Planning Commission Meeting   4/9/2019

There's a motion.

Can we make a motion without it being up to us?

We have a quorum.

Welcome you all.

I love citizen participation, so it's good to see all of you here.

It gets lonely when there's nobody here to listen to you talk.

So I will start tonight's meeting with the Commissioner's report.

Madam Chair,

Commissioners, citizens, I attended three committee meetings over the past month.

The Board of Architectural Review meeting on March 13th, which was a make-up day for being snowed out in February.

During that meeting, there were nine projects presented, seven were approved on

The consent agenda, I'm sorry, seven were approved with conditions for certificate of appropriateness, one was a preliminary presentation and one was deferred and then again the next week, March 19th, I was not able to attend because of a conflict but looking at the minutes there were five projects approved on the consent agenda, five

Projects approved with conditions for certificate of appropriateness and one preliminary review.

And looking through the minutes for both meetings, there was nothing really to bring forward to the planning commission of concern.

The third meeting I attended was the tree commission on April 2nd.

There that meeting was mostly taken up with a discussion with several neighborhood development services staff.

It was an explanation and running through the process for approving site plans relative to trees.

Not only their review and

and comment, but also then during construction, their protection and preservation during construction.

We had staff members from the site plan review, from utilities, traffic, the standards and design manual and inspections all there.

The only other thing to note is that Arbor Day is coming up, April 26th.

and it will be celebrated at Market Street Park at 10 a.m.

There is a large basswood at the corner of East Market Street and First Street where the ceremony will be held and this is a city ceremony in combination with the Charlottesville area tree stewards and with the tree commission.

Thank you.

I attended a full committee meeting of the Housing Advisory Committee.

We discussed the joint session.

Probably the most substantive section was discussion about the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund funding and budget, which has been much discussed recently and is part of the budget.

At that point there was discussion about funding it at $1.5 million.

It looks like it ended up being funded at $0.8 million, which is still helpful.

A lot of discussion about funding that's already available to subsidize

Affordable Housing that just hasn't gone out managed by the CRHA, the Charlottesville Redevelopment Housing Authority.

A lot of discussion about how to get that money out and helping people instead of just sitting in an account.

Possibly needing a new institutional support or some non-profit, possibly new government entity to make the money flow.

There was discussion about the April 11th impact annual assembly.

We got an update from UVA talking about a new 400 bed housing project, all students that's going up for bid in the fall, another first year building in planning after that, which overall about 900 beds coming, which I'm excited to hear.

Also, Counselor Hill indicated that there would be no additional special use permits approved for student housing on West Main, which I haven't gotten clarity on yet.

Okay.

Good evening.

I don't have anything to report today.

I also attended the Transportation Advisory Committee on the 20th as well as the Housing Advisory Committee as well as the Transportation Advisory Committee on the same day.

Lyle did a great job with the housing.

It was a well attended meeting.

Transportation, they were, the most interesting thing was a lot of discussion about rotaries.

And I thought that was a, I was interested anyway.

So those two meetings attended as well as I'm serving on the Unity Days committees which are meeting every other week.

Great.

Well, I can report that the Who's are national champions.

Go orange and blue.

There's a traitor in our midst.

I attended an MPO tech meeting where we discussed the potential fates of the $18 million left over from some of the 29 solutions funds.

So there's been some talk about this with the Hydraulic Small Area Plan Committee, where they would like to see it used for the Xan Road overpass, which will be a pedestrian bike and vehicle link across 29 at Xan Road,

connecting Stonefield and the Seminole Square Shopping Center.

That will cost about $25 million.

So there's about $7 million left after that extra $18 million.

That would have to be split by the city and the county.

And then the city would prefer that we instead spend the funds on a left turn lane off of 250 onto hydraulic.

Thank you.

Mr. Mitchell.

Our university rep is in here.

Yes, I attended it.

It was a good meeting.

I think we should report that you did a fine job chairing the last commission meeting.

Greatly appreciate you stepping in.

Sorry, I'm a little under the weather, but I think y'all, I heard you did a fine job, so thank you.

Since then I've attended, since the last time I was here, I've attended two TJPDC meetings and a couple other meetings.

But the TJPDC meeting at this point is, we had several discussions on the upcoming budget for the year and also the

personnel evaluations and performance reviews for the executive director and looking at they have gotten a couple of they're doing some restructuring on the planning and the transportation planners there as well as they have some vacancies there so you know anybody?

Regional planning job.

I feel like they've got a couple open that they may be looking to fill.

We also looked at the

FY20 Rural Transportation Plan, and a lot of this deals with the rural areas, Louisa, Fluvanna, Green, Nelson, so sometimes they're a little bit different priorities than what we have.

The one thing that exciting did come out of the meeting last week was that the regional housing study has been released.

It's a pretty thick document.

I haven't gotten all the way through it, but it'll be part of the discussion in the first Thursday in May meeting at the TJPDC.

So I'm looking forward to having those conversations.

It was done by some of the same people that did our Charlottesville Regional Housing Study, and some of our data was used in there.

That is what I had.

Other committees that I was afforded the opportunity to be on the

We are hiring one of the interview committees for the new city manager and so I guess maybe not it was not the biggest news yesterday since the Who's did win the national championship but we do have a new city manager that has been hired and has accepted and will begin May 13th and so that's that is exciting news and I think maybe more to come on that

and then we are still waiting for some more information regarding the RFP for

Housing Needs Assessment, and the remainder of the land use plan.

And some of that information has come from me, so hopefully we're going to get some of that very soon.

And I haven't heard lately, but we've had several discussions about the new position that's hired as a long range planner.

Still haven't heard on that.

So I'm waiting to hear when that's going to close and maybe what will happen with that.

So stay tuned.

Don't worry.

All right.

I can't talk that in any way, but that's OK.

So our April work session we thought would be on standards and design manual.

But as they were working with the consultants and looking back through the scheduling for that, there is to be a community discussion prior to a meeting with council and the commission and other

groups so they will not be ready for April but they're looking for different dates to to do that in the future so we'll see the May session maybe prime for that but as of right now there is not an item on the April work session and so that's just you know

a placeholder at this point in time.

We talked a little earlier about a code or a bylaw allowance that allows for the commission if they so chose to move the regular meeting if it falls on an election day and brought the attention of the June 11th primary and the commission

We'll need to provide some guidance on that so that any logistics for the meeting for June can take place.

Otherwise we're still in hiring process for some of our open positions and so we will hopefully be filling some of those soon so that we can, so I can do fewer jobs.

Does this, the discussion on the June commission date, you want to move that to the end of the agenda?

It's totally up to you all.

Now, Madam Chair, I'm sorry but I, I, Hosea reminded me about Fontaine Avenue and there is something I would like to announce that

For the Fontaine Avenue Streetscape Improvements project there's going to be an open house for the public where preliminary plans and concepts are going to be presented and that's going to occur Thursday April 18th

at the Charlottesville Fire Department, the fire station there on Fontaine Avenue from 5.30 to 7 o'clock.

So please, anyone who's interested in that section of Fontaine Avenue between JPA and the bypass, please come to that meeting and let your opinion be known.

Thank you.

Mr. Christie, I want to go back to one other thing.

That is my understanding.

So they as they were regrouping with the consultants about next steps, they went back to the procedure that was outlined by council and they requested meetings on a community wide basis first and then a meeting with the commission and council jointly.

Okay.

Well, I know at this point it's not going to be on April 23rd.

That is about all we know at this point.

All right.

At this time on the agenda, it's matters to be presented by the public, not on the formal agenda.

We have one public hearing this evening, the Bellevue subdivision utility facility.

I'm going to assume that most of you are here for that.

So for this portion of the meeting, stick tight.

You'll have your opportunity to speak on that when we get to the public hearing section for the meeting.

But right now, if you'd like to come forward, if you have something on your mind, not on the agenda, not related to the Bellevue subdivision utility facility, you can come forward.

You have three minutes and it's your time to speak.

So I'll open the public hearing or the

matters from the public.

Is there anyone that would like to speak?

If not then I will close matters by the public and we will move to the consent agenda.

We have two items of the consent agenda minutes from March 12th and from March 5th.

We have a motion to approve.

Second.

Opposed?

Please note that the consent agenda has been approved unanimously.

The next item on our agenda is the joint meeting of the commission slash council.

That's what I was about to bring up.

That's okay.

We have the, huh?

I'm getting all kind of help.

And I have had some amnesia, no I'm just kidding.

But if we could have a discussion.

So for the public, the discussion that we're having is that in our bylaws that we do have a section in there that if our meeting falls on an election day that we can vote to move that meeting to the next available date.

We did have some conversation in our pre-meeting about keeping that as is or moving it and if anyone would like to have some conversation about that now we can do so or the consensus that I think I heard is that we keep it as is since this is a primary and not a major election in November.

So I have a motion to keep the date as assigned for June 11th.

I have a motion and a second.

Do you need a roll call or a voice acclamation?

So if we could vote on that by voice acclamation.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed, no.

Please note that that motion carries unanimously.

We didn't have a caveat that we'd keep that as a light agenda.

I had to put that on record, sorry.

So, we still have five minutes.

Very quick, yeah.

Do you think we can get the projector?

Nope, that's not quick.

It's one jiff.

So we're not live feed?

You guys are lucky.

All right.

So this you might recognize is Fry's Spring.

It's particularly close to my heart because this is the neighborhood that I used to live in.

I used to live right over here on Moseley Drive from about 2013-2015.

What we can see is that in 2013 in Fry's Spring we have about five big parcels of vacant land that are platted out as streets and ready to develop and we can see that these are starting to fill in and now I've colored each of these parcels

to reflect the assessment of the value of their house.

The lightest yellow is 150,000 and the darkest red is 450,000.

And we can see that between when I lived there in 2013 and now, three of these have started to fill in and will be almost completely filled in I think by the end of the year.

And every single one of these new houses that are coming in are significantly larger and more expensive than the existing houses.

and one thing we can see here is that many, if you go look at the zoning map, this is not the zoning map, this is the zoning map.

All right, so we can see that many of the places and many of the parcels here in Fry's Spring that were built a long time ago were downzoned in the 1991 downzoning, including my old home, a duplex here on 502 Moseley.

So,

The legal requirements that we have put into place on these vacant lots and on non-conforming buildings are causing this growth in new housing to all be extremely high end and changing the character both in built form and in income level of this neighborhood.

So I think that we, as the Planning Commission, seeing that there are about two or three big vacant parcels left in Fry's Spring, all of which have been transacted in the last two years, that are getting ready to be built and we're going to permanently put in place some future for this neighborhood, I believe that we should do what we can to see that those new developments fit the existing

value and built form of the neighborhood.

Therefore, I move to initiate a zoning text amendment to up zone or to redesignate 34 non-conforming parcels and 33 vacant parcels in Fry's Spring from R1 to R2.

There's a definite procedure that we need to follow.

That was to rezone things from R2 to R1.

So it's different parcels entirely.

So those were mostly affecting these along Crestmont and Cleveland and Shripling, I believe.

And so the ones I have in question are these nonconforming duplexes over here along Cleveland.

These nonconforming duplexes, including the one I used to live in on Moseley and then vacant parcels over here on the Paper Keen Street on Flint,

So Madam Chair, an intriguing idea, but I think something like this does require one work session.

It also requires public input.

Not quite.

So Rory is correct.

He may make a motion to initiate a zoning text amendment and request staff to study it.

There would not be a time clock on it.

That only applies if city council refers something to the planning commission.

And then the study process would also require a review of land use patterns and that sort of thing.

While I can't tell you what the schedule is, I know that there is an upcoming RFP that's about to be issued to have a consultant assist the city with updating the comprehensive plan.

So you might consider, certainly it's fine to look at it, you could develop some information to be given to the consultant, but you might also consider as part of studying it whether you

And now that the motion is on the floor, I'd like to note I did consider waiting for the comprehensive look and full update of the zoning map.

But at this point, you know, the RFP is out.

We'll still have the comprehensive plan process.

You know, as Alex said earlier this year, we're looking at about two years, three years until that happens.

And as we can see, and I

I would have had a graphic for this, but all of those vacant parcels have been transacted recently and are likely to be built on before that process ends.

Sometimes what you have done after the initiation of an amendment of this nature, which is to correct a situation that people are worried about,

You, after it's initiated, you have said, let's talk about this in a work session and see what information there is.

But you are also correct that before it could be considered officially by the commission, it would have to be typed up, framed up, staff report, public hearing, all that sort of thing.

Right.

What is the process right now with the motion and the second we vote?

If we vote not to do this, does this crash and burn?

Because I'd like not to see it crash and burn.

I'd like to take our time and think about it.

Well, this is just to initiate the process of studying it.

So if we pass this motion now, then we have time to consider it.

What I heard is which sections are we initiating?

As I understand the motion, it's a request to reclassify zoning parcels within the Fry Springs area from R1 up to R2 and which Mr. Stolzenberg has given you a general description of the parcels he'd like to see included

If I may amend my motion to be less specific about these specific parcels and instead widen it to initiate a zoning text amendment and study it in order to

Redesignate parcels so that the future development of Fry's Spring is more in conformance with the existing patterns there.

And is that approved by the second?

Are we in discussion?

We're in a discussion about something that we've been blindsided over, so I'm a little bit, we've got counsel here now.

I think that's a great idea.

Move to table my motion?

Based off of, again, information where this was going to be quick.

We had five minutes and it's not quick.

We'll move this to the end of the agenda after our agenda items.

We do have a quorum of council if I could have either the mayor or vice mayor gavel in.

Thank you so much.

The first item on the agenda.

or the item on the agenda for this evening that has actually been advertised is SP 18-0009 Bellevue subdivision utility facility sanitary pump station landowners

Core Azalea LLC and Azalea Cottages LLC are requesting a special use permit, SUP, pursuant to city code section 34-420 to allow construction of a utility facility, sanitary sewer pump station, to serve the following properties, tax map and parcel,

20-121, 20-125, 20-126, 20-129, 20-142, 20-144, 20-145, 20-147, and 20-148 collectively.

to be considered the subject property.

The subject properties are zoned R-1S residential small lot and have frontage on Bellevue Street.

Currently an unimproved platted street as well as an unimproved alley and are directly accessible by a stub out on Azalea Drive.

The subject property includes approximately 6.8 acres and

Landowners propose to construct up to 49 single-family dwelling units within the subject property, density of approximately 7.20 dwelling units per acre.

The topography of the site does not allow for standard gravity-fed sewer service.

The comprehensive planned land use map for this area calls for low-density residential, 15 dwelling units or less.

Madam Chair, Planning Commission, Matt Alfele, City Planner, Neighborhood Development Services.

As the Chair stated tonight, you're going to hold a public hearing on a public, on a sanitary pump station

for the subject of property.

This started about a year ago.

This planning commission, one, held a meeting on a proposed subdivision to answer outstanding questions.

Again, the commission had a preliminary discussion on December 11th regarding the sanitary pump station.

The applicant is requesting this as to tie into a gravity fed system would require going further south to tie into the azalea system.

They are proposing a sanitary pump station with an easement to the west.

to collect the sanitation, the sanitary sewer from the proposed Bi-Rite neighborhood and pump it up into the city's gravity fed system.

And again we have the Utilities Department is here tonight because there's going to be I believe a lot of technical questions maybe the Commission has.

There's been a lot of discussion about HOAs.

It looks like we're talking about a 20-year bet on an HOA.

How common is it for a HOA to survive 20 years in this city?

Is that a reasonable bet?

I don't think staff wants to speculate on how long they exist.

We do, the city has HOAs.

They're tied to a lot of different type of projects.

PUDs is probably the one you're most common, probably familiar with, where an HOA is formed to maintain not only stormwater systems, but maybe just to maintain open spaces, different things.

So in a city our size, we are fairly small.

Our HOAs typically are smaller.

You do see typically larger HOAs that tend to do better as far as, you know, you're talking about 200 homes.

So they're able to have a board that's constantly turning over.

You're not getting burnout.

Smaller HOAs do tend to have more of a problem.

I would say more in the 25, when you have HOA's about 25 or less, that becomes kind of a problem.

Thank you.

Can you help me understand what happens when one of these units fails?

And some of this I am going to refer to utilities because this is a complicated issue.

There's several different things going on layer wise.

We're talking about land use, but there is a very important technical component in the utility side.

I'm not going to speak to that end if utilities can speak to that from a land use side.

You have a violation of your SUP and there is a system for that that goes through zoning.

It would follow any pattern as far as any zoning violation if you are not following what was approved in the SUP.

Now again, that's just the land use side.

Just finally, reading through the packet, I see some suggestions for how to kind of manage the risk here, which I was very concerned about.

We'll get into discussion in a minute.

I think we might want to have that.

But are there any more questions for staff?

And when do you want to bring up utilities, during questions?

Well, why don't we, this is questions.

I'm glad I'm trying to figure out if it qualifies for land use.

But I believe, please verify, Matt, the pump station, the lift station, is on a private property?

Yes.

Correct.

So the way our code is written, you have the use matrix, 34, 420.

And this ties into subdivision two.

Basically, you have to have a lot that has a habitable use on it.

So the development could not set aside land for the pump station and even the stormwater retention devices because when it serves the entire development that's still not possible to set aside a piece of property in service of the development would be owned by the HOA I presume.

Only a PUD can do that.

So that's not the developer's choice.

That's the city's requirement.

That's the code.

So the closest organization, HOA-like group, that I'm aware of that does anything like this is the Lake Monticello.

And that's actually outsourced to AQUA, but it's still within that.

When staff looked into it, we couldn't find anything at this scale.

Everything was either really large, run by the local utility company.

And that's going to get kind of technical and I'm going to, the applicant might want to speak to that too as far as what they would do if you didn't get, if they did not get the SUP.

There are other options that utility can speak to.

I think that

Let's try to keep this to questions now so that we can get through the public hearing because I think there's going to be a lot more questions raised once.

And then I guess we can have a point of order how you guys want to handle it, especially since it seems to be complicated.

So we can do the questions from a staff now.

We can hear the presentation by the developer owner.

And then we can, if you've got more, hear the public.

If you've got more questions at that point, typically we go into conversation or discussion at that point.

But it may be something because of the complexity of this, we may want to have some more questions.

Oh, I see only one head nod.

Yes, no, maybe?

Okay.

We have no further questions for staff.

And remember in the pre-meeting we had a conversation about our purview

I guess there is one.

The creek that runs through there, where does that creek empty into?

Does it empty into Moore's Creek?

There's a little stream.

Yes, the water that runs down there goes through Zellie Park into Moore's Creek.

How far away from the stream is the, is it like 50 yards, 10 yards?

It's pretty much right next to it.

Unless it failed.

That's a question.

Unless it failed.

And Matt, in the write up for this application it states, the topography of the site does not allow for standard gravity fed sewer systems.

And are these easements always done just through private transactions?

Not really in a domain.

So we typically, we, and utilities can speak to this later, we don't put in a lot of, so the developer would put in new lines.

If you build a new subdivision, you're putting a new line, city would come back and accept it.

You built it to our standards, we accept it.

I'm not aware of where the city has come in and said we are going to take

an easement for a new line.

Now there have been cases where, especially through subdivisions, we have old lines that easements were never dedicated.

And then so when the sewer system was originally put in, were those lines all running through consenting property owners' parcels?

Oh, geez.

There's a reason you know anything that's coming forward now for Greenfield development it's because there's a difficult situation it wasn't easy and now we're left with land where things are not easy and so

As things get more complicated, that's where more applications such as this come forward.

Thank you.

Please stand by.

If the applicant would like to come forward.

Hang tight.

We will remember you have 10 minutes for your presentation.

Well, yes, and I say this is largely for the benefit of those that are out behind me or watching, curious about this.

We had a discussion about this a few months ago.

This is actually kind of an unremarkable thing.

It's weird that Charlottesville doesn't have more of them because it's pretty hilly terrain here.

I'll give you an example.

At Wintergreen, on the mountain side alone, which is obviously hillier than Charlottesville, but it's much smaller, there are 26 pump stations there.

of pretty similar size to this.

So it's maybe unusual for the city, but technically this is not really a weird or complicated engineering feat whatsoever.

So I'll get a quick overview of this.

I think probably an overview and certainly the neighbors I think would be familiar with what the site is.

It's yellow there.

Page 10, page over.

What happened to Roy due to this thing?

But this is a part of the study we did.

One of the things we do is we look at the capacity of the sewer system to make sure it has available capacity for our lots, for the pump station.

The pump station there is in red, a little square at the downhill most portion of the site.

In yellow are the sewer lines.

Those would be privately maintained within the neighborhood.

They drain by gravity down to the pump station, which I'll show you a picture of in a moment, and then are pumped up the hill 300 feet or so to the existing sewer line Monte Vista.

It's a little blow up.

You've got to get a sense of the lot.

Lot 1 is the lot that has this sewer pump station on it.

It also has a storm water and I draw this important point here because talk about HOAs and what their responsibilities are and things like this.

Well, that storm water advantage system has to have a fund to maintain that as well.

That is probably a three to four hundred thousand dollar system that has to be maintained and potentially replaced.

if there was ever a problem with it.

So the HOA has to put aside money for that.

Every HOA, that's why we have HOAs in the city now.

Even though it's not common like lots, like open space lots to own, everybody has these storm water facilities to maintain.

So any neighborhood, whether you have five lots or 100, has an HOA and has a cost obligation to that.

This pump station is probably a $50,000 item.

So in the scale of the other obligations of the HOA, it's actually quite small.

This is a typical schematic of what it looks like.

The pump sits down in a wet well, a manhole, basically.

The sewer enters, gravity flow gets pumped up to the gravity flow.

There's floats in the wet well, it's potentially a big manhole.

It fills up, a little float kicks on, it's this pump, pumps the sewer up the hill.

When it drains out, it stops, and so it cycles on and off, depending on the load, every few minutes throughout the day.

Scale reference for you, again, the point I'll make this is this is really a pretty small thing.

The pump that sits down in the well is about that size.

There are two of them.

In case one has an issue, the other one kicks on and someone goes and pulls it up and inflates it so it's got a backup built in.

All the pump stations are that way.

Here's what you're looking at is the pump station.

So if you're walking past it, that's what you see.

It's a manhole, just like a sewer manhole, a little larger.

It's got an access port on it that stays locked, and then a control panel.

These are kind of more commercial-type settings.

We would do a control panel in a little building, probably like that one on the far right, the little blue shed.

So in that backyard, there'll be a fenced-in area, a little shed like that that has control panels in it.

And that's basically all you would see or ever know about this pump station existing.

Questions that came up in our neighborhood meeting are about the smell, and that can be a problem on older systems that aren't equipped with the correct technology of the day, and you can do an air pump and a diffuser to avoid that.

It's cycling frequently enough avoids that.

You would not smell this pump station.

There's also option for filters and other things that can take care of any potential odors from the vent pipe.

Again, that's really not something that we would expect to be an issue.

Noise is a little diagram of it, just to give you an idea.

The pumps sit down in water.

They're electric pumps.

So maybe if you stand right on top of it, you might hear the pumps running, but that's basically it.

If you were in the house, in the yard around it, you would never know it existed.

There is a backup generator.

That would be a natural gas generator.

It would be sort of like one of those house ones that would be part of the system.

So if the power ever goes down, the generator kicks off, the natural gas powers the pump station until the power comes back on.

And that's the details of this thing.

Again, it's a very small system.

Once it's built, I don't expect anyone will ever know it's there.

There are a variety of safeguards built in as far as redundancy of pumps, the backup power, the HOA will have a property manager, and one of the requirements I think in the conditions of staff laid out was a yearly inspection report.

That's typical of what if the city owned this, they would do an inspection and file a report on any locality would.

So the conditions are basically making sure it operates as a municipal system would.

So that will be returned to the utility department to verify maintenance and otherwise it just gets built.

It operates and it's part of the infrastructure.

It's very common.

It just happens to require a special use permit in the city and that's why we're here.

You'd have to either acquire easements to go to the sewer downstream, which

possibility or this might require a different kind of permit.

You could in theory build a wastewater plant on the property and actually treat the wastewater there and discharge it.

That would be lawful in the state code and maybe a different kind of permit.

The owner sent out letters to all of the 11 or 12 downstream properties.

And no one took him up on that offer.

He only got one or two responses back.

So there was letters sent out, but no response.

Have you considered raising the price?

Well, I don't make that decision, I guess.

There's a cost to build the sewer down there as well, right?

So if you have to build that distance, it's a cost to development.

And another thing I guess I'd point out, these pump stations understand that gravity sewers can also have failures and sewage out.

In fact, the city has improved this greatly, but when I first started 15 years ago, I stumbled across a sewer on St. Clair that had a hatch in it.

When the sewer got full, it opened up, and the sewer went out into Meadow Creek, and you could see a trail going down.

So in many ways, I think the pump station has a lot of safeguards in it for that situation.

A gravister doesn't.

And again, the city does a very good job maintaining these things, more so now, I think.

But if the gravity sewer gets clogged up, somehow somebody opens a manhole and drops a ball down or whatever, something gets stuck in there, that sewer will actually back up and can pop out the manhole

And now, because there's no warning for that sort of thing, whereas this has all sorts of safety catches on to say, hey, we're not pumping.

A light goes off, it alerts people.

So there's a lot of safeguards built into this kind of system that, you know, I think just, you think about comparing to gravity need to be taken into account.

I don't think we're thinking it's a worse system.

Yeah, the maintenance, right.

And then I just had one other question, sorry.

That's fine.

Our HOA will hire a professional operator who will turn in a report to them at least every year, probably more frequently.

So we would just turn a copy of that into the city as well.

So you mentioned other HOAs to maintain stormwater facilities, which you said are about eight times more expensive.

It doesn't really tell us a lot unless we know how much more often or how much less often those fail.

Well, the cost cycling is 20 years.

So the HOA puts enough money every month into a fund, and in 20 years, it can pay for the whole cost or placement.

The lifespan of this should be way longer than that.

We've used the wintergreen example.

Almost all those pumps on the mountain are original from 40 years ago.

So what should happen is they should end up, by the time they need to do something, they should have twice as much money as they need.

So the life cycle is just a

You take maybe the expected life cycle and cut it in half so you're more conservative in how much money you put aside.

Any other questions?

A question about how the 2,500 figure, so letters went out to nearby residents saying, hey, can we have some space to run a sewer line under your property, $2,500 to do that.

Is that a standard number?

No, it varies.

That's pretty typical.

We usually would offer a few thousand dollars for an easement.

Keep in mind that, what, 10 of those.

So the cost of the easements alone would be about the cost of the pump station.

Right.

Oh, sorry, I'm off my...

It would be about $25,000 for those.

Oh, yeah.

You said that pump station cycles frequently during the day.

I don't know if I have that in this PER.

Well, if the power goes out, the generator kicks on.

But just the pump station by itself, if

Bless you.

I've actually only designed one personally.

I didn't design this.

There's a couple in Louisa.

We did one small one in Fluvanna somewhere.

Okay.

And so,

Office use, so I'm there during the day, I'm not there at night when it's time for bed or things like that.

So it's day use.

So give me a sense of what the failure mode looks like.

So you have single redundancy on your pumps.

Is it both pumps die, just kick it for the last time?

They need to both be replaced?

The pumps can be replaced one at a time.

So it has basically sensors in it that alert someone.

It's got an auto dialer on it, right?

So if something goes wrong, it calls the technician automatically.

So if one pump goes, someone will be alerted and they would go and basically change it out.

They would inspect these things frequently, too.

So you would typically not have a situation where both pumps fail.

If somehow that happened, it would kick on a warning light, it would call somebody.

A couple options at that point.

One is you can cut the water off the neighborhood, then people can't flush the toilet, the sewer stops running.

But more likely you would just bring a pump truck in and every day or so you just pump the wet well out.

and that would, until the things are fixed.

Well, I guess I would have to say it depends on

The water authorities, for example, they keep them in stock.

I'm sure whoever operates this would be the same way.

You would essentially have a, some kind of licensed utility operator has this.

And they would probably be maintaining multiple pumps around the area.

And so they would have the sort of... What other pumps are there?

Oh, there's lots of them in Albemarle County.

Gotcha.

Any in the city?

The city, the only one I know, it doesn't work anymore.

It used to be one over in the Willen Mills neighborhood,

The self-storage place over there.

There is an old pump there.

There was a gravity sewer put in, I don't know, eight, 10 years ago.

Actually, I think because the lots across the street were being developed.

There was a PUD, so this came up on Twitter not that long ago, on the Franklin side.

And I think those developers built the sewer line with the idea of building houses over there.

Lake Monticello has a bunch of pumps and actually Aqua Virginia prefers the pumps over the gravity because they don't have as much problem with the inflow from runoff.

So when you do new work over in Lake Monticello they actually want individual pumps for houses.

could you avoid that?

But yeah, Lake Monticello has them, Winogreen has them, Albemarle has a number of them that are municipal, I'm sure there's lots of individual ones too.

There's this one on, we worked on years ago on Burkemar Drive near the SPCA, there was one there, so probably a similar size to this.

So there's a house in Lake Monticello that's got one of the grinded pumps in the backyard.

In just about every six weeks, something goes wrong with it and it alarms.

The alarm's really loud.

There is an audible alarm, yeah.

This is much more industrial grade.

It's not like a small one in someone's house, right?

I suppose they have to call the utility technicians.

They're 24-7 on call.

They couldn't shut it off remotely?

The siren?

Probably so.

It's a siren?

I do not know.

I know they had trouble because structurally their setup was not good from the beginning.

Yes.

I have a couple okay, sorry

So Mr. Schiff, you mentioned that there would be a professional firm maintaining the lift station.

I think it's in the conditions that the staff, but for one, it's a state law that has to be done.

And then I think the zoning, let me see, that got put as a condition.

Just has the inspection.

That would be the city utilities folks when this report is turned in every year.

And what is the annual maintenance for this kind of thing?

And then what other kind of maintenance cycles are there?

Five year, 10 year, 15?

Well, the pumps are pretty frequently maintained.

And it's like typical mechanical maintenance, right?

You've got fittings to be greased and that sort of thing.

The pumps themselves have kind of a

A grinder of sorts in it that it's effectively replaced, like the pump is pulled off and that piece is replaced periodically.

So it's basically part of the inspection.

As required, it might depend, not necessarily annually.

Yeah, you probably would, on a monthly basis, cycle that on for 10 or 15 minutes to make sure everything is running with it so it's ready to perform.

Those are also industrial grade.

And anything else about the pump operation that requires maintenance?

Well, you basically would know if any of that wasn't, you know, what worked, because they get, the guys that go by to inspect it will be to look at the status of things, right?

It's got little lights that tell you if everything's working.

But then also, I think you would know, like, the auto dialer type thing would, if it wasn't working, for example, you would know that.

So, yeah, it's not, the electrical panel wouldn't really have any maintenance to it.

It's in a building, so it's out of the weather.

Say the generator tube being a building out of the weather.

Well, whatever odor if it had any might, you know,

The smell might be experienced if it goes around it based on the topography, from the low area versus like up on top of a ridge.

But we don't really expect it.

What if you find out it does after you install it?

There would be more mitigation.

So that would only happen if somehow the aerator that was supposed to work for it wasn't performing right.

Somebody specced the wrong size.

That would have to be replaced.

This is not new or advanced technology so people know how to do these where they work.

And so you showed us dual redundancy on the pumps.

Why not go with triple redundancy to make it even less likely that none of them fail?

It's just not the standard.

I don't know that top of my head, actually.

I don't think so.

It probably could be done.

All I got.

I'm going to ask one quick last question and we're going to move on, but please stay tuned because after all this we still may have more questions.

With last year's rainfall, I do know that they had some problems with the rainfall in Lake Monticello with these pumps, but with the recent rainfall, how would that affect the overflow or anything like that?

With the water being as

I mean with the ground being as saturated as it has been over the past year.

No, the only way, so what happens, like Nachella, one of their problems are that, not the pump station, but upstream in gravity sewer, there's a manhole and a ditch, something like that, right?

Water goes into the manhole and causes the pump to overflow because it's overwhelmed its capacity.

But no, as far as like, the system is sealed tight, the manhole is.

So it's not like groundwater doesn't have any effect on the pump itself.

Water getting into the system

So that part of the study we did, if you read it, it was 30-some-odd days of testing where we looked at the capacity of the interceptor sewer line down by the Morse Creek we would eventually tie into.

And some of that does peak as rainfall occurs, because in your system you still do have some infiltration.

So it does affect the main sewer line.

Thank you.

Is this pump station in a floodplain?

And second, if you were to deed this to the city, would the city accept it?

Well, to answer the first one, no, it's not in a floodplain.

And the second one, that would be the city's

In the HOA structure, there's no intention to ever dedicate the sewer pump or the storm water systems to local government.

But I've heard you say that some HOAs do do that or some developments would deed it to a city.

And parks are often deeded to a city in a development.

It's not impossible.

Well, again, I can't, that would be, honestly, that would be the right city council's call on accepting it.

But as far as does it meet the city's standards, we've turned in our preliminary design to the city utilities folks.

And as far as I know, it does.

They can speak to that more.

But the comment we received from them was, even though it's private, they won't let us build it without meeting their standards.

So we'd expect that.

I know there's a lot of people here tonight and potentially for this I apologize at the beginning we did have one item deferred the Flint Hill PUD has been deferred by the applicant and that may not be heard until May so if you are here for that I apologize

You've gotten to hear a lot of sewer talk and you may not have wanted to.

So, at this time, I'll handle it.

Thank you.

Anyway, we have several people on the agenda to speak and maybe some of you didn't get signed up but we did have a sign up sheet.

I'd like to remind you that you have three minutes to speak.

There's a little light system here.

The green means go, the yellow means you have 30 seconds and the red is please wrap it up.

Hello, I am Jess Wenger.

Many residents of Fry Springs have significant concerns about the proposed special use permit for the Bellevue Sanitary Sewer Pump Station, which will be located in our neighborhood.

I spoke before you in December at the Planning Commission's preliminary discussion of the special use permit about our initial concerns.

At the time I was speaking on behalf of an organized group of more than 30 concerned households, I am now the first of five speakers speaking on behalf of an organized group of 86 households, many of whom are represented behind you and whose letter you have received.

We will now speak about some of our concerns in turn, and the topic I will cover, the topics I will cover are odor and the environment.

The proposed pump station is sited next to an active stream channel.

While it's not shown on a USGS Topo map, as Matt has already hinted at, it is shown on the city of Charlottesville's GIS map and the city of Charlottesville's local waterways map.

There is year-round flowing water there.

This means that the underground pump station could be installed in saturated soils which could lead to problems with groundwater infiltration and subsequent sanitary sewer overflows if the wet well is not sealed or installed properly.

These sanitary sewer overflows would flow through neighboring backyards, through the Azalea Park wetlands, and eventually into Morris Creek, which is already impaired for bacteria.

In addition, the proposed siting of this pump station is in a stream valley, which as we touched on earlier, odors will linger.

Odors can linger due to topography because the proposed site is approximately 34 feet below the elevation of Monte Vista Avenue to the west and 24 feet lower than Azalea Drive to the east.

Given the topography, the odors will be particularly pronounced during atmospheric conversions.

Many municipalities require a study of predominant wind direction before a sanitary pump station can be installed.

In this case, with the pump station being surrounded by houses on all sides, there's no question that residents will be impacted by odors.

It's just a matter of which residents will be the unlucky ones.

There are many engineering solutions for odors from sanitary pump stations, as the engineer has touched on.

And on surface, these sound like a great option.

These engineering solutions range from carbon filters, which have been proven to be ineffective in many installations, to chemical treatments, which attempt to mask the odors.

Please keep in mind that each of these engineering solutions to the odor problem does not actually solve the odor problem.

These filters and chemical treatments are either attempting to absorb the smell or cover up one smell with another smell.

They do not eliminate the actual odor because they don't remove the cause of the odor.

Raw sewage smells.

And it smells even worse when the conditions become anaerobic, which can produce the rotten egg odor of hydrogen sulfide.

And OSHA lists both short and long-term health effects from exposure to hydrogen sulfide on their website.

If you look online or speak to utility operators who maintain these and other municipalities, you'll learn odor is a common complaint.

While it's easy for someone who does not live in the neighborhood to say it's no big deal, it doesn't take away the fact that there is an odor.

And the fact the Woolen Mills pump station that was mentioned earlier was actually removed due to odor complaints.

Oder is a big deal considering the proposed pump station will be completely surrounded by current and future Fry's Spring residents whose homes, property values, and potentially their health could suffer if this pump station is installed.

Thank you.

Joelle.

As stated, my name is Casey Joelle.

I am here before you on behalf of this group to express our concern that the sewer pumping station is proposed to be privately owned and operated.

Per the draft provided by the developer in declaration of covenants and restrictions, the homeowners association will be responsible for common maintenance facilities.

This includes the proposed sewer pumping station and in addition, sewer lines, retaining walls, and storm drainage facilities.

According to Robert Nordlum of the consulting firm Association Reserves, as many as 70% of these HOAs are undercapitalized.

We believe that the relatively small size of the proposed HOA, the scope of its responsibilities, and the unknown timeline for project completion places this HOA in the more than likely position of being undercapitalized.

Any failure of this pump station may result in a human health hazard.

We believe that expecting the HOA to own, operate, maintain, and have sufficient funding to completely replace one of these systems is unreasonable.

We believe it is in the best interest of the community that the developer be required to provide this commission and council an assessment of the envisioned capital adequacy of the HOA, not only in an expected case,

but in a case that contemplates unforeseen circumstances.

At a minimum, this should include a reserve study and sample capital budget.

These submissions should then be made available for public review and comment.

We believe that this review is a prudent requirement to understand and manage the risk not only for those who live or will live in the immediate area, but for all city residents as they may be asked to fund remediation of

in the case of failure.

Lastly, there have been preliminary discussions in these chambers where it has been suggested that in the case of HOA failure, the city will assume responsibility for the sewer pumping station and make its own assessment to homeowners for the cost of maintenance.

There is no guarantee for this and we don't see how this could easily be reassured given the number of unknown factors.

Thank you.

Hi.

Thank you.

When we received the letter from the city about this application, it stated that a gravity-fed sewer is not possible for this development given the topography.

That statement is not factual as you asked the question.

It is possible.

Matt Alfele confirmed that in a conversation with me.

A gravity-fed

Sewer was recommended by Ray Nestor in his original response to the development.

He said that the city prefers a gravity-fed sewer for this development.

It is still the best long-term solution.

The reason for this application is because Core Azalea LLC did not procure easements from the adjacent property owners on Monte Vista because they didn't offer an amount that was commensurate with the value of what they were seeking to purchase.

So the reason they aren't doing it is for cost savings and Mr. Shimp confirmed that.

The reason they won't do a sewer is because it costs too much money.

So this isn't ultimately a cost saving measure for the city.

It's a measure to maximize the profit margin of this development.

The City Code Section 34-157 sets the general standards for when to approve or deny special use permit.

It asks whether the proposed use or development will have any potential adverse impacts on the surrounding neighborhood, such as dust, odor, fumes, and other factors which adversely affect the natural environment.

There's more in that section and it is worthy of review because this application seems to contradict not just one but many of the guidelines in that section, noise and smell in particular.

In the application,

The applicant says that you wouldn't smell it unless you were standing on top of it.

I wanted to verify the validity of this claim, so I called a sewage plant manager in Chesterfield County who was employed with the wastewater utility for 37 years.

He told me he's responsible for 32 of these pumping stations.

He laughed when I read the statement.

He said the most common complaints they get about these pumping stations concern the smell and the noise.

And as Jeff mentioned earlier, every solution only masks the smell.

When I asked him about his experience with smell mitigation, he said,

It amounts to putting perfume on the sewage.

The smell is still there.

It's sewage.

It stinks and there is no solution to that.

So this application, when they say it doesn't smell, there's an intent to mislead you all on the fact of the smell because a profit margin is at stake.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I want to thank all the members of the Commission for this hearing and this opportunity to present our concerns.

My name is Sam Johnston.

I'm an environmental attorney.

I'm a property owner whose property in the Fry's Spring neighborhood borders on this proposed project.

And I want to make a couple of general comments in reflection of sort of the general purpose here, which is to provide information for the public.

And I've heard a lot of very good questions from the commissioners, and I want to thank you for those questions.

I have not heard

I'm not particularly satisfied with a lot of the answers in terms, and so basically I want to say we need more information.

You know, particularly with respect to the impacts.

You know, in any environmental assessment of a project like this, the public has a right to know what the impacts are going to be and how those impacts will be minimized first and then mitigated.

and you know one area of the impacts and I note that the chair has brought up this issue of rainfall which we had a very extensive rainfall last year and in my opinion you know we need to have a much more detailed analysis of

The cumulative impacts of the peak flows which are foreseeable in combination with rainfall from climate change.

We all remember the rains from last spring.

That level of water is expected to be dumped here again and so the impacts of this foreseeable water and sewage runoff from this project need to be analyzed.

We need to have those peak flows quantified.

We need to have them determine what the impacts will be on watersheds, on wildlife and on the neighboring values.

In that regard as well, I understand Moores Creek to be an impaired waterway.

This was brought up before.

I'd like to see more analysis of that.

It was troubling to me to see staff hesitate to call the waterway that is going to be impact really possibly destroyed by this project to call it a stream.

I think it's a stream.

I think it may well be a federal jurisdictional water.

which would implicate federal law and that's something that needs to be taken into consideration.

And I would note that the city's, quote, input for Virginia's phase two watershed implementation plan dated February of 2012 calls for, among other policies, maintaining the designation of a 100 foot riparian buffer on the city's three main waterways.

One of which is Morris Creek.

So if you're going to maintain a 100-foot riparian buffer on Morris Creek, it only makes sense to maintain, I would say, at least a 50-foot buffer on a tributary to that creek, such as would be impacted by this project.

So in conclusion, I would urge you to maintain and remember your duties as trustees of the public trust to maintain the values of the public trust and the public health.

Thanks for this forum.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak for you guys tonight.

I guess I'm the lead organizer.

For everyone that came here to support the concerns that the preceding speakers spoke to, can you please stand up?

So the community is engaged, thank you guys.

Yes, Jason Bishop.

Thank you.

106 Azalea.

So I don't have any technical comments for you, but I just wanted to state that I've spoken to a lot of people about this development and nobody is in support of a development like this.

It's simply not in concert with the surrounding neighborhood.

Look at this diagram.

Look at the size of the houses relative to the size of the lots for the proposed development.

And look at the already existing lots and their houses.

This pump station is another way that is not in concert with the surrounding neighborhood.

There's not another one in the whole city.

So we appreciate this forum.

We're going to act freshly.

We're going to state our concerns in a concise way.

We certainly could have everyone in this room come up here and give you guys an earful for three minutes.

We're not going to do that.

But we do want you to take your consideration seriously.

Thank you.

Good evening commissioners and councilors.

I'm Susan Quinn.

I live in the Fry Springs neighborhood.

I'm a member of the board of the neighborhood association and I'm here to read a statement from the neighborhood association.

The Fry Springs neighborhood association FSNA

welcomes appropriately designed infill and the new neighbors that it brings.

The FSNA respects the rights of property owners to pursue all legal activity on their private property while recognizing that some activities can result in negative impacts elsewhere in our community.

Regarding the application for a special use permit for the proposed Bellevue development, which the Planning Commission is discussing tonight,

The FSNA and the community we represent have concerns that a sanitary sewer pump station could have long-term negative impacts on the adjacent properties and the neighborhood.

Specifically, the FSNA has five concerns.

One, odors are a common issue with sanitary sewer pump stations and siting the pump station in the valley will result in lingering odor.

Two, the planned location has a high water table evidenced by naturally occurring springs

and any flaws in the construction would allow water in, potentially resulting in failure and overflows.

Charlottesville City Code does not currently specify best engineering practices for installing a pump station.

That was number three.

Number four, Charlottesville City Code currently does not allow city utilities to step in if the pump station fails, a situation which could result in the release of raw sewage into the backyards of Fry Springs residents

the adjacent Azalea Park and Moore's Creek, which is already impaired for bacteria.

Number five, maintenance and replacement of the sanitary sewer pump station are planned as the responsibility of a homeowner's association.

If the HOA does not plan its finances properly or fails, the city may be forced to take action, potentially incurring substantial cost to city taxpayers.

At the very minimum, approval of a special use permit to allow the installation of sanitary sewer pump station should be delayed until the necessary regulations are in place to address how the city will handle cost, operation, maintenance, and replacement of a pump station located on private property should the HOA fail.

In summary, given the site conditions and the lack of appropriate code to address contingencies,

The FSNA does not support the proposed solution at this time and urges the commissioners and the city to deny the permit.

Thank you.

That is everyone on the list that has signed up.

Hi, I'm Stuart Wilson.

I live at 318 Monte Vista Avenue.

I also worked for 35 years with the Rivanna Warren Sewer Authority.

I wasn't directly involved, but one of the main problems that we would get complaint-wise from the citizens

Right after the actual treatment plant themselves was pump stations.

Aeration doesn't work.

Try filling a bucket with sewage.

and blowing through a hose and tell me how much better it smells.

And we tried also carbon filters.

Those are pretty ineffective as well.

From what I understand, there is a chemical solution that can aerate the water without

Agitating it and setting it up aerosols and all those other things.

I believe it's called bioxide, but I'm not 100% sure.

Rivanna has started using that at a lot of their pump stations.

They've had, especially out at the Farmington Country Club pump station, they've had many, many, many complaints.

And from what I understand, they've gone down significantly with that use.

I would also like to say that when I bought the house almost 30 years ago, I knew there was a subdivision platted in there.

I had no idea it would require a pump station.

Unlike the folks in the Woolen Mills,

who bought houses in an area with an existing pump station and didn't stop whining about it for years.

These folks didn't have that choice when they bought their houses.

I guess that's all I really want to say, but also noise can be a problem too because the air compressors is what makes the most noise, not the sewage pumps, if they do use the air compressors.

Thank you.

My name is Christopher McQuail and I'm a licensed professional engineer, wastewater engineer, and my family has property on Monte Vista.

Just two things to draw attention to.

It was discussed the idea of having a package plant to treat the water and then discharge, I guess, to the creek at the bottom of the hill.

Odors from that would only exasperate the problem.

If you're worried about a pump station, it's going to be worse for that.

The other thing is

The discharge to the sewer line on Monte Vista Avenue, the hydraulic capacity for it to receive water coming from a pump station I would raise a lot of questions about.

because it wasn't really designed for that.

Usually systems are slightly over designed but that would be a red flag.

I'm not saying it can't but that would be a concern that ought to be looked into.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Thanks very much.

My name is Nomi Dave.

I live in the Fry Springs neighborhood, and I would like to speak about our experiences as residents with living just in front of the Porter Avenue development, which was the most recent development that's still ongoing in Fry Springs also.

initiated by Andrew Baldwin.

And there's two points that I would like to address based on our experiences, our interactions with the developers.

Number one is the lack of transparency on their behalf, and number two is the lack of enforceability.

It seems to me from this meeting today that the development wants to try out an experiment in Fry's Springs and we've been told to accept their assurances that there won't be a smell, that there won't be very much noise, etc.

And our experiences with the developer in the case of Porter Avenue were exactly that.

We were told that there would be a four-way stop sign put on JPA.

That never happened.

We were told that the tree line would be safe behind our house.

That never happened.

So there's a consistent problem of lack of transparency.

The other point that I would like to make is about lack of enforceability.

The neighborhood development services today address the fact that if there is, for example, a failure in the system, then zoning regulations kick in.

There was also the point brought up about annual maintenance reports that the developer is obligated to make to the city.

However, I'd like to point out that neighborhood development services themselves, both in a private meeting with us as well as in a city commission meeting, admitted publicly that they do not have the enforcement capacity to actually enforce some of the regulations that are in the books.

In the case of the development behind us, we were told that city code regulates that developers must keep 20% of the tree canopy.

and that if they cut down trees then they're obliged to replant so that 20% of the canopy is maintained.

We asked that, we were told that that was confirmed.

However, the developers cut down all the trees, never maintained any of that canopy and have continued to violate that code.

And when I brought this up at a city commission meeting in front of Neighborhood Development Services and Andrew Baldwin,

regarding this new development, Neighborhood Development Services threw their hands up in the air and said, sorry, we don't have the capacity to enforce these regulations.

Thank you.

Thank you.

My name is Peter Reitmeyer.

Just wanted to urge you to do a little Google search on a place called Lake Holiday Estates.

It's in Frederick County, Virginia, Cross Junction, Virginia, about 15 miles north of Winchester.

It's a planned unit development, HOA with a terrible, terrible track record.

They have their own private utility.

They have all of the equipment that they have talked about today.

And for probably 15 years, it was a colossal failure.

And that was not due to bad planning.

It was due to disaffected voluntary board members, of which they had 15 on their utility board and 11 on their HOA.

That development was taken over by a special commissioner for Frederick County.

Chuck Alton was in receivership for about three and a half years before they ever got it straightened out.

Colossal failure.

So if you are inclined to believe that 41 homeowners are going to do their due diligence with collecting

Funding to provide for future reserves for this I would encourage you to look again.

Thank you Is there anyone else that would like to speak to this application?

Seeing none I will close the public hearing and We can

To go into discussion or if there are any more questions, we'd like to take five or ten minutes.

If you want to make a motion.

Is there any questions that anyone else would like to ask?

We can do that if you have questions of them.

I think they're here for questions.

I have questions for utilities as well.

Let's do another 10 minutes of questions and then go into discussion.

I'm Lauren Hildebrand.

And I've also got Roy Nestor here.

We do not have standards for a lift station in our standards and design manual because we do not maintain any, currently we do not have any pump stations.

Yeah, currently Department of Environmental Quality has statewide regulations that we and others have to follow and the short term is SCATREGS.

It stands for Sewer and Collection and Treatment Regulations and they are regulations that were developed by the state that set

And do you have the expertise within your staff to be able to review this design against those state standards?

We do.

And why wouldn't the city go ahead and take this over and do a lift station and take this on themselves because it's not only for the development of 40-some houses, but it's also the neighborhood.

Well, it takes a little different expertise to maintain a pump station than a gravity-fed system.

So the expertise is a little different than our typical operations staff that

It would take someone that's familiar with a control system, electrical systems, mechanical systems, so it's just a little different skill set than we would have as part of our operations staff.

So I know within our area we actually consulted with Albemarle County Service Authority today and they have certain

Lift stations they maintain within their system, but they have people that are trained with those kind of skill sets.

But they also, with that said, they don't maintain all the pump stations.

Some of the pump stations within Albemarle County are also private.

There's several out in the Crozet area that are private pump stations.

Yeah, I used to work for an authority where we had over 60 pump stations within our system and actually it was a large regional waste water treatment plant provider.

We also maintained

over 10 wastewater treatment plants within our authority.

And they do emit odors.

The whole philosophy behind sewer systems is they kind of breathe a little bit because you don't want them, you know, like you might walk past a manhole in a street and it'll have little holes in it.

and they're designed to breathe a little bit because if they don't breathe then they can generate a lot of dangerous gases that can blow things up.

Great.

Thank you very much.

There's a question about capacity in the sewer line.

Have you looked at that?

We have looked at the capacity of the adjacent gravity system as well as the, along Azalea, as well as the system they're proposing to pump to and it is an eight inch line, generally eight inch lines have capacity for about half a million gallons and this development will generate on the average, not peak,

about 20,000 gallons per day.

So it has enough capacity.

Where we have to be careful when you design a pump station, you don't want to hold too much back and then

Pump too much flow all at one time because that can be odorous.

There was also a question about the shape of the land.

This is sort of a bowl and odor.

Does odor linger?

Does it spread?

I don't know if I can speak to that.

I'm sorry.

I don't know if I have an opinion.

I've sat back and I thought, yeah, probably in a low-lying area you probably are going to hold some sort of voters, but I don't know if I am an expert to speak to that.

Thanks for coming up and chatting with us.

We thought a little bit about that and I think we would set up something where, you know, I have actually developed some additional language if you decided this would move forward.

to be a little more stringent from looking at their HOA documents and making sure they had the right wherewithal to finance future capital improvements.

And also, if you'd like to see them, I can propose that at this point.

Do you think that's appropriate?

I'm Lauren Hildebrand.

Ms. Hildebrand, can the chair let me know if this is out of order because I like being in order but is there any way that you could read these so that the public could also have knowledge of what we're looking at?

Yeah I'd be glad to.

Correct, correct, correct.

So I just made some, in the first two recommendations there's just some clarifying information in the existing conditions.

One is it doesn't enclose the pump station action, encloses the SCADA controls, the shed does to the pump station.

I also added a word force main because it's not really a sewer main.

from the pump station to the gravity sewer for one of the second recommendations.

I added some additional language in the operations and maintenance condition where regular maintenance will be conducted by a qualified contractor that is approved by the director of utilities.

Regular maintenance will be conducted to avoid an adverse impact on the city's sewer system.

and then some additional proposed conditions.

The design will incorporate the Department of Environmental Quality's sewage collection and treatments regulations as well as provisions designated by the Director of Utilities as deemed necessary to assure that there is no negative impact on the city's sewer system.

The next condition would be during operation of the pump station.

In the event the city's public sewer system experiences a negative impact caused by hydrogen sulfide or any other cause, then the HOA will be responsible for the cost of repairs and remediation of the adverse impact to city system.

If these repairs or remedial actions cannot be made in a timely manner determined by the Department of Utilities,

Director of Utilities, then the connection to the city sewer system will be terminated for the development.

The next proposed condition is the landowner shall provide the director of utilities a copy of the HOA documents to allow the director to verify that the provisions within the documents are adequate to ensure that the HOA will be responsible for all costs and has all necessary authority to make assessments to landowners within the development to cover all costs of construction, operation, maintenance, and repair of the pump station.

At no time shall the City of Charlottesville be responsible for any costs associated with construction, operation, maintenance, or repair of the pump station.

The next proposed condition is if a sanitary sewer overflow occurs, the overflow must be reported by the system operator to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality within 24 hours, and then the system operator must submit to the Department of Environmental Quality a five-day follow-up report.

This is something that we're required to do if we have a sanitary sewer overflow within our system as an operator.

Does the city utility have a TAP fee established?

I know you're

Well, we have what's called a facility fee, which actually is intended to handle the capacity, additional requirements for the capacity of the system that currently developers pay.

And that's set up by the size of the meter or what's called the equivalent residential unit.

Well the facility fee is applicable to the water meter that is set at the houses and then it has, the facility fee has a water component and a sewer component and the intent of that facility fee is to

Thank you.

Yeah, you mentioned the standard and design manual.

There's nothing in it now.

I understand that's undergoing revision.

Actually, we're having, as part of utilities, we're having certain discussions about what we're going to include in that standards and design manual, and then the more detail

Gotcha, okay.

And then a few commenters have mentioned that

There aren't laws in place in our current code for the city to adequately manage this, especially in an HOA failure scenario.

Are there parts of other cities' codes, whether in Virginia or outside, that are more comprehensive in how they handle pump stations?

This is a special use permit.

All the special use permits fall under the zoning ordinance.

Right.

It probably varies you know a lot of places if there's a gravity solution that's what they would they would prefer rather than having a pump station installed because usually that's long-term maintenance from an electrical standpoint and just a regular check you know I know where I used to work we would always want to take out a service a pump station

Gotcha.

Okay.

Mr. Mitchell.

So based off of what Mr. Stolzenberg just said, these are not typically occurring in cities, especially in urban environments, which we are under creating, correct?

Because what we've been hearing is that they're in Louisa, Fluvanna, the county.

And so you're saying that the city doesn't want to take that on because of the long-term maintenance cost.

What I haven't heard here, and I know we've got several commissioners, Mr. Stolzenberg being one, very concerned about affordability of houses.

Well, I don't know if it's applicable, but I do know in the authority I used to work,

a contractor that would regularly maintain household pump stations.

And they were usually for government agencies that did not have staff that could do this for them.

And generally, the cost ranged, it's probably about $2,000 a month to do regular weekly checks on a pump station, make sure everything's working, make sure the audible alarms are working, the generators run.

The pumps are greased or whatever regular maintenance they have to do at that point.

But that's what they would charge to do this.

I think it was $50,000.

Yeah.

For it to replace the pumps?

$50,000, $300,000 to $400,000 to replace pumps.

So we've got pumps, maintenance, and then potential whatever else may happen.

And I do recall, so we don't really know what monthly cost that might cost a homeowner on top of their

Well the people I'm familiar with, of course it's not in our state.

It's upwards of $200,000 a month to maintain a pump station.

$2,000 a month.

That's not an addition to anything else.

And then in the future, if this were to fail, we have a defunct homeowners association

which I'm going to have comments on that in a minute being in zoning for 18 years.

The only way that utilities could get involved is if it's a public health issue, typically, where we are expanding our system.

One last question.

Your number six additional proposed conditions and we kind of had a little bit of a chat about this in the pre-meeting.

If this were to fail and the homeowners association did not have enough money, maybe they've been preparing but it was just more than they thought, they did not have enough money and we've got leaking

Sewage.

This condition at the bottom says then connection to the city sewer system will be terminated.

What I heard you say in pre-meeting was the water will be cut off so we'll have homeowners in their home that they've purchased.

Well, the only way you'd be able to stop the health hazard would be to stop the water usage.

Right.

There's a process for that.

That's certainly something I can answer, but I don't have it in my head right.

I realize it's a much larger system.

Well, that was actually at the treatment plant.

Right.

And I think it was close to 10 million.

Okay.

Council, do you have questions?

Since we run a gravity system that's what we would prefer.

Typically my experience with pump stations has been you don't site them very close to the houses because they can be odorous.

I'm just really concerned about the homeowners losing access to a system or the only way that we can mitigate the issues is to turn their system off, which I think is very different from

You know, we're not turning the entire apartment buildings or communities off at the same time.

It's different than just not paying your bill because they're paying HOA dues.

I have a question for Ms. Robertson.

There was a recommendation from the public that we require financial disclosures from the HOA to see that they can actually take care of this thing, that they have the money to do it.

I don't think we can do that under the zoning regulations.

We have asked for copies of the homeowners association documents.

Those are in your packet.

They do confirm the obligation.

There's some statutory in Virginia obligations for homeowners associations.

The members of those associations have some fiduciary obligations to actually impose assessments and

Obtain Enough Capital Reserves, all that sort of thing.

That doesn't mean they'll do it.

I certainly understand all of those comments.

I have a question for Mr. Chairman.

Yeah, I guess this is for Lisa.

Sorry, the treatment plant comment reminded me.

We heard mentioned just briefly that an alternative for this is an actual sewage treatment plant on site.

Is that all right?

I know the answer in my world but it is still zoning.

There are a number of different ways.

If something is presenting a serious issue, one way to do it is to go to court and seek an injunction to either preclude somebody from doing the thing or to require them to do a thing.

So this scenario where we've got a problem, the HOA has been people that bought in, they've been putting money in, the problem is much bigger than we thought.

Now we've got to, we've got spillage, we've got to cut the water off.

What is the timetable to get a zoning case into court in the city?

Well, legally, to get that case through the court would take quite a while.

I will say that the remedies for that sort of thing are going to be quicker under the public utilities and public health codes.

and as Miss Hildebrand referred to even within our utilities chapter if an individual homeowner has a problem with their service lateral and it's causing a backup in a public sewer or something else it's a smaller scale but a similar process that landowners responsible for resolving any problems that are occurring within the portion of the line they're responsible for

And if that starts creating a public health situation, there are remedies in our utilities code that include on occasion shutting off someone's water or potentially going to court to require them to make the fix.

So it's not an unusual situation.

There are health codes and utility codes that allow it to be dealt with.

And I will say that we are seeing all over the city the other type of expenditures.

I understand all of the issues with this particular expenditure, but

We also have obligations under an MS4 permit and many, many substantial storm water facilities are being installed in common areas to be maintained by homeowners associations and in those situations if those fail that's also a substantial burden and we've got to start thinking about how that's going to work.

The issues, I don't have an answer for you.

There are some legal remedies even within the development.

If the members of the homeowners association aren't performing their fiduciary duties, the people within the development can bring private actions against those individuals.

Leans are placed against properties for charges that have been assessed but not paid.

Sometimes you have a situation where everybody's doing what they're supposed to do, but

People aren't paying their assessments.

There can be special assessments which can be done quicker than routine annual assessments as necessary to cover unexpected expenditures.

So there's a variety of options.

These types of associations are used for a number of different types of improvements, and we see them a lot, but certainly the nature of this type of system, because it's so different than what most people are used to.

I'm sorry, do you mean the individual homeowner that owns the lot that it's on rather than the other 48?

Probably not under the HOA arrangement, but there's also something called a private nuisance.

You suggested that in other areas, more rural areas, there's a certain amount of space between a pumping station like this and other residences.

And we would always have it where it would be the, it's always at the back of the subdivision.

It's in the low line because everything has to gravity feed to it.

So, I don't know.

Generally, I don't know.

I can get back with you on that.

Let me think about that if that's okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

Okay so any more questions and we can go into discussion and or a motion.

So municipalities that are utilities all over the state especially a growing state is finding ways to develop.

We have housing issues in Charlottesville and we're growing.

So I'm one that has a high level of confidence in what they call alternative systems.

Old municipalities have gravity systems because that's what the technology was a hundred years ago.

but all over the state alternative systems and pumps and all these things have been happening and I think this permit not excluding that our utilities should begin exploring what that looks like because that's what you do when you have a growing population.

Is this an alternative system or a way to pass the extra cost owned to the property owner?

I believe gravity systems are better but they are becoming less and less mandatory because there's more and more people.

So I think Charlottesville, if we don't have contingency plans for

This is a place where the easements have not been won.

This may be the first special exception before the commission but it won't be the last.

Well I guess my rebuttal to that comment would be, Charlottesville is only a 10 square mile radius as it is, so I don't foresee us growing but so much more anyway to necessarily need this up.

And as far as the review goes, we want to have, we want to

That's why I think our utilities need to provide us with where we're going in 10, 20 years because I think you are going to grow.

And so it's going to look like that.

This is not an alternative system.

This is a rural system.

Exactly.

And there are systems in place in old municipalities that are also utilities.

Where you have to say, how are we going to accommodate a higher population?

But we are passing along cost.

Yeah, it's illegal.

So it's a special exception.

And yeah, I think that's a great point that we should probably allow more density in places where you don't need stuff like this.

This is a special use permit.

And it won't be the last one we see, especially as the population stress continues.

And so I think we need some kind of study that says where are we going to go so that we don't have to have special use permit after special use permit after special use permit.

I would bet my house that we're not going to need special use permits for this because people are going to tie into the city utility system so that the city can use this.

We are creating an urban environment.

What we are talking about doing with this special use permit is putting a rural

System in an urban environment because the developer doesn't want to pay potentially the cost.

And I'm agreeing with you.

I just don't want to always be talking to developers.

I want our city utilities, and we all live here, to give us some guidance as we look 10, 20 years into the future.

And I think that's a great thing.

This won't be the last.

Are you all mad at those 10 selfish property owners that, like, I mean, I get that $25,000 is a low ball and they could ask for more money, but they didn't even respond.

And now they're going to force this on all of them?

I should do that at them.

But let's go around and around.

So I'd like to make a motion if I may.

Why not?

Yes, please.

I do.

Yes.

I do have one discussion and I know I'm playing devil's advocate here but somebody has to.

I am very concerned with the impacts that it can have on the surrounding neighborhood but I'm also concerned with how do we develop this property.

Absolutely, because if we are not going to approve the sub-pump or whatever the correct name is, I'm going to call it the pump, and the property owners will not, regardless of whether he offers or whoever owns the land offers what they offer, or they increase the offer, if the other property owners will not grant them the easement, then where do they go from here?

Do we just not develop the property?

That's rude.

So my question is, is I am not, I'm pretty much against the pump because of the impacts of the neighborhood.

But at the same time, are we just going in circles?

Because if he's not going to get the easement, or regardless of who owns the property, how is it going to be developed?

Absolutely.

You're absolutely right.

But

You have to take a look, and this is a zoning issue.

We're putting utilities in a zoning issue.

So let me give you some context.

So for those who don't do zoning know what we're talking about.

When you put this in a zoning issue, and we're talking about passing along this cost.

I have a house.

I own a house.

I've owned it for 17 years.

I have a city easement on it where a developer came in and wanted to chintz out.

Half of my property is washing away.

Guess who's going to have to absorb the cost?

Do you know what the cost is?

I don't have an HOA.

So somewhere, aside from paying my kids college, I'm going to spend $20,000 because we allowed a developer to come in here and do a

Cheap Way Out.

Now you all sit in these commission meetings day after day after day and we talk about density, especially you two.

Density, density, density and affordability.

We are not making these lots affordable by having this system put into place and you're right.

they could rezone it and make more lots and more density but we need to tie into the systems that we do have that we do know works that the city is going to maintain and not pass these costs alone along to these property owners who I guarantee you because I do it every single solitary day are happy homeowners they're coming in they want to go into Fry Springs and I promise you they're not reading all the content.

Guess what?

That's not our fault.

That's not the developer's fault.

But it is the nature of new homeowners.

They have no idea what they're signing on at all until it fails and somebody comes to you and now you've got 50% of your mortgage, 50% of your, we know it because we just got a housing assessment.

People are paying 50% of their earnings on housing.

and they don't have $20,000 laying around.

Probably they don't have $1,000 laying around.

I think we can come up with some solutions for that.

I think there's a way to do that.

I mean we've got a lot of different plans and we've got a lot of different things in the city.

Maybe some of that come along and says we're going to make an entire affordable and we get some money from the city to do an affordable housing throughout all that.

How awesome would that be?

I don't know.

I just think you want alternatives.

And that's what I'm trying to say.

And folks, y'all may have clapped, but you're not going to like this.

That's going to develop.

That's right.

Look, I didn't want CityWalk to develop.

That's all I get to see now.

But it is.

It did.

Mr. Creasy, will you call roll?

Ms. Dowell?

That is all we have on the agenda for the public.

The agenda that we have gotten in front of us that was posted.

Okay.

Is it to, what is, let me word this correctly, what is your goal?

I know you said to go from R1 to R2, is that to create more densities so we can create more affordability?

So about 34 of the parcels I have in mind are already single-family attached and they're non-conforming so I'd like to just bring those into conforming status because it seems unreasonable that they've been down zoned like that and the remaining ones are exactly that yeah is that right now we're seeing all these really large really expensive half million dollar new houses pop up in Fry's Spring which even though the northwest part of Fry's Spring is really expensive that's not really what Fry's Spring looks like

It's mostly $150,000-$200,000 houses and as is, those giant expensive houses are all you can build and that doesn't make sense if we want to have homes that people can afford.

I guess I get that, but I also, and not to say that we shouldn't do it, I'm just trying to throw everything out there, but that's like a general thing going on across the city.

It's not just Fry's Springs, that's everywhere.

Everywhere we turn, there's this new development that is not affordable.

80% AMI is not affordable to the city.

Yeah, I mean I don't think it is fundamentally different and I mean I'm sure you know I want kind of broader zoning reform too.

I think what makes it, why I'm bringing it up specifically now is the sort of sense of urgency I see because like of those five vacant greenfield areas, all of them have been transacted or are just about to start getting stuff built on them.