Planning Commission Work Session   8/25/2026

That's Betsy and Hosea.

Just lovely.

Yes, I can do my best.

You might want to just explain what y'all are working on and how it fits into your bigger, larger roles at the Planning Commission.

I actually have an additional idea that's come to me from talking with city staff that I'd like to raise and of course we can add others as well.

And it seems like they don't even set the date for their legislative session yet.

It's challenging to work with.

Anyway, I was trying to be all up on everything, and I have to say.

Unbelievably successful, in my opinion.

It was packets.

Let's do item by item.

I think it's especially attractive and has a good chance of passing this year.

What's the reason that they didn't get adopted this year?

But my understanding is that she wants to carry it.

So that then it gets in front of them sooner to try to mitigate the issue of us getting the delegate call in and Senator Deeds too late.

I think it could easily be paired with the previous one and couldn't succeed.

Is there a situation where this was a problem recently?

So our recommendation is that if the locality can define that, it can be more appropriate for the needs of the locality.

And we're trying to be able to potentially change that level of standard.

Basically to make special exceptions more possible.

I believe that goes to

That's good.

Just a quick, how is such a, so when people come and they're building a shed on a critical slope and it's not, you know, it's very small and we've said, okay, you know, how is that different or is it different than what we're trying to do here?

We've gone too far for me.

reached that level of hardship to allow that.

So it allows these small shifts locally.

But while that's on the books, it's very hard to actually do in practice because they have to prove a hardship.

15.2.2204, relief on noticing requirements for areas without a daily paper.

This has been a direct influence.

It's coming probably more, I mean.

Increasingly an issue.

Sadly.

I'm looking to Steph for details.

And I'm guessing that this would be something that would, well, the newspaper folks I'm sure will have a lot to say.

What do we do?

We, depending on what it is, there will be an advertisement put in the newspaper, and if it's something that affects individual properties, then there'll be mailings that are sent out.

Since we don't have any daily paper, do we just put it in the civil order?

We use the progress, but we have to time it such that it meets the state guidelines.

I'm just worried about less communication in a problem, but I see the other problem as well.

But the specifics I had in mind was just to give us more flexibility on when it is posted so that we have a little bit more leeway on either end.

I mean, it seems like the city's already trying to look at new ways for public engagement.

So we do the old forms that we've always done, and then we add new ones as appropriate.

C-bill TikTok coming soon.

Do we want to vote on these as we go, or how do we do this?

But I'm not willing to fight you on it.

I'm not sure I need to explain this one.

We don't have that detail right now.

My broad idea for this is to offer more clarity, ease, reduce the sort of burden, especially for localities that manage their own right of way and certainly collaborate with VDOT, but don't have that sort of intimate relationship that our counties do.

So it would be worked out in the process, I guess, is like we have a general idea and then the legislators would write something.

Charlottesville has already made our step.

State, local.

Something must have been brought to light.

Must be devils in the details.

I think that bill passed last year.

I think that one passed.

This one is near jobs, and I believe it's more the same idea, but targeted toward commercial only.

Okay.

Gotcha.

Anything else on this side?

I think it was.

If you've been reading the news today, improve the city's authority to remove or address blighted properties.

Yeah.

What's on this one?

Hello!

Maybe that's okay.

I can tell you that this was taken from the council packet.

What is, does that document say more than this document once it's written?

No.

Okay.

We don't.

I guess the language will be in the detailing of the language.

Maybe like an explicit thing like calling out equity concerns.

Yeah, I think being upfront about it and just clear definitions of what blighted means.

Sure, so please.

You know, it benefits the local neighborhood instead of going in the general city pot.

That's consistent with something you and I had a conversation with Charlie Holmes, which is illegal.

Pittsburgh did this a lot, and it's great.

There could be a pretty big project.

The two areas where I'm really thinking about is Preston and Cherry, where there's some anxiety about money coming in and people getting pushed out, making a clear tie could be, I think, beneficial.

It says it uses future gains in property tax revenues to pay for infrastructure redevelopment projects in a specific geographic area.

It's like a way to finance infrastructure.

So basically it's a guideline that then the legislators have to look at every year and honor it or not.

So I think maybe that would be another tool to offer since we haven't had that much to offer them to date in terms of support for these, you know, what's happening around them.

Is part of the timing of this with the one cent for schools is the idea that because there could be new funding sources to maintain the school system, it takes some of the pressure that these resources could be allocated to, you know, because I imagine historically it could, you know, when you do something like this, you could be diverting funds away from a future school project or something else.

I hadn't made that connection, but I think that's an interesting one.

working on multiple fronts, I guess.

That is my understanding.

Is it relief for building these things or relief from building them?

Explicit permission to allow them.

Okay, great.

Yes.

Okay.

I know the project too.

Yay.

Supporting everything in between, not just the two main events, but the idea that the trail would bring in interest and economic activity all along the trail.

I think that's the bulk of where the investment is needed is in between.

Yeah.

Short segments that are already there to make, where's the big one, is it 64?

Yeah, that's the prop.

But it has future development benefit, you know, you imagine if it's these, good connection.

And there's support from UVA on this?

You guys worked with that, right?

Study permitting less costly elevator standards in residential construction.

So be careful with that.

So I think, you know, I have the idea of not trying to lessen the cost.

Our time's a point in that one.

Nothing is unique to a singular company.

So be careful with that one.

If we want to go that way I think we need to be a little more specific.

And the typical elevated service person will take you 30 minutes to an hour to get here, so I've actually called the hiring department to get people out.

Everyone loves you and your building.

It's close to my heart.

To your whisper, my daughter is three weeks old.

She's on a waitlist somewhere.

It is

Does that just like mean a big daycare center?

And able to allow that.

I didn't get that.

Maybe take scale off.

Maybe it's more just like an urban daycare center.

Like if you're building Greenfield, you can build whatever you want, but not here.

Oh, on urban daycare center.

Yeah.

Looking at you, Danny.

Yeah.

Let's do it.

They've had a rocky road smartscape, so it's a good idea.

It should replace the language in the daycare line.

Yeah, that's a good idea.

And this was also discussed with Steph.

which if you could then that would suddenly make a lot of the more urban transportation projects much more fundable.

Is it valuable as a separate item or would it be more valuable to combine?

Is that a reform smart scale versus have a new line of funding for

I don't know like I would imagine that council and members talking to elected officials it's like you want to go with a manageable list of requests and so if there are two kind of similar ones maybe it muddies the waters a bit.

Neither is easy.

You wouldn't need to invent the, you know, reinvent the wheel.

It is burdened by state historic restrictions, which I believe are well-intentioned, but make it very difficult for the City of Charlottesville to use in any way.

So we've got a cemetery that we own, but we are not

which depending on your reading means it's impossible to use it for anything which is tough.

Classroom.

I think the idea is it could be, it's one big city block and so it could be some future development parcel to expand those services.

I had a student who did this, that property for a thesis when it was first being discussed.

I think I read that thesis.

Redraw some lines around what should be protected and what can be actually built on.

And so it sounds like there's interest in trying to open that up a little bit.

I'd be in favor of just getting rid of deed, like making deed restrictions unenforceable on and out of principle, but that's just me.

Yeah, that's true.

I was going to say there's probably things that are deed restrictions that we're not going to think of right now at this table, sort of off the cuff.

Conservation easements.

Has there been a precedent with DHR to do something like this to lessen?

It's not impossible that some agreement could be made sometime in the future, but not today.

I like the language as is.

Someone was writing that down.

Hold on, let me blow it up.

Those are all the changes I have noted.

I think for the, this is minor, but for the daycare one, we're saying use the words urban context, because that matches what we were saying before with the smart scale.

So replace the word scale with context.

Because that's what we are.

Anything more on this item?

Which I think would take some time to digest.

How did you receive it?

It came through Planning Commission.

I thought you were in the thread.

Well, I thought you responded to it actually.

No, this is like Monday, yesterday.

That's where all my planning commission emails go, unfortunately.

I'm sorry, Bill.

So I just wanted to make sure that we saw the comments at least.

Possible.

Okay, are there any other items that anyone else would like to add to the discussion of items for council to consider the legislative requests?

But I don't know where we would get the funding for that.

And I believe Habitat is now the property manager.

And I don't know about the other ones.

Right.

Because it was a challenge.

Yeah.

I don't know which department is involved in it.

We can inquire.

OK.

So for the last item, the vehicle miles traveled item, what did you mean by making that a subfold of the previous one?

So instead of making a separate vehicle miles traveled study, the idea would be that it included as a study of smart scale.

So incorporate it into the previous the SmartScale wallet?

Yes.

Okay.

All right, are there any other items before we close out the meeting?

Put it on the agenda.

All right.

Because that was the issue, you know, until today, so.

So I'll see you all then.