City Council Meeting   7/6/2015

First of all, I'd like to introduce Barbara Rowland, your Clerk of the Council for this meeting.

Mr. Fenwick?

Here.

Ms. Smith?

Here.

Ms. Szakos?

Here.

Ms. Galvin?

We have a number of comments and announcements.

I'd like to start with

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

I'd like to introduce you to Mr. James Watson, and I'm here on behalf of the Charlottesville Fire Department, Mr. Mayor, City Council, to present him with an award.

Mr. Watson, on Thursday, May 7th, we had a structure fire at an apartment complex on Prospect Avenue, 722 Prospect Avenue.

And our first fire truck that turned the corner witnessed Mr. Watson and Mr. Morton, who unfortunately was not able to be here,

but witnessed them hoisting city police officers up to a second story window to try to effect a rescue for a disabled woman who couldn't rescue herself.

I went on to find out later that he'd also gone apartment by apartment and cleared this building before anybody else got there and included a gentleman who was blind and a couple of elderly disabled people as well.

So if it weren't for his actions, I feel pretty certain there would have been a much different outcome.

and the Charlottesville Fire Department wants to present him with the Community Service Award for his selfless act of heroism in rescuing all of his neighbors and fellow residents of his building.

Would you like to make any comments?

I would just like to thank the city and the fire department for the award.

Mr. Morton, like I said, was unable to be here, but I wish I could have had a camera of the shot when we turned the corner and saw him

and his friend, hoisting city police officers up on their shoulders.

It was truly a beautiful sight of teamwork and bravery.

Thank you.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

I have a couple.

CHAP applications.

These are applications for the Charlottesville Housing Affordability Program have gone out.

You may qualify for a grant of $375 or $525 depending on your income.

If approved, your grant amount will be applied towards your second half 2015 real estate tax bill.

Now this is important.

So in order to be eligible, you must be the legal owner and occupant of the residential property as of January 1, 2015.

You must not owe delinquent real estate taxes.

The current year 2015 assessed value on the property must be $365,000 or less.

Your household income, the federal adjusted gross income for 2014 was $50,000 or less.

and you must not own other real estate property anywhere.

And finally, you did not participate in the city's real estate tax relief program for the elderly or disabled in 2015.

Now that's a pretty detailed list.

If you have more questions about CHAP, please call 970-3160.

That's 970-3160.

Should I just go right into the next one?

OK.

This summer, stay local, play local, and photograph local, too.

That sounds familiar with some people I know.

Take advantage of the multitude of local activities in Charlottesville and Albemarle County and submit your best local summer snapshots for a chance to win your own Charlottesville staycation.

The CACVB is inviting the area's residents to stay local, play local, again this summer.

and that's the Charlottesville and Almonte County Visitor Bureau.

This initiative encourages citizens to discover and take advantage of the wide variety of free and low-cost activities that Charlottesville and Almonte County have to offer.

The CACVP is also calling for your best local photographs in a local social media contest on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

The photographs should highlight the beauty of our area and showcase it as a fantastic place for locals to play this summer.

A winner will be randomly selected at the end of the contest and will receive a two-night stay including breakfast at the Oakhurst Inn, a wine tour provided by Monticello Wine Tour and Coach Company, and a guided history tour from Seaville Tours with access to Monticello, Ashland, Highland, and an included lunch at Mickey Tavern.

That's really pretty impressive.

The deadline for entries is August 12, 2015, and all photographs submitted must contain the hashtag Stay Local Seaville.

in all, one word, in order to be eligible.

All of the details of this contest can be found here, www.visitscharlottesville.org slash stay local Seaville.

In addition to online resources at www.visitscharlottesville.org, there are two visitor centers where locals can obtain tourism-related information.

One is downtown, that's 610 East Main Street, that's from nine to five.

The second visitor center will open this summer in Crozet.

More details to be announced soon.

Thank you.

I have two.

The first is that Solarize Charlottesville is backed by popular demand.

Last year, over 1,200 area residents requested a solar assessment and 100 homes chose to go solar.

Solarize Charlottesville offers a streamlined, easy, and affordable process with the Solarize discount pricing, local tax credit for city residents, and the federal 30% tax credit that expires in 2016.

This may be the last best chance to go solar.

for a while.

Additionally, homes that go solar must help support our community-wide goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and compete for the $5 million Georgetown University Energy Prize.

Solarize Charlottesville will end in September.

Go to solarizecville.org to request a free solar assessment.

and Our Town, Charlottesville will continue on Thursday, July 9th with a meeting for residents of the Ridge, Willoughby, and Burnett Commons neighborhoods at Jackson-Vaya Elementary School, 508 Harris Road from 6 to 8 p.m.

City residents are encouraged to attend these informal meetings to discuss emerging issues, ask questions, and share concerns with City Council and staff about their neighborhoods.

The entire community is welcome to attend any meeting, but issues related to the surrounding neighborhoods of each meeting site will be given priority.

Yes, I actually have an extension of Ms. Szakos' solar announcement.

After completing significant energy efficiency upgrades to our buildings, the City of Charlottesville started adding solar PV in 2010.

Real-time and historical data on electricity production is available online with the new interactive display.

Area residents are encouraged to visit

Charlottesville.org slash city solar to learn more about the city's solar projects and to see examples of how solar performs locally.

The online site includes data from Charlottesville High School, the facilities maintenance building, and EcoRemod, the energy house.

That's right on Ridge Street there.

Additional solar PV systems such as a Fontaine fire station,

and the Public Works Warehouse will be added as they come online.

So that was a tag team with Ms. Szakos.

I have a couple other announcements.

Actually a presentation, this is exciting.

Clark Elementary Quilt presentation.

The Clark Elementary third graders in partnership with the Crescent Hall Quilters and the Bridge

have created a community quilt.

The Memory Quilt Project is a collaboration between Crescent Hall Quilters and local youth at Clark Elementary School.

This community art project paired third graders from Clark with facilitators from the Crescent Hall Quilters, a group of women who live in and near Crescent Halls and are known for their hand-sewn and imaginative quilts.

Together they created a memory quilt that celebrates the Belmont,

Garrett Street and Downtown Neighborhoods.

Each quilt block is hand drawn by a student to illustrate what their own neighborhood and community means to them and hand stitched by the Crescent Hall quilters.

Students collaborated with the quilters to select the layout of the blocks for the final memory quilt.

Later this summer, a publication will be released to document how the Crescent Hall quilters make their work.

No quilt.

So just briefly, I want to thank you all for the time and kind of allowing us to show how art can lead the way in building a more inclusive, equitable, and creative Charlottesville.

So we have a multitude of people here.

I'm going to ask them to stand because I want them to be noticed.

First of all, Helen and Francine from the Creswell Quilters are here.

Eichhorst, Daphne Kaiser, and Evelyn Reed from Clark Elementary.

Over the school.

And we have some, we have over 52 children work on this project and some of them are here so can you guys also stand up?

Just to keep it brief, I know you have a lot going on tonight, but we are here to celebrate and applaud the creativity of each of these people.

They're all artists in their own way.

Over the last year, The Bridge, Pumont College for the Arts, and a host of others have been getting to know the strategic investment area and connecting with residents, schools, neighborhood associations, churches, affordable housing groups, nonprofits, and businesses as a part of our NEA-funded Play the City project.

The focus of this project is to build relationships and understanding across the neighborhood using the arts, providing ways for residents to express their creativity and show what is valuable to them in the neighborhood.

So tonight we're really, really excited to present this to the city.

It's going to be traveling around the city over the next few weeks and in the end we'll be, hopefully, we'll definitely be hung at the school for the children to remember all the hard work that they did.

So thank you very much for the time and I appreciate it.

There's multiple Spudnuts.

Actually, may I just make one suggestion because years ago I did this with Walker Elementary School.

We made a quilt with the whole 5th grade and the whole 6th grade another year and we submitted it to the Albemarle County Fair and both times it got grand prize winner because there's really no competition.

That's beautiful.

May I just make one comment Mayor Huja about this quilt because I remember visiting the quilters when this was just a dream and it didn't even seem possible and I am just so impressed as I said to Matt I've got to bring you a case of lotion for all the hand stitching that you've done yeah and Matt and Serena and

and Pete and everyone that's been really involved with kind of making this have an identity, having this real kind of literally homespun story of what this neighborhood's all about is really pretty gratifying to see in tangible form.

And it's so beautiful.

So your hard work needs to be acknowledged as well.

So thank you very, very much.

All of you.

I have one other just brief, brief announcement.

A few meetings ago, we acknowledged and memorialized a Charlottesville dynamic leader, freedom fighter, organizer and master teacher who had passed away on May 25th, Mr. Jamika Kenyatta.

And there was a memorial service planned for him at Washington Park that actually had to be rescheduled.

So it is rescheduled for Saturday, July 11th at 11 a.m.

at Washington Park.

First announcement is Sunday Sundowns at Washington Park Pool.

Community celebration offers free swimming, games, music and more.

Charlottesville Parks and Recreation along with the support of Bama Works and the Leroy Moore Fund will host Sunday Sundowns

on Sunday, July 12th and Sunday, August 9th from 3 to 6 at the Washington Park pool.

In its fifth year, Sunday Sundowns is a free community celebration that provides residents and families with a great opportunity to get together and enjoy a Sunday afternoon.

The event features free swimming, music, a healthy cookout while supplies last, games and activities for the whole family.

Free swimming will be at Washington Park Pool and the other events will take place on a lawn adjacent to the swimming pool.

Returning again this summer, the PB&J Fund will host a mini farmer's market activity station that engages families to learn about seasonal produce and healthy eating.

Washington Park Pool is located at 1001 Preston Avenue.

Parking is available at the lot located next to the swimming pool or at the lowest

Level of the park.

For more information, please call 970-3260.

Sunday Sundowns once again is presented by Charlottesville Parks and Rec, Bama Works, and the Leroy Moore Fund.

And the last thing I have is Charlottesville is known as a sports town.

We have national champions, but we're about to meet members of another nationally ranked team, and that's from the Charlottesville basketball

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and members of City Council.

I'm Brandon Rush, the team captain, and on behalf of the Charlottesville Cardinals, I want to thank you and the city staff for all of your help and encouragement to our program over the years.

Several of our team members are present tonight, including Chris Robinson, Eddie Wimbish, Gino Wilson, Jeff McDaniel, Tom Vandiver, and Penny Dotson, who is a city employee.

We have just celebrated our team's 35th anniversary and are very thankful for the vision of Mildred Spicer and the therapeutic recreation division in creating the wheelchair basketball program back in 1979.

We are also very pleased to be part of the Charlottesville recreational programming and greatly appreciate the leadership and assistance of Brian Dailey, Bernie Garrison, Sarah Black, Bob Isabel, and particularly the support of Dan Carpenter.

and all the staff at the Carver Recreation Center.

Our team competes across the United States, Canada and Central America and our program is definitely regarded as one of the premier programs in the hemisphere.

We are very proud to represent the city of Charlottesville and also very proud of our long association with so many outstanding city staff members and officials.

Thank you for all you do to make our city a very special place.

Yeah, this is Tom Vandiver.

These are our 35th year anniversary t-shirts to celebrate our 35 years of operation.

Thank you.

If you would like more information on the team, we are based out of the Independence Resource Center on Cherry Avenue, 815 Cherry Avenue.

We're open Monday through Friday, and the doors are open till five through Thursday into 3.30 on Fridays.

So if anybody had any questions, you can come by.

I have two more announcements to make.

One is to acknowledge the passing of Chubby Prophet who was a World War II veteran and last year we had a

Resolution honoring him and just acknowledge that fact.

Second, that item number two, item number three, meeting with SUP 201, Garrett Street Microapartment has been deferred to next meeting.

So if you are here to listen to that item, it will be on next meeting, not this meeting.

So 201, Garrett Street Microapartment Project has been deferred to next meeting.

Any other announcements?

Okay, thank you.

Now the next item is Marysville Public, and there are rules for public participation which are on the podium, and we look forward to hearing you.

And as Mr. Hayden is coming up, I'll just note that these are peanut butter power balls.

Thank you.

Regarding the Human Rights Office, my first thought is that it should be abolished.

However, having said that, and if we are to have a new director, then you want someone who

both black and white have confidence in, someone who comes with no agenda or chip on their shoulder, someone who has been active in race relations in Charlottesville, who is respected by all and is willing to allow those with differing opinions and views express themselves in a setting that allows for learning and understanding.

In my limited experience in dealing with this person, I've always felt that my opinions mattered.

I felt respected.

We all come with our own biases and resentments, and I've never been one to shy away from expressing mine.

I've never been made to feel like a racist for having a differing opinion.

I have the utmost respect for this person to be a fair and impartial arbiter

of the facts and to treat everyone with dignity and respect.

Good evening.

My name is Mary Bauer.

I am the Executive Director of the Legal Aid Justice Center.

I am a city resident, and I am the parent of two African American children in the city public schools.

I'm here to express the deep concern of the Legal Aid Justice Center that the city staff has proposed shutting down the DMC, Disproportionate Minority Contact Juvenile Justice Task Force,

and relegating the important issues it should be addressing to an open-ended monitoring phase.

There's far too much work to be done to address racial disparities in the city to somehow prematurely declare success.

The city should certainly be commended for creating a task force to take a hard look at structural racial inequality, but at this point we've really barely scratched the surface.

The Legal Aid Justice Center has joined with many others in a letter expressing our detailed concern about the process, and in three minutes I don't have sufficient time to share all of those concerns, so I will leave the copy of those letters for all of you.

I'd like to highlight just a few points.

We need far more accountability from the police, including independent oversight of the police.

and it's inexcusable that we have been unable to obtain basic information from the police.

We have repeatedly requested, updated and comprehensive data about the police stops of juveniles.

Despite promises that the information was forthcoming, it's been many months and those requests have not been answered.

The task force has yet to take action with regard to many systems that funnel African-American kids into the juvenile justice system, including the policies and practices of the Commonwealth's Attorney's Office, the court services units, and the courts.

It is beyond dismaying that Charlottesville schools have among the top 10 highest rates of racial inequality and suspensions, a disparity that pushes kids into the criminal justice system.

While city staff proposed ending the school committee last month, there is much to be done to reduce stark racial disparities in schools.

For example, a memorandum of understanding delineating the roles of school resource officers was one of the key recommendations that the task force identified as necessary to address disproportionality in terms of referrals to law enforcement in the school.

LAJC shared model MOUs, giving Charlottesville an opportunity to become a model community, but the draft has not come before the task force.

Schools have made substantial progress in reducing suspensions and expulsions overall, but the data shows stark racial disparities.

Finally, the city can never be the world-class city that it wants to be without an honest and searing look at the systems that push African-American residents into a criminal justice system that destroys lives.

Please don't stop looking at these systems just because it's hard.

Charlottesville deserves so much better.

I didn't send it by email.

Someone else sent it by email?

Okay, maybe not.

There's a whole bunch of groups and individuals.

Thank you all.

Rick Turner.

Rick Turner.

Did you say that?

My name is Rick Turner.

I just want to, on behalf of the NAACP, I want to stand with all the organizations and all the individuals who are asking the question of why.

The points that I wanted to make is why are black children in Charlottesville being stopped and frisked more than other children of color?

You have read this letter.

You know the points.

You know the issues that I'm raising.

My issue is why the silence, why the miscommunication.

I think it would, if the city council and the city manager will allow the citizens of Charlottesville to know why we believe

that the police are racially profiling adults and citizens by the fact of the color of their skin.

Why wouldn't you want to know this information?

Why wouldn't you want to have a better police department?

Why wouldn't you want to have better communication with the citizens of Charlottesville?

I think by asking these questions, by bringing this to the city manager, the council,

and the Police Department, we will start having better relationships with the African American community and all communities of Charlottesville.

Thank you, sir.

Good evening, Mayor Huja and members of City Council.

They pretty much covered everything.

But what bothers me more than anything, we already know why.

What I want to get at is the fact that I have sat in those on that committee for what, four years?

And I haven't seen any movement.

And one of the things that bothers me more than anything else is that every time I brought up the fact of how they used our juvenile record against our children when they become adults, I was told that that wasn't true.

But they are doing that, and the way that they are doing it is through the pre-sentence report.

Most people, and I talked to a gentleman today, most people don't think that it's happening until they actually get in court.

I've been in court with several people and I've seen it happen, including someone in my family.

So what I did was went out into the communities and I gathered signatures.

I gathered over 40, maybe 50-some signatures

and heard different stories from people that live in the community.

Now you say that this is one of the best cities to live in, I think you need to start proving it.

Because it's good for some people, but not all people.

I think it's a shame that, you know, our children has to suffer.

I think it's a shame that when we come to y'all and we act

for help, it falls on deaf ears.

I think we all need to come to some type of agreement that we are going to do things much different here in Charlottesville.

I think we all need to figure out what works well for the low-wealth community because the children that's being funneled through that criminal justice system is the black children.

I feel like as council members,

We should be able to come to y'all.

We should be able to set with y'all.

We should be able to come up with something where we don't have to constantly send, well, the criminal justice system is not constantly sending our children to Blue Ridge for minor offenses.

So what I would like for y'all to do is, being as though y'all are on city council, I would like for y'all to maybe set and meet with our prosecutors that's

is constantly telling us that juvenile record is not being used against our children when they become adults.

What I would like to see is things done differently because we are constantly losing our children to that criminal justice system.

I've been saying it for years.

What's happening is you're grooming them when you send them to Blue Ridge and you're grooming them for the big prison system and our children are, it's nothing but a commodity.

It's all about money and I'm so tired

are watching our children go in and out of the system for minor offenses.

And what ends up happening is something big.

And then once you get your hands on them, it's the end of it.

You know, our children stay tied up.

I know it's over with Mayor Huja, and I might return later on tonight, but thank you.

And so I think what I would like for us to think about while I read this letter is the conversation that really needs to happen for any discussion that we have in this town to really change things.

So my question is who runs this city?

And the city manager's job description would lead us to believe that it's you.

and this is my letter to you.

If you as a black man have deluded your life so much that you're unable or unwilling to convey with urgency the systemic and intentional attempts to destroy the black race and instead join the why didn't you pull yourself up by your bootstraps chorus.

negating raw materials stolen, murderous actions and fear instilled and hopes amputated.

Why do you refuse to yell out that the barbarism of white male immigrants enslaved your ancestors and attempted to slay their souls?

Do you educate about how the legacy of their imposition continues today?

Do you know enough about Kemet, Mali, Senegal, etc.

to convey the greatness of your ancestors and all that was stolen?

Do you remind others that the same blood flows through our veins today?

Do you correct them when they call us lazy thugs, well felt creams, or in the liberal town of Charlottesville allow the labels to remain unspoken yet silently agreed upon because that's the only justification of why all of your dedicated efforts continue to produce dismal results?

Do you share

Do you share with them that Holocaust survivors and their descendants have received tax breaks in the US?

Their legislative requests included not having their reparation tax, and that includes money, property loss, and the projected earnings on that.

But black people only receive the memo to cease and desist because we don't deserve it.

Our country has moved from apology to direct action for a genocide that occurred on another continent, but refuses to address its original sin.

I believe that's because black life has never mattered in this country.

And locally, you allow that legacy to play out with black Charlottesvilleians filling local, state, and federal jails and prisons, overt and covert discrimination and bias in our criminal justice system, from officers' unethical behavior to prosecutors allowing officers' lives to pad cases

to judicial misconduct from the bench, foster care and adoption caseloads, bias and discrimination rampant throughout our nonprofit system, which seemingly only is in the business of maintaining middle-class incomes, and intentional miseducation.

So Charlottesville has no hearts for its black citizens, no empathy.

Instead of world-class living, we get aggression, fear, and destructive actions and policy.

And until we are willing to have a true conversation about how we as a city view black people and black lives, you all will continue to have meetings,

by cookies from Work Source and rent spaces, you know, have meetings over city space and have the same conversation and dialogue year after year.

You have to ask the question of how you feel about your citizens.

And this letter, I directed it towards the city manager and I know that it's not just his responsibility or the reason that things are undone because of him.

Cindy Richardson Good evening, Mayor

City Council members, my name is Cindy Terrell Richardson and I live on 6th Street Southwest here in this city.

And I am here in representation of Mr. Raymond Mason, who could not be here due to a schedule overlay on his job.

Mr. Mason would like me to read a copy of a press release that will be locally announced to the city by hopefully Wednesday.

Summer swimming initiative,

Mr. Raymond Redd Mason, community activist, is coordinating a summer swimming initiative for the targeted city slash youth that cannot afford the cost to swim.

This project provides a unique opportunity for individuals to swim freely and to gain some life skills.

Mr. Mason will be giving at least 30 plus read-to-go packets that will consist of a Snooki, and if you don't know what Snooki means, you don't know Washington Park, of a Snooki swim pass, a summer reading, Stay Cool, Ready for School information for summer reading by Alexander, JT, Just Think Post-Op, Yo Go, and Yo, Let It Go.

This is certainly a statement of what a community can do when passions meet action.

Our hopes are that we continue to show what is possible with positive community engagement.

Thank you.

Thank you mayor and members of council.

My name is Graham McLean.

I live in Free Union, but I'm here tonight as a member of the board of Albemarle Housing Improvement Program and I'm joined by a number of other fellow board members and staff.

I'm here most importantly to thank the council and the city for its leadership and tremendous support of affordable housing in general but preservation of affordable housing in particular as it's a vital part of the affordable housing effort.

I think we all can acknowledge and know how important this issue is for the city of Charlottesville

how much of a challenge it is and we are very grateful for the city and its leadership in this arena.

It should not be taken for granted that a locality has a fund that's specifically dedicated to affordable housing activities and so we want to commend that.

Secondly, I wanted to thank the city staff for their partnership from home inspectors to NDS staff to the legal team

It's a tremendous partnership and there's a lot of detail work and AHIP would certainly not be as effective in its work without the tremendous partnership of the city staff.

Thirdly, I would be remiss if I did not mention that the city's support leverages others' support in addition to the tremendous

Financial support directly from the city that funnels through to the affordable housing efforts.

That support is leveraged into additional funds, specifically for the Block by Block project.

A half a million dollars in both donations, volunteer efforts, as well as in-kind support were gathered for that project.

And without the city's support, that would not have happened.

And finally, and this is definitely the most important and tangible, I know many of you have, because I've been on tour with a number of you around block by block and the 10th and Page neighborhood.

It is a beautiful and historic neighborhood and there's been a lot of tremendous work done in that neighborhood in the last couple years.

and it's a wonderful thing to meet AHIP's clients in that neighborhood.

And we could not have done that work without the tremendous partnership with the city.

Thank you.

Good evening Mayor Huja, city council members, city manager Mr. Jones and other officials.

My name is Sharon Jones and I reside at 1106 Page Street in Charlottesville.

As a lifelong resident of the city of Charlottesville and of Page Street, I stand before you today with great pride and appreciation.

I am very excited about the growth that our city has experienced over the past few decades, as well as our ability to maintain a small town atmosphere.

I also appreciate the many resources that are afforded to city residents.

It is with great pleasure that I share with you the wonderful work of the Albemarle Housing Improvement Project.

As you know, there are numerous resources for residents who are in poverty.

Unfortunately, there are relatively few resources for residents who are not in poverty.

As a single parent with a student in college, it is very challenging to keep up with the increasing cost of maintaining a home in Charlottesville.

I am very grateful to the city for the AHIP grant, which enabled me to have improvements to my home.

Through the grant, I received a new roof

Re-insulated crawl and attic space, replaced plumbing, and a new water heater to name a few.

The AHIP workers were responsive and inclusive as they completed the project.

Their staff is extremely professional and work diligently to ensure that I understood every project.

They are neat and completed projects within a timely fashion.

I thank you again for approving the grant and allowing me to be a recipient.

I ask that you approve the grant again this year to be continued

Thank you.

Good evening, counselors.

My name is Melvin Grady, and I live at 238 Providence Mill Road here in the city.

I was in before you today, tonight, in petition with over 500 combined paper and online signatures.

I'll make copies tomorrow.

I got half and half right now.

And from the Bridge Street, Fifeville, and other neighborhood citizens have stated overwhelmingly that they do not want a hotel on the corner of Bridge Street and Cherry Avenue.

When I really wrapped my head around this idea of a hotel in my historic neighborhood, the no-brainer sign went off in my head that said, that's not the right place to put it.

So I made a few phone calls and asked people to reassure me that I wasn't trying to block progress or was just in it for selfish reasons.

It's my pleasure I was greeted with this resounding likeness of thought, so I want to thank first off Peter Amedda, Kim Lee Lauder, Antoinette Rhodes, Eugene Williams, Pat Lloyd, Kathy Harris, and everyone else that has backed this effort.

But I speak to you today on an issue bigger than the proposal, hotel, or petition.

It's about seeing democracy in action.

When a 300 sign petition to move the ABC store came before you, when another nearly 500 sign petition

was presented later to you to keep the store where it was, you listened.

That to me is democracy.

I think the stores should stay there, by the way.

That's another opinion.

But that's democracy.

On the hotel matter, the will of the people has spoken in clear terms, no hotel.

The vote tonight is not on the hotel, I know that.

But it is really indirectly.

It's items like parking, which Southern Development wants changed, would allow easier access to a hotel development.

And your planning commission denied

amending the rezoning more than once in a 5-0 vote.

Voting to change the rezoning after this petition is not democracy in action.

Council Szakos, you stated that, quote, our vote will narrow the number of uses that can be put in place there, preventing things that will be bad for the neighborhood in the future, as well as adding a few parking spaces and additional green space.

I support it because it protects the neighborhood from future unwelcome development, provides jobs and activity that will help

the historic neighborhood, unquote.

Well, I must say that according to the neighborhoods in question, a hotel is unwelcome development.

Anyway, in no way helped by historic neighborhoods.

Also, the fact that decisions are being made without residents' proper input is not in line with the city of Charlottesville's vision statement concerning smart citizen focused government.

Quote, and our citizens are informed in every state by effective communication and active citizen involvement.

So therefore, will everyone in attendance please stand up

If you want to see democracy in action and have our voices heard by council.

If you don't agree with this whole tale.

It's not about me.

I've got 12 seconds left.

Honestly though, this is democracy.

500 signatures.

Good evening, Jeffrey Fogel, 215 Spruce Street here in the city.

I came to speak about the DMC task force, something that I have spoken about to this council for approximately four years.

I have signed the letter that you have received and agree with what's in it.

I do differ from my colleagues, however, many of whom believe that the city is prepared to do something about this problem.

I, for one, am convinced that the city is not prepared to do so.

If you cannot come to any other conclusion after four years of efforts, the fundamental question that was asked of the task force, why are black children treated worse than white children in the juvenile justice system?

We do not have an answer to that question.

We do not have a survey, a study, or an interest on the part of the leadership in coming forth with the answer to that question.

The answer to that question is not only critical to determining whether or not we can reduce the disparity that exists in the juvenile justice system for young African American men, but whether or not we can open up a discussion in this community of why it is that it's a have and a have not community.

Why it is that most white people are doing very well and why is it that most black people are doing so poorly?

Why is it that in this world-class city 20% of the population is poor?

Why is it when you have groups like AHIP, which I fully support and does a wonderful job,

But they're neglecting the fact that you need 4,000 affordable units.

It's nice for you to preserve units and you should do so.

But take it seriously that the serious problems you have in this community are not about how many trees to put on West Main Street, not how many awns to put in McIntyre Park.

Not how pretty the flowers should be on the overpass, the 50 billion dollar overpass over McIntyre Road.

It is poverty and it is race.

And until you get it,

You don't have a future.

What you don't understand is that security of this nation is going to depend on bringing it together, of taking apart the two separate nations that have been created, that have been criticized, that have been analyzed for 50 years.

In 1968, the Kerner Commission issued a report saying we're rapidly moving to two societies.

Well that rapid movement has continued for 50 years and nobody is slowing it down.

Your principal obligation here is to take care of what needs to be done.

The future of this city

the future of this country is going to be dependent upon the ability to bring classes and races together.

And if you don't focus almost all of your attention, I know you've got a million things on the table that city councils are responsible for, but I think what people are seeing is you're not focusing your attention on these two main areas, race and class.

We're looking at one small piece of that in the criminal justice system and we're being very very frustrated in efforts to get basic statistics, basic answers from the police department and cooperation from the leadership of the city.

That's why I don't believe the city is interested.

because after four years of somewhat haranguing you, nothing's been forthcoming.

So I would urge you to take a look at this document again, recognize that it represents the thoughts of many people in this room and of many people in the community, and let's see if we can move on the issue of criminal justice, even if we can't yet move on the issue of housing and jobs and decent clothing and shelter.

Rosia Parker, 816 Alf Hardy Drive.

I'm just going to sum up everything that everybody has already said, but I want y'all to put y'all's children in our place of our children.

I know some of y'all's children are grown, but you have grandchildren and some children are biracial.

Not only are their children are just black, but my thing is as a mother of three children,

a mother of one black male, a concerned disrespectful citizen of Charlottesville, and a DMC task force member.

I stand here tonight on behalf of many African Americans in the city with concerns to how our children are unfairly treated due to the disproportionate minority contact with their peers.

They are not treated the same in the judicial system as the residents I've watched so many of our black males being stopped and frisked, harassed by our police officers current and past.

I feel there should be more training for the officers instead of the couple that has just taken place.

I feel in every part of the city or in the main counterparts, the public should be made more aware of these training sessions.

The police, the public has very little notice of any such training with the officers, youth and the public.

More meetings instead of just certain leaders in the city where there are residents who stand on the front line for our children.

As black parents, we feel we cannot advocate for our children when it comes to the judicial system.

We should have more to say.

Social services need to be more investigated for the wrongness of taking our children from our homes, creating more barriers to mental health issues and making it hard for us to regain our children back and to keep them in the system.

The adequate data makes it very injustice for us, for the DMC to disperse

Task Force with some substantial amount of unfinished work needing to be done.

We need the city of Charlottesville governmental agencies to take responsibility for their actions and the actions of others that they are held accountable for.

You cannot have transparency if there is no communication presence or respect on behalf of the governmental side.

Yeah, there have been some improvement, but much, much more is needed.

So what is Charlottesville's government going to do to stop the misjustice here?

No justice, no peace.

As a black mother, I will continue to stand on the front line fighting for justice for our youth and their freedom from the judicial system.

My name is Lewis Schultz.

I live at 1809 East Market Street.

This is the 41st time since October 3, 2013 that I have come to Council to say that I have evidence that City Manager Maurice Jones, Director of Public Works Judith Mueller, and Utilities Director Lauren Hildebrand, by unlawfully taking my private property for a public use and by denying me my lawful rights to it, have violated Charlottesville Code, the City's Charter, and the Code of Virginia,

and in doing so have violated federal civil rights statutes.

That property is on Steep Hill Street, a private street in the Woollen Mills neighborhood.

For 21 months now, I have repeatedly told council that my rights as a US citizen were illegally taken from me by force with no due process and no compensation by people acting in their official capacities as employees of the city of Charlottesville and under the direct supervision of the city manager.

I have provided council documentary evidence to prove my assertions and I have asked numerous times that council hold a hearing

where I may give sworn testimony and present any additional evidence they might request of me so that justice may be served and those who have broken the law might be held accountable.

City Attorney Craig Brown, whose own office has spent more than a decade trying to cover up facts about what the city has done on Steep Hill Street, has apparently advised council not to investigate.

That is not surprising since by law he is required to defend the city manager who has the power to fire him.

The conflict of interest is glaringly obvious even without considering the role Mr. Brown has personally played

in creating this nightmare for my neighbors and me.

I've made it clear to council that the problems I've experienced are not unique to me nor to my property alone.

They are pervasive throughout Charlottesville, particularly in Belmont, and there may be as many as hundreds of other properties that have been taken unlawfully in whole or part by the city.

Fundamental managerial training and record keeping problems that go back decades are at the root of all of these cases.

Some can be directly blamed on current mayor and former director of planning,

Satyendra Huja, who in 1978 created an error filled list and map of 84 streets and alleys in the city that he claimed were dedicated to public use, but just like the Water Street extension had not been accepted for maintenance by the city.

Mr. Huja apparently didn't bother to do a simple search of public records when he wrote his list.

When I asked in 2013, the city could cite deed references to support claims to only six of those properties.

That leaves 78 streets and alleys that the city has claimed and used as its own

despite there being no evidence it has any rights to them.

Steep Hill Street is among those despite having been explicitly dedicated as a private street which the city has no interest in whatsoever.

That is a fact that has been known to the city's attorney's office and city councilors for many years and a fact that was clearly communicated to the city manager, director of public works and director of utilities before they directed city staff under their supervision to enter and take additional parts of my private property.

The need for accurate information to base planning decisions on, a responsibility to protect the property rights of private citizens, and other basic principles of good governments make attending to these problems a matter of great urgency, but council wants to pretend like I and the issues I've raised don't exist.

Kathy Galvin, you are a candidate for re-election, and as such, I'm calling on you tonight to take concrete steps to address the concerns I've raised,

Good evening.

My name is Mary Carey.

I live at 100 Ridge Street, which is Midway Manor.

We're still having a safety problem over there.

Yesterday was nice because there wasn't nobody there.

But as you come out of Midway Manor and get to the edge of the parking lot, I have a van.

The van is taller than most people.

But I have to look to the right to see if there's any traffic coming.

I didn't see any cars because I didn't see anything coming around the curb.

But as I pulled out the parking lot, there's two cars.

I didn't see them.

I say, there's still a safety problem over there.

And I've been here, I don't know how many times, but it's like beating a dead horse with y'all up in here.

You keep coming in here and coming in here and coming in here, and you do what you want to do anyway.

So I'm still saying that there is a safety problem on South Street.

And as far as Ridge Street, I grew up on Ridge Street.

I told Ms. Szakos in here one night,

that my first apartment when I got married was right there on that spot where you had that sign.

What did you tell me, Ms. Szakos?

You keep on talking about your misremembering.

I'm going to make you remember here tonight.

You told me, don't worry about it, Ms. Kerr.

There will be housing there before a hotel.

Now you're going along talking about it's a good place for a hotel.

Are you misremembering or you just don't care?

This is what I'm saying.

All the historical places in Charlottesville, as far as black people are concerned, are gone.

Ms. Gavin, what are you going to do with West Main Street?

Tear it down and bill it over again?

You did that with what you call Vinegar Hill.

So, what's going on with this council?

You talk about 10 years ago, this happened.

Okay?

If you came in here six years ago, and the Planning Commission say no, what are you saying?

We are listening to you.

We see you.

We hear you.

Do you hear us?

We are people in this community.

We have heritages here.

We have black history here.

It's gone.

It's a little Mayberry.

In the movie, Little Mayberry, you only saw one black man in a whole segment of the show.

10, 15 years.

Is that what y'all want Charlottesville to be?

You turned down all the black neighborhoods building hotels.

For what?

Black people can't stay in no hotels and you know they're not going to be going in there laying in them.

They can't afford to eat.

And when these developers bring down little moving companies in here, tearing up and carrying on, they bring down help.

So what are you talking about jobs?

That hotel down there on Main Street that they're building up there at Main and McIntyre, they bought their people and they're still doing it.

You know, you're not going to find too many black people go six or seven feet high.

You got a bunch of Mexicans down there.

and you got a whole lot of white people.

I don't see no black people down there.

So what are you talking about?

Where are the jobs coming from?

So I'm just saying no to this hotel.

And anybody that goes along with me needs to say it.

And I think there's a lot of people out there that are saying no.

So I'll tell you what, city council, say yes.

If you will help.

I'll start.

Wow, thank you all.

If you want to wait.

And it may be worth waiting.

First of all, thank you all for coming.

It's a lot to respond to, so I'll just do what I can.

Number one, I have asked that

that William Taylor Plaza be taken off the consent agenda and put on our regular agenda.

I'm not sure where that will land, but we'll see.

A few minutes at the end?

And secondly, I'd like to respond sort of backwards to Ms. Kerry.

Thank you for coming.

I know you understand deeply the history of this

this community and one of these days I'm gonna get a microphone in front of you because you've got stories that are just too good to lose.

But I think what you say actually speaks to another couple speakers we had to AHIP, which does in fact that program, one of the things it does is preserve our history.

And it has that really unique role in our affordable housing initiatives

unlike really anything else.

It's got this multi-tiered benefit of not only providing affordable housing, securing affordable housing.

We have a lot of affordable housing in this town that we don't recognize, but we will lose if we do not keep our eyes

on the fact that it is there and serving its function as affordable housing and preserving our history.

I'd also like to speak to something that Ms. Carey said about jobs, because this morning we had our second graduation for Go Driver.

Go Driver is a program that we started relatively recently, I don't know if it was even a year ago now, whereby we match an economic

Workforce Training with Real Jobs.

Everybody in the first class who took Go Driver Training left with Real Jobs.

They are now 11 formerly un- and underemployed city residents have living wage jobs with transit, most of them with CAT.

This second class, we've brought in Jaunt and actually one of our graduates, all eight, all women, I like to say,

all graduated today with jobs.

This is a really amazing model.

But it's just an example.

We have other GO initiatives that are on the same model because it has proven

to be a very effective jobs program for our city residents to really go to the root of the issues, which are so often economic.

Which brings me just to another part of our public comment, which is about the disproportionality of so many things in our community.

And tonight we heard a lot about the juvenile justice system.

It certainly doesn't end there, and I know many of you spoke to that.

There are many more instances in the adult system in these schools.

The disproportionality of a root problem, which is education.

All of our citizens deserve to come out of our school system ready to be fully functional and successful in our community.

and that's another place where we are falling short.

And what I come away with, particularly after hearing you all tonight, is I agree that we need to have an independent task force, whatever, it can't be within the city government.

I think we try, I also have participated in this task force and I think it's done some good things but it has limitations because it is within the government

It just occurs to me, and it might not be the right answer, but to put it within legal aid.

I appreciated what Ms. Bauer said and I think may actually be an organization that crosses a lot of trust realms.

Just an idea on that.

I think I'll leave it there to let other people respond, but thank you all for coming.

Well I would agree with a lot of what Dede Smith said.

Let me just add on to the go driver.

There's another one called go electric.

So it's not just for drivers, it's for trades people.

And this really is, I'm hoping, will be a good model for jobs that will stay in the city.

Nicaiah mentioned people coming in and doing work that are from out of the city.

A lot of that happened at the flats.

And those jobs are not here right now.

So we want the jobs to stay in the city.

We want them to be in construction.

I like them being in construction for journeymen, laborers, skilled laborers, semi-skilled laborers to work their way up through the trade.

So I'm a big fan of that.

Mary Bauer, you mentioned that there's sort of an effort to kind of tamp down the effort that you're involved in.

and I would say that's not the city's choice.

That should be your choice.

The people that showed up tonight, that should be your choice.

When there are demonstrable efforts coming out of that task force and you think it has been done, then that's the time when we might start backing off of that, but not until.

So it would be your choice and not our choice.

It's for you.

It's for the city.

Nakai, I loved your words.

They're just very powerful.

Thanks for coming down here.

Cindy Trill Richardson, she's still here.

I'm glad that she stood in for Raymond Mason.

That's a heck of a man there.

They make a good team as advocates for the children, particularly in the city, and I love to see them when they come.

Mary Carey, I know it's still a safety problem.

I'm down there almost every day.

We'll see where that goes.

I hope it goes somewhere differently.

I think that's about it.

I don't have a whole lot to add.

I think I also have been on the DMC task force.

I missed the last meeting.

I was in Philadelphia with several folks from the city, including the police chief, with

a group of mayors and city councilors from around the country looking at how we can make our communities safer and more successful especially for young black men.

And I think that we have not done a good enough job.

I think it's clear in the outcomes we see.

We've made progress in some areas and then we seem to lose progress in another.

And I think one of the reasons that I ran for council was because I think the issues of poverty and race are the most compelling, most important things facing our city right now.

We're doing well in a lot of things

and we can't lose those, but the things that we're not doing well on are the things we need to really keep an eye on.

I do support the task force continuing and I would like to put this on an upcoming council agenda to have a really thorough conversation with staff input and with task force input as well.

I'd like to thank Mr. Hayden for his endorsement of Ms. Green.

I think he left, but for the Human Rights Commission

and Mr. Mason I'd like to thank for organizing the donations for the pool passes.

I think that's an amazingly generous act and I appreciate his doing that.

AHIP we'll talk about later.

I'm a strong proponent.

And I think that we got the William Taylor Plaza petitions and understand a lot of people were here about that.

We will have the conversation about it later since it's being taken off the consent agenda.

Yes, I'd like to talk about the DMC, questions that have been raised, and as well as the idea of raising another independent task force, and yet I do wonder then what is the purpose of the Human Rights Commission.

And there was, there's a concern of mine that there is

some redundancy in our groups and task forces that are all looking at things slightly differently.

And I think the frustration that we're hearing tonight is that we're not seeing things add up to an action plan.

I would like to kind of build a little bit about what both Ms. Smith and Ms. Szakos have talked about, but not create a new task force at this point until we really understand what the existing mechanism

mechanisms we have in place are already telling us.

So I would like to propose that we get, and we just got a report, actually, from the Shostel Police and Office of Human Rights released their county police forum report.

No one's talked about that forum report.

A work session, in my mind, is an opportunity for council and appropriate bodies like the Human Rights Commission, like the DMC's task force,

to really grapple with the details and get to the bottom of what needs to be done to resolve these things.

We don't resolve things when we're on the dais talking about them.

We need to come up with a real plan, an action plan.

So that's what I would propose if we could get that on a future agenda of a work session where we really do finalize what is the nub of the issue here, what's the holdup,

I saw Mr. Murphy come in.

At one point I thought we were going to be going to the judges to find out what latitude we did have to release the information that is being requested by the community regarding the police stop and frisk.

So I want to get clarity on all these issues that we on council are getting a lot of information to from these different sources and just get all, it's all get on the same page and come up with an action plan.

I think we'll talk about AHIP, we'll talk about the William Taylor Plaza again.

I do want to briefly tie together the comment that was made by Ms. Richardson about Mr. Mason's summer

because I do remember we got on June 12 from Mr. Daley his memorandum that was addressing issues raised at council meeting about city outdoor pool access.

And he was proposing that we were going to use those summer pool passes in the parks and recreation scholarship program.

and I remember asking for a follow-up on that one and maybe because I was away, I don't remember getting a follow-up on that memo, but that memo sounded like a really good plan.

And I think that's in addition to the 30 pre-passes.

It is, and we're implementing that.

Okay.

Again, getting back a little bit to the

this proportionality and the subject of jobs.

I do want to flag that there's been ongoing work with city staff in the Office of Economic Development, with people in the community, and the mayor's, the manager's office, to create

I guess summit's the best word in the fall where there's going to be a gathering of people to really again create those pathways to the construction jobs that are coming and then the apprenticeships that at this point in time have not been accessible to the African-American community.

That is a real, real focus for this council, this administration and it's

a combination of tying state registered apprenticeship programs to what are some of our big engines of mobility.

And it is redevelopment.

It is construction.

One of the ways to do and tie together low-income African-American community to apprenticeships, to jobs, is by building relationship between all the parties involved with that.

And that's what the point of this summit is.

We do have developers and contractors involved because they are the ones that are creating the jobs.

We build and we create opportunity.

I'm going to be talking a little bit more later on about the significance of the Habitat program because it's significant in that it is also about creating integrated communities, not segregated communities that often we lose sight of.

So I'm going to leave it at that.

I think Miss Walker, again, you speak very strongly and powerfully, and I'm going to say poetically.

I do know that we've had conversations too about the swimming and the pool passes.

I'm hoping that we get a real answer on that shortly, at least in that small area.

I would like to ask City Manager to see if we can get the data we need, Mr. Fogel pointed out, so the data which we need, we'll be asking for.

See if you can find it.

Yes.

I just wanted to emphasize that we all care deeply about the issues that have been raised in that letter that was sent to the City Council today.

This organization and this city council have been and will continue to be committed to equity and justice and fairness in our community.

And we're not just talking about it, folks.

We're doing important work with the help of our community partners that we have.

No one has suggested that we dismantle this task force.

As we mentioned this evening, there's been a suggestion to consider doing a monitoring period where we see the programs that have been put in place, the initiatives that have been put in place to see how they're working.

No one has talked about dismantling this program just yet.

And we'll put together a report, we'll bring it to city council for consideration.

One of the things I'm especially dismayed by is the accusation in this letter that black lives don't matter to the leadership of the city of Charlottesville.

And that's just not true.

It's not true.

You may disagree with some of the outcomes, you may disagree with some of the decisions, but to imply that black lives don't matter is just not right.

We've been putting in place or expanding programs to address disproportionality in the juvenile justice system and poverty issues in our community from the day I became city manager and many programs before that.

When I became the city manager, a number of people would ask me, what do you want your legacy to be?

And I said, I want my legacy to be addressing issues of poverty in our community.

We want to bring down the number of people who are living in poverty in the city of Charlottesville.

And we've been working every single day to try to address that.

And I'll just, I'll list a few of the initiatives that we've been involved with, just so you have an understanding of it.

The summer youth internship program that we have that's going on right now, we have over 150 kids who are currently involved in this program.

We have the Black Male Achievement Mentoring Programs, My Brother's Keeper and Young Lions.

Those are brand new programs.

We've supported Hype in the past.

The Downtown Job Center.

We've had thousands of people who've come through the Downtown Job Center since we started this program in September of last year.

Vice Mayor Smith mentioned Go Driver.

We had a graduation this morning.

Eight wonderful African American women

who have jobs now because of this program, who worked hard to get five certifications to get this program.

We had 11 people who went through the first round of this program.

We're going to keep doing more.

Go electric.

Go office.

Plugged in Virginia.

Two years ago our police department became one of the first departments in the state of Virginia to track stop and frisk interactions.

We've invested in body cameras to increase transparency in our community.

We've invested in training sessions for our officers on youth programming and communicating with youth.

In fact, right now we're hosting a youth camp with Albemarle County Police at the Lugo McGinnis Center this week.

Chief Longo is working on establishing a group of people who would review stop and frisk.

He's proposed, we haven't discussed it in detail with City Council just yet, but he's proposed using people from the Citizens Advisory Panel and the Human Rights Commission to review stop and frisk data and reports to ensure that what we're doing is right.

We started taking the stop and frisk data to try to address any concerns that we have in our community, to get to any root causes or any bias that we may have in our community.

We're going to keep doing that, plain and simple.

This is my turn.

I didn't interrupt you, sir.

I did not interrupt you during your time.

Did I?

I did not.

Thank you.

So we're committed to addressing these concerns.

We're doing it in a way that I would challenge you to find other places in Virginia that are trying to address these issues.

And we're going to keep doing it.

We're going to keep trying to find different ways to address these issues and get to some of the root concerns.

When we started the dialogue on race six years ago, we made a commitment to address issues of race in the city of Charlottesville.

That morphed into the Human Rights Commission.

That's morphed into

all kinds of programs that we've initiated to try to address these concerns.

As I said, because I had the great pleasure of being the city liaison on the dialogue on race, as I said at that point to a lot of people, 800 people who came to be a part of that process, this did not happen overnight and it's not gonna be solved overnight, but we are dedicated to addressing these issues.

We're gonna keep doing it.

Just a few more of the investments that we've made

Parks and Recreation, Boys and Girls Club, FAR, Abundant Life, Ready Kids, Region 10, United Way, TJAC, Affordable Housing, AHIP, Habitat for Humanity, City of Promise.

Those are things that are helping people in our community and they will continue to help people in our community.

And I will argue every single day that every dime that we spend to try to invest in people is paying off in our community and will continue to do so.

So I say that because I don't want people to walk away from this thinking that the folks up here on this bias and the folks that work for the city of Charlottesville aren't doing anything to address these issues because we are and we will continue to do so.

And I look forward to working with anybody who wants to do that to make it happen.

Thank you.

That's an agenda.

Minutes for June 1st and June 15th.

Appropriation, revenue sharing for sidewalk construction.

Appropriate and transfer $350,000

Appropriation, Region 10 Community Services Board Funding for the Thomas Jefferson Area Crisis Intervention Team Coordinator, $53,700 Appropriation, Funds Transfer, Restoration of Saturday Operating Hours at Smith Aquatic and Fitness Center, $3,098 Appropriation, Additional Funding for Department of Social Services Benefits Program, $16,075

Appropriation of funds for Medicaid FAMAS renewal application processing, $10,045.

Appropriation of Albemarle County reimbursement for the Preston Morris Building envelope restoration project, $825.

Resolution, city manager's contract.

Resolution supporting legislation for Virginia to participate in the regional greenhouse gas initiative.

I have one question.

I know that it was requested that the Laughlin Hills PUD amendment be taken off because the

I agree.

So we'll add that to that list that you just read.

Deferred, okay.

I have a comment, just a comment on item I, which is the resolution about the city manager's contract, and Mr. Jones and I have talked about this, and several of other councilors, and I have done a little bit of reading about some best practices of the international city managers,

Association, IMCA, that they've recommended that after five years, and this is a five-year anniversary coming up for Mr. Jones, that there be what they call a multi-rater, or ATER review, which is commonly called the 360 review.

And I would like us to consider it, and Mr. Jones was amenable to that.

It's a personnel issue.

And we should do it within our...

I think October is usually when we...

Okay.

Any discussion?

I vote.

Yes.

Okay, I'd like to, may I make a motion for a commission, board and commission?

Yes, yes ma'am.

I move that we appoint Cliff Maxwell to, as a UVA representative to the Charlottesville Sister City Commission and Jeffrey LeGrow as the alternate representative.

Second.

Second.

Any comments of that vote?

And I'm going to represent for the Cardinals early.

I'm freezing up here somehow.

Next item in the public hearing.

That's actually a good idea.

For two designations, 1604 East Barker Street.

While lengthy is fairly succinct, you have before you a request to approve by ordinance the designation of a private tree found in the Willam Mills community.

The tree was requested for designation by the property owner who is here.

It is a tree which is being asked to be memorialized because it is the progeny of a very large white oak that was adjacent to Brooks Hall that went over when Hurricane Isabel went through town.

The seed or the acorns were collected and this is a tree that is a progeny of that particular tree.

It's been a lengthy, this particular tree has been a lengthy process.

There's a lot of due diligence done and there was a lot of research done to verify everything.

Any questions?

If not, we are open for public hearing.

My name is Bill Emery.

I live at 1604.

East Market Street.

I hope you all will designate the white oak tree in my backyard as the city's first memorial tree.

This designation would be consistent with the 2009 establishment of the urban forestry management plan and the 2010 establishment of the tree commission.

This designation is possible because of the tree conservation ordinance adopted by council in 2013.

You know, place does matter.

When I see people walking by with grocery bags with no shade on the edge of the street, trees do matter.

Trees on West Main matter.

Where we live matters.

And, you know, Mr. Fogel's out of the room.

I guess I'm safe to say that.

But beyond planting and protecting, I believe we're ready to plant for the future.

to provide the critical county coverage at the edge of the street, which makes biking and walking a tolerable, even inviting experience and helps us to move towards your vision of a green city.

You know, our city is graced with a fair number of trees.

Our streets are not.

Many residents must drive to locations if they want to walk in the shade.

The Tree Commission is working to facilitate the Green City vision on multiple fronts, but they are an advisory body.

They need your active interests to catalyze the planting of trees along the 156 miles of streets in our city neighborhoods.

Whatever you do in 91 underline, but actually they said in 1975, now is the best time to plant a tree.

And I hope the next tree that's brought forward for protection under this tree conservation ordinance will be a street tree.

Thank you.

Anybody else would like to speak on this topic?

Can I close the public hearing?

How many acorns did you collect, Bill?

That's another one.

And he was sure those acorns were from that tree.

I think this is an interesting thing because when we did this ordinance we were envisioning

Old trees, big old trees that had historical significance.

And I don't think any of us anticipated a young tree having historical significance, but I think in this case it does, and I appreciate your kind of thinking a little outside the box and bringing it to us.

So I will make a motion that we adopt this tree.

I have a second.

Motion, discussion, then vote.

Mr. Mayor, this is an online security zone.

As you know, I don't want to see anything removed from the agenda.

Next week, there's a resolution for affordable housing for Habitat for Humanity.

Hold on one second.

Let me find that out.

and maybe coming down the hallway.

If you're watching in the office, it's Ms. McHugh.

Thank you, Brian.

While we're stopped, my husband is not going to let me bring home all these peanut butter balls.

They are very healthy.

Can we pass them down?

Yeah, 9 o'clock break.

5 o'clock is early.

Good evening everyone.

The next item on the agenda is to discuss the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund request for Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville.

I believe this request to be consistent with the city's comprehensive plan and Habitat is proposing to purchase land in higher income or mixed income neighborhoods within the city.

According to information provided by Habitat and included in your packets, there's actually a map that shows the census tracts in green, various shades of green that have these higher levels of income or greater than median family income of the Charlottesville area are included.

And while incorporation of affordable units throughout the city is a key component of our comp plan,

We know that there are challenges to do this.

The challenges include the high cost of land, the lack of availability of land, and then federal housing and funding policies that actually promote concentrations of low and moderate income housing within qualified census tracts are difficult to develop areas.

This means affordable housing actually ends up going with federal funding into existing low income areas.

So Habitat's proposing to assist the city incorporate affordable units in our higher income areas.

But funds are needed for the increased levels of down payment assistance above what's typically required because we know that development cost as well as the ultimate purchase prices of these homes will be a little bit higher.

Habitat will be responsible for identifying and purchasing the lots as well as building the homes in the census tracts that qualify with the higher income levels.

The homes will be built to the character

of the surrounding neighborhoods which may require construction of single family detached units in some cases as well as additional landscaping and even possible hardscaping not currently required with other builds.

As proposed funding would not be provided from the city to Habitat until qualified home buyers are ready to close in one of these homes.

This would mean that the risk to the city's affordable housing fund is basically eliminated because Habitat's taking on all the initial risk as well as the carrying cost of purchasing these lots, you know, developing them and so forth and securing people to purchase them.

All units will go toward the city's goal of 15% supported affordable housing within the city.

and Habitat has committed to limit this program to families that either have lived, or excuse me, either lived or worked in the city for at least a minimum of six months.

At present, they have a partner list of about 55 families of which 44 families meet this criteria.

A total of 39 of them actually live in Charlottesville and 29 work here as well.

Leverage will be provided obviously through the direct mortgages, loan to the participating families, as well as a local donor has committed to match every dollar that is raised.

So for each dollar we provide, a dollar will be provided by the local donor.

Habitat originally requested $450,000 for this initiative to assist 20 families.

However, staff's recommending a pilot initiative of 225,000 for 10 homes, as we believe this will give Habitat and the city

an opportunity to evaluate how well this will work as well as what the appropriate level of down payment assistance is and is needed for this particular program to make these homes viable for the habitat model.

I'd be glad to respond to any questions regarding the proposal.

I would note that I have Dan Rosenzweig, who's the Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of

Yeah, I have a few.

And again, thanks for the staff report and I'll have some comments later on, but I just couldn't make some numbers add up.

So it said that Habitat has 55 families that are working toward this wet equity requirements to qualify for a home.

Of these families, 44 either live and or work in the city.

A total of 39 live in Charlottesville and 29 work in the city.

So what numbers combine to equal 55?

I mean, there's 55 families that are working toward this sweat equity.

Thank you.

I'm Dan Rosenzweig.

I'm the President and CEO of Habitats for Humanity.

I live at 740 Lexington Avenue in the city.

The 55 is the total cohort of families who are currently working through our program.

That's independent of where they live and or work.

The other numbers were I was asked to break by staff to break it down by where people live and work as well.

So they don't add up.

And would it be possible that as you

you grow over time that we can get a map that identifies where the parcels are located in the census tracts.

Certainly.

Well, I mean, we have two approaches to deconcentrating poverty.

One is, and all of our work does the same thing.

We build mixed income communities or participate in mixed income communities as a builder.

and this is us attempting to stretch a little bit more.

Before we do our strategic planning every year, we look at the city's comprehensive plan or the county's if we're building in the county, we try to do what we think are some of the harder challenges with regard to affordable housing in the municipalities and I know from my service to the city that trying to find ways to create affordable housing options throughout the city is one of the toughest polls.

in the comprehensive plan.

So we said we're going to make a concerted effort to try to do that this year.

And then there was also a mention of how Habitat has partnered with a variety of job training programs through the city, CRHA, CATEC and PVCC to provide internship and job skills opportunities.

So what is the

Are there any relationships now that go electric at this point?

And how many low-income residents have received job training?

Do you keep those numbers at all?

Because, again, that's something that's really important in the economic development side of things.

We do keep those numbers.

I can't.

Just something for future reference.

It'd be great to tap into that and combine it with our other sources of data.

Yeah, I've got a couple.

And I applaud you for

this effort particularly in light of the recent Supreme Court decision where they say you don't even have to show malintent to when you're segregating by housing.

So I think this is definitely the direction that we need to go in when building new housing, certainly in particular.

I guess I'm

and I also appreciate your attention to the city factor, which is something I always bring up.

I'm not real comfortable with six months because it sounds like you actually have quite a cohort of folks who I'm gonna bet go way beyond six months.

And one of my concerns in looking at who your cohort is that you can sort of hopefully have access to being partner families in this effort

is that we have, as we all know, a pretty high percentage of low-income folks who are in housing that isn't affordable now in our city.

So if we're talking about moving our own city residents from housing that is not secure, is not affordable, into housing that is within our city, that's a much more powerful argument to investing city taxpayer money.

I would like to see that the criteria upon which we would tap into these funds, and I think you certainly have the mission and the right to do this with whatever money, other non-city money you have with whomever you want and whoever your mission is, but when we're using city taxpayer money, if we could basically also be solving a problem we have, which is

bringing our own folks, particularly our legacy families who I think you are here tonight.

We are hearing a lot about an historic discrimination against particular African American population.

The more we can address this legacy problem with this kind of program using city taxpayer dollar, I think the more powerful it is

So I would like to see that kind of criteria used for tapping into these funds.

So that's the first thing.

As I say, it sounds, I'm just general, I'm probably reading a lot into these numbers, but if you've got 39 families who already live in the city, I'm gonna guess even among that 39, you've got some that are longer term residents.

hoping you've got some that also are in this population that we know really needs our attention and deserves our attention and particularly given their historic conditions under which bring them to unaffordability.

The second thing I have is that it's looking at the map, it's entirely possible that there would be land that is eligible by census tract

but that wouldn't deconcentrate poverty in our schools.

So to again combine integrating neighborhoods economically but with that added caveat that it will also integrate our schools.

And I think the way you would do that given what we know about the disproportionality between our schools is that it would

would be another requirement that it be in a school district that is above average, or below average poverty.

Because the average is gonna be about 50, somewhere around 50%.

I think those are both really important factors.

I'm a little less inclined to make them requirements as to make them preferences.

because I agree that you probably do have enough clients that that's gonna be a doable thing, but I would hate to have the money not go toward a family that needed it because you didn't have the specific number at the specific time who met those additional criteria.

Well, I think we could also have a mechanism by which you'd come back and say it's just not possible.

But I think to have a preference is not

unless there's some sort of accountability mechanism is just not the way the world ticks.

Again, I think we need to always be keeping our eyes on the problem.

Are we addressing our overall problem, which is a very high level of poverty and it's very hard for our families to

to live here.

So just adding more people from outside, just bringing more low-income families into our city in no way addresses that really fundamental problem that we saw tonight.

So I would just like to see, and I know you cannot pick and choose, but we can in terms of having a pot of money available to habitat.

I would like to speak to that point, if I may, because

Another symptom of poverty and very exorbitant housing costs is that people don't, people who work here can't afford to live here.

And what I liked about the fact that you were taking into account employment in the city as well as living in the city was looking at that squarely in the face and saying, we really have created a situation that maybe, and I experience this on a daily basis, people that grew up in Charlottesville can no longer afford to live here.

And so they are working here and commuting long distances, which is causing problems on our streets, causing problems for our air, causing problems for our runoff and our quality of our streams.

So there are multiple goals for the city.

and I think with this, again, as you rightly point out, Ms. Smith, how timely this is when the court acknowledges, you know, Justice Kennedy wrote, the Fair Housing Act's continuing role in promoting the nation towards a more integrated society.

This is, personally, I think this is exactly what we need to be doing.

It goes both ways.

We've always been focusing on the lower income neighborhoods, typically south of town,

That's where all the lower, smaller lots were.

All the housing keeps getting co-located, and it all tends to be lower income.

And then, so when you try to move towards integrating that part of town, you're hit with criticism for displacing people, despite all the checks and balances we put in place.

This is one of those moments where we're making it a two-way street.

We are now really coming up with a tool to integrate our more affluent, predominantly white neighborhoods.

And I hope it's one of many arrows in the quiver, quite honestly, to do just that, to go both ways.

I hope when we get a more robust housing authority that we will start seeing more ability to buy condos and lease those out to low-income people, too.

as a way to expand and integrate.

So I really don't think it would be wise to put constraints on something that's a pilot, that is really timely in light of the Supreme Court decision.

And I would like to just see it very well tabulated in terms of how do you, in creating a matrix so that you monitor unit changes over time and census tract.

Dan, do you see any problem with the way Ms. Smith gave her comments?

I do actually.

It's going to be hard enough to try to get enough opportunities.

This is a very, very hard place to find land.

That is the reason for our affordable housing problem.

Predominantly, this is a very, very ambitious

my board is not the kind of board that shrinks away from challenges and this is on top of all the other challenges we've taken on up there with them and so to sort of limit and say well this parcel because it trips a district I think that's just too constraining frankly and then in terms of the preferences I agree with Miss Galvin that you know we wrote this proposal in deference to Miss Smith

because we've heard loudly and clearly that it's one of your priorities to try to serve people from Charlottesville first.

We can't outright do that legally because it's a fair housing issue, but we can do it

in limited ways.

What I can say is that money, every dollar that comes from CHF, I feel confident that we leverage it as well as anybody else.

At Sunrise, for example, the city invested $350,000.

There was about $10 million worth of construction invested at Sunrise.

It was a property that

generate about $11,000 of personal property tax.

After full build out, it's going to generate to the city $120,000 of real estate taxes every year.

So these are small investments that are leveraged by a lot of money.

So the $250,000 that is on the table tonight is going to leverage multiple millions of dollars of housing construction, which comes from everywhere.

And so this is one of the goals.

This is one of the things that we do, and we're trying to satisfy the city council's direction.

But we can't go so far that we can't actually

the former operations.

Is this structured as a pilot program?

That was the preference of staff.

We had originally come in with the request of just over $500,000.

So if you structured it as Ms. Smith asked, then you would know quickly.

You would know soon enough if that's not reasonable.

Or do you already?

Then you could adjust.

Is that correct?

Well, one way to do it would be to meet all the preferences, preferences also, besides the criteria.

Right, and I just wanted to add that, you know, I think it could be a list of criteria and I think growing up here is actually pretty high on the list, even if people aren't here anymore, if they've gone to our city schools.

You know, those kinds of criteria that at least find, have some linkage to the historic

reasons why people cannot afford to live in Charlottesville.

Economic integration is one factor, but it's not necessarily the predominant one either.

I think that historically in Charlottesville, our racial integration involves our historic African American population.

What we've seen is that's a tough population.

for Habitat to Serve.

That a lot, and we all get your newsletters, is that we see a lot of families who are not in that legacy population that has been Charlottesville.

I still don't know that I understand.

I'm sorry, I want to understand, but I don't understand the comment.

And who gets the houses.

What are you trying to say?

That it has been a problem serving our African American population.

No, I wouldn't say that that's true.

The majority of people that we've served

Oh, is that true?

That is true.

Okay, well I apologize for that.

But can, so, have you, in the Elliott Avenue development, part of the contingency was to serve five public housing families.

25%, and people haven't all picked their homes yet.

Those homes, none have been completed yet.

They're under construction.

But we have, among the cohort of 55 families eligible, we have a number of people that we've gone out of our way through outreach programs to serve people from CRHA.

And that's regardless of race.

Honestly, because you can't do that.

You can't choose people based on race.

But we have gone out of our way, worked very closely with CRHA and the residents of public housing to try to inspire, to motivate, to help with applications, to nurse people along because we know that that's a priority of the city.

I would think a priority, can we make a priority preference to having a

city residents past or present, I'd like to extend it to at least a couple of years.

Because it's a preference for families that grew up, folks that grew up in Charlottesville, whether or not they still live here.

Obviously, the combination employment, I might put third, but a combination of those would be more powerful.

I'm wondering, in light of what Mr. Rosenzweig has said, that rather than limiting their work by, and I'm not against preferences, but rather than specifically calling it preferences, just say with specific outreach toward people in those categories.

Because that is probably more effective anyway.

Let me find it.

I just want to see it happen.

Yeah, I understand.

I move that we adopt the resolution that is the allocation of the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund for Habitat for Humanity Down Payment Assistance Program for $225,000 with the provision that special outreach will be conducted to populations that have either lived here or have roots here.

And the second of the motion.

Second.

Discussion?

Can I ask a question given that it's a pilot and given that it is going to be as you

I certainly acknowledged, Mr. Rosenzweig, that it's difficult to find land.

OK, OK, great.

That answers my question.

You can sit down.

All righty.

On March 2nd of this year, Council approved roughly $22,000 in funding for planning assistance to AHIP for the Albemarle Housing Improvement Program to examine the potential for enlarging the ongoing Block by Block program, which is currently

in operation in the 10th and Page neighborhood.

And we also wanted to look at expanding that into the Orangedale and Prospect community with the objective of establishing another block by block program there as well.

Any help still in the process of evaluating information from the planning effort, had multiple discussions with them, you know, know that surveys and other information have been sent out and requested of people in those neighborhoods because I personally have received a number of calls, got one today, as a matter of fact.

But

Anyway, as they're in the process of looking at that information and so forth, they've approached the city at this point with the intent of obtaining funds, enabling them to move forward as quickly as possible once they're able to identify qualifying households and prioritize those in need.

The planning effort certainly entails a gathering of facts and information.

It also serves as a way for the city and AHIP to gauge community interest, to determine potential need, and to look up to pair households with housing rehab for both owners and renters as well as home buyer assistance.

That's one of the things that's being asked.

And that relates back to the program funded for Piedmont Housing Alliance for down payment assistance in the Orangedale and Prospect area.

I have Jen Jacobs here tonight who's going to provide a brief update as well as a PowerPoint presentation on the planning effort and share additional information about the ongoing rehab and repair programs.

However, first I want to give you the basics regarding the request.

First of all, funding is being requested for two separate block by block initiatives.

The first is an expansion of the original

10th and Page block by block program.

We'd look to shift east of 10th Street over to 8th at the railroad tracks between Page and West Street.

Inclusive of 171 housing units in this area, roughly 60% are owner, 40% are rental.

and AHIP is asking for $264,000 to undertake a minimum of six energy efficient focused homeowner and rental rehab, housing rehab assistance efforts within that neighborhood.

They also plan to approach private donors as well as grantors to expand this to as many as possibly as 10.

Based on the success of the first block by block program, we'd anticipate that at least, well, 46 cents on the dollar could be leveraged.

However, this really can't be pursued further until AHIP has a commitment from the city.

The second block by block effort would be focused on the Orangedale and Prospect area.

They're looking at the area from Fifth Street southwest to Orangedale Avenue, inclusive of Rock Creek Road over to Cherry Avenue, including sections of Seven and a House, Half Street southwest, Ninth Street, as well as Elm and Pine.

The project area is much larger than the 10th and Page area.

It's got 344 units.

That does not include

the ones there in Greenstone at Fifth.

It has a slightly less homeowner to renter distribution and it's historically fared fairly well under the scattered site program.

Some 50 homes have received some type of assistance either through rehab, energy efficiency upgrades and or emergency repair over the last six years.

But proposed herein is $462,000, so the largest of all the requests to provide up to 12 energy-efficient focused rehabs in this area.

Again, AHIP will be seeking leverage from a variety of sources, as well as with the 10th and Page, block by block.

Working in concert with our recently funded down payment assistance program through Piedmont Housing Alliance, funds have also been set aside for first time home buyers to access repair funds for five homes to address critical home repairs that are typical of some homes in this area while they're

in the process of trying to purchase those.

Working in concert with these programs, or these two programs, we believe they'll provide a solid basis of neighborhood transformation and establish momentum to create some market investment and interest as well.

One of the things that struck me recently on a tour of the block by block and the 10th and Page area was the fact that I have a brand new home

on 11th Street that's for sale, which is listed at $374,900.

Brand new house.

It's at 302 11th Street, Northwest, if any of you would like to drive by and look at it, or possibly in the market.

But anyway, that kind of thing happens when

when we rehab and when we do it in a focused and comprehensive way.

Lastly, I would note that funds are being requested for scattered site rehab, a continuation of that program for up to eight, for 264,000 as well as emergency repairs, up to 30 of those at 100,000 total funding.

So I'm going to ask Jennifer Jacobs, AHIP,

Executive Director to come up and give a brief PowerPoint presentation and we can respond to any questions.

We're going to cover up the... We'll reset that shortly after the presentation.

Good evening, Members of Council, Mayor Huja.

Thanks for having me.

I appreciate you taking the time to let me talk about this.

Just to clarify, what I wanted to talk about today is the wrap-up of the 10th and Page, the first phase of 10th and Page, and also kind of give you an overview of the last year of the scattered site.

We're really proud of the work that we've done in the 10th and Page neighborhood over the last two years.

This started as an idea in 2011 and we are finishing up the last projects right now.

So I wanted just to start by thanking you for the support for affordable housing in general.

Every day we talk about the attention that's paid to affordable housing.

and not just rehab but new construction and rental preservation and all the aspects of affordable housing that makes the community vital and important.

So we're really lucky to have the support of the city in this effort as well.

So what I wanted to talk to you about is the two years of the 10th and Page, the first phase, and then give you an overview of the scattered site.

Thank you.

So just real briefly, this is the why.

This is why we do what we do.

These eight reasons kind of sum up the whole reason why we're involved, this organization is involved in rehab and emergency repair and energy efficiency upgrades.

Health, safety and comfort is paramount.

Too many people who live in the city and in the county too, in the general area, are not healthy in their houses.

They're not safe enough and they're not comfortable enough and it's paramount to make sure that everybody wakes up in a house that doesn't fail them.

and they come home to a house that is safe and warm and dry.

It goes on affordability of the house, the ability to age in place.

In the 10th and Page neighborhood, the vast majority, say 75%, are senior citizen and it's important for their wellbeing, for their health, physical health, mental health, to relieve pressure on the system.

In place of them going into a subsidized nursing facility, for example, if they can stay in their home for an additional 10 years, it's an excellent use of resources

and others.

Thank you

and the connection between emotional and behavioral well-being and also the resilience and success as they graduate from high school and become adults and housing quality is directly linked to that and this is something we all know intuitively because we know what it's like to come home to a house that's safe

and comfortable.

But when the research starts bearing that out, that's a really nice thing to see.

So these are the eight reasons that I talk about a lot, but really what it goes back to for me is after we do a rehab, we send out a survey and we ask people how it was, how was the staff, how was this, you know, just to kind of gauge our programs and evaluate what we do.

And we ask a question and we say if it weren't for AHIP,

dot dot dot, and we let them fill in the blank.

And we got a response from our very first block by block client, and he wrote this.

He said, where would I be?

Which I keep with me, and I look at this often, and it's a really incredible reminder of exactly why we do what we do, and why we do this work every day.

Because for many of our clients, when people ask me, well, what would have happened to Mrs. So-and-so if we hadn't of?

And I often don't know the answer to that question.

I don't know where they would be.

When we talk about preserving neighborhoods and preserving sense of place and making sure families stay intact and preserving historical integrity and all of those things, this ties into that.

But mostly, we just want to make sure that people stay housed.

I wanted to tell you about the 10th and Page neighborhood.

That's my high tech map.

and this is a target area more or less.

First, 10th and Page target area that we did.

We picked this area because it had the highest concentration of people who responded to our survey.

We kind of drew a line around it and that's where we ended up.

Basic numbers of what we did and we've got four more that are in progress right now but I'm giving you the whole of the project that will be done by August.

24 homes in total, 41 people, seven community partners have been involved in this project which has been really great.

is one of them.

Leslie Fore is here tonight.

They've made sure that all the projects are energy efficiency upgrades as well as rehabs.

18 volunteer groups have participated.

Yes, we have.

Sorry, I remember them all.

LEAP.

The city is counted in that because the city staff has been working hand in hand with us to make sure that we can run this program.

There's a lot of moving parts and a lot of details.

Preservation Piedmont, UVA School of Agriculture EcoRemod program.

UVA School of Engineering also participated.

Wells Fargo brought volunteers and funding.

They donated $30,000 worth of cash into the program, plus at least 120 volunteer hours.

No, they're in the volunteer program.

Is that everybody?

I think that's everybody.

Preservation Piedmont, Citi, Wells Fargo, LEAP, UVA, UVA, and there's one more car.

Thank you.

AHIP's not included in that part.

Building Goodness Foundation.

They also participated.

They helped out on four to five houses in there.

And actually what we ended up doing was we would hold certain tasks apart and wait and say Building Goodness, we want you to go build that bathroom.

And we were able to better plan out some projects.

So those were our seven partners.

We had, please don't.

We had almost 3300 volunteer hours devoted just to this little teeny tiny area in 10th and Page, which is a value of $73,000 in volunteers.

12 funders apart from the city, so 12 private funders contributed to this project, and the average efficiency gain was 34% for all the houses in there so far.

This is a before picture.

This is our very first one on 10 and a half street.

And here's what we did.

So what I want to do is give an overview of the project just so you have an idea of the scope.

an energy audit, high efficiency boiler and water tank, replacement windows, new entrance door, new roof, gutters, trim wrap, insulation, electrical and plumbing upgrades, including new water lines, kitchen cabinets, sink and bathroom flooring.

Now about the water lines, it's interesting.

We did the plumbing upgrades for this house.

We redid the plumbing.

It was old, old, old, old plumbing.

And when we went to turn the water on, there was no pressure because the water lines were aged and we couldn't, we had to go and replace those.

Luckily, we had a lot of private funds in this house.

So we were able to use our private funds to go replace those water lines.

And that brings me to my next slide, which shows you that the funding mix for this was 64% city, 36% private.

And we probably could have gotten extra city funds into the project to fix the water lines, but we didn't have to.

And that means we had more funds left over so we could help the next person in line and make sure we got to all 24 of the houses.

And I prefer to have a public-private funding mix for these projects.

It makes it more flexible.

It makes us more responsive.

It makes the whole project a lot more successful because we're able to do more and spread those funding sources out.

The efficiency gain for this house was 39%.

They had the original windows on this house and no insulation in the walls.

And this is what it looks like now.

All right, here's another one.

This is on 11th Street, and this was an interesting project.

We did all these things.

I won't read this to you, but this is what we did.

The water heater and the bathroom repairs were actually an emergency repair that we started with, and the reason we started with the emergency repair was because we didn't think we were gonna get to this house through the rehab, because there were title issues, and we weren't able to secure a deed of trust on the house, which is what we do.

So we thought we would have to

do the emergency repair and just leave and not be able to do it.

But luckily we raised some funds and we were able to put 80%, so the 20% city, 80% private funds, that 20% is just a little emergency repair that we ended up doing.

The rest we pulled together private funds.

A large private anonymous foundation was a significant investor.

20th Century Merchant Funds also came in and some individual donors.

357 volunteer hours, this is another way we helped close the gap.

and the efficiency game was 23%.

So it was a more moderate rehab, but it only happened because we had those private funds.

And again, I consider that to be a big success.

This is what it looks like now.

If you look at that door in the back, she actually wasn't able to open up her back door.

She couldn't open it by herself.

Her son had to do it for her when he was there, which is a terrible, terrible fire hazard.

It scared me to death, the fact that she couldn't get out of that house by herself.

Something else that terrified us was when my rehab director went to look at the house the first time.

The only thing holding up the commode was the vinyl flooring.

So we got somebody out there the next day to start fixing that.

The whole floor and subfloor were rotted out underneath.

So we fixed that with the emergency repair.

EcoRemod, UVA EcoRemod students designed and installed that shade for her back.

That's not something that we typically do.

So we were able to get them to do that for us.

Our scattered site efforts, last year for FY15 that just ended a couple of days ago, 78 projects, 59 households, 137 people, 1700 volunteer hours, and 38,000, just over 38,000 volunteer hours.

The majority of AHIP's volunteer hours happen in the city.

And we love taking people into the city neighborhoods and helping them with that.

25 rehabs, 46 emergency repairs, and 20 energy upgrades.

all last year.

Again, the energy upgrades happened in conjunction with LEAP and we look forward to continuing that.

These are the basic numbers.

That's almost all the numbers I'm going to throw at you.

I just wanted to share with you some pictures I'm just going to run through.

I won't narrate everything.

I know we have to get going.

These are some images from the 10th and Page neighborhood and all the projects that we've worked on, and I will miss being there.

This room was designed and installed by the Eco Remod.

They repurposed an old storage room that wasn't being used and they turned it into this bamboo floor, beautiful playroom thing.

Again, Eco Remod did that, not Ahab.

The best part about my job is going into the houses and seeing the legacy of the people who live there.

One of our clients is 82 years old and his father built his house and he's lived there his entire life.

That's on Page Street.

These are Wells Fargo volunteers.

This is Ms. Smith's first dryer of her entire life.

She used to hang out her blankets on the back in her backyard and the neighbors would come get them and dry them for her.

So when she got this dryer, she would do the same for them.

She was eager to do some of their laundry.

And that's the shade in Ms. Smith's house, again designed and installed by EcoRemod to cut down on the sunlight that battered the front of her house.

And that, along with the energy efficiency upgrades, has reduced her energy bills by a lot.

She's really excited about that.

If you've never seen a floor being torn out, you should come hang out with us.

It's a pretty remarkable site.

Eco Remod did this IKEA kitchen and installed it.

This is not a typical AHIP kitchen as much as we would like all of them to look like this.

We were lucky enough to have students install that.

And here's our waiting list.

Currently 79 for emergency repairs, 128 for rehabs, and I think the rehab number is a little bit higher now because we've added more with our planning efforts for Orange Dale.

And that's it.

Thank you very much.

While people are going up, I'd just like to say I am not a big builder, and I don't have a huge skill set, but I did volunteer one day to work on an AHIP house.

Excellent.

Taught me to do it right and safely and I actually felt productive instead of like I was in the way like I expected to feel.

I just had some comments and again, thank you for helping me better understand the flow of the money and the tie of that money to what units are happening in what year.

and I just think that keep that Excel spreadsheet and I won't, you won't have to rebuild this again and I'll just ask the same questions year after year.

I think, and I just do think it's really important, because the magnitude of the dollars is significant.

It is.

And if I'm, I mean it's like fiscal year 14, we were close, it was 779,015, it was over a million,

and then in 16 we're gonna be 1.5 million.

So I would like us to seriously think we had a point where we need like some sort of a formal agreement or memorandum of understanding because this is no longer a pilot.

This is a huge undertaking.

There's no competition for what you do.

and that was one thing I've asked questions about, that if there were, this would be out to bid.

And this is not at all to suggest that any way, shape or form that you're not squeezing on every efficiency you can.

I'm just thinking in terms of being the stewards of public dollars, it's really, we've really gotta make sure we're understanding where the money's going and how effective it's being and that getting the information to know

really how much the waiting list is because originally I thought it was 63 and now I see it's 200 something.

So I think, I don't know if this is a question for the Housing Advisory Committee to look at what point did we cross a threshold where we need an MOU to really solidify this relationship because you are working so closely with staff, you're kind of a consultant slash adjunct slash

You're not just a contractor.

At some point, we may want to think about how do we get more minority subcontractors involved with this game, and you and I have talked about that before as well, that we've got to make sure we're not squeezing out the smaller businesses, particularly minority businesses, as you're doing this work so low cost because of all your volunteers.

We do have a strict procurement policy bidding process.

We have our own crews.

We have seven crew people on staff.

We also use local subcontractors.

So we have a strict bidding process whereby we bid out work and we have to take the lowest and I can provide a copy of our procurement policy if you'd like to see.

And we also bid out our lumber and our electrical and plumbing quarterly to local supply houses to make sure we're getting the best deal.

So in terms of stewardship, we do

ensure that that's our practice.

Well, again, just if we could keep this kind of recording mechanism in place, I would really appreciate it.

And again, I'm just a little nervous about the magnitude of the money without some sort of a formal relationship in writing.

And if we could have the hack look at that.

Well, I think what's important to understand, particularly in this appropriation, is that this is for a lot of different programs.

Well, there's six programs.

Yeah.

And so, unlike we just heard just one little piece of Habitat, in fact, if you compare the amount of money that goes to Habitat versus AHIP, it's very comparable.

In fact, I've got my own spreadsheets over since 2008, and it really tracks.

and in fact the units, we get more units actually from you all.

I just wanted to speak to that briefly.

AHIP as an organization, when I first came,

the Director of the Office of the Interim, told her to ask us to look at it closely.

And I decided because I had ran rehab programs for years, you know, and had done a very similar type function to what Jen had done and had that experience.

We are not staffed up to do that.

I had a staff of about eight that did nothing but take in applications.

review those, make determinations about work to be done and approve things for funding for various cities across the state where I was working.

But that said, the role that they play is not just as a contractor.

They're not just going in there, driving nails in the wood and replacing windows.

There's outreach to real people who have real problems and quite a number of limiting factors.

Not only their income, but often times title issues,

They often have extreme levels of debt on these properties.

Barbara with the city attorney's office, the city here tonight, she deals with us very closely on all these and knows that we look at loan-to-value very seriously and try not to put the city in a position where we've got too much money into that.

So if the mortgage was to default, the city would have some chance of at least regaining a portion of our money.

But that said, the function that AHIP plays is more than just a contractor.

They are almost a social service agency in terms of both outreach and dealing with the clients from the very start of the process all the way through the hand-holding of actually doing the work and then finalizing it.

And oftentimes people aren't necessarily happy.

There's a lot of them that are grateful.

I understand what you're saying.

There's still need for some kind of agreement between the hip and the city.

But each one of the, you know, we don't just give this money without agreements.

There are agreements in each separate component that we've identified tonight would have a separate agreement.

I think it might be useful for us to see those detailed agreements if that's appropriate because I think that we do have in place some of what Councilor Galvin is talking about.

And if there can be some consistency, then that demonstrates that we've actually got policy working here.

What you were talking about, Ms. McHugh, is basically you've established a policy of what you're working with Ms. Jacobs on, but we haven't seen that articulated

and so all the services you provide are really important to the city because we don't have the staff to do it but that's essentially what a consultant is and we've had debates on this day about bidding out consultants and making sure do we not need them or do we need them.

And it's clear that we're getting a lot of benefit from it, but again, this is in many ways just to make sure that we're at this point in time taking this

I'd just like to note, assuming that we've been as clear as we need to be about what we need to see on that and I just wanted to note, I did go on the tour and I do spend a fair bit of time in the 10th and Page neighborhood and often in other places, I have a cousin who lives in Denver in a neighborhood that has

experienced a certain amount of change over the last 20 years since she's lived there.

And that change has gone from relatively run-down houses to very pretty painted houses and better sidewalks and flowers and everything.

They've achieved that through gentrification.

So very few of the people who used to live in that neighborhood still live there.

And that's not the model that we're hoping for in Charlottesville.

One of the things that I love about what it does is it enables people to live in a beautiful neighborhood where the houses are painted and pretty and holding up and not falling apart, where people have pride in their houses because they've lived in them.

Like you mentioned, the 80-year-old whose father built the house, people who are part of the legacy community in Charlottesville, and so we're able to

beautify and strengthen neighborhoods without displacing people.

And that's a really actually a very important point because the part of 10th and Page that AHIP is proposing to move to on the other side of 10th Street is exactly experiencing that.

And those of us who know that neighborhood and have known it for decades have watched as it's been changing

to what has often been called gentrification.

But just an integration, and at this point it's healthy, but if we do not do something proactively to maintain our legacy families, we will lose them.

And that's why the role that you play is so important.

So often these families own these houses only because their father did build them.

And you mentioned

that I happen to know who it is.

It was in the Blue House whose son comes over.

I mean there is more family here and on my tours of AHIP homes what always has impressed me is the multi-generations that are often in the house and that are on either side of the inheritance factor.

It's something that is such a core piece of our history.

But I can make a motion.

I just like to say the work that you have done and the board that's here and the members of the board that are here is just simply remarkable.

not just you and the people that have come before you but when Chip was in business.

I meet people on a weekly basis who have been helped by this and not just cosmetic kind of things but roofs like that lady this evening spoke.

A roof, insulation, water lines that are blocked up.

That's one of the things you mentioned.

So you really have changed Charlottesville.

I've seen it change in the 30 plus years I've been here.

And I would just like to say, you know, there's a saying, if it's broke, fix it.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

You have something going very special here that's really helping the city.

And I would just be very careful about the city stepping in and almost sort of starting to micromanage what you're doing.

I have one more comment which I'd like you to explore.

I'd like to make a motion to approve the resolution before us to fund the projects as defined here.

Education?

Landlord?

Thank you for all you do.

Before we leave though, I do want to somehow tie together this notion of an agreement that is not about micromanaging but it is about

making sure we're holding each other accountable.

So that was part of the resolution we just passed?

How are we making sure that this is happening?

We were going to see the agreements that were already in place to see if that satisfied.

And I do think it's important because Ms. Jacobs did, I think, address the comment that this is not a non-competitive

Now we have William Taylor, brother, PUD, application, staff here to make it.

He was here, I'm not sure where he went.

Yes.

Mayor, Council.

The Planning Commission held a joint public hearing with City Council on William Taylor Plaza Amendment.

The meeting was May 12, 2015.

OK. Any questions from staff?

Any questions?

I'm sorry, well I do have a couple questions and thank you for answering some of my questions online.

I just need a couple clarifications about what the implication for the changes are and I'm particularly concerned about the phasing.

that doesn't seem obvious to me, nor does it seem logical to me that that is of equal or greater value.

If anything, it seems to me that's going, that's creating problems because, and Mr. Armstrong is here, he's right there.

Because in a prior meeting, we discussed the fact that these phases will actually be different,

cut the hole in two.

Now, am I wrong in that, Mr. Armstrong?

Perhaps you should come up.

Yeah, that's a possibility and a probability, right?

And again, I don't see, given that this was an approved project that combined commercial and residential, that that is a greater value to us.

It seems like it's gone downhill.

So that's just my opinion on that.

The other concern I have about that particular aspect of the change in the PUD is this use matrix.

So does the use matrix go independently with each of these two pieces that are gonna be probably sold separately?

Such that what we see on paper right now is a hotel and residences.

But if they each have the use matrix potential

No, I don't think so.

The use matrix is broken down by phase and it shows which uses would be allowed in each phase.

I saw that.

No, I'm thinking theater or auditorium or there was some category like that that was within the use matrix of Ridge Street and was in the use matrix of Cherry.

A bank.

Or a bank.

Is a bank in both of them?

Yes, I'm just looking.

Okay, let's use an example of a bank.

Yeah, that's what the use matrix allows, yes.

It would have to meet the architectural footprints that are laid out in the PUD development plan.

So there are other constraints that are pretty specific to those independent phases.

But as far as uses, yes.

So you don't, so I don't really understand how the approval of this project that had originally had commercial and residential and now has a hotel and residential has any significance to, wasn't that what was approved?

No, there's no requirement for residential.

It could be 100% commercial.

It could not be 100% residential.

The proffers and the language on the PD development plan in the upper right hand corner of that plan specify minimums and maximums for each type of use.

That seems problematic.

So then again in this phasing, so these two sites, might the Arboretum never materialize?

So whichever one it is, is that actually written into this document that we have before us that whoever

I don't think so because there's none of the infrastructure in the residential phase.

Like we said, there's not necessarily a residential area.

Ridge Street.

And the Ridge Street, are these specific boundaries that are the phases for Ridge Street and Cherry Avenue?

No, it's a number of parcels now.

They do.

Oh, it doesn't?

Yeah, the phasing map is page two of the Crawford PD development plan.

It looks like this.

Yours is maybe in color.

Okay, so I'm just wondering, is it problematic if one phase is done before the other in terms of getting all that parking?

No.

Okay, and then the other question I have, there are already four Marriott hotels in

the Charlottesville area.

Is this a kind of Marriott?

Which kind is it?

Not that I'm aware of.

I stayed in one myself about a month ago in Charlotte.

So do the Marriott's vary by their type?

I mean which one will be the higher end Marriott?

I think they're two different beasts.

The one on Ridge and Main is a residence inn and that's for longer term.

It's designed for people who are there for longer term.

I think this would be

based on what I can tell is more directed at the weekend people.

So it is truly a hotel then?

I have another question for Matt.

If I remember the Planning Commission discussion correctly, there was a lot of concern about the original PUD.

You mentioned residential

and Commercial.

And I think that was like a quote.

I think they had quite a few concerns.

Well, I mean, just specifically, they approved it for residential and commercial.

Not the original 2009.

It had the residential they could do, the residential component, but it was never a requirement.

They just had the minimum.

And a hotel was not an approved category for that.

Yes.