Board of Architectural Review Meeting   9/15/2026

It is 5.30, thank you.

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 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.

All right, so we have some

Business that we need to discuss, therefore I move that the Charlottesville Board of Architecture review as permitted by section 2.5 of the BAR's bylaws go into closed session to discuss with staff the limits of the BAR's purview as it relates to the following sections of the City of Charlottesville code.

Do I hear a second?

Second.

All right, all in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

All right, thank you.

The motion carries.

All right, and I think we need to adjourn to, or excuse me, go into closed session in the NDS conference room.

Do I gavel us out?

We'll return shortly.

Now or after this motion?

Thank you everybody for your patience.

I move that to the best of our knowledge only lawfully exempt public business matters were discussed during the closed session and only those public business matters originally mentioned in the previous motion were heard, discussed or considered.

All in favor?

Aye.

Thank you.

So we've crafted this statement for this evening.

Following the consultation with the city attorney's office, it has come to our attention that the COA application for 221 East Main Street cannot be considered at this time by the BAR because it does not comply with city of Charlottesville development code chapter 34 section 5.2.7 B1.

and we advise the applicant please contact Brenda Kelly at the Office of Economic Development for next steps and she's right back here.

So if you guys have questions or would like to talk to her, that's the person to talk to.

It's not in accordance with

The City of Charlottesville Development Code, Chapter 34, Section 5.2.7, B.1.

You got that?

No, sure.

Chapter 34, Section 5.5.2.7, B.1.

Ms. Kelly is here in the room this evening so that you can put a face to the name.

All right.

All right, so we will go into our regular meeting.

Matters from the public not under items C through E on the agenda.

And items C through E are deferred new and preliminary discussions.

Any matters from the public not on our agenda tonight?

Online?

Okay, thank you.

For our consent agenda, there were some late comments, edits on the meeting minutes from the June meeting and so we are going to strike that from the consent agenda this evening.

The June meeting minutes will be submitted at a later BAR meeting.

That leaves

and recommendations for special exemption permits for 835-843-847 West Main and 211 Ridge Street demolition on the consent agenda.

Both of those items were thoroughly explained in the staff packet that was sent to the BAR.

Very good.

Thank you, Mr. Schwartz.

Thank you, Mr. Bailey.

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right.

Consent agenda passes.

Thank you.

There are no deferred items this evening and the first new item as we just explained we are not able to consider that this evening.

And so we are going to move to certificate of appropriateness application for 835, 843, and 847 West Main Street.

And somehow, we are three minutes ahead of schedule.

So Mr. Werner, your staff report, please.

You are not supposed to say that out loud.

I know.

And I don't know when, but I'm hoping you all come up with a cool name for the project, because we just never know what.

It's been called LV Collective, the project on West Main, 835, 843, 847.

But yes, this is a COA request for the landscaping component.

And landscaping, that's everything that's not

in the building or on the building, so the landscaping, hardscaping.

And this is the project 835, 843, and 847 West Main Street.

It's a three parcel project.

You all have reviewed this.

both in preliminary discussions and formally in June in the approval of a COA for the design of the building.

And while it's not usual for us to approve, to separate things out in a COA because during the discussions of the building, there were some questions about the landscaping in it.

It lent itself to us to separate out that landscape and hardscape.

But I just want to make clear that's not typical.

We prefer not to do it.

But in this case, it's a means to an end.

And it allowed some additional time to talk about the landscaping.

So the.

The applicant has provided for you a landscaping plan which includes the paving materials.

There was one thing I asked of them on, it's not indicated in the notes on the drawing, but there's that path that continues around the rear of the building to allow access to the tower site on the east.

That material will be one of the pavers that they've indicated.

And also with this submittal in

In June, when you approved the COA, you would request that they update their solar study to include other times of day, I think some other months.

And the intent in that was to provide a little bit more information to the folks redeveloping West Haven that would help them advise their landscaping plan for that project.

And that information has been provided.

Assuming there's no questions after night, then we can circulate that to the people working on the West Haven project.

As far as the landscaping goes, the primary question that held things up in June was that vegetated buffer at the back.

The North Boundary separating the project from the adjoining project at West Haven.

The drawings indicate

You know, a vegetated screen in there.

I'm not versed enough in what the various plants do, but there's a lot going on there.

And there's also on the site plan, and it's not clearly indicated on the landscape plan, but in the site plan that's being reviewed, there are two clusters of honey locusts at that back.

And one of the difficulties with that strip along that north boundary is that they're just inside the parcel line is a rather wide water line easement so they can't cross over into that and then on the north side where the parcel line is it gets into a steep slope.

So this is a

Not the easiest sliver of land to work with, but 10 feet on the east side and roughly 20 feet on the western side, so enough space that a vegetated screen could be introduced.

And I was contacted by

And I'll share an email from Emily Dreyfus that asked me to explain that vegetated buffer.

And I said that the intent is not that it makes the one property not visible from another property.

The intent of the screening between parcels is to introduce a visual element, to introduce some plantings that break up that sight line, but not the intent isn't to

And if that were the intent, I mean, certainly a tall fence or wall could be constructed there, but I can attest that when we were doing the COP plan review back in 2010,

19, 2020, and also we were doing the historic survey at the 10th and Page neighborhood that that was one of the things that the folks in that community very much didn't like is that the development along West Main had resulted in this visual wall.

So I'm not speaking for them, but sharing what they said.

So I think that the application as presented

meets the guidelines with the caveat that they do have a final site plan in the works and that what is on that site plan

and what is approved in the COA, they need to be fairly close to one another.

We don't get into inches, but the ultimate task will be that the final site plan is consistent with the landscaping and hardscaping plan that's being presented.

The second piece of this staff report is to modify a condition that you added in June regarding the phase one archaeological investigation and I think I said it, outlined it fairly clearly in the staff report, but

In conversations with the applicant there was a cost associated with the field work of doing the test pits and some of the necessary site work related to the archaeology that exceeded I think certainly what I had anticipated and I offered in good faith that I hadn't anticipated that and we had the idea of we could

complete a robust historical evaluation of the site and really understand it in working with an archeological firm that would tell us what was there and give us some information and then allow

I asked the applicant, in exchange of doing that site work, would they allow us the opportunity, if everything aligned, to conduct some city-funded work on the site.

And so that's what the condition that you see is intended to accommodate.

It's written a little more legalese than you all are used to seeing.

So I apologize for that, but we did have a good, lengthy discussion about it.

It covers the basis.

So in the motion, and you don't have to read everything out, but you would refer to omitting the condition from the June 9th COA and including the condition as recommended in the staff report and go from there.

So to unpack in that, and I do have an email, Mr. Zehmer, from the

Emily Dreyfus that you can read it to the record.

I guess I had a question on the archaeological study, historic study and then the investigation.

If I'm reading this correctly, the applicant would bear the cost of the historic study and then the city would bear the cost of any archaeological investigation.

Right.

And I guess I'm going to ask the applicant when we come to questions if they're in agreement with that.

The city does not have an archaeology ordinance, so we have no requirement.

that someone do conduct an archeological investigation.

However, if one is agreed to, then there are standards that the Department of Historic Resources has established.

And that's where we got to meet these standards.

is more than we had kind of anticipated asking of the applicant.

Now, to be clear, if someone is touring work on a project and they encounter human remains or graves, as we had anticipated and they might find at the Swan Tavern site, that becomes state law.

We have no say that

But let's say while they're excavating there, they find where James Dinsmore has buried the secret drawings to Monticello in a chest of gold.

Good on them, they found it, but we can't require it.

They do more.

I do think James would be very interested in the secret plans for Monticello.

I was even asked by the city attorney, well, what if they find arrowheads?

Well, they find arrowheads.

It doesn't compel them to do more.

Do you all want me to read this email from Ms. Dreyfuss?

Greetings, BAR members.

I'm writing to share concerns from Charlottesville Low Income Housing Coalition, CLIHC.

Members, regarding the recent LV Collective submission to the BAR, we are concerned about the findings from the revised shade study and the lack of trees proposed for the West Haven facing side.

The more accurate shade study shows extremely high levels of sun blocking.

This was not surprising given the residents' experiences with the standard overshadowing them.

Will you limit the setbacks of the LV collective plan given the new shade study?

The plantings facing West Haven seem to include only two evergreens and a lot of relatively low-lying shrubs.

Evergreens are helpful, but two trees are very minimal.

We have previously suggested several mature trees be planted on the side facing West Haven.

Current West Haven residents and the residents who will live in the planned apartment buildings, some of whom will be at eye level with the LV Collective building, should be provided with the maximum tree screen possible.

Expecting plantings at West Haven to be helpful is unrealistic because of the steep hill between the LV Collective land and West Haven.

Trees planted by CRHA in the future will only help residents on the first and second floors of the proposed public housing apartment buildings.

The looming appearance of LVC's building would best be addressed on their land with the planting of several mature evergreens that can survive in a largely shaded area.

Thank you for any assistance you can provide.

And I did respond to Emily and said that the setback, step back height to the building were not on the agenda tonight, that they had been addressed in the COA that was approved in June.

Now if the applicant had come in and included changing that, you all could respond to that.

But the application before you tonight is singularly about that landscaping and hardscaping.

Thank you for clarifying.

That was a question I had.

OK.

I think it's now time for our applicant's presentation.

Thanks everybody and thank you Jeff for the introduction.

Since the last time that we've been up here we've been able to go through another round of site plan review.

So I think you'll see some of this within the plan that we'll present and you've already heard some of this from Jeff.

A lot of utility conflicts all around the site.

Namely the RWSA main line that services a good majority of the city runs along our west property line and then wraps around our north property line.

So you'll see some conflicts there as we work through comments met with RWSA, city utilities and the entire DRT review team really over the last several weeks.

Beyond that I wanted to give an update.

We have an engagement agreement in place with CRHA and so we're going to be working on an ongoing outreach and continuation essentially of the West Haven planner meetings funded by LV with Water Street being the local consultant

Help organize those meetings and present and gather feedback and integrate those ideas into the project and we're going to work out exactly how to process those in the future.

You'll see on our plan that we've indicated areas where we want to connect to their plan.

It hasn't all been designed yet, so we're showing it on our plan as an intent and then it'll be realized over the coming months and really however long that engagement process takes with the community.

And then lastly, we are holding a community meeting on Thursday night at the Jefferson School Auditorium.

So I just wanted to extend that invite to anybody who wants to attend.

All right.

I said yes.

Yes.

Okay.

So, hello.

I'm Suzanne Vincent.

I am the landscape architect project manager for this project.

I will walk through what we have so far today.

I'm going to do a quick overview of site context, walk through the plan, touch somewhat quickly on the plant palette.

It's quite extensive, so I don't want to go through every single plant unless you guys want to.

And then we have some updated renderings that I think help imagine how the site will look.

So this first image that we see is a context plan showing our site in relation to the West Haven neighborhood to the north of railroad tracks and then West Main Street.

You're all familiar with this, so move along.

Here are the points of connection that we would like to make with the West Haven Neighborhood Plan as well as Main Street.

We understand that there is a historic connection that's been kind of created over time and we really want to make that a permanent part of our site.

as Andre alluded to the final design is not something that we're presenting tonight but we're laying the framework for it paving the way as it were.

So that's that.

Here's a little closer view of our plan.

We see the public plaza in the front including an entry plaza at the two kind of primary entry points to the building at one and two.

Stairs at 2 although most of the traffic is going to be heading west so there would be an at-grade access point there.

There's also another entry at the west end of the building, kind of near 7.

Seating at both the upper and the lower plazas, the plaza at number three is a little bit higher just because the site steps up a little bit there.

All the bicycle parking is located together near number four, so again an at-grade access point from the sidewalk and then plenty of bike parking there.

I think there's a total of 22 stalls at the moment.

The existing brick wall that's part of the historic bridge is something we're working around.

We understand that needs to remain.

And then the community, West Haven also requested a bus shelter be asked to the bus stop, so we've included that at number six.

You'll see that again a little bit later on.

At number seven we understand that there is the potential for pedestrian conflict with most of the students heading west and the site traffic access point being there as well.

We're suggesting a tabletop crosswalk there to help with that, provide a little traffic calming and also make a flat access point across the driveway.

The vehicular access into the garage ends you can see the gray kind of curve there and then the remaining area to the north is all pedestrian plaza.

It's also largely within in emergency and utility access but day to day that will function as a large open space for the community culminating in that future connection at number 11 both to the north and then again to the east of the basketball court.

At number 12 we are working to preserve the existing trees to the greatest extent possible, which we think we can keep all of the ones that are in there.

They are also within a critical slope area, so we won't be doing any other planting or work in that area.

We would like to augment the existing trees with some additional screening vegetation.

That would be, we'll get into that later, but it would be evergreen tree shrubs and deciduous shrubs as well.

And then the walkway wraps the entire site.

You can see the utility point, access point ends at 14, but the sidewalk connection continues all the way around.

Here you can see the utility easements overlaid over the site plan.

This is really shaping where we are able to provide new planting, particularly large vegetation, large trees.

So at number one we have the public access easement.

Number two is the RWSA easement.

That one is one of the more restrictive ones.

We'll get into that again with planting, but they have specific criteria for that.

The public utility easements along Main Street cut into the plantable area a little bit.

And then the telecom easement at number five.

Not pictured on here, we also have a number of private utilities that we're working around as well.

I just interrupted.

This is not consistent.

What's the package I have?

This is not the easement.

Is it also possible for you guys to email us this presentation?

Because it's really hard to see on these screens.

Yeah, we can share.

We can definitely do that.

But email it to us.

Right now.

Yes, email it to Kate and then she can email it to us.

That's probably easier.

And then Jen, I think that's a good catch.

Thank you.

I think what we're going to need to do is keep a keen eye on things like that and then possibly make a little list of anything that's different from what got submitted to us because

Pending our motion, whatever motion we make, we'll need to, because oftentimes we'll say as submitted or something, and so it's like which one.

Because the one that you have doesn't have the renderings and stuff in it.

And it's not uncommon for applicants to bring things with a few extra slides that usually help bring clarity in the renderings and things.

Well, it's 29 megabytes.

I don't know if it's going to go through.

OK, I assume it's going to go through.

I'll take the one that you sent.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yes.

Also, I'm hearing an echo from someone's computer.

Is that better?

No?

If that's what they're trying to remain, that's just a street view.

It's hard to see from there.

I can pass my computer.

Are they?

I was supposed to see him, if you can open up his GIS, the latest railroad view.

I just looked at him two seconds ago.

We're just doing Google Maps, but yeah, the street views seems to suggest there's decent sized trees there.

But the GIS will show him kind of, you can see the property line and where it is.

I think there's like four, it looks like.

Oh, sure.

We don't need a motion for that.

It's a friendly suggestion.

Let's take a five minute break so that we can get the stuff submitted and whatnot.

Somebody put the code in to add the owner's name

Is everybody back?

I think some folks are still waiting on receiving it.

We also have it here, so I think we can continue along.

We're gonna go ahead and come back in the session after our break.

The floor is yours again, thank you.

Thanks for sending along and yeah, I think,

Maybe as we go through, I can kind of keep notes, but if there's anything that's different from what you submitted, just to kind of maybe point those out as we go along, just to keep track.

Yeah, there was one canopy tree that was no longer in the pallet, so that was removed.

And then we swapped the elm species for one that's a little bit less aggressive with root growth.

And that was just based on some feedback from RWSA that while they don't have say outside of their easement they would appreciate if we could work with them as much as possible.

So those are the three purple circles on the west boundary.

Other canopy trees are the three red cedar you noted along the north side for some additional screening there outside of the critical root zone of the existing trees.

The blue cone arbor vita along the west property line and along one of the transformers on the north side for screening.

And then the willow oak and bald cypress for green scape trees on the south side.

Just so we're all on the same page, the blue cone arborvitae staying, willow oak is staying.

You remove the slender sweetcomb.

That's really it.

And it added an Eastern Red Cedar.

Between August and September.

Yes.

I think I got that right.

Okay.

And then deciduous shrubs, you can see those are a little more widely distributed on the site.

We're not as restricted with planting area for deciduous or evergreen shrubs other than where we are within the RWSA easement.

And that's predominantly along the south half of that pedestrian connection and the northeast corner of the site.

Here's the evergreen shrub palette.

Quite a bit of diversity.

Actually, I don't know.

The sumac doesn't belong on this slide.

That's deciduous.

But otherwise, we have boxwood, inkberry, normally spruce, a couple of yews, and then a viburnum.

It's not evergreen either.

So those are.

So the larger shrubs are on the north side again to provide some screening, some foundation planting at the building.

So you mentioned the Soo Act should not be on this page.

I think otherwise it looks the same as

The last one.

It should be on the previous.

It should be listed as a deciduous shrub.

That's the only difference.

OK. Just trying to make sure we're on there.

But it was not on the deciduous shrubs in the previous middle.

So we'll just say it got added.

And then here are the two RWSA easement areas.

And within the easement, they have a pretty restrictive list of what can be planted.

So we're working within that list but still providing as much diversity as possible.

This is the full list of what we're proposing in those areas.

And this would be the two areas highlighted in orange.

So those will be only perennial and grass plantings, no shrubs or trees.

And then the rest of the ground cover perennial planting are mixes based on site condition.

So here we have the shade mix, which is, again, quite diverse, more heavy on grasses, sedges, ferns, a few hostas, and then a few flowering perennials as well.

But because of the shade, not as many flowering perennials.

A slope stabilizing mix that can be seeded if we need to over the critical slope area just like to fill in any bare areas or under plant under where we're planting the new trees outside of the critical slope area.

Those plants could then be allowed to naturalize into the slopes if there is that opportunity.

I'm not going to run through this whole list.

This is a long one, but more perennials here.

and then the sun mix, which you can see for the areas highlighted in yellow, mostly along the south and then the east corner.

The paving pallet is basically broken down into concrete for the emergency access areas using a more decorative pattern for the pedestrian plaza where we don't anticipate as much vehicular traffic and want more of an open space for

the public and for residents to use and then decorative pavers for that north area at H&I where again occasional vehicles will pass through but mostly pedestrian use and then the same color paver on the south end in the public plaza

Here we have images of the raised planters and seat walls.

I don't think we have a fence that we need to use anymore, but the seat walls will be integrated into the retaining walls in the front, so they'll look similar to these options.

Maybe with the back, maybe not, but like a wood top on top of a concrete bench for comfort.

And then you can see some images of what the walls will look like in that next row of images.

Additional site furnishings include bicycle racks at A, removable picnic tables and chairs throughout the plaza areas, and then that bus shelter that was a request from the neighborhood at location C.

Site lighting, here we are proposing using the same lights that are along Main Street along the pedestrian connection to really reinforce that that is a public connection and have that design connection there just to tie that all together and make it not feel like a separate private space.

Outside of that most of the building exterior will be lit with building mounted wall down lights, some surface mounted step lights at that front plaza, tree up lights, most likely just for the trees within our property but if possible we could light all of the trees along Main Street and then bollard lights along the north side to provide some additional light.

And then here we have a couple of renderings of the project.

So this view is the southwest corner of the site.

You can see the driveway access and then the plaza off to the right.

There's a door kind of right behind that column that didn't show up in this view.

But you can get into the cafe space there.

I think that's the cafe.

Here's that same view facing a little bit more east.

So you're looking down along the front of the building along Main Street.

Here, this is if you had just come up from the West Haven neighborhood, you would see this.

I guess this is about halfway up that space, but this is facing towards Main Street facing south.

So you can see the planting along the right and then the driveway connection into the building on the left.

This is closer to the West Haven connection looking east along the back side of the building.

So the transformer screening is there and then the new plantings along your left.

Coming around the building to the east walkway facing south.

You can see the paving narrows there where the end of the utility access is, but the pedestrian connection continues on.

Back to the front of the building, this is the upper plaza, some of the bike parking in this view, tables and chairs, and then one of those bench seats.

And then the stair connection down to the lower plaza, which is here.

Again, the bench seating, the same theme continuing throughout, and then the tables and chairs.

And then this was a request at the last bar meeting to see some sections through this front space.

So the top section is running east-west kind of through the plaza.

So you can see how it steps kind of with the grade and with the building.

And then B and C are north-south.

So kind of a shortcut through like what you would see if you're walking through that space.

And that's it.

We'll open it up for questions.

All righty.

Thank you very much.

If you're online and have questions, please raise your hand via Zoom.

And then questions from the BAR.

I just want to real quick clarify.

You mentioned you did not, on sheet 14 of your PDF, you did show a fence that then said you didn't think you needed any more.

Yeah, we might actually.

We have one of them we're able to screen with the arbor vita.

But the other one, I don't think there's enough planting space.

So you're right.

Do you look at the RFP table in front of it?

It's a code requirement for screening.

So a lot of this should previously have been something we'd look at at the VAR.

So

I guess then that leads to a different question.

Do we have transformers at both of those little...

Yes.

...bump-ins?

Yeah, I was saying it would have to be by code.

Why are you looking that up to the related fences?

Would there not need to be a fence on the west side?

You don't show it in the hardscape palette, and then you don't show it in the rendering, but doesn't it drop?

There is, and it's owned by the neighbor.

It exists.

So it's not shown in your perspective?

Oh, you should imagine that it is.

Yeah, and I'm sorry.

That is from a street.

So yes, so at the back there, yes, you all could require some type of screening.

Other than that, my only question, it did look like there was a lot more on your planning palette.

On the planning palette, it looked like there was a lot more.

Yeah, the only thing we found was the liriope flagged.

But anything else that previously been in there, we ran through.

Couple questions.

Can we go to the utility easement page?

trying to make sure I understand exactly what's happening.

What page is that?

It's C6, I think.

Yeah.

OK, so on the north side of the property, the RWSA easement is the

It's basically butting up against the northeast corner.

Is that what I'm seeing?

It's almost like a driveway shape.

It's a wide stretch that goes north and then goes east.

So where you've got the little number four for the maintenance easement, there's a planting bed just south of that against the north side of the building.

How wide is that planting bed?

Or better question, is it wide enough that you could stick an actual tree in there?

Yeah, there's also a little bit of a building overhang there.

There's underground.

That's where the detention is.

Alright well I guess I mean my yeah my question is whether

I think what we tried to do was the hedges, like an evergreen, or a shrub.

Is that right, what we did there?

Just because then you have an ample space between building footings, because there's a lot going on.

There's building footings, there's the structure of the storm, and so probably like net area is maybe like the gross area is like five feet, but after you work around all these things.

plus it's right against the building.

I think we're looking only at the Canopy area.

It would have been nice to get that site plan, but I'm not going to bother with that now.

Okay, so there's a lot of them there.

Other question is,

10th and Page and the West Haven area have a really bad invasive plant problem right now, mostly coming off the railroad, a lot of porcelain berry, and the birds carrying it across the neighborhood.

And I'm sure you've dealt with that.

You have a lot of what seems like meadow planting.

It will require aggressive maintenance the first several years until establishment.

Okay, because it is always kind of sad when we get these plans with really great meadow type landscapes and they seem to last a couple years and then they

get mowed over and they're gone.

And it seems to happen a lot.

But okay, I just want to make sure that was considered.

I think that was my questions.

I think that was all.

Oh, yeah, our guidelines call for opaque finished wood.

You guys seem to have a desire for some clear finished wood products.

About like the site furnishing?

Yes.

Okay.

Okay.

And I also wanted to go back, Brittany did remind me that in discussions like we were, the West Haven community gave us a few examples of bush type screening to work in along the building and so I think that that was what we used to help inform what type of plantings to use a screening there.

So I think we got an email photo of some type of like evergreen bush that we're trying to kind of

Immensee with a few species selections that have diversity along right under where it says number four.

I do, I recognize that it is, I recognize that you guys have probably filled in as much as you can for tall trees, but just those would do the, have the biggest impact for the neighborhood as far as

Kind of reducing the mass and the feeling of a big wall of your building.

Even if they're sparsely planted, at least it's something that kind of sticks up and creates like a layered effect between your building and the rest of the neighborhood.

Just related to that, I guess, are you not proposing larger trees because you're trying to keep the existing trees there?

We're trying to stay out of the critical root zone of the existing trees as much as possible.

There's no easement in that area but a lot of it is a critical slope area and we are not allowed to do any disturbance at all, like no planting in that area.

And we have some space to work with.

There's some kind of depth where there's two properties, right?

One's deeper than the other.

So over on the west portion, we're able to add a series of shrubs and a few different species in that location.

But the RWSA line pushes against the property line on that right side.

So there's really no ability for us

We tried asking very nicely to RWSA.

The problem is that line services a lot of the city and they have some very real concerns about access and the age of that infrastructure and so for example if there was a failure they need to be able to

Get in there very quickly and maintain it.

So we're doing all kinds of things like truck turns and staging ideas.

And the best opportunity for trees, we try to put them where the property line on the west is not parallel with the line.

The line kind of is off by a couple of degrees.

So then we're able to get just outside of the easement.

Is that where the alms are?

I may have misheard something, but you were saying certain parts obviously adjacent to the adjacent neighbor of the standard were in their property.

It looks like I'm looking at an existing photo, and there's a sidewalk that goes down, and then there's a fence.

So the confusing thing about what I'm looking at is that while theirs goes down, the current property almost like goes up.

So essentially what both properties are doing is setting their finished floor elevation at the lower point, and the lower point is away from the bridge further west.

So when they set their lower point, it was at that elevation, our lowest point, which then causes a step up, right?

And it's stark with a retaining wall where our property starts.

And then what we have to do is kind of mitigate the six foot of climb along our frontage with two levels of plaza, the lower of which has the main front doors where the vast majority of the pedestrian circulation will go every day.

Yeah, I'm wondering more about when you go back north.

Yeah, when you go north into the site.

It's all raised.

It's all a few feet higher than the other one.

Sorry so he's looking at

He's calling it a sidewalk, but it's basically just to the west of the retaining wall and fence, and it slips down.

But look at Y'all's map.

I think what I'm reading right is that it's actually, I'm guessing, an ADA ramp that goes down and into the standards.

It looks like the fence is more straight.

Doesn't your walk go down?

Doesn't it go straight across and then go down at the rear of the building?

I think over the course of our entire front, like from West Main to our rear property line, there isn't much great change.

We need to provide 48 inches of cover over the RWSA line because that line is only like a couple feet below asphalt and so with the redevelopment we're kind of patching over it to make sure that it's safer.

I'm just curious what the adjacent elements, what's going to happen, how does all, what your development doing, how does that affect those?

I mean, are you going to have to excavate and then you see a retaining wall there?

Is the fence going to kind of remain the same?

So if all the improvements that we're proposing like planting strip would be kind of retaining wall fences existing, then you get planting strip and walkway.

So I think either way you'd have to have some kind of guardrail for the drop off.

We looked into the idea of trying to add the depth there.

The overall width, like hey there's already a few feet established, it's just the RWSA line floating in the middle of space and being able to work that out with, they actually have units on the ground and so if you raise that and you come into issues with the units.

So it's going to essentially be two different walkways on two different properties.

There's a drop off.

Significantly on the other side.

Like you can see these units.

Oh.

See that window?

Yeah.

Much lower it is on the other side.

Got it.

Either way the fence is off this property.

Right.

But I think kind of our site plan is designed to align with the future improvements at West Haven.

It's a great question.

Is the sidewalk on the other part of the property, does that integrate into the plans at all?

Does it need to?

With the width that we're providing here, I'd probably not.

No, no, no.

I'm sorry.

Well, we don't see sections.

Our walkway aligns directly with what's happening with West Haven.

So right now, when you look at Google Maps, there's a worn pathway.

It is not a sidewalk.

There is a worn pathway.

from people taking a route that doesn't necessarily exist.

So there's nothing to connect into other than an unsafe space that is just the hill rolling down to a new development.

So I would ask the question of what is it that we are trying to connect into when our walkway leads directly into the stairs of West Haven?

Can we go to an aerial, please?

No, I was just curious what this is going to look like when it's done because there's no fence shown.

I think it's going to look like that with the fence.

And for what it's worth, we would like to replace the fence.

It is not on our property line.

We are going to make efforts outside of this to work with the owner of Standard if we can, that is not our decision, to get a more aesthetically cohesive fence in there.

But again, that is not our property outside of this discussion.

So is it possible to zoom in on the back to see how far that fence goes?

So by the time you get to the back there, you're at the same grade with us.

So the slope stops.

That's why the fence stops.

So everything starts to get to the same grade at that point.

That's why we've tried to create this plaza-like experience in the back.

That's where we have that kind of pergola back there that's to be designed as a part of the West Haven planners process.

But right where that fence ends, it ends because you can see the retaining wall ends and everything's together at the same grade and then it starts to slope down dramatically towards West Haven and that right there where the van is is where it's flat and then it slopes down to West Haven.

So it all meets back there at that corner point.

Does that make a little more sense?

Okay, perfect.

I have a question.

How wide is your sidewalk next to the vehicular plane?

The sidewalk or the planting bed?

The sidewalk is six feet.

I have a question.

The fixtures and the light fixtures and furniture and those things are shown as, I'm not sure if they are representative or specifications because I don't see any specification really language except for the Dominion Acorn

They are both.

The pedestrian pole light is a specification.

We definitely want to match the exact fixture.

And that is the exact fixture.

The other, the wall down light, the step light, the up light, and the bollard are precedent imagery.

We want something that looks like that.

You show, it shows the blue dot, like it's wall lighting, but it seems to be, if you go to the, yeah.

Those are on either side of the columns.

And then a quick question on the pedestrian pole lights.

I know you're not adding them along Main Street, but are there existing street lights along this stretch of Main Street?

Yeah.

They already exist there.

No, I like the idea that it would, okay, I can see the shadows, I think, but I think it's a good, well, that's not a question.

They are there, great.

Any other questions from the BAR?

Nope.

All right.

Do any comments from the public?

Anybody online?

We sort of already read, I guess I should have saved this, but we did read Emily Dreyfus's comments in her email already into the record.

Any comments online?

Okay, any comments from the EBR?

No, it's actually, some of the things we talk about, the city standards, and there's a bus stop there, and whatever that

Enclosure would be the city standard.

Yes, Mr. Schwartz.

I think these are quick comments.

The light poles.

I appreciate you trying to match what we have on West Main Street.

What we have currently sucks and I think may be changing because they're getting to the end of their lifespan.

I would recommend that if you use that fixture, you get the ones without glass because the glass likes to fall out and squirrels and whatever get in there and do a warm color temperature, which I think matches what's on the corner now.

I've given up.

Honestly, I mean at one point in time several years ago the lights

that went on Belmont Bridge were supposed to become our standards, and I think I would fight to the death to not have that happen.

I hate those things.

I like the light-colored things.

I think the corner also has, they've switched to a warmer color temperature, and anything not on West Main doesn't have glass.

It's just the BAR, many BARs ago got upset because West Main they installed all the fixtures without glass and the BAR pitched a fit and then they put the glass in and it actually made the lights non-dark sky compliant and it was a stupid thing.

So my recommendation is for these pole lights get the ones without glass and get a warmer color temperature to meet our guidelines and I think it also meets zoning code to do a warmer color temperature.

The other thing I would suggest is, I don't know if we can put some language in our motion that if the trees, the existing trees that you guys are trying to preserve, if they die, that you replace them with large shaped trees.

I know that's in the steep slope zone, so you guys don't even want to touch it, but there's been some incidents where we've had some other areas in town where areas that weren't supposed to be touched got

So the two things on that, I know from the site plan meeting we had a couple weeks ago that

Because of what will fit and what will survive in these spaces between utilities, they might have to change a maple to an oak or something.

So I've left flexibility in that.

I'm going to sneeze, that's why I'm pausing.

But the thing is the site plan requires a certain

Oh no, it's the worst and then it doesn't come out.

Some other multiverse I did just need.

But the canopy requirements are complicated here because of having to retain, trying to retain trees.

We have the street trees.

So it would be that if a

If we enforce the site plan and a tree dies and they don't maintain the canopy, the site plan would compel them to plant something.

The area where the honey locusts are, I think there is one that

I just want to make sure that that spot, when this thing is constructed, it's got big trees there.

So whether they're existing or if for some reason they died or construction, put back some large trees in that spot.

Are the large existing trees on y'all's property though?

Some of those trees I'm concerned are have thorns and have pods so I just want to you know they might they're existing but they might not be the best trees for the purpose of like connecting community so just bring that up.

I know we're stuck in that sense, but I just want to say that those are not necessarily good quality trees.

And you all can explain it better.

The space, particularly on that western side,

It's like they can't do much.

So the effort is to, all right, to what extent can we retain what's there?

And then at least not touching that.

But I agree with your point is that, well, if the importance, if the result of,

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

It's a similar situation we have with Salvation Army where we can say we really don't want this tree to die, but it may.

And then to say, all right, if it dies, something should go in its place.

What can go there that works?

The city has a list of large trees.

If it fits that category, then great.

That is the rolling of the dice that the applicant is making here.

And as they progress towards the final site plan, my preference is that we're sort of narrowing down the variables that are left.

If we're left with we have to resolve something at that back parcel line, then so be it.

I don't think anything needs to be resolved.

Yeah.

And I'd say the COIA would be, you could refer to the screen criteria in the code, not saying you're requiring it by code, but as at least a definition of a something.

Or, I mean, I don't know with what else is planted there if you could then go in and

You know, the locusts don't make it.

Can you go in and establish an overstory tree and an understory type of environment?

I just don't know enough to advise.

The other thing I'd like to add, if you guys are in agreement, is I'd like them to omit the uplights in the trees.

Because that doesn't meet our zoning code and it doesn't really meet our guidelines.

The what?

The uplights in the trees.

They're permitted if they're below a certain lumen line.

I'd still like to just have them omitted.

So that was my comments.

And I guess we do need to address the wood furniture.

So the guidelines are, we've looked at this before, there's places that we refer to wood.

But it's actually not pervasive throughout the guidelines relative to sites.

I know in the mall we have constraints.

I know fencing we have constraints.

The key, I guess, would be is it can't be bare wood, but it can be stained.

We've traditionally preferred opaque stains or dark paint.

But that's more been practice and less sort of been site by site.

So I think that if something is in a situation like this where

You know, the whole street's essentially new.

The guidelines don't preclude, heck, if they wanted to do teak, as long as the teak, they maintain it.

So like you said, if they use bare wood, then maintain it.

If you were to permit it to patina to a gray, the guidelines aren't opposed to that.

I guess I wouldn't want to see that happen just as a matter of nobody's touched the thing.

It's like the verve where, if you recall, there were a lot of wood elements in there that

That one quite defined what they were doing with it.

But the guidelines don't preclude the furniture.

For that type of thing, we typically use a tropical hardwood just for the longevity and ease of maintenance.

If we're okay with the problem of hardwood that turns gray, I think we just let it go.

I should have asked this earlier, but it just dawned on me now.

I keep looking at that.

I hope you don't mind me asking the question during the comments.

But I keep looking at that perspective.

Page 21, is it?

I'm just wondering why I didn't do any trees there.

So the reason is there are overhead lines and telecom lines that we have no room for on the west end.

So we do have to put them in a duct bank here.

So with that we don't have room.

We have that competing with a storm line as well that connects to the underground retention in the back corner.

Even higher shrubs or it just feels very kind of low and exposed and I guess you know from our BAR perspective I would

I'd like to see some sort of planting to soften that edge and bring things a little bit more on a human scale.

It just feels like a hot parched place to walk up.

I forgot who's point it was that some of this low-lying vegetation and I could see the front the main street planters being manicured and somebody paying attention to those but I can also just as easily see this strip being totally neglected and turning into porcelain berry or whatever the local weed is that comes in quickly enough.

Looking at the utility plant, the telecom easement only really comes not even quite halfway

Yeah, I think it's more critical slopes in this corner.

And we're not seeing the line of existing vegetation along the railway here.

It's actually pretty well shaded.

And to add on to the telecom, what you're seeing there is an easement.

So that grants access to the cell tower for all the telecom companies to get service vehicles into that gate in the back corner.

So really, our gas line, our water lines,

There's a lot of lines running through this.

Electrical lines run all the way back to those transformers.

None of that is shown on this exhibit.

Well, I don't know why I'm dwelling on adjacent properties so much today.

But since I am, I just will make the comment that I think it would be, I mean, I appreciated the comment that you're reaching out to the neighbor.

I think that the fence looks shoddy.

I think it's going to detract from some of the improvements you're trying to make in the drive.

So I think it would be

A worthwhile effort to try to replace it if you can.

I think it's going to feel like an after effect.

And that was the reason why I was asking the questions earlier.

I think just I do really appreciate the interest in making the connections.

I like that you led with that first slide with the red arrows and so that's my biggest

Concern and interest is those edges and how they connect mostly to the West Haven community and those places where people are coming in.

So I think I just want to, I don't know if we have much ability to impact those trees there, but it would be nice in the process of working with West Haven to look at that planting between West Haven and where

As a whole, if there's ways to have a palette that's similar, I do see a lot of invasives.

It'd be really great to clear out the invasives.

Take down the hazard trees.

Confirm.

I love black locusts.

I think that's what they probably are.

But there's thorns.

And so I just want to have that feel really nice for people.

So I think that's just my interest is making those edges really nice.

The species list, I think, seems like you guys, a lot of plants.

That's great.

Definitely concerned about you know, we have such better bases.

I think y'all are Chicago based.

Yeah, we it's very different.

Um, It goes crazy.

It goes crazy here.

There are a few that I tagged like that loriope spicata I think that you might want to look at the Ejuka Reptons bronze beauty and then the Allegheny very Burnham again but Yeah, I think The

I had a couple of comments following up on my question earlier about whether things were specifications or representative.

And I just wanted to point out that there are some discrepancies between what you're showing in the renderings, which are new, and what you're showing in your precedent images.

And I'm hoping for maybe some clarity on what the intent is.

And also just to point out to the BA, do we typically approve precedent images?

Or do we look for more detail?

For example, the bike racks you're showing in your precedent images are very sexy.

But in your renderings, they're very normal.

What's the intent?

They're sort of rectangular versus a kind of twisted

The other thing I'm noticing is your precedent images show a kind of plainer condition between the wall becomes bench, bench sits on top of the wall, the bench sits on the wall at the height of the wall and in your renderings you're sort of bumping up

You have a kind of sinuous wall but then you have a kind of block of concrete supporting the bench and it kind of breaks up that sort of planar quality which is really nice about the precedent images.

Same thing with the furniture.

The renderings are always limited by what furniture is available to model, so the images are always more accurate.

The renderings are just to help convey intent and help you visualize the space, but they're not necessarily specific

That's especially true for plant material, but it applies to furnishings, too.

We try to get close, but you can't always find the exact right thing to drop into your model.

I think the walls are the thing that really jumped out at me, because it does seem like a bit of a departure.

I guess just for everybody to understand what you're talking about, for the seat wall, it looks to me like the precedent images are on slide 14, item A.

Well, let's do the benches first.

Yes.

I guess what I'm reading, it's not

Well, in the third image on the top on C15, there's like a wall condition with a bench kind of on top of the wall, sort of top of wall elevation.

And then in the first image, A, there's a little circle A, a similar condition where it's sort of suggesting a continuation of wall and bench.

Everything in the images is what we're going for.

The renderings we were trying to put together for this presentation just to get a little more context and just visuals just to help get scale of things and just kind of get the feel of everything.

But definitely the precedent images will be

I would suggest that is, because you're right, site elements, some of these things not literally covered in our guidelines even, but if there are preferences

To something that's been shown, and it's a similar condition you used at 218 West Market Street where you were very clear that the brickwork, and Kate and I have been going back and forth, we have resolved that, but the brickwork will, we wanted to see details in the construction drawings that reflected the profile of the brickwork that was shown in the rendering.

So if there's something that's,

A preference or there's something that you don't want to see.

The best instruction might be to say when we do get the construction drawings we're looking for

Wood furniture on concrete similar to their renderings.

Because otherwise, and this is one of the challenges of a large scale project that there are little details that as you progress through the review and then we get to a point where like, gosh, we didn't, what exactly is that thing?

You certainly could,

You could ask for some, I may not say delay the approval, but establish what you like and maybe that the prior construction will cease a detail that

Staff can review for the BAR archives.

So that's sort of, I mean, obviously whatever they're going to build there is going to be a long way down the road within the project.

But I think the approval of the concepts, what we'll be looking for tonight, and if we have to provide some clarification so that we all have an understanding, there's nothing wrong with that.

And also my experience is, you know, this is,

These are always the goodies at the end of the project, but that's also the first thing that gets sacrificed.

So everything is subject to change on some of the decorative elements.

I think you could craft language that instructs them to provide some information and if we have a question about it we can certainly have a further discussion.

Does that sound reasonable?

Can we request, I think we requested last time sections through the west.

I'm surprised there's not a section through the pedestrian

We had to ask the width of the sidewalk.

It wasn't written down anywhere.

Again, the give and take, not to wash our laundry in front of the applicants, but the is where through this process of

You know, trying to anticipate every corner and connection that we might want to see detailed better.

And we always see things as we progress.

So I guess on the one side, I could say, you're the Board of Architectural Review.

You have every right to, within your purview and your guidelines, request additional information and withhold approval until you have that.

Yeah, I think also ultimately the question to us is, does it meet our design guidelines?

Is it compatible with the district?

Getting into really nuanced details is a little bit outside our purview, I think.

If it helps, Kate, I kept saying, it's a parking lot.

You know, I would say, does this look better?

It's a parking lot right now, so yeah.

But I, yeah, hopefully I've offered some guidance there just that I think, yes, these details do matter.

I'm not trying to say they don't.

But it's to offer an off-ramp that we can keep going forward.

And by you expressing, you know, our understanding is in what's been communicated, this is what we'll see.

And if then,

So for example, on 218 West Market, if they had refused to provide the information we asked for about the brick details, I said, I'm not signing off on this building permit.

So I still have that power.

I mean, I think we can maybe, it sounds like the applicants and we are in agreement that the precedent images

What the intent is and what we like better.

Let's see what the renderings are showing.

And I think even the renderings, the color of the building and the renderings is like just stark white.

Right, so it's a different discipline.

Just to say we accept the one without renderings, it might make it a little bit easier.

I mean, you go so far as to screen capture this and introduce it.

That's a good suggestion, honestly.

It takes some of the ambiguity out of it, because we often say, like, the package has submitted with the following conditions.

Yeah, the only thing.

I think the difference between this, yes, it's the first one you sent us, doesn't have the renderings.

There are some changes though.

Yeah, and there's a lot of stuff in the planting pallet, the new one that I haven't, like I did look at the other plant pallet, and those were my recommendations were based on that, so I haven't had a chance, so it'd just be good to note that I haven't looked at the plant pallet, the newer plant pallet yet.

So, but I think the same goes, just look at Virginia, what's invasive in Virginia.

There you go.

Do we want to act on the hot whites of the trees?

Can I ask one more?

I'm so sorry.

I think it's 22 feet.

It's two-way traffic, right?

Right back to the uplighting.

It sounded like there was

Well, if it's not full cutoff, it's allowed if it's under a certain lumen level.

I'm torn because I do think at times that some sort of accent lighting is great.

But blasting a spotlight into the sky isn't.

And so I think you could.

I think that they can be aesthetically pleasing.

They are prettiness.

So, and well, they should be pretty sometimes, not just because they're code.

And I don't see, so I disagree with you.

I think that if they are not spotlights to the stars,

You just can't go further than

I mean, you could say, because you do have purview, you also have the site guidelines do speak to lighting and glare and brightness, so you have the wiggle room for that.

And then, of course, always if an applicant says, I think the B.I.R.

was off, you know, was wrong, they can appeal that.

But, so I think it's well within your rights, within a

An entire landscape like this to say, you know, if there are accent lights that are down lights or accent lights up lighting, we hopefully have solved a lot with the 3000K, addressing the brightness and glare.

You could possibly go further than that.

I'm not qualified to set parameters for lighting, but you all are, or the presumptions you are, so if you have something that you'd like to stipulate,

Yeah, so we actually had a comment on this in the site plan and so we probably can't rattle off the exact code section but in our response we'll show that there's a color temperature level and then how we're meeting the

The Code.

I forget.

I think it's just stay within the code.

And then one piece for full disclosure before you make a motion.

So when you refer to these renderings

I think the applicant's suggesting that we focus our motion on the package that was submitted without the renderings.

I'm sorry, I meant the precedent.

I think the inherent definition of precedent doesn't necessarily mean that's exactly what it's going to be.

It's just the precedent.

The archaeology, we need to talk about that.

And I don't know if this is a question for you or Brittany or who, but wake up.

The archaeology.

So in the previous approval, we had approved it with a condition for a phase one archaeological investigation.

Essentially, what this is asking for is to rescind that approval.

Ask y'all to hire Rivanna, which it sounds like y'all have gotten a proposal from them, to do a historic study.

And then also allow the city the opportunity at their own cost to do limited archaeological investigations if the timing works out.

Just kind of to summarize it.

Yes, so I will take full responsibility.

I did not know there was a technical term for an archaeological phase one, and I did not know that was a $50,000 super extensive report.

I will go on record and say that.

My understanding of what we agreed to was more of like an environmental phase one.

Which is what we're asking to actually do.

No, I agree.

We're not talking about that.

There's just a difference in environmental and what that gives you in terms of just a description of the history of the site and then a recommendation for a phase two.

So it's more so the level of detail that I was imagining, not saying that we're asking for an environmental.

And I don't know, we haven't received Rivanna's proposal, but I also know Rivanna really well, so I trust that their proposal is pretty good and encompassing and it's going to give the city what they'd like to have in terms of the history.

I mean, the site's important to the history of Charlottesville.

It's the James Dinsmore site.

He was a master builder.

He helped build Monticello.

He helped build UVA.

You know, he's a pretty important person in terms of craftsmen in the city.

So I think it's a good thing that we should apply to this COA.

And I hope the city can scratch together a little bit and that they can work with y'all's timeline to try and do any investigation that perhaps the historic study might lead to.

And obviously we've got some utility stuff that's already been

We worked hard to ensure that it was actually what I think everybody wanted in the first place.

Thank you.

Y'all okay with that?

I think so.

I think I've got, you got something?

I think I've got the bullets that we've been talking about.

Okay.

Do you want me to give it a try?

Sure.

Okay.

I think, yeah, I should bother.

And if I could ask, as Carl says it, we can make some notes.

Are you jumping in on the street lamps?

Because I like the glass in the street lamps.

I'm surprised someone hasn't been hit in the head yet because I find the glass on the sidewalk all the time.

I'm not going to object because this is technically... We're not talking about specifics of all the lights.

I agree with that.

And if you go, so all the side streets on West Main Street, like Roosevelt Brown and any of the other ones that have these fixtures, they don't have glass.

I get it.

And I think the corner has been updated to not have glass and also be a warmer color temperature.

But anyways, if you guys don't like something, we'll take it out.

Having considered the standards set forth within the city code, including the city's ADC district design guidelines, I move to find that the landscaping plan for the proposed development at 835, 843, and 847 West Main Street satisfies the BAR's criteria and is compatible with this property and other properties in this ADC district, and the BAR approves the application with the following conditions.

If the tree and or plant species vary from those noted in the submittal, the trees selected should be consistent with the city's master tree list or if not on the tree list, selected species must not be identified as invasive in Central Virginia.

Seeding tables and planters at the street level open space at West Main will be of a consistent design and any wood elements will be of a weather resistant species intended for exterior use.

So that was a change right there.

We're going to rescind the condition of COA BAR number 250095 related to a phase one archeological investigation.

Bulletin item number four in the approved motion and apply the following.

We will have a historic study and a limited archeological investigation as written in the staff report.

The pole lights will be without glass and will be a warm color temperature of 3000 K or less.

If the trees on the north side of the site cannot be preserved, please make sure that at a minimum large trees per the moderate transition screen type 2 will be installed.

I would add a friendly amendment that we reference the packet dated September 14th, 2026 as submitted this evening without renderings.

I'll accept that amendment.

I'm very clear on what you said.

I didn't write it down, but it was all really clear, so I can take it from the, there weren't umsers and whatabouts, so I can take it from the video, unless you're garbled, and then I just make it up.

So we've got a motion in a second.

Is there any further discussion?

Okay, I'll call to vote.

Ms. Trompetter?

OK. Approve?

Aye.

Yes, aye.

There you go.

Sorry.

I usually start down there, but he made the motion.

Mr. Timmerman.

Yes.

Mr. Birle.

Aye.

Mr. Bailey.

Yes.

Mr. Schwartz.

Yes.

I vote yes.

Thank you, guys, for your patience and for working with us through this one.

Does anybody need a bio break?

We're going to take a five to 10 minute bio break.

Five minute bio break.

Additional information.

And it had been, you know, suddenly a six story building is ten stories and instead we're against fiber cement siding.

I would say, wait, that's not what we've been looking at.

That's very different.

If I had felt like what they were presenting and some of the fluid nature of the landscaping discussion had gone way too far afield, I would have said something, but it's

It's a judgment call.

And also we have, if someone out there, we knew something's really contentious, possibly to be appealed, you know, I weigh that also.

But I felt like the landscaping was enough of a, it warranted discussion and it warranted

Your input.

We were going to get some things changed anyway.

That's where I stand, but you all are more than welcome moving forward on any project.

If you feel like this is not what we looked at before, I haven't seen this,

Can I make a request?

Yes.

Unless it's something that we, like you send out the packet and we have a question and they make a rendering or something to answer that question, but if it's something like what they just did tonight with a whole presentation,

Can you guys set a deadline for that sort of stuff so that we can get it emailed to us enough time to...

There's a lot of technical talk, but I thought there was something that just didn't show up.

But again, that's the part of the...

The iterative process continues, and I don't want to say, I want to keep things moving forward.

I mean I spend a lot of time reviewing a package.

That's kinda what I was trying to get at, like, and then it got, like the first two slides, it was like, okay, it's just one thing changed, but then there was like this huge list, and I couldn't keep up.

And I think you're right that maybe, even if they had a page on there that said like, removed and added, it was like a very clear list, that could have been helpful.

But again, I'm saying if you guys,

I don't tell you what to do, and if you feel like you haven't seen something before, but if you don't say that, then I'm assuming, okay, you're okay with it.

And I'm going back to instruction from prior BARs that have said, in fact, and I'll quote my favorite BAR member, Brett Gassner.

Number one, he said he didn't ever want to hear the word shrubbery used again in a BAR meeting.

But he would always say, you, Jeff, trust us.

We trust us to do our jobs.

So I'm not putting that pressure on you.

I'm just saying I am kind of, all right, well, they're okay with this and I'm okay with it, then one plus one equals two.

It is, that's laid out in the staff report that I tried to address it that it's pulled away that you know right they are doing that and they're doing their thing and it's not part of what was presented.

The other piece I will offer is you know when I see a

Landscaping Plan and show me what the ground cover is going to be or what the flowers are going to be in the spring.

I really don't pay attention to that.

I'm saying what are the, what is, are they have street trees that are required, are they using plantings that are on our list, and are they creating really for that project the screening that was asked for.

Now whether it was, you know, they used butternut squash or Queen Anne's lace, I don't, I

Didn't look further on those pages, but I certainly can.

So when they said we've changed some of our low plants and our flowers, I don't take it to that level.

All right, next up, I know Erin, this has been very exciting for her.

What Erin doesn't know is that we had anticipated much more lively evening than we even had.

I was reminded not to say that.

Yeah, I mean I think I want to keep us on track.

I think that some of what we were talking about maybe we can circle back to if we have time because I've got thoughts on I think Carl's suggestion was a good one and I've got some ideas on that.

207 211 Ridge Street, and this is the Salvation Army site that's just south of the fire station.

Obviously we renewed the COA on the demolition.

What this had come before you all three years ago for a special use permit for some things, as far as you were concerned it was a reduction of the width of the front of the building

and which allowed that tree, that large tree, some hope of remaining and then some setbacks at the rear portion of the parcel.

Those weren't controversial in any way and they were incorporated into the special use permit approved by city council.

The design that's coming before you tonight is unchanged from what you saw three years ago and I felt like

It would be helpful to at least reintroduce you all to it.

And, but where I alluded to this in the staff report, but I wanted to say it out loud is that this process, this project is some funding has come available for things are moving

somewhat quickly and Aaron doesn't need to get into the programming of all that but we are, there's a great level of interest in

In getting, staying on a timeline with this thing and one of them is to have design approval such that the special use permit doesn't lapse in February.

So we're, I want to, and I'm saying that not to say you guys have to approve something, in fact you're not approving anything tonight.

But I think I mostly want to come out of the discussion this evening is sort of where we just were with the West Main project.

If there's a question about a detail, if there's something that you want to see, if there's a through section that you want to know about, let's try to identify as many of those as we can.

And I think that talking with Aaron,

It's not possible to probably turn something around for October but it would be ideally they're coming back in in November with a formal application and there might be some modifications to the design but the concept as you see it is that design that's intact and thinking that okay if we

As much information, as much questions as the things that you want to ask, we try to cover the bases tonight.

Anticipating some sort of formal application coming your way in November and December to finalize, maybe January to finalize.

So yes, we want to fast track this thing to the extent that we recently can.

And that starts tonight with a good, thorough discussion about what information you guys would want to see.

And while she's setting up, there was one design element that some of you have mentioned to me and has brought to my attention is there's a retaining wall in the front of the property.

I've had several folks say that thing should be brick.

So that's the one thing that is not in my staff report from last time.

And Aaron, this is also,

As much for you as it is for us.

So for those of you that I haven't met before, my name is Erin Hannigan.

I'm with Mitchell Matthews Architects and Planners here in Charlottesville.

Thank you for approving the demolition COA earlier this evening on the consent agenda.

What you're going to see tonight is the exact application that was submitted.

There are no new images and no changes to the application that was provided earlier.

And we do hope to resubmit in two weeks.

Since there is a two-week turnaround to the next submission date with the hope that we can be on the October agenda and give ourselves a little bit more time, depending upon what you ask for in tonight's meeting, we'll see how that goes.

So we've already been working on that and rounding up all of the cut sheets and other elements that you will need in that package.

So the Salvation Army is located at 207 and 211 Ridge Street.

Here is a vicinity map, again as you said it's right below located here and what was formerly Nolan Plumbing which is now Wind Supply is its other neighbor to the south.

We are operating under the old zoning ordinance.

It is the West Main East District.

And some of those requirements were modified by the special use permit that again was approved now three years ago.

We've basically taken that three year break because of a fundraising period that is now coming to a close.

So we're back at it.

This is the SUP resolution.

I'm not going to cover that.

We're in sub area C of the Ridge Street ADC district.

Again, a close up of the site.

It is a little bit of a dogleg site, L-shaped, with more frontage width on 4th Street Southwest than Ridge Street.

Here is the existing condition survey.

The Salvation Army has been in Charlottesville since 1912.

Hopefully you all know what the Salvation Army does at this point.

They were the only year-round shelter up until two weeks ago.

And their primary purpose in redeveloping the site is to increase capacity and increase community services.

That includes case management and other services that they provide to the community, provide better connection to the street, more visibility of the program, better wayfinding on the site, more efficiency in the buildings that they have, make them not only more efficient and energy efficient,

Right now there are three buildings on the site.

This large block that is on Ridge Street is actually two buildings.

The original building was the chapel.

It has a gymnasium behind it and it has an administrative wing that reaches north in an L shape in here.

That was built in 1965.

Then there was an addition put onto it which is this piece over here and that addition was made in 1992.

the building at the back.

I learned today was actually built in two phases originally in 1980 for the men's wing which is the eastern half of this building and then the women's wing with the basement underneath it is on the western half.

The design is particularly

Correct, 211 is going to remain for as long as possible.

There are some family units that are also in 207 in that 92 addition in this area that would be displaced, but they will find alternate locations.

So here's the aerial.

You can see the overbuild of the roof onto the original 1965 structure.

That's this one.

The parking lot.

coming off of 4th Street and then there is a small grassy area in the dogleg behind the fire station that is a semi-playground, just open area for the most part.

And of course we have the large oak tree here at Ridge Street.

Here are some aerial images to show those conditions.

the property line obviously red dashed line moving around the site from above 4th Street looking at the congregate shelter that will remain during construction is this 211 building and then some street level images of the existing conditions the buildings have

They're out of useful life.

They are in really poor condition at this point and only getting worse by the day, it seems.

Context photos.

So again, as I think Jeff's staff report points out, this half of Ridge Street with the fire station, the Salvation Army, and the wind supply structure is very different than the rest of Ridge Street.

The context on 4th Street is also very different than the context on Ridge Street.

The buildings that are labeled in the lower right hand corner that are labeled 4, 5 and 6 are small residential scaled structures.

They're pictured in the middle of this page.

and maybe something to point out, this is a mixed use building that needs, that is sort of falling in the institutional category given its mixed use purposes in the community.

So if, well it has a residential component to it, it also I would say has an institutional character to it because of its,

Mix of chapel space, soup kitchen, community room, and then the residential portions.

So you're currently looking at a site plan, overall site plan with the roof plan superimposed.

The white portion that's L-shaped here is the upper level roof on the four-story portion, whereas the gray rooftops here are all down at one story.

You can see the tree here out at the street.

The dashed line that is over top of the parking lot, that is the existing emergency shelter building to remain.

So the whole point of this design is to allow that to remain and put the parking lot as the last phase in that location.

This massing and footprint also allows future expansion on the site so the large green space that will hopefully be a playground in the near term could eventually hold another freestanding building in the long term depending upon the needs or in addition to the building.

We do know that the Salvation Army grows and changes over the years as evidenced not only by this site, but of course all the other Salvation sites that you can look at across the country.

This is the first floor plan, so again as a quasi-institutional entity in the city,

It has these different programs, three large ones here on the first floor, the chapel poking out the front, the dining room or soup kitchen connected to the kitchen here, which needs service access at its rear, and the multipurpose room that stretches out the back.

The main partee is to have one main corridor that reaches between these two fronts, so

entry off of Ridge Street, entry off of the parking lot with the connection to 4th Street that being the main thoroughfare through the core of the building that can be easily easy for wayfinding for all of the people who would be coming to this building for the very first time and also allow staff to really clearly monitor what's happening in the building.

As we move up a floor, the chapel is a little bit taller.

So you can see here it's shown open to below.

It's not quite a full second story.

There's a mixture on the upper floor.

So this floor has three family apartments.

They're each two bedroom apartments.

And the other half of the floor plate is administrative for the core, which is the church entity portion of the program.

Then as we move up a floor, the two apartments remain.

There are some individual bunk rooms.

And then this portion is all sleeping alcoves around the perimeter with the main core in the center.

The fourth floor is pretty much the same.

Men and women are split on floors.

The roof plan with mechanical equipment enclosed by an equipment screen.

One stairwell goes all the way to the roof.

Elevations, we are trying to provide you with cuts for all the elements, color selections for all the elements in that list in our next package.

You can tell in this image that there is fencing on either side of the building, so one of the issues currently on the site is it's a cut through, which is really

distracting and creates conflicts sometimes to the community that's on site.

So one of the goals is to restrict that access, the cut through access.

So the fencing, the whole property will be fenced.

We're actually adding a driveway gate as well.

And the playground is then internally fenced within that, you know, meets up at certain points.

This is the rear elevation, so the multipurpose room is on the left.

This rear entry off the parking lot is here.

These are the side elevations.

And then the renderings, the view from the intersection of Monticello and Ridge with the tree and the proposed condition.

This is the concrete wall that Jeff is calling out as wanting to be brick.

So we made it concrete, and I'd like to talk to our civil and landscape architects later this week.

Part of the reason is there's a site wall along this edge that you can just see the top of here that follows these stairs up in the sidewalk up to the front door that we currently have modeled as concrete to intersect with the existing brick wall.

And I think we were picking up on that by making this concrete, fully open to it going to brick.

You can tell us.

Of course you can see the material palette.

We have a red brick on the stair towers as well as the base of the chapel, board and batten, hardy or cementitious.

Board and batten product on the chapel face and trimming out the storefront along the front On the upper levels.

It's a lap siding board and batten on this vertical piece that's at the end of the corridor as you enter the stairwell and then the rear Sorry, I'll get to it in a second.

So here's the other view crossing the bridge

Looking at it, you're looking at the chapel volume again with the butterfly roof.

Please note that the signage we know is not acceptable under your guidelines, but the Salvation Army specifically requested renderings with the signage for fundraising purposes.

So eventually we'll work through that with what the compromise will be.

Here's the rear condition.

The dumpster enclosure is omitted, which is over here in this vicinity in front of this white car on the right-hand side.

And on the rear of the building, there's a charcoal color brick that wraps a lot of these surfaces that are one story in the rear.

And the fencing is also missing from the image.

And our plant palette wasn't really established yet.

So these don't necessarily show the eventual plants.

I believe our SUP is also requiring an S3 screening buffer along the 4th Street.

So eventually, that will show up in all of our images here in the next packet.

And then this is an aerial view.

of the building.

So I think what I'd love to hear from you is your opinions on all the various categories in your guidelines, whether there's any that stand out to you that we need to work on.

That's the list, I guess, on page two of the staff report.

If there's anything on that list that you specifically think we need to focus on or reconsider,

as we prepare the package or any specific cross sections, building sections, site sections to describe things.

One thing to add to your consideration is that we have a preliminary site plan that's been reviewed, which has established the footprint of the building.

And so I'm not saying it's off the table, but to start to talk about moving walls would then

likely result in having to resubmit that site plan which then intrudes sort of on that deadline of, so we're trying to, I mean unless there's

Really a strong reason and the guidelines say so.

Really like to respect the footprint that's been presented and had previously been approved.

Otherwise, like I said, that would require a resubmittal of the site plan and trying.

That's a process that we'd like to avoid.

Can I talk about the tree?

I just read through the meeting minutes from the last time and there was discussion about having an arborist

I actually brought with me copies of the Brightview tree care services letter that we submitted during the, if any of you want this, that has some

for the recommendations in it about excavations near the roots.

Of course, we're providing more area around the tree with than there currently is.

And I think you probably saw those measurements and things in the demolition package.

So we haven't furthered the tree protection plan yet.

My only comment on that would be this letter is now almost four years old and I don't know

An updated look at the tree.

I do want to recognize that the special use permit from the city, and I kind of just want to read the wording, is item eight per section 34-157B.

If the large oak tree at Ridge Street dies, then another canopy will be planted in its place.

I'm not saying that should

imply that we don't want you to save the tree because we want to try and make every effort to save the tree.

But it is at least a slight reassurance that if due to whatever we lose the tree that there's kind of an assurance that something large will be planted back there.

You have the room to do it.

Right.

Currently I believe our strategy is not to touch the wall that is on the sidewalk, on the Ridge Street sidewalk.

There is a set of steps

Let me go back to the aerials.

So this set of steps that comes up to the existing front door of the chapel space, that is the exact location of the sidewall of the future set of steps so that we're not going any further south into that

area for the tree and then of course trying to leave I believe this brick wall here as well as this wall on this side is actually our neighbor's wall.

I think it'd be helpful to maybe see the structural details for that stair, the wall of the stair that's

the one you just described right that's to the what is that north of the tree to understand the footer impact for that wall maybe they should consider a cantilevered footer that goes the opposite direction away from the tree possibly yeah we might not be able to come up with the right detail until demolition happens and I think that's the part of the tree care plan that we probably established is because you don't know if there are roots how close the roots are what the depth of the roots are

And they can make that call on the field.

I mean, you can stand over roots.

So we can certainly do the detail.

No, I agree.

Sorry, I know you all want to say the tree and we discussed that at length.

Thank you.

That changed my mind.

Had you questioned the use of the concrete up front, I understand the logic behind it.

I'm not sure you really appreciate that logic when you're walking down the street, especially when you're coming from the north, south.

But a more important thing that I actually, as a question, in the rendering, it looks like there's a brick water course or some sort of

of brick detailing down at the base of the chapel.

I don't really see it in the elevation.

So it's probably about... Yeah, let's see with that drawing.

It does, doesn't it?

I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more to the kind of fencing plan.

I know 4th Street pretty well, and I think the facade like that, it feels very unwelcoming, I think, and maybe that's intentional currently, currently, like as in its current condition.

So let me start at the front.

So again, Ridge is on the right-hand side.

A fence with a gate here, because we need to egress out, will start at this point back at the stair tower.

And then it's at this point on the other stair tower.

And then from those two locations on the north and south sides of the building, a fence will follow the property line to ring the property line.

Except for at the 4th Street side, I think we're

I think the plan is it sets back closer to where the, maybe somewhere between the min and max setback lines are diagrammed here.

The fence line cuts through there.

So the driveway gate is at that narrowest point of the parking lot.

The fence for that perimeter fence is proposed as eight feet tall, and that's purposely to keep people from climbing over top of it.

And then the fence that comes off this corner and contains the playground area, that one would be five feet tall.

And both of them are currently being proposed as sort of a

Okay.

Vehicular gate.

So the current idea is that it is a

That it would split in the middle and roll to both sides and then I think it's going to be manual because of cost reasons and it would be opened in the morning and then closed I think when the like the last

Guests get there and they close down for the night with obviously everyone inside the structures at that point.

Then it would be closed and locked overnight.

There is a pedestrian gate that would also happen at this sidewalk at 4th Street.

Correct.

There's no loading dock.

What's it called?

And is that similar operationally to what's happening currently?

Yeah, there's no current loading dock.

The deliveries currently come all on 4th Street, correct, into the parking lot.

The parking lot is just north by the, it's literally just above it.

It's basically the same size.

So we've put it out there so that the trash truck access and turnaround doesn't take up as much space, but it would have a dumpster enclosure around it.

Not following the property line.

So there's just one fence at the property line.

Yeah.

Currently they are on the roof.

There is some on this lower roof here, which we currently have a louvered equipment screen around it.

And then the upper roof contains the other main mechanical units that might change in the future as we get further into design.

But that's currently what's planned and proposed

So nothing at grade except for the electrical transformer, which is actually going to be somewhere in this zone over here.

Are the fence height, is that like a standard Salvation Army detail?

Of course.

So from Ridge Street, this corner, this northeastern corner, you would come onto the property at that corner and then up a ramp here, which meets up at the top of that little short set of steps.

And then this is all accessible up to the front doors at the red arrow.

So I feel like, and I understand it's how the floor plan is dictating it, but it feels like the front door is not the front door.

Like you come in on axis and then turn to the right.

And when you're looking at the east elevation, you're kind of coming up.

There is a door right in front of you, but I take it it's an exit door from the dining room.

And I just wonder if there's a way to honor the front door as the main entrance to the building.

No, I get that.

I don't know.

I actually like the way it's all laid out.

It looks very functional.

I made a huge improvement.

I'm with Roger.

I think that I liked it before knocking it out.

I think it's that role of the way you've

create as much space as you can for the tree and appreciate the sort of forward facing, you know, higher purpose of the chapel, you know, right on the main street, right on the street.

I guess my comment, I guess the question I have is it looks like there's a third or fourth material just from a, you know, what we're talking about, the design standpoint.

It's a metal panel with like a wood.

When you saw it I think it was a little fuzzier as a rendering.

This has been in here for a while but it might not have been in our last meeting materials for you.

But currently we're looking at a couple different manufacturers.

It's wood look metal panel that would come in sort of board width so we can specify 4 6 8 I think inches wide.

and then the same manufacturer makes soffit material.

That's my question.

Yeah.

The point was for it to all be the same sort of thing.

Yep, I have them.

We do have, we are proposing spandrel panel in select spaces.

So the zoning ordinance requires a 15 foot floor to floor in this under again, the old zoning ordinance, 15 foot floor to floor for the first floor only.

So these panels from this point right here, this pair wrapping this section and around the dining room here.

And you can't see it behind these trees, but

Just right back through there.

Those are being proposed as spandrel panels and I can bring a sample of that next time as well.

That's the only place we're proposing that.

That is to give the illusion of taller windows, more windows.

I'd prefer it to stay spandrel as opposed to go to a panelized board and batten condition because I think it would make it feel heavier and less inviting and open without the glazing.

All the other glass is clear glass.

Just while we're looking at this perspective, it looks like lawn around the tree, the base.

And I've just read your letter.

And it just says it is advisable to minimize any lawn around the tree.

And I recommend the area of the existing landscape bed be used for a native landscape bed to eliminate the need for installing irrigation through the tree root system.