Central Virginia
City of Charlottesville
Planning Commission Regular Meeting 2/10/2026
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Planning Commission Regular Meeting
2/10/2026
Attachments
Planning Commission Agenda - February 10, 2026.pdf
Planning Commission Agenda Packet - February 10, 2026.pdf
I. Commission Pre-Meeting (Agenda discussion(s))
II. Commission Regular Meeting
1. Commissioner's Reports
2. University of Virginia Report
3. Chair's Report
4. Department of NDS Report
5. Matters to be Presented by the Public not on the Formal Agenda
6. Consent Agenda
III. Planning Commission Public Hearing Items
IV. Commission's Action Items
V. Planning Commission Work Session
1. Review Draft Planning Commission dates for 2026; Update on Development Code Amendments; Prioritizing Tier 3 Amendments
Draft 2026 Planning Commission Meeting Schedule.pdf
Development Code Amendment Working Document 2025.pdf
DRAFT Development Code Amendment Working Document 2026.pdf
2026 Development Code Amendments – Tier 3 Summary.pdf
PC Memo - February 10, 2026 Work Session
VI. Future Meeting Schedule/Adjournment
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
00:34:22
All right.
00:34:24
Welcome to tonight's funding commission meeting.
00:34:32
We're going to start with commission reports.
Danny Yoder
Member, Planning Commission
00:34:38
I have one.
00:34:39
Yeah, I can kick us off.
00:34:40
So I have replaced Rory on the MPO tech committee, and I had my first meeting last week, and a few things to report from that.
00:34:51
So since I'm new to that committee, and I know I feel like we use a lot of acronyms, I'll just give a little bit of background of that committee.
00:34:58
So
00:34:59
The Metropolitan Planning Organization or MPO is the federally designated body that coordinates primarily transportation planning for the region.
00:35:09
And it has a staff obviously, then there is a policy committee which is made up of elected representatives of kind of Albemarle County, City of Charlottesville,
00:35:21
et cetera.
00:35:23
And then there is a tech committee, the technical committee, which is what a member from the planning commission serves on, which the technical committee kind of votes on things to recommend to the policy committee, which then actually adopts them.
00:35:37
So it's a lot like the planning commission.
00:35:38
The real power is one level above, but we recommend stuff to
00:35:42
and the people with the power.
00:35:45
So we heard a couple of updates from the MPO and VDOT.
00:35:49
The transportation bodies attend, so Department of Rail and Public Transportation, VDOT, FHWA, FTA, et cetera, Federal Highway Administration, Federal Transit Administration.
00:36:01
And a lot of the conversation was on smart scale, which is the state's performance-based process for allocating funding to transportation projects.
00:36:10
So most of these projects start out as a study which then results in a smart scale application and the city, the county and the MPO are allowed to submit a certain number of smart scale applications
00:36:26
And then there's a formula that the state uses to basically rank these applications and decide what gets funded.
00:36:33
The current formula weighs congestion mitigation and roadway capacity fairly heavily, so it's difficult to win funding for smart-scale projects if you're building a bike trail, unless you can show that you're increasing roadway capacity somehow.
00:36:47
So the current strategy since I think the city's goals and in many ways the county and the MPO's goals are to manage highway capacity while shifting trips to other modes like transit, biking and walking.
00:37:03
A lot of what they're focused on in these SmartScale applications is finding a project that scores well with SmartScale so it will get funded so it means it has roadway capacity but also has multimodal elements like a path
00:37:15
or something like that, or a transit improvement.
00:37:20
So for example, the Ridge and McIntyre West Main intersection is currently a study that VDOT is leading kind of on behalf of the city, which will likely result in a smart scale application and then make its way through this process.
00:37:35
So
00:37:37
The tech committee and the policy board are going to basically vote on advancing certain projects to the smart scale application phase.
00:37:47
So the city is probably going to recommend Ridge, McIntyre, West Main, which we had a public meeting for that a couple weeks ago.
00:37:57
Albemarle County has four and then there are five under consideration for the MPO which is Route 29 and Barracks Road that has some kind of sidewalk trail improvements there off the off-ramps.
00:38:12
The I-64 and Fifth Street diversion
00:38:15
The diverging diamond interchange, which may or may not have multimodal improvements.
00:38:22
The current status is that VDOT doesn't think that they can basically have a path crossing over the existing bridge there.
00:38:30
US 29 and I-64 is really more of a highway safety and capacity project and then there are two on the bypass US 29, 250 off-ramp extension and on-ramp extension at Old Ivy Road which really is just a
00:38:47
A sheer capacity project has no multimodal benefits whatsoever.
00:38:52
So I think the plan is next month for the tech committee and policy board to kind of vote on what should be recommended.
00:39:02
Three quick updates.
00:39:04
The MPO is going to resubmit a BUILD grant application for the Rivanna River Bike Ped Bridge, which BUILD is a federal grant program.
00:39:14
They've submitted it multiple times in the past.
00:39:17
It hasn't been approved, but apparently the feds come back and say, we think you should resubmit this.
00:39:21
This is a great project.
00:39:22
So they're going to do it again.
00:39:23
The MPO is updating its travel demand model.
00:39:28
And it's where I think the future year it's planning for is 2050.
00:39:35
And their modeling consultant presented the demographic estimates for 2050 for approval.
00:39:43
and just as an FYI, they're projecting that the city's population will grow by 13% to 57,000 by 2050 and this is based on Weldon Cooper projections.
00:39:54
However, this is the lowest population growth of any of the jurisdictions in the region so Albemarle County, all the other counties are experiencing, at least according to these future projections, much higher rates of growth.
00:40:07
which I think is interesting for us to think about.
00:40:11
And then the final thing from that meeting, they presented the Unified Planning Work Program, UPWP, which is essentially the MPO's budget.
00:40:21
And so just as an FYI, it's 80% funded by the federal government, so Federal Highway Administration, Federal Transit Administration, 20% from local.
00:40:30
And that was that meeting.
00:40:34
So I went on for a while, but I think I'm done.
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
00:40:40
I'm so sorry.
00:40:44
I have two updates.
00:40:45
One from the school's capital improvement planning meeting today.
00:40:48
It is fresh on my mind.
00:40:50
And also a legislative update.
00:40:52
I will try to be brief.
00:40:55
We talked about the zoning update on field lighting, which is on our agenda today.
00:40:59
That is not time sensitive, although it is good to fix.
00:41:03
Oak Lawn, Pre-K, currently in legal limbo.
00:41:08
We may see a year or more of unplanned delay.
00:41:11
Our legal team is working hard on this with the university.
00:41:15
We will see.
00:41:17
Solar on school roofs, which we've talked about for many years, appears to be on track, especially for the high school and the middle school.
00:41:24
We have power purchasing agreements lined up for both, and then the smaller schools are still figuring out a way forward.
00:41:31
The facilities plan is on track for about June, which is related to HB334, Sales Tax for Schools, which passed the House and moves to the Senate Finance Committee.
00:41:42
It would need to pass a local referendum here, and it would generate $15 million a year in needed schools revenue.
00:41:48
That could be used for meaningful improvements, especially at Charlottesville High School.
00:41:51
I see that Ms. Kim Powell, the City Schools Chief Operations Officer, is attending this meeting, and will be attending future meetings to better coordinate between our two bodies.
00:42:00
which I personally appreciate.
00:42:03
Legislative subcommittee, we already gave you a taste.
00:42:06
HB 1279, Faith in Housing, has passed the House with a one-year delay with LIHTC processes, well that's an additional year, so we're talking about a two-year total delay.
00:42:16
That goes to the Senate Local Government Committee.
00:42:20
HB 282 Real Property Texts for Charlottesville, Falls Church, Fredericksburg and Newport News from Delegate Kallsen has passed the House and moves to the Senate Finance Committee.
00:42:30
That does not include the county if we want to fund regional transit.
00:42:33
That would have to go another year.
00:42:35
HB 888 Zoning Minimum Off-Street Parking Requirements has passed the House.
00:42:40
That goes to the Senate Local Government Committee, very similar to what we've done here.
00:42:44
SB 454 Housing Near Jobs has passed the House and Senate, also similar to what we've done here.
00:42:49
much more, but I believe that's the key stuff.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
00:42:55
I would just report today that I attended the CAR Foundation, which is the local Association of Realtors Foundation.
00:43:03
They held a
00:43:06
They held a lunch and learn for realtors where they hosted former commissioner Rory Stolzenberg and developer and land use attorney Nicole Skrode to talk about the city's zoning code.
00:43:18
There was a good discussion about how all this sort of impacts realtors and how they can think about it when working with landowners and property owners in the city and there was a good discussion between the
00:43:31
I got to go to BPAC last week.
Josh Carp
Member, Planning Commission
00:43:44
I'll get this wrong, but I think BPAC either is advisory to PC or believes they're advisory to PC.
00:43:53
I'll describe the meeting and some highlights for us, highlights to me at least.
00:44:01
There is now a publicly available city portal on the paving schedule.
00:44:06
So if you want to know when we'll have a road resurfaced and repaved, that information is
00:44:11
We don't think it's complete or fully correct, but it's there.
00:44:15
Follow-up questions are going into public works.
00:44:18
There are some omissions there like Rose Hill and Main Street that we'll look into, but it's a place to start.
00:44:25
There is, as P.C.
00:44:26
discussed I think last year, hope and also uncertainty about bike pad improvements to follow along with utility work on Main Street and Charlie and Elliot, a topic that needs to be I think followed up here and elsewhere.
00:44:42
Similarly, hope but also uncertainty and questions about the future of the city's quick build program, which I think for the two of us joined last year, PC discussed more money for quick builds in the CIP.
00:44:56
I think there is, at least within BPAC, not much clarity on how that program will continue in the medium and long term.
00:45:06
So things for us to think about as well.
00:45:08
And yeah, that's my highlight from the meeting.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
00:45:15
Commissioner Joy is out here so there's no UVA report.
00:45:21
I went to the VAR meeting last month.
00:45:26
We didn't have any agenda items so we reviewed our bylaws and reviewed what constitutes a major minor historic review and kind of various levels of minor reviews.
00:45:36
Stuff that goes on behind the scenes that we don't see on the BAR.
00:45:42
We do have a landscape architect vacancy.
00:45:45
Just wanted to put that out there for the public.
00:45:50
We also briefly discussed
00:45:54
When the zoning code was redone, certain things got moved out of the ordinance into a procedures manual and vice versa and one of those items is
00:46:09
The BAR only has 30 days to review a Historic Conservation District application.
00:46:14
I had thought that was in our ordinance.
00:46:15
It's actually in the procedures manual.
00:46:18
This was something that was done by council when they created the Woolen Mills Historic District.
00:46:26
The idea was that it would make
00:46:29
make things move along faster for homeowners.
00:46:32
The unintended consequence is that if the BAR for some reason can't form a quorum, items that are part of a Historic Conservation District's review are automatically approved.
00:46:46
So we did have that happen last year where an item just got automatically approved.
00:46:50
This seems like something that would be good to fix.
00:46:52
So I'm just bringing that up.
00:46:55
But anyways.
00:46:59
All right, so the Department of NDS, do you guys have anything you'd like to report?
SPEAKER_00
00:47:04
I have two items from the NDS director.
00:47:07
One is that the ADU manual and student housing study that you were given, you were presented with last meeting in January, that's been published and the city is seeking feedback on it.
00:47:21
It's published on Connect Charlottesville, which is the city's new public engagement website that is connect.charlinsville.gov.
00:47:28
And that's available for feedback through February 28th.
00:47:32
Second item is that City Council will hold a work session on tax abatement study, which was also presented to you in January.
00:47:38
And that will be next Tuesday, 3rd, or 17th.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
00:47:53
All right.
00:47:56
All right, so now we move on to matters that are presented by the public and not on the formal agenda.
00:48:01
Because we have no public hearings tonight, you guys can speak to anything Planning Commission related.
00:48:08
Does anybody like to speak?
00:48:11
I see nobody in the audience.
00:48:12
Is anybody online that would like to speak?
SPEAKER_00
00:48:16
Sure.
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
00:48:16
Anyone online would like to speak and raise their hand, and I can announce them for the commission.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
00:48:25
Chair, I see no raising of hands.
00:48:27
All right.
00:48:29
We have no consent agenda.
00:48:31
So we're going to now move into a work session to review the draft planning commission dates for our work session dates for 2026 and talk about the next round of development code amendments.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
00:48:53
Do you guys want to introduce or?
00:48:55
Certainly, Chair.
00:48:56
I want to try to take a bunch of notes.
00:48:58
That's why I'm sitting over here.
00:48:59
I'm not going to come down as long as y'all can hear me.
00:49:02
So tonight you're going to start first with reviewing the dates as part of your packet.
00:49:06
There was included just the Planning Commission regular dates and work sessions.
00:49:12
As noted, this is very draft and because it's draft, there's actually been some changes that I would like to read into so you can take notes on your sheet.
00:49:20
but just so you have the most up-to-date information but that information I didn't want to provide it after the packet had been posted.
00:49:27
So under work sessions for March 24th you'll have the homestay short-term rental work session.
00:49:37
In quarter two at your regular April 14th meeting will be the housing student housing in lieu of fee and ADU manual.
00:49:47
Work Session, that will be a combined regular meeting and work session.
00:49:52
No work session, no item listed for April 28th.
00:49:57
For your regular meeting on May 12th, there will be a presentation on the downtown mall action plan.
00:50:06
At the May 26th work session will be your citywide mobility plan scope.
00:50:12
At your June, currently there's no items at the June regular meeting.
00:50:17
June 23rd is a tentative bar guidelines or sometime in the third quarter.
00:50:25
So that's very general.
00:50:27
And then also in for quarter number two, but no date has been set, is a work session for the NDS 2026 slash 2027 department work plan that the director puts together each year.
00:50:41
No firm date, but she would like to bring that forward sometime in quarter two.
00:50:44
No item so far in your quarter three work sessions.
00:50:51
And for quarter four, your October 27th meeting is open, but you'll have in November 24th your CIP.
00:50:59
And typically the December 22nd work session is canceled.
00:51:04
So those are the general layouts.
00:51:06
This is an opportunity.
00:51:09
for you to just kind of digest that if there's any specific things you're looking at, a specific date or just in general quarters.
00:51:17
If there's something you'd like to look at, this would be a good time to have that conversation, but you could also work this in as you discuss the next two items on your work.
Hosea Mitchell
Member, Planning Commission
00:51:29
So the June 23rd meeting, the bar guidelines, what are we actually trying to get done in that meeting?
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
00:51:36
The preservation planner has been wanting for years to re-evaluate the BAR's guidelines and I think this would just be an opportunity to bring those thoughts forward to the Planning Commission.
Hosea Mitchell
Member, Planning Commission
00:51:49
Do you have any general idea what's broken, what we need to fix?
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
00:51:57
I don't know the ask yet.
00:51:59
The Chair might.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
00:52:05
The guidelines do need to be combed through for some updates.
00:52:09
It has not been fully defined yet.
00:52:13
We need to actually spend some time.
Hosea Mitchell
Member, Planning Commission
00:52:16
What is our role?
00:52:17
What is the Planning Commission's role in updating the BAR's guidelines?
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
00:52:21
I don't know exactly what our role would be for this work session, so I will confirm with Jeff what he's thinking and make sure that this is a productive work session.
00:52:32
I did ask him about the June 23rd and he said he was, right now it's just a date to make sure that it's place older.
Danny Yoder
Member, Planning Commission
00:52:43
Didn't the CIP this year include money for a BAR guidelines update?
00:52:51
Is there a consultant study or something happening?
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
00:52:54
I think step one in what we've been working on is making sure the scope is defined and hire a consultant to do that.
00:53:00
We did do some discussion on that.
00:53:04
Yeah, it's an item that definitely needs to be pushed forward.
00:53:09
And it is dragging, so that may be part of why this is on our work session list.
00:53:18
All right.
00:53:20
And I guess, as I mentioned, the pre-meeting, if we could, we'll try and coordinate with the county and hopefully use one of these work sessions for a city-county collaborative meeting.
00:53:35
And I guess,
00:53:40
Well, any other questions from you guys on this?
00:53:43
I do.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
00:53:44
Okay.
00:53:44
The May 26th meeting says the citywide mobility plan scope.
00:53:49
Is that to define the scope at that meeting or are you taking suggestions from scope prior to that?
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
00:54:00
Commissioner, I'm not sure I don't have much information on this, but we can get you that information definitely prior to this meeting.
00:54:08
When we sent the request out, it was more just, are there certain meetings you're wanting to come forward to Planning Commission for a work session?
00:54:15
They weren't providing much detail other than trying to find some holding dates.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
00:54:18
So we can get you that information.
00:54:20
Sure.
00:54:23
If it's part of the mobility plan, I don't know that it needs to be a separate plan, but I would like to see a discussion on transit and CAT on what the status of those are.
00:54:32
There's some vision planning that has been done in the past and looking for updates on that front.
00:54:38
and then I would like to see, and I'm new to these work sessions, I'm not sure exactly what defines a work session, but I would like to have a discussion on the neighborhood commercial ideas.
00:54:52
I believe that's a big part of the comprehensive plan that for one reason or another
00:54:58
isn't totally defined within the development code, so I would like to see a discussion there.
00:55:04
And then based on some comments from previous work sessions that I've been paying attention to, maybe it's part of our discussion today or more related to the zoning text amendments, but there's been some suggestions about having larger discussions about stormwater and critical slope and how those may play a part or play together or separately.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
00:55:35
And that definitely, the last one could definitely be maybe an update that NDS could provide as far as with the environmental study where that is in the process.
00:55:44
Because that's one of the larger NDS work plan items that is ongoing.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
00:55:51
Sure.
00:55:51
So yeah, if there's other places for those suggestions to go, that definitely makes sense.
Josh Carp
Member, Planning Commission
00:55:57
I think I have a similar question.
00:56:01
I think it's not yet known, it sounds like, what the scope of the mobility plan scope work session will be.
00:56:09
But unless this is explicitly going to be covered there, and it's going to be combined with transit possibly, there was a joint PC council work session, I think, in 2022 about ongoing transportation projects.
00:56:22
It's been a while, and I'd like to have another one of those, if possible.
00:56:27
My experience trying to track a given project or a network of projects is you have to ask utilities about this and engineering about that, and then I guess about a third thing.
00:56:37
And I find it really challenging, even putting a lot of time into it, to figure out what
00:56:44
What's on track?
00:56:45
What's not?
00:56:45
What's being built in a given year?
00:56:47
So I would, if it's not too redundant with other things already planned, like to have a work session much like the one in 2022 about ongoing transportation projects if we have time.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
00:57:15
I have four.
00:57:18
Let Matt finish writing.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
00:57:26
Going to the transportation, we definitely, again that could be, you could have our transportation planner and representatives from PWE give an update on funded and currently bidded out projects.
Josh Carp
Member, Planning Commission
00:57:43
If I can be a little bit picky, tell me if this is too much, I would specifically like to have representation from multiple departments at such a work session.
00:57:56
Because in my experience, I've been finding that the different departments aren't always well coordinated.
00:58:04
And one thing I want to try to accomplish is to,
00:58:09
make sure that the plans from NDS, Public Works, Utilities, and anybody else that I'm forgetting about are lining up.
00:58:18
So I think, for example, the experience of BPAC is that we can ask NDS staff about a project.
00:58:24
And often the answer is, that's a question for Utilities or Public Works.
00:58:28
And if you ask them, they might say a different thing.
00:58:30
So I would like sort of a joint high-level overview of what's happening across those departments, if possible.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
00:58:39
Commissioner, I think that's fair.
00:58:40
I would say it would maybe be a good opportunity to have Ben Chambers speak.
00:58:46
That position is fairly new, which is integrated in both NDS and public works just for that to make sure there's coordination and understanding across departments.
00:58:56
So I think a work session is a good idea, but I maybe would want to frame it more through Ben.
00:59:01
to make sure we're getting the correct people in the room.
Josh Carp
Member, Planning Commission
00:59:04
Yeah, I would love to have Ben be the point of contact, but I do not, I think it wouldn't be a useful work session if half of our questions are answered by, I'll check with a different department.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
00:59:14
I guess what I'm getting at is prior to a work session, having a presentation from Ben, so that maybe a work session could be more tailored.
Josh Carp
Member, Planning Commission
00:59:23
Yeah, great.
00:59:24
That sounds great.
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
00:59:31
I think I'm singing the same song a lot of us are.
00:59:40
My first one is Transit with CAT.
00:59:43
It's a huge priority to get a lot of our housing and parking stuff done.
00:59:47
We need functional transit and we're just not there.
00:59:50
I'm not clear on why that is or how we get there, but that's crucial.
00:59:56
So this is something that we had in the legislative packet and I've talked with
01:00:02
public work staff about it.
01:00:03
And they're supportive of the idea.
01:00:04
And I've talked to school folks, school streets.
01:00:07
The idea is that some schools really matter to the function of our school system.
01:00:11
And some streets aren't as essential.
01:00:15
It very much comes to mind with the ice.
01:00:17
Like some areas, when it's icy, the kids can't get to school.
01:00:21
We could map those, manage those, fund those, and get that done.
01:00:25
Paris is working on this.
01:00:27
Canada started a program.
01:00:30
This is one of those things where if Charlottesville doesn't do it, nobody's going to do it.
01:00:34
So we could do it.
Josh Carp
Member, Planning Commission
01:00:35
Are you talking about lower speed limits around schools?
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
01:00:38
It could be speed limits.
01:00:39
It could be plantings.
01:00:40
It could be filters.
01:00:41
There's a million things.
01:00:42
Or just intentionally managing things such that we can shovel it, that there's a way to make it work.
01:00:50
Play equipment.
01:00:51
There's a million things you could do.
01:00:53
The World Heritage Trail.
01:00:55
So this is actually a class I taught last semester.
01:00:57
And I'm going to try and teach it again.
01:00:59
And the idea is a safe educational trail between the University of Virginia and Monticello.
01:01:06
We could bring in Piedmont Virginia Community College in there.
01:01:08
We could bring in the middle school.
01:01:10
There's a lot of, or downtown mall, Jefferson School.
01:01:13
There's a lot of potential ways to make it work so that it is safe, educational, multimodal, and of global interest, and could potentially draw national or state funding.
01:01:23
A lot of people excited about it, but we should talk about it.
01:01:29
Corner safety and accessibility improvements.
01:01:32
This was another one that popped in the class.
01:01:35
The corner is of tremendous pedestrian use, limited bicycle use because of safety issues, and not functional as a transportation corridor for transit or private vehicles just because it is so congested during rush hour.
01:01:52
It just doesn't work.
01:01:54
The 14th Street Bridge is very funny.
01:01:56
We could talk about that.
01:01:59
Last one, I sat down with the head archaeologist of Alexandria.
01:02:06
The entire city of Alexandria is an archaeology zone as defined by state code, which creates some problems.
01:02:15
But man, is it good for archaeology.
01:02:16
Just great.
01:02:18
We do have some areas of archaeological interest in the city.
01:02:21
I'm thinking of Swan's Tavern.
01:02:23
I'm thinking of Stone Tavern cemeteries.
01:02:27
bringing that muscle maybe of value.
01:02:30
I know city staff have been interested in this topic.
01:02:34
I hope we can talk about it.
01:02:35
That's what I have.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:02:38
I will say Jeff Warner has been very good about any time there's a demolition downtown or in any sensitive area, making sure there's an archeology component to that.
01:02:52
Good topic.
Danny Yoder
Member, Planning Commission
01:02:54
I just have one question on the dates.
01:02:58
So if we are approaching one of these work sessions and our regular session, there's like nothing on the agenda.
01:03:07
Do you think there might be opportunity to pull some of those work sessions up and use our main meeting date for the work session so we have fewer meetings in the year?
01:03:18
In theory, yes.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:03:19
I think because just how the state has kind of changed some of its authority, we anticipate actually Planning Commission having less regular meetings to handle the things it used to handle in the past, special use permits, rezonings.
01:03:34
It would need to be thought out just because of the preparation and just the timing.
01:03:38
I think we can use, just as we are tonight, we can use regular dates for work sessions.
01:03:44
You just run the risk of if suddenly there's
01:03:46
Influx of applications.
01:03:51
It can be.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
01:03:51
We just have to be flexible.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:03:53
All right.
01:03:59
Last call for comments on our schedule.
01:04:04
All right.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:04:05
The development code.
01:04:08
All right, I'm going to kind of combine these two and so they give you all more time to have discussion tonight and we can take notes.
01:04:15
But what I just wanted to give an update on the 2025 development code amendments, the Tier 1 and Tier 2.
01:04:21
You held your public hearing last month.
01:04:24
That will be going to City Council next Tuesday.
01:04:27
Monday's a holiday, so it'll be at City Council on Tuesday.
01:04:32
Staff has prepared the material to actually go into effect at the end of March.
01:04:38
That allows time for other actions that are going on related to the anticipated code amendments that are connected to development review.
01:04:47
We need time to make sure that that's coordinating with our workflows and changes we're making to the development manual.
01:04:56
but hopefully this will be the conclusion of the 2025 cycle and we are starting the 2026 cycle and your packet is a very draft 2026 sheet but this will be an opportunity not only to as in the next item in the list go over
01:05:16
and prioritize the tier three items so that the director of NDS has a better idea of what's a priority to planning commission as she puts together the 2026-2027 department work plan.
01:05:29
But this is also an opportunity to give some feedback on the 2025.
01:05:32
What we went through, maybe what you would like to see, as you notice in the memo, it talks about maybe having a subcommittee of one or two commissioners that is championing
01:05:45
and the 2026 amendments.
01:05:48
So we'd love to get feedback on that as we scope out the 2026 amendments.
01:05:54
The idea being very similar, we're going to have tier one, tier two, tier three.
01:05:59
We're always collecting data, collecting this information, but we would be moving through another batch of tier one and tier twos, hopefully not as many tier ones.
01:06:09
and keeping the tier two more focused, but this will give an opportunity for y'all to help us shape that.
01:06:15
And then like I said, going into your tier three and providing some prioritization.
01:06:20
So with that, I'll turn it over to you, Chair, so that we can take notes, but I'm here to assist as needed.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:06:28
All right.
01:06:29
So I think as we discussed during our pre-meeting, we're going to try and go quickly item by item.
01:06:35
I do have a quick question.
01:06:37
about the 2025 code amendments.
01:06:41
How is that being advertised to developers and the community that there's a new code to download?
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:06:49
So there'll be an email going out tomorrow just keeping stakeholders involved that it's going to another public hearing.
01:06:56
And then we'll be using that time between the public hearing and when it's impacting to do some education.
01:07:02
But then we're really going to be ratcheting up
01:07:05
the Education portion of this.
01:07:06
We've been doing that at our pre-application meetings, letting the developers we do deal with a lot know that there are changes.
01:07:12
Here are the general changes that are going on based on the development code amendments and our process.
01:07:19
It's an ongoing education process.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:07:28
All right, let's get started.
01:07:29
So we've got tier one, I don't know, A1.
01:07:35
I assume that's just you guys are going to try and that's just going to be adopted next year.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:07:42
Yes, it wasn't something that was super pressing, but it's something we hopefully can fix.
01:07:48
It's an annoyance.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:07:50
All right, so B1.
01:07:56
Talk about site distance triangles on the 2026 list.
01:08:02
Any questions, comments?
Hosea Mitchell
Member, Planning Commission
01:08:04
Are we going item by item, page by page?
01:08:09
And if we are, what page are we starting on?
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:08:11
Oh, we're starting on page 23.
01:08:15
So in the 26, I did this myself last night.
01:08:18
Make sure you're looking at the 2026 table, which is in the second half of our packet.
01:08:24
OK.
01:08:26
So yeah, Page 23, there we are, of the PDF.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:08:34
You could.
Danny Yoder
Member, Planning Commission
01:08:37
That'd be great.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:08:41
Yeah.
01:08:42
B2, were you raising your hand or were you just, sorry, I thought I saw, I see confusion on your face.
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
01:08:51
Yeah.
01:08:52
Did we want discussion on B1?
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:08:54
Is there any discussion?
01:08:56
I'm fine with letting staff do what they're doing.
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
01:08:59
That's my perspective.
01:09:00
I'd like to see what staff come up with.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:09:05
B2 was B10 on the list, and it's graphics.
01:09:10
Sounds like that's just going to get fixed.
01:09:14
I want to note that I don't believe B15 from 2025 was resolved, so that's not
01:09:23
not listed in this list anymore and that had to do with how height bonuses are achieved for the RC district.
01:09:33
I think we had a B-15 item but that wasn't part of it and that was supposed to be part of it and I think we ended up resolving
01:09:42
something else in the process.
01:09:45
So in the RC district there is a height bonus allowed but it's based on I think the rules that go with all the other districts and not based on like RB and RA if you have more than one unit you're allowed a height bonus.
01:10:04
So I don't know if that got forgotten or if we did resolve it someplace.
01:10:19
So Chair, we did have a B-15, was it a one-pager that went through and the... Yeah, but I think we did resolve something to do with the high bonuses there, but I don't think we resolved the fact that the RC district, it still doesn't define how you get that bonus.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:10:42
We added in... And maybe I misread.
01:10:45
So we added in a under,
01:10:48
Under proposed language for section 34.2.2.C.3, we added a new 3.D, which says projects in the residential district.
01:11:01
So it didn't call out each district, just R. So it covered the RC.
01:11:04
OK. Or residential neighborhood core RN district.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:11:08
Sorry, you did.
01:11:09
Thank you.
01:11:10
OK.
01:11:11
Yes.
01:11:13
What was I looking?
01:11:13
Oh.
01:11:16
There's two pages.
01:11:17
OK, I'm sorry.
01:11:18
No worries.
01:11:19
Thank you.
01:11:20
OK, that clarified that.
01:11:21
Sorry about that.
01:11:22
All right.
01:11:25
B3 was B20 on the list, linking requirements.
01:11:30
OK, so 2026 list.
01:11:34
Any comments?
01:11:37
Keep moving.
01:11:40
B21, I think, was another one that maybe I missed it, but I don't think we fully resolved it.
01:11:47
A sentence there that says, calls for a fence, type X.
01:11:52
And I think that was just a typo.
01:11:54
I don't know if we picked that up or not.
01:12:01
So B21 is, let me scroll out of that.
01:12:11
B17.
01:12:18
Actually, it's not in our packet from last month.
01:12:23
So we had a whole bunch of changes that we did to the fences and how we define fences.
01:12:30
But they're still under the accessory uses for outdoor storage.
01:12:40
There's a requirement for a fence type X.
01:12:43
And I think that was supposed to be included as far as the fence updates, and it didn't get included in that.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:12:50
Let me do some digging to see if that got, I see it on the 2025 list crossed out.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:12:55
Yeah.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:12:55
I'm trying to figure out why.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:13:00
Well, let that go to the minutes for, I think that's an easy fix.
01:13:05
Or it's maybe you already caught it.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:13:08
If we didn't catch it, we will catch it for tier one.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:13:12
B4, was B22 finished grade?
01:13:17
Do you guys think that you're going to be able to include that in 2026?
01:13:20
It sounds like that one needs some thinking.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:13:30
Lost five.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:13:31
Sorry.
01:13:32
I'm making it do something.
01:13:34
PDF Gymnastics.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:13:52
Chair, can you give me that number again?
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:13:54
It was B22 on the 2025 list, and it's B4 on 2026.
01:14:03
had to do with how finish grade is defined.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:14:07
Yes, there's a graphic that doesn't line up with actual language.
01:14:13
So we're not sure.
01:14:14
It's just we haven't investigated enough to know if it's an easy fix.
Danny Yoder
Member, Planning Commission
01:14:18
OK.
01:14:18
So can I just ask a clarifying question?
01:14:22
So this means item B4.
01:14:25
is on the 2026 Tier 2 list of things to work on.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:14:36
It's not moving to Tier 3 or anything.
01:14:38
No, we'll use B4 as an example.
01:14:39
So on the 2025 list, it appeared as B22.
01:14:42
I just wanted to keep the numbers so for when we're doing the history to be able to connect it.
Danny Yoder
Member, Planning Commission
01:14:47
All right.
01:14:49
And I think we got some comments via email after that one session where builders and developers gave feedback on finished grade.
01:14:58
I don't know if this is just like a graphics fix, but I remember hearing from a couple of architects, I think, just about some difficulty around where do you define the grade or finished grade.
01:15:15
Is this just a graphics fix or is this a bigger question about how do we define the grade?
01:15:23
I don't know if that's the right word.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:15:25
Well, and I think that's why it was basically labeled as it is, like we need to do more study.
01:15:30
It's brought up as an issue, but we have not fleshed out the exact issue.
01:15:33
We know there is a graphics issue where the graphic talks about finished floor elevation.
01:15:41
The actual code language says finished grade.
01:15:44
So there's a disconnect.
01:15:45
We know that's a disconnect, but we haven't studied to see if there's other issues.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
01:15:48
I believe there were comments at maybe that meeting or a different one also as well about just the code doesn't really match with the topography of the city.
01:15:59
We have a very rolling and like think about Belmont or other areas of the town that have some rolling topography and how the code doesn't really match with that.
01:16:07
Is that part of this discussion or is that a separate one?
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:16:10
I think that's more of a
01:16:12
Broder discussion as far as, because that's tied into the way that, if you have a steep site, it forces you to break a project down into multiple pieces.
01:16:22
And I feel like that's leading more into more of a philosophical, is that what we want type question, which is fair game for this.
01:16:32
I'm going to assume that's going to be a Tier 3 sometime.
Danny Yoder
Member, Planning Commission
01:16:34
But is that philosophical question on the list somewhere?
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:16:40
I don't think it's on the list of development questions, but I don't think it's in the Tier 3 list that we've currently got.
01:16:48
And yeah, if we want to add that, that would be something to do.
01:16:55
Let's make note to make sure that if we can talk about whether we want that in the Tier 3 or not.
01:17:03
Topography, and height definition and whatnot.
01:17:12
OK. Yeah, I guess my thought on the finished grade is just I don't know how much of a problem that is for you guys.
01:17:20
But I guess you guys, as you're reviewing these projects, would know if it's holding things up or not.
01:17:29
B-5 was B-23, and it has to do with, I guess it's language for the special exception process.
01:17:47
And it sounds like you guys are on top of that.
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
01:17:50
I have some things on B-5.
01:17:54
OK.
01:17:55
So broadly, the old
01:17:59
I'm going to begin with what it's called.
01:18:04
This thing that is covered by B5.
01:18:08
Critical slopes, here we are.
01:18:11
It is older than current state code.
01:18:13
It was terribly innovative.
01:18:16
It's just old.
01:18:18
So quite a bit of it is duplicative with state code now, which does exist, which is great.
01:18:23
The rest of it, we have sort of standard language that we apply to every project, which is good that we've developed that.
01:18:29
But in terms of process, since we always say the same thing,
01:18:34
We aren't really adding any value.
01:18:36
We're just copy paste every time.
01:18:40
Could we move this standard process to a non-discretionary administrative process where the same thing we say every time is applied without a public hearing?
01:18:49
It just happens.
01:18:51
Let the staff do their job.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:19:01
I would agree if there's more things that we could make administrative
01:19:05
I think that would be better.
01:19:10
And I'd be, I mean if staff has time I'd love to see what they think would be appropriate items to move to full administrative review versus special exception.
01:19:29
Any other thoughts on that?
Josh Carp
Member, Planning Commission
01:19:33
Isn't there not even Tier 3 about making some special exceptions less exceptional?
01:19:38
Is that related or are they distinct?
01:19:39
I think that's somewhat related, maybe.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:19:47
You said that isn't Tier 3?
01:19:48
Yeah.
01:19:49
All right, so let's get to that.
01:19:50
I think that makes sense to look at.
01:20:00
I was trying to think.
01:20:02
No, that is covered there.
01:20:03
I was going to say B33, I thought we left off.
01:20:06
It looks like it moved to tier three.
01:20:10
B6 was B37.
01:20:12
Yeah, allowing more things to go straight to the building permit review.
01:20:25
Lyle, is that what you were just talking about, or is this a little different?
01:20:30
Do we have thoughts on that, or do we just let staff do what they think is best?
01:20:35
OK. B7 was B13.
01:20:39
Can we back up real quick?
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
01:20:40
Yeah.
01:20:41
In the comments here, staff says they're looking at two options, keeping the current policy, or basically the current policy, which is allowing one and two units to go straight there, versus allowing anything in the R district to go there.
01:20:54
Do they want to opine on preference for their two options?
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:20:59
I think because it has to do with how staff reviews things.
01:21:05
Well, I guess, I don't know.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:21:09
So a little background on this.
01:21:11
So staff wanted to be as ambitious as possible.
01:21:16
When you look at zoning compliance, zoning compliance can happen under the code changes that we hope go infected into March would be codifying the one in two family
01:21:28
which is our current policy, going straight to building code.
01:21:32
But there is a zoning compliance that happens at building code.
01:21:36
So on the zoning compliance side, we could do that at different levels.
01:21:41
It doesn't have to be its own process.
01:21:43
And so that there are communities around the country that do, they allow more things to go straight to building permit.
01:21:50
And they do their zoning compliance as part of the building permit review.
01:21:53
We would love to get there.
01:21:55
We don't think we're quite there as an organization yet to make that work, but it's something we're going to keep trying to work at to break down barriers.
01:22:05
Some of the problems just we're running into, just as we explored this, was just some of the going, anything more than two units is commercial.
01:22:17
from a building code standpoint.
01:22:19
So that creates some challenges just on staffing side and doing it at the building permit side.
01:22:25
So that would be the goal is to how could we get more things through the process faster that are creating more housing units in the city.
01:22:35
But we just don't think we're really maybe at the place yet where we could say all our districts.
01:22:41
So that's why we kind of scaled back.
01:22:43
But it's still a conversation we want to keep having.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:22:46
And at the end of the day, whichever thing happens, the same stuff will be reviewed, correct?
01:22:50
Correct.
01:22:51
So it's not like we're having a lighter review for the R districts.
01:22:54
It's just a different, faster process.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:22:57
Correct.
01:22:57
It's just instead of going through a development review process, then a building permit process, we roll in the zoning compliance with building review.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:23:10
OK. Makes sense.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
01:23:11
because the distinction between a minor and a major development review is also at the two to three unit barrier, correct?
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:23:19
So the code amendments that are going for next week, one of them is to actually go to a strict development plan, which is just a zoning compliance, which you'll get more, more people will get value out at larger developments where you're trying to get a plan vested
01:23:40
for a large development so you can go to a bank and say, the city can't change the zoning on me while I'm exploring, making sure this is constructible.
01:23:47
And then doing major and minor site plans.
01:23:50
And minor site plans would be additions or anything that does not require a VS&P plan.
01:23:59
It would be able to go through the process quicker, it would be cheaper.
01:24:02
The review times have not changed yet.
01:24:06
That's going to be one of our next steps in our process as we evaluate this.
01:24:10
But it would be cheaper than doing a final site plan, like a major final site plan.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
01:24:17
So it sounds like staff is working on several fronts on trying to get this faster to go.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:24:23
Yeah.
01:24:23
And doesn't necessarily need our feedback, I don't think.
01:24:28
B7 was B39 and it's just how individually protected properties are represented.
01:24:34
This sounds like housekeeping.
01:24:36
Any concerns?
01:24:39
Nope?
01:24:39
Okay.
01:24:40
B8 was B41.
01:24:42
Required bicycle parking, so whether we are requiring too many bike spots for hotels or not.
01:24:51
Do we have opinions on this?
01:24:54
I don't feel like I know enough to
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
01:24:56
I mean, this is also a tier three discussion, I believe.
01:24:59
Not specifically to hotels, but bicycle parking above four units more generally.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:25:06
Yes, yes.
Josh Carp
Member, Planning Commission
01:25:08
I think they're distinct, right?
01:25:10
This is about hotels, and the other is about sort of the opposite, about exceptions for small residential developments.
01:25:16
So is staff considering those items together or separately?
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:25:20
Separate.
01:25:20
So there is how you calculate what you need is very much just residential commercial.
01:25:26
and hotels are considered commercial.
01:25:28
There's no nuance.
01:25:31
The other question on the tier three is just we exempt requiring bike parking for any residential development less than four units.
01:25:40
And is that something we want to continue doing?
01:25:42
So it is two kind of distinct questions.
01:25:44
OK.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
01:25:47
I mean, it makes sense to me how many people are riding bicycles to hotels.
01:25:54
Yeah, OK. From a practicality standpoint.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:25:56
So basically, yes, staff, we're saying move ahead with figuring this out?
01:26:03
Yeah.
01:26:05
OK. And B9 is the new one on food trucks.
01:26:09
And I mean, do we have concerns or thoughts on?
01:26:18
I was a little confused about, somebody said that only one food, well, yeah.
01:26:22
Does our code really say that only one food truck is permitted per lot?
01:26:25
I couldn't find that.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:26:26
Yes, because it's a temporary use.
01:26:28
And so this is more about food courts where food, like, so how the ordinance is written right now, it's about I'm going to go park on a street or for a, you know, and sell out of a truck, not what we have basically like at
01:26:45
High, and the bypass, where there continues parking there.
01:26:49
And so it's just a, do we as a city, do we need to explore that?
01:26:52
Do we need to explore a different model than currently what's in our code?
01:26:55
Our code is just, it's a temporary use.
01:26:57
You're supposed to be leaving in the evening.
01:26:58
It's per one food truck per lot.
01:27:02
So it's more of just, it's a use we're not capturing.
01:27:07
Is it something, are we fine with our current code?
01:27:10
Move on, or is it something we should explore where this type of use is different really than what's currently in our code?
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:27:20
So just to be clear, if somebody, if my neighborhood had a block party on private property, we could only have one food truck on that property?
01:27:29
Is that what this is saying?
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:27:30
That is what our current code says.
01:27:32
It says that you get one permit per truck,
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
01:27:36
Lot.
01:27:37
Could you not permit the entire food truck lot and then have the various number of food trucks in that one lot that's permitted?
01:27:45
It has to be permit per truck?
01:27:48
That's how it's written now.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:27:48
It's permit per truck because it's the temporary use.
01:27:52
And it's just how the temporary use section is set up.
01:27:55
It's not necessarily calling out per truck.
01:27:58
It's when you go to the temporary uses, it's talking about temporary uses are per lot for the one use.
01:28:04
It gets a little complicated.
01:28:07
Breaking it down is just yes.
01:28:08
Our temporary use for when we talk about food trucks is supposed to be one permit per one truck per one lot.
01:28:15
Interesting.
Hosea Mitchell
Member, Planning Commission
01:28:17
So this means that we can't have a food truck court?
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:28:21
Currently right now, no.
01:28:22
That is not permitted.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:28:24
Or just a private event or wedding or something where somebody wants to have food trucks.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
01:28:30
That's a problem.
01:28:31
The comment here.
01:28:34
has the idea of breaking it into an alternative form.
01:28:37
This feels like an alternative form specific to a specific use.
01:28:42
I think I would prefer to avoid that designation.
01:28:48
Is that how I'm reading this correct?
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:28:50
I will say this is very new.
01:28:51
Staff has not done a lot.
01:28:53
They were just trying to capture it and trying to capture at least how it could maybe be resolved.
01:28:59
Again, feedback from Planning Commission can be not an issue.
01:29:02
We like how our code is.
01:29:05
Staff has come across this several times where an applicant has come forward and wanted to do basically a food court.
Hosea Mitchell
Member, Planning Commission
01:29:14
So an example, a practical example would be the court at the base of High Street and Long Street.
01:29:21
Correct.
01:29:22
Would that be a violation based on our code today?
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
01:29:25
Correct.
01:29:27
Two truck courts, sir.
01:29:29
To me, amazing temporary uses of vacant lands to try to revitalize or bring some community into areas that have a little bit of vacant land.
01:29:38
I would hate to restrict it to one trip.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:29:40
Is there anybody here who agrees with the current restriction?
01:29:44
No.
01:29:46
OK.
01:29:46
So that's some direction.
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
01:29:50
I'm most familiar with the example at the university where there's an area where you can go and there's a lot of food trucks there and it's lovely, very popular.
01:30:03
Could this be an option on public property?
01:30:05
I'm thinking of parks specifically.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:30:09
I mean, I think it could be an option.
01:30:11
What we're really getting at is
01:30:15
staff resources to dig into it, to solve it, you know, is this high enough priority or not.
01:30:25
Yeah, we can come to a solution.
01:30:29
I just don't know how much time and energy would take.
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
01:30:34
Wow.
01:30:35
Has economic development waited on this?
01:30:36
This sounds like their kind of thing.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:30:38
They'd like to see them.
01:30:40
Economic development's part of our pre-application meetings.
01:30:43
They were part of this where this one kind of came up or where someone had an idea and we had to kind of say it's not permitted in the code.
Hosea Mitchell
Member, Planning Commission
01:30:52
Ooh, Mr.
01:30:53
Chair, I think this is worthy of a deep dive.
01:30:55
Yes.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:30:55
Two or three things that need a deep dive.
01:30:58
Deep dive and do we consider it a priority?
01:31:04
I think it's worth it.
01:31:05
I think it's worth it.
01:31:07
All right, so B9.
01:31:09
Make sure it.
01:31:14
OK.
01:31:18
Outdoor mini space, it's currently just a flat percentage and doesn't take into account the quality of the space.
01:31:24
This sounds like important, but not a priority to me.
01:31:28
I don't know about you guys.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
01:31:31
There's a lot of things I would do before it.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:31:33
Yeah.
01:31:37
OK.
01:31:38
No disagreement?
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
01:31:39
Are we getting a lot of outdoor amenity space that's just blank space?
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:31:43
I don't know.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:31:44
Yeah, what we're getting a lot of is this grass area right here.
01:31:47
I'm counting towards my amenity space.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
01:31:51
Don't love it, but I don't hate it.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:31:53
Yeah, I kind of, to be honest, think the whole outdoor amenity space is a weird requirement.
01:31:58
We have public parks, and to require someone to have a little tiny playground that probably won't get used on their property is silly, but that's just me.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:32:08
He died.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:32:10
Yeah.
01:32:10
But not a priority.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:32:11
What we're getting under the code right now is you're required to have a percentage.
01:32:15
And it really, I won't say it's an afterthought,
01:32:20
developers are looking for what space they're not using and then just carving that and calling this shape their outdoor amenity space and just it was staff's thought would we get better amenity space if we were able to tier them that if you were providing amenity space at x level you only need to do two percent if it's at a less level you're providing more because it's not you know necessarily active but that was kind of the thought behind it.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:32:50
I think it's a nice idea to, I just think we have other things that, well unless anybody else agreed, just, okay.
01:32:58
I know I'm, I don't mean to be, you know, I feel like I'm pushing all my opinions.
01:33:07
Someone reading through all these.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:33:09
Before, Chair, before you jump on I'll say that, this is a living document and we did add one more and that's why it's not in the packet, but I can just read it to you.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:33:17
Please do.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:33:18
because you'll see it at future things.
01:33:20
It'll just be on the list because we're capturing all this stuff.
01:33:23
But one thing that's come up is so under our current code, you can be on a private street or a public street.
01:33:30
And under our old code, all our private streets were connected to town home developments.
01:33:35
So we didn't get a lot of private streets.
01:33:36
But under this new code, now that you can have private streets, nothing in the code, though, speaks to
01:33:44
a private street being a dedicated parcel so it could be technically a dedicated easement over a private parcel which creates a whole bunch of issues.
01:33:53
We haven't run into, this is one we're trying to get in front of, we haven't seen it yet but we can see issues because our code speaks to not only in some areas it speaks to property lines but other areas it speaks to edge of a road, a street, which if that road is a private street only within an easement on a
01:34:11
piece of
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:34:45
OK. And that doesn't, I'm thinking to some of, I know Habitat was always trying to do private streets, and there were some issues with them being taken over by the city as public streets, that this is a different issue.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:35:02
This is more of an issue of, imagine you have one lot, and you run a private easement right down the middle.
01:35:11
and our code speaks to things about the property line but edge of streets and now if somebody wanted to put a building, how are you trying to measure your build too which speaks to property line if that's bisected and it'd be better if we didn't allow access easements to be streets, not preventing you to do an access easement but we just wouldn't count that as a private street, it needs to be a standalone parcel.
01:35:36
And this kind of came out too in speaking to the attorney's office so I think we
01:35:41
We have language.
01:35:42
I feel comfortable putting it in tier one, but I just threw it on tier two to be a placeholder.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:35:49
OK.
01:35:49
I think that makes sense.
01:35:52
All right, tier three.
01:35:55
All right, so we've got C1.
01:36:01
What was this?
01:36:03
Oh, height based on unit count.
01:36:04
So am I right C1 and C2 are kind of connected?
01:36:12
somewhat.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
01:36:13
They are, but it appears that staff police C2 has been resolved.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:36:18
Yeah.
01:36:20
All right, so we'll see one.
01:36:23
So building heights for the, yeah, we did have this discussion, whether it's a single building with multiple units or multiple buildings on a single parcel, whether they can qualify for the height bonus.
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
01:36:43
Do we have thoughts or concerns, Lyle?
01:36:46
My recollection was our intention was for the height bonus to apply regardless of how they're sliced up in terms of lot.
01:36:53
If you are building them in a way that benefits the public, there should be a height bonus.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:37:00
I believe that's how I remember that as well.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
01:37:04
So this is basically saying if you have a current
01:37:09
Just building with one unit, and you put a second one, that second one can get, the question is whether or not the second one gets the height bonus.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:37:18
Yeah, or let's say, even if ignoring whether there's an existing building or not, you've got something in the RA or RB zone that you've got two houses on a piece of property.
01:37:31
Is it one or more that we get the bonus, or is it, well, whatever triggers the bonus.
01:37:37
You've got three houses on a piece of property.
01:37:38
and they're all separate, there's space between them.
01:37:41
Do they all qualify for extra height or is it only if they're combined together into a single building does that get extra height?
01:37:50
And I think what we were leaning towards was it doesn't matter whether it's a single building or three separate buildings, you've got three units on that parcel, they should have the extra height.
Danny Yoder
Member, Planning Commission
01:38:01
My recollection is that council, when they were deliberating over this, this was almost like, how do we not have the mansions, McMansions?
01:38:12
It's like, if you build one unit, you can't build a massive tall building, but if it's multi-unit housing, you can get the height.
01:38:21
And I agree with what others were saying about like,
01:38:25
The idea here is to not allow you to build one big mansion, but you can build multi-family housing that has a bigger size.
01:38:33
And so who cares how many buildings you do it in on that lot.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:38:37
Because they're probably going to have smaller footprints.
01:38:41
Right, yeah.
01:38:44
So I don't know if that's a
01:38:48
Super big priority, but it seems like it would be nice to get fixed.
01:38:52
It seems simple.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:38:54
We actually were talking about this the other day.
01:38:56
I was trying to pull it up before I spoke.
01:38:58
I think this actually got fixed accidentally through B5, too, because we added, when you look at B5, we added the definition of
01:39:07
Well, I guess the other question that came with this was also with maximum length of buildings.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:39:37
So if you have a string of townhouses that are part of a single site but span multiple parcels, are they one building?
01:39:48
In which case, in an RA district, they're limited to 40 feet, which is basically just a duplex.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:39:58
So adding the end site, so now we would consider the site for the multiple buildings.
01:40:07
for that primary use.
01:40:09
So let me gather this weird thing, because you can either have one or the other.
01:40:16
We've had some developers try to argue one and then back to the other.
01:40:22
So if you had a townhouse development, which is the site, and you're going across multiple
01:40:36
Lots, because that townhouse development, a row of six.
01:40:44
You'd get the height bonus now, because that's the site where that was where the problem was, where you were looking at that.
01:40:50
That was an apartment.
01:40:51
We would have given you the height, because it was one building on one lot.
01:40:55
But if it's townhomes, you weren't getting the height, because you were one building per each lot.
01:40:59
But you could have been that 60-foot width.
01:41:02
I think with the update, it would allow now, that's a site instead of just a lot, so that's multiple buildings on a site, so they get the extra height for townhomes, but the width is still measured by lot.
01:41:19
So, under, let me pull up an action.
01:41:23
Interesting.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:41:24
I don't know the
01:41:28
I don't know that I like the idea that just because you spread projects out on a single site over multiple lots that they would get the bonus height.
01:41:37
That seems backwards to what we're thinking.
Danny Yoder
Member, Planning Commission
01:41:42
Did I say that correct?
01:41:43
Well, I think, but again, I think the council discussion on this was like,
01:41:48
pretty focused on preventing mansions.
01:41:51
I'm just going to say it that way.
01:41:53
And so if you've got townhouses across multiple lots, you're not building mansions.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:41:58
No, you're not.
01:41:59
But they don't necessarily have to be townhouses for it to be a single site, right?
01:42:04
Yeah, I think you could do the multi-use.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:42:06
Oh, I see what you're saying.
01:42:07
It's a hard thing to kind of fix.
01:42:09
And this is where that.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:42:11
I feel like that went backwards to what our intention might have been.
Danny Yoder
Member, Planning Commission
01:42:16
But like, is someone really going to use this as a loophole to build a mansion?
01:42:21
Like, they'd have to build multiple mansions.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:42:24
Yeah, like the coal tower.
Danny Yoder
Member, Planning Commission
01:42:26
That's true.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:42:27
Well, yeah, the example you look at is you have a single, you have a lot, one lot.
01:42:32
And you have a single family home on it, and you want to build a single family home in the back.
01:42:37
So where we're struggling is, yeah, you're probably going to get that larger house, because now they could build it higher, because it's
01:42:44
It's multiple buildings on a site and not just one building.
01:42:49
But the trade-off is the whole kind of conversation with
01:42:53
with the townhomes versus an apartment where physically it doesn't look any different.
01:42:58
If you looked at a row of townhomes, that wouldn't look any different if there's property lines running between them to break it up or it's, you know, to be townhomes or not.
01:43:08
So it is difficult.
01:43:10
And I remember from the work session we had at City Works, you know, this was a hard thing to answer, but one of the things I think I was hearing from the commission was
01:43:21
The trade-off is units are units.
01:43:22
Even though, yes, you might get that larger house in the back, it's still a unit.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:43:30
But it's also they're sharing a single lot.
01:43:33
Where I'm getting a little worried is now it sounds like they don't have to share a lot to get the high bonus.
01:43:40
I think that's what you just told me.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:43:42
Well, if you were doing a development, the site would be the six.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:43:46
Yeah.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:43:47
Lots of townhounds.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:43:48
And we have a minimum lot width in the RA and RB districts, correct?
01:43:54
So if you did a townhouse that was, is it 40 feet or is it, what's the minimum lot width?
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:43:58
Is the minimum or the max?
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:44:02
Minimum.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:44:04
So in the RB, it's a percentage.
01:44:08
It's at 65%.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:44:11
Not the build to width, but the minimum, the lot width.
01:44:15
Okay, so theoretically what we're saying is we could have a string of six townhouses that are each one is 40 feet wide and that gets the height bonus as well.
01:44:36
So we are saying that you're limited to the maximum building width.
01:44:46
Well then that also seems silly because in RA that means you can only have duplexes, you can't have townhouses and we've just made this whole attached dwelling unit thing to allow townhouses.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:44:57
No, the sickness so that your mass and your building width is per line.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:45:04
OK, so all right, then yes.
01:45:06
So you've got your lot is 40 feet wide.
01:45:10
You have a string of 40-foot wide lots.
01:45:13
Each townhouse, someone decides they want to build these massive townhouses that are 40 feet wide.
01:45:18
And they can go on indefinitely.
01:45:20
And they get the height bonus.
01:45:24
Is that what we're doing?
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:45:29
That is what we'd be doing, because it would be
01:45:33
I guess that's where we would need to figure out do we not want because it's making those two work is going to be very difficult without getting kind of this trade-off for the height.
Danny Yoder
Member, Planning Commission
01:45:48
It seems like if someone were to actually do this and build a bunch of 40-foot townhouses that are extra tall like it seems like that seems okay to me because if you're not building you're not building
01:46:01
I don't know.
01:46:02
I think it's a strange thing to try to do with a zoning code to make it impossible to build mansions, but possible to build big apartment buildings, like a building is a building.
01:46:14
So I think erring on the side of allowing you to build stuff seems like the priority here.
01:46:21
And I see a difference between a string of 40 foot wide townhouses than like
01:46:28
Manchins that are huge single family homes.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:46:30
But I mean, you could also just, your site is a single development that's built all at once, correct?
01:46:35
So could you do, could a site consist of six parcels and each one has a single dwelling unit on it that gets the height bonus?
Danny Yoder
Member, Planning Commission
01:46:46
Yeah, but like how much land in the city is there where you could build like six mansions?
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:46:52
That's fair, that's fair.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:46:56
And I will say if someone, staff would not, if someone said I'm going to do a subdivision, we wouldn't consider that a site with single-family homes on that.
01:47:05
We would say no, that is per lot.
01:47:07
We wouldn't say you get that bonus height because you just came in and built six single-family homes on individual lots.
01:47:15
But it is different for a townhouse because it's being built at once.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:47:21
Are we okay with this?
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
01:47:23
I'm alright with the trade-off.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:47:25
Well then we may have just actually killed all these items.
01:47:28
Is there agreement down the board?
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
01:47:31
I will say that item C13 has to do with the definition of a site being only the land and not what's on it.
01:47:42
We were just using site to incorporate the building.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:47:47
Well it's because a lot and what staff had added to that language for 2025, primary building being a lot or site.
01:48:00
So trying to add that in with 13.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
01:48:02
13 is about a site modification.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:48:10
That is, let me go to the code because some of us have to do something.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:48:28
I think this has to do with what triggers a certain type of review, I think.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
01:48:33
It does.
01:48:34
I just want to make sure we're using site when we're talking about this townhome example with tall townhomes that according to this, that site is only the dirt under the townhomes.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:49:17
on 7-8, which is about the different type of activities, site modification, any modification
01:50:00
Yes, I mean the 10th status recommendation is change the definition of site to a single lot or group of connected lots or improvements.
01:50:20
There's just concern that for site-modifying, for a specific activity type, it can be a little
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
01:50:28
I guess I'm just asking when you guys review this just to make sure that those two things are working together.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:50:45
So hopefully C1 and C2 have now been knocked off the list.
01:50:49
We'll see if the site thing changes that.
01:50:54
Looks like C3 has already been taken care of.
01:50:57
C4, you guys say it could be a tier one change, then let's make it a tier one change.
01:51:12
Seems simple enough so that a deck is not considered part of a primary building.
01:51:21
C5.
01:51:25
Lots having vehicular access from each street other than primary street or not having vehicular access at all must meet the minimum width required for lots of other vehicular access specified by the zoning district.
01:51:36
I'm confused by this one.
01:51:37
Is this an issue?
01:51:39
Or is this just someone thinks there's a clearer way to write it?
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
01:51:57
Yeah, it says from any street other than a primary street, or having no vehicular access at all, that leaves a pretty broad set of access points that that covers.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:52:12
Which is side or rear access, right?
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:52:15
I think I wonder, maybe it's just adding that side or rear.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:52:22
This seems like a, if it does need clarification,
01:52:27
It seems like it's a pretty simple C6, looks like it was resolved C7, mid-block pedestrian pathways Seems to me, I mean I appreciate the devil's in the detail but seems like this could be a tier two
Hosea Mitchell
Member, Planning Commission
01:52:54
I mean, because it's based on, we arrived at this based on Errone's assumption.
01:53:00
The assumption being that, you know, there's only one primary street frontage and around town there are many with more than one primary street frontage.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:53:14
Is the effect that it needs study just to make sure there's no... What are you going to study?
Hosea Mitchell
Member, Planning Commission
01:53:20
Again, devil's in detail, so maybe listen to something, but not a whole lot to study.
01:53:26
We can get some of this tier two and move on.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:53:29
I mean, I agree, unless there's something in the code that it's tangled up in some other language.
01:53:35
That's what I'm wondering.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:53:38
I can't think of any.
01:53:39
I mean, we can move it to tier two.
01:53:40
If it starts to unravel, we can always kick it to tier three.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:53:44
Great.
01:53:45
Seems simple enough.
01:53:48
C8 already resolved.
01:53:51
C9.
01:53:53
That seems super easy without any discussion required.
01:54:00
Can we move that one up?
01:54:04
I mean, that looks like just housekeeping again.
01:54:11
Okay, so here we go with the projects with C-10, projects with one to four dwelling units are not required to provide short term or long term bicycle parking.
01:54:22
Do we have an opinion?
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
01:54:26
My opinion is that things with one to four dwelling units are going to be primarily in the residential districts and building anything is already difficult without layering on more requirements.
01:54:39
I think if we were to expand this to the discussion that we sort of alluded to earlier with the hotel, with the larger buildings, are those bicycle requirements working well?
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:55:00
And one of the other questions is whether it's, is this applied per lot or per project?
01:55:06
And
01:55:09
I'm leaning towards per lot, which means less bicycle parking, but it does mean more flexibility for.
01:55:22
I imagine if someone is building a project that has one to four units on it, there's going to be default bicycle parking as part of that.
01:55:36
But maybe I'm being too presumptuous
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
01:55:40
I'm just thinking if some of this reform that Lyle's going into about single point access ends up being a reality.
01:55:52
The vestibule in other parts of the country were used as bicycle storage.
01:56:02
So I don't know that forcing people to have a designated area
01:56:10
I'm all for a designated area.
01:56:12
I'm not saying I don't want that, but forcing that is a different discussion.
01:56:18
I would say not requiring these to have bicycle parking.
Josh Carp
Member, Planning Commission
01:56:26
I just have a question about how bicycle parking works in the code because a pattern I've seen
01:56:32
I think most residences can fit a bicycle somewhere.
01:56:39
I think sometimes the bigger problem is getting the bicycle inside.
01:56:45
We've been talking about the topography of the city.
01:56:47
It's hilly.
01:56:48
Sometimes the sidewalk is a few steps up or down from the home, and you have to get, especially if we're talking about
01:56:55
A cargo bike for carrying children or other stuff.
01:56:59
I'm not carrying my 85 pound cargo bike upstairs regularly or wherever.
01:57:06
But I'm guessing that's orthogonal to bike parking requirements.
01:57:11
You can have a required bike room in a structure that's also up some stairs, and it's not useful.
01:57:17
So if that's a must bicycle parking means bike parking that you can easily get in and out of, then I think it's fine to
01:57:26
I don't think we can solve that problem here.
01:57:44
Is that right?
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:57:45
I mean, if we require that they have bicycle parking, I don't know what the
01:57:54
I don't know what the requirements are for the bicycle park.
01:57:56
I don't remember.
01:57:57
But it sounds like, um, I don't know.
Josh Carp
Member, Planning Commission
01:58:01
Do we require that it's good?
01:58:02
Because if we just say there must be a place to stash a bike that happens to be able to fly upstairs, I don't care about that.
01:58:11
It's not very useful.
01:58:12
I don't know.
01:58:15
Do we, um?
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
01:58:17
Just to help shape it, we have bicycle regulations.
01:58:22
They're pretty prescriptive.
01:58:23
They very much speak to when you provide short term and long term, where it's provided, how it's provided.
01:58:30
It's very prescriptive, but right now up to four units are exempt and there was just conversation coming from different places.
01:58:41
Do we want to keep that exemption or should it be
01:58:44
Bike parking should be provided but it would either be bike parking per what we already have in the regulations as far as if you say you know quadplex have to do bike parking there are standards those standards are but they are pretty prescriptive.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
01:59:00
I kind of feel like if someone's doing a smaller development like one to four units chances are they probably are not providing sufficient vehicular parking so they would
01:59:11
The developer would be, they would probably want to provide some sort of bike parking anyways.
01:59:21
Now that might be putting too much confidence in the developer.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
01:59:28
From your perspective it's going to end up being a, is the market calling for it or not?
Danny Yoder
Member, Planning Commission
01:59:36
I live in a duplex when I first moved to Charlottesville and there was no bike parking and it was really frustrating to me but I also don't want to like map on my experience to the zoning code so but like I think tonight the purpose of tonight is to discuss what tier it should be in and whether it should be prioritized right and this this strikes me as a tier two item like something to do more research and more thinking about this year but maybe not like
02:00:06
A whole study that takes a year and a half.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:00:09
I was hoping there would be a quick, easy consensus from the playing commission.
02:00:13
And if there's not, then it doesn't sound like it's a priority to figure out or what.
02:00:20
I would suggest this is not a priority at this time.
02:00:23
OK, so we'll move on.
02:00:25
C11.
02:00:26
Let's see.
02:00:33
Oh, allowing
02:00:36
both physical dimensional and numerical changes by special exception.
02:00:42
And also, I think attached to this is the allowing parking locations to be modified under a special exception process.
02:00:50
Is that correct?
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
02:00:59
I believe so.
02:01:00
I know that this is actually not on purpose, but this is tied to the bikes, because again, how the special acceptance is written, you could change the dimensions and all those requirements, but you can't change the actual numbers you need.
02:01:15
So if the code says you need 20 spaces,
02:01:18
There's no relief from that required to do 20 spaces.
02:01:20
You could maybe shrink the stalls to being almost ridiculous.
02:01:26
So that's where this comes from.
02:01:28
The parking chair, I would need to look in more.
02:01:31
It's not ringing a bell.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:01:32
I think somewhere there was, and it might have been on another list, was whether the location of parking could be modified by a special exception.
02:01:47
Maybe it's another number down.
02:01:49
That was somewhere, might have been from 2025.
02:01:52
If everyone on the commission agrees that numerical standards should be included in special exceptions, I think we could push this one forward.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:02:07
Is this something we're running up against in current reviews?
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
02:02:13
Yeah, it was the bike parking at a hotel because of how hotels are
02:02:18
Consider just commercial and again how you calculate it is just residential commercial, there's not nuanced.
02:02:24
It came up with like 80 spaces needed for a hotel.
02:02:29
So instead of carving out a hotel, can we instead do the special exception?
02:02:33
That's what this is kind of to say is what we ended up having to tell the applicant is we don't have an avenue of relief unless you wanted to go to city council and say I want to change the, I'm still going to provide 80 spaces but the spaces are going to be
02:02:46
Two feet by two feet type thing.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:02:50
Yeah.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:02:52
OK.
02:02:54
So yes, do you push forward on the, sorry, OK. Let's push forward on this one.
02:02:59
I want to figure out where I got my note from the, somewhere there had been a question about whether parking location could be allowed under a special exception process.
02:03:09
Maybe that's not an issue.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:03:12
because that's stemming from people not being able to put parking in the front yard.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:03:15
Probably, I'm guessing.
02:03:18
Or it may have had to do with it was a workaround for active depth, possibly.
02:03:31
We'll come back to it if it shows up someplace.
02:03:34
C12.
02:03:36
Not an issue.
02:03:37
Not an issue, OK. Yeah, I thought it got updated.
02:03:42
All right, C-13.
02:03:43
Yeah, we sort of, I think we did talk about it.
02:03:53
This seems kind of important for your ability to review projects.
02:03:56
Is there any reason this one needs to wait?
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
02:04:00
All right, sorry.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:04:12
It sounds like you guys have already figured it out.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
02:04:30
Staff has a suggestion that we think would clarify it.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:04:32
14, you guys have determined that's not an issue.
02:04:41
15.
02:04:45
I'm not sure why this one needs to be a tier 3 as well for sublot access.
02:04:55
Does anybody have any concerns with access easements coming through other zoning lots?
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:05:02
I agree it's probably would move to tier 2.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:05:12
and Matt Finishtyping.
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
02:05:15
Next one's juicy.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:05:18
Oh, it is.
02:05:19
All right.
02:05:26
So yeah, active depth.
02:05:31
We have issues, one, with parking, but we also, there's other issues with how we wanted to find active depth and active spaces.
02:05:39
and I need to keep reminding myself that active depth is measured from only the required active width of a building and you've got a 20% allowance for inactive spaces.
02:05:55
Am I summarizing that correctly?
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
02:05:57
Correct.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:05:58
Okay.
02:05:59
So it's not as super severe as I have made it out to be but it still seems
02:06:06
I was a little troubled that I think we have some buildings or some lots in town that you have to get a special exception to actually build anything.
02:06:18
And we're going back to our special exception question.
02:06:26
I assume you can ask for a exception to the depth.
02:06:31
Can you ask for an exception to the depth
02:06:35
The percentage?
02:06:40
Can you change the percentage of inactive spaces from 20 to 50 if you had to?
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
02:06:49
I would like to propose that dwelling units should be exempt.
02:07:01
I would agree.
Danny Yoder
Member, Planning Commission
02:07:07
There's also the question of applying this to every story of a building, which it seems kind of doesn't, I don't know why we want to do that.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:07:23
I think what I'm going to suggest is, let's see if we can maybe get some general philosophical consensus on this one.
02:07:28
And maybe this is one of the ones that we could have a subcommittee do.
02:07:32
But I'd really like to have this one taken care of sooner than later, because it
02:07:36
It just bothers me that you have to get a special exception.
02:07:41
Is that fair for?
02:07:42
Yeah, so are you suggesting it kind of moves into tier two and then?
02:07:48
Yeah, it becomes a priority, but it also becomes one that I think if we do form this subcommittee, maybe the subcommittee could really work out the language.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:07:58
I definitely agree it should be prioritized, the sounds.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:08:01
As far as philosophy of how this goes or the general concept of it, so we have, you know, what I did exclude dwelling units.
Danny Yoder
Member, Planning Commission
02:08:15
Thoughts?
02:08:17
Yeah.
02:08:18
I'm open to it.
02:08:19
I don't know enough to say definitely yes.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:08:22
I think, thinking back to when I had this discussion back when we were working on this years ago, I had brought that up and James had said something about he didn't.
02:08:33
You could have a house that they put on their bathrooms and their everything on the street side.
02:08:38
And so that would be one of the drawbacks.
02:08:41
My thought was, I don't personally care, but that I think it is counter to what we were originally trying to do with the code.
02:08:52
So, any further thoughts on dwelling units?
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:08:58
Is this also a discussion of the length of the active depth?
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:09:04
I think that's included, yeah.
02:09:06
So how deep it is, I think dx we've got 30 feet.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:09:09
Right, it varies by area.
Danny Yoder
Member, Planning Commission
02:09:13
If you only apply the active depth requirements to the ground floor, then the question about exempting dwelling units would kind of be moot, right?
02:09:23
Because.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:09:24
Well, there's still active depth for like in our districts as well.
Danny Yoder
Member, Planning Commission
02:09:30
Oh, I thought it didn't apply to like under a certain unit count.
02:09:34
Like if you build a single family home, am I misremembering that then?
02:09:40
In this section, I believe there is an exception.
02:09:42
Okay, I can be misremembering as well.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:09:44
Yeah, I don't know if it's ground floor or if there's two floors or if there's three floors, but for it being every floor of the building, it seems a little, yeah.
02:09:53
Because reading the intent, I'm not gonna quote it exactly, but it's like bringing the activities that are happening in the building to the street, basically.
02:10:04
How high up does that impact the experience of the public realm?
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
02:10:10
Yeah.
02:10:11
So the current regulation is lot with one dwelling unit, does not have to meet active date.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:10:16
OK. OK.
02:10:19
So maybe along the lines of dwelling unit exempt residential, I've got to think through the implications of that.
Danny Yoder
Member, Planning Commission
02:10:31
Look at depth.
02:10:35
The thing that we're trying to prevent is you put a big utility room facing the street or a hallway so you've got no windows for some reason, blank wall.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:10:53
That's protected from the transparency requirements.
Danny Yoder
Member, Planning Commission
02:10:56
That's right, that's true.
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
02:10:59
I'm also thinking of the West Main examples where you've got a window into a utility room.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:11:05
Oh, yeah.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:11:09
That's on the ground floor.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:11:10
Yeah.
02:11:11
I mean, some of that you would hope would be taken care of by just the developer wouldn't want to waste exterior wall space in most cases.
02:11:22
I mean, I know they sometimes are forced to.
02:11:24
But I feel like in that case, they literally are forced to.
02:11:28
OK, well.
02:11:33
So ideas that we're looking at, excluding dwelling units, looking at how deep the active depth is, looking at whether it applies to all the different stories.
02:11:45
I think we should look at the definition.
02:11:46
I don't think a hallway should be defined as an inactive space.
02:11:54
Kelly had brought up the idea of a single loaded corridor fronting on a building, and I guess we have a couple examples of that.
02:12:04
There's one on McIntyre, one of those older apartment buildings.
02:12:11
I think we've had, what was it, the Cavalier Court, the hotel that was at Ivy and Emmett used to be like that.
02:12:18
Am I right in thinking that?
02:12:21
Is that a concern?
02:12:25
Parking in active depth.
02:12:28
I think that was one of the main reasons that we had active depth.
02:12:35
If it only is the ground floor, is it still a problem?
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
02:12:41
We talked about some parking variations, like a dingbat seemed to be a concern where it's just parking, the first story.
02:12:49
We also talked about the Japanese model where there is parking, but it's recessed down, so it's less of an impact on pedestrians.
02:12:56
Or just, yeah, put it in the back or stick it up top.
02:12:58
OK.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:13:00
But generally, are we OK with the idea of second level parking?
Danny Yoder
Member, Planning Commission
02:13:06
I mean, I don't love it, but I also think it's,
02:13:12
I think I could be okay with it just because, is it the Draftsman?
02:13:15
What's the place over on Main that basically has this?
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:13:19
The Draftsman, the Water Street parking garage, the Market Street parking garage, what we were going to do for the Guadalajara site.
Danny Yoder
Member, Planning Commission
02:13:30
I think I'm okay with it.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
02:13:32
And I will just throw out here just to consider Planning Commission because it is a nice, juicy topic.
02:13:40
Is this something you feel comfortable with as the Commission?
02:13:42
Again, being the only public engagement would be the public hearing for any changes.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:13:48
I don't know.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:13:53
I guess what I'm hoping is maybe whatever subcommittee reform, we could work on this sooner than later and get something to you guys to then dissect and decide if it needs to go, needs to get more public input, but to push it ahead so it doesn't, if there's any way we could get it done in a year, that would be fantastic.
Danny Yoder
Member, Planning Commission
02:14:15
It seems like such a technical issue that, for me, I'm not totally sure this is something that requires an extensive public engagement process.
02:14:25
Are we changing the philosophy behind the code?
02:14:29
I don't know that it is.
02:14:30
I think it's almost just like saying, do we really intend to make it this strict?
02:14:36
Or can we achieve the same outcomes by making it more lenient?
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:14:45
I mean, I want to agree, but I guess I feel like staff is going to end up telling us whether it'll be Mrs. Brown's gut check.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
02:14:58
And the public might tell you at a meeting.
02:15:01
Not too.
Josh Carp
Member, Planning Commission
02:15:03
I could be very wrong, but I have a hard time imagining that if there were a public event for feedback on this topic that people would
02:15:12
show up.
02:15:15
Maybe we'll have the event and I'll have egg on my face, but who's coming to this event if we have fun?
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:15:22
It depends how well advertised it gets.
02:15:23
The development community might show up.
02:15:26
Yeah.
02:15:29
OK.
02:15:34
I don't understand what the T17 was.
Hosea Mitchell
Member, Planning Commission
02:15:37
So what did we just decide?
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:15:41
I think we decided, and all right, maybe I decided.
02:15:45
So you guys tell me that this one we'd like to push ahead if we can, and we're going to try and form that subcommittee and dissect it further.
02:15:54
But we've got some general ideas, which are excluding dwelling units, looking at how deep the active depth is in each of the zones, looking at whether it's just the first story or every story on primary facades, and looking at the actual definition of active space.
02:16:16
Okay.
02:16:20
What was, I don't understand what we're doing for, what is C-17 all about?
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
02:16:23
Chair, I believe this was, there was a lot of discussion on entry, entry feature and we, staff had made kind of some determinations when we reviewed plans and it just was, does this need to be re-explored?
02:16:39
It seemed like it caused some issues and consternation.
Danny Yoder
Member, Planning Commission
02:16:45
Is this related to, is this like a special exception request we got for was like kindlewood, I forget which phase of kindlewood it is, but that was one of the special exceptions was they didn't have enough entrances.
02:17:01
Is that related to this?
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
02:17:02
I think it is more, it's more general high level.
02:17:05
It wasn't necessarily getting into like the specific details, but yes, just entrances and entry features are a requirement of the code and a newer kind of very
02:17:15
design-centric requirement of this code.
02:17:17
And I think it's more, do we want that?
02:17:20
Is it giving us what we want, or should we re-examine it?
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:17:26
If I may, the current maximum distance between doors is about 40 feet.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:17:33
Depending on the unit, on the district.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:17:35
I did a little bit of quick checking using the GIS site.
02:17:40
And based on current built environment,
02:17:44
Average doors are over 50 feet apart, just like looking at what's built out there today.
02:17:50
And I think the intent from this is to provide flexibility for future space.
02:18:00
You kind of have a door already there so that if somebody comes in and wants to have the space of two doors as one restaurant, that's possible.
02:18:10
But if they want a smaller restaurant, they can have just one of the doors.
02:18:14
But I struggle with this one because doors aren't that hard to retrofit into a building.
02:18:21
It can be difficult, but forcing them to put a door in today for possible flexibility use, I struggle with.
Danny Yoder
Member, Planning Commission
02:18:32
Isn't it primarily about eyes on the street activating the pedestrian realm?
02:18:39
We want people going in and out of doors on the street so that there is activity there.
02:18:45
But I don't think that the entrance requirement really works because like, you know, I just always think of 10th and Derry, the building on 10th Street, they've got all those doors I've never seen one person go in and out of and is it doing anything for us?
02:19:02
I mean, I know that wasn't built under this code, but I just, and because we've got that special exception permit as it's like, you know, I don't feel like it's like a proxy for
02:19:13
Pedestrian Activization that isn't actually necessarily doing it.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:19:17
I feel like this code is going to make us end up with a bunch of doors that aren't used.
02:19:22
Yeah.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:19:24
I think those doors actually have to be used.
Danny Yoder
Member, Planning Commission
02:19:26
Well, they have to, yeah.
02:19:27
Like, if they're not tent and dairy, they go into someone's apartment, I assume.
02:19:30
But I've never seen anyone come in and out of it.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
02:19:34
And commissioners, as you had your discussion too, and I will just point out, because I do like this about our code versus our old code,
02:19:40
These sections do have an intent section.
02:19:42
So when you're kind of having these conversations and you're wanting to see where we're coming from and if it's meeting what we're trying to do, like entrance has an intent section.
02:19:50
So it's just a tool to think about as you're having your discussion.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:19:56
It sounds like this one is we're leaving it on tier three and we need to think more about it.
02:20:01
I mean, I haven't really liked the entrance feature things since before we approved the code.
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
02:20:08
I would just note that looser requirements make some sense to me.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:20:17
I agree.
02:20:20
All right, so we sort of talked about the garage and active depth, so I'm going to lump that in with the C-16.
02:20:26
A C-19, we've got the athletic field lighting.
02:20:34
You talked about that briefly already.
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
02:20:35
Not time sensitive.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:20:37
OK.
02:20:37
I think it can stay as a special exception, probably.
02:20:41
And the city can go through its own process.
02:20:50
I'm confused by this one, because the section that's quoted is about ribbon driveways.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:21:01
So this one intrigued me, so I dug into it quite a bit.
02:21:06
Uh-huh.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:21:07
maximum or minimum width is two feet for the tire to go across yeah but if you also want to use that ribbon as pedestrian access it has to be three feet but then another part of the code says you can't mix pedestrian access and vehicular travel interesting
02:21:28
And the part of the code about not mixing pedestrian and particular travel is, from what I can see, more focused on parking lots.
02:21:36
You basically want to separate vehicular movement from pedestrian movement.
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
02:21:40
So public versus private?
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:21:43
I think it could even be on a private parking lot.
Josh Carp
Member, Planning Commission
02:21:51
OK. Is it ribbon driveway, pedestrian access?
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:21:57
It could be.
Josh Carp
Member, Planning Commission
02:21:59
wouldn't there be cars parked there a lot of the time?
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:22:02
Well like if the graphic in the code shows a home with a ribbon driveway and right here it's three feet but after you get past the front porch of the house it's then two feet because the garage is actually behind the house so it's like using one of the ribbons as the connector from the sidewalk to the front porch.
02:22:26
Past where the car goes or the whole?
02:22:28
The car goes further than the pedestrian walkway.
02:22:32
What if another car goes there also?
02:22:33
Sure.
02:22:34
That's absolutely plausible.
02:22:35
But the question is, do we want to allow the mixing of pedestrian and vehicular travel?
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:22:45
Or at least for small scale residential projects?
02:22:50
I mean, I think you see this in, it's not the greatest thing, but you see it in subdivisions all the time where people use their driveway as part of their walkway up to the house.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:22:58
That's right.
02:23:00
It doesn't seem that bad.
02:23:03
To me this is not, this needs to, staff could come up with a way to square this circle.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:23:17
It does seem like a sort of easy fix.
Josh Carp
Member, Planning Commission
02:23:19
I don't want to have to care about this.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:23:26
That was just the example in there.
02:23:28
I'm sure there's other examples where this could be applied to.
02:23:30
I generally don't have an issue with mixing pedestrian and vehicular access.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:23:37
For small-scale residential development, does anybody on this commission have a concern with mixing vehicular and pedestrian access?
02:23:48
No.
02:23:48
So using your driveway as your walkway up to your house?
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
02:23:51
My only concern would be a situation where there is no possible way to have safe access because there's just not enough parking.
02:23:59
So one would assume that that will be used for parking.
02:24:03
That would be my only concern.
02:24:05
All right.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:24:10
I think this one's going to sit here for a while on C3.
02:24:14
OK.
02:24:17
Matt, do you kind of get our concerns at least?
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
02:24:22
Yes, I get the concerns, and I do mean it's, it hasn't really come up as a big issue, but it is a contradiction in the code.
02:24:29
Thrown on the list, it's on the list for a little while.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:24:32
OK. C21 is critical slope regulations.
02:24:47
It sounds like you guys have a solution already.
02:24:49
I don't know if there's a solution, but there's a study.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:24:53
OK. All right.
02:24:58
This is one that we're redundant with the state.
02:25:03
Is that true?
SPEAKER_00
02:25:05
Not exactly.
02:25:05
I was the one who put this into the spreadsheet a while ago based on the research James Ries did a couple of years ago where he showed that the original purpose of our critical slope regulations was to protect against erosion and stormwater.
02:25:21
In the old days, we didn't have strong rules for that.
02:25:25
And so it was just my thought to try.
02:25:27
And since we have a 6,000 square foot limit and we have requirements for erosion and stormwater management planning,
02:25:34
that anything that doesn't go through those plans should come to you guys, but it doesn't necessarily need to.
02:25:43
We did actually talk about this this afternoon, environmental people, and there was a little bit of pushback, so this kind of language may change in the near future when we do more research.
02:25:53
All right.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:25:56
But you guys are on top of it.
02:25:58
OK. All right.
02:26:00
Now for my favorite, setbacks and build two zones.
02:26:06
So I guess one idea that has been floated is whether there's exemptions, further exemptions to this.
02:26:14
I think we currently have an exemption for the, if you're using the, or if you're able to take advantage of the existing building and the R zones.
02:26:25
Is that correct?
02:26:26
That is correct.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
02:26:27
Hopefully that will pass next week, but we carved out an exemption.
02:26:32
If you're eligible to use the existing structure bonus,
Danny Yoder
Member, Planning Commission
02:26:35
Just to clarify, so if you're eligible for the existing structure bonus, so that means even if you're not taking advantage of that bonus, just if you're eligible, you don't have to meet the Bill 2.
02:26:54
Correct.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
02:26:54
So it would cover things like you're doing things that maybe would require you to bring it up to current regulations.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:27:03
So that does resolve a lot of issues in the R zones.
02:27:08
One of my concerns is that we have historic structures, even not historic structures, that are worth preserving outside of the R zones.
02:27:19
And so question one is, is that of concern to anybody else?
02:27:24
I think currently you're allowed to build onto the back of an existing building without bringing it up to the build two zone.
02:27:32
But if you add a separate building on a site, that building or all the construction needs to be within the Build 2 zone.
Danny Yoder
Member, Planning Commission
02:27:41
And that's because the non-R zones do not have the existing structure bonus like system, right?
02:27:48
So there's no way we can say if you qualify for this bonus,
02:27:52
Or couldn't we apply the same logic to the non-R zones and say if you're not building, if the whole building remains, you don't have to comply with Bill 2?
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:28:05
I would suggest that's a possible option and define existing building the way that we're defining it for the R zones.
02:28:16
But just to make sure, is this a shared concern?
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:28:23
I mean the intent with this build to requirement is to bring buildings closer to the public realm.
02:28:30
Yes.
02:28:33
But I can see how in a brownfield environment or a built environment like we are here in the city for existing lots and structures that that's quite difficult.
02:28:46
So I can understand the exemption for the residential areas even though I think that
02:28:53
That's one of the areas that buildings are most far away from the street.
02:28:59
So I really struggle with this one.
02:29:00
I fully understand the current code in a greenfield environment, but in a city that's built like ours is here today, I really struggle with this.
02:29:13
I think that in the sort of X zone, so the non-residential zones,
02:29:20
Those are really the spots that I believe that moving buildings closer to the street makes sense with the intent of that purpose.
02:29:32
But how much building or growth or development is that going to inhibit if we keep it that way is my question that I don't have an answer to.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:29:46
Where I got interested in this was our, we had a special exception last year for element construction as a house on High Street that's in a commercial zone, but it's an old house, and they wanted to put a workshop building in their backyard.
02:29:59
And I forget if that was determined as an accessory use or not, but had that been a primary use, it would have had to go in front of this house.
02:30:11
Now that would have started the process of
02:30:14
I guess eventually we would like to see High Street have commercial construction up fronting on it.
02:30:19
But as it exists now, it's a mix of small commercial projects and houses that are set further back.
02:30:27
Do we want a code that encourages those buildings to be demolished or to have something built in front of them if there's enough room in order to achieve that?
02:30:43
The point that Danny keeps bringing us back to is prioritizing or moving into a different tier.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:31:10
I think that this is one to prioritize.
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
02:31:16
Sorry.
02:31:18
Something I've been thinking about is uses.
02:31:20
For residential uses, I'm less concerned about this as the public realm.
02:31:25
Residential use is not really the public realm in the same way.
02:31:28
For commercial uses, it kind of is.
02:31:32
That may be a useful distinction.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:31:35
OK.
02:31:38
So you're saying if it's a commercial use, you would be in favor of maintaining the current code?
02:31:46
So even in the case of elements building?
02:31:50
With a special exception process.
Danny Yoder
Member, Planning Commission
02:31:52
With a special exception process.
02:32:02
OK.
02:32:03
So I always thought of this build T requirement and this goal of moving things closer to the street as a like, if you're going to build a new building, put it there.
02:32:16
So I would tend to come down commercial or residential.
02:32:21
I don't think it makes sense to say, oh, you want to build onto the back.
02:32:26
Sorry, you can't.
02:32:27
You have to build onto the front.
02:32:29
To me, I don't think what we're going to do is induce people tearing down buildings.
02:32:34
I think we're just going to induce the property being of less use to them because they are just not going to do the thing that they want to do, which seems like
02:32:46
This is one of the ones that I think I'd like to work out in a subcommittee and try and get it done in the next year if we can.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:33:04
My concern is for one for
02:33:08
preservation and architectural design control districts.
02:33:11
And one of the suggestions is we could tie this to whether a building is a contributing structure design district, whether it can have an exemption.
02:33:20
I find it a little funny that you can add on to the back of a building, but you can't build behind a building.
02:33:27
So with some of our older buildings, if you attach a building to the back of it, you're going to end up having to do sprinklers and other things that change the cost of the project.
02:33:39
So to me, those two things don't change how things feel on the street.
02:33:46
So I'm not sure that distinction that we have currently in the code makes no sense to me.
02:33:51
I figure if you're building behind,
02:33:53
Whatever, just keep building behind.
02:33:55
Once you build something in front, then yes, it's got to start meeting our code.
02:34:00
But that's kind of where I'm landing on this.
02:34:02
And I would like to have a general exception that just says, if you have an existing use, existing primary use that meets the definition of an existing building, you're allowed to build behind it.
02:34:21
You know, once you build in front of it, you have to start meeting our build to requirements.
02:34:28
But I don't know if that doesn't distinguish between commercial and residential.
02:34:34
And it doesn't encourage that building up front as much as the code currently does.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:34:44
Maybe from a different perspective, how does this requirement to build to the street
02:34:50
inhibit the point of the new zoning code of getting more housing built?
02:34:55
Does it limit potential new units forcing people to build to the street?
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:35:01
I think if somebody's not in one of the R zones, but they have a house that they've got their residential units in a C zone or whatever, they can't build a backyard ADU.
02:35:15
They can build an attached thing on the back of their house, but they can't build a backyard dwelling yet.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:35:22
So from that perspective, you're limiting units with current code.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:35:27
That would be an example of what that would be limiting.
02:35:30
Is that in the R zones or?
02:35:32
No, that's outside the R zones.
Josh Carp
Member, Planning Commission
02:35:34
What about this simple idea of saying we do the same exemption for existing structures for all zones?
02:35:41
That was raised earlier, right?
02:35:43
Yeah.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:35:44
Yeah, I mean that would be, I think that would be one of the things that we'd want.
Josh Carp
Member, Planning Commission
02:35:47
Does that miss important cases?
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:35:52
Exempting building, exempting persons that have an existing structure.
02:35:57
I don't think it would miss any.
02:35:58
I think it, that captures
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
02:36:02
everything.
02:36:03
The only issue I would worry about would be like shed on a primarily empty lot.
Josh Carp
Member, Planning Commission
02:36:10
Sorry, the exemption is for preserving primary structure.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:36:13
Right, but if the shed is the primary structure.
02:36:16
But doesn't it have to have like a primary, didn't we make some distinction already between sheds and primary uses?
02:36:24
Like can you have
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
02:36:27
You have to establish first a primary structure, and then you could have accessory structures.
02:36:33
But there has to be a primary structure on a lot.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:36:36
So if there's an existing lot that has just an existing shed on it, that doesn't count as a primary structure?
02:36:42
Or does it?
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
02:36:45
It gets a little tricky.
02:36:47
It would get into whether that's a nonconforming lot, when the shed was built on the lot.
02:36:54
It could happen, but it'd be very rare to be a handful.
02:36:58
I can think of maybe one or two where there was a double lot and the house is on one lot and it sheds on the other and now someone's thinking about doing something with it so that they would need to get a zoning determination letter to figure out the circumstance for that other lot.
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
02:37:13
Could that kind of weird situation be handled administratively?
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
02:37:17
For an exemption?
02:37:19
Mm-hmm.
02:37:22
It would be very, I think staff would have a hard time with it.
02:37:25
I think we could do it.
02:37:27
What I would just caution with is this is a foundation, one of the foundation principles of the code.
02:37:33
And so it would take, if this is the direction we want to go as a community, it could be done, but it would take a lot to update the code, to reflect it, because this was one of the pillars of how I think the code was built.
02:37:49
So it could be done, but there would have to be a lot of digging and making sure we're not messing other things up based on this.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:37:57
OK.
02:37:59
If we were to form a subcommittee and to work on this, is there any concerns with anything we've been saying?
02:38:08
Would there be any concerns with the idea of any addition behind an existing building being exempted from build twos?
02:38:17
That's all we're talking about is build two zones.
02:38:22
OK. All right.
02:38:24
So I think we'll try and prioritize this and hash it out on a subcommittee.
02:38:35
I don't know if we need to go through all the D's.
02:38:38
Are there any that people have issues with or want to discuss?
02:38:43
These are our own comments, which I think already made it up into the C's.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:38:49
Are we making our way through this whole document?
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:38:51
I'm trying to now abbreviate it because it's 740 and I'm pretty sure staff's going to get mad at me.
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
02:38:58
I've pulled some G's, I'm sorry.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:39:00
OK. You said you had some G's?
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
02:39:07
I do.
02:39:07
OK. What do you have?
02:39:10
The G's that I looked up, G9, and that goes to the Stormwater area, 6,000 to 10,000.
02:39:18
The G6, max coverage regs, max heights.
02:39:25
Just giving some mercy to allow more kinds of buildings without special exception.
Hosea Mitchell
Member, Planning Commission
02:39:32
Yeah, just so I can track.
02:39:34
We have skipped the Ds.
02:39:36
We're cool with that and everything because those are all our comments, right?
02:39:39
So we're good with that.
02:39:41
We're moving on to the Gs that allow them.
02:39:44
OK, got it.
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
02:39:46
I pulled G14, build to width, which we've talked about quite a bit here.
02:39:51
Mercy on that.
02:39:56
G18, ground story definition.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:40:01
Can you, you had, you said G6?
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
02:40:06
G6, G9, G14.
Hosea Mitchell
Member, Planning Commission
02:40:09
All right, can you go through them individually, please?
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
02:40:16
G6.
02:40:17
G6 is max coverage regulations.
02:40:21
Let's see if I can pull it.
02:40:22
And max heights are an issue.
02:40:24
I think this was coming from October 14.
02:40:29
Then they talk about, oh, this was Habitat.
02:40:34
Basically, just physically, they couldn't get a Habitat house on a standard Charlottesville lot, just because the restrictions are too tight.
02:40:41
We should allow Habitat houses.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:40:44
And we did.
02:40:45
So this is the one where we got rid of stories and just went with a larger overall height, I believe, for the car zones.
02:40:54
So it's just max coverage that left.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:40:57
Max coverage, OK. And it has to do with having parking in the front.
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
02:41:08
They can do alley and corner, but it's not great.
02:41:12
Their standard design is front parking for ADA.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:41:16
But that doesn't really work with all the other intents of what we're doing with code.
02:41:27
So what are you asking with G6?
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
02:41:33
My current thinking is mercy on max coverage.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:41:37
So just the max coverage, not necessarily the other points?
02:41:41
Yes.
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
02:41:48
G9, this is up the amount of disturbed area for stormwater for 6,000 to 10,000.
02:42:00
That's just matching state code.
02:42:07
Which I think makes sense.
02:42:10
Yep, thanks.
02:42:12
G14, build to width.
02:42:16
Creating a lot of issues, it's true.
02:42:18
Utility requirements just physically can't be done.
02:42:21
Also, slope issues, just giving more mercy or administrative relief without requiring special exemption or exception.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:42:35
All right, so these are two different issues.
02:42:40
What's the proposition for Bill to do with that it's the minimum percentage is too much?
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
02:42:50
Yeah, for weird sites.
02:42:51
And we mostly get weird sites.
02:42:52
Rory talked about this a lot.
02:42:54
He had a lot of mathematical examples.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:42:56
I mean, I agree.
02:42:57
I think that what the intention would have been is that if you can't build a building wide enough, you split the lot up or you re-subdivide.
02:43:08
But that's, I guess, not always possible.
02:43:11
Is that where we're getting at?
02:43:13
Right.
02:43:15
These are all things like being done by special exception.
02:43:17
Is that correct?
02:43:19
OK.
02:43:19
But you're still saying minimum percentage is too high.
02:43:28
When you're highlighting these, what
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
02:43:32
What do we want to do with them?
02:43:33
My suggestion would be that Steph look at what kind of relief could be offered to reduce the number of special exception problems.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:43:41
OK.
02:43:41
So we're thinking of shifting these up to like a tier three.
02:43:47
OK.
02:43:50
I'm agreeing with you on all these, but I just want to make sure I know what we're doing.
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
02:43:56
G18 ground story definition.
02:43:59
And this is another super in the weeds one, but it's an important one.
02:44:03
How we're defining the ground story.
02:44:07
And this is frankly beyond my mathematical understanding, but broadly I think we should be able to make this possible without requiring a special exception.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:44:18
Yeah, this is the one that I understand that
02:44:22
The land around here is just too steep to fit the code or the code is not steep enough to fit the land depending on which way you want to look at it.
Danny Yoder
Member, Planning Commission
02:44:35
And our code is not allowing them to have one gigantic ground floor where a lot of it is below grade.
02:44:43
We're saying you must break it up because you can't have all that below grade and I think what this comment is saying is like that just makes it more expensive for us to break it up like that.
02:44:52
Let us have, go back to the old definition, we're at 50% above grade.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:44:56
The current code is about six feet.
02:44:59
And six feet in some areas of town happens very quickly.
02:45:03
So then you end up with a building with very small sections.
02:45:10
So I don't know if it's going to 50% or if it's expanding to six feet or what makes sense on a rewrite of that section, but that's what it's about.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:45:19
Is this one that can be dealt with through special exception?
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
02:45:25
It could be because you can ask for additional height, not stories, a special exception, but if you needed additional height because now you didn't want to modular the build.
02:45:37
The point was to modular the build.
02:45:39
And so if you didn't want to do that, for whatever reason your plates wouldn't match, you could ask for a special exception for more height on there.
02:45:47
Now I think
02:45:49
You probably have to ask for a lot of series of special exceptions because now that exposure, you have a lot of things that apply to first story, transparency, blah, blah, blah.
02:45:57
So there's a path that's probably just not a very convenient path.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:46:02
And that's kind of where I was getting at because I feel like where I've seen this on the BAR is, for example, the hotel that's going to go on the Artful Launcher site just over next to the Omni.
02:46:14
Because Marcus Street slopes so much, they ran into some issues with where their ground floor is.
02:46:20
So they've got one high ground floor and then there's a lower level that ended up having to be treated like a ground floor.
02:46:26
Their floor-to-floor heights weren't appropriate for that because it was a garage level.
02:46:31
Because it was a garage level, it wasn't going to have windows or anything.
02:46:35
But at the same time, it was
02:46:39
I think it would be the type of thing that, that said be our review so we could make sure it looked okay, but it's the type of thing I think we do want to look at because, just as Matt said, you could have a big facade that doesn't have windows on it, doesn't have entrances or just has a big garage door and that's, so that's the trade-off.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:46:58
Well there are requirements for a facade like that to have
02:47:03
A mural, or I think one of the options is a living wall, so there are already ways to mitigate just having a giant blank wall.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:47:12
Yes.
02:47:13
Yeah.
02:47:14
But I guess it just ended up being something that was helpful to look at from a discretionary point of view, rather than like a formulaic, put this stuff here.
02:47:28
It wasn't going to meet the code, whatever they did.
02:47:33
That's just a counterpoint.
02:47:34
I don't know.
02:47:36
I tend to agree.
02:47:37
We've got some issues with the mid maxes causing some problems throughout town.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:47:41
Yeah, so I appreciate the special exemption process and what can and can't be done through those.
02:47:47
But because of the topology of Charlottesville, I feel like there could be a lot of special exemptions for this.
02:47:55
So not only that, but also finding
02:48:00
Were there problems under the old code in this regard?
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
02:48:15
The issue, and I'm thinking of West Main specifically, was that you get like one giant building that's sort of like teetering above the rest of the street.
02:48:26
So you get sort of odd, like there's a sidewalk and it just looks odd.
02:48:30
But it's really an aesthetic issue.
02:48:31
I don't know if there's a health and safety component.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:48:35
The standard was just a really big engineering screw up.
02:48:37
They built the building a foot too high.
02:48:43
Um, sorry.
02:48:46
That was unfortunate.
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
02:48:51
Any others, Lyle?
02:48:53
I have two that I couldn't find a G for, but I'd like to note them.
02:48:57
Grocery stores near schools.
02:48:58
It's a big one.
02:48:59
We talk in the comp plan.
02:49:00
We just haven't done it in the zoning code, allowing grocery stores near schools.
02:49:05
The big pushback was that there would be tobacco products sold in those grocery stores near schools, and we don't want tobacco products sold near schools, which I'm very sensitive of.
02:49:14
It is now legal in Virginia for counsel, if they're concerned about this issue, to say, ah,
02:49:19
No tobacco products near schools or whatever.
02:49:22
That is now legal in Virginia, as of I think two years ago.
Hosea Mitchell
Member, Planning Commission
02:49:26
So what are we going to do about that?
02:49:32
Because how far is Johnson from that?
02:49:34
The school's pretty close, right?
Josh Carp
Member, Planning Commission
02:49:40
I don't want to carry it.
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
02:49:42
It's right next to us, next to a park.
02:49:47
So Council could say, well, we're concerned about tobacco products being sold next to a park.
02:49:52
We will not allow them by ordinance, if desired.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:49:56
The kids will definitely not get tobacco products.
02:50:01
That's a political nightmare.
Hosea Mitchell
Member, Planning Commission
02:50:04
The community is expecting to have a grocery store there.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:50:07
Do we already have regulations that say you can't have a preventing a grocery store from popping up near schools?
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
02:50:15
Not in the land use.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:50:19
So what's stopping it?
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
02:50:21
We killed a neighborhood commercial.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:50:24
Well that's why we're having a work session on it.
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
02:50:30
Accessory dwelling unit de minimis exemption for aesthetic and sidewalk requirements.
02:50:38
A homeowner who was very upset about trying to build an ADU, he looked at all the numbers for all the costs of actually building an accessory dwelling unit behind an existing home.
02:50:51
Not possible to see.
02:50:52
I think they were trying to build it in Belmont.
02:50:55
And it would have forced substantial changes to the facade to get the lot into conformance when the ADU would not have been visual.
02:51:08
So he wasn't able to do it, just because the cost of getting a large facade didn't make sense for the ADU revenue.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:51:21
We fixed that just now, yes?
02:51:24
Aren't there exceptions in the R zones that you could build a second dwelling unit and not have to update the original house to meet all the zoning code requirements?
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
02:51:45
I mean, it's about building that second unit in the back, but the first unit in the front is nonconforming to build two and setbacks.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:51:55
Yeah.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
02:51:55
Because that'll be fixed.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:51:57
Yeah, I thought we were working.
02:51:58
That was part of next week's.
02:52:00
Yeah.
02:52:01
Correct?
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
02:52:02
So that would be for a sidewalk, and that would be for tree planting, and all that stuff?
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
02:52:06
For as far as bringing the site up to compliance?
02:52:08
Yes.
02:52:11
No, typically we wouldn't.
02:52:13
It's the area you're disturbing.
02:52:15
If you were tearing the house down and redoing the lot, yes, you would come up to conformity, but if you had an existing structure and you wanted to build behind it, staff only looks at what's being proposed, not what's outside of what's being proposed.
02:52:33
Unless it's very specific, which the code we're running into with
02:52:38
You couldn't build that second unit until your first unit met Bill 2 and setbacks, and that's what we're trying to correct next week.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:52:47
Thank you.
02:52:55
Any others?
Danny Yoder
Member, Planning Commission
02:52:58
Can we add, adding to Lyle's point, neighborhood commercial is not listed on tier 3.
02:53:05
I kind of thought, I thought that was sort of like the poster child for tier 3 needs further review, some community engagement, longer study.
02:53:14
Is that in the work plan?
02:53:16
Yes, I believe that's why it's not here.
02:53:17
It's actually on the work plan.
02:53:18
Oh right, it's a separate thing in the work plan.
02:53:20
Okay, I always forget that.
02:53:23
Okay.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:53:32
Sorry, I had one.
02:53:38
Oh, I'm just going to note two things from the D sections.
02:53:52
D2, this just feels like an easy fix.
02:53:56
Maybe it's not important at all, but it seems like somewhere we can add in the zoning code that doors shouldn't swing over.
02:54:02
the required walking zone in the public right away.
02:54:09
We've had a couple instances where on West Main Street where this happens, and you've got this narrow sidewalk and doors from restaurants that just open onto the sidewalk.
02:54:19
It's technically prohibited in the building code, but the code official is allowed to make exceptions to that.
02:54:27
And I feel like we should just, in our zoning code, say the required
02:54:32
I forget what the zone's called, the pedestrian zone, walking zone, whatever the required sidewalk width is, it can't swing into that.
02:54:42
So if you have a seven foot required sidewalk width and you've got a 10 foot wide sidewalk, then no big deal.
02:54:48
But just don't swing into the seven feet.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:54:52
Doesn't that force the building to be pushed back by the width of the door?
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:54:57
No, it forces you to have a recessed entryway if you build a new building.
02:55:01
which is one of our entry features that we allow.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:55:04
So there's that option or there's the option of having a wider sidewalk?
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:55:11
Yes, or sliding doors which is what the Marriott on West Main does.
02:55:17
Yeah.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:55:18
Okay, so there's a lot of outs that aren't forcing the moving of the building footprint.
02:55:25
Correct.
02:55:25
Okay, that's my concern with that.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:55:30
Where this has happened has been existing buildings have added new entrances or filled in their recessed entryway.
02:55:40
So that would be what would be prevented.
02:55:42
And I don't know.
02:55:47
If you guys agree, yay.
02:55:48
If not, maybe it's not a big deal.
02:55:50
But it bugs the crap out of me.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:55:51
How long is the door open versus closed?
02:55:53
I don't know.
02:55:56
Preventing somebody from holding a door open over the sidewalk is one thing versus not allowing it to open over the sidewalk at all.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:56:03
I'm thinking of getting smacked in the face with a door.
02:56:09
This is a new thing.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:56:10
I hear the concern.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:56:11
OK. We'll put it away.
02:56:13
OK, we'll put that away.
02:56:16
I had to try.
02:56:19
The sidewalk on West Main Street has been, it drives me nuts because I do get.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:56:26
When we update West Main.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:56:31
20 years ago.
02:56:35
D5, and I saw this was one of the developer comments as well.
02:56:43
When you have a building with exception, you're required to have a 30 foot deep alcove.
02:56:50
And if you build a building over a parking garage, 30 feet puts it, it's a dimension that's not workable.
02:56:58
So parking garages are 60 feet wide.
02:57:01
And if you have an apartment building sitting on top of that with a double-loaded corridor, your units are 26 feet wide or 26 feet deep.
02:57:12
And you've got your corridor that's in the middle and then another unit.
02:57:16
Having a 30-foot recess puts the recess in the middle of the corridor.
02:57:21
It didn't work.
02:57:22
It would make more sense if it was 25 feet.
02:57:26
Which number is this?
02:57:30
D5.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:57:31
Yeah.
02:57:32
And another one of the developers mentioned that as well.
02:57:37
So I wasn't sure if that was worth bringing up as something to move into one of these tiers.
02:57:44
Seems like a really easy fix with minimal disruption to the code.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:57:48
Is this tied to active depth?
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:57:51
It is tied to, if your building is too wide, you need to build a, the way around that is to build like a recessed courtyard.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:58:02
To make it appear as more than one building.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:58:04
And that depth is determined by the width of the building, but it maxes out at 30 feet.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:58:11
So if you had a corridor going through it, this break out of the building cuts into the corridor.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:58:17
Yes.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
02:58:17
That's the concern.
02:58:19
Yes.
02:58:21
Seems like a fix.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:58:24
Matt, I don't know if that made any sense to you.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
02:58:27
I heard movement to one or two.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:58:30
Yeah, if we could shift that one up just to look at, it seems like an easy fix for a silly problem.
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
02:58:41
It would be changing the number 30 to the number 25.
02:58:43
Something like that.
02:58:44
That's pretty good.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:58:48
All right, to wrap this up quickly, unless there's any other items, I was going to go to the last page and just make sure that we can hit the summary.
02:58:56
I'm sorry.
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
02:58:57
Yep, go ahead.
02:58:58
Minimum lot sizes.
02:59:01
The hope was that sublots would make it so that we wouldn't
02:59:05
We would have a relief valve for minimum lot sizes.
02:59:10
For existing nonconforming lots that are smaller than the minimum lot size, we're running into problems.
02:59:18
I happen to live in an area that is full of them.
02:59:22
We do want a way to use our existing lots.
02:59:27
So I would like to flag that as an issue.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
02:59:32
Is that a problem with the size of the lot or the fact that the percentage that you're allowed to fill the lot is too low?
02:59:39
Yeah, basically all the calculations are based on a larger lot than what we have.
02:59:44
All right, so that's more of a, yes, OK. Matt, did that make sense to you?
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
02:59:56
I would need to look into it more, because we have the non-conforming lot section, which states you're allowed to use your lot for any use.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
03:00:04
I think it's just that your percentage coverage is what, 60% in RA?
03:00:10
So I'll use my lot as an example.
03:00:12
I can't add anything into my lot, because my house is already, it's a tiny house.
03:00:17
There's no room to like, if I added a garage or something, I would go over my percentage allowed.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
03:00:25
So more exploring what, exploring more to the non-conforming lot section, basically.
03:00:37
Yeah, I mean, it's something we look at it, I think it, I won't say complicated quickly, but yeah, I mean, when we talk about when a house is too small, how small is too small, like?
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
03:00:48
No, I don't mean, sorry, I didn't mean to say,
03:00:53
My house is too small.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
03:00:55
But when you talk about a nonconforming lot, it doesn't categorize nonconforming lots as teeny nonconforming lots, small.
03:01:02
It's just nonconforming lots.
03:01:05
How would you say, you have the right to build on it, but it doesn't mean I have the right to build a 25,000 square foot house.
03:01:13
I could build a 800 square foot square foot house.
03:01:17
So it gets into just that can be a little bit tricky.
03:01:21
when we say the rules should change for a non-conforming lot, what do we mean by that?
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
03:01:30
Well, that sounds like a good tier three discussion.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
03:01:35
But not prioritized.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
03:01:39
I mean, I would love to solve it.
03:01:41
But yeah, I think that needs some research.
03:01:47
OK.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
03:01:49
I mean, is the initial research, how many non-conforming lots are there in the city?
03:01:55
Dozens.
03:01:57
Like as a percentage of total lots?
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
03:02:02
Yeah, I think we did do an analysis during the zoning code update.
03:02:06
I'm forgetting the exact number, but it was the majority are non-conforming.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
03:02:11
Sounds like.
03:02:20
That sounds like our minimum lot sizes are then don't fit with the city instead of having a nonconforming section.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
03:02:27
I was going to say, I'm not even sure if it's the problem.
03:02:30
I don't think the problem is the minimum lot size.
03:02:32
I think the problem is just existing lots are not developable because they're bound by the same rules as your brand new lot that you're creating a subdivision.
03:02:48
So I don't know how we categorize that.
03:02:50
Or, yeah.
Lyle Solla-Yates
Member, Planning Commission
03:02:53
Is that fair to say?
03:02:54
Yes, that's my understanding.
Josh Carp
Member, Planning Commission
03:03:00
Are we missing a concept then of reasons for nonconformity?
03:03:05
Do we want to say, if a lot's not conforming due to its size being small, we consider some exemptions?
03:03:14
This is what I'm hearing.
03:03:16
Yeah, I think that's what we want to study.
03:03:19
OK.
Josh Carp
Member, Planning Commission
03:03:19
So not all nonconforming lots, but a particular category.
03:03:25
OK. Yeah.
03:03:26
Are the fractional lots in the realm, is that the most common reason for a lot being nonconforming?
Danny Yoder
Member, Planning Commission
03:03:34
OK.
03:03:34
But are you, not you, Josh, but is it being suggested that we not apply some of the basic requirements to existing
03:03:47
Lots like lot coverage and things like that.
03:03:52
Is that what I'm hearing?
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
03:03:56
Here, see if there's some sort of relief or lessening of standards.
03:04:04
I guess studying whether that even makes sense.
03:04:06
OK, yeah.
Danny Yoder
Member, Planning Commission
03:04:07
It just seems like if it applies to small old lots, why not apply it to new lots as well?
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
03:04:15
Yeah.
Danny Yoder
Member, Planning Commission
03:04:18
And then that's like a major, major change, right?
03:04:21
So like, that's just, yeah.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
03:04:24
That was sort of my erroneous point about what minimum lot size this is, instead of carving it out for non-conforming, just change it.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
03:04:34
And the minimum lot size did go down quite a bit from the old code to the new code.
03:04:38
Sure.
03:04:38
A lot of it is 2,000 square feet, used to be 6,000.
03:04:41
Now there are still 6,000 square feet in the art districts, but it
03:04:46
It did go down quite a bit.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
03:04:49
I don't really think this has to do with the lot size, though.
03:04:52
Sure.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
03:04:53
But my point is, instead of carving it out for nonconformity, whatever the actual issue is, just adjusting the metric.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
03:05:00
Yeah.
03:05:01
So is the maximum percentage of building coverage in the RAs, is that the right number?
03:05:08
Is that kind of what we're saying?
03:05:09
Yeah.
03:05:15
I think that makes sense.
03:05:16
Something to look at.
03:05:17
All right.
03:05:24
Do we need to look at this final page, or did it make sense what we were trying to prioritize from our previous discussion?
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
03:05:36
Did anybody take note about the ones we wanted to prioritize?
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
03:05:40
I just sort of did.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
03:05:40
Did we re-prioritize the prioritization?
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
03:05:44
So it looks like building height and massing clarified bonus height applies to a larger building with multiple units.
03:05:51
So we talked about that.
03:05:52
We're good with number one.
03:05:54
We can take it off the list.
03:05:55
Correct?
03:05:56
I believe so.
03:06:00
Build to setback requirements.
03:06:02
This is one of the ones that we want to prioritize, but we're going to try and do a subcommittee to move it along.
03:06:08
Active depth, same thing.
03:06:15
Special Exception Permits.
03:06:18
I think we agreed that this is one that we want to push forward and prioritize.
03:06:25
Change the color on that one.
03:06:29
Street Typology Map.
03:06:32
Yeah, I think we decided this was housekeeping, and we were hoping that you guys can just do that.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
03:06:38
It's a non tier three item.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
03:06:39
Yeah.
03:06:45
Definitions and Site Modification Rules.
03:06:47
I forget which ones those were.
03:06:59
I think the others we agreed are not huge priorities.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
03:07:05
What about the stormwater?
03:07:09
So we added that.
03:07:10
6,000.
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
03:07:15
That's being studied as part of the environmental.
03:07:17
I think you'll have given more information as that moves along is being considered.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
03:07:25
All right.
03:07:25
Let's see if we missed any big ones in here.
03:07:35
Let's see if we actually did active depth.
03:07:43
Special exceptions.
03:07:46
Yeah, I think those are the ones that we pushed to be a high priority.
Hosea Mitchell
Member, Planning Commission
03:07:52
We didn't talk about the EV charging.
03:07:54
Is that something worth further deliberation?
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
03:07:59
Yeah, do we need to discuss that?
03:08:00
Is that something I thought you guys were working through a way to make that work?
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
03:08:05
There's currently a study.
03:08:09
That's going on.
03:08:10
You'll hear more information out of this came out of kind of some preliminary internals.
03:08:13
So we wanted to make sure it was on the list so that when you all got more information on the actual report, whenever that comes out, that you're prepared for it.
03:08:22
OK. Are the fire folks working on that?
03:08:24
Excuse me?
03:08:25
Are the fire folks working on that?
03:08:27
I believe fire is involved along with environmental.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
03:08:29
Thank you.
03:08:33
And the EV thing is a discussion about
03:08:39
Level 1 and Level 2 chargers being allowed in parking lots and parking structures?
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
03:08:46
That and also, you know, on the public side, like where could public charters be, but the Level 1 and Level 2 chargers, yes.
03:08:58
And just how could we incorporate, you know, is it something that should be in public available space areas in the city?
03:09:08
and where would those be?
03:09:10
Trying to identify those.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
03:09:12
So what do you mean by public charger?
03:09:15
Like I can imagine having one at a park or on the side of West Main Street that somebody could plug into?
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
03:09:23
Or more like in a park or public controlled garage or if it's feasible to have in right of ways or not.
03:09:33
I think there's a lot of discussion going on with it.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
03:09:35
Is that study going to come before this group?
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
03:09:38
I'm not sure it's not run, I think it's run out of environmental but we can get you more information.
03:09:42
I know that I haven't heard on it in a while.
03:09:50
They had these kind of preliminary findings, it was a while back when I put it in this paper so we can follow up on that.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
03:09:56
I just feel like EV charging is just such an intense infrastructure upgrade that we really need to be considerate about
03:10:09
where we want that to be potentially in the public right away or on public structures, publicly controlled things, just because it really is so permanent.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
03:10:25
That's my comment.
03:10:28
Did that study include, or I don't know if it's even an issue, but I guess in residential neighborhoods,
03:10:36
People being able to plug in their own cars if they live across the street from their parking space?
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
03:10:42
I mean, it's come up more from a public service standpoint and right of way access in ADA than a private land use kind of issue.
03:10:57
Not blocking your ADA accessible routes in a public right of way is kind of a real big issue.
03:11:01
For that, I forget what level charger that is, but for your small residential, there wasn't necessarily a building code or fire concern, but the concerns were more around crossing into public right-of-way and ADA issues.
03:11:17
Okay.
Hosea Mitchell
Member, Planning Commission
03:11:21
All right.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
03:11:25
Well, thank you guys for
03:11:27
humoring us on this.
03:11:29
Are you feeling like you got our understanding of what we're trying to get through tonight?
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
03:11:37
I think I got good feedback where I would say where just maybe a few minutes because the steps I would be taking is kind of preparing the 2026 work plan for this.
03:11:49
And I know we kind of in general in the pre-meeting talked about a subcommittee and talked about a report.
03:11:55
Hearing from Planning Commission on how y'all want to be involved in this would help me kind of flush out the plan to bring back to you to say here's our plan for 2026.
03:12:05
Here's how we're going to go.
03:12:07
What I'm hearing right now is you'd like to have a subcommittee.
03:12:10
So if there's any other kind of just information along that that we especially learned from 2025, that maybe would be helpful to hear as we prepare the 2026 path.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
03:12:27
Are you asking if you should report back to us periodically?
Matt Alfele
Development Planning Manager
03:12:38
What I'm hearing is there are a few of these
03:12:44
items that could be Tier 2 or your Tier 3 that you'd like to discuss in a subcommittee.
03:12:51
So a subcommittee is definitely, you know, I think part of how you would like the 2026 to go.
03:13:00
I would imagine we envision one or two larger work sessions, but I wanted to hear if that's what you all are thinking.
03:13:08
So how we did 2025 is we came forward with a list.
03:13:12
We had several work sessions.
03:13:14
We had a listening session with the local builders.
03:13:19
and developers.
03:13:21
Then we had a public hearing, so the thoughts being there probably would be a subcommittee that would meet maybe two or three times, probably one or two work sessions to discuss what came out of that subcommittee, and then having the public hearing.
03:13:41
to make recommendations.
03:13:43
Just saying that out loud is probably eight months in general.
03:13:47
So just wanted to get some feedback on just what y'all, not putting you on the spot, but what y'all felt about the 2025, but just going into 2026 with how we, lessons learned, what we could do.
03:14:00
If there are anything we can do that sounds, what I just said sounds good, we can roll with that.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
03:14:05
I think it sounds good.
03:14:06
I mean, yeah, I think as you guys dig into some of these things and if you run into roadblocks to let us know that these are all the things that are complicating what you want to achieve, you know, think of something else or whatever.
03:14:20
I mean, it's kind of giving us feedback if we've asked for something that's impossible to achieve, but also, yeah, these, you know, work sessions as necessary to anytime you guys need feedback from us.
03:14:34
And as far as the subcommittee is concerned, can we form that tonight?
03:14:37
Sure.
03:14:38
So it's two of us.
03:14:39
I would love to be on that unless anybody else, if you guys want to fight me for it.
03:14:44
Not fight me, but argue for it.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
03:14:47
There's more than one, right?
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
03:14:48
We could have two.
03:14:49
Two people.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
03:14:50
I mean, there's more than one subcommittee for each of the topics?
03:14:54
Or is there one subcommittee for both topics?
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
03:14:57
We could do it either way.
03:14:58
I thought it was going to be one that does anything zoning code related.
Hosea Mitchell
Member, Planning Commission
03:15:04
I would recommend that you just go in one so that he has better coordination.
03:15:11
Would anybody like to join me?
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
03:15:13
I'd be happy to join.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
03:15:14
Okay.
03:15:15
Are we good with this?
03:15:18
It works.
03:15:19
Okay.
Ross Harness
Member, Planning Commission
03:15:21
I will say I wasn't terribly involved with the 2025 stuff.
03:15:25
My thought is that as
03:15:28
The 25 items were the first round that I would imagine that going into future rounds, these work sessions may not be as long involved as they were.
03:15:41
So maybe that helps with some of the time commitment and work involved in doing it.
03:15:51
So maybe just from that perspective itself, it won't be so cumbersome.
03:15:55
But I do think that
03:15:58
Since we're going through these first round of tweaks, it would potentially be nice to get the people that do the work out in the field to give us feedback on if we're hitting the mark or if we're off.
03:16:14
I thought the developer and builder listening session was informative.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
03:16:19
OK.
03:16:20
So going to developers and OK.
03:16:28
Let's figure out how to set that up.
03:16:33
Other thoughts?
03:16:34
Or should we close?
Hosea Mitchell
Member, Planning Commission
03:16:38
I would move to adjourn.
Carl Schwarz
Member, Planning Commission
03:16:40
OK. Second.
03:16:44
All right.
03:16:46
Let's adjourn.
03:16:47
Thank you guys.