City Council Work Session (5pm) and Regular Meeting (7 pm)   5/14/2024

14-2024 Work Session to Order.

Mayor Reed.

President.

Vice Mayor Dent.

Here.

Council Member Robinson.

Here.

Chief Warner.

Here.

Chief Tobiah.

Here.

All right so we're going to start as you can see this is a work session with food our apologies but we needed to have dinner and we wanted to make sure that we had a good session before we recess for our 7 o'clock so we wanted to make sure we had time to dive into the budget

I do know that Dr. Richards has an award ceremony to go to for their children and so we want to make sure they make that.

So I want to open up our budget discussion and we're going to actually start, I would like to start with the

Yeah, Andy's son's an award.

So, council?

Our tax increase that has been proposed is eight cents.

It is my hope that we can lower that.

It kind of gave me a little heartburn when I saw it, but we know that for our residents, this would be a burden on them.

And so I was hoping we can have healthy conversations around how

We could lower our tax rate and hopefully have a compromise from the department to see if we can do that.

So, Councilor Fleming, I know you wanted to start so you can start.

Well, one, I guess a part of what we've learned over the weekend and really more today

with the passing of the state budget is that it looks, I guess, certain but not exact.

Additional funds will be coming down to the schools to the state budget and I think looks pretty good at about 1.6 million dollars or so which would be close to three cents of taxes which I think the schools hit

accounted for that in their budget without the certainty of whether you know you would get that or not.

And obviously, we have this juggle every year, or every two years, I guess, isn't a better idea next year what that amount is going to be.

So I'm grateful for that.

I'm glad that our state budget negotiators got money for the schools.

That was a priority.

Those came down so that

appears to be three cents for us.

It's interesting in looking at adding a second high school for Harrisonburg, a city of 55,000 and looking at some of the history, realizing that the last time a city went from one to two high schools was Danville, 20 years ago, 2002.

It was another 25 years or so with Lynchburg when they added Heritage High School and about I think 76 that they added a second high school.

There's the last two cities that added a second high school, went from one to two.

You know there are cities that go three to four and some of the largest cities, but that one to two jump is a pretty significant.

They built a new heritage, but heritage has been around.

In Lynchburg.

and it seems to hit cities when they're about this population, the 55,000 general population need to have a second school, but it immediately doubles your cost for your high school.

The infrastructure costs are big for a city like Harrisonburg.

This is a pretty big jump.

It was a big jump for Danville.

It was a big jump for Lynchburg and it doesn't happen very often, but it puts a strain that most other cities

Don't have to go through, but every once in a while.

And I don't think it will happen for a while.

I don't think Charlottesville is going to be giving a second high school.

They have a lot of private schools in their city.

So it means it really stretches the resources for a city.

It's also the right thing to do.

I think we share the educational aspirations of our school board of how to provide an excellent

Education and have the best facilities possible.

So they just kind of recognized the balance of we need to generate a lot of extra ongoing operational funds for the second high school at the same time.

Our population, compared to most of our cities, we have a low median income.

We already have a fair amount of debt compared to other cities because we're building schools.

And so that really is an additional strain on how we're going to fund that increased cost to operation there.

However, I think we've hit a pretty good spot where it looks like we can fund that through our discussions here.

One of the questions I do have for Tracy or Dr. Richards is, I know we got, you know, our ESSER funds, so in essence our federal education dollars that came down, which was pretty significant for us in around 18 million or so.

And you need to, I guess, account for those, appropriate them by the end of September.

And I know that

at least at the state level, there are still some number of funds still remaining.

So one of the questions is how much of those funds are still available or being used in the next, in this upcoming budget, how much were from the past budget that you used and what's available this next round because they won't be available for next year's budget.

And I think there's a fairly significant

I'll go ahead and start.

Then I'll bring Mr. Shaver up.

Good evening, everyone.

Nice to be here with you.

So we got about 20 million over the four years.

We gave nine back to the city, three years, three million each year for Rocktown.

We did use two million, as you said, Mr. Fleming, school divisions across the country were able to use the money for hiring and they hired positions that were related to the pandemic.

So they hired support positions, mental health positions, behavior specialists, reading specialists and so forth.

We spent two million a year on that for four years and so we funded two million dollars worth of positions and that's an ongoing expense.

And that's the fiscal cliff you're going to hear school divisions talk about because a lot of them got the 20 million and spent, you know, all of it on staffing or most of it on staffing.

And of course, a lot of it was spent on materials, masks and disinfectants and all those things as well, HVAC adjustments and all the things we did with air cleaning and so forth.

So yeah, we're giving, I think the city will get end of year funds to the tune of about $2 million this year.

Good evening, everyone.

To address your question, Mr. Fleming, we have about $2 million left in COVID relief funds, but they're being expended about a little under $500,000 per month for the next four months.

and then we'll have a small residual balance that will be used by September 30th.

But the vast majority are going to be used this fiscal year because even when we're paying payroll over the months of July and August, those amounts accrue back to this current fiscal year.

So we will have expanded the vast majority of the remaining balance of our asset funds.

By the end of this fiscal year, there may be a little residual amount that we will

Spend by September 30th.

So then the request for this coming year really doesn't include much from the ESSA funds.

This is all ongoing operations.

So it's so we're it's accounting for potentially this on an ongoing basis with it with this current correct your proposed budget.

Okay, that's correct.

Can I ask a question?

So and this probably support more for Dr. Richards.

When the ESR funds came in and you used those funds mostly for positions, right?

How many positions did you hire through those funds?

Permanent positions.

Those were positions that were needed.

And they are positions surrounding counseling mental health.

These are positions that are interventionists in nature.

They are an equity coordinator, reading specialist, behavioral specialist, mental health counselor, and instructional coach.

It's all interventionists, no classroom,

Straight up classroom teachers.

Well, really, that was kind of one of the main questions about that.

Because I think, as you say, many districts are going to hit a cliff next year.

And it's going to be a shock to many districts of how to account for that.

And I think as we, you know,

Our schools look at their budgets or their staffing.

The goal is how do we increase the staffing we know needs to happen, but we can't get the funding for that.

This happened in essence a backdoor way to get to some additional staffing that we might need, especially around behavioral mental health issues.

But as you're saying,

Those funds will be spent by the last fiscal year.

This new fiscal year we're accounting for in the budget generally, but we have now in front of us.

So next year we're not going to have an additional amount of money that I have to cover for staff.

So that's important.

Thank you.

That's actually it.

I have a question.

OK, so those positions were hired

as permanent positions with the temporary funds.

Am I correct in saying that with the SSO funds or more temporary?

Those positions were hired as a result of COVID and the learning loss and the social-emotional issues that our children were facing since COVID occurred.

They were positions that were needed at the time.

They're positions that are still currently needed because our students are still facing learning laws.

They're still facing social-emotional obstacles.

And they're at risk of dropping out of school and staying on track for a high school graduation.

Now, I understand that.

I was just thinking when you apply for some positions,

and I'm thinking in terms of like grant funding, I'm kind of comparing these positions to that when you're hired and with knowledge that the position may expire when grant funds expire.

Well, we were hoping that we would get students further along than they are.

OK, so I'm understanding you correctly.

All right.

Thank you.

So I would like to if I could continue a little bit with that.

So it was paid now.

It was paid now or pay later in that case because these were positions that were needed.

They're needed by the school division.

They're needed by our students.

Their positions we would have asked for without ESSER money.

We used that money that came to us.

We were allowed to under ESSA.

That's okay.

ESSER, that's okay.

And we used it then.

But we would have asked for that money anyway.

Now, we do have some positions that we've hired recently under the all-in funding.

You may recall the all-in funding that we received, supplemental funding.

And those positions are temporary.

Those positions we hired and we told the people who were hired that these positions would be temporary and so they understand that.

Excuse me, a quick question.

All-In is a governor's office initiative where the governor said, let's really jumpstart some learning loss, some recovery, and put some money together and said that districts need to come up with a plan that's approved by the state to do that, to jumpstart that learning.

A lot of divisions, especially divisions with the wealthier demographic, gave the money to parents for tutoring.

That doesn't really work with us very well, putting the burden on families.

So we actually did some additional hiring of physicians.

Now we have, we have physicians, we have a system within our schools where students are receiving extra help during the school day.

And for those positions you made it clear that it was temporary.

That's right.

We see those as a bit different.

The support mechanisms that we needed to put in place during the pandemic were mechanisms scaffolding, if you will, that were needed anyway.

Schools in Virginia are chronically underfunded and a lot of those mental health positions are the ones that are kind of pushed to the side because you've got to put classroom teachers in place.

of course, right?

Can you tell me what, how much was the all-in supplemental funding?

And that sits outside of our

of our operational budget.

It's weird in that way because, I mean, Larry or Tracy could explain it better than I can, but it's money that's carried over three years, and so it's different.

In this case, in our operating budget, we're required by law to return money to the city.

And I mentioned before that we'll be returning some money this year as well.

But the all-in money's a little bit different.

It carries over year to year, and we get to continue using it for three years.

I am curious as to what the breakdown is of the demographics of the teachers now that you've added more.

We're looking to add more.

I'm happy to get that data for you.

I don't know it off the top of my head.

I can tell you with leadership, so teachers, I'd have to go look at the data.

I do know of leadership.

So when I came in in 2018, 7.8% of our district leaders identified as BIPOC persons, and now it's 27%.

So our diversity hiring efforts have been paying off.

And so with leadership, I can give you that data because I just looked at it.

I'm really curious about, I'm glad that you brought that up, Councilman Jones, because with the support positions in particular, I think that would be very important to have folks who look like you, and I'm thinking in terms of mental health being able to relate, being able to talk with someone, just not ever really having access to people of color,

when you're going for counseling or what not.

And I think in terms of leadership versus support positions that those children who are in need will have a more, support positions will have a more direct impact on them because they're really spending more time with them.

I'm thinking of what that support position looks like in a classroom in particular and I'm thinking back to my teaching experience how important it is to have folks

from various backgrounds so that they can connect with the students.

I agree with you 100%.

I'd like to say something about that if I could.

The way hiring is normally done in a school division

It's done by one or two people who have an interest in that position.

That position may be under them, so to speak, right?

And so one or two people get to make that decision and most of those people tend to be white males in positions of power in school divisions for making those decisions.

So one thing that I did that I think is very important is I looked at

the mechanisms for hiring and said, well, one of the reasons that I think we end up in a cycle where we're hiring more and more people who are not persons of color is because people tend to generally unconscious bias-wise, they tend to hire someone who looks like them.

They may not even know they're doing it.

And so we have a system now that has a diverse hiring committee.

So every time someone's hired, a diverse hiring committee is making the decision.

I'm ultimately responsible for all decisions in the school division, but I can't be aware of all of them.

But when a leader is hired, it comes to me and I endorse it or I don't.

The committee makes the decision, a committee of diverse persons, stakeholders, and they have done a pretty good job.

That's why we've gone from

Dany.

University.

Can you define what your leadership is?

Sure.

So in this case, when I say leaders, I think the data that I looked at today, earlier today, define leaders as people with administrative licensure.

So these are people who are, I can list some examples.

So you have people who are assistant principals, principals,

Director, Assistant Director, Chief Officers, and so forth.

So our students, oh and then what is the number?

27% is not necessarily impactful as the number is really small.

Sure.

So before I started, I believe it was 46 administrators.

And you can reverse the math there and find out the numerator.

And then now I think it's 60, no 50.

Mids 50's, something like that.

Maybe 53 now?

So, thank you.

No, I was just curious as to who's controlling the money.

And if the money that's being controlled looks like the people that they're serving.

Because I don't know if we're getting always get the highest use if a group of people who don't necessarily identify with the people that they're serving.

So that's why I was asking.

All right.

So I want to have a discussion around the tax rate.

For me, age sense is too high.

Yes.

I'm very happy that the budget came in.

They must have knew we were meeting today.

But I'm very happy because that makes a difference to me.

That's three cents.

It's a huge amount.

Dany.

trying to come up with a penny where you can shave stuff off and you just can't.

I'm very pleased with the budget that Mr. Banks gave to us, but I'm just not comfortable with the eight cents hike.

And just talking with other council members, I wonder about like the money for Middle River, for instance, once we pay that debt off.

Yeah, actually that's an excellent point and Mr. Props, our finance director, actually proposed paying off that last year's worth of debt service early to actually reduce the proposed tax increase.

So that's already cooked in.

Yeah, so City Manager stated, we've already looked out ahead.

We only had one payment left, which is next year.

So we were trying to think, how can we leverage that so we can get those savings into this year and help with the tax rate increase?

The 6.6, it's actually the 6.6 for total the school.

is actually more than 8 cents, right?

It's about 12 cents.

So we were able to reduce by two pennies by sort of using those funds and we basically gave it to the schools.

Alright, so to get down from the 12 to the 8, we paid off early, so we used cash, paid off early, but then

R. R.

So back to your original question, that 8 cents is already after those things have already been taken care of, those mechanisms have been taken care of to reduce the overall 12 cents that would have been needed down to 8 cents.

and now, as Dr. Richards shared with us, right, which is the additional state funding in 1.6.

Do you want to thank you there?

I guess I'll say it.

There are folks at home that don't want to pay for anything and want to figure out if there is a place in which

We didn't increase the budget on the city services side.

It's just all coming from the school side.

So you're looking at this five and a half or six cents.

It's all basically on 40% of that dollar.

The other 60% of the services mostly that are being delivered didn't

I don't believe he saw any major increase.

I think he worked within the amount that was there.

And at some point, we probably, we've got to start having those conversations as well.

I understand that we need to pay for the new things that we bought.

You got to pay for this ball.

But you can't buy everything you need.

I know I wish I could.

and I wish I could do that for our city staff so that we could continue to deliver all the services that our department heads see that residents and business owners want.

So I think we do at some point have to have a conversation about where does the spending halt because we can't say oh we need to help all these people that own the community contribution sheet

and we help them with this little bit amount of money and then turn around and increase taxes and say, oh, we're not paying for jails, we're paying for schools.

Well, the same 60% of the people that we talk about when the United Way is standing here, that Alice population, I mean, one cent throws them off, two cents throws them off because their landlord is gonna roll that money back to them.

So we gotta be extremely careful.

At least I know I'm gonna, I don't take that lightly, even the five or six cents lightly.

because the fact of the matter is, 60% of the people are going to, they don't look at the new high school as, oh, this is a sign of progress.

It's going to be a sign of burden.

Will they get the benefit of more space and things of that nature?

Of course.

Is education top priority?

Definitely should be.

But at some point, we've got to remember when we build these things, the burden does fall on everybody.

And it doesn't fall on everyone.

Equally it's just proportionate based on what that landlord or homeowner or business owner decides to do with that property and so I think when I think when the folks at home at least me as a person as a parent even when I hear you know those types of comments I'm like Yeah, but I'm trying to send the other kids to college I got preschools and after-school care and all these other I gotta buy school supplies when they send home a school supply sheet even though I'm paying taxes for school supplies and

to me that's one that's always missed me or I gotta pay a fee to go watch my son play football even though my tax dollars paid for the football uniform and it pays for the coach and it pays for the field and it pays for the lights but then you charge me to go inside so we gotta remember that all of these are fees that the 60% get hit with from the schools or any other service you know where there's you know anybody where there's the lights the water this to that all those fees are adding up for those folks so let's

Let's just be careful how we approach this.

I know that some of it we have to do because we've accepted the debt, but I think how we communicate to the public and recognizing that even some of our own employees, although we've made great adjustments for how those individuals get paid and we've done our class and compensation study,

You're still increasing taxes, right?

And not necessarily offering more services that everyone can use.

104 was just, and you're exactly right, because a lot of people do not realize it until they get the bill, right?

They just don't.

they don't realize and then when they get the bill and that's why it was important for me that we really had this conversation because we're going from 96 cents right now proposed to 104 and that's a hike for some people and so although you know we need it we we definitely need it Rocktown

and we committed to that.

It's still, we have to think about our community and who lives here in Harrisonburg.

This is not Charlottesville.

Larry can talk about what our penny means against a Charlottesville penny.

Right?

It's a difference.

And for us, you know, we have so many people living paycheck to paycheck that this is really hurt.

They're going to struggle, right?

And there's even going to be

Some of our employees, our teachers, right?

Because the other thing is this.

You got to afford to live.

You got to be able to live here to have a job here.

And so I'm struggling with this, right?

Because this is an increase that it's really going to burden some people, a lot of people.

and so I think we really need to look at that and Chris is right about even other departments like we're kind of like our city services are not getting what they want and what they need because we have to commit or we're trying to commit to what the schools are asking so and it's our job to look at the entire right

All of our departments.

I mean, that's what city council does.

We look at everybody.

We have to look at all of our departments.

So I know, you know, we're kind of looking at five cents.

You know, I would love to be below a dollar.

I don't know if we can get there or not.

I don't I don't know we can, but for me, you know, a dollar

or below is kind of where I'm sitting at.

The parents of the students that we're raising the taxes for to pay for the school.

One gentleman told me that his rent has already, just the prediction of the taxes, his landlord increased his rent from $10.50 to $13.25.

That's real.

And for the good or for the bad, this person happens to not be married with children.

So he's going to try to figure some things out with his time so he can make more money because he enjoys living in Harrisonburg and likes the city services.

Doesn't use those services that we're discussing right now.

and appreciates them.

Ironically, volunteers, they help the kids.

And that's what I mean.

That's the base.

That's the underbelly of the people because there's so few black men that are seen in the school.

So then this gentleman is volunteering because they're not necessarily, I don't know what the plan is for recruitment for Africans and African Americans.

So he wants to make sure that presence is there and so on and so forth.

But that's the type of stuff that people are going to be dealing with.

So when we're, like I said, we needed certain resources.

We needed the elementary school and we built it and we needed more space.

I can't say that we necessarily needed everything we have, but we know we needed more space.

So we made decisions to give ourselves more space.

So I think

It's interesting for Harrisonburg, and the challenge we have is that our residents, the median income of our residents is really relatively low when you look at cities across Virginia.

You might not think that coming to Harrisonburg because Harrisonburg is a well-run city in many ways, right?

But, you know, of the, say, 37 or 38 cities in Virginia, there are only about four.

that have a median income lower than Harrisonburg's.

Petersburg, Emporia, Hopewell, and yet, at the same time, we're still delivering services that are probably beyond what you might think of as, you know, when we get a high credit rating, it's, you know, because we've managed the budget well, managed the resources,

kept the burden as manageable as possible for residents.

However, that burden is also the thing that keeps our credit rating from moving up.

We can only generate so much revenue within our population because their incomes are low comparatively to most of the cities.

This is the challenge we have when we had a second high school increase.

What we have to pay for that, it hits a population that's income is not like Charlottesville's or not like Winchester.

When Charlottesville raises a penny of taxes, they get a million dollars.

We get about half of that.

And it hits particularly hard now with this second high school.

It also means we've put a lot of programming, the rest of our city staff,

have put a number of things on hold for a while.

And we've put some expansion in needed space for our city staff on hold to step into building the high school.

And so as we move forward, we're going to have to think through that.

How do we step into the additional services that our residents are expecting in all other areas in our parks?

We talk about a trust fund.

We have a shelter we're putting in place.

We talk about helping the financial empowerment of our residents and our businesses.

How do we step into that?

I think this is where we pay for not doing it earlier.

Theoretically maybe been cheaper.

I think this is part of that.

But again, I also think that we all need to make sure we got our pencils as sharp as possible.

And so I mentioned that, Madam, something about the fees and supplies, Madam Mayor, but that was a question I actually had for the schools.

What is, why is there a knowing that we have 60% or asset limited income, constrained and employed in our city?

so many received free and reduced lunch while parents asked to supplement cleaning supplies, learning supplies and quite honestly even athletic fees.

I could comprehend some of the athletic fees but really you know families

of any size.

So being required to, because there's a cultural pressure that's put on each child, because who's the kid that brings the basket for the extra supplies to school?

Who's the kid that needs someone to help them with that?

Who's the child that can't afford it?

And how do we do that?

I know that some of us look at that as trivial, but when you got two, three, four kids, you start multiplying that up.

That could be another $20, $100, whatever the case may be.

And then ironically there are all these programs around the city and the county and in the valley that raise school supplies.

So that's a conundrum for me because some folks are giving supplies and then your parents are going out buying supplies and it's as if they're being taxed again because you're giving them a similar the same

Schools across the country do this.

They ask parents to bring in supplies in the beginning of the year and I don't know when it started.

I don't know why it started, but the theory is that schools first of all have been underfunded, but also people wanted to give teachers some autonomy when they choose supplies.

They wanted to say, hey, what do you want in your classroom and what do you want in your classroom?

And you think about the burden of that when it comes to getting those supplies.

Who's going to do that?

We don't want to put the burden on the teacher.

You put the burden on the school and then somebody in the school has to go to each teacher and say, do you want the pink glue sticks or the purple pens?

Do you want these erasers or these erasers and so forth?

I think the tradition came from that, from giving teachers a little autonomy in terms of the supplies that they get brought into their classroom.

And we could do that.

I did a back of the envelope calculation while Mr. Jones was talking, and I think that it would be about $375,000 additional dollars to do.

If we were to say, no more, we're not going to ask parents for supplies, we're just going to go ahead and replace those.

The supply line that you see in the budget line, 6,000, is a general supply line.

So that's all about the paper and pencils and all the ink cartridges and all the things that toner cartridges and anything under $5,000 that we bring into the schools as materials and supplies.

So that's for everybody in the school and everybody in the central office.

The supplies that are brought from home are specific to the classroom.

Now, teachers don't really do it in an individual way, they do it as a team.

So we could say, okay, let's go ahead and pay for that, and let's give the schools money to do that.

It won't be a burden on the parents at that point.

It is optional for parents by understanding what Mr. Jones is saying about the cultural pressure.

But we could say we'll do that.

But then what would we do?

We would say, okay,

3rd grade dual at Smithland wants these supplies and 5th grade monolingual at you know at Stone Spring wants these supplies.

That of course means somebody's going to have to go and buy all those supplies.

I don't want to put that on the teachers.

It's a tradition that's come about in every school in the country, as far as I know, and it's something that's long-standing, and I think those are the origins of it.

But if that's something that Harrisonburg wants to change, I'm totally open to that.

I think you're absolutely right that it's a burden on many of our families, and I would love to take that burden away.

We can do a real estimate.

and fellow prover there might not be accurate.

How much do you think is left in the, how much not think, but how much is left?

How much is left now in the supply budget right now?

We have actuals because it's made, so you spend whatever you're going to spend now.

So how much is left?

Do we know that?

We started with 5 million, we spent 5.2 so far.

A million?

So if we spend, yeah, and that's, I guess that's scary to me if we could spend 5.2 and their parents at home spent another 375.

So they spent another penny.

Cash.

I mean, that's a- We can do 5.2, we can do 5.2.

Who can do 5.3 or 5?

Them.

They've paid 5.2 in supplies.

Why can't you just do the $600,000?

The school, not us.

I think we budgeted about five and we've spent 5.2 at this point.

With the beginning of the year in fusion that goes to the classrooms.

If we were to take that on, I think it would be about my high estimate is close to 500,000, but not all the different levels have the same supply lists.

And so it's elementary is the most extensive.

When I asked the previous superintendent about this before, because he gave me, you know, I know the history behind it and the tradition behind it, but traditions like that are usually never good for

Dr. Kizner, Way Back

That sounds about right.

One of the other traditions that was on the sad side that I got from the teachers was it was so much paperwork that could be involved in a process.

So you spoke to the process earlier.

So I did want to give you that feedback.

That was just anecdotal.

I mean, I don't know.

But that was a thing in that folks didn't want to go through the rigor

Because we actually increased the school supply budget.

One year we had this conversation with the superintendent early on.

We did the meetings differently then.

And so he made sure we did it.

But then teachers didn't soak up all the funds because of some of the rigors.

So I just want to give you that feedback.

Maybe that can help as we reshape it.

We can't hit them with fees during the week and then only talk about the budget three days out of 365 but charge them nickel and dime them We're like with the tutoring question or not tutoring the all-in question they came up before There's an added expense when you turn that over to parents There's an added expense for them in terms of time and income and so forth So we're very much in favor of the idea that if we can take on that responsibility, let's do it

Maybe we can even work out deals with suppliers and get discounts by volume.

I think that's a great idea to think about and maybe from the schools to kind of look at are there other examples where folks are effectively doing this.

It's all these margins add up for folks.

And so when we find a school supply line where folks are pulling out their pocket,

When you can reduce that burden, you start reducing other small burdens, that makes a difference.

It's funny you said that because with the demographics of our school it may actually be helpful for us because not only do we have the race demographics but then we have the financial demographics that would hit vulnerable communities that those types of organizations

So we may hit a There may be a point where you can buy and they will give and we may end up So Sally may get the purple glue stick and the pink one and the orange one She may end up with more if we take this route actually and we're looking to put a microscope on it versus And now because I don't want folks at home thinking I'm nickel and diamond.

It's really I'm just trying to shift the money because Folks that was a that could be a whole pity

The mayor is trying to get down to a dollar.

I don't want any.

Well, none of us want any, but we got to pay for the new school.

We bought it.

But if that, I mean, theoretically, I mean, that's a penny.

So I appreciate that.

Yeah.

I think it's a good aspirational vision, right?

Can we step into that?

And I think, you know, if we can work together on that, you know, we're a type of city that can do that, right?

Thank you.

Well, yeah, I think what I'm hearing council talk, the deliberation is honing in on five cents.

But again, I would just point out the fact that that that still leaves about a hundred thousand dollar gap.

No, that's another half a million.

I just get you.

I have a million right there.

What you doing?

I wasn't talking.

I'm just trying, yeah, I'm just trying.

With the mayor, though, it just, being, um,

single parent.

I really appreciate what you've added here tonight because I remember when my boys were younger and they were in sportswood and so I can talk about that.

Remember those days, it was a burden for me when I first got custody of them to get the supply list.

But I had to weigh that against how detrimental it would be for them mental health wise.

to go to

sent extra stuff when things were on sale at Walmart because I knew what I had to go through to make that happen.

But if they had went without those supplies, they would have been devastated because they find joy in saying, I've got my wipes.

I've got my my my roll of paper towels that miss so and so once they feel proud that they're bringing those items in.

So for me to take that away from them wasn't fair to their

to their mental growth.

And so, I really appreciate that discussion because it hit home.

It really hit home.

So, it sounds like no one else hasn't.

I've got one change that I've mentioned, I think, to most of you.

If not, you won't be surprised.

So, again, trying to pay for the stuff we bought.

That's my attitude.

So we saved a little bit here with the school supply thing.

I'm so glad.

And I hope we're like the only city that's ever done it.

Like you talk about the tradition.

I'm like, that's a tradition that makes a lot of sense to break, you know.

And again, I think we're going to come out to the good.

Yeah, I'm all about calling those companies and asking them for stuff.

That's going to be fun.

I was sitting there thinking the mayor and I could help you all because we met all these companies at all these conferences.

So it'd be fun.

So even if we spend the money, like I said, we'll get something back.

The other thing is this, those same families, those same households, because the gentleman that I was mentioning are about the $300, 30% increase on this rent.

Has a small business, it's just $10.99.

I like for us to, because everybody knows we've been building V-Cube and worked on V-Cube, the Black and Brown Business Growth Program.

This body here, and then this body with Sal,

to El Romero, our former vice mayor.

We put funding out there to help small businesses.

What I've asked some members of council, and I mentioned this to the city manager, was if we could do funding for small minority, small women and minority businesses.

A separate, an additional bucket.

I know we've got the bucket that we have for ARPA.

But a swam bucket, again, speaks to the families, identified that we're trying to help.

And it's kind of, I love it, because it's the same families as to why we're building the school, but yet we want to pull the rate down.

One of the ways we can help them is help them learn how to make more money, help those entrepreneurs make more money, whether it's small mini grants or educational opportunities in business, so on and so forth.

But there's already federal and state funding there, but there's nothing local here to kind of ramp those people up.

We've been doing a good job at it through BQ, but BQ is not an official city program.

but we could have an official city program under SWAM because that follows the model which is federal, state, and then us.

And I think Brian and Pierce along with Small Business Development Center, Harrisonburg Downtown, Renaissance and others have shown that we can really work together as an ecosystem to produce more entrepreneurs and the cool part has been they've been of all nationalities.

I mean I have seen

every skin tone color of every person represented under Black and Brown Business Girls Program in various languages.

And so I could see us being able to do that for our veterans and especially our women because women, I don't understand why they're still underpaid, but they are.

And so the best way to break through the real ceiling

is just build your dam on.

And so if we can help fund entrepreneurship for women, small businesses, and that's black, that's white, that's everybody that makes up Harrisonburg.

And then obviously minority businesses, that's what STAM stands for.

I'd like to see some funding shifting to that.

We have made this commitment, you know, we've made our strong commitments for the homeless shelter, we've made our strong commitments towards, we've done a great job towards public safety.

I think this is the, to me this is like the one last missing little piece I don't think we can keep depending on the B-Cubes and the United Ways and other folks to take care of some of these issues outside of the city I think we've got to have an actual seat at the table and the city has been very helpful so that is not a knock to Andy or to Brian or to Pierce but I think this gives us a more formal capacity and actually brings in everybody from the days

and then it's a we are doing this for the small women and minority business community.

So I'm proposing $100,000 to $150,000 funding there that we can lock in for those folks.

Because if we want to see them pay the tax rate, let's help them.

And they're knocking on the door.

We got folks.

But it's not overwhelming because I make sure I ask that question as well.

So it's not like a drop in the bucket.

And I appreciate that Councilman.

And Mr. Props and I had a chance to look into that question that you raised.

And the Small Business Revolving Loan Fund actually has over $230,000 in it that could be appropriated.

And so maybe what we can do is Larry and I can talk to Brian and Pierce and maybe what we really need is a better marketing campaign to push out that we have these funds available.

for Small Businesses here in Harrisonburg.

No, no, no.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, sorry.

You didn't mention that to me.

A grant program would be something entirely different.

That's why I was saying that I didn't want to touch the ARPA money.

This is the Revolving Loan Fund that we created We do need to get that out there But I was thinking separate funding for programming like the startup champions network that was here just two weeks ago It's an incubator for entrepreneurs

Small mini grants that help with business cards, bridges to get them in memberships to the chamber, or small, very small, but things to unwrap people for their businesses.

I mean, these are the things that we've had to do to be cubes, so we've identified

the hurdles that are hard for the point of entry for folks to say, all right, I'm open to business downtown, I'm open to business in the mall, I'm open to business here.

No, I think we're good because Tracy's not going anywhere.

Are you hanging out?

So Amy, you going to switch?

I do have a question for Larry or Chris.

I think it's a great idea.

I've been saying it for years.

I don't even know why.

B Cube is not a city program.

But I would think if we do this, then I'm sitting here looking at Luke.

When we think of economic development in kind of larger business terms, but firstly like Harrisonburg, economic development about our individual residents, small entrepreneurs, how we help them move into stability, security, having their own sources of incomes that they can become financially stable with, is a different way of thinking about economic development generally.

I think it would be something that would

It's valuable and useful for us to do with our residents.

You know, I've talked to folks about the financial empowerment cities, which is really about working with individuals and that's about $170,000 hanging out there in a matching fun way, right?

And it really addresses the insecurity, financial security that individuals have with a little bit of support can move up the ladder.

and I think for us when we talk about how we generate revenue for our schools and then we have an income that's low, the way we tackle that is intentionally and helping folks who are struggling.

That's not only a valuable thing that we can do, but it could be the most.

It's a very valuable way to elevate our kind of meeting income in the city, right?

It helps to break the generational financial curse.

And it makes the other parts.

As I'm looking at the four of you, like the things I know you all care about,

So I think that we are at a point.

It rounds it out.

From the legal standpoint, I want to make sure we understand what we're talking about when we say swam.

That has to do with the procurement and qualifying of those businesses so that when they go to bid on government contracts, be with the city of Harrisonburg or the state of Virginia, they go through a certification process with the state and they get some extra points and extra consideration when they bid on projects.

It is not

in any way, shape, or form, giving money directly to those businesses.

We can't do that.

We can have Brian and Pierce continue their efforts to provide the educational opportunities to get the small business owners with the mentors and to help them work through a lot of the issues.

Financial counseling is one.

But for better or worse, I don't agree with the law, but the law is pretty clear.

In fact, it's become a lot more clear than last year, so the government can't have a program where you give money to businesses or other individuals where it's based on race or gender.

We can get the process of bidding for the contract itself.

If you have a program that is devoted, it's open for everyone.

We can market it.

And that's what Pierce and Brian did with the latest round of ARPA funds.

Yeah, I'm suggesting, I'm saying part of my pitch is asking for small women and minority businesses to be the ones to come.

Because quite honestly, a larger business, it doesn't make sense for you to come to get something so small.

If all we have is $100,000, right?

You know, I'm just saying proposing it.

But right now, we don't have a fund set aside separate from the loan to do micro and mini grants or to help bridge small businesses of any type, right?

Period.

And so I would like that to exist.

I'm proposing that we market towards those individuals.

But yes, the program is completely open.

It's completely public, right?

I can walk up

Dany.

Right?

So that's one way we can do that.

So we can set criteria for folks to enter into financial counseling, into a program that would support an entrepreneur, necessarily.

So that's one way you can do that.

And then the governor and our former president helped us with the opportunity zones.

So we've got those a weekend.

So those two elements, and you should have spoke more about the financial piece.

Well, yeah, yeah.

So I think it's along this same line.

You know, there's a financial empowerment cities that we've worked with Brian and Amy with a little bit to gather information and something that we could step into when there's some matching funds available.

And it really is about financial counseling to folks become stable.

You know, whether it's something council would want to, you know, pursue or not, you know, I'm, you know, I'm certainly open for folks to think through that.

Yeah, that is a, in this case, it's a about $120,000 financial commitment.

We have to think about where that comes from.

So that's where I didn't kind of throw it out there.

Yeah.

Sorry, Mayor.

That's okay.

Um, I'm gonna, I don't think we're coming to it.

Conclusion and maybe a decision.

The breakdown of five cent tax increase for household.

I know there's been discussion, like breaking it down to almost a month.

We have a year here from what Larry says.

If you look, if you start with an average,

and Larry has that.

I think an average home in Harrisonburg is around $3.20 now.

So if we look at the $3.00 figure that Mr. Props Larry's brought forward and a $5.00 tax increase for that average home, and of course half people are under average, right, would be $150 a year.

and that's, you know, $14 a month, about about $12 an increased taxes.

Now, the other thing that does happen for folks, and we know this, is not only does the tax rate go up, but our assessments have gone up.

So folks do get hit.

Now that, you know, in theory is their equity, but it's not money they can make use of, you know, unless they, you know, borrow against it.

Right, so it's not cash in your pocket, it doesn't help you with bills.

When you get that, and for most folks you can't move, right?

They kind of, they call that those handcuffs, right?

With that equity.

It looks great for some time in the future.

So, but if you're in a $200,000 home, a five cent tax increase would be about $90 a year.

So that's a $7, $8 a month increase.

And your ability to absorb that is very dependent on a lot of things, fixed income folks.

That's the challenge we have right now.

We did put some extra money into the

I don't.

That would be Karen, Commissioner, that would have that information about the numbers.

I'll be interested to know.

When we changed the ordinance last year,

So that's about $280,000 or $280,000 available for folks to step into.

And of course, that is a tool that we can decide to make use of.

We can expand that, especially for

I think fixed income and elderly folks and that's something we have the ability to kind of think about.

It means, you know, that has to be absorbed elsewhere.

And I think that's a fine thing for us to say as a city to our fixed income elderly folks, you know, we'll step up for you, right?

And, you know, you've made it to this point and played by the rules and so we're going to step up and help you with the relief.

I think it's a good

Yeah, I'm glad to hear that that's expanded because I've heard people say they might not be able to afford to live in Harrisonburg anymore on a fixed income.

So the more we can help the elderly to stay where they want to be, where they've been for so many years in many cases.

I think it went 250 to 280, right?

I want to say, well, some of that in that department is also for veterans.

There's two lines in there that we have to do.

That's good to know.

So are we set on five cents?

Well, I don't know what I wanted to ask from what I've heard from Councilman Jones, Councilman Fleming, talking about programs you would like to have, like the grants to small businesses or this, what is it called again?

The Financial Empowerment Cities.

Financial Empowerment.

Well, it is new to your ears, but not to the city manager, so I was hoping that they had

I figured out where they could find a cut since that number is so small so that that way it would transition.

At the time I didn't know how much the empowerment piece was so I'd only asked for like 100 or 150 so I definitely didn't know if it was up to two something or 225 or 250 so if we need to

Dany

Like sometimes we, so for example, we have a Harrisonburg launch program.

We could use Glending to help sponsor more people for that program or grow that program.

So would it be a new line item?

I think the answer is yes, because Amy's shaking her head yet.

I didn't know if we could hide it under any of Brian's already line items.

That's, that was my long answer.

I think in our discussions with Larry we had been thinking it would fit under the revolving loan funds where Mr. Banks shared there is additional money that could be appropriated.

I think we would have to go back as staff to see if you're contemplating a program that is grants instead of loans.

I'm just saying I'll just reiterate what Amy said.

So Madam Mayor, just to really answer your question about that is I think, one, the budget that Sea Manager Banks presented to us, I think I would suggest it's cut as much as the city staff were able to do.

I'm comfortable with that budget as is, not cutting into that.

I know Mr. McAulford kind of 50,000 to split.

There's no difference, so I trust that he can find that.

That's not a big number in the scope of our budget.

I do know almost every city in Virginia right now is increasing their

their budget in increasing their taxes because of increasing education costs salary increases are happening we know teachers need those increases just like we hit our staff as well right where we've done a major compensation study stepped into that and you know considering that we're also opening a school at the same time so I've talked to Charlottesville, Winchester, Roanoke

They're all increasing their taxes for their schools, but they're not opening up a school at the same time.

I think we're really doing an extraordinary job to get down to that point.

The majority of this really is the new school that we were absorbing.

4.25.

To open the school, which covers, you know, most of that in my sense.

And I hear everyone, the concerns about, you know, what this does to folks, you know, who aren't on fixed income, but whose income

is possibly the majority of our city and this hits in a way.

I don't even think five is like really

Well, no, I'm because five isn't the number.

It's five and something else because the money doesn't just magically go away, right?

So they've got to find a place.

Well, I think they say they could fill that gap.

It doesn't make the money go away.

So either there, so that means they're cutting something else to get that 170.

That's why I was asking if there were a couple of new line items that would cause it to bump up to something like five and a half cents.

Can we do a half cent?

Or is it just confusing for people?

I'm not saying we can't do it.

We've never done half.

I was just saying that the math wasn't mapping to stop at five.

Well, I came into the meeting thinking that I had it.

I certainly didn't expect them to talk to me about a loan program.

They gotta make it work.

They and we too, and we don't have the luxury of adding, that's not even luxury, adding more necessary programs.

So does that mean we want to even consider six so that we have a little more breathing?

Now you've added 580.

I was coming in here thinking I had a

like I was going to say that and then they would say, oh, we have already made these adjustments.

Well, we can take the next two weeks or maybe a week to examine what you've shared about the concept and I've written down mini grants.

That's what your idea is.

We can look.

I just don't know sitting here if the funding in the Revolving Loan Program could be used for mini grants.

So that's something that we can examine, and if it can, then there's funding available there for appropriation.

Yeah, I mean, the revolving loan plan.

program, you know, that was set up to just keep turning.

Right.

Yeah, we would need to take the next couple weeks to just kind of look into that, as Amy said.

It is no different when you upped the community contribution, like $200,000 and they had to find it.

It's no different.

Now we're not even talking about the community.

Help the people.

I would say one way to maybe think about this.

You know, program dollars could come from.

So, you know, one of the reasons we have a good credit rating is we budget conservatively, right?

And I think, you know, there's a reason that we are able to get a credit rating kind of above what our income generation capacity is.

And, you know, you look at, you know, sales tax, restaurant food tax, business license tax,

You know, our increase projections are, you know, meant to be achievable, right?

So we don't have less money than we projected.

But what that, you know, often can mean is then, you know, we've generated some additional funds.

Assuming the economy doesn't take a nosedive, right?

But then that's, you know, often, I think, for the city.

is where we generate some funds to step into those programs.

We budget conservatively, and we have an increase in our sales tax projections, but it's a smaller increase than we've had in the past.

Same with our property.

We're assuming about a 5% jump, and we had about 11% last year.

and then also, you know, business license tax is projected significantly less than it was a year before.

Well, and I'm curious about this financial empowerment.

No, not federal and state, so it's a matching grant program.

We already have qualified for it if we step into about $170,000 over two years to step into.

That's what it would cost us?

No, that would be the matching part.

Our match, and it's not a 100% match, you don't have to go 170 to 170.

It's flexible the way the program is set up.

It could be 150, 140 to match it over two years.

The reason I didn't initially bring it forward is because when I was made aware of it and kind of offered to get us in it towards the end of March, the budget had already been done.

So I was really doing a lot of investigative looking into this program to see whether it was something we'd want to get into at all.

What you counted for in the budget.

Have to think of staffing.

who could step into that so the city manager would have to kind of figure if that's possible or not.

That's what I was thinking about the staff to do.

And kind of given the quick time frame that we're on the middle of the budget, you know, it was adding a separate line item.

Whether it's something that can become available to us as we

go through the year, or we can find dollars elsewhere.

You know, I'm interested and willing to, you know, direct city manager, maybe look at, you know, how to do that.

But I did want everybody to see how they matched up, and that's what's got me so excited about this program.

I had that idea and stuff we all have been working with, and then

When we look at an Alice family and say, okay, we had to raise taxes because of the school, I can also say, okay, we've got all these other programs to help you where you are right now and help you build wealth.

So no, I'm not just putting my thumb on the scale saying you need to pay more because we're helping you with education.

Yeah, we're helping your kid.

with Education.

Space, we're also doing all these things to help your whole household.

So that's why that's my approach and that's why I got so excited about what Dany has looked into because, like I said, I think that's the last piece if we can get these.

Well, I think that's also an important piece with the

tax relief for the senior because if we're going to do this right then we need to kind of have solutions for you or opportunities for you because I'm gonna tell you I'm curious I'm hoping we can get that data from Karen because I'm real curious to see if people are even aware of it right or taking taking that opportunity

I can't speak for camera, but I do know that they do a pretty robust job of getting the word out.

I do know that.

But I don't know, I don't know if they're, what the numbers increased, but I had 100 last year and LA had 130.

Right.

And we want to make sure that we're getting the word out to all the communities.

Right.

That's literally why we may be cute.

It's not like we created new stuff.

I'm using the same stuff.

It's just that black and brown people would not come here for the services because historically they didn't feel good about coming here.

They didn't know how awesome our staff is because the people we got now ain't always the people that were here.

Well, and we just had a meeting with, you know, the welcoming council.

And we just had this whole discussion about language access.

Right.

So I would feel better if we have alternatives for our

in 2023 at a council meeting with folks from the Warner Department because a lot of that stuff was listed on the back of bills.

And so we had talked about, we had talked about the writing being small and folks not knowing that the information was there on the back of the bill.

And they said that they were going to try to do a better job of putting it somewhere

so that it grabs your attention right off the bat.

Because who looks at the back of the bill?

I look at the front to see how much I have to pay.

And so that has come up.

So I'm not sure what changes were supposed to be made through this year, but we talked about it at a council meeting in 2023.

So I'm hoping that they follow through.

But I've been telling as many people as possible because if you're on disability, you also can qualify.

And so a lot of people

More than understanding if they had two cars, you can pick which car.

If you have a house and a piece of land, it has to be the house that you live in that qualifies for the tax relief.

So I think it's a matter of just letting folks know about these programs, but we are not doing a very good job of that.

So if you think about the $280,000 in the tax relief, and if you look at

and this would be a, you know, probably not in a $300,000 house.

If you think of that and their taxes increase $150, we'd be able to provide relief for 1,800 households, right?

That's what that number equates to about.

And that's something we can step into just to mention about the financial empowerment cities, what they call the FECs.

One of the ways that's used in some cities is when individuals get caught, for example, in the court system, they have fees and fines which add extra burden to folks.

It's extra harm to something that's happened.

Stepping into a free counseling service on finances can be the alternative to the extra financial penalty to have.

Places are using that, right?

Instead of having this fine or this penalty imposed upon you, here's a free program for you to go through to move you towards financial stability, security, and hopefully empowerment.

I think for us stepping into those types of programs could be a really powerful way for us to support folks

The other end of this, that taxes are being raised, we're delivering a new high school that's going to educate the next leadership in the workforce of our city.

It is an investment in the future here and really a pretty spectacular one that's there for folks.

Right, I wanted to pick up on that too from having a tour of the high school and then going to the opening ceremony.

It is phenomenal.

The new principal, Cameron Miles, kept saying this is a game changer and I could see how it really is.

It's a modern design that's based on collaboration and creativity so it's

really moving us into the future as well as we've had a backlog of needing it for years.

So if this tax increase is driven by that high school, my hope is that the citizens will see that it's worth it because we needed it and it's really a wonderful addition to the community.

And I appreciate the perspective of how rare it is for a city our size to make that leap to the second high school.

Okay, so I think, well, I like to have a little recess before we go to seven.

So, the charge, it looks like we're at five.

Okay.

And just to have to speak into the mic, so I'm hearing

$0.05 is your preference for the tax rate increase.

What is council's direction on additional $100,000 for mini grants?

Should we take that up at the council meeting?

No, I think they need to come back all together.

And the financial empowerment?

So if we don't vote tonight and we vote at the end of May, the next meeting in June, at least two of us will be gone.

That's right.

We can't go past May 31st.

No, right.

The second vote will be without the council.

As long as they're quorum.

We're going to vote on the 23rd.

Yeah, we're voting.

On the 23rd.

I'll vote the 28th.

I'll let the city attorney

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think what you could do tonight is vote with these amendments that you requested and that's what you vote on tonight.

Doesn't mean you pass the budget yet.

And then we come back then, next council meeting with all of those adjustments.

Could you live with us starting with the grant program and then easing it to the empowerment program later?

Yeah, yeah.

So, you know, kind of, you know, I mean, you know, I think it's a great program, you know, but it's, you know, a full council decision of doing that.

So yeah, so we should have some of the money.

Have them coming to Harrisonburg, you know, and Ms.

Webb's, you know, working on that with Brian to have them come here in the summer.

So something maybe I could propose because I know Liz Webb and Brian Shell have been engaged with Councilman Fleming on this learning journey about financial empowerment cities and it seems like there's interest among city council members to learn more about

What are they?

What is this opportunity?

We could perhaps bring a presentation back about what are financial empowerment cities.

Okay, so that we can just leave as open, we don't have to find money for it now.

And I like the idea of a presentation so we can learn more about it.

We are going to go ahead and take a recess.

Thank you Tracy schools for coming in Larry.

Oh, hang on.

Mayor Reed.

President.

City Manager Banks.

Oh, he's not here.

Deputy Manager Amy Snyder here.

City Attorney Brown.

Council Member Robinson.

Here.

All right.

All right.

Let this bow our heads.

Dear father, we thank you for this opportunity to serve.

Please bless this space and those within it.

Fill our community with love and hope.

May our hearts be guided by the principles of unity and peace as we govern this evening.

Thank you for your grace and your mercy and for blessing these proceedings.

May our decisions make our city a better place for all.

Okay, we do have two special recognitions this evening.

And so the first one is for proclamation recognizing May 2024 as building safety month.

And I believe we have Mike, Melinda, and are you coming up too?

All right, come on up.

We have seven, where as is just to keep count.

Okay, well, this is a proclamation recognizing Building Safety Month, which is May 2024.

Whereas our city is committed to recognizing that our growth and strength depends on the safety and essential role our homes, buildings and infrastructure play in both everyday life and when disasters strike.

And whereas our confidence and the resilience of these buildings that make up our community

is achieved through the devotion of vigilant guardians, building safety and fire prevention officials, architects, engineers, builders, trades people, design professionals, laborers, plumbers, and others in the construction industry who work year-round to ensure the safe construction of buildings and whereas these guardians are dedicated members of the International Code Council, a non-profit that brings together local, state, territorial, tribal,

and federal officials who are experts in the built environment to create and implement the highest quality codes to protect us in the buildings where we live, learn, work and play and whereas these modern building codes include safeguards to protect the public from hazards such as hurricanes, snowstorms, tornadoes, wildland fires, floods and earthquakes and whereas building safety month is sponsored by the International Code Council

to remind the public about the critical role of our communities, largely unknown protectors of public safety, our local code officials, who assure us of safe, sustainable, and affordable buildings that are essential to our prosperity.

And whereas Mission Possible, the theme for Building Safety Month 2024 encourages us all to raise awareness about building safety on a personal, local, and global scale,

and, whereas, each year, in observance of Building Safety Month, people all over the world are asked to consider the commitment to improve public, to improve building safety, resilience and economic investment at home and in the community and to acknowledge the essential service provided to all of us by local and state building departments, fire prevention bureaus and federal agencies protecting lives and property.

Now, therefore, on behalf of Deanna Reed, Mayor of the City of Harrisonburg and Harrisonburg City Council, do hereby proclaim the month of May 2024 as Building Safety Month.

Accordingly, I encourage our citizens to join us as we participate in Building Safety Month activities.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You want to give them their proclamation?

Yes, I do.

Mike Williams, our building official and Melinda Meadows, our senior permit technician.

Just two other faces as part of our larger team that work day in and day out all the time to help support our community.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Excuse me.

for Adam, maybe.

So we have just a few items that Melinda has arranged for us as people come into the office.

Some activities that are out in the front lobby area outside of our space.

We had opportunities that actually are

Friends at the fire department donated some materials for folks to enter into a raffle as they come up and learn about items that Melinda has arranged and if there's anything else I've missed you can add to that as well.

You may have seen a small display in the four-year areas.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

as National Police Week.

So who's coming up here?

Monty Hand.

Brooke, get up here.

Up here.

I know, because Dany didn't make a deal.

He didn't make a deal.

I didn't learn.

All right.

Proclamation recognizing a week of May 12th through May 18th, 2024.

as National Police Week, whereas the Congress and President of the United States have designated May 15th as Peace Officers Memorial Day, and the week in which May 15 falls as National Police Week, and whereas the members of the Harrisonburg Police Department play an essential role in safeguarding the rights and freedoms of the city, and whereas it is important that all citizens know and understand the duties, responsibilities, hazards, and sacrifices

of their law enforcement agency and that members of the Harrisonburg Police Department recognize their duty to serve the people by safeguarding life and property, by protecting them against violence and disorder, and by protecting the innocent against deception and the weak against oppression.

Whereas the men and women of Harrisonburg Police Department unceasingly provide a vital public service.

Now therefore, Deanna Reed, Mayor of the City of Harrisonburg, Virginia, will, upon all citizens,

of Harrisonburg upon all patriotic civic and educational organizations to observe the week of May 12th through the 18th as police week with appropriate ceremonies and observances in which all of our people may join in commemorating law enforcement officers past and present who by their faithful and loyal devotion to their responsibilities have rendered a dedicated service to their communities and in so doing

have established for themselves an enduring reputation of preserving the rights and security of all citizens.

I further call upon all citizens of Harrisonburg to observe Wednesday, May 15th as Peace Officers Memorial Day in honor of those law enforcement officers who threw their courageous deeds and made the ultimate sacrifice in service to their community or have become disabled in the performance of duty and let us recognize and pay respect.

to the survivors of our falling heroes.

Thank you.

and Mary, if I could, you'll notice that our esteemed Chief Warner is not here this evening.

That is because she is at the graduation of, I believe it's three of our new officers who are coming out of the academy.

All right, we will now go into our consent agenda.

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

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

So moved.

Second that.

Any discussion?

Council Member Robinson.

Aye.

Council Member Fleming.

Aye.

Vice Mayor Dent.

Aye.

Aye.

Is that the one you want?

Yep.

And the screen's not showing, but that's OK.

I can look over here.

Sorry, too.

That's fine.

No, sorry.

Thank you.

Good evening, mayor, council members, and staff.

My name is Kristen McComb, and I'm the CDBG program manager for the city of Harrisonburg.

That always feels like I'm mouthful, especially if I say it all out.

I'm here tonight to talk about an amendment that I brought to you last month to consider an amendment that will move surplus funding from two completed projects to the North Liberty Art Project.

Since that time, we have held the required public hearing and public comment period.

No additional comments were received other than the one caller.

that was during the public hearing.

Here is a summary of the amendments timeline.

I'm here tonight to ask you to consider approval of these amendments.

Any questions?

Thank you.

This item is now open for public hearing.

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

You'll have five minutes.

No, no, no.

You do the public waiting period and now we vote.

Yeah, technically.

We've done the period.

Oh, that's right.

Okay, hold on.

Sure.

It sounds like I just clicked a wrong button.

It's okay.

It's okay.

All right, so we will put you over there.

Oh man, I was gonna say we both.

Go home.

See who loves you.

Fortunately, you gonna have to sit for a while.

Now we're going Adam, you're up!

We have a special use permit for you this evening, a site that you've seen before and is an amendment to a special use permit at 1846 Evelyn Bird Avenue.

So this is an amendment to the previously approved special use permit which occurred almost a year ago, June of 2023.

Our site is an undeveloped parcel zone B2, which is adjacent to the Texas Roadhouse Restaurant along Evelyn Bird Avenue and across the street from the parcel that houses the regal cinemas.

The land use guide has this entire area designated for commercial uses and our aerial photograph showing the predominant area here being developed except for our subject site, which is undeveloped at the current moment.

and a photograph taken from Evelyn Bird Avenue.

So the sites that was previously approved, the plan that's before you on the screen is the plan development that was submitted.

One of the requirements of the special use permit to allow for multifamily or mixed use buildings in B2 is to submit a plan of development.

And part of that plan of development oftentimes comes with conditions or specific details of that plan

that the applicant submits.

And in this particular case, really the impetus that really brings us here this evening has much to do with the bus pull-off that was planned for this facility.

Remind you, there's already a bus stop at this location.

There will remain to be a bus stop at this location, but the bus pull-off was planned, and that was shown here in this image at the bottom center here.

So this darker pavement shows the bus pull-off that was planned in between the two entrances to the site.

After they got a little further into the engineering, which oftentimes can be the case, you start to see a little bit more of the complexities of the site, and that's what they ran into, recognizing that the bus pull-off would be very complex and difficult to make it feasible for the plan to actually be constructed the way shen on this rendering and the plan of development that occurred last year in 2023.

So as part of that, now looking at what the plan would be today is essentially to remove the bus pull-off But then the other details that are being shown here is that they have a reduction in the number of parking spaces They actually also reduced the height of the building or the planned height of the building because they were anticipating it could be as many as five stories Now we're looking at four stories.

They were anticipating as many as 20 units and now we're looking at 16 units

which are pointed out I believe on the next slide.

So the specifics of this plan of development here going from six details really to five now.

So we're looking at very similar details that were shown from last year.

So the first is that the site would have units that would not contain units that had more than three bedrooms.

The site shall contain only 23 parking spaces.

This is a slight deviation from what we looked at last year because they had a calculation ratio and instead of saying that they would provide a certain calculation ratio of parking, they just said here's the number, here's the maximum number of parking spaces that we'll provide on site, which is 23.

Number three remains the same, at least 10% of the units will make up

one bedroom units.

The fourth is that at least one of the units will be fully handicapped accessible.

And then the fifth is a change that I've already noted that they were originally planning as many as 20 units up to five stories.

They've now reduced that to four stories and 16 units.

We had no concern with the change.

We talked with HDPT about the situation with the bus pull off

What you might remember about Evelyn Bird Avenue is that we're looking at a change in the transportation system there from a four-lane road to go to what used to be called a road diet, and I forget the terminology that we use today in modern terms, but it is now going to be one lane in each direction with a center turn lane with bike lanes there.

In a perfect world scenario, folks that may need that extra support to be able to get on the bus, there are other stops along Evelyn Bird Avenue that are not far from here at a slight different location along Evelyn Bird Avenue for folks that might need some of that additional support to get on the bus.

Just slightly down the hill from here would be a much better location given the physical location of this project or this property rather along Evelyn Bird Avenue.

So staff had no concerns.

Planning Commission had no concerns.

They recommended in favor of the amendments five to zero.

You'll hear me say five to zero all night long because there were two people that were not there.

One because there was a vacancy on planning commission and Commissioner Alcindy was vacant.

Not vacant.

He was not in the room that night.

He was not present.

One quick question.

I sent this in to you guys about the bus stop being ADA compliant.

So the one that's within the 450 feet, so that is currently ADA compliant.

So sites, and if my friends are here this evening, so the bus stops are ADA compliant.

Our buses have a lot of functionality for them to be able to use a hydraulics to drop down.

We have ramps to allow for that opportunity for

Any other questions?

I don't have any questions, but just if you could just clarify, there's a bit here where the commission talks about the regal cinema special use permit.

It does not.

And from some conversations that I've been told of that project, I'm not sure that it will come to fruition.

Okay.

Thank you.

Right.

I will open this item up for public hearing.

Hi, I'm Nathan Blackwell.

I'm with Land and Home that is proposing this minor adjustment to what we brought here last year and I'm here to answer any questions that you have.

Yeah, as we went through the site plan process, it became apparent for the city and ourselves to make this minor tweak.

The site has its own constraints to it that we're trying to match.

Anyone else?

Pam, do we have any callers?

Thank you.

I will close public hearing.

Any more discussion?

Council Member Robinson.

Aye.

Council Member Fleming.

Aye.

Council Member Jones.

Aye.

Vice Mayor Dent.

Aye.

What's going on, Adam?

I'm trying to get my skills to see if I can get this screen to work for the rest of the folks here this evening.

They're not as good.

Oh, there we go.

Look at that magic.

All right.

Next item.

Are you ready, ma'am?

I am.

All right.

at 35 Monroe Street.

The parcel is bounded here in blue, very small block of Monroe Street as it stretches between North Main Street and Madison Street.

This is a request to rezone the parcel

which is about 6,700 square feet in size from the R2 residential district to the R8 small lot residential district.

Really we're looking at one of these situations where we have an applicant who has a non-conforming dwelling, a non-conforming property because the site has a duplex and it's smaller than the lot of requirements of R2.

And the setback requirements of the R2 district create

The opportunity that really prevents the opportunity from having an expansion of the dwelling

because the setbacks are 30 in the front, 10 on both sides, and 25 foot in the rear.

And the property owner is planning an expansion to create more space for the family.

And if they were to rezone to R8, it really is a perfect scenario for them because the R8 regulations would bring the site into conformance with lot area requirements.

So they would no longer be considered non-conforming because the lot area requirements of R8 are so much less.

R2, and then the setbacks work to their favor because then they will be able to provide an addition to their home because the setbacks are then 10 on the front, 10 on both sides, and only 15 in the rear.

So it would work to their favor to do that rezoning.

But just looking at the site here, it's zoned R2.

It's surrounded by some other properties that are also non-conforming.

So there's a non-conforming duplex to the north.

There's a non-conforming duplex across the streets.

There's a non-conforming single family to the south and the M1.

And those are all because of a lot of area requirements.

The number of units that are on there today do not match those earning regulations.

And then of course, the M1 property is industrial and you cannot have residential dwellings in industrial.

So a lot of non-conformities in this area.

Long term plans for this area is looking to provide some opportunities for mixed uses along North Main Street and then the neighborhood residential and the red there.

that neighborhood residential carries with it the promoting of the idea of all different kinds of housing.

So single family duplex, downhomes in all different kinds of densities appropriate to what is happening in the surrounding area.

So as you've read in the staff report, we believe that the rezoning here does make sense and the area photograph.

taken from Monroe Streets.

Confusingly, the site has three addresses, but it is only two units.

So it's identified as 35 Monroe and then 35A and 35B, but it is only two dwelling units.

And staff did not have concerns with the rezoning request.

Any questions?

Thank you.

This item is not open for public hearing.

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

You'll have five minutes.

Seeing none in person.

One moment, please.

Mary Reed, there are no callers.

Alright, it's been a pretty valuable tool for a lot of folks.

Second.

Any discussion?

I have a question.

They have an accessory unit, like accessory dwelling on the property.

If we approve this, does that mean later they can't rent that out or do another supplement?

What can happen with that building?

Are you referring to the accessory structure that's on the property?

Yes.

So to my knowledge, it's just a shed, a garage.

It's just a shed.

There you go.

We want to talk about storage.

Council Member Robinson.

Aye.

Council Member Fleming.

Aye.

Council Member Jones.

Aye.

Vice Mayor Dent.

Aye.

Mayor Reed.

Aye.

Yes, Madam Mayor, I am going to cover six EFG and H. Hallelujah.

And one.

Thank you.

Love you.

But we would need four votes.

Gotcha.

So, four items before you.

They all are associated with 10, 11, 19, 21, 23 and 31 West Market Street.

It's a rezoning of two sections of the property.

I'll show you those details and then three special use permits.

Those special use permits being warehousing to allow contractors and to allow for a mixed use building on the site.

And this is one of these scenarios where, you know, the applicant in good faith bought property, thought everything was okay, came in to do the right thing, getting building permits, and as they learned what was necessary for the building permits, and as we would ask our typical questions about what's going on on site, it came to a lot of questions about, wait a minute, what's really going on with the property?

And unfortunately, the gentleman could not prove nonconformancy for a lot of the things that were going on on the property.

and he wants to make good here and we talked to him about all the different opportunities, about options for him to move forward and he chose what's before you this evening so to rezone property and the three special use permits to bring the site into compliance.

So our property here, you know, it's one of these properties that you pass by quite a bit and you may not really notice quite a bit that there's a there's a residence on this property, but it is a it has been at least used residentially for a number of years.

A single family detached dwelling and then a building here on this B2 property that has multiple uses on it and probably has had multiple different uses over the years.

This property was annexed into the city in 1983.

and the, at least the single family dwelling that's on site the applicant believes was probably built around the 1930s and we have some photos of that as well.

So our B2 property here and the sections that are requested for rezoning are two.

We have this area that's about 7,300 square feet which is encapsulating the area where the single family detached dwelling is and then a teeny tiny little triangular shaped area

which is zoned R1.

It's adjacent to the Westover Park.

In fact, when you're running the trail, you're very close to this property and you don't really know it because of the way the woods are laid out there.

So, rezoning to R8 conditional on the top right and then in the bottom of the image are rezoning from R1 to B2 to bring it into compliance with the rest of the property.

The property is designated commercial as is much of the frontage along this area except for the area that's owned by the city that's Westover Park that's all in the green there and some of the old quarry area that the city owns along West Market Street as well.

And then an aerial photograph really in this image you can really see how close the corner of the property is.

in the trail there.

In fact, if you run the trail, as I do regularly, there is a flag that you'll see where it is indicating where the property corner is.

And I paid very close attention to that as I was running the trail recently.

And then this is taken from across West Market Street looking at the property.

So an image left there is that single family dwelling that's thought to have been built in the 1930s.

And then the building that is requesting the three special use permits, which is the larger building there to the right.

So going through these piecemeal here, the R8 zoning, there's one proffer that was submitted and that is to limit the area to only having one dwelling unit and that would prevent it from being renovated into a duplex or if the building were torn down, the only thing that could be put back is one dwelling unit.

Remember that R8 occupancy is the same as R1 and R2 which is that situation which is if it's owner occupied or non-owner occupied it's either a family plus two borders or a family plus one border and it's equivalent to when you have you can even have three unrelated individuals if it's just the one plus the two borders

The area here, this survey shown, is showing you just the colored end areas of the different areas of the building that will be used for the different uses, so the pink being the warehousing area, the blue is the contractor area, and then the light teal is the second contractor area.

One of the things that came out of our review

of the applications was our concern with the number of entrances that this small property has.

It has three entrances.

And as you've heard me and others say over the years about sort of the control that we like to be able to have to provide safe traffic maneuvering environments off of the public street as less entrances is always better.

And the applicant had heard our concern and even offered up their own condition that's really placed upon all three of the special use permits

which is that within six months of approval of the special use permit, the entrance that I'll show you here in a moment would be closed and they'll close it in a manner that's acceptable to us, whether it be with chains or posts or even just removing the entrance altogether with curbing and appropriate guttering.

But we'll work with the applicant if the special use permits are approved.

It's really that center entrance.

So there's three entrances along this area.

So you have one, two, and three and they're very close together.

And if you're, you know, when you're out,

and the city and your city intersections, it can be difficult to know when people have that blinker on which entrance they're turning in, so less is always better and they're gonna close that center entrance as part of this process.

Okay, conditions that were recommended by staff and by Planning Commission for all three items are on the screen before you.

The first special use permit is associated with warehousing.

The suggested condition A is associated with the street entrance closing.

Item B and C are specifically only allowing up to 2,000 square feet of area to be used for warehousing.

They only use about 1,500, but we built in some wiggle room for them.

And then item C is that the warehousing would not become self-storage facilities.

And then item D is that if it becomes a nuisance, you all can take a look at it again if you so wish to do so.

The special use to allow for contractors, again, item A condition is associated with the closing of the entrance.

Item B is if they choose to provide outdoor storage and the applicant says at this time they don't plan to but was but totally understood that if they do that they would provide appropriate screening but we offered up a condition item B here that states that if they do provide

for the storage or display of building materials that may be associated with the contractors, how they should buffer that and that goes into the types of screening and opaque fencing and so forth.

So that's item B and then again item C if it becomes a nuisance you all can recall it.

The third and final special use permit is associated with that mixed use building.

So the building has one unit in it.

So that's where the mixed use building comes into play.

And as I just described for the Nerd Apartments special use permit, you have to submit a plan of development to show what exactly you're going to do with the residential component of a commercial site.

They have done that and they're basically just saying it's a two-story apartment

They want to continue using it.

It would just be a continuation of the second floor and where they're showing where the parking is.

They basically just want to keep what's already there.

They don't want to expand.

They don't want to have any more units.

They want to continue to operate the way that they believed it has operated for a number of years.

So this is their plan development.

Very simple.

And then the suggested condition here is only associated with the closing of that entrance for that special use permit.

We offered our favorable recommendation to city or to planning commission and they offered a favorable recommendation for all three special use permit requests with the conditions that I had just gone over with you on the screen.

And again, had the applicant been able to prove nonconformacy would have been able to prevent a lot of this, but unfortunately they were not able to do that.

So we offer a favorable recommendation and I can answer any questions and I know Mr. Wenger is here with us this evening.

Thank you.

All right, so we're going to open the public hearing up for 6E, 6F, 6G, 6H.

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

You'll have five minutes.

Seeing none in person.

Pam, do we have any calls?

Thank you.

I will close public hearing on this item.

Madam Mayor, I move to approve the request from Hearst Wenger Properties LLC to rezone

portions of 1011, 1019, 1021, and 1023 West Market Street as presented.

Any discussions?

Council Member Robinson?

Aye.

Council Member Fleming?

Aye.

Council Member Jones?

Aye.

Vice Mayor Dent?

Aye.

Aye.

at 10.11, 10.19, 10.21, 10.23 and 10.31 West Market Street as presented by staff.

Second.

Any discussion?

And does that mean with the conditions as presented by staff?

We'll call please, Pam.

Council Member Robinson.

Aye.

Council Member Fleming.

Aye.

Council Member Jones.

Aye.

Vice Mayor Dent.

Aye.

Aye.

LLC for a special use permit to allow building material sales and storage yards, contractors, equipment sales, and storage yards and other similar uses at 1011, 1019, 1021, 1023, and 1031 West Market Street with special conditions as presented by staff.

Second.

Council Member Robinson.

Aye.

Council Member Fleming.

Aye.

Council Member Jones.

Aye.

Vice Mayor Dent.

Aye.

Aye.

to allow building material sales and storage yards, kind of equipment sales and storage yards and other similar uses in B2.

H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H.

B2 and allow multiple family dwellings and or mixed use buildings in B2.

As presented.

Dave Stusher.

Council Member Robinson.

Aye.

Council Member Fleming.

Aye.

Council Member Jens.

Aye.

Vice Mayor Dent.

Aye.

Where is this page?

So I will do the next two items as one presentation, but two votes will be necessary.

So our item here is rezoning and a special use permits.

The rezoning is at 290, 294 and 298 Lucie Drive.

It's at the intersection of Diary Lee Avenue and Lucie Drive.

And then a special use permits to allow for townhomes in the R-8 district.

So our site here, bounded in blue, as noted at the intersection of Diarray Avenue and Lucy Drive, a site to be rezoned from R3 to R8, and then a town, and then a special use permit to allow for town homes.

Just a reminder that the R3 district already allows for town homes.

You can even see town homes directly to the south, page down here.

In the image, the difference being is the dimensional requirements in the

R3 and R8.

So in R3 minimum is 18 feet in width and 112 feet in depth for a lot whereas in R8 it's a minimum of 18 and only a minimum depth of 60.

So with those dimensional regulations it allows them to increase density on the site and I point out that the

Comprehensive Housing Assessment and Market Study specifically notes that this area is within market type A, and policies that are appropriate to market type A areas include an emphasis on increasing density through zoning changes, which is exactly what they're requesting to do this evening to increase density on this parcel.

Excuse me, in the image you can see quite a number of different zoning classifications, so to the north page up we have B2, so that's across the street from the subject site, to page right, a property that's zone R5 conditional.

Some of you might remember this site as Sims Point, had since moved on.

However, new individuals had purchased the property and as identified in the staff report,

We identified that it was currently an engineer comprehensive site plan review for multifamily development.

That statement is now out of date because we've now had their issuance of their land disturbance permit and has been released for construction.

We've had the pre-construction meeting.

All that occurred on May 6th and that's to construct 48 multifamily dwelling units.

So now that was all changed and that's being done by right, because I don't remember seeing that come through.

They're following the proffers.

Yeah, so it's not the same developer that presented Sims Point.

Oh, okay, cool.

So this is what happens when development doesn't go through.

and then adjacent properties to the south as another townhomes and then an assisted living facility across Diaryle Avenue to the west.

All of those properties are three from a long term land use anticipation and planning perspective here.

So

The site is designated limited commercial.

In fact, the limited commercial designation is what the majority of the Eastern sections of Lucy Drive was.

That's actually what the land use designation was of the site that's now being constructed for multifamily units, but then they changed the land use designation to mixed use.

That's what that hatching designation represents.

but you're capturing different densities in this area as well.

So you have medium density in the dark brown, medium density mixed in the light brown tan color and then of course there's a very defined border here where we're anticipating commercial and residential and that's that Lucy Drive corridor where we're separating those uses and recognizing a very different approach for land uses in this area.

and then the site being undeveloped and then you can see the remaining areas of the sites here all being developed.

Of course, fire station located directly across the street along Lucy Drive as well.

This image taken near the intersection of Dairley and Lucy and the undeveloped area and then you can see the townhomes in the background.

And then a conceptual layout that was submitted by the applicants.

So as noted, the

R8 zoning allows for less restrictions from a lot dimensional layout.

So you don't have to have those very long lots is what you see in the adjacent properties.

This allows them to be quite a bit more flexible with the arrangement.

of Dany.

Eventually, if it's approved, goes to preliminary planning and engineer comprehensive site plan.

The arrangement of the town homes could look different.

So really the question here that we're asking tonight is, is town homes appropriate for this parcel?

And as identified in the staff report, staff answered yes to that question.

So as part of the proffers, they have offered five that they have put forth.

The first is that no parking would be located between the public street and any of the closest buildings to the public street.

What that means is that you will not see a parking lot along the public street, so the units will be the closest thing to the public street.

The second is that front facades of the dwellings would all face a public street, so you will not see rear of the units adjacent to a public street.

Three and four are associated with vehicular access to the site.

So with number three, they're saying that only one vehicular access would be provided along Dierley Avenue.

That would be likely a full access.

In the image that I showed you, they showed an entrance only, and then circling through the development.

But it is very possible that that could be full access, meaning in and out along Dierley Avenue.

The fourth is associated with an entrance along Lucy Drive, and that if there is an access provided along Lucy Drive, it shall be right in, right out, or right out only.

And as part of our review of this, we did have some concerns about that entrance location along Lucy Drive being so close to the nearby intersection of the public street of Lucy Drive and Diary Lee Avenue.

We encourage the applicant to consider site layouts that would have no access on Lucy Drive and to have everything function off of Diarralee Avenue.

But if Lucy Drive access is ultimately desired, the access must meet all location and design criteria, which we would then confirm during the plating and engineer comprehensive site plan process.

So while we have concerns about that entrance, of course, they would have to meet design criteria that's required by the city.

And then the fifth is associated with planting of trees in this area.

So a minimum of six small ornamental deciduous trees would be planted along each public street.

So those are the proffers associated with the rezoning.

And then the special use permit is to allow for the town homes themselves.

So you cannot have more than eight town homes in a row under the special use permit.

In fact, that's the regulation for all districts.

We offered a favorable recommendation for both the rezoning and the special use permit as did planning commission for five to zero for both.

We also offered up the opportunity for planning commission to consider giving an extension of that approval from the default 12 months to 48 months.

And they also recommended that be approved to you all as well.

If you have any questions, I'll try to answer them.

We on the dios here have been trying to reduce the time Obviously we want to get people They need to make the money and I understand they may take time to do the projects But do we start off with four years, you know, like could we

We want to see some of these projects come to fruition, but obviously we don't want to push people to the point where they can't do the project either, and then you're in limbo.

So that was question one.

And then I think you know this one.

From time to time I bring it up, and I've got to counsel them, and the vice mayor to back me up here.

So since we've approved the trees to go along the back of Sims Point to fill that buffer,

the actual trees, the most dense part is actually right here and it looks like you all were okay with them leaving and I guess that gives me a little heartburn because we had told that community not only would we try to keep everything that was going along on the other property but actually add a buffer in front of it so I'm shocked to see that we we only did the six small deciduous trees and the public

We clearly voted for that buffer to stay up and to strengthen it so that as storms and trees age the neighbors behind wouldn't

I feel like they were just completely encroached upon and so on and so forth, so I'm disappointed in that.

So you have a special use permit here.

The special use permit is to allow for the townhomes.

Would you look for a response for me for your two points?

Yeah, if you could.

I didn't.

I expressed my disappointment.

So we can do that.

Yes, I'm sure most builders work with this one.

So so taking them one by one here.

So the first was about the time frame.

So

The way special use permits work is unless you all define a time period, the default time period for approval is 12 months.

If they don't initiate the special use permit within 12 months, it's null and void.

Given that the applicants, you know, working with the applicants and understanding their approach to this development, we recognized that 12 months was likely not going to work for how they were progressing through their project plan.

And discussed, you know, we discussed, should it be 36, should it be 48?

And we looked back at other developments that had been given 48 months to have that approval.

And we just, we went with the 48.

It just was consistent with some other projects.

If you don't like 48, you can reduce it, but if they just don't act on it in 36 months, saying if you reduce it in 36, they would just come back to this body to get the approval again if they wanted to proceed with the project.

So at any rate, we can't force it to happen.

It just gives them more flexibility to work through their project.

To the second question, oftentimes you hear us talking about buffers when there's a difference in the use.

As noted earlier in the presentation, townhomes are permitted by right.

So townhomes could be built here today by right, no questions asked, and could subdivide and move on.

You'd never have to give any approval for it.

The trees could all be cut down today.

The trees could have been cut down before we even talked about this project.

And as you can see in the image before you, many of the trees will have to go anyway because they're in the developed area.

So we did not focus on a buffer.

You're absolutely correct.

I have a question.

Oh, no, I was just going to say just from an environmental standpoint and I mean, they produce oxygen.

So I'm not going to defend trees.

But they're probably going to have to come back to us for a variance.

They will have to come to you for a variance for the subdivision to allow lots and lots of not-front-on-the-public trees.

I'm sorry, go ahead, Dany.

Are you good?

Okay, so I noticed in the planning notes that Vice Chair Byrd said something that bothered me that said they wanted the 48 months so they can figure out

if they can actually build the town houses there.

And something about this slab of sidewalks has some sort of underground storage facility.

So let me speak to the slab of the concrete.

So it's kind of difficult to see in this image, but if you can just maybe even squint a little bit right about where my cursor is, you'll see like a light color.

underneath this area there is a concrete slab for a stormwater detention area that is collecting stormwater really from a lot of this area that goes underground here.

The site in particular, the subject site we're talking about will have to accommodate just like any other site but it develops how they handle stormwater and that's really another reason why they probably need

the additional time to think about how they're going to make this project work is because they did not hire an engineer.

They have not been consulted with with regard to can the lots really be laid out the way they hope to lay them out.

Where will stormwater be controlled?

There was some early questions from the adjacent property owners about like where the property line was and and the concern about not disturbing the concrete area.

And of course, if that concrete area is not on the subject side, they're not going to be disturbing it.

And

Okay, so they were quick on this end by doing their own layout, but then are going to need more time to do an official engineered layout.

But it's still four years.

Let's do that.

That's what I'm stuck on.

Well, you're not really tying up the property.

I don't think I would look at it that way.

You're just

giving them an opportunity to have a special use permit to be able to utilize and it won't expire within 48 months.

You're not tying it up at all.

In fact, they could turn around next month and hire their engineer and continue to move forward.

But if they're not ready economically, if they're not ready, they have four years to get ready.

That's four years.

I guess, you know, the other way to make me think of it is that, I mean, their incentive is to move as quickly as possible.

So I think, you know, if it's about financing economics, then the more that they're, sort of, they're generating income, the quicker that, you know, they can make this work.

So their incentive is to go as quickly as possible.

But

If it's not possible, then I guess it's not possible.

And there are people who buy the land, get the rezoning, and sit on it.

I guess they could sell the property.

Let's not be naive here.

That is a thing.

So you can get the four years up front.

Now you can sell the heck out of that property because you're sitting on it for four years.

And now you got the four year stays with the property, not with the property owner, correct?

So they could buy it.

I'm

I wish she was here on Liz Webb's sheet with the running total of all the stuff we've approved versus the status of whether we're on the projects spotting somebody 48 months doesn't seem like the right strategy from this scene at this point because we got six I don't even know how many hundreds of units

We got plenty of stuff because we've been waiting for four years.

That's where I actually agree with you and the mayor.

I just don't know where we live in that space.

No, that's the Chase Project.

The whole street.

This one?

This one to the right of this, and then the one down the street, because when the first person didn't get Sims, because we did that one twice.

So we lost that one, then gained it, and then we added the one that's attached to Woodlong.

It's a Jason.

A Jason to Woodlong.

The Long Reservoir.

The Long Reservoir.

Yeah, I've not been thrilled at the trend to allowing 48 months because we need the housing yesterday.

And I think one of the major factors we don't talk about often is that, I think I mentioned this in the Planning Commission, that ironically, because the economy is so strong, interest rates are being held high to hold back inflation, which means developers in general are having a hard time putting together the financing.

They don't want to take the high interest rates.

So if it takes a year or two to even get the financing together, if they're waiting for interest rates to drop, then what happens?

All of a sudden, everybody gets the financing and everybody builds at the same time?

I mean, we'll wait and see.

Because you want to have the labor force.