Board of Architectural Review Meeting   8/20/2024

Y'all ready?

All right, let's get started.

It is 534 according to that clock.

Welcome to this regular monthly meeting of the Charlottesville Board of Architectural Review.

Staff will introduce each item followed by the applicant's presentation, which should not exceed 10 minutes.

The chair will then ask for questions from the public followed by questions from the BAR.

After questions are closed, the chair will ask for comments from the public.

For each application, members of the public are each allowed three minutes to ask questions in three minutes to offer comments.

We'd like to ask everybody to please speak from the podium over there.

Speakers shall identify themselves and provide their address.

Comments should be limited to the BAR's purview, that is, regarding only the exterior aspects of a project.

Following the BAR's discussion and prior to taking action, the applicant will have up to three minutes to respond.

Alrighty.

Our first agenda item is actually Tyler Whitney has moved on up to Boston.

So we need a new co-chair or vice chair.

Do we have David?

Great candidate.

And a second.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Congratulations, Mr. Vice Chair.

Yay.

All righty.

I'll let the record show Mr. Timmerman has been elected as the Vice Chair.

All right.

Our next agenda item are matters from the public that are not on our agenda or on the consent agenda.

We have two attendees on Zoom at the moment.

Oh yes, thank you.

We do have some new members to the BAR.

Jerry Rosenthal's over here.

He's the owner of a historic property in the downtown historic district.

Right.

And Kate Tabony?

Yes.

Yes.

It was just appointed last night by city council.

She's got a conflict this evening, so won't be able to sit up here with us.

But we welcome both of our two new members.

and as a commercial to, we have Mr. Dastinger's term is up the end of the year.

We'll be looking for landscape architects.

So get out there and shake the bushes.

We'll have some good candidates later.

All right, I'm assuming we don't have any other matters from the public, not on the agenda.

Alright, our next item is the consent agenda.

Do we have any members who would like to move anything off of the consent agenda?

I didn't realize that Cabell Avenue was on the consent agenda.

I wanted to remove one of staff's recommended conditions or at least discuss that.

No, that's okay.

All right, so the consent agenda will currently consist of the meeting minutes from May 21st and Zero Park Street.

Just to make clear, the motion to accept the consent agenda is a motion to accept the recommended approval as noted by staff for Zero Park Street, and that includes the bracketed last part of the sentence.

All right.

I'll just call for a board vote.

All in favor.

All right.

All right.

The consent agenda passes to include May 21st meeting minutes and zero Park Street.

and this is, actually came in as a building permit request and got circled back to me.

This is 627 Cavill Avenue, it's in the Rugby Road, University Circle, Venable Neighborhood, ABC District.

It's a 1930s house.

This is an addition onto the rear addition to the 1930s house.

We're not sure when it was constructed.

It's after the 1960s.

What you're looking up in the top left is

looking north, so the 1930 section on the right and then the addition to the left and the new porches will be added around the backside which would be the north elevation of that rear addition.

Nothing in this is problematic.

The materials are fine, location is fine.

There are, I will note, some questions about the setback that need to be resolved with zoning.

So to be clear, approval of the design is not a clearance of any zoning setback issues.

and in the, there's a couple conditions that I recommended, four of them and if you had any question about them, you can discuss them with Caleb, I know he's online.

Caleb, are you there?

I am, yes sir.

Alrighty.

Let's see.

So first, do we have any questions from the public?

Sure.

Alright.

Any questions from the public?

Okay.

So my question was, staff has recommended a condition that the deck boards be tight fit with no gaps.

And I just wanted to make sure that that was okay with you.

My understanding is that if they're tightly fit, like a tongue and groove flooring, you'd have to find a way to drain the deck, potentially slope it.

And I didn't know if

just want to confirm that was okay with you.

It's not a I don't think it's a to me.

And I was going falling back on, you know, when people have asked about treks and that's been our our standard.

I agree.

This is not in a location.

It's not something I need to replicate a historic porch.

But if it were spaced, that's fine with me.

You might might would be simply that the

The fastener system occasionally requires some spacing, but I understood from the BAR's requirement that we would be using square-edge boards.

So in that case, we would only have a very, very small, like 8-inch max expansion requirement between the boards.

I would still, we still have total apartment.

It's my understanding for a slow way from the building to be very minimal.

So it would not be, you know, specifically for watershed.

Yeah, I mean, I guess my question is really if you guys are okay with staff's condition or not.

And if it's

I think what you're describing sounds fine to me.

Would you like to make a motion?

I can go ahead and make a motion.

Okay.

Having considered the standards set forth in the city code, including ADC district design guidelines, I moved to find the proposed two-story porch at 627 Cavill Avenue satisfies the BAR's criteria.

It's compatible with this property and other properties in this ADC district.

All right, I'll call a vote.

Mr. Timmerman?

Aye.

Ms.

Lewis?

Aye.

Mr. Schwarz?

Yes.

Mr. Bailey?

Yes.

Mr. Gastinger?

Aye.

Mr. Rosenthal?

Yes.

And chair votes aye.

Quickly.

All right.

Caleb, you're all set.

Thank you.

All right, so we're now moving to new items.

And Julie's online if you can elevate her.

So this is

Ito 9, Locust Avenue.

It is within a conservation district, and as you all know, much lighter touch on things within an HC district.

We are primarily looking at changes that are visible from the street.

So given the grade of this and the distance from the road, we're looking at this front elevation.

The house is circa 1947.

It is contributing to the district.

However,

The exterior has been altered significantly since the survey was done

photograph.

The I would have likely had this as consent.

I'm not sure I would be comfortable.

Well, it could have had a consultant or consultation with the chair on it, but I elevated it

because it is a little bit unique.

I thought it would be helpful to with our two new members to see a couple things.

So Julie, forgive me for for using you as a, you know, to help demonstrate the BAR process here, but staff has no issues with it.

Well, do you all I'm sorry, I know we're

dealing remotely, but do you all have any questions for me about what we're showing here and what's the rationale for my recommendation?

Essentially, the building's been so altered that this additional alteration

I wrote in my narrative description, but I'll reiterate it here that our our belief is that this gives this house a much stronger street presence.

And what it's attempting to do is is actually work with this.

Gosh, what do we call this style?

Spanish, California, something something.

So we're trying to stay within that page.

And

were doing that with the use of clay tiles and the stucco exterior that the current house has.

So in a way, we feel like we're beefing that up a little bit with this addition.

And the increased and frankly, more appropriate scale of that center of volume, I think will really improve its relationship to the street and the surroundings.

Okay, thank you.

Maybe.

Yeah.

Do we have any questions from the public?

Do we have any questions from the BAR?

Do we have any comments from the public?

All right.

I think my one concern is just that there's no front door facing the street.

But then again, there wasn't to begin with.

So yeah, they're not making the condition any less compliant in that sense.

Yeah, there is sort of the, the entrance is sort of off to the side at the one end.

I was sort of, of the same mindset, Carl, I feel like I don't, it's tough to put my finger on it, but something on that front elevation, maybe even a horizontal belt course or like, I just don't know.

It feels like it's missing something.

Yeah.

No one even sits in the front door just something.

But I think your point is taking Carl also.

Having considered the standards set forth within the city code, including the historic

H.C.

District Design Guidelines.

Is that right?

Historic Conservation District Design Guidelines.

Second.

Thank you.

Call the vote.

Mr. Timmerman.

Yes.

Ms.

Lewis.

Aye.

Mr. Schwarz.

Yes.

Mr. Gastinger.

Aye.

Mr. Rosenthal.

Yes.

And chair votes aye.

Thanks, everyone.

Appreciate it.

Appreciate you all.

Thanks.

Alright, our next item is Seven Gilder Sleeve Wood He's not online He's not here So, we can

Take apps in his absence.

That's fine.

I talked to him and up.

Okay.

There, he will not be here.

He's probably flying a jumbo jet somewhere across the Atlantic.

I don't think he's available.

If there were questions, or if you all were going to deny, I would suggest deferral if this is

All right.

Is it simply redoing that front entry?

Correct.

And so this is, sorry.

Let's stick to our process.

Right.

So this is the property of Seven Gilder Sleeve Wood.

It is within the O'Courts Gilder Sleeve ADC district.

This is, the house was built in 1955.

It's actually the most recent house of the, I think it's 60 properties in the DADC district.

Most of them date into that 1920s, 1930s period of UVA expansion.

So this is a later house within the district.

Entrance feature that you see in the photograph is what's there.

They would like to build a portico, have somewhat of a sheltered opening.

And I don't have it in this image, but it would be kind of a typical porch coming out from the wall.

So it would be removing the pilasters and the arch pediment that you see over the red door.

We're staff supportive of it because there are looked at a lot of colonial revival houses around town.

You see both types, some with the entrance feature with the arch, you know, pediment over and some with the extended portico.

So it's not what is being proposed is perfectly appropriate for the house.

The question would be, is removing the existing trim of

and Michael Koch.

One, the house is, yes, it's on the National Register as part of this district.

I don't believe it's eligible for individual listing.

It's not the work of a master architect or a master craftsman.

No historic events associated with it.

So in terms of significance of

This is a house where something famous happened and somebody famous designed it that doesn't exist.

Adding this portico would alter the front, but it would not be irreversible.

It's not the only example left of this as if this is something unusual.

That's not the case here.

So in that regard and in the conversation we had earlier, it's possible these were architectural drawings left from the and the applicant brought them in.

They are very old.

It's very possible.

These were designed with the house and just never realized when it was constructed.

So

I don't have a problem with the alterations.

Any other questions for staff?

Good timing.

The architects gave three different renderings.

The previous owners agreed on the one that they advanced to blueprints.

And that's actually the same style we liked as well.

So it would be very similar to what is shown there.

The changes being we replaced the stairs many years ago.

So the stairs that are depicted in the pictures will be

Captain Place, and instead of having a bull nose, they're just regular square brick stairs.

The dimensions are just a slight bit wider.

and then the other change, we're planning on doing this without railings and we're under the impression that to codes it does not require railings and we've never had railings in 25 years so we haven't fallen off the landing yet so

So that would really be about the only change other than that standing seam roof, which will match our existing house.

Current storm door is just about to fall off the hinges.

We're going to replace that with a exact replica, but in mahogany.

I believe that's known as a Richmond storm door, as I've understand it.

And there's a fabric wood shop in Richmond that makes them.

But other than that, it will be pretty much exactly as depicted there Questions, comments on any of that?

It's a little bit of a background when the neighborhood first went to historic district standards in the review of each individual house.

It kind of stated that ours was not contributing to the historic nature and it was built in 1955 and is somewhat newer than most of the rest and over the years we've tried to

Add some details to make it look a little more historical.

We put the standing seam metal roof on it.

We built a stone wall out front that ties into the stone walls and the rest of the neighborhood.

So we've done a few things to try to integrate it more into the historical nature.

of The Neighborhood, and we plan on staying in that house till they haul us out in a box.

So 25 in, and we may be there for another 25.

All righty.

We did.

The existing pilasters are rotting in places, and we do want it to be just slightly wider.

So we considered that, but we kind of felt like trying to pull those off and move them out might just have them disintegrate and they're in pretty rough shape as they stand.

One of the reasons we're doing this whole project is everything's been out in the elements for 70 years now.

Yeah, there are no close-ups, but the fillisters actually have disintegrated in the bottom.

Yeah, there's some patchwork there.

So yes, we did consider that.

And then one other question, it might be a slightly leading question, but you said you're going to match your roof with the standing seam metal roof.

That's what we have on the existing roof, yes.

What about the light?

Yeah, currently you have the side light and I believe in one of the architectural drawings that has a hanging light hanging from under the apex of the ridge line.

So with moving the columns out slightly that will

What are the rules on railings and

Since they're proposing not to put one, we're not going to rule on what it should look like or anything like that.

Yeah, this came out with Don Dougal at Salislone University Circle.

His insurance company actually made him install railings.

So I worked with him on a real simple basic railing.

Jeff sent us a sample.

And it's similar to the railings you see at UVA.

And if it were required by insurance or code, we'd be happy to do that.

I mean, pending how this turns out, if that is a requirement, that could probably be approved administratively by staff.

Any more questions from the VAR?

All right, we'll go to comments from the public.

Nobody online.

Okay.

I can make a motion.

Yes.

All right.

Go ahead.

Mr. Timmerman.

Hi.

This is Lewis.

Hi.

Mr. Schwarz.

Yes.

Mr. Bailey.

Yes.

Mr. Gastinger.

Hi.

Mr. Rosenthal.

Hi.

You're good.

Our members, thank you very much.

Jeff, thanks for all your assistance.

All right, outstanding.

That was super easy, super quick.

Thank you for your professionalism.

Tell your friends.

Go celebrate.

All righty, thank y'all.

All right.

We still got one more.

Next item is 316 East Main Street.

Alright, so this is 316 East Main Street.

This is the South elevation, the Water Street elevation of the hardware store that's on the mall.

The back, the South

Entrance has become, you know, somewhat of a retail entrance.

I'm not sure when the door, the commercial door entrance story you see there was added but on the right photo from the 1970s there had been a basic roll-up door there.

We're

Unable to

a double door, but it's tall and wide.

The request came from Mr. Hockensmith about there's the potential for, there have been some inquiries about the use of the space and potential tenants have asked, or I can let him explain that, but if the opening could be made more utilitarian, possibly allowing vehicles in there.

So where I came down on it was

One, we could go back to a simple roll-up door like you see.

We have approved those in other openings.

Two, we could go with a fenestrated garage door, something like was done up at Otto's, up the street, a roll-up door that has glass in it.

Fully glazed or partially glazed, if that was important.

And then the third option would be not a recreation of something from an old photograph, but a more an architecturally styled door that might seem more appropriate than a

and a basic garage roll-up door.

We talked briefly in the pre-meeting about some zoning questions.

The conclusion that I had in my conversation with the zoning administrator is that this building is not conforming and the alteration

would not require, because it's a historic structure, would not require that they bring it into conformity.

And that is that with the new code, there's a certain amount of transparency that's required.

So to make this conformity, it almost require more windows be added to it.

So the one question would be is,

if you wanted to include some glazing in the garage drawer, then you're at least not less nonconforming or more nonconforming or just something utilitarian given how it's going to be used.

It's reversible.

What you see in the center there is not the historic door.

And when I talked to Mr. Hawkinsmith, I

I think he's looking for utilitarian use of this space and to maybe answer some questions from potential tenants.

I don't know how I would look at this if he had photographs of a historic door and we knew it was there.

I think I'd be looking at this somewhat differently, but we don't know what was there.

And so I think to try to replicate something or even simulate something is false.

I think that Mr. Oxmouth can probably answer better on what's intended for the use of the space.

I think if somebody needs warehousing and they're looking in order to extend the life of this building can have a, you know, a do work that

You can't see in.

I would understand that.

But I think if it's just looking for some flexibility, maybe somebody wants to use it for a dining space and close the door, then I would suggest that you have some sort of glazed opening.

So that's my feel for this one.

The guidelines don't give us a clear direction.

You all can certainly disagree with me on that.

And then where

This is a photograph that was shared with me, Mr. Oxman shared earlier today, kind of just that idea of basically a, you know, a commercial roll-up door.

Pardon my very rough photoshop there, but that's, and you know, obviously colors could change, but that's the general intent.

Do we know that a roll-up door was ever there?

There's two kinds.

There's typewritten, it's unidentified, but there's typewritten

There's a report in here that's historic that's type written.

I can't, it's hand written pages on yellow legal pad and then they're type written and there's no attribution what those are but it's obviously in the file.

It's a lot of pages.

And halfway down there it does say it was a warehouse store.

It doesn't say it was a vehicular door, right?

And somebody has bracketed that language on that page.

And I'm in page 136 of our packet, if anybody's interested.

It's about halfway down the large paragraph in the middle.

But it does not, you know, with the history of this, we don't necessarily think it was vehicular from the beginning of the time that this building was constructed.

Right.

Interestingly, the window in the center has a large stone sill on it and evidence almost of that being moving things through what things were going up against.

But this

The opening hasn't been altered from what I could tell.

It's hard to say.

I think, you know, maybe a vehicular opening, a vehicle of some kind.

My best guess, given photos of old doors we've seen around town, it was probably some kind of wood door, the diagonal

Material seems to have been popular around town.

Was it hinged possibly?

All righty.

Just a couple of comments.

Yes, please.

One thing is that picture on the right,

with the green arrow short going to it.

And that's what the door looked like before Octagon remodeled in 2008.

Well, that was 1978.

That's what it looked like.

And they put the doors in, the double glazed doors for urban outfielders who would go through the least of space from the beginning to their specs.

I've had half a building vacant for 14 months, and this economy we're in.

And I struggle with a lot of people who would ask the question, how do we get stuff delivered to the property?

and, of course, I'd say, well, like everybody else, double park in the street or whatever you do and haul it up with a cart.

So I finally got a couple people interested where if I could provide some sort of way to get goods and services or goods, merchandise into the building without double parking, that they might be interested.

So I thought, well, let me see if I can get the BAR to think about going back to what it was like before 2007 or 2008.

and so I looked at garage doors and I like a roll-up idea.

One in a residential use where they go up on track would not work, but a roll-up door would work.

And can you show me that picture again with the suggested that?

That's a door I had looked at and a proposal made today to put that door in, although that's

Dark, so that's unobtrusive and not stand out as you drive by or walk by.

So it would be very dark, plain, no glazing because that won't work in a roll-up door.

And it would be close to what was there 10 years ago.

So that's what I'd like to do.

And then I'd have to, of course, make room inside, but that's another project.

And you don't deal with that.

But I had to make room to get a truck in off the street.

Do we have any questions from the public?

I have a question.

You could go on the other side of those windows at the top.

But the picture we're showing that Jeff found it up with is a Photoshop.

Yeah, almost can.

It comes in a choice of three colors.

And one is not dark like the window around where my first lease sign is.

Now, that was changed when Octagon did the building.

They made it that dark.

And it was a boom back then.

I just want to do it dark.

So what color are you proposing?

Pardon?

Gray.

It'd be closer to the glazing on the existing doors.

All right, I have a question.

How tall are the operable leaves on the existing doors?

Nine feet.

It would just fit.

And that door would just fit in there.

But no room to spare.

And a truck would have a challenge to back in there.

Yeah.

We'll pull in front ways.

They can do it either way.

As several other properties do, Albemarle, there's a couple that are like that.

They have little places they sneak in and preserve it over the years and they're still able to use it.

No, they used that as a retail space.

Kate remembers too.

But you couldn't come in and out as a customer.

Yes, you could.

I don't know when you took over the building, Mr. Hawkinsmith, but I'm remembering, as a patron, you used to be able to walk in here, and you could clearly see merchandise.

Yeah, it wasn't at the beginning of having urban outfitters there, but it was later.

Probably lost too much merchandise, because they did have the anti-theft thing that you walk through.

It was still installed when my people

to record every employee coming and going at the time of the day and all that.

That must have been a real challenge for them.

So I guess I've got a follow-up question on the color.

I would, but I'd also try to paint it.

Got you.

Okay.

Any other questions from the BAR?

Any comments from the public?

It's not online.

From my perspective, a loading door on Water Street is wholly appropriate and I think that I'm inclined to support the proposal.

I do think it would be preferable that the door match the other, the color of the window trim on the rest of the building as closely as possible.

and I.

So with that, I wouldn't get in the way.

One thing I would add to Breck's comment, however, is the placement of where the door comes up.

It shouldn't be visible through the transom, right?

just a blank partition or something on the back of that.

I have to have a carbon to redo the whole interior to mount the door onto.

And then roll up a cabinet, we'll go on the inside, the back

Maybe that far from the blazing.

So will you be able to see it?

I would be willing to put something on the glass on the existing doors now.

So let me clarify, let me clarify, was your original intent to retain the transom light?

Yeah, I was going to ask the garage guy in the door and store, could we save the light?

Okay.

And he said, well, yes, but if, if, if.

But he said, yeah, you could.

But he didn't say anything about hiding it from that, from seeing it outside.

I mean, think the fact that it's so relative to this image than that transit would be.

Yeah, I guess I was curious.

The photo from the previous condition from the 1970s seemed to appear to me that the door actually sat kind of behind the wall itself so that you sealed it at the back edge of the wall, which I think would be appropriate.

You know, personally, I don't necessarily feel like you have to retain the transom.

You know, there was a question earlier that suggested you might, but I don't think that's something that I would require personally.

Since I've got the mic, I tend to agree with Breck that a darker color would be more suitable to match the other windows.

I think I see this as a service entrance.

I think historically it was a service entrance.

I think you've got a personnel entrance just adjacent to it.

So it seems to me that there's sort of the scale and the fenestration dictates what's supposed to go through this portal, right?

A person or stuff.

And so I'd agree that it's appropriate.

You know, Jeff did some research, found what may have been an example of historic

Service Entrance Doors.

Those are no longer here.

I think a modern roll-up garage door is the modern equivalent of those service doors, right?

So it makes sense that we're sort of applying our modern standard into this historic building.

Nobody's gonna

Be confused and think that that roll-up door is historic.

So for me, I think it's a question of do we want to require, if we're going to move forward with this, would we require the transom stay or not?

That's just a question to put out there for folks, but I also want to ask if there's other folks to have comments.

I actually do agree with Mr. Timmerman and I almost said verbatim what you just said during our pre-meeting and I

would say that this, you know, installing or reinstalling a garage door is compatible with the district.

But as far as Water Street is concerned, it's a place that has increasingly been pedestrian friendly, less vehicular friendly.

I noted that the city's garage has no entrances for vehicles on Water Street, which is pretty amazing for a very large scale building.

and both of those entrances were relegated to the side streets of second and fourth to make that, you know, it could have been easy to have wide turn lanes off of water, but I think it was an effort to make water less pedestrian, less, you know, as of a pass through and more, I'm sorry, more pedestrian friendly and less vehicular.

And there have been lots of developments, I think a long water street that have

tried to make it less of a drive-through experience with, you know, the back garages and back loading docks on water.

It's been kind of delightful to see Waterbird, for instance, make their space into what used to be a parking lot and to what looked like it was facing water and more and more businesses.

And some even small retail, including my memory is

I remember exactly what this looked like.

There was a ramp up the right-hand side.

There is a peril on the left.

And you could see a desk in front.

But the little peaks that we've had of pedestrian experience on water, this seems to be taking a step back.

I don't think it destroys the district.

But I just want to note that there has been some effort to make this not the back door of the downtown mall.

And I think water was going in that direction.

And I find it regrettable

that we would be basically rendering a space that used to be used by humans, even if it was just for a secured entrance for employees, into a purposeful vehicular only entrance.

I mean, once you put a garage door up there, no human's going to walk through it again.

So, and I understand there are other apertures, there's another door there.

No, no, the trash comes down the

Hallway from a trash storage room on the same level as that, down and through that single pass-through door to the left there of my sign.

There's a single, it's not quite in the film, not quite the picture.

There's a, yeah, to the left between the

No parking cabinet's there on the wall.

And life release sign in the window.

There's a door right there with 317 above it.

That's the entrance for people now.

And it goes into a hallway, goes back to an elevator.

And beyond that is a trash room.

And they bring the trash out right through that door and put it out for the pickup.

I'm going to agree with Sheri and David on this that the character of Water Street has changed.

And it's very evident on this block.

I mean, the building just to the right of it, it's clear that those three entrances have all been changed from vehicular entrances and warehouse entrances to being something that's more pedestrian friendly, pedestrian oriented.

So I do struggle with the idea of going backwards, even though there was a garage door there originally.

It is taking the character of the street backwards from where it has gone and where we want it to go.

Since the rewriting of the zoning code, we are now tasked with also looking at our comprehensive plan and looking at the evaluating these applications.

And the comprehensive plan is very focused on

reducing vehicular use, increasing pedestrian use, making spaces more pedestrian friendly.

So under, I don't have the chapters in here, I copied the base of a bunch of stuff, but our community vision statement for land use, urban form, and historic and cultural preservation.

There's a line that says, the city will prioritize transit-oriented development, smart growth, infill, and adaptive reuse policies to address housing needs, climate change goals, reduce vehicular travel, and support walkability and bikeability.

putting in stating that curb cut and allowing vehicles to pass over the sidewalk is counter to that.

Further down, objectives for mixed use areas.

Promote and encourage design elements that enhance community livability, such as active uses of the ground floor level along key street frontages.

So this doorway used to be an active use.

It used to be a retail storefront.

And now it is proposed to just be a warehouse use, a storage use, a vehicular use.

encourage compact block and street networks and a built environment that facilitates walking, biking and bus riding.

Again, this is going backwards from that.

I still think, I know we're supposed to kind of ignore the zoning code on this, but I still think there's a zoning issue at the end of the day, but even ignoring that and with kind of a lack of guidelines to fall back on, I'm going to fall back on our cop plan and I can't approve this.

Just so I'm clear, it's the matter of the glazing

being one piece, but the introduction of vehicular traffic, facility traffic.

By the way, the city bought the building next door to ours, and it's all glass front and back with a glass elevator in the front.

It's not historic at all in the looks.

So I'm thinking that we're trying to preserve the look on the water street side, not making it more modern.

So the options available

You all, if you're certainly have a straw poll, see where you stand.

Mr. Hawkinsmith can defer this and we can have a further discussion.

If there's approval, you approve it.

If there's denial, there is the ability to go to council.

And so I think that there's some in that there's assumptions of about how this space may be used, but

We're not, just to be clear, the BAR is not saying there's a use we prefer or don't prefer.

How that space would be used is not what the matter is, whether it could be somebody going in and out with a golf cart.

But if you were to deny it,

and my suggestion would be Mr. Huxbeth defer it, but if you were to deny it, I think be very careful and I don't mean it in a threatening way.

I think we probably should go ahead and have an actual vote on it, right?

And I would be happy to make a motion for approval

given this discussion and see what people think about it and then we'll see if that will be of use to you.

Alright, having considered the standards set forth in the city code, including the ADC district guidelines, design guidelines, I moved to approve a COA for the installation of a garage door, a roll-up garage door,

as described by Mr. Hawkinsmith at the Warshfield Elevation of 316 East Main under the following conditions which shall satisfy the ARS criteria.

Second.

Already.

Mr. Schwarz?

No.

Mr. Gastinger?

Aye.

Mr. Bailey?

Aye.

And the chair votes aye.

The motion carries.

Thank you.

Six to one.

Thank you, sir.

Appreciate it.

Excuse anybody, before we get, so that ends all of our applications or COA applications?

We're going to take a five minute break, folks.

Thank you very much.

That's right.

All righty.

We'll call us back to order.

We are very pleased and fortunate to have Paul Josie from Wolf Josie Landscape Architects here with us this evening.

And he's going to give us a presentation on the downtown mall tree study, which I've been told is excellent.

So I'm looking forward to it.

Thank you all very much for having me.

We'll just go over the project schedule and scope, a little historical context, then we'll look at a tree inventory and assessment that we did, and then we'll start working into the framework plan and the recommendations and phasing.

So our work, we've worked at a lot of universities and institutions as well as urban spaces in Washington DC, as well as North Carolina and locally, working on trees and soils, but also in urban development.

and so our team was made up of ourselves with Peter Russell as the project manager, Keith Pitchford is an arborist who's worked all over the country based long-time practice in DC and then we also worked line and grade and Downey and Scott for cost estimating and the city team with Rian, Steven, and Rob Mathis at with the Parks and Rec and then we had a series of committees

one city steering committee that was made up of these groups on the left, community advisory that expanded that a bit more to other groups so we had representatives from each of these organizations or boards involved

And then from a schedule standpoint, you can see we started this last fall doing an assessment of all the trees and then we had, through the winter, looking at really inventory, like looking at that inventory and assessment and then meeting with these various groups throughout the process.

And we are sort of at the end of this process and sort of packaging this all up.

You can see here the historical sort of extents of them all and how this was really created not only in 1976 but a second phase in 1980 and 1985 with the Omni and then these sort of the re-bricking effort in the side streets.

So it's really been put together in piecemeal over time.

and so on.

and the African American neighborhoods such as Vinegar Hill and this sort of redevelopment concept for downtown.

It sat dormant for a number of years after it was pulled, which led to the 1970s, the hiring of Larry Halpern's firm to put together a pedestrian mall.

with the Pedestrian Mall.

This wasn't a brand new thing.

This was in vogue.

This was like the most popular strategy after urban development to put a Pedestrian Mall.

There were 132 created and only 43 remain of those.

And just of note, this is, Charlottesville is the longest operating in the country.

It's eight blocks long.

It has been very successful.

And the firm that was hired to do this

was Lawrence Halpern Associates, and they have done exceptional work throughout the country, notably in the Northwest, but also in Washington D.C.

and other places, and they were a pioneer in participatory design processes.

especially during the social unrest happening in the 70s and 60s really working with an environmentally ecologically sensitive way but also with communities so you can see he had these large workshops of different groups bringing them together to sort of come up with what the downtown mall should look like

and again this is on the National Register.

It is the only national, only existing work of Halpern's in Virginia currently and so it is a very historic place, the downtown mall, not just a great place for us but really nationally recognized.

There's a few key elements of it, the choreography of the space, how the boasts are laid out to create movement around and among the boasts, and not a static direction on them all, the boasts themselves, the paving patterns, the water, and then the small scale elements of those.

And so you can see here how the choreography of those boasts, how they shift back and forth.

So it's not a one-way or a two-way street.

People have to force into different directions, facing each other,

I'm really having to interact throughout almost like dancing or how that is choreographed in this scheme.

You'll also see the bosts are different sizes throughout as well, creating different environments at each block.

You can see, too, the types of trees really was primarily all willow oaks.

There were some red maples right at city center that was really meant as an accent.

These are the fall colors of those trees.

And again, those paving accents, you see the runnels, which was the former curbs of the original Main Street.

And you can see these larger brick sizes really meant to distinguish themselves from the architectural brick, but really the floor of the downtown mall, as well as some accent panels throughout.

There were key water fountains that were created throughout as well, sort of acting as sort of a sound and visual device throughout to create movement and activity along the mall.

And there was a number of these small scale elements that were created from chairs to planters and poles and such that some are still there today.

So when we started to look at the trees themselves, we looked at 109 trees, not including, there was 15 trees that were removed from the original design, but we looked above ground, at grade, and below ground, really thinking about what the trees look like in the canopy, at the surface, and then again in the soils.

So when looking at the canopies, first we looked at the species and noticed that they're primarily 65% willow oaks.

Those are really the dominant tree.

And unfortunately, willow oaks have not had a lot of pest issues or concerns, which has worked out in their favor.

And then when we started to look at the health of the trees, that was another story.

And generally, 60% of the trees are in good to excellent shape, but of the willow oaks, over 25% of those are in fair condition, a number of poor and some removed.

And you can sort of see that of the larger trees, it's a similar ratio, but there's a number of fair and poor trees, a number that have been removed from the original plantings.

So this is what that looks like in practice.

You can see some areas, such as this seven tree bossk here, that really has the poorest health.

There are very few seven tree bossks, that tight spacing, they competed for one another with resources and really stressed the entire grove out.

Others, such as at Central Place right here, these are all red maples.

Those were replaced in 2009 with a different type of Norway maple.

All of those have failed.

Maples aren't urban street trees.

They don't do well in really difficult environments, unlike the willow oaks that are really tolerant in compacted situations.

So you can start to see that 12% of the trees have been removed.

And you can see after this assessment there's an additional proposed rules of trees that are in very poor shape that are potential hazards.

Some have already been removed as well.

So we're looking at roughly approaching 15 to 20 percent of trees that will be removed.

And then you start to see there's actually some grows that are in better shape than others, just kind of at a larger scale.

We also noticed some trees with these large heater wounds.

We've talked about these before to other groups.

And you'll just see that, you know, some of them already have been removed.

There's, you know, nine, 15% of the trees were impacted by cafe heaters.

These came about during the pandemic.

And sort of a number of them have come down in our stress conditions.

We started to look at the plain of the paving and how they interact with the trees.

Again, you can see this form.

Originally the design had these tight openings and you can sort of see here in this left.

This is the original framework.

It's a hidden grate with a paving that goes over top of it.

So the language is really the plain of

Bricks,

Those trees have continued to grow and they've expanded into these.

So these are starting to girdle those trees with those grates.

So this is current conditions and this is happening.

There's also some differences of the paving depths where that impacts how high the flare is, where the trunk transitions to the roots.

That increases that girdling effect.

Almost half of the trees have damage from the current grates underneath the ground.

We started to look at the soils, we looked at, you know, underground, we looked at utilities, those sort of primarily a sanitary storm sewer, then water and gas lines.

You can notice the storm sewer is located where the old gutters once were of Main Street, weren't changed.

But the gas and water was changed during the design of the redesign.

We also looked at the soils.

We did 15 samples, one from each grove.

We looked at soil pH, nutrients, organic matter, the ability of the soil to hold nutrients, the moisture of the soil, the compaction, the texture of the soils.

You started to see here, most of the soils are sandy clay loam.

This is pretty typical of our area.

They're pretty healthy soils.

Good structured soil, meaning they have kind of clumps of soil that kind of create air pockets.

Those kind of clumps are pads.

And then some, a few clay loams.

And then there's a few clay soils.

Noticed right here in this orange area.

And then some really compacted subgrade soils in this area.

These had very poor structure.

They were screened before they were installed with the code building.

So not very much structure to those soils.

That was very heavily compacted in that area as well.

Also at the omni was very heavily compacted.

I mean, sorry, not the omni at the code building planter as well as all the way at the other end at the pavilion.

A lot of people there not uncommon to have the surface so compacted in that condition.

We started to look at moisture levels of the soils.

Again, this area really stuck out as a problem.

It was anaerobic, highly saturated soils because of that loss of structure.

No water is really moving through that soil.

There's no drains in that soil.

Also, this area where all the trees are currently dead and removed, that it was excessively saturated.

Maybe just because the trees aren't there, but it could be a drainage issue as well.

Organic matter levels were surprisingly quite good, throughout no real concerns.

Some areas were slightly higher, which would, you know, while willow oaks can take this, if you're a changing species, you want to make sure you have trees that can tolerate a little higher pH levels.

and looking at the ability of the soil to hold nutrients.

This is the cation exchange capacity of more complicated term, but in general, I think the pavilion is where we saw that sort of lowest ability to hold nutrients.

That was one of those areas that raised some eyebrows for those trees.

So just kind of a quick diagram.

Compaction drainage in some areas, low nutrient availability and soil compaction.

These are kind of the takeaways from the process.

We also looked at utilities.

So water and gas.

You can see how these lines shift.

at the groves.

This was designed in the 70s to reflect that sort of changing growth.

So these are somewhat new.

But when you start to look at the laterals, that's where you see those actually cross through the tree groves.

It can cause potential conflicts.

and these are the sanitary on the center of the storm sewers.

And when we start to look at this sort of mess of utilities altogether, there's a lot happening.

Fortunately, from the utility standpoint, there's really no concerns from the utilities currently.

There's no root conflict.

These are fibrous root systems.

Despite having all this overlap, they're quite deep, some of them.

So you have your sanitary that's quite deep in the profile.

Really, the surface roots are

and so on

So that assessment, tree health overall pretty good, we have the heater damages, we have tree grates that are causing issues, the soils are generally healthy, utilities could be a possible threat in the future.

When we start to project the health of these trees,

So currently we have already lost 12% of our tree canopy.

We're going to, based on the current assessment today, we're losing about 18% of our canopy.

We're starting to see this decrease of our current condition.

But when we look at projecting out 5 to 10 years, we project out another 5% loss.

And then when you start to get into the 10 to 15 years, that's where you start to see significant drop off.

The trees start to really decline.

And you start to look at a very different downtown mall.

You start to see, you know, this is, if nothing happens, this is the trajectory of the downtown mall trees.

And you're already seeing this today.

So again, with and without.

Willow oaks in an open setting can grow 150 plus years, but I think 80 years would be a

A pretty great tree in a very densely urban compacted setting.

That would be a great scenario.

So these trees, tight conditions, they haven't been pruned regularly.

They've been pruned from a safety sample, but not to grow as a grove.

It's the current conditions of the trees and the current conditions.

We're seeing a lot of rapid decline and the trees are not growing.

Their annual growth is not continuing to grow.

So now they're kind of stable but on the decline.

So we look at short-term fixes, things that can be done to address the tree grates, design recommendations, short-term projects, and then just general tree maintenance and best management practices.

Then we have long-term, getting into how do we replace these trees once we get there, and then utility recommendations, tree selection, phasing, and then budgets.

So, start off with the short-term.

again we'll look at these so the tree grids here's the original design you can sort of see these and the future design is just a modified grate where if there is no impact to the current trees we're just expanding that support beam to hold up that that grate or future paving if you have to you can cut these and leave them in place as opposed to pulling them out and damaging the cambium and then expanding that frame as well so that's kind of one basic approach

You can also add in rat barriers at this time.

This is just a wire mesh that really will, we've done this in a lot of urban places and it's quite successful for preventing that habitat space.

And then also the lights are currently in the wrong location.

These were moved in the 2009, but as that tree continues to expand, they will become more problematic.

So it's a slight shift.

That wiring above grades would not really an issue with the trees.

This is another approach where you can return to the original design, removing the grate altogether.

The grates have complications when they're cut.

If they're cut, they have to be removed.

If they're cut in place, they'll burn the cambium because of the process.

So this pulls the grates away and it's quite, you need two men to do it.

This is another approach where you go back to bricks.

This is a foam, basically an insulation, a rigid insulation foam that would

hold the pavers up with the drainage aggregate around it.

That would allow the pavers to kind of be pulled out manually as well as the foam to not impact the tree in the future.

So kind of one approach, and then the other approach is just the great modification.

So we only have the great replacement to brick is shown in blue.

That can only really happen in two zones, whereas the great modification is really keeping with the grate itself, but just changing that.

So we're not

We're not having a mick, a hodge podge.

We would only do all or the other in each one.

From a historic design intent, we're going to look at two elements, the vegetation and the fountains.

And the fountains aren't really our scope, but because they are integrated to the design integrity and they worked well from a design standpoint, we added these as well.

So first, the bosques.

Again, these are all willow oaks.

But willow oaks have been great, but they have their own issues potentially with the threat of other things coming in.

And you can see here the trees intent was trees, you know, clearly legible with the paving.

This is not to say go back to all loose seeding.

We understand the value of the cafe zones, how they've really brought an economic engine to the downtown mall, and they are critical to the success of the downtown mall.

Equally, you know, maybe not as critical as the trees, but they are very critical.

So we're not proposing to make any drastic changes to that scenario.

But there are some conditions where you really want to see the trees.

You want to be able to experience them as public space.

And there are a few things that are really inhibiting that.

The idea of potted trees or tall vegetation that are outside cafe zones, they really screen trees and make it privatize public areas.

Cafe Fencing, Granite Countertops, also do a similar thing where they block views to public areas.

There are other types of fencing that are very transparent, very successful, and they're great.

Some types of custom furnishings that wrap around trees also obscure the trees themselves and that experience of the groves and bosques.

The fountains are equally impacted by these fencing, by the fencing that are shown up throughout the mall.

Originally these were activity spaces, children, and people are brought to these areas and engaging with the water, and you're also visually seeing the water, not only just hearing it, so you can see, you know, sort of a designed and current condition.

You'll see cafe fencing is surrounding these.

They're often in the middle of cafe zones now.

So there's really no access to them and often very obscured and lost as a design element of the mall.

These are simple possibilities.

A simple porous stainless grate that would allow water to move through, but you could walk up to it if you're concerned from an accessibility standpoint, although it's not an accessible issue in the current condition.

But this would be one approach.

This could be done with a simple metal grate over top of a beam supporting it, or you could just add metal edging as a wheel stop on the edges if you're concerned about it from a safety standpoint.

These are two minor approaches.

The main fountain itself, this area is off limits.

You will be told to leave this area if you go anywhere over that chain by any parks and rec person because that happened to me.

But this is like a derelict space because one, there's a derelict building next to it, but also because no one is allowed to engage with this fountain.

It is off limits.

And there's also trees on one edge.

It's supposed to be the center of them all, but instead it feels like the side and off limits.

And so ways that you could, again, out of mesh, grate over top of it so that it is accessible.

You could have, you know, nosing that would notify you that it's an accessible, inaccessible surface.

These are one approaches as opposed to just redoing the whole thing and lifting it up to surface, which

Nice, too, but much more expensive.

But these are relatively inexpensive approaches to changing fountain access.

This is where we start to look at the seeding zones themselves.

And when we started to look at the where seedings are, there were a few areas that stuck out.

And primarily those dark orange areas were these extra large areas.

These are three vendors that take up 17% of all the cafe spaces.

And so these extra large areas also generally hide and obscure the fountains themselves.

So these areas were of concern.

And we started to look at

at each fountain, but also how we look at the trees, these enlargements of these areas.

So, thinking about it again, this is at Beezoo here, this top corner here, Grit, Christians and such.

So you would open up this central area, so you could reveal the fountain, you could have cut through space in here, so you again visually see the fountain.

Another approach at the central space that you would actually pull back some of these areas to reveal this first row of trees better, slightly reducing the amount of cafe space in those areas, but really maximizing this feeling of a public space here.

happening in front of the Paramount here.

This is, again, opening up your views as you're walking down.

Again, this is this long axis, this primary view spot right here that is right in front of Angelo's.

And you can also add space eventually here or right in front of Chap's, smaller space that are outside the fire lane to gain back any lost cafe space.

And then this final instance is at D, this is at the nook, or you can see how you open up the plots again.

I mean so far we haven't heard from the friends of the downtown and other groups that have been invited.

No one has had any concerns with this.

This is really trying to equalize the amount of spacing.

It actually is a net loss of only 225 square feet, which is a really

Minimal, it's less than a typical vendor.

So this is really trying to normalize the large medium spaces as a standard and not the extra large spaces.

So it's trying to balance the cafe seating while also opening up views into these.

So we've had no concern so far.

There are some unique conditions.

The oaks of the omni have some really poor soil conditions.

We'll look at the code building planter has some poor soils.

Obviously, there's a seven tree grove, which has too much competition.

The central place trees have their own issues.

The Oaks at Ting Pavilion have some impaction issues, and then the Oaks at the Freedom of Speech wall have some of the issues as well.

So you'll see the canopy crowding here on the left.

You could simply remove one of these trees to open up the canopy for other trees.

You could also cover the soils with just mulch or chips to make it more visually appealing at the entrance to the mall.

looking at the poor soil quality.

The short term is to adjust the plantings.

This has already been done by Parks and Rec, putting in, you know, really water tolerant, saturated soil plants.

The other option is to replace the entire soils of this area and the plants, which is a much more expensive endeavor at this point.

The central place trees, they have limited soil volume, generally compacted, this is again at the heart of the mall, so how you could sort of open up, add some more soil volume in these areas with uncompacted soils beneath the slab as an approach.

And then modifying the tree grades, some of these are girdling, and also you see some paving conflicts where they're starting to pop the pavers up.

You can start to see there what's happening is there's actually a hidden grate beneath these pavers, but there's adventitious rooting coming underneath the pavers and popping these up.

So this is just a matter of going in, pruning off the adventitious roots and changing this detail just slightly to bring back mulch and then removing that grate and those adventitious roots to reduce that heaving issue.

These poor soils oak at the Ting Pavilion, looking at ways to remediate the paver grates.

Also, you can just thin two of the trees to better the canopies of the entire grove.

They're already in poor shape, so it's a thinning approach.

Also, an approach of adding mulch in these areas.

It is impossible to grow grass as it is talking to the Ting Pavilion staff, adding mulch

or Arborist Chips twice a year would be an approach to this.

You could also think about adding some additional shade trees in here that wouldn't impact the long views as you see under these trees really clearly, but it's a critical desire for shade on this lawn in the summertime.

So this is where that western light is coming.

We haven't done this yet.

We're proposing to do these.

Oh, the trees, no, we did not remove the roots.

Just, you can, they're all currently sculpted art out there.

Yeah, so, yeah, yep.

This is a standard approach for remediating old trees with radial trenching.

This is where you use aerospace to remove the soil and add in new soil to reinvigorate those roots with a compost soil mix and decompacting them.

So it reduces compaction but adds nutrients for those trees.

You could see where those areas go and where the mulch goes.

The compaction is so dense in these areas.

The trees needing additional watering other than what comes down is

It's been a drilled concrete slab beneath the pavers.

So the mall is actually getting all the rainwater through the bricks and into the soils themselves.

So it is sort of self-watering currently, but we would recommend if you replaced all of them, you would have an irrigation system knowing the stress of longer drought cycles and such that we're starting to experience and we will continue to experience.

Currently, there is no irrigation, but the water levels were all fine on an average condition in most places.

We did a large tree maintenance manual with Keith Pitchford of our, you know, really every single tree has a specific pruning regime and maintenance regime.

Looking at from cabling, structural pruning, removals, no pruning being a really critical one.

These trees are old.

and older and mature I should say and they should not be casually pruned you know small tip ends and such just leave them they're not really a risk so you can see these this is a large PDF and we're not going to go through every single pruning but really give specific examples of where to prune on each tree

This looks at potential recommendation for zoning.

This is current conditions where you can see the light levels.

The canobies get a lot of light, but once willow oaks, which are shade dominant shade, they are intolerant of shade, are planted in shade, they grow very, very slowly.

Trees need light to thrive.

And so when we see the current zoning approach, there are stepped zoning approaches that are already sort of being implemented.

But you can see pink, the conditions on the mall, they're currently in place.

And so what's allowable, plus allowable, it's more compared to the current.

Current building height allows light to these canopies to really thrive.

The allowable would significantly change the amount of light levels making a much darker mall and a less healthy environment for trees to thrive.

There are examples of stepped buildings that are much more successful.

You can see the code building is very successful at allowing light into the canopy of those trees by being stepped.

Long-Term Recommendations

The goal is not to replace one tree at a time.

The goal is to grow the trees together, one grove at a time.

If you start to replace one tree at a time, you'll start to see one tree not doing well, not doing well in shade.

Growing out to the side, you get an irregular growth rate and a really kind of funky looking mall.

So it's not really the design intent.

So these are examples one way.

You could just replace the soils and the trees in that eight by eight opening that's under the ground.

That would be one really simple approach.

Or a larger one that is replacing the entire soil volume with new soil.

You're changing some utilities that are in conflict with the trees at the same time, as well as, you know, putting in irrigation of the things.

So a larger one is a long-term approach.

One is a sort of mid-range approach.

This is that example where you just literally take out the existing trees, put in new soil, put in new trees.

These new trees, and this is the long-term approach of that slab replacement, you go in with a suspended slab system that would be on columns, that would be a porous slab as well, and an uncompacted soil for these trees to really thrive.

This would be improved upon the current conditions and grow much healthier, longer-lived trees in the downtown mall.

We recommend the sort of the middle tree here, the six inch caliper tree is the right size to kind of create a sense of permanence at installation, but without becoming too onerous from a maintenance standpoint.

As you get bigger, you need more water, a lot more care, and also delayed growth as those roots come out.

and

These roots in that one lateral replacement, you could just have a requirement that says you have to be within 20, you have to be outside of 25 feet from any nearby tree to do any upsizing.

Because when you up zone your building, the water line also needs to be upsized.

We'll get there in a second.

Good question.

This is a way that you could just push those main lines off to the side.

Sorry to jump real quick.

There's a lot to cover.

Hang with us.

If you did replace the entire area, you would move the water and gas lines off to the side.

So you basically have two mains.

You would do this throughout the process to keep those out of the critical root zones.

This is what relocating that would look like in that suspended slab scenario.

So these are our two approaches, no lateral tie-ins within 25 feet or shifting the entire gas line and water lines.

When we looked at tree species, it was critical that it had drought tolerance.

There's a lot of different factors, disease, urban tolerance, form, habit, lifespan, fruit drop.

You don't want walnuts, obviously, dropping everywhere.

Willow oaks have the smallest egg corn of any oak.

It is really a magnificent urban tree for that reason.

No one complains about them.

But this is a major risk to have one species for the entire mall, knowing that we're

Currently, the beach leaf disease is taking out all of the beach trees in Northern Virginia.

It's taking them out all throughout the state of New York.

It's working its way down.

Beaches are out.

We already know our ash trees are gone.

We already know our elm trees are majorly threatened.

This is a known threat by having one type of tree is a problem.

We did a spreadsheet because we're nerds and we started to look at which ones were sort of good, better, best.

And what we came up with was thinking about a red fall color tree in central place.

The bald cypress, a good urban tree, tolerance more wet, compacted sites at the center with a strong fall color, as well as a mix of these kind of yellow, gold, fall colors.

along in separate bosques along the mall itself.

So still keeping Willow Oak, but also having cultivars of the American Elm that are Dutch Elm resistant, as well as the swamp white oak and then the tulip poplar as the trees for the future.

These are examples of those trees and what they sort of look like in their color, very similar fall colors.

So, phasing standpoint.

Again, we did this by tree health and knowing there's sort of phase one, five years, 10 years, 15, 20 years.

Looking at phase one, this is right at central place where we're already missing the trees.

and

They're in really poor shape as it is.

It's a great easy phase one.

So once this is successful, I think that really inspires phase two.

Ten years later, start to look at other areas where the trees are in poor shape.

Right outside here, you'll see these trees are in quite poor shape outside the parking garage.

and then slowly expanding.

And I think the goal of these to really tackle these over 20 years is that as one grove is installed, it really starts to grow up and you start to have a stable shade once you're starting to remove other trees.

We're not trying to ever have a condition where you have no canopy on the mall.

or no canopy for multiple blocks.

The goal really is to have a consistent presence of trees and canopy throughout its time and then by the time you start to develop this next generation, the trees have all grown together and this would ideally last for another 80 years total.

Plus

There's also ways to transition the spaces and recommendations that really celebrates each block as it's being replaced by allowing light in different art that could really celebrate them all and reinvigorate it even while you're replacing trees, changing that condition.

Sort of quick images of what that might look like.

So, how you fund this?

We have things that maybe are from the general fund with great modifications, cafe seating updates, maintenance one, maybe that's general fund, depending how large it is, BMP recommendations and such, then other things that are in the CIP budget for the phasing and the side streets.

That's a lot, that's a ton.

We have a whole section on the costs of all this, which is another 12 pages, but I would like to stop and just sort of

Get some questions.

So what I think I can, my article called... Do you want to ask a question?

Yeah, I'll just comment.

You said, well, you want to take 10, 15 minutes and 10 minutes for a question?

What do you want to take an hour or plus?

so one yes if you all have any questions but this the plan is in October to be taking this to city council so okay so

You know, if there's some, if there's some hard questions, you know, some rough edges that need to be smooth.

I mean, this is, so in some ways, trying to prepare this for counsel or things that, you know, were unclear or not.

So, you know, the designers in the room that went to, you know, sat through presentations were made to cry by your professors, you know, Paul's used to that.

So, so I think, you know, working towards, as in the architecture school, when they would yell at each other.

or not yet.

But to, you know, offer Paul some, you know, comments that would help in the BAR, our Union City Council, anticipating some of the tough questions.

I want to encourage that as well.

And something that is going to lead to our discussion in September, because I wanted to talk about the mall, the cafe spaces tonight, but flip this around.

But when Paul spoke a couple weeks ago, and he talked about it today, was that visibility through them all and how things are beginning to encroach on that.

The umbrellas, the solid wall of the cafe spaces.

We're seeing the plants that are, you know, the little mini hedges that are being put up.

So it's not to discuss now, but it definitely is something that will feed into our discussion, I hope, in September.

as well.

And the last thing I'd say is you talked about central place at the last presentation and really stressed that that was, you know, intended as the town square kind of place and that's been lost and that really stuck in my head.

So Paul, just don't want to say straight off the bat, thank you very much.

That was very informative and also thank you for all the work your firm has put into this.

It's a very long effort and we appreciate it.

So that I just want to get out the way.

Thank you.

I have a question, maybe more for city than for Paul.

Why did we never replace the trees that are in front of the Tyvek Tower, the Central Fidelity Bank?

I mean, those have sat there.

And in the summer, it's especially brutal.

There's no shade.

And you just, because of the wonderful tree canopy throughout the rest of the mall, you arrive at that place, which is near the central focal point of the mall.

And it's just noticeable.

that you have no canopy at all.

I just would love to know why the city is... I mean, that's been 15 years now that those died.

I think they died before the bank closed, honestly.

I think they lasted so briefly that I don't even know if I recall that there were trees there.

But I think the answer I could give moving forward is

Paul Poyout.

Yeah, I did meet it that way.

But yeah, I honestly, I don't even remember when the trees were there and they just seemed to slowly die one by one.

I can say a little bit to that and I don't remember if it was exactly those trees but there have been times at least in my tenure on the on the board when the city came and and was concerned about trees coming down asked about replacing them when and the and it was a really not a

Not a really thought out way of responding, like what tree would go in there?

What detail would you use?

Is this consistent with the Halpern design?

So the work that Paul's firm is doing is kind of an outgrowth of that kind of lack of having a larger vision.

And I think we finally have now

a very clear-eyed sober assessment of what's happening and a comprehensive look of how to move forward.

I wouldn't say that the city hasn't wanted to do things there.

Yeah, and also during 2009, I know that there was some concern from Beth Meyer and other people at University of Virginia that were concerned about what species was going to be replaced with.

Like, maples were so critical to the design as being red.

Like, who's going to pick another tree species?

The maples have failed twice.

What's a red one?

So, like, it just felt like, oh, who's going to do that?

I think that's, that was another reason why.

The uncertainty, the trees all failed.

Why are they failing?

Should we do an assessment of the soils and all that?

I mean, beam cover.

I can't believe someone cares about cost here.

Right.

There's, I mean, as a rough estimate, it's about a million dollars if you're doing the

just the tree in the sole replacement.

That's sort of like option one, the low-budget option that just says, just replace the trees.

That's about a million dollars a phase.

And then it's about three million dollars a phase if you're changing out the entire slab.

So it adds an additional amount.

And then that doesn't, there's another million dollars in great tree maintenance and other things too.

I think kind of to just point or just question in terms of preparing for City Council, that's going to be one of the main things they ask about.

Right.

They're prepared.

No, no, I appreciate that.

But I, you know, like Jeff said,

Like Jeff said, thinking about what city council is going to want to hear about, that's definitely going to be a big part of it, I think.

Not having seen the sides of pros and cons to which approach.

And maybe even like, I guess one question that I had was, you said you've got the sort of two options of replacing the slab or not.

Can you pick and choose per area?

You'll see disproportionate growth rates.

So your trees will not grow at the same growth rate.

You'll have more

You have

Last time when Paul presented, I said that every other slide should be, and this is going to cost money and require a long-term commitment, and Lloyd Snook was sitting next to me, but the thing that

I think we should really make stark and understand is that there isn't, well, there is a we can do nothing and the result of that and I'm, you know, does this, does this communicate a stark enough view of that?

And then I think one of the questions I could foresee coming back to you all, we talk a lot about the canopy size.

So is it, is it creating shade?

I mean, for example,

Can we just put in one big tree that creates a lot of shade?

So that's something I could see coming, the BAR being asked to comment on or might be necessary to comment on.

One of the things at the beginning when you said there were X number of balls

I think Suburbia is definitely one of those things.

People left cities and sort of abandoned them.

But also I think the design of a static mall, the scale of the buildings really played into it.

I think it's the idea of the way these mosques shift.

Each block is unique.

Each one creates its own feeling and presence as you're walking along this.

Meanwhile, if you had just a straight row of trees, it would just kind of be this tedious place.

I would like to offer that what saved the downtown mall here was basically it becoming a wonderful food court.

That essentially the proliferation of cafes plus the movie theater basically revived the mall.

Once the trees got tall enough, too, someone would argue that.

I'm not discounting the trees.

But if you did not have people outdoors enjoying the food and creating a crowd safety feel to it, it would not work.

If I can add, my opinion about one of the successes in the downtown mall is that it never became a location for franchised or nationalized restaurants or stores.

And we've had only a few exceptions.

Boulder, Pearl Street is really similar to us, but there are so many national franchises and national stores there, and I've always

I was on a city of Charlottesville delegation that actually flew up to Boulder to look at their great example.

And we came back and thought ours is better.

And we really thought we'd learn lessons from them because ours was still struggling.

Just to clarify your diagram a little bit,

The BAR is, I think, allowed to require a 25-foot step back, correct?

I'm pretty sure on the downtown mall that was specifically put in our purview.

25 isn't going to do it.

So, another piece of this I talked to Paul, but only briefly, I still need to figure out how to do it, is

We have it's not just downtown.

I mean, we have trees on West Main that are in bad shape.

We have 10 story buildings that could be built on West Main.

So this is not just about, you know, we want to be the city of trees, but yet we have a zoning ordinance that allows a city of shade or at least artificial shade.

So a question I had for Paul and not for tonight, but was all right, should we looking at our design guidelines

Should we model some things that inform us in how we would approach a discussion with council about this?

Or should we establish some criteria as a project comes in?

We evaluate it.

I don't know the answer to that.

And I don't know what it would take to do that relative to cost.

But I think it is necessary that we understand what these heights mean.

And again, the BAR can say something has to be this.

City Council gets ultimate decision.

So it's a value to do it.

I need to figure out how to do it.

But I am very concerned.

And I'm not just concerned about 10 story buildings on the mall.

I am curious about the code trees.

They weren't planted by the city, were they?

The code building?

The code building, sorry, code building trees.

That plaza there?

That was just a basic requirement, as I understand it, that they said, you just have to replace what you take out and put it back.

What is your time frame

I'd like to see it start right away.

I mean, because you have to, ideally, in five years from now, it's built.

You know, that would be the idea.

So you work back a year for construction, you know, coordination and such, and bidding, then you have to get the funding for it.

You know, so, you know, there should be a discussion in the next few CIP cycles that says, how are we paying for this?

Do you think there's going to be a lag time?

So you've got a 50 year plan and it sounds like a lot of the trees are kind of at their climax right now.

So is there a situation that might occur where things just kind of decline quickly in the next 20 years and then we're left with like that 20, 30, 40 year in the future where everything's kind of a

We were trying to, that one slide is a little confusing because we have like a 50 year, that's like like the full, full completion, but really we have a 20 year goal.

Like our goal is five, 10, 15, 20 years, you're done.

Like that would be the ideal scenario.

I could see a situation where you get to the 15 year mark and you're like, these trees look great.

Let's not take them out yet.

You know, we're not trying to really tear out healthy trees.

We're just tackling the ones that are in poor shape and then they're just you're ready to start anew.

So I think ideally 20 years, but that could stretch to 25 years or so.

So there might be some flexibility.

We haven't put that in here because we're really hoping it's a quick process.

Yes, the sculptures could be saved and put somewhere else, but we would recommend new trees planted there, the roots removed and replanted.

There's only two places where we'd recommend not planting a tree, and that's where that seven tree boss is.

Of those species, do they grow like at relatively... We chose trees that grew at similar growth rates, had similar forms, upright forms, really not low branches, and tried to keep a diverse mix from a threat standpoint as well.

We want to have them look visually the same as much as we possibly can.

Well, when we first presented this to council, you know, after we did our initial assessment, that was like our initial concern.

And right away, there was an ordinance written and that he had to have a 10 foot spacing from any tree with a heater.

So you, I think it's a penalty at first, then you lose your license if it happens twice.

I have a, maybe you've thought about this or maybe it's in the information about the budgeting, but I wonder if while doing this exercise if part of the budgeting could include what it would look like to have an endowment

established that so we start to protect annual maintenance and upcoming improvements so that it's kind of baked in and we don't have to rely on the budget cycles of future generations to maintain these trees.

I don't know what that looks like, but I could imagine that might be an interesting way to start a conversation about either private-public-private partnership to really

Yeah, I'll have to see if we can create, I don't think our cost estimate or everyone wants to talk to us again.

They had like such a low number on this project and I still had pain there to call them.

Perhaps the friends of the downtown mall could sort of activate that kind of process and create such a foundation like the Central Park Conservancy.

Currently, there's been no lateral replacement.

I just know that they're proposing one at Fabio, or what's it called now?

The glass elevator building down the way.

And so when they up-zone those, they have to change out the water line to a larger size.

So that's where we got the sort of tip-off from utilities like, oh yeah, we're just going to replace all those laterals.

And whenever you change the zoning, we always up-size the pipes.

And that's where we're like, oh.

You know how invasive that is.

So currently, none have had that happen to them.

It's just more of a risk in the future.

So if you're planning for the long term, large trees, ideally you'd move those out.

Well, willow are really a fine-rooted species.

They don't have really invasive roots, so as one of those benefits of the tree itself.

And the soils have a lot of room, actually, surprisingly, for the roots to move around in.

I think it really helps, too, that they shifted the water in the gas lines that are in the higher areas off to the sides, so they're not close to those trees either.

And then you have the sand and sewer and stuff rule low.

The location is actually pretty good.

railings around the fountains were put there by the cafes.

They were not.

Yes.

I'm sorry if I didn't clarify that.

Making a recommendation that's not related to trees, but how do you endorse your recommendation?

That's where another place I didn't hear is that

I mean, as we know, I hear all the time, oh, the BAR wouldn't let us do this or wouldn't let us do that, and it's pure fiction, but you all are viewed as stewards of the mall, stewards of the design.

And so, there are certain things, and this is what struck me with Paul talking about a couple weeks ago, is that visual

Clutter, and Cheri and I and Kate walked on the mall before the meeting and just, you know, where things have started to intrude into that space.

Yeah, the cafe railings are an ABC requirement, but, you know, maybe they should be more open or, you know, this is where it's not a tree and when to do it and how much will it cost, but there are some visual issues on the mall that

you have a very prominent role in and hopefully we'll discuss that in September but I'm glad because

You know, you'd ask what made them all successful.

I think it's something unique about Charlottesville in that it understands and respects this design landscape.

This is something special.

And the other thing I've noticed in my 30 years is the lights in apartments and the upper floors.

You didn't used to see that, you know, people occupying those spaces.

So yeah, it's a number of things, but I do think there's a lot of folks that recognize the

and so on.

There is no do nothing strategy here, and I don't know if I worry that we won't communicate that.

I'd say that it's a city resident, a city staff, and staff for BAR, but the idea that, well, we'll just let it keep going because I think my first week on the job

I think Beth told me to call you, or maybe Breck told me to call you.

You and I walked them all, and I saw them all in a completely different way.

But here we are, over six years later, and we're still talking about we need to do something, we need to have a plan.

So I'm concerned this is just going to get kicked down the road.

And I will offer that in two years on July, I think four is the 50th anniversary of the ribbon cutting of the mall.

So it would be terrible if our trees look like that.

So do you all any other comments, suggestions?

You have anything for the BAR?

No, I mean, I just, I'll know that I'll reemphasize the need for this and also emphasize the cost and the investment for city council.

I mean, I think those are great recommendations.

And then also look into the endowment idea.

Well, I've told all this at other times, but I think this has been excellent work.

It's added a lot to the downtown mall committee's deliberations, and I think I can't think of a better kind of thorough

I think it's a study that would help us in doing our work to protect the design integrity of the downtown mall.

So I would love to find a way to support the proposal or the presentation to City Council in any way that you guys see appropriate.

I'm glad that this

Yeah, I mean, can we draft a letter and then circulate it at least by email between now and the city council meeting to then be able to send along as sort of here's the BAR support of this endeavor?

The necessity of doing something and the necessity of committing to something long-term and stressing that.

Well, I think there's also something to be said that, like, you know, the success of a place like the downtown mall ultimately is people, right?

And inspiring people to occupy that space.

And it's grown into this beautiful place, and if we let it fail, people won't come anymore.

And then City Council, you'll start seeing an economic downfall in your city center.

All right, well, thank you, Paul.

And that seems like it's something that we can do, and it's powerful, and it's a message to counsel rather than a letter that, you know, we're going to add it to that,

Yeah, sure.

That's our right wording.

Go for it.

Endorse.

Let's see.

I mean, if somebody wants to say something about the founds, for example.

that we, I think, we endorsed that they adopted imminently.

That's all.

As long as our microphones work, we'll get it.

I'm sorry, mine is, and I didn't have mine on, so I apologize, Remy.

I mean, I had to say because it's not a formal COA, it could be something we

I think it's the way we act.

I'm not saying that somebody can't write a very eloquent letter and, you know, it could do that too.

So how about Charlottesville Board of Architecture Review?

Is that, are you replacing, is that a new motion?

tomorrow.

We can clean up the language.

Thanks to Wolf-Joseph for their work and in support of, I would say, implementing the proposed facing plan for preservation of our historic landmark National Historic Landmark Mall and its trees.

Management plan.

Management plan.

That's even better.

Swift action and to commit to long-term maintenance of this important city.

Are we at a discussion phase now?

Back to the letter versus motion thing.

I think letters are nice, but I feel like the BAR doing a letter is almost where we don't want to act.

So I can make sure that I've got it correctly, but a motion was made.

It was seconded and I was anybody opposed to that?

All in favor.

Aye.

All opposed.

Perfect.

The motion carries, Ms.

Thank you.

Thank you, Paul.

preparing for next month and the discussion about the cafe spaces.

He's only got three minutes, it's fine.

There are things that are required again by ordinance.

There are things that are required by the ABC requirements and I will find out about those and I will communicate that to you all.

want you all to be cognizant of, and I'll send something out in some illustrations, images, but I don't want to limit your observations to just what I've taken photographs of.

But there's been a proliferation, particularly in the last month or two on the Mall, of things outside of those cafe spaces.

Now, if Craig in zoning says, well, those things can't be there, I can solve that.

But the question is, well, where someone has a planter box outside of a railing,

Are we okay with the planter box if it's inside the railing?

We've never talked about that, or an idea that, based on some of what Paul was saying about that visual clutter, if people put in plants that are the height of the cafe spaces, that's one thing, but once they start creating these artificial hedges, is that visually

that's something I could control from the BAR perspective because cafe spaces are reviewed.

We review them administratively.

So when you're out and about on the mall and the things that would be entirely in your wheelhouse, we say things like furniture should be either silver or black.

There's some mall furniture that's

Brown,

You know, people are doing that, and we're fine with it.

Those planters have ten different pots.

We're okay with that, or is uniformity important?

Another thing you see a lot of furniture that's sort of migrated onto the cafe spaces, you know, these tall

waiting stations.

Again, that's within the cafe space.

That's within our guidelines to address.

We've written a policy about the catenary lights.

I think I'm in pretty good shape with that.

I mean, we all know where if somebody's putting a pole on their cafe space, don't wrap it in an electrical tape.

Do it neatly.

So but it's just some of those things where

It's in the guidelines, but are the guidelines wrong?

Can they be adjusted?

And then there are things where there's nothing in the guidelines, what could we or should we adopt to address those?

So just over the next month, give it some thought and I welcome a lively discussion in September.

I move to adjourn.

All in favor?

We adjourn on time.