City Council Meeting   2/2/2009

Thank you very much.

We're going to start with a couple of announcements.

There will, however, be normal trash recycling and CTS service on that day.

Secondly, our sign-ups are now available for real estate and rent relief programs for elderly and disabled.

Anybody who thinks they might qualify for real estate or rent relief, please contact the Commissioner of Revenue's office at City Hall.

for more information.

Also, I wanted to do an announcement in the form of a follow-up to an issue that was brought to our attention by Ms. Hall a couple of weeks ago, a couple of meetings ago, providing availability of parking at the Juvenile Domestic Relations Corps.

for area churches who are wanting to have access to that parking and that will be granted to those churches.

So thank you for bringing that to our attention.

Other announcements?

I have a couple announcements.

I have the honor of

being a part of the proclamation for the Big Read.

It was actually my first official signed proclamation and I am going to encourage everyone to read The Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston to be a part of the Big Read for the city.

Second announcement is that report cards came out since the last council meeting and they did pretty well.

And I encourage parents to make sure you pay attention to the grades.

If you are in the 4th grade, in your Walker bound, you're in the 6th grade, and you're Buford bound, in the 8th grade, you should be CHS bound.

Parents, this is for Tom Neal.

Just make sure that your children are ready to move on to the next grade.

And if you have students at Beaufort that are in 8th grade, within the report card there's a newsletter that says, it is mandatory that all 8th grade students in their parents set up a meeting to discuss high school registration.

So begin looking for that meeting.

And also, under Other Business, I'd like to talk about the Southwell Preventing River Task Force report.

Mr. Mayor, Alexa learns that our place is having an art show for two-dimensional art.

All ages, all talents, all media can participate in it.

Our submission deadline is February the 28th.

And the theme this year is Charlottesville Multicultural Community, 50 Years of Software Dissegregation.

So I hope all of you participated in it and your reception is at large 6500 to 730 in McAfee Art Center.

Thank you, Mr. Huja.

Any other announcements?

Okay.

Whereas since 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, NAACP, has worked to advance the social, political, and economic conditions of African Americans and other people of color.

And whereas since its inception, the NAACP has fought discrimination in the military, at the voting polls, and in public accommodations.

And whereas the NAACP is dedicated to the objective of securing full enjoyment of citizenship rights, justice in all courts, and equality of opportunity for all.

and whereas our nation has benefited from the NAACP's unwavering commitment to civil rights and the vision of a society free of injustice and whereas beginning in 1947 local members of the NAACP have been dedicated to upholding these principles of the NAACP and have worked to achieve the objectives of justice and equality for all

and whereas today members of the Albemarle, Charlottesville branch of the NAACP are continuing in their efforts to end discrimination and to ensure equal opportunity for all the citizens of our area and whereas the city of Charlottesville and all of its citizens have benefited from the dedication of these principles on the part of members of the Albemarle, Charlottesville, NAACP and from their unwavering commitment to these goals

Now therefore I, Dave Norris, Mayor of the City of Charlottesville, do hereby proclaim February 2nd, 2009 to be the Albemarle, Charlottesville branch of the NAACP Day.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We are now going to open the matters by the public section of our meeting and a number of people have signed up to speak and as always when you come forward please limit your comments to three minutes and give us your name and address.

Good evening.

I'm Tom Lehman, pastor of the University Baptist Church, which is a member of IMPACT.

IMPACT is an organization comprised of 30 congregations, which has a collective membership of around 12,000 people.

IMPACT was very pleased to have you attend the Nehemiah Assembly last year at the John Paul Jones Arena, where, as you recall, we had about 2,000 people plus there

citizens who are committed toward justice and fairness in our community.

I'm speaking on behalf of IMPACT tonight.

But tonight I want to speak on behalf of one recommendation in particular and on behalf of IMPACT.

This concerns the creation

of a regional fund that will receive public and private monies to help deal with the affordable housing crisis in our community.

And this will be specifically for people who are earning less than $20,000 a year, which we all know is somewhat of a paltry sum.

Of course, there is the car fund, which currently exists,

and it is able to receive public and private monies for affordable housing but it has restrictions on it.

It's restricted to home ownership.

It's also restricted to personnel like firefighters, police officers, school teachers and nurses.

What we'd like to see, that we think is fair, is to have a parallel fund that can receive monies in the same fashion, public and private, for people like teachers' aides,

custodians, maids, and other service personnel in our community who are earning $20,000 or less.

We think it is a fair thing to request.

The next person to sign and speak, go ahead.

Good evening, Council.

I want to first thank you all for allowing me to speak tonight.

I'm a single mom with three children.

I want to tell you about a process, or lack of a process, that I went through to get an affordable rental.

I was directed to Paul Harper, director for first-time home buyers, who taught a class in home ownership.

I attended this for eight months, going once a month to class.

The class goal was to get you ready for home ownership.

The class taught you what to expect when buying a home.

There were seminars consisting of keynote speakers, realtors, mortgage companies, land officers, and area banks who spoke on home loans, home inspectors, consumer credit counseling agencies.

After completing the class,

You would receive a certificate that would be turned over to the mortgage company to receive a credit that would go toward the purchase of a new home.

The process had little to do with actual home ownership.

Instead it was nothing more than an information session.

Upon leaving the class I was unable to find any type of support.

System in the pursuit of obtaining affordable housing.

My children and I were forced to move into my parents' place in Ivy, forcing me to commute from the county 25 miles one way for the total of 50 miles a day into the city where I worked and my children attended Clark Elementary School in Beaufort.

Middle School.

I desperately searched for an affordable rental unit in the city.

I made $5 too much to qualify for Section 8 Housing and did not know where else to turn for help.

My children and I would ride around on the weekends seeking out for rent signs.

Finally, a co-worker suggested a three-bedroom house that she knew of, but she said it probably would not meet my standards.

When I arrived, I found a house in ruins beside of a recent drug bust.

The windows had been painted shut.

and the house had not been cleaned for over two years.

The floorboards in the bathroom were rotted so bad that I could see downstairs to the basement.

Yes, I did take this home.

The landlords, I didn't have enough money to save for the security deposit, so they allowed me to come over every afternoon for a month and to help clean to work off my security deposit.

They realized that I would be a good tenant.

I moved in on Christmas Eve, and on Christmas Day I picked my children up from their grandparents in Ivy and drove them to their new house.

Their Christmas present that year was a room of their own.

Had it not been for my parents, my colleagues, and a kind-hearted couple, I might still be driving around town with three kids looking for rent signs.

Had there been a central location for people like myself, looking for an affordable rental, could have gone to, to get assistance, I would not have been forced to go through the ordeal of uncertainty that comes from not knowing whether we would have a place to stay from night to night.

Just think, this could be your mother, your daughter, your sister, or your aunt.

Thank you Ms. Wilson.

Thank you.

My name is Betty Mooney.

I live at 201 Sunset Avenue in the city.

And I'd like to thank Holly Edwards, who was representative for the city of Charlottesville on the Stewardship Task Force of the South Folk Urbana Reservoir.

Also, I'd like to thank a representative of our group, Citizens for Sustainable Water Plan, Dee Dee Smith, and also one

Olivier, from the CL Club, all three who I feel really represented the rate payers and the citizens of the city of Charlottesville in asking that comprehensive professional study of dredging be done for the reservoir.

Overwhelmingly, we've heard in the past months, this task force has been going on now for seven months, that the public really wants to know the cost of what it would be to dredge the Salt Fork Rivanna Reservoir, and in order to find out the cost, we need surveys.

So, Ms. Edwards, Ms. Smith, and Ms. Olivier

passed a motion that they ask to be attached to the report which says to proceed with a comprehensive professional study of dredging the South Fork-Vivana Reservoir.

And I'd like to just read what this includes.

To get a baseline evaluation of the reservoir condition, bathymetric study

side scan, geotechnical samples, identify dewatering and disposal sites, identify commercial potential, work with the Army Corps of Engineers, analysis of sandbars and wetlands, assess the impact of dredging on hydrilla, prevention of future sedimentation,

and very importantly a cost estimate for manual dredging options and to evaluate permitting conditions.

The funding for all of this has been identified in the Watershed Management Fund, which has $300,000.

Mr. Frederick said at the last task force meeting, he was asked,

When does a bathymetric study need to be done of the South Fork Rivanna?

This is something that the DEQ requires to be done every five years.

All those awards are now two years overdue.

It is now seven years since the bathymetric study has been done.

The estimated cost of that, which was in last year's Rivanna YA30 budget, is $150,000, half of the cost.

of what these total surveys would be.

We know that has to be done.

It's required.

It's overdue.

It's two years overdue.

So I feel overwhelmingly the community wants to see these surveys done.

They want to know the cost.

Six neighborhood associations have come forward.

You've heard from four

481 people have signed a petition.

You've heard from the Thomas Jefferson Soil and Water Conservation District, the Sierra Club, the Elmos Sustainable Population Association.

And I really hope now, after seven months, that we will finally get on with this.

So I ask all of you to move with as much haste as you can because you have signed a document that says that you will not go forward unless these studies are done, these surveys, and so I hope that this will happen as soon as possible.

Thank you.

I'd like to just pass out for all of you to see the resolution that Ms. Edwards, Ms. Smith, and Ms. Olivier asked to be included in the task force report.

Bob Strum, Mayor and Order, City Council, City Staff,

I was going to read the letter but I've already sent it to you and I won't trouble you with that again.

I'm here in support of the consent agenda item regarding additional marketing funding for the downtown mall effort.

If you turn around, we gave you a couple of visuals that I hope you enjoyed.

These are some of the signs that will be going up around the downtown mall actually tomorrow.

The welcome to your new downtown is actually a banner that will be going up on Market Street as time allows.

The other six signs are actually signs that will be going up on the fencing.

with a construction fencing, a four foot construction fencing and that'll be going up starting tomorrow.

These are just some of the small portion of the efforts that have been going on since last November when the initial grant was agreed to by council and we come back to you today with a very extensive plan of how we would spend additional funds in addition to a very, very specific plan for how we're going to spend

The original $13,000 grant fund was spent in the holiday season to augment our holiday plans.

The $37,000 balance of the initial $50,000 is being spent and planned to be spent

Beginning next two weeks from now, beginning with the first block party, you all are probably aware that there are seven block parties planned for the downtown mall, one block party for each block under construction.

They should be a wonderful community event and a way to celebrate the new mall renovation.

Thank you, Mr. Stroh.

My name is Michael Will with 1310 Kenwood Lane.

Good evening.

If it's okay, I'll just read from what I have here.

It's an honor to be with you here tonight.

As our nation crosses the threshold of new administration, the long-standing job of the Census Bureau begins.

We provide the President and members of Congress the data they need to make fair and equitable decisions whenever demographics are required.

Our deadline for collection is Census Day, April 1, 2010.

To attain that goal, we will hire 75,000 people in Kentucky, the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Virginia to assist in the process of data collection and pay them 11 to 14 miles an hour to help us.

I'm here tonight to ask you all one very important question.

There's three requirements.

One, they need to have documentation that they're eligible to work in the United States.

That's an I-9, passport, driver's license, cell security card.

Thank you very much.

Yes, I appreciate you being here tonight.

Hey, I'm Stratton Salutis.

I live at 74 Grove Street.

And last time I came to speak with y'all, I spoke a little bit about the history of the Merritt Creek Parkway and a little bit about the suspicious timing, what I think is suspicious timing, between the destruction of the Vinegar Hill neighborhood

and 61, perhaps it was 62 by the time it actually occurred, and then the building of McIntyre Road in 64, perhaps it was completed in 65, and then in 1967, Meadow Creek Parkway was drawn up for the first time.

McIntyre Road extended, it was called at that time.

And at first it was a four-lane road.

and since then it has been whittled down but it seems pretty obvious to me that its origins are part of the whole urban renewal and freeway through the center of town.

I mean, that's what it was.

And since then, it has been done, done.

And I wanted to mention a few of the things that your predecessors have said in the past.

One thing Meredith Richards, who had fought for this road, said was that she thinks that if it's not four lanes, then it's just a matter of time until traffic comes back to the Park and Rowan neighborhoods.

and I think that's true and I think anybody who's deciding that this road should go through should think well in five years when the Meadow Creek Parkway is filled with traffic are we willing to make it four lanes and if the answer is no then why is it yes now and another quote from Greg Caravati who was elected to do away with the parkway and flip-flopped and so it's clear that the citizens of this city got shorted then

said that one of his greatest fears is that the parkway gets built without other roads such as the eastern connector and the county to take the traffic burden off of the city.

The eastern connector is nowhere.

Well at least what I would say was an insufficient number of people on council made arrangements to give up the park and school land based on conditions which are not going to occur any time in the near future if ever.

One of those was also the pond facility that was said to be essential.

and of course 29 and then the Eastern Connector.

So please take that money instead and come up with a express bus route between 29, downtown and Pantops using 250 and also we already have the conservation easements.

We could have Meadow Creek Nature Preserve and Bikeway and use that interchange money to get us across 250.

I emailed everybody last night.

I had a little trouble.

I hope it went through, but I'll try to paraphrase so you don't have to pick up a lot of time.

I'm concerned about the struggling merchants on the mall with difficult economic times and young building construction.

Mall merchants are taking terrible beings on the construction.

The mall is very much like a ghost town right now.

The merchants are paying top rents from the time when the mall was at its prime and some of the landlords, including mine, have agreed to possibly lower the rents.

I'm here to support Bob's show.

We need more money.

I think we need to spend money to help the landlords so the vacancies are very bad for the mall.

Vacancies make people go where there are people.

There are stores going to Bags Road.

There are stores closing.

We need to help the landlords promote the mall to reinvigorate the mall so we don't have any more vacancies.

I think money should be spent to attract new tenants and help the landlords spill these decoupled spaces, as I've said.

We have a challenge.

We don't have corporations like McDonald's and Starbucks supporting the mall.

The merchants want to keep it that way, a historic downtown mall.

I'm the owner of a small business here on the downtown mall.

I'm the block captain involved in the Downtown Business Association and Marketing and had an opportunity to work and talk to all of the merchants as much as I can downtown.

We're just asking you to consider the addition of $50,000 for the marketing.

We'll spend it wisely.

I live at 407 Hedge Street in the city.

I'm here to talk about the conversation on race relations that was discussed at the last meeting.

Maurice Jones, the assistant city manager, gave a proposal about

hiring outside consultants to come in and sponsor a series of conversations among members of the community.

And after I watched that, I wasn't here, I saw it on Charlottesville's own TV 10, and after watching that I thought,

In my experience that it's much better rather than having conversations to have actual activities that people work together, integrate their ideas and efforts in across

issue amelioration or whatever one might call it.

And so I suggested to Maurice by electronic mail, and I did informally address some of these things with Councillor Edwards in the aisles of Crober, I believe it was.

And so I think that this was probably a more formal presentation.

And so my suggestion is that there are many opportunities to reprogram some of those funds that you are considering using for this purpose to sponsor either production of murals on walls in the public space or mosaics or the development of a historic document on some of the issues that have been divisive among those who identify by different races in our community.

and that people would work together I believe and they would learn from each other about how to interpret the past and to see how the past could be prologue to our future.

So I would encourage that rather than just have a series of conversations which may not include the entire community,

Some of these other perhaps artistically based projects or writings or videos, whatever it might be, music, dance, would encourage members of the broad spectrum of different ages in the community and people who identify in different ways by race to work together in something that would both be fun, productive, and I think bridge the gap between what some of the people feel like they have experienced in the past.

So I would encourage

A broader thought on how that money could be used and how a community could be involved.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Green.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Councillors.

Colette Hall, 101 Robinson Lane.

First of all, thank you regarding the parking deck that's used here.

I would like to talk about item F on the consent agenda, the grant for circuit court records preservation.

First, let me say right at the top, I'm not against the grant.

But in the recent past, there's been inquiries by the press into the security and the privacy of circuit court records.

and with concerns of identity theft or privacy violations, I wonder if you can inform me of the stage of court record preservation to ensure privacy.

Thank you, Ms. Hall.

My name is John Gaines and I reside at 214 North Street in the city.

I'm here tonight to voice my concern on two issues facing the city.

But first I'd like to thank the council for issuing the proclamation

recognizing the 100th anniversary of the NAACP.

I'd like to first voice my opposition to a proposed dialogue project the city may fund with taxpayers' money.

Citizens talk all the time.

We talk to each other at council meetings, church gatherings, school functions, ball games, and other places of social gathering.

I don't think it would be a wise use of tax dollars to fund this project.

Secondly, I'd like to ask the city to employ

Consultant or either use as city staff to do a study of city streets.

Many of the streets in my neighborhood and in other neighborhoods in the city dangerously try to accommodate two-way traffic.

And I really think it would be to the city's

My name is Kevin Lynch, 609 Locust Avenue.

As you all know, in the past 12 months or so,

a lot of new data that has challenged some of the fundamental assumptions made by our community water supply plant.

One of those new pieces of data has been the cost of the dam, which was anticipated to be built at Ragon Mountain.

That number has almost tripled from the original $37 million.

Last couple weeks ago, the Rivanna board at their meeting talked about a group of consultants that were going to look at trying to reduce that number.

Another piece of information which has come to light is that the Rivanna director has now said publicly that the alignment for the pipeline, the alignment that was shown in the permanent support document that was filed is probably not going to work without the 29 bypass and something will have to be done.

And in fact, you all as part of your resolution insisted that money be spent to try to find out what's happened, how that pipeline would work.

In fact, you're a consultant.

recommended if you go forward with the dam that you should also look at the pipeline, the cost of the pipeline, the feasibility of the pipeline, because they really don't work one without the other.

Well, at the same meeting last couple of weeks ago that went forward with the dam study, the service authority had some problem with the memorandum of understanding saying, no, we can't do the pipeline study.

So I'm here to make sure that you understand that and that you understand

The interdependence of the pipeline and the dam.

I want you all to imagine if you were the herd of a corporation instead of a city.

and that that corporation was planning to spend $142 to maybe $200 million to build some new facility in the future that could supply 50 years worth of growth and that it was going to cost 15, actually 14 years of annual revenue to build this thing.

I don't think any corporation would really do that, but suspending that for a minute.

If the consultant then said, well, we're going to build this thing,

in the woods and the only way to get to it is a one-lane road.

But don't worry because 13 years from now we'll build a superhighway.

So go ahead and build that new facility and just trust us.

We'll have a superhighway there in 13 years.

And then somebody looks at that and says, wait a minute, you know the alignment that you have shown for that?

That really doesn't work, does it?

And they say, yeah, it really doesn't.

But don't worry about that.

We don't have to worry about that for 13 years.

Who would do that?

Who's spending their own money to do that?

And another thing I ask you is to look for, for most plans, for any engineer plans, you'll see a professional engineer stamped on them.

This community railroad supply plan has no professional engineer stamped on it.

Now the dam, individual pieces of it, I'm sure the professional engineers can design a dam and it will hold water, but our plan

Nolan is going to take responsibility for that plan.

Maybe the nation can serve and see well.

Will their professional liability pay for it?

If 13 years from now they go, whoops, guess we can't build a pipeline.

Sorry about that, guys.

Thanks for your attention and please do due diligence on this project because it hasn't been done so far.

Thank you, Mr. Lynch.

We have time for maybe one or two more.

Does anybody else like to speak?

I don't know how many of you have seen these before.

My name is Rob Winstead, 1613 Oakley Flame, Charlottesville.

These are what I got left after being part of a citizens group studying the interchange at 250 and McIntyre Road.

If I read the paper right, tonight you're going to be talking about that, although it's

completely clear on the agenda to me where that is, but I wanted to take a last chance to come before you and just give you some thoughts about that.

I spent many, many hours working on this group over two years, and I was actually an alternate, so I can't imagine what other people were doing, and during that time, this is about

Maybe a third of what was sent to me over that time.

Lots of glossy prints, lots of lunches over meetings, lots and lots of people at these meetings.

It was an incredible effort that the city put forth to make this study.

But for me, it was an incredibly frustrating, difficult, and wasteful process.

and really turned me off to these committees and it would be some time before I think about serving on one of these committees again.

And it wasn't the city staff that was leading it.

I think they were doing their job.

It wasn't the consultants that were doing the study.

It wasn't the group of citizens that was gathered around even though we had

our differences.

It was really the charge of the committee, which was to think about the best interchange without considering the context for that decision.

The Meadow Creek Parkway, the larger transportation plan, or the development patterns that that transportation plan supports.

And despite our best efforts to expand beyond the charge of the committee and talk about all of these issues,

time and time again we were pushed back into the box.

And so in the end the effort seemed like to me essentially an exercise in putting lipstick on a pig.

to use an overused phrase, and really in the end seemed like a not so thinly veiled effort to use a community group to advance the Meadow Creek Parkway and the development that depends on it.

I actually think grade separated interchange is a great idea at 250 and McIntyre, and actually drew a proposal for it as part of STAMP,

eight or nine years ago.

But I don't think it necessarily has to connect to the Meadow Creek Parkway.

And I think it would create capacity in our existing transportation system, create opportunities for access into the park, and would not support development patterns that are ultimately unsustainable.

So I wanted to just rely on some other people's good work.

If you guys have not read the book Suburban Nation, I recommend that you look at it.

There's one chapter.

It's 20 pages long.

on the American Transportation Mess.

Because settlement patterns depend on... You're actually out of time.

I'm out of time.

It's an excellent read.

Who's the author?

DeWaney Potter-Zeidler.

Great.

Thank you very much, Ms. DeWaney.

Okay.

Is there anybody else that would desire me to speak?

Thank you all very much for coming tonight, and we'll now open it up to council member responses to Matters by the Public.

First of all, I'd like to comment on two items.

First, with the reservoir dredging study run by Barry Molyneux, I look forward to hearing Ms. Edwards' comments and discussion to see if there's a need to have something like that.

and so I look forward to talking to you for the discussion.

I will just say, I don't want to be redundant, that I certainly agree with what Mr. Huja said.

I would like to thank Ms. Wilson for coming forward and talking about some of the frustrations that she dealt with trying to obtain affordable housing, which I think kind of illustrates what some of the issues are in the community.

And I guess another thing, it kind of makes me wonder

How many units are we really producing with the money we're putting in it, I guess, and I don't know whether this is a widespread issue or whether it was just an issue she experienced, but it's sad, I think, that she had to go through this and the frustration she went through during the educational process, et cetera.

I'll just make a couple of comments.

To Mr. Winstead, thank you for the time that you spent on that committee.

I know it was time consuming.

It sounds like in new ways you did learn a lot.

And it sounds like the people in the room probably learned a lot from you as well.

But I would encourage you to stay involved because it's voices like yours that we need in the community.

Second, I can't deny the presence of impact.

It's always a very impressive group.

I've kind of got it figured out now that when one person speaks, all of you are going to stand up.

For my opinion, it's really impressive.

But I'm going to tie that in with

the comments that Mr. Gaines made in terms of the downtown marketing investment that I think it's important to make an investment in the community to talk about race and to not only have a conversation but to have a substitute action plan.

I think there's a relationship between the racial issues that we do discuss, don't discuss, and the housing issues that Ms. Wilson described, our workforce development, our education, and how it's important for the entire community to really develop a true

Action Plan, and I think it's important for not only the city to be a leader in that, but also to lead by example, so there are a lot of things that we need to change within the city government as well, and I acknowledge that.

But the reality is that even if this evening we all sang Kumbaya, and we left here feeling

Tomorrow morning, there still would not be an African American business owner in the downtown mall.

An African American single mother would still struggle to get housing.

If an African American male on your phone would still struggle to get a job.

And our children are now graduating from high school at the rates that we like.

So even without calling it race, there's a discussion that we have to have about the culture that's been cultivated in the city that allows this to happen and it shouldn't happen.

Whether or not it manifests itself in a discussion about race modeled by the things that Lynchburg was able to accomplish or whether we learn from that and develop our own action plan.

But clearly, and thanks to

Stratton reminding us of the history.

Is there a correlation between Vinegar Hill, northern renewal, the building of roads, the building of what we know as pockets of poverty?

I'll just make a few quick comments.

and David Rudd.

I will also thank Ms. Wilson for coming forward.

I think the big issue in our community is affordable rental housing, and I think it has been lost in the city.

You know, just due to the gentrification of numerous of our neighborhoods, I think a lot of people have a lot of difficulty finding a safe, affordable place to live.

And what I'm excited about, and we'll talk about it later, is to have the city and the county talking about this together.

So it's not just the city talking about it or the county talking about it, but as a community we talk about it.

Secondly, I agree with Ms. Edwards that I think her idea of a conversation on race is important, but nonetheless I'm concerned about how much money we might spend on it.

and therefore I welcome comments by Mr. Gaines or by Mr. Cleman and anyone else who has ideas on how can we most wisely either have a conversation or work together to address the race issues which I think have been, you know, are things we generally only tend to think about when we have a crisis.

And finally I will say I agree with Kevin Lynch tonight.

I do think that the

Don't fall out of your chair, Kevin.

I do think that the pipeline is essential for the dam, which you and I differ on the need for the dam, but I agree that the pipeline is a core component of it, and I think that the city wisely has asked that we look and make sure that what we're planning to do is have someone else come in and look at the ideas and say, yeah, this is feasible and this is practical, and that component of this plan is a reasonable one.

It doesn't mean it has to be engineered something now, but have someone else come in and say, yeah, that's a good idea.

It's something I think we should do.

I agree on that last point about the pipeline study, and I think we're all still on the same page with regard to the need to proceed with that.

We're going to be discussing some of the recommendations from the housing task force later, so withhold my comments now, but I do appreciate those who spoke tonight about this continuing community need and challenge.

I want to thank Stratton Salidas and Rob Winstead for continuing to challenge us, challenge the city on how we allocate our resources and live up to our ideals of being a green city, a sustainable city, a well-planned city.

And lastly,

I want to ask Mr. Gaines, I appreciate you bringing up the issue of traffic.

What would be particularly helpful is if you could follow up with us on if there's specific streets you would like us to look at instead of a city-wide analysis.

But if there's specific streets that you feel generally can't handle two-way traffic because of new development or from whatever pressures, please let us know and we'll have our staff look into them.

Thank you all again for coming tonight.

We're going to now move into our consent agenda.

Items on the consent agenda will have minutes from January 20th.

Item B is an appropriation of $160,000 Homeland Security Grant for the Fire Department, seconded to readings.

Item C is an appropriation of $3,000 Go Green Challenge Award for the Virginia Municipal Week, seconded to readings.

Item B is an appropriation of $23,000 reimbursement from P-1 Housing Alliance for sale of John Street Lots, seconded to readings.

Item E is an appropriation of $13,500 reallocation of home funds for city match, second of two readings.

Item F is an appropriation of $13,382 grant for circuit court records preservation, second of two readings.

Item G is an appropriation of $1,000 First Tee program grant from Longmark, first of one reading.

Item H is an appropriation, $21,203, reimbursement from UVA for traffic light at Jefferson Park Avenue, Valley Road, first of two readings.

Item I is an appropriation, $40,819.41, reimbursement from Albemarle County for ADA improvements at 407 East High Street, first of two readings.

Item J, an appropriation, $16,667, marketing leveraged program reimbursement, first of two readings.

Item K, a resolution to street name correction, renamed Portion Street from Mid Street to South First Street as continuation of Elliott Avenue, first of one reading.

Item L is a resolution authorizing additional marketing funds, $50,000 for downtown Charlottesville, first of one reading.

And item M is an ordinance lease of Ivy Creek Natural Area Tenant House, second of two readings.

I'll move the consent agenda.

Discussion?

Please indicate your vote.

Thank you very much.

The first item on our regular business tonight is a public hearing and resolution regarding parking study, the first of one meeting.

And Ms.

Branch, are you here to present?

Good evening.

My name is Donovan Blanche.

I'm the Assistant Traffic Engineer with Neighborhood Development Services.

Jim Toba was supposed to be here, but he's ill, so I'm going to stand in his shoes.

Hopefully I can fill them with the help of our traffic engineer, Jeannie Alexander.

In the early spring last year we began a study of the parking in the downtown area.

The intent of this study was to address four basic issues.

Whether adequate parking is provided is currently and for the future.

Whether the current designation of spaces in the core area is meeting our community needs, whether the existing parking exempt zone is still appropriate, and whether and how transit can help to reduce downtown parking demand.

The basic findings of this study were that all problems associated with the current designation of spaces in the study area related to an increase in business and a change in business mix.

Because of these changes, loading and delivery is extremely difficult.

Systematic changes in the core zone will greatly improve traffic flow and improve safety in the downtown area.

Another finding is that the primary zip zone has outlived its usefulness and should be changed.

Another item is increased transit ridership can reduce the demand for parking but these increases need to be substantial if we are to see a significant impact.

Parking should be managed and enforced in a coordinated and planned manner.

Currently there is no coordinated plan for how on street spaces are designated or is there coordination with enforcement.

Finally, while there may not be a need for additional parking structure at this moment, there will be one in the very near future.

The study recommends that the city should identify a location and begin planning for construction now.

So basically what I was finding is the study came up with these recommendations and they are listed on a resolution that I hope you adopt later.

One of these recommendations did not make it onto the resolution sheet that was a typographical error.

The first recommendation is to change the on-street parking system to the recommendations outlined in the study.

This is to restrict delivery by traffic trailers to Water Street, Marcus Street, and both mall crossings at 2nd and 4th Streets.

After 11am, some of these will switch over to one hour parking.

Create a temporary delivery platform to be given to each business to allow all their customers to use spaces on the neighborhood side streets for delivery.

We could charge $10 per parkour with a maximum of two per business.

The details of that can be worked out if this resolution is adapted.

Maintain the same number of handicapped spaces as currently exist.

There are 24 spaces currently in the downtown area.

Where 15, 30 minute and two hour spaces exist intended for short term parkours, convert those to one hour within the core zone.

Convert the spaces on the south side of Garrett Street between Belison and 2nd Street and on the north side of Emmett Street between 1st and 2nd Street to 2 hour parking.

Allow unrestricted parking on the north side of Garrett Street from Belison to 1st Street.

These changes would yield 42 hour spaces and 18 unrestricted spaces.

At the end of the study, we proposed to

One way this section is Garrett Street in the westbound direction and create backend angle parking on one side.

These changes would be implemented immediately.

I just want to take a second to say the recommendations in this study, we propose to have those implemented after the mall construction is done.

The reason we want to implement the Garrett Street ones immediately is because they're not in the midst of all the construction and we're adding parking, so this is actually a benefit.

We create 12 bus-bend motorcycle spaces where all-day parking is allowed.

initiate a zoning text amendment for planning commission action that would eliminate the parking exempt zone for downtown projects and requiring the parking at a suggested rate of one space per residential unit and 50% of the currently required non-residential use requirement.

The developer would have the option to meet the requirement either on site within 1,000 feet of the site or by paying X dollars into a fund to pay or build the next public parking garage.

They will then receive spaces in that garage.

The ex-dollar fee will be set by the Economic Development Office annually.

Ask the city manager to continue to explore ways to improve the efficiency of parking enforcement.

Ask the staff to evaluate and choose a location for the next parking garage and develop a financing plan to present to council.

adopt an ordinance to require that any parking lot that charges for use in periods of less than one month require an attendant or be gated and determine whether a parking meter system for management of on-street parking is desired in the downtown area.

I have a question.

These are surface lots.

Actually, I don't feel we're out this afternoon.

We don't believe this is legal in my head.

I inquired about this particular provision out of concern that there was no enabling legislation for us to adopt this type of ordinance.

When I inquired, I was told that it was contemplated that this would be part of the zoning ordinance.

and it was directed at a current problem that exists at a parking lot.

So I don't think it would get at the problem it's designed to address.

I think I will as well.

I had a number of comments and questions, but I'll hold off on mine.

We're going to now open up the public hearing.

Again, please state your name and address and keep your comments to three minutes.

Thank you.

It's an honor to be here and I'm glad to be involved with this new process.

Beginning last year, I'm Sean Dacher with Octagon Partners.

We're located in the warehouse district which is on the other side of the railroad tracks and hopefully I'll remember some of our concerns over the past couple months about the part of the study and the approach to parking that we have in our neighborhood.

I got involved back in spring of last year and it was because of a lot of the issues in our neighborhood.

We've been dealing with, I've been dealing with folks in our neighborhood and also with the stakeholder group.

I've been to every meeting and participated in every aspect of the study and I'm really glad that it's wrapped up before you this evening.

The most important aspect I think of for our neighborhood is what's proposed on Gleason Street.

Just a little bit of background, Jeannie Alexander and Donald Branch came to our neighborhood.

We invited all the stakeholders to come.

We discussed options and approaches to it.

There was a level of consensus, the consensus from the meeting was distributed and everyone was given the opportunity to respond to that and we feel like we've got what would end up being a compromise.

Our neighborhood is a de facto parking area for downtown employees, we recognize that.

We also have a mixed use business that does need some parking so what you see here is

A compromise that ends up adding more spaces to the neighborhood.

I don't think it's absolutely perfect in everyone's mind but it's a compromise and we support it.

So with that I'll say we support the study, I mean the recommendation for Gleason and I also support the entire study, I haven't been involved in it from the start.

Thanks.

Greetings, folks.

Thank you very much for letting me speak tonight.

1302 Lester Isle Drive, I have a business in the downtown on Garrett Street, Moxie Hair Lounge.

I am a lifelong citizen and was the born native of Charlottesville.

As I've seen things grow and develop in this city, I have noticed that there's an area that does not get developed quite as fast or has put too much attention and that would be the warehouse district.

I'm very much in favor of this parking to help us alleviate the pressure of the downtown overflow and also help us create and grow the developing neighborhood that we're currently in.

There's an incredible amount of great construction and development happening there which I think will make that area

a viable part of the city.

And with that, we need to have expanding growth for our customers to be able to maintain that growth and development.

Good evening, I'm Peter Kleeman.

I live 407 Head Street in the city.

I live on Head Street, which is one block north of the study area of the parking study, which has its dividing, northern dividing line as

as High Street, I believe, where the building is just north of High Street.

And thus, it has excluded from consideration the parking garage that's being constructed on, like, on 4th Street Northeast as part of the Juvenile and Domestic Court

Project, and that's a relatively large parking garage.

I walk by there three, four times a day and I think it's on the order of 100 parking spaces that were not considered as being part of the inventory of parking in the parking study as best I could read in that study.

So I am a little disappointed that the parking study was not a bit more robust and my personal feeling is it's really not of interest to our community to be building parking garages in the queer downtown area but somewhere near, sort of on the fringe, that people could park and walk to their destinations and not use up that prime destination space as being parking garages.

And so I'm a little disconcerted that this parking garage, which seems to be one of those fringes just outside the core downtown area, is not included as part of that meeting parking needs.

I don't know if there are other areas where there are parking garages that are being proposed that are outside the study area, but my hunch would be that if there are, they were not also included in the study.

So I question what the value of some of the numbers about the inventory of parking spaces is.

in that report and so I would just caution you that some of those numbers may not be as high quality a representation of the actual number of parking spaces available and to make decisions based on a non-robust, very narrow focused

I would just encourage you to think robustly about what the recommendations are for

and that you consider looking at not so much just what is in that core but what the reasonable expectation is of additional parking spaces and how those will be used and perhaps that parking deck as I understand it is going to be the place where many city vehicles will be parked which will take them out of some of the spaces that are in that downtown core area so in fact

There will be a reduced parking demand in that study area just because they have been moved to be parked in the juvenile and domestic court building.

So the details on that are not clear to me.

I did not have the opportunity to read all of those details.

I want to say to Councillor Edwards, I really want to hear what you have to say at the end of the meeting that I might leave because it might only slip out there, but I'm going to watch you on live streaming because we leave doesn't mean we're not watching.

As president of the NDLA, the neighborhood association for North Downtown, the neighborhood is most concerned about commuters parking on non-permit parking and even permit parking streets in our neighborhood.

We laugh about the two hour shuffle, only in that the two hour shuffle has been shuffling for years.

We choose to recommend you establish park in a variety of sites, for example, Darlington Park, and use a van-sized vehicle to transport the mall and city employees for a nominal fee.

This appears more economical than building a new garage.

In fact, with two-hour shufflers not parking in the study area, there would be enough spaces for customers.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Sharon Mannery.

I live at 725 Pine Hill Lane in Ivy.

I'm the owner of Quince, which is a store located at 126 Garrett Street in the Gleason Building.

I've been a business owner for almost six years now and it's been very exciting to watch our area south of the tracks really grow and develop and it's going to become so much more.

Parking is vital to our survival.

We need it and we want it.

I think it's all for the greater good.

Anything you can do to help us with this, we would appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

Hello everyone, my name is Chris Crater, I'm with ACAC.

I'm here in favor of the parking study and specifically the recommendations for the area on Garrett Street.

When we first started four and a half years ago, it was an old abandoned warehouse.

And since that time in this lot, it's been approved over 200,000 square feet of development in the two-block area, bordered by Second, Gleason, Garrett, and Monticello.

And in that time, the parking regulations in that area have not changed.

at all.

And so we feel like this study is something that was overdue, but we are nonetheless very appreciative and feel like these additional spaces will be a great benefit not only to ACAC but certainly to the other businesses in the area.

And we feel that given that the attendance at our downtown location has gone from 250 a day to over 1300 a day now, this room has brought a lot of activity and vitality to that neighborhood and hope to continue doing so for a long time.

Thank you, Mr. Crane.

Is there anybody else who would like to speak on this subject?

Mayor, City CATS, City staff, and Bob Strove, 1412 Kenwood Lane, sorry I forgot it last time.

I do want to make two comments about the parking study, I was of course involved with various others from the very beginning, but the first comment I want to make is that I really appreciate the wisdom of staff not recommending making immediate changes in price and added cost to the downtown.

I think right now is not a great time to do that and I would certainly suggest that require a lot of study and forethought before any changes like that are put in place.

I'm talking meters, parking zones and so on.

It doesn't seem time to load up additional cost on time.

The other is a much bigger issue that has to do with looking at a new parking structure.

Many of you were here in 1987 when parking locked up downtown.

By locked up, I mean we basically put a sign up at 10 o'clock every morning that there's no parking available downtown, please go somewhere else.

That sign was up for six years from 1987 to 1993 when the Radish Creek Parking Garage was finally opened.

Parking garages take a long time

to design, build, plan, figure out the finance of all the different parts and pieces of that puzzle.

Even though we've been given a little breathing in because of the current economy, we've been looking at this situation for the last year or so.

We're inching towards that point when the next big project, whatever it might be, locks up parking downtown.

I would hate to see that happen before we have another structure ready to take up the slack, or some other plan ready to take up the slack.

But at this point, a parking structure seems like a worthy planning effort, knowing the long lead times and bad.

So I encourage you to really look on that favorably, because we don't want to see another period like we had back in the 80s and early 90s.

Thank you, Mr. Strong.

Anybody else?

Dr. Brown.

I have a couple questions.

First of all, I think I agree with the comments that, and we've talked about this before, that a park and ride system for downtown, I think especially to allow employees an inexpensive way to

to be downtown and I think that's a good idea.

And I think it's a good, sort of in line with Mr. Stroh's comments, the sooner we can go ahead and explore the feasibility and the effectiveness of a park and ride, the sooner we can see whether that takes enough pressure off that affects our either need to build a new parking garage or the scale of it.

So I guess one of my questions is, what do we need to do next

to explore this idea.

That might be a city manager type question, but I'd like to see that be the next thing we kind of look at.

Kind of a comment veiled as a question.

Well, I had the very same comment.

I was simply going to suggest that we amend the recommendation that says ask the staff to evaluate and choose a location for the next parking garage and develop a financing plan to present to council.

I was simply going to suggest we had and likewise explore

feasibility and effectiveness of a park and ride system and present comparative analysis, something along those lines.

My second question, in the study it talks about, in the staff memo between page two and three, it talks about

No improvements in our parking will be effective without renewed commitment to enforcement and I know that since we've been studying this we all got an email sort of discussing the fact that our

The number of parking tickets we've been writing has actually declined, both parking tickets in general and handicap tickets.

Of course, I could think that maybe it just means that people are parking illegally a lot less and are completely not parking in handicap zones.

But anyway, I just wondered if we could address that a little bit.

I know the Chief is here, the City Manager, could talk a little bit about enforcement and what we can do to

I asked the chief to come up and talk about some of the ideas and some of the data that we're looking at and some of his thoughts.

Good evening, members of the council.

Mr. Brown, Mr. O'Connor.

Let me say first and foremost, and we try to address a perception, or at least maybe in the minds of some, a sincere belief that these declining both revenues and issuances of tickets are because the department's unsympathetic around caring to the concern that parking certainly creates for our community.

That can be nothing further from the truth.

I think we do our very best to use the resources we have in a way that's smart for both enforcement, but also helping to manage the greater parking issue that takes place both downtown and in our communities.

As Dr. Brown points out,

Over the last decade, the issuance of citations has dramatically decreased.

The most significant decrease took place in the time just prior to my arrival, and that was fiscal year 2000-2001.

Thereafter, even though the numbers have gone down, they have not gone down as dramatically as they did that year.

And frankly, we're still trying to figure out what happened.

I can tell you that the declines that have taken place over the last seven years, I think, have done so because the resources we've committed

The parking enforcement has been both diminishing and erratic.

Those positions turn over very frequently and more often than not people who take those positions matriculate on to become police officers and of course you have the downtown trying to fill those positions.

So we're really trying to play catch up.

So presently we're looking at

how we utilize the resources we have to maybe do so in a more effective way to perhaps work with the city manager and the budget office and Mr. Watts to see if there's a way we can fill the existing vacancies.

We're funded for five full-time positions and three part-time positions.

We currently only have three of those full-time positions filled in one part-time.

In the month of December and the month of January, there were really two full-time CSOs doing parking enforcement downtown.

and they generated probably $25,000 during the month of December and $35,000 and about $25,000 in January so just those two people are doing a remarkable work but I do think we need to take steps to address some of the issues and frankly there's some unknowns that we don't know about.

I do think there have been changes in parking patterns.

I think the construction and utilization of the downtown garages have impacted this.

The removal of the city decal enforcement in 04 and 05 may have somehow affected these numbers.

And I also would like to think that people are changing their habits and seeking out other transportation options when they come downtown, which certainly would affect those numbers.

So we're doing the very best we can, but we're going to continue to look at the factors that may help us

get a better handle on enforcement, but I do think I'd be remiss, and I address this with the city manager, not to caution us to be sensitive about what could occur if we pay too much attention to enforcement, particularly during the economic times.

We probably have 200 or so scofflaws presently on the list.

If we continue to be very aggressive with enforcement, that number's going to grow, which means that people's vehicles will be towed,

I have a couple of comments, but maybe I'll save them.

I support the ideas that have come up in the sort of warehouse district, the Garrett Street area.

Whoever came up with the idea of kind of slamming in some parking spots and making the road one way, I'm assuming it might have been Ms. Alexander, but I think it was a great idea.

because it took us, before that idea came forward, I think we were in a position of either trying to help the merchants, emerging merchants, in what's going to be a really exciting and is an exciting part of town, but at the same time affecting the ability of people who depend on free spaces.

And I think this adds to the number of parking spaces.

I think it's a whirlwind win and has sort of a minimal effect, I believe, on people who currently depend on

on sort of pre-parking in that area.

So I think a lot of good things have come out of here and I basically support, I like the amendment you suggested regarding park and ride and I'd like to thank everyone involved in this study because I think it's turned out well.

I just had one comment, just a concern that I have is, I'm downtown at night a lot and I direct this to the chief, but what I observed a lot is people parked right on the corner of E. Leslie.

I see people parking and blocking the handicapped ramps off the side walls.

and I guess one of my concerns is if a person's in a wheelchair area they can really navigate that.

And the other concern I have is from the public safety standpoint on some of the narrow streets in the downtown area like a big piece of fire up there that's trying to make a turn is pretty difficult sometimes because they park, some people park, it's got to be legal there and I don't know whether we're citing any of those people or not but

Well, I appreciate you bringing that to us.

I think there's one thing worth noting as well is that I have directed Captain Kirby who's in charge of our field operations division to make sure that the officers, our patrol officers who are working the downtown area and the university corner when parking control agents aren't

to make sure that they do whatever they can to help us manage this problem as well.

And I will bring that to his attention.

It's something we can look at.

I know we've been, since the mall reconstruction began just after the first of the year, at Chief Warren's request, have been paying a lot of attention to the side streets.

Keeping in mind that's the only point of access that the Fall Out Brothers has to the downtown mall.

Looks like the side streets are doing a better job, it appears, than I am.

But these other places sometimes are that long.

But thank you.

I have a number of comments and questions that I would like to raise for your discussion.

The Commission Board Number 4 suggests that we should go to well hour parking limit for a course from 15 minutes, 30 minutes and 2 hours.

I was wondering if well hour is sufficient time

for somebody going to downtown for lunch or something and would there be sufficient time to do that.

I am still a two hour shuffle problem but at the same time we need to have enough time to allow people to use downtown.

The logic behind the one hour did in fact include the two hour shuffle.

Also, it encourages more efficient use of the spaces immediately surrounding the downtown mall.

We can include more delivery areas there.

We'll have all the ADA, the handicapped spaces, still in that immediate core zone.

Once you go out one block north and south of Water and Market, then you have the two hour spaces.

Yes, after Water Street and Market Street, the following block north of that and south of that is Two Hour.

Okay.

The one-way section and the illustration behind you, similar to what was in your agenda packet, but it might aid in the discussion, is from 2nd Street to Gleeson Street only, is the one-way section.

Well, I heard you say that you've traveled a lot of parking systems before and you're a friend, usually.

And so, I feel that if you run a Paris street just because you're in a party where there are both sides to it, I don't know how you feel.

Is there no possibility to do 90 degree parking by the street?

Unfortunately.

I also feel that parking around here is a good idea.

At the same time I think there is still some parking around in downtown in the future.

We have just been looking at the multi-use spaces.

With parking meters, we're still going to have to have a partnership with enforcement, partnership with people, checking them.

That's correct.

also has an expense the way it's, depending on how you do it, I mean a pretty significant expense without any of its help becomes an issue.

But it's the last item in the resolution that just says to continue to study the parking meter system.

We want to do some more work on it, see if we can find a better way for it to make sense.

I just had to kind of echo some of the comments that have already been made regarding the efficiency of parking enforcement before we move on to a private agency to do it, which I agree with Council Taliaferro on that.

I don't think that's necessarily a good idea or for it to move to a city department.

I'd like to

Here we're from a police department about what that efficiency would look like, how that efficiency could be measured, what you learn from that.

And then before, I wanted to become efficient within the department that it exists before we move it to another department.

And also, I think it's important to think about transit improvements and if we can

asked for a developer to give dollar amount for a garage.

I think there should be some concerted effort to have some dollar amount for transit improvements and to really look at what the parking lot lots could look like.

I think that the remote parking that UVA has established at U-Haul is a good example of how that can be successful, so I'd like to see

More of that in a way that can be realistic for people to actually change the way they are able to come to work.

Even as we talk about a parking lot, is there something

I just wondered if you should possibly go straight, maybe we should just try the experiment

I didn't quite understand what you said.

We can certainly do that.

The stuff involved with doing that, though, we're going to put thermoplastic paint striping down on the road to make it clear in the signing.

That's not a huge expense if we choose to reverse that later, but it is something that requires much more effort to take up than it does to put down.

No, no, this is a very, that's one of the reasons why this is a fairly simple change to make is it's just striping and signs.

It's very cost effective.

I think that to go over there on a very regular basis, I think just the way the road's laid out, I don't really think it's going to be a big problem for people the way it's going to be one way.

The only conceivable problem is if you turn on Gleason Street wanting to kind of cut through to get to the mall.

I don't think a whole lot of people do that, if you're coming

East on Monticello Avenue, you're not likely to turn on Nick Leeson Street and then turn again on Garrett.

I think you'd continue to 2nd Street and turn left at the light.

So I don't think there's a whole lot of people whose traffic pattern is going to be disrupted by that street being one way.

I understand what you're saying, but I've thought about it.

I have to go there, go to ACAC pretty regularly.

I don't think it's going to be

Along those lines, we did traffic counts on the street and there's 1,700 vehicles per day, which is relatively low volume.

The majority of those, 1,000 vehicles per day, are in the westbound direction.

That's also consistent with the larger truck traffic.

It travels in the westbound direction that services Standard Produce and we've spoken with them and they agree that that is the direction that their larger vehicles travel.

So we've really tried to work with everyone around there to come up with something that works for everyone.

Mayor Norris, I think you mentioned in this resolution adding something about the shuttle service, is that correct?

I would really like for it to encourage us maybe to try to do a pilot on that to see how it works for a while and see if people will utilize it if that's possible.

The city managed to look at that as possible and do the following on it.

I think Ms. Hall presents us with a good idea there.

I have my own questions and comments.

First of all, on Garrett Street, I think it's a very creative solution and I fully support it.

One piece, I have serious concerns about those.

Why the backing in?

It's a very good and usual concern.

That is the public education piece.

We have a brochure, assuming that moves forward this evening, to distribute to all the businesses there to share with the people who come by before it's implemented, explaining the back-end aspect of it.

It seems as though many of you understand this already because you haven't answered the question, but just in case, it's very similar to parallel parking and how it works.

You stop, you put your blinker on, and you're back into the space.

It's just much simpler to move into rather than a parallel space.

We will have signage that says back in angle parking only.

The first couple days we're down there, we're going to put a couple dummy cars in places to make sure this works and people get the drift of it.

In the beginning there will be some challenges and people won't understand how to do it because we don't have it anywhere else in the city.

We'll work through that and hopefully it'll catch on.

We have a bright citizenry and I think we can do it.

But isn't the reason that when you're leaving the space, if you've backed in, you're at the edge of the stream, you can see whether something is coming, if you've pulled in,

You're going to have trouble seeing whether there's cars coming as you're trying to back into the street.

It's safer to do the back in because the sight lines are so much better and you lose the space.

It's safer for motorists, bicyclists, pedestrians.

It's also easier if you're unloading the trunk of your vehicle because you're at the back of the vehicle.

It's safer for children when you open your car doors because they go towards the back, not towards the street.

The Gleason merchants were okay with the backing in thing?

Yes.

We did test it out.

Well, when I do it, it was me riding, it was me.

Okay, I want to get back to what I think is actually a much bigger issue, which Mr. Huja touched on, which has to do with changing the spaces in the core zone, particularly on water and market, from two hour to one hour, or in many cases from 15 minutes to one hour.

And the rationale that was put forth in this study was that we need consistency in the parking guidelines so that citizens aren't confused about how long they can park where.

I don't think there's much confusion.

I mean, the spaces are marked.

They're clearly marked.

Everybody knows this is a two-hour block.

The spaces outside of City Hall are 15-minute spaces.

That seems to work pretty well.

My concern is that we've taken a step to try to deal with the issue of the two hour shufflers who by this report's reckoning comprise about over 30% of the parking spaces.

in this area are filled by the two hour shufflers and yet we've done nothing to address it in a proactive way about where are these people going to park.

I guess the average length of stay in one of these two hour spaces is 1.6 hours according to this study.

My concern is, so we've really not addressed the cause, which is the two hour shufflers, other than to make their lives more difficult.

And we've also, I think, got a problem in that I agree with Mr. Huja that I'm not sure that one hour is sufficient time for a lot of people who want to come downtown, eat lunch, do a little shopping.

and I don't want to create a parking environment that's unfriendly to people coming downtown.

Also, I happen to think those shorter time spaces work very well, the 15-minute spaces and the 30-minute spaces serve a very valuable purpose.

This was a recommendation from our consultant because they looked at best practices around the country for downtown areas.

Okay, and then a couple questions about the zoning text amendment.

It was in the staff report, but it was not included in the resolution.

Okay.

Oh, okay.

you would only need four projects initiated after the amendment.

One question on page 35 of this study talks about providing incentives to employers to incorporate transportation and demand management programs to encourage their employees to carpool, to car share, to bike, take transit, etc.

I'm wondering are there any examples of

I think encourage is appropriate.

And then I would agree with Ms. Edwards that another thing that maybe we should be doing through this zoning text amendment would be encouraging developers to contribute towards transit itself.

So hopefully as we word that separate resolution we can include some language on encouraging

incentives for transportation demand management and funding for transit.

And then I also fully agree that we should also say, or by paying X number of dollars in your fund to build or pay for the next parking garage or our annual park and ride system, since we're asking staff to explore both alternatives.

One last concern, which is the issue of parking around Friendship Court.

This was brought up the last time a party study came before us.

It's not addressed in this resolution or in the staff recommendations, but for a number of reasons I strongly believe that we should change the way that we regulate parking around Friendship Court.

Right now you cannot park there after 9 p.m. at night.

And I think for several reasons we should change that practice, one of which is it was initiated, as I understand, at the request of the former owners of Garrett Square as a public safety measure

and the current owners of Friendship Court have told me they no longer feel it's necessary to maintain public safety and they're fine amending it.

Secondly, I actually think having more

bodies, more cars, more pedestrians on Garrett Street and so many side streets will improve public safety.

And third, we've heard a lot about the warehouse district growing.

There's a lot of businesses now that are active at night and there's a tremendous amount of parking right next door that's not available to them or to their customers and to me it makes good business sense to allow customers to park on those streets as well.

We have had discussions with the police chief and with the owners of Friendship Court and it's been favorable to lifting those restrictions.

The one group that we have not fully involved in the process are the people who live there.

And I think that's a pretty critical point.

But that is something that is under review.

It's in the works.

It seems we talked to the residents.

We could come back.

Tonight we're doing a parking study.

I would say it could be an administrative action.

Is it an ordinance?

No, it's an ordinance.

Okay, thank you very much.

So I just want to run through the items on the resolution before us.

And I don't think this is something for us in the resolution, but along the way of talking about this, another thing that came before us was we got an email from

I actually got an email, maybe I got an email about the lack of bicycle racks not on the downtown mall, not on the city property but just generally within the city, within the downtown area and since I bicycle commute several days a week usually I started thinking more about the number of times I lock my bike to a sign on the sidewalk or in other places and I kind of think that

The suggestion was, could we require businesses to provide bicycle parking?

And I'm kind of doubting we could.

I don't think we're enabled to mandate bike racks.

But I bet we could create some incentives where there's some public-private partnership to create more bicycle racks.

If you get off the mall, for example, there are only bike racks in the vicinity of

of them all that I'm aware of are at the library and at ACAC.

And I think other than that, they just aren't bike racks.

There's trees, there's stop signs, there's places where if you block a bike to it, you're probably a little bit in the way of people on the sidewalk.

Well, I wouldn't be able to afford parking hood bikes publicly, it's just...

Well, I'd be open-minded to that.

I'm not sure where you would do it.

You're not going to take a parking space on the street, I don't think, and provide bike racks.

With new development, that's something that can be required and frequently is provided.

Downtown space is tighter, and as you know, there aren't as many locations, and it's tough to find a spot because we have enough things in our sidewalk right now, we don't want to put one more obstruction for someone trying to walk down in the sidewalk.

One of the things that this study does include are best for motorcycle spaces.

All right, so we have a number of items in this resolution.

We have the issue of restricting delivery by tractor trailers, temporary delivery packets, maintaining the same number of handicapped spaces.

Those all seem to be any questions or concerns about any of those.

Item number four, I've expressed my concern.

What's the sense of counsel?

I'll agree with you.

Okay, so for item 4 we're going to maintain the time limits as they are today.

Item number five, Garrett Street, I think we all agree, and of course in answer to Mr. Huja's question, nothing's permanent.

Okay, so I think there's support for that item.

Vespa Motorcycle Spaces.

Over here are the bike racks, so hello.

Okay, so explore opportunities for new bike racks.

Next item, ask the City Manager to continue to explore ways to improve the efficiency of parking enforcement.

I think there is support for that.

Ask the staff to evaluate the location of the next parking garage and develop a financing plan to present to Council.

Likewise, explore the feasibility of a park and ride system for downtown employees and present a comparative analysis of these options.

We've taken out the next item, which is the ordinance regarding the parking lot.

Alright, so the last one I think is the, do we want the staff to continue to study the implementation of the parking meter system?

My own sense is no, but I'm...

I think it's a great idea.

Okay, so Florida won on that side, Dr. Brown.

And then we'll have a separate resolution at our next meeting regarding zoning testimony on the parking exempt zones.

Well,

I don't know if it needs to be a separate bill.

Absolutely.

I'd like to move the resolution as just read by the mayor.

Second.

Please indicate your vote.

Thank you all very much.

Thank you to the staff and to the members of the public who participated on this committee and I'll take it from here.

Yes, we're seeking two appropriations for two UCI projects or sometimes they're called for cities and that's where the city has taken on the responsibility to administer these roadway projects.

and one of them is to complete the PE phase preliminary engineering and to also start and finish the right of way phase for the route 250 interchange at McIntire Road totaling $8,08,034 and then for the Hillsdale Drive extended project to complete the preliminary engineering phase for that for $2,345,667

Any questions before we open the public hearing?

Okay, thank you, Ms. Jernichuk.

I'm Peter Klayman.

I live at 407 Head Street in the city.

I was at the planning commission meeting that had a similar item at the last meeting discussing about putting funds into the capital improvement program particularly associated with the

Wood 250 interchange at McIntire Road and at that time after discussion by the planning commissioners who discussed the merits of the transportation aspect of this project and what they thought was in the

that was consistent with the vision of the city as a whole and they voted four to two against including capital funds for that project in the upcoming capital improvement program.

So I was somewhat surprised that this is directly opposite their recommendations and to put this $10 million into these two projects, $8 million of which would go to that one project that was explicitly discussed by the Planning Commission.

Now I know there's a difference between looking at this as a transportation project and its environmental and other impacts and this being a political issue and following the actions or whatever has taken place in the past but I would recommend that this is an excellent opportunity for council to discuss what the actual relative merits of this project is.

We hear much about the cost

in terms of dollars and we hear much in terms about the time schedule and the age of the discussion but we hear very little about what the actual benefits that are perceived for this project for which these current 8 million dollars on that plus the many other millions of dollars that are programmed for this

And I think before spending more money, $8 million of federal funds, I think that's all federal funds, but there's also a city component of that.

There's a matching requirement.

It's not pointed out here, but I think to match on these projects, it's at least 5% city funds going into it.

Eight million, five percent is a substantial amount of money and it may actually be higher than that.

I'm not really sure how much would have to be done or whether those funds have yet been authorized or how that fits in and I think this is a little bit of an incomplete picture that all of this money is state and federal that goes to make these steps forward.

So I encourage city councilors to actually bridge the gap from this being a political process to being an actual transportation project

and looking at how this fits within the currently adopted vision for the city as a sustainable transportation and a sustainable environmental community.

And I challenge you to look at those and prepare before you vote on this what the actual choice that you're making in terms of benefits versus those costs.

Thank you, Mr. Freeman.

Is there anybody else that would like to speak?

Brad Hall, William Robertson, President of the North Downtown Residence Association.

First of all, let me just say the Hillsdale Drive extension, I'm not talking about that at all, so I'm only referring to 250.

As a President, I have to tell you that I never had one citizen come to me.

or email me or call me or stop me on the street that wants to see this great separated interchange.

So I definitely agree with what Mr. Kleeman said.

Now I know this is coming for you and you selected the G1 design modified diamond and I know you guys should do it for two reasons.

One is to make the footprint smaller because it's going to impact on a lot of historic

resources there.

And the second reason was money.

I remember the mayor very clearly saying we want this to come in either at budget or under budget.

And where are we going to come up with several, I'm paraphrasing, you know, where are we going to come up with several million dollars if it goes over budget?

Because at that time, Perry from RK&K was talking about 35 million dollars, approximately.

The other thing is, and I'm kind of jogging with what Mr. Kleeman just said is, I just talked to the people from the Birdwood area, and remember they had that meeting at Covenant School, and to all of you here, you'll have that meeting except Counselor Edwards.

And those people were very vocal, very intelligent.

They would still like you to think about the fact that what our KNK and Ms. Tucker from the city were evaluating at that point was to put a lane coming out of, that the people out there could turn onto 250 and going east, of course going east.

But remember that lane is a lane that also is going to take the traffic exiting off 250 going onto McIntyre.

It's like an accident waiting to happen.

We asked Mr. Perry, why can't you put a stoplight there?

That would be traffic activated.

Nobody's coming out of Birdwood.

The traffic light isn't going to need to work.

And he said, no, no, the flow of traffic east has to continue.

Well, it seems to me that we're going to have a backup on Free Bridge.

So having traffic back up for a few seconds right at the Birdwood area is not a big deal.

Then it can start flowing again until it gets to the back up on Free Bridge.

I just wish there would be some real dialogue about this again because we're not talking about $8,000, we're talking about $8 million on an interchange that wants to spill.

It's too large.

Anybody else like to speak on this subject?

Anybody else?

So moved.

It's been moved.

Good question.

Sorry, you were correct.

Okay.

So we'll carry over and I just want to say for the record I agree with the comments made by Mr. Queen.

I don't think this is an appropriate use or a smart use of public dollars.

Okay, next item on our agenda, and if you notice we're hurrying up because we were told it's snowing rather heavily out and we want to get people home before the roads get too icy.

I'm from New Jersey, so I can talk fast.

As you know, the Task Force was convened in December 2007 and it was made up of representatives from the City of Charlottesville, the County of Albemarle, University of Virginia, and IMPACT.

Members serving from the City of Charlottesville started off with Mayor Norris, replaced by Councilman Huja, Shirley Lewis from the Planning Commission, Charlie Armstrong, and Karen Waters from the Housing Advisory Committee.

This is significant because it's the first time these two jurisdictions came together to discuss affordable housing.

Your charge was to review current initiatives addressing affordable housing, identify unmet needs, identify resources and policies that address those unmet needs, and identify ways to promote better collaboration of programs and initiatives across those three jurisdictions.

They looked at income groups from 60 to 80 percent area median income, 30 to 60 percent area median income, and under 30 percent area median income, focusing on the very low and extremely low at 60 percent or lower.

Subgroups looked at public policies, barriers, preservation of existing affordable housing, rental assistance issues, and creating more units.

And when the full task force came back to look at the subgroups' findings, they formed recommendations and draft reports were circulated to the housing committees and planning commissions for comments.

Detailed recommendations can be found in the report including recommendations specific to Charlottesville but in general priority areas are funding such as a permanent dedicated funding stream or regional fund which was discussed during the public hearing session and adopting public policies such as a popular policy and also mentioned some specific projects such as a single room occupancy or SRO building and the Thomas Jefferson Community Land Trust.

The report is for information purposes only and I would encourage Council to take this opportunity to react and discuss and provide further direction.

Very good, thank you.

Applications for the funding have been accepted.

The task force is currently finishing up CDBG because it's on a much tighter federal funding cycle.

So starting in mid-February, they'll be looking at those applications and hopefully making their decisions over March, and it'll be coming to council in April for final recommendations.

That certainly gives us an opportunity to try and advance some of these goals with some of the dollars that we have available to us in our budget.

Any questions, comments?

Mr. Mayor, I think we would like to do two things.

First of all, I think I want to acknowledge some people who have been working really hard on this task for this city park.

Besides myself, you know, my mom's host brought us to the committee, and has been coming to the committee, and he's about to have some of it also.

Shirley Lewis of Planning Commission,

Kerri Lourdes and Charlie Armstrong for Haussler Project.

We have at least spent a lot of time and the ideas are really welcome.

Any other comments?

I just want to say I want to second those comments.

I appreciate all the hard work that went into this committee.

I think they came up with some excellent recommendations.

And I know a number of these items are already in development or in the pipeline.

And as I said, we'll have a chance to consider these goals when we allocate our housing dollars.

And I agree fully with the comments that Dr. Brown made earlier about

appreciating the fact that the city and the county and the UVA are all working, hopefully will be working together to make some of these things happen.

Great, thank you very much.

Last, let's see, we removed the ordinance regarding the on-road drive that's been deferred for one month.

Yes, I wanted to make some comments about that entire process and take the opportunity to thank Sally Thomas for all the work that went into compiling the report.

Even today, there was an email from her with some more collections and additions to the entire report, so it's still a work in process.

And what I wanted to talk about was the next step in that process.

a presentation of the report all at the same time so everyone will get a chance to hear all the information all at the same time and will get a chance to hear all the questions and concerns which may be leaked from each of the four boards but I wanted to kind of talk about that even with the email that went out today the form that you'd like to have the report because you have the option of getting a hard copy or having it

and a CD, which is going to be best for you.

On this point, the four of us, whether we need to get together to look at the report and then look at the other issues which were brought up tonight by the audience,

I just want to say for the record, I know Mr. Connell is going to correct me on this, but I just have an issue with

You know, the Audemarle County Service Authority is the policy-making equivalent of our Department of Public Works.

And it does seem a little imbalanced when we're in these four board meetings to have so much county representation.

However, we've held our own okay, and I think it'll be fine.

but we do.

Just remember they'll find more than half of them.

This is a good point.

Absolutely.

And thank you for all of your work on that task force.

We're now going to open up to one last round of matters by the public.

My name is Betty Mooney and I'm 201 Sunset Avenue and I'm from Buffalo and I can talk to us too because it is snowing outside and I don't mind the snow being from Buffalo but I don't want to be on the streets with all these southerners so I want to get home.

So anyways, I just want to encourage you that

We need to get this process done of the task force, the dredging task force and it's been seven months in the making and they're still making corrections and additions and my fear is this could go on for months and it has to be finished and I appreciate all the work they did on it but the next Rivanna board meeting is in the third week of February and I really want to see a recommendation by then so

Whatever happens, please move it along.

Please don't let it stall any longer.

I mean, I think the public, if you look at what the public's saying, they have had it with how long this has gone on.

It's way too long, and we need to get this done and finished.

One more thing, it's an advisory committee.

It's not an elected committee.

It's just like the Planning Commission, which I used to be on.

We advised the City Council a lot when I was on the Planning Commission.

You know what?

They didn't listen to us, and a lot of the time I think they were right.

So this committee is strictly advisory.

There are no elected people on it, except for Holly, and there's some elected people, but it's not an elected body.

So you're the decision makers, you make the decisions, you represent us, and we've got to know what it costs.

Thank you, Ms. Mooney.

And speaking of elected officials, we are still moving forward on adding elected officials to the Rivanna board, which will be before us in March, I believe, as it's a 30-day advance notice period, and so that is still moving forward.

Any other members in public?

Otherwise, meeting's adjourned.

Thank you very much.

It's a Thursday work session.