Board of Architectural Review Meeting   11/18/2025

Oh, do you want to sit here or down there?

Your name tag's right here.

I think it just moved me away from Cheri.

So she can't hit me or something.

That's why I'm in between.

Sorry for being through five minutes late everybody, but 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 and three minutes to offer comments.

Speakers shall identify themselves and provide their address.

Please come up to the podium to do so.

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.

We had a pre-meeting discussion in the

NDS Conference Room.

I was asked to read this little note.

Please note, sorry, I've got a message from our Vice Chair, the request for 159 Madison Lane is incorrectly listed as a deferred item.

It is technically a new item.

Not a big deal.

There we go.

It's actually on this updated, but that's more for the public.

Also, the conclusion of the formal business and following action on item number two on the agenda, BAR will adjourn to the NDS conference room just down the hall for an informal work session regarding the planned updating of the design guidelines and the review processes

for ADC Districts, IPPs, and Historic Conservation Districts.

No formal actions will be taken.

Meeting is open to the public and will still be aired on the live feed.

However, seating is limited and no public comment will be taken.

So y'all are welcome to walk down the hall and join us if you'd like.

All right.

First, we have

election of VAR chair and vice chair.

That's for our bylaws.

We were supposed to do that for the following year at the November meeting.

So anybody feel like wanting to be chair?

I don't know.

Maybe somebody has discussed it, but I haven't discussed it.

We haven't discussed it as a board.

And we're just assuming that the current people are going to continue then.

So I texted him and asked him that question.

I hope you feel better.

I said, do you want to be vice chair again or chair?

He said, I am.

Just returned, but pretty worn out for the last few days.

Is he under the influence?

No.

So this will be coming up on my seventh year.

I think I'd be willing to do it this coming year.

I do feel like it makes sense if I stay on for another year after that to maybe step back and hand off the reins instead of taking it all the way to my end of term, if that makes sense, just for good overlap.

But I'd be willing to.

So just for the purposes of a proper motion we're nominating

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right.

Thank you.

Yes.

Should I send them a congratulatory text?

So next agenda item is matters from the public not on the agenda or on the consent agenda.

The consent agenda is 1314 Rugby Road replacing a pool pavilion.

Anybody had a comment on that?

Any other any matters from the public in the room on the zoom?

Any members of the public who wish to speak remotely, please raise your hand.

Okay, okay.

All right, consent agenda.

We don't have the October minutes ready for review yet.

They should be ready by next meeting and then as I mentioned it's a COA application for 1314 Rugby Road that was sent to us as a

in our packet essentially replacing the pool pavilion.

The current is a pergola.

The new one is a little roof pavilion.

Any discussion on the consent agenda?

All right.

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right.

Consent agenda carries.

All right, new item is COA application for 159 Madison Lane.

Yeah, this is something you looked at just two years ago.

Time flies.

But this is for 159 Madison Lane.

listed within the corner ADC district.

It's one of the fraternities, or it is a fraternity.

It's at the north end of Madison Bowl.

It was designed by UVA A School Professor Stanislav Mikulski and built in 1928.

And what they're here, they were previously, we had discussed, and you all had approved the three

openings there on the face of the porch, and you would approve the infill with brick.

But I knew that they were also looking at some significant water infiltration issues, particularly associated with the deck under the portico and the stairs on the other side.

So a lot of this falls under maintenance and repair.

and I mean I honestly would have otherwise might not even have reviewed it with you all or maybe put it on consent agenda but I did just want to make sure you got to look at particularly with the stairs they'll be restoring them or putting the the treads back the way they had originally been so I just wanted to make sure no one had any questions or issues with

this, but staff does recommend approval.

And I think I had, and I had listed some recommended conditions that you can either read or you can refer to the recommendations under discussion on page two of the stack.

But did you have any questions for me?

It's all there.

Okay.

Let's see, do we have any, thank you.

Do we have any questions from the public?

I was wondering why you could not put windows back instead of infilling with brick.

Understand the security issue.

B.A.R.

had that discussion in 2022, so a couple of scenarios played with and this seemed the most ideal for their situation.

Kids don't care, which is why I was back up there now.

It's also probably inappropriate on a historic building like this.

I think there's windows there originally.

I guess my only question is I think our staff report said that we were calling for like one or two inches of recess and the proposal calls for the brick to be recessed a quarter-inch.

That was what was in the prior COA.

So would you be opposed to recessing it further?

I think that's a good point.

I like it.

And there will be a mortar joint that goes around the whole opening, right?

Yes, sir.

OK.

On the stairs that are brick, that you're going to replace the cap and extend the treads over, is the brick being reused?

Or is there enough brick there existing?

Well, we spoke with a little brick mason, M3, as a matter of fact, Shane Marshall, and he believes he has something very similar to what's there now.

One other thing I saw, you're putting drains in the concrete, I guess on that deck.

If you're facing the building, there's on the left-hand side.

Do you guys mind coming to the microphone?

On the left-hand side of the building, facing left-hand side, just to the left of that wall, at the parking area, there is storm drain that we were hoping to pipe it down and through and out that way.

On the railing replacements on the handrails, one thing I want to confirm that you're not planning to replace the railings in between the columns.

That wasn't shown on the plans.

Okay, because those, those didn't show up on any of the, it was point, all the arrows were pointing at like the stairs, but not those three center sections.

So I just want to clarify that.

Sure, those are all mounted into the columns though, so I think there's a way you could potentially save those without, even if you replace the deck.

Where I'm going with this is, it was a question, I guess I can wait for my comment, but.

Well this is why.

So there's a couple ways to look at it.

One, there are, because it's a historic structure, there are certain things that, in order to meet code, don't necessarily have to comply.

Haven't had a conversation with a code official about this, but I

I agree with that in sum, but I'm not comfortable when it's a life safety issue.

So if there's a railing height issue, and that's why the condition in here that I added the first bullet about, if it's replaced, it would be replaced similar with the understanding that it might have to be at a different height.

I understand all that.

There's also, these are, they're like rounded, they're curved, right?

They're not just straight run railings, so I think that at a minimum is a pretty important detail to match if you end up having to replace them, right, with new railings.

On drawing A2 facing the building on the right-hand side between the far right column and next to the left, we have a note that addresses that to match existing.

So when we not only addressed the handrails going up, we hit it in the center as well.

It's hard to see.

That's why I was using my phone to zoom in on it.

Sure.

OK.

Do you know how tall the existing railings are?

42 inches, I believe.

Oh.

Are they really?

Perfect.

I measured them myself, but it's been a couple years.

So I think then the only hang up would be potentially if the code official required y'all to do like the four inch spacing on the wickets.

Everything else was being put back the way the original drawing showed.

Somebody did on that left stair going down, they did a hodgepodge of a repair.

Another question on the handrails.

If you go to this Stan Slomakowski drawing, I noticed a detail for like a video cap.

They're all missing.

They're all missing, but were they there?

And I would support putting them back.

Yeah.

That's a very good question.

I'll go missing again.

You might.

Yes, I will.

Well, hopefully it's installed per our specifications and we don't have this issue anymore.

We have consulted with several different quote unquote experts with waterproofing slabs like this that are over a finished space.

So we're trying to get the best solution for this application.

It's our intent because we don't want this to happen again.

So when we were first looking at this, we went through different options.

And one was to discharge the water, let it discharge and come over top of that brick on the very front.

But then you'd have the same thing in the freeze and thaw happen again.

So we decided to go with the internal drains.

the internal drain system run it down and out like we just spoke about.

Ari Lee Contracting did a building just across the street from this and we went over and saw that elevated slab and saw how they did it.

They provided the drawings.

We matched very similar to that with this one.

That's the intent.

Any other questions?

Any comments from the public?

Or if it was taken care of.

I'm sorry.

Yes, as a newly installed member of the board, I will not take responsibility for driving the situation.

We are proud to work with them on some cultural issues as part of the whole package and renovating the house.

It was on the verge of shutting down, so I think it's gotten there.

And I wasn't kidding that the gentleman did

Having considered the standards set forth within the city code, including the city's ADC district design guidelines, I move to find that the proposed Mason related rehabilitation work at 159 Madison Lane satisfies the BAR's criteria and is compatible with this district, and that the BAR approves the application with the following conditions.

That the existing railings will be reused, however, if the existing are

The new will reasonably replicate the existing with the understanding that dimensions might be modified, but I think we've addressed that with our comments.

They probably don't have to be modified.

And to approval of the infill with the brick, receded, is there a dimension?

Back one inch from the plane of the brick wall.

I'll read the whole thing.

Approval of the infill with brick, the three basement level windows at the front of the porch with the condition that the coursing brick color and mortar be matched as closely as possible to the historic

All right.

We'll take a vote.

Ms.

Lewis?

Aye.

Mr. Schwartz?

Yes.

Mr. Rosenthal?

Yes.

Ms.

Tabony?

Yes.

Chair votes yes.

Thank you, gentlemen.

Thank you, guys.

Appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

Nice seeing you.

Good to see you.

I think other business we're going to tackle is described at the beginning of the meeting.

We're going to retire to the NDS conference room at the end of the hall.

The public's welcome to join us, but we won't be taking public comment during that working session.

We don't want to adjourn the meeting.

Sorry.

and I'm doing this.

I've already had a conversation with Carl.

Um, so, I understand yesterday had a little bit of a, a little bit of a head start, um, but the, the, and I was going to ask if you would maybe kind of, if that context kind of helped me a lot.

I'm updating them.

But we're,

Some of them I need to come down to.

We had a conversation with counsel over hiring consultants to update our guidelines.

I feel like my nose is so close to the chalkboard.

I was curious about these questions.

I wanted to sort of let you all have a conversation.

If you want to do it in order, if you want to do it at referral, I just want you guys to take notes and answer questions if you have any.

We have the empty school board, which you all have anything to do with it.

You have the historic conservation district.

There are three districts.

And then, of course, there's the APC district guidelines, which are also given to the IPPs.

So for example, one of them is kind of for the conservation district is, yeah, it's only two pages.

We need to update the booths maybe a little bit.

but we have from each of the districts who have characteristics for each, which are very special to each district.

So, we have to do, we have to do Mark Jefferson next year.

The others, several years later, who I built in observation districts, separate from the ABC district guidelines, who I hold together, well I just do the generic ones, so we worry about neighborhood characters,

later.

So I'm hoping if we can identify where you all use things, where do you see things working, where do you see things not working, all of my questions, just help with some things.

Personally, I would like to thank David for having written an excellent email that went out to everybody.

Cheri followed up with some other very good points.

Yes, a couple weeks ago.

And I thought those were really thought-provoking and I thought could be a basis of our conversation just from that.

And I really appreciate each of you taking the time to put that out there and

I also wanted to just thank Jeff, or maybe it was Carl, that came up with this homework.

I actually think we could spend an entire, I think, all the whole premises by saying I've not wanted to do a special meeting or retreat or whatever, but I thought

I don't know how we're going to cover all these questions in an hour.

I actually dug into it.

You know, despite my saying I don't have time, of course, once I started looking at them, I was like, this is really interesting.

And then reading through that long list, I really appreciate you and Kate putting together the long list of applications where we had granted COAs.

But in addition to that, I was thinking of applications where we didn't grant them, or just because, you know,

You're right.

But there are some that we denied, and also ones that just would come to us and turn into nothing.

But once I started thinking about it, it took me a long time to prepare some answers, and I just thought I'd be really curious about your everybody's answers.

I wanted to thank you because it was good and it wasn't like, oh, what new guidelines would you suggest or how do we just give this CAT, but it was really more global and macro.

The realization of the scale of these three sets of design we usually do and that there's no easy way to explain There's not one thing for all and what I realized back in the last week was I actually said to my bosses, you know

I said, but the high passing scale, I said over and over again, I think the guidelines, the high passing guidelines were very hopefully tossable.

I can't change them much.

It would be the question of what council did you

Can I just recommend that they do a one by one and just press the pop button.

I mean, I think that having history in California here, just to give us an overview of that process and the future is very, very helpful.

And having a flow chart that is then kind of for the public to understand very graphically and very easily would be great for owners, for developers, for architects, everybody.

This isn't connected.

This has a zoning issue.

And it's so frustrating to have to spend all this time that we're giving to something that is having to check those zoning.

These microphones are on.

OK.

Do you know what they're being?

I think they're counting out.

Just so we had notes, just to make sure.

Marilyn forgot to take notes a couple of times, our previous Patrick.

It says it's getting a patient transcribed.

It's getting reported down, so they don't chase yourself there.

Yes, I agree.

I think like a workflow chart, if you will.

I mean, I didn't like your idea of having, like, if this did, right?

Yeah.

There's super burdens to it, perhaps.

But then we also, you know, essentially checklist.

I think that one of the challenges I

sort of realizes that perhaps one out-of-state group, like whether it's ability control or whatever might be able to check a box, but then when it comes to us, we don't like it.

Could we uncheck the box?

So I think that's where this workflow really gets sorted out.

But not all of it.

Our applications are going through that process.

I don't know if the NAC doesn't realize that, but tonight was a great example.

We've got two small things, but we have a lot.

We do that.

That's part of our purview is.

It'll be planned for five months.

So Kate, I always, like, just when we feel like, yeah, we've got to accept for the vets and vice versa.

There's always going to be a problem.

Right.

Because that's a hard one.

I think this process will help with that.

But it is a spread scene.

So those are challenges with the process.

What do you think are challenges with the VAR?

One of the parts of the process, and we discussed it with you, is if someone comes and ends up in your office, for you to be able to say, you can handle this administratively, and do it so it doesn't come to the BAR, and that we can be comfortable, that staff is doing what we want, and you're aware of that.

It should be, again, something that can be given to an applicant or someone who shows up.

Here's what's going to happen.

That was the direction I got.

We will, we will.

Ultimately, when we, I want to have something more organized

to go through with you on our ears, how it's used.

Yeah.

So I think the administrative approval, at least in my mind, would be these things are very cut and dry, very black and white.

Like, is it 3D tall, or is it black and tall, right?

Like, you know, whatever.

And then perhaps where the VAR can be helpful is when you've got those gray areas.

That's kind of the piece of the part of the US.

or to not agree.

I think that you mentioned thinking about this in terms of RFP going up.

I got someone who reviewed historic preservation guidelines and decided to do stuff.

So some of it you're debating is, all right, we need to do that analysis and say,

That part of what I asked out loud is, well, once we have that analysis, we went and said to council, here's 20 examples of what the VAR would say, what Morgan would say.

That's one of those policy questions.

I think the key challenge is zoning the Heitenmasse they're allowing up of, right?

I think that's the elephant we're learning.

And I'm not saying that I'm opposed to that Heitenmasse, it just doesn't, some of it just lies in the face of some of our guidelines.

and I would say the historic districts themselves, not just what they look like now, but even the descriptions within those preliminary, you know, the timelines don't, I mean, the zoning curve doesn't, that doesn't match up.

It's like two different cities almost.

I would also say just process-wise, one of the challenges is

Jeff and M.K.

too, their ease of doing the job, this job within the new structure and process, you know, what Matt just described and just how, you know, how it impacts them or makes their job easier or whatever.

I think that's just a challenge.

It may just be a transition rather than a permanent challenge.

But, you know, there's a reason why Matt was here tonight and I figured there are some, there's a transition afoot.

and I think a challenge is just neighborhoods and I'm not trying to belabor the last meeting we had, but neighborhoods and areas that were not represented or were not well organized.

We have a lot of neighborhoods in the city that are not well organized.

In fact, I would say most are less organized than they were about 15 or 20 years ago.

and that's a downside because I don't think they were well organized, that's my opinion, during the comp plan process or during the adoption of the zoning code.

I'm not saying that the consultants and everyone in the city, you know, we heard about it, their input was solicited, but I'm just not, my opinion and it's mine is just that they weren't all at the table.

It could have been their fault, it could have been the city's fault, it could have been anyone's fault,

but you know to have that many people turn out and those are some neighborhood leaders that you know had no idea that this could be built in Fifeville that just seems you know I'm not I'm not and I'm not characterizing those victims but there's just there's a disconnect there so that I think that is I mean that hopefully that won't be the last meeting on a five year that we have like that or the last time when those things are

Shouldn't go on that.

You're exactly right that that's why community groups are being told your only opportunity to say something is good at the end.

It shouldn't be.

It shouldn't be.

It shouldn't be.

It shouldn't be a committee council.

I mean, no.

It's in front of us at all, because they're supposed to be on the other side, so there's two.

I know that there is some discussion with trying to, the community is trying to get some help, and they don't really know how to do that.

And it would be nice to have some sort of process.

It should be an HCI.

Like every 10 years, or every five years, or something like that.

I mean, first of all, I think to create a new district would have to be absolutely the goal of a tidal wave to do it.

But it would also not change the underlying tone.

I think it looks like, but it doesn't say.

So that's what we build usually.

So, but, a question, it is a question, like, do you include how, and how does the city promote these kinds of districts, how does the city promote this?

I was, I, except for when's the first one, University of Baltimore?

I was here for all of it except for I think the first two, where they all were adopted.

But the historic districts?

Yeah, the agency districts.

No, it was the conservation district.

Oh no, the only one I was involved.

I was still not on the planning commission.

when Willam Mills was adopted, and that was the first one.

We're sure that was, or maybe it was.

And that was, they were initiated that when Roscoe was leaving.

Right.

But Willam Mills had a lot of opposition within there.

It was hard for, I think they were first aiming to be an ATC.

that we said should not be demolished.

The link to city, council, they upheld all of that.

And then you came back and said, if the applicant has a way to get around this, offering the property for sale, if it doesn't.

The state code allows them, remedy-wise, they could have appealed to the certain crew without

make a little legislation that states it's in our city code.

It's in our city code.

OK.

No, they can't.

The city has stated that.

And then for the code of Virginia, then the applicant gets a revenue.

So then the intent of that legislation was to tap into words for them.

It was an odd pause.

It's to say, all right.

So there were challenges, key challenges.

And that's a step back so to speak.

And so I wonder if there's a way to change some of our processes.

at a certain level, you know, you go to the VAR, get the Basting and Site Plan approved, and then they do some more steps and then come back to the VAR for the detail itself.

That's not the flow, though.

It's not.

We're talking about.

So yeah, I agree with Rob.

I agree with Lisa Roberts when she said, you can't have these partial COAs.

But after talking with those in Fredericksburg who do a COA for height, mass, and scale placement in the building, and it is an appealable skill, right, so they have a two-step, now you can certainly go all the way to the last step.

The challenge that I have- Let's do that.

Key challenge, let's do that.

I agree.

We should do it that way.

I think it would be very frustrating to have to go through this whole process with a client in good faith that you're going to get a COA again, but you may not.

But then when we start asking questions like, wait a minute, is that like a brick return?

And I can see them just sort of like, you know, making stuff up because they haven't gone that far.

And of course they haven't gone that far.

They don't even have the approval yet.

So that's really a challenge.

The challenge we're facing right now, and I get this distinction, we've largely done projects in the small, I don't know, K-9ed, or large, or large, trying to figure out ways to look at it, but I think

who asked how long we had to sort through those two years, we're still testing and walking through it.

They keep asking about the BAR purview, kind of leaning out the entrance door as well.

We do see a lot of big buildings.

You guys say yes or no.

And I try to explain, well, the design process doesn't work that way.

And these are architects.

They understand that this isn't, you know, they know exactly.

And they, for some large scale projects, a series of discussions

It's not a bad thing.

So that it's not, when you guys look at something three or four times, that's not bad.

That's not, the result has been, and that's why I asked in this list.

No, I think it is.

Even a subdivision, like if I'm doing something that doesn't look good or requires four reviews, that's exactly what you were saying.

It's not a dramatic reviewer, it's just about like

I've seen more data with the building's code before.

going to be the size, the placement, the mass name.

So then we're not having those issues or discussions at the AR.

And now we go to design development.

I think one area where we've had, it seems like first, that's procedure presented to us.

So it sounds like we're on the right track.

Each one of us, I can support this, this is heading in the right direction, we need to do better

I can't support this.

I mean, the people who were next to the last meeting were, they've been against it the whole time, but it just, I think the perception changed.

So I don't know how we get around that where the applicant's a clearer idea.

During these early meetings, they guess they're going in the right direction and know they're not.

I would, just on that application, I would disagree with you.

I mean, I agree that the applicant is, should be entitled to know early on, you know, the big picture, the massing and how, you know, they shouldn't be surprised.

I mean, I'm not sure John was surprised, but whenever, you know, if he was indeed surprised.

But there wasn't as much support as he had.

But I do think that, in all fairness, we don't have a checklist.

And a lot of the early meetings were about the little houses.

I don't think there's any time that they've come before us when they've asked us directly, are you OK without having messing?

And we haven't said no, scale it down here, do that.

But I don't think even every time it's been modified a little bit, but I think it's

Like Jeff says, it's an iterative process and I think all of us are spending an amazing amount of time on that application.

And I'm not just saying the public comments, but about giving them comments about two aspects of it.

So I don't think we were, I just would differ with you in saying that we're,

I don't think we're unfair.

Maybe it wasn't, maybe you wasn't surprised, but to me it seemed like it was a... And I know this is a public meeting, and if John Matthews is listening in, I don't care, because he's, you know, I'm friendly with him.

But the next day, they were ready to scale back a little bit.

So I begged a different, that it was a huge, oh my gosh, you know,

I think that it might have been a direction that they anticipated that we might have been heading.

But I don't want to- But you made more than I think of challenges when we're reviewing these projects.

Do we need a checklist?

And that is what Carl's point was, was to try and get that with some clarity on maybe it's not, maybe we don't even

I think that's something that ends up happening.

The project has got to be okay from the zoning code as far as like high mass scale placement.

Well, that's what I was going to say.

Well, it seems like we're not allowed to.

And now I understand kind of what Jeff has been concerned about this process that's been brought before us and that sort of went through the seating.

You know, from your point of view as designers and architects and advocating property owners,

You probably do want this flow that's being presented, but as members of the BAR, does that mean we're hamstrung?

If our review is final, how much can we modify where the project's gone?

And I do think it has a potential to hamstring us a little bit, not to have early input.

and I think that's what James was saying.

I think that's a good idea.

Yeah, I wasn't either.

But this is to this point, what I put down here is a very solid new zoning code.

Zoning guidelines is where we're at.

And part of me basically said, what we have to do is figure out how to get certainty to people through this process.

And I think that's very detrimental to the city, ultimately, in trying to build more housing, provide more space

and new businesses and so forth.

Well, I think that my understanding is that, and again, we don't want to focus on that application.

No, it's a good example.

But my understanding is that application was the only one or maybe one of the few ones and maybe the most major one that came forward before this new process.

was being formulated.

And I think staff, and maybe the applicant too, I don't know, agrees that if they had to check those boxes, then, like Matt said, it would have been more predictable for the applicant.

And again, it wouldn't have come to us.

So I'm glad that we had input on the project, especially with those structures.

It was a weird situation.

It's not just, what do you build in an A.D.C.

district?

I know it's not an A.D.C.

I wrote down some people.

versus a district.

Two examples to use internally.

OK, these are actually two different things.

They're very different.

I was hoping it would be a little more positive discussion on them.

But there's also a similar that we should be looking at.

A new building in an area like West Green, where you're going, what are we basing this on?

I'd like to bring it back somehow

When we have a large-scale project to establish, just like we did with the CAFE spaces, one of the principles that are going to guide us along those lines.

And at Seventh Street, we had said, here's what matters, here's what we prioritize, and we'll characterize these projects for the two buildings.

And again, this is just an example.

But it then left, speaking of opportunity,

They didn't know where you all stood.

They were wondering why is the VA under some kind of discrimination or a salary.

But one way we could solve that is to say up front, here are the principles we're going to use.

And then just to the point of the high capacity scale, it all works if you all say, move it back, push it back, or step back here.

And the applicant says, yes.

The break of the chain, and I think it just has to happen, so it's evident in everyone's view.

People all can say that.

There's no higher level to take them to until you've voted on a CLA, which, as it happens from today, is down the line after they've finished somewhat of a cycle.

So, if we can, let's

I would like to say I have felt that the BAR has gotten involved with the projects and made them better.

and they have taken the hotel in West Main, I mean on the mall, got better.

I think this project on 7th Street got substantively better after our comments.

In fact, most of the large projects I feel the DAR has

I think it's more if they get three or four times down the road and then find out, oh shit, yes, sorry.

It's being used to fuel the, well, you know the VAR.

Well, they don't include anything for the VAR.

I would say the Portland project was, you know, there was a, it seemed like they expected an earlier approval and it turns out, you know, I don't know if you guys, I mean,

It's not dead for our guys.

I've used that.

I've said, all right, let's take But I think we were kind of

We were a big one for that, and I'm not certain that that's fair.

I don't know, Kate, what did I do?

We'd go to the blanket.

She said if I went to the- There was an authority to get a work session with the developers.

Yeah, at the council.

And I said, here's how many things the VARs moved.

Oh, that was not good to you.

Yeah, I said, you know, it was like 1,500 things.

And they denied me 84 denials, and only four of those denials were like from presidential elections.

I said the actual school has by far more large scale residential buildings than ever to my end.

I do worry that an argument is being made on some sides that the design and review process is why they're not getting more hands-on.

But they are blaming the, you know, the core base core requirements.

Period.

I'm sorry, folks.

Not with tariffs, I'm not being political, I'm just saying, not with cost of lumber that was already skyrocketing before

Terrace not with the current building costs.

You cannot.

The best thing the city, I think, can do is look at opportunities to redevelop existing places.

And it's not going to be brand new and spanking beautiful.

It's not going to be new construction.

It's going to be renovations and modifications.

New construction, affordable housing, and that isn't, it's a conundrum.

It's not Seymour.

Thank you.

I'm sorry, but that's why this can't be done.

That's why developers aren't knocking down the door in the city to build affordable housing.

It's not affordable to them.

It is!

Even if they get grants, even if they don't get grants.

You know, there's something that degrades in the next ten years.

And Kate and I have lots of- I've also heard the argument of like, oh well if you make me knock these two stories off my building, then the economics don't work.

That's fine.

Really?

I mean, like, the two stories?

and that's where, I mean some of these old guard departments, four story guard departments.

They're workhorses.

You had your middle house.

That was workhorse housing that could have been converted, could have been bought by private property owners and converted to workhorse housing right in the middle of the city of Charlottesville where those people could walk to work.

and not have to use buses or cars or anything.

I don't know how he's going to... Council did say they want to have a meeting sometime early next year to discuss student housing and discuss possibly, you know, VAR purview might be part of that, the in lieu fees and why they're different between student housing and that radius that they keep talking about.

Well, it would have a bearing on especially the policy decisions.

So, on the page a little bit, we've been talking a lot about new buildings.

We also have guidelines, consultation, which is the lion's share of what you guys would do from old buildings.

but if they had those conversations and said, we're going to change what the PAR looks at, yes, that would change what we would be asking to consult with them.

It seems like we've been asking for multiple years to have at least a two-step design review process.

So we're offering a solution to all these people who are saying that the design review process is the problem.

So don't tell us, no.

If you want us to help, this is how we think we can help.

You're going to have to change the ordinance.

I mean, is there really, do you know this perception that we're like anti... Yes.

Because I know, as many people tell me that

You guys don't have enough teeth.

You're letting too much stuff get through.

We weren't the ones who stopped the violent crime.

Council said we're not interested in giving you the additional height, but they said

they needed to make that financially successful.

So we've been shoved under the bus and run over about five times on that one.

We're supposed to understand we are one of many reasons that, like again, it's the form-based code and the in lieu fees and all that other stuff is also being blamed.

I don't think our guidelines are that off, except that our guidelines are missing some way to deal with these big buildings and that the materiality changes with these big buildings.

I'm going to add on to your thing about staff working in this structure of the zoning bill.

Or will get bogged down because it's just an address check, right?

Or like, oh.

You would think.

You would think.

OK, everything.

We started on the list.

And, uh, or it's the, uh, this is why, like Kelly, as you said last week, go through

What are the common sense things that you guys can handle?

We spend so much time talking to people about what do they need to do for an application.

Windows, again, just popping up.

If I can make all for an example, Mr., the Keywords property over on Grady Avenue, we've got the two giant, running cryptid area, or the seat in front of the building.

I can see the foundation wall's impact.

He wants to cut them down.

Technically, that's supposed to go to the VAR.

I just, and I don't, it's where I go, if the tree is damaged, the building, you can plant a new tree, but yet the rules, and then with the new tree removal permit requirements, so we spent a lot of time dancing around explaining, or me trying to go, gosh, I don't think that's the VAR about this.

Hopefully a lot of that's going to get captured in our common sense solutions.

I'm glad we'll also see the success of the process.

I mean, yeah.

I think part of the challenge is that, like,

You know, and the guidelines are far apart.

The goal of the development code is to get us bigger.

But yeah, I don't think our guidelines necessarily say it has to be a certain, you know, we don't have high limitations in the guidelines, for example, not that I know of.

And I think we're a little pretending.

Well, what do you have to, I say this,

the spacing between buildings matters that set back the sidewalk matter in particular neighbors.

There's a rhythm there.

We know we don't have a West Main but an over-inventable neighborhood, High Street, there's a rhythm to those.

The second thing I tell people is yes, the guidelines say buildings should not be taller than 200%.

I said the VAR is fine with height, provided it doesn't shape them all.

I said but the VAR is not afraid of height.

The VAR does want to maintain that rhythm of spacing, that rhythm of setback and that corner line with a step.

I said there's new buildings, 101 as far as VARs are concerned.

I do have that on my list to address.

I think if we're going to go tall buildings, there's things you use on tall buildings.

But where you all get in and go, we have these places where I get asked this sort of preservation questions, and it's really difficult for me to look at that empty lot west of Main Street.

and say this is a historic preservation question.

It's an urban design.

What do we, and I think that's one place where we, Jenny Keller will beat me up for saying this, but there's some places where you just might say, you know, what do we believe in?

You've been doing that for years, sometimes successfully, sometimes not.

Is it the work now?

I think you did a decent job on that.

Obviously the standard of flats, that was a learning curve.

But I think the challenges of work are disgusting.

And I think what we last talked about was sort of the challenges of either public or other perceptions about whether you're doing a good job or not doing a good job in between.

And those are challenges.

People in the city that don't appreciate what this board does, including people maybe on council that just don't know why we exist.

They don't know that our authority is from council.

They don't know that council is responsible for adopting, ultimately, the guidelines.

You know, then they don't know.

I appreciate that they don't understand.

How do you think council perceives the BAR?

I don't know if we want to specifically say that here, but there are some

There's sentiment in the room repeating that there are members of council that don't understand what we do.

And there certainly are members of the public that don't understand what we do.

And then there are members of the public that appreciate what we do.

But I think all of that is a challenge.

And I don't think the new development code helps that.

I guess I wanted to create certainty for people who want to build things,

and if they can't rely on the zoning code and they perceive us as getting in the way of them using that code in reliance to develop plans and go through a whole process before they get to us it costs a lot of money and then we somehow we get in the way they perceive that we get in the way and we say no we don't think you know some kids you can do that you can have this many stories but we don't think you should be having that many stories

I think that gets to be a real problem for people as they're going forward because they're doing the finances in advance.

This is how big it is.

I didn't want to give that impression.

You mean from the last meeting?

Yeah.

The war has gone on, right now in this town, the earth is out of use.

Wasn't you all?

What facts and figures, stats, the big numbers, things.

Is that one of our questions about analysis of information?

I think some of it you all understand the process, you know, we deal with a lot of anecdotal stuff, so it really needs actual analysis of what have we looked at, how long has it taken some people to get through.

I would love to see the things that have gone through, how many have gone through?

Yay!

Already?

Yeah.

There you did it.

I love it.

I mean, they haven't eaten for their company yet.

One analysis or thought thing that I think we should think about is our purview.

Is it to always make a project better?

Or is it to grant approval when it's just good enough?

And I know I struggled with that.

And I feel like we all kind of struggled with that.

Gosh, I struggle with that so much.

I feel that way.

This is not a laugh.

Disagree.

So I think I feel powerfully about this.

And you could say we have design guidelines.

We have the zoning codes.

If that came to some algorithm that could spit out buildings, is that what we want?

So I'm going to try to make projects better every time I look at them.

I was in Houston last week.

and stuff like that.

And I was like, oh my god.

And it was right there.

It looks like something that we're reviewing.

And if not in a good way, this was like a template for a new swanky, new luxury appliance.

My son said that there's no snow in English.

So back to analysis and information, I'll just throw something out because Jeff kind of mentioned it before, like, maybe in the new guidelines or maybe, you know, you've got alongside of the new development code, are IPPs, do they have a different review than something in an AGC district than

Maybe, I mean, this seventh street thing is very unusual, but it's like a Blue Moon diner sort of thing.

But, you know, where the asset, the historic asset is a small part of a larger development plan, is that we'll get third set of review guidelines or analysis or whatever, you know, checklists, whatever.

Yeah.

We reviewed the office building portion because it was connected to the historic part of the building.

Right, but the rest was?

The apartments were not part of our building, but still that was a lot of discussion, like where does our apartments come from?

Yeah, certainly, yeah.

Chuck, would you go?

Montelbary?

Oh, correct.

What then happened to me

building they're doing next to West St.

I've been a little frustrated with that.

I have heard we've not heard back from the developers.

I have not heard from the project yet.

People request you to VAR do certain things.

And I assure most people, you all almost don't even need to speak because the VARs are very conscious.

They're very aware of the heights of that faith.

But then following that meeting, there seems to be an effort to just have nothing different.

So we got it in every direction.

All right, here are the principles that we're going to use moving forward on this.

And that's going to take development process to that we're all, it's going to be a little more homework.

What's that?

But we've gone with the checklist, and this is where the checklist goes.

If you look at any of my career staff reports, I list things like, do you want detail on this, do you want a wall section, do you want to see that Carl has now automatically wondering about what's going to be the balcony, what's the ceiling of the balcony.

and so it's in a new gunners fast application and I automatically will ask for the joint details of this.

But that's maybe that's not too much.

12 years.

Yeah, no, I just literally argue for seeing something for these pre-app conferences, these conferences, which are required by code to be just simply comparing and contrasting with the guidelines and projects.

It's where CATEC may not let them in the room if they have really cheap medicine guidelines.

Well, no, this one is the last one.

Kate already said one that's very important, which is look at that.

So go there.

Yeah, specifically, I mean it would be nice for a consultant to actually do an analysis of white scale passing of neighborhoods.

It's like, you know, it was far in the downtown mall hotel

You know, there's a lot of sort of anecdote, like the developer saying like, oh, there's only like two or three parcels where this could possibly happen.

So don't worry about this becoming like a high rise.

Well, this sort of like walking down the downtown line was like, I think there's a lot more than two or three places where this could happen.

And if we're not careful, we're gonna have 10, 12 story buildings, or 15 story buildings, and then you've lost your number.

Tim Moore's digital model,

Yeah, right, so, as part of the team.

I just like, you know, that apparently Boston has a full-scale bottle of the whole city that can keep it up.

but we go to a neighborhood that's hard to work for.

We'll go to a neighborhood where you guys can see where I've taken Austin and I, work the street in some area at twice a week.

Even though we started to read you the descriptions, just the narrative description of the districts, I hope it's good for somebody who doesn't live in the city to do that.

Because I feel like they would have a keener eye than we do.

I've really struggled with writing mine.

I know I never presented it to you guys, but I do look on it.

I had West Main.

How do you summarize West Main in a couple paragraphs?

Are you kidding?

And even when you break it down into sections, it's still

So I think a professional planner architect might have a better eye for capturing what's there now.

And also maybe what direction with the development code we might want to go with.

And that might also be part of the narrative.

I do appreciate guidelines and the general description that says emphasize front porches or emphasize, this block emphasizes verticality of commercial building or whatever.

Those seem like the low-hanging fruit, but I do think that they're really important and I think they will be more important when we have applications that are, you know, they're really difficult in front of a very aggressive development code.

You know, and I don't want to revisit 7th Street, but you know, the other road that I had was

writing guidelines that are not subjective, but objective.

And I know that's really, we have some that are really subjective.

We have ones that I think are fairly discernible and maybe more objective, but you know, I was on the BAR when we last redid our progress.

And I think Frazier, for what they could do, Frazier and Associates did a good job.

But I don't think that we were like,

Rewriting it, I don't even know what the guidelines were before.

I know they were very skeletal, and we needed something.

And I don't think that, however, I doubt the council reviewed them much.

The challenge for me, and I would be helpful if you guys

For example, we're supposed to save everything I can, only replace what needs to be replaced.

And it gets to that question of, I don't want to be like,

place to handle the hatchet, add the hatchet, so-called hatchet.

But I think there's some, that's where some reasonableness in those, some flexibility would be useful.

I don't know if we can solve it.

I said, there's no secretary of standards.

But I think there's some places that we need to add some flexibility that only we understand.

But I absolutely agree that you, as I was writing about, I hope I got it all now.

What you said was, that I heard, we need someone to look at these districts in the context of describing them such that that description's of use when we're evaluating.

Because if you read them now, some of them, lots of parking.

I think one of them talks about lots of parking, auto-oriented power lines.

Cobra lights are, you know, and not written in terms of, all right, if you're going in to evaluate this,

Yeah, I think also just updating the descriptions, you know, because I think there's been a lot of buildings built since 2012 or whatever.

like that is the character of that strip right now and so like as much public outpouring as there was to say not to build this like I think I would have a hard time saying it's against the guidelines for that particular location.

So and that gets into the purview and like where does our purview stop and start?

Is it within the district?

Or do we factor in things like neighboring neighborhoods, right?

That's a challenge.

Because it's a much different scenario than 7th Street, where there's like two abandoned houses that I think are like marginally significant.

I mean, yes, there is a neighborhood around there, but it's not like the impact is just being.

Almost.

There are sites away from where this should exist.

I think something to do with what you all are doing.

you do have an advisory role in Mississippi on the extended scale of the districts and what's designated.

And I, again, may not speak in preservation heresy, but I, one of the questions that Kate and I bounce around a lot is what is critical, what is threatened, what's critically important, what's sacrosanct, where, you know,

The storefront you're building, I don't know, probably put it in the 70s.

Then you walk, you know, a couple blocks, there are some commercial storefronts that are absolutely pristine from, you know, wherever that building went in.

We should identify those, and that's, you know, really want, these are special.

And we may have to be, any recommendation to shift those boundaries, change those boundaries, add things to those boundaries,

we'll go through you all first.

This city is not, we're not a museum of what are places that we really need to

Where will we get your emails in?

I guess you'll say, don't you work in the street.

But the next year, so does that actually make sense?

Not now, but?

Yes.

Not to say to, like, greatly lessen the amount of contributing, but there are certainly some that can't be seen.

Everything up and down, work in the street.

The East of City Hall is contributing.

Enterprise building.

The one we were recently reviewed, the lady was, you know, I can't remember what it was.

Yeah, right, the other studio.

It's like, that did not need to come to us, I'm sorry.

Do what you want, right?

That's a great question.

I just answered that before.

We've got the hotel, the apartment building.

Do we have to review that if they end up?

Well, because the only place, and this is a GIS thing that Kate's been taking me with, is we don't, the only place that we have that says whether it's contributing or not is on the map, our guidelines.

What else does this go through?

Well, no, just simply to note that it's not an address.

There's no longer a

address the changes in five years, that number is assigned to it.

So there are buildings, the AR's approved, that are contributing.

But if tomorrow somebody wanted to come in and knock down the standard,

I would say it's not featuring, it's not shaded on this map.

That one's been updated.

It is, and I think we've gotten the update in here, but we realize that this... Okay, the judge's background is updated.

One of the things I've raised about 13-1 work is some of these assumptions are being brought around.

They can knock down the building.

Well, the approval they had to build something there was predicated on, because they're built.

So that's got to be understood.

So the COAs, right?

The time is ticking on both of the COAs.

Well, they have to do something.

It's just cutting that carbon launch.

That would be a positive question for NASA.

If you allow a contributing building within a district to be raised, does that property itself stay English?

I don't know the Stonehouse on PPA.

Another example.

A good example that they actually did a list of properties.

I'll list it.

I'll list it, right.

It's underground, but there's a building there.

On this map, it's not, it doesn't show up as a building.

So the GIS layer is usually created.

So one of the things CATEC and I are wrangling with in our analysis is what's contributing, what's not, how, and what.

So that it's not necessarily like over us on us to review every single building.

Right, no, no, no, I mean when they propose the changes to us to say like every single building in the city is more here's the 20 that we think we're going to change the designation on and we get a

Which is a curious question.

Where is this?

At the Green Ridge.

And he don't really need the extension plate.

I don't know.

I've picked enough fights this year.

I've never seen a difference.

So the question that also we have on our list of things is how do we ask the consultant to tackle chapter one?

Do we ask their consultant to tackle chapter two, new additions, new construction additions, and other to tackle the rehabilitation, those things.

You know, when you let theirs break things up, do we do some analysis beforehand?

Well, no.

We all work for a council, so the political answer is yes.

Langfish, and of course the HO question will come up.

It may be a consultant that does that, but to inform us before we hire the design guy to consult.

And I think we may need to leave chapter one

That was it, just that it should be two RFPs, one for the analysis and one for the next RFP after

I mean, we just looked at the forecast code a week ago and looked at some of the conflicts that are in there.

So I'm trying to look at that.

and someone else about those challenges or where it fits in the conversation.

And somebody mentioned it, but it does.

You need to grapple with windows.

Yeah, you should just do check-ons.

Well, I think the guidelines currently are sort of only replacement if they're at a certain state, but I think that there's also an tendency often to just say, okay, just let them replace them as long as they have some quality that matches what's there.

I think the public sentiment is against the Secretary of Interior standards.

Energy code, all those things people want to do with it.

and this is what I'm saying, it is something that people kind of feel strongly about and follow one side or the other about and I think that we owe it to the city to make a sort of, anything on that.

When you start making a decision, breathe.

I mean, like, our guidelines seem to suggest that we should be enforcing more repairs.

Right.

And we tend to allow more replacement

Yeah, I mean, I hear that.

I think it gets into your, to use your word, sacrosanct, right?

Are there certain buildings that we're willing to really fight for to save those windows?

How do you identify?

People are just doing it.

Doing it.

That's one place I will say, who's that?

It'll be our alumni replacement.

And they're just doing it.

I told you that a former chair in VAR told me somebody would come to them and say, do you think the VAR would approve this?

She'd go, no.

But if you do it on a Sunday night, everybody's going to be nervous.

She was a chair.

But you know, for small things.

She wouldn't ever do that for history.

It's like stuff like this, where people are like, why are you making people do this, you know?

And it's like, that's where the virtue goes in, within all the people.

Like, especially without pads.

I would miss the light from my being on the BAR to see follow-up to what we've done, like not knowing what happened on Wartland or at West Haven or with the trees on the downtown hall.

I think it's Jefferson that's beside the new courthouse at the end of the street, which is a white house.

It got left out.

Wow.

It never had a front porch.

It's still Marshall's old office building.

801 is just a computer.

I do talk to folks a lot about things and we walk through, you know, they want to do something, right?

How are you doing it?

I work with people in groups and there's some down comes a lot that, you know, I know what we want to see, what we don't want to see.

I tried as much as possible to treat those as the cat can lose all of its own via email.

It just keeps the thing moving.

But you said, or who asked if Kate and I didn't come to work tomorrow?

And the problem with that is that, yeah, that's kind of how we do it, but if all of a sudden, you know, Kate and I hadn't made it home from the hope belt,

That actually doesn't bring up a movie.

So they should all be ex-ceivers.

Those are really don't ex-ceivers.

You guys don't say, oh yeah, it's all because of your pain and your life.

I guess this is when I'm walking around town, I don't remember seeing that.

Jeff probably approved that, but it's straight up late.

At least when it was out, you know.

So it wasn't, or the building on West Main, pulled off the flash screen.

And I said, we don't know, but you can take it off.

To put up the flash screen again, you can do it.

I said, but just let's see what you got.

but I don't want someone to be so terrified to take off the, you know the house on Parsham or on the Blue House was covered by a sign and they were afraid to take that sign off.

All right, thank you, I know, we appreciate it.

I didn't see the list of what they are or what they are.

Oh, of course.

That's the big one.

The rat.

All right, well.

No, I don't know what the material is.

I know we improved it, but it benches out front, and those trees were like one inch tall, where they will not divide shape one this time.

Those benches are black, and they're high in shift on a warm day.

In the winter, they'll be really warm,

You know, like today, a part of it formed to sit there, but they are hot as hell, so we should never approve black benefits.

They're stone, so they really absorb, it was like a mistake.

I thought that they were restoring movies in the late afternoon.

They were replaced on the end of the age of all hours.

We did.

We did.

Oh, like what?

I do think it is, I think it works, the building works.

That's where you all were talking about a type relative to the Cornish line.

I mean, you go back and look at this directly where

Very successful, but that's the only one that's shared.

An institution in public buildings is what I call it, I think that was my piece.

The only other one, we've had some age on it, but I don't think we've ever had any constraints on it because there's no

But the storefront at Chaps is pretty nice and you have it on the list.

I know it's 2022, but I don't know when it was built.

But it was better.

I want to do something real wild, like tell the guy to put the fish on the hotel.

That's Ephis.

Yeah, the same one.

Not finished, but... I mean, they're supposed to get a ruble for that.

I don't know if there's people still working on that, but I've just not been on the right day to see it.

It's every third Tuesday on it.

I mean, I think that I'm going to hand her out.

What are you talking about?

The three of them works very well.

Oh, the three of them.

It's... Don't call it that.

Yeah.

It was late.

We enjoyed our company, but the next day was rough.

Yeah, the agenda is that.

We were appearing at the house pretty late, so that was hard.

Oh, 7th Street.

7th Street.

But that's the problem.

No Holiday Party at the Freeman Bailey House today.

It was a real semester.

We tend to defer it right away.

Oh, they're not going to have to say about that now.

And, Scott, we have a party to go to.

Yeah, I don't know what you said.

It's just working.

I don't recommend that.

Anybody's on video, you can see me smiling and laughing.

And I'll do my best to guide you.

Don't have a post ready for any motions, would you?