City Council Meeting   10/7/2013

Pledge of allegiance.

Ms. Norris?

Here.

Ms. Smith?

Here.

Ms. Szakos?

Here.

Welcome.

We have a number of awards and announcements.

I will start with Ms. Dede Smith.

Thank you.

I am pleased to read the following proclamation on Disability Employment Awareness Month.

Whereas every year since 1945 the President of the United States has proclaimed a national observance in October to promote the employment of individuals with disabilities and whereas this tradition continues in October 2013 with, quote, because we are equal

to the task as the theme for this year's National Disability Employment Awareness Month.

And whereas nearly one in five Americans have some type of disability, making people with disabilities the nation's largest minority, and whereas our community needs to harness the potential of all of its citizens so that

our economy can continue to grow and our labor force can meet the challenges on the horizon and whereas work is fundamental to identity providing the opportunity to lead a more independent self-directed life for all people and whereas we recognize that disability is a natural part of the human experience and affirm that disability in no way

should limit a person's ability to make choices, pursue meaningful careers, or participate fully in all aspects of life and whereas all of us have benefited from the achievements and contributions of people with disabilities and whereas attitudinal barriers can hinder people with disabilities from realizing their full potential and whereas education and public awareness are the most powerful tools

for increasing sensitivity and achieving full integration and inclusion of people with disabilities into all aspects of life.

Now, therefore, the City Council hereby proclaim October 2013 as Disability Employment Awareness Month in the City of Charlottesville and calls this observance to the attention of all its citizens.

My name is Bruce Coughlin and I'm the sales and marketing executive at WorkSource Enterprises, which is a local nonprofit here in town that provides job training and employment opportunities for people with disabilities.

I want to thank you all for this proclamation.

Studies have shown that there are so many benefits to the individual of working that we take the paycheck, you know, it's such a fundamental part of our existence and it's just as true for people with disabilities.

It gives them self-esteem, gives them the sense that they're contributing to the community.

and for area businesses.

I'm happy to say that our organization works with 115 organizations a year that's hired people with disabilities because they make great employees and they know that it's just wonderful to provide that opportunity to somebody with a disability.

In fact, the people that WorkSource helped last year earned $1.7 million in taxable wages.

So they went from being consumers of tax dollars to generators of tax dollars.

So employment programs really work.

I know that you all are involved with a lot of different initiatives to provide employment to more and more people in underserved populations in our community.

Mayor Huja, can I just say one brief thing?

Because Mr. Coffin and I sat next to each other at the chamber breakfast a month ago, I think.

And the idea of that, their model, is a very important one, I think, that can have some kind of transferable benefits to our initiatives to expand employment opportunities.

That's good.

Yes, I'm pleased to read a proclamation on our World Habitat Day.

Whereas the world's housing situation is a crisis in need of attention and action with 1.6 billion people living in inadequate shelter.

And whereas on World Habitat Day, October 7th, individuals, organizations, and government officials around the world are raising awareness, educating, and mobilizing to take action on the current global housing crisis while working together to ensure adequate housing for all.

and whereas as the international community seeks to meet critical shelter needs, reconstruction and neighborhood revitalization initiatives should occur within the framework of a comprehensive urban strategy and a development plan supported by the local government and its citizenry and whereas here in Charlottesville, despite enormous resources overall, we have severe affordable housing challenges with more than 700 families on the waiting list for public housing and 25% of our citizens cost burdened by spending greater than 50% of their income toward housing costs

and whereas the City of Charlottesville is committed to increase the amount of supported affordable housing in the city to 15% of total housing units by 2025 and whereas Habitat for Humanity addresses the causes and systemic issues that perpetuate poverty housing, therefore be it resolved on the seventh day of October 2013 that the City of Charlottesville officially joins Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville, its volunteers, homeowners, partners and supporters around the region in recognizing World Habitat Day.

On behalf of Habitat, I'd just like to thank the counselors for this recognition and also the citizens, everyone here and everyone watching.

And just say that I hope you'll join us for the culminating event of World Habitat Week.

We've had a lot of activities raising awareness.

for Habitat Housing Issues Worldwide and culminating event is at the Paramount this Thursday evening and hope that you'll come and celebrate with us the accomplishments that we've made a lot in part with your help and the citizens' help and also learn more about how you can help with the great need that is still out there.

Thank you.

Ms. Szakos, do you have?

I do have a proclamation.

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month and this evening the Shelter for Help and Emergency staff are participating in a candlelight vigil and thank council for their support and we have a proclamation in support of them.

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,

but cross all economic, racial and societal barriers and are supported by societal indifference and whereas the crime of domestic violence violates an individual's privacy, dignity, security and humanity due to the 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 its own, we must work together to educate our entire population about what can be done to prevent such violence, support victims and survivors and their families and increase support for agencies providing services to those community members.

and whereas the Shelter for Help and Emergency has led the way in the city of Charlottesville in addressing domestic violence by providing 24-hour hotline services to victims, survivors and their families, offering support and information and empowering survivors to chart their own course for healing

and, whereas the Shelter for Health and Emergency commemorates its 34th year of providing unparalleled services to women, children and men who have been victimized by domestic violence.

Now, therefore, be it resolved, in recognition of the important work being done by the Shelter for Health and Emergency, that Satyendra Singh Huja, Mayor of the City of Charlottesville, does hereby proclaim the month of October 2013 as Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

We as a council support this effort and we always will do it.

As long as we are on resolutions

Proclamations.

There is one more resolution which is on the consent agenda.

We are going to take action on that, but it is an important issue.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

This is a resolution of the City of Charlottesville to the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency in support of reducing greenhouse gas pollution under the Clean Air Act.

Whereas the decade from 2000 to 2010 was the warmest on record, 2005 and 2010 tied for the hottest years on record,

and 2012 was the hottest year on record for the contiguous United States and the current level of CO2 in the atmosphere is approximately 397 parts per million and whereas one of the world's leading climate scientists, Dr. James Hansen, stated in 2008, if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted,

paleoclimate evidence and climate change suggests that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 parts per million to at most 350 parts per million and whereas the Environmental Protection Agency determined that current and future greenhouse gas concentrations endanger public health

and according to the Global Humanitarian Forum, climate change is already responsible every year for some 300,000 deaths, 325 million people seriously affected and economic losses worldwide of 125 billion dollars and whereas extreme weather events, most notably heat waves and precipitation extremes are striking with increased frequency with deadly consequences for people and wildlife

In the United States in 2011 alone, a record 14 weather and climate disasters occurred, including droughts, heat waves, and floods that cost at least a billion dollars each in damages and loss of human lives.

and whereas climate change creates conditions that lead to more destructive storms like 2012 Superstorm Sandy by loading storms with more energy and more rainfall, raising sea levels and causing storm surge to ride on a higher sea surface causing more coastline floods and warming the Arctic and melting sea ice which causes changes in the jet stream that are bringing more extreme weather to the United States

and whereas climate change is affecting food security by reducing the growth and yields of important crops, droughts, floods and changes in snowpack are altering water supplies.

As of October 2nd, 2012, 64.6% of the contiguous US was experiencing moderate to exceptional drought.

and in 2012 the U.S. Department of Agriculture designated more than half of all U.S. counties disaster areas mainly due to drought and whereas scientists have concluded that by the year 2100 as many as one in ten species may be on the verge of extinction due to climate change and whereas the world's land-based ice is rapidly melting, threatening water supplies in many regions and raising sea levels,

and Arctic summer sea ice extent has decreased to about half what it was several decades ago and reached a record low in 2012 with an accompanying drastic reduction in sea ice thickness and volume which is severely jeopardizing ice dependent animals.

I'm going to skip over them.

Whereas for four decades the Clean Air Act has protected the air we breathe through a proven comprehensive successful system of pollution control that saves lives and creates economic benefits exceeding its cost by many times

Whereas between 1970 and 1990, the six main pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act were reduced by between 47 and 93 percent, and airborne lead was virtually eliminated.

Whereas the Clean Air Act has produced economic benefits valued at $2 trillion for 30 times the cost of regulation,

whereas the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Massachusetts versus EPA that greenhouse gases are air pollutants as defined by the Clean Air Act and the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to regulate them whereas the city of Charlottesville prides itself on being a leader in the fight against climate change and for clean air became a signatory to the U.S. Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement in 2006 published its first community greenhouse gases inventory in 2008 with a recent update published in 2012

participated in a local climate action planning process, has been a major partner since the inception of our local energy alliance program and continues to pursue and implement a broad range of initiatives aimed at reducing emissions.

Now therefore be it resolved that climate change is not an abstract problem for the future or one that will only affect far distant places, but rather climate change is happening now,

We are causing it, and the longer we wait to act, the more we lose and the more difficult the problem will be to solve.

And we, the Charlottesville City Council, on behalf of the residents of Charlottesville, do hereby urge the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and President Barack Obama to move swiftly to fully employ and enforce the Clean Air Act to do our part to reduce carbon in the atmosphere to no more than 350 parts per million.

Is it a second?

I'll second.

Any discussion on the motion?

If not, we adopt.

The people in the audience today who are here for this resolution, if they want to stand up and be acknowledged, I'll be happy to acknowledge them.

Thank you for coming.

Sure, Mr. Mayor.

Charlottesville Community Career Conference tomorrow.

On Tuesday, October 8th, 2013, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at John Paul Jones Arena, job seekers will have an exclusive opportunity to network and discover how they can move up the career ladder.

The Career Conference will be an all-day event focusing on how job seekers can market themselves

to top employers in the local community.

For the first time, the Career Conference will also host the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce's Business Expo, giving job seekers the opportunity to learn about open positions in Charlottesville as well as connect with professionals in the business community.

The Career Conference is free and open to the public.

Can we have any information about the bus routes that go out there?

Seven goes pretty close.

So I just want to make sure that people who don't have cars, they can use bus number seven to get out there.

I have two.

The first is, well actually they both have to do with prizes.

So the first is the Southeast Energy Alliance.

Cynthia, just go forward.

There you are.

Do we need a drum roll?

It is with a great deal of pleasure that I'm here tonight to be able to represent our customers, our contractors, and my staff to bestow these Pro3 awards from the Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance.

otherwise known as SIA.

SIA was a $20 million recipient for a competitive Department of Energy grant called the Better Buildings Neighborhood Program.

And LEAP was a sub-recipient under SIA for that grant.

We were part of a 13-member consortium that included the likes of Atlanta, Georgia, Nashville, Tennessee, Charlotte, North Carolina, and Jacksonville, Florida.

And we were the top performing community out of all 13, including the biggies.

In three short years, we've touched thousands of homeowners, hundreds of businesses, all in the name of energy efficiency in our buildings.

Energy efficiency can help create and maintain local jobs.

Energy efficiency keeps the local dollars circulating within our local community.

Energy efficiency improves the durability and the livability of our local structures, and it also does all of this while lowering our impact on the environment.

It truly is a win-win-win for our community.

We are very proud through our multiple programs in residential, commercial and multifamily to have saved local building owners over a million dollars annually now in energy and also to have helped generate over 13 million dollars in revenue for local businesses.

Thank you.

So first of all, I'd like to present this award to the credit union.

The credit union has shown tremendous vision in our community.

They have created a power saver loan, which helps local citizens access low interest financing and through programs that we've had through Better Buildings and through the city, even no interest financing for some of our local residents.

and so on behalf of SIA to the UVA Community Credit Union for delivering accessible energy efficiency financing solutions to help community members reduce their utility bills and improve their homes, we thank you with this Energy Pro 3 Award.

Supervisor Snow, I present this award to the county of Albemarle in appreciation of the support that you all have shown LEAP over the years and I know you out of many have a personal appreciation for the value our program brings having earned your own home performance with Energy Star for your home and so I would like to say to Albemarle County for strategic investment in energy efficiency as a catalyst for a more sustainable and more prosperous central Virginia, thank you very much

and then I'm not sure who from council would like to come and... Who's attending?

We've had the pleasure of working with three of the council members so thank you.

Well LEAP is especially appreciative of the leadership that Charlottesville has shown over the past many years.

when it comes to enabling a green and sustainable community for your citizens.

From the energized 250 campaign to the better business challenge, the city staff, shout out to Crystal Riddlevold who's not here tonight, has opened doors for us, supported our efforts, and generally created a context for the collective success of our initiative.

Thank you so much.

This is another award.

We're pleased to announce the Virginia Recreation and Park Society Award at our city's Parks and Recreation Department with the best new program in the state award for a population of cities 25,000 to 50,000 in 2012.

For Kylie, is it Sempre?

Are you here, Kylie?

I think it's Kylie Sempre's Night Hike and Campfire Program.

The award was presented during the VRPS Conference Awards Banquet in Williamsburg in September.

So this was a program where they actually went out overnight, hiked, and hung out by the campfire.

So a major challenge for the people who were doing it, and it apparently went very well.

On behalf of council, we congratulate our Parks and Recreation Department, and especially Kylie,

for their hard work and creativity.

I do.

Voter registration deadline.

October 15th is the last day to register to vote before the November 5th election.

As a reminder, we do have election coming up for Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, House of Delegates, City Council, Treasurer, Commissioner of Revenue, Sheriff, Commonwealth Attorney and School Board.

October 15th, again, the last day you can register to vote.

It's important that you register to vote at your current address and update your registration when you move and or change your name.

if you want to participate in our election process.

You can register to vote by visiting the Office of Voter Registration City Hall Annex next door, open weekdays 8.30 to 4.30 or you can download a voter registration application from the city's website or submit a voter registration application online at www.vote.virginia.gov.

and I also want to announce there's been a lot of concern expressed in this community, in this country about blanket surveillance and erosion of civil liberties and I'm very pleased to announce that there is a national event that's being organized for Saturday, October 26th and actually the lead organizer is a Charlottesville native, Ben Dornberg

October 26th is the anniversary of the signing of the Patriot Act.

It's a rally on Capitol Hill in D.C. from 12 to 3 p.m. called Stop Watching Us, Rally Against Mass Surveillance.

And they have gathered 570,000 signatures that they'll be presenting to Congress.

Yes, and I'd like to announce that the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority will be holding an open house on Monday, October 14th.

from five to seven on the granular activated carbon project.

You either know exactly what that means or you haven't a clue.

But it stems from the chloramine debate.

And so you can go between five and seven October 14th to the Moore's Creek treatment plant on Franklin there in Woollen Mills, Belmont right between there.

I have one announcement.

It is about boards and commissions opening.

As you know, the city has many boards and commissions, and we encourage citizens to participate in them.

And there are right now, if you want to be on one of these boards, which I want to mention, you can go to www.sharlesworld.org slash boards.

And the deadlines are 5 p.m. October 15.

The boards are Social Services Advisory Board, Housing Authority, Building Codes of Appeal,

Marichal Area Community Action Agency, Place Making Laboratory, Place Task Force, Region 10 Community Services Board, Regional Disability Service Board, Personal Appeal Board, Citizens Advisory Panel, News Council.

So there are at least 11 boards where we have links.

So we encourage citizens to apply and you can call Page Barfield or from now on, Page Price for this

and her number is 97031113.

So I hope you will apply.

I was speaking of boards and commissions, I have some nominations to the city's Water Resources Protection Program Advisory Committee.

We have some nominees for a one-year term on that committee, Rebecca Quinn and

Seconded.

Seconded.

Second.

Moved.

That takes years of announcements.

Any other announcements?

Thank you.

Next item on the agenda is Metis by the Public.

Is it a sign-up sheet?

I've lived in Charlottesville my entire life.

I have two daughters and one son who've also lived here their entire lives.

And I am here, I also work for FAR, and I'm here to talk about redevelopment and specifically about the RAD program, Rental Assistance Demonstration.

When it comes to redevelopment, a process or at least an idea of a process was set years ago and in the past year that process has been significantly changed through things like the strategic investment area and now we have the city review of the housing authority.

Things that may fit into that process originally but now we have this much bigger

change and it's bearing down on the residents of public housing starting on Friday, last Friday, and that is HUD's voluntary program rental assistance demonstration.

Redevelopment, as we're told, requires the city involvement and city support of all efforts to do redevelopment of public housing in Charlottesville and that's why I'm here tonight is to make sure you all know exactly what RAD is and what it means.

To be very clear, what RAD does is eliminate public housing in Charlottesville, cut and dry.

Now there are a lot of ins and outs, there are a lot of rosy scenarios painted by HUD about what this program is about, but the bottom line is, if RAD goes through, this housing authority applies and gets accepted, then there will be no public housing in the city of Charlottesville.

Now, at FAR we've learned a little bit about how RAD works.

It's very confusing.

We have more questions than we have answers.

We have many, many concerns.

We know how it works generally, but what we don't know is how it works specifically in the city of Charlottesville.

However, there are some in this city who know exactly what they want to have happen through RAD, through the elimination of public housing in Charlottesville.

This past Friday, well first off some of the things we don't know what sites would be converted, who the landlords would be, who the funders are, and what kind of staff structure there would be.

Those are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to our questions.

Last Friday at 6 o'clock we got notice that the housing authority was going to pursue RAD and had set a time for November 4th as a deadline for applying for rental assistance demonstration.

This involves a couple of resident meetings.

I don't think this qualifies as meaningful and enforceable resident input into redevelopment and is a clear violation of the resident's bill of rights for redevelopment and public housing.

I hope that you do not support this.

I hope that your involvement has nothing to do with this program and I ask you to oppose RAD.

I want to be clear what RAD means.

Again, the end of public housing in Charlottesville.

It also sets a timeline for the elimination, the eventual elimination, from either between 15 and 40 years of protected affordable housing.

376 units of protected affordable housing here in the city of Charlottesville.

I don't think this is a great idea.

They will also change income targeting for future residents.

Not the current residents, but future ones.

And so I ask if you all think this is a really good idea and how much you have to influence this process because what we're looking at is the biggest thing to happen to public housing in Charlottesville since Vinegar Hill.

This is a huge deal and I do not think that in one month's time, the month of October, is enough time for seven people to make a decision about the future of public housing in Charlottesville.

So I would ask all of those who feel the same way I do that one month is not enough time to make this decision and that seven people should not be involved in this decision making without any meaningful resident input.

I ask you to stand and show city council where you're coming from.

Thank you.

I'm here to talk about where they changed from 1A.

Yes, I'm legally blind.

I've been there eight years.

I need that bus.

Some days I do have very mild cerebral palsy.

Yes, I go to work.

But there's days if you change the route and put it on Chesapeake, I will not be able to ride the city bus.

If so, if I need to, I will go to ADA and the Department of Transportation.

I live at 415 Fairway Avenue.

It infuriates me that you only change the bus route

without even discussing it with us.

Furthermore, I also don't appreciate you all taking the Saturdays routes off either because there are times where we just would like to go somewhere on the bus on Saturdays.

It doesn't run on Sundays.

It was running Monday through Saturday, which was nice.

Now I'm understanding you're taking that out as well.

It's not fair.

It's uncalled for, and I don't appreciate it.

Thank you, ma'am.

I'm here to say I moved to Fairway this summer and I really enjoyed the neighborhood and my mobility instructor has taught me how to use the bus and get to my house from where the bus is and the bus drivers are real nice about letting me know when I'm at my area to get off and I'd appreciate to keep this on because sometime the joint

Schedule is so heavy they can't let everybody ride.

So we tried to take the city bus to everywhere we got to go.

And that means I'd have to ask for a courtesy call to get the mobility instructor to come over for him to teach me a new route.

Thank you, ma'am.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Councillors.

My name is Bruce O'Dell.

I live at 878 Locust Avenue in the city.

I'm here as president of the Martha Jefferson Neighborhood Association and I'm representing the board in that matter.

We're here tonight because we understand you'll be taking a first reading and last reading of a proposal for a special use permit for 925 East Market Street at the corner of 10th Street and Market Street very close by here.

We've not had an opportunity to talk with you before on this, but we have had dialogue with neighborhood development services about a concern regarding that development and the aggregation of developments of that sort that have grown in the last few months and last year or so in the city.

I harken back to the conversation we had at the town hall meeting last spring at the rec center.

And after a long conversation, a lot of complaints by us about traffic issues in the neighborhood, not just Locust Avenue but throughout the neighborhood, I recall at the end of the meeting that the city manager, Maurice Jones, says we really need a comprehensive look at that and maybe come up with a plan.

At least that's my recollection of the conversation.

Unfortunately, that hasn't happened yet.

This, of course, is a long summer, so perhaps it's still timely.

But we think it's now become urgent to do that, not because necessarily we object to the building 925 East Market.

Some in our community, I think, have serious questions about some of the design aspects, for example, entering egress onto 10th Street.

But we as a board are concerned specifically.

about the impact of this and similar developments in the eastern part of downtown.

CityWalk, which is going to be shortly connected through to 10th Street, the Water Street PUD, which I don't think has come to your official attention yet, but that is coming up soon, 925 East Market.

All of them have higher density requirements and proposals.

The main street for this area is the Route 250 bypass.

The main street in quotes I should say for the area.

The route to get there is either East High Street or frankly from this area of town, more easily, Locust Avenue.

There needs to be some relief.

So what we're asking here is not as a board

to object the building per se.

What we want is a commitment from the city, direction from city council to the city departments that there needs to be a serious planning and implementation effort within a matter of months.

I have actually taken the liberty of giving Page Price, I guess it is now, our clerk of the court, a possible amendment to the resolution in that regard, you may want to look at later, to really accelerate the process and make this a firm process indeed.

And finally, I have here, I have to say that we do object to the technical details on the matter of the immense amount of traffic coming.

The report from the engineer does not correctly identify the fact that the ABC preschool is moving a block away.

So that traffic will continue.

and it can't be netted out.

The argumentation here is we believe self-serving, but that's a technical point.

And George Gilliam has given a very good idea of what he thinks should be done.

My name is Jim Rounceville.

I'm an architect.

I live at 1113 Monticello Road and have been a member of the design team for the Belmont Bridge.

In light of recent city staff report and public reaction, I'm here tonight as part of an effort to clear up some misunderstandings and misinformation about the Belmont Overpass replacement.

Over the past two weeks, it's become clear that some are ready to dismiss the idea of sending a street below the railroad tracks because they think it's too complex, don't fully understand its design, or have become impatient with the process.

Without question, this is not an easy nut to crack, so it's understandable.

What this is not is some simple decision about replacing decaying infrastructure just because it's less hassle.

It's bigger than that.

It's about the future of them all, the future potential to grow the pedestrian experience, future connectivity, and above all to grasp this opportunity and fundamentally transcend the moment and the place.

As one reporter put it, this is a big decision.

As the idea 37 years ago of the automobile surrendering a dying

and the downtown business district to the pedestrian.

If the goal is to create a more livable city that's more accessible and interconnected with a greater emphasis on a better pedestrian experience, then I have to ask, why would simply replacing a highway overpass that never belonged here be acceptable, especially when there's a superior solution that meets council's vision for the city?

But this is not about an underpass.

It's about a bridge.

It's a pedestrian bridge.

This is about the iconography of our city.

So why on earth would one think, no matter how you dressed it up in a Robert and Moses moment, that an overpass with 15,000 cars, trucks, and buses marching along daily, 34 feet in the air, jammed up against suburban office buildings in the backside of a music pavilion is somehow preferable to an idea that's just like any other street, keeps the car on the ground, opens up the latent potential of untapped urban opportunity,

and relieves the amphitheater of its overcrowding and most importantly extends the success of the downtown experience southward with a new iconic modern gateway pedestrian bridge.

This is not about the car.

It's about people.

It's about connectivity.

It's about making a better place.

Having studied this design problem for at least two and a half years, a beautiful new pedestrian bridge with its attendant roadway under the tracks is a fundamentally superior solution than just simply rebuilding or dressing up a 1961 Federal Highway overpass.

So I ask, is an underpass and pedestrian bridge more expensive and will it take longer to build?

Probably.

Is it more complicated?

Yes.

Can the project's short-term complexities be overcome?

Absolutely.

On the other hand, will this infrastructure last longer than a comparable new highway bridge and cost less to take care of?

You bet.

Finally, with the city's return on investment and a solution that connects and opens instead of divides and impedes, better stimulate continued economic growth?

Without question.

Cities around the country have figured out investment in new iconic infrastructure as a crucial component to maintain their competitive edge.

In short, yes it's more complicated to go under, but it's a far superior solution.

Hi, Joni Freeman, 522 Ridge Street.

First off I want to thank Dave Norris and the council for being so green oriented for our city.

This is a proud place to be and I was here to support this resolution, you all unanimously

I voted for it and I thank you.

I thank you as a citizen.

I thank you as a parent and a grandparent who's got future generations coming on board.

What I'm wanting to add to it is that we need to

really get our citizens involved and engaged in making the important changes that need to take place just as what Councilman Norris has pointed out.

Time is limited.

We have a window here to make changes

and to be an example for the rest of the country.

And those changes need to be on every front, increasing the bikes on our roads, increasing people being able to walk, getting the cars as best we can, possibly even closing our ten and a half miles of city

two cars and make it a walkable city by using public transportation.

There's so many ideas and there is many organizations that have popped up.

Transition Charlottesville Albemarle, 350 Central Virginia, Sierra Club's been around, Wise Energy.

There's groups that are here working to try to make our city

belong to what you're trying to do, but unless we build the swell, unless we really get people involved in making these changes, it's you up there that are making resolutions, making plans, which your plans are awesome, but we need to get on board.

So how we could do that?

I sent you all an email suggesting that we do a dialogue on environment.

We bring these organizations that have leadership involved to the forefront and engage the entire community.

It's urgent.

We have a window here.

a window that is going to change our lives for the future if we don't get on board.

I want to support you with your plans, with your efforts, with your resolutions.

I want our community to support what you're doing, adding more community gardens, getting more bikes on our roads, walking, getting those cars,

out of here, reduce our fossil fuel dependency.

So I want to thank you, six seconds, five seconds, thank you so much, Dave, everybody, for doing what you're planning to do.

Dave Redding, I'm at 522 Ridge Street and I want to thank Mr. Jones here in particular because on September 28th we had the Seville Vegetarian Fest and it was a great success.

We had 6,500 people that showed up.

Last year we had

We had over 6,000 people.

Last year we had 3,500 people who had come and part of that was because of the support that we got from the tourist bureau.

We had quite a bit more advertising, a full page, a full double page in the Seaville the last week there.

So it all went very well.

Now what happened was this was the first zero waste festival, the first major zero waste festival in central Virginia and we were able to gather up 1,000 pounds of compost that last year

When we gathered it up, it turned into trash.

It was just trash because we didn't have compostable dinnerware and things like that.

This year we had the support of Blue Moon, what is it?

Blue Harvest.

Harvest Moon Catering and Blue Green and also Black Bear Composting and so it all came together and we had a thousand pounds of compost so it's really great.

We had hoped to get the 85% of where we were composting 85% turned out that we did about 92%

So it was even beyond what we had expected.

Mr. Jones had helped me because we were having just issues and trying to figure out what was going on and he emailed me and he set up where we made arrangements to have delivery of the recycling bins and it all went very well so I'd like to thank you all for that.

Let's see.

And another thing I think that helped is Joni and I, we were on the news with vegetable costumes.

I don't know if you saw that in Channel 29 or not.

Additionally, I'd like to talk about the bike lane.

You're going to do something down on 10th Street, or no, Market Street.

And we'd like to have a bike lane that goes along Locust there.

It does go on one side.

We'd like to see it on the other side.

There's room for that.

Mr. Mayor and members of City Council, I'm Jock Yellit, 311 East Market Street.

I'm here to speak to item 7 on your agenda, which is a tree protection ordinance.

This is your first reading, there's no public hearing about that as I understand it.

I'm here to voice my support for it, even though I think it flawed.

In one respect, maybe fatally flawed.

The ordinance will protect both city-owned trees and trees on private property.

It's the second part, the private property trees, that's the problem.

It depends on the consent of the property owner, and generally speaking, consent expires when an owner sells property or dies.

I have discussed with the city attorney's office, Mr. Harris in particular, who was very cordial and kind to me and listened to all I had to say, about a potential remedy for that problem, which is tree conservation easements.

The problem with a tree conservation easement, I should probably voice his objection since he's not here, is it's very burdensome.

It takes a lot of time and effort.

I'm not here to speak to that subject.

I'm not the one doing the work.

If he says it's burdensome, I guess it must be.

But you do have an easement on your agenda tonight, the Dominion Virginia Power easement, so it would be about that same amount of time and effort.

And I think trees are certainly worth the amount of time and effort that bearing wires underground are.

In any event, I want to conclude by saying I support it, even though it is flawed, even though I don't think it can work when it comes to trees on private property, because at least it's a start.

Good evening.

I'm Harry Holsinger.

I reside at 709 Grove Avenue.

And I'm here to talk about Martha Jefferson Neighborhood.

I love Charlottesville.

I've been here for seven years and it's a great place to live.

But one of the things that makes it especially nice is living in the Martha Jefferson neighborhood.

I have great neighbors and we have a community that is very supportive of one another and that is very interested in making sure we keep the quality of our neighborhood what it is or maybe even improve it.

One of the huge issues related to the quality of our neighborhood is the traffic.

And we're very concerned about the traffic, especially on Locust Avenue.

Locust Avenue I'm afraid is in danger of becoming another entrance corridor.

And the traffic is fast.

It says 25 miles an hour, but I doubt there are very many cars that do 25.

It's more like 35, 45.

We've looked at several solutions.

We've asked about maybe doing some reconfiguring of the lanes, but we've been told by city staff

We can't do that until there's repaving.

We've asked about humps to slow traffic down.

Humps are out of the question.

We've asked about speed signs, you know, these radar signs that say your speed is.

We seem to have run into a log jam on that because it seems everybody affected by the signs has to approve it, no exceptions, in order for it to go up.

And I would just want to share a brief experience with you.

I went up to Purcellville, Virginia two weeks ago, a nice little town in western Loudoun County.

And as I entered the town,

I immediately confronted one of these signs that said, you are going 37 miles an hour, and the speed limit was 25.

So I slowed down.

At the other end of the town, when I was getting near the middle school, I ran across another sign just the same.

And it made me keep within the speed limit.

They have them all over the place in that town.

And I understand at best, we have one here in Charlottesville.

I think it's up on Rugby Road.

But why can't we have more of those signs?

Why can't we have a couple of them on Locust Avenue?

It would be one way to slow traffic down.

And I figure if a little town like Purcellville can do it, the great city of Charlottesville certainly can.

Good evening, my name is Emily Dreyfus and I'm here on behalf of the Legal Aid Justice Center.

We're at 1000 Preston Avenue.

And I'm here, like Brandon Collins, to oppose RAD, the Rental Assistance Demonstration Grant.

And I hope that you all will participate and become part of this process because it is very alarming.

As soon as I learned that the RAD subsidies would expire between 15 and 40 years from the time that they're granted, that was enough for me.

I knew we need to keep our public housing.

This is a public good.

It should stay in the public arena.

This program jeopardizes that.

And we already have expiring use properties at Hearthwood and Friendship Court.

We don't know what the future will be for hundreds, thousands of families who benefit from those.

And if we lose the stock of public housing within the next 40 years, there will be a real decimation of the affordable housing stock in Charlottesville.

As Brandon noted, this process has very much violated the residents' Bill of Rights that calls for the number one provision of meaningful resident participation.

That has not happened.

Residents, I think, overall don't know anything about what's happening with this program other than it's very few people who are the leaders of FAR who have been involved in more of the intensive

discussions that have happened at FAR because the Housing Authority has certainly not engaged residents in discussions.

This program actually requires resident education and participation before the application is submitted, so the fact that it's not happening is even more significant.

There are other communities who will be applying for this program and at some point Charlottesville may be forced to do this.

This may be HUD going out of the business of public housing in five or ten years.

But at this point we don't need to be the guinea pigs.

There's enough concerns, there's enough history in this town that says this is not the right way to go.

There are many unanswered questions so I'm just going to run through a few of the ones that have been on my mind and on the mind of some of the far leaders who've been able to take the time to try to brainstorm about this.

Which program is the Housing Authority applying for?

There are two different potential rental assistance demonstration grants and we don't even know which one it is and that matters a lot.

It matters in terms of both resident participation rates and also how long the mortgages will be held for.

Is there a guarantee of increasing money for Section 8 vouchers because this program has a component of choice mobility that is a big mystery in terms of how it will work and what will happen because Section 8 vouchers are often on the chopping block with Congress.

It is not a stable source even though

Public housing funding has declined slightly over the years, significantly, but still slowly.

It really needs to be realized that that is a much more stable source.

We also have Levy Avenue vacant land and South First Street has vacant land and underutilized land, which could be utilized in order to create funds that would allow the housing authority to operate in the black.

So I will put my other questions in writing.

Thank you for your time.

Connie Rosenbaum, AO2M, Hardy Drive.

I am also against RAD.

We do not know enough about this program to even consider taking it on right now.

I'm going to tell y'all, to be honest, the Housing Authority Board, y'all don't have a Housing Authority Board.

That's the SARS Housing Authority board that I have ever seen in the city is right here in the city of Charlottesville.

Y'all letting Connie Dunn dictate everything that y'all want everything to do.

Y'all dictate who wants to be the mayor instead of us getting to vote who be's the mayor.

Y'all vote who gets to be the mayor.

That's the public's choice who gets to be the mayor.

It shouldn't be the board's choice who gets to be the mayor.

It should be the public's people to vote yes or no who gets to be the mayor.

And we don't know enough about these meetings.

What happens to the residents?

Does anybody know?

Are we going to have a place to live in 10 years?

Are we going to be thrown out?

Are the apartments going to be torn down?

Does anyone know?

Can anyone say anything about what's going on?

Can anybody tell us?

Can't nobody tell us anything because nothing's been said about it.

Nothing.

We've had no meetings about it.

We've got one at West Haven Thursday at 2, I think, and at 5.30.

I've been sick for the past couple months, so I have been out of bounds for a little bit, so I don't know quite what's going on with everything.

I'm trying to catch up.

I hope everybody from West Haven, South First Street,

Hardy Drive, you know, everybody from Housing Authority shows up, including Housing Authority staff.

The Housing Authority staff needs to be there to answer the questions that us residents have to answer.

It is our right

as residents of the city of Charlottesville for y'all to be there and for the board of Charlottesville Housing to answer our questions instead of just going on and doing what y'all want to do without letting everybody else know about it.

And I think y'all need to rethink this through and think about the residents of Charlottesville

and not what y'all think is going to be 20 years down the road and what's best for Charlottesville.

Think about what's best for Charlottesville now.

We need help now.

We need help 20 years down the road too, but we need help now.

I'll allow at least one more person to speak.

And if you want to speak, you can come back at the end of the meeting.

I will be brief.

I'm here to speak about RAD as well.

What's happening is you're allowing a troubled executive director to decide housing policy for the city for the next half a century, and that's just intolerable.

It's not accountable to anybody in the public.

It's not accountable to the residents.

And the questions I think that the city council is going to have to address are, are you prepared once again to breach your faith with public housing residents?

Are you prepared to renege on the promise that you made to public housing residents in the Bill of Rights?

Are you prepared to

working very diligently apparently on that process and yet there's no point to having Mr. Jones engaged at all in this process if we end up with the Housing Authority Executive Director making all the decisions about what's going to happen with public housing for the future.

It will be a waste of money for the town to pay the additional money that Mr. Jones may or may not deserve as a result of his work because it will be futile.

Now there is no rush to judgment here, there's no need for a rush to judgment here, but there is a need for an intervention by the city council in looking at the future of public housing in the city.

And it's a very important question because as you know, as has been discussed here tonight, the affordability question goes beyond even public housing.

So the residents here are fighting for 376 units.

We really should be discussing 2,000 units of affordable housing.

That should be the topic of conversation.

and we should get away from the notion that we're going to be altering public housing and get back on the notion of how are we going to develop the thousands of units of affordable housing that this community needs in order to maintain its diversity.

Let me close the session.

I would like to start the comments first before, if you don't mind.

There have been a number of comments made today about RAD and I must say I share many of those concerns because I also found out same time Friday as to what was being happening and this meeting has been scheduled, is being scheduled by Mr. Jones I think on this issue to discuss.

Housing authority has not decided any such thing to make any application yet.

and it is just to my knowledge I am a member of the board of the Ohio State University and this is something which needs to be discussed with residents and before any making any decision so I think just because there is a notice of intent doesn't mean anything to me at least

because housing authority has not decided this issue.

What is the timetable if there were a notice of intent?

I think it's by the end of the year.

And that will be an important part of the meeting that we're going to have later this week is to work with FAR to decide the best way to move forward with communicating to the public to get their, one, to explain what RAD is and two, to get their input on whether or not they'd like, they would support the housing authority moving forward.

And again, what time is that meeting?

Two o'clock at West Haven?

On Thursday?

And just one more thing about that topic before we all do our other comments.

Maybe but I'm not sure.

I don't think this is going to do anything until we have a chance to discuss it.

In general or about RAD?

I mean actually I'd just like to say in terms of the RAD proposal I heard things tonight that in the short little presentation I heard on Friday which was the first time that we had heard about this there were details that we didn't hear so we really need to get every little nitty-gritty I mean I was asking at that time really you know whether there was any analysis with public housing versus the voucher based housing units I mean we know that they both have you know

There's issues here.

Really, how do they compare?

And I can't find anybody who's really looked at that.

And so that actually would be really interesting because that's the best model that we have for comparing anything to RAD, notwithstanding the negatives of expiration, those sorts of things.

But we just need some good information.

Regardless of how you feel.

I'd like to thank everyone from Martha Jefferson neighborhood about locusts.

I mean I agree it's an issue we've got all over the city.

It is an arterial street so there are limitations about what we can do.

but there are things we can do and we really do need to be really on top of the impact with these new developments as we do on Meade.

Meade's another one that leads to the bypass and we heard just at our last town hall meeting at Martha Jefferson that Meade has some very similar issues and it too is an arterial street so we just

We can't ignore the impacts of all of this new development, a lot of which is by right.

So it's not that we have a lot to say about all of them, but we do about some.

But one of the beauties of Martha Jefferson neighborhood, like it is in my own Fry's Spring, are those trees.

There are just some spectacular trees in Martha Jefferson neighborhood and so I just like to

Yeah, I agree on Martha Jefferson.

We'll have more chance to talk later.

I'm very concerned about to hear from the residents who are being impacted with the potential changes in the bus routes.

So, I'm not opposed to changing bus routes on a CATEO.

We've looked at up and down ways to improve the bus system, but if there are

real life consequences that we didn't think ahead to accommodate.

We need to not be afraid to readjust.

RAD, Rental Assistance, I think the thing is that RAD from what we know about RAD, it's not all bad, it's not all good.

The problem is we don't know if the bad outweighs the good or the good outweighs the bad.

We just don't know.

As several of the speakers said, there's many unanswered questions about it.

and the fact that it seems like it's being sort of railroaded and that there's only sort of titular resident engagement involved I think is very troubling and so I actually fully agree with Ms. Szakos that

This really is a housing policy decision that merits review and approval by the city because this, again, it goes back to this issue we've been talking about for a little while now about breaking down the wall between the city and the housing authority and starting to think more about public housing as part of the city and public housing residents as members of our community and we owe it to them and to the Bill of Rights to make sure that all of the questions are answered before we take any vote.

I will say RAD does answer one of the questions that has really been troubling housing authorities all over the country, which is how do you leverage your assets to promote good redevelopment?

RAD allows housing authorities some financing options and flexibility, which they don't have right now.

So like I said, there are good aspects of it, but I'm not convinced at all that the good outweighs the bad.

I don't think anybody really knows, because it's just a lot of question marks.

I do, but actually I'll go because mine are short.

I would reiterate Mr. Norris' suggestion about just doing a review of Route 1A.

I think that the folks who came and spoke tonight, I think that that's something we really need to take into consideration.

I'd like them to look at that, and I'm sure they will.

The Locust Avenue folks, I drive that way to get home,

Yeah, a couple things.

With regards to the housing authority, I do think we need to start imagining ways that the housing authority can start developing in a manner so that it can accrue some of its own assets.

One housing authority comes to mind is the Alexandria Housing Authority.

Because they do mixed-use development of their own, they generate their own income so that they are subsidized in their own units to the point where they're able to buy condos

and outside locations within the city, but then they become permanent public housing units.

It's a whole different model.

It does sound like that's very expensive when you think about it, but at the same time it's not any more or less expensive than building new housing.

So I would just say that we do need to think outside the box and look at other management models.

I just think that it's critical at this point.

Second, and I want to speak a little bit to Ms. Joni Freeman's point about the dialogue on the environment.

In many ways, Ms. Freeman, the comprehensive plan is filled with language about how we want to be bike friendly, walkable, low fossil fuels, increase our tree canopy.

We've had that similar language since 2000 at least

and we've had a complete streets resolution.

We've had many, as you say, resolutions and plans.

What we do need to begin to think about is that what is the missing piece to get us from plan to implementation?

Because we are not consistently building our pedestrian and bike infrastructure ahead of the development.

And the reason why that's so important

is because as we do increase the numbers of people living here, we're going to need a lot more pedestrian realm, a lot more places for people to walk and bike.

And guess what?

That means that we get what they call mode split.

That means that allows people to go from point A to point B in a different way besides using a car.

But if you don't have that infrastructure in place at the same time that you're building buildings with more people in them,

it's going to break down.

And I am offering later on tonight the council to think about another resolution that has got a lot more timetable to it and a lot more content to it that's called the Context Sensitive Street Resolution that would be a companion to the Complete Street Resolution that was passed in 2010.

And in it, it does talk about the need to establish an advisory group now to oversee

looking at a city-wide plan to look at the network and we do improvements to streets when we do development it affects that network and each segment of that network then has to be rethought and redesigned to accommodate the changes.

It takes time, but we've got to start doing it now.

So I very much support your idea.

I think the public has told us we've had a lot of dialogue.

Mr. Mayor, can I make a quick comment on the issue concerning the bus route, Route 1.

John Jones is here, he's the manager of CAT, and I don't believe that the changes to Route 1 are as drastic as has been presented this evening.

So the big change, of course, there is some change in the general routing.

I think there's a misunderstanding about the elimination.

1A technically does go away.

It just becomes 1.

We're getting away from the AB designation.

There is some changes in the Willow Mills neighborhood with regard to how it goes through the streets.

It's a little more direct.

It will make some fewer stops.

There will be some adjustments that people need to make there.

Saturdays I know are a concern.

The decision to do that was based upon

a lack of Saturday ridership all in all most Saturdays are as little as just 10 people on the route for all day and one of the things that we're facing at CAT is you know for years and years and years the federal government just sort of shoveled that grant money our way and said here you know create a transit system well now they still give us the money but they expect us to perform

and when we have a low performer like that, it drags down our average.

If you consider Saturday ridership right now on average, we do about, I had the figures written down, I wasn't expecting to use them tonight, but our average goes down four passengers per hour

when we include the one.

If we take the one out of Saturday, it goes up four passengers per hour, so we perform a lot better without one there.

If it is a concern, I will cost it.

If council wants to tell me to go forward with providing Saturday service on the one, we can do that.

We can look at these things.

I've emailed staff already tonight

and they'll get those messages first thing in the morning and we'll begin to work on some modifications that we can present to you before we get to January because we're getting down sort of to the nitty gritty on our changes now.

We're getting close.

I'll have to look at it, where it's going to go.

And I think our concern is if it does leave Fairway and we've stranded at least three folks with visual disabilities, I think it's something we need to look at.

Excuse me, it's our turn now.

Sir, you need to keep quiet or I'll have to ask you to leave.

We'll definitely take a look at it and make sure that we haven't pulled service out to people that need it.

Okay, thank you.

John, one other question about Jaunt.

Can you tell us a little bit, there's a reference and a concern about Jaunt and whether or not they could be fit in for Jaunt service.

Jaunt is a demand response based service.

You call in, you schedule the rides.

I don't know what their same day policy is, but I do know that they have at least a 24 hour call in for a ride on Jaunt.

When they reach capacity they're often able to put extra capacity on so sometimes they can't fit people in.

Sometimes they can't, you know, they don't have the flexibility of a fixed route where if they've got X amount of people to pick up at 10, 15 and they need to go

Halfway across town to pick up one more ride at 1015, they just can't fit that in.

That person either has to go earlier or go later or order their plans.

With fixed route, you've got a more scheduled system, you know the bus is coming down your street at 10 o'clock, you can jump on, you can get back.

So, you know, John is there.

John is there to help people from all walks, not just the disabled.

It isn't as convenient in some respects as we are.

Could you use this information, look at the information, how these people are getting service and if they can get service by John or by other ways?

I'll do what I can do about finding out what John is doing, especially on the weekends.

I know they're not as active on the weekends, just as we don't do very much on Sunday.

John doesn't do a lot on Saturdays and Sundays, but I can talk to them.

people who chose to live somewhere because they knew a bus route was immediately accessible to them I think we have to be willing to adjust our plans particularly since we started tonight with a resolution talking about Disability Employment Month and getting people to work.

If not, we'll go to consent agenda.

Page Barfield, Office, Fry's.

Please speak.

Item A minutes for September 16th.

Item B in appropriation, Charlottesville High School Stadium Bleacher Replacement, Water Protection Performance Bond Release, second of two readings.

Item C in appropriation, Victim Witness Assistance Program Grant, $176,057, second of two readings.

Item D in Appropriation, Authorizing Police Cruiser Purchase, $214,000, second of two readings.

Item E in Appropriation, Gordon Avenue Library Masonry Project, Albemarle County Reimbursement, $1487.50, first of two readings.

Item F in Appropriation, Central Library Elevator Replacement, Albemarle County Joint Project Reimbursement, $4708.19, first of two readings.

Item G, an appropriation reimbursement for form-based code class registration fees, $400, first of one reading.

Item H, an appropriation emergency solutions grant, $57,715, first of two readings.

Item I, a resolution acquisition of property for Parkland, Corey Park, near Monticello Avenue, $212,500, first of one reading.

Item J, a resolution special use permit for 723 Nell Street, first of one reading.

Item K, a resolution special use permit for 217 West High Street, first of one reading.

Item L, a resolution in support of reducing greenhouse gas pollution under the Clean Air Act, and that was already approved, first of one reading.

Item M, a resolution, Charlottesville Area Transit Advisory Board, first of one reading.

Item N, an ordinance abandonment of 1625 Brandywine Trail

Access Easement, second of two readings.

Item O, an ordinance supporting equal access to employee benefits for all lawfully married city employees, second of two readings.

Item P, an ordinance allowing the local courts to assess the courthouse construction fees, second of two readings.

I have two comments that I don't want to necessarily pull them.

One is that I just want to make a note that this Quarry Park near Monticello Avenue, if you haven't looked at the agenda materials online, it's a really exciting opportunity for the city to expand the parkland and to incorporate an historic area down at the southern end of town.

Also, I think there was some confusion, at least in one email that we got,

about the speed limits and the 250 bypass, the construction speed limits of 25 in both directions, or all three directions around construction.

That is, as far as I understand, only for the duration of construction, not permanent.

So when the construction is over, they'll go back to, presumably to 35.

I have two, one item I would like to comment on, item number M, and you can pull it out or I can just suggest a change

Transit board?

Yes.

I concur with that.

Can we make an amendment without pulling it?

Mary Huja, I'd just like to make one comment about item G and that's about the

form-based code class.

I just want to commend staff for doing that and Mr. Jones for allowing your staff to do that because it is that kind of a code approach that will begin to start looking at both the public street and the private parcel at the same time.

The problem is all along, Ben, that we've been neglecting what that public street looks like.

Our current zones, zoning makes it impossible to have a street tree

For example, when you're building to a zero build two line, which is a city condition because we don't have sidewalks wide enough.

Foreign based code education is going to elevate the capabilities of our staff so that they begin to really understand that interface between public street and private property.

I'll make a motion that we approve the consent agenda with language added to item N to include a city council member on the transit advisory board.

And before we go on to the next item, I just wanted to mention that I would like to add something on to new business at the end about a request to Robert Hurt voting to release the continuing budget resolution and the federal shutdown.

Well then I would like to ask council if we'd be interested in sending a letter to Robert Hurt, actually an email to Robert Hurt, asking him to vote to release the continuing budget resolution for a floor vote and to end the federal shutdown.

This is something that's being done across the country by the National League of Cities, cities across the country.

I'm happy to second.

Who will just give us details as to who will write it and whether we'll see it, who's going to sign it.

There is a model that the National League of Cities suggests.

What I can do is send it around, but I guess that's kind of it.

Yeah, I don't know what we're allowed to do outside of a council meeting.

Item number 2, Public Hearing on Ordinance, Dominion Pawneesment for Undergrounding in Merritt Gardens.

Good evening Councillors and City Manager.

We are here to

Do something similar that we did a month ago in Greenleaf and McIntire Parks.

Dominion Power has requested that we allow them to put their lines underground through Meadow Creek Gardens, which they can't do under their current easement.

I have several questions.

May I ask them now?

Yes, sure.

I don't recall having quite as many questions about the Greenleaf Park as this arose sort of for me.

So the aesthetic value to Meadow Creek as was cited here is just because the electric wires are gone.

I believe Dominion has maybe done this sooner than other utility companies because power loss is a bigger deal.

They identified this particular segment as a frequent outage area and putting them underground would help them.

I believe the cable or phone, probably cable I spoke to, and they said that is a pretty big line, there would be technical difficulties in taking those customers offline while they did it.

We can certainly approach them and ask

Hey, Dominion's doing this.

How can we motivate you?

The trench is going to be dug anyway.

They typically do it with the same contractor.

So in this one case, you're correct.

It's just power.

I can happily contact the other two utilities and ask, is there a good reason to not do this?

They'll save themselves a lot of money if they do it now, if they might ever do it.

Okay, thank you.

The other concern is it follows Meadow Creek pretty closely.

It's currently treeless.

They've maintained it as a mowed area.

I'm technically curious how they go under the creek.

I don't know if they bore under.

It just occurred to me they're crossing a creek with this one.

In terms of future creek buffer things, I guess your underground easement rules would apply there.

In this case,

With the disc golf course going in it would be very good if all three lines went down because we could just use that corridor for disc golf and it's already treeless in that sense.

No, that started north of Hydraulic Road.

So this is still the way it's looked.

Okay, have we seen an issue with erosion because of the clearing of the utilities?

It's vegetated very well on the ground.

It's not muddy.

Will we lose any trees?

Do you know in

This just goes straight along the same easement.

Just apparently the old easements didn't say underground specifically.

And this allows them to go underground.

OK. And I do say it does seem to shift a bit.

I can ask him that because I see existing versus proposed.

Right where it turns.

Right where it crosses the creek.

Right, and more than specifically this one prompted it, I think we have sort of a knee-jerk reaction that undergrounding

lines is a good thing.

I mean, we've been pushing for it, but all of a sudden the implications of undergrounding lines seem to be boring their ugly heads.

And some of the language in the easements is pretty strong in terms of what rights Dominion now has to this easement, including taking down vegetation that impacts the lines outside the easement.

which was actually in the agreement which made me really nervous about trees.

It says inside or outside.

I've got it right here.

The right to trim, top, re-trim, re-top, cut and keep clear any trees.

Hold on, my notes.

or Brush inside and outside the boundaries of the easement that may endanger the safe and proper operation of its facilities.

And I guess I just don't quite, is anybody from Dominion here?

To quite trust Dominion that their definition of impacting facilities won't threaten our trees.

20 feet, pardon me?

If I had to guess, it's a 30-foot clear zone at the moment.

I'm not the best eyeball measurement, but it's a pretty wide cut through there at the moment.

And we can certainly ask that.

Okay, well branches, but I would worry about roots, I guess.

I don't think roots should have to impact those lines necessarily from a tree education point of view, but again, Dominion has the right to say this tree is

and its roots, which go way beyond the canopy.

It's certainly something we can ask about.

As you can tell, this is their standard right-of-way agreement and it applies.

I'm sure they use this for underground and

above ground lines and poles.

Right, exactly.

So that would be another question for a Dominion, is do their rights change whether it's an above ground easement versus an underground easement?

And as I said, I'm not really looking to hold this up other than to say as these come forward

and more and more we should be looking carefully at what the impact to not only immediately to the landscape but in the long term are we going to have swaths and in fact it will come up with Rivanna in a following agenda item through another park and so you know that has certainly has wildlife implications when you just clear

a corridor through the woods, say, for instance, which may not be relevant here.

Any questions?

Oh, that's right.

I'll open the public hearing on this issue.

Any wishes to speak on this issue?

If not, I'll close the public hearing.

Dede, what would you think?

This is the first of two readings.

I think that's perfectly appropriate.

I wasn't even necessarily trying to stop it other than to raise these questions.

We'll wait for the second reading.

Thank you very much.

Third item of the public hearing on conveying right of way to better look how it's wrote.

Who's presenting that?

Mr. Mayor and Members of Council, the next item on your agenda is a proposed ordinance offered tonight on first reading followed by, or after a public hearing on a request from the owners of the property at 1808 Meadowbrook Heights Road for the conveyance of a strip of city right-of-way that's about eight feet in width and a total of

rounded 1,460 square feet.

Probably the best description is an actual plat that is included with your agenda materials and you'll see that the requested area to be conveyed is a very long rectangular area immediately in front of the house at 1808 Meadowbrook Heights Road.

The purpose of the conveyance would be to allow

the homeowner to install a decorative stone wall between the two access points for the driveway that serves that property.

In accordance with the sale of city property policy, we've circulated this among the various city departments without receiving any objection.

The city assessor has opined that the property has a fair market value of $5,800

We also posted or the property was posted with notice of the proposed sale that generated one written comment that we've included in your agenda materials.

The author of that comment did not object to the erection of the wall per se but expressed concerns

about the ability of pedestrians to traverse that street if the right-of-way is sold.

We did consult with our Neighborhood Development Services Office about the possibility of a sidewalk along that portion of Meadowbrook Heights Road and we're told that if a sidewalk

Before I have public hearing, is the applicant willing to pay $5,800?

Any other questions before we open public hearing?

Okay, hello from the public hearing.

Anybody would like to speak on this item?

I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Well, I do have a question.

You want to go ahead Kristin?

Oh no, Mr. Lowry said he would answer questions, didn't you say you would answer?

Oh yes.

I just actually it's not so much a question for you but but I just want to make sure when staff said that if there would ever be a sidewalk would be on the other side I know we want to make sure that we don't preclude the ability to put sidewalks in is that

I could tell you that they've started the sidewalk up Meadowbrook Heights Road, comes up within two blocks of our house and that sidewalk's all on the opposite side.

So ultimately if in 40 years

Somebody decided because of changing traffic patterns that there needed to be a sidewalk on the other side.

Actually, it would.

There's enough space in front of where the wall would be to put a sidewalk.

I could just follow up on Councillor Szakos' question.

The other thing we run into sometimes when hardscape is put in anew, particularly in places where it would normally be, would be stormwater issues.

So has anybody assessed it for stormwater implications?

We do not, not in that location.

That's a very level area of the street and it's not been a problem at all.

I know the one person who wrote in had some concern about children.

Our children grew up in that house and our grandchildren are now there, one of whom catches the school bus every morning and the school bus

stops in two places, one across the street where Essex joins in and one on our side of the street but everybody stands in our driveway waiting for that bus and always has.

They can actually sit on the wall if they want to.

Ms. Smith, we didn't receive any concerns about that.

There is, and again you can see this on the plat, there's a 15 inch high density polyethylene pipe that belongs to the city kind of in the northern corner of this triangle or rectangle that would be conveyed to the Lowry's.

On the surface water, there's a photo in the packet that you have there.

Okay.

Are you ready to make a motion?

Second.

I'm trying to think what the motion is.

Second.

Anything next time?

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Good evening Mayor and Councillors.

Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority is seeking easements from the city for the new Rivanna pump station.

The current pump station, the existing pump station, is located adjacent to the entrance of the city's Riverview Park.

The new pump station will be located at the Moores Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant, which is owned and maintained by Rivanna.

The gravity sewer will be conveyed via a new tunnel from the existing pump station to the new site at the wastewater treatment plant.

And the construction of this tunnel is part of the construction project that Rivanna will manage.

A permanent 50-foot sanitary sewer easement is required for the interceptor tunnel at the southern end of the Riverview Park property and what's referred to as the old city pump station parcel.

Three temporary construction easements are also requested from the city around the existing Rivanna pump station, which will be used to construct the new tunnel, tie in the existing interceptor to the tunnel, and demolish the existing pump station.

And these areas are shown on the plat with the proposed deed that was part of the council package.

Staff recommends approval of the

ordinance granting Rivanna permanent and temporary easements for the Rivanna pump station projects.

I might add that Rivanna has agreed that a landscaping plan can be developed for this area and this will be coordinated with the Parks and Recreation staff.

Yeah, the existing site's actually owned by Rivanna wastewater treatment plant, a race, Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority, excuse me.

Will they still want it?

No, I think we can.

Any other questions before we're able to hear it?

Well, I'm reading this plat, and this is right as you go into Riverview Park.

Where are they going to?

Are they going to be digging?

to put this temporary thing or no?

No temporary sewer line.

This is for the conveyance of the easements for the new tunnel that will convey the gravity flow from the existing site, existing pump station site to the new plant.

No, it's not.

Okay.

So it's all on land?

Just the southern portion of the property.

Okay, if there are no questions, I'll open the public hearing.

I'm now sitting through my second easement request in front of you and had little time to process Ms. Smith's comments and just wanted to say, I'm Bitsy Waters, 1935 Thompson Road, and as you know, and I'm on the agenda later as the chairman of the tree commission, do want to say that I really appreciate the comments about this.

Underground utilities and trees do

interface each other.

It is an issue.

It's one we've been looking at in terms of underground utility easements for the city of Charlottesville.

Now it comes up with Dominion.

It's there for Rivanna.

I would just encourage you as you look at these things

There is no way to argue that there isn't some competition underground between trees and utilities.

I think historically, whether it's Dominion or even the city, the sense has been we need to preserve this space for the utilities.

I think from a tree commission standpoint, and I would argue from a community standpoint,

We need to be prepared to tolerate a little bit of risk.

There is no way.

We don't want a city.

We do want underground utilities often for a variety of reasons, but we don't want a city with so many easements that mean there can't be trees and particularly even outside of easements.

So just on this one and on others, we are arguing for as narrow easements as are reasonable.

accepting some risk in the process.

So thank you very much for thinking about this with us.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anybody else who would like to speak on this item?

If I just like to, thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Rogers.

And that's what, actually, afterwards I thought, oh, I should have said the treaty commission.

Should, you know, we could ask your

expertise and advice on how to deal with this and my concern too goes with we saw after I think particularly after Hurricane Isabel that the Dominion rules about trees got so much more severe above ground above ground above ground above ground so there does seem to be some you know

You know, spectrum of how, you know, how Dominion, what agreement we have with Dominion about, you know, our trees and their utilities.

So it's, I don't think it's a black and white thing.

And so therefore we do need to be

Negotiating at risk.

Yeah.

Thank you.

May I make a point, please?

Excellent.

Any questions on this request?

Turn to the motion.

So moved.

Is there a second?

I'll second.

Any discussion on the motion?

Thank you Mr. Mayor, Good evening Council, Mr. Jones, Mr. Brown The following application before you is a special use permit application for increased density at 925 East Market Street The applicant, CNB Development LLC, is seeking an increase in density from the barite density of 43 dwelling units an acre to 89 dwelling units an acre

This proposal, which is located in the downtown North mixed-use district, is a mixed-use project comprised of 53,291 square feet of residential space and 18,690 square feet of commercial space.

The Planning Commission heard this item during their joint public hearing on August 13th.

During that meeting, the Commission expressed concerns regarding traffic,

pedestrian accessibility, streetscape improvements, and uses proposed within the commercial space.

Two members of the public also spoke during that meeting, noted concerns associated with traffic.

The commission recommended approval of this proposal at that meeting with conditions.

Following the Planning Commission recommendation, the applicant expressed with staff that condition number four, which is noted within my staff memo and within your council packet, condition number four required that the proposed structure shall not have

shall have not more than one garage entrance on 10th Street.

The applicant expressive staff that that

Condition cannot be satisfied due to functional conflicts associated with the adjacent use.

The applicant now proposes a landscaping and design scheme for that entrance in an effort to lessen the impact of that garage.

And the applicant is here to speak on that more.

Representing the applicant this evening is Mr. Rick Funk.

He's the architect of the project.

Thank you.

I want to invite the representative of the applicant.

I have a question, but it's not so much for the applicant, but for you or Mr. Tolbert.

uh... related issue but a very strongly indirectly related issue which has to do with the traffic impacts we've been hearing about on locus or the potential traffic impact we've been hearing about on locus and I know that's uh... there's been some emails exchanged and I know one of the members of the Martha Jefferson Neighbor Association emailed today and said is this an opportunity to think about ways to uh... to manage traffic better on

I think, and thank you for giving me the opportunity, I think that in a very short answer in a hurry to a question it's, you know, typically when you look at impacts you do look at traffic impacts creating more traffic and therefore you need to provide more capacity and of course that's not what we like to do.

This is a difficult one because in its SUP, under the standards review, to impose conditions

on an applicant, you have to be able to show a direct correlation between that project and what you're trying to do.

I think that if you look at the big picture as some of the speakers tonight have raised and the totality of development that may happen, then that says that we probably need to take a look at some of the impacts, not just on locus, but as we have already said we want to do and we've got the SIA study that's already taken a look at Lexington High and that connection and how we make improvements there.

I think LOCUST is one that we can continue to look at.

We had some work that was done about four or five years ago with our traffic engineer at the time.

some proposals made and there was some reluctance on her point, her part to recommend any improvements to add bike lanes because you would have had to remove a tremendous amount of parking from homes that don't have driveway access when you take the on the street parking just because of the width of the road.

In a more comprehensive manner I think absolutely look at Locust Avenue.

I just, I don't know that you can relate that

and those needs to this project even in either one of those.

I mean it's a small contributor maybe but it's again not a major contributor where you could assign a certain amount of responsibility and say

I think that's a good point.

And I think that's a great, again, that's an area that's part of one of the areas that's been recommended for a small area plan in the future, and Locus is definitely a street that we'd like to take a look at.

I do have some questions and I guess it could either be you Mr. Smith or the applicant because I think it is, for me it is very disappointing that there are two large 24 foot wide garage door openings on a small street separated by just the 36 foot wide patch in between.

It's already a very, very dangerous

We are all making the argument, and there is a lot of truth to it, that you increase density close to your downtown cores, close to where you have employment so that people can walk to work.

The logic breaks down when the pedestrian infrastructure is either not there or so compromised because of the intrusions with curb cuts that a project puts in place.

So we put ourselves into this kind of a

Catch-22, that we want density because we want to be able to have more transit, more infrastructure, but then we put the density in without putting the infrastructure in place and we have a very, very, very compromised urban form that doesn't satisfy anybody's needs for alternative modes of transportation.

So I really want to understand why we need two garage door openings

for less than 100 units of parking when for example there's a project on West Main Street that has got considerably more parking and only has one opening on West Main Street for its project.

And I'm not saying one way or the other that I support that project.

I just use it as an example because I'm puzzled by the engineering that we have to have two openings.

So that's number one.

And number two, I've asked for information about

Hi, my name is Rick Funk, Vice President of DBF Associates Architects.

The retaining wall as you head from City Hall towards our project starts at zero feet.

It goes to seven feet at the intersection and there's a 45 degree angle which we have to follow.

It goes from seven to eight feet and then it goes from eight feet back down to two feet as it heads up 10th Street.

To respond to just a comment I heard earlier about pedestrian circulation.

We have a fairly challenging site topographically.

Our design that we are proposing provides on-grade access at the same elevation.

from the far western corner of our site on a five foot concrete walkway sidewalk that is right up against our building and it will be on grade at that elevation all the way down Market Street turning the corner and heading back up 10th Street to the first vehicular entrance point into our building so from a pedestrian standpoint we feel

I'm fairly comfortable and proud of how we've been able to deal with not only mobility impaired individuals, but just pedestrian experience.

As you know, coming down 10th Street, there's no sidewalk there at the bottom of the hill.

When a sidewalk would go there, very few people probably would walk it because it's so steep.

We are still adding the sidewalk at that location.

It is going to wrap all the way around at street level or just off street level depending on how we work the planning strip.

That is correct.

You could be on either.

and there will be a sidewalk and again, what we're having discussion with the city right now and we have agreed that we will have a five foot sidewalk, we will also have on Market Street a four foot planting strip, then there will also be a separate five foot walkway which will be

Okay and thank you very much for explaining that but I'm five foot two okay so I'm walking down the sidewalk and I'm going by basically what is just a solid wall at that corner that

is a situation that does not activate street life.

It's pretty much just the same kind of condition that you see on Carlton with the city crossings with a very tall, very high retaining wall that is quite a barrier to any engagement with the building within.

When we're talking about buildings and mixed use and retail spaces that engage the street life, we're talking about

ground floor, ground level retail.

Clearly this is a challenging site.

Stepping the building down as opposed to keeping it on a pancake and then sloping the ramps

No, because when you, the retaining wall when it goes across

and you'll see it on sheet A1 of the design.

There is a lower level to this building which will have direct access underneath this elevation 251, elevation 251.

That is right off of the existing corner of Market and 10th.

So when you are standing on the street at the corner of Market and 10th, you will step up six inches onto the curb.

There will be a sidewalk there.

There's an existing traffic signal post that you have to walk around.

And then you will walk down three flights of steps.

and you are on a lower terrace level down to a level and that is an open courtyard area right there so anybody on the street level

You have that as your opening and that is on the corner.

It's two feet down.

And it's just a bank now, right?

Right now it is a grass bank going up both from Market Street as well as when you turn the corner on 10th.

That is correct.

And if you look at it to try and work a sidewalk.

And one of the other things we're doing, we're working with the city and with our engineer.

I think city engineers requested that the street be narrowed

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

I have one question, which may or may not be in your purview or anything the city's planning to do.

But I know, I mean, you see on the concrete or on the blacktop there, going up the hill, all the remnants of people's tailpipes

because there is a steep rise there, kind of a bump.

No, that hasn't been discussed with this project.

Okay, thanks.

I have more questions, but I want to let other people talk.

Okay, I'm happy to wait.

You're fine.

We looked at that, we talked with the property owner who is also the property owner immediately to the west of our property and we were unable to acquire an access easement through there.

We also investigated first architecturally and from a design standpoint

the access from the Further West property and trying to tie that into what's being reworked on Bob's site there, but I think as was explained in the narrative from a safety standpoint that was not going to work with Bob's operation on his property.

So yes, we attempted that.

One other comment I would like to make

We are going to have the two vehicular entry points on 10th Street that we are proposing.

One of those definitely will appear, as you say, almost like a garage opening, and that is the lower one.

The upper one, what we have done is we've received some architectural critique of the design, and one of the comments that was made was to try and take this building and make it look like it is a series of buildings.

and in that spirit what we've been able to do, our design that we proposed at Planning Commission had essentially two openings, two walled openings going in and now what we've been able to do from a grading standpoint is the upper entrance, there will be no walls and the walls are going to be a fence out closer to the street, much more pedestrian feeling and then behind that fence are going to be open parking stalls

that go back to the structure which is back

I think 36 feet from the sidewalk.

So again, we've really pushed the building and we've always had that, the building stepped back, but now what we've been able to do is eliminate that feel in the design of two walled openings that you're driving through.

One will definitely be there because we have to go not only down, but we're parking on top of.

The other, we're already starting at the top level.

So we're going to make that feel like it is landscape and like it is a green area.

And it will feel, and hopefully the

The rendering and the alternate elevation rendering will show how that feels as you go around the corner or as you head up 10th Street or head down 10th Street Speaking of landscaping, can you tell us about the

The discussion we've been having with Citi and we've let Mike know that we are committed to the landscaping buffers and we've maximized those.

We've kept the walkways at five feet and so whatever left we're committed to making those landscaping strips and included in those will be street trees

The issue that we're going back and forth on is where's the exact location of those?

Will it be right up against the asphalt or will there be a sidewalk, curved sidewalk and then the landscaping?

Going back to the retaining wall issue, one of the reasons why we favor the sidewalk right off the street and then the landscaping buffer or the landscaping strip is we can put a slight slope to it and we can take off

I do have the affordable housing question.

Maybe Mr. Woodard or somebody back there can answer this.

Because there was at the Planning Commission some talk about

going back and forth about how to satisfy affordable housing.

And it's so close to downtown that to have affordable housing on site would be very attractive.

What we said in the application is that we will comply with the Affordable Housing Rule.

Exactly how we're going to do it, we haven't figured it out yet.

It may be a combination of both.

So we certainly intend to comply with it.

We just haven't, you know, I can't tell you we're going to set aside this many apartments of that much dollars because the final layout of the interior of the building, the bedroom count, the bedroom distribution can move a little bit in the final stages of design.

So it might be a little premature to state exactly how many bedrooms or whatever.

Just to say it's such an attractive location for people who may not have cars.

Also there's the Piedmont Council for the Arts new plan, which just was adopted recently, calls for more affordable housing for

what might be called struggling artists.

Well, we certainly intend to provide some affordable housing.

I would really like some assurance of that you know that there would be some you know well and I just want the record to note that council is not necessarily unanimous on that I mean I for one even though I'd love to see affordable housing on site I've always

you know it's hard to build affordable new construction that's going to be affordable to very low income residents and it typically ends up being affordable to people right at 80% of area median income when you talk about new construction and so

Well, there you go.

At the same time, it is in an area where we don't see a lot of affordable housing geographically in our city and one of our goals is to distribute affordable housing

And I'd also like to point out too that given that 70% of our city staff don't live in the city, they can't afford, it's a workforce housing issue as well so

if you're going to another tier of income, which is now defined in the comprehensive plan as 60 to 120 percent AMI, there is that, that's the schoolteacher, that's the first time police officer, first year police officer, that's the city staff person, and those are the people that can most benefit with walking to work.

So I, straight market is not affordable for a lot of tiers of people, so I, I mean I would like to see this

All our housing downtown moved towards creating at least three tiers of housing, the very low income, the workforce housing, and then the market.

But I still have some questions that relate to what's going on with the strategic investment area plan.

Is this okay to still ask those questions?

But it's to this project because I want to understand how the timing of that final report is coming out and what they are starting to recommend.

As I've said to counsel several emails and to staff,

When I've looked at the block, there's fragments of alleys that are in this block that are not connected, that are not complete.

And if this project did not fully build out almost to the extremes of its property lines, there could have been room in on that property to have its own alley.

As it stands now, you've maxed out on the footprint, and we have to go to the adjacent landowner.

But when you look at what's left on that site,

It's a series of parking lots.

They're not highly developed, highly utilized areas that are not providing a lot of income for the city.

So I'm asking, number one, has the consultant team on the strategic investment area come up with any recommendations thus far about how to expand our network of alleys in this area?

Because it's obvious that there is a need for infill, creative infill, that will not create excessive curb cuts that

create conflicts for pedestrians and vehicles.

And so that's the main thing.

They are not recommending any additional alleys in this area, in this particular block.

They have looked at some additional connections in some other areas, but they did not have anything specifically on this block.

So they did look at, and one of the things that

Can the city do anything in that regard in terms of creating opportunities to acquire

Allie easements to start doing that sort of thing in anticipation of this kind of development.

There is one property owner that owns a good bit of the property.

That issue was raised at the Planning Commission meeting and staff had a meeting with the developer of the property owner to discuss that very possibility.

Not necessarily in an alley, but the same effect to get the access easement so that that access could be moved.

And the property owner, because of concerns about the existing business, doesn't have any interest in that happening.

Of course we could sit down and have a discussion about acquiring right-of-way for an alley, but there would have to be agreement from the property owner who's already expressed

I would like to make one more comment.

Because this is a real tough one for me.

It provides density, but because

We don't really have clarity in our zoning at the moment and this is an SUP so we're all trying to negotiate additional features on this.

This is the only way we can get anything that's going to change the pedestrian character.

the scale of the building.

But at the same time it's still creating a situation where I think is really because there wasn't a requirement at some point early on in the process that you would not have more than two garage doors on one street elevation.

The applicant did not shrink the project.

It was maxed out.

There was no opportunity to put another alley in on its own.

If the guidelines were there

It would have provided the rules.

I'm just saying this because I'm seeing this as a missed opportunity to create some good density, but we are kind of behind the eight ball in our zoning, and I cannot bring myself

to approve of a project that I know is sorely, despite all the street softening that's going on, it is still a good percentage of that wall along 10th Street is going to be cars going in and out, in and out.

And the separate matter that Mr. O'Dell and other people brought up is the idea of the impacts on Locust Avenue.

That we do need to have a network plan that studies the impacts of development over time and that understands what needs to happen at each segment of that network.

That's a separate issue.

But I just wanted to make my position clear.

I desperately want good, well-designed density, gets residential close to where people work.

But we cannot continue to compromise our pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, that includes street trees, it includes sidewalks, it includes markings on the road for bikes, as we increase our density.

Because that is the only way we will start

getting people out of their cars and moving around in a different mode.

So I can't support this.

I'm saying you have to do what you think is appropriate.

The only thing that they have is a good location for higher density.

They made attempts to deal with issues best you could, given all the rules and regulations we have.

I agree that

You know, I think that pedestrian access is hugely important and the garage is certainly a sad thing.

I think that there are a lot of things that this project does that if we didn't approve this, and they were just building by right, that wouldn't happen, that are positive for pedestrian infrastructure, especially along Market Street.

Having walked this street several times, I must say that it's not a very attractive place to walk, no matter how beautiful you make it and no matter how few garage doors there are, because it's about this slope.

and I think that you're not going to have a lot of people bicycling up there.

I guess you're going to have a fair number bicycling down, which is the side the garages are on, but I think that there's more good than bad in this.

I'm very concerned about the Locust Avenue stuff and I really want to facilitate the

Locust and also Market.

Separate motion.

Mr. O'Dell submitted some language about that study since it directs action by city staff.

I don't think it's appropriate as an amendment to the SUP, but it's certainly something council can take up independently.

Well, unless it becomes possible.

I could vote for this if that goes to one garage door opening.

I don't think it is possible.

I think there is a wall that enters back away from the street.

I would amend the motion to maybe, instead of the language of number four, to say if possible to reduce

Can I clarify something with the builders?

So this is a rental property, right?

As opposed to a condo situation?

It's a rental.

And one, two, three bedroom?

Approving the number of units, the bedroom mix could change a little bit within that

when they do the final plans.

That's again, the way the code is written which is based on the state code is that it is the decision of the person making the contribution.

And this is just a theoretical question for future reference or for this site.

Or no?

It's not dependent upon that particular person, but

that project could be built so he could sell that to somebody with an approved SUP.

Any further discussion on this?

Can I see the language that Mr. O'Dell proposed or can somebody read it?

May I read it?

Yes.

Martha Jefferson Neighborhood Association proposal to amend resolution.

Well, that doesn't apply, but this is a new resolution.

Council directs city departments to accelerate in collaboration with the Martha Jefferson Neighborhood and other concerned community bodies planning and implementation of various traffic management enhancements along key streets in the area.

Options to be explored include, but are not limited to, increasing speeding fines along Locust Avenue,

Installation of speed monitoring signs, intersection improvements, narrowing or altering vehicle lanes, addition of bike lanes where practical, traffic calming on Hazel Street, and addition of Street Tree Islands.

Departments will report back to council through the city manager on progress made in four months from the date of this resolution.

I think the best thing to do is allow the staff to come back to the next meeting and say this is how long we think it's going to take because quite honestly for something like this and I think I mentioned this at the Martha Jefferson Hospital town hall meeting is that we'd have to hire a consultant to take a comprehensive look at it and there was an agreement in the crowd to be honest with you about that who actually was chastised by someone who said

So it's time to come back to the proposal?

Thank you Mr. Mayor and Council.

This is an item that went to the Planning Commission last month for public hearing.

It's a request that's been made by Ms. Leah Watson for the closure of the end of Garrett Street, the removal that she wants to remove the stairs that go up to Ridge and be able to take some ownership of that property and make some changes in there because of concerns that she has regarding the

At the Planning Commission meeting, staff recommended and the Planning Commission concurred and recommended to you that you deny this application at this time.

and at the Planning Commission meeting we talked about going ahead and coming up with a design to do something more permanent here and making an improvement.

The SIA, this is in the SIA area, the SIA recommendations will include a recommendation that there be a grander set of stairs, that they be moved closer to the railroad tracks and that there be other improvements made here.

But that will not be designed at this point.

After the Planning Commission meeting, a couple of you talked to me and said, you know, we probably ought to do this in context with the market, whatever happens on Garrett Street, and not just look at the end of it.

And I think that's probably a very wise idea.

I had a conversation with Ms. Watson today.

I told her, our staff is going to look at some ways that we might be able to make

some temporary improvements there that would try to address her problems and resolve the parking issues if we can do some things to try to help with the people hanging out by better lighting or some of those things there.

She was very appreciative of that, said she understood, said she understood about

the bigger context of this and so she understands that we're recommending and the Planning Commission is recommending against approval of this tonight and so we again I think as we did with the Planning Commission we may come back to you after there have been some designs done there's been a more comprehensive look and make a recommendation to do something here in a way of closure to give her some control over it but it's just not the timing is not good right now

to do that and we need to get a better handle on what happens there and like I say, she understands that and so that's the Planning Commission recommendation to you and like I say, we are working on the temporary measures that we can do without having to make any physical changes that would require coming back to you.

and a second.

I second.

So we're doing yes.

Second, item number seven is a tree conservation ordinance.

I'm very happy to see this come to us eventually.

And don't be insulted, I'm going to stand during your presentation.

We've been meeting since four, so.

It's fine.

Mayor Huja and members of council, I'm Bitzi Waters and I am here on behalf of the Tree Commission to ask you to adopt the tree conservation ordinance that you find in your packet tonight.

When the commission was established in 2011, it was charged with, among other things, implementing the city's urban forest management plan.

One of the recommendations in that plan is that the city adopt a tree conservation ordinance.

The tree commission has worked with our staff from Parks and Rec and with the city attorney's office to put together the ordinance that's in front of you tonight.

The draft ordinance closely follows state enabling legislation and is similar to those found in other Virginia localities.

The ordinance provides for city council to designate and protect individual heritage, specimen, memorial and street trees of special merit at the request of the tree commission.

If the ordinance is adopted,

The Tree Commission will work with staff to develop administrative criteria for each of the category of tree and when trees have been nominated, we will bring them forward for your consideration.

The draft ordinance calls for the tree commission to identify and nominate individual trees with special significance on city property.

And under the ordinance, private individuals can nominate trees on their own property for tree commission consideration if they choose to do so.

And we would evaluate them by the same criteria used for public trees and bring them forward to council at the property owner's request.

Once a tree has been designated, owners of designated trees, including the city of course,

will make reasonable efforts to preserve and protect these trees unless there is an overriding public need, a threat to health, safety, and welfare, or severe hardship to a property owner.

The Tree Commission believes this ordinance provides an important and responsible way to recognize and protect some of the most treasured trees in our community.

As you know, and I have to say, I am so encouraged by so many of your conversations tonight and I have to make that aside to say we're working closely with you, with other city entities and city staff and others outside city government to see that our ordinances and our policies and our guidelines preserve and enhance our urban forest and advance the council's vision for a green city.

because as several of you have noted, we have these goals as a community, you have them as a council, but when the rubber meets the road, it's not always there and so we really appreciate your working with us to see that as we move forward it is.

The ordinance before you is one way to protect the most special trees in our community by

designating them and requiring that every effort to be made to preserve them for future generations.

I have two questions at least.

Yes.

My question, language 18.11 item 3, is it state language

Maybe Rich can help me.

18.1.

11.

18.10 item B.

See manager may prevent removal of her heritage, trees, et cetera.

Here's a silly armrest, determines that the tree is dead.

The reason why I'm very concerned about this is because I have some experience with these trees, so-called dead trees.

And there are many trees which are not dead and many times are deemed to be that they're going to die and I know that at least

That's a lot to do for one volunteer group.

Well, it's going to hardly ever come up.

I certainly think the tree commission would welcome it.

I can say, well, I'm not actually one of them.

We do have some arborists on the commission.

shade of interpretation.

I unfortunately, actually I did bring the state enabling legislation with me.

I don't know, Rich, if you can, I'm not sure whether that's required or not.

I would like to see some different language.

We're assuming that we're always going to have that level of expertise on the commission.

And may I say something, too?

Kind of as a matter of principle, I guess, our consultative bodies are volunteer groups that are lending their time and talent to assist city staff.

and to assist counsel in making these decisions, yes.

And I think it's best served at the level of policy and ordinance.

And when you wind up getting to the point where our consultative bodies are coming in to solve a problem that our staff were technically capable of doing, I do question that as a sound solution to perhaps another problem.

But I think we also need to be careful because this was a concern that the mayor brought up from 30 years ago I think.

I'm talking about at least the last few years also.

But clearly there was

I mean, I would expect that we would be.

As you can see, for certain categories of things, it must come to you anyway.

So we're now in

Section B where it comes to the city manager and I think that we would certainly welcome the consultation of an outside arborist as well about this.

It takes 30 years to grow a tree and 30 minutes to get done one.

So you need to be less cavalier about cutting it down.

I have two quick questions.

One is in the exceptions section where it's talking about threat to health, safety and welfare is a reason that you can cut down a tree without notice.

Is that an immediate threat or should that go to the, you know, where does that line drawn?

Just to follow up on Ms. Szakos' comments.

Not only that, all is said is that you're going to fall down and the attorney is going to sue you.