City Council Meeting   7/18/2016

I've got all announcements.

Anyone else have an award?

Is Mr. Hengele here?

Thank you.

Of course he wants to say something.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Worth every word.

How about from my farthest left to Ms. Galvin?

That's it.

So congratulations to Lane Corman and happy driving.

You're neither, but you can go.

or answering an email say from somebody who they're not familiar with because once you do that you're opening yourself up for some real difficulties.

So if we could, could we please have a short moment of silence for him?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, appointments to boards and commissions.

Mr. Penwick.

If you would like to serve on one of these commissions, boards, please contact Paige Rice, Clerk of Council.

Any discussion?

I will vote for the rest.

All in favor?

Not that I have anything against my husband, I'm just explaining it.

Okay, next item on the agenda, city manager response matters by the public for the last public comment.

Which is fine, because I think a lot of people are waiting to speak.

Let's do it now, actually, do you mind?

Thank you.

Mr. Jones, we now go on to our city manager response to matters of the public raised last.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

The police have met with her neighbors to inform them that using cones to mark spaces on a public street is an acceptable practice.

So we've had discussions with them.

as a possible location for the bench, and our staff is following up on the next steps with Miss Smith and her representatives.

I would, just in line with your talking about the summer passes, I'm sure that others have been involved too, but I know that Sarad Davenport, who's the director of City of Promise, has helped several hundred of those kids all over the city get those scholarships and talk to the families and gotten the forms filled out, so thanks to him as well.

when there's a matter that you raise that goes to a staff issue.

So this is a, thank you for this response to this.

We're now moving to matters of the public.

Naomi Roberts is first.

I'm paying you all, I vote for you, and I deserve to be heard from.

Yes.

Joanne.

You're on that, by the way, from 2002.

And all I saw was the top of that young lady's head.

Oh my gosh, I like it.

Because this camera is going to be somewhere up in here.

Right in front of the mic here.

Thank you all for doing this.

Dr. Turner?

We've heard you.

I'm sorry, I'm sure that's the first time that's happened.

So thank you for your leadership and thank you for the time.

Marta Kane.

So thank you.

Is that nationally, regionally, locally?

Yes.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Laura Janes.

State-sponsored killing is even scarier, so thank you for the opportunity to speak.

Michael Rohde.

And if it does, what are the mechanisms by which we can deal with it?

As you see, Mr. Jones will respond on behalf of the government next City Council meeting to the individual items that were raised.

I assume that Mr. Jones will contact the people who spoke well before he reports back to us in a month.

So we'll talk to the police department about enforcing that.

Ms. Conley?

Mr. Jones, has someone or will someone please contact Ms. Roberts?

I think the emails and the emails that she sent recently, she's asking specifically for counsel to respond to her, I believe.

We have the consent agenda first.

We're just discussing it this evening.

Ms. Rice, would you read it, of course?

And item J, an appropriation Piedmont workforce network incumbent worker training grant, $4,730, first of two readings.

Thank you.

All in favor?

I just want to make sure that we acknowledge the work of the Place Design Task Force.

Can I say first that it...

I didn't get it?

Yeah, it carried five to zero.

So I just wanted to acknowledge the hard work of the place design task force because it really did help the city and created a partnership with the university at very, very low cost.

Thank you.

We have a public hearing after this item.

I live at 800 Park Street in Charlottesville, and I'm currently the president of the Board of Elections.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

There may be some questions.

Two questions.

One is if people who have not heard this announcement and somehow don't pay attention when they get their new voting card and have missed all of the other radio announcements and everything else show up at the Boys and Girls Club on election day, will there be signage for them to tell them where to go?

for those that don't pay attention to that.

There are those of us who are determined to not notice things.

Absolutely.

I assume that would be like a primary election?

On those days, if school is in session, there will be the voting instead of being in the media center where there's a large school population, it will be transferred to the auditorium.

Any trouble with mobility issues or anything like that?

We've done an ADA assessment of the auditorium and it's complied with ADA and how we're going to handle that.

They would normally go down right, right turn downhill and from now on it will be straight where they let the kids off basically.

Thank you very much.

Is there a motion to approve this ordinance?

I make a motion that we approve the moving of the polling place from the Boys and Girls Club to Beaufort School.

Is there a second?

Second.

Any discussion or questions?

No vote.

We just need the second.

Brian Huluska presents.

Counselors, this is an item that was brought forward out of your meeting earlier on March 21st.

I'm not really happy to answer any questions you may have.

Questions?

Not about that specifically.

I have not received a single email or call about either the proposed ordinance or the Planning Commission's, the events that have happened with it.

Right now they're finding that people are in the lunch rush are Leaving West Main because there's just no place to park for the restaurants along West Main Street So I mentioned to them that the heights did come down This was not something that actually made bigger buildings possible And also that every unit is required to provide a parking space so it would affect all new buildings I didn't hear back from that, but they did register their opposition to the change

If we had done it, when you say it applies to new buildings, if there were an existing building where they were just renovating it inside and adding a whole bunch more units, would they still have to provide parking?

So that may be something.

There hasn't been really an opportunity to.

Right.

Thank you.

So has there been any parking study with this increased density?

So that's ironclad in the ordinance now, and that's not changing.

How much traffic this would generate?

It would have been a part of the West Main Corridor study, not this individual change.

Well, there wasn't any on the West Main, no projections.

But if you wouldn't mind, let's just get this filled out.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any others?

So thank you for giving me this opportunity tonight.

Any others?

Thank you.

Any others?

Thank you.

Is there a motion?

Mayor Signer, I have a motion for an alternate ordinance.

Okay.

I can give you more detail and more questions.

Questions, comments?

But I am fascinated by this, and so if no one else is going to second it, I'm considering seconding it for the purpose of continuing conversation, but I'm not yet sure if I'll vote on it.

So is there?

And I'm happy to wait to discuss.

Is there more?

How would that actually improve the likelihood of developers maintaining historical structures and not tearing down historical structures or wanting to augment them so much that they're unrecognizable?

If you're talking about altering a structure on West Main Street that's protected by our design control, that's within the district, protected by the design control district, any of those proposed alterations must be compatible with the character of the district.

Okay, so there is that safeguard under the SUP process.

There is and council has approved and the BAR applies very specific guidelines on what is and what is not acceptable in terms of the enlargement or the exterior renovation or modification of historic structures.

If we don't do this, would that make that no longer part of an SUP for density?

If you leave the ordinance as it is right now, right now it allows, I think in both districts, 43 dwelling units per acre and no SUP.

The previous ordinance.

I believe it.

and then when you have such a gulf between your possible dwelling units per acre and your actual, what could be actually allowed by right, it does lead to much more speculation, negotiation and that actually can inflate land value.

passing this saying only up to 180 or up to 120 be a down zoning that we can't do without public notice?

And this is a more intensive use than what you have now by right.

But that's okay.

And SUP is not guaranteed.

That's all I needed to know.

Because it's discretionary.

From the status quo.

But we don't need a new advertisement.

From 200 to 180 or 120?

The east part of West Main Street is much more in keeping with that character of the city, and there's an overlap of the architectural control district of the downtown area overlaps a good portion of West Main East.

Is that a default that is elsewhere?

It's the part not crossed out.

I think it is.

However, up to 200 dwelling units per acre may be allowed by special use permit.

I didn't anticipate that we would get to this place.

It's the by right has increased in one side of the Main Street.

Right, but it's still, but now it is actually, it is permanently reduced, the SUP density that you can get.

The other thing we had discussed was eliminating SUPs altogether.

I think it is premature.

It's no longer in effect.

They came in under the previous.

Yeah, so that was a six story building that asked for 180 SUP.

They were already in process before we changed it.

But so what's our current parking?

So we were concerned about parking in that case as well.

But the part of our ordinance where it went through the 25-year lease that you had to have if you had off-site parking, that does not apply to... That's not a global application.

And you're bringing up a very good point that that's something that we need to adjust in our zoning.

We're going to come to the decision, or partly on the way to the decision, in about 20, 30 minutes.

Next meeting.

That's an unknown.

If I may, Mr. Fenwick, I would entertain a friendly amendment to defer this and put it back to the Planning Commission.

So moved.

And then, since you're not carrying it over for a second reading, you could have a vote of the entire body.

So the motion is to send Ms. Galvin's amended version back to the Planning Commission for review?

Sending this discussion back, so they can finish us with a finished package that we can vote on and not have to craft it all over again up here.

I'm not the second, but

The idea that the work that I have done would be included in the deliberations, not saying that they have to do this by any means, but that the kind of thought process and investigation...

What rules are we under in the zoning code for West Main for parking requirements for developments?

They made an exception in this last one.

Can you speak to this?

The only way to modify that is through the special use permit process which gives the Planning Commission some leeway to craft alternative parking regulations if they so choose.

Why would those not be sufficient for the parking concerns that would be raised by this, by SUPs that would happen under, I'm asking Ms. Galvin.

What was proposed to us is to do away with the SUP and let all the density go up to 200 dwelling units per acre and that was premature.

amended ordinance which would allow SUPs, we still have a parking space regimen which would allow the Planning Commission to craft solutions, so that's not an issue, at least not.

It would allow the Planning Commission to craft solutions in the SUP context, not in the buy right context.

Right, not in the buy right.

Okay, alright.

And so that's something that would also be great if the Planning Commission could look at that in conjunction with the overall density requirements.

So can we, Ms. Rice, would you mind rendering back to us what we have given you here?

exceed 64 DUA however up to 180 DUA may be allowed by special use permit and section 34-641 density to say residential density shall not exceed 43 DUA however up to 120 DUA may be allowed by special use permit and the motion was modified by Mr. Fenwick to send this back to the Planning Commission for further discussion and review and Ms. Szakos also admitted it to include the work Ms. Galvin has done.

Which they would do anyway, but just to put a fine point on it.

And keep it the same on these.

All of them.

You accept all of them?

I accept every single one.

OK. That carries five to zero.

Thank you very much, everyone.

Thank you.

The End

And the

Music Playing

Music playing

and Michael

Coming back into session, we're moving on to

There again, first of two readings, Brian Aluska presenting.

I do want to point out that a representative of the applicant, of the owner of that property is available as well.

For this?

strikes me as really limiting the developable rights of the property owner.

And ultimately we'll discuss that at the place of commission.

So why is that not being considered?

Yes.

Thank you.

Or not the applicant, but the party.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So has the property been rezoned?

revisions to the Water Street District regulations that same night, but they had not been publicly advertised, so it was first required to go back through the process, publicly advertise them, have them go through the Planning Commission.

Can you give those quickly?

And along Water Street, it would be stepped back 25 feet, which is consistent with the existing setbacks for other buildings along Water Street.

Did you mean South Street?

could front on any of those streets, Ridge Street.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Any others?

No?

Thank you.

Okay, we have condition Ms. Long opening public hearing, Jean Hyatt, and any others who would like to sign up please or come just wait a minute.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Again, I wasn't asked to come here tonight, but I think it's important that you know what we've been thinking because we've all been working so hard together for several years to get this right, so thank you.

Okay, we'll close the public hearing.

I'd like to make a motion.

Wonderful.

changes with the expectation that private owners would do certain things that they haven't done and in this case you really have and so I really appreciate your kind of holding true to this process and again appreciate the Planning Commission's vetting it for us but I'm happy that this is what we have before us.

I second that Mr. Mayor and I second the sentiments as well.

Okay, that is all we need to do and we all second the sentiment as well.

We now move on to item five, report urban deer management.

Kocha?

It's never been this pronounced before.

That's fine.

Totally self-evident.

I know.

I say it with an invisible Z in the middle of my name.

I will tell you that...

I'm sorry I didn't catch your name.

David.

David.

Kochka.

Kochka.

I understand.

But we do have your entire written report, so we have read that.

So yeah, this one as soon as we get it loaded here.

Those are funny looking deer.

Those are predators.

Natural predators.

That's just our council meeting agenda.

Yeah, that's the document that I sent you.

Harvest since 1947 when records were kept through currently and basically we're killing roughly between 200 and 250,000 deer through legal hunting every year.

This doesn't count cars?

So it's just another index we use.

And that's not per population.

No pun intended.

It's exceedingly safe.

These guys do stuff all around the globe, but especially throughout the country.

supports urban hunting or hunting in principle?

That's my presentation.

people hired and trained to do so in a way that is to promote the safety of the public.

In the city of Harrisonburg, they're killing probably 40 or 50 deer on an average year, but those are 40 or 50 deer that aren't either eating somebody's garden or in the grill of somebody's car.

First of all, even if we did, and we're not making a decision tonight anyway, but even if we did look at going at that approach, it wouldn't happen until not this coming fall, but the following fall, because we didn't ask in April.