City Council Meeting   10/1/2012

Here.

Mr. Huja?

Here.

Ms. Szakos?

Here.

I am privileged to sit on council with two women with absolutely gorgeous voices.

There's no place I'd rather be tonight.

There are a number of announcements which we will have today.

I'll start with the first one.

As a topic of much interest to me and the whole community,

Our tree commission is starting a first annual tree hunt.

It will be this month of October.

There are nine special trees in city parks which people can go and hunt for.

And to do that, you can go to www.sholletsville.org slash trees.

If you go there, you'll find the instructions and entry form.

So I hope you will take this time to go through this tree hunt.

and if you do well, there will be a reward at the end.

A special bonus for people who will take their children with them and will use transit.

So there's incentives for using transit and being around children.

If you don't have them, borrow some.

So it's really, the Tree Commission hopes that it will become an annual event, and I hope you all have fun finding trees.

Charlottesville is rich in trees, and especially these trees are special land trees in city parks.

So please go to, again, www.shoheartsville.org slash trees.

I'm pleased to announce recognizing the history of free and freed blacks in Charlottesville and Albemarle.

That will be October 4th, 7 to 9 p.m. in city council chambers.

A little known history of the local Charlottesville Albemarle community of free blacks prior to the Civil War and the heroic efforts of freed blacks to build community after the Civil War will be the topic of a panel discussion on October 4th.

at City Council Chambers.

Panelists will cover both local community history and personal and family histories.

This is presented by the Dialogue on Race History and Culture Action Team, the Brooke Brown Step Chapter of the African American Historical and Genealogical Society, and Celebrate250.

Second announcement, there will be three chances to join in a conversation with the sculptor of the Vinegar Hill Monument, commissioned by the Dialogue on Race and the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center.

Melvin Edwards is a pioneer in the history of contemporary African American art and sculpture.

His sculpture has been highlighted in exhibitions in Paris and Japan, and a retrospective of his work was presented in 1993 at the Neuberger Museum of Art in Purchase, New York.

He is the recipient of the Guggenheim Foundation and Fulbright Fellowships.

He'll be having conversations with the community on October 2nd and 3rd.

Tuesday, October 2nd at 2 p.m. in city space.

Tuesday, October 2nd at 6 p.m. Zion Union Baptist Church.

Wednesday, October 3rd at 6 p.m. city council chambers.

We have a National Citizen Survey coming up.

The city of Charlottesville is one of many jurisdictions in the U.S. to participate in the National Citizen Survey in 2012.

Within the next few weeks, questionnaires will be mailed to a random sample of 1,200 Charlottesville households asking for feedback on the quality and usefulness of city services.

The results will be included in a final report that the city officials and residents will use to guide future vision and goal setting processes and budgeting decisions.

So if you are among the 1200, I hope that you will respond.

It is sponsored by the International City-County Management Association in cooperation with the National Research Center.

The questionnaire and survey procedure were designed based on the experience of hundreds of local governments, ranging in size from small to large.

Scientific sampling and weighting of the responses in each jurisdiction will ensure accurate and reliable results.

Because each city survey is developed using a standard template and many cities can be surveyed at one time, the National Citizen Survey is a very efficient way to measure citizen opinion.

It is not our only way, but it's an important one.

We hope should you receive a survey in the mail that you will return it and share your opinion.

There are brochures on the back table if you're interested in more information.

And I have one more.

which is that absentee voting is underway.

Voter registration is still open until October 15th but if you are registered to vote and you won't be available to vote on election day,

You can vote absentee in person at the voter registrars now or you can vote absentee by mail now.

Registered voters who will be away from the city of Charlottesville on election day or who are unable to go to the polls because of illness or disability or work may vote by absentee ballot.

A voter can vote absentee if he or she is a student away from home, absent on business, personal business, or vacation.

Workers commuting to and from home for 11 or more hours between 6 a.m. and 7 p.m. on election day can also vote absentee.

Eligible citizens may vote in person at the office of the general registrar, which is right next door to City Hall.

And prior to election day, or apply to have an absentee ballot mailed to them.

For more information, contact the Charlottesville voter registrar at 970-3250.

We're on announcements, right, as opposed to proclamations.

I have one.

The first Charlottesville Community Career Conference will be this Wednesday, October 3rd, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the John Paul Jones Arena.

This all-day event will use panel discussions and other valuable resources to help educate job seekers on how to market themselves to top employers

in the local community.

Panel of industry experts will discuss such job paths as government, healthcare, hospitality tourism, professional careers, staffing

and Technology and Defense, all of which have been identified as growing job sectors in our community.

The event is free and open to the public.

However, pre-registration is recommended to ensure that you get to attend the industry panel of your choice.

And you can register online at our home page or our home site, charlottesville.org.

I have a proclamation.

Here it's Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

Whereas violence against women, children and men continues to become more prevalent as a social problem in our society,

and whereas the problems of domestic violence are not confined to any group or groups of people across all economic, racial and societal barriers and are supported by social indifference and whereas the crime of domestic violence

violates an individual's privacy, dignity, security, and humanity due to systematic use of physical, emotional, sexual, psychological, and economic control and or abuse.

with the impact of this crime being wide ranging and whereas in our quest to impose sanctions on those who break the law by perpetrating violence, we must also meet the needs of victims of domestic violence who often suffer grave physical, psychological and financial losses and whereas it is victims of domestic violence themselves who have been in the forefront of efforts to bring peace and equality to the home.

and whereas no one person, organization, agency or community can eliminate domestic violence on their own, we must work together to educate our entire population about what can be done to prevent such violence, support victims, survivors and their families

and increased support for agencies providing services to those community members.

And whereas the shelter for help in emergency has led the way in the city of Charlottesville in addressing domestic violence by providing 24-hour landline services to victims and survivors and their families, offering support and information and empowering survivors to chart their own course for healing

and whereas the Shelter for Help and Emergency commemorates its 33rd year of providing unparalleled services to women, children and men who have been victimized by domestic violence.

Is anybody here for shelter?

They're all at the vigil right now.

Maybe I should wait to read the last paragraph.

Now therefore be it resolved, in recognition of the important work being done by the Shelter for Health and Emergency, that I, Satyendra Singh Huja, mayor of the city of Charlottesville, do hereby proclaim the month of October 2012 as domestic violence, to end its months and urge all citizens

to actively participate in the scheduled activities and programs sponsored by the shelter, and to work towards eliminating of personal and institutional violence against women, children, and men, signed this date 1st October, 2012.

If nobody's here, we'll wait until a little later.

I have an award announcement.

I too have a proclamation.

This is a proclamation of Hispanic appreciation.

Whereas Hispanic-owned businesses in the City of Charlottesville continue to grow in number and contribution to our area's economy, and whereas Charlottesville City Council has long been a supporter of diversity in the workforce, in our schools, and in our community, and whereas it has recently been added to the City Council Vision Statement,

that in all endeavors the city of Charlottesville is committed to racial and cultural diversity, inclusion, racial reconciliation, economic justice, and equity.

And whereas the story of Hispanics in America is the story of America itself, the Hispanic community's values, love of family, a deep and abiding faith, and a strong work ethic are America's values.

And whereas Hispanics have enriched our culture and brought creativity and innovation to our economy,

and whereas as the city of Charlottesville celebrates its 250th birthday, Hispanics are recognized as a solid partner in our future, strengthening our city's promise and affirming the narrative of American unity and progress and whereas to honor the achievements of Hispanics in America, Congress authorized and requested the President to issue a proclamation designated September 15th through October 15th as National Hispanic Heritage Month

and whereas Forward Adelante, Virginia's first bilingual business magazine, is partnering with the city and the Celebrate250 steering committee

on October 23, 2012 in city space on the downtown mall to present their Chapter 6 networking event which will reflect Charlottesville's diverse entrepreneurs and whereas Forward Adelante and the city are pleased to present the first annual Chuck Lewis III Passion Award to the Lopez-Ornevas families, owners of Charlottesville's first Guadalajara authentic Mexican restaurant.

Hi, this is Thomas and Huja, mayor of city of Charlottesville, to hereby proclaim September 15th through October 15th, 2012, National Hispanic Historic Room, and call upon the people of Charlottesville to observe this time appropriate ceremonies, activities, and programs, signed and sealed October 1st, 2012.

I'm really proud of this proclamation.

Thank you for this honor on behalf of the Hispanic community, the local Hispanic community.

It gives me a great pleasure as a Hispanic, a citizen, business owner, realtor of the Charlottesville area and also greater Charlottesville area.

to accept this proclamation that sheds the light on the accomplishments of our local Hispanic community.

It is wonderful that diverse businesses, entrepreneurs and professionals are being recognized for their presence that adds a unique flavor to the city of Charlottesville and also they are

imparting a great significant contribution to the local economy.

Now in the spirit of celebrating the 250th anniversary, Forward Business Journal, again I repeat, will be presenting the first

Inaugural Chuck Lewis III Passion Award.

We, the Hispanic community, in many ways have benefited so much from that man that we admire and gave us so many opportunities to start up.

So I thought, we thought, no one else better to give an award to an immigrant family that came here and has done it so well, great family values,

It's just a great spirit among that family and success and that is the Lopez Ornelas family from the Guadalajara restaurant.

So it is all about diversity and we are going to gathering there at October 23rd at 5.30pm at the city space and the event will benefit the English for all

literacy volunteers, which is another great group that has been doing so much for our community at large.

So again, thank you so much, Major Huja, the Council, everyone, and the community.

Thank you so much for the honor.

Good evening Council and Mayor Huja and it's a wonderful evening to be with you to talk about Celebrate 250.

I'm here with Co-Chair

Steven Meeks and George Benford to just give you a quick update.

You're going to hear from us at the end of the year in your second meeting at the end of December about a full-blown report out, but this is really more focusing you on this final stretch.

Over two years ago, City Council

established a need and a process for celebrating the city's 250th anniversary and in doing so they set up a steering committee of 23 citizens and they set forth a whole course of action that's now played itself out in this whole year and now we're in the final stretch and we can hardly believe it.

What we want to do just in a couple of minutes is just do a quick recap of how we've gotten here.

We've had over 50 partners as a part of this project, including major events, the First Night Virginia, the Festival of the Book, the Where I Live series, and bike trips, and these are just a few.

The community, as we've heard tonight in the council meeting, Celebrate 250 has been tagged on to so many of Charlottesville's activities and all of Charlottesville's events and festivals have been uplifted because of this celebration.

The key organizations in town have also stepped up totally.

Our city schools have done a magnificent job of infusing the celebration and the history of this community within the school curriculum.

The University of Virginia, the Historical Society, the Visitors Bureau, all the major institutions have gotten on board and really elevated the activities.

Our local media partners, the Daily Progress, the Newsplex, and the Charlottesville Radio Group.

have done a lot to both get the word out, promote events, and also elevate the brand.

We're especially grateful for over 20 sponsors who brought their resources to the table, including Charlottesville Gas as our platinum sponsor, but also including major sponsors, including the University of Virginia, Wells Fargo, Comcast, the Visitors Bureau, and Brown's Automotive.

And you're gonna hear more and more about our sponsors as the rest of the year unfolds.

We're very grateful for the community volunteerism that's evolved and that's both people showing up to work events and doing the small jobs but also some major professionals at the table who brought their gifts free of charge.

And you'll be hearing from one of our volunteer efforts at the end of this presentation.

Good evening mayor and city councilors.

Mrs. Galvin has already mentioned the next sort of partnered event with the dialogue of race and the presentation of free blacks in the city.

That will be this Thursday.

This Sunday, we're actually, as one of the products of Celebrate 250, is live and out loud.

It's a forum for local talent, which will be held at the Martin Luther King facility at Charlottesville High School, and it's this Sunday starting at 6 o'clock.

So we would like to invite the entire community to come out for that.

Next week, on the 8th, there is a reception up at the Special Collections at the University of Virginia for an exhibit that they put together in Shostel's 250th anniversary.

That will be at 5.30.

There will be a short program and then

A reception with the exhibit.

That exhibit will be up at Special Collections until January the 3rd.

Also next week we're coming together to talk about a legacy project for the city.

something that Charlottesville will be coming together to put in place that will remind Charlottesville of its 250 years of heritage.

That will be held at City Space on October the 10th at 6pm and we're looking for community input as to what that legacy project or projects could be.

Something close and dear to me is another part of the event on October 19th through 21st and that is the Historical Society's 18th Annual Spirit Walk.

It's an opportunity for citizens in the community to interact and meet some of the people that preceded us in the community, either lived here or passed through Charlottesville over its 250 years.

I hope each of you can come out and join us for that event.

More information can be had by calling the Historical Society.

We also will have another partnership with Live Arts and with the Dialogue and Race to hold talkbacks along with the play, Clybourn Park.

We will also be working with the Jefferson School to try to obtain

and archive historic African-American oriented photographs of the city.

For the holidays, we're looking at sponsoring with the traditional parade, holiday parade that occurs in the downtown mall and the gingerbread Christmas.

Another activity that I'm highly involved with will be the burial of a new time capsule to be open 50 years hence and that will be on December 23rd and that will be at the Historical Society and then we will round out the year with another partnered event with First Night Virginia

So this is sort of where we wanted to finish because the gala weekend is the big hoopla.

It's the one big coming together and we started out with thinking about the official birthday which is November 12th but we decided why should it be one day when it could be a whole weekend so that's what's going to happen.

We're going to be tying into UVA football.

There's going to be a historic walk run through the historic district.

There's going to be a civic ceremony on the 12th itself, which is a Monday and also is Veterans Day.

So that actual ceremony will be happening there.

There will also be a prayer breakfast that morning.

So the

The big event, the big party will be on Sunday, November 11th and this has been something that's been in the planning for months and months and there's been a lot of press appeal around it and we thought we would bring our coordinator for that event, George Benford, who's done a great job in pulling it together to give you a few key points to remember and you're going to be hearing more and more.

Thank you.

Thank you all for your support of the 250th.

We are excited about November 11th.

Sunday night, starting at 5.30, will be a gala reception at John Paul Jones Arena, in which we're going to have all types of entertainment, food, drinks, everything else, a wonderful evening, followed by a show that will start at about 7 o'clock.

It'll be 180, will be our lead band into the evening, followed by Cool and the Gang.

and we're really excited about having them and obviously their major song, Celebration, is what it's all about.

And what I want you to realize in every one of our community, this is not just a show.

This is not Cool and the Gang concert.

This is not 180 concert, anything else.

This is a celebration of our community of 250 years being able to be a part of this wonderful, wonderful town we live in.

So the community needs to come out and support us.

This is a major effort.

This is what is funding all the other 250 events that we've been doing.

So we need your support.

We will have both tickets.

Any company or group that wants to buy 10 tickets of any combination will get a discount in doing so.

The tickets are available at John Paul Jones Arena.

You can save your handling fees if you go down there and get them, or you can buy them online through Ticketmaster, www.ticketmaster.com.

It's going to be a wonderful evening, lots of entertainment, not just what we've seen, but all the exhibits we've done this year.

We're going to have Charlottesville High School is going to be involved, Live Arts is going to be involved, Bob Mineta Jazz Band, we've got music galore, fun galore.

We need your support.

Please everyone buy tickets, attend the event, and let's have a wonderful time.

Thank you, George.

We can just finish up with what I mentioned before, which is that volunteerism has been a center point of this effort.

Several months back, we heard that there was an offering of a poem that an individual had written, and we have Miss Phyllis Potkins here to read that poem for you tonight, and I hope you'll enjoy it as much as we've enjoyed in receiving it.

So thank you for your time tonight.

Poetry has pictures.

I'd like you to close your eyes for a minute everyone and take one slow deep breath in through your nose and out through your lips and keep your eyes closed.

You're going to the mall, a Charlottesville treasure.

Why travel to Europe to sit outside a cafe when we have the downtown mall to enjoy beauty all day?

Delicious food is served with a canopy of trees above and we can people watch all we want, sometimes seeing a couple in love.

My favorite is the dog watching, all sizes, shapes.

and Breeds, walking quietly beside their masters, savoring the breeze.

And our eyes suddenly sparkle as we observe all the tables, where jewelry and colorful fabrics are tastefully displayed with labels.

Interesting shops call to us, offering crafts, antiques and books, and we're serenaded by musicians with such friendly looks.

There are visitors from afar and old friends meet by chance.

People flock to pavilion concerts and sit there entranced.

Children love the Discovery Museum and old ages adore the theaters.

All in all, the downtown mall is an incredible gift.

from Our Creator.

Keep your eyes closed for one more minute.

A very short version, a Charlottesville treasure.

Why travel to Europe for an outside cafe?

Our downtown mall is here every day.

Delicious food, tall trees above, strolling people, a couple in love.

So many tables, colorful displays, shops with goods, deserving much praise, exciting concerts, friendly musicians, adorable dogs with great dispositions, the Discovery Museum and Theatres for Pleasure, our downtown mall, a Charlottesville treasure.

And my husband of over 50 years, Arnie, said, honey, let's go for a date on the mall, and that prompted this.

Thank you very much.

Just to wrap up this 250th celebration, I'd like to encourage all of you to take part in all the activities that have been suggested.

Go on the city's website and find it out.

Especially the big party on November 11th.

I hope you all

And thank you to all of you who have spent so much time organizing this.

I have a pleasure of announcing one more award.

It is a really fun award.

You will understand when I finish.

When Kristin Szakos finishes, I think we move from listening to me.

At the recent annual conference of Virginia Recreation and Parks Society, Charlottesville Parks and Recreation Department received the Best New Environmental Sustainability Award.

The award was granted for the Parks and Recreation Department Innovative

use of goats to control invasive plants in Penn Park.

In this program, we're going to expand on Chris Janczyk, who will be receiving this award on behalf of the department.

We'll talk a little bit more about that.

Yes, we did have goats out at Penn Park.

We put them by the playground.

This was last year.

We had a lot of very happy kids and families out there looking at the goats.

We had, I think, a dozen born, and I think three sets of twins were born on Mother's Day, which was really neat.

Wow.

The next agenda is measures by the public.

I have a sign-up sheet.

Please come and introduce yourself and take no more than three minutes to present your topic.

Good evening.

My name is Donna Blessing.

I live at 209 16th Street Northeast.

I'm here to read a letter from the Jefferson Area Board for Aging that speaks to the Moto Saloon SUP.

Dear city council members, while we are now called JABBA, it is important to remember that we are still the Jefferson Area Board for Aging, an agency that was charted by the city to advocate for seniors.

We have taken that charge seriously for over 35 years.

On that basis alone, we strongly oppose the special use permit application for the Moto Saloon and any music hall at the edge of Walnut Mills.

whoever the applicant might be and whatever the reputation that applicant might enjoy.

We have heard many concerns from several Woollen Mills homeowners, principally older people living alone who live close to that area.

They have encouraged JABBA to speak out on their behalf in opposition to the proposed SUP.

Jabba's Timberlake Place is at 1512 East Market Street, a six minute walk from the corner of Meaden Market.

It will be a home for 26 seniors who live on less than 50% of the area medium income.

These are persons who may not have the ability to advocate for themselves in order to maintain peace and quiet in the neighborhood.

Furthermore, the city has made a substantial investment in Timberlake Place.

With a mandated break-even occupancy of 93%, neither the development nor the city can afford for any of the Timberlake apartments to remain un-rented for long.

We are concerned that noise and disruption that would surely occur at the moto saloon would jeopardize our ability to lease and keep the apartments rented.

for the neighborhood at large adverse branding of the Will and Mills will follow if Moto Saloon is granted an SUP to become a musical.

Experience and studies indicate increased police activity will occur as a result, placing a burden on law enforcement, city services, and the neighborhood watch system to monitor activity that is incompatible with any residential neighborhood, in particular the Will and Mills.

We believe that preserving the character of multi-generational neighborhoods should be a primary requirement when a music hall proximity to residents is being considered.

This is offered by Dr. Dick Gibson, Chair, Board of Directors of JABBA, and the CEO, Gordon Walker, of the Jefferson Area Board for Aging.

Mr. Mayor, I just have a process point.

Thank you.

We told people there would not be public hearing tonight, public comment on this SUP application.

And I actually have no problem hearing additional comment, but I think it's only fair if we're going to let people speak about the SUP that we let people on all sides speak about the SUP.

I'm more just worried about the precedent.

In the future, if people know that they don't have to go to the public, the joint public hearings, and they can just come to this public, you know, we're gonna, it defeats the purpose of having a joint public hearing.

Hi, my name is Tom Milner and I'm a downtown resident.

I'm just here to pledge my general support to the Green Dot program.

I think it's a positive approach to an important problem in this community and I really believe in it and I encourage everyone else to learn more about it and if you're really interested, talk to Tuan and he can let you know how you can help.

Thank you.

Bethany Hurley While she's coming up front, I would suggest if you are here to speak, one special comment.

If you've already spoken,

Hi, good evening, Mayor Huja and city councilors.

My name is Bethany Hurley and I live in Charlottesville at 414 Oak Street.

I am here tonight as a Virginia organizing member, an organization that works to promote fairer and more just policies in Virginia.

I want to talk about Medicaid expansion in Virginia.

As states now have the choice of whether or not to adopt Medicaid expansion, Virginia organizing is asking municipal and county governments across the state to show support for Medicaid expansion.

We feel it's important for the state legislature to see that communities across the state are supporting it.

This could make a difference in their decision of whether or not to adopt.

Virginia has some of the most difficult eligibility requirements in the country for Medicaid and I tend to rely too much on statistics so I'll try to restrain myself and just highlight a few numbers.

Currently, Medicaid in Virginia only covers parents whose income is under 30% of the poverty line, which translates to an annual income of under $10,000 for a family of four.

Obviously Medicaid expansion would have a huge impact in Virginia.

425,000 people in Virginia are expected to qualify under the expansion guidelines.

And so we urge you to consider showing support for the state of Virginia's adoption of Medicaid expansion.

One way to do that could be to issue a resolution in support.

of Medicaid Expansion as the City Council of Charlottesville.

In our region alone, 22,000 people stand to gain coverage, which could significantly improve access to healthcare in our area, which is an obvious step toward a healthier community.

Thank you.

There are two more people who will sign up for speaking, but I want to request, if you have already spoken at a public hearing,

We already heard you in terms of most of the council people who were there at that time.

I have.

Not the original paper.

Go ahead.

Again, have you already spoken in public here?

I have other things I want to talk to you about.

I was going to approach you with three things.

One, my name is Bailey Hampton.

I live at 505 Elliott Avenue.

I think that what you guys were doing with the Hispanic Appreciation Month is pretty awesome, but I also hope that the city creates a document of thanks for the Hispanics in our community who are not small business owners or entrepreneurs because there's a lot more of them probably.

and they contribute in ways of being janitors, labor workers, service industry workers and most of what I heard and what you guys said was about business and how the city is making money and it's not always just about that so there's that.

I recently went to the CRHA meeting last Monday and that was the first one of those meetings that I had attended.

But when one of my friends got arrested at the BBC's eviction, I was there and I saw how public housing authority workers were treating her.

and specifically Chasity Mead, who works for the Housing Authority, treated the 63-year-old woman who lived in her home for over 20 years with absolutely no respect.

And I brought it to the CRHA's attention, but I also want to bring it to your attention because I don't want people like that working for that part of the city.

Her behavior was downright racist and rude and I feel that council needs to know that.

I know Dave heard all about it.

Overall at that meeting there's a lot of anger going on within the public housing community and that's something that you guys really need to pay attention to right now because there are a lot of people that are very upset at the conditions of their living situation.

I enjoyed the poem about the mall but a lot of what I see on the mall isn't just business and economic interaction it's a lot of homeless population and the city has made some pretty concerted efforts from what I have seen to push it away by getting rid of benches, putting up signs that say you're not allowed to sit in places and if you're not exchanging money there's not really a place for you to be at on the mall anymore and

as a public space, I don't see that as being a good thing for a world-class city to put out in an active way.

With the Mall Ambassador Program, to me that screams trying to push poverty off of the mall because it's not pretty.

Is there anybody else who would like to speak on a topic other than specialties for me?

Good evening.

I'm Nancy Carpenter.

I'm an Albemarle County resident.

One fun thing I just want to mention before I get into something more meaty is that I appreciate the Jefferson Park Avenue bridge.

I had a chance to use it at night and I want to say that the lighting is 3,000% better and I want to thank you.

You can now walk two abreast without having to walk in the street with the new sidewalk and the lane.

even though I know it took 18 months and it was kind of touch and go for some of those businesses, it is a nice little gem for the city.

The other thing I want to say is that I agree with everything that Bailey Hampton said about the situation on the mall and the appearance that poverty is being pushed out and it is ugly.

We've had, you know, other instances where syrup has been dripped on a concrete planner to prevent people

who are poor from having a place to sit.

Yes, there are chairs that have been taken out.

That makes it difficult for people who want to patronize them all but may want to sit and enjoy the central play space with the fountain and the atmosphere around there.

So I hope that in the near future that

that we don't lose a segment of our population.

And the reason that brought it to, I had the pleasure, I guess, of serving on a grand jury for Albemarle County today, term day for True Bills, and talking about the Green Dot program report back.

It seemed like everybody, almost everybody that was a defendant there, I could almost relate it back to perhaps reasons of poverty and substance abuse and programs that

they may miss people and they end up on the back end, you know, having to lose their rights because they're facing felony charges and I would like to see, you know, our community, both the county and the city, you know, even work harder to catch some of these kids before, you know, they are branded and perhaps pushed off the downtown mall somewhere else where they happen to end up.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak?

The public is closed.

Comments from the council members.

Let me make first comment, if you don't mind.

I think, I take your advice, Mr. Norris, well.

I think we need to look at it, not to repeat this again, in the sense that if there has been public hearing already, there ought not be an announcement.

I agree with you.

I'll start.

I don't know that I totally agree that there should be no comment after a public hearing because things do arise as just I suppose the same people have already had a chance and not everybody can come to a public hearing.

But anyway, it's just my opinion.

I would like to thank Bethany Hurley who brought up the Medicaid situation.

I would certainly entertain a resolution but I think we need to be really

need to involve our Department of Social Services because there are some pretty serious financial implications with taking on a large new caseload.

Not that we shouldn't do it, but we should be very aware and write our resolution accordingly.

So I'd just like to say that.

I just wanted to say that we do all want those benches back.

I disagree that the Ambassador's Program is about forcing people off and off anything.

It's about improving the atmosphere so that everybody is welcome.

I want to echo Ms. Smith's comments about Ms. Hurley's comments.

I would very much like us to investigate that sort of a resolution and again with all the seriousness about it.

But it is very, very important that we try to cover that base as well as all the other bases.

with regards to poverty.

I think with regards to the ambassador program and the way we're approaching the downtown mall, I think Mr. Jones is going to be presenting us with a more comprehensive report out.

And I think the public will be made very aware that this is a multifaceted problem and we are going to be looking at it from many, many levels and from many different angles.

We do want to be welcoming.

We also want to be sensitive to the very distinct needs that many of our citizens have when they do come to the mall.

So no one is pushing anyone out.

We want to make sure that people are in the place where they need to be, however, if they need some assistance.

and I do appreciate the comments made about Green Dot.

Ms. Carpenter as well, the comments concerning providing opportunity, providing choice to our 18 year olds before they make the wrong one.

I agree with you completely 100% and we are working at that.

And tonight's presentation about Green Dot I think will be beneficial for everyone.

Actually, let me just add one piece.

Can we ask for some sort of wording?

Do you all have proposed wording that you can give us that we can then work with with our social services department?

Can you get a copy of that to Mr. Jones?

That would be great.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Good point.

Next item on the consent agenda.

Item A, minutes for September 17th.

Item B, an appropriation Albemarle County Imbursement to the Central Library Mechanical Air Handler Replacement Project, $5,493.61, second of two readings.

Item C, an appropriation for the Albemarle County reimbursement for the Central Library Elevator Project, $25,746.33, second of two readings.

Item D, an appropriation revenue sharing, appropriate $100,000 and transfer $100,000 for sidewalk construction, second of two readings.

Item E, an appropriation skate park relocation, $255,850, second of two readings.

Item F, an appropriation FY 2013 Blue Ridge Commons Corporation sponsorship agreement with the Charlottesville Police Department, $86,000, first of two readings.

Item G, an appropriation victim witness assistance program grant, $157,143, first of two readings.

Item H, an appropriation Morris Creek Trail proffer, $20,000, first of two readings.

Item I, an appropriation personal emergency response system for public housing residents, $3,120, first of two readings.

Item J, an appropriation crisis intervention team coordinator, appropriation of grant and other funds, $161,195 first of two readings, and a resolution authorizing to execute the memorandum of understanding first of one reading.

Item K, an appropriation 2013 Child's Care Quality Initiative Grant, $25,127, first of two readings.

Are there members of the Council who would like to remove the item or have a question about the item?

Second to approve.

All those in favor?

Thank you.

Next item on agenda is Green Dodge Charlottesville Project, a presentation, and we have some guests to present today.

Please come forward.

Do you need a projector?

Are we ready?

Okay.

2069.

2069 families in the city of Charlottesville are not earning enough money to work and live.

2069 families in our community cannot afford the bare essentials and pay for the costs of working.

We live in a wonderful city.

We're known nationally for our culture, our history, education, opportunity, and yes, for our prosperity.

And yet, almost a full third of our neighbors and friends are just barely getting by.

We can do better.

These 2,069 families deserve better and solutions are within our reach.

Jennifer and I are members of the 2012 class of Emerging Leaders in Architecture.

It's a program sponsored

by the Virginia Society of the American Institute of Architects.

Along with our 13 colleagues from across Virginia, we have been looking at the issue of underemployment in the city of Charlottesville for about six months now.

And we're here today to talk with you about the challenge, understanding the problem, and some key statistics to understanding the issue of underemployment.

The approach, who we are and how we have taken a look at the issue of underemployment in the city of Charlottesville.

The community, how we have engaged Charlottesville stakeholders and community members in starting to explore real solutions to these problems.

And finally, the vision.

2000 families in Charlotte still can't make ends meet.

How can this be true?

Because we all know

because Charlottesville is the best.

For the past decade, Charlottesville has been ranked as one of the country's best cities in a number of areas.

One of the healthiest places to live, one of the best places to retire, one of the best towns to find a job, and one of the best cities in the country overall.

It's a city of beauty, of history, of culture, knowledge, and general prosperity.

Charlottesville is a city where the median household income is almost $10,000 above the national average.

It's a green dot city on the U.S. census map.

But if we take a closer look at this map, we see that only part of the picture is green.

Out of the 13 census tracts on the map, six neighborhoods are shown in orange.

Six neighborhoods don't share the prosperity their neighbors enjoy.

Six neighborhoods have a household income below the national median, the national average.

Four of the six, which are shown in dark orange, are well below the median household income at a little over $21,000 a family.

We're not telling you anything new.

You all know this already.

The study was divided into two parts.

The issue and the first part was the issue.

The issue is that 2,069 families in Charlottesville are not self-sufficient and have to rely on nonprofits and the government to survive.

A family of three, a single mother and two children, requires over $25,000 a year to survive in Charlottesville.

$25,000 pays for shelter, utilities, food and clothing.

19% of families in Charlottesville do not earn this much income a year.

So why do these numbers focus on single mothers?

Because the majority of families living below the federal poverty line are headed by them.

In fact, 33% of single mothers in Charlottesville live below the poverty line.

So how does a single mother get to work?

And what does she do with her children when she's there, especially if they're below school age?

When you add in the cost of transportation and childcare, the survival income increases by $10,000 to $35,000 annually.

So when you factor in these additional costs, the Orange Dot Project found that 29% of Charlottesville families lived below this threshold.

In order to surpass this threshold, excuse me, in order for families to become self-sufficient, they need an income of more than $35,000, which means they need jobs that pay $17 to $20 an hour

So where do these jobs come from?

The Orange Dot Project did more than alert us to the issue.

The fact that people in Charlottesville need jobs.

It proposed a potential solution.

A solution that tops the potential of the individuals and families and the potential of the community and the major institutions that call Charlottesville home.

It also recognized that people need more than just jobs.

They need training and support to stay in those jobs.

If parents have jobs, children have a better chance of graduating from high school.

And if children have more education, then they are more likely to escape poverty.

The Orange Dot report shocked us.

Many of us who live in or have lived in Charlottesville.

We wanted to learn more.

But first, why were we reading this report in the first place?

Who are we to be talking to you about economic inequality in Charlottesville?

As Francis mentioned, we are a group of 15 young architects and architecture students from across the Commonwealth who have been recognized for our potential as emerging leaders in our firms, in architecture, and in our communities.

In addition to participating in monthly seminars, the group undertakes a class project each year.

Previous classes have focused on other cities in the commonwealth, but this year we were given Charlottesville and the Orange Dot project as our class project.

Once we read the report, we knew we wanted to do something real, something helpful, something that would engage others and sustain itself after our graduation next month.

but how are we going to bring jobs to Charlottesville?

What can we do?

Not surprisingly, within our group, we had a couple different ideas about this.

Just as the Orange Dot Project took a two-fold approach, we divided into two groups.

We had an awareness group that attacked the issues while the prototype group addressed the potential solution.

The awareness group wanted to know if people were talking about the Orange Dot Project.

We wanted to know if people in Charlottesville and Virginia were aware of the issues.

So we started to research

what had already been done in Charlottesville and what resources were available.

We identified the major institutions within the city and the county, UVA, Martha Jefferson, the city and county governments, and discussed ways that they could support and also be supported by the Orange Dot Project.

We discovered that there are hundreds of nonprofits in the area, hundreds.

Of course, they don't all focus on the issues presented by the Orange Dot Project, but with this many organizations, why is there still a problem?

We also looked into the local workforce organizations, such as the Virginia Employment Commission, things that help with job readiness and obstacles to employment.

However, if you'll notice on the map,

Many of these are located outside city limits.

So if we're dealing with people who are living and working in the city who already have trouble accessing these locations, what do we do about transportation to these places?

We realized we weren't the first to try and tackle these issues.

We wanted more information about the steps that had already taken place, and the steps that had been taken to implement the proposed solution by the Orange Dot Project.

As citizens we were concerned.

As architects we put our particular skills to use.

We've been trained to do more than create pretty drawings and models.

We've been trained to bring together and collaborate with a team.

Different people with different opinions, different ideas, different skills and different goals.

We are trained to hear and respect these voices.

So we put our training to work.

We started asking questions.

We started looking at the neighborhoods in question.

We visited and researched other cities that had tackled similar situations.

We started a discussion with community leaders, with representatives from government, small business, with developers, community organizers, and academics.

One of our mentors, Kim Smith from VMDO Architects, put us in touch with Tuan Nguyen from the CIC, Johnny Freeman with Vinegar Hill Canning Cooperative, Bernard Whitsett, who's the chair of the Minority Business Council of the Chamber of Commerce, and Kathy Galvin, city counselor and architect.

We joined a conversation on a powerful desire to do something in the community.

We learned more about the issues and the possibilities.

We learned what we could and could not do.

Ben fired us, and we provided some momentum to conversations that had already begun.

In a few short weeks, our conversations led to the formation of a new entity, the Green Dot, Green Dot Charlottesville.

No, Green Dot Charlottesville is not another nonprofit.

It's an action plan, a way to harness the potential of the community and its citizens who need jobs.

The Orange Dot Project noted that Charlottesville has the will and the means.

It's just been lacking the method.

Well, Green Dot Charlottesville is the method.

It will allow the issues raised by the Orange Dot Project and our group, the Emerging Leaders, and the efforts that have already been undertaken to continue into the future, even though we will not actually officially be associated with the project after November.

Its leaders, Tuan Nguyen and Bernard Whitsett, are developing a business plan based on the Green Dot, Charlottesville's working mission statement, which is, Green Dot Charlottesville is a vision born out of the Charlottesville community to create economic empowerment through job creation and by fostering entrepreneurial business activity development.

In short, invest in community, generate opportunity.

Green Dot, Charlottesville's goals are to support development of small local business in Orange Dot neighborhoods and families, to develop a hub or support network for these businesses to tie into income streams of anchor institutions, and to identify and support potential light industry to bring jobs and stability.

And finally, to tap into existing local services that help families overcome obstacles to employment, such as childcare, transportation, housing costs, and job readiness.

Green Dot, Charlottesville, seeks to turn orange into green, one dot at a time.

Green Dot, excuse me.

Emerging Leaders has been helping Green Dot, Charlottesville to make the story visible.

The awareness group in particular's proposal was to foster, goal was to foster and inspire lasting change through communication.

We've been developing a graphic identity and resources for Green Dot Charlottesville, helping them to clarify the connection between the Orange Dot project and the Green Dot Charlottesville, making both more tangible and accessible.

We've created brochures that have already gone to the Governor's Mansion and the White House, and we have a website at www.green.charlottesville.com.

We also have started brand development and tools for communication that will continue to be developed after our project comes to a close.

However, this has not always been up to.

As I said, we split into two groups, awareness and prototype.

So let's do it.

Seriously, let's green dot Charlottesville.

It's a great idea.

But now what?

How can Green Dot Charlottesville be successful?

How can Green Dot Charlottesville spur job growth for families who are struggling the most?

Well, our group has identified three concepts for progress, and we've been developing these concepts as a reference point that Green Dot Charlottesville can use as it continues to develop.

One, learn from others.

Charlottesville is not the only city struggling with underemployment.

We can learn from the successes and failures of organizations in cities around the country.

Two, imagine.

Imagine what Green Dot Charlottesville can become, not just as an organization, but also as a place in our community.

And three, take a bold first step now.

A bold first step that is modest enough to succeed, but one that can happen now.

One that can tap into existing resources and address palpable needs.

One, learn from others.

There are scores of organizations across the United States that are generating targeted job growth for low-income populations.

Organizations that are addressing job readiness, that are connecting reliable income streams with real employment opportunities.

Many of these organizations are non-profits.

And as non-profits, they actually have access to a variety of funding streams, like grants and tax deductible contributions.

And yet they manage profitable businesses.

They take the profits from those businesses and channel them into continued business growth, but also into programs that can support its constituents to overcome the obstacles to employment.

Other organizations are for-profit, like the Evergreen Cooperatives in Cleveland, Ohio, which uses its for-profit structure to offer its employees an equity stake in the company so that workers can grow both financially and professionally as the company succeeds.

As we've taken a look at these precedents, we're collecting ideas.

We're collecting themes.

We're noticing what is common among successful organizations, and we're sharing those with Green Dot Charlottesville.

We're noticing themes like the importance of developing strong partnerships, both within the organization and among the community.

The importance of developing a clarity of purpose, tying a complex mission into a real, clear mission statement.

that can channel resources.

And the importance of developing a strong business plan that connects a strong investment source with reliable customer base.

Next, imagine it.

Imagine it!

How can Green Dot Charlottesville become a real place?

How can Green Dot Charlottesville become a community asset, enriching the city as well as the people it employs?

How can it become a visible, a bold statement of progress in the heart of a low-income neighborhood?

Let's get specific.

Let's pick a site.

Let's test ideas.

Let's see what works and what doesn't.

What elements work together and what needs to go.

Let's get specific so that we can learn general lessons moving forward.

The emerging leaders in architecture chose a site.

We chose the ICS site as a starting point.

We chose it because it's within walkable access to people who need jobs now.

It's in the heart of Charlottesville.

It has access to public transportation, and it's close to entrance corridors with connections to major highways.

It already has a bustling and diverse set of businesses, and we can build from that momentum.

And finally, it has available space, both shell space that can be renovated, and it has developable land that can be used for new building sites.

The ICSIGHT also has a really sort of intangible quality to it that's important to tap into.

It has a history.

It has a living memory as a successful industrial production space.

They're members of our community who remember their mothers and fathers, their aunts and uncles, maybe their friends, maybe even themselves going to work and living their lives with the rhythm of the factory at the ICSIGHT.

So what have we learned as we've looked at the ICS site?

We've developed some key strategies for developing this site.

One is incremental development.

First, let's occupy that shell space.

Second, let's improve pedestrian access and connect to public transportation, developing a bus stop that can be, yes, connecting to public transportation, but also can be a landmark for Green Dot Charlottesville.

We can develop a public entry right on Monticello Avenue and create a public plaza, a place for markets, festivals, even small concerts.

And next, we imagine.

We imagine spaces and programs, spaces that can serve business development, such as a community kitchen, incubator space, training and production space.

These spaces can be generators.

They can be the engine of a successful Green Dot Charlottesville.

We also imagine spaces that help to overcome the obstacles to employment, such as childcare and affordable housing.

And finally, spaces that serve and engage the public, like a new restaurant and a new plaza, that can become a recognizable identity for Green Dot Charlottesville and develop a strong customer base.

So this is an ambitious plan.

It could take years to plan and develop.

How can Green Dot Charlottesville get started now?

We suggest a bold but achievable first step, a shared use commercial kitchen.

We don't know the details of how Green Dot Charlottesville will be structured, but we do know that in our community right now, there is a real hunger for developing culinary businesses and a real potential for them to succeed.

The success of a commercial kitchen could be the seed of Green Dot Charlottesville's growth.

A commercial kitchen could channel important resources that are immediately available.

Resources like recent graduates of the Community Investment Cooperative who are trained in entrepreneurship and several of whom are ready right now to start catering businesses.

Resources like graduates of the CATEC Culinary Arts Program and soon the Piedmont Virginia Community College's similar program to be developed at the Jefferson School.

Resources like anchor institutions ready to be fed.

The University of Virginia, Martha Jefferson Hospital, even public schools could become customers for this business.

Resources like available space and interested developers, thank you Fabian, at the ICS site.

And resources like remarkable leadership right here in our community.

like Chef Ralph Brown who actually teaches the food safe food safety class required for new restaurants.

He's a certified instructor from the National Restaurant Association's Educational Foundation.

Chef Brown is ready now to help design and provide leadership for this kitchen.

So,

Can Green Dot Charlottesville solve poverty in our community?

It can certainly take an important first step.

It can become a template, and additional components can be developed and repeated as we move forward.

It's happening elsewhere, and Charlottesville absolutely has the resources and the talent to match what's happening across the country.

We hope that the research, the imagination,

and the directions that we have outlined spur its successful first steps.

2,069 families in Charlottesville deserve it.

They deserve the opportunity for more.

Let's do it.

Let's turn orange to green.

Let's invest in our community.

Let's generate opportunity.

Let's green dot Charlottesville.

First of all, I want to thank you for being bold enough to try this idea.

We are hoping to answer questions and look forward to working with you.

Thank you.

I don't have any questions per se, but just to thank you for the presentation, for your investment, and just a comment which I've already shared with Ms. Galvin, which is just to make sure you're linking up with others in the community that are working on similar endeavors.

Garrett Trent who's a young man who's been working for a couple years now to try to get a DC central kitchen type of program started in Charlottesville is somebody you definitely need to link up with.

I saw Lauren Purnell is in the room who's, there's probably nobody in Charlottesville that's done more research and has a better knowledge base about social entrepreneurship or maybe very few people than Lauren and the fact that she's here indicates that maybe she's already involved in your project but if not you definitely need to link up with Lauren Purnell.

and she can link you up to some great people at Darden and elsewhere that are working in this arena.

So I'm really pleased to see you're doing it.

But most importantly in terms of collaborations and involvement is just the collaboration involvement with the most important stakeholders which are the low income families and low income residents that this initiative is designed to empower and to uplift and making sure that they have a seat at the table as well and that you're getting input from them as well.

Again, I just want to thank both of you and the entire team, the 13 other architects that we've all had the pleasure of working with.

I can't even remember when we started conversations, was it May?

Okay, so and in that the course of time has been many, many members of the community involved with these discussions.

Several of them are here tonight.

I know Bernard Whitsitt's here, and Chef Ralph Brown is here, and Tuan Wen was here.

Okay, and they have been really, as you well know, spearheading a lot of the conversations and helping you with the direction that you've needed.

And again, when Kim Thompson is here as well from the AIA leadership team and also from VMD Architects,

Kim and I happen to be neighbors and that's the problem, the blessing and the curse.

Kim approached me about some ideas and the fact that you took the orange dot and you did what you did with it is truly phenomenal.

Now the question is what is this community going to do with what you provided us?

I would love to suggest that all the information that you've amassed, because there's amazing data, amazing data and detailed information about all the different prototypes, the Evergreen cooperatives, the Enterprise Institute in Madison, Wisconsin, the plant in Chicago,

DC Central Kitchens.

This is information that we just need to be able to have at our fingertips to understand what it means to have an operation like this, as well as the

You know, that hard reality is that most, many of our workforce resources are not within our neighborhood, and there's not a one-stop shop.

There's not something that can actually assist with case management all the way through for all of those 2,000, 3,000 families.

And having said that, I also applaud the direction of this being a for-profit cooperative, that this is

to be independent of a government assist.

It is to build resiliency in the individuals that are within that company.

And it is to share the work as well as the benefits.

And so that also is a pretty important change in thinking in our community.

I know the next steps would be to

Take what you've done and the small handful of people I've just mentioned are about to then use it to try to raise money to develop a business plan and an outreach plan because it's very, we all know it's very important to do the right outreach in the community.

but you have to have something.

You have to have something to work with.

I was just thinking about the American Revolution didn't start with first getting consensus among the 13 colonies.

It was a group of guys over a pub in the north end of Boston.

So that's how revolutions happen.

It does start with a group of people bold enough to take an idea and run with it but then the onus is on them to convince the general public.

So thank you for being part of that group that met with us in the pub, over the pub.

And I look forward to seeing your presentation again.

I guess it's going to be in October, November, the expo.

Yeah, thank you.

I did hear it all.

I ran out just for a second.

Actually, it sounds great.

It sounds great.

A couple things do come to mind.

And actually, I'll ask you a question I asked when we heard the CIC's presentation, and there does seem to be a lot of focus on a commercial kitchen.

Has there been research done that we can support

and more catering.

Caterers are a little bit like lawyers in this town.

If I can just interject, there actually was a group last spring from the university Student Entrepreneurs for Economic Development that did a market analysis for this very sort of catering cooperative.

Great, great.

That answers my question.

And just again that you noted that the Jefferson School will have a kitchen

and CATEC already has facilities for this so just sort of an idea that makes sure that we're not sort of over building in one sector because we did have a wonderful market analysis that target jobs that did identify areas of job growth in this community and that I think would be very useful to know what kind of training to develop in order to get those

are folks into those jobs.

The other thing that struck me was in looking at the eight neighborhoods that do have the incomes below the poverty level, they are where we have concentrated poverty in our city.

A lot of those patterns have to do with housing.

That's neither nor there other than when I heard affordable housing as a component of the project.

Just be aware that to put more, we are trying to deconcentrate poverty some in this city.

And in some ways we've sort of built in where

poverty will be because of where our concentrated public housing is.

But it's great, it's great.

And it's not a criticism, it's just a recognition of our patterns.

Officially our team will be working on it through November, the team of 15 architects, even though I know some of us would like to continue working with Green Dot Charlottesville after our official involvement has been completed.

Potentially, I mean each year the emerging leaders team is assigned a different city in the commonwealth and a different project.

You know a lot of us are from, we're from Roanoke, Northern Virginia, Norfolk and so I'm from Richmond actually and so I think we're all excited about taking some of the things that we've learned throughout this process back

That would be okay.

W5.

Hi, my name is Chef Ralph Brown.

I live at 706 12th Street, Northwest in Charlottesville, Virginia.

I have been working in the food service industry for 46 years.

I started with the development of the Aberdeen Barn here in Charlottesville with the owner when they first built the place and worked in food service until I went to the community college to major in business and worked for the University of Virginia as a food service manager.

I've worked in every kind of restaurant imaginable, Waffle House.

I helped open the IHOP here in Charlottesville.

So I know the history of food service in Charlottesville.

I went to culinary school in Washington, D.C. and worked for Sunrise Retirement Homes in Washington, D.C. and worked for Marriott as a food service manager as well.

There is a void in Charlottesville.

I sat down and had a talk with Ms. Archer Campbell at the Health Department this morning.

She's excited about this idea because it fills a void between those two entities that we have.

We have CATEC,

CATEC is for high school students to get their diploma.

And we have the community college who is evolving, but it is a college.

In between, there's a whole lot of folk, okay, that just aren't, you know, that needs not being met.

We're talking about a kind of program like the DC Central Kitchen that not only will provide job training, short-term job training,

I think it's important that we change the industry itself in terms of the kind of employee that you have in the industry because over those 46 years I see people warmed over and over and over again.

You can walk from one job to another if you get fired and with no additional training and nothing.

I just want to once thanks the architect and also the Kuttner's.

Altus is really an idea until you have a space and Fabian and Luke Wick has been fantastic with their support so I just want to thank them before I say anything.

How do we make this real?

Are we going to first go for funding so that we can write a business plan?

Bernard, Michelle Bates, who is very connected with community, to your point, we need to bring that population to the table so that we hear what they have to say.

So we're going to fundraise to write a business plan and part of that process is to actually visit these cities so we know exactly what's going on rather than doing the research on the internet and then from there we're going to involve the whole community in writing the business plan and then what will happen is hopefully we'll get an investor to invest in the project.

Good evening, my name is Bernard Woodset and I've been working with Kwan and the group on this project.

I think it's a two-fold approach.

The approach is first of all to provide a platform for people to have work, to learn a certain trade.

The second

Part of that would be a platform for people to then take it from not working for someone but then developing their business.

There are entrepreneurs such as those that have gone through the CIC program that really want to go out and truly start their business.

And they would be allowed to do that with a commercial kitchen.

It had been identified that many of them are interested in catering.

and generally the biggest drawback is the investment of a commercial kitchen for a entrepreneur.

So that was the first focus was because of what we viewed in the CIC program, those people that were coming out of the program, as well as what we had received from various people in the community in terms of input of what was needed.

So that this would be probably multiple stages

The first stage would be probably a commercial kitchen.

The second stage could possibly be child care facility where we would develop a child care facility where people would be trained and they would learn how to take care and be certified as people in child care.

So we feel that it's an opportunity to grow an idea.

Thank you.

I wanted to encourage you, first of all, to proceed and do what you need to do to get from point A to point B.

But also, what Dede said, our studies have been done to show the certain sectors of the economy where we can expect some more jobs.

Maybe look at that also as you're doing these projects.

You mentioned childcare.

Is there a focus at all on a certain level of paid job?

Because you had mentioned that $17 to $20 gets you $35,000.

I think our focus is really to

We try to get many people that are considered to be unemployable employed.

So I'm not talking about the college educated people.

We're talking about people that are in the community that may want to work, desire to work, but have no work to do.

that we would provide an avenue for training and possibly for them developing into entrepreneurs.

So again that would be a two-fold process where we would have training where if we were to create a commercial kitchen and have a catering facility they would be trained through personnel such as Chef Ralph

they would learn and be an apprentice and then go forward possibly and start their own business.

So that's just one idea but there are a multitude as they stated light industrial, computer repair is another possibility.

There are, I believe that the world is truly our oyster in that regard.

We can retrofit it to be whatever we desire it to be.

Thank you very much.

If I could just say one last thing.

I do really want to thank the group of architects that worked with us.

They were just phenomenal.

They were basically at our beck and call because they worked around the clock to put together this presentation.

And I truly want to thank them for all the hard work that they did.

We can tell.

Mr. Mayor, Members of Council, this is a special use permit for a music hall at 1304 East Market Street.

I will be brief.

I will just recap Planning Commission's recommendation on this and we did have the sound test as recommended by the Planning Commission last Wednesday.

I don't know what you're talking about.

A special use permit is a zoning application for a use that is not permitted as a matter of right in the zoning district.

It is permitted provided that the applicant can meet the standard of review in your code and that all, any sort of impacts that that use has on adjacent properties can be mitigated some way, possibly through conditions.

And

Okay, so the request here is for a music hall at the property.

A restaurant is already located at 1304 East Market Street.

Music halls are not permitted by Wright in the manufacturing industrial

The restaurant can operate as a matter of right.

It can operate under the current rules.

There is a zoning ordinance or a noise ordinance that applies to restaurants and music halls in the city that they operate under, but in order to have live performance

performances of music for which they charge a cover, or really any live performances at all.

The standard of review is the standard of review.

The Planning Commission frequently focuses on, their review is, a lot of it pertains to the planning aspects of it, so whether or not it's in conformity with the comprehensive plan, whether or not it is

It is dealing with that 11 point list that's in there.

So they're looking at it from that standpoint.

There are other, because of the nature of the body, they are focused primarily on the comprehensive plan on the zoning ordinance, on the zoning map.

So the city council is kind of, has the ability to bring in other things when it regards to what's harmony, what's harmonious with adjacent properties and things like that.

You do have a more broad focus and consequently your review can be that way.

So I'd prefer not to read the standard review.

No, we have it.

It was in the agenda.

Yes.

Twice in the agenda.

So community engagement, I do want to talk a little bit about that.

We did hold an informational session at the Willam Mills Chapel at the request of some residents in the neighborhood.

That was primarily for informational purposes.

I reviewed the process by which a special use permit is considered by the city.

its differences from a rezoning, its differences from a site plan and a subdivision, the differences in process and also just how people could have an opportunity to have their voices heard in that process.

I really didn't go into the specifics of this particular application, mostly because we were still very early on in the review and there wasn't really a whole lot to talk about.

So it was mainly just giving everyone the opportunity to understand what process we would be going through and how they could contribute.

So the recommendation, this was heard by the Planning Commission at their September meeting.

They recommended approval based with the following conditions, and I'll read those out just because they were kind of unclear at the meeting.

One, adherence to all regulations outlined in 34-1174 of the zoning ordinance.

Two, the music hall will be limited to 2450 square feet in a unit located in the northwest corner of the building with entrances on East Market Street and Meade Avenue.

3.

All live music performances held on Friday nights and Saturday nights shall cease no later than 1230 AM the next morning.

All live music performances held on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights shall cease no later than 10 PM.

No live music shall be permitted on Sundays or Mondays except as provided for in condition 3 above.

Five, any outdoor performances of live music shall cease no later than 7 p.m. and shall be limited to four events per year.

Six, employment of a security guard from the hours of 9 p.m. to one half hour after closing Thursday through Saturdays on nights where live music is played.

Seven, employed materials and techniques to ensure compliance with the maximum decibel level approved herein.

8.

Inclusion of signage to direct vehicular traffic into the parking lot and direct pedestrian traffic from the parking lot around the front of the building to the Meade Avenue entrance and 9.

Noise level is not to exceed 75 decibels after 9 p.m. measured at the property line of the parcel.

The one change in these from what was at the Planning Commission meeting it's a little technical but the Condition 4 references Condition 3 and partly that's at 1230 you've gone to the next day

So we've crafted that so that it doesn't seem to proceed that you could hold a 30 minute concert in the middle of the night.

So that was the recommendation.

The commission voted five to one in favor of the motion.

And as noted, you may choose to modify these recommended conditions along with your action tonight, if you so choose.

First, let's focus on the questions of clarifications.

There are, in the time that I've handled two previous

applications for special use permits for music hall, the Jefferson Theater and the Southern Music Hall, both of which are in the downtown corridor and were prior to the regulations for music halls that were put in as part of the discussion around downtown Belmont.

Let's see.

Okay.

Now, there was some reference to after the Belmont

It may be in our code as provisional use permit.

And what a provisional use permit is, so anybody knows, is you come in, you fill out a form, you're agreeing to abide by certain regulations in the code, we sign it, and we have it on file.

It's the same process for someone who wants to do an accessory dwelling unit in their apartment, or no, a home occupation, running a business out of their home.

Yes, yes.

Just for clarification of the audience, what zones will allow special use permit for musical?

My special use permit there in manufacturing, by right they can be in West Main, North, West Main, South, the corner district, whatever it is we call it, Dirty Malleys, Preston, Central City, they can go in the area around Barracks Road Shopping Center, that zoning classification.

The downtown, as Brian said, almost, they're by right in almost every zoning classification that we have.

Right, if they exist there, they have a, the noise ordinance addresses them, but they're not allowed, new ones are not allowed.

and South Street District, they're allowed by special use permit, so that's the other district.

That's just a stretch from Ridge down to 2nd between the tracks, which is a very limited space there that they are allowed in.

Are there any questions?

I'm still confused as to this by right.

Certainly not every zone.

Yeah the B2 and B3 we have but there's probably not 10 pieces of property in the city that have those designations.

Most of them are offices.

There's a few left on Rose Hill.

There's a few in some other places.

When we made the changes back with Bell Rio they were primarily they were focused on the

Yeah, there are four of the mixed-use districts do not permit music halls at all.

The Downtown North District, which is to the north of here past East Market Street up towards Court Square and back in that area, and also Martha Jefferson Hospital is Downtown North.

And then the Cherry Avenue Corridor, the High Street Corridor, and the Neighborhood Commercial do not permit it at all.

Even by special use permit.

May I just ask a little clarification though?

My understanding is that the reason why they do not allow any music halls is that because those areas are adjacent to residential areas.

That is correct.

They also have a different character than a lot of the others, like High Street is much smaller lots, much more way of offices.

The downtown north, again, is a lot more residential right there, again, smaller businesses.

And so that's why those were not included.

Other questions?

Okay, thank you.

Have a seat, please.

Thank you.

The council will discuss and then we have a question from you as well as the applicant.

We need to wait till there's a question from the council.

Are we in question mode or?

Well, I think it's only fair if the applicant has any information you'd like to share that you haven't had a chance to share.

I was under the impression I was going to have a chance to make a brief general comment here.

Okay.

Okay.

Go ahead.

Well throughout the past three months the focus of this issue seems to have fluctuated between a noise ordinance issue and a zoning challenge and I think that the Planning Commission has done an exceptional job of crafting

I think the needs of a place like Java Project which are nearly half a mile away those things have been addressed

We've very clearly gone through the sound overflow issue with the public noise test last week and I thank you, many of you, for personally attending that.

The conditions of the SUP are addressing parking and security.

Another element that's come into play here is the strong group of people in the neighborhood that are unhappy with the current zoning classification where I'm located in the mixed-use industrial and I feel like there's a lot of unanswered questions if you do grant this SUP in an area like that what the implications are for the rest of the future zoning in the city.

So, you know, just talking with some of you within the last week, I feel like there are a lot of questions still to be answered with that.

Yeah, usually then folded in.

Yeah, I just feel that the very nature of a special use permit, it's designed for the circumstances in which this standard code needs either examination, alteration or clarification in order to best serve the community.

And I feel like it's an obligation of the city to address the needs of over 500 residents on paper that are asking the city to approve this.

This includes people directly in the Woolen Mills area, over 70 of them at last count.

So I just feel it would be a real disappointment to overlook the benefits that this business could have on taxes, jobs, and culture.

Okay.

I have a specific question.

I was there on Tuesday night for the sound thing.

Total in the lot are probably about 65.

And your occupancy?

Is 150.

And another element that would not change is our needs for parking or our capacity.

if this is approved.

So there's not much of a practical difference on the neighborhood if we have a full house on there listening to recorded music or if they're in there to enjoy live music.

I mean, the noise restrictions, the decibel levels are taking things into account.

I'll ask you publicly a question that I've asked you privately and maybe you can share the answer with the public, but what mechanisms do we have in place for measuring or regulating the base, the impact of base sound?

I have a question for you too, and just to clarify that a special use permit

goes with the space, the location.

So all of the, and this was something, and we had talked about this, something that I was sort of dismayed by with the public hearing is a lot of what we heard was about how much people really wanted yours to have as the moto saloon.

They really liked the moto saloon.

but that's, in my estimation, irrelevant.

I mean, what the Moto Saloon is doing is irrelevant.

It's whether a music hall in this space, which is not even the whole building, right?

Trump's who it is.

Right.

But it would still, now the conditions, if you passed it with conditions, they would still apply no matter who operated it.

It should not.

They all ought to be looked at on their own, but as I explained to the Planning Commission the other night that there's, you know, you have three types of uses in zoning.

First are the simple ones, those that are not allowed.

Then you have the buy right uses.

And then you have a special use permit that's allowed in some cases.

And generally, a special use permit is considered that it's an appropriate use in that zoning classification if

it is appropriate at that location and there are no situations that it might cause that can't be mitigated in some way.

So the answer to that is it may be perfectly okay on this corner in a zoning district and on this corner there may be different circumstances with the same zoning where you may say it's not appropriate there.

So you shouldn't be governed by the precedent of we've already approved one because the decision's already been made that in some places in M1

But if that corner was appropriate too, then the second applicant, the third applicant, or fourth applicant comes along.

So you can't base it on cumulative impacts?

Brian, jump in if I get this wrong, but it's Market Street to the railroad and then it goes down with a few zigs and zags down to Franklin.

Every lot on the corner, that corner, is zoned industrial.

They don't go much further down on East Market on the other side of the street.

But Beer Run, for instance, is in.

So I want to get back to a comment Mr. Fekovich made.

He correctly noted that the neighborhood, there's been a group of people in the Willamals neighborhood for decades now that's been advocating for a different approach to zoning in their neighborhood where you don't have a hard line between industrial and residential.

I know there's been memos exchanged and some conversation but what concrete is happening or could be happening as we proceed with this comprehensive plan update as we proceed with other planning initiatives to finally try to get our arms around this issue because I know there's been a lot of frustration in the neighborhood about that and part of the reason I bring that up in the context of this discussion is

I think it's a very legitimate issue that we have to address.

I'm not convinced that it should necessarily hold up what we decide to do about this one rezoning.

We're actually working on a strategy to talk to the Planning Commission about how to move that forward.

It was an issue in 2001.

Slightly it was brought up again in the 2005 design day in 2006.

Council decided at that time to leave it alone, not take any action, and I think that we've recognized that Council has changed, Planning Commission has changed.

I think there's a genuine interest now in taking a look at it, and so whatever that

comes to be is going to be a, we need to have a discussion with the people that own property and that live there.

We had a discussion at the place design task force last Thursday about working on a process to have that engagement and getting their input in setting that process in place.

I'll just add my own two senses.

I'd like to see if there's a way to grapple with it as part of the comp plan and not put it behind the comp plan because I think

if we can get it in, get that reflected in the comp plan that's going to I think reassure a lot of people that we're not.

Well we did have a work session and the council said we're not interested so I think again it's a different council it's a different planning commission but I hear you you know if we can do them concurrently as much as possible but as Mr. Huja says what really is going

make a difference is when we talk about what the zoning is in the future.

Okay.

I have a number of comments too, because I do think we really need to get a drill down into the right process on this.

So thank you for introducing how I did the comp plan.

And I do want to just preface things that I say by noting that I visited with several members of the community, both pro and con, and met with Mr. Frankovich.

And I reviewed the standards of review.

Some members of the public raised the question as to whether or not the Planning Commission met the standards of review.

As far as I can tell, they certainly did.

And I appreciate all the hard work that they do.

Their assistance is invaluable.

Having said that, that does not mean that I won't disagree with some of the determinations that the Planning Commission makes.

And when I do, I feel it's very, it's incumbent upon me to make sure I've really made my case.

I'm very, very clear.

So if you bear with me, I would like to step through this because I took a large part of the weekend to read about the Code of Virginia, as it pertains to the comp plan, as well as zoning ordinances.

And the comp plan,

according to the Virginia Code, shall be made with the purpose of guiding and accomplishing a coordinated, adjusted, and harmonious development of the territory that goes on and on about what it's supposed to promote, health, safety, morals, order, convenience, prosperity, general welfare of the inhabitants, including the elderly and persons with disabilities.

So that's the comp plan.

The comp plan is foundational.

It's the vision, but it's foundational.

Then you get the zoning ordinance.

Zoning is an implementation tool.

Virginia Code requires that we both, every locality, have a comp plan and a zoning ordinance.

Now, I want to bring up some best practices that the American Planning Association has come up with that I've used as a guide and is helping me in this whole process.

It's very important to try to keep the comp plan up to date and to eliminate inconsistencies between the plan and the primary tools of implementation, which is zoning.

That affords the highest priority and it also makes our plans accountable.

In like fashion, making sure local decision makers are referred to and use the plan when making land use zoning and public investment decisions must become the norm.

Zoning regulations in both theory and practice should be consistent with a local comprehensive plan.

Better decisions and better communities arguably would be the product of enhanced plan and ordinance consistency.

Again, that's from their 2009 Managing Growth and Development in Virginia, a review of tools.

Again, these are best practices.

And I have to ask ourselves, have we been following the right practice in this case?

And with that policy context, I went and did my own standard of review, point by point.

So when you look at the proposed standards of review, the very first one is whether the proposed use of development will be harmonious with existing patterns of use and development within the neighborhood.

Okay, so the history of this is that a certificate of occupancy for a restaurant was obtained in February

with a notation on the paperwork that amplified music was not allowed without an SUP.

This notation was pointed out on numerous occasions due to a prior concern in a similar circumstance.

That's from a previous staff report.

On June, I started getting copies of emails from residents concerned about noise and they were sent to staff.

There were focus groups to talk about the SEP process.

On July 5th, a police officer brought the issue to NDS's attention.

The establishment was shut down July 7th for violating the certificate of occupancy.

The applicant is now requesting an SUP to operate a restaurant music hall.

So with all those facts, what kind of conclusion do I come up with?

And I have to draw this.

Between February 1 and July 7, while the applicant was in violation of his COO, neighborhood residents experienced the full live impact of the proposed use, i.e.

a restaurant music hall.

Based on the countless emails and the conversations, this proposed use is not, not just will not, strikes me as not being harmonious with the existing patterns of use in the neighborhood.

The biggest test and demonstration we could have gotten happened because there was a violation of the COO.

That was an experience of many people in the community.

Second, whether the proposed use of development in associated public facilities will substantially conform to the city's comp plan.

I looked at the 2007 comp plan, the design day results.

Citizens expressed interest in a visual and spatial buffer between industrial and residential uses.

Furthermore, the neighborhood wanted a greater variety of uses and one suggested location for a rezoning is the corner of market and need.

Any rezoning should ultimately enhance the neighborhood by bringing amenities to the residents.

There was a desire to redevelop coiners and rights properties.

Residents wanted to investigate an architectural design control district.

So again, my conclusion, looking at the comp plan.

The 2007 comp plan, where the neighborhood plans called for buffering between residential and non-residential, a greater mix of uses at the intersection of need and market and redevelopment of coinage and rights in a manner sensitive to local business.

The place described in many ways resembles the neighborhood commercial corridor as amended in February 2010 in the wake of the Belmont-Belle Rio conflicts.

The comp plan is the basis for zoning.

not the other way around.

However, because of the mismatch between the vision and the implementation tool, i.e.

zoning, the development standards pertaining to various outdated districts and land uses do not reflect the community goals and policies set forth in the con plan.

By extension, granting an SUP for this M1 site when an SUP is discretionary, not by right,

in my view only exacerbates the problem by moving even further away from the aspirations of this community as expressed in the comp plan.

I didn't think the third point was applicable.

Fourth point, whether the proposed use of development will have any potentially adverse impacts on the surrounding neighborhood or the community in general, and if so, whether there are any reasonable conditions of approval that would satisfactorily mitigate such impacts.

My conclusion, the planning commission went to great lengths to find those ways to mitigate the impacts.

However, I cannot see that they were adequate.

First, the sound test didn't simulate a live performance with a full crowd and overflow parking on the street.

However, we did have the benefit of a real live demonstration of these impacts on the neighborhood sometime between February 1 and July 7 when the applicant violated the COO.

The neighborhood is now polarized, not harmonious.

Second, the city parking ordinance does not specifically address music halls.

However, staff did make an assumption.

It does seem like there's adequate parking, but it's not been determined yet what exactly a music hall parking should be.

Third, the applicant claimed that operating live music would destroy his business.

However, my question is wasn't the applicant's business plan prior to securing the original COO for a restaurant pub?

If not, and the applicant always intended to have live music, then why didn't he apply for an SEP initially instead of breaking the law?

To grant any applicant their request,

for an SUP after violating their original COO to me sets a bad precedent for future SUPs and zoning requests in general, especially when our land use plan is not always in sync with the current comprehensive plan.

So preserving the outdated designation of M1 in lieu of creating a small area plan for this neighborhood that flushes out the 2007 complaint goals may in fact discourage those economic development activities that would in fact generate desirable employment or enlarge the tax base.

Finally, we will be relying on police action to enforce and maintain the public peace as opposed to an accountable community plan that seeks to promote harmonious development as per the Code of Virginia.

This may overextend our police and at increased public expense.

The last point, whether the proposed use of the development will be in harmony with the purposes of the specific zoning district in which it is placed.

I have to look at that zoning district within which it lies.

The existing M1 zoning district with an SUP is not harmonious with existing patterns of use and development within the neighborhood, nor is it compatible with the future land use and character goals of this neighborhood as spelled out in the 2007 comp plan.

The restaurant pub use allowed by the original COO is compatible per se.

However, the M1 designation, which allows a music called Via and SUP, illustrates why the underlying M1 category is fundamentally inappropriate.

Well, I will.

I'll go next.

I have a lot fewer words to say it in, but I've

basically come to the same conclusion.

I think that we are asked to look at a couple of things.

We're not technically allowed to look at the operator himself.

And as we were saying before, it's almost irrelevant who's operating it.

And to a certain extent, I think that that's

both a plus and a minus for this applicant.

I think that the restaurant itself is very popular in the neighborhood.

I think that speaks well for the applicant.

I think the fact that he operated in violation of the law for several months knowing that it was not allowed to have live music and having live music in the neighborhood

as we noted gave us a perfect example of our long-term sound test so it wasn't a scientific test and we tried to do that the other night but I think that we really can't take that into consideration so that's not why I'm opposed to this but to me it really does come down to whether it's the whole

Well, my position is as it has been, which is that, again, that this is not about the Moto Saloon, which appears to be filling a niche that people want.

I wish it was in an area that allowed a music hall because clearly it's a popular place.

The restaurant bar is also a very popular place from all the emails we get and you are allowed to do that and there are thriving restaurant bars within blocks of this location.

If anything, the location of Market and Mead should be even better than those other locations.

So the fact that a restaurant bar is allowed and

you know is popular I think would speak well to the establishment but you know whether or not that's financially possible is you know I'm not going to I don't know I don't know that.

I agree but thank you for that exhaustive analysis.

I think I got lost.

and speaks really to the process and it's to be putting in this discretionary the fact that the special use permit is discretionary and to be putting it forevermore in this corner of this building when the zoning doesn't allow it.

I think we see where the votes are going on this one.

One of the most frustrating aspects of this whole situation, Ms. Galvin referred to the time period when the music hall was operating illegally as sort of the testing period so we know what the real live impact is.

And I just don't know that we actually do because a lot of the complaints that we got I think were not attributed to

this particular venue and in fact according to the police records there was only one noise complaint to the police at least and I'm not trying to minimize the fact that some people I mean there are some people who just they're upset about the noise but they don't call it in but the records show the police records show that the vast vast majority of the noise complaints during that testing period if you will were coming from another venue across the street

There were also very few calls for service.

We got the full record today on calls for service to that building, not even just to that one business within the building, but to the building as a whole.

During that testing period when things were live, it was not posing a danger to the neighborhood and did not indicate that there would need to be increased police presence.

Having said that, I think ultimately Ms. Smith hit the nail on the head when you talked about we have to separate out

Do we want to see Black Market Motor Saloon here or do we want to see any music hall here?

And I think the Planning Commission took a very hard look at this and decided that this was a venue where a music hall could function under certain conditions.

And I'm always very hesitant to

overturned suggestion or recommendation, particularly when it's as, it wasn't unanimous, but it was almost as unanimous as you can get.

Under certain conditions they felt like it was.

And so I guess the question I have for my fellow counselors, and I think I know the answer, but the question I think we need some clarity on is,

I get the sense that given some of the issues and concerns and very legitimate fears that have been brought forward by the neighborhood and

there's a sense that there's not support for this application today but the question is if the applicant were to seek deferral are there conditions under which in at some future point a majority of counselors could say this might that the majority of counselors would agree with the Planning Commission that this could

be an appropriate venue or space for this kind of venue.

I can start on that one.

I think that as a restaurant and pub, I think that it already is there and it's fine.

I think that if the applicant really wants to do a music hall, we have lots of places in the city where we have music halls by right.

And I think that they are appropriate for that.

and I think it really does add to the vibrancy of our community to have that.

And again, I'm just going to underline the importance of getting our comprehensive plans updated and then moving our zoning to match the comp plan as much as possible and building in processes to do that.

This community, among many, but in particular, this community has been

asking, pleading this council that this AA Planning Commission over the last decade to please revisit the M1 zoning.

And in my mind, there's probably a lot of opportunity

to reimagine this part of town.

They themselves in 2006 identified that intersection as, like I said earlier, what sounded like would have been a neighborhood commercial corridor, but that was before that was actually identified and clarified in 2010 in the Bell Rio case.

So I think we need to go and really engage the community.

I think the whole school charrette

in the Willam Mills is a golden opportunity.

In a previous meeting, a resident from the Willam Mills came and asked us to please help knit their community back together again.

Perhaps now that I know that there is a new design center at UVA and they're trying to fold in the work of the IEN, the Institute for Environmental Negotiation, this could be an opportunity to create and facilitate this

And finally do it.

Finally do it.

And at that point, after this, and Mr. Frankovich is one of the members of this community, be a part of this.

Well, I'm just not sure.

Again, this is not about the modus flu.

That's my point.

Yeah, I'm just not quite sure what new information there's going to be that would inform this decision.

I guess what I heard Ms. Galvin say is that if there is this community dialogue, which I completely agree needs to happen, I think you've laid out exactly the right path forward.

But when you read the neighborhood commercial corridor, there's like a 10-foot buffer between incompatible uses.

There's a 55 decibel level limit.

You have to be prepared of what the outcome is going to be from the community is all I'm saying.

So no one can foresee that.

I would urge the applicant not to kind of see that as a process to gain acceptance for this particular thing.

I think that that could make that process very divisive.

If one business model hung on the solution of this, it seems to make more sense to say that this is not compatible use in this neighborhood by our judgment at this point, that ultimately there will be new

First of all this clarification that City Council did consider zoning of this area, changing from M1 to something else and decided not to do so.

and there were reasons behind that and I think some of them are still valid.

So I would say that it doesn't mean that we should just get rid of all the industrial uses in the area.

That is not related to the issue itself, but as a, as Kathy went through point by point in terms of the criteria, I agree with her and her analysis and

I could, I could, but on the other hand I could also see in future some possibilities of such use.

I would like to make a motion to recommend denial of this application on the

The basis of the fact that such a use at this location does not promote the health, safety, and general welfare of the public or promotes stability and peaceful enjoyment of the adjacent neighborhood.

I move to recommend denial of this application for special use permit for the operation of a music hall and the manufacturing industrial zone for

1304 East Marcus Street for the following reasons.

One, the proposed SUP is not harmonious with existing patterns of use and development within the neighborhood.

Two, the proposed SUP will not substantially conform to the city's comp plan.

Three, the proposed SUP will have potentially adverse impacts on the surrounding neighborhood and the community at large.

And there are no reasonable conditions that would satisfactorily mitigate these impacts.

I just want to sort of reflect a comment that Mr. Ackerman made when he spoke at our council meeting, which he noted the fact that even though he personally was opposed to the SUP, he felt there was a bigger concern and I think maybe Ms. Galvin touched on it as well, which is that

This thing really went off the rails not necessarily because of the specific merits of the application but I think there was a really unhealthy dynamic that played out and I'm not pointing fingers at any one party or any one individual but I think this goes to show the importance of

neighborhood engagement and the importance of constructive engagement and you know some of the comments that were made at the Planning Commission meeting I think really and I've expressed this to Mr. Frankovich even though it weren't coming from him but some of the comments were really did

himself a disservice and came across as antagonistic towards the neighborhood, or they were antagonistic towards the neighborhood.

And I really, it concerns me that that's the dynamic that I think is perhaps more than anything has resulted in the vote tonight.

And not so much, even though I realize people do have specific concerns about this, but I just have a feeling that

As you said earlier, if Mr. Frankovich had gone to the neighborhood from day one and said, hey, I'm thinking about having a music hall here instead of opening a music hall, I think we might be having a different conversation.

I think it would have been received differently.

I just think the hostility on both sides didn't help the dynamic.

Having said all that, I'm going to cast a Jenny Keller vote against the motion being in recognition of the fact that there are so many people, including our Planning Commission, who felt that under certain conditions it would make sense to have this property rezoned.

Thank you.

We have a decision on a motion.

If not, we will.

Thank you.

Next item on the table is Davis Field, RFP.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor and members of City Council.

The item before you this evening concerns Council authorization of staff moving forward with a competitive solicitation to lease a portion of the land known as Davis Field, which was acquired by the City last year.

Virginia law requires that cities desiring of leasing publicly held property for a period of five years or longer, but no longer than 40 years, must, after due advertisement, publicly receive bids for such a lease.

Council action this evening will direct staff to work directly to advertise for such a lease consistent with the Constitution and the Code of Virginia.

Staff from Parks and Recreation and the City Attorney's Office will work together to draft the appropriate documents and place the appropriate advertisements and opening of bids at some point in the next 60 days.

Is there a second or motion?

Second.

Any discussion on the motion?

If not, vote.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Seven months ago, City Council allocated dollars for a study that has become known as a strategic investment area study to look at urban design and economic development issues in an area south of downtown, basically south of the downtown to Elliott extending a little bit further beyond to include the First Street public housing, both sides of Avon Street up to Ridge Street.

This project area includes old businesses, new businesses, public housing, the Friendship Court area, and a lot of other residences.

The Belmont neighborhood and the Ridge Street neighborhood are contained within it.

You said when you authorized us to proceed with that study that you'd like to see a steering committee formed to guide the study.

We've been going through the process to select a consultant to lead the study.

Happy to let you know we are under contract now with a firm called Cunningham Quill that will be the leaders of that.

The Place Design Task Force actually is the group that reviewed the RFPs and made the selection, supplemented by Chris Engle, Mary Joy Scala, Kathy McHugh and myself who worked with them in developing that.

So we're under contract and we're ready to move forward now with a

committee to guide the study.

We put together a recommendation in the resolution to create that committee and the members that are suggested here in the resolution are three members of the place design task force selected by the task force, the city council and planning commissioner, ex-officio members of the task force,

a Belmont neighborhood representative, a Ridge Street neighborhood representative, one representative from each of the public housing sites of South First Street, Sixth Street and Crescent Hall selected by the CRHA board, a resident of Friendship Court selected by the Friendship Court Tenants Association,

and then three business and or developer representatives recommended by the Department of Economic Development and selected by the city manager.

The resolution also outlines staff that will assist.

I just want to make it clear because I think there was a misconception.

Staff is not to be a part of the committee.

Those are just staff members.

given the complexity of this study and all the areas that would be involved that will assist the committee in their work and assist the consultant.

I have one specific quick question.

When you mention the Belmont neighborhood representative and the Ridge Street neighborhood representative, you say selected by the neighborhood.

That would be fine if you'd like.

Although we didn't want to limit it to that.

Not very active.

Have you done any questions?

Yeah, sort of.

I agree with the composition, which is an excellent composition.

But I think the way this process of appointment is, most task forces are appointed by city council.

They are recommended by many people.

Because this place, there are six different organizations who are recommending.

They are asking for nightmare and asking for confusion.

We do have some precedence for this sort of model in the Housing Advisory Committee, which is largely made up of bodies.

And I think, Mayor Huja, we used the model that we used when we did the West Main and Downtown studies that Wallace, Roberts and Todd did.

That's where the concept came from because we did use this model there quite successfully.

I'm not objecting to the composition.

I think it's excellent.

I have a question, and I apologize if you just went into this.

Mine's a little numb right now.

The intent of the study is to look at that area and recommend urban design solutions, recommend an economic model, potential changes to the development codes, anything of that nature to guide the future development.

Well, how does this relate to the redevelopment?

Well, it very much relates in the sense that I don't know the exact acreage, but I think there might be close to 30 acres of public housing site in that region.

And we've just gone through a process where there was a master plan to begin talking about how that will be redeveloped.

There's another 30 acres or so of undeveloped land in this area.

It's a very underdeveloped area.

So when you're talking about where to begin, you have to look at it not just parcel by parcel but

parcels and assembly, looking at streets so that there is a cohesion to the place.

And that as we do this, we're providing a lot of opportunity for mixed income.

Well, it seems to me that it's really, really heavy on the

Public Housing End, which I don't mind that, but Belmont's a really big neighborhood and Ridge Street's bigger than most of the public housing.

Although the geography though, if you put a bullseye on the Ix building and drew a quarter mile radius around it, that's the geography.

The part of Belmont geographically and physically is basically Avon Street straddling both sides of it.

Whereas most of the geographic area is the Ridge Street neighborhood.

It is the south side, though, and I do think it will impact Belmont.

I would also just like to see representation from the schools, maybe?

It's so important.

It goes back to what we were talking about before with this

Architecture Group is that there's been such a historic concentration of poverty in this area that I'd just like to see it more broadly represented.

I could certainly see adding school representation.

It has impacts on schools, I guess, so I'm thinking Parks and Rec was another one that had been, somebody had suggested to me.

It would be the staff.

Yeah, not staff.

What about this group we just heard from?

My hunch is that they will probably be invited as one of the many stakeholders.

I'm not sure if this is in the Jackson-Vaya.

I can't remember.

It's a little bit in Jackson-Vaya, like Burnett Commons is Jackson-Vaya, but then Clark is over here.

It's probably not Johnson, but it probably, it couldn't have, no, it wouldn't have any.

I would agree to adding like a representative from Clark and Jackson-Vaya from

and either the parent groups, the PTOs or

Again, maybe the committee makes staff as part of the, invite the public schools to be part of the staff that would assist at times.

Okay.

Any other suggestions?

I am very concerned about it because I think what will happen if it will, it may not be a problem if it is just a six-month study or a year-long study.

It's a one-on-one study.

I feel you're going to have a very difficult time finding, keep on finding it.

Don't come up with it.

So you think you can make that happen.

Right.

Okay.

I feel more comfortable with that.

Do we have consensus?

What did we just do?

I can try it.

I move that we approve the

What am I talking about?

That's the appointment.

The membership representation as described with the addition of Parks and Recreation as a staff representation and two members of, one parent member each of Clark and Jackson-Vaya.

I'll second.

Is there further discussion on the chairing committee?

Thank you.

I think this will be a great project and it can be a very holistic approach towards dealing with the future of the south side of our town.

I'm very excited about it.

Any other questions?

If not, we'll go back to

Public.

Before I go to that, is there other business which council wants to bring up?

Now, again, this is an opportunity for public to comment on any topic they wish for three minutes.

Please go forward.

Bailey Hampton, 505 Elliott.

I really am upset at the decision that you made with the zoning permit application tonight because of your decisions.

This is going to affect his ability to feed his daughter and I know that you can't look at it personally, but when you reference his illegal operation beforehand, you are.

and you also need to take into account the history of that space specifically before this permit was asked for.

For almost seven years before he bought the lease for that space, it was considered a private residence in an M1 building which had parties

where donations were asked for and it had shows almost five nights a week for like six or seven years.

I went to hundreds of shows there personally.

So if this were to greatly affect like the neighborhood plan, you would have well known about it beforehand.

So the fact that that was not taken into consideration, legal or illegal, it wasn't really allowed to be talked about at the planning commission meeting because the legality of it was like it didn't matter, right?

But you guys effectively are killing this man's business.

He is already having problems paying his employees.

So when you go home tonight and you go to sleep, think about that little blonde girl that was sitting in the front row and that you just took the ability for him to feed her at a reasonable way.

Who else would like to speak?