City Council   7/2/2018

Music Playing

Mmm

Music Playing

Music Playing

I don't know what you're talking about.

I don't know.

and Michael Kochis

All right.

Good evening.

So I call this meeting to order.

Ms. Rice, roll call, please.

Here.

Ms. Galvin.

Here.

And first, before we do proclamations, I'll apologize for delay.

We had interviews today for the city attorney position, and so we were a little delayed getting through the interviews and the rest of the closed session material.

So our apologies.

In regards to Resiliencyville, so please join us at a community briefing on the region's preparations for the August 11th and 12th anniversary.

This will take place on Thursday, July 12th, starting promptly at 6 p.m.

The location will be announced on July 3rd.

And this event will also be live streamed on Facebook and recorded for rebroadcast on the city's channel 10, which is on Comcast.

The city of Charlottesville has a website dedicated to the anniversary weekend, which includes a sign up form for email alerts and a community events calendar.

That website is www.Charlottesville.org backslash resilient Seville.

That's again, www.Charlesville.org backslash R-E-S-I-L-I-E-N-T-C-V-I-L-L-E. And in addition to that this week, on this Sunday,

There will be nearly 110 community members who will be embarking on a pilgrimage from here to Montgomery, Alabama to pick up the lynching marker.

that is at the EJI Center and will be returning back on July 13th.

I'm not mistaken.

Please feel free to come out to the Jefferson School this Saturday at 11 a.m.

There'll be a special kind of presentation event of sorts as well as a movie.

So again, that's at the African American Heritage Center this Saturday at 11 a.m. And in the pilgrimage we leave promptly.

at 7 a.m. on Sunday.

So 8 a.m.

Thank you, Ms. Parker.

It's going to be a fun trip.

So we'll be leaving probably at 8 a.m. on Sunday.

And again, don't forget to come out this Saturday.

And that's all that I have.

Mayor Walker, I apologize.

I have one more announcement for Mr. Alexander.

So on behalf of Mr. Alexander, his 10th annual summer event, Yes You Matter Think Shop, that will take place on Thursday, July 19th from 1030 to noon at Burley Middle School.

This is for all summer campers and children slash youth.

Again, this is on Thursday, July 19th, 2018.

From 1030 to noon at Burleigh Middle School, he's going to have Ephesus Drumline.

There will be a youth musician, Amir Wright.

Moved to health from Virginia Department of Health, Michael Dee, who's a magician and ventriloquist.

The Jefferson Madison Regional Library will be there, as well as the Yogo Challenge.

And again, this event is free and open to all youth.

Thursday, July 19th at Burleigh Middle School at 1030 AM.

All right, thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Walker.

Just a couple of items to update you on.

The council is considering tonight a process that would ensure that a comprehensive review of this type of request would include a public hearing and approval by the council.

And there was also discussion concerning the possibility of the city transitioning to a strong mayor form of government.

All right, thank you.

Sure.

Page.

All right, we're now moving on to community matters.

Good evening and may I welcome members of the City Council.

My name is Paul Albemarle and I reside at 100 Ridge Street here in the city of Charlottesville.

And I'm coming here tonight just to make a few remarks about the process of hiring a new city manager.

And I think it'd be entirely inappropriate for the city to hire anybody who's currently working in an appointed position for that post.

I think the events of last August showed that the city, both the appointed

and elected members of city council who are entirely unprepared for what happened.

I think in light of what may happen again, several lessons that we've learned is I think a managing director should be coming from a big urban area that has had the experience of handling these kinds of incidences, whether that person comes from New Orleans or Atlanta or Philadelphia or even Washington, D.C.

and I think it was a good thing that the city did in hiring a new police chief who had 30 years of experience in Pittsburgh.

I hope that they have the same foresight to hire somebody who has extensive experience in handling all kinds of problems.

The city of Charlottesville is not the city that it was 20 years ago in 1998 when I moved in.

It certainly is not the city that may have existed 50 years ago.

We're an urban area with a lot of problems

and the good old board network is not capable of governing this city.

And I do hope that the process of hiring a new manager, city manager, towards the end of the renewing process will be transparent and that community members will be able to meet these tentative candidates, interview them and pass judgment on whom they would like the city to hire.

Good evening.

My name is Jeff Leonard.

I operate a nonprofit at 394 Hillsdale Drive in Charlottesville.

It was my first opportunity to speak in front of council, so thank you for that honor.

I want to talk to you about the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund and my application to update 808 Cherry Avenue into 24 single occupancy affordable suites.

When we first made application, I was told that I was unqualified

I run Pocham.

I was a runner-up for United Way's Excellence in Board Governance.

I was responsible for all of our returning citizens from Virginia Department of Corrections and the local jail who came home in a homeless situation.

They came to me.

We were able to establish largely successful housing plans.

And to this day, people still come to me every week looking for housing.

I saw in Charlottesville tomorrow last week, I'm sorry, last year, that 808 Cherry Avenue had been by right approved for six four-bedroom apartments, plus a retail space in the basement.

808 Cherry Avenue was located next to Payne's Check Cashing Service next to the shops in Cherry Avenue.

I approached the owner of the property.

as well as a developer and wondered and inquired if we could form a team to develop 24 affordable suites at that property rather than six four bedroom apartments.

Things were going well for us.

We were doing fine.

Buildings approved us, affordable housing approved us or at least said we met criteria and then zoning came along and apparently there is an issue

between 24 bedrooms carved up into six apartments and the 24 low-income studio suites for our lowest net worth individuals.

We were frustrated by the response we were getting from the city so we had to hire an attorney who turned out to be our counsel on run regulations having to do with zoning.

We engaged with the city on numerous occasions.

And I think it was March 8th, we got a response from the city attorney's office with a list of questions.

On March 28th, we responded in a very expensive letter, I might add, to the city, the city attorney's office, about what we were planning to do and implied that silence was consent.

If there's no more additions to be, if there's no more hurdles to be crossed,

We are going to go forward with this project.

The city took our money.

We paid $2,200 after that and we submitted, you're supposed to submit 11 of your plans to zoning.

We submitted that and paid $2,200.

and then last Monday when it was time to make a decision as to whether we can take a loan against the CHF affordable housing for 1.3 million dollars to build it, they told us zoning was a fatal flaw and what is our plan to overcome that fatal flaw.

Members and Ladies General and Council, we've been trying to deal with this flaw for seven months and have gotten nothing back from the city until the day we were ready to break ground.

I ask that full council consider our application.

Hi everyone, Luis Oyola, Charlottesville.

Last city council meeting, I brought forward evidence of a Facebook thread showing links between the organizing group for the Unite the Right rally and specific violent plans tied to Atomwaffen, Patriot Front, Rise Above movement, and other far-right, pro-right groups with a record of violence.

I hope you have taken this seriously and have done your homework on that leading up to your defense for the permit lawsuit.

In two weeks since then, more Autumn Waffen accounts have claimed on Gap that they're providing so-called security for Unite the Right.

Kessler has attempted to disavow them, and his internal chat logs on Facebook Messenger got leaked.

I strongly recommend you read through Unicorn Riot's leak of the organizational chat for Unite the Right 2.0, as they go deeper into connections with more violent groups like Proud Boys and Hammerskins.

even if the federal judge sides with Kessler, know that this work of exposure by anti-fascists has torn apart their movement further.

So you're welcome, bootlickers.

I do want to turn your attention to one gap post this weekend from Kessler, saying in regards to not understanding so-called jokes about violence, he says, it's not that I don't understand, it's that a court and jury doesn't understand.

So he's making it clear that he doesn't actually stand against the plans for violence, he just wants to pretend long enough to win the suit.

Which brings me to my last point.

The Patriot Prayer rally in Portland last Saturday is a plausible but frightening glimpse into what's in store for Charlottesville if the rally goes on.

Portland is a much larger city with greater area and resources.

The police did the things that Heafee recommended should have been done on August 12th.

They did stadium with approach, stadium approach with checkpoints, cops in the crowd to do spot arrests, taking away or forbidding objects that could be used as weapons, amongst other things.

None of this prevented the fact that when Patriot Prairie marched in, a group mostly composed of proud boys,

came across a group of counter protesters and a street brawl ensued that easily reminds one of Charlottesville 11 months ago.

The police ended up taking back the permit and began to clear the crowd.

How did they clear the crowd?

They escorted the Proud Boys back to their shuttle bus and then faced the counter protesters from behind metal barricades and began shooting a barrage of pepper balls at the crowd.

Sidewalks had blood spilled on them and the Proud Boys went to have a party to celebrate the day's beatings.

This is what awaits Charlottesville again and the police are going to be helping the races again.

Keep in mind this picture pair rally was an anniversary rally that quote unquote disavowed violence but yet had clear evidence of planned violence beforehand.

A journalist, Shane Burley, described the scene as if the brawl was Proud Boys intention all along.

So I would say look into that.

Thank you.

Are we allowed to respond?

Well, I mean, we received a communication earlier today.

Mr. Wood, would you like to come?

Yeah, I just wanted to provide an update.

We were well aware of the Patriot Prayer event from this past weekend.

Had a meeting today to discuss that.

We'll be

having discussions with the folks in Portland to find out what they did, what they didn't do in preparation.

And all the information that you've delivered to us has been sent to our police department and others who are preparing for August 12th.

So we're taking that very seriously.

Just wanted to make sure you understood that.

Thanks.

Michelle Collier.

Mary Curry, City Resident.

Mr. Jones, thank you for moving us.

Ms. Hill, I need some credit too.

But that tree's growing next to it a little bit, coming down like a weeping willow.

That gonna be another problem.

But anyway, I just want to say to you council people, I created a petition and it took me a couple months.

I gave it to y'all and y'all messed it up terrible.

Now, you told me that y'all should have something by April.

Then you told me that y'all should have something by June.

This July.

And see, you take a simple thing and you start making it like it's so complicated that you can't get common sense to get it right.

It didn't have to take that long to get two names.

I mean, you started off with three names for each park,

The most voted on name would get the names of the party.

Then you went back and say, OK, we're going to do this again.

You did it again.

Then all of a sudden, you stick another name up in there that only got 125 votes, called Swanson.

Now you're telling me, I got an email from Ms. Rice and Vice Mayor Hill that said we would know something by this meeting.

Then you got a whole lot of people out there doing interviews telling folk how the petition came about.

Well they don't know how it came about because I wrote it.

Nobody asked me.

So what I'm saying is, is next meeting going to be the deadline for y'all to stop this bullshit?

Because I got that petition out for a reason.

and it was a reason for my heritage.

Now, I don't know what y'all doing, but I don't like it.

I got another petition that I got.

I'm getting ready to put that out if this don't go right.

And this time I think that the community going to be very, very upset.

And you need to cut that lottery out because it's beginning to drive me crazy.

Talk about this lottery where you got to sign in and all this kind of stuff after you done put your email in on Friday.

Then people come in on Monday and call y'all, and then the people that did the emails are on the wait list.

I don't know how that go.

Y'all said six months, two years ago.

The lottery's still going on.

See, y'all making this community crazy.

And then you want to know what's wrong.

Looking at it.

Just to give council a brief update, Brian Wheeler, Director of Communications.

The online survey for the parks renaming did close on Saturday night.

We are going to continue accepting the paper ballots because some of them arrived late in the utility bills.

some as late as last Friday and Saturday in the utility bills.

So we'll continue to take those in.

But just so you know, we've gotten 3300 votes online, about 100 voicemails, and about 700 paper ballots.

So I think we've gotten a good piece of feedback for you to consider at your next meeting.

Thank you.

and Karen Kelly, resident of Palatine Avenue in the city.

Thank you mayor and city council for the opportunity to speak to you tonight.

My name is Tom Vandiver.

I live at 916 Druid Avenue and I wanted to talk, first I wanted to thank you and the city attorney

for moving so quickly to establish this proposed blasting ordinance.

Interestingly enough, our current city code safeguards life and property partly by prohibiting all fireworks, including even sparklers.

because of the perceived danger of those items.

Yet, hundreds of our Belmont neighbors are currently threatened by a blasting plan that would shatter our security.

and shattered it with 48 high explosive subterranean detonations.

Detonations that have a very high probability of damaging the older and fragile houses and infrastructure in our area.

A number of our residents

are present tonight and I'd like to ask them to stand quickly.

I think several may speak in a few minutes.

We also have over 100 petition signatures expressing the serious concern about this blasting plan and of course the potential danger and damage to our properties.

Home insurance won't cover damages from this type of construction activity, and property owners have to absorb the cost of any repairs, especially in the case, for example, of the Terra Cotta sewer lines that are throughout Belmont.

If they happen to be cracked by the blasting, the damage might not be recognized for 18 months or more after the fact.

We know that many less dangerous methods exist to remove the rock from this site.

The developer instead is looking for a quick solution to augment his profits.

Unfortunately, it's the neighborhood that's being asked to underwrite the cost.

And so on behalf of my Belmont neighbors, we would like to ask council to move quickly to implement this ordinance.

and to subsequently deny any blasting permit for this particular site.

We also request that you consider inserting language in the draft of the first reading which I think you have that we've given you that would allow longer term security, a longer term security bond paid by the applicant and administered by the city manager that would protect the

neighborhoods from damages not immediately apparent.

So if you need me to read that suggested language, I can, but.

So we suggest the following language amendment to be added at the end of paragraph section 5-208C Roman numeral 4 that says security bonds provided by the applicant and administered by the city manager may be required by the city council.

Mr. Vanderveer.

That just came in today.

It's been really hard to find time to look through other communities ordinances.

I also will say that what we tried to do with this ordinance is have this be separate from but in addition to

any review by the fire department.

And it's my understanding that it's possible that the issue of a property damage bond is possibly already contemplated by some of the fire code regulations that might be in place.

So unfortunately, I'm not really prepared to say for sure

I would just say that that's part of the reason this sentence is not

too specifically.

So I just wanted to say not only to you, but the residents of Belmont, we appreciate y'all coming out and making your voice heard.

When I saw this earlier, I think you emailed it to us last night.

I'm not mistaken.

As you might imagine, it's almost impossible to get all the neighbors together.

And I think some others may speak tonight.

Just looking at the agenda here, I mean, this is item six, so I know we'll speak more about it in depth, but I'm in full support.

I think this is a fantastic idea.

And I think it's only right, especially in terms of the potential damage that could come to your homes that

you have some kind of security.

So thank y'all for putting this together.

Mayor Walker, may I say something?

And I just want to say thank you to all the residents of Belmont that have come tonight.

And I also want to thank the early residents that began making this an issue at the last council meeting and bringing it to our attention.

It is a very serious issue.

I appreciate your diligence and your advocacy on the part of your neighborhood.

I want to say ditto and I also want to say to Mr. Leonard, just because we got him removing quickly, I do hope that we can get advice from staff on this.

It seems like

a situation that warrants some real concern and it is you're doing work to try and increase affordable housing and I would very much like to know and it's not the first concerns I've heard about zoning getting in the way of

Mayor Walker, may I say something?

Just related to Mr. Leonard's proposal, just some information, we are going to have a work session as a council to talk about revising our zoning as well as completing a comprehensive plan and then also integrating it with housing

Affordable Housing Production Action Plan.

So the first work session is going to be August 23rd, and the second work session is going to be August 30th.

They're going to be talking about all those issues, from comp plan to zoning, to then actually building affordable units, and looking at zoning in kind of conjunction with the need to change that zoning to allow for more affordable housing opportunities.

So I just want to let everyone know about that.

But I definitely want to find out what those detailed problems are as to why this can't happen.

Cherry Avenue has been crying for development of all kinds, and the community I know is behind affordable housing.

So I really want to underscore that.

I want to know what the detailed problem is.

because it will inform the revisions of our zoning ordinance so we don't keep doing this project upon project upon project.

It's delay, delay, delay.

But you're asking for a more immediate answer, right?

You know, I negotiated this with the with the owner of the property that it would happen this budget cycle.

and I think our agreement sort of runs out once the city budget is adopted and with the price of now that it's public that that land is worth, you can build six four bedroom apartments on it.

I imagine some phones gonna be ringing tomorrow morning and I'm through the end of this month with that consortium right now and after that I think we're all going our own ways and we, you know, we could maybe get back together but we're, time is tight for us and that's why we started

in November and December negotiating with the city to try to make sure this could happen.

We anticipated occupancy.

this January of 2020.

To Ms. Galvin's point, we have 22,000 signatures from the community.

Somebody even gave us a poem.

You are correct that there is a lot of community support for this.

And I try not to respond in my personal life out of frustration and anger.

So I'm trying to keep it in right now.

But I'm hurt that this isn't going forward as it is now.

Thank you.

Good evening, counselors.

My name is Chris Henry.

I'm the president of Stony Point Design Build.

And later tonight, you will be hearing a resolution on the Dairy Central project.

And I wanted to take the opportunity to let you know that we have an expert team in the audience tonight, including Lee Quill with Cunningham and Quill, Craig Katarski with the Timmons Group, Luke and Todd with Water Street Studio, and Ashley Davies with Williams Mullen

Any questions on the resolution, please feel free to ask.

And I wanted to highlight a couple of things about the project that I think we would like to get on the record.

One is the community engagement process that we undertook to develop this project.

We had numerous public meetings.

large and some small format, including a series of community advisory council meetings with the neighborhood and direct stakeholders around the building.

And we, through that process, we uncovered a few community needs that we tried to meet as we developed this project.

The first and foremost is affordable housing.

We are going to be providing 20 units of affordable housing on site.

That's three times what the city's current affordable housing ordinance would require us to build and nearly 30% of the additional density that we're requesting tonight

We also are providing a community meeting space that was desperately needed in 10th and Page.

Currently they're holding their meetings in the living room of City of Promise and it's literally elbow to elbow.

Third is job creation.

There's going to be literally hundreds of jobs created through this project, some on-site during the construction project and others as we get the buildings operating.

There will be vendor jobs, there will be building maintenance jobs, there will be all sorts of private jobs created just managing these types of buildings.

And last is sustainability.

Phase one of this project is targeting LEED Silver certification for the office component

and Phase 2 which is the residential component will be targeting an Earthcraft certification for the residents.

So those are the things we wanted to have on the record as you consider your resolution later tonight and thank you for listening.

Mayor Walker, I do have one question for Mr. Henry.

About the job creation, are you working with the growing opportunity program?

So we've met with the Go Charlottesville program with Holly and the folks there.

We've actually done a tour on one of our projects to show some of the people that are going through that program right now, parts of the construction process and what jobs could be created through construction.

and our contractors committed to doing a job fair as they get phase one started this August.

Thank you.

Mayor, Councilman, thank you very much for the opportunity to talk with you this evening.

Ms. Galvin, thank you for your kind words.

about Belmont and our residents and my neighbors.

My name is James Kelly.

If you've kept up with your correspondence over the past week or so, you will recognize the name.

I've sent several of you some correspondence, some of the issues I have.

I'm also a resident of Belmont and a resident of the alleged 500-foot

Impact Zone that these blasts will affect, which is absolutely not correct at all.

It's much more extensive than that.

That's why the state requires a lot further distance.

It says 500 feet.

I also carry a Class A general contractor's license in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

I've got some 40 years' worth of experience in design, construction, and management, everything from entry-level residential units to multimillion-dollar corporate office centers.

I'm no novice to construction.

I'm also familiar with blasting as part of construction.

A lot of my projects have required blasting as part of the foundation work.

Forgive me if I move rather quickly.

I know time is short and I don't want to tie things up.

I've used blasting as part of my construction work in past projects, so I'm not unfamiliar with how that's done.

The blasting that's about to take place

at Belmont Point poses a real serious risk to the residents, especially the ones very close in, but not only them, but others as well.

I live on Palatine, and that's also at risk.

and there are several reasons for it.

For those that are non-technical, let me just briefly review a little bit of some of the issues that we have.

You've heard Tom talk a couple of minutes ago about the terracotta pipe.

The terracotta pipe is extremely fragile.

It was put in, for the most part, beginning in the 1920s, primarily began very heavily in the 1930s through the 1950s when other pipes became available.

By now it is extremely fragile, very delicate, and is prone to collapsing at the slightest

unnecessary vibration.

The city has gone a long way to reinforce your pipes.

There are yours terracotta pipes in the streets through, um, reinforcing tubes inside of his pipes.

But the primary problem with the residents is that all the terracotta pipes with virtually every home in Belmont, which is terracotta, has not been reinforced, and it is very delicate, very susceptible to vibration.

The second big issue, and the problem with the terracotta pipe is if there's a crack or a collapse, you will not know it for a year, you will not know it for six months, you won't know it for a long time after this developer is gone in the Bermuda somewhere on a boat.

You will never know.

And then whatever's in that pipe is going to land on the homeowners and they're going to be responsible for fixing it.

The second problem is Belmont's homes were built primarily, I'll quit if you'd like,

Belmont homes were built primarily using cinder block.

You may have read that.

I think I brought that up with Karen and David Katz a few weeks ago.

We've built an old cinder block, and the cinder blocks are at risk.

Cinder block is not the same as a concrete block.

Everyone says concrete block now, or cinder block.

They say that as a generic phrase.

They mean concrete block, but real cinder block.

It's very fragile.

It is now in the neighborhood of 80 years old on some of these homes, especially the ones on Druid, right across the street from where this development is going to take place.

Drive on Druid, and you can see the elevations of the homes sticking up out of the ground.

The foundations are quite high, six, seven, eight feet sometimes.

And the reason it's a problem is this.

Center block and concrete block were made for vertical compression loading, loading one block on top of another with a vertical compression load pattern.

When you start having vibrations in the ground, such as seismic vibrations or blasting, those blocks start to move this way, non-vertical.

Those blocks are not intended or designed to move laterally.

Not until the concrete walls or concrete blocks and cinder blocks are reinforced specifically for lateral movement will they withstand that kind of movement without cracking.

When a cinder block wall begins to crack, it'll crack primarily at the joints where the mortar is, and then that makes that wall pretty unstable.

You heard Tom mention earlier there are alternate ways of doing the work that this developer wants to do.

There's chip hammering, there's a stinger,

on the front end of a front end loader and unfortunately the sound of this pecking for endless months is irritating but is not dangerous.

The reason it's serious is because there are senior citizens, retirees, blue collar workers, teachers that live in these homes and that will be living in these homes that if the foundations are cracked they will be at risk.

That's why it's so serious to us because there are people's lives and safety and health at risk.

if anything happens at those homes.

So, as Tom said, we request that you deny it until a public hearing is held until a lot more information can be gathered, and it could be made clear to this developer that if he insists upon blasting, that he accepts the full load of the responsibility for damage that occurs.

Our senior citizens and our residents should not be accepting a risk that this contractor wants to impose on our homes.

I've provided everyone on the council with copies so you all can follow along or read later if you'd like to.

My name is Paul Nelson.

I live on Denali Way in Charlottesville.

I've come here tonight to inform you as well as warn you about an upcoming recession that's going to happen in about 12 to 16 months from now.

and this won't be a mild recession.

This is going to be a very serious economic downturn.

The Federal Reserve Bank rates now, the fund rates are very low.

Other central bank rates are very low as well.

There's not a lot of room for reversal of these rates.

There's not a lot of room to cut these rates anymore.

So I implore you, your job is to prepare the city, our budgets for this upcoming downturn.

What you may have to do is look into rolling back or doing some cuts to public housing, to some of our social welfare programs, libraries, or whatever they may be, whatever those programs are.

Please keep the police department and fire department running.

Please keep the public utilities in mind when budgeting, the public works and so forth.

And so I predict a very drastic downturn in our future from what I'm seeing now.

So you can read through the information I've provided tonight and predict that this will happen very soon.

And do you all have any questions for me?

Thank you.

OK, thank you.

How are you tonight?

I'm Kristin DeBaun.

I live at 816 Stonehenge Avenue in Belmont section of the city.

And Mr. Vanderveer and Mr. Kelly have already articulated eloquently with Elan and Plone the issue about the blasting in Belmont section of the city.

So I'm going to be

a little bit cheeky and a little bit funny about it because if I wanted to start like a landfill at the top of that mountain across from Quarry Park, you would deny my permit.

Or if I wanted to start a sarin gas factory, you would tell me no.

Or if I wanted to start a coal-fired power plant, you would tell me no.

And yet we're gonna allow somebody to go up there with explosives.

and blow the side of that hill off.

And I know I'm exaggerating a little bit.

So that they can build houses that start from the upper 300s.

And that would address what the other August gentleman that was here before does not necessarily suit our community well.

But I'll circle around to one point and then I'll just let it go from there.

If you looked back at the articles that I sent you, and I've emailed almost everybody in this group before,

the airport blasting of 2013.

those homeowners were left holding the bag.

That is the most important thing because I've got no way to prove that my foundation or my sewer line that terracotta pipes that Mr. Kelly mentioned are sound and fair.

I mean, yes, I could probably have some expensive service like survey my lines, but if I go back to that insurance company after the damage is done, after that seismic shaking that travels through my neighborhood and shatters the foundation or shatters the pipes,

I can guarantee you the insurance company, because I called my insurance company the other day and they said, oh no, the culpability is back on the developer.

So it's me and the developer.

And if you look back at what happened with that airport blasting, the developer walked away from that and the homeowners had to pay for it themselves.

And not to be

Not nice to the people who live in Walnut Hill.

That's an expensive neighborhood.

Those houses go from $500,000 to a million dollars.

We're talking about Belmont.

And we're talking about elderly residents that are not going to be able to pay $4,000 to have that line that runs out of their foundation or a crack foundation repaired.

So it's a serious issue.

Tanisha Hudson, City of Charlottesville.

While I really do appreciate all the people from Belmont here to talk about the Belmont Blasting, I want to point out a couple issues.

Belmont not the only neighborhood having issues right now when it comes to housing.

We have an area wide issue when it comes to housing.

So the same compassion that I'm hearing up here for y'all, feeling for them for a blast and that's about to take place, you should have the same compassion for the mold that's being developed and the high rise or hard to drive.

I mean, you can go up a hard to drive.

I mean, the drainage from where the rain's supposed to fall, that stuff is leaning and falling off.

Some of it's not even attached on there.

Like this is ridiculous, the state that this city is in when it comes to this housing crisis.

Like, I believe that you guys really fail to see what the real issue is when it comes to moderate to low income people needing a place to live around here.

And what I appreciate, Jeff, them wanting to build 24 studio units, you have to look out for families that have nowhere to go.

You guys just put $200,000 aside for a voucher program.

Thank you, Wes.

They can't even find nowhere to live.

Like this is a huge issue.

And you talking about what the problem is with zoning.

Kathy, we not gonna play those games, darling.

We know what the problem is.

The problem sitting in the room.

They about to build on Water Street right there and they gonna get 20 units affordable.

We 5,000 units short.

Like this city continues to display a narrative that this is a white only city.

You don't even care about people that look like me.

You don't even care about the black businesses that's being displaced.

H&H Quality Car Care, Mel's Barbershop.

He had to move.

He had a parking issue.

Mel's Diner has been dealing with a parking issue since he opened his door.

And here y'all gave away 75 or whatever the amount of money was for downtown businesses.

Can we give black businesses a grant so that they can do something to better themselves?

Because they are feeling the struggling effect of this city.

So, while you guys continue to hold on to a narrative or a legacy that Thomas Jefferson don't even want no more, God bless his soul, I mean, you know, he played with his sister, I mean his wife's sister, they're changing the narrative.

We need to change it of Charlottesville.

You cannot create narratives like a city of resistance in a world-class city when you ain't for everybody.

Like y'all just don't comprehend that we're not for everybody.

We're not.

Black people can't walk down the street without stopping first.

We can't walk down the street on Main Street without people

Looking at us all crazy like we never even belonged on this street like do y'all understand the effect that black people feel in this city like you might as well put up a big ass sign and say we just ain't wanted here because that's exactly what it feels like like we're just not we're not wanted in a city that our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents slave to slave to even contribute to

But here we are having compassion for Blaston and I'm sorry I didn't want to blast on your street.

Don't think that I don't care because I really do care.

But until we can care for everybody in this city, we cannot and we will not move forward.

And then you don't want an event like August the 12th.

You don't want them to come back.

They're going to come back because you continue to make this a white space.

You continue to make this about white people.

You have to include us.

We deserve to be here.

We paid our dues.

We worked too damn hard to keep being pushed out of our neighborhoods.

Stop saying that you don't understand where the problem is coming from and face it.

They might be your friends.

You might eat lunch with them.

You might go play golf with some of them.

I don't know.

But you know what a problem is.

Hire developers that want to fight the housing crisis.

Melvin Burr, Ms. Hudson, Ms. Walker, Mayor Walker, may I respond to Ms. Hudson?

Oh, sure.

Who?

She's talking to me.

To me?

So, Ms. Hudson, thank you for your compassionate speech.

I can't address all of it because you

We went through a whole lot, but again, we appreciate it.

So tonight, you're going to hear from Ms. Deanna Scarzone, who is the newly hired position in the city to specifically focus on minority businesses.

So I think Mr. Burse is going to be talking about that coming up as well.

But this is item nine on the agenda.

So I also would like for you and Ms. Deanna to get together at some point.

So for her to explain our plans and our thoughts for minority businesses specifically in the area and also how we can look at providing some of those grants that you were discussing.

As you may recall, last year when I, excuse me, bought up the minority business positions in the council and whatnot, we've been working, the task force has been working for nearly a year, we have it here now, but we definitely could use your input in regards to how we continue to move forward.

So thank you.

Deanna Cyril, you'll meet her at the, because again, she's item nine.

So I just want to say the conversation is great Wes, but I think at this point we need a check cut.

The same way we cut that check for the downtown businesses, I'm going to need a check cut for these black people.

They are really struggling.

They're feeling a real effect.

So part of the initiative was for us to figure out how we can get more resources to minority businesses to figure out how we can start them.

How do we provide different things like bonding in order for business to be able to get started.

And those are funds that we can, as a council, can decide to move forward with.

but we have to be able to have the plan in place.

So I understand where you're coming from in regards to there has to be, you know, a check needs to be cut or we're tired of talking but the plan has to be there and that's specifically what this task force is for.

We got two positions specifically to deal just with this.

We've never had positions before dealing specifically with minority businesses.

So was there a plan for the funds that was distributed to downtown?

I wasn't here today to take the vote.

I'm going to hurry up and sit down because other people want to talk.

But here's the thing, that's good we're looking in the future.

I'm all for it.

However, we need to look at the people that have been here and have been struggling.

They won't struggle.

They can say what they want.

They won't struggle.

So if I need to get somebody to write a grant to sit on your desk, I'm happy to do that.

because they have been dealing with the effect, have always dealt with the effect, and never received any funding.

So if you can do it for one, you can do it for all.

I was raised, if you can't give one, you don't give nobody.

So they need to get it, period.

Looking forward in the future, I'm all for it.

I need to talk to Deanna.

But in the meantime, we need to figure out how to get these black people that been here, males.

Mails Barbershop, H&H Quality Car Kit is being pushed from the Monticello Dirt.

We need to get these people some funding.

They're feeling a real effect and if we don't help them, their doors are gonna close.

Downtown ain't going nowhere because there's too many people that cater to downtown.

So they're not catering to black businesses.

So we can't stay in business if we don't take care of businesses that's already flourishing.

I agree with you and I think we're saying the same thing because I feel like

The businesses that you're talking about, specifically the black-owned businesses, that's what this task force, they'll be working specifically with them.

And they're up.

So again, let's figure out how we can work together there.

A grant writing.

A grant writing.

Thank you counsel.

Melvin Boris, 912 Evergreen Road, Louisa.

I came here on a Pacific purpose, but first I'm going to do a sidetrack and say two things.

I suggest you listen to Ms. Hudson because she speaks the truth.

Too many times we hear things, but we just don't listen.

And I'm telling you, sooner or later, the truth will come out.

and you wonder, well, why didn't we do something about it?

The other thing I want to say about is this Resolution 7 on Dairy Central about these homegrown employers, workers that are going to be putting on the job.

I hope you have a plan to follow up to make sure it's just not another ruse of putting in something in a grant proposal and it never happens.

I hope you take the time to monitor it to make sure what they say they're doing that they do do it.

My purpose here is I was concerned when I heard the council did not extend the city manager's contract.

And it really hurt me because I know he's done a great job

He's done the best he can with what he had to work with.

And then I spoke to, and I was gonna say a lot more, and then I spoke to Councilman Bellamy.

And so I decided to just cut it back down.

So I came just to say to the city manager, I appreciate what you have done for me and the residents of Charlottesville.

and the sacrifices that you have made for the residents and your family.

So with a great degree of sincerity and humility, I say simply thank you for all you have done and I know you will continue to do the best you can for the residents of Charlottesville and the city itself.

and I want to just say God bless you and speak with you as you go on to your next season because I know we'll be successful.

You have all the tools and talents that it's not recognized and I just want to say thank you for being a friend.

Thank you, Mr. Burse.

Thank you, sir.

I thank you for the opportunity for letting me speak.

I live at 914 Druid Avenue and I've been there for 23 years.

I've had until recently a lovely kind of wooded surrounding in my backyard.

Now there's just a big muddy scar that's about to get a lot worse if you permit the blasting to begin.

One thing I wanted to point out was for probably about three or four years ago, Tri-State came in and they relined a lot of the pipes under the street.

But they come back probably every four months or so and have to dig up the street because there's so many springs that just leach into the street starting up at the park at Belmont Park.

and I'm sure it's not cheap to have them come in and keep addressing this problem.

Any kind of seismic activity is going to

exacerbate that problem significantly, I would think.

When I bought my house, there was a vertical crack from the basement side, and it goes up to about midway on the first story.

And I was assured when I bought my house that this crack was stable and would be okay.

But again, any kind of seismic activity is going to really screw that up.

I work for Charlottesville City Schools.

I work at Jackson Viya, our district school.

My take-home pay is

about $10 an hour after they take out for insurance and stuff.

I'm facing retirement fairly soon.

I'm not going to be able to afford it if things get really screwed up with my house.

There's just no way that I can pay for any damage that's done.

Anyway, I just beseech you to please do what you can to help out the 700

houses that will be, or 700 people that will be affected by any blasting that might take place.

Hi my name is Kristin Ulrich.

I too live on Druid Avenue and many of my neighbors have already spoken very eloquently about the proposed blasting and I just wanted my opportunity to speak and express my concerns as well.

My husband and I are both public school educators as well with small children and I was so struck by the past at Walnut Hill and how those homeowners were

never compensated for the damage to their homes.

And as my neighbor said, those were very expensive homes.

We don't have $25,000 to repair our foundation.

We don't have $5,000 to repair our terracotta pipes.

And it's just extremely concerning how quickly this was moving forward.

So we appreciate you taking the time to hear from us.

And please consider the

Good evening.

I'm here today to make a simple point.

Hitler was not the only Nazi.

This may sound like hyperbole and exaggeration since the word Hitler rightly conjures images of genocide and early American complacency.

U.S. military heroics were too late to save millions of lives crushed by a brutal yet very public regime.

I make the point that Hitler was not the only Nazi because some wish to imagine the horrors of Germany in World War II as crimes that Hitler committed alone.

This is not the case.

The entire culture gradually, yet eventually, supported that fascist regime.

Teachers, secretaries, engineers, bookkeepers,

Regular citizens aided and supported this brutality through a highly effective strategy, a combination of apathy and the normalization of those changing aspects of their culture.

Gradually, yet eventually, things that would have been unthinkable became possible, then desirable.

All of this transpired in full view of the public.

I'm here today to urge council and all city and county residents to beware the dangers of fascists that are harnessing democratic institutions for their own aims.

This has happened in Charlottesville already.

We've seen it when fascists press criminal charges against those they attack in parking garages.

Thankfully, that case resulted in exoneration.

We've seen it on Friday when a fascist filed a civil claim against an anti-racist activist for yelling at him in public.

That the activist was deemed guilty is a legal precedent that should trouble all of us who believe in freedom.

White supremacists are not a protected class, but more importantly, they are trying to change the terms of this conversation, making themselves the victims of those who they want to destroy.

They are using the language of civility as a cover to conceal and sanction their white supremacist agenda.

Let's not normalize white supremacy as a matter of politeness.

Let's not claim that all opinions deserve a hearing.

This false equivalency is more than lazy thinking.

It is a soft-boiled endorsement of destructive ideas that unravel the social fabric of our community.

White supremacy has harmed this community in the past.

White supremacy has harmed this community in the present.

It is up to us to decide if we will allow it to continue to harm us into the future.

Normalize resistance.

Civility does not require compliance to a white supremacist agenda.

And I also wanted to close by urging everyone to donate to the Charlottesville Community Resilience Fund.

You can find that at bit.ly slash cvillefund.

That's b-i-t dot l-y slash c-v-i-l-l-e-f-u-n-d.

Katrina Turner, Charlottesville.

First of all, I'm going to piggyback off of Don a little bit with liberty and justice for all until all citizens have justice for all.

I mean, we really do need to stop putting our flag, our heart to that flag, because justice is not for all people here in Charlottesville.

That's one.

Two.

The letter we wrote and spoke about last council, only one thing was addressed.

What happened to the letter from Denise Lonesford?

How come we didn't get no answer about that letter?

Also about Heather calling people, asking people not to resign.

There was so much more in this letter that it wasn't addressed.

And we want to know why, you know, it wasn't addressed.

Only one thing.

So that's, third thing is now that the chief is in office earlier this year, you all said that my son's case would be reopened.

So I'd like to know who I have to make an appointment with and what I have to do to get my son's case reopened to talk to the chief of police.

What steps have to be made now since I don't have to get a lawyer, go to court and appeal the decision anymore.

Is there any way y'all could tell me how I could get an appointment with her?

And another thing, to everybody who feels that the police are out here doing their job, you know, stopping, criss-crossing the black children and stuff around here, y'all know that movie, A Time to Kill?

And at the end, when he had that little scenario and said, imagine that that child was white, what would y'all do?

If the black police officers started all of a sudden going rogue out here and started messing with the white children around here what would y'all do then?

Would something happen then?

Would you be really concerned then?

That's what I want to know.

What if you started getting complaints that the black officers are in the white neighborhoods harassing the little white kids?

What would y'all do?

Would you try to put a stop to it?

So all I want everybody to think about is everybody who feels the police are out here doing their job with this stop and frisk and harassing little black kids, stopping whenever they want to,

Just imagine it's your child.

Just imagine.

Just imagine when your kids grow up and they don't have that protection and the police stop them and they don't care who you are as a parent.

You all just got to think about that, you know.

So, Ms. Turner.

Ms. Turner.

May I welcome, may I respond to Ms. Turner?

I don't have any requests, but Mr. Jones has asked me to pull all the files and start looking at those.

I've been here now day 11, and I've already pulled that file.

We'll start looking at it to see from the start to the beginning what the complaint is and how that was addressed.

So if there's a need for follow up, so what does that mean?

I have to read the case first.

I have to review the case second.

And then third, once I have all my questions, whatever the complaint was, I don't even know the nature of the full complaint, so I cannot give you a full, robust answer until I know exactly what it is.

And I'm sorry if that doesn't answer your question more fully, but I've got to have time to read the case.

And then we can give back.

Every person who files a complaint with the department has a right to know how it was handled and what the outcome was of that case.

That's how it's supposed to be, but so many people here that have filed a complaint never got a decision letter.

Never got a decision letter.

So that's why we, that's why, I mean, how long will, how long do you feel it's going to take?

and what I'm doing is triaging all of the issues that I have facing me.

I hear lots of questions about a lot of things going on.

So, yes, I will get your case.

Thank you, Chief.

What?

What?

Thank you, Miss Karen.

Speak to yourself.

So I think what we did here was that the city manager had already prompted the police chief to pull the files about concerns that citizens have had for her to look at.

So I hope we all heard that.

And I get that.

But with her moving in, I'm looking out for her.

She said that everyone who has a complaint.

Okay, well she's here.

Yes, we will issue and they are right and that's why I said if I had any questions, the process should be as soon as you file a complaint, you should receive a letter saying that we are receipt of your complaint.

That should be the first thing.

Should be an investigation.

Yes, ma'am.

I'm sorry.

It's absolutely fine.

You should have a right to ask the chief questions.

I have no problems with that.

The process should be very clear and it should be very transparent.

You should, when you file a complaint, should receive something in writing back acknowledging that there was a complaint and if you don't know the officer's name or the personnel's name, we should be able to identify that for you because not everyone has that information.

We should also give you an expected timeline that we're going to look at your complaint, whatever that is, based on their current SOPs.

Their current SOPs say they have approximately 30 days to investigate an outside complaint.

It says if they cannot meet that deadline, they have to ask for an extension from the chief of police.

At the conclusion of each and every one of these complaints, there will be a letter that I actually worked as a draft today to say, are we giving the correct information out to the public?

Contained within that letter that they'll receive will say, you filed a complaint on this date.

This is a follow up to that.

Here is the charges that they would have potentially faced.

here are the potential outcomes that we have and then this is how it was decided.

They will also have there an opportunity for whoever made the complaint to follow up with the investigator to review how they got to that process.

Because there may be things that are in writing that may not have been as robust as complete as if you talked to somebody or talked to them a second time.

So we are putting a process in place that is very clear and very transparent

This isn't the first time I've heard that someone has not heard back from the police department.

And everyone should get those kinds of responses.

I can appreciate it, but what I will take responsibility for is once the council and the mayor approve my hiring, how I handle it from that point forward.

And that's what everyone else, I mean we can only be responsible for our own actions.

See what happens when we ask the chief.

For.

You ask the chief.

Katrina.

Catherine Lee Willis.

Katrina.

OK.

I can't hear.

I'm wanting to represent this group that we've been talking about of older residents in the Belmont area.

I'm 85.

My husband's 95.

We live in one of those cinderblock houses.

We're on our pension.

We get some Social Security.

and there's no way that we would be able to afford the kinds of damage that I think we're looking at with this blasting.

There are many people like myself living in our neighborhood and I think the council needs to consider very, very seriously the impact this is going to have on people who vote in the city, who live in the city and support the city and we don't feel the city is going to be supporting us if you can't make some changes to the plan.

Thank you.

OK. Mayor Walker, may I make a comment?

And if I may, Councilor Bellamy, since Ms. Hudson had referenced the mold in units on Hardy Drive and the physical problems with the high rise, which I take to be Crescent Halls,

Do you mind giving us a brief update on where the housing authority is in terms of its redevelopment process?

Because those properties are the responsibility to the housing authority.

And one other thing I'd like to say, the reason why we're able to hear the residents from Belmont about this particular problem is because it relates to a developer and it relates to our ordinance.

the city has control over these dynamics.

The city does not control the redevelopment of public housing that the Charlottesville Redevelopment Housing Authority does.

Sure.

So, a couple of quick, I guess, updates in terms of redevelopment.

There's two things that, one, I would encourage everyone to attend the Housing Authority meetings.

We're here at 6 p.m., the fourth Monday of every month.

You've been at one.

Okay.

She's been at one and she's going to tell me what we do.

All right.

So the second thing in regards to the housing authority, we have two different updates in terms of redevelopment.

One, there's been an RFQ request for qualifications that was sent out.

We got, if I'm not mistaken, about six different entities that decided to

respond to that.

Thank you, Ms. Parker.

Six different entities respond to that.

Now we're in the phase in which we're looking for them to provide us with site plans, exactly how they're going to do redevelopment and whatnot.

And actually, this is a lot further along than we've ever been.

So there's two different sites in which we're looking at, one in which Crescent Halls will ask more people to provide us with recommendations in terms of what they would do with that, and then also South First Street.

There's discussion about different lots

that the Housing Authority has access to purchasing and then building on.

So we're going through that process as well.

But again, we're a lot further along than we've been in a very long time.

So redevelopment, there's a redevelopment committee.

They meet on Wednesdays, on Tuesdays, the day right after the Housing Authority meeting at noon.

And if anybody wants that information, you can contact myself or probably contact Ms.

Ms. Parker because she has all of the answers in the front.

But the Redevelopment Committee meets at noon at Crescent Halls.

Okay.

Yeah, and in regards to the letter that Ms. Turner was referencing,

What I was focused on last time is making sure that you all understood that we should not dictate what you all present to us throughout this year.

And so I stated that the last time.

I mean, that was a part of the letter to make sure that we would hear and be paying attention to what you all recommended after you all doing the work for it.

So that is the commitment that I was making to

to the group and the appointees so I hope that I addressed that last time and then council wanted to make sure that you all understood that we were hearing you say that we did not appoint appropriately according to you all so we revisited that.

And in terms of the comments that

Ms. Hudson made.

I agree.

Some of my conversations this week and today too was if we could even put a moratorium on development in the city, which we can't.

But I have asked Ms. Robertson, the interim city attorney, if

She could, and she said she would have some information to me this week about what are some kind of bold initiatives that we could possibly take in terms of curbing the track that we're currently on.

So while we may not always be talking,

about it, we do know and we are aware and trying to figure out what are some legal routes that we can take in terms of fixing this crisis that we're in that was deliberate and we know it.

We are asking for the research on those things, so hopefully we'll have something to present in the near future.

Any other?

I don't know what to say.

The End

you

and Michael Kochis.

Yay!

Yay!

I love it all, I love it all

Music Playing

I'm

I'm glad it's straight.

All right, call this meeting to order.

We're at the consent agenda.

Item A, minutes for June 18, 2018.

Item B, an appropriation, Charlottesville affordable housing fund for repayment of substantial rehab loan.

$30,113.28, second of two readings.

Item C, an appropriation Albemarle County funds to the city's workforce investment fund for non-city resident workforce development training, Go Driver, $4,432.50, second of two readings.

Item D, an appropriation 2018-19 community development block grant, $409,708.49, second of two readings.

Item E in appropriation for the 2018-19 Home Funds, $125,966.49, second of two readings.

Item F in appropriation, Virginia Department of Education Special Nutrition Program Summer Food Service Program, $90,000, second of two readings.

Item G in appropriation, Human Services Fund Balance for FY 2018 Expenses, $50,000, second of two, sorry, $500,000, second of two readings.

Item H, a resolution, Rivanna Quarterly Report, first of one reading.

Item I, a resolution.

Revision of the city's 2005 street closing policy, first of one reading.

Item J, a resolution special use permit for multi-family residential use and reduced front setbacks at Zero Carlton Road, first of one reading.

Item K, a resolution critical slopes waiver for Zero Carlton Road, first of one reading.

All right.

Are there any additional questions?

All right, vote.

Hello.

Hi.

For the record, Brenda Kelly, Redevelopment Manager.

In March, this council initiated a zoning map amendment at staff's request.

This item went to the Planning Commission on June 12th, and that information is in your agenda item.

The proposed amendment in front of you is a request to amend the city's official zoning map to include within the parking modified zone the following properties.

The site of Friendship Court, which is 400 through 426 Garrett Street.

The site of the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority's Avon Levy site, that is 405 Levy Avenue and 405 Avon Street.

And the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority's Sixth Street site, which address is 715 Sixth Street.

In general, the purpose of the Parking Modified Zone is to reduce the on-site parking requirements for developments requiring more than 20 parking spaces in the following ways.

For non-residential developments, it can provide 50% of the required parking.

For residential development, it can provide one space per unit.

This only changes the requirements for three or more bedroom units.

Affordable dwelling units can be excluded from the calculation of required parking spaces only for as long as those units remain affordable.

Alternate mechanisms are provided for satisfying on-street parking requirements.

I would like to point out that approval of this request will not require that the property owners construct less parking.

It simply provides the flexibility of the owners to build less parking depending on their parking demand and needs.

At this time I can assure you that significant resident engagement is ongoing with redevelopment of these sites.

The residents of these properties are also very concerned that enough parking is provided for them, visitors, and guests upon redevelopment of these properties.

The five parcels identified in this request are currently zone DE, downtown extended, or R3, multifamily residential, the underlying zone,

Zoning would not change.

Effectively, the Parking Modified Zone is an overlay district.

Including these parcels in the Parking Modified Zone will not affect the current uses allowed on these sites.

I'd also like to remind you that these properties are in the urban downtown area and are close to jobs and easily accessible to transit.

As to public comments, I have included in your agenda item information regarding public comments received prior to and during the Planning Commission meeting.

And in summary of what I just handed you, I received three telephone calls, two asking for information and one providing objection to the request.

And you'll see that information specifically on the first page.

And then the rest of the information is one email chain that spelled out what the request was about and giving feedback back.

In summary, staff's recommendation for approval is spelled out in the agenda report and the ordinance that is in front of you.

And Mr. Maython is here tonight.

And I thought Mr. Duffield was around.

As representatives of the subject properties, if you have any questions for them, they're also able to answer.

Mayor Walker, I have one question.

Just for the public's benefit, and you answered my question earlier today, but just to be very clear, this is now applying to multiple properties, not just the friendship court, but it's also the public housing sites.

Correct.

and you also did give us a very nice update of the planned street improvements for Elliott and Monticello is undergoing discussion as well as Lexington all of which will become much more pedestrian oriented with better sidewalks and better crosswalks which again can only work very well with improved public transit so again there's as you said earlier there's a lot of

I'm just asking because it has come up from some members of the public around the accountability that there is for these groups to meet the needs, because obviously there are surveys that are done and

That'll be coming through the site plan process, so if any additional approvals need to come back in front of you, then you can address those.

But like I said, making the presentation, both of these property owners are heavily engaged in

resident input in the development process.

Good evening, Mayor Walker and City Council members.

My name is Sunshine Mathan.

I'm the Executive Director of Piedmont Housing Alliance.

Over two years ago, Piedmont Housing began down the path of planning the redevelopment of Friendship Court.

And perhaps the most important decision at the outset was the establishment of the Advisory Committee.

The Advisory Committee is comprised of 15 members, 6 from the broader Charlottesville community and 9 residents from Friendship Court.

The resident committee members were elected by their neighbors and were given a mandate by their community to represent them through the redevelopment process.

Starting in October 2017, we entered a new phase of engagement design.

The advisory committee became core partners and co-designers as we moved forward, and working from the preliminary master plan that was released at the end of 2016, we gathered the comments and concerns expressed both by Friendship Court residents and the broader community.

Over the next four months, through multiple design charrettes, the design team, involving the advisory committee, architects, engineers, and Piedmont housing staff, worked through an enormously complicated set of variables, aspirations, and constraints.

And in early February this year, we unanimously finalized a redevelopment framework that does an amazing job of addressing the identified, complex, and critical issues.

Through the end of April, you took the framework back to the rest of the families of Friendship Court, and through five community meetings and door-to-door follow-up, the community expressed a remarkable level of support for the framework overall.

I lay this brief history before you as it all predicates the request in front of you today.

From the very beginning of the design refinement process in October, one of the most persistent questions that the advisory committee members laid out there layering through nearly every design exercise was how is parking going to work.

I can guarantee you that the residents of the advisory committee are more focused on getting this answer right than any other constituency.

They have been and will continue to be absolutely certain friendship quarters parked adequately to address the need.

The balance in front of us

is to absolutely meet the determined need while also not wasting limited vital resources on unnecessary parking infrastructure.

One of the most critical limited resources is land.

We will park Friendship Court adequately, and this must be matched with other resident priorities, specifically well-planned open and green spaces, as well as ample space for more affordable housing on site.

The other essential limited resource is money.

Again, to be crystal clear, we will park Friendship Court adequately, yet we cannot spend money on unnecessary parking.

We have too many other resident-driven priorities and needs.

Healthy, well-built, affordable housing, high quality early childhood center, economic development support programs, etc.

With all this in mind, based on our rigorous parking count data and the conversations with the advisory committee, the existing standard parking requirements per code,

will overburden us unnecessarily.

Parking modified zone expansion will give us the flexibility we need to absolutely meet the parking need.

The residents won't have it any other way without compromising other resident priorities.

So I open the public hearing.

Is there anyone that would like to speak?

No.

All right.

I'll close the public hearing.

I'd like to make a motion.

All right.

I'd like to move to approve an ordinance amending the city's official zoning map to include certain additional properties in the parking modified zone.

Second.

Any discussion?

Mayor Walker, I'll just make a few comments that I do understand the enormous impact of the cost of structured parking on a project and we got those costs and cost information from the housing needs assessment that it's on average $20,000 per space in an above-ground parking structure and $32,000 per space in a below-ground structure so

You could have surface parking, which is at $5,000 per space, but that eats up an awful lot of land.

Any other comments?

There's no vote tonight.

Good evening Mayor Walker and city councilors.

So tonight before you is a zoning text amendment that was initiated at your April 16th meeting to allow for restaurants with drive-throughs in the highway corridor mixed-use district.

This district in our zoning ordinance is one that is intended to carry the most intense commercial uses that are more auto-oriented.

The request was brought to staff by Ashley Davies who is representing

Alan Taylor.

They're currently redeveloping the site at Kmart.

And right now the site plan just shows the renovations for existing buildings.

But the future plans they've indicated, the developers indicate they do want to include some sort of drive through restaurant.

So that's why it came forward.

But if this were to be approved,

I just want to make clear that this would affect all of the highway quarter districts and there's three areas in the city that are zoned that.

One is at the northern city limits.

It's from Emmett Street north to the 250 bypass and then there are two areas at the southern city limits, 5th Street extended and then Monticello Avenue.

So the Planning Commission held a public hearing at their June 12th meeting where they recommended denial.

The votes were five to two and their discussion involved the following.

They discussed whether the proposed zoning text amendment was compatible with the comprehensive plan small area plans.

Some believed that it was not compatible.

They discussed the desire to preserve the entrances to Charlottesville.

They discussed the city's goal to be a healthy city.

And then there were other commissioners who were actually in support of the ZTA.

And they stated that Zaxby's, which was recently built along Emmett, was a successful example of a context sensitive drive through restaurant and that the drive through restaurants can be designed in such a way that can be incompatible form to the city.

Um, the staff report in your,

agenda tonight did have a list of notes that staff included because staff did recommend approval although Planning Commission recommended denial.

I won't go through all of them but ultimately I think that when you hear the word drive-thru restaurant you think it's going to be this prototype very unattractive.

So I do want to note that staff

I would not feel comfortable allowing these uses by right in this type of zoning district because there are so many small area plans that have been approved that call for a lot of different factors.

There's future multimodal connections, there's future roadways, they call for mixed uses and a lot of different things, better public realm.

Staff wouldn't feel comfortable allowing this to my right, but I do believe that allowing it through special use permit allows that higher level of review where you could get a context-sensitive design.

I listed a few examples of what that means in terms of a drive-thru restaurant.

That could mean increased buffering, requiring the parking to be relegated to the back.

You could require there be cafe spaces.

could require wider sidewalks that are in compliance with streets that work, making sure that the building is close to the roadway where there are the wider sidewalks and canopies.

So that is, it's engaging the pedestrian realm.

And I think when we have these special use permits, there's an opportunity where there's a requirement to have that compliance with a comprehensive plan where we're asking them to say, okay, you're wanting this use in this area.

There's all of these small area plans where they're calling for all of these extra things.

Show us how you comply with this with using this

More intensive commercial use.

And so I think there's a balance with doing that and also recognizing the reality that these areas in the city carry the highest volumes of traffic.

So if my question to you is if you don't want that type of use in the city, staff will follow in that direction.

But I think we do.

We would need to relook at the areas where we already allow them via S.U.P.

just because to me, these are the areas that make most sense, and that could actually

If we allow those in these areas, we could start preserving the other areas of the city and re-look at the areas where we currently allow them via SUP by potentially removing that use in those areas.

So right now in the highway corridor district, it's not allowed at all.

So there's no ability to do it.

So that was why the zoning tax amendment came forward, because they're asking to allow it through an SUP.

So if it was approved every time a developer would want to come and do this use, like if the Kmart has a proposal, they would have to come and in addition get the SUP.

But it's no way to do it just for this specific project?

So no, they would have to get this first.

Any other questions?

I do have one question.

So just again, we've had some exchanges and emails, and I made the assessment that this drive-through wasn't going to be

in alignment with our comprehensive plan.

Yeah, but it is the Kmart site that's driving this application.

So again, I can't decouple that small area plan from the comp plan.

And in that case, it is not

in keeping with the comp plan, because that comp plan is, in this case, the small area plan is calling for affordable housing within the context of a multi-modal street network, all kind of in keeping with kind of principles of pedestrian-oriented design, not car-centric.

Right.

Say I agree with everything you just said.

I think also in the 29 hydraulic plan, it calls for affordable housing and a mix of commercial uses because it's still noting that that area does have a lot of traffic through there.

And I guess my point to that would be in the Kmart site, there are a lot of things specifically called out for that site, one of which is a future roadway connection.

Right now I don't see that happening.

I think if there were an opportunity to where the developer comes through with a

very context sensitive design saying here we've thought of a creative way to include a coffee shop drive-thru where we're still including these elements that make this site pedestrian friendly and oh by the way hey we're throwing in that future roadway connection because we want to comply with the comp plan at that point we have a little bit more leverage to say okay now this is in compliance while still balancing the reality that you have a lot of people 60,000 cars a day coming through this area from the county so I guess in my head if it makes sense

If this was happening down at West Main or downtown, I would say absolutely not.

But I'm thinking, how can we be creative and obtain the things we want in the small area plan while still balancing the reality that this area is a major commercial area?

If I may, this highway commercial has existed for 15 years without drive-throughs.

Okay.

Well, there are some there, but...

Right.

So, I mean, it's just been that way for 15 years.

Right.

Thanks.

So, right now, the city allows for drive-throughs in the urban corridor mixed-use district, which is supposed to be more pedestrian-friendly.

We allow it through SUP.

And one of the things I noted at Planning Commission is, I think if we

I think it would make more sense to remove that and then put it in the highway corridor where it's saying we want the most intense uses there.

Or if the city wants to become a city that doesn't allow these types of uses, then we should do that.

We just need to make an effort to look at the whole city then because these areas have the highest volumes of traffic, so why not have them here as opposed to other places?

And right adjacent is the county, and they certainly have drivers.

And that's where the difference is.

The city only goes so far.

But there's a few that have been there for so long.

Their grandfather.

I would just like to add that in my conversations with our colleagues in the county that are also doing a small area plan in the Rio Road area,

I did receive a call today that this needs to be in keeping with the principles of the small area planet hydraulic and that they are in conflict with kind of going backwards and emphasizing an auto-centric kind of land use.

Just want to get that out there.

That also the county is looking at changing their zoning to be much more urban, compact,

I think it's going to be more bus rider friendly than they currently have today.

The current site plan for the renovated Kmart site?

Yeah.

Yes.

If we get the zoning changed within a year, it would be very much able to drive the kind of development pattern you want.

Right now, as I understand it, the existing zoning highway commercial does not allow for the kinds of variety of housing types that we would like.

So there's a lot of things that need to change in that zoning.

It has to be a new district.

So it has to happen together, and again,

Given that we have a small area plan, it was a little puzzling to me that we're not having a discussion about moving forward with a form-based code as recommended by that plan.

Instead, we're having a discussion about restaurant drive-throughs for fast food that is kind of harkening back to a 1960s fossil fuel-based development pattern.

I guess I just don't see it that way because I think, as I said before, there are examples where it is context sensitive and we could get some of the things that we want.

And I think ultimately another point that comes to mind is if we don't want it in this area, I think we should just eliminate from the city.

But in my head, I think there's affordability piece too.

I feel like families are coming through from the county.

Some people would like to stop in and get something that might be more affordable to them than some of the higher end.

Boutique restaurants.

And I don't think that if it is designed correctly, let's say they put a drive-thru coffee shop at Kmart.

They need to show us how they have a public space for those people, how the inner connections for the pedestrians is still working.

And maybe they do put affordable housing on top of the first floor.

I don't see how in specific cases a drive-thru would prevent that.

And I'm not talking about what you, I hear what you're saying.

I just think that there can be a balance.

And I think if we do

say, nope, we don't want drive-thrus in this area, then I think we just need to get rid of them.

And that's fine, I just think we need to be careful with.

Yeah, no, this is fine.

It'll be a debate amongst ourselves.

So I would like to open the, were there any other questions from the council?

So open the public hearing.

Good evening, Mrs. Mayor.

I'm also here representing the applicant along with my colleague Ashley Davies.

We appreciate the opportunity to have this discussion with you.

As noted in the staff report, the Highway Commercial Zoning Corridor District

is expressly stated to be the development of a commercial nature that is more auto oriented than other mixed use and neighborhood commercial districts.

And this district is intended for those areas with the most intense commercial development in Charlottesville.

We agree that the city should and can always encourage projects to have strong pedestrian connections, orientations,

that they should be attractive pedestrian options for everyone, but we do not believe that that has to be at the expense of other options.

And importantly, drive throughs are very important for people who lack mobility, whether folks are disabled or they're elderly, whether they're recovering from an injury or an accident.

If you've ever been on crutches, you know how

Tremendously exhausting it is to take even a few steps.

If you can save some time and energy and effort by being able to access a business by a drive-through window, it makes a world of difference.

Those who may be in a wheelchair, whether permanently or only on a temporary basis.

People with small children in their vehicles.

I remember well when my children were, I have two, when one was an infant and one was a toddler and trying to

run errands after work.

Sometimes the drive-throughs were just a godsend.

One of them may have been taking a late nap.

The last thing I wanted to do was wake him up and then have two children on my hands.

And so I know that is a challenge for many working families, particularly perhaps single mothers who don't have the ability to make other arrangements.

So for some people, a drive-through might be seen as a convenience.

and for many, it may well be.

But for others, it is much more of a necessity.

And I would say that it would be appropriate to provide the option for all of our citizens and members.

And as staff mentioned, I frankly hadn't even thought about visitors to our community who certainly would like that option.

As was noted, I'm sure drive throughs are permitted for restaurants and many other zoning districts.

Some of them, such as the B3 zoning district, they're permitted by right.

In many other,

mixed-use districts, Cherry Avenue, High Street, the Urban District and the City Central District.

They're permitted by SP.

We think it was actually perhaps an oversight when the ordinance was adopted that this was just left out of the one district that's expressly described as being auto-centric.

And as staff just described, you'll have the opportunity to weigh in on all of the details of any application that comes before you.

in the form of a special use permit to ensure that your goals of pedestrian orientation and access are furthered and not in conflict with automobiles.

And lastly, as Ms. Davies mentioned at the Planning Commission public hearing, we recently, back in 2016, worked with Albemarle County on their drive-through ordinance.

They actually adopted unanimously an ordinance that allows drive-throughs

by Wright in every single zoning district, subject to very carefully developed design guidelines that we worked with the staff to develop.

I will distribute these to you all for your review, but as an example of some of the design guidelines that every application has to meet, it becomes part of the site plan regulations for any project with a drive-through.

For instance,

No drive-through lane shall be located between a building and a public street unless separated from the right-of-way by a landscaped area that complies with certain regulations and is at least 10 feet in depth.

If it's next to a public street, it has to be on the side or in the rear.

If a pedestrian travelway crosses a drive-through lane,

the owner shall provide either a five foot wide raised pedestrian travelway or a five foot wide pedestrian travelway containing a change in texture and visual markings.

Those are just a few.

There's a long list of them.

I'll pass them out.

And the final comment I'll make is during the planning commission at the county's review, someone raised the same issue that Ms. Galvin's raised about the concern that they were incompatible with the county's, what they call their neighborhood model,

goals, which among other things include pedestrian orientation.

And one of the most persuasive comments was made by Commissioner Daphne Spain, who some of you may know is the recently retired chair of the university's urban and environmental planning program.

So I would contend she's certainly an expert in her field.

And her response was, quote, that she's reminded that there are a considerable number of people, either the elderly or those who are disabled,

and cannot walk everywhere.

The national figures for the percent of Americans with disabilities is 13 percent.

About 14 percent of the population is 65 and older, and we seem to have maybe a higher proportion of the elderly in this community.

And not all of those people can walk, and it's an issue of accessibility that able-bodied people are less concerned with than those who cannot walk.

So this is one of those issues that has an equity component to it in addition

to a design component.

And again, that ordinance was approved by Albemarle County unanimously.

So again, we don't think that cars and drive-throughs are incompatible with pedestrians entirely.

We think with careful planning, careful regulations, careful oversight as part of the special use permit process, that they can be very compatible.

As an example,

We don't ban parking lots because they are incompatible.

Good evening City Council, I'm Ashley Davies, Land Use Planner at Williams Mullen Law Firm and Valerie's a tough act to follow.

She shared a lot of great points with you.

So I will talk a little bit more about Riverbend development and I think as a developer in the city, Mr. Bellamy

spoke earlier about CRHA and their request for qualifications.

Riverbend Development is the one local development firm that's very committed to working on the affordable housing issue.

But they also, I think what's important about these highway district commercial areas is that they are

some of the aging commercial districts in our city and they are ripe for redevelopment and they haven't been redeveloped since the ordinance was written in 2003 and so for a company like Riverbend they're also the group that brought the Whole Foods redevelopment which is next door to the Kmart site and

I think everybody will note that that was one of the first really urban, more urban centric redevelopments along that hydraulic corridor bringing the building to the front of the site, creating the pedestrian amenities, regulating the parking.

made the Hillsdale Drive possible between those two sites and really facilitated that part of the development.

So I think they're very invested in the transformation of that whole portion of hydraulic and in the first phase of the redevelopment, you know, they're really re-envisioning how the commercial area in the back can transform to

a better place of gathering and this second phase really talks about how do we create more of an urban frontage along hydraulics.

So I think we absolutely have the pedestrian in mind and I think Heather had a lot of great points about, Heather and Valerie, just about how design can really inform how these more urban

drive-thrus can take place.

It's not just the 1960s example and they do occur in much more urban places.

It takes more thoughtfulness but it is certainly possible and we're committed to that.

I will also note that I was zoning administrator of the city right after the 2003 ordinance was adopted and I can tell you that in my tenure at the city there were

Plenty of times when we recognized that the matrix had an oversight.

And I think just because we haven't seen redevelopment in this part of the city, nobody caught it yet.

So this is just one of those things where it came up.

So we truly believe it's a technical fix.

We believe that it's bizarre that restaurants are treated differently.

Any other buy-write use in this district could have a drive-through.

It's just for restaurants

We say the drive-thrus counted separately.

It's just odd.

So it's, you know, we just don't want to discriminate once again against providing the restaurants and also against serving those folks that are either elderly mobility challenge and just making sure that we can provide this type of use in a way that's both pedestrian friendly and serving our community.

So thank you so much for your consideration.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak?

All right.

Mayor Walker, I can make a motion.

But, you know, I'm not sure if I'm going to get a second or not.

But just to get the debate going because I really do think we need to debate this.

So, thank you.

I move to deny the zoning text amendment as recommended by the Planning Commission.

Mayor Walker, I'd like to make a motion.

I'll second.

I will be open for discussion.

You're the one who made the motion.

If I may, I think that there are definitely compelling arguments made by many of our speakers.

What initially hit home the most for me, I've been going back and forth about this, but Ms. Long's comments, her initial comments, and then followed up by our next speaker in regards to

Not only just the convenience of those who may be traveling, but when we look at from an accessibility standpoint, not everyone is able to go in, so the drive-thru may actually make things more convenient.

In my opinion, I think that's compelling enough for us to be able to move forward in this direction.

And also the last point that was made in regards to is essentially throughout the city and all of the other zoning, or I guess in all of the other zones, when there's buy right,

Do as they please.

If they want to build a job, if they want to add a job to do and so forth, they're allowed to do so.

But then when it comes to restaurants, we kind of prohibit them.

I don't think that's right.

It's just my personal opinion.

And I'm open to hearing your side and indoor debate.

I initiated that we have the staff look at this and I certainly support the points that have been raised by staff as well as the speakers and I do think a lot of it comes down to design.

I did what I was present and watched the Planning Commission discussion and I think a lot of

Good points were made in favor of it too by those that did vote in favor of it and it does come down to design and also just the location of many of the properties that fall within this zone and the fact that we do have an opportunity through an SCP to deny at any time anything being implemented.

I also can't help but think about the economic development impact.

As I think about that property that obviously has brought this to our attention, I just think we really need to be supporting

to have the development that is really going to drive the greatest value for the community and I also can't help but think of myself in my car with three children under the age of eight and I wish that

half the things along Route 29 would allow me just to pull up and get things and move along.

And I don't feel that way about many parts of the city, but this is an area where I think that that kind of convenience is valued.

And I really just also just want to make sure that we're not letting go of the opportunity for the, the maximizer or economic opportunity, um, in this, in this zone.

So those things are all are kind of weighing on me.

And I actually didn't even realize that by right, a CVS, I guess, could go in and people could pick up the prescriptions there.

but yet you know if we wanted to have a coffee shop that they're restricted so that even gives me more kind of scratching my head that we really aren't restricting these activities we just are doing it for a specific purpose and so this is something I certainly have continued to try to be open I've certainly been open-minded about but for me it just kind of just doesn't make sense and I certainly see the long vision but I think that long vision is so long out there and there's so many other

These are the pieces that have to take place that I really just want to rely on the SUP review process for us to help guide and make the right design and execution decisions.

I favor it.

Also, I think that the, I don't think it's like a

It's a balancing of practicalities.

I totally understand the Planning Commission vote.

But I think that these are very compelling arguments about the looking at this gap compared to the other areas where it is allowed.

That seems like a compelling argument in that it's obviously not a moral issue if it's allowed in all these other places around the city.

So it's more of a balancing issue.

And in that case, I agree.

Modern life today, maybe it's not any different.

I do see the world a little differently, having two little kids, and just what it is like when you are, when it's, and that's not even getting into the mobility issues.

I certainly see why people could vote against it, but I support it and I think the SCP process provides ample protections to avoid it being abused or some awful, you know, wave of drive-thrusers terribly designed coming, sort of like invading the city.

And I have some just concerns about the

the way we have conversations about the plans that have been developed and whether we can go back and change our minds like the small area plan, for example.

So I have concerns about a lot of developments in the city, but I also think that since the

any development in that space and any other space will come back before us just saying no automatically because of a vision that was laid out in a plan before as if you can't go and modify that plan is where I'm kind of, why I'm supportive of this amendment change.

I just think we need to always be open

and I don't know what will happen when it comes before us as you know when the SUP comes before us but for this part of it I think that we just need to be open in terms of just you know being able to change.

change plans based on where, and again, that the property, what the owners have decided to do in this case, what they're submitting to us, I think just taking that into consideration.

So that's where I am.

So again, I just want to make sure the Planning Commission did vote five to two to deny this, correct?

I just want to make sure that that's what I remembered.

So the Planning Commission voted to deny this.

And the reason why we do these small area plans is because there is a desire to change.

is a desire to change the way we are doing our development pattern.

And in this case, it is a very, very car oriented shopping center that is suffering from lack of occupancy.

It has a vision plan that was endorsed by the Planning Commission and this council.

It is the plan that's being used to get smart scale funding.

So that plan is acknowledging that we need to move away from a fossil fuel driven economy

We do need to move towards increasing our ridership for bus driving.

Ridership is numbers of units.

If we don't have the number of units that we need to sustain high frequency bus, then we're not gonna be supplying good bus service for people.

actually is an equity issue because 10% of the people that take the bus don't own cars.

About 35% of the people that take the bus are African American and about 22% of them are poverty, in poverty, living in poverty.

So bus, taking the bus is a really important equity issue.

Balancing things like sustainability as well.

Transportation accounts for about a third of the greenhouse gas emissions in this country.

That's equivalent to what is emitted by coal-fired plants.

So if we don't start making changes, if we don't start using plants to make changes in how we do development, then we will never start making a dent in global warming.

And we won't be making a dent in increasing the ridership numbers we need to have a robust

So finally, it

The idea was raised about how this is also not conducive to those who are of the aging population.

And the American Association of Retired Persons, AARP, is in full support of pedestrian-oriented design that facilitates taking the bus, that facilitates walking.

So in light of the several documents that this

Community has passed endorsing the small area plan.

And in light of the fact that we have to change that land use so that we can put in the roads, so that we can put in the affordable housing,

It's 100 acres of asphalt right now.

We're never going to move the needle if we keep sending out these messages that, okay, car-centric is okay.

Boy, let's just really facilitate that a little bit more for a little bit longer.

It sends a lot of mixed messages.

So I really can't support any change to existing zoning unless the change in that zoning is to implement a small area plan that we approved

And I'll just challenge you a little bit on, you know, transit and low-income riders.

We can see right across the street that there are not a lot of people taking the bus out

the area where Trader Joe's and that shopping center is.

So I mean I think we're having two different conversations and I think sometimes we use who will be taking public transportation.

to support or in this case deny developments where the likelihood that at this point based on how development is going in this area that any development is for low income people is, I will challenge you on that.

And that's absolutely right.

The reason why we have still low ridership is because our wait times, there's 30 minutes in an hour.

In order to get that down to 15 minutes, you have to have a lot more buses running.

In order to get more buses running, you need more people.

There's gonna be a lot, this is a prime area for putting affordable housing and it's written in the plan.

All right.

All right.

Moving on.

Where?

Oh, did I?

Okay.

Mixed use development standard zoning tax amendment.

Who was I reading before?

Lisa.

Do you mind if I do it from here, is that okay?

Alright, for the better part of a year and a half, the city's been engaged in reviewing its zoning ordinance and has been engaged in a process of moving to update its comprehensive plan.

The idea is that by updating the comprehensive plan, we'll establish

a good set of guidelines that should drive the decision making for a fairly comprehensive review of the city's zoning ordinance, hopefully in the near future.

Back in November of 2016, the city attorney's office provided fairly extensive critique of the existing zoning ordinance.

and pointed out that there are a number of holes in it, particularly in relationship to provisions that govern mixed-use development within the city.

are provisions which allow for additional building height or additional residential density without requiring a developer to really comply with any particular criteria for the mixed use development.

So in the zoning ordinance, there's a very basic definition of mixed use development that

says that mixed use refers to a situation where you have residential and non-residential use in the same building or the same development.

In a lot of places within the zoning ordinance, including some of the mixed use districts, you can get, let's say, additional residential density if your development has at least 25% residential use or at least

25% commercial use.

So there's a mixture of uses specified so that you know ahead of time that you are offering a bonus to get a particular sort of quantum of both residential and commercial uses.

There are a handful of districts in which a developer can obtain significant amount of height or a significant amount of additional density

without having to meet any particular criteria whatsoever.

So in a building that might mean the only presence you have to have is one residential dwelling unit and the entire remaining portion of the gross floor area of a nine-story building could all be commercial.

So over the course of time in the

In the summer of 2017, the Planning Commission identified this particular issue or these issues as ones which are fairly urgent if we are to make sure that certain properties don't over develop before we have a chance to complete the comp plan process and comprehensively overhaul the zoning ordinance.

But PLACE requested some additional time to see if they could get design professionals and developers together to come up with a different resolution than the fairly simple one that I'm proposing.

What I proposed and what I proposed back in 2016 was simply that

We set a default provision, so if the zoning ordinance doesn't otherwise specify a particular percentage or particular presence that one use or the other has to have,

and we have a default and in this case it would be 12.5%.

So no matter which type of use it is, neither a commercial component or a residential component could have less than a 12.5% presence within either a building or a mixed use development.

Place, led by Mike Stoneking, worked through this as a problem over a number of months, but he contacted me in March of this year and said that despite everyone's best efforts and despite putting a lot of time and consideration into the matter,

on the place sort of, I don't know if you call it task force, but the group that Mike pulled together just hadn't really been able to come up with anything better.

And I think it's a discussion that needs to continue.

I totally concur that we need to rethink how we go about

encouraging mixed use development in a way that's going to serve a lot of the needs and goals and objectives that we have as a city.

But I'm not sure that we're there yet with the current ordinance, but until we have the ability to have a larger discussion in the context of specific goals in an updated comprehensive plan,

it's just really difficult for people to come up with a better solution.

So long story short, it's my recommendation that you adopt the ordinance that's attached to this item as a means of setting a default standard that must be complied with in the event that there is no other existing definition of the mixture of uses that have to be present

I'll open the public hearing.

Is there anyone who wishes to speak?

Mayor Walker, I move that we adopt an ordinance amending and re-ordaining Article 6 mixed-use corridor districts of Chapter 34 relating to bonus height or density in mixed-use districts.

Second.

Any discussion?

I'd just like to say that, yeah, I think there's a lot of work that went into this, and it did reveal that it was a very complicated issue that needed to be substantiated by the comprehensive plan.

But I do appreciate Ms. Robertson's efforts to get us at least something that's much better than what we had.

There was a big hole in our existing zoning, but we still have a lot more reform to do.

We're not talking about blasting it.

Oh, okay.

As you all know, we are

eagerly anticipating the replacement of the bypass fire station which was constructed in 1961 and doesn't really meet the needs of a modern 21st century fire department.

And this request this evening is to transfer funds totaling just over $2.2 million, essentially consolidating from three different funds into one capital fund so we can begin the process.

The RFP for

Design was just recently completed earlier last week.

So taking this step to approve this funding, collecting it all in one fund is really the next logical step.

And so staff recommends approval.

Council?

All right.

Let's open the public hearing.

I move we adopt the resolution for funds transfer for the bypass of the fire station project for $2,217,885.

$217,885, excuse me.

Second.

I was about to say that's a whole lot more than I thought.

All right, so we have a second?

Yes.

All right.

Oh, this is just one meeting.

Oh, so it doesn't.

No.

No discussion?

All right.

We'll call the vote.

And it carries 5-0.

All right.

So number six, regulating use of explosives for excavation and demolition activities.

So as everyone has heard during this meeting and the last meeting, a number of residents in Belmont are very concerned because they have received notice that there's a fairly major use of blasting

in connection with a proposed development.

And the purpose of the blasting would be to perform some excavation activities, I believe, in connection with a fairly large formation of rock that is not conducive to providing the foundation for a number of homes that the developer wishes to construct.

At any rate, what we learned is that

There are a number of localities across the nation that do have local ordinances regulating blasting in addition to or in conjunction with the regulations that are already present within the fire code.

So in the Virginia State Fire Prevention Code, there are provisions that regulate how the blasting

itself will be conducted so that it can be safely conducted so that materials that may fly through the air or whatever that could hurt somebody can be the process of managing the blast itself.

But separately there are issues that local ordinances around the country want to make sure are adequately explored before

A major use of blasting for purposes of excavation or demolition activities are undertaken, particularly in an urban area.

There are some very tricky things to watch out for.

After doing some quick research and after receiving some very helpful input from a number of people outside the city, including Mr. Vandiver, I've put together this ordinance for your consideration.

The idea of the ordinance is that

City Council will give the general public, particularly residents who live in the vicinity of proposed blasting activity, an opportunity to have a public hearing.

This will serve two purposes.

It'll be an extra mechanism for notifying people that this is about to happen near their properties.

The fire code already requires at a certain point that the person proposing this activity

Contact individual homeowners and give them a notice and an opportunity to have a sort of an inventory or a review of their the existing condition of their property, but in addition to that this will be a

a more broad-based public notice and an opportunity for people who live in a particular area to bring forward any special knowledge they may have about conditions that are particular to this proposed area that maybe wouldn't necessarily become known through

through the administrative fire code review process.

And also for city council to review whether, aside from the actual impact of the blast itself, whether there are going to be any potential side effects

of this type of activity that could harm, could threaten the life of a person or threaten the property of someone else at a level that could be sufficiently dangerous to be regarded as almost a public nuisance type activity, a significant danger to the public or to property.

So we put this together.

The idea is that someone would bring an application forward through the city manager's office to city council.

There would be a certain list of informational materials that have to come in with the application.

so that city council would have that information available and so that members of the public who might want to comment on it could have access to the information in advance of the public hearing, much like we do with zoning cases.

There's a notice of a public hearing posted in the newspaper and along with that newspaper notice is an instruction to contact this person

if you'd like to review the file on the materials or the staff report on the materials.

So the materials could be made available to people ahead of time.

This would not control the outcome of the fire code review process, but that would be on a separate parallel track.

but the blasting could not occur unless someone had both permits.

So they would need the approval of city council at the end of this process and they would still need to comply with the administrative fire code permitting process.

And then as you can see, once you go through the process of reviewing an application and conducting a public hearing, then city council would

review all the information that's been presented and would have a period of 60 days to make a decision about whether or not a permit or a permission of city council should be granted.

And so you would look at a number of factors that have been specified that talk about whether or not you have enough information, whether or not the activity is going to

result in an unreasonable interference with the ability of people to use or safely occupy property, a number of different factors you could consider, one of which would also include whether or not the insurance requirements that are specified as being part of the application materials would adequately cover the risks that can reasonably be anticipated from the blasting in that particular location.

This would also give you the opportunity to impose reasonable conditions and safeguards on a particular approval.

So the ordinance would allow you to attach conditions to a permit so long as they're designed to sort of minimize whatever risks you've identified through the application and public hearing process.

There are also at the end of the ordinance certain penalties that would be provided in the event that somebody does not comply with either the application process or with the conditions of a permit that's been issued.

Typically, it was my thought that if an application were filed and you gave a public notice of

a public hearing to be had at the next following public meeting and you posted all the materials online that would typically give you some leeway to take more than one meeting to consider it if you needed to.

So you could go longer, you could go a little shorter if you wanted to.

I think less than 30 days would not be practical and depending on

sort of how things came in in relationship to your meeting schedule.

First of all, thank you for all the work to go through such a short period of time.

I was just curious for this specific example that's kind of precipitating this, what are the steps here?

Yes, but it would apply to the activity that everybody's concerned about as well.

So the general rule is that unless you all grant

exceptions to something, if the law changes in the middle of a process, you still have to comply with it.

So the idea is that if you go ahead and get this in place, it would apply to

Then they'd have to go ahead and they haven't done the full application process yet as now described.

That's right.

So they would have to go through that process.

So we may not see this for some time in terms of the public hearing because now the application would proceed the public hearing.

Mayor Walker, do you have a question?

So, Ms. Robertson, so I'm trying to kind of use this in a way.

So, could council determine that blasting is just simply not appropriate in a particular situation given the proximity of other houses, the ages of the houses, the density of the neighborhood,

and it could then say but these you know to remove the bedrock or whatever it is they're trying to get rid of that they could use a pneumatic drill.

So I think

I think what you'll need to do in every case is consider the quality of the application.

So it's going to be incumbent on the people proposing to do the blasting to bring you their best case about

Typically I would think that they are going to have arguments about why the blasting is either the only reasonable way to go about this or it's the only economically feasible way to go about this.

But they will also need to convince you about that and you'll have to weigh that against the safety factors.

This ordinance requires them to give you a fairly substantial amount of engineering data

and analysis and geological information.

So you all are going to hopefully receive well put together applications and if someone

Convinces you that they've thought through all of these things and through the public hearing process, you haven't received information about special conditions that exist in a particular area or particular risks that haven't actually been addressed and explained within the application, then you might decide in that case that

between the insurance and any reasonable conditions that you might come up with there's a reasonable balance between

economics and safety in a particular case.

But if you're not convinced and if there isn't a well put together application that shows you through that engineering data that this is going to be safely managed and it can be conducted within a reasonable degree of safety

for individuals and for property, then the point of having a permit process is that there may be cases in which you are able to say no.

The main thing I'm concerned about there, so

People use insurance and bonds in different ways.

So the purpose of an insurance policy, a commercial liability insurance policy, is typically to provide coverage for certain things in the event that a contractor makes a mistake or conducts an activity with some amount of negligence.

The insurance is there to

to cover the cost of any claims that might be recovered against that contractor or person.

A bond on the other hand is often used to guarantee the performance of something as between two specific abilities.

So the way, for example, the city uses bonds is to say,

you landowner are pursuing a development, you have to build this street to a certain set of city standards.

If you don't build the street to those city standards, that's gonna be sort of an objective failure and then the city can call the bond and go do it.

So the bond is to guarantee that something will be done in accordance with a set of standards, usually in the nature

a contract relationship.

So that what I'm worried about is I don't want to put something in here that would be something that someone it's impossible for somebody to do.

I just don't have knowledge tonight to tell you whether or not a security bond

required in every instance is an appropriate thing versus the liability insurance that the property owners and contractors will need to demonstrate.

What we might be able to do

is to further research this particular provision and come back with an amendment possibly as early as your next meeting and still go ahead and get started with the basic ordinance.

Alternatively, we could say that for the time being that if there is something that could be appropriately, if there is some obligation that could be appropriately,

Well, that makes sense.

Do we just have to make sure we provide some kind of assurance and or, I don't know if security is the right term, but some kind of measure to allow the residents to know.

I mean, the stories we've heard about people, potentially if the bombing happens and then

The infrastructure of the house crumbles and their insurance isn't going to cover it.

Right, and that's typically what insurance is supposed to cover.

All of the people engaged in the blasting activity are required to have insurance coverage for that activity, including under the fire code standards.

So what we have to figure out is what above and beyond any insurance for the blasting activities and the damage they may

create what above and beyond that is necessary in your ordinance.

And I apologize real quick.

When I say bombing, I mean blasting.

There's a big difference.

Near Walker, I have a question.

So, related to that section about insurance, it reads, proof of insurance from the applicant as well as the blasting contractor, minimum for each.

Well, so it's $5 million in the aggregate and $2 million for each occurrence.

Seems low.

I just don't have, I just didn't have access to.

This could be another amendment.

It could be.

And then one follow-up is that to understand this notion of the bonds,

Well typically, if the city is engaging somebody to be a construction contractor, the city would have a performance bond.

And then, as you know, as you drill down through those relationships, very often it's a subcontractor who's doing the blasting who will also have to have a particular level of insurance because that's the person who, if they're negligent, can actually cause the harm to those