[25:51] You have to go there, if you want to buy it, because you can buy used one.

[26:27] I was like sitting

[26:27] on like a folding chair, and we were ranting a duplex, and I was like, there's like a paddock

[26:34] or a ladder thing. Oh, we'll see what's up here. It's new brown during the pandemic, and there

[26:39] was in a box, an unopened office chair. And I used it until I was sleeping.

[26:52] I never had

[26:53] I never knew that.

[26:53] I should have asked the one thing.

[26:55] Okay,

[26:58] more or less ready?

[26:59] We will.

[27:00] Okay, it's two.

[27:14] All right, welcome everyone to tonight's

[27:16] planning commission meeting.

[27:18] I think we're gonna have to start with our votes.

[27:22] So I'm gonna let Dan run this part.

[27:25] Okay, since it's not on the agenda,

[27:27] I guess could we do motion to add election of officers

[27:31] to the meeting agenda for tonight?

[27:32] I said move.

[27:33] Okay.

[27:34] Second.

[27:34] We just do a verbal vote, all those in favor?

[27:38] Yes.

[27:38] Aye.

[27:39] Any opposed?

[27:41] Okay.

[27:42] So moving along to election of officers to then,

[27:46] does the nominating committee have anyone they would like to nominate for chair and vice chair?

[27:51] Yes, sir.

[27:52] The nominating committee of Joseon Mitchell and myself met and we would like to request that

[27:57] Carl Schwartz serve again as chair and Danny Yoder serve again as vice chair.

[28:02] Mr. Schwartz, do you accept?

[28:03] I do. Mr. Hilder, do you accept it?

[28:06] Yes.

[28:07] All right.

[28:11] Let's just go down the list for this. Commissioner Solietz.

[28:14] The, you may want to ask if there are any nominations from the floor.

[28:19] Any additional nominations from the floor?

[28:21] Oh, any additional nominations?

[28:26] I swear I have one.

[28:28] Okay.

[28:31] So, um,

[28:36] nomination. Oh, we do these individually.

[28:39] Okay.

[28:40] Okay, so the pudding for chair, we'll do that first, so let's say Commissioner Solietz.

[28:50] Aye.

[28:51] Commissioner Harness?

[28:52] Yes.

[28:52] Commissioner Carp?

[28:54] Yes.

[28:55] Commissioner Yoder?

[28:56] Yes.

[28:56] Commissioner Rector?

[28:57] Yes.

[28:58] Commissioner Mitchell?

[28:59] Yes.

[28:59] Commissioner Schwarz?

[29:00] Yes.

[29:01] Okay.

[29:02] Vote for Vice Chair.

[29:05] Commissioner Solietz?

[29:06] Aye.

[29:07] Commissioner Harness?

[29:08] Yes.

[29:08] Mr. McCart. Yes. Mr. Yoder. Yes. Mr. Rookair. Yes. Commissioner Mitchell. Yep. And Mr. Schwartz. Yes. All right.

[29:19] So, Mr. Chair, welcome back. Would you like to take it away? Sure.

[29:24] All right. Well, let's start with Commissioner's reports. I'm just going to start my left. So I guess we'll start with the University of Virginia report.

[29:35] Thank you so just a couple items of wanting to share first off the Center for the Arts so you may have noticed there's been some movement on the site so infrastructure improvement work has started this site this basically sits east of what's the recently open Virginia guest house with the new pond to the south and Emmett Street to the east over at the Emmett Ivy.

[30:00] Corridor, UVA is coordinating closely with the city on integrating this work with the city's smart scale pedestrian improvements in that area, which runs along Emmett. We have the building construction schedule to begin in 2027. Project highlights, so just for those may not be familiar with the facility. This is a 224,000 gross square foot building. It's going to be the future home to the eater performing arts center, which includes a 1200 seats state of the art venue for music, opera theater,

[30:29] and film, it's going to be UVA's new home for the music department, the Klugey Rue collection,

[30:35] and the Franklin Museum.

[30:38] A couple of sort of small updates regarding affordable housing projects at Workland

[30:43] in 10th and the Piedmont redevelopment area.

[30:46] So the university's been working in close communication with its development partner, Poa,

[30:52] which is the preservation of affordable housing.

[30:54] They are currently navigating structural shifts in the affordable housing industry.

[31:00] These shifts have been creating funding challenges both nationally and locally, which is impacting

[31:05] affordable housing development.

[31:07] The timing for this construction is contingent on the financing and the entitlements in both

[31:12] of which are currently being worked through.

[31:15] Piedmont is in a similar situation, so Piedmont Housing Alliance is the partner with that

[31:19] site.

[31:21] It's, you know, planning is still in progress, they're working through similar challenges

[31:26] to the Whartland site.

[31:28] And just that both of these sites are being treated as unique developments, and they'll

[31:31] continue to progress on their own timelines.

[31:35] And then the last point was just the Northgrounds Garage, I wanted to give a quick update on

[31:39] that.

[31:40] So that's just to the west of the John Paul Jones Arena, that Massie and Copley.

[31:45] So that's getting close to opening, it'll be later this semester it'll open up.

[31:49] That's 1,030 parking spaces across six levels.

[31:54] It has dedicated vehicular entrances on Copoli and Massey Road.

[31:58] It has EV charging for up to 22 vehicles.

[32:02] It's got a dedicated transit access for up to four buses with covered seating for people waiting to ride.

[32:09] It's got a micro mobility center, which is kind of exciting, which is a flexible space to help support the transition from park car to a bicycle.

[32:19] to do the last part of the commute and to help support that, too.

[32:26] There's secure storage for both bikes and e-bikes on the premises.

[32:30] And then the landscape is designed to not only serve pedestrians and

[32:34] the bus patrons, but it's also set up to help support athletic events,

[32:39] either at JPJ or the other adjoining venues.

[32:42] So yeah, it'd be great when that sort of opens up, so that's all I have, Chair.

[32:50] I think I previously was earlier when we were talking about meetings talked about the

[32:57] tree commission and we had the presentation on the urban forestry management plan which

[33:03] is quite robust and I think the big takeaway is that parks and rec is doing everything

[33:11] they can on the public sort of publicly owned lands to protect trees and plant new trees.

[33:19] And so they were trying to think of new strategies for encouraging more of that private property

[33:28] or in neighborhoods that don't have as much space, public space, to plant trees.

[33:34] Some neighborhoods where there's not very much available to plant trees.

[33:39] but we're going to hear from them later, so.

[33:44] Thank you.

[33:46] I have nothing to report.

[33:50] The legislative subcommittee met last month and laid out a number of legislative priorities

[33:55] that were then discussed at the Planning Commission work session,

[33:58] which were then compressed by staff and sent on to council.

[34:10] On August 20th, Betsy and I met with missing middle work group discussion

[34:16] with a small group of small-scale developers here in the city to discuss utility-related challenges as barriers to missing middle housing

[34:24] and several themes come up during that time. One of them was related to utility spacing requirements

[34:30] and how that impacts narrow and irregular lots here in the city.

[34:36] It was also noted difficulties that arise from the city having a gravity-fed only sewer system

[34:43] and how sometimes that prevents lots in town from even being reached without having a private pump system

[34:51] that would increase the cost of construction of those properties and long-term maintenance on the private side.

[35:00] There was also discussion about how ownership structures of various parcels impacts some of these spatial constraints,

[35:07] lines, namely if you're going to sublot parcels in the R districts that requires separate

[35:18] lines to the street, to the utility lines, and those lines have to have specific distances

[35:25] between them.

[35:27] So if you end up with an RV, if you're trying to do six units, and they have to be a service

[35:32] with the part on there are lots, you basically don't have enough frontage to even be able to build what you're looking to build so that ends up limiting the number of units that are actually a lot buildable on those lots.

[35:45] So that all sort of comes up with a major theme is that there's a gap between what the zoning code allows on paper and what can actually reasonably be built once all of these constraints are accounted for.

[36:02] So, some of those constraints are city policy, some of those constraints are state regulated.

[36:10] There was a lot of things identified in the purpose of this group is to identify these

[36:13] constraints before they get to city council to decide what sort of action wants to be

[36:18] taken.

[36:18] I thought there was a very thorough discussion about how current utility policies are leading

[36:24] toward some difficulties and getting things built and then the last thing I'll say is that

[36:29] that you have this base density and then you have the affordable density, but some of these developers are finding it quite difficult to even reach base density based on these requirements, so then how do you actually reach the affordable density if you can't get the base density in the first place.

[36:45] So that sort of ties into the affordability nature of the zoning code and how do we reach that bonus density.

[36:53] And next steps for this group are a site visit to some of the parcels that some of the members of the subcommittee have so that we can actually get out there and have a little bit more physical discussion about some of these constraints.

[37:07] Did you have any sort of idea of how you said some of it was due to state policy, some of it was due to local policy?

[37:16] Is there any

[37:24] sort of proportion that you're able to determine?

[37:26] I don't know that I can say that right now.

[37:31] I really don't know that I know the answer to that question.

[37:34] Okay.

[37:34] But some of it flows from the state down to what the city has to do

[37:38] but then is embedded in the city code and policy.

[37:44] I guess, did it feel like there were potential solutions?

[37:48] Yes.

[37:49] Okay.

[37:49] Yeah.

[37:50] It's not all state.

[37:51] Okay.

[37:51] And it's not all city.

[37:53] Yes.

[37:53] We'll see.

[37:56] We'll see what comes with it.

[37:57] Thank you.

[38:00] And then on the 27th, there was the development code cleanup.

[38:05] As you know, chair you and I were unable to make the meeting for various reasons.

[38:09] but staff still held a meeting that I understand was focused on status updates and making sure responsibilities were adequately dispersed throughout staff group but I'll let Matt if you would like to update further on what happened to that meeting since we weren't there.

[38:27] And that's all I've got.

[38:33] I have one item, I had an interesting meeting with, it's not a committee but it's relevant to PC work.

[38:40] I met with a lot of public work staff, some of them are now NDS staff a few weeks ago with the director, deputy director, city engineer, traffic engineer, about traffic calming.

[38:53] There is a, there is arguably a city program to do what are called quick bill traffic calming projects.

[39:00] It was announced in 2024 with the intention of building 67 progress by 2025.

[39:07] We've built about half that list and the option of a long meeting was that there's currently no staffing and

[39:14] no funding available to complete that list or to harm the projects that are already in place.

[39:19] This will be a topic for us to discuss at the CIP hearing in November, I believe.

[39:24] But we should expect no progress until or unless council allocates money or people to those projects.

[39:28] That's all I got.

[39:32] There was only one meeting for me since we last met.

[39:37] It was a fine meeting.

[39:39] This was with Lupec.

[39:41] It wasn't your typical update on policy issues.

[39:45] We went on a field trip.

[39:47] It was a fine field trip.

[39:49] The field trip was to the Birdwood Mansion.

[39:52] The Birdwood Mansion is an

[39:54] an edifice that was built between 1819 and 1838 and it is now a part of the University

[40:06] of Virginia Foundation, real estate foundation, it's owned by the managed by them and it's

[40:11] really affiliated with our board's head and what they're doing, I think it's been open

[40:15] since maybe since spring, what they're doing with this is they're making this a flexible

[40:22] use hospitality events to turn. It's got seven sweets, all the sweets are inside the actual

[40:30] mansion itself, and then there are three sweets that outside of the mansion, and one of the sweets

[40:36] is actually former slave orders, and that is actually the most popular sweet that they use.

[40:43] They also set up to do breakfast and lunch cheese and things like that, and I think they do dinner as

[40:50] Well, that's a little bar there as well.

[40:52] It is unlikely that I would be able to pour to you

[40:55] to visit there, maybe not even eat there,

[40:57] or have a drink in the bar.

[40:58] But I recommend you guys just drop by

[41:00] and check it out, because it's a really, really neat,

[41:02] little property.

[41:08] Let's see, at the last month's B.A.R. meeting,

[41:11] I think the only item that was an importance was,

[41:16] not important, but I think you guys might have

[41:18] care about would be through a one-use high street, is that the, no, I'm sorry, 915 East

[41:29] High Street. So that's the big open parking lot on the west side of the Old Martha Jefferson

[41:33] Hospital. There is a proposal to fill that with a five to six-story apartment building.

[41:40] And although they didn't get their site plan approved until after the zoning code was adopted,

[41:48] They were one of the projects that was, they were granted approval by City Council to be granted further than to the old zoning code,

[41:55] which means that there will be no floor housing coming out of it, which is unfortunate.

[42:01] They've done some very weird things with their site plan, and it's a challenge for the B.A. ARC, because the building is on a Lexington, it's 525 feet long.

[42:13] and just kind of a five-story flat wall, but they've set it back 40, so on feet from the street,

[42:19] and they've got, you know, the apartments on the ground floor have entrances all alone,

[42:24] so it'll be kind of like little, they want to make it to feel like it's a neighborhood street,

[42:28] where you've got sidewalks that come up with people's front doors, but it's going to be a challenge.

[42:34] It's a conservation district. The B.A.R. has kind of limited purview over what they can do,

[42:40] And it's unfortunate that it's not going to be bound by any of our form-based codes.

[42:46] So it'll be interesting to see where this goes.

[42:50] It's going to be a challenging project to review.

[42:54] Personally, I'll keep my opinions out of it, but yeah, something to pay attention to.

[42:59] And that's all I got.

[43:05] So does the Department of NDS have anything to report?

[43:12] Yes, Chair, just to follow up, we did have a subcommittee meeting on the code cleanup on the 27th, which was more of a check-in with staff.

[43:22] Make sure that we are still on task to have a public hearing in December.

[43:27] There is plans to have one more subcommittee meeting and one more work session meeting with planning commission in the public hearing in December.

[43:35] and also as a planning commission is aware we have been appointed an interim

[43:43] director at NDS, Mike Goddard, who is currently the deputy director of public

[43:47] works, will be the interim director at NDS and he will start Monday.

[43:56] Thank you, next to move to matters to be presented by the public, not on the formal

[44:04] agenda so this would be anything that is not about the comprehensive

[44:11] plan amendment.

[44:14] Looks like we've got a very small public to either

[44:17] wish to speak.

[44:21] Is there anybody online? It's Chair, I see no raised hands.

[44:27] Great. Then we'll move on to our consent agenda which is the minutes

[44:33] It's your May 12th.

[44:39] Mr. Chad, move to group the consent agenda.

[44:43] Is there any more?

[44:43] What's the second matter?

[44:45] I'll second.

[44:46] Great.

[44:47] I think we just do an all in favor.

[44:49] So all in favor?

[44:51] Aye.

[44:52] You know anyone opposed?

[44:54] Anyone abstained?

[44:55] All right.

[44:56] So the consent agenda passes.

[45:00] I guess we still have to follow our rules. I guess we have a five-minute break until we will have our first public hearing item on the Comprehensive Plan Amendment. Form in a break.

[46:04] The

[49:49] next item on our agenda is a comprehensive plan amendment.

[49:53] Chair, Matt Outfleet, the Development Planning Manager and

[49:57] Neighborhood Development Services.

[49:58] I am here on behalf of Dory Kennellopoulos, who put this presentation together.

[50:03] Who's not with us this evening, she's a long range planner.

[50:07] In November 2021, City Council formally adopted the City's Comprehensive Plan.

[50:12] Since then there have been several amendments, including adoptions both of the Climate Action Plan and the Parks and

[50:17] Administration Master Plan.

[50:19] Conclinement amendments require public hearings

[50:21] with both City Council, Planning Commission and City Council.

[50:25] This amendment is for Chapter 9, Community Facilities and Services,

[50:29] and Associated Public Utility Maps in the Conference of Plan appendix.

[50:34] This chapter and these maps have not been updated since 2021,

[50:39] Conference of Plan Adoption.

[50:41] Since then, there have been updates to City and Partner Agency,

[50:44] public utility and facility planning maps and projects.

[50:48] It is best practice to periodically update public utilities and facility maps and plans included in the Conference of Plan.

[50:56] The scope of the amendment includes adding two new strategies, one to adopt relevant RWSA and

[51:02] ACSA plans by reference within the Conference of Plan, and one to add future Skinks Branch sewer interceptor upgrade project.

[51:14] the updated appendix would replace the previous water and sanitary system map with updated maps

[51:20] and would add two new maps one for the city storm system and another for the RWA Central Waterline

[51:27] project. Next slide. Next slide. This slide shows the full wording of the two new strategies.

[51:35] Next slide,

[51:39] and here we see 8.7, many of these were adopted by reference in 2013 plan

[51:45] carrying forward again in 9.4, similar to 9.3, 14th and 15th street collector sewer lines.

[51:54] Next slide, Virginia State Code requires each locality to have a comp plan and each plan needs to include the general or

[52:02] approximate location, character, and extent of public facilities in the designation of

[52:09] the system of community service facilities.

[52:12] To be considered part of the comprehensive plan, public utilities and facilities can be

[52:17] included in the text of the comp plan such as a comprehensive plan strategy or as reference

[52:23] document.

[52:25] Or they can be included as separate attachments such as maps in the comprehensive plan appendix.

[52:30] The current conference plan has strategies for several specific projects and studies in

[52:35] the community facilities and service chapter, along with water and sanitary maps in the appendix.

[52:41] Probergenia State Code, most public utilities and facilities must either be a feature shown

[52:46] in the comp plan such as a project shown on a map or a specific strategy, or they need

[52:52] to be reviewed by the planning commission to find that the general or approximate location

[52:56] character and extent of the public facilities are in substantial accord with the

[53:02] conference of plan. This is also called a 2232 review based on relevant state

[53:08] code sections. These are some examples up on the screen include normal service

[53:17] extensions of public utilities and regular repair work. Next slide. To summarize the

[53:23] The overall purpose of this amendment since Chapter 9 of the Conference of Planning has been updated in 2021, updates were needed to incorporate the most up-to-date information for public water, sewer, stormwater management facilities and utilities.

[53:39] This comp plan amendment does not change the city's overall goal or approach.

[53:44] In the point after this public hearing, City Council will have a public hearing to adopt in October.

[53:51] With that, I will take any questions or turn it over to the Chair to conduct the public hearing.

[53:57] Before I open a public hearing, are there any questions from the public commissioner?

[54:03] Okay, so yeah, if there's anybody from the public who would like to speak on this, you have three minutes.

[54:08] Is there anybody within our audience here who would like to speak?

[54:15] Is there anybody online?

[54:17] If anyone online would like to speak, they can click the raised-hand icon in Zoom.

[54:25] Mr. Chair, I see no raised hands.

[54:26] All right.

[54:27] So I will close the public hearing.

[54:29] Is there a motion?

[54:32] Mr. Chair, I have a motion.

[54:33] Okay.

[54:34] I move to adopt the resolution in the agenda packet, recommending that Council approve the updates to Chapter 9 of the Comprehensive Plan,

[54:40] and updates to the related appendix documents as an amendment.

[54:44] Is there a second?

[54:45] I'll second.

[54:46] Great.

[54:47] All right.

[54:48] Daniel, could you please call vote?

[54:52] Commissioner Soliates?

[54:53] Aye.

[54:53] Commissioner Harnes?

[54:55] Yes.

[54:56] Commissioner Karp?

[54:57] Yes.

[54:58] Commissioner Yoder?

[54:58] Yes.

[54:59] Commissioner Rucker?

[55:00] Yes.

[55:01] Commissioner Mitchell?

[55:01] Yes.

[55:02] Chairman Schwartz?

[55:03] Yes.

[55:06] All right.

[55:09] Moving on to the next item on our agenda.

[55:11] He is a planning commission by-law's amendment.

[55:15] Okay.

[55:16] So Mr. Chair, you mentioned at the last regular meeting

[55:19] that we would like to try and have public hearing items start immediately after all their

[55:27] reports and the adoption of the consent agenda.

[55:30] The current bylaws specifically state that public hearings have to begin at six.

[55:35] So before you is a very small amendment to your bylaws stating that regular meeting items

[55:40] including public hearings will all begin at 5.30 p.m.

[55:43] So any public hearings will follow immediately after the consent agenda and your reports.

[55:52] Anyone have any questions on that?

[55:55] Our concerns.

[55:58] Would anybody like to make a motion?

[56:00] Mr. Chair, I have a motion.

[56:01] Okay.

[56:02] I move that we adopt the changes to the bylaws outlined in the packet.

[56:07] There's a second.

[56:12] Can you please go a vote, Dana?

[56:13] Okay.

[56:14] Commissioners O'Layitz.

[56:15] Aye.

[56:16] Commissioner Harness.

[56:17] Yes.

[56:17] Commissioner Carp.

[56:18] Yes.

[56:19] Commissioner Yoder? Yes. Commissioner Ruckter? Yes. Commissioner Mitchell? Yes.

[56:23] Chairman Schwarz? Yes. And I believe on the staff as anything else they'd like to add

[56:30] I think that concludes our meeting. Then I move that we adjourn. Okay. Second.

[56:37] Thank you for all the

[57:06] I don't want to talk about the caretaker.

[57:09] It wasn't supposed to be.

[57:10] It wasn't supposed to be.

[57:12] It wasn't supposed to be.

[57:13] It wasn't supposed to be.

Planning Commission Regular Meeting

Transcript