City Council Meeting   8/17/2015

One place I worked, there was a tradition of making candy for Christmas.

So I was kind of enjoying that for a while.

and that was real interesting to me.

Call 3,000 of meeting of 17th of August.

Mr. Fenwick?

Ms. Smith?

Here.

Ms. Szakos?

Here.

Ms. Galvin?

We start our meeting today with a moment of silence in memory of Julian Bald, who passed away.

He was a great fighter for justice for all of us.

A number of other announcements.

Alright, Women's Equality Day, and I have to wear my reading glasses because it's a little small.

Proclamation.

Whereas this year is the 95th anniversary of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution, giving women the right to vote in 1920,

and whereas in 1848, 167 years ago in Seneca Falls, the need was recognized and proclaimed but after great effort there is still no reliable protection in the U.S. Constitution for women against sex discrimination in general and whereas in past years, laws and policies in the Commonwealth of Virginia have unjustly discriminated against girls and women in general or against particular classes of women such as in matters of reproductive rights, sexual assault, marital property and sexual harassment and although some laws and policies have been somewhat eased,

such improvements can be, have been and are being reversed.

And whereas some institutional policies, whether overtly discriminatory or facially neutral in public, voluntary and private institutions still have inequitable effects on women, policies such as those dealing with insurance, pensions, family medical leave from employment

job promotions, occupational choice, recreational opportunities and access to medical care including reproductive and abortion services and stereotypes still exist which limit women's roles and activities and whereas young girls and adult women still must contend with unwanted touching, sexual, physical and verbal assault and rape and being viewed by men as objects to use thus illustrating that many stereotypes are still operating which reinforce unjust assumptions

and whereas most of the care of the young, the disabled and the elderly is still provided primarily by women, many of whom through economic necessity must also work in the job market and or at home.

And whereas in many other ways the tasks of providing equal opportunities to women and men and the tasks of removing burdens which fall unjustly on women as compared with men remain uncompleted.

Now therefore be it resolved that the City Council of Charlottesville, Virginia, does hereby proclaim August 26, 2015 as Women's Equality Day in remembrance of all those women and men who have worked to develop a more equitable community which acknowledges both the real similarities and important differences between women and men with liberty and justice for all.

And be it further resolved that the City Council urges all citizens on August 26 and thereafter

One, to treat all distinctions and classifications according to gender as initially suspect and to be questioned until they are justified by an equitable and compelling interest of the community, the institution, or the individuals affected.

And two, to require that the burden of justification for any distinction according to gender be borne by those who wish to discriminate against women as compared with men.

And three, to examine all facially neutral criteria such as physical stature requirements, occupational qualifications,

child care assistance opportunities, home maintenance responsibilities, elder care benefits, and disability benefits to determine whether they have disparate impact on women.

And four, to promote affirmative action in the public, voluntary, and private sectors in order to overcome the effects of past discrimination and stereotyping which have limited the life chances of women and girls as compared with men and boys

and five to eliminate all unjust discrimination and prejudice against women and ensure equality of rights, privileges and responsibilities under equitable principles and practices for all women and men.

Signed and sealed the 17th day of August 2015.

We return from year after years.

I think the first time the Council passed something along this line was in the 70s.

We're still not there, so we come back.

But I would like to recognize this Council in particular for your support of human rights, the Commission,

and in particular your commitment to making that question about discrimination and continuing to do that.

It is very important and the fact that you go on the record and do that is appreciated.

I also want to acknowledge last week I did a proclamation celebrating 80th anniversary of the Social Security Act, a very important social act in many elderly

People like me still need some of that money.

So it is another three Social Security Act last week.

Everyone?

Kind of a, not as noble and celebratory as what we've just heard from this, from Council Szakos, but this is important nonetheless.

It's the carver flea market.

Charlottesville Parks and Recreation will present the Carver Flea Market on Saturday, August 22nd from 8 to 1 p.m. at Carver Recreation Center.

We've brought the traditional outdoor yard sale inside to Carver.

Admission is free, and just come and browse for whatever item that you need at a very low cost.

Vendor applications are available at Carver Recreation Center or online at www.shawsville.org slash parks and rec.

Spaces are six feet by eight feet approximately and are $20 each.

Carver Recreation Center is located in the Jefferson School City Center at 233 4th Street Northwest, which is accessible via Main Street and Preston Avenue.

For more information, please contact Carver Recreation Center at 434-970-3053.

I'll piggyback on that one because tomorrow at the Carver Recreation Center is a blood drive for Virginia Blood Services from two to six.

It's a great opportunity to give back to the community and it's a great opportunity for our city residents to do so at Carver.

I also have one other announcement and that is in the weird aligning of the stars, the first Monday and the second Tuesday are back to back and the first Monday is a holiday.

So,

We will not have a council meeting on the first Monday of September.

It will be on the second Tuesday, as it turns out, which is usually when planning commission meets.

So on Tuesday, September 8th, we'll have a city council meeting.

On Wednesday, September 9th, will be the planning commission meeting.

and I have an announcement that gives me great joy.

I know the kids will like it and I'm certain the parents will like it.

It's the first day of school.

The first day of school for 2015 is Wednesday, August 19th and that is this Wednesday.

Mr. Mayor, I wanted to introduce our new Director of Neighborhood Development Services, Alex, come up here.

Alex wanted to just say a few words to us as he gets started.

Good evening Mayor and Council and the citizens of Charlottesville.

Like Morrie said, my name is Alexander Ikeif and I'm glad to be here.

I came to Charlottesville by way of Mobile, Alabama.

And I'm glad to be here.

What a meeting to begin with.

Next item on the agenda is public comments.

You welcome public comments.

It's a very important part of our meeting.

But there are rules and regulations.

So on behalf of the agenda, please follow the rules and regulations and have productive comments and discussion.

It is a time for you to share your concerns.

There's not a time to debate.

It is just a possibility of presenting your ideas.

Travis Wilburn, 768 Ridge Street, Charlottesville.

Nice to see all of you again.

It's been a long year.

I'll try to be real quick.

Looking over the regulations tonight for the short term, rentals, I know that there's been a lot of work.

I still feel like we're not there yet.

If we are there, I have to get rid of about 50% of my workforce, cut down our taxes, which I think you all might have heard me say in planning commission, we paid well over a couple hundred thousand dollars in lodging tax and business tax.

I do think that we're somewhat trying to reinvent the wheel and there's plenty of other cities in the country that have done this quite well.

Maybe even our new neighborhood development director might be familiar with some of those.

I do think that we had a really good suggestion last time that you all had a joint meeting with the Planning Commission and City Council.

Ms. Szakos, you had mentioned you wanted industry professionals sitting at a joint session.

We actually called up industry professionals and they were left out of that meeting.

It's truly disappointing.

We were hoping for bilateral conversation to be able to make sure that we can propose or help create or at least be a part of creating regulations that are going to work, smart regulations, which I keep trying to say I think this town can do while protecting our neighborhoods.

and so while I'm hoping that this doesn't go on forever because it's been a huge financial burden as well as a legal burden with our company State Charlottesville, I do hope that we can go back and spend a little bit more time to make sure that we get this right.

I think we owe it to our city.

I think we owe it to our guests.

I think there's going to be a lot of unintended consequences across the board if we pass this tonight.

I think we can spend a little bit more time to make sure that we get it right.

So I do ask that we have at least one more meeting

with industry professionals in which we get to meet with counsel and talk about some of the pros and cons that happen across this country.

Good evening.

First, I want to thank you all for being sensitive, hardworking, caring, with a thankless job.

It's just so great that you're here and you're doing this.

Four things.

I was on the West Main Street Steering Committee.

Initially, I voted for that.

I tried to change it in the last meeting.

They told me I couldn't change it.

I'm not in agreement with the way it stands.

So I just, you know, I get upset when I see it in the newspaper that it was unanimous.

No, not.

Okay, that was number one.

Number two, if you compare West Main, this West Main with the mall, you're comparing oranges and chickens because there are no parallel streets and my neighborhood

Number two, Starr Hill, two blocks off.

We're already seeing extra traffic, even from what was going on with John Warner Parkway and the bypass.

And now people have discovered, oh, we can cut through from Preston Avenue and get to Main Street.

People will cut through.

We can put speed bumps.

We can one-way it.

They're going to do it.

That will have a tremendous detrimental impact on neighborhoods

that are healthy and thriving because of what you've done to help make that be.

It's like, why do we reinvent this particular wheel and change something that was working so wonderfully?

Just be aware.

Transit and parking already occurring.

Cut through already occurring.

I cannot imagine what large fire trucks and ambulances will do when there's a trash truck and a city bus sitting there on West Main Street and traffic is all the way down the street waiting for them to move along and my house is on fire.

There's a problem.

There's a problem with what's foreseen on West Main at this point in time.

Please, please, please don't destroy our neighborhoods, those surrounding neighborhoods.

And the last thing is First Baptist Church.

How do you have a funeral?

How do you have a wedding?

How do you have church?

No parking?

Cyclists on the sidewalk?

Come on.

There's a problem here and I urge you to consider that.

That church is in danger even without West Main Street because we need the parking.

The parking is essential but there is a problem when you consider taking that many parking spaces off of the street, putting cyclists on the sidewalk

with 100-year-olds and children.

And we have an active, thriving children's ministry.

Please, please reconsider this.

Modify this.

This is not going to work for us there.

And we will be endangered there.

And I'm not sure my Lord would like that.

Thank you.

Good evening.

I had a whole list of things that I wanted to talk about and realized as I read through it I realized it was a bunch of whining and my name is Toby Bouch by the way four-year business owner on West Main Toby's Pawn Shop 801 West Main 29 year resident of Charlottesville very vested in the success of our city so I realized I was whining in my comments and thought this is just not the right tone so

One of the things that business owners don't do if you know anything about business owners is they don't whine.

They fix problems.

Problems fly at them.

They fix them.

If you're a successful business owner, that's what you're going to do is fix problems.

I'm hoping city council acts the same way, fixing problems.

I think there's some specific problems with this plan that I wanted to address.

I don't expect you to care about my business.

My concern is

One of the biggest areas of problems that I see is from the bridge to 7th Street, from east, east of the bridge to 7th Street, 19 of the 33 parking spaces that will be eliminated in this plan reside in that one stretch.

And so what you create there is a dead zone.

Like I said, coincidentally, it's directly across the street from where I am, not to mention a tailor, a salon, a cafe, a butcher, a bakery, a tattoo parlor,

And one of the things that if you know anything about these type of businesses, it's a transactional business.

We rely on people being able to get to and from, as a destination, get to and from our businesses.

And if you pull back on parking, eliminate parking, especially in that zone, that many parking spaces, you will jeopardize those types of businesses.

The neat thing about those types of businesses is they create diversity on West Main that you don't see on places like the downtown mall.

if we want to be, and I'm a UVA alum by the way, and so if we want to be UVA life support and want every street to look like life support for UVA, and I know that's not what we want, I know that's not what you want, UVA is a big part of our city, I get it, but if it's all lodging, dining, and housing, that is not the kind of Charlottesville that I grew up in and want to see moving forward.

So I would

I would caution you.

Diversity of business, I think, if I could leave you with anything.

Diversity of business is really, really important.

Destination-based transit.

People on bicycles and pedestrians are not typically coming to West Main as a destination.

They are passing through.

That's when restaurants can still thrive, maybe.

Maybe trinket stores and lodging can thrive, but businesses like mine.

Where are you located?

That's the

That's the question I get.

Almost every day, half my phone calls are, where are you located?

And I tell them where and they say the second question, you already guessed it, I know you did, is there parking?

Because everyone knows if I'm coming into downtown or midtown Charlottesville, I'd better be able to think ahead and have parking.

And so they're always asking me, is there parking?

Up to now, I say, yeah, plenty of street side parking.

Unfortunately, I'm questioning whether that's the answer I can give from now on.

I really fear that if this plan moves forward,

Diversity of business will suffer.

So I caution you and leave it in your hands.

Hi, I'm Kay Rady and I'm the owner of Shenanigans, a toy store that's been in Charlottesville for now 40 years, 42 actually in September.

I'm here to speak about the West Main Street streetscape development and I'm going to read it because I will digress otherwise, I guarantee you.

Shenanigans is now in its third location, Ivy Road,

Barracks Road Shopping Center, now full circle on West Main.

Think about it, I'm back on the same street where I started.

We're very happily in Wisconsin, a revitalized transmission shop.

I like to think that I've learned a couple of things during my 40 years running a retail business in Charlottesville.

During my recent stint at Barracks Road, the most frequent complaints I heard were that there were not enough parking spaces and that it was impossible to cross Barracks Road to get to the north wing.

My primary concerns about the plans for West Main Street include reducing the on-street parking and pedestrian safety.

About parking.

Currently, parking on West Main is barely adequate for customers and inadequate and too expensive for West Main business employees.

I currently pay about $100 per month for each employee to park off-site.

Businesses with many more employees, like restaurants,

cannot afford to underwrite parking.

Last Friday evening at about 6 p.m.

I watched several restaurant patrons' cars circling back and forth looking for spaces just for one example.

Sunday mornings are also extremely busy in that part of town which is wonderful.

I was happy to read in the press

that city staff supports creating alternative parking spaces before construction planning is to begin.

This would certainly be preferable to relying on the managed parking plan, whatever that means, which was proposed by the consultants.

West Main Street and Midtown businesses in general serve many suburban and rural communities.

A huge percentage of our customers will continue to drive to our businesses out of necessity.

Most of us wish we were not as reliant on vehicles powered by fossil fuels, but we are for now.

So cars need to be accommodated or businesses will fail.

about pedestrians on West Main Street.

The sidewalks are uneven and narrow.

The plan addresses this, but at points, bikes and pedestrians actually share the new sidewalks.

I have a hard time picturing this as being safe for either party, but especially for children and anyone else who doesn't walk or bike in a perfectly straight line.

About crossing West Main.

It's just plain dangerous.

Cars speed, there are too few and inadequate crosswalks.

I can testify that only about one out of four or five cars even consider stopping at the Fifth Street crossing, going into Fifeville, where I park.

And when they do stop, the turning traffic becomes a hazard.

It would seem that crosswalks could be added and enhanced without passing the $30 million budget and without controversy.

Why not just go ahead and fix this now?

One more thing, I have also had many opportunities to see rush hour eastbound traffic back up past Blue Moon Diner and my parking lot.

I wonder how far it will back up.

I'm sorry?

My time is up.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

My name is Nancy Carpenter.

I live in the Rose Hill neighborhood and I'm here tonight to make a few comments about the lack of affordable rental housing in our community.

For over 40 years now the federal government has been using private solutions in the private sector to make housing more affordable for those in need and that would be like the housing choice voucher or what at one time was called Section 8.

But Congress recently in the past few years has

decided to cut the number of those vouchers which in this community really do help working families with children, elderly people that are on limited disability income or fixed income and even single adults that are on disabilities and many others.

So the lack of affordable housing in this community is real and it's a crisis and there are some real solutions that are needed.

both in the city and in the county.

One of the things I've been reading about is perhaps and I don't know if this has ever been talked about is density bonus.

A density bonus to market rate developers who actually will set aside low income units.

We have a lot of different types of residential discussions on development coming along and I know that a lot of times governments prefer cash proffers or cash in lieu of payments

but really they do nothing to address the need for affordable housing, especially rental housing.

However, you can always choose to do nothing but really what that means is that you'll have a lot of high-end housing that really has no benefit to our low-income renters.

And if Charlottesville thinks it's desirable to have long-term residents, those that are in the community for multiple generations, then these are the people that

drive our service economy and our cultural economy.

And I think that we need to look at solutions that will address this affordable housing crisis.

And one little bit of educational information, I always like that.

Looking at the technical assistance collaborative is TACinc.org.

They have a policy out called Priced Out 2014 and they look at all the states and

I just pulled this one because I'm kind of interested in single adults with disability here in Virginia.

And the income in 2014 was $721 a month and a benefit.

And in 2014 we had 95,800 citizens in Virginia with that income.

But to think that the average cost throughout the state for a basic one bedroom apartment without steel appliances, without granite countertops, without tile flooring, without high-end fixtures,

is approximately $910.

That's 126% of that person's income.

They have no money left for food, transportation, clothing, anything like that.

In fact, in 2014, there were 4200 Virginia citizens that were living in shelters who were adults with disability income only.

And if they're not in shelters, they could possibly be in institutions trying to wait to come back into their community.

and the average cost that TAC found out was $135 to $500.

Thank you.

Good evening to all of you.

My name is Ruth Starnetta.

I live downtown and I have commuted to work at UVA by bike every day for the past 10 years.

So today's commute was pretty good.

I picked up my groceries from Relay Foods and I was traveling back along West Main Street.

There was only one car parked infringing on the bike lane that forced me into traffic.

And I only had one near-death experience when I was cut off by someone turning left on Fifth Street.

But I did stop by Feast and pick up some goodies to have for dinner because my husband couldn't cook.

We had to come to city council.

So anyway, this was a typical commute for me on West Main by bike.

So I'm asking you tonight to do something to make this bike commute safer for me and the hundreds of cyclists who use West Main every day.

And there are others in the bike community that are here tonight that aren't able to speak, but if you guys could raise your hands.

So I mean you see that even during the slow time of the year the cyclists care enough to come out and let you know that we have concerns about West Main.

So tonight you're going to be considering this new plan for West Main.

It addresses many issues and tries to take into account many of the users of West Main.

And I know that you have concerns with this plan as do many other stakeholders in this community that you've heard from this evening.

So I have voiced my concerns already to each one of you individually in email, and I'm not going to reiterate all the points that I made, but I do think that some of the solutions that I suggested as far as the treatment of the bike lane does address some of the concerns that were raised by the other stakeholders.

So I urge you to consider many of the positive aspects of the plan and commit to move forward to make it safer for people who bike to use this corridor.

The plan should be returned to the planners to try to improve some of the problems people have raised about the plan.

But please, don't kill it.

Don't turn your backs on your constituents who would like to bike to work but are too afraid of the opening car doors to use the current bike lanes.

Don't gloss over people who ride bikes on West Main every day as a marginal population.

We are your neighbors, doctors, lawyers, nurses, teachers, merchants, students.

We represent the same population as the drivers.

We all want to see a successful plan to make West Main Street better for all of us.

Thanks very much.

Good evening, I'm Mary Hughes.

I live at 310 Hedge Street, downtown Charlottesville.

I'm here tonight in my role as interim university architect for UVA.

And I'd like to say a few comments about the West Main Street plan that you're going to consider later this evening.

We at the university support the goals of the West Main Street concept plan.

We had some questions about the impact of the plan on particularly vehicular traffic flow

to and from the university.

Those questions are outlined in a memorandum that was attached to the materials that you had in preparation for tonight's meeting, so I won't go into any details of that material.

We came to understand in our conversations with staff that there had not been a comprehensive traffic study that was done as part of the conceptual plan work, and when this project

moves forward into more detailed design.

We would like to strongly urge that there be a robust analysis of existing traffic flow for all modes of travel in the corridor, as well as a thorough traffic impact analysis of any proposed changes that move forward into design.

Good evening.

My name is Kevin Fox.

I live at 195 Langford Place in the county.

And I'm here tonight representing the University of Virginia Medical Center.

We've, as Mary said, the University and the Medical Center have reviewed the conceptual plan for the West Main Street streetscape.

And from the Medical Center perspective, our biggest concern

is the unimpeded flow of emergency vehicles on West Main Street.

You may not know, but the University of Virginia Medical Center had 22,000 emergent patient transports last year.

That number will probably grow this year.

Those patient transports utilize several routes to gain access to the medical center, and one of those routes is West Main Street.

The county, the city,

and the surrounding counties to the east will sometimes utilize West Main Street to gain access.

And so our concern is that some of the features of the plan currently in our analysis may impede the timely transport of patients on West Main Street.

Sometimes minutes or seconds in transport matter, lives are at stake.

And our concern is that the plan, the ultimate plan that's adopted

allows specifically for emergency transport of our patients.

Thank you.

My name is Chris Gist.

I live at 307 5th Street Southwest.

I live a block off of West Main.

I'm a person who rides my bicycle on West Main almost every day.

I'm a person who walks on West Main weekly.

I also drive a car on West Main.

You notice I didn't use the term cyclists or motorists or anything like that?

Because I'm a person who does these things.

We're all people that do these things.

And we keep talking about cyclists and motorists.

I like to put an end to that.

I'm a person who does all these things, who travels by all these modes of transportation.

So specifically, West Main, I just want to kind of give a couple of larger overview type things.

First of all, investing in bicycle infrastructure is one of the best returns on investments that localities can make.

Research is out there.

I have it on my website.

I'm happy to share it with anybody.

Time and time again, cities invest in

bicycle infrastructure, best return on investment, much greater than building roads.

The research is out there.

Businesses do better when they are in front of destination places that people want to go to on bicycles.

It was mentioned earlier now that bicycles are just passing through the West Main Quarter.

That's true.

but one reason is because most of the people riding on Must Main are hardcore bicyclists that are using that for commuting and so forth.

If you want to make it a destination location, you have to have protected bicycle lanes.

People will use protected bicycle lanes.

People will travel with their children by bicycle if they have protected bicycle lanes.

The research is out there.

Why do I care if there's more people riding bicycles?

The more people there are riding bicycles, the safer it is for everybody.

The research, again, is out there that shows that as ridership goes up, the number of accidents with bicycles tends to stay the same, which means we have more and more people riding, fewer accidents per capita.

The bike, as far as West Main specifically,

I am not in favor of the way the plan is drawn now.

I am a certified instructor with the League of American Bicyclists.

We teach people to ride visibly.

Where are you most visible on a bicycle?

As far out from the curb as you can get.

Right?

This plan puts the bicycles behind the cars in a lot of places.

That causes a lot of trouble with the side streets.

A car is going to be approaching the West Main from the side streets.

and the first thing they're going to run into besides the pedestrian lane is the bicycle lane and the sight lines from the buildings are not good.

So the bicycle should be as visible as possible, which actually means inside the parked cars.

I'm done.

My name is Louis Schultz.

I live at 1809 East Market Street.

At the July 20 council meeting, a citizen asked a perfectly reasonable question.

Do the thousands of dollars that the development and business communities give to councilors campaigns influence their votes on controversial development related issues?

Certainly something convinced Kathy Galvin to ignore 600 citizens who signed a petition pleading with her not to repeat on Ridge Street the same mistake she made in approving the flats on West Main.

It certainly wasn't concerned for the historic heart of this city,

or the future of Charlottesville's already marginalized African American community that influenced her vote.

Ms. Galvin took several minutes to respond to that comment, comfortable in knowing that this format gives her the unchallenged last word.

She said it was frightening that someone would call her integrity into question.

She went on to say that it was unfortunate that we have gotten to a point where people and their reputations are being smeared.

She asked that people be civil, courteous, and stick to the facts.

This is the 43rd time since October 3rd, 2013 that I have civilly and courteously come to Ms. Galvin and the rest of 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 Woolen Mills neighborhood.

For 22 months now, I have repeatedly told council that my rights as a U.S. 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've made serious credible accusations of wrongdoing on the part of three

and possibly more high ranking city officials.

I have named those involved, the time, the place and the laws which were broken.

I have provided council documentary evidence to prove my assertions and I have repeatedly asked for a hearing into the matter where I might give sworn testimony and present any additional evidence council might request of me so that justice may be served and those who have broken the law might be held accountable.

So the fact is, Ms. Galvin, that high-ranking city officials you have a sworn duty to oversee can break the law, the facts that prove that can be offered to you, and you refuse to do anything at all about that situation.

If you're concerned about the reputations of anyone I have named, the answer is simple.

Hold a hearing and let the public see the facts.

You can let Mr. Jones and his underlings dispute my accusations anytime you want.

I'm ready, but since you know the facts are not in their favor, you're afraid to do that.

Ms. Galvin, not only do you apparently believe that city employees ought to be able to violate the law with no consequences at all, you reserve the right to ignore the law for yourself as well.

City Council, including you, have a clear obligation under Charlottesville's code to meet on the first and third Mondays of every month unless that day is a holiday in which case the meeting is moved to the next day.

Your cancellation of the August 3rd meeting amounts to an abandonment of your duty as a counselor and is a criminal offense under Charlottesville code.

Council's attitude seems to be that the rules don't apply to them and their friends, so it's not a stretch at all to wonder if special favors go to donor friends, too.

But what is really troubling about Ms. Galvin's willingness to overlook criminality within government is that her attitude, coupled with the deeply entrenched racism we have in this city, makes Charlottesville more like Ferguson and Baltimore than the shining example to the world that council pretends it to be.

And the meeting change that Ms. Smith announced a little while ago, that as well as illegal, you have a city attorney, you have a million dollar four-person legal staff,

Let's talk to that person about whether what you're going to try to do is legal.

There are now two more people to speak.

Is there anybody else who would like to speak?

Thank you, Mayor.

Hello, everyone.

I'm Peter Castiglione, 633 West Main, and I'm here to talk about the streetscape plan as a member of the steering committee.

Just a couple of things I'd like to reiterate.

But someone said earlier about the unanimous decision that we made on the plan.

The unanimous decision came with a caveat.

Nobody would vote yes for this unless alternative parking was provided by the city.

Jim Tolbert, back in the day, and Maurice, you were there.

It was one of the first couple meetings.

We're like, wow, you can't take the parking to it.

Peter, don't worry about it.

We're not going to remove parking to accommodate other features.

until we've come up with some other parking, not managed parking and shared parking with private sectors, but created parking that the city created.

So I just wanted to bring that up with the unanimous that if we were to come up with parking to offset the 30 spots that might disappear, hooray, wider sidewalks and bicycle lanes.

The big picture with money in this project and the 29 million, how we got here,

There was a time when the parking lot at the Amtrak was not paved, it was a dust bowl and issues and everyone else has been riding their bikes, not issues, other nights.

Who's been riding their bike for 10 years, you know what it was like when there was a dust storm every day.

We got that paved.

A private sector had to do it, but that didn't cost them a lot of money and it made a gigantic impact.

Streetlights, Dave Norris, we came in front of Dave.

before the street plan was up and we were working on it.

We said, look, when it's dark, we need some lights.

We got some street lights.

That wasn't a huge expense to the city.

These two small things that we did, they didn't cost a lot, made the gigantic impact on Midtown and West Main.

So as we look forward to what's realistic in the next five years or 10 years, 30 million doesn't sound realistic unless we keep raising taxes.

So is 10 million realistic?

Is 12 million realistic?

is undergrounding the cables realistic unless Dominion ships in.

Let's assume they don't.

10 million over 10 years, we might get something done.

Fix the utilities.

The utilities are antiquated, maybe not 10 years, but the next 10 or 15, we're going to have problems.

Water line, sewer line.

If we fix the utilities and phase it, then come back in and widen the sidewalks.

Level the sidewalks.

and if leveling the sidewalk means we have to take some of these trees down from the 70s we planted because the root systems are starting to encroach.

If that is the case, then we'll take some trees down and we'll get some level sidewalks for independent living people and for pedestrians and maybe we get some bicycle lanes too and everybody wins, all contingent upon replacing the on-street parking in this model with other city-funded parking.

Don't scrap it.

Whoever said don't kill it.

If it's bicycle lanes and I lose my parking spots, I'll take it.

The status quo doesn't work right now.

We need a little more.

Nicer sidewalks, better utilities.

Good evening.

Brandon Collins.

I live at 418 Fairway Avenue.

I've lived in Charlottesville my entire life.

I have three children who've also lived here their entire lives.

I wasn't originally going to speak, but hearing from Ms. Carpenter, I felt maybe I would add to some of her sentiment about the lack of affordable housing in Charlottesville.

You've known for a long time that there is a housing crisis in Charlottesville when it comes to affordable housing.

and I'm not sure, despite some efforts being made to make things a little better, I'm not sure that this council has fully embraced the urgency of this matter and it's getting worse.

I work at FAR, Public Housing Association of Residents, and we help residents of public housing with a variety of things, but I've noticed a really intense trend over the past year, which is when people really get stuck trying to find a place to live

They come to us thinking they can find some help and we're not going to turn them down, but we have very little that we can offer to them.

And one problem that I've seen more and more of is particularly troubling and that is people are coming to our office asking about housing and they have an income.

They may be receiving benefits from social security, disability benefits and things like that and they just simply cannot find a house that they can afford to live in and we just don't have the places.

There is no room for folks in Charlottesville.

I get stopped on the street, people see my t-shirt, oh can you help me find a home?

And I'll talk to them and they'll say, well I'm a veteran.

and I get income and I have enough.

I could pay $700 a month to live in a home and they cannot find a home for that and I think that's a real shame and what that tells me is that all those folks who don't have a great income or really have no income are equally screwed and I hope you all will understand that and it seems to me there are two things that you can consider that the city has

in its toolbox to address

to seriously consider redevelopment of public housing and that effort could significantly be, it could be a real avenue for improving our affordable housing stock here in Charlottesville.

That's not going to happen unless this council can give serious financial support to the housing authority

serious political support to the Housing Authority and prioritize this issue.

You've got West Main, you've got the SIA, you talk about a lot of great things in planning, you have an amazing staff that can help you with this stuff and the urgency really needs to be seen and we really need to see redevelopment happen this year.

It needs to begin this year.

Yeah.

Real quick, we're going to be talking about the temporary occupancy in West Main later, so I'll save those comments for them.

Nancy Carpenter and Brandon, thank you for keeping the affordability part of this front and center.

I'll go next.

Yes, thank you all, and there are, you know, most of the comments were on two items that are on our agenda, so it's really, don't want to go too much into how they could.

Really appreciate, though, the particularly diversity of folks who came out on the West Main.

that was really important to hear some of those comments.

I'd like to just comment on Ms. Carpenter's and Mr. Collins' comments because we have an interesting program and this is not going to be for everybody but it really is kind of counterintuitive and that is this housing program in Orangedale Prospect to buy

because the economics of it are actually end up being lower than the rents and it's one of the most affordable rental places.

So it's a really interesting opportunity and I say that too because most of the help that we give in this community for support for residential occupancy

is for homeowners.

We're going to be talking about the transient, the short-term rental.

That's really we're talking about people who own homes and of course all of the other kind of relief and rehabilitation.

So I really think actually I think Brandon you brought up an interesting point that we should be working with you too.

We should be having this communication of people are coming to you

who could be potential clients for this program but just keep an eye on it.

I also want to just kind of touch on the affordable housing because we will be discussing all the other issues and thank you for coming and speaking about them.

We're not ignoring you but we'll have plenty of air time.

to discuss those later.

But the city is doing a lot, especially for a city of its size.

Certainly not enough, I agree, but we put millions of dollars into our affordable housing fund.

We get proffers from developers to add to that or to provide housing.

And when you talked about, where did Nancy?

Sorry, I don't have my glasses on.

We do encourage, and I think the idea of a bonus for developers to provide affordable housing within developments is a good one, and it's actually part of the model for the redevelopment that we're looking at.

But we also, when they don't do that, they actually pay into the fund, and that money gets leveraged time's over by other organizations that bring in other financing as well.

So they both are very effective ways of creating affordable housing.

picked the amount that we put into that fund and we protect that so that when the proffers come in, they're in addition to that, not instead of it, because we have a target, which was brought to us largely by far and other housing activists of how much supported affordable housing we're gonna need in this community.

And we're chipping away at it.

We have to make sure we don't lose existing affordable housing.

And I know it's not adequate to the need.

That is a huge issue all the time,

But just tonight we actually ran into an issue.

The housing authority has two vacancies right now, and we had no applicants.

So I would encourage people who are interested in this, we have one opening for somebody who is a housing resident, a public housing resident.

We need applicants.

It's that large.

Okay.

Housing Authority Board, yes.

CRHA.

Yes, and the only issue that I think I need to speak to is the affordable housing as well because everything else is going to be talked about later on tonight.

You know, it's also a question of supply.

We don't have many units of any kinds of housing left in the city, be it workforce,

or Market Rate or Affordable.

And that is making it a much more serious problem for affordability.

Read an article not too long ago about San Francisco, very progressive city.

It is now one of the most elitist exclusive cities in the country because they failed to build units.

They should have been building like 5,000 units a year.

They were only building 1,500.

And so as we also know, we have this push-pull in our community about whether we build more units or we don't.

I think on the main the benefit is that we need to build more units.

We'll also be then addressing the need of our workforce and we will be getting the units to be within a more reasonable price range just simply because you can then have more supply.

The question is going to be how we do it, where we do it,

I'm very encouraged, very encouraged by the progress of the Housing Authority.

If we can get a robust redevelopment authority, they will be back in the game, be able to actually buy land, buy condos, and then rent them out to people of low income.

I'm very encouraged by the Piedmont Housing Alliance.

Working with the housing partners, maybe we'll see some activity moving.

in the Madison Avenue part of town.

We are definitely focused on this.

The SIA has got to get moving on the provision of housing.

We can put housing on West Main.

We can put housing on all of our corridors.

So it has to be done right.

It has to be done equitably.

It has to be done sustainably.

I agree with my colleagues.

I want to say that the city has spent more money in housing, affordable housing, in the last four years than 20 years before that.

We need more housing, affordable housing, and we need to work harder.

And the concern always is, we actually need to be building affordable housing, not just doing other things which don't add to the stock.

We will be discussing this later.

Any other comments by council members?

I could pull them out.

Okay, great.

Well I move to appoint the following persons to the following boards and commissions.

To the Jefferson Area Board for Aging, Tom Vandiver, to the Jaunt Board, Audrey Dannenberg, both of those are reapplying, Sister City Commission, Kevin Chandler, and to, as Ms. Szakos noted, we still need some

Is there a second?

Second.

Discussion?

Thank you.

It's an agenda.

Minutes for July 9th town hall meeting and July 20th meeting.

Appropriation homelessness solutions grant $459,941 and housing opportunities for persons with AIDS grant $190,612.

Appropriation check and connect student engagement grant $147,000.

Procreation, Police Department, Community Response Vehicle, 62,170.

Procreation, Urban and Community Forestry Grant, 20,000.

Appropriation Safe Routes to School Program, Jackson Via School Grant, $249,959.

Appropriation Victim Witness Assistance Program Grant, $178,551.

Appropriation Adoptions Through Collaborative Partnerships Grant Renewal, $84,000.

Removed from the agenda was an appropriation Azalea Park Stream Restoration Grant for $950,000.

Resolution, Support for Transition Streets Initiative, Ordinance, Abandonment of Gas Easement at 10th Street Northeast and Water Street Extended, Ordinance, Lowering Speed Limit on Emmett Street from Ivy Road to Arlington Boulevard, Ordinance, Route 250 Bypass Speed Limit Adjustment, Ordinance, Quick Claim Gas Easement to VDOT and Boulders Road,

Ordinance Quick Claim Gas Easement to VDOT and Briarwood Drive.

Ordinance Amendment to Inoperable Motor Vehicles Ordinance.

Mr. Mayor, I would just like to call out the resolution for the transition

Streets program, which is a wonderful program I fully support.

I have talked about it on the radio.

I was a little uncomfortable with the language at the end, just fearing that we were setting a precedent for staff help.

And I asked Ms. Szakos if she would take a stab at rewriting since she's so good at this.

So all I suggested was that in the therefore be it resolved section of the resolution to take out the words enthusiastically and for the common good, although they are true, and to

substitute the word encourages for the word supports.

So it would read, therefore be it resolved that the Charlottesville City Council encourages the transition streets, supports the transition streets initiative and directs, and sorry, let me start over.

Let it be resolved, the Charlottesville City Council supports the transition streets initiative and encourages its staff to assist with outreach efforts to promote transition streets.

Is that acceptable to others?

I think part of the worry was just that if we gush

with our actual feelings and the language of the resolution that we'll have to gush for everyone.

I would like to make a comment.

Is this a timely comment too?

Because I do appreciate this effort because even though we do all support it, we do have limited resources.

And to leave it so open-ended as to what outreach efforts our staff is going to be helping you with could be a bottomless pit.

And we have city-wide community engagement needs.

but the spirit is still there.

I would just like to note I plan to vote affirmatively for the consent agenda although I would like to reserve a no vote on the police department community response vehicle just because I feel not that I don't support the police needing more equipment but until such time as we have a more robust accountability system I do

Second?

Second.

All those in favor, say aye.

All those opposed, say aye.

And we will acknowledge your exception.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

We have four major items on the agenda today.

First is a resolution for West Main Street's street skip plan.

We will have a brief presentation.

And then each class members will have time to comment.

And I hope we can collect our cards in a way that we can move forward in some fashion.

Good.

Good evening.

I'm here today as a follow-up for two Council presentations that were given in December of 2014 and March of this year.

Our consultant team, which is led by the Urban Design Forum, Roadside and Harwell, is a brief recap of what was discussed at those presentations.

The team went through

their analysis of existing conditions which included input from the public at three public meetings as well as input that was gathered through surveys that were distributed both to the businesses along the corridor and also available online which was provided through cards that those businesses could give out to their customers coming to visit.

The presentations also outline the different alternatives that were discussed by the Steering Committee throughout the process as well as the chosen alternative which was developed further by the firm and the sub-consultants into what you see today on the back wall.

This plan has not changed since the March 2015 presentation that everyone attended.

Some of the planned pieces were also presented at, actually all of these pieces were at that meeting that you've seen before.

In addition at those presentations an outline of cost was given as well as different options in terms of utility undergrounding and how those costs play into the system and the parking study which was done and which is all this material is included in your

your packet today and I know it's a lot of information to get through in the results of those studies and how those will impact the design.

Since the last meeting in March we've had several additional forms of input that were given.

Council asked that the Planning Commission study the streetscape and provide comments.

There's a brief outline provided for you on

Page 6 of your report and attached to your report is a more robust statement from the Planning Commission, but just to outline a few of those pieces, the commissioners felt that the plan conformed with the comprehensive plan, particularly in regards to environmental and transportation goals.

The commissioners reached a consensus that they liked the design east of the bridge, but felt that additional study could be done west of the bridge in terms of the alignments.

They also reached a consensus that they supported the proposed pilot plan which is outlined in your report on page four.

In addition, we received comments from the Board of Architectural Review who met and discussed the item in July this year.

The BAR would like to have meaningful input early in the process and also express some concern that there's a lack of cohesiveness with the plan.

The Tree Commission also provided input in July of this year and has requested that council keep in mind that public input to date has called for West Main Street to be a green corridor with lots of trees.

And as you heard from Manors for the Public, there has been input from the University of Virginia attached to your report.

There is also the statement that was mentioned from the consultants working for the University of Virginia and following that report is responses from Nelson Nygaard, which is the traffic consultant on this project here before you.

and would certainly acknowledge that additional traffic study will be needed as this project moves forward and will definitely be part of the detailed and schematic design phases.

Can I just ask for a little bit more of the presentation before we start?

I would really appreciate, in this memo that you've given us, you have your recommendations, staff recommendations, and I would really appreciate if you could just kind of go over those orally as well.

Sure.

No problem.

Today's staff is recommending several courses of action to happen in order.

We recommend approval of the conceptual street plan, which you see before you today, but we recommend that you wait on moving forward with schematic and detailed design phases until parking strategies can be implemented and a pilot program can be studied as outlined on page four of your report.

In regards to the parking recommendations, we suggested moving forward with three of those recommendations, although holding off on one recommendation, which concerns metering parking until the downtown parking study is completed.

That study is a more robust parking study, which is currently taking place and is also studying the issue of metering or paying for parking on street.

The recommendations for parking improvements that we are suggesting

be implemented immediately include more enforcement for the parking spots that are now parallel on the street.

The parking study found that these were regularly not enforced and that people were parking for much longer than the time truly allowed for.

Also designating delivery zones and times that could be shared with the

business centers of the corridor to minimize the use of those parking spaces by delivery trucks at times where customers really are looking for a place to park.

And also establishing agreements with local businesses to utilize their private lots for public parking at such times that they don't need all of their parking or perhaps any of their parking depending on their hours.

And what goes along with something like that, of course, includes additional signing and information in order to get people to those lots correctly and to get

to make sure they know that their space is available for them.

As I mentioned, we suggested the creation of a pilot program to be tested.

We've estimated it will take about a year, potentially, to install this pilot program, including some of the time to get parking strategies in place.

It's important to note that the pilot program can't test all the components that you see in the streetscape plan

Certainly items such as widened sidewalks and additional trees and bioretention areas are installed.

You can't really test them with paint as you can the reduction of parking or buffered bike lanes.

So that's an important component of the pilot program that will certainly be explained publicly as if the process was to move forward with the pilot program and the metrics for testing would

would reflect that limitation of the pilot program.

It would also be important to set a time limit as to how long the pilot program should be on the street so that it does not transition to becoming something permanent when it's not meant to be such.

Also, including the report are some alternatives to that recommendation, starting on page 10 and 11 wherein you may choose to approve the conceptual plan and begin detailed design either with or without

conducting the pilot program simultaneously.

Thank you.

No problem.

Can I ask another clarifying question?

So I think the overarching principles of the conceptual plan would be widen sidewalks that are clear width so they're free of tree planer box which you can't walk across, free of utility poles and other street furniture such as benches, dedicated bike facilities in some places which are protected or buffered and some places which are on street and next to vehicular lanes.

the reduction of parking in order to meet those goals.

And there's also elements of cultural heritage that have been suggested at different locations to create gateways.

It's a little bit hard to see but there's some circling that happens in the map in red which are potential locations designated by the consultants as to places where

Art artifacts or other sculptures, other pieces could exist.

I'd hate to limit as to what those pieces could be.

There's certainly some changes proposed to the Ridge McIntyre intersection in terms of removing a slip lane and reorienting some of the lanes to allow bike lanes on all approaches.

Pieces such as that would certainly be dependent on the further traffic analysis that would be needed to be completed.

So the plan itself, while it shows maybe parking's here and maybe it's there,

The actual location of those things is really contingent on more detailed design work.

Right now we're talking about the overall concept of a reduction in parking in order to get those other pieces of the plan.

And how would those decisions be made?

I think a lot of it will depend on the geometry of what we're looking at in terms of where those exact lines are drawn.

The consultant has planned out

how to alternate the parking on the east side of the street based on the businesses there and trying to create a system of equity in order to provide parking for both sides of the street and in order to provide, for example, at the church near the Amtrak station to make sure for patrons who are going there and need easier access that parking's on that side.

Well thank you for bringing that up because one of my concerns and we had our little email exchange about this

is that if we had to sort of figure out from this picture what we were actually going to approve, it appeared that if that all of the parking on the south side, from the bridge, going from bridge to mat to ridge, from the bridge to ridge, on the south side was removed except for that block on First Baptist.

And everything else was gone, and in fact,

except for the, but that's not public.

That's restricted.

So from a public parking, so anybody driving east who's looking for an on-street parking spot, unless they can get those few by First Baptist, is really at a disadvantage.

And I think that's what Mr. Toby was brought up, is that, yeah,

just in that one section.

And I was very concerned, which is why I said could you elaborate where all those spaces are, because they did seem to be

I don't think it's set in stone that this will only work if they're on, for example, the north side of the street and one block to the other.

The consultants placed it this way because there are more businesses on the south side of the street there that have their own parking lots, as you can see from the map to a degree, that there's more

More of a need of parking on the north side.

There's certainly a need for public parking everywhere, but those pieces could be determined as schematic and detailed design continues.

It's not set in stone that they would need to be in this, you know, in the block between 6th and 7th or on this side versus that side.

And if I can just make one more comment along there, because being a frequent driver,

along here, and a walker and a trolley rider for my cats I wear.

It's not so much where I'm going, and I go here a lot as a destination, it's which direction I'm coming from.

I know that there's some parking back by Starr Hill Park, but I can't turn left there when coming east.

It's unrealistic.

it's really not a destination thing as much as a logistical, which direction you're coming from.

And for me to have to go all the way around and come back the other way is ridiculous.

May I ask that, unless you have questions for staff, we can make comments.

Okay.

Quick question.

Just one quick question.

And a big part of the conceptual plan is,

The buses stopping in the travel lane.

That is correct.

Buses are proposed to stop in the travel lane on West Main Street.

That's a condition that does exist in other corridors of the city, including Avon Street and Market Street, although those aren't dedicated bike lanes on Market Street.

but also fairly busy streets in our city.

It's a condition that's found in a lot of other cities in the country and the world.

And while there is a slight delay to traffic, our preliminary traffic analysis has found that it will not be a significant impact to the corridor and it is certainly something that would be studied with further traffic analysis.

But one other benefit is that it improves transit access.

It speeds up the bus, no longer has to wait to pull back out into traffic and most transit drivers that we've spoken to and information that we've looked at

I just have some basic questions that are not quite the discussion questions.

One of the things you talked about with enforcement was the need for at least one new enforcement officer.

So I'm assuming that person would be on foot.

I believe so.

Because I know that in downtown you often end up stuck behind the person who's doing ticketing.

And it seems like that would make it slower when we're really trying to clear things through.

So that's discussion.

Sorry, I'll stick to questions.

So in the lot agreements for further parking where you talked about negotiating with private owners, one of the questions I had is that the housing that's there at the flats and the proposed housing or the kind of in-process housing that's right near there, one of the things that we were told was that that would be largely people who either go to school at UVA or work in the medical center.

And I read in the parking study that

The UVA Medical Center felt that their parking garages were maxed out and they didn't have any room to provide public parking.

But I'm wondering if with all that housing there, if there won't be some sort of reduction in demand on their garages and if we might not want to check again.

And they're here, but I'm not going to ask them to speak right now.

But just to kind of look at that and see if that's a static unavailability or if it might become more available.

And I know a lot of people come from out of town, but I'm just wondering if that would at least get employment parking out there.

And the other is the idea of are we allowed to, we've heard a lot about kind of demand management for traffic use and encouraging people to take non-car ways to work and to where they're going.

Can we offer incentives for folks

So I'd like to know if that's possible.

And the other thing I think Ms. Edwards mentioned was that

oh actually two other things quick.

It mentioned church use on Sundays, but it didn't mention funerals and weddings, so I just wanted to make sure that that is in the mix of that.

But the other question was the zoning of the Amtrak lot is something we've kind of gone back and forth with as a council.

It may also be an attorney question, but I'm wondering if we can do a transitional zoning there, because does it have to be an either or, or can it be kind of somewhere between

And that's actually something that's been looked at by both the consultant and was discussed last week at Planning Commission when they began discussing the code.

I'll stop there.

Today we're just talking about street scaling.

I'm sorry.

I do have a couple of questions.

And thank you for answering a lot of my questions that I sent earlier last week, I guess.

And one of them is still kind of a chicken and egg to me.

And that's specifically my question about funding packages and funding strategies that I would like to have a better idea of what is possible in terms of state government

and VDOT grants or what can we be doing with Dominion Power in terms of negotiation?

What kind of partnerships could we be forging with UVA?

I know we had talked about TIGER grants at one point.

They have to be shovel ready.

We're not there yet, but how do we need to be positioned to be able to be in the next kind of line?

And also, I'm just interested in using the TIF district again, using the development revenue we get from that area and how can we start peeling off some of those revenues to actually feed back into the infrastructure.

and then there's the whole question of the metering and using bonds.

So I would like, moving forward, if we can get a realistic funding strategy.

I know you want to see the concept plan adopted, but it's hard for me to adopt something completely without knowing that we've got some realistic strategies to fund at least portions of it.

So that's a big question for me.

The second question I have is really looking at the tree planting practices that were provided by Roadside Harwell that prevented compaction.

Right now that we are revisiting the zoning, this is when the landscape plan is coming back.

What would be the problem of getting this put into that discussion about zoning?

Because our trees are covered by our zoning ordinances.

And it makes little sense to me that we wouldn't be putting these new practices in our new zoning ordinance for that district.

I just don't understand the logic of that.

Are there any questions?

Comments?

Oh, I do have another question.

Could you, sorry, sorry, sorry.

But it's just about the, what's left in the budget?

You gave me some numbers and I think the rest of the council should say.

And it's in here too.

Is it?

It is on

It begins on page 9, the budgetary impact, and the numbers themselves are located on page 10.

Thank you.

Mine are pretty short and straightforward, so I'll start.

I have one more question.

The march 2015 was the council work session that was held in neighborhood development services and was about the streetscape plan specifically.

Right.

But there was the meeting where it was way at the end of the agenda.

And it was pretty much shot down at that point and sent back.

And the BAR has talked about lack of consistency.

I think that was one of the, certainly Mr. Huja's concerns.

I mean, lots of criticisms were made of pieces.

Has anything changed?

This is exactly the same as what was presented at March 2015.

Do you remember that Mr. Huja?

But nothing's been changed so this is the

Let me see, please.

Good comments.

Yeah, I think in light of especially a lot of the comments that we got today, both the people in the bike community who really want protected bike lanes, and I'll say I was in Denver.

I got back this afternoon.

And my cousin asked me if I wanted to go for a bike ride.

And I thought, I don't bike.

I really don't bike.

And she said,

But in Denver there are all these protected bike lanes and it's also relatively flat where she lives and I was willing to get on a bike and we took a really long bike ride and we had a wonderful time.

We stopped at a coffee shop, we went to a park, we went to a bookstore and that's the kind of thing I don't do here because we don't have this so I really

feel what you're saying about bikes and how it's not just the spandex bikers, you know, the hardcore bikers who are going to be out there no matter what dodging in and out of cars, but people like me who otherwise won't.

And I think it's really important that if we want to change behavior, if we want to change kind of long-term how our city works and how we get places, we have to encourage people to take bikes, to walk, take transit.

The same thing with the bulb outs for the buses stopping in traffic.

If we make getting someplace by bus so you're there on time and you're not having to wait for nine cars to go by before you can pull the bus back out and then it gets later and later during rush hour, then it's more and more attractive to take the bus as opposed to being one of those cars behind the bus.

So I think we have to make sure cars can get through, but I think the only way that we're gonna change behavior is to make the other things more attractive.

To me, the concept that this plan provides in those things is really important.

I think that we do need to pay attention, huge attention, to the businesses.

And I would argue with Mr. Castiglione, of course we never argue, but that when you say that a parking space that's managed or a parking space that's shared is not a new parking space, I would argue that it is.

That if it allows a new person to park in it, it's a new parking space.

And I think that this plan

really does do that and I think that that's why we sometimes have this lack of kind of agreement about things that I think in a way we agree on is that I agree we need street parking and we need off street parking and we need it to be accessible and available and easy to find and well marked and you know some people are confident that they can park but I don't think it has to be the way we have it now which is where people can just kind of sit there all day and park and where it has to be right in front of the store, it could be behind the store,

and I think that there are ways we can do that and I really like the recommendations that staff has put forward that some of those details about where the parking spots get taken out and where they don't get taken out I don't think we're ready for and this recommendation gives us really almost a year to decide what that is after we've already looked at the managed parking, after we've looked at the negotiated parking, after we've looked at the zones for delivery and the times for delivery and done everything we can to make sure we're expanding parking

so that then when we take away parking we're getting back to baseline rather than taking it away.

I think this is a really good way to do it.

So I'll stop there.

I've got about six points but I do overall accept the staff recommendations and I do overall appreciate the

the principles of the concept plan.

However, I do want to explore the latest modification that was offered this evening.

And that was the idea of putting the bike lanes back in between the parked cars.

I think that actually starts addressing some of the concerns that were brought forward in the VBH report.

Where's the VBH?

The report that the university had commissioned.

and I say that because I also then want us to consider putting that back in the hands of Roadside Harwell for them to actually double check and see what impact that's going to have on the carefully fine-tuned balance that they had between maintaining the same speeds as we have today and keeping all the modes moving forward safely.

We have

So that would be one major recommendation, especially since we do have resources left in the budget, if there is additional need for resources, that it goes back to Roadside Harwell.

At the same time that we're having them looking at that, definitely would like

to continue developing this comprehensive parking approach, but with a timeline so that we start knowing what has to happen first, second, third to make sure we've got that sense of the critical path in this effort.

I would like to create a funding and implementation task force of UVA, the city,

Dominion, State of Virginia.

We've really got to get a handle on where the money's going to come from.

And again, how will this be implemented?

What can happen first, second, third, fourth?

And again, you pace it.

You pace the money and the funding based on those implementation phases.

I'd like to see a calendar established for then Roadside Harwell to meet with council again.

and I'd like to see a calendar for knowing when we're going to garner public input again, including the West Main Steering Committee before we actually sign off on the final concept plan.

As I mentioned earlier, the transplanting, the tree planting practices that were recommended by Roadside Harwell, I really would like them to be included in the rezoning initiative.

And when we do a pilot, the sixth point,

The pilot really needs to be a substantial presence.

It can't be only white stripes.

It's got to be something that's very obvious if you're going to be simulating some of the improvements on that street so that it's actually attractive and not confusing.

So those are the six points that I'd like to make, and I hope we can reach some understanding of having Roadside Harwell revisit

Well, I have the same concerns I had last time we talked about this at council, which was at the end of one of those meetings, and none of it's changed, so I'll just reiterate them.

I think that's going to start over at Ridge McIntyre, the idea of getting rid of, what do you call that, Lane?

Slip Lane.

Slip Lane, that's right.

getting rid of the slip lane as a right turn and adding it to West Main just seems crazy to me.

In fact, I think the way they've got it configured now has a great opportunity attached to it.

If you keep the slip lane, that's your right turn lane, you don't need a right turn lane up above.

Instead of three lanes right next to Marriott, you have two and then you use that lane closest to Marriott for a bike pad.

because we all are all concerned about how close Marriott is to the sidewalk.

It's just a great opportunity if you keep the slip lane.

So that would be my first suggestion.

My first objection is getting rid of the slip lane.

It doesn't make sense at all to me.

The other major concern, and we had a little email exchange about this, and I still don't really know the answer, is that if there's any possibility that left turn lane going on to 4th Street, going east, is

on the chopping block, I think that's gonna be a nightmare.

It is actually a left turn, I make probably five, an average of five times a week.

I know how many people are turning left on 4th, and how many cars are coming forward.

There's actually a dedicated left turn arrow.

That's how many people turn left on 4th Street.

And I'm pretty sure

The entrance to the Marriott garage is on 4th Street, so people are going to be turning from Main Street to 4th Street to get into this Marriott that hasn't even opened yet.

But that said, unless there's some assurance that that's not going away, I would feel very uncomfortable, even with that possibility.

And I think a great illustration of the need for the 4th Street is an increasing problem.

again, somebody who travels this, going back and forth to Jefferson alone, living in Fry's Spring, I'm back and forth on this corridor a lot, is 7th Street.

There's increasingly, people want to turn left on 7th, there is no dedicated left on 7th, and you can see the crazy things people do to try to get around somebody turning left on 7th because if you don't, you're gonna miss the light.

You could be the second car when the light turns green, and if there's a left turn in front of you, you could completely miss the light, which, you know, maybe some people think is a good thing to put cars through that, but I don't.

So I'd actually like to see a dedicated left on 7th.

I'm not quite sure how to fit that in, but again, an illustration of the potential problem if taking the left turn on 4th.

Again,

approving something where it's possible they'll take virtually all of the parking off on one side and not the other is, I believe, unacceptable.

It's not alternating at this point.

Again, my question went to how do we even know, and we're supposed to look at the picture, and that's what the picture said.

So that's same objection as I had before.

And

and particularly actually was concerned about what Toby was talking about is that again somebody who just travels it quite a bit.

I don't know if more cars go east but if you look and even if you look on Google's map maps you know the Google Maps of this the point in time that they took the picture there's way more cars parked on the

Southside than on the Northside.

And I don't know if that's because more cars travel that way or there are public parking lots on the other side.

You have more options on the Northside to actually not park on the street.

I don't know what it is, but particularly the bridge to 7th on the Southside is almost always nearly full.

of parking.

And just to take that out was clearly a demand.

I'm just not sure where they're going to go.

I mean, somebody said, actually, it was Scott, who said, you know, I parked down in the Amtrak.

And that clearly is an option for people who are able,

I don't think it's a particularly democratic option personally for, you know, if we're going to be providing all this parking otherwise.

So I cannot, in good conscience, accept this, if this is what we're going for.

I like the idea

I do think it's actually imperative that we figure out what our long-term parking strategy is if we're going to exchange parked cars for dedicated lanes for bikes.

We need to know that first and foremost, what the parking is.

Before we do a pilot, we need to have that piece in place because we can't jeopardize our businesses.

It's not fair.

if nothing else.

So I think that's, on the transit, my other big concern, and it's not a new one, is that transit stopping in the lanes, I'm actually comfortable with transit stopping in the lanes.

My discomfort comes with a door opening and a person stepping off that bus into a bike lane.

And we've had this conversation, I've had this conversation with some of these wonderful bikers who are very considerate and say they'll stop

or go around.

But I would like to know what legally we could do to make a biker stop if there's a stopped bus.

And it just seems like a really horrible situation to enter into without having some plan, which is why it actually works, I think, really well on the other side of the street where you've got parked cars and you take a space and have a bulb out.

So that person is

They pull up to the curb, right?

Good.

The bike here, we're going to have to wait behind the bus or go around the bus.

So what does the bike do?

Okay now is that mean that the car then will have the option of going around the bus?

I ask this because again it's just like my question about turning left on 7th Street.

A bike's much smaller, and by moving the bus member, there would be things for a bike to go around.

Carrie.

Okay, okay.

No, you've answered my question, and so thank you.

All right, so this latest iteration of West Main Street has been going on for about two years now, correct?

Plus or minus?

Okay.

It seems to me at this point we ought to have some clarity.

We ought to be able to see things pretty clearly.

And it's obviously not the case.

In fact, I dare say that as we sit here tonight, it's getting more and more confusing.

So let me back up just for a second.

West Main Street.

They call it Main Street for a reason.

It's the main street between UVA and downtown Charlottesville.

On the west end, you have the nursing school.

You have a children's hospital.

You have, I believe, two general hospitals if they still use the old hospital.

Is that correct?

Nod yes or no.

And you have a cancer center.

That's on the west end.

The hospitals are so concerned about getting emergency vehicles there quickly they have a helicopter called Pegasus which flies people across the congestion of the city and delivers them to emergency services.

The hospital is a critical component of this discussion and of all this discussion that has gone on tonight I don't think that has been mentioned except in matters by the public or

when UVA came up here.

We cannot forget the hospital complex on the west end of West Main Street.

On the east end of West Main Street is a fire station, the biggest one in the city.

And that services UVA, downtown, Fifeville, north downtown, everybody.

Anybody on West Main Street, they don't have to be there 20, 30 minutes.

They will see either an ambulance or a fire truck

or a police.

The main station for the police department is downtown.

Main Street has a tremendous volume of emergency traffic.

So that's just sort of a background we have to keep in mind.

And I'm going to mention two things, and it's not my opinion what I'm going to mention, and some of it I think may have been brought up by the people that spoke tonight.

One of them is from the consultant themselves.

and I don't have a page number, but if anybody would like to see it, I'll be happy to show it to them.

It's under Master Plan Principles and it's numbered number three.

And it says West Main Street will become the front door for adjacent neighborhoods through the provision of improved pedestrian and vehicular connections between West Main and those neighborhoods.

That's another way of talking about cut-through traffic.

And that's what Ms. Pat Edwards brought up tonight.

It is already obvious the cut-through traffic, the impact on West Main Street.

And the other thing I'd like to mention is from University of Virginia, the President's Office.

And this is a quote

The online PDF presentation on page 50 of 69 states that the design does not diminish corridor capacity, that all intersections operate at an acceptable level of service, and that the vehicular performance of the corridor does not change measurably from what it is today.

And this is the money line.

However, this document is not supported by any traffic analysis data.

and a further statement about half a paragraph down says, the email from the city that transmitted these documents said that the depth of our transportation analysis was fairly shallow.

So we are being asked to make a decision on shallowness, I guess.

And I'm not gonna belabor what I'm gonna say here, but it's obvious

I'd like to make some comments afterwards.

I have some lengthy comments to make today, so I hope you'll be patient with me.

But I have it in writing for my colleagues and some to some of his audience.

I'd like to read my comments, and if you'd like, there's a handout.

It may also be on the screen also.

I'll put it on the screen so that you can read it there also.

I've been very concerned about West Main Street proposal.

Before I make specific comments about, I want to make a point, a following point.

There's three well-designed and elegant public spaces in Charlottesville.

Downtown Mall, University Corner, Court Square.

Fortunately, I added some part in each one of those.

So I do have some background in design and planning, so I think I can make some intelligent comments.

West Main Street is a very important link between Hart and minor shorts of our community in Downtown New Year.

I support West Main Street as a multi-modal corridor

including pedestrian, bike, transit and auto.

Both of Spain Street is a plan, is not a coherent plan, not a coherent design.

It has very few unifying themes.

It is a cluttered plan with too many intricacy concepts, materials, artefacts, alternatives and varieties.

In its desire to please everyone, it has resulted in a incoherent design.

East and West part of West Main Street proposals are not harmonious.

And there is no sense of continuity.

For example, the bike lane is confusing.

It's very different on the East side than on the West side.

It only creates more safety problems than facilitating bicycle use.

Both design of West Main Street needs to be simple but elegant.

This plan is needed.

proposal calls for bus loading in the travel lane, which will block traffic, especially for emergency vehicles which has been pointed out.

I'm not sure that the design of the intersection of Ridge and West Main Street is safe or functional.

It also creates conflict with free-flowing traffic with taxis and taxis back into the free-flowing traffic in a very dangerous situation.

The World's Plan cuts down 40 trees out of 109 existing mature trees.

We need to save all the trees unless they are unhealthy.

It also proposes a 300 new trees of varying varieties.

I'm not sure we need this many trees.

As you know, I've been using this variety of trees.

There's a limit to trees also.

especially when you have good living ones right now, why cut them down and wait 30 years to have another tree?

I would like you to think about that also.

Both plan also eliminates 33 of 85 existing on-street parking which is not a desirable state merchants need on-street parking or some off-street parking.

I do agree with the consultant's approach to parking management because that could be better utilized on an off-street parking.

I would like to see that retried.

I also disagree with the consultant's conclusion that the city does not need more off-street structured parking in the West Main Street area.

I think we do need structured parking in the West Main Street area.

For example, we could have

City owned parking lot behind Albemarle Hotel could be a structure of parking where businesses can park in the Spain street area.

Businesses have proposed a Spain street plan because of reduction in street parking.

Neighbors are also concerned with this plan because it can be an adverse effect on the parking and traffic in just neighborhoods, as you heard today.

University house flex is adversely affected.

University is opposed to this plan because of various concerns which they have put down in writing.

We need to work with the University and be a better partner than we have been so far.

We could design a much simpler and more elegant project that is within our means.

For example, a 60-foot cross section could be divided in eight, having eight to 10 feet sidewalks, five to seven foot bike lane,

parking on alternate sites, parking areas, three to eight feet, trees, two travel lanes, which would be 11 feet, and turning lanes and bus stops of the traffic.

So there are alternatives to think about having a smooth flowing traffic and having an attractive development.

Both projects cost around $30 million.

which is likely to go up as time passes and as we go into more details.

I don't know of any project which hasn't gone up.

There's a $3 million, 200 consultant fees.

Most of these costs I think are outrageous and beyond our means.

I also disagree with the phasing plan for the construction.

We should focus our investment on a historic east side

of the West Main Street.

We can work with the developers in the university to implement the west side of the West Main Street project.

In light of these concerns, we should really look at the design of the West Main Street project.

We should design a project that is simple, elegant and within our means.

I would suggest that we

There is more in the budget.

We heard that earlier.

I support the Spain State improvement.

I would like to see Spain State improved, but not the various proposals in this concept.

Can I just ask how much money is left in the budget?

The information on the report is money that's been set aside and could be allocated to this project.

The consultant budget, originally the $350,000 that you're referring to has been used and the scope has been completed so additional funds would need to be moved over and an additional scope written for the additional work that's being discussed and then we can move forward.

Thank you.

I'd like to make a motion.

Yes.

I would move that we defer action on this study for 90 days, send it back to the steering committee, in which the University of Virginia would be a full participating partner at the table

I would like to add to that list of people that are brought to the table as Dominion as well as representatives of

the state of Virginia because this is a major access road to Amtrak station.

To design?

Not to design it, but to be part of the people that are brought to the table, not to design it.

My only concern would be that

Council, can I ask a couple of clarifying questions here?

Because I think this will certainly help the staff and help whoever ends up helping us on this from a consultant standpoint.

I think it would be helpful to have an understanding of what council agrees to and doesn't agree to at this point.

because if we send it back to the steering committee as you heard today we've got five different opinions about this and it kind of gives you an understanding of what we were dealing with through stakeholders on this project in the first place so I think it would be helpful for us and it doesn't necessarily have to happen tonight but we do need to get some indication of what council supports and wants us to see as part of this discussion if we simply say we're gonna send it back to the steering committee without having any sort of direction

Actually, after Mr. Fenwick's motion and perhaps a vote on it, or maybe even with a simultaneous motion just to have on the floor, I was planning to submit, just from what I heard said tonight, submit a motion that we go ahead on the parking pieces that were recommended.

Okay.

Well, yeah, so I'll keep the motion as it is without making it too burdensome and the

concerns that have been raised, we can work out in a work session, I believe.

And can I just say that one of my concerns, too, about sending it wherever it goes is that we've been doing this now.

It came to Council several times.

We expressed concerns.

Clearly, it was not going to be approved a couple times, and nothing changed.

So I don't know if the idea is that

Well, the recommendation from staff was exactly, I think, going at those.

It was saying that since we don't agree on where the parking spot should be, that we defer that and we kind of go with the concept that we want to have these multi uses, that we look at the kind of concept of it, of multimodal, approve that,

start with the parking recommendations and move forward with the pilots, which is, I think, exactly responsive to what we've asked for.

I disagree with you.

I think we should not be having a pilot.

We need to have a concept plan before we can do a pilot.

I understand we don't agree, but I think they have

Responded to us.

We got this letter from the office of the president.

I got it like two weeks ago After two years After after repeated assurances from neighborhood development services and the consultant

that the UVA was a full participating partner.

The University of Virginia was invited to be a part of this process just like all the other stakeholders.

We're talking two different things now, Maurice.

I mean, if it's somebody like the hospital, you go out and you get them and you bring them there.

If you've got to bring them by hand or something, you make sure the hospital is involved.

Motion is to defer action on this for 90 days, send it to the steering committee, of which the University of Virginia Hospital will be a full participating partner sitting at the table.

Let the fire department be the same way, sitting at the table getting input.

and the police department be the same way, sitting at the table giving input and not just reading a report that the steering committee prepares.

I would like to reframe my friendly amendment, please, Mayor Huja.

We do need to give direction.

That direction would be that this plan will be changed to accommodate bike lanes within between the parked cars so that it allows for opportunities to have a continuous detail of bike lane and parked cars on both sides of the street.

So you're saying to look at that, not that you're recommending it.

Oh yeah, I was just to look at it.

No, no, no, it needs to be looked at.

We've got to give them, we never gave them a recommendation to change anything.

That's why it hasn't changed.

This is to have a one

No, in the revised

Modification that's being requested that we investigate.

We're taking the bike lanes off the sidewalk throughout the whole corridor, but we're putting in a system interior between the parked cars within the vehicular lanes, bike lanes, that will still be moving, alternating between parked cars and non-parked cars on both sides.

We're getting the bike lanes off the sidewalk.

That meets a need that was expressed tonight by multiple people.

And that is giving a change to be studied to the Steering Committee and the Consultant.

Well I reject it and for the reason being we will do this, we will get into these details in the work session or whatever we have.

That's what has been discussed and that's what will be discussed.

And I mean I think that's a reasonable thing to put on a list

of things we want considered.

And again, I think that's where it's surprising to us to have looked at this before and said, it's no different than what we rejected before.

So if we could just list out and it could be a weird compilation of all of our hopes and wishes.

that would be perfectly appropriate.

Can I just again, just to envision this, it sounds as if what you're doing is now where you've got sidewalk, parked cars, bike lanes, you're just moving the bike lanes inside.

So why would you even need to get rid of the parking at that point?

Well I think we have, Kathy,

Ms. Galvin, your comments are correct.

That is one of the things you should look at.

I have a question of Mr. Jones.

Mr. Jones, do you have clarity in what you think you need?

No, ma'am.

There is still a steering committee.

I think what we need is, I mean, there's been mention of a work session.

I think we do need some of that.

Otherwise we're sending it to the steering committee and they're not sure exactly what they want us to do.

there is a consensus on any one item.

We've heard that tonight with a couple of things that have been proposed and we didn't hear three votes on one thing or the other.

So we didn't take any votes.

Well, I know, exactly.

But you're trying to take vote now.

I have one more question.

Yes.

Absolutely.

I hope that we're going to have a work session.

So that needs to be very clear.

Before it goes to the steering committee.

I think we need to have a work session to get those items on the table.

The same way we would do a budget.

We are again talking about a process.

It's really just kind of a way to move forward on it.

I'm just hearing what you're saying you want and trying to get at that through this motion.

Let's get this motion out of the way.

The question, though, is you have a time limit in your motion.

And if we're talking about having a work session before the steering committee does it, they might have like 10 days left.

So I'm just going to suggest that you do the timeline starting after our work session.

So how would that be published?

Again, can we restate the motion?

It's 90 days that we will have from today.

The motion was very clear both times I said it.

And the clerk can read it back if anybody doesn't remember it.

which is no.

So I would like to make a motion that we consider the recommendation from staff, the first recommendation from staff, and I just went to my calendar so I don't have it in front of me,

or the second one, that we move forward with parking recommendations one, three, and four while waiting for the results of the downtown parking study currently underway to decide whether to pursue recommendation number two.

The things that don't need the study.

The metering needs the study, so it doesn't include that.

So it includes enforcement of existing regulations, the designated loading times and areas just to kind of help smooth out what's going on now.

Any more discussion on the motion?

If not, let's vote.

Thank you.

What is it now?

It's a no.

So, sorry, can I just clarify how we are going to go about, are we going to wait for the work session to get any kind of agreement?

Not this evening.

We can do this by later, not late.

Okay, let's move to next item.

Okay, next council meeting.

Dede Smith

Dede

.

Dede Smith

Dede Smith

I don't know.

Dede Smith

?

?

?

Kathy.

Well, good evening.

Transitioning from the West Main discussion, we have a discussion about housing assistance program policies, procedures, protocols, and rehabilitation standards, which is a mouthful in and of itself.

But before you tonight, it's a resolution to adopt these as proposed.

These policies have actually been used over a period of years to guide housing rehabilitation activities.

However,

We have been unable to determine if these were ever officially adopted.

CRHA handled housing rehabilitation for a number of years using CDBG and home dollars, which may account for some of the confusion, but regardless, staff is coming to you now to recommend adoption of the version you see before you tonight.

The primary changes to the prior policy and basically when I came on staff in 2010, made some recommendations to the policy they were using at that time, but

Current changes include such things as elimination of requiring property maintenance inspectors to do the home inspections that was specified in the 2010 version, but we've actually

morphed over into using the building inspectors which works much better and so we're just changing this to allow NDS, qualified NDS staff to undertake inspections.

We're also allowing for specialty inspections that are beyond the capability of NDS staff such as mold, asbestos, chimney, insect, pest, et cetera.

An increase in the amount of rehab assistance from a maximum of 25,000 to 35,000 with the specific adherence

to the lead-based paint regulations.

And then a change to the loan-to-value policy, which was adopted by council actually, this is the only part of the rehab policies that has been adopted, in July the 15th of 2013 to allow for exceptions in support target areas.

We've already found some issues with the initial planning, and then since council subsequently approved the funding for the Orangedale and Prospect area, we're finding issues with loan-to-value there, and we feel like we need some latitude.

So while this isn't a comprehensive list of all the changes from the 2010 version, it gives you some idea of the clarifications that are made to reflect the major modifications that have been incorporated.

As to community engagement, this was not considered by the Housing Advisory Committee as a whole.

This was due, in fact, or due primarily to the fact that rehab is a highly specialized and specific ongoing program.

We felt it best to work in a subcommittee fashion so I involved both AHIP and LEAP.

Let's see.

The highlight, since this has been sent to you, just to highlight the need for refinement of the policies.

I got some comments back on

The proposed version and one of the things that came out other than some grammatical and a couple of typos was the definition of area median income.

We really had more descriptive text of where you find that information rather than what it is.

So we're recommending a change on that to read location specific income limits established annually by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to determine the eligibility of applicants for HUD's assisted housing programs.

Statutory Basis for HUD's Income Limit Policies of Section 3 of the U.S. Housing Act of 1937 as amended.

We use that since that's actually the definition of what area meeting income means.

Anyway, I would just ask that Council in any motion to approve or consider these further would denote that we'd like to change that one definition.

And I'll just, I did

because I do it compulsively.

I did proofread it and changed some witches to what's and just did a couple of little clarifying things.

But Lisa Robertson looked at those edits and found that there was nothing substantially different.

Yes, ma'am.

If this were to be considered by one of the city citizen committees, would it be the housing

I would feel much more comfortable if the entire committee reviewed this.

Although I might disagree because the subcommittee that did is, in fact, the rehab.

experts, and the ones who do so much of that for us.

So I respectfully disagree that that's necessary to approve this.

I could share Mr. Fenwick's comment.

Any comments?

Would it be possible to then just kind of pass this on to the

The motion encourages a change you suggested.

Yes, I could note that.

What was the definition?

Income.

Did you give HUD guidelines?

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

This is an important step to really enter into the rental

Next on our agenda is parking for Albemarle County Courts.

Yes, sir.

Mr. Mayor, Members of Council, in July of last year, the City Council and the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors met to discuss a variety of issues that we were seeking more collaboration on.

One of those issues was on the court study that the

Albemarle County Board of Supervisors had reviewed and were considering.

They were considering several different sites for their general district court.

As part of those discussions with the county, we formed a committee to look at what it would take to keep the courts downtown, the general district court downtown.

A couple of those

items on the list for the committee to consider was one, the possibility of a co-located court, general district court, with Albemarle County.

We've had a couple of different discussions about that, including during the budget process, and the council decided that a co-located court, if we could work out other issues associated with that, would be something that we would be interested in.

We actually put it in the CIP.

$500,000 for design work in fiscal year 17 and then $6 million in fiscal year 18 that would support a location of the courts in Court Square.

We have been discussing this now for the past year.

Another issue that came up was the issue of parking in the Court Square area or downtown that would help support the general district court and the needs of Albemarle County as they continue to grow in their needs with the general district court.

It's been estimated that they'll need anywhere between 75 and 100 spaces to accommodate future needs there.

We are proposing that as part of this resolution this evening that the city would guarantee 35 spaces for court related activities upon the beginning of the construction of the co-located general district court and then an additional

40 to 65 spots that would be operational by the time the construction ends and the building opens a couple years later.

So we will be coming back to the council for a request in September if we continue to move forward with this resolution and move forward with the discussions of Albemarle County to take the next steps in design work for the co-located court

That will be a recommendation that will come out of this committee as well.

But this resolution is an important signal to Albemarle County that we are open to the parking needs that they have.

Mr. Fenwick has been part of the committee and we'll cooperate with the city and county to work together.

that was brought as a response to some questions.

It's whereas the County of Albemarle has demonstrated a strong interest in keeping its general district court in downtown Charlottesville, and whereas the presence of the Albemarle County General District Court in Court Square contributes to the economic vitality of downtown Charlottesville, and whereas Albemarle County projects a need of between 75 and 100 parking spaces to accommodate future growth of its court.

and whereas the city and the county are researching the possibility of co-locating their general district courts in downtown.

Now therefore be it resolved by the City Council of Charlottesville that the city make available 35 parking spaces near Court Square for use by the Albemarle County Court System.

These initial 35 spaces will be provided at the beginning of construction of a new Albemarle County General District Court in downtown Charlottesville.

The additional 40 to 65 parking spaces needed for the county court system

will be provided upon the issuance of the Certificate of Occupancy for the new County General District Court.

This resolution by the City Council to assist in providing parking spaces for the operation of the County Court system is expressly contingent on one, continuing commitment by the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors to keep the County Circuit and General District Courts in downtown Charlottesville, and two, the execution of an agreement between the City Council and the Board of Supervisors

that allocates between the two jurisdictions the cost of providing and maintaining the parking spaces that are subject to this resolution.

Can I ask a couple questions?

Thank you, and I specifically would like to thank Mr. Brown for an excellent

you know, rewording of this to address the issues.

Is there, are these the two courts that are there now?

Are there any other courts that we're talking about?

Well the city and county juvenile courts currently share a new renovated building on High Street.

And that's a relatively recent project that was

The state court system has a general district court and a juvenile and domestic relations district court.

Juvenile court is also a district court.

And then those are frequently referred to as courts not of record.

So is there any disconnect here between only citing the general district court and then...

Right, but we wanted them to keep all their courts downtown.

So I think we need to, this is a big promise to make.

I think it's very generous.

I think it's an indication that you're willing to negotiate a share of those costs.

You know, I want to correct something.

I wouldn't consider it a resolution.

I have discussed with the county

The county will pay for the parking.

This is written that way.

Well, we'll have a better understanding of that when we get the parking study in October, but there are some things that we could do short term

within a couple of years because realistically construction won't begin for a couple of years.

There's not even funding on the city or county side until fiscal year 18 for any sort of construction.

But we'll hear from our consultant at the work session in October about parking needs in downtown.

So two changes you mentioned mid-resolution.

2017.

Well, that date is a drop dead date.

I mean, do you have these 35 envisioned somewhere such that it would be problematic if we couldn't, if we had to sort of hold on to them?

We have a possibility.

Not the 35, though, does it?

Yes.

No, it doesn't.

It's already tied up.

Right, but I'm just wondering if you're thinking now, oh, I know where those 35 are, and

Can you agree on a one year date?

September 1st, 2016.

Those two changes.

I'm sorry, Mr. Mayor, could you repeat the first change?

It was in this resolution by the city council

Paragraph number two.

The execution of agreement between the city council and the board of supervisors that assesses the cost that the county will pay for the parking.

And again, this may be true, that would assume that these parking spaces are not being provided by the private sector.

We will provide the parking spaces somehow.

Or that an agreement between the two jurisdictions

If I understand correctly, the city will bear the cost of providing these spaces and then once they're available, the county pays whatever monthly rate is necessary to rent those spaces.

That's true.

So we may have just done the negotiation.

Is there any additional negotiation?

Right.

Well, that's the negotiation for this one piece of a larger negotiation.

Right.

And there would still need to be negotiations over the cost of the project, that type of thing.

Why are we trying to make

Is that your concern Mr. Brown?

Does that make sense?

I think it does make.

Again, it goes back to the concept that the city's responsibility, including the financial responsibility, is to ensure that these parking spaces are available.

initially 35 and then the balance up to 100.

And once those spaces are available, the cost of renting those spaces and assuming the future maintenance of those spaces is the responsibility of the county.

No.

the county would.

And if they're actually city-owned spaces, then they would be dealing with us, but if they were privately owned spaces, why would we be there at all?

Yeah, if what I just said reflects the sentiment of council, we can certainly reflect that and

Should we say subject to certification?

Can we say that?

Mr. Brown, is that?

We'll do that.

Or is that inherent?

Is that inherent?

Is there a second to the motion?

Second.

Is there any second to it?

Second.

Let me say this is a good first step, working with the county, and I think it will be a good co-location for city and county both.

I think we can work together in those things.

Is there a question?

If not, let's vote.

Thank you.

Well, the night's not done yet.

Mayor, City Council, City Manager, before you tonight is a proposed ordinance from the Planning Commission addressing transient lodging and residential dwellings.

During this discussion phase, refer to the Ordinance Planning Commission as put forward.

That ordinance is found starting on page, I believe, 265 of your packet.

Without hitting every step along the way, I would like to highlight and summarize where we are today.

In July 2014, City Council initiated a study of a zoning ordinance provision for short-term rentals.

In December of 2014, Planning Commission considered a study on

Transient Occupancy and Zoning Text Amendment.

After consideration, the Planning Commission referred the matter to City Council for additional study.

Many citizens spoke in favor of and in opposition of proliferation of transient occupancies.