Good
morning, everybody. Everybody's doing well. This is the August 13, 2026 meeting of
Richmond's Urban Design Committee. This meeting is called to order.
Mr. Secretary, you remind
reviewing public access and participation instructions. Yes, good morning. To access
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Thank you. Roll call.
Oh, Donald.
Here.
The clerk is not here in the minority.
Here.
Doyle?
Here.
Skimmer, maybe.
McKenzie is not here.
Defending Wigin?
Here.
Harrison?
Here.
Weehan?
Here.
The Boothspin is not here.
And Mr. Hamnet is not here.
But we do have any.
Great.
Do you mind reviewing approval minutes?
Yes.
A high level summary statement will be provided
before voting on final motion for each individual item. The summary statement will be transmitted
to the Planning Commission along with the motion outcome and be recorded as minutes for the record.
Thank you. Secretary's report. And the scope of review reminder, 1707 of the city charter says
general location character extent approval of public buildings, structure streets, parks,
etc. And items of a specific nature that are designed by professionals such as engineers and
architects are not considered general. And in 1705, UDC may make recommendations of a specific nature
that are designed in public structures, apartments, and street fixtures.
Yes, thank you. Don't believe we have any continuances or deletions from the agenda?
Great. Okay, we have a number of items on the consent agenda that's UDC 2026-09.
That's a setback recommendation at 201 Orleans Street,
associated with the proposed building.
We also have UDC 2026-10,
final location, character, and extent review
of proposed street sidewalk and stormwater improvements
to a section of Hay Road between Hall Street,
Walmsley, Boulevard.
We also have UDC 2026-12,
final location, character, and extent review
of our proposed stormwater 7 catchment pond
in Brian Park located nearest the existing Azalea pond.
If we want to consider any of those agenda items
on the regular agenda,
we can move them from the consent agenda
to the regular agenda,
but we need a motion to do so.
If there's no desire to move any of those items
to the regular agenda,
I would welcome a motion to consent agenda.
How's this?
I'll move to move with the consent agenda as is.
Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Mr. Pearson has motion to approve the Consent Agenda as is. Do we have a second? Seconded by Mr. Big Nardi.
All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstain? Okay. Ms. Wee-Hunt has abstained.
The Consent Agenda has been passed with staff recommendations. I'll be forwarded to the planning commission.
Thank you. That brings us to the, well, before we move to the regular agenda, would you like to open for public comment?
So we'll move on to the regular agenda.
UDC 2026-11, final location characteristics review for a proposed shared use path from
Terminal Place across Lee Street and Terminating at Arthur Ashe Boulevard.
And I have a presentation as well as the applicants here.
And I'm going to have a presentation as well.
Now, as you said, this is a final application for a shared use path between Arthur Ashe
and Science Museum BRT All-Station.
Here is a beautiful railroads designed showing the general location of the path.
On the bottom here is Broad Street.
The Science Museum is there to the right of the bottom, on the Broad Street, it goes
up terminal place street there beside the children's museum. It crosses into
behind the parks facility there and goes up to Lee Street where it crosses Lee
Street and goes through the parking lot of what it's now movie land and
terminates at the author ash bridge under the bridge. There is a future
project that is in the process of design so it's not a squishy future
project is actually in the process of happening, called the Scott's Edition Greenway, which will
extend this path along the tracks through Scott's Edition, as well as put a full connection back up
to the bridge of Audra Ash, full of our bridge. There's a better 3D view. You can see the Science
Museum, the Children's Museum, and the pole station there in the bottom, the parts of
to the right, the apartment complexes,
the existing apartment complexes there to the left
as it moves through the middle
and move the land property there at the end.
This camera I've just marked here.
Oh,
in the middle here is also existing,
it's called the protopath.
The neighborhood has worked to create this path
and this is kind of making it official
and paving it and providing facilities and such.
The plans are not super compelling, so it's not a whole lot going on here other
than a path on terminal place, but it will look pretty nice with lighting. It will
have landscaping left on this plan. It starts on the left at Broad Street and
moves on to the protopath. As I said, it goes along the protopath existing
layout, but again it paves it, provides landscaping, provides a few
amenities. There's a picnic place and seating. They're also maintaining several sections of the
existing train track through here. Essentially the path of this path used to be a train track
access to the Science Museum, which used to be the training station. So we are maintaining
some of the history and culture here and authenticity. The seating area and potentially
a future location for art is located on the screen in the dotted red and the train tracks.
That brings us to the Lee Street crossing. On the left here is the protopath. On the right is
the movie land parking lot. There is very significant improvements here, physical improvements to
the crossing to slow down traffic. There's also improvements to believe lighting, etc.,
which the applicant can get into more detail. It does connect to existing bike lanes that
go along Lee Street, so this will be coming in perpendicular to those, but also connecting
to it, there'll be flashing pedestrian light as I said, to physical safety and street lighting.
And here is the moving land parking lot section. Those circles there toward the bottom
are seating and also where tracks will be maintained. And as I said, it connects there
on the right, the upper right to the bridge in those future projects.
And I believe on the application when we approved the author Ash Boulevard Bridge, one of the
conditions was to work on this project and the future Scott's edition project to make
it all connect.
And this is in a current location of the old tracks, so it's not really changing
the parking lot a great deal, although it is changing the parking lot itself to
to make it more safe for some of the crossings and such.
The 2019 conceptual conditions,
actually that's from another project, I apologize.
It was only a few years ago that y'all saw this
very recently, relatively.
The conditions provided were that
outer lighting be sensitive to light pollution
and dark skies compliant,
which is our standard condition related to that.
And also assume that future locations for signage
be provided, not that signage be provided
with this final application but future locations and that was intended for the crossing at Lee
Street and that has been provided.
Portions of the existing rail have also been maintained
which was a previous condition and we asked them to consider or provide lighting throughout the
length of the path which I'll let the applicant speak to. I believe they are able to do that
that seating and trash locations are provided along the path which have been
provided as well which I showed in the previous slides and that a non-paved shoulder for the path
be provided and that was provided as well I believe is gravel.
The staff recommendation is
approval with conditions. The recommended conditions is that plans be amended to include
pedestrian skill lighting along the central parking lot and Lee Street crossing sections
of the path to be approved by staff. I believe the applicant is able to provide that
since I wrote that condition and now,
and I'll let them speak more to that,
our recommendation is to keep the condition on
so that the plans can be amended to add that lighting.
Staff findings are that this is actually
a particularly important path shown on the master plan
because the intention is to connect the future
Diamond District to the pulse station on Broad Street
via the protected pedestrian path.
The intent of the master plan was to have
a separate pedestrian bridge over the tracks. As they worked through the Diamond District
Project, they found that to be cost prohibitive. So the intent became to move them on the Author
Ash Boulevard Bridge, which is why it's so important to get that connection. Bridge, you go
through this path from the pulse station, you go around onto the bridge you cross, and then
you enter the Diamond District right beside the future, well the existing baseball stadium.
Now that they've got structured,
that's my last slide.
So the applicant is here to provide a recitation.
And then we can take questions.
Thank you, Mr. Sinclair.
Good afternoon.
Good morning.
Thank you for...
Would you like to...
Oh, she's the podium.
Oh, stand up there.
Good morning.
My name is Alyssa Baird with Kimberly Horan.
I am the project manager, engineer on the job.
So, thank you for giving us the opportunity to present Science Museum VRT Station to Scott
Edition Shreddy's Path.
So, I'll just give Ray, you did a great job with it over you, I'll kind of go over a few
of the quick same things and then mostly going to highlight the items that we have
changed that were to address some of the comments in the conceptual design.
So, as a reminder, this is the alignment of the path here.
And like Ray mentioned, we'll kind of talk about it in sections.
So the first section is terminal place where the path runs, a long terminal place next
to the Children's Museum.
Next to it is the protopath, which is the section that the Science Museum and volunteers
have already established a gravel path there in some landscaping, Lee Street, where we
actually have the crossing of Lee Street and then Movie Land, where it follows
the rails through the existing rails through the Movie Land parking lot.
This is a quick schedule. The VDOT schedule is actually a little bit further out, but we're trying, of course, we'd like to have this done sooner.
So we are at the stage where we will begin right-of-way acquisition in the fall. We just submitted that for approval by VDOT with construction plan, final construction plans in spring 2028.
And the project would be advertised for construction in the summer of 2028 with hopefully completion around fall 2029.
So the first thing that we had a request was for the non-paved shoulder for
purposes of dogs walking, runners, things like that.
And so you can see it looks
like it got slid here, but this here is the three-foot graded shoulders. That would
be like a crushed stone that will be a three-foot crushed stone that will be
in the place. And you can see that photo on the side is kind of an example.
Well, this is a portion of the capital trail there.
That's just an example of showing the crushed stone
that would be on the side of the path.
Next is this is the terminal place section.
So just kind of walking through the plans.
We didn't really have any major changes
on terminal place,
but just showing that 10 foot wide sidewalk
and the repaving of the roadway,
some reconstruction of curb landscaping, things like that.
Next, so this is the protopath section.
So, we had a few minor adjustments we made to the plan.
You can see we already in the previous plan had shown the alignment going down the middle
of the two tracks that Ray had highlighted.
So you can see kind of lightly those two sets of gray lines, and that's kind of going through the middle of those rails, so we are able to maintain those and actually accentuate them with landscaping.
So not a whole lot of change to the alignment here, but if you want to go to the next slide,
we were asked to add, make sure that the entire alignment had some form of seating and trash receptacles.
So you can see Highlight and Yellow there is an area that will be a paved section where
we can provide seeding and trash receptacles.
And then from the Neighborhood Association, there was a request to maintain some of the
existing trees.
Some of those were the ones that were planted by volunteers as part of the protopath.
So this section here, highlighted in purple, is where we plan to maintain those existing
trees as much as we can, especially because it's farther off the trail.
we're not going to be impacting them by the construction of the path. So we're
making sure that those are certainly maintained.
Next we get to the end of the
protopath and the Lee Street crossing. A lot of you can see here there are some
questions about the bike lane. So the bike lane does continue through on the
outsides of those kind of median pairs there. So they'll be following through
there. We're going to keep the same alignment as they have today as far
where those bike lanes are situated and they'll just be able to pass through there.
And one thing I want to highlight here on the next slide is the rectangular rapid flashing beacon.
So the neighborhood association had asked about making sure that we had a safe crossing here
and making sure there was a way to alert drivers with a flashing light of some kind.
So what we're proposing is a rectangular rapid flashing beacon.
I have those highlighted here.
This is really similar to what you've seen a lot throughout the city.
So Dock Street has the one I've shown there, there's ones in Bird Park and other places
around the city.
So this will be actuated by a pedestrian that can push the button, the light will flash, drivers
will come to a stop so they can cross safely.
And we'll have those in both directions on both sides of Lee Street as well as one
in the median so you really can't miss it.
And then we move on to Moodyland on the other side of Lee Street.
So this is the part that's going through the parking lot.
you can see on either side is the parking. We are removing some parking partially sometimes
for purposes of construction limits. In some cases, we're having to do so to balance our
stormwater management. So this is taking a few impervious areas and converting them to
pervious so that we can balance our runoff to the storm sewer system. And not a whole lot.
Oh, so the one thing that I wanna highlight here
is the existing rails that we are maintaining.
So you can see on the left and right,
these two areas, they kind of bump out.
And that's where we go off of the rail alignment
so we can accentuate the existing rails
and landscape around them.
On the next slide shows the,
you can see highlighted in purple
is where we are maintaining those rails,
landscaping in between and around them.
on the bottom right is an example of the landscape plan that we have so there's a
couple different plant pallets that we've put together that we would take out
the railroad ties and put plants in their place so the rails would stay and the
ties would be removed to put those plantings in. Additionally we have a
yellow as you can see additional locations to put seeding and trash
receptacles along the path to stop and take break.
And then lastly is the
The last section of Movie Land on the far right here is where we tie into the Scotts
Edition Greenway.
I believe that project is a little bit further along, so we have requested plans from them
and have been coordinating on exactly where we connect to.
We've also been, as Ray mentioned, coordinating with the Arthur Ashe Bridge and still unclear
on exactly which project will come first at this time where, you know, connect you
to it as if this project would come first, but have been
guarding with them on how that might affect our project if they
were to begin construction sooner.
But otherwise, not a whole lot has changed on this section
here, so more slide.
And then the one request that UDC had was on lighting.
So initially, we did not have lighting in our plan.
The VDOT Smart Scale Funded application has limitations on exactly what can be included
in or can be paid for with the budget that we have, and lighting was not part of that.
So, but per the UDC's request, we worked with DPW and DPW has agreed to find additional
funding for the section of the protopath through the movie land section.
And we also went out to the site
just to confirm the existing lighting levels
and terminal place certainly has plenty of lighting
with the existing roadway lighting,
but it definitely gets very dark along the protopath.
Movie land is just spotty with the parking lot lighting,
but certainly their spots where it is a bit darker.
So the city has agreed to find the extra funding.
I believe currently the construction funding from VDOT
was about $2.8 million. We expect the lighting is probably going to be an
extra $1 million that what we have to be found to put in the lights. And what
we have here is the light fixture that is used for, that has been identified for
the Diamond District and is also used in Kerrytown. This was what was
suggested by DPW to be consistent with the Diamond District that would be
used to light the path, but certainly we're open to open to other options for
a potential light fixture. We also have looked at the Arthur Ashe Bridge, however
that's a little bit more of a modern fixture, so felt that was not the
best the best fixture. I believe that is all I have for that. Mr. Chair, will
you allow me to give a comment to the applicant while we're here? The lighting
under the fridge will be very interested in seeing in the future project for Scott's addition,
not necessarily this project. Is that associated with the Greenway?
The Greenway, yes. Okay.
Thank you for that presentation. Are there any questions for the
applicant? So I have a question about the lighting. Luigi, but so Terminal Street has lighting,
the protopath you'll be installing lighting and MovieLand will you be
installing any pictures there to adjust it? So we'd be installing the same
lighting along the protopath and MovieLand. We also working with DPU will
install a light at the Lee Street crossing. One side of Lee Street already
has a light fixture, a roadway light fixture that's really close to the
crossing. The other side probably needs one so we'll be adding just a
standard coberhead roadway light for that crossing.
Can you clarify the
materials? So it seems like terminal place is concrete, a protoplate, protopath
is gravel, then everything beyond that is asphalt. So the protopath today is
gravel, we'll be converting it to asphalt with gravel shoulder. Everything
past travel past terminal place will be asphalt correct okay and that's just to
help with you know avoiding future erosion and things like that yeah and a
question I'm just curious is the movie land existing right away or you know with
removing the parking lots again for me more curiosity is that something that
the city of movie land negotiates or was it existing no that will be our
next step is working through the right-of-way acquisition process
currently our plans propose it is it is just private property and the current
plans propose a permanent access easement and the intention with that was to if we
were to purchase right-of-way we would be bisecting the property and basically
splitting the property into two to avoid having sort of an unusual property
in the back we are proposing that access easement. So future access
easement over some portion of the bike row but I'm known at this time
because I'm not sure how they may use the property in the future.
There will, yeah, our intention is to purchase a permanent access easement
or the city to purchase a permanent access easement along the alignment of the trail.
Do you have selections for the trash can or seating elephant?
I believe we do, yes, and those are in the plans. I believe we have the type of trash can
and benches in there. I can't recall off the top of my head what style it was.
Yeah was it based on anything else in the city? I believe so. I'm guessing it was
probably the Victor Stanley yes which is similar which is what we used on like
West Broad Street scape right where it connects to. Okay and then has your
plant palette you know you showed the sample kind of collections of plants but
I didn't notice the plant selections. Have you taken into account our
preference for native plants? Yes almost all the plants are native. I went
checked just before this. At least looking at all the trees, I think all but one was more native.
And then the community note about trying to preserve the trees that the volunteers have
planted and you noted where they were maintained. Are there others that are coming out? Have you
run that by them? There are a few. John, if you could go back to the proto path section,
the first section of the protopath, or sorry, second section of the protopath.
Excellent. Yeah, sorry. So this section here, I believe there are some trees. I
don't have a landscape. I have to pull up the landscape plan. But on the bottom
side of the Sherdees path there, I believe there are some trees that may
or may not be maintained. Part of that is just because with the construction
of the path with excavation, you're going to be impacting the roots of
trees so we can't guarantee that those trees are going to be able to stay
where they are and even if we tried to keep them we might find that in a
couple years they end up dying because of the disturbance. So just with the
proximity we're also having to install a ditch right in this area here. So with
that the ditch to account for the runoff we wouldn't be able to maintain
those trees just in that area. I think those trees do end up dying. Is there
plan to replace them to kind? So the idea is, I believe with the landscape area,
thank you John. So you can see here we are proposing two larger shade trees here
and here. So the idea is that through this section we expect we would be
impacting the trees and so we are going to replace them with this project. And
last question, the lighting fixture is glad you guys managed to find a way
to fit that in. Are those lights used on any pedestrian-only areas? You mentioned the Diamond
District, and they look kind of like roadway lights. They do. The ones in Kerrytown, they are used
as pedestrian lights. They actually like face the sidewalk and overhang the sidewalk, so they
are intended to be pedestrian lights. I agree that I was wondering the same thing when I
first saw them. I don't think they've been installed in the Diamond District yet,
but the idea is they would be further pedestrian areas. I don't know, John, could you?
If you go to the top, my PowerPoint is hidden on the last slide. I actually already screen shot.
Yeah, we were just trying to find a light that is kind of goes with adjacent areas and that was,
you know, that's what we selected for the downed issue. Yeah. So that's in
Kerrytown. Now you can see a face in the sidewalk there. And also in
Kerrytown, there are roadway lights that are similar in face outward. So those
are pretty high output lights, I imagine. And so if you go with a more
pedestrian-scale light, something more like a lantern top on a bus, you would
need more of them. But ideally the fixtures would be less
expensive. Is that something you guys are open to exploring? Yeah. Yeah. If
If anyone has a recommendation on like a type of light they'd like to see I know of like West Broad Street has a luminaire that's attached to the existing poles that's more of a pedestrian pole.
That's something like that would be an option. It's just kind of figuring out what we want to connect to this, the theme to whether it's diamond district West Broad Street or something else. Yeah.
Yeah, it's going to be a general comment. Trying to understand, trying to encourage continuity between all the different areas in this part of the city.
Is there, and you mentioned coordination with the Greenway project, is there a desire for continuity in terms of the pathway, the lighting, the landscape?
Is there a desire to ensure that continuity is achieved between this project and that project?
I don't know what their lighting is if they have any lighting.
I'm guessing they probably don't, if it's just on the roadway.
But we can look into that and see what they're proposing there.
Next up, thank you, Jim.
In regarding tree selection, have you, as the design team, been in touch with Urban Forestry?
I believe we have them. I don't remember.
I believe that the plans had been forwarded to urban forestry and we received a few comments from them with our 60% plans available. Yes. So it's been circulated with all of DPW.
I do know our late architect has done several projects in the city of Richmond and has a good feel for what urban forestry desires. So we're starting with some information, but I can't remember specific to this project.
I know that we didn't receive some comments from Urban Forestry. So they have seen the plans and are
provided comments where they needed to. Great. And then regarding Ms. Gimmer's comment about
native plants, thanks for your commitment to planting native. I did notice in the
landscape plans that there is Mexican feather grass included in it. I would encourage trying to
go as close, get as close to 100% native as possible. I know that there's, you know,
Need for flexibility, but yeah, but encourage
Yeah. Thank you. So some of the large trees along the path, especially as you approach the
movie land property or across, oh, south of Lee Street. One of the problems with asphalt trails,
like the Capitol Trail especially, is that as the trees grow, the roots get underneath
the path and start pushing it up, and then you get a bump. And I noticed that on some
of those trees you have a note that says root guard barrier to be provided to
utilities.
Do you have any kind of a root barrier that could be put in to keep
the large trees? I'm not so much concerned about the smaller trees or the large
shade trees to keep their roots from going under the under the path. We could
probably explore that. Root barriers are not you know guaranteed but they
certainly can help with kind of keeping keeping the roots of base. So we
can look at that yeah for the big ones and near the path yeah. Yeah some of
the sections of the Capital Trail got so bad that they basically had to
come in and just dig everything up.
Yeah, that's the shame.
Yeah,
it's an important consideration.
Any other questions for the applicant?
Just a quick one.
Would you mind just walking us through exactly what
the crossing is and what the trapezoid shaped things are
and its existing media?
Yeah, so I'll start with the center median here.
So that center median we're taking.
And one of the comments, I think,
from Ray was to show in the future the existing median.
So the existing median runs right here, and we're going to be connecting to that existing
median and then extending it.
So the idea right now is that there would be no left turn lane anymore like there is
currently to turn into the back movie land parking lot.
So we'd be extending that completely to help with sight distance.
So pedestrians would have a set middle refuge where they would be able to push the, I think
we didn't have a button there, but would be able to take refuge there, especially for
folks that need to take a break.
And then on the outside is the additional medians.
So these medians are basically the separation, basically the width of the existing parking
lanes.
So there is parking further down Lee Street.
So, this is basically pedestrians would be crossing, there's a curb ramp here, the pedestrians
would be crossing the bike lane, they'd have a refuge crossing an 11 foot wide, I'm actually
12 foot wide I believe, crossing for the roadway, they have another break, they look the other
direction, cross for the other travel lane and then cross the final bike lane.
So having these intermittent crossings allows people to only have to look one direction
of time. And this is going to choke vehicles down so it requires them to travel at much slower
speeds because Lee Street is kind of a sweeping curve here and then people can kind of fly around
the turn here. So by choking them down, grating these pedestrian hybrid beacons, or sorry,
not rectangular rapid flashing beacons, we can hopefully slow people down and make them aware
of the pedestrians. That basically what once was a two-lane Lee Street years ago is now
one lane with parking in the old lane and that's as wide as you're in those
median there. Got it.
Another question for the applicant.
Great. Thank you so much.
Anybody in the room would like to provide public comments? Please approach the podium
and introduce yourself. If anybody participating virtually would like
to provide public comment. Please raise your hand at this time.
Seeing any hands raised. Public comment is closed.
I have a motion for committee member that we can begin discussion.
We approve the submitted plans with staff conditions.
Okay, we have a motion recommending approval with staff conditions for Ms. Gimmer,
seconded by Mr. O'Donnell. Any discussion?
The only real note I have and it's already says it in the staff condition that it's pedestrian scale lighting and I think connecting to other areas is important, but I also think it's feeling like a, it's a very thoughtful design with a lot of landscape and refuge areas and I feel like the light should be lower.
Yeah, I agree 100%.
I think the rest of the plan is really well, I'll echo that comment. I think it's very
well thought out. I think this is going to be a real asset for the city. I love the
way that they're keeping pieces of the railroad tracks in there and how they're landscaping
this. And the crossing here at Lee Street, I think, is not only going to make this
path, the crossing safer, it's also going to constrict the roadway a little bit
slow traffic down. So I think this plan is very well thought out. Do you have any concerns about
bicycle pedestrian infrastructure, specifically crossings?
There's always a concern when bikes
cross roads. But I think with the pedestrian beacon and this island here, I think this is
taken about as all the precautions that you can take. Now it's just up to
everybody to look both ways and pay attention. But I like extended the median.
I like putting those two islands out there. I think that just really is going
to tighten it up a little bit and cars are going to have to slow down when
they come to this thing. So I think overall this is this is well thought
out. Any other comments? I think we can move to a vote, Mr. Secretary. All right, we have a
motion to approve with staff recommendations. A vote for yes. A vote yes is a vote to approve O'Donnell?
Yes. Miliardi? Yes. Soya? Yes. Kevin? Yes. Ben-Edwardy? Yes. Pearson? Yes.
Thank you all so much. That brings us to other business, and we have a UNC guidelines update,
the draft mark section, as well as the building architecture previously requested business.
Yes. So this is me bringing back the minor edits that were provided. I believe that
of needing banks to build sectioned separate devices.
So y'all just need to bring that
and then I'll quickly go through the parks section.
All this is loading.
We have one more section before we get
to DPW transportation stuff.
That section is called site plan and site design.
It's essentially furnishings.
I will take another look at that
if you recognize it a little bit,
because it's just furnishings.
But after that, which I said is the next meeting, after that, we're going to take a break
and let DBW figure out some of their internal documentation, which they're in the process of updating.
And after that, come back to updating our guideline for DBW stuff.
So my proposal is after the next section, we'll close these edits and bring it all back together
and put the document back together and approve it with the existing, what we have now for
DPW and updates, if that makes any sense. And then we'll come back to it in the future.
Ian, on this document, I'm going to put the books on.
Here,
part design. Some of our favorite
projects, I'm sure. As with all the other sections, I included the references from the
master plan, again, these are the really powerful general
location characteristics statements that we can use
to enforce on projects.
A lot of the other specificities in the guidelines
of our reportings.
And my goal with writing these guidelines,
especially the new edits,
is that I want to drill down on these very general
master plan goals and try to detail how they can be
achieved or if there's different priorities
what to prioritize.
And briefly going through the highlights that are in here.
And a lot of this did come from Parks Master Plan that they're in the process of, I think, getting final approval for now if they haven't already received it.
So pretty much all of the new stuff is directly from their Master Plan of things that they want to do at the Parks Department.
And there it does talk about parks being able to protect usians.
It also talks about using school facilities as park facilities.
Obviously, there can be a security conflict with that.
So just keeping that in mind, that is also an opportunity that has been pointed out.
And targeting parks improvements and under-invested neighborhoods.
I created a, tried to create a better definition of Greenway in the Richmond 300 master plan that talks a lot about Greenway
because a little bit of guidance but I tried to drill down on that. And I detailed, you
can think of the lowline and shocker bottom. You can also think of green medians and along
Monument Avenue.
And there are opportunities to be diverse multi streets as well.
The
goal here is to use accessible materials and designing spaces for multiple ages, not
only children, but also elderly adults, young adults. Some young adults also enjoy parks and
like to have fun as well. We have in the past had examples of splash pads that the UDC provided
good commentary on that I included that in here to the best of my memory. It speaks to future
potential art and my new favorite phrase, artistic and whimsical elements are always
been encouraged. We don't always have to have, you know, pristine art situations. It can be interesting
things going on and we don't need a reason to have interesting things going on. It just can be
interesting. Something I've been trying to introduce specifics to in this document,
previously we referred to it as universal access, not only understanding how people
transport differently, have different needs for transportation, but also different needs
of safety or, you know, difference between genders, ages, and all of that.
So universal across the spectrum, creating space for everybody.
In particular, in the project we heard today for the PATH, one of my primary comments
was that lighting is really important, especially for women groups for safety reasons.
That is not me saying it, but research and documentation of how to do universal access.
I brought that in detail in here to do that.
Designing to safety.
One of my biggest things when I review parks is their visibility from highly populated areas,
usually the street to reduce the potential for bad actors, crime, et cetera,
and to make everyone, all of the users feel safe to speak to that in here.
There's also signage opportunities, both describing the park, pointing people where they need to go,
and whimsical opportunities as well.
I speak to where the paths should point as well to give you all kind of the tool to say that maybe the proposed paths are not going where they need to be, et cetera.
and inserting that outside connections are done, and this is actually also detailed in the sustainability guide that we've talked about in the past.
I spoke a little bit to event space, especially as we reviewed some of the diamonds internally.
The intent there was to create a park that could also facilitate events occasionally or not occasionally, often, whatever.
I gave some thought to achieve that as a dual-use space, providing a maybe a paved area for stage or trucks or whatever it might need to be.
We've run into a past need for electrical and water hookups and things like that.
But that those hookups are also not in the way of activity through the park.
Speak to renewable energy and vehicle charging.
Street, slow streets, paved streets are mentioned, both in Richmond 300, Richmond Connects and
the parks master plan, I tried to define that a little bit more and I found some interesting
documentation and universal access that speaks to making sure that especially children can
use bikes or skates or skateboards or things like that in a safe and controlled setting
but also so that we can teach children how to use pikes in those settings.
I speak to pets in particular in the project today as well. You saw the condition from last review
of the soft siding, the soft curb, certainly not a word here, but the intent from that was that
pets had like a place to walk for not burning their paws. So I spoke to that a little bit,
making sure that there are pet facilities and parks as well.
We don't see a lot of dog parks, but it did speak to that a little bit just in case.
When it might come up or maybe a developer might want to do one at some point, it's really important to think about health and, you know, dogs do in that area.
And I spoke to community gardens, some of the things that we've learned along the way, while I've been here, how to make community gardens the most successful, providing water, providing a tool shed and shade and such like that.
I believe that's it.
So I gave you the really quick tour.
If any of those topics you want to dig down into,
I can go and find them and read that section.
Thank you.
Do you need any specific guidance from committee members?
The action I'm looking for is maybe a verbal vote.
This is good.
So when I bring them in back in the end,
if I put it all together and say,
this is all stuff you voted for,
That's officially voted for at the fine time.
Got it.
And how would you like to receive any feedback that committee members have for the section today?
We can talk about it today.
If you do have, like, grammar issues or something like that, you can forward it to me.
I have trouble reading it, meaning sometimes that might be helpful.
And then you guys can just voice that you want those changes included.
Yeah, I got something to kick us off.
So I think I was control epic shade and I just found one one word
And so I think like a little bit more emphasis on shade, but specifically transitional shade
You know, it's great to see tree plantings, but it's 15 to 30 years away before shade occurs
Carter Jones Park is right by my house and the city. It's sort of really nice new play area
That's unusable during the day, essentially.
And then, yeah, 15, 20 years, it'll be great when the trees grow up.
So I think emphasizing some type of transitional shade structures in the interim would be nice to be able to point to when we see that on plans to say, hey, you know, what are you planning for now?
So that was one comment.
And then the other was we have drinking fountains in here and in kind of the general infrastructure.
I think that's fine there, but I, every time I brought that up and in here or other places,
I always get a lot of pushback from city folks. It's logistically complicated, but it to me is
like a basic necessity for our larger parks on Mayo Island. I remember bringing it and
And there already is public water moving through there, but then there were concerns about
putting, quote, permanent infrastructure in a flood zone even though we see the island
today.
So just something maybe there that we could point to that's slightly stronger for, like,
water is a human right access to water that's more less of a, it's kind of like
provision of simple infrastructure such as public toilets, changing spaces, secure cycle parking,
like differentiating toilets and maybe light and fountain as safety and basic rights versus
like cycle parking is important, but it's more like infrastructure to me just so we have something
and a little stronger at a point.
Those will be my two items.
Thank you, Mr. Donnell.
Ms. Gimmer.
I also echo the shade common.
And then I didn't know if we have in our guidelines
not to use chain link.
I'm thinking about the Oregon Hill Park
that we shade came up and then the fencing came up.
And I know you have no chain length elsewhere,
but I don't know if you want to add anything
in here that's descriptive
about what kind of fencing is appropriate.
They normally do this split rail, I think,
is the standard. But for product marks it might be nice to give them something.
What other shade, temporary shade structures other than the, what do you call them? Shade cells.
Are there, is that pretty much it? I'm broke.
For like a larger, a play area or something.
Like really predictable awnings, rotating awnings.
Just curious.
So in my head, shade sales are kind of like the limited option you have.
But to your point of really address how many importance of preserving tree canopy to the fullest extent possible when products are being planned?
Yeah, I'm going to agree.
I agree with you. I definitely want to put your statements in there, but we do have a shade document provided by the sustainability office.
It was geared more toward private development, but it certainly can apply and provide examples of what shade structures can be.
And that also spoke to shade and the sustainability section.
But again, I definitely agree putting it back in here.
And then shade can also be structural.
It doesn't have to be a shade structure.
It can be built into the play structure potentially.
That was going to be my question.
Could you remind me how other departments and standards are incorporated by reference?
Because I know the Office of Sustainability is doing a lot of...
We're through a lot of initiatives that are...
Maybe there's some overlap.
Most of the perceptions have additional guidance at the very end where I'm trying to gather all of those documents and list them.
I did not provide links in here because those links often change and I didn't want it to break in the future chart.
But I did reference them by name in a lot of instances.
I've also read those documents and tried to incorporate things that are applicable to
our reviews in here, so you don't really have to go to those other things unless you want
to really drill down.
But you've specifically coordinated with the Office of Sustainability.
Yes.
And another interesting thought, this may be in the sustainability, but I'm thinking
of base material for play areas like woodchips, mulch, and being very explicit that recycled
tire or other items like that that are known carcinogens are not used as a base
for areas where kids are playing. I haven't seen that in the city anywhere but
I've seen that a lot in other cities parks that I go to where you smell it
before you even get to the play area. Yeah along those lines I think we
should encourage the use of the port-and-place rubber for playgrounds
because even though it's a higher initial cost it's do it once and
And that's it. If you use the wood chips or anything like that, you've got to refresh
that every year and it's just an ongoing maintenance thing. Weeds grow in there. The port-in-place
rubber, it's one and done and it's probably the safest material out there.
I wouldn't say it looks the best.
And our guidelines to be general and just say avoid percentage. Maybe I can find a better
sounding sentence. If y'all feel very strongly about that topic, we can hold a hearing
with parks so that they can provide their policy decisions.
Maybe we can just adopt their decisions.
I know I have worked very closely with all the parks folks,
and they're extremely knowledgeable.
Far beyond, I can even imagine the things that they know
to include as part of the decisions.
Yeah, and I generally agree with you.
The surface is very durable,
and it is safe for children playing on it.
But not always applicable to all play areas. The new nature exploration area on Bell Islands.
That's true. That's a good example.
To create, allowing for flexibility.
I think it makes sense for you to, if you find something that makes sense like non-hazardous, but I don't know, you know.
Non-hazardous sounds best.
Something like that.
We will say healthy non-hazards.
So that sounds kind of logical to me.
Yeah, I'm sad. I don't know how much that will come up.
But I would, if someone did come with recycled tire surface,
I would at least, it would be nice to point to that.
You had a feedback on this section.
And if we have additional feedback, reach out to you via email,
you can slide it that way.
OK.
And let me go through this really quick.
On the shade, I definitely agree.
We should put some statements in there.
And you have a good point on the transitional shade.
As a structure, the trees actually can grow.
And especially the player is because they've
become unusable in the heat.
drinking fountains. I'm going to have to give a little bit of thought on how to phrase that,
but to consider it as public needs versus infrastructure.
And I think that is included in the parks master plan, and I'll take another look at that.
There's definitely been a transition in the last two years. I've seen more fountains coming, being proposed for park areas, Browns Island.
and there's a few more popping up in the park system.
So I would say somewhere in the city
it's been taken or you can do it on Browns Island,
you can do it on Mayo Island.
The flood issues are the same.
Well, that's not true.
There's a huge part of Browns Island
that is above the flood plain
where the drainage mountains can be provided by code.
But all of Mayo is-
Is it a coded?
I was just checking the current.
It's below the flood plain.
Browns Island that are not in the flood plain.
Yeah, so Browns Island is like up right at the fall line
and Mayo is like further down.
So you can't, by pulling code,
you have to have the fountain, you know,
18 inches above the flood plain elevation
or you risk like water contamination.
So I hear what you're saying.
I don't think I want people to have water at Mayo Island, but I think there's in that specific instance, you can't risk contaminating the whole water supply.
Maybe you put drinking fountains somewhere along the way on the other side of the flow.
Because you just insulted drinking fountain.
Yeah, Mealy and I worked on that project together.
No, we did it.
We weren't able to because of the same situation.
Yeah.
So like they could have a drinking fountain up on their platform.
We do have that.
Okay.
Because just a bit ago, what is it?
Two or three months when we were doing the park along there.
That street park.
Yeah, that's right.
They were talking about the city utilization.
So that wasn't able to happen because of the flood.
The flood zone.
At the river education center. Yeah, yeah. That was recent then. Yeah, because I was like I was excited. I was like great
But okay, that's good to know just hurt. Yeah, where we can put these things
You have free water up on your up on your plaza there on your your porch
It's yes, it's it's just inside the door, but there is a you know water of course up inside there
We film the water station water's on the street
Yeah.
And then the next one was no chain link in parks.
Is that your goal?
Or I think there are documents that says now we want to avoid maximum extent possible,
but if you use it, it has to be mapped black.
You want to save that?
But still, let's just say a strong statement, you should avoid chain link.
Can I be?
Yeah, I think that sounds good.
If you have a park that adds tennis courts, that's the default fence around tennis courts.
and it's the appropriate thing.
Didn't we have that one park on Southside where they painted the chain link?
There was an existing chain link there and they painted it as part of the project.
And if you've got it existing and it's in good condition
and you propose to paint it, I think that's acceptable.
But, yeah, no new chain link should be avoided.
Then we just said about base materials. That's it. I just hear a voice consent and I'll don't
mean to bring these back to you. I can't. We have one more chapter. Okay. Very good. Thank you,
Mr. Secretary.
If you want to touch on building an architecture as well. No, okay. It's okay.
Okay.
Minor changes.
Awesome.
Okay.
That brings us to, did you want to say anything else about the guidelines?
What's up the next one?
The site design slash furnishings.
Okay.
That brings us to the end of the meeting agenda.
A motion for adjournment.
Moved.
Moved by Mr. Pignardi.
Seconded by.
Second.
Mr. Vanity.
All in favor?
Aye.
Any opposed?
meeting is adjourned.
I was just curious on that side.
So the Scott's Edition Greenway and this project we saw today,
why isn't that one larger project?
Like, you know, why is that sort of thing?
And they're talking about the other group just like from an understanding
process for me.
I know they have issues.
I can't think about some projects taking two years.
I don't know.
We're getting until the summer.
No, no, no, no, no.
That was in the summer.
I didn't want to ask her because it's not on her.
And I don't know this.
No, it was just outside of that I was like