City Council Meeting   10/8/2024

Paul R. Tuesday, October 8th, 2024.

City Council meeting to order.

Mayor Reed.

President.

City Attorney Brown.

Here.

Council Member Jones.

Present.

Council Member Robinson.

Here.

If you wish, please join me in prayer.

Father God, in the name of Jesus, I thank you so much for the city of Harrisonburg.

Thank you for each and every single person in mind and soul that makes us who we are.

And I thank you so much for blessing us and giving us the opportunity to make Harrisonburg better and a more desirable place for people to come and live and do business, thrive and play.

God continue to touch each and every employee

touch every single person that interacts with our staff so that they will walk away knowing that we are doing our best to provide and serve them as servants of the city.

God, I ask that you will touch this specific meeting and let us walk out of it more prosperous with greater plans and a more pinpointed direction in you.

We have special recognitions tonight.

We have a Proclamation Acknowledging Employee Appreciation Week, which is October 7th to the 11th.

And so we have our city ambassadors here and Amy, are you coming up?

And if our city ambassadors in this beautiful teal shirts would come forward

I believe Ms.

Thank you, Mayor Reed.

I'm excited to introduce this.

Actually, I'm going to call Heather Turner up to introduce the city ambassadors team.

The city ambassadors team, they started in 2020 and it is a group of nine employees from across the city who are focused on creating a wonderful city environment for employees to work in.

And they do great work and they create appreciation events, opportunities for employees to bond and get to know each other.

and one of those signature events that they put together is Employee Appreciation Week.

So Heather, if you could introduce the ambassadors who are here.

Good evening.

Thank you for having us.

So today we have with us from our team, we have Ms.

Tina and she's with the police department.

We also have Ms.

Amber.

She's with Parks and Recreation and also Ms.

Michelle and she's also with Parks and Recreation.

So we have a proclamation that I want to give.

Oh, OK.

You don't see what's behind your back.

Look at everybody in front of you.

All right.

Proclamation honoring Harrisonburg City Employees Employee Appreciation Week, October 7th, 2024 through October 11th, 2024.

Whereas we pay tribute to our employees for their unwavering dedication to civil service and whereas Harrisonburg City employees make a significant contribution to the well-being and quality of life for all citizens of our city and whereas the city of Harrisonburg is served by an empowered

workforce of highly engaged and creative individuals who dedicate every day to serving our customers needs and earning the taxpayers trust and whereas city employees work together to carry out the vision and policy decisions of city council and to embody the city values of productive communication, progressive innovation, value employees, trusted service, and winning teamwork.

And whereas committed city employees dedicate

dedicate their careers to provide critical public services to the residents of Harrisonburg, including maintaining roads and other infrastructure, the health and safety of our residents, transportation, community development, economic development, emergency management, as well as a host of other essential duties, the public and trust to them.

And whereas city employees are an invaluable resource,

providing an immeasurable service and are vital to making the city more responsive and effective in meeting the needs of the residents of Harrisonburg.

Now, therefore, I, Mayor Deanna R. Reed, City of Harrisonburg, do hereby proclaim October 7th through the 11th, 2024 Employee Appreciation Week to affirm and remind city employees that the work they do is valued and respected

and reminds community members that the public service city employees provide is necessary and essential to the city of Harrisonburg.

What is it?

Oh, this is you?

Thank you!

Oh, goody, thank you.

I'm squeezing it.

What's happening?

I'll open it in my gift.

It's a mistake.

Oh, look at the camera.

All right, we're gonna go straight to our consent agenda.

Thank you ladies.

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.

Any discussion?

Council Member Jones.

Vice Mayor Dent.

Aye.

Council Member Robinson.

Aye.

Council Member Fleming.

Aye.

Aye.

The item I have here before you is a rezoning for over 14,000 square feet made up of two parcels.

The two parcels here are zoned R2 and the request is to rezone them from the R2 district to R8C.

The C representing the proffers were submitted by the applicant, which I'll go over here in just a moment.

which you can see in this image all properties surrounding the subject properties themselves all are zoned R2 residential district.

The properties are at 439 and 445 Myrtle Street near the intersection here and at the intersection of Effinger Street and Myrtle Street.

Long term plans from land use perspective for this area of the city the red here identifies that this is neighborhood residential

This typically means that these are developed older neighborhoods, well established neighborhoods.

They contain a mixture of densities and different types of housing.

Single family detached homes oftentimes are looked at to be the predominant type of housing in this area that we identify.

And oftentimes infill development and redevelopment is encouraged, but must be designed so as to be compatible with the built environment of this neighborhood.

And then an aerial photograph.

showing this area the two parcels of course are both currently improved with single-family detached homes and what we're going to be talking about here is the back halves of each of those parcels where there is plans for development.

So a few photographs here of the surrounding neighborhood all single-family detached homes and a few duplex dwellings in the nearby just stones throw away.

The rear properties here as you can see from Effinger Street

And then the two proposed proffers that were submitted by the applicant.

The first here, these are to summarize the exact text in your packet information here.

But the first proffer is that the two new lots that I'll show you that are planned to be created would have setbacks of 25 feet rather than the 10 foot setback that is typically allowed in the R.A.

District.

Just for comparison, the R2 district has a front yard setback of 30 feet, but as you drive through that neighborhood, you'll recognize that many, many lots are non-conforming to setback regulations.

Many sit closer than 30 feet.

They're closer than their side yard setbacks of 10 feet, typically.

Many of the lots, in fact, are even narrower than 60 feet in width.

And when you have a narrow lot, you get a reduced side yard setback of up to 5 feet.

But in this particular case, new lots that would be created would have 25-foot setback.

The intent here is to keep it more or less in line with the built environment along the streetscape.

And then the second is a variable with public sidewalk and temporary grading easement so that if the city were to be able to come through with funds to build sidewalk on the side of the street, the property owner would be dedicating an easement to allow that to take place and the grading easement to accommodate the construction.

So what I'm showing you here, the two lots outlined in blue and then the two red boxes represent the existing homes on site.

The plan is to eliminate the dividing line and to create new lot lines where you end up with four parcels.

The R8 small lot residential district allows for very small parcels.

In fact, so small that they could be 2,800 square feet in lot area.

The proposed two lots, eventually, if subdivided, are planned to be 3,800, 3,700 square feet in size.

The setbacks, of course, that I discussed along Effinger Street and then also want to point out that the temporary, excuse me, the sidewalk easement would be for both street frontages and the temporary grating easement along both street frontages as well.

as shown on

The creation of such small lots would not be inconsistent with this neighborhood.

In fact, several parcels share similar characteristics and size.

All of the parcels that I've identified here with the purple-pink kind of star, these are all parcels that are close to the same size as what lots three and four would be.

All of these parcels are less than 5,000 square feet.

The smallest of which out here is 3,613 square feet, which is smaller than the two proposed lots that would be if the properties are rezoned.

We did not find the request to be inconsistent with our housing plans.

In fact, this area is identified as within market type A and typically per the housing study

Thank you.

Do we have any questions for Adam?

Thank you

I will now open this item up for public hearing.

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

It's a beautiful day to be in the city of Harrisonburg.

It's a beautiful sky and beautiful day to provide new housing or more housing, needed housing.

So obviously, you know, I want to speak in favor of it as a designer, but also as the, you know, somebody that works with housing and somebody that is very interested in providing housing at all different levels.

And this is a great opportunity to have, you know, two additional homes in a neighborhood, which is a great, an already established neighborhood, which is a great opportunity in general.

So I speak to that, but also I'm here to answer any questions you may have with the plan that we submitted.

You can ask her.

She's going to call us soon.

Tell her.

This is great for the housing thing, but I'd rather have Richie.

Well, maybe one of those is for her.

I don't know.

You just let her know what counts.

She'll be calling.

Thank you, Giff.

Thank you.

Mayor and Council.

It's wonderful to be here this evening.

My name is Kathy Whitton.

I live at 560 South Mason.

I did call in to Planning Commission.

Unfortunately, I had COVID during that time and I couldn't come to the meeting.

So I called in.

I had a very unpleasant experience with that phone call and I was cut off after two minutes by Chair Finnegan.

So I do intend to read my remarks that I would have completed had I not been

turned off.

It was extremely rude and I want to go on record to say that because there was no reason to do that.

There was no other caller and no other speaker, I don't think at that point.

When the topic of rewriting the zoning ordinance came up at Planning Commission, I said that I thought it would be helpful to provide residents of the city with real life examples of how properties could change.

I have not seen one really good example until now.

This one is a great example of how properties can change.

In this case, the backyards of both of these existing single family affordable houses will be reduced to a small strip of grass and to probably at least two-story, but they could be three-story houses will be constructed.

They will block any western views and most of the sunlight in the afternoon.

for those existing homes.

The rent on all of these properties will go up.

The renter in the corner of Myrtle and Effinger has already been told her rent's going up and she has chosen to move to another rental house in the city.

She is a small business owner in our city and was using that yard that looks like so much excess as a plant nursery for her business.

The current rent at one of the houses on Myrtle Street is $925 a month.

This, by most, would be considered to be affordable in our city unless you rent one bedroom as a student.

Most of these homes are rentals.

Most of that neighborhood

in that area, I believe, are rental homes.

So it would be pretty unusual to see tenants show up in opposition to this plan.

That doesn't normally happen.

There will certainly be less green space.

There will be much more pavement and more density on the same amount of property.

Plus, the old problem that I always brought up on Planning Commission is where will these children go to school?

because our schools are already extremely overcrowded.

My child had to come out of the Harrisonburg public system and she goes to Eastern Mennonite now because we were very, very disappointed in the school system.

The beautiful maple tree behind the home on the corner of Myrtle and Effinger will either be cut in the process and if it's not, it'll probably die because of the damage to the roots as a result of the construction.

and that is a very quite beautiful tree.

Is this our idea of good progress or good planning?

It seems as though the only winner in this proposition is the owner developer who reaps the benefits in cash and she will too.

People who choose to live in bigger cities choose denser surroundings.

People who choose Harrisonburg expect something more than density.

I do not begrudge property owners for making a profit, but this owner from California, not Harrisonburg.

Yes, California.

She's a lawyer in California and I'm guessing she's well on her way to becoming a venture capitalist.

I mean, she can buy up a lot of lots in this neighborhood to be perfectly frank.

This owner from California will increase her profit while driving up the cost to live in Harrisonburg, all while decreasing the livability of this neighborhood.

If you wouldn't like it done to you, don't do it to someone else.

Heads up Harrisonburg.

Zoning changes are coming throughout the city.

Ask questions and find out how they will impact your property.

We still do need those real life examples of what this will look like in our city.

because when I talk to people about it, they have no idea.

They have no idea what the zoning rewrite could or will mean in their own neighborhood.

Look at the number of lots.

That aerial was a really good example of your neighborhood, Mary Reed, and the lots that this can happen to.

and I don't think I have to go so far as to say it, but I will.

The tax bill because of the increase in the cost of the housing is going to go up for everybody in that neighborhood and there will be people who will not be able to afford their taxes.

So I think that's a very sad day when something like that happens.

The other thing I want to point out is always when I served on Planning Commission

The topic of affordability versus market price would come up, and it never did in this discussion.

Nobody said, oh gee, are you going to keep the rents affordable in these homes?

Nope.

We didn't hear that conversation.

So I'm asking it now.

Is this going to be affordable housing or is this going to be more JMU student housing?

I appreciate your time and I appreciate not being cut off.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

I'm soon to be a citizen of the city of Bridgewater.

Thank you.

And Mayor Panayati Senakura's city resident.

Those of you who have a long memory may recall me

having some sharp disagreements with Ms.

Whitten.

But I am appalled at the experience that she shared that was completely uncalled for.

I did not watch that planning commission, but that should never have happened to her.

It should never happen to any resident.

And the material that she provided today, I largely agree with.

Yet you were deprived of being able to work that into your deliberation at the planning commission stage.

So I strongly, strongly support Ms.

Whitten in this situation, in this case.

And I will double down on some of the things that she has shared.

This idea of density, density, density.

There's a little term that I'd like to kick around.

Bicycle riding gentrifiers.

JMU students would be one thing, but I think another thing that you could picture are people who are within an easy commute to have a second place to live to high paying employers downtown, gentrifiers that do have the income to bid up those prices.

For this neighborhood, do we have a small area plan that recognizes that there was a significant cultural resource in that neighborhood

and figuring out how to restore and repair it and retain that contribution to our city.

Just using bumper sticker slogans to guide our development and then cutting off anybody who questions that is a disastrous path that we are on.

And again, there are very few things that I could disagree with that Ms.

Whitten just said.

So I hope that you will take seriously her input

and that you will seriously consider what has happened to your planning commission, what has happened to your planning commission and why are we bottlenecking and you not being able to get sound advice in this crucial period when we're looking at a zoning rewrite.

Thank you.

One moment please.

You are now live with City Council.

This is Richie Vaughn.

I'm the applicant, former formerly of Lee Avenue, currently in California.

Hi, nice to talk with all you guys.

I do miss being in Harrisonburg.

I'm looking forward to becoming a venture capitalist.

But to actually talk about the project, I want to first address a few incorrect facts that Kathy introduced.

So she was like, oh my long-term tenant, name I guess I won't say, since this is public record, but that tenant was not moving out because her rent was going up, haven't touched her rent.

She was moving out because she and her partner wanted a bigger space.

and I will actually say, they moved out and within two days they called me and said, we hate our new landlord, we hate our new place, can we move back in?

And they have already moved back into Myrtle Street.

Also with regards to the fact that there is now, or there might eventually be afternoon shade on the house, they had me install air conditioning last year because the house gets too hot in the summertime in the afternoon.

I'm not sure why shade is a big issue, but seeing that as it may,

The maple tree I am attempting to keep is actually something I'm talking with my tenant about because she is a landscaper and we're doing our best to keep it.

And if we can't keep it, she's going to plant new trees in the yard.

Oh, with regard to her nursery in the backyard, she was going to get rid of that anyway.

She and I spoke about all of this.

In the end, I'm doing this because I care about the neighborhood and I care about Harrisonburg.

I'm not doing, I don't actually know at this point if I'm going to make money, just to be clear.

But I'm doing this because Harrisonburg needs more affordable housing.

The homes that I'm building are going to be thirteen to fourteen hundred square feet, three beds, two beds, two stories, and they're a farmhouse design.

I actually tried to take the houses that you see like low down on Elizabeth Street or higher up on Rock or Wolf and to make a modern version of those that's three beds, two beds,

and like Gil said, that are set back 25 feet from Essinger Street, the same way that all of the existing homes are on Essinger Street.

So I'm trying to do right by the neighborhood because we need more housing and we need more like affordable modest site housing, which is what this is going to be.

1300 or 1400 square feet, three beds, two beds.

I'm not planning to make it student housing.

None of my other rentals are student housing.

I think that gets to all of her points.

Do you all have any questions for me other than when I'm going to move back?

Because I don't know when that's going to be.

California is gone.

I do.

I noticed in the planning notes that there was a bit of a discussion, Ms.

Whitten, about the rent.

and would the rent be staying somewhat similar to the current housing which is not going to because of course the square footage is much larger but in the planning notes I'm not sure if you spoke to this or if Gil spoke to this but said that it would be approximately about 1400 probably in between 14 maybe 1700 dollars for that.

Yeah, so it'll be entirely dependent on whatever the management company suggests for rental price.

My 1,400 a month was a guess based on the fact that I have a couple of three-bed, two-backed townhouses in that same part of the city, and that's how much they rent for.

But I don't actually know, and I haven't asked my property management company how much this would rent for.

because honestly, like I mentioned before, I'm not doing this because I think I'm going to make a million bucks.

Okay, one of the reason why I asked that was because one of my concerns with a property management company coming in, sometimes that excludes a larger part of the population of folks who need

affordable housing for various reasons.

So to Pody's point, then enters in the gentrifiers and the folks who can't afford to live elsewhere, but choose to live in the neighborhood because of the affordable prices of the rent.

but that the infill idea I'm sorry, go ahead.

I didn't ask you to do that.

What I said was one of my problems that I have with people hiring the companies is sometimes those that need affordable housing are sometimes left out of it because they can't compete with those who apply.

I didn't ask or suggest that you did anything with your property.

I'm not sure what you can do.

I just wanted you to know why I asked the question.

I didn't want to ask a question and you think, well, is she trying to tell me how much to charge for rent?

No, I was asking because this is my concern.

Thank you for answering it.

Understood.

Any other question?

All right, thank y'all.

Bye.

Thank you.

Second.

So, Madam Mayor, first of all, I would say I understand where you were going, Councilwoman, and I understand where you were going, Pote, as far as the and knowing you and knowing Richie, I wish y'all were face to face because that would have went differently.

but because I know what you were asking and I know what she was trying to answer because I do agree although after living in a college town we need the management companies or else things could look like anything because so many people own properties that were alumni or parents or grandparents or students throughout the years and then they wouldn't be here to watch the properties but to your point and where Pody was gone

that can create an escalation because the advertiser may not be there and people that live in that neighborhood or people that are looking for certain housing at a price point won't see that advertising or even maybe even know that whoever becomes available, it's just one day it's open and one day it's closed.

I know exactly where you're coming from because that happens.

On the converse, like I said, I wish you guys could have that conversation one on one because I think you

probably get to a mutual place but the reason why I'm in favor of this one is I'm a you know you guys know I'm a big fan of entrepreneurs and I don't know if it's been many times that we've had a female person developing so I'm gonna put that fresh that's that's number one someone female developing new construction property in a historically black neighborhood so that's number two for me and number three

I know that she fights for the people that live in that neighborhood, so it makes it easier for me to do it, because I know that's where, like, that's what she does.

I don't know about her being a venture capitalist or anything else, but I know that she worked her butt off of people while she was in Harrisonburg, and she went to UVA to become a lawyer, and she worked hard over there, and I'm pretty sure she's doing the same thing there.

So, this is the type of developer and landlord that I know I've been looking for, not just in our neighborhood or

Northeast neighborhood, but all over Harrisonburg.

It's one of the reasons why I have a problem with HRA.

I've said a million times sitting right here at this desk.

I say it again tonight.

I think Michael Wong is probably the best administrator, one of the best I've ever met.

I don't like him as a landlord.

I don't like the way his properties look.

I don't like that Ms.

Samson's got to break her back to clean up leaves every year.

And we got to drive through the neighborhood to make sure that Michael cut the grass and did like that's crazy, right?

So it lets you know even large organizations

and John Wesley

Nasser Alsaadun

You can't say that we want townhouses and apartments and more and more housing and then when it's provided for us sometimes we pick it apart depending on who's doing it and I don't want this to be a case of the who and the where picking it apart because I feel like if it was somewhere else this one might have just breezed right through with no conversation at all.

There's no way Richie's gonna be on here and I'm not gonna say nothing nice about her but my point is I think that this is a

I'm glad you brought up the management fee thing, because I hope that in the future we start to, you know, we've decided to hold landlords accountable and developers accountable, but we haven't had that conversation.

So I think that we should probably look at that.

That's a legit thing that we didn't really talk about during the housing study, and I've only heard a couple people bring up.

But outside of that, I think that the neighborhood, and as a person who lived on Everton Street, I think it would be nice to add that housing down there, because

It's funny how people come to our neighborhood, like when there's a zoning request, they don't be there over there for any other time.

So like, stop playing.

Because if you care about the people that live there, I noticed that there's this thing in Harrisonburg, especially when it comes to the schools, where people go, you should raise my taxes.

But I want to help the homeless.

You know how crazy you sound?

You're saying drive the cost to live here up.

But you want to help the vulnerable.

You can't do both.

Because they won't become the homeowners.

and the car owners and the business owners that you already are.

So as you're saying that you need to make provisions and conditions for other people, I think this is actually an example of making provisions and conditions more acceptable for people to actually live in our neighborhood.

I think some of the other things that we've approved and we need them actually allow for the gentrifiers to move in.

They're just not going to gentrify our neighborhood.

They're just going to gentrify the city.

And the 8% of African-Americans that were once here is going to shrink to six, then to seven, then to five.

So I'll say what I have to say because I'm sure the rest of you got to.

First off, Kathy, I want to apologize if that happened to you at planning, it shouldn't have happened.

You have a full five minutes.

That's your time.

We're supposed to listen.

That's why we don't say nothing back, right?

That's your five minutes.

The only time I'm gonna cut you off is if you go over your five minutes, then I'm like, uh, it's time to go.

So I apologize if that happened on, um, on the planning side.

I don't know if you were there or not, but that part should not have happened.

I'm just saying I apologize for that.

That should not have happened to anybody to be shut down after two minutes.

Um, I know Richie.

I know her very well.

I knew her when she lived here.

And I know Gil.

And the two of them working together work for the city and for the residents.

I know what they care about.

I think that if this was anybody else, I might have said something else, but I know how Gil works.

I know how Richie worked when she was here.

is not going to be student housing.

She cares about the neighborhood.

She cares about housing.

We work together when she did live here on housing developments.

So I agree with Chris.

I don't know if you know her or not.

No, I don't.

If you two knew each other and had that conversation, it wouldn't have went the way it did.

Because she generally cares about the community and our community.

And so does Gil.

and that's how he does his business.

So, I just wanted to get that out and say that.

Well, I don't believe that it will be student housing.

We usually don't have problem with student rentals that far into our neighborhood.

That's what they consider to be our neighborhood.

I don't think that's an issue.

What struck me or piqued my interest in this particular property is that this is happening at the same time that we're working through this community connectors grant.

and so I thought long and hard about the neighborhood and the efforts that the city is making to reestablish some trust and really wanting the folks in the neighborhood to know that their engagement matters and that what they want for the future of their neighborhood is important to us and that we as government officials are willing and obligated and want to do the will of the people, not necessarily the will of us.

So I don't know

Dany.

When I was reading the planning notes, it felt to me very, this is the type of infill that's good.

And this is the type of density that may not work everywhere.

This is in a $300,000 area.

But in certain areas, this type of infill works.

And it just felt to me very much a marginalizing type conversation that said, in a way, that here it's OK.

But we don't know what the people here want.

I'm a homeowner there.

I'm a homeowner in that neighborhood.

I love the idea of having affordable housing.

in the neighborhood.

I love the possibility of folks coming in and buying property or buying homes in the neighborhood, but this is rental property.

So we don't know who our neighbors are going to be.

But I also don't know what the people in the neighborhood, they haven't been given an opportunity to speak since 1954 about what they want their neighborhoods to look like.

That's the only thing I'm saying.

And if we continue as a city,

to keep moving forward and it's hard to say we can't stop development and say we don't want great projects like this to happen in that neighborhood don't develop there then what message are we sending but we're so very close to establishing a small area plan

But I don't believe in my soul that folks will necessarily say that's not what we want there in that neighborhood.

We don't want that over here.

But I want to listen to the people.

I want to know what the people in that neighborhood sees as the future of the neighborhood.

What do they want the housing to look like?

Are they more concerned with more green space?

Or do they want that tree?

I don't really know because we haven't heard from them.

Monica, in fairness, let me say this.

Because that's my neighborhood too.

And Chris lived in the neighborhood too.

So now we're taking it in a whole other direction.

The neighborhood is not the neighborhood that we lived in.

And it's not the same people.

I get what you're saying.

But this is where we provide opportunities for people in the neighborhood to speak.

And Chris talks about it all the time.

We have these public forums.

It's, you have planning commission.

This is when you have to look at it as a public official.

We have planning commission and you have public hearings at planning commission.

You have city council and you have public hearing at city councils.

This is when the neighborhoods speak up.

Because if this was Wyndham Woods or somewhere else, this place would be packed.

So at some point,

as people in the neighborhood, we got to accept that why are we not showing up when there's opportunity for that time?

I get what you're saying.

I understand exactly what you're saying.

But I can't sit here as a public official when we provide these opportunities and nobody shows up.

I understand that.

I do.

It was damaging to the whole city.

It was damaging to Virginia because you ruined a generation of talent.

And the reason why I say that is when you take away, and it's anybody in the South, but when you don't have a familiar house to return to because it was bulldozed, when you don't have the family business to return to because it was bulldozed, you will find missing generations of people.

That's why it's so odd that the

The percentage of African Americans in Harrisonburg is like 8% That's not normal in Virginia The people aren't here because they didn't have anywhere to return to They didn't have grandmother's house or their uncle's house or their family's business or any of those things because that stuff was destroyed and it was already small and so then it was destroyed but I will say this, Elon Rhodes sat here in this very seat for many many years Larry Rogers sat in the seat for many many years I sat here, Deanna sits here and you sit here

and one thing I do is I call balls and strikes and this place ain't been fooled but packed to the brim but a few times and it won't never for any issue from the Northeast neighborhood.

Do I wish it was?

Absolutely.

Have I seen Sims packed?

Yes I have.

But I seen it packed for Old Town.

It won't packed for the Northeast neighborhood.

Do I want them to come and pack it out?

Absolutely.

But when it was packed for me, it was packed for welcoming newcomers.

And then it was packed again.

Martin Luther King.

Right.

Right.

Actually, okay.

So she's doing it chronologically.

So it was Martin Luther King way.

That was the biggest one.

So, but my point is we probably have more people when we were naming Elon Rhodes supporting

me and Deanna and Colton and all of us going to, you remember that thing?

And that was at the school board meeting.

But I think that to galvanize that support, folks have got to, they got to speak for it or else we can't put pressure on a developer when it's truly not the neighborhood.

And it's a, it's an opinion, but what's the word?

What's a historical evil that we need to correct, right?

I think we can, I'm gonna say that.

It's something that we need to correct.

And I think most people in Harrisonburg don't have a problem with correcting that.

It's just that we have to have that conversation.

You all have started that with that program.

I think we started it just being elected from that area, right?

But what she's doing is still the private sector.

and if we want, this is why I ask for your support for BQ because if you want people in the neighborhood to own this stuff, then we need to create black entrepreneurs to own and buy black houses in the black neighborhood with a black job.

That was a joke.

So, you see what I'm saying Monica?

Like, I mean, Councilwoman Robinson, I'm not, because I agree with everything that everybody said, but I don't want it to, like, you can't go outside of the wall.

And so,

She has done nothing wrong.

I'm not arguing that point.

But what I'm saying is our community is a community of renters.

So a lot of people aren't going to show up to discuss something like this.

I think we have more renters there than we have homeowners.

who live there, but also we're not the community we were when I lived at the bottom of Kelly when I was growing up in Harrisonburg.

So we definitely as a group in the community connectors program

realize that it's not the same community, but it still is the same safe space for the same type of community members that have already always lived there.

What I'm saying is it piqued my interest because I'm so very concerned about where we're going development-wise in that area.

And so I just want to make sure that this is moving in the direction of those who live there what they want it to look like in the future.

And unfortunately, not unfortunately,

That has a lot to do with people who just rent who are going to live there for a while.

It's not necessarily just the home owners.

There are some people that geographically segregate themselves and that's where they're going to end up at.

People are like, why did you move on Kelly Street?

That's where I felt safe.

That's where I purchased my home at.

That's geographical segregation.

I just want to make sure that when we're thinking about the vision of Harrisonburg,

that people like and I'm sorry, what's her name again?

Richie.

When they think about developing in that area that it runs in alignment with what the community members in that area.

What I'm saying is I just want to make sure that

What I'm voting is voting in alignment with what I'm also saying when I'm on this community connectors team hoping to make such a change in this neighborhood.

In that neighborhood, those houses that were lost, they weren't just black folks.

A lot of

But we've got to lead folks here.

So one thing you can do is start talking to the developers.

You got one sitting right there.

That's what you need to start doing.

And there was a time when I first became mayor, I tried to pull all the developers together.

I bet my life on it.

So that's why I can't believe that happened.

Politically, personally, and socially, I would imagine that.

So the things you're saying you're concerned about the neighborhood, she might be the first developer who's concerned about them without profit and without even the regards of black or white, she don't like it because it's wrong.

Well, I admit that I said I like the practice of infill, and if that sounds like sort of zoning wonkiness or something, I apologize, or if it's sort of inserting into the neighborhood.

I'm glad to hear there is a small area study in progress.

I mean, I hadn't heard about that.

So what you say about the community's vision for the neighborhood, and my perception

Maybe it's still from an outside point of view is that this does fit in well with the existing neighborhood, especially that map with the stars that show similarly sized lots.

Yeah, so one, I appreciate the conversation.

You know, we're having here, it's an important one, so I'm glad we're able to continue doing that, and I hear we're saying, Councilman Robinson, about both the history and the future, right?

I mean, there's a discussion about the history we know about, but it's really also about thinking about the future of this community, right?

The community you live in, and so I do know, Rich Yvonne, I do trust those intentions, I know Gil, I trust his intentions and motivations there, and so I

I think that is the type of development type of folks we do want, you know, developing properties for us.

I don't know if this has to be an either or discussion, so I don't know that in approving this, if that means we can't also address the concerns you're bringing up though, right?

I think we don't have to weigh one against the other in this case.

I think the idea of a plan for this community,

that takes into account the folks who live there.

What do you want this to look like?

We want to make sure that homeowners there who have been there for a long time don't get displaced, don't get moved out if they don't want to be moved out, right?

That it becomes a choice that way.

And the same with the renters there.

And so how we go about ensuring that has been a long challenge of trying to figure out how to pull that together.

We can't stop attempting to do that.

and I hear what you're saying about, you know, the neighborhood kind of taking ownership and coming forward, but there's also a part of, you know, what do we do?

How can we help facilitate more those discussions of a plan for that, right?

If it hasn't worked to this point, we haven't gotten there, okay, well, what else do we need to do, right?

I think it's a never ending attempt to try to do that.

I know Councilman Jones, Mayor Reed,

Councilman Robinson, you know, you have a history in that neighborhood.

I mean, you have concern for that.

And I know Councilman Dent does as well as a council person that she's concerned about that neighborhood as I am.

So, you know, what are the steps, what are the things we can do in that community that bring voices to the table and say, you know, what do you want to see happen in this neighborhood?

How do we do that?

You're involved in some of that already, right?

Can that expand further?

Lots of folks who own homes there have owned homes there for a long time.

How do we ensure that they can make the choice?

They want to remain there as they can?

Or they make the choice?

I'm ready to sell my house if they're a long time.

We want to give people the empowerment to make their own decisions there around that.

So I think we can do both.

And I agree and you're right.

We haven't been successful.

You know, we have a long history of not stepping into how to address the damage from R4 and R16.

We're still there, right?

We're things we can do.

We can't stop trying to do that.

So I think we can do both in this case.

I think we can address a property that has a well-intentioned, good-motivated owner of that property with a good local developer.

for that neighborhood.

And as well, keep in mind what you're saying.

How do we make sure that this doesn't cause some snowball effect of pushing people out or raising rents or doing things that is unintended there?

I think we can do both of those things.

We need to do both of those things.

Is there any more discussion?

All right.

Mayor Dent?

Aye.

Aye.

Mayor Reed?

Aye.

All right, we'll go to 6B.

The request here is from R1 to R5 conditional.

I will explain the proffers here in just a moment, but just go over the details of the site.

So you can see we're at the corner, although it looks like it's not a corner, but it is somewhat of a corner area of where North Dogwood Drive and Third Street come together and it'll make much more sense here when I show the aerial photograph.

There's some topography changes here significantly and quite a number of different zoning classifications as can be seen on the screen So the subject property zoned R1 requesting to go to R5 conditional which is similar to the pink Parcel that you see there to the northeast then you have M1 conditional just to the north I'll speak to that past rezoning here in just a moment

all M1 properties that have frontage along Waterman Drive and then R1 properties to the south along Hartman Drive and North Dogwood Drive.

You also notice Chicago Avenue here to the east which also has different zoning classifications, B2 conditional, B2, the family dollar there which was rezoned several years back to rely for the redevelopment of that site.

It was rezoned from M1 industrial.

for the land use guide.

This similar to the last request is also designated neighborhood residential.

So we do oftentimes look to provide more opportunities for more single family detached homes, but we also recognize these are developed established neighborhoods that have all different types of densities and all different types of housing types.

And the request here this evening is for a different housing type than what is to the majority of the south of this, which is single family detached homes.

So

Again, neighborhood residential, but it comes together at a point where we're promoting for commercial uses along Waterman Drive and then mixed use opportunities along Chicago Avenue, so both residential and non-residential uses along Chicago.

and the aerial photographs.

So if you're familiar with this area of the city, you know that this area and I do have some photographs here has a 90 degree turn here for the public street for vehicular access, but it does continue straight for pedestrian access.

This is the shared use path that connects from North Dogwood Drive

then extending into Rockingham Drive undeveloped right-of-way and then out to Chicago Avenue.

So if you're familiar with that area, you know a very nice little space for opportunities for multimodal options.

What you can't see in this two-dimensional image is that the property does significantly drop off from an elevational change from North Dogwood Drive.

So it drops down toward Waterman Drive and a few photographs over here will help give representation of that.

So this is just a Google Earth image with an angle here.

What you're seeing is the right turn here or left turn depending on where you're going, the 90 degree turn, and then the continuation of the shared use path.

You can see just some of it here.

The property that we're talking about was cleared recently because this was all wooded and it was cleared during the improvements that were made for the mini storage units.

As you can see, this was taken during the construction of the extension, the addition to the many storage units by Mr. Myers, the applicant.

So both images looking toward the subject property, so the subject property is down over the hill in this area, really a lot of these trees you're seeing are in the public street right away.

So that's not on the private property, you're seeing public trees essentially that are in the public street right away.

So you can see what the street configuration looks like here on North Dogwood, then also on third street.

So what I wanted to remind folks of is the parcel that I'm outlining in red shown on the screen.

This was an extension of the subject property a few years ago.

This property was zoned R1 back in September of 2022 when you re-zoned the property to the M1 General Industrial District with conditions to match the same zoning that fronts along Waterman Drive.

So you're seeing the hatched area in that parcel because there were conditions offered because the applicant at the time was wanting to do an addition

to an extension of their many storage units.

That rezoning was approved.

They went through their site plan approvals and then have done their renovations in addition to that land out there.

At the same time that they were going through review for that rezoning, they also had proposed to do the rezoning we're talking about this evening.

Staff had suggested for them to more or less kind of table their application because at the time the Department of Public Works was working with the Virginia Office of Intermediate Planning and Investment on

an internal study.

That study was the Street Connectivity Evaluation and Road Diet Multimodal Evaluation, which is a mouthful, but essentially what it was looking at is opportunities to do road connectivity in this area, but specifically looking for opportunities where we might have found some space to connect Chicago Avenue to Waterman.

where folks are thinking, well, Chicago and Waterman, they actually intersect.

As you travel south, they travel away from each other and then there is that triangular space where you would want to have a street connection.

So the applicant heard some of our thoughts and we were concerned about giving any recommendations on the project, knowing that that study was ongoing, not knowing what the outcomes of that study might be.

It was not a public study.

It has not been publicly vetted.

It was all internal, but it was completed in 2022 and identified opportunities across the city for potential new roads and pathways that could help facilitate and connect neighborhoods.

This is the area that we're talking about this evening.

So I rotated the image here.

So north is to the left in the image.

So this is the area that was rezoned and has now been constructed.

And then this is sort of this blurred out area.

This was actually the image that we showed back at September 22 to show that hey they had been planning to propose this but they just weren't ready to do so upon our recommendation

However, here we are today, the study was completed, and what it identified was that, you know, it does, there is a need to connect Chicago Avenue, this neighborhood, over to Waterman Drive.

This particular area is quite difficult, really because of the grade changes.

So it's not a great spot to make that connection, even though two-dimensionally it looks like Third Street can continue straight over to Waterman Drive, there's quite a bit of elevation change that would make that street connection rather complicated.

So getting back to the details of the site, just again, just to get your balance here.

So here is Dogwood, here is Third Street, and the subject site that we're talking about here is this cleared area.

Much of this area here, again, are public trees.

So they would have to go through the public tree advisory board to cut down any of those trees where there's opportunity then for them to provide money back to the city if they get approval to remove some of those trees that be planted in other spaces throughout the city.

and then just another image showing, looking again at the subject site and the background here where the field is and the improvements and the proffered conditions have already been in place where they're providing that evergreen buffer adjacent to the shared use path, which is the position of where this photograph is taking.

So this is looking west and now looking northwest.

So back to the subject request.

So the applicant is requesting to rezone it to R5 conditional

The applicant plans to, if approved, to construct 16 dwelling units comprised of two different buildings where eight units would be constructed in each of the two buildings.

Because the elevation changes, and I have an image to show this here momentarily, you'll see that the units would sit below, for the most part, below South Dogwood Drive, excuse me, North Dogwood Drive, and you can see a relation with the associated single-family homes that are adjacent to the property.

So we'll get to that here in a moment.

The applicant would be providing one, two, and possibly three bedroom units where the units would be stacked on top of each other so you would have more or less like a basement ground elevation on the backside of the units and then an upper story for the additional units that would be constructed on this space.

So let me go through the summarized proffers.

First, occupancy would be limited to a single family or not more than three unrelated persons.

By them, surely proffering this, that immediately gets them a reduction in parking to only have to provide one parking space per unit.

However, they're going to hold themselves to a slightly higher standard, quoting here for one and a half parking spaces per dwelling unit.

So they're going to provide a little more than the minimum required that they're allowed.

They would create and maintain a landscape buffer within 20 feet of the eastern property line, the eastern property line.

I'll show it here in the image here.

It would be much easier to show, but essentially it's the same property boundary adjacent to the shared use path.

They would also provide opportunity for a future connection for a perpendicular connection to the shared use path westward toward Waterman Drive.

So a 20-foot wide shared use path easement and then a 5-foot wide temporary construction easement.

that would be provided on the northern part of the property.

And the entrance got quite a bit of discussion at Planting Commission.

The entrance would be at the intersection of the 90 degree turn and where the shared use path comes into play.

But the entrance, as proffered, would be located at that North Dogwood Drive and Third Street intersection.

They'll design and construct necessary intersection improvements as approved by our Department of Public Works.

So it's something that we keyed in on and want to ensure that it is a safe intersection when they make those improvements.

So back to the layout, the entrance here at the intersection where they'll have a private sidewalk heading up to North Dogwood Drive, excuse me, and then the driveway which kind of snakes down the hillside to make up for those elevational changes to get down to the backside of the building in accommodation provided for the fire department to get to the rear of the units.

The evergreen buffer that was discussed in the proffers

The access easement that would be provided for opportunity to connect westward.

And then those elevational representations here.

Now, this is not 100% to scale, but it gives you an idea of how it sits below grade here, a little slightly below North Dogwood Drive, and then the closest home and the roof elevations there of the property at Third Street.

So looking at the long term plans and really trying to find what's most appropriate for this corner of the city, we really are encountering opportunities here for another infill opportunity.

It is neighborhood residential, so we're looking for different types of housing opportunities and it is not out of

consistency with other properties that were rezoned to the R5 to allow for more apartment units.

Although it's in this area that is kind of difficult because of elevational changes, they created unique opportunities here to be able to create that elevational change for more opportunities for housing.

So staff had looked at this as a positive.

It again is in the market type A, which housing policies as recommended by the housing study

is recognizing for opportunities for rezoning changes, increasing density through those changes, and infill development, which is what this would be.

So staff offered our favorable recommendation, believing that it was consistent with this area, consistent with the overall objectives.

Planning Commission had a unique vote.

So Planning Commission did ultimately recommend approval with the six to one vote, but if you noticed in the minutes,

They first voted on a motion to deny, but that motion failed five to two.

And then they immediately did a motion to approve.

And then one member changed their vote for a motion for approval.

So the loan dissenter for the approval here was Vice Chair Byrd.

And I will try to answer any questions you might have.

I think he made both motions.

He did.

It was weird.

So it's a, you know, that is a tight corner.

The idea of connecting Chicago

for Pedestrian.

For Pedestrian, it's Pedestrian.

But it is a, otherwise as a street, is that kind of excluded from, so there's private property on the other side.

There is.

That prevents the connection to Waterman, I guess, right?

Do you have other streets that you're thinking through there that make potential connections to Waterman from Chicago to Waterman?

I hate to put him right on the spot, but Mr. Hartman is.

He could speak to some of that study that was there.

If you look in that area, there is undeveloped right away for 2nd Street that extends over to Rockham Drive.

But regardless of where you want to punch a street through, you have the elevational difficulties of trying to make that work.

So no matter what they decide to build there, there would still be this issue.

of the Great Change, getting access to it, whether it's apartments, whether it's commercial use, you still run into the same concern.

If I remember correctly from the minutes, I thought the owner indicated that they weren't necessarily thinking of moving forward with us any time, reasonably soon, if I got that

There's no more questions.

If anyone wishes to speak, please take your name address.

Gil Coleman, who is Coleman Engineering, representing the applicant here.

Gary Meyers, New Venture Partners.

Thank you again for for hearing this item.

Every area of the city that is being proposed for development these days are perhaps the least desirable

Dany,

Street going through there that negotiating that elevation change is significant, you know, you will require retaining walls along the road or some significant gradient to the property really invalidating lots of property.

What are the questions that, you know, that, you know, Chairman, I'm not Chairman, I'm not Chairman, I'm not Chairman.

We're not going back.

No, right.

That's my place, all right.

The UBER app, the DanyBER app, was the timing.

And part of that is, Gary can speak more to that, but the development of the storage units, you know, that takes significant investment.

So this is not something you can jump right onto right away, so it's something that you can probably offset until they're able to move into that.

For me, one of the main motivations on this, and I'm not a developer, but I am the one that guides the developers and what they are going to construct, and is the need for housing.

And as we know, even as you spoke, maybe in part of ETERIJ, we know there's thousands of people, thousands of family units waiting for a place to live.

So that's still the case here in Harrisonburg.

So we need rental housing.

We do need it.

and I'm trying to provide that is difficult and I'll speak a little bit to the previous application simply just to make a point that even the rent, a lower rent is highly dependent on how much it's going to cost to build that.

When you think about it, if you build one of those houses

How much would your mortgage be?

If you think about that, then you can realize how much the rent is going to be somewhere there, maybe a little more, so you can cover other expenses.

I know I'm just rambling about other things, but in essence, I'm speaking to the fact that development is expensive.

The more difficult the sites are, the more expensive it is.

In this case, as you saw, one of the things that we wanted to do was

We put the parking in the back so that the units themselves are more, you know, it's housing, consistent with the rest of the housing there.

So it's not, you know, all this parking lot in front of it.

And we had to provide that long path also because the fire department wanted to be able to bring the fire truck around there and be able to turn around and all that, and they needed all that slope.

to come all the way around, which makes for a long drive.

Not something that we would want either, but it's something that was necessary for the fire truck to be able to negotiate that grade.

So that speaks to that.

During the planning commission, there was a discussion about connecting to Waterman.

Well, that would be great, but that property is owned by somebody else and there is no connection right now there.

It'd be great, it'd be easier perhaps to develop going in that direction, you know, but again, we're speaking of something that the applicant doesn't own.

So that was, right now, was not considered for that fact.

We did provide for the city for future connectivity of the shared use path there.

That is the least steep area of the property, right at that edge, so they can, you know, actually connect that path in the future, you know, still gonna be

Steve Wright at the connection proudly, but could be transitioned through.

So we'll probably do, if we develop a property before that is done, grade all that area just to make it work, because otherwise we are not going to come back later and do it, so we've done it at the same time.

But not install the path, but do grade it for it.

All right, thank you.

Well, just really.

When we first started the rezoning it had to do with the

The re-zoning of the mini-stores.

So they kind of went hand in hand together.

We were working together.

The one that went ahead, this one got tabled because of the STU study.

And so we put it on the back burner.

Like Keith said, we have other things we're kind of working on.

That was one of them.

So it's kind of a step at a time.

But I'm not sure when this would happen.

It could be in the next year or two, most likely several years out.

But it's a process that had to happen.

Yeah, I mean, as you know, if the property is rezoned for that, then when the time comes, it can be ready to do it.

Otherwise, you can't plan on something that may or may not happen in terms of rezoning.

So once it's rezoned, it's known that that could be done.

Yeah, I mean, I understand, you know, in essence, to be ready to move on an opportunity, you know, you want the things in place that you can move on.

As we recently approved or we had to pass the to be in compliance with now Virginia law, we have to have a 36 month permitting deadline, essentially.

Rezoning lasts, yeah.

That's right, there aren't special use purposes.

That is actually a good thing, because it's important that... Even with that, I have to speak, you know, and you know, some of the projects that we have come through, how long it's taking to actually get into building.

So it's really something that

Well, I think the other thing we know when hurricanes hit south of us, I think our construction labor market gets hit.

Thank you.

Madam Mayor Panayoti Senakudos, City Resident, I've been watching this project for some time.

and one caution that I would raise is around the trees, how we're talking about the trees.

I would hope that as time moves forward we can have a more sophisticated discussion about green space because grading something and then planting a few trees is not the same as preserving the ecological integrity of something that has had some time to establish.

Maybe it's not old, but I think the greater sensitivity to that is something that is within our reach now.

At the same time, I would say that if we're going to have this kind of density somewhere, this is a good place.

This is my initial reaction.

This was a good place.

And the objection around trees was something that I saw raised.

And that was an example of that being used

inappropriately, it can be used inappropriately, and this was one case where that kind of objection had been brought in an unreasonable way.

It was brought by a resident who I got to see during a Facebook glitch when everybody's private groups opened, revealing that they won the confidence of unhoused people and they went and tattled them in their group, and they wanted to keep people out of their neighborhood

Okay, that, historically, we don't do that.

So this was a good place.

This was a good place for that.

Now, I will also object to the framing again of the idea that we need housing.

That may, I think from a developer's perspective, I think there are opportunities for housing.

But from a city council perspective, this is a question of development.

We can't solve housing issues

and Dr.

that you deal with and that you work with.

So I hope that we won't continue to perpetuate the narrative that there's a need for housing and that if we build housing things are going to be okay and we're going to address, that we're not talking about those wages.

We're not talking about the bargaining power of the living conditions.

We don't want to find ourselves in a place where we're building worker confinements to match the livestock confinements.

That's not a good development path.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

All right, so unfortunately our phones are down

So we will not be able to take any callers by phone.

So maybe while the static is keep popping up, I'm just putting to, I'm guessing.

I don't want people thinking there's a conspiracy, but you heard the mic.

So maybe the two are tied together.

But in that vein,

I'll second that.

Yes, I like what Pote just said in regards to the greater economic development conversation.

I mean, you guys hear me over here, John.

Champion, which is why I vote for this kind of, I always vote for these because we need development and we need business men and women in organizations in our area, right?

That's the only way you keep the city running.

You gotta deal stuff.

And it's important to make sure we have people involved in the process as well.

And so, I mean, the developer's here, the applicant's here, and he's not running from anything, and I appreciate that.

just like I get all excited about a black entrepreneur or a female entrepreneur I'm just as excited about a white male entrepreneur because you're an entrepreneur in Harrisonburg and that's the point I wanted to get to I hate when people use those terms like I'm colorblind because that's not that's ridiculous right you don't want to unless God made you that way you don't want to be blind to anything but you want to be able to see what's coming

but I want to make sure that we appreciate that we want to see everybody rise, right?

So we want to see all of the city rise and that's why I want to make sure at some point we have to continue the conversation that POTY brought up because we can keep building and approving, building and approving but if we're not making the people better overall and the housing is there, what have we done it for?

It helps you and your family or helps each individual developer

but the overall goal should be to pull families up through the renting system into a home ownership system and maybe into a place where they can own multiple properties too.

But we've got to teach people and people have to be willing to get in line to do the process.

It can't be this thing of, are we helping the people?

And there ain't nobody sitting here, there ain't nobody to help.

So I'm going to always show up and help the people that show up.

So at some point you can only help the folks that show up.

Well I just wanted to second that idea of the economic development and the other half of the equation of affordable housing is pay people so they can afford the housing.

So I hope to support that as well going forward.

Now the thing that we discussed a lot in Planning Commission was the steepness and the long curvy grade.

and I sort of had a flashback to San Francisco where everything is a whole lot steeper and somehow they manage and so let's give them a chance to figure it out.

I mean it's so intense there that in some parts of Marin County people park on their roofs because it's that steep and they're going down the hill.

Now I wouldn't recommend that here or even especially in an earthquake zone but anyway.

This project made me think about the creativity of thinking outside the box when you have grading issues like this, and I thought back about the project out on Port Road, the old Davis Taverna, where I just always pictured this as being unusable land.

So when I was reading the notes, I was just thinking, wow, who would ever thought that we could actually have housing there?

So I really like the ability to look at a space and see it, not for what it looks like, for what it could be.

One thing I say, as Councilman Jenji said, building and approving, building and approving.

We're actually approving it, approving it, approving it, approving it.

The building part of that, leave me alone.

This point, really, not happening.

That's kind of the challenge I think we face.

So, you know, when we build housing, especially if we're building for ownership, because, you know, one of the things we do want to do is build is for home ownership.

We have 40%, actually 38% home ownership here in Virginia.

Most cities have 60% home ownership.

This is our challenge.

But we also know when we build housing that the obstacles that were present for folks prior are still there.

Income is one.

How do you get income?

But credit.

How do you get credit?

How do you navigate through that?

Who are the folks who are denied that most?

And we know those folks who are people of color often are denied that process.

So even when we do build

Homes,

and working with lenders here who find different ways to approve credit.

Using them for rent history is becoming something that can be used instead of looking at your credit history because that's a better indicator.

If you have a good rent history, it's a better indicator that you can have a mortgage than your credit rating.

So there are a number of things that I think is true that we also do need to step into to ensure

that home ownership in particular can be diversified in our city.

That's certainly one of the things we want to do.

But this project, I think, you know, looks like a good solid project that folks are, you know, here locally that have been building in our community for a good long time.

Yeah, that's actually, you brought up a great point about being able to educate and prepare people to be homeowners.

Right.

So it's a lot of layers to it.

I'm going to tell you, I mean, I'll be very transparent.

I live in my grandparents' home.

I didn't want to sell it.

Everybody was like, why aren't you living in your grandparents' home?

When they passed, they gifted it to me.

Because it's the only house left in my family.

Everybody sold the houses.

And it's the only... Right, I'm telling the truth.

It's the only house left in my family, and I'm not going to sell it.

But what I am doing,

getting to the point where you were saying is I've finally got to the point now where I'm upgrading it and it's taken a lot of getting my credit together, getting the loan, project management.

It's taken a lot that I'm almost building a whole new house.

Just to upgrade it because it was built in 1955.

So I have to get it to, right?

Get it up to standard and safety and all of that.

And it's taken a lot of learning to how to do this.

Do it good.

Do it good.

Right.

And this is a process.

I wish I've known now, I wish I've learned it back when, right?

Of how to manage this whole process.

And so,

being able to teach people how to be a homeowner, take care of your credit, take care of your finances.

That is just as important to making a neighborhood, what word am I, valuable, right, and livable, right, and beautiful as developing housing.

Right.

Making sure people are going to be successful and live independently and live successfully independently.

And one thing like to your point, Mayor Reed, I think it's worth mentioning is that we know marginalized groups of folks just did not get some of those educational resources growing up.

I know that we didn't get a lot of that stuff until later in life.

But I think what so important to say about Harrisonburg City

is that we have a housing counselor now, housing coordinator, and that the city has showed how important it is to them to get those resources out to the people who have been lacking those resources.

They might not be coming to your door knocking on your door saying apply for these things, but Liz has been doing a wonderful job of getting information out there, connecting people with sources,

that help prepare them for home ownership.

And then if you do get a house, you have no how to stay in it, that budgeting piece and all of that.

So I just commend the city for hiring Liz and then for Liz's steadfast dedication to making sure that she's not just encourage people, go apply for a loan, go apply for a loan.

She's saying, let's look at this, when are you ready to apply for a loan?

Do you have the budget and skills necessary to stay in the home?

Do you have a good, solid job?

And she kind of pushes people in the right direction, which isn't always to the bank first.

When we want to buy a house, we just want to go straight to the bank.

We don't talk about anything else.

Let's just go get that loan.

But she slows you down and says, wait a minute.

There's a couple of other pieces to this puzzle so that when you get that house, it remains yours.

So I'm saying that, saying that takes us back and then I'm getting off of it.

People have to be willing to do it.

We're providing the services, except right?

So we have to make sure

We don't get them, though.

That's why I said mayor, if I may.

So to the CDFIs, I had to miss that one.

I had to go out of town, but I was going to ask while I was there, vice mayor, she's nodding her head.

She probably knows where I'm going, but so we can, they are federally mandated to actually do all the things that we're talking about.

and are willing to do them because they're sitting there waiting to do them.

I've had events at Sims daytime and evening and I provided food and to go containers.

I gave more weight to the staff than I did to people.

And we talked credit, we talked housing, we talked business.

And I literally went through every single step from the application process to

Any checking to savings to FICO schools, whatever the case may be But my point is this We care about these things There are community members and we have a very giving and loving community So I think that these things can happen But as the mayor and I guess are saying tonight We can't make people use these services and at some point we got to change the conversation

This exists, so I don't normally say business names up here, but DuPont Community Credit Union, they work with me, they work with Brian Scholl and Economic Development, they work with Pierce McGill and Economic Development, they work with Andrea Dono and Allison Dugan over at Small Business Development Center, and all of us came together and had these events.

The Army is the business owner state and they did it.

We had a couple people, but most people, it wasn't full.

Like I said, I had to give the food away.

Our staff knows that these things happen.

I think Council Member Jones, a lot of people just don't think

Some people just ain't gonna do it.

There was that group.

But a lot of people that I've been talking to just don't think it's a possibility for them.

Home ownership has never happened in their family.

It's just not anything that they ever thought that they'd go after.

And I think that they just need to have... I don't know.

We need to get with the CDFI.

This is my point was to the five of us lock in with the CDFIs that have proven that they want to do the work.

So my pointing out DuPont isn't saying that other banks wouldn't help us or use the CRA, the Community Resource Act or Community Relations Act, CRA for banks.

They know they have to fulfill the CRA.

My point is they want to do this work.

They legally have to.

Let's walk back a little bit, but yeah, we made a motion.

There was a second on the rental property, actually.

I have to read a disclosure because the next item I have to recuse myself from.

The Virginia State and Local Government Conflict of Interest Act requires that I make disclosure to be recorded in the city records, in any matter in which I am prohibited by law from participating.

Therefore, I make the following disclosure.

The matter involved is item 6c on tonight's agenda.

Consider a request from Eastern Midnight University for a master plan amendment for multiple properties.

My personal interest affected by this transaction is that I am

and employee of Eastern Midnight University.

I affirmedly state that I will not vote or participate in any manner in this, in any manner in this matter.

So, saying that, I will now pass the gavel to Vice Mayor and she'll take over the meeting.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you Vice Mayor Dent.

Yes, this is a rezoning through the lens of a master plan amendment from Eastern Mennonite University.

It is approximately 94 acres, many, many addresses, many tax map parcels.

The idea here, which is to do a couple of different things, they are requesting to amend their most recently amended 2014, so my goodness, 10 years ago when they did their last amendment to make some accommodations for parking, parking lot landscaping, setbacks, and heights of buildings, and I'll get into those details.

So, what's before you, the zoning map here in the northwestern part of the city, the property bounded in blue is all of Eastern Mennonite University, and the hatching that you see over this area is the institutional overlay, our three conditional properties, and the institutional overlay.

We don't talk too much about, there's only just a couple of parcels, I should say a couple of areas in the city that have it.

Eastern Minute University is one of them.

Eastern Minute High School is one of them.

The Wellness Center down in the south end of the city and then although it's somewhat irrelevant now, the old portions of property that's now owned by JMU, the old portions of Centaur RMH, I guess it was just RMH at that time here in downtown Harrisonburg.

So just a few parcels areas in the city that have the institutional overlay.

What the institutional overlay allows is it gives additional uses that are permitted.

It's an overlay district, so the base zoning stays the same.

The overlay is over top of that zoning.

It provides additional flexibility.

In any time there is conflict between the base district and the overlay district, the least restrictive applies.

It's important to understand that for the folks that are maybe listening at home because oftentimes in overlay districts, it's a more regulatory district.

That is not the case for this.

This is the opposite.

It's more flexible.

It's creating opportunities to provide more flexibility.

What you can do is you can go through a master plan process that allows for you to deviate from parking to setbacks to dimensional requirements.

and you can only get that through a master plan amendment, which they've done now a couple of times through certain amendments and they're wanting to do that tonight.

So moving on to the land use guide, we have much of this area as institutional, land use designation, institutional recognizing the fact that we have VMRC, Eastern Mennonite School, the elementary school and Eastern Mennonite University all in this area and promoting to maintain that area as an institutional organization, an institutional area of our Northwestern part of the city.

And then the aerial photograph.

If you've been over at Eastern Mennonite, there's been quite a number of improvements.

They've done some athletic improvements recently, doing some improvements to their athletic fields.

There where the track is located.

And as the master plan, if you looked into the details here, you see that they're hoping to do some renovations in addition to buildings in the future.

But right now they're looking for opportunities for flexible arrangements so they don't have to meet every single detail of some of our minimum requirements through the zoning ordinance.

As noted, they've gone through several iterations.

The original master plan was in 1998.

They then amended it in 2010 to add parcels to it, which is what they're doing this evening as well.

So they added parcels to their master plan and introduced opportunities for solar panels to their overall property.

In 2014, they again amended the master plan to adjust for maximum heights and for locations of solar panels.

A similar situation tonight.

They're also adjusting maximum heights and providing opportunities for other areas to provide for solar on top of buildings along with the parking lot landscaping and parking reductions.

So just an overall image provided by the applicant here on the left side of the page.

We're talking about all the specific details.

I'm not going to get into all the details, really just the high level topics.

And if you have questions, I or the applicants representative can answer them for you this evening, which is Mr. Coleman.

But for the master plan, they want to add a few parcels to it.

That's the area that I've outlined here in red.

So separated here and that's reaches into the residential area a little bit along College Avenue and Parkway Drive and Park and Dogwood.

Properties that Neeson Elementary University already owns.

So they're adding these to their master plan to provide that flexible arrangement for setbacks as is being requested for the remainder of the campus.

They're requesting for 10 additional feet and height for solar panels.

I have another slide that will give you the specifics or at least show you the specifics of what the height parameters are.

But what they're looking for is 10 additional feet on top of the institutional overlays height abilities.

The maximum here is already 50 feet.

So they're looking at 10 additional feet which provides for arrangements for solar panels on top of buildings in which they're not sure exactly what those arrangements might be, but it provides them the flexibility to have additional height on top of those buildings for the solar facilities.

They want reduced setbacks.

Specifically, what they're looking at here is to have around the entire exterior boundaries of the campus to have a 10-foot setback rather than what the setback might be.

And it could be a front yard setback adjacent to a public street, which is typically 30 feet, so they would have reductions down to 10.

And then, depending upon the other exterior boundaries, it could be side yards, it could be rear yards.

All of it would be 10.

It would be a uniform 10-foot setback.

It would also apply to accessory buildings which would be five feet to all property boundaries unless the accessory building was adjacent to a public street and then it would be ten feet similar to the principal buildings.

They also are looking for reduced parking requirements, being that they are a very unique setup.

They're a college campus.

They understand their demands and their needs with regard to where they want to place parking, how much parking might be needed for particular areas, whether or not they need to provide all the parking.

They just want the flexible arrangements to not have to meet any of our minimum standards.

as well as the parking lot landscaping regulations.

They would not be deviating from all of them.

In fact, they would only be deviating from two particular subsections, which is subsections five and six from that sub or from that part of the landscaping regulations.

Specifically, what five and six do together is the internal parking lot landscaping islands.

So oftentimes you're driving through many of our larger parking lots in the city.

There are those islands of landscaping that are scattered throughout the parking lots.

Those are requirements that are bound by our zoning regulations.

Within those landscaping islands, you have to plant trees and shrubs.

They want to have the flexibility to not put the landscaping islands in or to plant those trees, but they would be providing trees on the exterior of the parking lot.

We did want to make sure that we weren't losing trees here.

So basically, rather than complying with subsections five and six, they will instead provide the otherwise required plantings

within other locations internal to the parking lot so they could put in landscaping islands if they so choose or within 15 feet of the parking lot.

We did not want to waive the tree planting requirements entirely and they understood that and trees are important to them as well on the campus so we're not losing opportunities for more trees in the city to increase our tree canopy.

That is the high level arrangement of what the master plan would provide opportunity for

Again, these are deviations from the zoning ordinance is what the master plan provides.

So it's more flexible arrangements.

And then just hear the table of the maximum height parameters that are already existing on the Eastern Menonite campus.

So you have different zoning classifications.

Again, are the base districts and their height maximums down the left side.

So ranging from 35 feet up to 50 feet.

Yes, real quick on the unanimous.

So they're kind of saying we would, that might be what they're planning, but in essence this is saying there's an additional 10 feet.

Is that correct?

So I'm actually going to have Gil speak to them when he comes up because they are requesting maximum building has to be increased 10 feet for solar panels, which is specifically what was asked for in the in the master plan.

But I'll let him speak to that whenever he comes up to see if they have other arrangements for that.

Because what happens, which if they're definitely people more apt to speak to this than me, but

I have one question.

We hadn't had one of these since I've been since I've been in turn since I started.

So it was a little bit more confusing for me.

So all of the the housings that

Billings houses apartment buildings that are with the fall within this overlay They're all owned by you.

Yes, ma'am Okay So if somebody

So they wouldn't necessarily, by saying that whatever, whichever of the zoning is least restrictive is who they need to follow.

They wouldn't need to necessarily come back to us to say, okay, that was my only question.

No, ma'am.

Thank you.

It can be confusing.

And like I said, there are very few parcels, very few entities.

I keep wanting to say parcels because there are many parcels that have it, but there's really just like three entities that have it.

Zoning preferences, they want you to not have to include the height of the solar panels in the building height.

So that's something we can discuss in the zoning ordinance update.

The other thing is in Planning Commission, there was a fair amount of discussion about the open space that you see there and Park Woods and EMU Hill.

And that's just there for walking trails and a little bit of nature, I suppose, that

It isn't really regulated, but they could do more with it if they choose, right?

Is it set aside as open space?

But you're speaking about whether or not the open spaces are regulated by the master plan, right?

Yeah, and I'm very very glad that you brought that up because that was one of the last points I was going to make so there was discussion at planning commission about the open space that was shown on the master plan and they incorrect staff had incorrectly noted that they would be bound to that and that is not correct

So the least restrictive applies here.

So they have open space all over the property that could get developed at some point in the future.

By having the master plan does not take away their ability to do whatever is permitted in the underlying zone and classification.

Yes ma'am.

In the least restrictive of the two.

Yeah and that least restrictive comes from the code.

Basically what it's qualifying is that the applicability of the master plan application is that if there's ever any conflict between whether or not

This applies from the master plan or the base district applies, whatever is the least restrictive of the two.

So in the case of open space, the question is, are they bound to the master plan as shown by where their open space is?

The answer is no, because the least restrictive is they get to build what they wish by right by the zoning ordinance.

Staff recommended in favor, we did not believe that this had any negative impacts to this area of the city.

Plenty Commission also agreed and recommended unanimous approval 7 to 0.

And I did find in the master plan and Gil can confirm this for me that the height of the buildings is specifically 4 and it's on page 4 of the master plan.

and that is all I have for you.

Okay, I'll open the public hearing for this item.

I'm going to go on engineering, representing EMU and Philip Martin.

I'm the facilities planner and construction manager at EMU.

Thank you.

Yeah, this master plan, we've done a few there, including EMRC and EMA Chess or EMS.

All that area, especially when it comes down to the open space, it was that question.

And we both were wrong thinking, oh, they are limited by the fact we can't touch those staff and myself on that assertion.

But EMU's interest is to maintain as much green space as possible.

That's been in the DNA forever and that's what they want.

So that's something that is there.

And also to be clear, there is no requirement for the open spaces.

It's simply on the master plan for institutional master plan.

Ordinance asked, are there any open spaces or can you show them or designate where they are?

And that is what it does.

It just shows or represents this is where the open space is, but not necessarily limiting it just to say that is where is that.

One of the things I want to point out also is that the previous master plan or the current, I guess until you approve the new one,

was very cumbersome.

There was a lot of things there that were almost unnecessary given the current ordinance that the city has.

And this was a combined effort between staff and as a Coleman to clean it up and make it as simple as possible to make it so that it is actually providing flexibility instead of the opposite.

So I think that's all I have.

Thank you, Mr. Coleman.

We might designate a special chair for you.

Just for tonight.

Looks good.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Any comment?

Another comment from Adam?

I admitted one detail in my notes that I wanted to make sure I covered.

They also, aside from the exterior boundary, all internal property lines, they proposed also have a zero setback, so they wouldn't be bound by that as well, because it's all internal through the campus.

The worst of concerns by staff with that, and we were able to work with them with the fire department to work in a very similar arrangement with regard to when they build close to property lines to either have the, it's either going to be 10, if it's less than 10 feet, they either have to provide the fire sprinkler systems or to have wall constructions be constructed without openings or with the one hour minimum fire rated assembly.

And that wasn't anything that they were opposed to.

Are there any comments on this item?

Madam Chair, on the item that was just added by the Director, I do have a comment.

and that comment relates to some of my frustration at listening to the discussion of people not showing up and not being like the days of the street renaming.

Well, I was the secretary and I am the secretary of the Harrisonburg Martin Luther King, Jr.

Way Coalition and what that means is I witnessed, I was the witness for everything that has happened associated with that up until this point as a part of coalition activity.

and I will tell you that what we heard here from the Director of Community Development enters into how it has come to be that people don't show up.

It didn't just happen that people became not interested.

There are structural reasons and there are power reasons and there are political reasons why people are beleaguered and not showing up.

For the structural issues,

That discussion of internal setback going to zero, the piece of reasoning that was slipped in there was, well, we need to do something.

We need to address this because if we put buildings too close together, then fire trucks can't get their ladders in between to address fires.

This is not true.

And the Director of Community Development,

should know it's not true because I have excoriated staff on this issue before.

That was an excuse that was used for exclusionary practices, for big setbacks, and setbacks J.C.

Nichols said specifically he wanted setbacks not only in front but in the side yards as well.

He did not want those for fire ladders.

I don't know if they used fire ladders even in the days of

when Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicked over the lantern and started the Chicago fire.

What he wanted them for was for plantings on those setbacks that would be a constant recurring cost that could be targeted to drive people out who got past his racially exclusionary covenants.

That's what they were for.

And one of your previous fire chiefs stood here

and a firm that indeed, that's not how we fight fires.

That's not how we suppress fires these days.

And staff has in their hands how it's actually done since Mrs. O'Leary's day, which is through building code.

How does this persist for 10 years, 12 years now?

The director of community development has been having this conversation with me and it persists.

When I can have that conversation for 10 years,

Would anybody else look at this and not just throw their hands up and give up and not show up?

So we have to address structural issues.

Maybe we have to do a bridge water.

I don't know what's going on in bridge water, but they did a shake up of the entire leadership.

We can do that.

We can do that.

And if people aren't showing up, maybe there's something structural here that needs to be addressed.

And in terms of addressing it,

Mr. Jones, I think, is not going to be retiring to his living room just because he's tired.

We just came through a super low turnout, record low turnout set of primaries.

With all the things that go with that, people don't just decide that they're bored.

There are power issues, there are struggles that go on, and part of that is reinforced with state police power.

You all five sitting here can do something

to address that can do something to change that.

And we can recognize who's driving some of these things when as secretary I would hold those meetings and it got harder and harder for people to come to meetings.

Councilwoman Robinson has been a witness, things get physically violent.

And I'm not talking about the people I've been putting on the record, I'm talking about the people who control the narrative around the so-called bold progressive side.

when I would try to move some of those coalition meetings to our bylaws meetings at the Harrisonburg Democratic Committee.

And Mr. Fleming would look like I've been serving him a bowl of dog feces to try to get them to stay and say, OK, let's move the coalition meeting here so some people can come to these meetings.

And then we say, why don't people show up?

Why don't people show up?

OK.

You have 30 seconds.

OK, thanks.

Any other comments?

Are we still off the phones?

Okay, I close public hearing.

It's a long one.

Madam Vice Mayor, I move that we approve the request from Eastern Mennonite University for a master plan amendment rezoning for multiple properties on College Avenue.

Hillcrest Drive, Mt.

Councilwoman, you haven't.

You will in January, but you haven't sat on any of the liaisons.

So I sit on both of them.

So some of the big thing that we talk about is always capital projects.

So you'll discuss those when you sit on the liaison meeting.

So as they're making tweaks and changes, you'll talk to Dr. Hutzman or other representatives to be there.

And our staff will bring what capital projects we have.

You'll bring stuff from this desk.

And so those updates happen in those liaison meetings.

R. R.

Tom Presence, or when Adam Presence.

So that to help you give some context to because I'm sure you're thinking what the hell is going on there because nobody ever knows but then you look up and something's there.

You have complete access to that information, EMU or JMU in this case.

Okay, any more discussion?

Council Member Jans?

Aye.

Vice Mayor Dent?

Aye.

Council Member Robinson?

Aye.

Aye.

Abstain.

Deanna.

All right.

This is here for this.

Madam Mayor and Council, this is an item that just recently, I'm sorry.

This is an item that just recently came up.

Mr. Fing's brought to my attention briefly.

There's a section of Virginia Code 24.2-627 that requires City Council to provide one scanner for each election precinct, but if there are more than 4,000 registered voters in the precinct, it should have at least two scanners unless City Council, in consultation with the registrar and electoral board, determines that based on some of the historical voting data

that the second scanner is not necessary.

And I believe Mr. Fings and the electoral board has done that analysis and we have two precincts, Waterman and Sims, which are just slightly over the 4,000 registered voter mark.

Thank you.

Mark Fink's director of elections, City of Harrisonburg.

Just one point to add to what Mr. Brown had said, that 4,000 number only comes into effect for presidential elections.

So that's why we're considering it right now because this is the first time since I've done this position that we would look at something like this for a presidential election.

So also in 24.2-627 on section C, it discusses for the purposes of applying this section of code,

that the registrar may exclude persons voting absentee in his calculations.

So when we talk about absentee, that's going to include early in-person voting and vote by mail.

So if you subtract the number of voters in both of those precincts that have already either requested a ballot by mail or voted in person, that would bring the Sims precinct.

At 4,073, we've had 332 people that have voted absentee.

So that brings it under the 4,000 market, 3,741.

and then Waterman with 4,107 registered voters.

We've had 679 individuals that have voted already.

So that would also bring in under the 4,000 at 3,428.

So this would bring it under the requirement for the 4,000 but still felt that we needed to bring this resolution to this body to make sure that we were following the letter of the law as far as what we need in consultation with the electoral board.

We feel that one scanner will be sufficient giving

how many people we actually have that are still that could vote in those precincts and what we have experienced in previous presidential elections as far as wait time and the amount of staff that we'll have.

So this will affect the number of officers of election that we'll have in these precincts on election day.

So we'll be somewhere between 12 to 14 officers staffing these precincts and we'll also have three check-in locations set up as well.

So the only thing that would be affected by this is that we would not have the extra scanner operating.

Now we will still put in, because we have already put the order in for these scanners, we will still be renting scanners in this place for this election.

So if we felt that something changed and we did need to put them in place, we would use them.

But right now they'll be used as a backup.

I do want to say thank you for your service, your work to the board as well.

We're in challenging and busy times right now, and so I'm sure you're working hard and long and tirelessly.

I don't know if you hear that.

I appreciate it.

Enough.

All right.

Do we have any comments, questions?

Thank you.

Council.

Madam Mayor, I move that we adopt the resolution related to election precinct scanners.

as presented by the registrar.

Well, I trust our director of elections and our electoral board.

They do a great job in the city, and I appreciate the work.

Thank you.

Council Member Jones.

Vice Mayor Dent.

Hi.

Council Member Robinson.

Hi.

Hi.

Mayor Reed.

Hi.

Larry.

I'm Nicole.

Oh, yeah.

My experience up here is showing you're a pro already.

I'm Nicole Roberts and I'm a procurement specialist senior for the city of Harrisonburg.

My cohort, Shane Smith Procurement Manager, had a family emergency so he's unable to be here tonight.

But I'm presenting the introduction and brief overview on our new procurement manual or updated procurement manual and the changes that came and asking for your approval by resolution.

Our procurement policy manual policies for procurement are important to provide city employees a clear understanding of the city's policies.

It helps us obtain goods and services at a reasonable cost.

It ensures that we conduct business in an open, fair, and impartial manner.

To foster competition, it ensures all qualified vendors have access to city business.

It helps

hold us accountable to the taxpayers and be good stewards of public funds and ensure that we're complying with the Virginia Public Procurement Act or VPPA and other regulations such as those from the federal government when we're using federal funds.

So we're updating the procurement manual, the procurement policy manual at this time.

What we did was we streamlined the manual.

We tried to focus on VPPA, the Virginia Public Procurement Act, specifically what we're required to have by code or what

was different like if we have, we've increased our thresholds since our last update.

We've also incorporated some new updates from Virginia Code into this manual.

And we also added some appendices such as the one that for when we are utilizing federal funds in our procurements.

So some of the primary updates are we are moving our thresholds for

sealed solicitations from 60,000 to 100,000 for goods and non-professional services as defined by Virginia Code and for professional services removing it from 60,000 to 80,000.

All of our sealed solicitations will be accepted in electronic response per Virginia Code.

This actually doesn't go into effect under Virginia Code until January 1 of 2025.

However, operationally, we are already accepting that right now, so this aligns our policy with our operations.

Appendices, D&E were required to have written procedures approved by our public body per Virginia Code, so we've written those out.

And then Appendix F is PPEA guidelines, which we currently have PPEA guidelines.

We've just updated those and streamlined them as well.

And then Appendix G is our guidelines for procurement using federal funds, and this is a new Appendix that we have created.

That's my brief overview for you all.

I have some questions about from when I was on the proposal side proposing to state and federal agencies.

As I recall many states had

Rules that required a technical proposal and a separately sealed financial proposal and the process that the agency would go through was analyze the technical proposal first and choose only the ones that met their criteria and only then open the cause proposal and the intention of that was to make sure that they weren't just giving it to the lowest bidder who wasn't able to do the project.

Do we have anything similar to that in our procurement regulations?

Yes, it sounds exactly like what you're describing as a professional services.

So that would be generally like our engineering, architects, things that as you mentioned, you wouldn't want to go with a low bid for, you know, you'd want to consider additional things such as their experience and their qualifications.

Okay, well, I'm glad to hear that.

I figured it probably would be in parallel, especially since you're

having to incorporate some of the federal procurement regulations, as you say, since we're having so much federal funding that we have to comply with.

So good work.

Any other questions?

Thank you, Nicole.

So much better than the other guy.

Joking.

Oh God.

Angela's sitting there.

No, everybody's great.

Everyone's equally great.

Madam, I mean, I'm reading the other one.

I just said the other one out loud.

Madam Mayor, I move to approve the resolution updating and amending our procurement policy manual as presented.

Any more discussion?

Council Member Jones?

Aye.

Vice Mayor Dent?

Aye.

Council Member Robinson?

Aye.

Council Member Fleming?

Aye.

Aye.

Thank you for hanging around.

Good evening, Tom Hartman, Public Works.

Last month, Luke Morgan and I were here to talk about a grant, the Virginia 250 DHR grant to provide renovations to the Harrison House.

We submitted the pre-application.

We were accepted to submit a full application and we're working on that right now.

Those applications are due next Friday.

One component of that is this resolution of support

from you all to include our application so that we can go compete for the funds to help provide money to restore the Harrison House.

Thank you.

Good, quick work.

All right.

All right.

Thank you.

Second.

Any discussion?

Council Member Jones.

Vice Mayor Dent.

Hi.

Council Member Robinson.

Hi.

Council Member Fleming.

Mayor Reed.

Hi.

Angela.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council Members, Angela Clem, Director of Human Resources.

I am here this evening to provide some exciting updates on our Comprehensive Employee Benefit Study

the evaluation of benefits items and then potential implementation of some important policies around employee benefits.

So just some background.

Before we embark on a study, we always ensure alignment with city council vision, including our departmental strategic plans.

And so our human resources strategic plan calls for a focus on benefits in two sections.

are objective E in both of those sections of Goal 1 and Goal 3.

And so really focusing on engaging employees through listening sessions and then also doing a comprehensive benefits package review.

And so as you know, following the fiscal year 2024 classification and compensation study implementation, we continue to pursue our compensation philosophy

but also we wanted to focus on the other side of total rewards which is actually benefits.

So compensation is one side of total rewards and then benefits is the other side of total rewards.

So we established the benefit study committee or group that then embarked on a listening session tour across all city departments.

These were some of the questions that are listed here that we wanted to understand from city employees.

So we wanted to understand what benefits do employees want us to keep the same?

What benefits do we want to see expanded or modified?

And then what benefits would we like to see added that are currently missing from our benefits suite?

We also wanted to find out from employees what life and wellness pressures employees are dealing with and their families are dealing with or experiencing that benefits could potentially alleviate.

So the Benefit Study Group embarked on conducting 70 listening sessions across city departments.

And so that is really an incredible feat.

If 5 a.m.

in the morning and 7 p.m.

in the evening, we were meeting employees where they were in the months of March in the beginning, I'm sorry, the months of February in the beginning of March.

We had over 85% participation from full-time employees.

And so that's in-person participation.

Our rate came down a little bit in terms of part-time employees, but overall 75% participation rate from employees in those listening sessions.

So really excited about that.

After we conducted the listening sessions, it was important to prioritize the evaluation of benefits.

And so we have heard what employees are interested in and what they want, and we got all of the data.

We coded that data and the feedback.

and I think we provided a chart for you right at your desk.

And it is of all of the benefits information that employees gave us.

And it's also part of the Benefits Study Report, which is over 70 pages in case you want to take a nightly read.

But we considered the employee pressure feedback.

We considered the benefits feedback, benefits to maintain, expand, and to add.

And then of course we included the budgetary implication

Financial and Human Resources necessary to follow through with the benefits and created a matrix.

And so this is what our matrix looks like.

Our Deputy Director of Human Resources, Marisa Kege, developed this.

And so you'll see across the top of the matrix, that's the evaluation of benefit term.

And then on the left side is the priority.

And so you see the high, medium, low priority.

And so the, for instance,

The immediate benefit evaluation term in high priority is a zero to three month time period, and then it expands from there.

And so you'll see some check marks on some of the, on one of the quadrants.

Currently, the Benefit Study Group is studying the short term evaluation period under the high priority.

And so we're looking at health insurance, cost and coverage, retiree health, and then all of the different types of leave that our employees may experience.

It's short and low.

So under emergency and inclement weather, since it's October, wouldn't that be one you would want to do sooner, even though it's in that lower?

You know what I mean?

Yes, sir.

So we have an existing policy for emergency and inclement weather.

And shouldn't that be one that we actually do bump up?

So that way we're being responsive before the need happens versus instituting it into 25, 26.

It makes sense.

The short term evaluation time period is three to six months.

And so that's something that could be coming up along this whole list.

and Benefit Study Group is currently working in that, again, that short-term high priority area, but we'll be working its way down the short-term list.

And so that's great advice.

Kind of like the low-hanging fruit in essence, that metaphor for that.

I appreciate that.

Any questions on the evaluation of Benefit Term Matrix?

Well, I'm surprised that childcare and daycare lands in medium priority for the long term only.

It is a very high priority need.

Yes, so the things that we considered when we developed the matrix were employee pressures feedback, the actual benefits feedback, what benefits we need to add, what benefits we need to expand or modify, and what benefits we need to maintain, and then the budgetary implications and then financial and human resources necessary.

Can we get some of the assessment of what those financial implications might be for the child care and health care?

Absolutely.

And actually, that's what the Evaluation Matrix is for.

And so we're able to, with the Benefit Study Group, we're able to take each item and look at it as a policy matter and then also look at what the financial impact would be.

Dany, I'm turning in this shirt for a blue one that says Parks and Rec said I can help with the problem and I'm not joking.

Dany.

Attachment B, we notice around, what would say around, between 70 and 80 employees mentioned childcare and daycare is one of those benefits to potentially add.

And so that was one of those considerations.

You're not gonna fix, let me tell you, and I know Andy's probably gonna fall out, but

And one of the needs that we heard frequently that is cited in the Benefit Study Report is the fact that we have employees who work 24-7 shifts or do 24-7 coverage.

And so that was one of the comments that employees had was we need

child care when we're providing service to the city.

And so that was something that was a consideration in some of the comments.

Any other questions related to the matrix?

I'm kind of moving through this pretty quickly.

So one thing that came out of the Benefit Study Group already, and the Benefit Study Group has only been meeting for a couple of months.

is a new parental leave policy.

And so this is extremely exciting for the city of Harrisonburg because this is the first time parental leave has been adopted and potentially implemented.

And so you can see the definition here, but this is eight work weeks of paid leave to utilize within a period of six months for new parents, newly placed or newly adopted children,

and also, in addition to this, for maternity cases, if the employee is eligible, that eight weeks of paid parental leave can supplement a short-term disability policy or sick leave policy that the city has.

And I like that it's just, I like, what I like so much about this part is that

or a regular part-time employee.

And so not very many part-time employees receive benefits in our region.

Are you leading?

In the future, when you guys advertise, you're going to lead off with that.

I'm sure that's going to be in your part time.

I remember we had a problem with the part time after, you know, 19, 20, 21, 22 week part time folks kind of got a little squirrely on them.

It's an amazing benefit for part-time employees.

And so I want to note, and you said leave with that, the city of Harrisonburg will be leading the market or matching the market compared to the peer organizations that we compare to on a regular basis.

And so extremely exciting for the city.

This policy will go into effect January 1st, 2025.

and that will probably give us a good ability to be into the fiscal year for about a half of a year so we're able to get a good idea of fiscal impact.

I just want to take a moment to thank the individuals who are serving on the Benefit Study Committee.

Like I said, we've only been through one quadrant of that matrix that I showed you and there's quite a bit of work to do and so you'll notice and recognize some of these names

They are DLT members and ELT members.

They're a deputy leadership team and our executive leadership team and folks from the Human Resources Office as well, serving on this committee.

But they're supported by the whole executive leadership team and deputy leadership team in this work.

And so they're bringing different perspectives from multiple disciplines.

I just want to thank City Council and of course City Administration, Ms.

Snyder,

and Mr. Banks.

Thank you so much for your support related to this work.

It's very important to round out our total rewards package.

You can review the benefits study report in the agenda or it is online.

I'm not going to give him credit for that.

I like it.

Now I want that on a t-shirt.

Thank you.

All right, that was for presentation only.

We'll go to 7E.

You have before your resolution requesting approval of an HRHA bond issuance, private activity bonds.

These come before council two or three times a year, I believe now.

As you know, HRHA is entitled under Virginia law to act as an issue of private activity bonds to finance housing projects around the Commonwealth.

and it's a benefit for HRHA in that they do generate some fees from these bond issuances and then the authority can use those fees for projects locally.

This particular request is for FC Phase 3 LLC for an issuance of up to $24 million to assist in the financing acquisition, construction, renovation and equipping

of approximately 82 multifamily residential rental units in the city of Charlottesville.

And again, as I always remind council, city council under state law has no financial obligation in these matters.

If the bonds are not paid, they cannot look to the city and don't believe they can look to the authority either.

Second.

Any more discussion?

Yes, I actually come to think of it.

I have a question.

City Attorney, you mentioned that there is some fee that goes to HRHA.

It's usually a percentage of the issuance.

Is it a

It's half of a percent, so it depends on how large of a bond insurance is.

Okay, well that might help with your

We kind of have this money decade towards some matching of funds for some homeless grants that we have.

I see.

Thank you.

So in Virginia, HRIJ gets the predominance of these awarded.

So people can go to any housing authority in Virginia.

In our Virginia Housing Conference, those folks noted that people come here to Harrisonburg and they have for a long time, and they said it's because the process, the application that HRJ has put together is just the most beneficial to them.

and it's great to be able to help out other communities and go to the finance of affordable housing projects.

This is a historical renovation of Friendship Court in Charlottesville and it's funding phase three of that.

So we decided to be able to partner with them on this.

We're done?

Okay.

Council Member Jones.

Council Member Robinson.

Aye.

Aye.

We're not going to be there in 2020-24.

Now I'm praying I live that long.

Second?

Yes, we serve on lots of committees, out of thousands and thousands of people.

Several of us are in leadership positions there, so I just wanted to make sure I reiterated that for the public.

So we're not just there attending and learning, which we do, and we implement a lot of those things.

But I just wanted to make sure we said that we are all in leadership capacities and stuff.

Okay, we can do this by roll call vote.

We got a second, right?

Yes, Captain.

I got a second.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

I do know that we have to discuss the delegate.

We'll do that under other matters.

Yeah, so I'm going to tell you now don't count on me because I don't know driving So it's going to be me and Laura But it'll be a nice drive you have

Well, I'm just taking me out, so y'all deserve it.

Oh, really?

You are?

I mean, we go, so.

Yeah, I thought you was leaving.

No, this is the NLC.

The NLC.

Oh, got it, right, right, sorry.

I'm confused.

The VML, I'm coming back for the new conference here on the 15th.

Let's just go with it.

Oh, well, yeah.

It doesn't matter.

Right?

You have to second the nomination?

Aye.

All right, now we'll go with... You didn't say that.

I'm just... So, it's already been through.

Other matters, we're going to start with comments from the public.

Let me just say five minutes.

What matters, not on the regular agenda.

Name and address are required.