Planning Commission Meeting   7/13/2021

There's Karen.

Oh, gosh.

And there's Corey.

There's Daniel.

I don't see my other people.

Oh, I'm supposed to read this thing.

OK.

It is 6 o'clock.

And everyone, welcome to the Planning Commission for July 13, 2021.

at 6 o'clock, an electronic meeting.

This meeting is being held pursuant to and in compliance with ordinance number 20-A-16, an ordinance to ensure the continuity of government during the COVID-19 disaster.

Opportunities for the public to access and participate in the electronic meeting will be posted on www.albemarle.org, the community calendar, county-calendar, when available.

Yes, I'll be glad to.

Ms.

Firehock?

Here.

Ms.

Moore.

Present.

Present.

Fantastic.

So we have a quorum and I will call us to order.

No, sir, there are not.

Thank you very much.

Good evening.

I'm Megan Adostoff, Development Process Manager in Community Development.

And actually, Dan is going to share the screen.

Tonight, as representatives of Habitat for Humanity, we've put together a joint presentation to provide an update on the progress made to date for Southwood Phase 1.

And the team here tonight for Habitat will introduce themselves at the beginning of their portion of the presentation.

Next slide, please.

So this is an overview of the presentation we'll be giving this evening.

I will do a brief history of the project, the site plan progress that's been made thus far, and an update on the performance agreement.

and then Habitat will provide an in-depth summary of the progress for phase one and the construction update and timeline.

Next slide, please.

So just to orient everybody of the location of Southwood, it is located to the south of the city of Charlottesville where that blue star is located.

and off of Old Lynchburg Road.

And the image to the left of the screen is a zoom in area of where it is located along Lynchburg Road across from Mosby Mountain.

So Habitat acquired the property in 2007.

There are 1500 residents and 341 mobile homes.

In 2016, the county partnered with Habitat through a board resolution.

And then for fiscal year 17 and 19, the board of supervisors included in their strategic plan initiative, revitalizing urban neighborhoods, the Southwood project.

In 2018, the board adopted an action plan and appropriated $675,000 to assist with the rezoning application.

In 2019, a performance agreement was approved, and that included 1.5 million for construction of 75 affordable units, $300,000 for 80 or more low income housing tax credit, LIHTC, and 1.4 million over 10 years in tax rebates.

And then in 2019, the phase one rezoning was approved.

So just to remind everyone and those who were not on the commission, the rezoning plan, this is the rezoning plan from the application plan and code of development, 450 maximum units were approved in this phase one to orient you.

Old Lynchburg Road is on the top of the graphic there.

Thank you.

and Hickory Street.

The existing Hickory Street comes in off of Old Lynchburg Road.

The units included a mixture of residential townhomes, multifamily, single-family duplexes.

A maximum of 50,000 square feet of non-residential was permitted under the Code of Development.

12 blocks including a neighborhood center special area which is that red area was included and blocks one and two were amenity areas which include trails and open space.

Also I failed to mention that this was from R2 to neighborhood model district.

Next slide please.

So this is the site plan update.

The areas that are colorful are the site plans that we have under review, and I'm going to go through each of those.

Village 2 is underway.

I think that they actually submitted it today, but I'm not going to cover for that one since I haven't had a chance to review it.

Habitat will go over some of Village 2 plans.

Next slide, please.

So the first site plan that's currently under review is for blocks 11 and 12.

This is actually going to be the area where the LIHTC apartments were, that they've got funding for a LIHTC grant in this location.

121 multifamily units are gonna be located here.

There's also a 6,500 square foot amenity space on the corner of Hickory Street.

in that location and associated parking with that site plan for the apartments.

And Habitat, sorry, Habitat is gonna go through the amenity spaces in more detail.

I'm just gonna give an overview of the site plans under review.

Next slide.

The next area is blocks nine through 11.

This is a market rate, mostly market rate.

There are 70 market rate townhomes to the right

of this plan was the blocks 11 and 12.

So as you come in, there's a new road there, New Horizon Drive.

And these are townhomes.

There are 16 affordable townhomes.

There are also some pedestrian and amenity spaces located in this block.

There's a playground, recreation, open space with pedestrian connections to the edge of the trail.

connection that goes throughout the phase one.

Next slide.

So this is the site plan for Village One.

And I'll just note that this site plan has been approved for the affordable units.

And the amendment is currently under review for adding in the market rate units.

So the market rate includes 23 single family detached,

eight single-family attached townhomes.

And then there are a total of 49 affordable units, three single-family detached, 18 single-family attached townhomes, eight duplexes, and 20 multifamily condominiums.

There are also a number of open space play areas, amenity spaces, and pedestrian connections within this area of Village One.

Next slide.

So an update on the performance agreement.

Milestone 1A included $100,000 for planning work and applications, and that milestone has been complete.

Milestone 1B included $300,000 for 80 LIHTC units.

And as I mentioned, the LIHTC was awarded, and so that's in process currently.

Milestone 1C was $200,000 when Habitat demonstrates secured funding for 57 affordable units and that's in process and I'll let Habitat answer questions around their funding if you have them.

Milestone 1D was for $300,000 and it had two parts to it, a site plan approval for 20 affordable units.

and 1B to demonstrate secured funding for 64 affordable units.

And I listed that as in process.

The amendment to the site plan is under review, but the village one for the affordable units, only that site plan was approved.

That one hasn't been complete to date.

Milestone 1E included $300,000 for the Synodal building permits for 37 affordable units and we're waiting on that amendment site plan approval to move forward with that.

And Milestone 1F is $600,000 when Habitat demonstrates secured funding for 72 affordable units and that's in process currently.

I also want to note in addition to the performance agreement, the county applied on behalf of Habitat and was awarded a community development block grant, a CDBG of $1 million to support 20 affordable units within Southwood.

And we are in the final processes of grant negotiation with Habitat and the Department of Housing and Community Development and hoping to be under contract soon within the next month or two.

Thank you, Megan.

Good evening, Chair Bivins and Planning Commissioners.

I'm Lori Schweller of Williams-Mullen here on behalf of Greater Charlottesville Habitat for Humanity, and we are very pleased to have the opportunity to report our progress on the development and construction of Southwood Phase 1.

as we plan for submission of Phase 2.

Our goal today is not only to share our progress with you and answer your questions, but to receive your guidance to ensure that your concerns are being addressed and your expectations implemented.

You know Dan Rosenzweig, CEO and President of Habitat.

I'd like to introduce you to Andrew Vaniski, Chief Construction Officer who joined Habitat one year ago.

Andrew has 30 years of experience with two of the largest home builders in the country as their Chief Land Development Officer, so has handled all aspects of land development from purchase and sale contracts through construction.

I'm also happy to introduce Melissa Sims, who is Habitat's Land Development Coordinator.

Both Andrew and Melissa earned their Masters of Science in Urban and Environmental Planning from UVA.

Dan will take you on a visual tour of the development highlighting the streetscapes, non-residential areas, building massing, parks and green space.

He will update you on the number and percentage of affordable units and habitats rehousing efforts.

Then Andrew will provide a construction timeline and I'll mention next steps and turn it over to you for questions.

Thank you, Laurie.

And thank you again, Chair Bivins and members of the Planning Commission for inviting us to give you an update today.

This is really, this is kind of exciting because, you know, I know that in many ways, we all know that you took a bit of a leap of faith with us when you approve or recommended this for approval about two years ago.

This is something a little bit different in that it was organized as a block plan, which created a framework, a regulatory framework, but created flexibility for cohorts of residents to design the various moments within the new development.

What we really want to do is we want to show you, we want to take you inside, show you what that block plan produced and then get your feedback.

So the first thing I'm going to do, if the technology works,

is fly you through a few of the different moments.

So here's the entrance from Old Lynchburg Road.

These are the Lytec buildings with 12 foot first floors so that over the life cycle of the buildings, they can be commercial.

And the main intersection, the first intersection with New Horizon is where the civic space is located.

And now we're walking down the section

with townhomes on the right side and now we're actually, immediately, I'm going to slow down in a second, I promise, but now we're in the more low intensity residential area that's part of, that's where Village One is located.

And that will conclude in sort of the central area of Village One, which has the greatest mixture of housing typologies, everything from single family detached homes to

six unit condos for seniors to townhomes to single family detached homes to flex units.

And again, I will go through and stop and show you vignettes at various places so we can stop and talk a little bit.

And now we're ending at Five Pillars Park where I'm delighted to tell you that we just got news or we got news a couple of months ago that Dick's Sporting Goods and the United States Soccer Federation have teamed up to provide a grant

to the first thing we're building as part of that is a soccer field for the kids.

So now here's the question is, can I move to the next slide?

Cause it gets a little wonky from here.

Let's see.

I have to go out of presentation mode.

Here we go.

Okay.

And so again, to reiterate what Megan said, what you all,

When you approved this, you approved a code of development that essentially was regulated by blocks

and the area up near Hickory was always intended to be the most intensive mixture of uses from residential to commercial.

And then the transect scaled back as you approached Biscuit Run Park.

So what you see, the orange is a little bit less intense than the red.

That turned out to be townhomes with homes fronting the path.

and also fronting the street.

And some of these are dual fronted so that there are front porches on both sides.

As you step back into the residential to the more low intensity residential neighborhood, this is where Village 1 is.

And I really want to point your attention to the kind of the two moments in Village 1.

There is what the residents came up with, the idea of edge conditions.

These are primarily lots.

that are in between the roads.

And in this case, Biscuit Run Park, in this case, Old Lynchburg Road, and those set up best for single family lots, duplexes, smaller typologies.

And then the internal conditions inside of the road network is where there's a much greater mix of housing typologies.

So as I unveil it, you see sort of what happened.

We scale down from light tech apartments through townhomes

to a very mixed low intensity residential typologies.

This is what the view is from Old Lynchburg Road as you look into the development.

I know that there were some concerns originally about scale and massing.

And so you can see all of the buildings step back after the second floor, they appear from streetscape to be about

to be two stories or three stories if you step back from them a little bit.

This is kind of at the end of that block looking backwards and you see the area, the roadscape opens up a little bit to allow a plaza and cafe type space in front of the buildings with the sidewalk buffered by green space.

and now you're looking into the 6,500 square foot civic space that's holding this corner here and that will be essentially kind of the heart of the new downtown Southwood.

As you can see, there are 12 foot first floors on these buildings leading out to the plaza.

Initial uses are gonna be probably largely accessory to the building, so there'll be community centers that are open

entire Southwood community, rentable, there'll be property leasing offices and we hope over the life cycle of the building that you get an even greater mixture of uses in there as well.

I'm gonna sort of turn around and I know there was a lot of concern of making sure that the walk, the streetscape from the residential village up to the neighborhood special area

was a pleasant one that didn't feel cavernous.

It felt inviting.

And so we worked with a builder to design.

These are two story from the first floor elevation townhomes.

And in the back, they stepped down to tuck under parking.

So we've relegated the parking for these units to allow for street parking along horizons, which will activate that street.

These homes have porches and there's abundant street trees

to make that a very nice pedestrian experience.

And then as we get back into the neighborhood, this is where the residents really kind of went to town.

And this is where the whole kind of idea, coordinating idea of this project really came to fruition.

And that's where some of these folks you may recognize as early adopters who generated the rezoning proposal, but a lot of them are newbies as well.

Folks who said, yes, we want to live in the very first model village.

We want to get together and plan and develop.

So that they did.

They worked on scale models and came up with village one.

Again, village one is governed by a component of the block plan.

So block five again, is that sort of internal conditions.

And then these other blocks are the edge conditions.

This is what it looks like as you transition down and step into the smaller, the lower scale residential neighborhood from the town home blocks.

One of the things that's very important to us at Habitat, and I know it was important to you all through the rezoning process, was that you can't tell Habitat units from market rate units.

And so on every block, there's a mixture of Habitat homes and market rate homes.

And we've coordinated with the market rate builders to make sure our architecture matches up.

So this is, as you drive in New Horizons Road into Village 1, these are a series of homes that are a mixture of Habitat homes and market rate homes.

and now I'm sort of turning the arrow around and looking back from where you came, you'll notice the first thing that greets you as you move into the residential village, and this was really important to the residents, that you come in and there's open space.

It opens up a little bit, it feels a little bit more light and airy and welcoming.

There's a pocket park fronted by homes.

And behind these homes, we're piloting in this first phase two examples of the flex unit structure that you enabled through approval

a code of development.

These are accessory units that will be for some families, home ox and businesses, for some there'll be multi-generational housing, for others there'll be flexible, affordable housing, the way it takes place internal to trailers right now.

So rather than renting your spare bedroom in a 600 foot trailer, you'll now have a separate, you can purchase a separate apartment to house folks.

And one of the things that was really, we spent a lot of time in the design process on parks.

And so I want to talk you through some of the ideas that drove the residents towards designing the parks as they were.

First of all, they wanted them all to be networked.

They wanted them to be different fundamentally because they serve different purposes.

What do I mean by that?

Well, there are a number of different pocket parks that kind of pop up occasionally because they recognize that Southwood is not just for Southwood residents, but it's gonna welcome in new families as well.

And so they wanted to be a lot of pocket parks for people to gather in a very informal way.

What this is, what you see is a condominium component, and I'm pointing my arrow to the context map here.

About a third or so of the families that participated in that first, in developing the first village were seniors or wanted condos.

And so what we did, we worked with BRW architects to design condos that appear from the streetscape to be smaller typology.

So this is a six unit condo.

These are four unit condos and other six unit condo that appear to be townhomes or

depending on where you look at them, they tend to be, they look like they could be big single family homes.

But with each one of these moments, they really wanted to make sure that there was a green space that was really, that sort of did the work of that particular part of the village.

And so in between, tucked in between these buildings is a passive use park, senior oriented,

but critically, and this is why I showed you this perspective as well.

Critically, they didn't want it to be apart from the other parks.

They wanted them all to be networked.

So a path will take you in between an opening in the townhomes across the street into Five Pillars Park.

So the idea was that these are two separate moments.

This is more active use.

This was inspired by the neighborhood we built at Sunrise, our first mobile home park transformation.

where kids play area is buffered by homes, where families can have kitchens on the back of their homes, cook dinner and watch their kids play together in the back.

One of the potential downsides of creating this park internal to these buildings is that it would feel like it only belonged to those folks.

So one of the things that the residents really wanted was to make sure that the openings at sort of all three of the corners of the triangle

were parks with fairly wide openings so that they invited people to come in and participate in Five Pillars Park.

So it didn't just seem like it was only owned by the people whose home surrounded it.

And that sort of thinking kind of overlaid their park planning for the entirety of phase one.

So again, to reorient you, here's old Lynchburg Road, here's Hickory, there are parks on every block.

The trail system, which was sort of near and dear, it was in some ways the very first thing that the residents planned many years ago, was a network of trails in the green space that serpentine throughout the green space in the hollows, so that anybody, no matter where you lived, you were pretty close to the trail and there was always a way to get there.

So there are numerous openings

to get from the trails to the parks and from parks to parks.

Up on blocks 9 through 11 it was really important to us even though we didn't want to create a vehicular grid system we wanted it to feel like city blocks and so the city blocks are formed by walk sheds basically so that's what that's why these units are turned perpendicular here to create this internal green space which produces this passageway from

trail to sidewalk.

And that happens as you move down that block.

One of the concerns or one of the questions that came up during rezoning was, well, how do you plan this thing kind of piecemeal or one section at a time?

And that was a very legitimate question.

And it's something that we grappled with.

But as you can see, the residents, the designers of Village One, the residents,

basically created an opportunity to have a block structure similar in Village 2 and so the designers of Village 2, the second cohort, simply picked up where the residents left off and kind of continued that pattern of edge conditions and internal conditions with parks placed throughout.

Some of the questions, and I promise you I'm almost done here, we can get to questions really soon.

Some of the questions that came up were how much affordable housing, what percentage of affordable housing was going to be

in that rezoned parcel.

Remember we proffered 15% or that was part of the code of development, so that would have been 50 of the 335 total units.

We ended up with 207 affordable units out of the 335 or 62%.

That breakdown is about 80 habitat units for purchase, six habitat units for rent.

And that will toggle a little bit, some of the families may rent originally and then purchase the

ones that they're renting.

So that 80 to 86, we'll toggle a little bit.

And then we've partnered with Piedmont Housing Alliance, and they've got a successful application for low income housing tax credits for apartments.

There was concern that the residents would lose their power as soon as the neighborhood were built and other people moved in.

And so in the Code of Development, we promised

We memorialized that at least 51% of the ARB would comprise Southwood residents.

As it is, there are four of the original ARB.

We went a little bit further and we invited a Mosby Mountain resident to participate in that as well so that we're good neighbors.

And rather than sort of turning the ARB over to residents,

Later in the process, we went ahead and did it right off the bat.

So from the very first architect, the very first architecture was approved, vetted, approved by the residents themselves.

Sorry.

And then there were some questions about moving folks, our uniform relocation plan, which we filed with HUD, the Department of Housing Community Development in the county,

In the initial phase, we had hoped not to move anybody at all.

That's why we developed green fields at first.

We thought we might have to move a few.

We've had to move a few more than we thought, but none of them off site.

So out of an abundance of caution, we're working with 25 families that are adjacent to the first construction zone that really were a little too close for comfort.

And so we have worked with them and we have paid to move their trailers if they can move

to a section of the park that's not on septic to a later phase.

There were some trailers that wouldn't move and over the years we've accumulated, we've purchased a few trailers and restored them and so all of those 25 families will be successfully and safely moved by September.

Right now 11 of the 25 have been moved.

And so now I'm going to turn it over to Andrew to talk a little bit about where we are in construction.

Thank you, Dan.

Good evening, everyone.

I just have one slide.

This is it.

It shows you where we began this project on the site construction activities.

It started in January with the support of staff.

We were able to get our site plan approved late last fall.

We broke ground shortly thereafter, so in January, we contracted with Faulkner Construction.

They are our lead general contractor.

We expect the ground, the lots that is to be completed sometime early this fall.

As you can see here, we'll deliver our first lot sometime in the fall with home construction being completed in that very first section along horizon.

We anticipate our first five habitat homes and likely the first four market rate homes to be delivered sometime early next summer.

Thank you, Dan.

All right, so I'll just quickly mention next steps.

We will update the Board of Supervisors with this same information in September to get their feedback.

Meanwhile, as we've mentioned, we have been working closely with staff to plan for submittal of Phase 2.

and have been advised that an amendment to the existing zoning makes the most sense so we are preparing our concept plan and new code of development and hope to submit that in the fall.

So your questions and comments are particularly important to us now as we plan phase two

As Dan mentioned, phase two planning meetings with Southwood residents planning and design group have guided us toward an extension of the planning concepts, the block pattern, the forms of development you've just seen in phase one to be continued through to phase two.

The planning group has confirmed commitment to these concepts and has been focusing on green space, open space, and trails for phase two.

So we look very much forward to your feedback tonight.

Let us know if we're headed in the right directions and let us hear your questions.

Thank you.

So let me ask you a question before we go back to the full screen.

That's right.

We're looking for your feedback on phase one, which will form our development of phase two.

Okay, fine.

Thank you.

Then if you will unshare your screen, or someone will unshare the screen, please.

I'm trying.

Let's see.

Oh, that's interesting.

Do you want us to see that?

It's frozen up on my screen.

It doesn't matter if you see it or not.

My screen is frozen, and I'm trying to unshare.

Megan, can you un?

Oh, she just did it.

Gotcha.

Oops, no, don't do that.

Lost your picture, Chair Bivins, but not your voice.

OK.

So one of the things we typically do is we ask to see if there are people from the community, from the public, who want to say something before we actually offer our full range of observations.

But I'm using new technology tonight.

can't send messages to the team the way I used to be able to send messages to the team.

OK.

So then I'm just going to take that as that being what it is, and we're going to go forward.

So you're going to have to indulge me a little bit.

So people are going to have to say their name

I'm going to have to use Charles or Karen to sort of see people, because right now I can only see four of you, which I usually could see all of you at once, but I can't do that today because I'm working on a much smaller screen.

So are there anyone who has their hands up right now or who care to sort of enter into this conversation with Rick?

Did I just see you undo your screen?

I appreciate the presentation and getting a better idea for what all of phase one's going to look at.

But what I don't understand is if we're being asked to sign off on phase one, why we've seen at least two slides tonight, which show the number of units

in Village 2 site, which was part of the original Block A approved by the Board of Supervisors.

And yet, in the attachment B that all of us as members of the Planning Commission received, there is no indication of the number or type of units for Village 2.

You know, I just want to note that we're being asked to comment this evening when we really haven't had a chance to reflect on what village two, which is an important part of

phase one is actually going to look at.

So that leads to a series of questions because there was a question mark about village two and what it contains.

I'm gonna go back to August 7th, 2018 when the board of supervisors and the planning commission had a joint meeting and some members of the planning commission

may well recall that joint meeting.

And the Habitat for Humanity Project Narrative in Coda Development, which is included herein on page 18, indicated no less than 341 affordable housing units would be in a fully redeveloped Southwood.

Now, no fewer than 43 affordable housing units are shown here in block A. And block A refers

to Village 1 and Village 2 in the original site plan submitted by Habitat, approved by the Planning Commission, and then approved by the Board of Supervisors.

Block A referred to Village 1 and Village 2, and Block B referred to everything else.

Block 9 through 12 was Block B. So now Village 1

here shows 65 affordable housing units alone.

So that's a real step up from 43.

My question is, how many affordable housing units will we be seeing in Village 2 in Block A?

Yeah, it is either 21 or 22.

But again, that site plan is just submitted now.

Okay, but it's good to have a figure.

I appreciate that.

My second question is,

at the Southwoods groundbreaking ceremony on September 17th, 2020.

The daily progress is Allison Rabel and Nolan Stout related in their article that in phase one, a total of about 340 units, 214 give or take, are going to be affordable at different levels of affordability.

The 125-21

Water Street Studio site plan, which is attachment B in our plaque packet, shows only a total of 65 affordable housing units.

So my question is, those are 65 habitat volunteer constructed condos, townhouses, and attached and detached homes, and then 121 Piedmont housing

Alliance affordable rental union equaling a total of 186 affordable units in phase one, far below the 214 target.

So if we add 21

to 186, we still come in way below the 214 target.

Can you explain to me why?

Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry about that.

Yeah, we had that breakdown on one of the slides.

There'll be a total of 86 habitat built units, 121 LIHTC units.

Right, Steve Mott Housing Alliance.

The numbers don't add up, Dan.

I mean, I'm taking 121 for Piedmont Housing Alliance.

I'm taking the affordable units that Habitat's constructing, which is a total of 65.

So I get 121 plus 65 gives me 186.

and then on top of that 186, you just told me that you're expecting a total of 21 more units for village two.

That's how I come to 207.

Yeah, so the breakdown is in village one, your numbers were a little bit off.

In village one, there are 49 affordable units.

In village two, in the neighborhood of 21 affordable units brings us to 70.

And then there are 16 habitat units as part of the townhome block along horizon for a total of 86 units.

Add those to the 121

PHA units, and that's 207.

That's tough to know.

You know, we were pretty transparent about this all along as we went through the process.

If you'll remember, the Planning Commission really asked us for LIHTC.

They wanted to increase the number of affordable rentals and LIHTC specifically was part of the performance agreement.

as a result of that.

And so we had an obligation in the performance agreement to first only market that parcel to a LIHTC developer, which we did.

We worked in partnership with the Piedmont Housing Alliance and we're very grateful that they were awarded LIHTC credits.

So 121 of the units will be LIHTC.

The remainder will be habitat units.

How many of the folks at Southwood will go into the LIHTC units?

That's really their call, but we're still hoping that the vast majority of Southwood residents want to be homeowners.

So if Southwood residents feel they can't go into those LIHTC units, they won't find them desirable,

So we have an agreement and you can, it's filed with the county.

It's a uniform relocation act plan that specifies it's a, it's a fairly complicated plan, but

There are multiple steps that are taken.

One is to provide a range of housing options, rentals, homeownership at various bands of affordability so that, first of all, residents have a choice of something on site at Southwood.

If they choose to leave Southwood, then there's compensation for that.

But, you know, our plan is to have capacious and abundant affordable housing

We hope at the end of the day almost two times as much affordable housing as exists now, but actual decent affordable housing so that there'll be a range of opportunities for everybody from 0% AMI all the way through.

Who is next?

Who would like to ask or has questions next?

Thank you.

I just by chance flipped to him as he was doing that, Corey.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I just have a comment and a question.

So first, good to see you, Dan and Megan and the whole team.

I think it's an awesome project.

It's one of the best redevelopment projects I've ever seen, and I hope

that we figured out a way to package this and shot it from the rooftops.

I hope you guys are presenting at every local government conference, every housing conference.

I mean, it's just an awesome story.

My question is about some of those spaces that might be on the commercial side, those first floor spaces.

And I'm just curious if you could talk a little bit more.

You kind of touched on it briefly, but like childcare, for example.

Will that be a part of the development in either phase?

And then also saying about stormwater management in the sense that I suspect a lot of kids will be living in this area.

Any kind of large structures that we might need to be aware of.

I didn't see jumped out on the site plan, but just want a safety perspective.

Thanks.

First of all, thank you for those comments.

It's very nice of you to say.

I'll deal with the commercial spaces and then I'll turn it over to Andrew and talk about stormwater management facilities.

The commercial spaces, we are presently working with the Boys and Girls Club and MACA, probably not for this phase, but for the next phase to locate, and this is in the very early phases right now, both of those organizations have to do their feasibility study, but we're hopeful for a second phase of LIHTC

as part of phase two that will have 1,500 square feet of ground floor front that 5,000 of that would be for MACA, Early Childhood Education Center, Head Start and other programs, and 10,000 square feet of it would be for the Boys and Girls Club, a permanent facility for the Boys and Girls Club.

We worked with, in partnership with PHA, we worked with multiple potential partners and investors

and most importantly, the residents to see what commercial uses in that first phase we could facilitate and make work.

For a long time, we had had long running conversations.

COVID hurt because it scared away some investors.

For a long time, we had conversations with the organizers of the local food hub who were looking into a facility co-located with PHAs, LIHTC,

where there could be a shared commercial kitchen, a little bit of a storefront, et cetera, but that didn't come to pass.

The structure of the building, there's about 10,000 square feet of 12-foot floor space on the first floor of those buildings can be converted over time if those uses materialize, if those partners materialize.

Sure, thank you.

Megan touched on it, folks, at the very beginning of her presentation.

We just recently submitted Village 2.

That's the fourth and the final site plan to be submitted as part of Phase 1.

So that all four site plans will show both above and below ground detention facilities.

That's what's currently being planned.

None of them are planned to be extended.

They're all planned to be

extended dry ponds in various places throughout the community.

So with the above ground dry ponds and the below ground detention facilities plan, we aren't anticipating any situations where there'll be places where children will want to spend much time.

Is that it, Corey?

Is that it?

Thank you, and I hope you can hear me all right.

First, I'll comment on the sort of the single page sort of illustration or rendering of illustrative concept.

I think it's much improved from what we have seen in the past.

It's obviously much more detailed.

There's much more thought that's gone into it.

And I especially appreciate the attention to connectivity throughout the site and the ability for people to

Enjoy the recreational trails.

I know that probably some of those renderings are showing trees at age 20 years.

So that will take a while for it to look quite as green, I understand.

But I think most of my questions really tonight center on kind of what's happening with

You've touched on this a little, but I'd like to hear more about what's happening with the plans for the residents who are being displaced.

And I know the desire and intent is to accommodate 100% of them.

But I'm going to just rattle off some questions about the residents, and then I have a totally unrelated question at the end.

So my questions are,

What percent or total number of the original units that you showed us a couple of years ago were supposed to be occupied by Southwood residents?

And then how many are currently committed to existing residents?

So I'm trying to understand your success rate so far, your intention, and then how many you've been able to sign up.

And then

The second part of my question has to do with the home-based businesses.

I think you talked a little bit about that, about if I understood your earlier comments about renting additional space, but I'm trying to, and I saw the unit with the picture with the garage underneath.

But I don't know how many of those are really provided in this phase, maybe it was only three, I'm not sure.

Because, you know, people, my understanding of, you know, touring the site before it was ever begun redevelopment, a lot of residents seem to have, you know, businesses that were just part of their, their garage or their lean to wasn't, it wasn't something where they rented additional space so

If you talk about, again, how many original residents you hope to accommodate, how many have been able to take you up on the plan so far and fit into this plan and have a space, and then more about how you are accommodating home-based businesses without additional cost to the residents if possible.

And then I'll hear those answers and then ask you a totally different question.

Thanks for the question.

I always appreciate the questions with the concern for residents at the forefront.

So it's actually going pretty well.

We essentially canvassed the neighborhood.

And if you recall, we've had numerous families who have been working toward this for a while.

So our first application process took part in the spring and we had 25 families step forward.

This is, remember, there's 49 homes in the first village.

but they're not all going to get built next year there's about 20 to 25 they're going to get built every year so that was about the right number of families that we needed for the first to fill up the first buildings that we're building or the first homes that we're building we have we're now working as part of the process as families came to us you know we do a very very detailed financial assessment and some families take a little bit more time and so thankfully we had a little bit longer runway

So we're opening, we're now working very, very closely with the families that didn't apply, but who are interested in applying for this next round of applications this August and September with the hope that, and the full expectation that the first 49 units will be filled.

We presume that of the 86 units that we're gonna build as part of this first phase, all or almost all of them will be Southwood families.

One that's, you know,

the single greatest purpose of this project.

Two, there's a huge desire and need.

And three, it makes sense.

The more families that move out of later phases into the first phase, the more space there is to perform on later phases.

So I'd say pretty close to 100%.

We're anticipating pretty close to 100% of what we build will be for existing Southwood families.

We can't force anybody to stay in the neighborhood and so there will be some families who leave and we're working one-on-one on a strategy with all of them.

That includes paying them for their trailers, paying them if they stay in the park and move into a later phase.

We pay all of the expenses of moving the trail,

basically untethering the trailer, securing it, moving it across the park, setting it in place.

We also have hospitality trailers on site.

So families even during that week or so process that it takes to move a trailer can stay on site.

So thus far, not a single family has had to spend a night outside of Southwood.

And that's what we endeavor to do.

Will we be able to keep up that pace and not have folks in a hotel here or there

I don't know, but that's what we're endeavoring to do.

In terms of the home-based businesses, that's another challenge.

But as you'll recall, the Code of Development allowed a lot of flexibility for home occupations.

Most of the home-ocs in Southwood are not particularly intensive.

So it's somebody who runs a party planning business out of her house.

And so those businesses can still exist in the shells of existing homes.

but you're right, we did create a flex unit structure program.

We're piloting that.

And what you did see was a two story version of that but we're also gonna offer a one story version where there is other parking.

The reason why those particular units are two stories is because otherwise the sites under parked as per the regulations.

But yeah, I mean, there are gonna be some business and this is something that there's not

I wish I could tell you, Karen, that there's 100% agreement among the people at Southwood about how folks feel about the businesses.

Many of them see them as amenities.

Many of them see them as nuisances.

And we were very intentional about this as we were working through the design of the first village.

There were folks who owned businesses that were part of that first cohort.

And they came up with a plan

had they chosen, as a group, had they chosen to create a plan that created a yard for storage of vehicles, for example, they would have done so.

So that's a little bit more of a struggle.

And to be perfectly honest, there's been a bit of a false economy at Southwood.

We've kept pad rentals at $270 a month.

and so people have operated out of their businesses out of convenience, but it's not, these aren't conforming businesses.

They're not zoned to be there.

And so, you know, we have been talking to people for years and years and years and years about the need to get serious about a sustainable business and financial plan.

We have a full-time business incubator specialist on staff who works one-on-one with those folks.

Some have made plans.

For some, the plans work very well in the neighborhood.

Okay, thank you, Dan, for your answer.

And before I go to my next question, which is a quick question, I do hope that you will engage in some progressive stormwater management.

I'll just make a note that dry ponds are much less successful in treating pollutants than wet ponds.

But I don't know if you are planning to use those dry ponds as play areas when it's not raining.

So there are such things as stormwater playgrounds,

There are many progressive things you could be doing with that, but that's not really for this evening.

The last question I have is, like I said, unrelated.

Yes, so as part of the environmental review, the Monacan Nation, led by Chief Branham, came forward as an interested party.

and so we walked the site with him and another representative of the First Nation and representatives of the county and the Department of Housing and Community Development and we walked to a site where it was likely a historic hunting ground, it was on a bluff, it's where village two is located, it was on a bluff where underneath it there's a bend in the river, so a place of constant full-time water

where there would likely be deer.

And that was likely a place for itinerant hunting grounds for the Monakans.

And so he walked the site and confirmed that that was likely what happened there.

And so we have actually reserved that area as undevelopable.

It will be Monica Nations Park.

We invited the Monakans to participate in the design process for village two

They declined.

I think it was largely they had bigger fish to fry, frankly.

They're dealing with the water issue in Louisa and just didn't have the time to do it.

But as we get it more granular in terms of the design of the park itself, absolutely, we're going to engage them.

I'll just add that as part of the CDBG funding, the county will be helping facilitate that as well.

The Department of Housing and Community Development had high interest of having the Monica Nation involved in the planning in the park.

Thank you.

Anything else, Karen?

Thank you.

Yeah, when you were talking about the condos and showing some images that appealed to seniors, I was wondering about accessible units.

And I guess I wonder if you could just speak about that a little bit with the units that you showed and then wondering if there's

Yes, so the condos are the ground level condos are accessible.

So fully accessible.

There are a few families that were we will custom build because they already have mobility issues right now will custom build fully

fully accessible with wider bathrooms and etc.

A number of our grants require us to have visitable homes.

And so the vast, vast majority of homes we build have, as long as the topography allows for it, have a zero step entry, have a first floor living space, first floor kitchen and a full bathroom on the first floor.

as well as other accessibility issues.

So lifelong living is built into pretty much everything we build, if we can.

Well, that answers my next question, because I feel like there's not enough of that around.

It doesn't necessarily need to be ADA compliant,

something that you'd be surprised what one or two little steps can create a challenge for people.

And I've known a lot where they have the one for living, but they can't get out on their patio because it's just those two steps or can't get in the front door.

So I appreciate that because that was my next question.

No, I think this, I don't have the full being relatively new.

I read the packet on the whole backstory that some of the other commissioners also take up more of their time.

I think this is a fantastic project and appreciate the care and thought has been put into it this far.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Sorry.

So yeah, I would echo some of the comments.

I think it's a great project.

I do appreciate all the vignettes.

It gives us a good feel for the character, the different sizes of

of development I think is also gives it that village feel.

So I think it lives true to its name.

I had a couple quick questions.

One is transit.

You can talk a little bit about that.

What are you doing in terms of accommodating mass transit near or into the village?

And then also, if you can talk about the range of commercial

Thanks for the question.

I can only comment on the fact that I do believe we have existing transit buses using and going through the park today.

Yeah, I would just add that I think that we had early conversations during the rezoning with representatives of CAT and at that time there wasn't a commitment to, you know, have that loop into this first phase.

I think we're going to, you know, circle back with CAT and

see if there's a desire to reroute the existing transit, maybe to incorporate that loop.

And maybe there's an opportunity to have a little stop within phase one.

And I appreciate that and the fact that there is some existing transit going in there.

I'm just asking how you're accommodating it in your new development.

I didn't see anything referred to that.

Well, I mean, the first thing, the roads will be built to VDOT standards.

And there are various sizes of roads that will include the ability for buses to loop around fully without having to stop.

So it'll be convenient as it is today or more so.

And as you probably know, it's the most well-used bus line in the system.

Southwood families use that all the time.

And it would be a tragedy, frankly, if CAT stopped using.

And so we're going to do everything we can to accommodate that.

Typically, that happens a little bit later in the process, you would identify a place where it makes sense to have a bus stop or a bench or covered seating or something like that.

But I think there are numerous places that set up well for that.

Like that first civic space probably sets up really well as a bus stop.

And then as you go further into the site, you're probably going to want to have it's too big of a site for just one bus stop, you're going to want to have a few bus stops in there.

But there's there's nothing that

And I appreciate your answer.

And I would just suggest that as you continue to develop the presentation, and I think Corey suggested taking it on the road because there's a lot of great story to tell.

Transit should be part of that story.

You just mentioned it's a very high use road.

It wasn't mentioned once.

And I just think that make it part of the story.

Right now, it's not.

It certainly should be, as you said, and I agree with you wholeheartedly.

That's a great point.

Thank you.

That's great.

Feedback, thank you.

And then in terms of the range of commercial, you know, to be perfectly honest, I think that you're going to start to see that more in the second phase than you see in the first phase.

And the reason is, is that, again, I mentioned to Commissioner Firehock that there's a bit of a false economy.

So when we have

worked with people one-on-one and said, look, we really have to start moving you towards a more sustainable path.

They're like, no, I'm good.

I'm paying 270.

And so it's a long process.

And for me, success is less about outside commercial entities coming in and establishing themselves, although I don't think that would be a bad thing.

I'm a big fan of mixed use.

But there's enough commercial and entrepreneurial spirit inside of Southwood that we'd really like to see

that happened.

That was one of the primary reasons for creating a form-based code is that in the neighborhood special areas, the forms of the building will essentially set them up so that over their life cycle, they can accommodate different uses.

People are starting now, now that there's actually construction going on, because it took a long time to get through the process.

People work hard, they have their heads down,

They're trying to get through the day and so sort of thinking about the future unless there's a little bit of a stimulus, a little bit of a push.

We're now starting to find people coming to the table a little bit more because they do see change and they do see that change is inevitable.

We never want to operate out of a place of fear or coercion, but you do at some point have to have something like a burning platform

or at least a platform that's getting warm to really focus folks' mind.

And that's starting to happen now.

Tim.

Thank you all.

It's great to have this update.

It seems to me that the design evolution with the community involvement has really had a significant input on the green space system.

It's Dan, you're

Presentation of those special places in different areas was obviously heartfelt and shows how much you all, this team has really taken all of that to heart, as with the involvement of the Monacan.

So thank you all for that.

I really want to just ask four questions that are building on, they were ideas that I had to building on what my colleagues have asked, so we might have a better idea

because really this is our case study, right?

I mean, you talk about it that way, Dan and Megan often through time.

And Dan, you've been willing to share some of the things that haven't worked the way you thought.

And I think that's to build on Corey, it's important that we tell those stories as well so that we can all learn from that.

So my first question is a simple one.

Dan, you talked about the building lifespan in terms of the commercial buildings.

Do you have,

Is that based on the mortgage reduction?

Is that a 15-year?

Is that a 20, 30-year?

Yeah.

Yeah, so it's complicated.

It's made complicated, especially complicated, by the capital stack that supports LIHTC.

LIHTC doesn't set up particularly well or easily for mixed use unless you bring it in at the beginning.

And so one of the things that we've done is work with Piedmont Housing Alliance to discount the land somewhat so that some of that space is reserved as community room, which is actually, if you hierarchize the,

the desires of sort of the commercial desires among families at Southwood.

The biggest thing that they wanted because they can't have quinceañeras, you know, they can't have parties and stuff.

There's not a space, a big enough space to rent it.

That's the biggest thing they rented.

So that will remain under control of PHA.

But remember, there are also investors in line.

What I was hoping to do and what we worked pretty hard to do was to try to condominiumize a certain percentage of that commercial space

so that it could be owned by a central entity whose sole purpose was to allow it to be affordable rental commercial space for Southwood businesses.

As I said, that got a little bit waylaid by COVID.

We had a number of opportunities on investors who were interested in it.

but that ultimately didn't materialize.

So the best that we could do was to maintain about 10,000 square feet on the first floor of that first building that will be quasi-commercial now and it's convertible in the future.

Right, and we're all wondering how commercial is going to come back and retail commercial.

that's all up in the air for the next decade, yes.

So my next question, since we all spent time together a couple of years ago, the planning commission and with Stacey Pethia coming onto the county, we're asking a lot of questions about the amount of AMI that the different rentals and the different owners are.

And you have spoken,

numerous times about how you believe that some of the home ownerships are going to this very lowest percentile of that group and that you all are able to do that because of the habitat model, which is outstanding.

But could you give us, try to give us a bit more of a breakdown of those

that number that you and Rick seemed to agree on, that 207.

Could you give us a breakdown of that 207 and where those 207 would fall on that AMI index?

Yeah, it'd be a little hard to give you something that's quotable.

I don't have the data in front of me.

I can give you the AMI if I had it.

My staff has.

I can get this for you later.

The breakdown of the families who have applied for the program, so the 25 families have come forward.

I can give you that data, I just don't have it in front of me right now.

The PHA units, it partially depends on how much money they raise.

The more subsidy that they can bring into the project, the more they can push that AMI down.

I think what they're looking at is an average AMI of 60%, which means that there will be some cross subsidies.

So there will be some 80% units cross subsidizing 30 and 35% units.

And that's their intention is, and the more money you raise, the less cross subsidy you need.

So the fewer units at the upper end at 80%, but everything, all of those 121 units, every single one of them,

have to be below 80% of area median income.

Everything that we sell is mostly, you know, if I gave you estimates, the vast majority of people that we're selling to, I can tell you the numbers for our overall program over the last few years has been 32% of area median income.

That's been our average AMI.

I don't have the data for the first cohort of Southwood families.

So if I were to quote you on something, it would be

I've been making it up, but I'm happy to get that to you through Megan.

I think it's important for us and certainly for the supervisors to see what that breakdown is going to be for those 207.

So this is a question that's kind of an age old one that goes back to sunrise.

But can you tell us, like you've said to us through time, that when habitat prior to you

purchased Southwood, there were 343 mobile homes and roughly 1,500 residents.

Can you tell us today and then projected at completion how many of those 1,500 residents, and I realize that there's attrition in any neighborhood, I realize that there are people who've finished school and moved on and elders who've passed,

but can you, so this isn't a gotcha kind of question.

I'm just really curious about the information.

Of those 1500 and those 343 mobile homes, how many residents are still remain and how many of those, not the units so much as the households because I think that that's a point that you've been trying to get us to think about rather than individuals to think about households and the movement of people from a household

So that's a that's a that's a challenging question.

I can tell you that I can talk about our process and tell you about the milestones that I know I can tell you about the data that I do have.

I can't talk about the data I don't have.

But

The data that I do have is that when we first went basically family by family in 2013 and surveyed every family, 90 to 92% of families, I can't remember exactly the number, but it was somewhere in that, said that they intended to stay and wanted to stay.

That's a little abstract at that point because they didn't know what they're staying for, they didn't know what it was gonna look like,

et cetera, but that's one data point.

Data point two, because it was at that point that we said, look, everybody who's here, who's participating with us, you have a guaranteed right to be here, full stop.

Well, we anticipated this going a little quicker and starting redevelopment sometime two or three years after that.

It had taken longer, so we went back in 2018 and we essentially asked the same question, but this time we did it with

We did it in a sort of legally binding way under the provisions of the Uniform Relocation Act.

We went door to door and talked to every single family.

This was again, this was in late 2018.

And what we did was any family that was there, we issued what's called a GIN, which is a HUD term for a general information notice that basically tells them what the rights are, the rights to stay, et cetera, and what we would do to compensate them,

what's the rough plan for offering options in the new Southwood.

And as long as they have a gin, they sort of are protected.

A lot of housing agencies at that point will sort of close the door and say, no more people in here because we need to let attrition happen.

Or the alternative is to, for new folks that come into the park after that date is to issue what's called a min or a move in notice.

which basically says you can move in.

There's a lack of affordable housing across here.

It will be a couple of years at least before there's redevelopment, but you should know that as soon as redevelopment happens, you're gonna have to move.

And it's a sort of formal way of saying that here's where the door closes because at that point we were going through rezoning and we have to tell you all what's the density that we're seeking.

We have to make a pro forma

that works to accommodate those number of people and that door can't open.

So again, that's a long way of saying that my second data point is since 2018, there are 23 families that have men's.

So you can do the math of the 341 trailers.

There are 23 folks who have moved in since 2018, which means that there are approximately 23 families who have moved out.

Does that help at all?

Yes.

I mean, it shows the complexity of these kinds of projects.

And you know that one of the few places where habitat has been dinged has been on sunrise and what the true

numbers of people from the beginning of that trailer court to the people at the end of the development were and their disagreements about those figures nobody has ever been able to see to come up with an agreement on what those were.

So I would hope with this one we could be more specific so we could show it because I'm going back to those 1500 people and you wearing another hat are calling for density that many of us are calling for and believe in

and yet if I take the number that you and Rick arrived at of 207 and I multiply that by the average four person household, assuming that some of these are one person elderly, two person elderly, and some of them are larger families, I come up with 828 people.

And so that at this point, and maybe there are going to be other parts of this that are going to provide more affordable, I'm seeing us having a net loss

700 people in terms of affordability.

So that in all of our talk about increasing the numbers of affordable units in the county and in the region, I'm concerned at least with what we've seen so far that there could actually be a net loss.

And if you could explain that, because it seems to me that we all entered into this with the idea of significantly

Absolutely.

So this is phase one.

So this is 30 acres out of 123.

So there are 207 affordable homes on roughly a fifth of the site.

There's an area four to five times the size of what

Phase one is that we'll accommodate more affordable housing.

And so when we come back for the second phase of rezoning, that's where the additional density of affordable housing and market rate housing will be.

We're anticipating at this point a significant increase over the number of units and whether they are certainly affordable housing.

What's on the ground right now is that

Decent housing, well, that will leave you open to your opinion, to anyone's opinion.

Thank you.

Again, I think just as Rick was asking for specifics with his set of questions, it seems like each time we have these discussions, we're told that they're going to be answers in the future.

And I just can't believe that you can be doing this without having those kinds of projections so that we could begin to say, wow, this is an amazing project because we're going to have 500 or 1,000 more

And of course- Yeah, absolutely.

That'll be coming up as part of phase two rezoning.

We'll have a density that we're asking for and we'll be able to talk about the, we'll be able to project how many of those units will be affordable at that point.

Okay, but just to finish on this one,

Since you are getting close to the point where you're going to know which are going to be apartments for the elderly, which are going to be how many bedrooms, what bedroom sizes the different units are, I think that when you come in for that phase two, it's really helpful to have the specifics of what phase one is really generating or is anticipated to generate.

Yeah, absolutely.

And there's less uncertainty as we move through the project.

And so I think you'll find in phase two that they're easier to answer questions than it was in phase one.

Thank you all very much.

OK, Tim.

So if I might have a couple of questions, I'll put some questions to your team.

There's a couple things, just so I can understand what you were saying.

Dan, so my, and this is just, I'm gonna check these off and we'll move on.

We're working, and it's premature.

So how about the hope is that there would be a permanent

Absolutely.

Okay.

Again, I can't speak for another agency, but my sense is that they're actually trying to grow and disperse the program so that they're meeting families in communities rather than centralized locations.

So I think that

OK, OK, so that makes sense.

I'm just trying to understand, if we look at Southwood as being this new place where people are going to want to be, want to live, want to be in community, what are the things that we're going to start to see there that will just naturally coalesce there?

And given your former life,

Butsaka, and then your deep relationship with the Boys and Girls Club.

And then with MACA that we're starting to see this sort of spread of activities for families or for people with young people under their guardianship.

So that was helpful for me to know.

So again, just asking some clarifying questions.

And I would agree with my colleagues that when you go before our supervisors,

On the transit thing, on the transit piece, I think it would be very helpful for you to have either a position or to have had a conversation with Garland about what's going to happen there.

And the reason I say it is because as we all know, the county puts a significant amount towards the budget of CAT.

And so if one of the sort of the keystone projects for the county is meeting some resistance with transit coming there,

I think that's something that our supervisors need to know.

And so I wouldn't wait to the 11th hour, I would be giving them that information sooner than later.

Okay, that's just something I think that they should have.

The other thing is, I think there was also very, it's also very clever, and I think you take in, please take into consideration what was mentioned, being able to sort of say to them, for this bulk of investment that you've made on this project, here's how we're going to

respond to or increase the inventory of not accessible housing, the way Jenny mentioned it, but also affordable housing, income accessible housing, so that they have a sense.

You've probably followed some of the conversations that we've had recently in how people are, they struggle with affordability across the entire community, which is something that we've looked for and something that certainly

from where I stand, I've been encouraging that we should have accessible housing across our entire county and not just local, but I think for where you sit, it would be helpful for the supervisors to have a fuller appreciation of just how this project is going to help to bring income accessible housing to our community.

And also to the expect that if you are having these conversations,

that you're sitting down with Roger in economic development because there are a bunch of people who are thinking about are there places that I might be involved or that I might bring a small business to.

So if you haven't had a chance to sit down with economic development staff, I would also encourage you to do that before you speak to the supervisors because that's something that they're giving some deep consideration about and what your access to 64 and your access

to the various sort of dense populations that we have out there.

That could be an interesting location and it would also provide jobs, which is my real concern, providing jobs that aren't necessarily, that have some paths to it.

And since if you saw what happened with the governor today, the governor just pushed a lot of money to companies in our region to help bring things to market.

And so where are those companies gonna put those small businesses?

wouldn't it be kind of neat if they decided they could put some of those small incubator businesses in the new emerging Southwood community and be able to hire some of the people from there.

That would think, I think would be a win across a whole bunch of things.

I have a couple of questions for you.

Simply having dealt with a bunch of sort of what we'll say sort of multi-unit places in some of those facilities, is there a way or will you have sort of common areas?

So will there be

things like some apartments have their own washing machines while some don't, just to be able to give some flexible space to people since putting in washing machines and putting all that stuff, each space up, wherein in fact you could have things like that.

I'm not asking for, but you could have some of those common amenities and places where people, if they were living together and some of the groups that just described them in village one, where you mentioned that there might be families living together

in some of the townhouses there.

So that's really a townhouse unit.

So realizing that that's only for this moment, not for forever, but thinking about how do we create the optimal footprint for those families so that, in fact, they have as much space as possible.

I know you'll think about that.

But the one thing, and I mentioned this before, and the plan, I think I congratulate you and your team on the plan.

I was ready to be annoyed, and I'm not.

So, you know, I'm straight up.

Most people know I give you the straight up on me.

You're going to get it.

The one thing that I will say that I will ask you to be sensitive to is the groupings of what looks like affordable housing.

So while there is some differences in shapes,

I still see the groupings together.

Now I understand that sometimes people wanna be comfortable and they wanna be among people who they've grown old with and grown up with, but in phase two, in village two and the other that I would hope to see a bit more dispersing or integrating of those spaces, of those forms.

So that I think I got over, or in fact, it was Karen who got me over the,

The entrance at one point, she talked to me sternly about what I should expect coming into the community.

And I think PHA will do something that's smart there.

And I also think your plaza will also give it some opening there so it looks, it's inviting and it doesn't feel oppressive.

And your 6,500 public space there feels really good to me.

And I hope that it will be something that actually is enlivened and has some design to it and some livability to it.

So people can enjoy spending time outside and being with each other.

And so she helped me to see through that.

But the other piece that I'm a bit concerned about is when I do look at sort of blocks 911, and see we have this wonderful sort of grouping then and all of a sudden we have two affordable housing units smacked together.

and then we go in the village one and there's this I appreciate the way you've integrated the sort of the playthrough space or the green space there that's actually very smart and I think that will pay dividends but again I'm sort of seeing all of the affordable housing units grouped together which means that people will sort of co-locate and I don't know how much we'll have sort of the piercing of this community

and sort of the seeping in and out of the people who you bring there.

So that's one of the things that I know.

When you bring this back for the second time, that will be one of the things that I'm gonna key off of.

How much are we thinking about bringing people to this new emerging community that it's not a function of your, it's not easily identifiable on whether or not you have a certain AMI attached to your housing unit.

So that's just something that I won't

I will be sharing with you now so that you know about it.

The other thing that I know that you're doing is that you're going to figure out also how to get school buses through here, because you have a lot of children that live over there.

You have a lot of children living over there.

So if you can get school buses through there, then Cat can get through there.

So that's really what we're going to do.

I'm going to on that.

If we can get our school buses through there, then CAC shouldn't be giving you any foolishness about, oh, well, we can't figure out how to get a bus through here.

I don't know how to do that.

So I'm on the margin.

There are a couple of things that I'm emphasizing with my colleagues that you probably want to sort of rise the flag with the supervisors so that they're hearing some things.

And I think I would also be a, by then,

I would also suggest that you share with them that you'll be back to us to look at the second phase so that they're aware that their planning commission is also going to have a chance to help and to inform you about how we go forward on that.

I think that would be helpful.

And I think that would be helpful to them, and I think that would be helpful to this process.

That is all that I'm going to sort of add at this time.

But look to see if any of my colleagues, just keep your hands up while I'm floating through here, if you have anything that you want to add.

So I'll start here.

Jenny, that head no yes is good for me.

I can see you, Jenny.

Would you like that?

OK, Luis?

OK, thank you, Corey.

OK, Karen?

I feel like I'm on Hollywood Squares here, but I only have four of you, where I used to have like eight of you.

I only see Rick waving.

I know.

I'm going to thank you.

I'm coming to Rick.

I'm going to leave Rick to last, not because he's like to be punished, but just because I know you'll have something to say.

Daniel?

OK.

Tim, do you have anything?

OK.

I can't at the moment, because PHA hasn't yet.

They don't have any marketing materials out, so people don't know what they would pay.

They don't know what the units would look like just yet.

Well, what is your guess?

I mean, you do have your earlier study of

Haven't heard that overwhelmingly.

I think we were pretty transparent through the process when the county was asking us to do LIHTC.

We didn't think that a high percentage of those were particularly what the Southwood residents wanted.

And so that's why we have some units mixed in and what we're building, which is more of the housing typology,

integrated in the villages that the Southwood families wanted and so you know we think that you know that as I said somewhere but somewhere around eight of the of the 86 that we're gonna build or six of the 86 that we're gonna build will at least start as rentals.

LIHTC, I really don't know I mean I would say

It's really kind of hard to tell.

There are also rules about LIHTC that I don't quite understand about whether you're eligible to be in there or not.

There are property management rules about how you document your income to qualify you.

There are people who don't want to go through that documentation process.

And I'm not talking about citizenship documentation, but the process of documenting your income year after year after year, which you have to do.

traditional forms of affordable housing.

So, I mean, we don't develop LIHTC.

That's not what we do.

But the county very much wanted it.

I think it'd be a big amenity and a big value to the community at large to have that band of affordable housing.

How much of that will be for Southwood families?

It would only be useful going forward, as Tim brought up, if we are looking at phase two this fall, to try to provide as much of that kind of empirical information as you can

I know Sunshine may have some preliminary figures for Piedmont Housing Alliance this fall.

Maybe not.

Maybe this is information that is a year or two years away from actually the county being able to have.

Well I think it'll be a really important data point for the county to have as you continue to implement your housing strategy because ultimately the housing strategy is about where to direct resources and you have to make sure that your resources are actually directed towards housing that is the right housing for the people that live in Albemarle County and this will be a good data point

I'm just trying to noodle in my head.

We're talking to people all the time and in particular we're doing a lot of direct one-on-one conversations with folks who have either already expressed a desire to move into the first phase or are sort of in what we think will probably be the next phase of redevelopment.

We may be able to design a survey question that, it's not gonna be science, but that gives us some sort of a, I don't know, a blink, a ballpark estimate of what percentage we'll be in.

We'll be interested in going into light tech, but it's a lot like in 2013, asking people, you know, do you wanna stay, but it's so abstract.

Until, what we have found really is that until there are floor plans,

until people know exactly what they're gonna pay month after month, till they know whether they're gonna be on the fourth floor or the first floor.

That information is really not, it doesn't stand a test of time, but we certainly will ask.

Okay, okay, great, thank you.

I don't.

No, this was really helpful.

I appreciate all the time and the feedback.

And please, I know from being a former planning commissioner that sometimes there are questions that emerge that you wish you had asked.

Please don't hesitate to send along questions to us.

We'd love to go into the hearing already kind of knowing or we'd love to as we go through the next rezoning design process to really sort of know what you're thinking and to include you as active stakeholders and not sort of passive regulators.

I know you didn't intend it, but I think you can tell this group is not passive.

This is a group that would spend a great deal of the evening grilling you in a way that you would probably feel a tiny bit uncomfortable, but well understood.

We really want to make this work for everyone in our community.

So well said.

So on that note, I'm going to thank you both for this evening.

And we're going to move on with the rest of our meeting.

And look forward to hearing how your presentation goes with the supervisor, with our supervisors.

Have a good evening.

Thank you.

Be safe.

Thanks, everybody.

Committee reports.

Somebody, you just have to raise your hand.

Charles, can you see people who have their hands up for committee reports?

Yeah, I thought that was the situation there.

Okay.

Sure, we had a busy board meeting.

Started off with some discussion on the housing policy.

A good portion of the housing policy passed the test and staff has some additional work to do on the incentive options for developers that we'll be working on and coming back to the board with as we work those out with the members of the development community and other stakeholders.

We had a public hearing on the

Route 240 and 810 Virginia Byways.

I guess it was a public hearing actually.

And then we also had, we did have a public hearing though on the special use permit for the St.

John Family Life and Fitness Center that came before this commission a few months ago, pretty positive community-based project.

And that was approved.

And then tomorrow, next week, we will be back together for one of our more popular

Here we are.

We'll be on a breezy hill.

We are.

We will have a presentation.

I don't know.

We have her set up on the draft agenda first.

OK.

Luis, since Luis, you're not going to be here, would you like to introduce us a little bit to what we will

Well, I would not want to steal the thunder for the university architect, but you, she will certainly appreciate going before Breezy Hill.

Thank you.

Thank you for that.

No, there's, there's a lot to talk about.

There's a lot happening on, on that Ivy corridor.

I don't,

I'm hoping that you guys are somewhat aware of it.

I mean, there's been a lot of communication on it, particularly recently.

But yes, you will be able to update you not only on the master plan, the designs that have been approved and projects that are moving forward.

There's activity.

If any of you have driven by there, you'll see that there's already some activity for infrastructure going on.

She'll touch on, Karen, you'll appreciate it, but she'll certainly touch on the stormwater management, which is an entire feature of the site.

It actually becomes a center piece of the site, if you will.

It's really about projects along the landscape, not really about the individual buildings themselves.

Her personality is completely different from Jefferson.

I might be able to sit with Emil with her.

Yeah, well, talking about the design, obviously, and so

She'll be able to touch on the Democracy Institute that's been announced.

So there's some conversations around that as well.

But yeah, there's a lot of information, a lot of recent developments.

Cool.

Thank you very much, and we will miss you.

We'll miss you.

Thank you.

Is there anything, any old or new business that before we actually do a meeting on time?

No additional information?

Okay, then folks, usually I mess this part up.

We will regather on July the 20th at this place, not this time, but the time where we started and until then have a good week and

Try and stay cool.

Good night, everyone.

Good night.