City Council Meeting   2/1/2010

Music playing in background

Here.

Yes.

Here.

Take it away.

And, Mr. Plunkett, you had received this?

Thank you.

Anything you'd like to say, Mr. O'Connell?

But thank you everybody, I do appreciate it.

Any other announcements from other councilors or items to be added under other business mistakes?

Thanks.

Other announcements?

This is the time now to pay attention to the grades, and I'm going to share them.

They're good.

So the next time you see them,

Let's have a conversation about that.

Dr. Taylor, Charlottesville High School has been very open to hearing from parents, so feel free to give him a call if you have any concerns.

The first person who signed up to speak tonight is Colette Hall.

And as we start I bake these things and I put them down there every time and nobody eats them and that makes me very sad.

And they're really good.

Can you save a few?

Thank you.

Brenda Parrish.

Thank you very much for your listening ear.

Thank you for your time and think about what we ask.

Dee Dee Smith.

Thank you.

Jane Foster.

continue to support us.

Mr. Kleeman.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Kleeman.

Anybody else like to speak?

Who would like to go first?

I went to some of the housing hearings during the process of doing the master plan or whatever that was called and I was really impressed with how many people were out and so I think that speaks well for that whole project.

Ms. Edwards?

and I guess the biggest issue is that this is so not Vinegar Hill and if you all had been around then I am certain that the urban renewal process would have had a completely different outcome so I would be supportive of making sure that your efforts continue in a way that's meaningful and that we can craft a plan that would be sustainable

And I think that's it for now.

But I will just, I'll just take the opportunity to thank Ms. Parrish, Ms. Woodfolk, Ms. Foster, and everyone else from FAR for coming tonight.

Thank you.

I think we did have a chance to talk about how to do things better and we also had a snowfall by the third size of the last snow.

And it was 46 degrees yesterday.

And it was 46 degrees, so I don't really have the impression they didn't really put their hearts into it last time because I think we all know they did.

Is there a motion to approve or a request to remove any items?

632, Preston Place, be removed.

We have our Parks Director, Brian Daley.

I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have regarding the project this evening, and I'm joined tonight by Crystal Ridwold, our environmental administrator, and Mr. George Barlow, who is counsel for The Nature Conservancy.

Mr. Huja.

Not quite clear, are these not permitted or permitted?

Correct, the third bill, it says no commercial industrial or agricultural uses.

So my question was, we used to allow in parks, vegetable gardens for people to have that, and we can't have that anymore?

and what's commonly called the fairgrounds behind the Old English Inn, that is not part of these parcels.

You will not be allowed to do that in these parcels.

You will not be allowed to do that in these parcels, that's correct.

Most of these parcels are wooded, right?

There's probably not much opportunity for any kind of effect.

Very, very little.

Thank you Mr. Daly, we'll open the public hearing on this matter and once again when you come forward give your name and address, keep your comments to three minutes, the first person and the only person to sign up to speak is Colette Hall

the state of Virginia, Commonwealth of Virginia.

Thank you.

Ms. Smith?

Thank you.

Mr. Brown, can you address the first question that was raised about the constitutionality of an easement to a private organization, please?

I think that's specifically contemplated under the enabling legislation.

and I don't know if Mr. Riddervall or Mr. Daley wants to address the question Mr. Smith raised about were other organizations considered and what's the benefit of Nature Conservancy versus the Soil and Water Conservation?

Thank you very much.

Situation is sort of serving as an agent of the state or for a pro state program.

Is that?

Yes.

Any other comments or questions or a motion to approve?

I make a motion to move the conservation easement for these three properties.

I'll second.

Okay, next on our agenda is a report from our Neighborhood Development Services and Housing Advisory Committee on Affordable Housing Strategy, Melissa Chelly.

And the third option is to increase the ratio of supported affordable units in the city to 15%.

I'm sorry, so the current ratio is about 10%?

Of course the budgetary impacts of the various goals are dependent on which goal the council pursues, obviously to increase to a higher ratio would involve more funding.

Thank you.

Questions for Ms. Chelly or comments?

Are we supposed to act on this report today or are you just receiving it?

and try to get a sense of where counsel is.

But the resolution does not include, at least what I read, the third option at all.

Is that correct?

Correct.

It's setting a goal for 15 years.

I wasn't sure I was, I thought that's what you meant, the fourth one through.

Each one of those has many implications.

Oh yeah.

That's correct.

Can I ask a question before we get too far into these details?

Is that a change this year or was that in the last affordable housing report?

It's essentially a unit that has some sort of subsidy or mechanism like a subsidy such as tax credits which have very strict guidelines on who can live there, what income, what rents can be charged or some sort of mechanism like a deed restriction that is a way that we can quantify at any given time if we were to run a snapshot we can say okay this is where we're at, this is where we need to go

And so this would not necessarily include, say, some people in the private sector who have pledged to make a certain percentage of their property affordable, or does it include that?

We proffer.

and how does it deal with home-owned that then becomes market rate when the person who brought it with assistance sells it?

We have expiration terms and so that would be part of our monitoring if say a unit had a deed restriction of five years during that 15 years that five years expires we would no longer count that as a unit towards our goal.

By this definition we're mostly talking about low income affordable housing

It's any unit that is affordable to an individual or household that's making less than 80% of the area median income and spending no more than 30% of their income on housing.

What is the change or is there any change in numbers of supported affordable units now compared to 2004?

We know where we are, whereas in 2004 it was a lot harder to really understand what was there, what did we have, and where should we go.

I can tell you if you need it.

My hunch is that that doesn't mean just people who are low income, it means people who are below

And so that's by no means extremely poor or poverty, but it is indeed low income for this community.

I'm looking at this and finding my family income in here.

I think a lot of people, when they actually see this table, are a little surprised by what it means to be low income in Charlottesville.

you know folks who are teachers and nurses and you know firefighters in the kind of core of our community being able to afford housing here and I think this really addresses that in a really concrete way.

Is that correct?

Actually, Boulder's report, I believe their goal was 10%.

I know there were some that were

I think Burlington, I'm trying to remember some of the other communities.

In other words, the committee looked at a range of cities and the goals that they had established for their own housing programs.

So we're a little bit more conservative that we don't want to call a unit affordable unless we truly know it's affordable.

The impact it has on our properties currently and what it will mean when those tax credit properties expire.

That was fine.

subsidized properties and knew about the Charlottesville Development Housing Authority but there are 202 units at Blue Ridge Commons also.

But they receive certain, and I forget the name of it, but there is some sort of HUD subsidy that makes those rents affordable.

Okay, so different from a Section 8 voucher?

Friendship Court has tax credits, and then it also can take Section 8 vouchers.

Did the task force discuss subsidized housing in our locality versus other localities, the region as such?

that there is a need just looking at Charlottesville by itself whether or not that needs impacted or increased because of the surrounding counties we didn't really get into but we just know just Charlottesville as an island has a need and

And that report was done two years ago, three years ago now?

2006, I think.

And then, yeah, I think that's really the question before us tonight.

but I think that even at 12% we're moving in the right direction and so I know we need to have some discussion of economic realities but I think that this is, I really appreciate the work you've done because it makes it, I think when it's a nebulous thing it's really hard to make decisions and this makes it really clear how to make these decisions so thank you.

Ms. Edwards?

Housing is another area of infrastructure that we should make an equally wise investment.

Could you tell us what is the amount of funds we are now allocating for housing?

This past fiscal year I believe it was $1.4 million and with CDBG funds we got roughly $550,000 from HUD Is it part of the $1.4 million?

That's in addition to the $1.4 million The current fiscal year is $1 million for the Charlottesville Housing Fund That's correct So what is the other $400,000?

That was from last year, I forgot that the SRO took that I'm used to working within the $1.4 million budget

This year it's $1 million.

Next year to be decided.

A million and a half and $500,000.

So this year it's only that one part?

It's $1 million out of the general fund.

And then there's CDBG on top of that.

Thank you.

You can correct me if I'm wrong on that but

Well we actually did put that stipulation in the funding for the, thanks to you, put that stipulation in the funding for the low income housing support that you do have to be a city resident to qualify.

I thought there were some of them where it was just in proportion to how much our match was for looking at federal funds.

That's how we do the community development funds, but for the local housing funds it's attached to a very strict definition of who can apply.

So we can do it for our own money but not with the hard money basically.

I'd rather set a reasonable number and then be able to surprise ourselves by upping it when we realize the budget is capable of that.

It supports our community.

I think that's a pretty reasonable goal and now we would have to set our minds to how to achieve it.

It's not that far off from the money we're talking about.

And other federal, state, regional, and private sources.

Can I ask another question?

Of course.

You said that the CDBG funds can't be specifically targeted for city residents?

Well that should be easy for us to be able to figure out then if we make sure

I know we've done some of that over time, but maybe we need to be a little more creative as to how that can work as well.

Maybe we should have a resolution adopted so that it will be part of the official record.

Yes.

So the change is in two to fifteen percent and three as you said.

Is there a second?

I'll second.

And here to present is the Executive Director of SET Authority, Randy Bickers, and the Chair of their Board of Commissioners, Jason Halbert.

Section 8, they have what's called a CMAP score.

I think that's the big debate right now is how many and where and density and all those things.

And potentially market rate out.

Board Chair Jason Halbert to talk about 2010 and the future.

Thank you.

Questions, comments from Councillors?

Is there a plan to bring through another class?

So we'd be looking to foundations or other ways to get that money.

I think it's definitely a fundable project.

And we've already got a list of residents asking for getting in the queue for the next program.

When I first came to City Council, as you may remember, we visited the West Haven and there were a lot of concerns and there were great improvements from that time and I'm looking forward to seeing it more so happening in a place where I would love to live myself and be called a good neighborhood.

I'm sure there's some out there, but that's going to be sort of a 2010 focus for the Housing Authority.

Can you comment on that?

But that's what our discussion at our board level has been as far as obligating or designating Section 8 vouchers to the SRO program because right now we just don't have any additional ones that we could give.

Let me ask if funding does become available, would you be willing to give some to SROs then?

There's certainly been discussion at that level about that.

You can look at it either way, from either angle.

And so that can be done by the city also at times.

It hasn't resulted always in any good things.

But I know it's premature at this point to say exactly what that resolution will be.

But I think getting creative is the way to go.

Other questions, comments?

A pipeline of people that will be moving out of poverty that won't need the Section 8 voucher so that more vouchers will become available because people are going to become more self-sufficient.

We have to hire a coordinator, that's the first step, and then get families enrolled and establish goals and it requires quite a bit of case management follow-up so that, especially as we start the program, the load can't be too high, these would be overwhelming, but I think it's in that range of this first year, and then of course it runs for years until they meet their goals, but that's where we're headed with this first year's funding.

You may not have the numbers here but I just thought about it because I'd be interested in knowing how many vouchers you issued last year and then how many were turned back because people weren't able to find, weren't able to use it.

the income doubt of the voucher or unfortunately some program violation we may have ended their participation in the program but just off the top of my head I don't think it's a big issue and we extend time periods to search with the voucher it's not usually a big issue finding right now but we're not issuing a bunch of vouchers so it's not like we're flooding the market with section 8 voucher holders

I know it's not easy because of HUD.

You're talking to two different agencies there.

I think that would be a much easier transition for us obviously than the other

any waiting list serves the other areas and so I think that would be it would certainly be worth looking at because you do get a certain amount of administrative dollars per voucher and the more that you could stretch those dollars by creating efficiencies I think it it makes sense.

Oh, speaking of which, Mr. Bickers, I don't know if you've already done this, but can you make sure that we get an electronic copy of the presentation you just made so we can upload it to our council website?

Thank you very much.

You're going to do your PowerPoint first?

Yes.

It's actually going to be integrated with everything.

All right.

Can it be here?

Yeah.

I just need to click here, right?

Okay.

But if the council is still interested in having a transit charrette, I certainly want to let you know from the staff perspective, I think that would be a great thing to do.

Who would like to start?

Is that something that would be

Is that what you were asking?

I was really thinking about could it be like, you know, a 730, an 830, a 930

As I indicated last time,

go to Kenwood which at least covers both sides of the street, both sides of the neighborhood and maybe take out five minutes extra which it will take from the center of the south part of the town route that way it will be in my mind it will be money neutral and give some service to the north part of the town and I don't know if I'm making myself clear or not

You're asking if we could take the existing service that goes to Charlottesville High School and extend it a little bit further, you mentioned Kenwood, into Greenbrier and somehow clip off something at the south end of it to compensate?

Well, Route 9 is the service that goes to the high school and it was, I'll characterize it as a very careful

I think what would happen is that we would make the route run late at peak times.

Second one, I would also like to see a new route serving Greenbrier, downtown and university and not going to the south part, just that part and running it, my understanding is that you could do that in half an hour, I don't know if that's possible, you may want to test it out

And sort of in a nutshell, that's why what I showed you in terms of a line, rather than being repetitive of what we're doing with Route 9, I showed Greenbrier being connected to Fashion Square and to Berks Road Shopping Center.

I would still like to see at least a proposal for Greenbrier neighborhood with downtown and New York City and not going to south part of the town but just going north part of the town linking those two points

which two points?

Greenbrier to downtown or university basically what I would tell you is that that definitely cannot be done in 30 minutes but it certainly could be done it's just a matter of funding I'd love to see what proposal could be done other comments, questions?

And I think that that's something that we should be very proud of, but I think it's something we'd like to also encourage the folks around us to do.

As to your question of Charette, I think it is long overdue, but I would like to see Charette to be not just using the existing system of transit but also trying to see if it could be a totally new system of transit in our community and not just fiddling around with what we have.

Dr. Brown?

First I'd like to thank you for having the buses run during the, on Saturday when it was snowing and again today right after the snow.

With chains on and everything.

You can correct me on that if I'm wrong.

but we wanted an assurance that there would be public access to the university routes as a replacement.

So I think for me the answer to the second part in terms of direction needs to wait till April before it's really clear to me what, you know, I'm also trying to expand transit as much as we can.

roots you are suggesting changes in, even though they are revenue neutral.

particularly strong negative, they'll make sure they let you know that as well as certainly letting me and other CTS staff know that.

At least we ought to make it time to talk to them.

Yes, that's exactly what will happen.

So what we can do tonight is say that we support the basic principle kind of contingent on that.

That's what I'm hoping they will do.

Any other questions or comments?

I would still like to explore the possibility of a route 9 change, but just don't at least explore that possibility.

Oh, I'm sorry.

And I guess if you're going to be talking to neighborhoods, if changing that existing route isn't feasible, at least having a conversation with the Greenbrier neighborhood about transportation to see whether or not having access to downtown, the UVA, would be something that the neighborhood would value.

I'm presuming that the county's not offering any money to compensate us for this significant increase in transit service to the county, is that correct?

They are not.

One thing, when I'm looking at Route 1B, I think that we're not so much reducing service within the city, we're taking some service out of the county and putting it in another part of the county.

No, that's not the case.

Is this pink or this green section here that's left green?

That's all highway essentially.

Have you asked the county at all?

The county is supportive of the idea, in other words they like the idea, but they're not offering funding.

and partly I'm a little biased because it's my neighborhood that's going to be losing transit access if this proposal is implemented.

Do you want to talk about that some more?

I don't live too far from that area myself.

And maybe that's worth the trade-off, but I do think...

I think we ought to talk to the residents first before we do the change.

And the trade-off that you're talking about, the making of the 3 and 6 run more often costs $55,000.

That's correct.

So going back to the charrette again, I would like to see the charrette happen soon and not wait till summer because summer is not the best time to have charrettes when people are leaving town and have it maybe in springtime and have it with a very open mind of thinking of new and creative ways of providing better service and not just rehashing what we have so it will be kept open that way also Is that a possibility?

But there's a lot of question marks hanging over it right now.

Finish the budget process and all that?

If you were to pay anybody, if you were to come somebody, you would pay expenses at least.

But we haven't had any volunteers as of yet.

I have one for you.

So it's not paired with another route?

At night it is paired with, actually during the day it is as well, the east market loop which is the 1A is paired with the 1B and at night it's paired with a Pantops loop because there is no east market surface at night.

So I guess my question is if you're on the downtown mall and you were to get on the proposed Route 1B, it would take you 15 minutes to get to the community college or 30 minutes?

It's about 35 minutes goes to that leg and about 25 minutes goes to the 1A.

It would retrace its route to get back to the dining hall.

In terms of being easy to understand how the route works, I think it's marginally better.

I mean you were able to accommodate more people on the route.

So yes, the answer is we could do it that way, and it would ultimately be sort of your decision whether you think a loop route would be a better way to go.

I know that there's a crosswalk there and just park it in front of the building across the street and go the other way.

So far, no go, but that's something that would make a lot of improvement in reducing the amount of sort of winding around the downtown area to get headed where you're going, particularly if you're heading someplace like PVCC.

And the clearance is not enough for a bus right now.

But you're suggesting that it's possible to revise the clearance limit?

I'm sure it can be done, it's just a matter of how much would it cost to do it.

To change the grade, it relates to the parking garage also, very close to that point.

I'm talking about 1B.

In terms of the other proposed budget neutral suggestions, assuming you talk to the neighbors and neighborhoods and don't get any big pushback, I think you're getting general support from council.

I know this is a lot of work, so thank you, and I know we'll give you a lot more work, so thank you in advance.

Talking about the funding issue, could you give us some idea on how it would change in terms of time, because the funding's spent on time, right, in terms of time in the county versus the city?

1B is revenue neutral.

My question is, the issue Mayor Norris has raised is that this is increasing the amount of time spent in the county versus the time spent in the city, right?

I think that's fair to say.

Okay, and time spent is how we determine how the county pays for their buses, is that...

In some instances we've had some success and not complete success.

Is there a dollar per minute kind of formula that you use?

It's not quite that precise and it's only been applied in some instances.

I guess the information I'm asking for is if this were a normal world, how much money would Albemarle County be expected to chip in with this kind of a change?

I can certainly put together a calculation that is consistent with what we've done with cost sharing to date, but I don't have that now.

Thank you, Mr. Morrison.

Dr. Lillian Peek, Director, thank you for being with us tonight.

So I just want to share with you, let's see, I have a PowerPoint so I don't know if you can't see it from where you are, sorry.

Can you hear me?

And now, Holly, do you want to introduce Sheila?

I just wanted to give Sheila early an opportunity to come forward and tee up the DVD presentation that we'll get a chance to see.

I heard the statistics, they were really startling to me and I wanted to do something about it and I was one of the people that was in the focus group to address this issue and so I wanted to do something creative and informative to highlight the issue in the community

So I hope that you'll understand through what we're showing, you know, what the issue is in the area.

Black babies are dying in disproportionate numbers and we have to do something to stop that.

We want to decrease the low birth weight and high infant mortality in the Charlottesville area.

Like I'm not ready for this really.

But you don't understand what's really behind it.

Healthy people create a healthy community.

The components of the We Are Empowered project is street theater, interviews with medical professionals to make the community more aware of infant mortality and low birth weight.

We recently conducted a community health assessment in Charlottesville and we did find that the infant mortality rate for African-American infants in Charlottesville is three times as high as the infant mortality rate for white infants.

And that's where we need to shift our attention.

And when we see infant mortality rates that are particularly high, we have to look at that and wonder, you know, what's going wrong that a group of women in our community aren't having as good of results as another group?

We've got to take care of women and their families throughout their entire life course so that you have healthy women, because healthy women have healthy babies.

The elements that it takes for a woman to have a healthy pregnancy are, in a sense, indicators of what's available in the community.

But I think it basically boils down, if you had to put it into a nutshell, I believe it has everything to do with racial discrimination.

for African American women to be able to live in healthy environments and to access what they need to be able to be healthy.

I would recommend to any pregnant woman that they seek prenatal care as early as they are able to identify their pregnancy and to attend all of their prenatal appointments

I think she needs to have a doctor, midwife, someone who she sees on a regular basis for her prenatal care.

So once my mother found me missing, I caught up with all my prenatal care, visit the doctor the way I was supposed to.

concerned with stresses in their life such as substance abuse concerns or intimate partner violence or any kind of significant life stress that they talk with their health care provider about that.

We don't know exactly, no one knows the exact dose so to speak of alcohol that will give you fetal alcohol syndrome but we do know that at some point or another it can do that so it's just best to avoid it during pregnancy.

Prenatal vitamins and folic acid attend to good nutrition.

Gaining the appropriate amount of weight, eating the appropriate foods is a key part of having a healthy pregnancy.

Get a doctor or midwife, eat right, don't smoke.

And again, I really would encourage women to talk with their health care providers about those struggles so that we can help them to get through their pregnancy in the healthiest way possible for them.

Visit the doctor the way I was supposed to, took all my prenatal vitamins and I just focused on eating healthy, trying to prepare for a healthy baby.

is very, very important because the 24 hour a day, 7 day a week care of a baby is a huge job for a woman of any age and any circumstance.

The father can be supportive by learning about the pregnancy and learning what it takes to have a healthy outcome.

It's really about how to parent.

When my wife was pregnant, I went with her to her prenatal appointments to make sure she was taking her vitamins, you know, make sure she was eating right or eating at all.

Provide her with a home and a diet and a home that's free of violence, a home that's free of smoke.