City Council Meeting   1/14/2025

I call our Tuesday, January 14, 2025 City Council meeting to order.

Roll call, please.

Mayor Reed.

President.

City Manager Banks.

Here.

City Attorney Brown.

Here.

Council Member Alsaadun.

Here.

Council Member Robinson.

Here.

Chief Topia.

Here.

Deputy Chief Miller.

Before we go into our invocation, I wanted to

Chair that going forward in this new year, our invocation at our City Council meetings will be a moment of silence or a silent prayer, whatever you feel that you want to do at that time.

This approach ensures that individuals of all faiths, beliefs, and backgrounds can participate in a meaningful way.

And it also reflects our commitment

as a council to unity as well as our respect for everyone who gather in this space and in our community.

So if you desire would you please stand for a moment of silence or silent prayer.

Thank you, and please remain standing for a pleasure.

We have no special recognitions this evening.

We're going to go straight into our consent agenda.

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

Second.

Thank you.

Any discussion?

Vice Mayor Fleming.

Hi.

Council Member Jones.

Sorry.

Oh my goodness.

That's okay.

I apologize.

Council Member Alsaadun.

Hi.

Council Member Dent.

Hi.

Council Member Robinson.

Hi.

Mayor Reed.

Hi.

That's all right.

We'll go into our public hearings, starting with Kristen.

Item 6a.

Good evening mayor, council members and staff.

My name is Kristen McComb and I'm the community development block grant program coordinator for the city.

I'm here tonight to give you a little bit of an overview of the program and to have the first public hearing for this next year's grant round.

The Community Development Block Grant, or CDBG, program is a flexible program that provides communities with resources to address a wide range of unique community development needs.

Beginning in 1974, the CDBG program is one of the longest continuously run programs at HUD.

The CDBG program provides annual grants on a formula basis to about 1,300 general units of local government and states.

CDBG funds must be used for activities that benefit low and moderate income persons.

In addition, each activity must meet one of the following national objectives for the program to benefit low and moderate income persons, the prevention or elimination of slums or blight, or it needs to address community development needs having a particular urgency because existing conditions pose a serious and immediate threat to the health or welfare of the community for which other funding is not available.

The CDBG is federally funded through the U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD.

The City of Harrisonburg receives an annual allocation that is then distributed to eligible projects within the city.

The Community Development Block Grant is a formula grant that's calculated each year based on HUD's budget for the overall program.

Nationally, the city's population, the number of people in poverty, and certain housing considerations.

Over recent years, the city's formulae allocation for CDBG has been within the range

of about 491,000 to 576,000.

We don't know what the 2025 funding will be at this point, so we'll move forward with the assumption that it will be a similar amount till last year's.

The city completed a five-year strategic plan in 2022.

The strategic plan identified the five-year goals for the grant.

These goals must be met as the city spends CDBG funds.

Copies of the current strategic plan are available in the City Manager's Office or online at www.harrisonburgba.gov Our current strategic plan details six five-year goals which the CDBG program must meet by the 2026 plan year.

The first goal is to improve the access to and quality of housing in the city.

This includes the rehabilitation and preservation of quality affordable housing

as well as increasing the access to home ownership through city initiatives and partnerships.

Our second goal is to continue and expand public infrastructure within the city, particularly that which is outdated or deteriorating and needs to be repaired or replaced.

The third goal is to expand and continue non-housing community development, supportive services.

Historically, most non-profits in the city that have applied for CDBG funding have looked to achieve this particular goal.

Broad education and enforcement activities are necessary to effectively further fair housing.

The city is firmly committed to affirmatively furthering fair housing through its CDBG program.

And the fifth goal is to provide administration training, investigation, and enforcement.

This includes all administrative and planning costs to operate the CDBG program successfully.

And did I say finally that the last goal is number six?

I might have stopped at five.

The last goal highlights the grants commitment to continue to fund public facility improvements in eligible areas of the city.

So here's the grant timeline for the next several months.

I'd like to draw attention to the applicant training session that will be this Thursday at 2 p.m.

All organizations interested in applying should plan to attend this online meeting.

Applications will be due at noon on February 20th this year.

Yes, so an advertisement's gone in the Daily News Record and I have a list of about 130 or so emails that I sent this information out to weeks ago.

Yeah, I see the amount of the grant is fluctuating.

No, so it's a formula

that is based on the population of Harrisonburg, certain housing aspects of Harrisonburg and so population size income and housing are kind of the three main categories that determine it.

So it has nothing to do with our performance and it has nothing to do with really anything that we can change.

It's how many different jurisdictions across the country are part of the program for that particular year and then it has to do with what the

And I see your strategic plan 2020 to 26.

Yeah, we've achieved a lot of those goals already.

We're about halfway through the plan right now, being halfway through the third year now.

So we're right in the middle of this plan.

And we've achieved a lot of these goals already.

And as we go into the planning process for next year, as the committee sits together and determines which

Like, is it related to housing?

Like affordable housing?

Is it something related to that?

Like, do you work with people like or are concerned with affordable housing?

Sure.

Yeah.

Housing is definitely a big piece of it.

So over the last probably 18 or so years, every year,

We have put money $140,000 each year towards HRHA and their debt servicing for the Harrison Heights project.

This current year that we're in right now is the first year that we're not funding that particular project.

And so there have been opportunities to put that funding towards some new housing uses.

Right now, we're working with Habitat for Humanity to develop a program with them to

give funding for emergency home repairs to keep low-income individuals in their homes.

In the past, we've also given several grants, or at least two grants, I should say, to Mercy House, and that's been for emergency rental assistance.

Like if I'm a resident?

Okay.

So as a resident, you can't apply directly for the grant, but you can go to one of the organizations that receives funding for the grant.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Can you state where people can go and see the previous list of folks who have been blessed with the grants?

Sure.

I don't have a comprehensive list of that that's out on the internet.

And if you'd like, I can put that together of maybe the last five years or so even.

But what I do have out there right now is the current year's action plan.

And it's on the CDBG page for the city.

And you can see which projects are funded this year and for how much.

So if just let me just give me an email or whatever if you'd like to have more information out there available and I'd be happy to do it.

All right.

This is information only and public hearing.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So I will open this item for public hearing.

Anyone who desires to speak, please state your name and address.

You will have five minutes.

Seeing none in person.

Okay.

Sounds like there's a phone.

Thank you Madam Mayor, Adam Fletcher, Director of Community Development.

This request is to rezone the site from B2 General Business District to M1 General Industrial District.

The screen before you shows the zoning map and the parcel outline here in red.

The orange color is the B2.

You can see that there are other B2 properties surrounding there.

And then M1 is the dark brown color.

And that is the zoning district in which the applicants are requesting to be rezoned to.

Long term plans for this area is for a majority of the space to be industrial.

So at least from the straight land use perspective, the request is in conformance with the land use guide.

So the request can go from commercial to industrial, which would be in line with our long term plans for this area of the city.

In an aerial photograph, some of you might be familiar with the site.

It is the site of Dayton and Tears or previous Dayton and Tears for a number of years.

and the applicant is Winchester Equipment Company.

They're doing businesses Valley Equipment Company who sells rents and services compact construction and agricultural equipment and their plans are to relocate their business from 260, excuse me, 230 Charles Street to this location and to operate from this facility.

We had no concerns from a land use perspective, no concerns from transportation or sewer.

In fact, we recommended for this to be approved as it is in line with our long term plans and the planning commission voted unanimously 6 to 0 to do the same to recommend to you all to approve the request.

As you see that it was a unanimous 6 to 0, we remain one planning commissioner short as it remains to be one vacancy.

Thank you.

Do we have any questions for Adam?

Sir, do they change their name from Valley to Winchester?

Is that their official name change?

Oh, I believe the applicants are here this evening.

I don't want to speak on their behalf.

You can come.

Yeah, you can come.

Good evening.

I'm Scott Hofferman.

No, we don't plan to change the name.

We purchased Valley Equipment in January of 2016.

We purchased the business and we've been leasing that location from the previous owner.

And so now we've had an opportunity for a better location or visibility.

And so we continue to do business as Valley Equipment Company, a subsidiary of Winchester Equipment.

Thank you.

There's no other questions.

I will open this item before public hearing anyone who desires to speak.

Please state your name and address.

You'll have five minutes.

Seeing none in person.

One moment, please.

Thank you.

Close public hearing.

Madam Mayor, I move that we approve the request from Florence LLC to rezone 160 Carpenter Lane as presented by staff.

Thank you.

Seems like a good move for the company.

Great location.

Happy to see someone get the space.

Any time we're moving from leasing as they stated in the planning commission notes to ownership, it's always a good thing.

We'll call please.

Council Member Dent.

Aye.

Council Member Robinson.

Aye.

I want to point out just a few things before I get into some of the high-level details because I don't want to get into too much of the background of everything that we did to prepare for this, but I will absolutely answer any questions you might have if you have specific questions.

But if you so choose and you do approve the Zoning Words Amendment, that would go into effect.

at the end of this month.

Just know that then legally we would be permitted to accept cash proffers, but there's still a good bit of things that we would need to get into place administratively.

We'd have to work with the Department of Finance, work with other departments really across the city to really set up processes and sort of evaluation mechanisms to figure out how we would go about processing them, keeping track of all the information.

I may not have all of the answers for all those things and we'll continue down that path But this just gets that into place as it was requested by the council So just a quick history here So first and foremost the zoning ordinance does currently prohibit the acceptance of cash profits This comes out of the zoning ordinance section 10 3123 and this zoning ordinance amendments came about at the request of city council back in August of 2024

You all had requested for the city attorney to draft up some amendments to allow for the acceptance of cash proffers and because it was a zoning ordinance amendment, or is a zoning ordinance amendment, it has to go to Planning Commission.

It was referred to Planning Commission back in October when staff first presented the amendments to Planning Commission.

Being that we needed a bit more time to research the matter to better understand and get a better grasp on how other localities have handled it, we requested for the Planning Commission to table that item back in October, which they did.

and then from October through December just this last month we did our research and then found ourselves to be comfortable moving forward and spoiler alert we recommend in favor of those amendments and are now in front of you for discussion.

So I am here quite a bit talking about proffers and I know that some of you understand what they are but for those that are here this evening or listening at home

You never really get into the details of what is a proffer and the state code has different provisions, different sections that gives permission to localities to have what's known as conditional zoning.

So the conditional zoning, the word proffer that you hear and you all use as well,

are those legally binding details about a particular application that binds an applicant who voluntarily offers up details about a site to fulfilling those obligations and it can run the gamut of different things to placing limitations on a use, placing specific details about a design criteria or particular improvements and has for a number of years now allowed for people to offer up cash proffers

for particular things, which I'll get into here in a little bit, but our locality did not specifically allow it.

So different code sections describe what a conditional zoning is that the conditions have to be or the proffers need to be of reasonable association with the request.

It must address impacts resulting from the rezoning.

They do have to be voluntary.

So as you all are listening to these requests, you can't say, hey, we would like for you to proffer this matter.

That can't be done.

We do submit to the applicant suggested things for them to consider and proffering.

We have now many years under our belt with experience and what seems to make things a bit more palatable for the community, but they must be voluntary.

And they then are then accepted by you all.

So it is very rare.

In fact, I think it's only happened once in at least my 20 years with the city.

that we actually recommend rejection of a specific proffer.

And that happened actually just in the past couple of years with Bluestem Town Center.

So when proffers are presented to you, legally you can reject certain proffers, but we give you hopefully all the specifics and details you need to make a good informed decision when those proffers are presented to you.

So I want to talk to you about the specifics about receiving cash proffers, and I want to focus on residential development.

So the Code of Virginia in Section 152, 2303.4, authorizes localities to accept cash proffers.

And when they're associated with rezonings for residential development, the cash proffers can be for public facilities.

And then those public facilities are categorized into four different categories.

So you have public transportation facilities, public safety facilities, public school facilities, and public parks.

What I want to make sure, which is very important to understand, is that, specifically with transportation facilities, there may be opportunities in the future where somebody might offer up cash proffers for specific transportation improvements.

And you may find staff in those specific instances recommending that either they be rejected.

Hopefully we may have worked out those proffers beforehand, but if they

want to proceed forward with offering cash for specific transportation improvements.

You might hear staff say we reject this proffer because we want the developer to complete those proffers, which is exactly how it's done today.

We don't believe it should be incumbent upon city staff to then take ownership of those improvements.

And just as an example, let's say a residential development requires the widening of a turn lane along a public street.

As has been for many years now, usually what happens is if they proffer a transportation improvement, it gets designed and reviewed by city staff during the engineer conference of site planning process and then gets built during the development process.

We hope to continue and maintain that approach because what we don't want to find ourselves in is they develop the site, give the city the cash, now staff has to then go out, design the improvement, get the contract in place and then construct improvements.

It just makes a lot of sense.

to have the applicant continue to do it.

Does it mean you can't accept those cash proffers for transportation improvements?

But we would evaluate them on a case-by-case basis and we would let you know if there's any concerns on our side of things.

The cash proffers cannot be made for operational costs, so just keep that in mind.

And they cannot be made to support water and sanitary sewer systems, store water management, or affordable housing.

And I know that's sort of a hot topic right now.

but localities do have provisions by state code that does allow for the acceptance of cash proffers for residential developments through an affordable housing program.

Specifically, this comes out of the Virginia Code which authorizes localities to create these affordable dwelling unit programs which can include provisions allowing for localities to accept cash contributions for affordable unit set-asides.

It may also create opportunities for density bonuses and contributions could even be made into housing trust funds.

And it's something that I think this council is interested in and something that we can continue to work with our housing coordinator to investigate those opportunities.

But this is the cash proffers we're talking about to be able to have this evening are not associated with affordable dwelling units.

Lastly, just a note here is that these restrictions or regulatory details here do not apply to non-residential developments.

So if I understand correctly, I don't want to, I don't want to say like sky's the limit, but it does create opportunities when it's a non-residential rezoning that you can offer up some of these other things that are otherwise restricted in cash proffers for residential developments.

In your minutes you might have seen some of the conversation with Plainty Commission regarding where other localities have been able to receive cash for affordable dwelling development in their localities because it was likely associated with non-residential development.

There were some localities in Northern Virginia that was able to do that.

So on the screen before you is the meat of the amendments.

Not all of the amendments I'm going to show you on the presentation this evening.

In fact, there's a sentence that would be added to subsection A of 10-3-1-23 and then some of the other subsections then will be re-lettered.

But this is the gist of the full impact of being able to allow for the cash proffers to be submitted.

We're going to add subsection B, which is shown here, which is just explicitly stating that we have this ability and that we would follow the rules of section 152, 2303.4.

And then we're striking out the listed items that would no longer be relevant, paying particular attention to number three, which says that such conditions shall not include cash contribution to the city.

So we're eliminating that from the code, which would then just by default then allow us to do so.

Now there are different ways to calculate the amounts that can be submitted by applicants.

Those three different ways are shown here on the screen.

So you have the first opportunity is that the locality essentially just calculates an amount that we believe is appropriate.

And then we present that to the applicant and then they can decide whether or not they agree.

A second attempt might be that the applicant calculates an amount and provides calculations to why they believe that amount is appropriate to the locality.

where the third is that there's a particular formula that's developed so that they can say, you know, here's a certain number of units, you type it into the formula and it kicks out a number as to what the cash contribution might be.

What we've learned is that other localities have utilized two and three in ways that they might even hire a third party, a consultant to decide what the most appropriate measures might be.

So those are things that we've learned from other localities.

And then there are requirements that if you do accept them, there are requirements of accepting those cash proffers.

The first here being that once you receive those cash proffers, within 12 years you must begin to basically use the funds or set in motion the utilization of those funds through

the construction, the site work, all these sorts of things here that are listed out.

We had heard from one locality that, in fact, this law has not even been in place for 12 years yet.

I believe it went into place in 2016.

So the threshold for meeting that 12-year mark has not yet come around for localities that have been able to utilize it.

So there would be still things to learn about if there are any bumps in the road, if people get to that 12-year mark and they haven't begun to utilize those funds, what would happen?

just know that we have that 12 year time period in which to use them.

We would then have to include any cost that we receive in our CIP and then we have to of course report it to the local, Virginia Commissioner and local government.

And in fact, for many, many years, I believe I get that request.

I believe City Manager might get that request and we've never received it.

So it's always been zero.

So we had offered our favorable recommendation to Plain and Commission who then unanimously recommended for this body to approve it.

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

I just thought of something I'd never thought of before in this whole discussion.

Profers are a legal component of zoning, right?

Yes ma'am.

So they stay with the property.

Yes ma'am.

What happens to a cash proffer if the original developer who offered it doesn't decide to build it, sells the property?

Yeah, and I would... Oh, go ahead, sir.

Yeah, I see them no different than any other obligatory proffer where they have to make street improvements or whatnot.

Now, these other localities that used a consultant, who paid?

I don't know the answer to that.

I suppose one might presume that it kind of depends on which approach you're taking.

Like if the city wanted to devise our method, we might be paying a consultant to help us devise that method.

I'm not sure.

Yeah, and I think they had paid for a consultant.

What I found interesting in the report was when they were explaining or using the Amazon build out in Northern Virginia.

and how the cash proffers were used in a way to address a housing shortage that would occur when a thousand people move into your area to start working at a facility and then they are paid a higher amount than normally is paid in the area as a kind of like a median salary and how they use the cash proffers to combat that and to address affordable housing.

Nasser Alsaadun

We're going to build affordable housing, but we could then place that money into the housing trust fund.

Can you kind of give us an example of how that would happen?

So the affordable dwelling in a program with the density bonuses creates that opportunity.

So that's a different program.

Now I suppose, and let me think out loud here for a moment,

I suppose if it's a non-residential rezoning and they're offering up cash proffers, something we'd have to investigate about where the money goes, what kind of a fund it goes into.

I think if we have a housing trust fund, yeah, it could go in there.

Let's say the Amazon situation and they decide to contribute X number of dollars.

If we don't have a housing trust fund, it would go to the city's general fund but still designated for that purpose.

And then there would be at some point reallocated to the housing programs.

So if they say we're going to pay $100,000 to help offset affordable housing issues, the city can't then take that and build

Now, and one of the nice things about non-residential property proffers, you do have a little bit more flexibility.

So again, the Amazon situation, they probably would not have had to get into that sort of minor detail.

Do you think that cash proffers will raise up the cost of housing?

I think the developer will pass on all or a hefty portion of the cost of those proffers to the eventual buyers.

Yeah, I mean, the fair is that we are like finding funds for housing trust, for example.

It's a fair observation.

One thing I'd say, so, you know, and so I've looked through, you know, each year, all the proffers from every city is published.

I've looked through this, you know, this past year, there was 70 million dollars in proffers in Virginia.

And since 2016, there's been, you know, that that large amount in these places, there are 50 plate 50 localities that take proffers.

We don't.

Our building unit production has gone down since 2016.

You know, we're 30, 40% less now in unit production than we were six or eight years ago.

But many of these other places that are using proffers, you know, they aren't seeing that same type of decline.

Now, I don't know if that's necessarily attributable, you know, or, you know, that if we do, if we accept cash proffers, that that will have a negative effect or not.

But I think there's some evidence in a lot of these places that the cash proffers has not.

had a negative impact on the building there.

And of course, that $70 million, some of that's skewed with Loudon County.

Maybe 30%, 40% of all that offers go to Loudon County.

But there's some other places that are even smaller.

Strasburg, LaRae, Culpepper, they all accept cash proffers.

and I've gotten pretty significant funds for those.

Yeah, so out of 70 million, 31 million went to community centers, which I think

I know they say parks, but I think it actually does mean community centers and libraries there.

And again, Loudoun County does skew this a bit, because they have all those data centers that give so much money there.

But there are cities all over the state, and certainly many of the counties as well, that are accepting these for schools, affordable housing, community centers, libraries.

Schools is the other in parks.

Yeah, so it's an interesting question.

I think it's a good thing to consider.

I don't know that, you know, having proffers necessarily has a negative impact or not.

There's evidence that might suggest that, you know, folks are still building in places where they want to build with the cash proffers there.

But of course, this is also

Special Use Permit, so we're not requiring it.

Well, it's a rezoning.

But it's just saying that we're going to allow the acceptance.

It basically opens the door for discussion.

I have a question.

I thought about this, the planning notes too, with the 12 years to do what you're supposed to do with this money.

Does that, or do you think that that, as your study kind of suggests, makes the builders get busy instead of this big long lag of actually putting a shovel in the ground and get a project started?

If there's a profit associated with it, does it tend to move quicker because then

What happens if, then on the other side, if we accept a proffer, but then we're dragging and not spending that money to do what we're supposed to do with it in that time frame?

I guess there's two different questions.

Two different things.

Two different things, but do you understand what I'm saying?

Does it get it going quicker?

I'm not sure that it does.

That's more of a restriction on the government saying, okay, if you take someone's money for one of these proffers,

You have to eventually do what you say you're going to do.

And so the 12 years, I mean, a residential development type profit, normally what you see is the next number of dollars per unit.

And that's normally paid when the certificate of occupancy is paid.

So a development could take five, six years to build out.

At the end of that five or six year period, we would have 12 years now.

There is a little bit of flexibility for transportation type projects, you know, if there's something comparable, you know, we can move that money.

For schools, it's probably a little bit tighter.

You can use it for another school project, but it would have to have the effect of increasing capacity.

Now, and also I think it's important consideration, let's say worst case scenario, we can't find anything to spend the money on within those 12 years.

under the current state code, it goes to the Commonwealth Transportation Board for their funding and then gets reallocated to the locality without offsetting what the locality was going to get anyway.

So it's kind of an accounting thing.

The money will eventually come back to us, but still not all the principle is if we accept cash proffers, we ought to use the money for what those cash proffers were offered for.

I don't know how to put a number on that because we don't always know what rezoning will come our way.

I think they tend to be associated with larger projects, generally, I think, right, that have costs that you can calculate at some significant level, you know, related to schools or to libraries.

The transportation one we already do, really, in community centers.

And so, I think a lot of these places then derive formulas, you know, for your libraries or for community center, which I think is

Again, this is just a negotiation tool, something that we're not gonna, it's not saying that we're automatically accepting them, something that is just, we're adding to the zoning ordinance for just a case.

Yeah, and I think Mr. Fletcher said, but just to emphasize,

Council never has to accept a proffer.

Yes, sir.

And the other thing that we emphasized a lot in Planning Commission is there has to be a direct correlation to the costs that are incurred by the development, such as if it really does bump up to school requirements, their

They're required to document how much capacity they need in order to calculate how much the profit is.

So then there's a question of who calculates that and how.

So in other words, it's not just a random offer of some more money.

It has to be costs that are both tied to the development and benefit the development.

Yeah, I mean, from our perspective, it's going to be a sort of an interesting

I think to now be also considering, you know, I think we would just be proceeding with caution because, you know, we don't have that experience yet of like, when is it appropriate for us to even listen to that conversation from developers to talk about that.

I think if, is some of these costs, are they, is your test a realized costs, not projected costs, is that right?

The transportation costs are usually fairly straightforward.

We see what the rezoning proposal is and sometimes there's a traffic impact analysis so we know exactly what has to be done and then Mr. Hartman and his staff along with you we do have consulted engineers on contract that assist various things

They'll be able to look at that and come up with a pretty tight number of what that's going to cost.

Now, when it actually occurs, that may be a question.

If it doesn't happen for five years, these numbers may be a little bit behind.

So the transportation costs are fairly straightforward.

And another thing, you know, we talked about that the proffers go with the property, right?

And you run into these situations and we know these things happen where you have these resignings that we come in here and we talk about all these improvements that are going to be made to the street for particular projects, sidewalks, turning lane, you know, additions and things like that.

If the cash proppers are not part of that and it wasn't part of the transportation permit, it just goes with the property.

Any other discussion questions?

Thank you.

I'll open this item up for public hearing.

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

You'll have five minutes.

Seeing none in person.

Second.

Roll call, please, Pam.

Council Member Dent.

Aye.

Mayor Reed.

Aye.

Another zoning ordinance amendment that I have to present to you.

Currently, data centers are categorized in a bigger picture perspective.

They are categorized in the same category as warehousing and storage use.

So warehousing and storage use is a listed use in our zoning ordinance that shows up in B1, B2, and M1.

In fact, this statement, as I was looking at this earlier today, is correct, but also doesn't provide all the information.

So today, in our M1 General Industrial District, warehousing and storage, and I'm going to now just begin to use the word data center, okay?

So data centers are part of this.

So a data center would be permitted by right in M1.

In B1, you can apply for a special use permit.

That's our downtown area.

You can apply for a special use permit.

As long as you've met certain parameters, you could have, and it was approved by you all, you could have a data center in B1.

In the B2 district, you can also have data centers by right, but you're limited in size to only 20,000 square feet of area, but the building essentially.

What would be permitted by special use permit in B2 is just whatever the size is at the special use permit request time period.

So I wanted to just make clear that data centers today are permitted by right in a one and then there's other abilities in the B1 and B2.

And the example I gave during the planning commission meeting was that when you think of our city and you think of the zoning map and you look for that brown color all across the city and you have to sort of pause a moment and question yourself

Woodwy as a community want to allow data centers and all those M1 properties.

And they are scattered in spaces that sometimes you're kind of surprised to learn where they're located.

As an example, the Artisan Packaging Property, which is a very prominent location up for sale, located very close to our downtown and directly adjacent to our residential neighborhood, is Zoned M1.

By right today, that property

going through typical processes, but no special permissions granted by Plain and Commissioner City Council could have a data center by right.

So you have to question do we want to allow them in these spaces?

and staff began to really put emphasis on this as we evaluated a request from a particular individual at a particular property, which is a rather complex piece of property, but it just really brought this issue to the surface.

As we knew other localities across Virginia were sort of struggling through the use of data centers because it's still an evolving technology, but it is going to be with us for a very long time because our technology relies on these data centers.

So as we began to evaluate this use, we really began to question, this might be something that we think we should give the opportunity for the public to weigh in on, and to allow you all to decide, is this a use that we want in these particular locations?

The zoning ordinance amendment that I'm presenting this evening does not prohibit data centers in the city of Harrisonburg.

It just puts different lens of regulatory control on it for you all and the community at large.

We do have one

the grand opening of the navigation center and you looked out the rear window you would have seen that facility so just be aware we do have one already in the city in a location that we currently allow by right at that location and I've already gone into a little bit of this particular question that really began last summer maybe a bit before it was really last summer that staff said wait we need to pause and take a more a closer look at this get a better handle on it and then wrote this

Amendment to bring to you to decide whether or not you want to put more controls on this.

And again, this would be permitted only by special use permit in M1.

You would no longer be able to apply for it in B1.

You would no longer be able to apply for it in B2.

You could only do it in M1 with an approved special use permit.

So what we're doing here is we are defining a new use, which is data centers.

That definition is on the screen, and I'm going to break it down into three categories here.

So we have

The first part here, which is in the orange text, which is an establishment or a facility used for the storage, management, processing, and transmission of digital data, goes on to describe all the different types of systems and equipment that are part of that facility.

The second part here in the pink color is talking about what is supporting equipment to it, which is part of the facility.

So the power generators, the air handlers, the water cooling and storage facilities,

All of the things that are supportive of that.

And then lastly, remaining in the white text is that this definition of a data center does not include on-site IT server rooms and even rooms that might be rather large to support that on-site use, especially that on-site IT infrastructure.

So it does not include those types of facilities.

We then take data centers as a use and then list it in the special use permit category in M1.

Through our research, we've learned that there are these six different types of data centers.

So we have the Enterprise Data Center, which is a facility that supports just a single organization.

An example of that might be Facebook, the Facebook organization that might use an enterprise data center.

Then we have the co-location or a multi-tenant data center.

This is an example at 139 Taika Street.

This is a co-location space, which is a space that businesses, they lease space within that facility.

It could be healthcare, it could be banking or government agencies, but that's an example of a co-location.

That's what we have in a city.

Then we have the cloud-based, which is where a company might manage the hardware with the help of a third-party provider.

Examples of this would be like Amazon's AWS or Microsoft's Azure, I think is how you pronounce their system.

So those are two examples.

Then moving into the micro data centers at the edge, these are small facilities that are within a certain vicinity of the population in which they serve.

and they're often built and managed by large data center operators.

And then our last two, the Cryptocurrency Data Center.

That is an example of the one that was interested to come here in the city.

These are specifically dedicated to crypto mining and support only the owners of the crypto mine.

And then the last one, these Hyperscale.

Examples of these are like these massive data centers, Google, Amazon, these are the big ones that you likely would see in Northern Virginia.

As you read in the staff reports, what our research has brought to our attention is that Virginia has the highest concentration of data centers in the world, and most of them are located in Northern Virginia.

So this image comes from the Piedmont Environmental Council just showing where proposed and existing facilities are located, and you can see that, you know, Harrisonburg does show up there on the map there in the valley, but just that significant concentration in Northern Virginia.

So impacts.

Impacts can be positive.

There's tax revenue that can be realized.

They typically do not cause a lot of traffic concerns.

They do not add demand to local schools.

But with these uses also comes some concerns.

So things that you've probably read or even heard on news and different articles as these types of facilities are in the media quite a bit.

Things of concern such as size and security of these, oftentimes they're in campus-like settings, lots of lights to control to make sure that they can be seen, fencing around it, just the large scale, the massing of the building itself.

They are in continuous operation, they use a lot of energy, they use a lot of water.

The need for, potentially the need for electrical substations and transmission lines.

noted the cooling for the water consumption, the noise of that, the wastewater that can be generated that goes into our sanitary sewer system, and then the noise associated with backup generators and things that come from just the operation of the facility because it is 24-7.

We believe it is wise of our community to evaluate these on a case-by-case assessment, and through that, as you all know, being that it would be a special use permit, unlike a proffer

This body has the ability

The massing of the building, lighting noise, and most importantly, where it should go.

And that's really what kind of brings this to our recommendation for you all to accept these amendments and approve what has been presented to you.

So we offered a favorable recommendation to Planning Commission, and while I don't have a slide here to it, they did unanimously recommend also 6 to 0 for you all to accept the amendments, which is to create the definition

Any questions?

All right.

Thank you.

So this item will be open for public hearing.

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

You'll have five minutes.

Seeing none in person.

One moment please.

You are now live with City Council.

Please state your name and address in your five minutes.

Pena Yorkis, Yonakudos, City Resident.

Madam Mayor, there's been a little bit of discussion of this item circulating both in Planning Commission and in other channels that I would like to bring down to reality.

So one, there's been a discussion of the energy problem associated with

Data Centers.

This is a problem very particular to Northern Virginia where they had a massive agglomeration of these uses, the greatest concentration on the planet.

And a problem that that has most saliently brought forward for them is the problem of energy transmission lines.

I commend Mr. Fletcher in raising that this is an issue and we can look at Harrisonburg and see that the power of transmission lines here is not the same as the power of transmission lines that is making Northern Virginia think about small reactor nuclear as a way to get around the problem of getting energy to these uses.

Had we properly deliberated this issue, we would have had an informed discussion of that.

The second item that has been tossed around is water scarcity.

We do not have a water scarcity problem with respect to data centers here.

Our water is abundant.

Unfortunately, one source cited Mr. Collins as saying that we could potentially have droughts, etc., etc., omitting the context, the context being as Mr. City Manager was glad to affirm, Mr. Collins, that

That problem will be solved by the eastern raw water line.

The problem we do have is a problem I've raised again and again, which is one of pristine drinking water.

If we were to bring online new users of a lot of water, that would increase the mix of non-pristine south fork water.

However, again, questions of magnitude, people have not brought forward

that I couldn't find our current data center on the list of big water users because it was so far down and very small looking by the actual big users, which are our three poultry plants.

I've long advocated that we should revisit the 1995 Harrisonburg-Rockingham Water Agreement

which diverted water through a county pumping plant, a county processing plant, to R.R.

Donnelly so that industrial water from the city could be used for pipes from one place in the southeast and leave our pristine drinking water for us.

Why have we not been able to have that discussion that was reaffirmed in 2006?

That would be a thing to be revisiting and thinking about when we talk about potential other big water users.

And again, another item.

This is not necessarily an item to be dealt with on the piecemeal fashion.

Unfortunately, the past two years of our city council have made it hard for people to think about this because we, often for the public, it looks like these kinds of piecemeal solutions are based on who you are and who you know, rather than on what you're proposing.

And that's a credibility problem, unfortunately.

But we do have an upcoming public input process, we would hope, for the zoning rewrite, that might be a place to comprehensively think about where uses like this could potentially fit in for Harrisonburg.

And Mr. Fletcher, again, I do have to commend when he was talking about water, brought forward the issue of sewer, the outgoing water.

Given the scarcity of time here, I will say to Mr. Kostellik, if he's

about this planning commission that, him seeing that his proposal will probably be voted down today, I would invite him to reach out to the Martin Luther King Junior Wake Coalition, which is having People's Day this coming weekend, as I'll say later in public comment, because that is dedicated to people having a voice, and all people who see their projects voted down,

should really come to support other people's projects, and that's the only way we can really break through inefficiencies in our governing and in our democracy by putting aside maybe our particular setbacks and helping others to make sure that they receive justice within our city as well.

Thank you.

Do we have any other comments?

Thank you.

All close public hearing.

Well, this is a matter of discussion.

You know, I'm quite glad that we are able to move this out of a by right use first.

I think that's an important thing for us to do.

And one reason is I think, as we just heard, you know, Harrisonburg could be an attractive place for data centers.

We have our own electric utility.

We have water supplies that could potentially be used for this, I think, because people might target this area as a place that they might want to come and investigate that.

So I think getting ahead of that is important.

In this case, as it's being presented, it would be a case by case analysis of that, which would

when you look at the concerns you might have about power and water would allow our electric utility and our water utility to then examine that fully before any project would move forward, which gives us the ability to make an assessment of that based on those issues.

And then, of course, location then becomes something that counseling can make a determination on and where those go.

So I think that'd be important for us.

I think there's a lot to learn about data centers moving forward.

I know Virginia's

I think the General Assembly, this will be one of the two things they really focus on in the General Assembly.

Virginia is the center, as Mr. Fletcher said, for these.

So I think it will be important that we continue learning about these.

I don't have any doubt that as they move forward, the great expense of cooling these places down,

You know, and electricity use is probably something these companies and these centers are going to look to reduce.

It's part of, I'm sure, what they're going to look to reduce those costs.

And that's something to certainly keep an eye to and see what impacts those have to, you know, how much cooling needs to happen.

I would imagine that will decrease over time, just given how much money is pumped into these places.

Yeah, I want to thank Mr. Fletcher and his staff in identifying businesses actually that can harm the city and the environment.

Yes, I've been raising the environmental concerns of data centers for a while, the massive energy demand.

Primarily because of the increased demand of data centers, Dominion was slated to retire to fossil gas plants and instead is not retiring those but building six more.

So it's increasing the load on utilities in general and making it dirtier energy instead of cleaner.

So I think that's going to be one of my main concerns and conditions for the special use permits that they have some percentage.

We have a letter from the Sierra Club recommending at least 50% of the electricity should be on site, generated and renewable.

So depending on what's feasible, we need to figure out what works, what we can require, and the ability to add those conditions to special use permits is crucial.

That's the key for me in making this work is being able, one, to get ahead of the game, but also to have some control.

If we don't have control, then we need to be able to say where these sites should be able to go.

I know that the energy environmental issues are a big issue, issues, issues, but by doing this special use permit, it seems like we can control the amount and we can look at case by case basis and say, no, we don't want it because of the environmental issues.

Do you have one question for this?

This wouldn't impact or would it if JMU, for example, had a data center on land they have, is that correct?

They're their own jurisdiction.

Hey, call for a question.

I think you made a motion, Dany.

I did.

I'll make a motion on this.

Roll call, please, Pam.

Vice Mayor Fleming.

Aye.

Council Member Alsaadun.

Aye.

Council Member Dent.

Aye.

Mayor Reed.

Six E. The last item I have here is a preliminary subdivision plot where we, the city,

are requesting variances from the subdivision ordinance at 2970 East Kaler Park Drive.

This property is the Rocktown High School site.

And this process sets in motion the ability for us to dedicate the public street redway to ourselves, as well as grant variances for the design of the streets that's already in place and operating, and then able to carve out portions of property that then can be released to other adjacent property owners.

Back up here, so the site is zoned B2, which we actually rezoned that property to B2, let that go, a couple years ago to allow for the process to take place for the site to be constructed for the new high school.

This area is predominantly planned for commercial.

Of course, this site and an adjacent property shows up as quasi-governmental, being that the city owns this property and then some property

that's adjacent along South Main Street is owned by James Madison University, but for the most part, most of this area is planned for commercial development.

And then the aerial photograph, I thank our GIS staff.

It was able to get some updated imagery that shows the new high school already constructed here.

So some updated imagery specifically at the high school site.

And you can see all that already in place.

So there are multiple parcels that are involved, so lot lines to be vacated, everything that's bolded here and that blue color are showing all the different parcels that are to be rearranged in a fashion that I am showing now on this

Green.

This actually might be the older presentation.

But we have, so there was an error in the staff report that referred to there being four parcels to be created.

There's actually six and see here.

So the blue line here is representing where the public street rideway would be dedicated.

And yes, this is the older staff or the staff presentation, but you end up with

a parcel here, and if you've been to the site, you know the site, well, that's the parcel that has the stormwater management facility, the large parcel that has the skull proper here.

There's actually a line right here that creates a small little sliver of property.

So it's, it is its own parcel, another parcel here, a parcel here, and then the sixth parcel would be here.

So that's what this preliminary subdivision plot sets up the opportunity for.

The subdivision-oriented variances that we are requesting to be approved are associated with the design of the public street, specifically associated with the public street right-of-way width, the public street itself, the physical width of the street, and then the public street maximum horizontal curves, not the vertical curve, but the horizontal curves.

And in all three instances, the right-of-way width, the public street, physical street width, and the horizontal curves, we are finding to be acceptable because all of those design criteria are consistent with VDOT's approved standards, especially with the curves of the streets because they are consistent with the geometric standards

for Urban Local Streets by VDOT.

So it's not something that is outside of any normal type of design criteria, but at least it did counter some of our own design criteria, but does meet VDOT's design criteria.

As most of you probably did follow along with this entire process for the construction of the public street, there was a TOT, or excuse me, for the design of the entire facility.

There was a traffic impact analysis that was performed a while back and

Outline multiple improvements to take place, new turn lanes, changes in traffic, signalization, signal timings, pedestrian improvements, new bus shelter, and then there are even a few things that are yet to be completed but funded and waiting to be completed.

So we are offering our favorable recommendation for you all to consider these deviations from the subdivision ordinance and then specifically to the design criteria and the design and construction standards manual.

as is outlined in your staff report.

We have any questions?

Thank you.

I will open this item for public hearing.

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

You'll have five minutes.

Seeing none in person.

OK, are we there?

No callers.

Thank you.

I'll move that we approve the preliminary plat with variances from the subdivision ordinance at 2970 East Kailor Park Drive.

I think we actually approved the street narrowing and curve

Nice, I'm sorry, Mayor Reed.

Six F. I'm a sperm.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Would it be possible to put the plat up on the screen that we're going to be referring to?

There we go.

This is a request from Oak Box LLC, which is the owner of the Oak Hill apartment complex located just off Reservoir Street.

for a permanent easement from the Oak Box property across a small sliver of land owned by the city to access Eastover Drive.

You can see the plant right now, the apartment's there, and I believe that the developer of the owner intends to maybe add some units there at some point, which they can do by right, I believe.

Right now, they have to access Reservoir Street using Governor's Lane.

at that point with Reservoir Street, the sight line, the vision is not very good, but that's what they have the right to do.

What the owner has asked is, they would like to construct a new road.

It's a shown as proposed future road, which will go up and again, across a little sliver of land that the city owns.

They want a permanent easement of about 1,000 square feet.

This will allow the development to access Eastover Drive and then go out to Reservoir Street, which is a much better, much safer entrance onto Reservoir Street, better sight line and it's right in and right out only.

Mr. Hartman has reviewed this and he thinks it does create a safer traffic flow there and Public Works supports it.

This piece of property at the city owns, we actually got that after the conclusion of the construction of I-81 many decades ago.

This was sort of left over property that VDOT conveyed to us.

The city doesn't use this for anything other than for East Overdrive and as you can see that small sliver there will never be used by the city for anything.

So again, given that this is for traffic safety and it's a very small easement over

piece of property we don't use, staff recommends approval and granting of the easement and in this situation we believe it appropriate that there be no payment for that easement again given that it increases traffic safety in the area.

Well not so much a question as an observation that East Overdrive also leads back to Paul Street and MLK

So that means that that apartment complex could have exits in two directions, not just on the reservoir of the background.

Development of what was Kentrell and PMOK.

So that was developed.

Is that entrance to JMU because that was a temporary entrance that was built to JMU at that time, but it's really not a well-designed place there.

It seems like a dangerous intersection.

I don't know if we have any accidents there or not, though, actually.

I don't know.

One thing I didn't, I don't know if I'm noticing this, you know, this is a significant stormwater contributor to us.

So water comes from here right down the mountain view side and then to JMU and this is one of the projects that Public Works has worked on for quite a while and you know at one point you know we fixed it and the water became so

So we had so much water there that actually broke what we had fixed, right?

And the contracts had to redo it.

So I do wonder if there's going to be any impact on the water at this point.

I didn't ask that specifically of Mr. Hartman, but of course he's responsible for the stormwater issues here.

Any other questions?

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

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

You'll have five minutes.

Seeing none in person.

You are now live with City Council.

Please state your name and address in your five minutes.

Panagioti Senakuras, City Resident.

Madam Mayor, my last comment was evidently either not understood or not addressed.

This is different from my experience when Mr. Jones was on Council, whether or not he acted as I would have maybe hoped.

He always understood my comments.

and arguments that needed to be made were brought to the floor.

Let me try again with a simpler argument on this one.

I have repeatedly, when we've considered the city giving up land, have said that we should be considering what's in it for the city.

What is the public interest that is served by giving this up?

Because very often these requests

were met with, well, how's this going to work for the person who's requesting it?

And of course, it's going to work for the person who's requesting it.

In this case, I have to agree with and commend the city attorney, the city attorney's office, in bringing forward a public safety issue.

That is a salient public concern.

And I would, in this case, agree with the reasoning on that.

I also appreciate Mr. Fleming bringing forward

A stormwater issue.

I hope that going forward we will move closer to deliberating issues in this way and further from deliberating issues in ways that gives credence and credibility to the sources that had just been debunked in public comment as we did on the last document.

Thank you.

One moment please.

Thank you.

I'll close the public comment.

Second.

We'll call please pass.

Vice Mayor Fleming.

Aye.

Council Member Dent.

Aye.

Council Member Robinson.

Aye.

Mayor Reed.

Aye.

Thank you Madam Mayor.

The next item is considering granting a temporary construction easement to VDOT property located at 2970 East Kaler Park Drive and this is the Rocktown High School property and we did include some plan sheets but frankly they

They are tough to read.

So I passed out to council an aerial photograph that maybe it's a little bit easier to follow but on the on the Rocktown High School property on the I guess northeast corner right where Interstate 81 and the railroad track meet.

There's a bridge there as part of VDOT's I-81 widening project.

They need to do some work on the bridge.

and they have asked for a small temporary construction easement of 4,425 square feet on our property and it's shown in red on the aerial photograph in front of you.

This is not used for school purposes.

In fact, it's on the opposite side of an existing stormwater detention facility.

Just to be clear, nothing will, no work will actually be done on this property.

This little strip will be used for VDOT for staging vehicles, equipment and that sort of thing as it does work on the railroad bridge there.

And this will go away when the project is completed.

Again, Mr. Hartman reviewed the plans, the plans on the screen there and others and he supports the granting to VDOT and

Frankly, it's VDOT.

It's the state.

They could take it if they want it.

But we'd like to cooperate with VDOT.

Thank you.

Any questions?

I'll open this item for public hearing.

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

You'll have five minutes.

I see anyone in person?

One moment, please.

Hey, are we there and no callers?

Close public hearing.

Okay.

Okay, Madam Mayor, I move that we grant a temporary construction easement to VDOT

on property located at 2970 East Kaler Park Drive.

I'll second that.

And I do actually have one question if I could.

Yes, it'll be in the deed where we convey it to brick structures, but that's returned to us in the

Wouldn't that be great.

Roll call please Pam.

Vice Mayor Fleming.

Aye.

Council Member Dent.

Aye.

Council Member Robinson.

Aye.

Mayor Reed.

Aye.

Last one.

This is considering conveying two small portions of land.

and a stub of Cardinal Drive and one of the stub of Eastover Drive to JMU and Pam, I don't know if you could pull up the aerial photograph, Pam, that might be a little easier to look at and this one's a little bit more involved than the last two.

Councilman Dent pointed out you would go here and actually onto Eastover Drive, if you so desired.

For both of these, these are surrounded by land owned by James Masson University.

The one at the top of the screen, which is a little stub of Cardinal Drive.

Somewhere in there, it joins up with the Duke Drive, which is a street owned by JMU.

Jamie was asked if this be conveyed to James Massey University.

As a practical matter, they do the maintenance now.

It would clean up some right-of-way lines so that we know exactly where Cardinal Drive stops and Duke Drive begins.

No one except James Massey University is affected by this.

It will remain open, but we'll turn it over to James Massey University again.

Mr. Harbin has reviewed all of this and the plans and fully supports it.

Really, it cleans up some issues for him.

The one on the bottom is a little bit more complicated, the one from East Overdrive.

Again, all of this is all the surrounding areas owned by JMU.

With this parcel, this is also involved in some work that VDOT is doing on the I-81 whitening in that the area between these two highlighted red areas

There will be a stormwater bioretention facility there to help some of the stormwater coming from the interstate.

And that will actually expand over a little bit onto that little stuff from Eastover Drive.

Mr. Hartman would prefer that the city not have to maintain that portion of that facility, which will be in what is now the little stuff of Eastover Drive.

because of some of the work JMU has to relocate a water main and a sewer main and that will now cross somewhere towards the middle of that little stub.

Again, that creates some real administrative headaches for our Department of Public Works and given that, again, both of these parcels are in effect maintained now by JMU.

JMU is the only user of these

and it would eliminate some maintenance and other responsibilities from the Department of Public Works.

Staff recommends that Council approve transferring these two parcels to James Massey University.

And by the way, James Massey University is on the East Overdrive.

We'll then turn around and grant the necessary easements and permits to VDOT to do its work there.

They'll keep us out of that situation.

I guess, you know, it's a matter of this drainage easement that Mr. Hartman feels good about.

Thank you.

GMU, operating that in a manner that the city would say meets our standards or above our standards, particularly if it's a VDOT, I'm assuming,

That would be the case there.

Do we know that would be the case?

VDOT will operate that.

And we know that they could, in essence, they would operate in a way that would suggest easily meets Harrisonburg standards on.

And one thing I forgot to mention, the city does need a drainage easement from James Massen that will be just to the, I guess to the west of the

Cardinal Drive property and that would be for our use and they will donate that easement to us.

It's not shown on here, but there's a north that takes care of some water from reservoir.

We need an easement.

They've been maintaining this.

Any other questions?

This item, I'll open this item up for public hearing.

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

You'll have five minutes.

One moment, please.

Thank you.

Council Member Robinson

Hi.

All right, we got through the public hearings.

I'm not going to read that whole description.

If this looks familiar to some members of council, it should because you you approved identical resolutions back in November of 2023.

It's one resolution is for an any unit

Multifamily Residential Rental Housing Project, and then off Mosby.

And then the other is an 84-unit age-restricted senior living facility off Mosby in the city of Harrisonburg.

Council approved those over a year ago.

The developer didn't quite get its financing in place.

They were working towards financing because of some tax credit issues.

They didn't quite get it done.

Approval by the city for these is only good for one year.

And so if the authority doesn't issue the bonds within a year, you have to give your approval again.

So that's what the developer, the Housing Authority and the Serles Foundation is asking for.

And for folks out there, maybe newer members of council,

These approvals, this is something that council does fairly routinely for the housing authority.

The housing authority routinely issue bonds for residential developments, often across the state, but here it's actually for the units in the city.

There's no financial obligation on the city's part.

So if the bonds are issued and someone doesn't pay, no one can come back and ask the city to pay.

It's just under the state code.

The governmental body of the authority has to give its approval.

And so, again, there's no reliability associated with this.

Now, again, you've already approved it once.

They're coming back.

Approving it, again, doesn't guarantee the project is going to happen.

But without this, we know it won't happen.

They are working very hard to try to bring these two projects to fruition.

Just to sort of refresh our memories, this is that large plot

Roughly at the intersection of Mosby and Pear Street.

We approved that and I think it's a really promising and fantastic project as senior housing.

They were really close so they didn't get their 9% tax credit, which is a competitive tax credit to go after.

They were very close and I think they actually even appealed it.

They don't know as they're going back through this again, where they're going to be on the list, because it's competitive and you don't know who's competing.

I would assume that they're trying to make a better case for this, and I really do hope they are able to do that.

Yeah, I mean, we talked about this in a briefing, so, and that's my questions.

Michael's not here, but so this would just be for another year, correct?

Correct.

If they come back and ask for it, correct.

It could be a case if they can't get this, they may, you know, at some point look for alternative financing.

H.R.I.J.

is one of the preferred places around the state that these housing projects go to.

My understanding is they had applied for tax credits.

And I don't know a lot about tax credits.

They were hoping to get them as Mr. Fleming said they were hoping to get what they call 9% credits and they barely missed those.

They got 4% credits.

So they're going to pursue the 9% credits again.

And I suspect that they are also probably

probably also seeking other financing to try to, you know, the 20 million for each of these will pay a large portion of it, but there'll be some left.

Well, the approval is needed for the authority to issue the bonds.

Right.

Correct.

This would just be one

Any other questions?

I'll make a motion to approve the two resolutions, approving HRIJ's issuance of bonds for the two projects

for the Serial Foundation as presented.

Second.

Any other, any more discussion?

Nice meeting Fleming.

Aye.

Council Member Alsaadun.

Aye.

Council Member Dent.

Aye.

Council Member Robinson.

Aye.

Mayor Reed.

All right, we can now go into other matters.

Comments from the public.

Limited to five minutes.

One matters not on the regular agenda.

Anyone who wishes to speak, please state your name and address.

You'll have five minutes.

One not in place.

You are now live with City Council.

Fucking various city residents calling in about the ordinance 24 hours to remove the snow here in the city after the snow.

It's been one week since the city property has been touched down on what's worse than two streets a day.

The bridge is clean.

That was one week I called it twice and never made a chance to do anything until a week later.

I was going down the road the other day.

There was a person in a wheel chair going down Reservoir Street.

The city property was found also in clean on Reservoir Street.

I was modern because it works ready for those nights.

I don't know what the deal was, it was like a circus of the trucks out here.

They were fighting a losing battle there for a while.

They can't handle assistance.

Now I'd like to see how they handle a ninety-six or ninety-three blizzards.

One week clean in city property.

and then the media gets on TV, TV3, 24 hours for other people to clean it.

If it ain't clean, the city comes back home and sends you to feel, hey, I'm not walking, they're 35 minutes.

And I had to bring in a payloader.

My wife had two strokes of balls back and the city's blown my driveway shut, two, three foot high, the house I am on, she got you going to get over this stove.

I had to bring in a payloader to clean out around my place.

That's unacceptable.

So, city is not cleaning their own property.

We need to have the order to change if they're not going to clean their own property until they 24 hours till the 48 hours.

It's pretty sad when the city can't clean their own silo while somebody's got to be out and about in the wheelchair.

We call this a friendly city.

We need to work on this to straighten that out.

Thank you for your time.

Any other callers?

You are now live with City Council.

Panayaki Sianakuros, City Resident.

Madam Mayor, as always has happened for the past 10 years, at this time of the year, we are getting ready to celebrate not only the birthday of Dr. King on the Martin Luther King Holiday, January 20th, this coming Monday,

But in the middle of that celebration, we will celebrate our own special connection to Dr. King's legacy and its impact of the celebration of the dedication of our renaming of a street, the renaming of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Way.

This celebration is known as People's Day.

It always happens in the middle of the festivities, which generally start with the A.K.A.

breakfast in the morning.

to the JMU keynote speaker in the evening with EMU doing plenty of wonderful things in between as well as many other organizations and individuals.

We hold down that little spot for people and we'll be doing that again this year.

Our celebration is in the streets.

Properly, People's Day has always been in the streets.

The streets are the last refuge and sanctuary for those who are shunned, shamed, stigmatized, and pushed to the margins.

There we gather, and as happened a decade ago, we build our power in the realm of spirit, and at times, break through to make progress, at least for a time, in the realm of the powers.

Every year the powers are arrayed against us, and every year people's day happens.

This year I thought was maybe going to be the exception, but it is not.

A big group of fantastic members of the community who have done wonderful things this past year have come together and we will have a fantastic celebration.

At the very minimum, we will have a recognition of the life and contribution of Mickey Giovanni from Dr. Joanne Gabin.

We will have a prayer and celebration of the Vote to Love Your Neighbors signs that appeared another initiative, a beautiful initiative emerging out of Harrisonburg.

We will have an ongoing affirmation of harmony between people and nature that we hope will be celebrated as no more may eventually and may be passed into law in the General Assembly.

We will, I hope, be able to have a presence of the banner from the NAACP.

Many of us were frozen out last year.

And with that freezing temperature and sleep, we remember last year on our 10th anniversary when Rabbi Kurtzlendner braved that storm to deliver his message of

We are reminding people very strongly that there is an online option.

Please come online if it is difficult for you to stand outside for an hour or so.

We will be able to handle both of that and we're glad to have just symbolic representation of the many things that have happened in our community.

We also are anticipating that we may have a show of force from organized labor which has made

in the efforts in the progress of our public school employees to win collective bargaining.

All of this and more.

If you are working on something and would like to coordinate with others who will be there as well, by all means give in touch with the secretary.

Look at MLKJRW.org for ways you can sign up for reminders, ways you can get in touch.

But it is a street.

We can't keep anybody out and that's the beauty of it.

You know the time, you know the place, it is the people's celebration and no powers or individuals can get in your way there and that's what we'll be celebrating.

We'll organize, many people will be gathering in front of the fountain at the Carrier Library and then there will be sharing and following that we will go up the one historic block of the former Cantrell Avenue

and we'll disperse from there.

Thank you so much, Madam Mayor.

And please, we hope to see people, including our elected representatives at People's Day.

Again, noon on the Martin Luther King holiday, January 20th, Monday, noon and MLKJRW.org if you need a reminder or help coordinating with others.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'll close public comment.

Vice Mayor.

And not a whole lot to report from the last few weeks.

I want to welcome and congratulate Councilman Alsaadun for getting through his first full meeting here.

So thank you.

I'm happy to have you here.

Dany and I were last week at a bill or parks meeting.

I met with folks there.

So it's kind of the next next phase for the parks to move on.

And so there'll be I think plenty of negotiations and plenty of work happening.

Parks and Reckles will be involved in that.

So I thought that was a productive meeting.

and a number of us met last week at the Navigation Center with the city of Stanton.

So that was nice for the mayor and council folks and then the city manager from Stanton to come down.

To see the Navigation Center they were certainly impressed with the center and then also I think and as Mary was able to kind of talk about the process

that Harrisonburg went through in putting that together.

It was just a short, oh no, it was, it was seven years of work to get to that point.

And so I think they appreciated having that.

So I think it was nice to have that sister city council folks to come here, meet with us, talk with us.

And it's always nice to collaborate regionally with other folks here.

like vice mayor Fleming not a lot to report community connectors is still moving along planning small area plan for the Northeast neighborhood focusing on one more outreach for the Northeast helping in the middle right now I've been in the middle of planning the International Women's Day march in Gala

March is going to be on March 8th this year, and the gala is our first annual gala will be on the 22nd of March.

Actually, welcome.

Okay, I'm echoing what Dany said about Build Our Park and the Navigation Center that several of us attended.

That was really great to see and kind of affirming to see that Stanton is sort of a few years behind us and looking up to us as leaders.

That emphasizes our position as leaders in the capital of the Shenandoah Valley, right?

Also, I met with Planning Commission last week.

This was one of those weird months where when the first is on a Wednesday, Planning Commission meets the week before Council.

Anyway, big news there is that they distributed the drafts of the CIP for us to review.

That's the big chunk of proposed projects that will come eventually to Council for approval.

I've also been working with the CSPDC, Central Shenandoah Planning District Commission, reviewing their regional housing study.

The commission itself wanted to review it before it's released publicly in the next few weeks, and I caught that there was a section missing from the Harrisonburg analysis on short-term rentals.

All the data was there, it was just in the appendix, so there

revising it to bring that section forward so that that's one of the main things we were looking for.

So I'm going to make sure it gets the in-depth treatment that we need and that it deserves and to get the recommendations.

Now it's a huge region of huge, I mean five counties with all the cities and towns within them.

So each town, each region has its own tailored recommendations as well as

Building on the Harrisonburg Housing Study we've already done with some new issues like the short-term rentals.

Well, I didn't have a homework, but my homework was to prepare for today.

It was actually hard, it's like preparing for it, but when I came to it, it was much, much helpful and smooth.

and who made it actually smooth.

The council actually members.

I can't say the names but everyone actually made it very, very helpful.

Adding to that City Manager, City Attorney and Pam, beautiful lady making everything smooth for us.

I want to say that our residents are lucky to have council members here taking care of you.

And I noticed that actually from the first meeting, taking care of everything, every aspect of every items and agenda.

And I look forward to learn from you and also to work hard to serve our community.

I didn't have any meetings.

All my meetings are this week.

So I think I got a library tomorrow.

Did get an opportunity to go with City Manager and Councilman Alsaadun.

We went down to Richmond and did the elected official.

Training, and we got our PAM, we got our certifications for FOIA.

That was worth it for me, but that was a good training.

Pote had already said all the events that are going to be happening on January 20th for MLK.

Every EMU, well, the aka breakfast is at 8, I believe, or 8 or 830 at John Wesley United Methodist Church.

So that usually kicks off MLK.

And then EMU will have a march at 945 Convocation at 1010.

I don't know if y'all remember Jody Geddes.

She used to be here.

years ago at EMU at CJP, so she's a guest speaker.

And then they have some events that were happening throughout the day.

JMU has some events, but their main speaker will be on Wednesday, the 22nd.

Bridgewater has an event that's on the 21st.

So there's a lot, and then the People's Day event as well.

for me, one thing I want to ask counsel, I don't know if you're aware that yet last night in Waynesboro

their city council named appointed a new mayor and vice mayor they actually made history so they have appointed the first African American mayor and vice mayor with Kenny Lee as the mayor and Laurie was actually with us at the training I don't know if you remember her but she became the vice mayor so they have made history

with the first African-American mayor and vice mayor for Waynesboro.

I would like to ask council if we could send a letter of congratulations to them on behalf of this council.

Is everybody in agreement with that?

Homework.

Yeah, I got to kind of look this over.

So I will be a part of a new cohort of mayors with the National League of Cities and the William Julius Wilson Institute at Harlem Children's Zone.

This is a small cohort of mayors that will be focusing on our engaging discussions on strategies

with the school districts and child-serving neighborhood-based organizations, which is after-school programs, trusted community leaders and children and youth in the community.

So, yeah, I guess I'm driving to Harlem in February.

Pam, we need to discuss some of this, but I accepted to be honest.

and some personal, I think vice mayor or someone who knows, I am teaching a class, don't look that shocked Laura, at EMU.

I started last night, got classes from 7 to 9.30 so I'm usually in the bed about 8 o'clock but I had 20

students that I'm teaching is the intercultural immersion class.

So we will be spending, they're taking this class because they're not able to go under actual intercultural experience.

And so they will be actually spending a lot of time in the neighborhood.

Half of their class will be at Sims and half of their class will be

Eddie and you, so get ready cause I'm going to be asking some folks to come by and talk and speak.

Is that okay?

Yeah, Bo's okay with that.

Bo's a mess right now.

He is a mess right now.

And I think that's all that I have.

Okay.

We can go into our boards and commissions.

I think we are all set with this.

Madam Mayor, I move that we appoint Shannon Porter to the planning commission.

Second that.

Definitely.

Anybody else?

He speaks for himself.

Okay, we can do a voice vote, so all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Thank you, Shannon.

I know you're watching.

Okay.

How's it?

Madam Mayor, I move that we appoint Kevin Comer to the HEC board.

Second.

Yes, they give a slate of three and we choose one of the three.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay, voice vote.

Any opposed?

Thank you.

I hope we know who Mr. Bowman is.

I'll make a motion to approve the Bowman for the Sonno Valley Airport Commission.

Any discussion?

Wow.

Mr. Bowman has been around for a long time.

All right.

A voice vote.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Congratulations, Mr. Bowman.

Okay.

Do we have anything else?

Very nice.

Good luck.

Alright.