past has led to a continuation of attempting to deceive the public.

Mr. Cruikshank's comments about VDOT's latest plan which ended in the middle of a field, well that wasn't their latest plan, that was their first attempt to liqueur and you have to ask yourself why did they do that?

Why did they show a road ending in the middle of a field?

It's because they don't want to show it connecting to the federally funded interchange because they're avoiding

Federal, Historic and Parkland Protections.

And I hope that those of you who have been through this road will come clean with the public and say, no, we did not agree to build a road, now the latest plan, without an interchange.

We never did.

This is a fiction.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Slaves.

Good evening, I'm Pat Napoleon.

I reside at 700 Lyons Avenue City.

As the song says, signs, signs everywhere a sign, look what is happening with regard to signage.

Saved McIntyre signs are sprouting up all over Charlottesville.

Look at Park Street.

Folks, the public is listening and responding as the signs go up.

Residents posting the very visible signs are educated, aware,

and concern for the negative impact of a flawed plan and they pay taxes and they vote.

I will add the people who have had the most to lose are the worthy individuals who will be unable to easily access the wire at the proposed location.

The entire city population will be hurt by the pathway traffic and major disruptions.

Many finally believe it's inappropriate and questionable that council has denied Mr. Moore the opportunity to show the beautiful film McIntyre Calm and in this form.

Citizens, please come to the city space at 8 p.m. tonight.

The film is a work of art and it calls attention to the fact that much of real substance and importance can be lost.

The film content is truly memorable and presents a powerful message.

and gentlemen, I'm Bob Fenwick.

I live at 901 East Jefferson Street.

And I would like to ditto the comments of the first speaker because I could not hope to match his eloquence.

I also have some petitions that I collected at Fridays After Five, the City Market, and McIntire Park.

We have 646 to add to John Cruickshanks.

N.B.!

It's less expensive for a back-guitar part.

Membership is a property, YMCA.

Now, I think you all are well aware of the people of this city and how they feel about McIntire Park, how they feel about Meadow Creek Parkway.

And the people in this room elected you to fulfill their desires.

And I'm asking you, as many of the other speakers tonight have, to listen to the will of the people

You will have an opportunity, at least one, maybe two or three more opportunities to vote on these issues.

And I'm hoping you'll keep that in mind.

And when you do, you'll be able to save McIntire Park.

Thank you.

Good evening.

I'm Brenda Lambert.

I live at 301 Monte Vista Avenue in the city.

This is Andre Haykes who lives in the county.

We're here tonight to introduce a resolution from Equality Virginia that we hope the city council will pass.

Equality Virginia is a statewide organization that works for Equality for Gay Virginians.

Our goal is to protect families, end discrimination and create safe communities.

EV is currently building statewide support to pass in the 2010 General Assembly a nondiscrimination workplace law that includes LGBT employees the law would cover sexual orientation and gender identity we've just passed out copies of the full resolution here are a few highlights

local government resolution.

Whereas a diverse and inclusive community that respects and enhances the potential of all its members is crucially important to City Council's mission of making Charlottesville an excellent place to work, live and visit.

Whereas lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are vital members of our community, including police officers, teachers and doctors.

Now therefore, be it resolved that the Charlottesville City Council calls upon the Virginia General Assembly to pass legislation

codifying the basic human right of all public employees to be free from discrimination in the workplace based on race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, marital status, disability, veteran status, and sexual orientation, including gender identity.

Blacksburg and Arlington have already passed resolutions and several other localities are in the process.

I know you will want Charlottesville to be among the progressive cities and counties who send this resolution to Richmond.

I'm Andre Haykes.

I should move out of Orange County.

When I'm an attorney here, I practice law in Charlottesville and I organize members of the gay and lesbian community and there are a number of people here tonight in support of this resolution.

What I would ask is that the council take it under advisement and put it on the agenda for a meeting in September for a vote.

Therefore, I've given everybody a written copy of it and I'd ask you all please to consider it.

We really need to get something done in Richmond.

Good evening.

I am Helen Flumiti.

I live in the county, and I'm also president of the McIntire Botanical Garden.

And I'm here to invite you all to attend a presentation that we are hosting on August the 28th at the downtown library on the second floor, appropriately in the McIntire room.

We will be hosting a presentation and Warren Byrd, landscape architect, Professor Emeritus from the University of Virginia will be presenting an overview of botanic gardens and the benefits of a botanical garden in our city.

We will once again present a new vision and concept of creating a botanical garden on the east side of McIntire Park.

We align our vision with the City Council's vision statement to create economic sustainability.

We see a public-private partnership to fulfill that.

We work toward ensuring Charlottesville's place as the cultural and creative capital of Central Virginia.

We will work toward creating educational opportunities that will open doors for students in all grade levels of the city and the county.

We will work toward the implementation of a two-year program in horticulture and landscape design at CATEC and at PVCC.

Internships that will occur at the Botanical Garden and benefit workforce development issues.

We will work towards helping Charlottesville become a greater city.

We will work towards helping to create a healthy city.

Residents will be able to walk to the park from new pedestrian access routes that will be created.

We were with to open the park to everyone in the city in a new and meaningful way.

We were forward to working with the city and Parks and Recreation to begin a master plan process that with the community's input will help decide the best use of the park.

Some days in the park, which began in April,

and is to be continued on the last Sunday of each month was designed to open the park to the community on a day without golfing activities.

We hope the city and specifically Parks and Recreation will help to get a program of activities that will bring families

into the community, from the community into the park on that day so that they can begin to explore some of the beauty that abounds there in a new way.

A lot of people who live in the city have never been in McIntire Park in the Gulf Coast area over these years, so that would be a unique opportunity for them.

The McIntire Botanical Garden would welcome an opportunity at a later date to present to City Council a comprehensive and informative plan designed to illustrate the vision, concept and goals that we have.

With change comes opportunity.

Opportunity to initiate the beginning of a botanical garden that will be a lasting gift to future generations.

We hope you can all come on August the 28th and hear more about what our plan is.

Thank you, Ms. Flamin.

Thank you very much.

Let me first of all state who I am.

My name is Rick Turner.

Yeah, my name is Ray Jones and I live in the 754 Prospect Avenue, apartment A. I've been in Charlottesville for probably about 15, 20 years.

I moved from Carolina, I moved from, I worked on the shipyard and whatever.

But I was just trying to figure out really short laws and fills if you want to use your restrooms and stuff here.

So since I've been here, I've been African American and it looked like to me every time

I go to a public place, they sayin' that I'm not allowed to use the restroom.

I don't know if they do it because I walk, I carry my backpack, I work like that all my life, and I'd be just moving around, and when I goes in there, the bus station told me, which is about three days ago, and I was kinda there in town, and I asked them if I had to use the restroom, but I got hot.

And I do have some weak kidneys, I'm on 2-3-0 medication, and they told me if I'm not a customer, I can't use it.

I traveled back and forth every and then to see my brother.

He's a commissioner in North Carolina.

He's on the board down there.

And I traveled back and made him hook up.

And he recommended me to come down here and see what the problem is.

About the Virginia laws, because he said he couldn't come up here because it's a different state.

So I went to the zip to use the bathroom.

And they said I'm not a customer.

I can't use it.

So to me, it's like Shaz was going back to the old Jim Crow laws.

You know, it's like

not equal opportunity to me.

Because the white lady went in, not after I did, and said she was no customer because she don't buy a man.

And she used the bathroom.

She be going in there frequently.

Just coming out the street going in there.

So I mean, I don't know what's going on here.

It's a race issue.

My wife went in the bathroom.

I don't know if they're discriminating against an African American male or not.

I'm 51 years old.

I had to sit in the car and eat.

My daddy, you know,

But still, I just want to know which y'all laws is here.

Because when I go in the bathroom, my father, he's seven or something years old.

When we go, he don't order for me to first go in the restaurant.

He'll go use his restaurant.

Then he'll come out and make his order.

So that's what I was going to do if I didn't get nothing but a cup of ice water because it's hot or something like that.

So I was figuring out what the laws is.

Thank you very much for coming down tonight.

That's all the time we have for it.

Matter of fact, I appreciate everybody came to speak.

I usually open it up to other counselors for responses.

I'd like to start this time myself, though, because I want to address the procedural question about the video regarding the golf course.

There will be an opportunity sponsored by the city for airing not just that video but any other presentations about the future of the east side of McIntire Park.

This is not the correct forum during matters by the public, but we will have a master plan process that will be kicking off, hopefully in the not too distant future, where we will have plenty of opportunity for public input.

We'll be happy to show that video.

We'll be happy to hear the presentation by the Botanical Garden.

We'll be happy to get a wide variety of public input, more so than we got from master planning on the west side of the park, which was notably lacking in certain areas in terms of public input.

But to get a wide variety of perspectives, that's the process that we're going to be used to determine

The future of McIntire Park could be vitally important for members of the public who want to see X, Y, or Z in the east side of the park to attend those.

We will be letting you know when that master plan process kicks off.

We have not scheduled that yet.

I would just urge everybody to think big.

There was a letter to the editor in the paper not too long ago, which I thought was very well put, which said there's no reason why at this point we have to exclude any one of these uses.

There's no reason at this point why First Tee can't continue to have a home in McIntire Park.

There's no reason why we can't try and accommodate some kind of botanical garden in McIntire Park.

Just keep an open mind and let's not rule anything in or out just yet and we'll have a very good public process when it comes time for that and we'll be happy to see the video then and I believe it's showing at 10 minutes in the city space as well.

and then I would like to address Ms. Hall's question about the softball fields and your question is, did I say that even if another master plan was written and approved by city council, would the softball fields be preserved?

The answer to that is yes, the master plan needs to be amended

to preserve the softball fields in McIntire Park.

And I have said publicly, not speaking for Council, but speaking personally that I would like to see the master plan amended to preserve softball at McIntire Park.

I have been convinced that we need to revise the plan

I want to make sure that we do find rectangular field space somewhere else because there is a big need, particularly among city residents, for rectangular field space.

The plan of action that we came forward with was to say we're going to proceed on a parallel track.

One is a field allocation study with the county, figure out how we can better meet the recreational needs of our community, and second is the amendment process for the master plan to preserve softball in McIntyre Park.

And I would just echo, Mr. Long, I really appreciate your comment today about making sure that the voices of lower income residents are included when we talk about our vision for the community, for the city.

You're absolutely right.

I know it's an issue that's near and dear to many of our hearts, but I appreciate you bringing that up and reminding us that we cannot simply allow the voices of one class to dominate any discussion about the future of our community.

and last but not least, I wholeheartedly support the proposed resolution, local government resolution on supporting the non-discrimination ordinance in the General Assembly.

Thank you very much for bringing this forward as a critical issue of equality and justice in our Commonwealth and our city and I will certainly be happy to put that on the agenda for our next meeting.

So, I'll now open it up to other Councillors and thank you for giving me the chance to speak first this time.

I'll do my best to make sure that everything that we've requested regarding the judging

come forth and just thank you for your continued diligent service.

To Jim Moore, I did take the time to watch McIntyre and Colm and I look forward to having everyone on council gets a chance to watch it and get some other feedback.

But it is a well done document and I did enjoy it.

The only thing that I would have changed would have been

the background music and I would consult with R. Clyde Collins who in addition to being our advocate for the water supply is also a part of the Charlottesville Jazz Society.

I would own a John Coltrane and I would have liked to have even said Love Supreme were my favorite things in the background.

I appreciated the comments by Mr. Long.

I think there's a connection between our vision, which it is a lofty vision, but it makes us work hard and to be accountable and thank you for continuing to make us accountable by coming forth and speaking.

But I think there's a connection between what you're saying, the local government resolution that was brought forth, and

statement that was made by Ray Jones.

Do we really have a city where people are welcome regardless of who they are, what they represent, what their values are?

Do we really have a city that honors that?

Excuse me, what is the law of this vision?

Dr. Turner, we're going to address that momentarily.

Just give us one moment.

We are all in the middle of... Dr. Turner, we're going to address it in just one moment, so give Ms. Edwards the chance to continue her comments and we will absolutely get to that point.

Excuse me.

I think that it's duly noted in that there's an indication of the level of frustration

the level of anger and the level of the work that we need to do.

Clearly, Dr. Turner was the one that spoke up, but he's spoken with and a lot of people have been feeling.

And so, and to answer that question, I'm going to defer to our city attorney, if he doesn't have the answer now, to do the appropriate work so it can be addressed.

And not only just address,

It's a very important concern.

I didn't want you to think we were ignoring it.

I was going to make the same request if Ms. Edwards hadn't and I don't know if Mr. Brown if you want to make any initial comments or simply

Just an initial comment Mr. Mayor, Members of Council, there is no city ordinance nor any authority

for a city ordinance mandating that restrooms and private establishments be made public.

But if I understand Mr. Jones, that's not the thrust of his complaint.

The thrust of his complaint is the possibility that on the basis of his race, he was denied access to those facilities.

And so that has been illegal since 1964.

I think it would be very helpful to get some sense from you or others on how we can step up enforcement so that we don't have situations like this repeated in the future.

And I'm not asking you tonight, but I think Ms. Edwards' point about an action plan is very well taken.

We'll certainly follow up on that.

Dr. Brown, it's a little bit of a tough act to follow.

My comments were that along the Sage McIntyre Park side, which there are a lot, it's kind of an interesting umbrella and it kind of made me ponder how many homes have people who are opposed to the parkway

as well as being opposed to the Y, as well as being in favor of softball and as well as being in favor of golf.

But now I realize tonight I've seen the epitome of that in R. Clyde Collins, golfer, softballer, and I assume you're opposed to the Y as well, but I do know that you're opposed to the Parkway.

And I'm not going to go into, I mean sometimes, I think the Y

Of all those, I think the why is the one that I would argue just strenuously to think about the value of having a why that's accessible to citizens of Charlottesville.

The other place for a why would be at Piedmont.

and I don't think that FEMA would really, you know, would allow, I mean, one of the things we're trying to do is to encourage healthy living and healthy activity, and I think a YMCA, which has a sliding scale, which is successful, which has moderate rates to begin with, you know, fills a need.

You know, we had several public hearings on this.

There were people for it and people against it at that time.

You know, we signed a contract to have it built.

But anyway, so the other comment I want to make is I do want to correct something Mr. Collins said.

I actually, with my laptop, I checked and I skimmed over, and I think I skimmed it accurately, the article in the Daily Progress about the four of the six candidates running for office on the Board of Supervisors in Albemarle County.

They support the current water supply plan.

and they opposed dredging.

But the article did not mention, as I think I heard you say, that they were opposed to the dredging study.

It just didn't mention the dredging study.

And I don't believe that there's, in fact I think we've chosen a top-notch dredging consultant.

I think the city's request, the RFP, is very specific in terms of wanting them to study dredging.

Not maintenance dredging, but full-fledged dredging.

So I hope that people have confidence that the study that's going to be done will be done thoroughly and we will

Holly Edwards sits on the board that oversees it.

We have the mayor taking a very active role in all this.

I just want to comment on this McIntire com video.

I hope everyone will have a chance to look at it.

It's well done.

I think it lays out

or at least to me the importance of trying to preserve the golf course in McIntire Park and I think that obviously the first tee is a well recognized program that does a lot for youth in our community along with the fact that the course in McIntire Park

provides, you know, an affordable place for people to go play golf that probably cannot afford to pay green fees to a lot of other locations.

And I was thinking the other day when I had the opportunity to watch this in 63 and 64, 65 I guess, I used to play golf over there sometimes in the morning when I got off in the fire department with some other firefighters, long now deceased, but nearly then.

And I used to enjoy that myself and I think some people in the community do enjoy that.

Also, I'm certainly in favor of the equality resolution and I certainly want to lend my support to that.

Mr. Long, I want to thank you also for reminding us of our responsibilities to all the citizens within the community and not the upper middle class, I think as you pointed out.

One other thing that I neglected to mention, Ms. Hall, you asked about the consent agenda item regarding the trail wing and

This is a separate item from the north-south pedestrian connector over the 250 bypass.

This is a proposed boardwalk trail going east-west on the north side of the bypass.

It's a separate proposal that we've been working on, so I just wanted to clarify.

Okay, thank you all very much.

Is there a second?

Second.

Any discussion?

If not, please indicate your vote.

Thank you very much.

I want to publicly thank everybody who applied for positions on both the Library Board and the Planning Commission.

This was not an easy choice and we encourage those who applied to stay involved and we'd love to have you participate in other boards or commissions.

And I want to again publicly thank, while we're clearing out the room here, publicly thank once again

Sherry Lewis and Mike Frugio for their service on the Planning Commission, as well as Perry Washburn for his service on the Jefferson Manus Division Library Board.

We are now going to move forward with our consent agenda.

Item A is approving minutes of July 6th, 20th, and 30th.

Item B is an appropriation of $16,600 for Homeland Security Grants for Fire Department, second of two readings.

Item C is an appropriation of $300,000 for Coal Tower, Mead Avenue, Bike Trail, T-Grant, second of two readings.

Item D is an appropriation of $5,000 for CRHA contribution for Summer Recreation Program, second of two readings.

Item D is an appropriation of $182,500 drug treatment court grant, second of two readings.

Item F is an appropriation of $5,000 arts challenge grant, first of two readings.

Item G is an appropriation of $76,900 Almore County contribution to the Philadelphia arts premium, first of two readings.

Item H, an appropriation of $23,000 reimbursement from Piedmont Housing Lines for sale of John Street Houses, first of two readings.

Item I, an appropriation of $230,080 Justice Assistance Grant, first of two readings.

Item J, a resolution appointing an acting clerk of council, first of one meeting.

Item K, a resolution approving special appointment for outdoor storage at 900 to 902 Harris Street, first of one meeting.

Item L, Resolution approving special permit for dance hall at 101 to 103 South First Street, first to one meeting.

Item M, Resolution Regentain Community Services Board contract with Virginia Department of New Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services, first to one meeting.

Item N, Resolution supporting grant application for state funding for multi-use trail boardwalk along 250 bypass, first to one meeting.

Item L, Ordinance abandoned gas evening on Boulder's Road, second to two meetings.

I.M.P.

in Ordinance, Parking Exim Zones, Zoning Amendment, First of Two Readings, I.M.Q.

in Ordinance, Amending Handicap Parking Ordinance, First of Two Readings.

Okay, so we've removed item K, it's a pretty special permit for outdoor storage at 900-902 Harris Street.

Any other items to be removed or motion to approve the remaining items on the consent agenda?

I'll move approval.

Please indicate your vote.

Thank you very much.

Next we have a public hearing and ordinance for barring conveyance of a portion of Jefferson Park Avenue right-of-way.

In January this year you approved a special use permit for the development of property located at the intersection of JPA and Emmett Street in the city.

This request, that request granted increased density

and it was conditioned on the 10th and Main LLC acquiring a portion of right-of-way along JPA.

This is the action before you that does that.

They're actually asking to acquire 5,770 square feet of right-of-way.

This will allow them to, as part of the development project, construct an intersection improvement there that will greatly enhance pedestrian safety.

We actually worked on a joint study 10 years ago with the university to design pedestrian improvements along JPA and this implements a portion of that.

The estimated cost of the work that they will be doing is $172,000.

We agreed, again, since it was part of a city plan, to pay $75,000 or 50%, whichever is less.

of that work once they get the good prices for it and do the work.

The sea assessor has assessed this properly at $86,500, but we would recommend that because it's in

The work that's actually being done allows the completion of a much needed pedestrian improvement in this very busy section right away with a lot of student traffic.

We recommend that council waive the payment of that fee at this time.

Mr. Mayor, I have a question.

The improvements in the sidewalk will be public via the right-of-way.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Thank you, Mr.

Trot.

We will now open the public hearing.

Does anybody sign up to speak?

Is there anybody from the public who would like to speak on this matter?

Okay.

We will close the public hearing.

Any discussion by council or a motion to approve?

I'll move the ordinance.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

We'll carry forward to the second meeting in our next meeting.

Thank you very much.

Mr. Mayor, Members of Council, the next item on your agenda is a request to purchase what is slightly over 7,000 square feet of property located between Elm Street and Cherry Avenue.

The request is from Ms. Chisholm, who is the owner of a adjoining vacant parcel of property on Elm Street.

The city property the city owns is designated in three colored blocks on the plat that's attached to your agenda memo.

As you can see, this parcel of land is landlocked and for the most part is improved with stormwater drainage structures and subject to a stormwater easement.

The city acquired these properties as residue from improvements made to the 9th, 10th Street, or what is now Roosevelt Brown Boulevard by quickly indeed from VDOT.

The three properties were originally acquired by VDOT from the adjoining property owners and that's the reason we have designated these three lots in the three different colors.

If you look at the plaque, the green came from tax map 30 parcel 149, the Gibson property, the blue came from tax map 30 parcel 148, the Barnett property, and the pink came from tax map 30 parcel 156, which is indicated as Roche, but is currently owned by Caddell.

Ms. Chisholm owns the larger parcel below those three parcels that's designated as tax map 30 parcel 155A.

Staff has reviewed the proposed transfer and has no objection.

It has no real value to the city other than

to service the location for the stormwater improvements and they would continue under city easement in the event of sale.

If this parcel is added to Ms. Chisholm's parcel, neighborhood development services indicates that it may allow for the creation of larger lots on her property or the development of larger units if the property is developed but would not likely yield any additional units.

There is an ordinance attached for your consideration on first reading tonight.

This ordinance reflects the terms that Ms. Chisholm has proposed.

I will note that we may be adjoining landowners aware of the request shortly after it came in and we also provided them last week with copies of the agenda materials that were sent to city council.

Since this is a somewhat unusual shaped piece of property, city staff also went out and staked it out so that it would be evident what property was subject to this request.

It is scheduled for a public hearing tonight.

Thank you, Mr. Brown.

Any questions before we open to a public hearing?

We'll now open to public hearing.

There's nobody signed up to speak.

Is there anybody from the public that would like to speak on this issue?

Hello, my name is Carolyn Powell and my father was Ervin Gibson which owned a part of the property that has the home on it on Cherry Avenue and we would like to buy back a piece of the property that was sold to the city at

Yes, we have maintained it.

Do you want to introduce yourselves?

And we had maintained it a little piece, you know, because real soon when my dad sold it, they'd come back to him with the easement, you know, for you guys.

And my father just passed away July the 29th, so we just are in the process of taking over the estate and we're not exactly sure what all we need to do, but we know that he would want us to try to get back his piece of the property.

Thank you very much.

Good evening.

My name is Frances Barnett and we own the property at 716 Cherry Avenue and my only comment at this time is to disagree with a comment that was listed in the letter as stating that Mrs. Chisholm had maintained the property and that is incorrect.

We have continued even though

Our property was conveyed to VDOT and later to the city.

We have continued to maintain it.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for coming tonight.

Anybody else like to speak?

We will now close the public hearing.

In terms of maintenance, I believe Ms. Barnett may have been referring to a letter from Ms. Chisholm.

I'm not personally aware of who has been maintaining it.

I'm aware of who has not been maintaining it, and that's the city.

I suspect that one or more of the adjoining property owners have been maintaining this.

and I did include in your agenda memo an estimate from the city's parks division about the potential cost should the city take over maintenance just in terms of loin.

This property certainly could be sold to more individual property owners

I have not had any discussion with either of the two families that spoke tonight.

Further discussion?

I think what we're asking is have it taken back with further discussion with these other property owners

We can certainly do that and I will pursue with the Chisholm family whether they are interested in the remaining area that is in pink

and so their suggested compensation was based on the entire parcel so we would need to have a discussion about, you know, what value they place on the smaller portion.

And we can certainly come back to council.

I think the idea was to purchase it, not to donate it, so I think we all understand.

Thank you very much, thank you for coming here tonight, and we will continue this conversation.

Next item on our agenda.

Back in July, fiscal year 2009-2010 of our CDBG home began.

It's off to a pretty good start so far.

We're now getting ready to gear up for fiscal year 10 and 11 already.

The purpose of tonight's public hearing is to set priorities for those fundings as well as set some budget allocations.

For this current year, the priorities were set at workforce development with a focus on teen and young adults, economic development, and neighborhood stabilization, which encompasses homeowner rehab, rental rehab, home ownership, and code compliance.

And for fiscal year 2010 and 11, it's going to be our third year of the consolidated plan, which was approved back in May of 2008.

Tonight's discussion is going to focus on five key issues.

The first one is setting the priorities for CDBG and home

Staff met with the CVBG Task Force in July to talk about some of their recommendations and overview feelings about the program.

Some recommendations that came out of there wish to keep the list of priorities similar to those of the current year.

And some new ideas could possibly be focusing on safe and affordable housing for seniors as a priority.

New ideas and organizations that have not been funded in the past receiving priority funding as well as groups that are collaborating where two organizations come together instead of each receiving two separate pots of funding, maybe they can pool their resources together.

So council was asked to determine what their priorities are for fiscal year 2010 and 11 and any priorities you set will be made public to any potential applicants so that they can make sure they're applying for projects that are coming to their priorities.

and the next issue that needs to be discussed is the priority neighborhood.

In years past, 200,000 has been set aside for a priority neighborhood each year and in your memo I provided you a list for the past 10 years.

Looking back over the past 20 years in our cycle of neighborhoods, the next neighborhood that would be up for their turn would be the Fifeville neighborhood.

A couple of potential options.

Council could choose to continue having a priority neighborhood.

This is not something that's recommended.

It's just something that has been done for many years.

If council decides to keep a priority neighborhood, they can decide at what amount.

Again, it does not have to be 2,000, and there does not also have to be one.

If council chose, they could allot money to various different neighborhoods.

And one of your attachments is a map, so you have an idea what the different priority neighborhoods are.

There's five based on the population of low-income residents.

Other options are to get rid of the priority neighborhood altogether.

You could instead award money to a priority project or a priority population.

Or you could just allocate that money as part of the RFP process and let the task force decide based on applications received.

What they let them to discuss is the percentage of social programs, how it caps the amount at 15%.

For the past, I think the whole history of CDBG, we've always used that 15%.

They like to see it keep at 15%.

That's more than enough for one given year.

We are allowed to go up to 20% if you wanted to take more for that.

And then any other guidelines or advice you want to give the task force as they make their decisions or for potential applicants for the type of project she would like to see.

There's no budgetary impacts.

This is all coming from federal money, so it's not going to affect our local funds.

and any other attachment that I sent in your memo is just a list of eligible activities.

Any priority you set should make sure that it kind of falls within one of those priorities.

Okay, thank you.

Any questions from this chart before we open up public hearing?

Okay, we will now open the public hearing.

Is there anybody from the public who would like to speak on this matter?

We will now close the public hearing.

Mr.

Chair, Mr. Mayor, I have a few comments to add to that.

A few of the numbers now are not in the lens that it used to be, over $5,000.

If you take out 15% of the social programs, over another 15-10% from the administration, that much is left.

So I would be inclined not to have power in your words this year at all.

Yeah, they'd be more than happy to apply for funds.

One more comment on the priorities.

New affordable construction, new affordable housing, okay.

What's the difference

between these funds and the money we already have in affordable housing fund.

Restrictions or opportunities or, I mean, I feel like we have made affordable housing a big priority and I understand Mr. Huja is concerned about not having actually

But does that mean we should make it a priority for these funds or is there plenty to do with these funds recognizing we have a substantial investment that's not fully tapped yet in our affordable housing funds?

I guess that's my kind of question.

I guess one of the main differences between these funds and the local housing funds as far as the construction of new affordable housing units is who can actually build those units.

For the CDBG funds, it has to be a community-based organization, and there's only a few of those that qualify in Charlottesville, whereas with the housing, local housing funds, anybody who wanted to build would be eligible to do so.

The home funds, which is a smaller percentage of what the city gets, but around $150,000, that doesn't have that restriction.

So again, anybody could build with those.

Is there some way that having this as a priority might cause groups to come forward with ideas and proposals that wouldn't be coming forward already?

Yeah, I don't have a problem.

We can change that around, too.

Depends on the proposals.

I wanted to say that I supported the housing authorities being in the priority neighborhoods because there was no hope that it would be an opportunity to do some infrastructural repairs and some

not knowing their whole financial situation of maybe spending other funds.

I know that they have completed elevators at West Haven or Crescent Halls and new roofs at West Haven.

I guess I believe strongly in the bumper window effect, so I was hoping to see

Well, all those dollars have been allocated.

They haven't been spent yet, but they've all been designated.

There's certainly many more than $430,000 worth of repairs that are needed in our public housing neighborhood, so I don't want anybody to think that those monies are just sitting there waiting for a use.

I mean, those all have been designated.

I hope that the housing authority does come back to seek funding from

And thanks for clarifying because it's based on the report.

It just says CRHA has about $30,000 in investment funds.

Right, right.

And so based on the report, it would give one the perception, which is I'm glad you clarified that.

And also, regarding the social programs, I believe that the 15% is okay, but I just also wanted to think about is there a way that we can be creative with that 15%?

Could we

So Workforce Development is or is not included in the 15%?

It is included as of yet.

Right, because even though it's a priority, how many programs actually promoted workforce development when they applied, let's say, last fiscal year?

Off the top of my head, I think we have about three or four programs funded out of about eight or nine social programs that have some sort of workforce development focus or component.

I guess my question would be just like trying to get some consistency with the ABC budget review process.

How do you imagine the outcomes of those programs?

I guess when we monitor the programs we obviously look to make sure that they're doing what they said they'd be doing and we keep our records based on the number of people helped and I guess it's more of a

kind of gut feeling whether or not they're getting the actual equality training.

We don't have any specific benchmarks that we say, okay, this person now has this skill gained.

We just look at the program with the proposing and then we look at it in action and make sure that people are actually getting the skills that they're supposed to be.

It did, but I'd like to have something more than a gut reaction.

I'd like to have some specified

You know, outcomes so that we see that because we put a lot of money in social programs, but I'd like to see us move to the next level of being accountable.

Okay.

To see how we can really see some accomplishments with the people that we say that we're serving.

I'd like to know how many people were participating in a training program that was successful.

I'd like to know the kind of certificate.

I'd like to know whether it was through PBC, National Business College, or the Adult Learning Center.

I'd like to see whether or not people were able to have an increase in the income.

If there's some kind of way of seeing whether or not people were actually being able to move out of poverty in some way.

There was a comment about

Where is our ability to see where our lower income and lower income people within our community, how do we connect them with the best of the resources?

I'd like to see so much effort in those connections.

Because we have a middle class community here, we just need to bring the low and lower income people up to it.

and so I'd like to see if we can really focus on workforce development that, you know, with the programs that were funded last year, how many of those people even participated in our job fair?

Is there any way of knowing how we're disconnecting all these?

I want to make a follow-up comment on Ms. Morris' comment last year, actually.

I would love to see if it was an improvement on the pay, the safe pay in West Haven.

They are in a disgusting shape.

Other comments, questions?

We have a number of questions before us that I think we've addressed on the priorities.

and we've decided, I think we've decided on the priority neighborhood, percentage of social programs, I didn't hear any desire to change that from 15%.

Administration planning, didn't hear any comment on keeping that capped at 20%.

I think we've addressed all the questions you had for us.

Thank you very much, and we look forward to seeing some good project ideas coming out of your task force.

May I move as a council the action requested this evening is to transfer $2.1 million from the strategic investment

reserved to the CEDA for the purpose of constructing the first phase of Hillsdale Drive.

This is an important highway project which I'll address for many years and have it as one of your highest priorities.

This will enable us to have the contractor that's doing the site work and development of the Whole Foods site

to prepare and construct this actual segment of the road.

CDER would manage the project and would ensure that all of the payments and everything were appropriately made and consistent with the plans.

It will also promote additional development on the other side of the road, other side of Hillsdale from Whole Foods and there is some active interest in that site.

to provide additional economic development opportunities.

The agreement provides that the CEDA would provide up to $2 million, no more than that, no matter how much it costs and that anything above that would be borne by the developer.

The CEDA obviously benefits by having the road project completed and the tax base expanded.

The Planning Commission, the NDS staff, CETA have all approved the agreements and Whole Foods has signed agreements with the developer ready to proceed.

The next thing to do is for the council to approve the transfer of the funds so that CETA can administer the project.

I would add that the developer will be conveying all of the necessary right-of-way and easements to the city at no cost.

Some of you that were on council sometime back heard Whole Foods talk about their commitment to green buildings and everything.

They have not only agreed to do all of that, they've agreed to do some additional things.

And this will also provide an opportunity for approximately 325 jobs.

Six years.

Just from that one project.

And quite frankly, if some of the other things happened on the other side of the street, the payback would be much quicker.

One of the reasons that the amount of money is what it is, is because there's a tremendous amount of improvements that are having to be made in hydraulics.

And it's also much more involved than simply building a new driveway to the Whole Foods site.

It will be a public street that will meet all of the VDOT and city standards and would be acceptable into the state highway maintenance funding arrangement.

They are planning on getting underway as quickly as possible.

They're waiting to know what y'all do tonight.

And what's your best guess at this point?

I realize it's impossible to know for sure.

Well, as you're aware, the state has only funded design money and the road is very far along in design.

The next thing would be construction funding and I think that it's in the

I'd like to make a comment before we make that.

Kay Slaughter of the Southern Environmental Law Center was here intending to speak on this matter in public comment, although she noted that the public comment filled up at 6.30.

Is there a second?

Second.

Any further discussion?

If not, please indicate your vote.

Thank you very much, Mr. Watts.

Hello again.

Two meetings ago you passed on first readings and changes that the Planning Commission recommended regarding Accessory Girling Units.

You had a letter from

a group representing Java that have raised some issues that you wanted us to take a look at and meet with them.

We have met with that group and I think resolved other issues.

There were a couple of questions that they had regarding whether or not the restrictions would eliminate the ability of people in small lots to build accessory dwelling units.

We provided you some information in the way of maps where we looked at typical very small lots in some of our lower income neighborhoods and looked to see, apply the regulations and see what could reasonably be built there.

We shared that with the folks that were interested and they felt as we did that this would not overly restrict the ability to build accessory units.

Keep it in mind that they are accessory units.

I think they also had some misunderstanding

that these could be actually a second full sized unit and of course that's not the intent of the accessory unit regulations and so once they saw that it would allow what we were intending then they were comfortable with that.

We did discover during the conversations that there was one thing that the Planning Commission had added at the

and the regular deliberations kind of at the last second that will cause a potential problem on lots, particularly lots that have any slope to them which are about 90% of the lots in the city.

And that is in section 34.1 or 11.71, number 3 dealing with the height of the structure.

The way that we proposed it was that no accessory unit should exceed 25 feet in height at the highest point of the primary dwelling unit's roof surface, whichever is less.

And the Planning Commission has added, on the eve of the accessory dwelling unit or accessory structure shall not be higher than the eve of the primary structure, whichever is less.

And we went around and tried that out on quite a few and basically with many, many yards that would eliminate the ability to build anything.

We would like to suggest to you and says you pass this on second reading that you amend it to delete that last phrase there beginning with ending E with the accessory dwelling unit all the way through the end of the sentence.

I had a question.

We had contracted with Java last year to conduct a study on strategies for promoting accessory dwelling units, home sharing, etc.

A, do you know when they're going to have that report ready?

No sir, I think that's what generated their concerns.

I think after we had the meeting they felt comfortable that there would not be anything in these regulations that would interfere with the ability to promote those.

And I do not know when they're going to be finished.

Okay, thank you.

I'd like to make a motion, I'd like to make a motion first to amend

Is there a second to that motion?

Second.

Seconded.

Seconded.

Any further discussion?

If not, please indicate your vote.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Tolbert.

Other business, we have four items, as I understand it, four items under other business tonight.

Actually, we have the four items.

Right, okay.

That was one of my four, but you're right.

We'll go with item K first, and then under other business we have a brief update on the Jordan study, a letter regarding stormwater regulations,

update on the race dialogue.

Let's start with item K on the consent agenda, approving special permit for aqua storage at 900 to 902 Harris Street.

Mr. Lewis, I support the special permit for this facility, except for the, I would like to have a lower condition, which is to provide some landscape on the front.

on the site.

My understanding is that in a specific group, we can require conditional sizes to go to the site.

Well, it's not like my name is additional, you want to keep it on the front of the site, so we could do it.

I was hoping not to.

I was hoping Ms. Creasy would have heard him give that now.

I know there was an item that was debated by the Fannie Commission

On the street side.

Well, the planning commission did discuss that and not recommend it.

I apologize.

I was actually reliving that meeting as we speak because Mr. Rogers is on vacation, so I was taking over for him.

Okay, just for some information on that, as I went back and looked

through the materials as well as looking at the tape.

There was a discussion concerning, this is the materials that came with the original public hearing packet, meaning that this driveway is pretty small and actually services this building back here as well.

I'm assuming you're talking about trees over in this area here?

Yes.

Mr. Osteen specifically talked about the possibility of a tree or two right in this area here.

I know

The applicant was concerned about turnaround for accessing parking because the parking for this study is going to be right here.

They also did note in these materials as well that the areas that they are concentrating the storage

would not be visible from the public right of way.

There's an area back here, behind this building here, behind this building here which you wouldn't be able to access visually through this driveway and the majority they know that they're going to have behind the building there.

They did consider that, and what was interesting is Mr. Frugio, who's one of our biggest tree advocates, did not feel that this warranted buffering at this time.

The applicant is planning to only be at this location for about two years, according to their testimony at that meeting.

And this site is owned by the owner of Bailey Printing, and they're looking long-term, well,

short long term to expand their building onto that site.

Personally, unless there's some compelling reason, I think that the Planning Commission has taken the time to sort of thoroughly discuss issues such as this specific issue and did not add it to their list.

I'm not supportive of adding it at this time.

I'm not really feeling like I can do due diligence of exploring all the issues, hearing a chance to hear from the applicant.

I think it's been delegated to the

These are the resources that it comes to for the city council also for their development also on these issues like this.

I'm reminded of the provision that we have in place regarding, or the practice I should say, regarding whenever we redo a street, wherever possible we try to add in bike lanes, whenever property owners are redoing their properties we try to incorporate sidewalks.

This is an area of the city that's devoid of greenery and canopy.

I'm aware that this provision, we may need to revisit in a couple of years, hopefully not, but I tend to support Mr. Huja

and I trust that assuming that it is within our purview to make that kind of amendment, I trust that the staff can work with the property owner and come up with a solution that's not going to hold up their product but in fact will increase the value of the property, increase the

Now, Mr. President Williams, Mr. Mayor, you can add conditions to a special use permit and I speak only to note that Mr. Clover is correct.

Typically, conditions on a special use permit

are designed to mitigate any adverse impact from the proposed use.

And frequently that does take the form of additional screening or landscaping.

I would simply point out, if I understood Ms. Creasy correctly, that the use that requires a special use permit here is not visible from the right of way.

And the access to the story is still visible from the site.

The access?

Yes.

The access to?

They're actually one of the conditions next that the deliveries which they intend to take place once perhaps twice I believe a week and usually that occurs at the earlier hours which is off peak time and they've done it in such a way that they will circulate through the site

unlike some of the other uses on this road who don't have the ability to do that and actually access the site and then back, back into Harris Road and then back outward into the street.

The circulation is for landscaping.

And there likely is the opportunity to do that.

I'd be happy to have you guys decide it.

Excuse me, is this starting to get?

Are you trying to get landscaping that would provide a visual barrier to the back of the property?

So shade on the sidewalk?

That seems to be supported by a majority of council and I would certainly entertain a motion to approve the resolution as amended.

So it's been moved.

Any further discussion?

If not, please indicate your vote.

It passes.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Ms. Creasy, for rushing back here.

and Mr. Stover, of course.

Mr. Mayor and members of council, I asked Judy Wheeler to join me in this discussion, so she's here.

I hope you appreciate that.

It's not real late, but she was actually on the interview committee.

I passed out

I don't know how in-depth you need me to go here, but just to be a couple reminders.

At the May 18th City Council meeting, you approved a scope of work for a dredging study that the Rivanna Williams Sewer Authority was to take forward.

And I'll just read you what is in the scope of services from the RFP that Rivanna sent out, because I think there's some question

as to what is going to be happening.

So the goal of this project is to evaluate the feasibility of dredging the South Rivanna Reservoir sufficiently for public officials to determine if it warrants proceeding with the commitment to budget and finance the design, property commitments, and construction.

In other words, to fully dredge the South Rivanna Reservoir.

There's studies on the bathymetric survey, prepregard survey, volume analysis, sediment analysis,

processing and disposal site analysis, in other words, where the settlement would need to go and the cost, dredging the alternatives and the forebay analysis.

All those things are verbatim what was in the council's approval on May 18th, so there's no deviation at all that I'm aware of from what council approved of the scope of work that's being developed.

So May 20th, the RFP went out, firms submitted proposals in late June, an interview committee was

appointed what City Council had asked to review, and you added two members.

That approval was at the June 1st meeting.

The interview committed not to review the submissions, and it interviewed the rooms in July and August, and I'm quickly going through these, but we can go into this in detail.

It was a unanimous interview committee recommendation to hire a firm, HDR, that's a specialist in engineering and dredging kinds of studies and can conduct the studies that are a part of the scope of work.

So that's kind of where we've been.

Currently, a contract is being negotiated with the HDR firm to follow the scope of work that's in the original council approved scope in the RFP.

We're hopeful that at the August 25th Rivanna board meeting that the board can take up this contract.

We're not sure if we have enough time to actually get all that done.

As you know, Ms. Edwards sits on the board as well as I do and Ms. Muir and part of our goal is to review and make sure that our counselor code becomes the scope of work in the contract.

If we're not able to get the full contract approved, our thinking at this point is to

authorizing the start of the field study work so that the project can get moving forward.

There wouldn't be any delay.

We're anticipating that this whole study approach will take a number of months and likely have work done by April or May.

That's about the time that some of the other studies will be completed.

So the goal here is to try to all the different studies and work that are going on that they sort of conduct in April or May where city council can take up each one of the pieces of information.

based on recommendations from Rivanna.

For the future, a couple things, and these have come up from some questions from council and people in the community.

We're planning, and this is in our discussion,

There were several public information opportunities and I suspect there likely will be others.

One is every time there's an update memo from the consultant, HDR, that they get posted on the Rivanna website so anybody in the public would see what information is available that Rivanna has.

This is the approach that we took in the original water study and it seems to work pretty well.

There likely would be two public meetings.

One after the data collection phase, which we're thinking is going to be about December, and the second when the new recommendations are available, so probably late spring.

We would suggest, and we've had this discussion with council, but we would suggest that we get into the habit of regular updates to city council and the dredging study, and I might add on the water supply plan and likely some of the sewer projects.

If we follow that approach, that means we would do a briefing in October,

which I think would be a good time to, here's exactly the scope, here's the work that's going forward in the consultant contract and specific dates.

Another one in January, which would follow the data collection, and then in April, which would be about the time that the American nations are coming back to make sure that council and the public get that opportunity.

Plus, it obviously is going to be in front of any member terms in the other public meetings.

So that's our suggestion about how to look at different issues involving the dredging study of reading up to date about what council had talked about in May and what we see is about to be contracted for, which is very much in keeping with what the city council had requested.

Daniel, is that you?

I got the list there, Judy Kent.

There were three members of the city staff, Lauren Hildebrand, Marty Klins, and myself.

There was a representative from the Albemarle County Service Authority, Mark Graham, the county engineer from the county, Tom Frederick from Rivanna, and Chuck Kent from Rivanna and the two citizens.

Two I must say.

Did I miss somebody?

Yeah.

Eight or ten?

The city had a majority on the committee.

Well, how do you get it?

That was discussed by the committee and we don't feel at this point that that's a good precedent to have an interview committee that oversees a consultant.

This is a Rivanna

The RFP specifically asked that monthly written reports be submitted to Rivanna and that the consultant would

would have one or more public meetings to summarize their work and to receive public comment.

But I think the fact that on an ongoing basis we'll be getting a report which had sent to me that Gary would try to make that public so they can pretty comment on whether to make sure we're not neglecting an important data point.

And I think the ability to be able to run this by some people we had on here have particular knowledge about dredging.

or about the process.

They could make sure they saw the reports and had a chance to comment, maybe be specifically asked by the mayor to offer comment.

I'm sure there's lots of people who would be glad to offer comment without being specifically invited.

But I think that's a pretty good process without, as the viewer says, setting some type of precedent for having

I think we don't want to have a too burdensome a process, you know, we'll hire someone to do a job for us.

I agree with what Ms. Carter has said, that there are review procedures in the warnings of the president.

We're paying for a portion of it and that becomes another issue of this is a joint between Rivanna, County Service Authority, and the city in trying to keep all that moving forward and you know the discussions that we've had about that before but this is a means to try to bring everybody together to keep all the different pieces coming forward so that you and the other boards will have the opportunity to

I mean, isn't the basic concern here that some people are worried that this study, despite our best efforts, will morph into a study of maintenance dredging?

And I think if we get monthly, we have someone on Rivanna

We have an active and interested mayor.

We have a member of city council.

I think we have safeguards in place to make sure we don't suddenly find this high-paid consultant who's not doing the job we asked.

I think for me, I just wanted to hear from our Rivanna representatives, which I heard tonight, that there's no question in their minds and there's no question in Rivanna's mind that this is fully intended to be a feasibility study of full restorative dredging, full water supply of the Rivanna reservoir, not simply a study of selective dredging for maintenance of the reservoir.

Absolute clarity on that point tonight.

I think everybody understands that that's what this study is intended to do.

I've heard a commitment that the citizen representatives that we had on the interview committee will be engaged and involved, continue to be engaged and involved in this review process.

There will be plenty of opportunities for public input, for council input and guidance as this review, as this study moves forward.

As long as we all stick to those commitments, I think we'll be fine.

But I think as Dr. Brown said, if we get a sense anywhere along the way that there's any wavering about any of those commitments, we will certainly step in and correct the ship's directions.

Any other comments, questions on this point?

All right, thank you very much.

You want to do Holly's item or the Stormwater one?

Either one.

I just wanted to just spend a moment thanking the city staff, Maurice Jones and my co-chair, Cindy Stratton for the leadership on the RAISE dialogue committee.

You know that we got information about the study circles that were done in Lynchburg and we decided that that would be a model that we would follow here and our committee has been meeting over the summer.

and in our last meeting we had a panel discussion that included Dr. Paul Gaston, Alicia Lugo, and Donald Martin and there was an opportunity to talk about the culture of the city during times of segregation and it removed the respect that I have for the leaders in the community that worked so hard during that time period and there was a lot of discussion about some of the things that we hope to see as a result of

the entire Lace Dialogue experience, most of which centered around education and we also talked about how the closing of the school affected all the children.

So there was the need to have a more diverse panel as we move forward with this.

So I'd like to hear from people that were

graduates of the Rock Hill Academy and some of the students that went to some of the private schools or the home schools and the schools that were in the churches because of the school closing because all the children were affected in all parts of our community.

Our next meeting will be August 27th at 5.30 at Mount Zion First African Baptist Church.

The committee felt that having different meetings and different

Vendors around the city also help to just learn more about the city as a whole and it was just an attitude of diversity as well.

We hope to have a kickoff that first week in December, actually.

have the consultant in place and an event that we can engage the entire city in.

And the key to this is getting participation from every part of the city and to make sure that everybody feels as if they're included in the public comment that we had from

This journey speaks to the need to have a meaningful and substantive conversation about race and its perception in our community.

So I know that everybody was busy during the month of August.

I didn't even try to get in touch with a couple of people to see if they could attend the panel discussion.

And so as we move on with other activities, I'll let you all know about it.

Thank you, Ms. Edwards.

I appreciate your leadership on that initiative and our Assistant City Manager, Maurice Jones, and others that have been involved in pushing that forward.

We look forward to hearing more and participating more in those conversations.

Yes.

Mr. Brown, we have a successful city market, forest market on Long Street, and I don't know if you have been there in downtown, probably a week, I don't know if I've seen Mr. Brown quite regularly,

and I think around the country I've seen one of the spare towers and big towers have a very attractive forest market and we could use a facility like that and I'd like to spend the opportunity to talk to staff with them and the council to explore the possibilities on the two sides of the country and then again the court school

There is a possibility to have close to Koch Square over Saturday mornings to have one of the crowded property with parking lot is in the American Tower.

I would like to explore those among the other possibilities for much nicer location for the forest market than we have so far.

I went to the neighborhood leadership institute, one of the presentations.

It was one of the groups that actually presented, of course, Square as an option, I think, for the market.

I know that was a favorite sight of Mr. Svester's before he left.

Thank you, Mr. Huja.

Let's see.

Stormwater regulations.

You're going to talk about it?

I will, unless you want to introduce it.

Go ahead.

I think most of you

have been aware and have seen some of the comment going back and forth the last several months that DCR has proposed some additional stormwater regulations and there's been a lot of discussion about what impact they have on local governments and what impact they have on the local development community if they're implementing.

We've had our staff study and they actually, we didn't get our hands on the real regulations until July 22nd and the comment period is up on the 21st

this month.

We had to get a response in to DCR by then.

We reviewed them, spent a lot of time and the records were about that thick.

I left to go off for two weeks and left them with staff and it was the smartest thing I've done to come back to give me a report because they are very, very complex.

But we've done a lot of research and you may have seen several local governments in our area have taken resolutions that really blasted DCR for them and condemned the regulations.

We looked at them and feel like from the city of Charlottesville standpoint, we need to be supportive of these.

We feel like that they are part of the state's green initiative, that they are well thought out in a lot of ways as far as protecting the Chesapeake Bay and what they do for cleanup of the environment.

And we feel like with the stance we've taken, it would look pretty bad if we were to come out opposed to them.

That said, however, we think the letter ought to start out that we think that they're going in the right direction.

But we have some basic concerns about the impacts they have here and in other places, particularly in small urban areas.

And the Chesapeake Bay Foundation folks even admit that Charlottesville and Alexandria and one or two others are probably in a different boat than most of the state.

But we went through in the bullet points

and just to highlight what we see as concerns, we'd like to take the approach that we see as concerns

We feel like before they're fully implemented in 2011 that you need to address these and we'll be happy to work with you and hear some suggestions of what you might do.

One of them is that they would allow off-site credits to make up for work that can be done on a more urban site.

We feel like that's a great provision, they just don't spell out how that works and our concern that we've expressed to them verbally is that's a wonderful idea if you've got agricultural zone land and farmland

We don't have a lot of that.

We need to know if you anticipate us going to farms, what's the alternative for the city and our area.

The second bit deals with waiver provisions.

They say that waivers will be available.

However, they don't give you the criteria and given that you can be

taking the task by DCR for violating your MS4 permit, which is our stormwater management permit, if you've got a waiver that they don't approve of, we're concerned about that without that being spelled out because that is subject to $25,000 a day penalties and criminal action for violating that.

And so I think that even the most legitimate waiver, we'd be pretty concerned about getting that.

Any of you would, any of us even recommending

if they don't spell that criteria out.

It's not difficult to do, they just need to spell it out a little more.

They recognize that.

We're also concerned about the impact of these regulations on approved plans.

Right now, they're going in the direction that once it's taken back in 2011, if a plan doesn't have a building permit, then it's subject to it.

and we don't feel like that's fair and have raised this along with a lot of other communities that a site plan is good for five years it ought to cover any site plan that's legitimately been approved because this is an incremental increase in stormwater even though it's approved they're going to still have pretty significant stormwater improvements.

The other concern we have, another concern is that

We feel like we can absorb the additional inspection.

A lot of communities you may have read have said that this administrative burden to review plans would be very high and the cost that's provoked by this does not set it.

But we're already doing much more review than a lot of communities so it's not any additional review or inspection on the front end.

We are concerned that there's no funding there for the inspections that have to occur for the next 30 years that we'll have to make to make sure these things are maintained.

And then we also suggest that there are a lot of things in the guidance that goes along with the regulations about things we can do to encourage or incentivize developers that will help them offset some of the increased costs.

We suggest that the state also look at creating some and sharing that burden where they might look at incentives

tax incentives for things like green roofs, which can be used, or other B&Ps, but they share that burden.

That's more of a suggestion that they add that or that they get legislation to do that and look at the upcoming General Assembly session to do it, that those be added.

All in all, we feel like the regulation is adjournment.

The real impact in Charlottesville is it only impacts properties of an acre or developments for an acre or greater in size.

Just to put it in perspective, in the last two years we've had six of those

so out of some 45 site plans that have been approved so it's not, you know, it will be a very small minority of our developments but a couple of them that it will impact that, you know, just to make sure that we all understand are the water street lots if those were sold and developed that would probably be the most problematic piece of property to develop under these regulations but the cold tower if, you know, depending on when it proceeds, the Martha Jefferson properties but again we feel like those even though they're larger and they would be impacted they have some green space

and can absorb some of the increased development issues.

All in all, we don't feel like you'll have that much of a negative impact, but even if it's adopted, we feel like, for our sake and others, they need to address these areas that we've raised this concern.

If you'd like, again, this letter is drafted for the mayor's signature.

I have a question.

So it's anticipated that the Soil and Water Conservation Board will adopt regulations this fall?

Yes sir.

And so the part about site plans, the window, assuming that that's true, and assuming that they were persuaded by our logic of allowing existing site plans

not to be changed.

That is correct.

Our suggestion is that they exempt anything that was approved that was in and under review or approved prior to their adoption.

That would give something that was adopted and approved this month.

We'd give it theoretically until

August of 2014 to get built and not be subject to this.

But there might be a legitimate plan that's got, you know, maybe even has a phase already done.

We've addressed that and again I think that while most of their properties are over one acre and would be impacted they have enough green space already that they could absorb this.

The properties that are going to really have a difficult time really the one that keeps, we keep coming back here like the water street lot which is already 100% impervious surface.

If you've got an area like all of the housing authority properties do that have room for B&Ps

This simply, in large VMPs, you can put a green roof on.

You can do a lot of things that they've stated that they really want to do to address this.

Any comments or questions?

There's a motion on the floor to approve this law.

Any further discussion?

If not, please indicate your vote.

Thank you.

That concludes our business agenda for tonight.

We will now wrap up with a final public comment period.

Is there anybody from the public that would like to speak?

My name is Edith Ford, 305 Second Street, Northwest.

I'm going to speak to what Ms. Edwards said about a meeting, I believe you said August 27th, and we're looking for

Are they talking about having Rock Hill PeopleSpeak?

The August 27th is the next meeting of the steering committee.

Oh, okay.

I have a video of a thing that you probably know about that took place seven years ago at McIntyre Library put on by

Sheryl Blanton and her, Blanton I guess her name was, and Eugene Williams' daughter and a Ms. Daniels.

They had a video of a class reunion, the sophomore class of the year they closed the schools, the year that the 12th grade, this

It's confusing.

But anyway, there were walk home people who spoke at this.

It was a very, very moving get together of people from all sides of the school segregation issue.

And I just wondered if you knew about that.

Alicia Lugo heard for, she wasn't part of that class, but it was very, very moving.

Good evening.

I'm Peter Klayman.

I live at 407 Head Street in the city.

In fact, Head Street is two buildings north of the Juvenile and Domestic Court project, which has just opened.

And I am a frequent pedestrian because I live in the downtown pedestrian zone.

And I've had some conversations with the city traffic engineer about the pedestrian features around that development.

And I think they do not comply with the

I guess the resolutions that came out of the pedestrian safety commission or committee that was formed about a year ago and a final report was prepared.

I pointed out one of the big problems in pedestrianism in the downtown area is the visually handicapped or visually impaired, the bumpy pavement issues and having them oriented so that one could align on the bumps and enter into a

Desert Bay, Crosswalk, or whatever it might be.

installation of those kinds of facilities at the site is contrary to the site the old way.

We said, well, we're not going to be building things like that anymore.

We're going to have them aligned.

They're not going to be diagonal-ing people right out into the middle of an intersection or into the middle of the street.

So I contacted the city traffic engineer about that and said, well, what's going on?

She's the traffic engineer and was the chairman of that committee, so I was not unaware of those findings.

So my request was that perhaps these things could be oriented correctly.

I did it when I first saw the construction going in, so it looks like this is not going the right way.

Now would be a good time to make the correction before it's put in place.

But there are several hazards, one being as you're entering that site along High Street, you have a crosswalk, you enter the crosswalk area and the end of the crosswalk is about the highest curb that I know of in Charlottesville.

But there is a ramp, but you have to go out into the street to get the ramp that's one of these diagonal misoriented ramps.

So my concern is that's a city project.

And I could see how there might be grandfathered issues that were just mentioned in the last item you talked about.

But the city is the client in this case and I was disappointed that the city staff couldn't remedy that situation and implement rules.

Apparently the site plan was approved certainly before those regulations came, or those desires were known.

But within the city it would seem to me that it could be resolved.

And so I'm going to request that

You ask the staff to look at all the other city projects, if nothing else, and say, are there other ones that are not going to comply with the future of pedestrian safety guidelines and have those corrected in a timely manner?

I know it might take a little bit of staff time, but there aren't that many pedestrian crossings.

The other concern about that site, there are a number of crossings on both sides.

of High Street that have ramps and these guidance bumpy pavements that don't enter onto crosswalks and there's no place to pick up on the other side.

So there are a number of dead-end kinds of pedestrian guidance ways, and I think that's a bad precedent to have those put in, especially in new projects that are going to be used by many people in the community because they are the city courts.

Thank you, Mr. Cleanbrier.

Absolutely.

You're right.

We have realized this.

The plans were done according to the site plan.

But sometimes when you do something, this has been a very long project, sometimes when you do something that seems very right at one portion and then you come to the very end and you say, oh my God, this is just not

Not right.

So Mr. Tolbert's department and my department are working with the traffic engineer and we will solve these issues.

It's a matter of people did what the plan said to do but the rules have changed and several other things have changed and once we got out there at the very end when everything was put in at the last minute you kind of look at this and that honestly we looked at it and said

Ooh, why didn't anybody catch this?

And it's one of those things that look right on paper, and it's not right, and we understand.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Kleeman.

I already got a negative comment from the North Downtown resident who was on 4th Street saying about the poor job of landscaping at that site.

And so I went ahead and forwarded it on to people at Parks and Rec, like John Wayne, and Mark Minklow.

I didn't know I should forward it to them, it was really a bit.

So it was apparently some major problem with the order with the landscaping in.

The other thing I wanted to say is, and I didn't forward it to council, I feel like the staff should take care of that, the extraordinary regulations only really pass the letter that you're going to send to the state.

It's a totally separate issue.

This is for new development and it's not related to the other one.

Thank you for allowing more public comment.

It's getting late and I appreciate your patience, so thank you very much.

My name is Kasey Tolbert and I am a resident of the Altamont building, Altamont Circle off of High Street.

I'm here on behalf of the residents of the building

to ask that the City Council support our request to increase the number of zone 4 parking permits allotted to the residents of that building.

Right now we allotted 19 permits for a building that houses around 40 people, most of them adults.

The street became zone 4 permit only last year and at that time it was kind of first come first serve and so a lot of

residents were not able to obtain permits and could not park on their own street.

The reason I come to you now is that this year the neighborhood planning office and our property management company decided that the first way to handle the limited parking issue was a lottery.

The property management company announced this solution on August 6th.

new permits go into effect at the end of the month.

The lottery was supposed to be today, but our property manager wisely postponed it because of this petition signed by residents of the Altamont upset about both the lack of sufficient members, both the lack of permits allowed and also the lack of time to prepare in case one did not win the lottery.

for lack of a better phrase.

I understand that both our property manager and the neighborhood planning office are making the best of a bad situation.

I don't know if you guys know the Altamont Circle, but it looks like a one-way street, but it's not.

That's how sort of narrow it is and that's how limited the space is.

Parking has always been a problem on this street ever since I moved into the building five years ago.

but 19 permits for the 40 people in the Altamont building is just not enough.

I'm not saying that we should allot 30 permits for everybody in the Altamont, but let's just not say 19.

Let's see how many people apply and then work with that.

No one who lives in the street and pays property taxes on his or her vehicle should be denied the chance to park on the street.

We're not asking for personal parking spots.

We're just asking not to be denied the chance to park on the street where we live.

This is my first council meeting, so I don't know.

We have the expert here.

It would require an amendment of the code.

There's a formula set for multifamily properties that's based on the number of spaces provided by the property and the number of units.

I don't have the formula off the top of my head, but it is in the code.

Any change you made would not just affect

Altamont, it would affect every multifamily residential development in every part of the city that we have.

They're parking on High Street, but it's, I mean, High Street is a long street, so they're parking basically wherever they can, parking at friends' houses.

I know one person who got

She actually walks to work, which is the most tragic part about this, but she actually walks to work and she has to move her car every day because she parks there at night hoping that nobody finds her.

and then has to sort of move her car in the morning.

And before this, before the permit parking only came into effect, I mean like I said, we've always known that parking on this street was a challenge, but residents have always kind of

If you got the spot right in front of the building, it was like a good day.

If you had to park down by the church, then carry your groceries, well that's just part of the

that's part of living at the Altamont building, you accepted that but to be permanently denied the chance to park I think is a little bit too much and I also have to say that Altamont has very little of its own parking the building is very very old and it wasn't meant to it wasn't thinking about parking when that whole circle was designed and so I understand that there are certain equations that

need to be taken into account and certain standards need to be taken into account.

I have a question.

How many parking spaces?

There are four in the front

and maybe five downstairs.

When the person did the assessment, they counted as two spaces, basically one car in front of another.

And that's just, I mean, if you can't get out of your parking spot, that doesn't work.

We can very well, I'll get with Ms. Alexander and Ms.

Branch tomorrow and have them look at the calculations and make sure that they're correct to see if that's the number as it stands right now.

The other thing I would suggest is that they probably ought to go ahead and work out a formula right now to get those people that can get the 19 the 19 because come September 1st nobody's going to be able to park there.

that lives in the building and of course there's no way council can resolve this if you even wanted to make an ordinance change before early October so as a temporary measure they may want to go ahead and

give them their landlord and go ahead and allocate those permits in some form or fashion.

That's typically what we do.

We let the landlords, in most cases, do the allocation.

It's their building.

Well, I mean, our property manager is very much on board of getting more spaces.

She doesn't, she thinks the number, I mean, that's what they were trying to do with the lottery is somehow allocate it in a fair way because people were, you know, in a

One is, I assume that this went to permanent parking because people who didn't live out on St. Albemarle Circle

So if it's helped considerably, are there generally unused spaces in the zone or would this just mean more people would now have a permit and could compete for spots at someone else's expense?

I mean, do you see what you're saying?

If you try to park in the Altamont Circle, if you come home, and let's say it's like 10 or 11 at night, you're probably going to have to park by the church.

You're probably going to have to park by High Street.

Even with a permit, that's kind of what happens.

So during the day, there's plenty of free space.

There's a lot of unused space during the day.

The other thing is that, speaking of the residential, the houses around there, I'm not advocating that you guys, their houses, their property owners, they get parking, but they also use their guest passes

and to park their cars permanently in the spot.

So there are ways that the residents of the building get, we don't get our fair shot at parking.

And of course,

We live in the city of Charlottesville, we should take public transportation, we should limit our carbon footprint, all of that.

But that would be great if we had sufficient time to prepare.

Right now, for example, I assumed when I saw the

when I signed my lease again, that I would be able to just renew my parking permit.

And now I am learning that in two weeks I might not know what to do with my car.

And so all of the residents are quite frightened about the whole thing, and I'm sure people in your office have heard what I was calling.

That's essentially what the permanent parking does, but I can tell you if you do that, those six or eight single family houses there, if you take any of them away and don't give them a shot, you're going to have the same thing down here.

This is because if you, they're all designated public, everybody has, you know, permanent parking doesn't guarantee you a parking place.

How many spaces are there outside of the six or however many residential units?

How many other spaces are there on the circle?

We've got, I don't have it in my head.

Jeannie has counted all of them.

She knows how many spaces there are.

She knows how many single family permits there are.

How many multifamily permits there are.

And there are a lot more permits already than there are spaces.

That's why.

The Redman clock is difficult to find a parking place.

We can take a look at it.

This is not something new.

We've been through this on a number of other residential, multifamily residential until they got used to it.

The landlords generally don't like to have to allocate it because it puts pressure on them and so they don't like to do that, but that's the fair way to do it.

Again, I would emphasize for anybody that lives there though, they probably need to go ahead and do something

right now pending you making any decision because if not nobody's going to be able to park there legally without a permit after September 1st when the police start enforcing because that's when the ones that have already bought their permits will be parking the new year changes and it's a restricted parking zone so it may not be the best situation until we can come back to you with a report and you might be able to add more or do something but

But he's only got 19 permits to allocate.

That's the way the formula is, only given in 19.

I think the second part of your question is could they simply reserve 19 spaces for tenants of the building and then let them find out, give them all permits?

I think that's what you're asking is for equal opportunity, equal chance to park there if the space is available.

Or could we just extend, could we get all, could we all get guest classes?

Could we all be guests of the Albemarle?

Something where it was a temporary solution

Yeah.

Well, yeah, I'm less thrilled about changing the formula because I just cut open a whole can of worms for the whole city, but I do think there's got to be a way when you have such a landlocked property like this where

So that would give you a reprieve for the 19 people to have them now.

I would suggest you kind of...

We just need to take a very measured approach to this and realize that what you do here has impact elsewhere.

And also that they're not the only people living on that street, they're in the houses.

Do you have something else you want to say?

Well, is there any way that people who got left out on spaces last, because there was no indication that we only had, last year that's another thing, there was no indication that we only had 19 spaces, they just put up a sign that said

Well, the street is now zoned for permanent parking, go get your permits.

And everybody was like, oh, 25 bucks?

You know, 25 bucks.

We thought that that was great.

But then we got, you know, I got there, I got my permit, it was fine.

And then just the people who didn't get there on time didn't get their permits.

That's I think what we're going to try to address and I don't know how successful we're going to try to address by looking at the way the system is working now in Altamont but I think your initial concern was legitimate which is what about the people that already have a plan in place and are going to have to come up with something quickly

My suggestion is let's work with the property owner to say we're going to give you a reprieve.

A woman that's already in the dilemma of having to move her car

she doesn't have a plan that she's going to have to find the plan B for.

The plan has been to get lucky this year.

Right.

And it may well be at the end of the day after all is said and done that they go to the lottery in three months and at least that's given you a few more months to figure out what your plan B would be.

But I'd say in an immediate short run the best we can do is to encourage them to

Okay.

Thank you for bringing it to our attention.