City Council Meeting   3/26/2024

Tuesday, March 26, 2024 City Council meeting to order.

Mayor Reed.

President.

City Manager Banks.

Here.

Vice Mayor Dent.

Here.

Council Member Fleming.

Here.

Council Member Robinson.

Here.

Chief Warner.

Here.

If you would please stand for the invocation if you wish.

Father God, we come to you with gratitude

Thank you for gathering us here in this place.

Give us the wisdom, the strength, and the courage to do what is right and good for our city.

May we put the interests of others above our own.

May we act with love.

In your name I pray.

Amen.

Okay, we have no special recognitions today this evening.

So we'll go straight into our consent agenda.

Any item placed on the consent agenda shall be removed, taken up as a separate matter if so requested by any member of council.

Otherwise, all items will be voted on with one motion.

and I will say we have some special events in here.

We do have Matt here.

We have any questions.

Council.

Madam Mayor, I move to approve the consent agenda as presented.

I'll second that.

Roll call please, Pam.

Council Member Robinson.

Aye.

Council Member Fleming.

Aye.

Council Member Jones.

Aye.

Aye.

Don't you love it, Matt?

You're welcome.

All right, we'll go into our public hearings.

Our first item is item 6A.

These are for

addresses on Port Republic Road and include a rezoning to the R-8 district and a special use permit to allow townhomes in the R-8 district.

The screen here before you shows the area of the request bound and in red.

You can see the property is currently zoned R-1 single family district and I'll walk through some other photos here where you'll see the rooftops of the

Existing single family detached dwellings where most of the green address points are on this map.

The CVS is to the north of here and then you have the community health center near the bottom of the page just for some orientation.

Future land use guide shows that this property, the majority of it is in that light green color, the low density mixed residential.

Along the frontage, the comprehensive plan calls for that area to be limited commercial.

and then this is the aerial photo of the site and some photos of the site standing near Port Republic Road looking at the site.

You can see the rolling hills there.

If this request is approved the way the applicant has submitted their request, they intend to subdivide to create a development similar here.

Again, this is a conceptual layout is not proffered.

but there are elements of it that are proffered that I'll walk through with you all.

This conceptual layout shows proposed single family detached home lots, duplex lots and town home lots and a public and private street network through the site.

They show here that the public street network that they propose would have connections into the existing neighborhood at Decca Drive as well as to Skylark and then another public street connection to Port Republic Road.

Additionally, they're showing that they would plan for the public street to stub out into the adjacent lot that is not part of their development, so that if and when a future development were to come to the top of the page there, they could connect into the street network, creating this gridded connection between all the neighborhoods and the areas here.

During this presentation you'll hear myself as well as the development team talk about the flood plain or the low area here and I just wanted to touch make a touch point with you all on it.

So parallel to Port Republic Road, so within the image in the right corner here is where the flood plain is and you can see in this image Port Republic Road is where the power lines is, that's where the shared use path is and then the land drops and there's a low point there where there's a

a little bit of a drainage area in the flood plain.

They are in the conceptual layout.

You'll see that they're not proposing to build any homes within that area, but it will come up in discussion.

So as I walk through the 17 proffers, I'll summarize them and walk you through with some images here.

With the first proffer, they've proffered that they would not exceed 128 dwelling units on this 20-ish acre site.

The second proffer talks about the types of dwelling units and where they would be allowed within the site.

So the first part of proffer number two is describing that this like blue area here in area A would be where the single family detached homes would be restricted to.

In this kind of peach light color that area could have duplexes.

within that area as well as single family homes in that area.

So it's an or, it's either of the kinds that conceptual layout does show duplexes.

And then in the final area that's uncolored, they are saying that that area could have town homes and there would be no more than 75 town homes total within that area.

With proffer number three, they are describing that they would provide landscaping adjacent to the single family development that exists, so around the property, so that's what that red line represents there.

With proffer number four, they're describing that they would provide a bus stop and bus shelter somewhere along Port Republic Road at a location that would be found acceptable to the Department of Public Transportation.

and that would be determined later on at the site plan or the engineered site plan phase.

With proffer number five, we're talking about the public street connections, shown here in red.

The other streets through the site are proposed private streets.

So they would provide with this development, this public streets that would connect with the existing neighborhoods and the Port Republic Road and so on, as well as dedicate the right way for this public street network and dedicate

the right of way for what we're calling the future extension of Westmoreland Drive.

So we wanted to, we, the city staff, talked to the developer about staff's desire to have, when a new development to the top of the page, so North here would develop, we didn't want to have another entrance serving that development that would be offset from Westmoreland Drive.

So the applicant here understood what we were asking for and our concerns and so they're willing to dedicate the

future right-of-way for Westmoreland Drive extended, even though they don't need it to serve their development.

And with that, this applicant would not be constructing that.

They're just dedicating that right-of-way for the future connection.

With proffer number six, it's describing when the connections to Skylark and DECA Drive would be required, and that would be based on a number of certificates of occupancies issued.

and proffer number seven.

They have proffer that they would have a common area or park area here adjacent to Port Republic Road.

So that, you know, predominantly green area that you see there.

Also with proffer eight, they would have street trees along the public street frontages within their site.

Proffer number nine talks about construction of the connections into

Drive, and Skylark Lane, and acknowledging also that there are some offsite improvements that are required, which I'll talk about here in the next slide.

So when the Decca Drive, the neighborhood that is where Decca Drive is, and the separate neighborhood, I guess there's separate development where Skylark Lane is, when they were, that street was constructed, or both of those streets were constructed, they stopped short of the property line.

The right-of-way was dedicated, but the pavement did not extend all the way to the property line, and the sidewalk was not either.

And part of that reason is because of the grading that is needed, they would have had to encroach on to this subject property in order to bring the pavement all the way up.

So as this proposed development, if it were to get approved, when they make those connections,

they would be connecting into the 20 plus feet of adding that 20 foot piece of length of pavement needed to connect to where Decca Drive and Skylark Lane currently end today as well as constructing sidewalk on one side of those streets.

Then with proffer number 10, they are proffering that they would have sidewalks on one side of all the private streets and on both sides of the public streets.

Again, the public streets they are shown in the red and the remaining streets in the development are private that are not colored.

Proffer 11 would restrict construction access during site development to Port Republic Road.

This was to address concerns from, you know, the existing residential neighborhoods, not one in construction vehicles going through Decadrive and Skylight and those other streets that, you know, all the construction vehicles would come in through Port Republic Road.

With proffer number 12, there's a proffer to construct a turn lane there to serve the new public street into the development.

It's a 100 foot right turn taper there.

Proffer number, what number am I on now?

Proffer number 14 is talking about a five foot wide pedestrian connection between Port Republic Road getting into the site.

They're generally through this area and that would cross

that low area where the floodplain is that I described earlier, and it could include a pedestrian bridge if needed.

Proffer number 15 talks about reserving construction easements to street stubs to the north.

So that is to allow that the future development to the north, when they needed to connect into this development, that they would have the sufficient right of way and easements to make those connections.

16 talks about installing 15 mile per hour speed limit signs on private streets as part of neighborhood traffic calming and then number 17 talks about public access easements along the private sidewalks through the site as well.

As we get to the staff recommendation here,

The screen here says that staff's recommendation is to deny both of the request.

We acknowledge that we have worked very closely with the developer to get to the proposal that they have shown, you know, talking about the street network that we want and they have made the proffers related to the street network which we're satisfied with.

Staff's recommendation to deny really has to do with the conformance or lack of conformance in our opinion.

with the comprehensive plans designation for low density mixed residential.

The low density mixed residential calls for single family homes and duplex homes here.

It does not make reference to town homes being in this area.

And know that the density of the development is close to what the low density mixed residential is.

So it's really about the dwelling unit types.

which is the reason for staff's recommendation to deny this particular request.

The conceptual layout illustrates that 57.8% of the development would be town homes, so the majority of the development or the number of units proposed would be town homes.

Additionally, there are already 584 town home units, so to speak, in the pipeline.

Specifically, what I mean by that is that 158 town home units have received use approval from city council since January 2021.

And that date's important because that's when the housing study was adopted.

So that's, since that date, there's been multiple developments throughout the city that have

proposed townhome units.

The majority, I will share that I didn't include it in the staff report, but know that the majority of those townhome units are with the Bluestone Town Center, but there are townhome units in other places throughout the city.

And so we feel that, you know, given the lower number, the amount of townhomes that are already in the pipeline that are proposed,

and given the lower number of single family detached and duplex dwellings that have been given use approval or that we see some movement on, which you can see here in this table, there's a low number of 5.9% single family detached and 1.6% of duplexes or of the use approved units are duplexes.

We feel that the subject property doesn't need to be rezoned to allow more townhome developments at this time.

So staff recommends denial of both requests.

However, Planning Commission did recommend approval.

It was a split vote.

There were six members present.

Chair Finnegan was not present at this meeting.

Yeah, so the two individuals that denied were or recommended denial were Commissioner Bond, Commissioner Armstrong.

Some of the things that I took a look at the minutes this afternoon to remind myself and some of the notes that I took here was you know commissioner ball questioned if there was some discussion about You know increasing density another commissioner made a reference of increasing density You know makes things more affordable and commissioner ball questioned if affordability is Means all density all the time.

Is that the approach that we should take?

made note to staff's point about their other town homes already in the pipeline and a comment that, you know, if there are spots where we want to hold the ground on planning, this might be this location.

Commissioner Armstrong had concerns about, you know, this particular development being described as a higher end housing and not providing mid-level housing that she felt was needed to serve local populations

Can you go back one slide?

Because I'm kind of interested in what we do have, what do we have in the pipeline of what we have already approved

when it comes down to everything, to be honest.

I said this in our briefing.

We have a lot of developments coming our way, and so we need to be making sure that we're accommodating all types of housing.

We know that we have approved so much, I guess, since 2021, but what exactly is that?

What do we have waiting for us in the pipeline so that we know where we get to the point when it's too much of one thing?

You understand what I'm saying?

So I would be more interested in those numbers, because I know you're answering the question from the audience.

You'll get up here.

I mean, you know what?

That's where my head is right now because we got so much coming.

I mean, we got a couple on tonight that's coming our way.

I would be very interested to see what is what is there.

So are you interested in just for Claire to help me get you the information that you need?

Are you interested in like a list of

Projects with the type of unit since 2021.

We have, but you know, I think I think we need to revisit it because we need for me is I don't think we have to approve every single thing that comes our way.

I think we need to be strategic about what we're doing.

And if we're having, you know, if

Low density is something that we need to be looking at and I think we need to know what is in the pipeline coming that hasn't been developed yet.

So by right, what would they have by right to build on this property?

So there's kind of a margin increase, right?

So they can build something by right and then there's this, you know, offer here.

So part of this is what is the margin increase over what's by right there about.

Okay, so this development is just short of 20 acres.

So it's 19 point something acres.

With the given zoning of R1, which requires 10,000 square foot lots.

So just like

Rufson math, not considering, you know, a lot of widths and depths that are required, not considering public streets or stormwater management facilities, just a raw math there.

It's over 80 units compared to their 128 units that they're proposing.

But I don't know that the 80 units is even a fair number.

It's probably going to be lower than that, just given the public street network and the open area where they're not going to build where the floodplain is.

But I believe, Tom, you mentioned that the density is actually close to what would be allowed by right.

That's right.

Not by right, but their proposed density is close to what the comprehensive plan calls for with the low density mixed residential.

I don't want to quote the wrong number, but it's about six point something units per acre, but let me look real quick.

Comprehensive Plan calls for around seven dwelling units per acre.

Yeah.

Any other questions?

Thank you.

Thank you.

I will now open this item up for public hearing.

If anyone wishes to speak, please state your name and address.

I told you you were going to get up here.

I've got just the information you're looking for Madam Mayor.

I'm sure you do.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of council and city officials.

I'm Todd Ray with the firm of Clark and Bradshaw, 92 North Liberty Street in Harrisonburg.

Here with me tonight is Mark Giganti and Amy Polk with Evergreen Homes.

You all may know Evergreen as a developer out of Preston Lake.

So for the past decade, Evergreen has been the sole residential builder for Preston Lake, which contains a mix of single family

attached duplex and town home communities.

Craig George with Valley Engineering is our engineer on this project.

Craig is also here this evening so we can answer any questions you all have on an engineering front.

And this is Preston Lakes in the county.

Just east of the city off of Route 33.

We've got a presentation, Mark's going to start with the Evergreen Home Product, introduce himself and their vision for this community.

And then I'm going to step back in and talk a little bit about the land use.

We don't like coming before city council with a staff recommendation for Nile.

And so we would like to cover some of those points, give the perspective of what we've worked on over the past six months to get to this point, including our 17 proffers responsive to

Staff Concerns, and why we feel like this product merits approval as consistent with the comp plan.

With that said, Mark, take it over.

I'm Mark Giganti.

I'm the Chief Operating Officer of Evergreen Homes.

As he mentioned, we've been involved with Preston Lake for a little over 10 years.

Just a little bit about us.

Total Evergreen Homes built a little over 2,000 homes.

We're located mostly in Virginia and on the Delaware Shore and a little bit of Maryland.

outside the Capitol Beltway.

I'll go to a little bit more detail later, but basically it's privately owned and operated.

The senior management team has a little over a hundred years experience working for nationals, locals, regional builders, and what this group does is we create communities.

So we don't do everyday normal massive communities.

We do a lot of smaller ones, medium sized ones, but we really spent a lot of time on design.

What do people want?

You know, it's an ever-changing, the home building world is changing every minute, it seems, especially since COVID with the design of homes.

So we kind of take a lot of experience and kind of put that in there and we put some, some communities out there.

Everybody's proud of Preston Lake is, is a local example of that.

What's, I got a slide here.

Which one, Laura?

Click it.

Oh, there we go.

I covered that.

where we built, like I said, the capital region is the biggest area, which is based in northern Virginia.

It goes all the way out through Loudoun County.

We have a fairly large presence in Lake Anna and we have a bigger presence down here with this community coming on.

We did have a little bit of stuff in North Carolina, but that's been finished up.

Our coastal division is located in Bethany Beach, Delaware and occurs pretty much up and down the Maryland and Delaware coast within a mile or two of the

of the Coastal Highway.

And that is something that came on about eight years ago and has been growing ever since.

Our mainstay of homes are single families, duplexes, and in town homes.

And I have a, well, I'll just jump to the next slide and get some of that.

This is some of the architecture you see.

Some of that's at Preston Lake.

Some of it isn't.

is kind of a mix, but you can drive our communities and pick out our houses.

From the operations side, I always tease them.

That's because we have more windows than anybody, but we put a lot of features on the outside house.

So we take the time and the money to make these communities look better than what everybody else does.

I'm going to do some of the bigger ones.

It's basically, it's 28 duplexes, 26 single families in 75 townhomes.

We feel it's a great mix.

We've kind of bordered it with the single families as well as the landscape buffer.

We worked with the planning commission and the planning staff.

This is probably the 15th design.

So just kind of working the road network kind of

We sat down, we tried to give everybody what everybody wants.

And then we kind of put it all in the bag and see what comes up.

But I think there's some future dedications which are made.

There's a good connection to Port Republic Road, the D-cell lane coming off of Port Republic Road.

The connection points to the existing communities.

And again, one important thing to us is, as long as we're allowed, we would actually block off access, which would stop construction traffic going through any adjoining neighborhoods.

One way to not have a problem is to not let one happen.

We deal with this on a daily basis.

without further development on the top end of this.

There's kind of two access points, Deca and Port Road.

Deca access to me seems like it's going to be busy.

Obviously people who are coming from the south will head over there.

So what's the trigger on that certificate of occupancy number?

So when that will open up?

40th.

So Skylark were open first, which is by age down, into ashrim meadows.

Okay, so 40 for Skylark, you said, and then 80 for Deca.

And of course, that's going to be a different point of access, pretty significantly different.

And once Deca's opened up, there'll be a lot of folks coming there who might have wound around the project.

So he says there's a 15 mile an hour speed limit on Deca.

It's on the street and I think there's also a proffer that wasn't touched on in the staff report.

We're putting speed tables at the point where Deca comes out of that neighborhood into our neighborhood and similarly on Skylark.

Kind of like on Wolf Street as you're going up the hill there to hilltop, you know those traffic table intersections are on Dogwood so that we're gonna

It's always the trade-off.

You want an interconnected street network, but that means people are going to be driving through neighborhoods.

So you can't sort of have both problems solved.

You try to mitigate and public works most important feature with this was making sure that that public street network was interconnected.

so that disperses traffic, not just dumping everything onto Port Road at one time.

That does cause some inconveniences to neighbors, but those neighborhood streets were stubbed out to provide for that.

So on the single families are 490 to 520 and we're early.

We're not everything is finished.

So

There's all for sale townhomes?

You don't want to do it if it's R1?

Well, it just doesn't work.

It's kind of unique to be able to do this and still stay under the density.

Maybe asking a kind of following along the line of Councilman Jones and it sounds like you guys have worked well with our planning staff or development staff and kind of coming through and kind of 15

which I don't know what's a top end of the number of proffers from my point of view or adjustments.

So what's keeping you from addressing or stepping further into what staff has talked about?

Just first about staff I've done a lot of rezoning I've been to a lot of public hearings and about every county you can name in and around Washington DC and they're actually the nicest people we've ever dealt with I mean

They actually roll up their sleeves, and I'm not just saying that, even though she denied it, but I'm still saying that.

It really was, it's just different.

It's just not something that you're accustomed to.

So I want to say thank you.

That was very important because it really makes it a lot simpler.

It's not a battle.

It's a, you're working together.

Now with regards to the part about the talent, I mean, it's an economy of scale.

I mean, it's nothing, I mean, with all the changes in the industry,

It becomes a mathematical equation.

And you just can't make the numbers work.

Nothing has gone down.

Nothing has gone down in price.

And it continues to go up.

We have another community that we're dealing with a power company.

If you knew what the cost to deal with power companies, I've never seen anything this expensive in my life.

And it's all part of the deal.

And it's the end user that pays this.

You know, I mean, builder's room is to make money, but the math just doesn't, and I said that, I didn't mean that's kind of a in-house term, the math doesn't work, but the economy of scale is just, isn't there?

I just like to deal straight.

Right, so that's the question, you know, you know what I'm saying, you know, we've hit the margin that this workable for us is kind of, I guess, the answer for that, as you're suggesting it.

You know, looking at the higher end of the single family homes there, is that based on some market assessment you guys have done in the area?

I mean, we're pretty good, I mean, after 10 years, we know what the costs are down here.

And one of the struggles that you have is the sizable trade base.

So we've worked over the last 10 years to be able to bring

a trade base down there that we're not paying to come down, which when you start in an area outside, that's what happens.

So just the pricing of the homes is half market driven.

I mean, it's what's there.

We build a little bit higher end product and a really higher end product.

So we don't really build a lower end product.

So those numbers we felt when we did the original performers, there's every one of those 15

Gyrations has a set of performers that go with it, so those are the final numbers that we have as of today based on that design.

It is a fairly good, we think it's a fairly good product mix also.

Is there a time frame that you're thinking of generally for this?

Well that's a, if I could predict all of that, I would have been retired by now.

I mean we look to do,

each product type part of the performance what is your sales rate and you know we've had a lot of success at Preston Lake it goes really well then it drops and it goes pretty well so we've tried to play the market to keep it steady the deal is when you start you work through until it's finished you want to set a rate that you go that you're not starting and stopping a lot so and that's just a killer for sales it's killer for the community

On the development side of the community, I believe it was talked about developing in two phases.

That's not finalized yet.

But, you know, most of the time, just you don't need all those lots at one time.

I think the phasing was kind of doing the rim, the single family homes first.

How many single family duplexes in townhomes?

Three bedroom townhomes.

There's optional bedrooms on some main levels, but basically they're three bedroom townhomes.

What was the square footed on a single family?

Wow, that's a good question.

1680 to 2350.

And everything is up to three bedrooms?

Oh, single families are four bedrooms.

Single families detached are four bedrooms, single families are attached to the three.

We have some, we have some bigger product that we have at Preston Lake, but it really jumps up at a price.

The problem is I don't have any, well, my old mayor and old vice mayor said it best here.

I'm going to quote him.

He said, I do not know that it has been decided that the answer is just all affordability, all density, all the time.

So it's not to say that this plan is bad.

It's actually wonderful.

The question though becomes, will you ever build a neighborhood with traditional homes again?

or will you just always go to all density, all affordability, all the time?

When we already have a rap sheet of these types of projects already built.

But at some point, is it a race to just get the builder to pencil out?

Or is it about us controlling what the community looks like to some degree?

Because to staff's point, we've already

We're not you're not feeling a need right at some point you're just filling space Because it's not because it's not offering a new product.

You're not you're not satisfying anything So that's just something to consider because and this is what and it's funny because this is this was my argument in 2019 2020 and 21 and that Yeah, I want to prove as much as we can on the whole spectrum

but maybe we've saturated, is it possible that we have saturated this part of the spectrum?

Now we don't have as many luxury town homes, so that is a part of the spectrum.

So I can appreciate that.

But at some point, we only got 17.4 square miles.

So where will you be able to build out?

And as a, and in the traditional home buyer,

looking for a traditional detached single-family home.

Unless you're a single individual or you're looking for a small-sized family, 1600 to 2000 ain't it.

I mean, it's a good-sized home, it's nice.

I mean, everybody ain't got a million kids like me, so I don't expect everybody to need an old big house, but the fact of the matter is, that's basically just a townhouse that ain't put together.

And this is what I remember Dick Blackwell talking about when we first added our eight years and years and years ago.

So this is a way to go.

But I do think it's something for us to consider whether we just race to fill up the sheet because the steel doesn't actually make anybody move dirt.

So that's where I'm coming from.

I do want to get through your public hearing because I think this is going to be more of a discussion piece after we get through the public hearing.

I absolutely do Madam Mayor and I want to talk about these points because these are all land use points that myself in working with staff and in particular in this project have worked through in a lot of detail and were covered in a lot of detail through the proffers and in discussions at the Planning Commission meeting

Yeah, there were two people who voted to deny, but there are four people who voted in favor.

And I thought they had equally valid reasons that I don't think have been discussed tonight, focusing on Commissioner Ball and Commissioner Armstrong's comments.

This is the process that we go through.

It's a six month process.

It's an iterative process.

So this is not a developer who just came to the city and said, this is my way or the highway.

We went through community meetings.

We revised our plan.

We actually reduced density throughout these discussions.

It started out at 150 units.

It's now down to 128 units, which gets us under the comp plan 7 units per acre target for the mixed density residential area.

If you look at this area too, the only thing left between Peach Grove and this site on the north is the Eagle Carpet property.

And that is targeted in

the Comprehensive Plan for 24 units per acre density.

So that's a dense corridor.

If this is just our eight single family, there's almost no room to transition that from the single family neighborhoods to basically large apartments.

You have yellow to the north and south on each side of Port Republic Road.

Those are your traditional suburban neighborhoods.

They're like 2.3 units per acre.

They're nowhere close to the density targets called for in the site plan.

And that is why this plan was developed as a stepped up transition.

It was very thoughtfully done.

And there's a large section along Port Road that was slated for commercial that can't be developed due to the floodplain.

The floodplain starts on this property and runs down toward Peach Grove where CVS and McDonald's is.

You'll see those developers covered up

the floodplain and put big tanks underground and covered in concrete.

This development leaves that as open space and protects that environmentally sensitive area as a community park.

The question came up in staff.

Okay, what's the next step up between low density mixed residential and medium density residential?

You know, in talking about should we have a comp plan amendment in connection with this application?

But the next highest, higher designation is medium density residential.

That goes all the way to 15.

So we're hitting the target of seven, squarely on the nose, consistent with the site plan.

And if you take the text of what's described, what you're looking for in the low density mixed residential neighborhood, we hit all those points.

The interconnection, the green spaces, the production of environmental resources,

It's a well thought out community.

In terms of land use, the single family and town home areas are roughly the same.

And here's the kicker, here's why there's townhouses and here's where we get into the market.

When the comp plan was developed using 2017-2018 data, your median town home was 140,000 bucks.

Your median detached residential is 210.

Today, the median townhome is 215.

So your median townhome is right about where the median single family residential was seven, eight years ago.

Your median detached at 350 means that what folks can afford, what your median citizen can afford, is pushed down to the townhome level.

That is the widest range of buyers.

That's why there is more supply of town homes coming into the market.

We also had this discussion about, here's the list.

Here's what city council has approved over the last seven years.

The vast bulk of it is in Bluestone Town Center.

When we were in the planning commission, Commissioner Washington, when she was discussing her vote to approve, made a good point that I missed.

I missed the planning commission.

I filled it in for me and so I'm going to bring it to everyone's attention tonight in that the discussion was sure there's townhouses but it ought to be spread out throughout the city we don't want this concentration of density all in one area so we pulled the data if you take Bluestone Town Center out of the equation it is all spread out these are all smaller projects there's not a mass of town homes coming on to the market outside of Bluestone you've got Wilson Avenue

Someone Vine Street, Tuscan Village, which was here a couple months ago along with Pleasant Hill and Cobbler's Valley, nothing on Port Road in the town home market.

These folks are building for the JMU professors, the hospital administrators at Preston Lake.

There's no comparable new construction available in the city of Harrisonburg for those folks.

And so, again,

It's not all density all the time, but it's a very attractive, well thought out density that benefits a portion of the housing market that pretty much none of these other than Tuscan Village really addresses and there's nothing around it.

So we feel like there were good points made at Planning Commission in favor.

We've done all we can.

This is this is proffered so that there's no fear that what

is being proposed won't be built.

We've made every effort.

The only thing is, is that text of what should be in low density mixed residential, but we check every other single box.

Is there anyone else who wish to speak?

Join this public hearing.

One moment, please.

Thank you.

Well, Madam Mayor, I'd like to chime in now because I didn't really have questions having gone through it in planning commission.

I really like this project along with some others like Tuscan Village that have a mix of densities and therefore within a granted mid to high range by default kind of a mixed income.

And I love Commissioner Washington's point that

that, well actually we'll just talk about what I like about this, that the outer rim is the single family so it blends in with the neighborhood and the density sort of gradually increases towards the area that's already planned for high density student housing and this is not student housing.

This I think would go a long way towards the

problem we've had of mid to high range people like professors or hospital administrators who can't even get jobs here because they can't find housing.

Dany and I were talking about this.

So anyway, Commissioner Washington was talking about in today's reality, buying a single family detached home is not everyone's reality.

That argument, too many town homes just sounds bogus to me.

And I agree, I think

What I've said in a number of times to these development proposals is town homes are apparently becoming the new starter home.

So it gives people a path to home ownership that they might not have otherwise.

And I also had forgotten that the mix was single family duplex to town home.

So again, there's that gradual increase of density towards the core of it while maintaining the neighborhood character on the outside.

Now one thing I do want to mention and we'll talk about this some later is the HRMPO is proposing a small area study of the holistic traffic patterns of the plethora of planned developments in the area and how to mitigate them.

So it's a known problem and there's a higher level study to address it and how that might interact with the developments.

We don't know yet.

but there could be, for instance, since it's a study grant, could there be federal funding for things like the bus pad, like we were talking about?

So I think that there's attention being paid to this area because there's so much development pressure about to happen and that's not a reason to stop it or even delay it, I don't think, it's just a matter of how can the traffic mitigation work with what we're already planning.

strongly in favor of this.

I really like, as I say, the pattern of the mixed density, mixed unit types, because that creates a cohesive mixed community that's not all segregated or siloed, as Commissioner Washington says.

So I'm not saying that.

I just want to be clear of what I'm saying.

It doesn't have anything to do with this development or any other.

I think that at some point that we need to look at what we have in the pipeline so that we can make sure that we're making these strategic decisions.

You understand?

You know, I'm not downing this.

Although, I will say, you know, for me, making sure that, you know, town homes throughout the city, okay,

affordability throughout the city as well.

Because I don't want to, you know, I said this ever since I've been sitting in this chair, you shouldn't look at a neighborhood like some people look at mine and say, oh, that's where the low income housing is or whatever.

Affordability should be throughout the city.

So that's my soapbox.

But I do know and I know our

I'm here just weighing the pros and cons and kind of trying to absorb all of this information and What my concern is well, there's a couple of things one is Like Mary I'm always looking at price point And I'm looking at who needs housing and where we need that housing and

and I understand that there's a need for available housing but also a need for housing for, like you said, folks who are working at the hospital or JMU young professionals.

But I'm concerned about the speed at which we have approved so many developments without taking the time to say, okay, let's take a look at our needs as a city.

What do we need?

I mean, are we approving the right types of developments or like Mayor Reed and Councilman Jones was saying, do we need any more of that in that area?

And it's really hard when you have so much information here that you need to absorb that we're not all experts on, but

What I feel we're tasked with is looking at these proposals, listening to what Planning Commission is saying, listening to what Tawn is saying, and then using that information, even though our master plan is outdated, to still try to say

are we moving too fast or do we need to slow down a bit and re-evaluate the needs of the city because I feel like we've been going since I've been on council

I mean, I came in thinking, housing, housing, housing, housing.

So whenever there was a development, I very much wanted to try to make sure that I had my eyes and ears open.

But then I'm also very concerned about elitist type neighborhoods that still seem to be popping up.

Mary touched on that a bit when she said, when you look at a neighborhood, like where I live, can you say, oh, I know who lives there, what type of people live there.

When I think about equity, I think about neighborhoods for all.

I think about neighborhoods where we're all mixed into that equation where you don't know if I make $10 a year,

or if I make $310,000 a year.

So I also look for some equity pieces in this development scenario here.

So there's just a lot that needs to come into play when you're trying to decide for the whole city if this is where we should be going in terms of the housing study, our outdated comprehensive plan,

So I'll continue the conversation we were having earlier today.

The reality is people are buying cars and houses with interest rates going through the roof.

They didn't even move.

So houses are gone in less than a week.

So this notion of what people can and can't afford, I'm not exactly sure.

What I do know is what people are buying.

And the reality is outside of that door, any of us could sell our car in probably 24 hours and you could probably sell your house within a week.

So while we continue to have this conversation about folks that are marginal,

or an Alice population in these various populations that are vulnerable, I agree with.

Yes, we need to help everybody.

That's why I always talk about the whole spectrum.

But the fact of the matter is, there are certain people in that spectrum that will never live in Harrisonburg because we don't provide R1.

And so they move to Rockingham County and they work here and go there and pay their taxes and build their house out there.

Period.

We do not provide a product.

We do not provide a product.

because we have been focused on so much density and so much, quote, unquote, affordability.

When, again, I stress affordability is what you can afford.

I mean, the market is proving that.

Again, you go to any car lot that's selling cars left and right.

Who's buying them?

and we're selling ounces as fast as we can get them online.

So this concept, I feel like we are having a mythical conversation and then there's a reality in the market, right?

And so the market is saying, bring it on because the people are saying that.

So something has happened and news flash, most people aren't paying cash.

So people are going to the bank, borrowing this money and choosing to not use it in the city of Harrisonburg when it comes to R1.

and I've been saying that for years because it took me forever to find a home looking for an R1 home.

And I still had to add, not add to it, but like I had to finish out part of my home to make it complete for my family.

My point is this, the county is growing in all of these levels, which is how they stand in here right now today, because they're a county builder.

So now he's bringing it into the city, which is great.

I wish he would have started here, but they didn't.

So the fact of the matter is, now we're in a position where some are in a place where, okay, that R1, maybe they've tapped out in the county.

I don't know, I'm not keeping up with the county.

It's hard enough to keep up with the city.

But those folks that Dany was mentioning, when those individuals are looking for housing, when they're looking for a larger home, or just more space, we're not even in the game.

because we haven't set up for those individuals to be on that list.

We've looked out for veterans.

We've looked out for seniors.

We've done high density.

We've done townhomes.

We've done duplexes.

We've done all types of things.

But if we keep pushing those folks out, you're never going to get them.

And at some point, you do need them to be a part of your tax base as well.

So that's, I'm not necessarily for or against the project.

I'm challenging us to think at what point do we want to give up our R1 and continuously give it up in the name of, quote, affordability or do we want to set a price point in Harrisonburg and then keep leaning on the 60%, I'm sorry, the 40% that aren't in the house population to carry a tax base.

So at what point are you going to say, hey, we need some other folks to help offset things as well?

But you're not inviting them to the party because you're telling them, hey, you can't live here because I don't have a product for you.

And there's no future product in the pipeline for you.

So at some point, we just got to address that question.

And if it's something we don't want to do, that's fine.

But I can't say that that's something I ever want to do.

I believe in the whole spectrum, just like I believe in selling all types of cars.

I want us to sell all types of homes.

I want us to have all types of jobs and to me that's actually the equity.

Because I shouldn't create a space where if someone wants a high-end product, I want us to have it.

Versus... And because I can appreciate what's being said about the aesthetics of neighborhoods and

What would be the right word?

Aesthetics and the, I guess, stereotype, quite honestly, that goes around.

But we can't do anything about that, right?

We can't change that, right?

Because whatever the stereotype is or whatever play people put in their mind to how they want to discuss that, that's one thing.

But the numbers don't lie.

So people are buying literally any types of houses and any types of land that's being put out there.

That's, again, why we're having this conversation right now.

So I think it's up to us to shape our city.

And so how do you want to keep shaping it?

And nobody likes to build stuff more than me.

But at some point, you've got to build different stuff, I think.

So I would even maybe even like this same product in a different space.

Because I think the product is fine.

And the stair steps within the product and the neighborhood that they're proposing is fine.

But again, do I need that to dump out onto Port Republic Road?

and Dr.

and you will have all of this density and you have created a, you then have created the suburbs, right?

Because you said, hey, no big houses, no traditional neighborhoods, all density.

So then what's that?

That's an urban center.

And now you've literally created your own suburb within, you've made Rockingham County the suburbs and you've made yourself just the core city, which could be fine.

There's nothing wrong with that.

I love that, um, excuse me, I love that other view of equity.

I like that.

Thank you, sis.

Yeah, well, I think, one, I think, you know, we do have some information about our needs.

That was what the housing study did, really.

And maybe it's a little dated now.

But, you know, I think it's a reasonable document for us to look at and say we have some idea of what our needs are.

And they are across the spectrum.

and, you know, to have a city that's diverse in all sorts of ways and be able to have professionals that live in this city.

You know, we need housing that supports that.

Vice Mayor Dent was mentioning, you know, there's a critical nonprofit in Harrisonburg that is filling an executive director position.

They offered a position.

She came here to look for a house.

and couldn't find it and turned down the position.

It's now left the city and they're trying to figure out how to fill that exact objective position.

Again, someone who might have fit kind of within this product line potentially.

So I think we know there is definitely a need for products across the board.

I think we get to this question of, man, how big a pipeline do we create?

What's going to happen?

You know, we keep adding to this and you know, I think some of it is and maybe Tom can give some input on this and you probably can't answer it entirely, a little bit of a rhetorical question but you know, our builder is going to build if there's already a glut on the market, right?

So we built some housing and the pipeline

you know, hasn't finished building and so folks keep building products.

Are they going to build products that don't have folks to move into them?

Do they build empty spaces out there in general?

I think builders tend to say, well, you know, I'll look at what the market is there.

So the idea that we would be building so many units that have no one to move into them doesn't seem very likely.

I mean, Todd,

And the worst part, Dan, is this, if the rezoning changes, you change it from R1 to R8 and they don't build, now you've bumped out the opportunity for the single family home, and you force yourself to the density, then they sit on it, until it can be flipped.

So then you get nothing.

So I think we're going down a rabbit hole.

and which I did not mean to do.

I just said that this has nothing to do with your development.

What I was saying is at some point we need to revisit it so that we can make strategic decisions.

It's not against your development because I feel like that is going in all different directions.

We just need to deal with this particular development.

So let's go ahead and

What I was saying is not against what this development is.

So I feel like y'all trying to go somewhere that I wasn't trying to go.

Okay, Madam Mayor, I move to approve the request from PRR1 LLC to rezone 1211, 1225, 1245 and 1261 Port Republic Road as

I'll second that and just, you know, just to finish a comment.

I mean, I do think that, you know, Councilman Jenny said, this might be a product we could have elsewhere in the city, you know, in and of itself.

It's a nice product.

So kind of the idea of, is this the right area for it or not?

I think to me part of it is about the better and the best.

Do we push something out that is potentially a pretty good product because we want to work on the margins a little bit more and make it kind of the best product and I'm not sure if we can get there within the price points that folks are working with so that's kind of why I think I don't know

that this can be done here in a way that adds some portion of R1, additional R1s here that make it usable.

Maybe another 10 R1 units or another 15.

I'm not sure if that gets to there.

Yeah.

So I wouldn't be um so the study doesn't have any

Vice Mayor Dent?

Aye.

Council Member Robinson?

No.

No.

This next item is a request for a special use permit for a major family day home at 1451 College Avenue.

Just a little bit of background and a reminder about major family day homes are operated in the residence of a child care provider or the home of any children being watched and a major family day home is for

The number of children of five to twelve.

So if somebody was operating in home daycare and it had four or less children, it would be a minor family day home and they would just go get a business license and a home occupation permit from our office administratively.

They wouldn't have to come and get a city council approval.

So this is for five to twelve children being cared for in this home.

So the property is located on College Avenue.

residential neighborhood just north of Eastern Mennonite University.

You can see at the bottom of the page there, in the R3 institutional, that's where EMU is.

Land use guide, neighborhood, this is an aerial image of just the rooftops here.

In the applicant's letter, they describe that they are proposing to operate between 7.30 a.m.

to 4.30 p.m.

They would plan to care for the maximum of 12 children that would be allowed.

The parents would have the ability to park either in the driveway or along the side of the street to drop off and pick up the children.

The applicant is aware that in addition to the special use permit, they also would have to coordinate with the Virginia Department of Education for any licensing requirements that are required there.

Staff and Planning Commission.

Planning Commission recommended unanimously approval of the special use permit and we did not recommend any conditions.

Any questions?

Good evening, I am Laura and I am the one petitioning for the permit.

I'm excited to provide the service for these children that will need it.

Do we have any questions?

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Close public hearing.

Madam Mayor, I move that we approve the request from floor.

Hope I don't murder your name.

Sorry.

Um, Azuzina Bautista for a special use permit to allow a major family day home at 1451 College Avenue.

Second.

Well, I just mentioned in planning commission that we have the ARPA programs about education to help with the certification for child care.

And, Tom said she would put Ms.

Bautista in touch with it.

That could help.

She started the process.

Any other?

Vice Mayor Dent.

Aye.

Council Member Robinson.

Aye.

Council Member Fleming.

Aye.

Council Member Jones.

Aye.

Mayor Reed.

Aye.

All right, 60.

Mayor Reed.

Yes.

All right, 60.

So the property that we're looking at here is addressed at 705 and 707 North Main Street.

It is not the big, large rectangle there.

That property is the Strength and Peers property that you all heard several months ago or the one that was owned by HRHA to operate the recovery residence was the proposal with that rezoning request.

But it's that little, we're talking about the little outline in red there next to it.

that is part of a larger site or property that you all might recognize as Edwin's Auto Sales at the corner of Washington and North Main Street.

So as you can see in this image here, the property is currently zoned M1 and is surrounded by other properties also zoned M1.

The applicant is requesting to rezone just that outlined red portion of their site.

Let's see here.

So the comprehensive plan designates the red-bounded area that is the rezoning request as mixed use.

And you can see here the aerial photo of the site.

I'll show you some more images.

This is a drawing or a flat layout showing that the area that is requested for rezoning.

And you can see that the outlined red area surrounds the existing structure that is labeled as existing house.

and also includes this deck that's in the rear of the property here.

And this is a photo from North Main Street looking at the structure behind those trees there.

And then just a little bit of background on this property.

Back in 2015, the property had been rezoned from R2 to M1.

And at that time, staff had informed the property owner who is the same as the applicant today that the existing structure

Once that property is rezoned to M1, the structure that was of residence could no longer be a residence because that's not a by-right ability within the M1 district.

Then, coming up to present day in August of 2023, our building inspection staff observed that there was a work on the deck being done, constructed without building permits.

And then once the applicant or the property owner had applied for building permits,

It came to zoning staff's attention that there was a residential use on the second floor of the property and then storage being used on the first floor.

In discussions with the applicants of what their potential options are, the applicant has decided to pursue a rezoning of this portion of the property to B1, where B1 would allow for that structure to be used residentially.

They would not be able to continue using the storage area in the first floor and they are aware of that.

So summarizing the proffers, they've proffered a restriction on traffic generating uses so it would not trigger TIA, basically saying that there would be just a cap on what type of uses are there and that wouldn't generate more than 100 vehicle trips in the AM or PM peak hour.

Number two is that there would be no drive-throughs and then the third proffer is that there wouldn't be any parking lots between any building and the North Main Street, Public Street, just to encourage that

mixed use walkable environment that we want to create along this corridor.

Again, the property is designated mixed use in the comprehensive plan.

This image here is from the downtown 2040 plan, where the property is just on the outside of the study area that was part of the downtown plan.

But this property is located along the gateway along North Main Street that would enter into downtown.

And I'll conclude with that.

with the proposed proffers that the applicant has provided.

Staff believes that the request is in conformance with the comprehensive plan, and we recommended approval.

Planning Commission agreed and recommended their unanimous approval as well.

I have one.

Can you just repeat what you said?

Yeah, so they were using the first level of the building as a storage area.

They could convert that to a residential use, could convert it to an office, assuming that they get proper building permits and things, but they'll have to find another use that's not just a storage unrelated to the residences.

It can't be like a storage facility for somebody else to store their things in.

Any other questions?

Thank you.

I'll open this item up for public hearing.

Thank you.

Madam Mayor, I move that we approve the request from Edwin E. Joya to rezone a portion of 705 and 707 North Main Street.

Any discussion?

Vice Mayor Dent.

Aye.

Council Member Robinson.

Aye.

Council Member Fleming.

Aye.

Council Member Jones.

Aye.

Aye.

We will now go into our regular items.

Alright, where is he?

Can you hear us?

Yeah, can you hear me?

Uh, yeah, you're a little low though.

Let me see if I can fix it.

How about now?

Okay, Mr. Freeman, it's on you.

Okay, I'll make you a presenter.

One moment.

Yes, go ahead.

I'm here to give you a brief overview of our 2023 study of Virginia's K-12 mapping program.

Our study was directed by a joint resolution

The school positions receive over 20 billion in funding from local, state, and federal governments.

Locals account for slightly over half the funding while the state provided 39 percent.

At the state, local split is tilted by a few large suburban school divisions, where the locality provides a majority of the funding.

For example, Fairfax County, Deanna R. Reed, Dany Fleming,

I'm going to call into the meeting and see if we can hear you better that way.

So just bear with me a second.

We'll take a five minute recess so I can figure out what's going on with your audio.

So just bear with me a second.

Mr. Gribbin, I'm going to ask you to call into the meeting via the instructions I gave you with the call-in number.

And if you can mute your computer and I think we'll have better connection with your audio.

Can you repeat that?

Okay, alright, so I need to call in and I need to figure out

Oh no, is he able to call me at the meeting?

It does, but I have to dial into that in order to hear him.

And of course, it's not giving me my credentials.

All right, take two.

I'm not sure how much you all got of this slide that I'm on, but the long story short is that

About half of money that goes towards public education in the state comes from local governments.

That mostly comes from a couple of large suburban school divisions, Stairfax County being the big one.

When you get down to the individual locality level, about two-thirds of school divisions in the state actually depend on the state for a majority of their funding.

One of the first things we looked at was how total K-12 operating funding for Virginia school divisions compared to benchmarks.

This slide summarizes the main benchmarks that we use.

You can see actual first-year funding from all sources over there on the far left.

To the right, we show what three Virginia-specific benchmarks estimated was needed.

I'm happy to explain what the benchmarks were, but the main takeaways are that the benchmarks were six to 33%

We also compared Virginia to other states.

After accounting for differences in labor costs, we found the 50 state average was 14% higher than Virginia and the regional average was 4% higher.

I think the important thing here is not how far Virginia is from these or any of the other specific benchmarks, but that Virginia trailed all of the benchmarks.

One of the main reasons Virginia Trails funding benchmarks appears to be the FAQ funding formula.

Not only do the formula's calculations result in substantially less funding than benchmarks, they also result in a lot less funding than divisions actually spent.

For example, the formula calculated divisions need $10.7 billion in K-12 funding from all sources.

That's the dark bar you see here on the left.

In reality, division spent $17.3 billion, or $6.6 billion more, or 61% more, than what the formula thought was needed.

That's the bar that says Virginia Actual.

To the right of that, you can see where the benchmarks thought that filming should be.

It's worth noting that the difference between SOQ calculated and Virginia Actual funding was not something that was driven by a few high spending divisions.

After adjusting for differences in cost of labor and division size, they found no divisions were spending astoundingly more or less than others.

In terms of how this plays out at the division level, divisions and localities with a lower ability to pay are most affected because their local governments are, one, less able to put funding in above what the SOQ requires, and two, as a result, those divisions tend to receive less funding in their students.

SOQ funding is, of course, determined by the SOQ formula.

Conceptually, the formula follows a three-step process.

Step one is to calculate how many staff are needed.

Step two is to determine the cost of compensating those staff and what the cost of other things are, such as the cost of running school buses or paying for utilities.

The resulting amount is the total SOQ funding obligation.

Step 3 is to determine what the state and local shares of SOQ funding are using the local composite index.

These three steps are carried out for each and every school division, resulting in state and local funding obligations unique to each one.

We found many issues with the SOQ formulas for staffing and cost calculations.

I'm happy to get into the details, but I'll cover them just at a high level.

The major problems were, one, the formula undercalculates the number of staff needed to run schools and educate children.

Two, it underestimates the cost of compensating those staff.

And three, the support cap and a few other remaining formula changes from the Great Recessing no longer reflect prevailing practice or have clear and do not have clear and justifiable policies as of now.

State funding for higher-need students was also lower than what benchmarks suggested needed, which includes funding for special education, at-risk students, and English learners.

The funding that the state provides for special education was notably moving in the wrong direction.

That is, the state has been gradually providing less funding per special education student.

It has been increasing the amount it provides per at-risk and English learner student, but again, those are still behind what the benchmarks thought they should be.

Fifth, the fullness cost of competing adjustment does not adequately account for regional differences in labor costs.

And finally, there's not an economies of scale adjustment to reflect the additional per student cost that occurred in small and very small school divisions.

So I've just talked about the problems with how the size of the funding pie gets calculated.

Now we'll talk about how that pie gets sliced up among the school divisions.

This is the third and final step in the SOQ formula, where the local composite index, or LCI, gets applied.

The way the LCI works is that locality is considered to less able to pay to get a bigger relative share of the state funding pie.

For example, Harrisonburg has a slightly lower LCI than Rockingham County,

so it gets a relatively larger share of the state money.

We found LCI, while imperfect, seems to be a reasonably accurate measure of ability to pay.

The tax-based assumptions that are used are reasonably close to what we actually see statewide, although they do not perfectly track for everyone.

Several of the concerns that have been raised about the LCI during our study, which I posted here, turned out to be uncounted.

But one concern we could validate

that LCI can, in fact, result in sudden, large losses of state funding with the locality experiences of certain combinations of trends.

While this only happens on occasion to a few localities, it does create unexpected budget challenges for locality and its school decision.

Of course, I'll stress again that the LCI is not perfect.

We found an alternative measure called the revenue capacity is a well-established and more accurate way of measuring ability to pay.

In fact, if that revenue capacity measure was adopted instead of the current LTI, Harrisonburg would have been one of the main or would be one of the main beneficiaries.

We estimate the school division would have received two million more in state dollars in fiscal 23 under this alternate ability to pay measure.

Looking big picture, we recommend a fundamental change in how the SRQ formula is used.

Currently the SOQ formula is intertwined with the state's budget process because it has such a big impact on state appropriations.

So what ends up happening is the formula gets changed to reflect state budget imperatives.

For example, the formula has been changed to implement budget cuts in down years and changed again to increase funding for specific priorities in up years.

We recommend the state stop using the SOQ formula to directly determine budget amounts.

and Dealey, that formula should be used to provide an accurate picture of funding needs and the General Assembly and the Governor can then determine what funding should be appropriated within the realistic amounts accommodated by the budget.

Under our proposed change, the SOQ formula would first estimate needs in the legislature within appropriate amounts above or below or equal to what the formula calculates.

This would improve transparency on what is needed and

what is being appropriate and if what is being appropriated meets this is me.

So up until now I've been telling you what's wrong with how we currently do things, but there is another way.

If we don't want to try and fix this very problematic formula, the state could throw it out in place with a new one.

Specifically, the state could replace the current staffing-based formula with a student-based formula.

As you can see here, most other states already use a student-based formula, and this is what we'd recommend if Virginia was starting to scratch.

A student-based formula skips calculating how many staff are needed, and what they cost, and jumps right to cost per student.

This greatly simplifies the calculations, improves transparency, and reduces error risk.

Additionally, if it's done right, it can improve accuracy by directly tying funding to actual prevailing costs.

We modeled the cost of switching to a student-based formula tied to actual division spending, replacing just the special education and English learner calculations with student-based calculations with increased funding by around $520 million, replacing the whole formula with increased state funding by about $1.2 billion.

This slide summarizes all of our recommended changes to the SFD formula and their estimated impact on the state's budget.

The dollar amount is given to give you a relative sense of scale to the impact which change would have at the state level.

If you implemented all our near term recommendations in fixing the current formula, the state would provide Harrisonburg public schools with additional $5.5 million in fiscal 23.

that all of our recommendations were implemented that the division would have received an additional $23 million in state funding.

We also had the option for replacing the current formula with a student-based formula.

If you did that, at least using the formula that we modeled, Harrisonburg Public Schools would receive an additional $3 million from the state.

Again, that's just one way that formula could be implemented.

There are different ways that the student-based formula could be put into place.

You can look up the impact on Harrisonburg of each of our individual recommendations if you'd like.

I just go to our main site and you should see the K-12 funding report somewhere on the landing page.

You click on that report, you will see a menu of options for the division level funding impacts, and it's that dollar sign right there, dollar impacts for school divisions.

And that'll have a bunch of, I apologize, very, very small print tables, but you can find

and the numbers for Harrisonburg.

A few very important notes on the division level impact.

First, these include the estimated impact on SOQ funding obligations.

So for the state, the funding obligation and budget impact are the same thing.

But for localities, that's not the case.

That's because localities like Harrisonburg all put in more funding than the formula requires.

For example, in fiscal 23, Harrisonburg put in 10.1 million above what the SOQ formula required the city to commit.

Even if you implemented all of our near-term recommendations, the local SOQ obligation would only go up 5.5 million.

So because that's a lot less than the 10.1 we're already putting in, the little count, there would be really no budget impact on Harrisonburg.

In fact, I think the only scenario where there would be a local budget impact is if all of our funding recommendations were implemented at once, which appears unlikely given the size of the price that I believe it is.

And that is my last slide.

I will turn it over.

I hope we can get questions to work.

I know I'm getting a lot of feedback on my end.

I hope you're not getting that.

Thank you.

Well, yeah, I do.

Mark, thanks so much for presenting this to us.

And to me, this is one of the more important things that was in front of the General Assembly to take a look at this past time.

I think just from your numbers, we know that the SOQ doesn't match what our educators are saying is needed to educate our kids.

And they're short by a lot in that.

And I never thought I'd see this local composite index tackled at the general semi-level.

So I'm glad you guys put it there, because I think it's on the agenda for them finally to tackle this a bit.

One of the questions I have when I look at, you talked about the combination of trends that may affect what you get from the state with the local composite index number is going to be and what you get.

Harrisonburg is, I think, somewhat unique.

We have an index that, I guess we got an extra 3.1 or 3.3 million dollars this year.

The county actually lost money.

in their index, but some of the trends, the property value and the gross income, if that changes in Harrisonburg, if that starts improving for Harrisonburg, I think there might be some ideas that would happen.

We're going to lose money from the state.

It's going to be relative to other places, but it seems like that's the potential in the next round.

I'm not assuming they're going to change this formula by the next round of funding.

So I'm just wondering if there's a way for us to be able to identify or get a better idea of where we might end up in the next biennium.

It's not that far down the road.

It's two years down the road.

We're going to have to be thinking about that.

And again, it seems to me, just in some of the trends, that we could lose money on this next recalculation.

There are, I think, out of

Maybe 30-some cities, you know, we're 12th in size in the state, but our LCI is counted down below 20, meaning, you know, our property values and income is just not as high as our comparable cities.

And so the state gives us more money, but if that goes up, we're going to lose money from the state.

And I worry about that and, you know, how we can prepare for that, because, you know, what we can't do is then short the schools.

We got to find a way to keep that funded.

Well, the formula is well known.

So that formula is out there.

The problem is that it has to be calculated with data from the other 134 localities.

So it has to plug in all their specific data.

on what's happening with their real estate values, what's happening with their adjusted gross income, what's happening with their retail sales, and then also what's happening with their different student and general populations.

So that's the problem, is that if you're growing, if your real estate and your tax base is growing faster than the rest of the state, you'll see your locality or your else that will get higher and put in more money.

You don't really know unless you have all that data.

I'm not aware of any shortcuts or forecasting that anybody has done.

I know that there's a number of folks who do consulting for local government.

I'm sure if they had come up with a way to do that, they would have 135 customers at this point.

So the short answer is I'm not aware of any forecasting and I can't think of a way to do that forecasting.

But there's nothing out there that exists currently.

Certainly something you could take a stab at.

One of the things we did recommend to avoid the issue of sort of the big jump or the big hit is we recommend the state instead of

Right now, the state takes one year of data, the most recent year of data on what happened to property values, what happened to the adjusted gross income, and it plugs that into the formula.

And because it does this every two years, skips a year, you can see a big jump if, for example, your housing prices just went crazy relative to their relative day or your Greenville County down and south side, and you just opened a giant Dominion power plant that is going to massively increase your real estate tax rate.

So what we recommend is take a three-year average of all the data that gets plugged into the formula, and that means the effect of any year-to-year jump will help anyone who's dealing with the same problem that you're talking about, the increase in tax base, you know, bumping up your LCI.

By using three-year average data, you smooth up facts that hits aren't as bad.

going up or going, and of course if you're benefiting, you don't get as much going down.

Well, so again, thanks.

We have our school superintendent and a couple of school board members here, and I believe you guys signed a letter of support, sent that,

You know, forward, you know, when approving and I think double thumbs up for, you know, what you put together.

And I think, you know, just the numbers you kind of throw out there about, you know, if there's a change in the formula, what we might be getting is nice to see.

I think we are one of the areas in the state that really loses in this formula the way it is.

And I don't know, Mayor Reed, if

You know, the school folks would have any questions for Mark or not.

I mean, imagine you've had conversations with the J.L.I.

Well, I have

It's sort of a general question about the role of JLARC.

I hear you recommending what the state should do, like the three-year average you just mentioned, or adopting a different formula.

We are.

So, JLARC, we will... There's two parts of JLARC.

We're the JLARC staff.

I'm JLARC staff.

We are professionals and we exist to do nonpartisan objective research.

So we get signed study topics by the General Assembly, but we don't have any interaction with members during the studies.

We go off and we do our work and we present it to the public setting to our commission.

Our commission, JLR commission itself, are 14 senior members of the House and Senate.

So essentially we have the ear and some of the most powerful people in both of the houses.

So they listen to our report.

And then after our information is out there, and again, we present it publicly, we have a report that comes out as a public document.

It's then up to the members of the General Assembly to decide if and how they want to proceed.

So you saw that play out this past session.

Our report came out in July, this past session.

of the senior folks on both the education committees and both houses of the General Assembly.

We're carrying bills to implement several of our recommendations and options.

As it stands, I believe I think one of the ones for at-risk funding, the ones related to at-risk funding, those are the ones that are still alive in the current budget, as well as one of our policy options

gradually increased compensation for teachers and other staff relative to a specific target.

And that's the other one that is still there in the budget.

So two of those things are still going forward.

And then the general assembly plans or then the plan is to form a joint subcommittee that's going to be working here in the off season to think about how to change the formula.

And that would be

So we're implementing what we had as one of our policy options to be replacing the current formula with a new student based formula.

So I think that's where we're going to see a lot of the action going forward.

And there does appear to be some bipartisan support for that effort.

That was a really long answer.

I appreciate that.

I would say that would be showing your support for those changes would be the best way.

I have a question.

I was wondering if you could speak, excuse me, a little bit to how the price per student model

works in terms of students with higher needs.

Yeah, so you've got it exactly right.

So the way that the student funding formulas work is there's a base amount for every student.

So every student in your school division, there's a certain amount, let's call it $10,000 that goes for every student to get $10,000.

And then one of the biggest adjustments that it's made is for additional funding, which is done using a per student weight for English learners.

R. R.

there's a lot of research that goes into that these three student groups do need additional services and additional instructional and support services to achieve the same as peers.

And so you have to kind of try and monetize the cost of that additional instruction and support.

So some states have done it when they

We did it in our model as we tried to look at what school divisions actually spend on those students

And so that's what we try to estimate.

There's some of the data is a little fuzzy there, so we did have to make some assumptions.

But generally, that's the two ways you would do it.

You either look at, okay, what are different school divisions actually spending extra for every special education student?

It's hard to say specifically down to that level.

I would think, yes, it all depends on, theoretically, yes, it's the short answer.

A lot of it, that money for special education, depending on what you're trying to capture in that weight, sometimes some places might just capture the weight at the cost of what we need for special education teachers and aides and maybe occupational and physical therapists.

Um, others might have a broader include some of the different accommodations.

It's the answer would be my concern because of the number of extra support staff you often need in the classroom, especially in more of the self contained environments.

We now don't seem like we have enough funding for AIDS.

And so I would just curious about how that would affect it.

One of the shortcomings of the current funding model is that it is staffing-based, so it doesn't really – and the way we currently calculate special education, it is literally only looking at what is the cost of special education to teachers and what are the costs of special education.

And it doesn't

The formula is so complex that we literally could not figure out how to make it better because we couldn't really understand exactly what it was doing.

But it only factors the cost for those two groups.

I think that with the emphasis on teaching, holistically teaching the whole child, having more money to do that, if you're losing in the special ed realm there, that with that overall additional funding, you would be able as a school system to get kids what they need to learn.

That's all right.

We're used to it.

Mr. Parks is going to join me up here also.

Mr. Parks.

I'll just get us started while he's walking up.

Community Development staff brought to you all zoning ordinance amendments to allow us to modify the requirements for public signs so that we could standardize the signs and improve them from what we have been using up to this date.

During that presentation, Council asks that the final sign design be shared with you all before we begin using it.

Since that time, Ms.

Rupke from my office and Mr. Parks have been working together

Taking feedback that had been received from you all in the Planning Commission last year and we created this new sign here.

A couple highlights.

First, we wanted to have English and Spanish on the sign as much as possible.

So you'll see a change from what you had been presented earlier to make room for both the English and Spanish translation.

We also wanted to provide four different ways for individuals to contact us or find more information if they were interested in some kind of land use development that was happening where one of these signs was located.

The QR code takes you straight to a web page that will have information about that usage.

Obviously the phone number, our address, and the website all other ways.

So whatever an individual is comfortable with, they would be able to utilize information on this sign to get that.

So we had a good conversation recently with Planning Commission about this, some of the questions that we received were first the colors.

We made some changes to the top marker, the rezoning marker you see there to make it less aggressive.

It was a bright red.

We wanted to be a little bit more neutral and stick within our colors.

We also had a good discussion about the QR code.

I've reached out to some cities to see other locations that use a QR code on signs like this Palm Beach County in Florida, Raleigh, North Carolina, and Greenville, South Carolina are all cities that are utilizing QR codes on their signs down and that have been successful so far.

So I'm available for any design questions you have, usage questions.

I'm sure Tom would be happy to chat about those.

Any questions?

Well, I just wasn't going to comment that I'm glad you changed from the red to this blue that's much calmer.

It would catch your attention, but we don't want people to think something is going wrong.

You used the QR codes or it definitely works.

You did?

Let's see what it does.

Thank you.

As I can see, I could read the sign as you were walking with the sign.

It's a good, right.

Because ultimately we want people to see the sign and they don't even have to read it.

They're like, oh, that's one of those rezoning signs.

I know what to do.

I can't see that well.

All right, great.

All right, thank you.

Madam Mayor, I move that we approve the public signage design as presented.

Is that good?

Any discussion?

Vice Mayor Dent.

Aye.

Council Member Robinson.

Aye.

Council Member Fleming.

Aye.

Council Member Jones.

Aye.

Aye.

Alright, this should be the last thing you hear from me tonight.

So this is a preliminary plot here for the Northside Village, which is located at 44 and 81 Wilson Avenue on the north part of the city.

It was back in December of 2022 that this body had approved a rezoning of this area to R-8.

in the kind of blue hatched area and then the R5 piece in the kind of purpley color there.

At that time in 2022, Council had also approved to close, did a first reading to close a 10 foot wide portion of Wilson Avenue, which is the next item on the agenda that Mr. Brown will present to you all.

So for this item with the preliminary plan,

They're requesting to subdivide about five acres to create 58 townhome parcels, one multifamily parcel where that R5C is labeled there, and then some common area parcels.

Within that multifamily R5C-zoned area, the applicant is proposing to construct buildings that would have 34 multifamily dwellings.

Land use guide map showing this area designated as mixed use.

Ariel Photo.

The land is vacant right now.

So in the preliminary plot, this is to create all the individual lots or be in the process of creating all the individual lots and things here.

Both of the sheets within the packet of the preliminary plot sheets 1 and 2 show how all these new lot lines would be drawn and how the parcels would also be served by public water and public sewer.

There are some variance requests associated with this application, which is why it came here to City Council as only sub preliminary plat requests with variances come to you all.

The first variance request is to allow parcels to not have public street frontage.

The subdivision ordinance requires that all lots have public street frontage.

And as you are perhaps familiar with, with many other town home communities,

This type of request has been approved before for them.

Staff has no concerns and would recommend approval with that variance request.

The second variance request is also a common one is to allow a deviation from a requirement from the public general utility easement to be located along all front lot lines and then along side and rear lot lines.

What the applicant shows in this drawing is an alternative way to get public utility easements that would be for cable, telephone, you know, electric and other things like that, to serve all of the lots, just deviating from the specific requirement of the subdivision ordinance, which we usually see for more traditional subdivisions of duplexes or single family detached homes along like a public street type of scenery.

So they've laid out a different layout for the easements and staff also does not have concerns about this deviation.

The other final variances are associated with public street design standards.

Just in brief, what their applicant is requesting is to reduce the width of Wilson Avenue and to allow an alternative paved T turnaround design at the end of Wilson Avenue as well.

So Public Works has

Reviewed these variance requests and they also do not have concerns with the variance from public street design standards for Wilson Avenue.

So with that staff and planning commission who recommended a unanimous approval of the preliminary plat along with the requested variances from the subdivision ordinance.

I think we do them separately, but tell you what, while you're there, Todd, would you mind going back one?

Sure.

Yeah, that's right.

So it would be... I've got the slide up for that one.

Oh, perfect.

Yeah.

So there was a proffer with the rezoning that said that the applicant, you know, should their rezoning get approved and the applicant would dedicate this piece up at the top of the screen along Mount Clinton Pike and that would be serving for the shared use path that the city is planning for there.

And because the full street width is not needed, the city had a

In the first reading, you all had voted to approve the closure of a 10-foot-wide width along Wilson Avenue.

Okay.

Any questions for Tom?

I have a question.

The final three variances, like in your planning commission excerpt,

Yeah, so it's the way it's written is that there are three individual sections to the subdivision ordinance related to street design standards, but those are the two topics, but the three sections that refer to street design standards.

Thank you.

Okay, so we need to take action on 7C before we go to 7D.

Madam Mayor, I move to approve the request from Northside Development Partners LLC to preliminary subdivide.

I'll suck up that.

Any discussion?

Place, Mayor Dent.

Aye.

Council Member Robinson.

Aye.

Aye.

Okay, Chris.

and the city would close and transfer to the developer at 10-foot strip on the north side of Wilson Avenue.

And that was approved after a public hearing on that issue back in December.

It's coming back here for a second reading because the contingency was the council was not going to close Wilson Avenue and transfer that strip of property until we had the subdivision plat from the developer

and they were ready to transfer to the city, the 10-foot strip.

And with the subdivision plat that Tom just referenced, they're now in the position to do that.

So with that, we can move forward with the ordinance, which is the next to the last document attached to this item.

And again, it's a standard ordinance where the city is going to transfer, is going to close and transfer to the developer 5,529 square feet of Wilson Avenue.

and it's contingent upon the city receiving the 5,413 square feet of right away along Mount Clinton Pike.

Council Member Robinson.

Aye.

Council Member Jones.

Aye.

Aye.

Thank you.

I'm here to talk to you about fee waivers and their potential use for affordable housing.

I will introduce myself.

I'm Liz Webb, Housing Coordinator.

So fee waivers.

The Code of Virginia allows localities to waive development related fees by way of ordinance for 501C3s that provide affordable housing

as well as for private developers.

In Charlottesville, developers pay one fourth of the cost of water and sewer connection fees in exchange for a five-year commitment to serve households at 80% of the area median income.

in Loudoun County, all the permit fees, site plan and subdivision related fees are waived with a 30 year affordability commitment and the income level for their program depends on whether it's for homeownership or rental.

Harrisonburg, right now we have fee waivers for permits just for signs and I'm just saying that it's a

totally separate section that it's authorized under, but it's the precedent that we do have right now.

We do have some fees.

So why would a locality waive fees for affordable housing?

These are part of the overall costs of housing development costs that are ultimately passed along in the form of rent or sale prices.

and so waving the fees could reduce the amount of money that the developer needs to borrow and in that way or just overall lower fees, lower price for the consumer.

And in some cases, fee waivers can also count as local match for some affordable housing projects.

The Housing Study proposed fee waivers as a way to help non-profit affordable housing developers, many of whom it described as having

or it said exist on shoestring budgets.

So we looked at what are the local fees that developers are paying.

And most of them reside in community development and these are, they're more or less in sequential order here.

I'm going to go through what they all are.

So what I've categorized as land use and zoning,

is all the rezoning fees, special use permits, things related to that, which happens early in the process.

The next set of fees, and I think I'm pretty close, if I get anything a little off, overall these are relatively low compared to some of the other fees we're going to go through.

The next set of fees is tied to the subdivisions and the plaques and those are like what you just heard breaking the land into the separate parcels and sometimes the parts with the roads.

The next set of fees is tied to site plans when

getting past the conceptions, the actual plans are coming through the city for review with engineering, stormwater management and erosion control and there's usually a few re-submittals with that and so there's that that fee's listed there too and these are some of these are by units, some are by the acreage overall.

The next time that there's fees paid is

through permits like the plumbing, electrical and mechanical which are just a per unit flat fee and the building permit which is based on the value of the materials.

There's a calculation down there.

And then the last set of fees that I've got here is not in community development.

It is the utilities and that's for water and sewer and we

that includes connection fees, which are charged based on the actual cost.

And so it'll vary based on what is being connected into the water and sewer.

And although it is a standard rate for like individually metered like single family units, they just those are the same enough that they set a flat rate for that.

And then the capital fee, which is it's an impact fee.

So that's when

They're paid on new development and those go to cover the cost of future sustaining the whole system around utilities.

And those are also standard rate 2000 each for water and sewer for single family.

And then for multifamily, it's calculated by unit, but it's capped based on how the capacity, how big the pipes are, and I can

So it goes up, but it's capped, but they can go up to a lot depending on how big the meter is and how much capacity the sewer has.

These are, I think, easier to see in examples, so that's my next slide.

This is Sooter Street, and these are as close to accurate as they can.

There might be a couple figures that are a little bit projected,

Mostly these are actual fees that were paid.

And you can see really that the zoning, subdividing, and the site planning are relatively small.

There can be some larger ones in the buildings, but that really the vast majority of these fees are the water connection, water and sewer connection, and in the recovery fees there.

and then because the Souter Street is all, well they're not, they're single family and they're mostly duplexes but they're individually metered and individually owned so I wanted to give another example which was the multifamily and this is Foley Road which is efficiencies and you can see the developer did some really creative work

in putting that project on an existing lot.

So some of the, some of the, really kept some of the overall costs down.

And you can see here really again, although the connection fees were not as relatively large, the capital fees are.

And so this is what we were looking at for the purpose of coming up with a potential fee waiver program.

And so that's what I'm here for tonight, really,

present my proposal for a pilot fee waiver program for affordable housing.

And the program that I'm proposing would waive the full cost of water and sewer capital recovery fees for non-profit and for-profit developed for sale units.

The idea, the concept for now would be to require a five-year commitment for affordability

and serve households up to 100% of area median income and use price and affordability guidelines that follow Virginia housing programs.

We don't want to pay for housing out of, I mean, it would come from, it wouldn't come out.

We don't want the money to come out of the water and sewer.

We don't want it to come from public utility.

Yeah, what Councilman Fleming said.

I understand what the money covers.

I appreciate that.

And so the purpose of this, we want to see how fee waivers might incentivize more housing and a pilot program would give us the opportunity to look at how effective it can be and then adjust based on where we see success and impact.

We, you know, there's still some details to figure out.

But the idea behind this proposal is that the $4,000 amount with the capital fees is large enough that we think it would have an impact.

And that could be making some units that are intended to be affordable more affordable or affordable for longer or commit to a five year affordability period when they were just

proposing it as a one-off or possibly incentivizing market housing to expand into that affordable space and see that it works.

And it was also important to pick for this pilot features that would make it simple for developers to apply for and manageable for staff to administer, which is why

The capital fees and home ownership version made sense because we can say, OK, it's 4,000 per unit.

And we do 10 units where, like with some of the rentals, like I'm saying, it depends on how big the sewer is and factors that would be difficult to plan for and budget for.

And also some of the other fees that happened in community development are really, they're paid so far in advance of when a unit

comes online.

These are a lot more associated on the timeline with a reasonable expectation to track the unit.

That's where I'm at.

Yeah, I mean any So I think I've seen examples elsewhere where this is done as a loss

I mean, ironically, even though I made that comment, I'm in full support of this.

In fact, I think it helps to move some of the people that aren't moving.

It's another tool to prompt those 800 drama in homes or whatever we've approved to, you know, get in gear.

So I'm for it.

I just like to state the obvious for the folks at home or the folks that can't keep up.

Or, you know, it's an incentive.

and so we want people to know that, yeah, we're covering some costs but ultimately we're not making as much money as we need to make because we want to incentivize for the housing and so I think we need to say that out loud but I appreciate you giving us the technicalities and the nitty gritty list.

So I wasn't trying to throw you off at all.

In fact, I'm in full support of this.

A lot of cities, I think many, even most cities around the country are using this.

I think, you know, what we want to try to figure out, I think how you're presenting it is, you know, is this something that can help those margins where people with low income or affordable housing developers are saying, I can't quite get over the hump here.

There's a margin.

Is this what that is?

And I think, you know, we know there are a lot of things that need to happen to make housing move forward.

There's no one single thing.

I think it's important to kind of step in and try a solution like this and I think, you know, it's nice to have this early in the process, you know, for developers I think that the short term construction loans often have very high interest rates and so if we can help reduce some of that, you know, the longer term, you know, permanent loan financing, you know, if you can get to that point, the rates are much better.

Just one other question.

I think it's enough that we're getting some affordability without being, you know,

The tracking that it would take, I think, for a pilot program to start, it's something that I think we can manage.

And I think, you know, if we were to look at, you know, opportunities to do something like this on the rental side in the affordable space, they sign those long contracts and you can sort of piggyback.

But in home ownership, there's not always that option.

And so keeping it like something I think too much is

Thank you.

Come back with more that we can implement them all about July so then you've got a real study at the beginning of the fiscal budget.

Hey, come on, Andy.

This is good.

7F Consider adopting an ordinance amendment and reenactment of some ordinances regarding discharging of firearms in the city and hunting in the city and I've been sensing that council is anxious to dive into a good hunting issue so we have it for you tonight.

Really two things are going on here first

Right now, the city code prohibits all hunting with firearms.

It does allow hunting with bows and arrows, but the city code prohibits hunting on any city owned property.

And as you know, down at the Public Works Development, they redid the Blacks Run stream, and they've been trying to stabilize the stream bank by various plantings.

And this may be an issue on some other city properties, and deer have just destroyed

The plantings has made it very difficult on the public works folks to try to stabilize those banks.

So this additionally came to us when public works asked, can we please hunt deer out on the public works property to save the plants that are stabilizing the stream bed?

And we looked at the city code and said, no, you may not.

And so this is an ordinance first brought on behalf of a public

Public Works, and again, there may be other developments when the chief gets to work on his fire station out there and has some nice plantings.

He may want to protect those, but at any rate, so that's one of the things.

And then also, we've heard from one of the local state conservation police officers, what we used to call game wardens back in the day, about our ordinance, and they've

To tell us a couple of times, look, if you want to limit hunting in the city of Harrisonburg to archery, you can do that, but you can't limit the animals you can hunt with archery.

That's the state's prerogative.

The state, you know, decides which animals you can hunt with bows and arrows, and the state allows deer and elk and bear.

So we have added

Dany Fleming

and he was advising the rest of us to shoot them with paintball guns and I thought that sounded like a really bad idea, but he assured me that that worked.

So anyway, so what we did here, again prohibition against discharging any weapons such as firearms, bows and arrows, except as provided in the ordinance here.

We did also spell out, well, we refer to the state code in order to spell out the nuisance species that if someone's having trouble with rats and pigeons and things like that and they can't get rid of them any other way, they can go visit the chief and convince her they need permission to shoot those animals and again there's a whole list in the state code of what constitutes nuisance species and they're the usual suspects and also

There is a program where you can apply for permission from the Director of the Department of Wildlife Resources to kill deer, elk, and bear.

That's kind of a complicated program, and then the Director can issue permission in particular situations, but we did include that.

And I, Councilman Dent did catch a little typo left out the word.

is grant permission by the director, so I'll fix that.

And then, again, we tried to clean up some of this.

The archery hunting on the city property can take place only with permission of the city manager.

And also, we just clarified that hunting a bow and arrow archery season in the city

is coterminous with all of the various archery hunting seasons set forth in the state law under the Department of Wildlife Resources.

They have an amazing number of different urban archery seasons and so we just change it to say if you can do it under state law you can do it here.

and then also we were specific to say that conservation police officers can also enforce these regulations in the city.

I'll be happy to answer any questions.

But they are extremely destructive.

So something that actually experiences if a deer is shot on a property and ends up on your property.

So the retrieval process, because I've had that where I woke up one morning and there was one that apparently wanted off.

So what's the process for retrieving?

And then they can't actually harvest the deer.

They come get it and drag it back over to theirs.

My dogs woke up and I was surprised to see.

I have a question about the elevated stands.

Is that the point so they're facing down?

Is it out into the streets?

It's safer.

Now, and just so you know, there is a process by which if you're disabled and can't get in a deer stand, you can apply and receive special permission from the state to not have that.

OK.

All right.

But we intended to contact the deer task force.

The deer task.

The fish is on that.

Oh, didn't ring.

I think we got a table.

We wanted to give you authority to, again, take charge of this before.

Really, we just want to, the deer task force wants to work on a special form.

That's really all we want to do.

We want to be 14 pages.

I'll call for the question.

Bring us under order.

Somebody make a motion, please.

Well, you know, sight unseen, I guess.

Madam Mayor, I move to approve adopting the ordinance amendment and reenactment for section 16641.

I'll second that.

Any more discussion?

Nope.

Vice Mayor Dent.

Hi.

Council Member Robinson.

Hi.

Council Member Jones.

Hi.

Hi.

All right, Chris.

OK, with 7G, these are three ordinances.

These are three ordinances that come from public utilities.

I'll be addressing from then this evening.

Pam, I think public utilities sent a PowerPoint, if you don't mind.

Maybe go to the next slide, Pam, just for the picture that Mike included.

The first one is about the elevation of the building sewer and some requirements.

What happens on some parts of the city, especially on North Liberty Street, you'll have a sewer banhole and then downstream from that there will be a house or some building

that has a sewer or a plumbing feature such as a toilet or shower or a bathtub that has a drain and it's lower than the manhole and the sewage is flowing this way and if there's a blockage in that sewage pipe or if there's a significant rain event and the pipe gets overloaded, you know, water and sewage goes, you know, follows the course of lease resistance

and ordinarily, if it was even, it would just go back to this manhole, pop out, but if it's below the manhole, it goes up through the drain of that toilet or bath or shower that is below the elevation of the manhole and you have sewage in your building.

So right now, the building,

Our public utilities ordinances do require houses to comply with the building code, and part of the building code is a requirement to address that by a backwater valve.

The existing ordinance 7-3-67 really is not adequate.

It really addresses sump pumps more than the backwater valve.

So we redrafted that.

And what we like to do between the Director of Public Utilities and then our building official, Mike Williams, would like to be able to use this to educate folks to make sure they understand that if your toilet and plumbing fixtures are below the elevation of this upstream manhole, you really have to have one of these.

It's probably, it's less than a thousand dollars, hopefully, for something like this, but it can save many thousands of dollars of cleaning.

and a lot of heartache and expense.

So again, the new ordinance were required and we tried to make it clear what was going on here.

If you have a bathtub or shower toilet or floor drain at elevation below the elevation of the next upstream public sewer manhole, you have to meet the requirements of 7-3-69, which again is kind of a general comply with the building code and other regulations.

And then we specifically say,

So again, just pump the same as a self pump?

It is.

Okay.

The homeowner will have to work with a survey or a contractor to ascertain.

Sometimes it will be obvious, sometimes it won't.

You don't have to figure that out.

Thank you.

I'll help prove who this is.

The biggest problem

I think from what I've heard from Mr. Collins and Mr. Williams, it would be the older homes, not especially the north end of town, homes that were built either before this was a requirement or when it wasn't a specific requirement.

So how may, I don't know, we do think it would be limited to a very few areas in the city where this would be a problem, where this is a problem.

I don't know if you want to take these one by one.

I know we kind of lumped them together But we can do them all together

Next is a slight tweak to the ordinance regarding adjustments for excessively high consumption.

Council recalls in our ordinance right now, we have a provision that if you have a spike in your water bill due to a leak or some other issue and you come to public utilities, public utilities do a couple of things.

It will work with you to try to figure out what the problem is and get that fixed.

And then public utilities will also adjust your bill down to

to meet your average bill so that you don't have to pay an exorbitant amount for something like that if it's not really your fault and you correct it.

There, as sometimes happens, there are people that try to take advantage of some of these situations and will either just let the situation go on for several months before they come to public utilities and say, hey, my bill is spiking.

Public Utilities tries to catch things like that, but sometimes they don't again.

So sometimes people will go too long.

Sometimes people will wait a long time before they approach public utilities and they'll say, hey, remember last year I had four months worth of excessive bills.

It makes it difficult.

And then sometimes they'll, someone will come in and they'll, they'll

address the problem to some extent, but not really fix it, and two or three months later it happens again.

You get repetitive requests.

So in order to address that, we did a couple of things.

We had kind of defined a high usage event is where you have an unusual and excessively high monthly increase in your water and sewer bill, and then if you meet certain qualifications,

You can apply to the Department of Public Utilities and then again they'll come out try to help you figure out what's going on but ultimately the high usage event for any one service address you only get one adjustment for a 36 month period and then you only get a credit for three months so if you have four or five months worth of excessively high bills

and you didn't notify the Department of Public Works.

We only get three months worth of credits and you have to notify the Department of Public Works within six months of the billing date for the first month of the high usage event and also making it clear that anything between the meter or from the meter into the house, any cost to repair that belongs to the property owner

and where you usually see these issues come up where again people ignore it or don't address it properly and we have a lot of rental properties in the city and sometimes they'll let things go for a while so that's where this usually happens we have to answer any questions on the excessive use okay and finally

coming full circle back to sort of hunting and fishing here at the city's watershed, west of Raleigh Springs, River Rock in that area.

Mike wants to ask for a couple of things here first just to clean up some things.

Lots of people fish there and technically under our ordinance you need the written permission of the city manager to fish

So we did tweet the ordinance to eliminate that.

You can fish out there as long as you comply with all applicable game laws.

Let's see.

And in fact, what we did was we incorporated the regulations of the United States Department of Agricultural Forest Service applicable to the George Washington National Forest and the regulations of the Department of Wildlife Resources for Hunting, Fishing, Trapping and Voting and some of our properties there with the national forest.

And they have their, I guess, rangers there.

And then there's also conservation police from the state in that area.

So they asked if we would incorporate these regulations so they can apply the same regulations consistently in that area.

They're up there much more frequently than our officers and so they can help with enforcing some of the regulations and make them all consistent.

And let's see.

Yeah, and we did retain the authority of the Director of Public Utilities to have some other regulations.

such as the no camping, no open fires as it is right now and that will allow Mr. Collins to post certain critical parts of his infrastructure out there with no trespassing signs and when the areas should be shut off or closed off.

So with that we think we can get rid of 7-5-3 because it's now duplicative and the same with 7-5-4.

All right, so we can go with a motion, right?

Yes, ma'am.

I think you can just say, just to move to approve the amendments to 7-3-67, 7-4-9.

Gotcha.

In fact, if you would like,

7-5-2, 7-5-3 as presented by staff and you can just adopt that if you'd like.

So he's so moved.

I'll second that.

We'll call please Pam.

Vice Mayor Dent.

Aye.

Council Member Robinson.

Aye.

Aye.

Good evening members of City Council, Amy Snyder, Deputy City Manager.

I am here tonight wearing the hat of Luke Morgan and Tom Hartman.

I'm bringing before you two resolutions for submittal to request congressionally directed spending from Senators Kane and Warner.

The first item is for the Souter Street Drainage Improvement Project.

As you all may recall, this is in our Capital Improvement Plan.

and it is the product of a drainage improvement project study that we completed in 2022.

So we are going to submit a request for funding of that program.

It is in the amount of $2,779,300 and if we were successful in receiving this congressionally directed spending, it would require a $926,000.

926,500 dollar match which we would come before you all with at the time if we were successful.

The reason we're seeking this funding is this area of the city as you all know is very prone to flooding.

We've had homes temporarily evacuated in this area because of flooding and the primary solution for this is to construct stormwater management systems that are very expensive.

This is former Vice Mayor Sal Romero.

This was his project that he always brought up.

Madam Mayor, I move to adopt the resolution for submittal for congressional and directed spending for fiscal year 2025 for the City of St.

Second.

Hi, Mayor Dent.

Hi.

Councilmember Robinson.

Hi.

Councilmember Fleming.

Hi.

Mayor Reed.

Seven, aye.

This is seeking funding for the utility relocation on the Liberty Street project.

We were unable to incorporate this into our raise grant application, which is going to transform Liberty Street.

We'd like to further transform it by being able to put underground the utilities that are currently on the poles along Liberty Street.

This will not only increase accessibility and equity for people with disabilities as they navigate Liberty Street,

but it also will increase economic development and affordable housing opportunities along that stretch.

Any questions?

Madam Mayor, Madam Mayor, I move that we approve the resolution for the submittal of a request for congressionally directed spending for fiscal year 2025 for the Liberty Street Utility Relocation Project as submitted by Ms.

Niner.

Any discussion?

Vice Mayor Dent.

Hi.

Council Member Robinson.

Hi.

Hi.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, we will go into other matters.

Comments from the public, limited to five minutes.

It matters not on the regular agenda.

Anyone who wishes to speak, please state your name and address.

One moment, please.

You are now live with City Council.

They might be whole for the nightmare, especially in times in the past few years, coming to an end and all of us as a city, be waking up, including as a whole.

The city of Kermit is great for thoughts that might respond to the digression with the thought we're always concerned about with other users.

First, when a person has no viable alternative, they are forced.

Then the alternative is jail.

They are not viable.

They have no viable alternative.

Second, many of you were brought to office by a movement that stopped punishing our

And then, contrary to empirical reality, it shows even the problematic measure of the citizen under unfavorable circumstances, fading to out the background over time, or even the most segmentalizing of charges.

The one-counter skewer work is demonstrate to us.

Whether the maternity is not aligned with the world view of the body, they can change to a better one, the clinic.

On this world view issue, I leave difficulties in the need of the mayor to deal with the very justice system.

For a long time, I tried to represent the stop punishment I next need to use

in that group, if they revealed they engaged, if they know they paid or not, an attorney, the pock might be able to do that.

Did we learn nothing from the derivative campaign resolution debacle driven by an over-the-appen over-represented community groups

Working on a positive note, the Martin Luther King Junior Way Coalition was honored to attend the pollinated junior back yard events sponsored by Public Works.

All city staff involved were beaming with positive energy.

They knew they were doing something wonderful that residents loved.

It was the picture of what the government would do.

It was what would inspire people to cry living in Harrisonburg.

The resolution started to take place there, and you've been institutionalized, by declaring no moment, you've learned how to appeal to the audience, and reallocating to get back on toward repairing the harm done by residential segregation.

Thank you.

One moment, please.

Thank you.

Now close the comment.

Oh, okay.

Several things.

The NLC conference, HRMPO, and also the pollinators, as mentioned.

As you all know, we all went to National League of Cities Congressional City Conference, where we went to a series of

intensive workshops to educate us and then the culmination to the NLC's way of thinking, the purpose.

We went to Hill Day and went to visit our various federal representatives.

We split up between Senator Cain and Warner and several of us also went to Ben Klein's.

So, let's see.

Likewise, in my role as Vice-Chair of the Energy, Environment, and Natural Resources Committee, I'm related to Senator Warner today, some of the things that we were advocating for, the PFAS, or Forever Chemicals, municipal liability requirements, so that, say, our water utility doesn't get sued for not getting all of the Forever Chemicals out when they're not the generator, they're just the downstream receiver.

They should be able to clean to the best of the ability.

So that legislation is currently being worked on and Senator Warner said he would check on it.

And the Energy Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant.

And also thank the senator today for the massive federal funding for infrastructure and environmental issues.

All right, another big topic of the NLC was

Direct Pay, officially elective pay, where non-taxable entities such as municipalities like us, or even non-profits, can get the equivalent of a tax credit for energy efficiency and renewable energy installations.