Board of Zoning Appeals Meeting   3/19/2026

Very happy to have you join us tonight.

It's unusual for us to have such attendance.

So bear with us through this meeting.

And it's our first meeting of 2026.

I'll make a motion to bring us back into open session.

I'm doing the motion first, the certification second.

That's fine.

So we have a motion to second, come out of closed session.

Mr. Day?

Aye.

Mr. Mitchell?

Yes.

Mr. Ahmed?

Yes.

Ms. Keller?

Aye.

Aye.

And now we need a certification.

Do I have a second?

Yeah, someone should read that language because people here are not necessarily familiar with this process.

It's really just to say that we only discussed business related to the reason we went into closed session and nothing else.

But we should have the official language

Yes.

So it's my understanding that I've been appointed to this body as an alternate by the circuit court, but I have not yet been sworn in.

So in the interest of a clear decision and on the advice of counsel, I'll be recusing myself from this part of the meeting and the remainder of the meeting.

Thank you.

And we look forward to you joining us.

And I'm also going to take this opportunity to introduce to you Mr. Chris Dadak, who is a counsel.

This is a little bit of an unusual situation because the Board of Zoning Appeals is quasi-judicial.

We do not use the city attorney because there may be cases where the city

has an independent stance and so to keep this impartial we have the ability to have our own counsel and we welcome Mr. Dadek and that's why we've been in the conference room so that he could talk about the legalities associated with this case and we'll be turning to him from time to time.

Thank you Madam Chair.

We have a motion to adopt the certification.

Do we have a second, please?

I second.

OK.

Mr. Mitchell?

Yes.

Mr. Ahmed?

Aye.

Ms. Keller?

Aye.

Aye.

OK. We have an agenda that's accepted.

And one of the items on our agenda would be for our meeting procedures.

And because we have many people that are not familiar with our board, I'm going to read all of these in the interest of full comprehension.

The process will be that the chair will read the agenda item.

A staff member will make a presentation of a staff report.

The chair will ask the board if they have any questions of staff.

The applicant will present their proposal.

Chair will open hearing and comments will be received.

The chair will close the public hearing.

The chair will ask board members if they have any questions.

The chair will entertain a motion.

Call for discussion, then call the question.

During this part of the discussion, only board members will participate.

In terms of procedures, if a previous speaker has stated your position, you may make known that by referencing those comments.

At the discretion of the chair, presentations may be held on a time limit to allow enough time for all speakers.

Each presentation may be 15 minutes, but each public comment is limited to three minutes, and we will be keeping time, so please abide by that.

The chair shall act as timekeeper.

Meeting Guidelines.

All comments are recorded on an audio tape.

State your name and address.

Please do not speak from your seat or out of turn.

Address comments directly to the board.

State your position and give facts and data to back it up.

If you represent a group or an organization, you may ask others present to rise and be recognized.

Debate is prohibited.

Give written statements and other supporting material to the chair.

Written comments are welcome if you do not wish to speak.

And please hold all applause or other public statements of approval or disapproval when a member of the public is addressing the board.

That keeps everything audible.

Thank you.

We're out of closed session.

We're into a public session.

You've become familiar with the meeting procedures and adoptions.

And we will go to the case before us.

We only have one case today, and I imagine that's why most of you are here.

This is BZA case.

26-02-001, an appeal of a determination made by the city's zoning administrator on December 11, 2025.

Section 34-4.2.2.c.2c of the city's development code states that in order for a project to be deemed as student housing, bedrooms must be leased individually and the project must be within one half mile of the University of Virginia campus.

The proposed multi-family project located at 202 7th Street NW Charlottesville, VA is located within one half mile of UVA's campus.

Appellant disagrees with the zoning administrator's interpretation of the boundaries of UVA's campus which were used to make this determination.

Before we do that, would it be of any value to walk the audience through what our responsibilities are today?

They are narrow.

Would that please the board to do that at this point in time?

And maybe council can help us with this.

Yeah, the question before you is narrow.

It's just the termination of Mr. Broadhead's boundaries to UVA campus and whether the subject parts within half a mile of UVA campus.

The merits and substance of the project development itself are not before you.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

The question before the Board of Zoning Appeals is very narrow today.

It is Mr. Broadhead's determination of the UVA campus boundaries, where the subject parcel is within half a mile of the UVA campus.

The development itself, the merits of it are not before this Board, so they can't consider

what you may consider of land use issues like traffic, the impact on neighboring communities.

That is not before this board.

It is purely a factual determination of Mr. Broadhead's determination of the UVA campus boundaries and his determination.

And the appeal is where that was factually correct, where this parcel is within half a mile of the UVA campus.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Sheila Weimer.

I am Deputy City Attorney here for the City of Charlottesville and I'm here along with the Zoning Administrator, Mr. Brodhead, to present to the BZA with regard to this particular matter.

We have a slide presentation that we're going to go through.

In your packet, you have the staff report.

I'm sure you've already reviewed that.

which talks about the background, how this came to be before the

I'm just going to give some more detail about that as we go through the presentation and we're going to try to keep it under 15 minutes and maybe even closer to 10 if we can, but nonetheless I just wanted to introduce myself and tell you what this matter is about.

It is simply about the determination that Mr. Broadhead made with regard to where the boundaries of UVA's grounds, of course I'm an alumni so I refer to it as grounds, other people will call it campus, but

It has to do with where those traditionally have been and it dates back a long way in history.

In particular, it has to do with the fact that neither Albemarle County nor the city of Charlottesville has any zoning designations in certain areas of what is now known as grounds or campus of the University of Virginia.

Those properties are owned by the Board of Rectors and for

University, and they do not have a zoning designation whatsoever, and it does take up a large swath of what we all consider part of the city and parts of the county as well.

And as we all, anyone that lives in this area knows, there's really, there's north grounds, there's central grounds, and this particular property and project is closer to central grounds, just for the BZA's information.

to get started.

If you can start on the first slide, please.

Again, we're just here to make this presentation.

First, we're going to start.

Can you go back one?

Thank you.

We're going to talk about the background of this and the methodology and then the conclusion that was come to by Mr. Broadhead.

Next slide, please.

As by way of background I will tell you that basically the way this process has to proceed when it comes to determining whether a project is related to a student housing project is there has to be the receipt of a development plan where an applicant is requesting a classification of that until that actually occurs

Our zoning administrator can't really make a determination whether or not it qualifies.

Step two is the determination of whether the submission meets those requirements for a student housing project.

So to get us started, I'm going to ask Mr. Broadhead to step up now and to kind of give us a little bit of background and a timeline, if you will, of how this kind of came about.

How's it going?

Just to give a little background, as you know, we have a new development code.

And it's been in place just for a little over two years.

And in it, we require all residential projects that provide more than nine units.

They must provide affordable housing units at a rate of 10%.

And in an effort to explain some of the affordable housing

Hall, and so on.

of the code, which essentially states that if a project is located within one half mile of campus and rooms are leased within apartments, so each unit is broken up into student leases, it qualifies as affordable, I'm sorry, student housing.

So in a project outside of the one half mile boundary,

a developer can pay into a fund, build units, or do a combination of the two.

If you're within the half mile of campus, you can only pay into the affordable housing fund at a certain rate.

And so this was a general memo that I wrote and also included a map that showed the one half mile buffer around central and north campus.

The applicant, Mr.

Reader,

requested to a formal opinion once the project was submitted.

So when the project was submitted on October 7th, 2025, I was in contact with Mr.

Reader.

The general zoning determination that I wrote was written all the way back in August.

So it was a general one.

It wasn't until the actual application for this project was submitted that I could actually make a ruling

that this met the criteria of being student housing.

The determination was provided to Mr.

Reader on December 11th and he appealed within 30 days on January 9th, 2026.

And so next slide please.

The methodology that Mr. Brodhead used to determine whether, sorry, whether or not this met the criteria for student housing designation, it took a lot of steps.

So we just sort of broke it down into some categories.

You always review the city charter to make sure that it meets that, which, and any relevant city code sections that may, and the ADU or the Accessory Drilling Unit Manual, which

determines and has this language in it about the half mile radius.

Number two was reviewing some maps of the area that are also, you know, take into account what's in the city council charter which excludes the areas that we talked about previously as far as designated as non-zoned university owned properties and that are considered part of the campus.

Number three would be reviewing the maps for the half mile boundary as defined in the ADU manual.

Next slide please.

The conclusion that Mr. Broadhead made in this particular application was that the developer's project did meet the definition of student housing project due to the location of the site being within the half mile boundary of what is considered the campus.

Next slide.

One thing to keep in mind, under Virginia Code 15.2-2309, there is a presumption that the administrative officer's determination, meaning the zoning administrator's determination, is presumed to be correct at a hearing on the appeal.

Of course, this board is tasked with the

is tasked with determining whether or not his determination was in fact correct.

The appellant has the burden of proof to rebut the presumption and the correctness of the preponderance of the evidence that it was correct.

So, in other words, Mr.

Reader is the appellant in this particular matter, and so he has the burden of proof to show that Mr. Ronhead's determination was incorrect.

Next slide, please.

We included in this packet a half mile that's denoted on the map by the dotted lines.

So UVA's unzoned property, shown on north ground, central grounds, is in the light tan.

And then you've got the parcel.

for the city are kind of surrounding that.

The ADU manuals language has in it that basically the half mile measurement as being the direct line from the edge of the main campus areas, meaning central grounds and north grounds, to the edge of the subject parcel.

Next slide please.

We've included here

In the blue box on the right hand side of the screen, that is where the subject parcels of this particular project that the developer is proposing is located.

As you can see the half mile radius dotted line does go through those parcels and in the blow up on the left hand side of the screen you will see that there are actually five parcels that are involved in this project and all five of them due to the shape of them are touched within the area inside of the dotted line.

That would be staff's information.

I did want to point out to the BZA that some comments were included in your packets that you were sent earlier by Mr. Broadhead that came from the public.

There were three new comments that came in after the packets were sent out to you all at the end of last week.

They have been provided to you at your seats, so there are some additional comments that you may want to review that you have not seen before tonight.

Thank you, Ms. Weimer.

Is the appellant, Mr.

Would the board like to ask these questions now?

Is it the will of the board that we ask the questions now while they're fresh in your mind?

This is for, I guess it's for the city attorney's office.

There are basically four different retorts that we're getting from the council for the developer.

One relates to standing.

Sir, we did receive that as well.

Staff is not in agreement that Mr.

Reader does not have standing.

He is a next door neighbor.

He lives in a development that's adjacent to his proposed project.

Again, you put two lawyers in a room, you might get five opinions about that, to be quite frank.

Good.

That's helpful.

The other question was regarding timeliness of the appeal.

I think I got that figured out.

Well, we won't dwell on that.

But the one that I'm still not settled on is the vested determination and the dates.

Mr. Reid introduced a date that I either missed or was not aware of, and that was on October 7th.

7th date, and then a subsequent letter.

I think where the confusion is coming with that, there was a, you know,

Correct, correct.

It did not specifically pertain to this project, it pertained to anything that might happen to be within that radius.

So that was his task at that time.

the actual application didn't come in until a couple months later.

And so at that point, you know, and as we were, you know, just to be quite transparent with the board, we, you know, the staff was aware that Mr.

Reader was concerned about this, had been in communication with Mr. Broadhead, had been told that, you know, we don't have a project yet, so there isn't anything for me to write a zoning determination letter on by Mr. Broadhead.

communicating that to Mr.

Reader.

When the project did come in, at that point, he contacted, I don't know whether he contacted, you contacted Mr.

Reader and told him, hey, there is an active project now, I'll write you a letter.

And so that's what happened.

And so that letter was not received by Mr.

Reader until December 11th, or somewhere in that, yeah, December 11th.

So is there in fact a vested determination date?

And if there is, if there isn't, cool.

And to be honest with you, when you're talking about vesting, I'm not very comfortable even getting into that discussion because vesting has a lot of other

you know interpretations and connotations that can have to do with the project so what we're here on is a very limited thing and I think we need to just focus on the very limited thing rather than talking about whether or not this project is even vested or not or whatever so I apologize that I'm not in a position to really answer that question very astutely but I don't want to misspeak

Thank you.

One last question for the zoning administrator.

The parking part seems to be the area of focus.

If the parking part goes away, let's say it wasn't there, and the tracks are the only thing you got, then that whole line moves back, and this is within the half mile radius, is that right?

Yep, you have to draw the boundary somewhere, and that's the edge of campus.

Okay, so the parking part goes away, the algorithm changes.

Yes.

2, but the other question is

I don't know.

I would have to look at a rector's.

OK. Because that's the most important thing.

Is this a part of central grounds?

You'll get a chance.

I just want to make certain I got the answer I'm looking for.

OK, thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chairman and members of the board.

I do thank you for the time you give up voluntarily to our city and our community to help us with matters like this.

Thank you, Reeder.

and I would also like to say that Reid has been helpful to me throughout this process and I appreciate that this has been a very civil discussion, disagreement with Reid.

So, good afternoon.

My name is Paul Reeder and I am the appellant in this case.

I live in a small two-story cottage

immediately adjacent to the proposed seven-story development of luxury student housing.

I have lived at that house for the past 10 years and in Charlottesville for over 30 years, despite my accent.

I am a graduate of the Darden School of the University of Virginia and paid for two of my children to attend UVA.

I feel like I know Charlottesville and UVA pretty well.

Before I get into the substance of this case,

I fear that I must spend a little time addressing the meritless assertions of Steve Blaine, counsel for the developers.

I appreciate the support of the city attorney in these issues as just expressed, but if this causes me to go a little long, please forgive me and I would ask for your indulgence.

Okay, then you'll have to put up with me speaking faster.

The first of these, from Steve Blaine, is the assertion that I like standing to make this appeal.

And you can see in this illustration, which is to scale, just how

impacted I'm going to be in my living by this development which will occur less than 15 feet off of my back wall.

So I've got an 84 foot tower being built less than 15 feet away from my property.

That's a bad zoning error by the city in my view, but it is something that is there and I am unable to change it.

I will directly suffer loss of light and it would be naive to imagine that the value of my property will not suffer with this building looming above mine.

Because of this proximity, I am literally one of the most individually grieved persons in Fifeville.

A grieved person being a term in the Virginia Code.

The zoning administrator's erroneous determination reduces the cost of development of this proposed property.

Essentially, the contribution to the Affordable Housing Fund is more than halved.

While the exact reduction is hard to calculate, the developer's pro forma from March 2025 submitted to the BAR estimated an in lieu fee of $2.5 million based upon a student housing qualification.

Given the average ADU per unit fee jumps from $149,000 to over $330,000, depending on meeting that qualification, this fee would at least double were the development to be determined to be outside the half mile radius.

The difference is likely around $3 million.

Put simply, the more expensive it is to build this property, the less likely it is to get built.

So if I can increase the developer's costs, I'm going to do so all day, all night.

The amount at stake is considerable and may be critical, which is why we see the developers' lawyers so involved in this appeal.

I have a direct, immediate, this is again from Virginia, case law.

I have it quoted by the developers' lawyer.

I have a direct, immediate, pecuniary and substantial stake in this project and in the zoning administrator's decision that helps enable it.

I have a second reason to be aggrieved here.

I have long had an interest in affordable housing in Charlottesville, more than the typical taxpayer.

My tax records show that I have donated to the local Habitat for Humanity every year at least since 2011, and to the Haven for the Homeless every year since 2015.

So if I do eventually have to put up with this development next door, I take some comfort in making sure that developers contribute appropriately to the Affordable Housing Fund.

In sum, I have a direct personal stake in the zoning administrator's determination and more than meet the aggrieved standard in Virginia law.

I'm very pleased that the city attorney agrees with me.

The second assertion is that an internal city memo dated August 26th, this is pertinent to your questions Mr. Mitchell, dated August 26th, 2025 is in fact the determination of the zoning administrator in this matter.

Such an assertion is flawed in several aspects.

1.

Neither the developer nor their lawyers were party to the setting up of the meeting which I requested that led to this memo, nor to the meeting itself, nor was the memo addressed to them.

It is pretty rich therefore for them to suggest a meaning to this memo and meeting that was not contemplated by any of the parties involved.

2.

The zoning administrator does not mention the development in question anywhere in this memo, so he cannot possibly be assessing whether the subject property is within half a mile.

The memo merely sets out his understanding of the boundaries of the university.

To quote Steve Blaine, the memo is an abstract or advisory interpretation rather than a decision.

3.

Crucially, neither the memo nor the subsequent email correspondence inform me of my right of appeal as specified by section 15.2-2311 of the Virginia Code.

That is a requirement in any zoning administrative decision.

At the time of this meeting, the developer had not even submitted an application.

That did not come until almost six weeks later.

There was no application for the zoning administrator to react to, as council has just said.

Indeed, his memo concludes, each project will be assessed at the time of application to determine if the student housing designation applies.

5.

As a follow-up to my August 26th meeting with Kelly Brown, Reid Brodhead and Carrie Rainey, I specifically asked, in an email sent to all three and dated September 4, how I might formally appeal such a determination when it came.

In an email dated September 15, nine days later, Carrie Rainey responded, To initiate an appeal, there must be a development application under review.

That response was copied to Kelly Brown, the Director of Neighborhood Development Services, Reid's boss, and to the zoning administrator himself.

Point six, the developer's application was made on October the sixth, and on October the seventh, I emailed the zoning administrator asking him to issue a formal determination of the half mile radius.

This email track record is all there if you want to see it.

The administrator responded to me on October the tenth that he would do so.

The actual determination was issued on December 11th.

Why do I suggest this was the actual determination?

Firstly, because Reid's email to me attaching the letter states, I have completed the zoning determination that you requested.

Secondly, because the attached letter, which you have in your package, states, this letter constitutes a determination of the city's zoning administrator.

And crucially, per Virginia code, provides me the right to appeal.

I appealed the December 11th determination on January 7th.

My appeal was timely.

The third assertion of the lawyers is that their development rights somehow became vested based upon the August 26th memo.

I'm not a lawyer, but I'm going to take a shot at this one too.

As I've already shown, the internal memo, to which they were not a part, was never a determination of the issues at stake in this appeal.

As such, it does not rise to the level of a significant affirmative governmental act.

Indeed, earlier in their brief, they described the memo as an abstract or advisory interpretation.

They can't have it both ways.

In passing, the $500,000 that they claim to have spent today, wasted, I hope, is merely normal business costs for a firm that at the end of 2025 reported that it managed $15 billion.

had 50 5-0 developments in the works and which on October 9, 2025 per city records sold the landmark student housing building on West Main Street for $107 million.

Speculating $500,000 for the possibility of making $100 million is just the cost of doing business.

The zoning administrator's determination was made on December 11th and for any vesting to occur that determination is required to be no longer subject to appeal.

Yet here we are.

Lastly, the project had been denied by the Board of Architectural Review.

A developer cannot claim vested rights in a project that has already been denied by another city body with jurisdiction.

The BAR denial is on appeal to City Council.

There is no approved project in which to vest.

In summary, I am the quintessential aggrieved person under Virginia law.

The determination I'm appealing is dated December 11th and my appeal is therefore timely and the developer's interest cannot vest based on an internal city memo.

Which brings me finally to the merits of this appeal.

The zoning administrator is given guidance as to how to calculate the boundaries of the university in section 2.3 of the Affordable Dwelling Unit Monitoring and Procedures Manual.

That's in your package.

Here's that definition on calculating the half mile and repeated in the report that he's given you as part of the package.

In a direct line from the edge of the main campus areas, central grounds and north grounds, to the edge of the subject parcel.

Outline university owned parcels are not considered part of the campus for the purpose of this ordinance.

Yet, in the very next sentence, he completely ignores these instructions.

Choosing instead, central grounds and north grounds are defined as those areas that are not zoned by the city, given their ownership by the rector and visitors of the University of Virginia.

In other words, a zoning and ownership test that is nowhere mentioned in the manual.

So, I want to try and pay attention to what the manual actually says.

First though, let's take a quick step back and to understand the rationale for the half mile radius in the first place.

It's reasonable to assume the following motivations to keep the area of the university compact, prevent student housing sprawl into historic city residential areas through financial incentives.

This approach would be in line with much of the tenor of discussions around the new zoning ordinance of 2023 in which some of you participated.

Meet the needs of students to easily walk to academic, athletic and social centres from their living accommodations without the need to resort to cars or other transit.

Yet the proposed development is over a mile walk from these centres of student life.

It is also reasonable to assume that the councillors who approved the language in the ADU manual were not thinking zoning jurisdiction.

More likely, they were looking to constrain the reach of the half-mile boundary and based upon their many years of living in Charlottesville, trying to manufacture a definition that met their aims.

Thus, we get terms like main campus areas, central grounds and north grounds.

No mention of the hospital or UVA health system.

and no outlying parcels.

Unlike the zoning administrator, I believe these words have meaning, and you should too.

Let's look at each in turn.

Main campus areas.

My assertion that the westernmost edge of the campus is the gateway at the junction of University Avenue and Hospital Drive.

I'm just going to give all these photos at once to try to save time.

but here's that gateway and there's also pictures, there's a lot of pictures here that I think I'll be referencing later.

There's five each of the big ones and just one each of the small ones.

Thank you.

This is what the university guides, as you hear, are taught.

This is also what the university itself gives to parents and what they think the main characteristics of the university are.

Simply put, there is no reasonable person that would describe the pocket park at the junction of JPA and West Main Street as part of the main campus areas of UVA.

Central grounds and north grounds, why are these words in parenthesis here at all?

It's possible to argue that they are redundant.

University of Virginia of a map of central grounds.

You'll see that the public park is nowhere on that and the UVA hospital is quite distinguished.

So you can also see from photos I've given you just how far away the pocket park and the extent of the pocket park is from my suggestion, which is that the university ends at the junction of hospital and university.

is the hospital included.

Notable by its absence both in the ADU definition and this map from UVA is the hospital.

The hospital is part of the UVA health system.

Thank you, Mr.

Reader.

The UVA health system buildings are not part of central grounds and never were.

Outlying parcels, this phrase, outlining university owned parcels are not considered parts of the campus for the purposes of this ordinance, is clearly designed to limit the impact of the half mile radius.

Pocket Park is just such an outline parcel.

It is not directly connected to either the main campus areas nor central grounds.

It is clearly separated from them by the railroad, which is not in the university's ownership.

It is not merely symbolic that the name of the road changes under the railroad bridge from University Avenue to West Main Street.

The university ends, the city begins.

The developers' lawyers have fallen for the same fallacy as the zoning administrator.

They have relied on ownership as a test, rather than the definition given in the ADU guide.

The ownership of the Pocket Park is not in question.

However, it is not part of the main campus areas, is not part of Central Grounds, and is an outlying parcel.

University Avenue Park should of course be renamed West Main Street Park as the university ends at the railroad bridge.

Further, the map that the lawyers for the developers

clearly shows the park disconnected from other core areas of central grounds.

Thank you, Mr.

Reader.

I've got 13 seconds.

Yeah, do you have any questions?

Thank you.

Are there questions for Mr.

How about other people?

Mr.

Reader, I just have a question for you.

Thank you so much for your time and for everything you've said.

You have stated that you don't believe that the pocket park should be included as part of the university's boundaries, even though it is... Can you speak into the mic?

Yes, you have stated that the pocket park should not be included in the university's boundaries even though it is owned by the board of visitors and director.

Could you explain whether you believe that the ownership

No, so I would contend that ownership is actually not relevant.

That's not what the ADU manual says.

Please read it again.

The ADU manual makes, you know, it would have been easy if the ADU manual had said, let's determine the half mile radius from the ownership areas of the University of Virginia.

That would make it pretty easy, wouldn't it?

They didn't do that.

Words have meanings.

They chose to use a different definition.

Equally, they didn't choose to use zoning.

They chose not to use zoning as their definition.

We have to look at the definition that is given in the ADU manual.

So correct, I would assert that it's actually irrelevant.

Ownership is irrelevant in this instance.

Well, it makes no reference to the Parkett Park itself.

The ADU manuals are quoted again for you.

It's in, now you have this from me, and it's in the report from Reid.

It talks about a direct line from the edge of the main campus areas, parentheses, central grounds and north grounds, close parentheses, to the edge of the subject parcel.

Outline university-owned parcels are not considered part of the campus for the purposes of this ordinance.

There are specific instructions given to Reid.

I would argue that he has ignored them.

But there are specific instructions given in the manual as to how the boundaries of UVA are to be assessed for these purposes.

There may be other definitions elsewhere for other purposes.

The Pocket Park is not part of Central Grounds.

There is no UVA graduate in this room who would suggest that the Pocket Park is part of Central Grounds.

I suspect that 99% of students never enter that part.

Are there other questions for Mr.

Reader?

Counsel, do you have questions for Mr.

Thank you very much.

At this point, this concludes the presentation.

And now I'm going to open a public hearing.

Please remember that

You are limited to three minutes and let's determine is this accurate?

Yes.

I might ask you if you could move your mic so that I could move that so I could see it.

I apologize for calling the wrong time before I wasn't able to see this.

So I will call the names who signed up and then I will allow anyone else who hasn't spoken previously to speak for no more than three minutes.

And again, if you represent a group and you'd like to ask people to stand or raise their hands to do that.

I would also, I very vehemently support public participation, but I would ask if you, as our rules say, to refrain from

Clapping, Speaking, Shouting, or any other sound that makes a presentation less audible during the speaking part of that.

First, thank you for giving a chance to speak to this evening.

and I think I'm going to follow and support my neighbor, Paul Reeder, I'm John Mason, I live at 211 5th Street SW and I'm going to disagree with our hardworking staff and I know our staff has

has put a lot of good faith effort into their determination, but I think they're wrong.

And I think they're wrong about where the campus ends, where the UVA grounds end, and I think they're wrong on three counts.

One is common sense, one is history, and the other is maps.

So, we're not concerned with UVA property.

UVA property is one thing.

Where grounds end for the purpose of this determination, we're interested in where the grounds end.

And so I was thinking about a situation

where a new member of the UVA faculty is invited out to lunch by somebody who'd been teaching for at least three months or so.

And the person who's been teaching for at least three months or so says, well, it's a beautiful day.

We should meet on common grounds and eat outside.

and the new person says, well, let's meet in that cute little park that's across the street from the Graduate Hotel.

Well, the older person would have said, no, that's not Central Grounds.

Central Grounds is different.

Central Grounds is near the Rotunda and the Academical Village.

and I think that anybody who's been at UVA for any time would understand that that little pocket park is just not what we've ever considered to be part of Central Grounds.

And as Mr.

Reader said, my neighbor, Grounds has always been seen to end

at this part of the grounds at the gateway at Hospital Drive.

Now that gateway has a long history and it goes back to Thomas Jefferson.

Jefferson asked very early in the university's history that a gate be built at the end of the long walk.

Now the long walk started at the Rotunda and came all the way down the hill to just about where that gateway is now.

And he said, we're going to build a gate and that's going to define the edge of the university.

Now it's really interesting that

Jefferson's idea for a gate was just a bunch of wood.

It's not the brick structure that we have now, but we still honor Jefferson's idea about where the university ends.

It ends at the end of the long walk, which is where University Avenue and Hospital Drive come together.

UVA maps.

UVA maps, as far as I have been able to determine, have never considered that little park across from the graduate to be part of Central Grounds.

It is not part of Central Grounds.

Central Grounds end at that gateway.

Thank you.

Thank you for your service.

Thank you Madam Chair, members of the board, I'm Steve Blaine.

You have the letter that I wrote in the packet.

What I want to be sure everybody understands, and I know there was a briefing at the beginning

is that what's at issue here is not whether this is the right location for student housing, seven-story building.

It's not about the height of the building or the shape of the building.

The outcome from the determination is merely which table for determining the project's contribution for affordable housing is to apply.

is it based upon construction costs or the gap in the valuation?

And I think Mr.

Reader is accurate in assessing the delta there.

It's significantly more of a contribution, but at least if it's not a

Student Housing, the developer has a choice of putting on-site affordable housing or making an in lieu contribution or a combination of both.

If it's within a half a mile and it's a student housing rental arrangement, then it only has one option and that is paying the fee.

The point about the standing is that

It's either going to be 2x or 1x in terms of the fee.

Mr.

Reader certainly meets the first prong of the test for standing and that is his proximity to the project.

We don't doubt his sincerity.

or his motives in this appeal, but the statute and the interpretation by the Supreme Court is he must also have a direct pecuniary interest that's unique to him that others do not have that gives him standing, and that's pretty well settled in Virginia cases.

He doesn't meet that standard because the outcome is the payment of money to the city.

Mr. Reeder has no claim or stake in that outcome.

The second point we made about the timing is that the determination as to the boundary of the grounds was made in August of 2025.

Now, each project, when it comes through the development plan process, gets a determination for its plan, whether it's considered student housing for the ADU contribution.

But the map was determined in August, and Mr. Reeder indicates that he was aware of that and did not challenge the determination.

So it's our position that it was not timely made.

Finally, I included in the packet the minutes from the recent Board of Visitors where they state how what we're referring to as the pocket part

is to be redesigned into a park for a contemplative space that will serve as a welcome to UVA's grounds.

And it's been viewed as an important part of the grounds.

That's the view of the Board of Visitors.

Thank you, Mr. Blaine.

It's going to flash red when the time is up.

Okay, now we're in flashing.

I will give you your...

He went over the seven.

Maybe we could have a consensus on whether I have more time.

That's Mr.

Reader's point about what the boundary of the university is, that we have some kind of consensus.

We could ask a hundred people what their view of what the boundaries are of the university and probably get a hundred different viewpoints.

What's important?

Thank you.

Would you like to keep time?

Just tell me.

It zeroed out to when we could see it and it started blinking.

Good, thank you.

Now we're all in agreement about that.

Hello, my name is Gillette Rosenblith and I have lived in Charlottesville since 2012.

I came here to get a PhD in history at UVA and since I've lived here I've developed two expertises.

The first is on housing in the United States and the second is on the history of Charlottesville and UVA.

I am now a faculty member at the University of Virginia and a member of the Board of Commissioners on the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority.

As part of my role at UVA, I work in the Office of the Provost, where I am the lead historian and project manager on two public history projects about the university.

Given my expertise, I'm well situated to say with clarity and authority that the designation of Central Grounds according to the zoning policy is so expansive as to be absurd.

The history of the university, including its designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which it shares with Deversons Monticello, very clearly delineates the academical village as Central Grounds, ending at the gate, as Dr. Mason said.

The expansions of the late 19th and early 20th century, including the building of what is now Shannon Library, Peabody and Newcomb Hall, the chapel, Brooks Hall, and Old Cabell Hall, I think are where students, faculty, and perhaps most importantly, historical expertise would indicate that the bounds of central grounds are to the east, west, and south, respectively.

In my 14 years of being a student, then a postdoctoral fellow, and now a faculty member at the university, it is clear to me that the pocket park and former location of the horrific George Rogers Clark statue has never been, and likely will never be, a part of what is considered central grounds.

This will become more evident in the next month with the UVA press publication of The Revolution at 250.

This book features a chapter by former UVA statues committee co-chair and faculty member Alison Bigelow entitled Hidden in Plain Sight, the George Rogers Clark statue and the University of Virginia, 1921 to 2021.

Hidden is the point.

It is hidden in plain sight because no one pays attention to a part of grounds that is remote and disconnected from the rest.

There is no contemporary or historical evidence to suggest that this location has ever been part of UVA's central grounds.

The board has an opportunity to do the right and legal thing here by amending its understanding of what central grounds includes according to students, faculty, staff, and the historical understanding.

Hi, I'm Scott Rainey.

I'm an attorney with Thora Pettit and here on behalf of clients Union Station Partners LLC and Union Station Land Trust.

I'm one of the late submissions that hopefully made its way to you all yesterday or maybe today and tried to keep my submission brief in writing.

I'll try to be briefer here today.

Our main point and in their comments are

We're focused on the fact that under the law, the zoning administrator's determination is presumed correct.

The development code says a student housing project must be within a half mile of the university as determined by the zoning administrator.

And the ADU manual says that the administrator has final authority to make that determination.

It does not say,

and does not dictate what the zoning administrator needs to consider or not consider, in my view, perfectly normal to consider ownership history.

And I would add that I've been sitting here hearing some comments about

The pocket parcel being an outlying parcel.

In your attachments with the agenda, there's an Albemarle County GIS map that the zoning administrator included.

You can see where

You're hearing a lot of opinions about what central grounds means.

But to me, the opinions aren't enough to rebut the presumption that the zoning administrator's determination is presumed correct.

And so that's the main point that I wanted to make.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm Valerie Long.

I want to speak in support of the zoning administrator's determination.

With all rules and regulations, it's very important that the rules are clear and easy to apply, whether you're the applicant trying to understand them, or the zoning administrator, or you're the public who's trying to understand them.

The City Council, in its wisdom in adopting the city code and those who participated in preparing it, provided an objective standard in the development code and clarified it further in the manual.

First it says it's the zoning administrator's determination and they supplied a measuring tool and they explained, here's how you measure.

and it's an objective standard based on central grounds.

The zoning administrator then used his knowledge and discretion and experience to figure out, well, what should we mean by central grounds?

I think the most reasonable way to start, which is what he did, he looked at the city's charter.

He then looked at the maps from the historical maps from the university.

Those are clear objective measurement tools.

It's very important.

I might disagree whether the pocket park should be part of Central Grounds or not.

That doesn't matter.

It's irrelevant.

It doesn't matter what UVA students think or what you think might be Central Grounds.

It's what is the standard?

What does the code say?

What do the maps show?

What does the history show?

What's the objective standard?

It's not about opinions about whether something should

or should not be part of Central Grounds or whether it's outlying or not.

Using the city's own charter is the best place to start to answer that question.

The city expressly says, the charter says that, effectively says that land is part of Central Grounds because it's the university land.

That's further demonstrated, as has been stated, by the maps that the county maintains, the city's own GIS maps.

It shows that as part of the UVA property and then as central grounds.

It's a clear measuring tool.

It's important for everyone to understand what that process is.

And as was stated by the prior speaker, I don't believe that any of the statements here today are persuasive and rebut the presumption that Mr. Broadhead's analysis and decision were correct.

There's no evidence, in my opinion, that it was clearly wrong.

Therefore, we ask that you uphold his determination.

Thank you, Ms. Long.

Good evening, everyone.

My name is Joy Johnson, and I am the chair of foreign.

I'm here because of the Board of Zoning Appear must side with the Fifeville community and rule that the proposed development on 7th Street, Northwest, is not within a half mile radius of UVA.

The half mile radius was created to keep university out of historic black community, core community, neighborhoods.

like Fifeville and 10th and Page, but the city current half a mile radius determined is opening up our neighborhood to rapid speculation and gentrification and it needs to be fixed.

The half a mile radius designation not only allowed these luxury student apartments

to encroach and gentrify what's left of the black and low income neighborhood.

But it also means that the library development cannot build affordable housing units on site.

And they pay less into the affordable housing fund.

If the developer on the 7th Street were outside the half mile radius, they would have to pay a lot more money into the affordable housing fund.

More than double the amount of money

they're going to pay now.

A couple of million dollars is a drop in the bucket for these multi-billion companies.

As of January 2026, Landmark themselves announced that they had over $15 billion in assets, a couple of million dollars in pennies to the mere sense.

This is legalized extortion.

These developers are paying the city a tiny fee

to get permission to build an enormous luxury building in our black and low income community.

And it's racist, all about money and profit.

These luxury buildings are going to increase property taxes for the Fifeville residents.

We won't allow this building to be built in our neighborhood just so that developers can profit off

People, displacement of homeless or housing insecurity.

The half of my designation is racist.

It continues a long tradition of anti-blackness and white supremacy in this city, straight from Thomas Jefferson Plantation to Vinegar Hill and Urban Renewal.

This is gentrification.

We are being pushed out of our own city.

The city does not want poor black people to live here.

That's the way it seems.

and it is not just community being harmed.

Even the UVA students are saying, we can't afford those luxury apartments.

These developers don't care about people.

They just have money over people.

They don't care about people who live and work and raise their families in this city.

And they don't care about the students either.

They are just here to make money off of the residents and people and it is not by

You all have the opportunity to help the community.

Please do what's right and just and side with the community over developers profit.

Thank you, Ms. Johnson.

Hi, my name is Wendy Gao.

I'm a community member, a friend of public housing residents, and also a UVA alum.

I want to speak to this piece of grass at the intersection of West Main and JPA.

The only standard that you all have is what is provided in the manual, and the manual is literally asking you all to decide what is Central Grounds.

As Mr.

Reader and others have pointed you all to, the manual defines the half mile radius as being in a direct line from the edge of the main campus area, central grounds and north grounds to the edge of the subject parcel.

The word main directs you all as people who interpret the ordinance to not focus on anything that is not a main campus area, i.e.

ignore peripheral, ancillary, fringe, outer, secondary, minor, marginal campus areas.

This park is not a main campus area of central grounds, and this is further proven by the fact that it's right next to a heating plant.

A literal heating plant is not within the UVA imaginary of central grounds.

UVA facilities probably put the heating plant there precisely because it's out of the way from main academic buildings and living and learning spaces.

Don't let this sketch of a potentially upgraded park with mural opportunities detract from what the manual actually says and means, which is that this patch of grass is not a main campus area.

They will try to tell you that this will be a gateway to central grounds, but as Mr.

Reader and Dr. Mason have already highlighted, the archway on Hospital Drive going into Rotunda Drive leading to East Gardens is the actual gateway to central grounds, because only once you are there are you actually standing on the grass that leads up to the lawn and academic buildings and dorms and libraries and all the things that actually make up a university.

Before that point, you are literally just standing on the corner.

The developers might try to tell you that there will be an outdoor classroom on this upgraded park, so it could be a learning space part of central grounds.

Don't listen to them.

There are already actual outdoor classroom spaces that are actually on central grounds that people actually use, namely the amphitheater south lawn, the picnic tables by the memorial to enslaved laborers, oh, I don't know, the actual living and learning community that Jefferson built the lawn on in front of the rotunda.

And something these all have in common is proximity to bathrooms.

This piece of grass that they want to make into an outdoor classroom is actually hilarious to me.

If you're having class outside, you are probably drinking a lot of water.

Where are you going to go to the bathroom?

At the Graduate Hotel, at the Mellow Mushroom, at the literal heating plant.

Don't make me laugh.

But also important here, I think, is the fact that this park hasn't actually been upgraded yet into any gateway to Central Grounds.

So I don't think that you all should be making a decision on the potential for an outlying peripheral outlandish patch of grass to become Central Grounds.

This might be a campus area, but it is not a main campus area.

Don't let them convince you to use this sorry park as the determinant for the half mile radius.

It is embarrassing for them.

It's embarrassing for UVA.

Gillette Rosenblith?

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Michael Payne, City Councilor, here to speak as an individual City Councilor here today.

As other than touched on, this is a technical issue, but there are enormous implications.

On this project alone, whether this is in the 0.5 mile radius or not is the difference between about $2.5 million in affordable housing.

That's the difference between whether dozens of units for poor and working class people can get built or not.

and there is a larger precedent.

Depending on where you decide this radius is, there are already other projects under debate that happen to fall within the radius because of this, where the city is going to lose about $10 million in affordable housing payments.

That's the difference between transformative projects like 501 Cherry and the redevelopment of West Haven or other additional projects like that cannot happen.

I want to say, in addition to that, that the argument that they can't build on-site housing is irrelevant.

That is the most expensive way they could meet the affordable housing commitment.

It's not relevant.

They would choose whichever formula.

And I think the decision of where the zoning administrator set the boundary respectfully, I think was factually incorrect and does not align with the legislative intent of city council, which was the body that passed this policy.

I'll call you again to the affordable housing manual, which says,

being in a direct line from the edge of the main campus area, central grounds and north grounds, to the edge of the subject parcel.

Outline university and parcels are not considered part of the campus for the purposes of this ordinance.

The critical word there is outlying properties.

The legislative intent of city council, in my view, was to have contiguous properties that relate to students and are for an educational purpose, not the university hospital system, not power plants.

If you don't apply that, what is the limiting principle?

And if that is the framework we want to use, it's not even applied coherently in what the edge of grounds was defined as.

There are hospital system buildings at the south end of the Academical Village, which would be

right next to each other that were not included in our definition of central grounds.

It's not applied uniformly.

Again, the clear metric is, is it contiguous?

Does it relate to an academic purpose, not the UVA hospital system?

This outlying parcel, again, outlying, is separated from the academical village by UVA hospital system buildings, a power plant, and railroad tracks.

Under no coherent definition of central grounds in main campus, do I think this applies?

And the natural boundary, I think, would be hospital drive.

Because again, otherwise, what is the limiting principle?

And this, again, is technical, but there are enormous implications.

Where they decided to set this boundary, it's a 0.5 mile radius.

This increases the radius by about 0.25 miles.

Where this is set includes literally almost the entirety of 10th and Page, right next to Tonster Park, right behind First Baptist Church, as areas where the highest and best use is student housing.

Does that sound like it aligns with the city's comprehensive plan goals, student housing goals within the comprehensive plan, and our anti-displacement and core neighborhood overlay frameworks within the comprehensive plan?

Councillor Payne, your time is up.

Hello, my name is Abba Kodiaga and I'm a fourth year Global Public Health student at the University of Virginia, as well as one of the members of Friends of Foreign, a student-led organization that works alongside and under the guidance of Public Housing Association of Residents to advocate for the rights of public housing residents and Charlottesville community members.

I, alongside other concerned students, are here today to urge you, the BZA, to overturn the decision to classify this proposed development as student housing under the current RADIUS designation.

As a public health major, zoning is not my strong suit.

But when I see the radius and the sliver of the blue parcel that extends into it, the pocket part being included as central grounds, it is clear to see what is happening here.

At first glance, this may seem like a technical question, a matter of distance, of mapping, of whether a parcel falls within a defined boundary.

But I ask you to look more critically.

Critically, it had the language of section three of the city's charters being used here, because language is not neutral.

Language shapes how we define space, and in turn, how people experience that space.

As a student, I can tell you proximity matters.

Students choose housing based on access to classes, libraries, dining halls, and social life.

The proposed site is even further removed from the daily ecosystem.

It lacks consistent and direct integration with the university transit.

It is not where students naturally gravitate.

Because while the language may make this project permissible, the reality on the ground tells a different story.

This is simply not an extension of student life, but an extension of institutional and private expansion into surrounding communities.

Over the past several years, the university has continued to admit more students without adequate housing.

We know this to be true, yes.

However, students need more affordable housing to be built away from these communities.

If this board allows this classification to stand, you are not just approving a building, you are setting a precedent that the definition of student housing can be expanded indefinitely as long as it can be justified on paper.

And to the comment made earlier, students do matter in this conversation.

Consider the principle of recognition justice, acknowledging and valuing the voices, histories, and lived experiences of those most impacted by your decisions.

A half mile radius may look small on paper.

A parcel may look small on paper.

A pocket park may look small on paper.

But it can become a powerful tool.

One that can be used to justify encroachment and extend institutional reach into the communities that did not create these pressures.

So I leave you with this question.

Who created this boundary, and for what purpose?

Was it meant to serve students or to serve development?

Thank you.

Anna Miondi.

Is Anna present and wishing to speak?

Hello, my name is Anna Nkandawire and I'm a fourth-year urban planning and global development studies student at UVA, as well as one of the members of Friends of FAR, a student-led organization that works alongside and with under the guidance of the Public Housing Association of Residents to advocate for public housing and low-income Charlottesville residents as well as the greater Charlottesville community.

I, alongside my fellow students, colleagues, and community, I'm here to urge the board to overturn the decision to classify the proposed development as student housing under the current half mile radius delineation.

According to the ADU manual, the half mile radius is supposed to be the surrounding, the main campus area, as many of my colleagues have heard enough before.

And central grounds extends to both colloquially as a UVA urban planning student and somebody who has worked with GIS for over eight years

to Brooks Hall, maybe at the farthest.

The proposed development is not within a half mile of these buildings, but instead this small pocket part that we've been talking about adjacent to the railroad, GPA, and University Avenue.

First of all, it is arguable whether all the buildings in the medical system surrounding this park can or should be considered central grounds.

but that's neither here nor there.

Secondly, I and neither of my peers in this room or back on grounds have ever been to many of the buildings in this system, let alone to this pack of work.

I did not even know it existed before this appeal was made.

Thirdly, historically, one could argue, and if you are listening to Thomas Jefferson, the creator of this university, that the most central point of this university is the rotunda.

And here we find the proposed development would be around a 20-minute walk.

That, to me, is not proximate to central grounds.

And as somebody who specializes in maps, it's not proximate.

And to reiterate Mr.

Reader's statement, is the language of the ADU, not ownership.

We are here as impassioned as we are, not simply because of a contribution to the City Affordable Housing Fund, as said before, which Mr.

Reader does have a stake in as a significant contributor to housing equity efforts in Charlottesville and as a taxpayer in the city who would hope fellow property owners are taxed fairly and held accountable.

But because we know, on various scales of relation, the impacts of inefficient and inaccurate zoning.

It is the same oversight and unwillingness to abide by the meaning of the words,

as central grounds that the city went with the word blight with urban renewal in the 60s that led to the displacement and erasure of residents of Vinegar Hill, some of whom are the same residents represented in this room.

We are here in front of you as current residents, renters, and property owners of the city, not a potential park, not a potential luxury building.

Thank you.

Would anyone present who would like to speak but did not sign up?

Ah, okay.

My name is Carmelita Wood.

I am current president of Fifeville Maple Association.

I once lived at 317 3rd Street.

If you want to know where that is, it's between the McDonald's and the drive-thru and the plaza on McIntyre, formerly known as Benedict Hill.

My family moved to West Haven when I was 12 or 11.

There I grew up and folks always talked about the working and how UVA wanted to buy West Haven.

When I got older I went to work at UVA.

I worked there for 35 years.

All I could hear were people

Living on 10th and Page and other streets in that area talking about UVA had offered to buy their homes and also wanted to buy West Haven.

But in the late 70s, early 80s, I also heard that someone higher up at the university had spoken about the university would not build or own any property beyond 10th Street.

That being said, I do believe that they used the port

of the bridge and further back from the statue which they are now using to justify the ruling as a marking point for the half mile radius.

I'm asking that you please consider looking into this closely because what myself and others see is a likelihood of another vinegar here all over again.

All those homes in those core neighborhoods like West Haven, 10th and Page, and Fifeville being torn down in tall buildings

being built for student housing, further causing displacement and homelessness by raising taxes and driving folks out of their homes, forcing them to sell because they can't afford the taxes.

along with the city and council have got to stop letting these developers take precedence over the longevity and happiness of our neighborhoods in pursuit of making money and uplift the concerns of the community.

Just because the neighborhoods are near the university and convenient for students,

who will only be here for a few years.

We deserve to be comfortable and have a good quality of life in the space we've created for our families.

Zoning mistakes have been made and have got to be corrected to ensure our core neighborhoods are preserved.

I have one more name.

If you're here and you would like to speak because this is a public hearing and we want everyone to be represented, could you raise your hand?

Okay, at the conclusion of our next commenter is Frank Bechter is the next name.

Jim is saying that he wrote his name, so probably he's there.

Great, thank you.

Well, everyone has an opportunity to speak, whether your name has been called or not.

My name is Frank Bector.

I live on 6 and a half street in Fifeville.

The very nature of a half mile allowance is to incentivize consolidation of student housing near the university.

The present determination works creatively against that very purpose.

It seeks to stretch incentives as widely as possible.

Is it eminently reasonable, quote unquote, for the zoning administrator to have relied on the university's representations?

No.

It is, in fact, absurd.

It is eminently unreasonable.

Who has the most to gain from extending the city's half mile allowance as far as it can?

It's not a developer, not this one, not that one.

It's the university.

By incentivizing as much student housing as possible that it doesn't have to pay for.

The zoning administrator has final authority.

Final authority, the guidelines say.

They don't say preemptive authority.

The zoning administrator is not an aloof god talking only to other gods and titans.

He does not work for the board of visitors.

He is a public servant.

Let us know if you disagree.

Final authority without consulting affected parties, without public input, especially in a huge matter such as this.

Final authority without reference to well-established language.

Final authority without considering financial bias of the university.

Final implies a process, not an inaccessible power wielder.

Vast extents of highly populated streets will be majorly altered by this one determination.

Many thousands of people are affected.

They're all vested.

This deserves broad discussion.

Other matters decided by the zoning administrator may not, but this one does.

Where's the pocket park?

The developers say it's along University Avenue, but that's not so.

It's along West Main Street.

Aha!

The university calls it University Avenue Park, we learn.

But it's West Main Street, and the city should know that.

West Main goes all the way under the railroad tracks past 14th.

The university owns the pocket park and put what it wants there.

But nowhere in the cited report is this area called central grounds, nor is it called campus, nor even is it called grounds, but only a threshold, a possible welcome, a public welcome to grounds.

The park has nothing to do with students, nothing to do with campus.

The university owns it, but this doesn't make it central grounds.

In the cases cited by Woods Rogers, the attorneys, someone owns 160 acres, for example, and wants to build a housing development.

There's some dispute.

Who has standing?

These cases are in the boonies.

Who has 160 acres here at the middle of West Main?

Nobody.

This is a different kind of case.

Virginia law has plenty to say about public engagement on major zoning decisions.

The zoning administrator I read in an article likes to help people get over hurdles and stuff like this.

These aren't people.

These are multi-billion dollar conglomerates.

It's great that we want to help people get through zoning little issues, but that's not what's... Mr. Beecher, your time is up.

This is a different animal.

Thank you.

You all should have a copy of this.

It was handed out to you.

I'll just refer you to the map on the back.

Thank you.

My name is James Snyder.

I have a house at 206B Fifth Street South.

It's one of the cottages right next door to John Mason and the case at hand.

I support the appeal of this code amendment.

and there are a lot of details in this argument.

But the five basic arguments are this should be a fixed point from the rotunda.

We're talking a lot about radiuses.

We all know in geometry that a radius is from a point around a fixed line.

If you look at the map, you'll see the map that the staff has provided.

That is a moving target.

So for example, the property that was just acquired by the university,

former Thomas Jefferson Inn, the Federal Executive Institute, it's now on there.

This is a moving target.

Zoning should be clear and everybody should know how it works.

The code may not be written well and I think it's being interpreted in a way that's not consistent with the intent.

The health system is a separate entity.

The staff has backed into this determination.

the Planning Director and now Deputy City Manager started talking about, well, these properties are here.

Then there was discussion about, well, what does that mean?

Where's a map?

So we've had something which has been backed into after a lot of discussions with applicants.

That's not a good way to administer things.

Anybody should be able to know what property's in or out.

The code should say, is it touching or is it the entire parcel?

If you're partly in, you only pay partly what it is.

This code needs to go back to the City Council.

The Councilman who is here, they can decide that.

I think your job here is to recognize that this has not been handled well.

The staff is in a tough position trying to write a determination after the fact, after people have been talked to and deals have been made.

and they've come up with a determination that has a half mile radius that's actually a blob that keeps getting bigger as UVA gets more property.

If you look at the code sites that I put in my memo to you, there are about five of them.

Virginia law talks about clarity in zoning.

And the zoning is supposed to be something that's easily administered, not interpreted, not in a manual.

The code is the code.

So I would urge you to look at that closely.

Look at that map.

We have a problem here that needs to go back to City Council and you'd be doing everybody a favor to say this interpretation needs to be redone and send it back to City Council.

They can have public hearings and they can decide whether to make that circle bigger because that's what a radius does.

It creates a circle from a fixed point.

Good evening.

My name is Sarah Malpass.

I am the Vice President of the Fifeville Neighborhood Association and I live at 626 Bailey.

I'm here to support Mr.

Reader's appeal and ask you all to reverse the decision of the Board of Zoning Administrator.

I really don't have a lot to add to what has already been said by my neighbors, but would like to emphasize that by selecting this outlying parcel, which is out of compliance with the intent of city council as a city councilor has testified, the radius has been increased by a quarter mile.

This has a substantive impact on our neighborhoods, on Fifeville, on 10th and Page, on West Haven.

It has a substantive impact on the work that residents have done for the last 15 years and many, many decades more to come up with things like the Cherry Avenue Small Area Plan, which has been adopted into City Code.

and where residents have clearly stated their priorities.

Fifeville is not anti-development.

Fifeville is anti-displacement.

We welcome working with developers who want to work with us on our anti-displacement and affordable housing goals.

But what we do not want is for an interpretation that is wrong to allow additional development that will cause further displacement of our neighbors.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Shanti Levy.

I live at 708 Nall Street in the Fifeville neighborhood and I think most of the issues about the implications about this decision have been really well stated so far and I don't want to rehash that so much as just to express my support for reconsidering the zoning determination based on

the study of that parcel and I think there were questions up front, Mr. Mitchell asked the question about ownership history about that parcel and I think it's important, you know, if you look at an aerial of that area from the 1940s, what you see is that that parcel is actually more contiguous with the Gospel Hill neighborhood

which was purchased by the university and raised for the hospital than it is with Central Grounds.

If you look at a map, a sand board map from 1920, what you see is a blank space where nothing has been built and we can see from an image that there was forest at that location.

But between there and Central Grounds, what we have are individual businesses, not a continuous university swath of ownership historically.

And though the university has continued to buy up land to make that continuity look more intact at this point in time, that isn't truly what we have based on the history of the university and the present condition.

I think the fact that the university has always continued to expand and buy land

should not be a basis for being able to extend the reach even further and that's what it feels as though this parcel under question is doing.

I think half a block up the way is Stacey Hall.

I mean you could keep going infinitely and I think for that reason it's reasonable that Reed drew the line where he did but I also think that it is not objective as that was stated.

Thank you.

Hi y'all my name is Marlena Simon I live at

I live at 599 Dice Street in Fifeville neighborhood.

And one of the things I wanted to say in support of my neighbor is that I notice already when we draw that line that this building isn't even all the way included in that half mile.

And the part that is are the two historic buildings that can't be built upon, that they're building around.

So the building actually

Seeing no one indicating they'd like to speak, I'm going to close the public hearing.

I'm going to suggest in all fairness that we take maybe five minutes as members of the board to review these submissions that were handed out to us today that weren't in the packet.

Is that agreeable?

Okay, let's do that.

I'm just going to go by that time.

Well I'm seeing 6.20 and at 6.25 I'll call time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They went by six.

Park,

Park,

Yeah.

Yeah.

Entertain a motion.

Let's not do discussion while we're taking minutes or anything.

Yeah, because we're going to ask if we have any questions.

So we might have questions for.

either Reed or Mr. Reeder.

Everyone seems to have reviewed the materials and so I will, going back to our procedures,

We're approaching the time where we will deliberate, but I'd like to ask before we do that if anyone here on the dais has any questions for, well Mr. Broadhead is not present.

Do you have any additional questions for Mr.

Reader?

And if Mr. Broadhead is, oh here he comes.

Yes.

So we can do that.

Do you have additional questions for Mr.

Reader?

And I know the area pretty well.

I'm there a lot.

When you were reaching your determination, did the tracks and the plant in the background in the back figure into your decision or did you just think that the proximity was really driving your decision to

No, I was looking at the, like I said, the charter, the land records and such.

I mean, if you go, I mean, I've worked for the city for 20 years.

If you go on GIS, you can't get any sort of information from those parcels.

It's all part of this one large blob, which is UVA.

That statue that was there that no one knows about disappeared because the UVA chose.

Thanks.

Mr. Broadhead, could you help us understand when the code says the edge of the parcel, specifically the main campus, what do you determine as edges?

I'm just pulling up the staff report here.

Yeah I mean I was just going by the boundary of University of Imparcels and so that point at the intersection of University or West Main, whichever we want to call it, and JPA, I mean that's the edge.

I didn't use outlining parcels such as UVA Hospital or heck if you look there's a new part of campus that's on the other side of JPA now down Brandon Avenue or Stacey Hall.

Those were not included.

I utilize that edge.

I mean there is a railroad track there.

There's a part of campus that's closer to

Well, I didn't go to UVA.

Pardon me.

I don't know what it's called.

But it's separated from campus by railroad tracks as well.

But it's still part of campus.

You actually have to walk into the public right away to get from that part of campus to the other part.

Can you recall when the term central grounds

No, I don't.

I mean, this is all new.

I mean, this whole definition is new.

I mean, it just says in parentheses, Central and North Grounds.

So typically, just call it campus or university campus.

I know this code is oriented towards housing and affordable housing in particular, and so I would assume that there was a great deal of attention that was paid to the ADU manual.

As you know, the staff at NDS did not write our development code.

It was written by consultants and so I'm not quite sure.

I can't answer that anymore specifically either.

I know the ADU manual, there were consultants, there were folks who were part of the housing advisory committee.

The housing division was not even within neighborhood development services at that point in time when it was put in place.

Thank you.

Another clarification, Mr. Broadhead, we have a diagram for Mr.

Reader.

There's nothing structural that would be any different.

The only situation that is at hand here has to do with the affordable housing regulation and how that's enacted.

The actual structure

No, it's just that this decision

you know, affects the affordable housing menu.

As I mentioned in the beginning, student housing can go anywhere in the city.

We can't restrict that.

And once the project is built and let,

It's a private entity.

We have no control over as long as, I mean, of course, fair housing requirements, they're going to want to adhere to those.

But the city has no control over who they choose to rent to.

I think that does it for me for my questions about this.

Mr. Brodhead, did you consider any other ways of designating what is central grounds and what is north grounds?

I was primarily looking at contiguous parcels and ownership.

I've never been asked to make a determination like this, where you have to factor in distances from campus.

I mean, yes, correct.

I look at

On maps.

Correct.

Correct.

There's a, it just, you know, being a direct line from edge of main campus area, central grounds and north grounds to the edge of the subject parcel.

I took that information and made a decision.

I also ran my decision by

a couple other staff members in my office and this was created as the determination.

The Albemarle GIS.

Which way does it go?

Does it go out that way?

Yeah, so the pocket park is this down here, goes out to this point.

So that's University.

Yeah, how would it work?

Same deal.

So that's the same.

It comes out to this point.

It comes out to this point.

All right, so how long is this again?

I don't know if we even have a definition of what a parcel is.

According to the county, the GIS maps, the larger part is a parcel that encompasses the railroad tracks within it.

It's not broken.

Mr. Bristol, just to clarify, when you use the term parcel, legal definitions, it's a legal one.

There are boundaries to a legal parcel.

What is the total parcel?

The total parcel is, I mean, that whole blue area.

They actually, in this parcel, they don't, they include the railroad tracks.

As far as I know, this boundary has not changed since 1939.

I mean, so UVA's acquired more property beyond here.

They own Stacey Hall.

They own pretty much all the way down to

I don't even know.

Sorry, I don't know.

But as far as the half mile radius, that wouldn't change if UVA bought another lot?

I don't think so.

That would not be included?

I think we would go back to our city charter which denotes the properties in 1939 which

In 1939, what was considered outlying properties?

That's a whole, what you're thinking about is in the APU manual.

That's a much newer document.

That wasn't what was talked about in 1939.

The ADO manual, I think it's two years old?

I think it's a non-contiguous parcel.

The thing's at 29.

Yeah, 29.

This little one over here, just because it's older than 1939, it's considered continuous.

No, I think that the one all the way at the point near the 250 bypass, is that correct?

Yeah.

That might be incorrect on the north ground part of the parcel that was recently purchased by UVA.

This map was, some of the parcels on the north grounds might not be correct, but we're focusing on central grounds and that has not been touched.

As I mentioned, there's large

Right, but is there any

It doesn't differentiate between central grounds, north grounds, other places?

Thank you.

Any other questions for staff or the appellant?

Okay, then I'm going to announce us as ready to begin our deliberations.

Is it supposed to be a motion?

Well, I closed the public hearing and I closed the questioning so we could go to move on to deliberations and a decision.

I have a legal question for Mr. Dadak which is that I think at least two public commenters suggested that we refer this back to council for a clarification.

It's unfortunate out of your authority you decide to issue presented to you city council which is the change

Just to make certain that we know what we're talking about, let me editorialize a bit first.

There is a lot about the project in general that gives me a heartburn, possible gentrification, displacement of people, encroachment into a traditional African-American community by the student body at UVA.

A lot of the things that Ms. Johnson pointed out worry me as well.

But again, the question today is, is the pocket park relevant?

If the pocket park is irrelevant, is it a part of the central grounds?

And if it's a part of the central grounds,

then is it then within a half mile?

That's the only question we're being asked to answer.

If I may clarify.

What was the general understanding of what Central Grounds was meant to be?

We know that there was a great deal of discussion and consideration about traditional neighborhoods, culturally sensitive neighborhoods, low-wealth neighborhoods adjacent to the university.

And those were discussed at length and the city had trouble

coming up with a response to that.

First they were called Sensitive Neighborhoods, then there was the RNA.

And so there was a lot of deliberation about where those neighborhoods would be.

I'm assuming, I wasn't part of that deliberation, I'm assuming that that was taken into account when writing this section about where student housing would be and what the payouts would be.

to the city and the whole in lieu process.

So that's what troubles me is what was the understanding at the time the ordinance was adopted as to what central grounds would be.

Like many people who spoke here, I'm also a graduate of the university.

I've been a faculty member at the university.

This is my hometown.

I was born here.

My family operated a taxi company, and I sat in cabs that would say, downtown, at the university, at the station.

So I had a geographic sense of the city from a very, very early age.

I hear those voices in my head still.

And I always thought of this as

or the university.

I never thought of central grounds until it started to show up in planning documents of the university.

It was just grounds.

And then we had north grounds.

And so this whole concept of central grounds is something kind of new to me.

I mean, to me, it's a planning term.

But to me, it's more of a university planning term than it is a city one.

And that's why I was asking Mr. Broadhead about when it first showed up.

I came in convinced that this could be the boundary of the central grounds.

Now because there are other documents that people may have been exposed to, there may be another understanding of what central grounds is than what I was thinking.

I did not see it as a determinant term until

other people started to speak about it.

And like you, I'm very troubled by this and I was probably one of the few people who dared to speak out loud that there were some things wrong with this code because it was so housing oriented that to speak against it you would be shamed and blamed.

But I was always concerned that this would have effects on low-income neighborhoods adjacent to the university and that there would be unintended consequences.

We have a legal question to decide.

Yeah, I think we've seen time and time again that this code has a lot that is missing.

We found issues coming to the board around fence heights and line of sites, things that were very deliberate in the old code that isn't

It's spelled out in this one and it creates issues.

I think that lack of specificity is apparent here when they use generalized terms like central grounds and north grounds that can mean anything, can mean a hundred different things we've heard today, can mean the rotunda is the centerpiece of what Thomas Jefferson viewed as

The place for students, right, in this founding that was the central place and everything around it, really the university it all shapes from the rotunda, but it can also just be land that the university owned or was donated to it prior to 1939.

So I think this is where defining it just by boundaries gets really

And so using general terms to say central grounds, I think it's really not helpful and it creates all these issues that we have.

So I would feel really troubled in saying, hey, these lines are exactly where UVA is if that wasn't exactly the intent.

They used very broad terms for a reason.

Would be helpful.

But we don't have that.

We have the code that says that the zoning administrator determines that.

And he determined that this development was within that half mile radius.

We've heard a lot of opinions about whether or not this quote pocket park unquote is part of UVA or part of Central Grounds or it's very nebulous and I wish that we had more

exact language to describe these things, but here we are.

I guess I personally I have heard anything that leads me to think that the zoning administrator was wrong in their determination.

Would you like to make a motion?

I move to affirm the zoning determination dated December 11, 2025, that the development at 202 7th Street SW is within a half mile of campus, as determined by the zoning administrator, and consider it student housing per section 34

dash 4 dot 2 dot 2 dot c dot 2 dot c. And in support, make the following findings that the project is within one half mile of campus.

Is there a second?

My heart would not like to, my heart is not happy with the project as it is, but my brain's telling me that the narrow thing that we're focusing on, again, are within the five mile radius.

Thank you.

And what do we need?

Do we need a majority or do we need three?

We can check with council, but I believe we need three votes.

So if it's 50-50, it is, what happens?

Motion.

Motion does not carry.

OK. Do we have to rehear it in front of the whole five?

Well, either there will be another motion.

If there is no other acts, it requires a majority of the board to overturn Mr. Broadhead's decision.

So if it's a 50-50 vote, then reads, determination stands.

Is that the pathway?

That would be the next step for anyone who wishes to appeal.

All right.

OK.

So we have a motion.

We have it seconded.

Is there any further discussion on this?

I will just say that I believe that

Mr. Broadhead acted in good faith defining central grounds in a way that was consistent with his background and his experience in the city, but this was part of the university.

and therefore part of central grounds because it certainly wasn't part of north grounds and it wasn't part of the medical center.

So I think he acted in good faith.

I think it's the ordinance and the language of the ordinance and the ADU manual that's flawed.

And that's what makes it a very difficult

decision.

And I think it's a culturally sensitive decision rather than one that is about physicality and dimensions.

Because whatever is built there will have an effect on the neighborhood.

It will overwhelm it and it will bring about change.

I find it possibly

difficult to believe that it will become an affordable housing project.

It could, but I find it difficult to think that it would, so I think whatever goes there will be a luxury housing project that is large and overwhelming, most likely.

It's a very difficult decision to make.

and I think if we were asked to say whether this was part of Central Grounds because we were going to remove the former monument, we would probably say it's Central Grounds so it could be projected.

And I would think that that thinking was very central to the university, to the community, and it's just a real dilemma whether this is Central Grounds or not.

I think it's hard to say what is central grounds because the university changes those dimensions all the time.

It determines when a part that it has funding to develop now becomes the corridor and the entrance to the university.

And they will name and rename areas that suit their planning purposes or their fundraising

Something else programmatic.

So it's unfortunate about the use of the name and not the use of the boundaries.

Well, are we ready to vote?

Are you guys ready?

Mr. Mitchell.

Yes.

That's two nays, two ayes.

OK, thank you.

I think you've been misguided by your attorney and I want to quote to you from Virginia Code.

This is not a time for public comment.

I just want to clarify, if anyone else wants to make other motions, they can.

Yes.

You don't have to.

Yes, thank you.

No one else makes any other motions and you move on.

Okay, thank you for clarifying that.

Mr. Mitchell, did you have something to say?

No.

There isn't much room for compromise.

I mean I entered this room thinking that I would support it.

It wouldn't bother me a bit.

Then we're happy to hear from Mr.

I am literally looking at section 15.2-2311 at the moment.

This is particularly for Mr. Dadak, given his advice until he is off of you.

Section A covers the appeal to the board.

Yes, thank you.

I'll be less than three minutes.

I am looking at literally section 15.2-2311 appeals to board from the Virginia Code.

This is the Virginia Code.

There's a paragraph D.

in this that says in any appeal taken pursuant to this section if the board's attempt to reach a decision results in a tie vote the matter may be carried over until the next scheduled meeting at the request of the person filing the appeal.

I formally submit that request here and now that we carry this over until you have five members and you can come to a not tied vote.

America doesn't like ties.

There are no ties in American sport.

Here's the text for you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for calling that to our attention.

He can.

OK. And that would be at the next meeting.

What about the 90 days?

Does that?

Assume the city does not object.

Although I will point out that the public hearing on this matter has closed.

Correct.

So there won't be any more hearing about it.

It's tabled.

The public hearing is done.

There will be no public hearing.

There will be no public comment.

We would convene, take that information into account, and we would have

You need the deliberations date, that's correct.

Okay.

Yeah.

We're happy.

Thank you.

Okay.

It's been an interesting and difficult meeting, and I think it calls out

The Unintended Consequences of this Zoning Code and the need for it to be refined and better defined in a number of areas.

It's time that the comprehensive plan is being reviewed now and the zoning ordinance can always be amended and I think this shows the difficulty that we've had and that staff has had and it also calls out the importance of very precise language and good maps that we can rely on.

So are there any other matters from the board today?

No.

All in favor, please say aye.