City Council Meeting   2/3/2014

Mr. Fenwick?

Here.

Ms. Smith?

Here.

Ms. Szakos?

Here.

Ms. Galvin?

We have some announcements.

Mr. Mayor, I'm going to ad lib one.

While you're searching for it, the city has some great sports teams.

It has UVA, football, baseball, basketball, soccer, lacrosse, any number of great teams.

But there's another team in the city that has a national ranking, and that's the Charlottesville Cardinals.

They're a member of the Wheelchair Basketball League across the country.

They are ranked number 14 in the country.

And these men and women set the standard for inspiration and for concentrating on their abilities rather than their disabilities.

If you want to find out more, you can Google Charlottesville Cardinals.

Tom Vandiver is the coach.

And they're just an amazing group of athletes.

Nice.

Thank you.

That was nice.

I have two announcements.

First is the, there'll be new hours at the downtown transit station.

They're going to be expanded.

It will be now open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday for full service activities.

And those are both a change of time and you can buy your passes and things during those times.

The center will be open for passenger waiting and for all pass and ticket sales.

Previously, it did not open until 8.

and past sales did not start until 830, so that's just so you appreciate the 7 to 8, 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

The new hours will give our customers more opportunity to access our CAT services and escape the early morning elements on bad weather days.

Sunday hours remain 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

and there is a new CAT mobile app coming out.

March 1st?

And some of us are beta-ing it, so it does work.

And it's gonna be all sorts of new technology for CAT to make it much easier to ride

and to get passes.

My second announcement is there will be a budget survey.

It's budget season and the City of Charlottesville budget survey for fiscal year 2015, that's the one we're coming into, is available.

Your views on how your tax dollars are spent are essential to creating a budget that best serves all of our citizens.

You can take the survey online

at Charlottesville.org, that's our webpage, slash budget survey.

Or contact city manager's office for a paper copy.

Sure, I have three.

That's where they all were, Bob.

Oh, sorry, Bob, Mr. Fenwick.

No spitballs, please.

The West Main Street public meeting number two.

The roadside Harwell team has been hard at work developing three alternatives to the West Main redevelopment corridor.

They'll be bringing those alternatives along with some specific graphic boards looking at design treatments for the corridor for the public to review.

That will be Saturday, February 22nd from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

at the Carver Recreation Center at the Jefferson School.

And you can visit the website www.gowestmaine.com for more information.

And there'll be food from all the local establishments on West Main Street.

The last time we had this event in December, it was delicious, it was fantastic, and the input was great.

So I hope

I hope you all try to make a point to come.

It's both fun as well as an opportunity to get informed about what's going on.

The next announcement is the

Oliver Schulz presentation.

Oliver Schulz, the Danish urban designer that is part of the Roadside Harwell team for the West Main Street streetscape project will be giving a presentation on international urban design and streetscape design.

In his presentation, he will be starting a discussion about how we can make West Main a great street for people.

That's going to be Friday, February 21st,

from 6 to 7 p.m. is the presentation, and then there's going to be a reception from 7 to 8 p.m. And that's in the McIntyre Room at the Central Library.

Again, another nice opportunity to get really informed about the project and to see what the thinking is.

Finally, I would like to just give a plug to Virginia Plugged In.

Myself and Holly Lee, who's our workforce development specialist in the Office of Economic Development, both had the privilege of visiting the Plugged In class last week that's held in the Jefferson School City Center.

So what is Virginia Plugged In, or Plugged In Virginia, PIVA is kind of the acronym.

PIVA began on January 6, 2014 with eight students, five of whom are city residents.

Between January and May, the cohort of adults began taking four courses through Piedmont Community College with an adult education seminar going on throughout the process.

PIVA students are earning the National Professional Certification in Customer Service

which is an industry certification issued by the National Retail Federation.

They're also gaining nine college credits, Microsoft digital literacy certifications and the Virginia career readiness certificate.

Throughout the program, these eight students will work to develop professional soft skills.

Employers have been lined up and who are supporting these students.

and these students will interact with the employers to provide specialized training and customer service into viewing diversity awareness and other relevant workplace topics.

PIVA will conclude with a student capstone project and presentation.

Anticipated outcomes are continued post-secondary education and employment.

To date, all instructors have been very pleased with the student performance and participation.

The eight students that I had the pleasure of meeting a week ago,

Tomorrow, so it was last Tuesday.

We're all from different backgrounds.

A couple had been refugees.

Many were going back to school for the first time, having been out of school for at least 15, 20 years.

They were inspiring stories.

They had their GEDs or high school diplomas, but they didn't know where to go next.

And the ages ranged from like 19 to 32.

So I would urge you all to visit next time when they have the capstone project.

And if anyone in the audience, the TV viewing audience, or in this room want to find out more about Virginia Plugged In, please contact Holly Lee, again, our workforce development specialist, at 970-3117.

I have an announcement and a proclamation.

The United States Air Force Heritage Brass Band will be performing at Carver Recreation Center.

Enjoy a concert given by the United States Air Force Heritage Brass of the USAF Heritage of America Band at Carver Recreation Center Tuesday, February 11th from 7 to 830 p.m.

The concert is free and open to the public.

Heritage Brass features the diverse talents of five professional airmen musicians whose commitment to excellence has earned worldwide acclaim and military distinction.

From Bach to the Beatles and patriotic favorites, Heritage Brass offers a musical experience enjoyed by all audiences.

Carver Recreation Center is located in the Jefferson School City Center at 233 4th Street Northwest.

And then I have a proclamation which is for the Senior Center and the actual signed version will be given to them.

I assume on February 14th they're having an event marking their birthday.

Whereas the Senior Center, the first nationally accredited Senior Center in Virginia,

has been recognized as a model for others, and whereas seniors are an integral aspect of our community, providing wisdom and lifelong experience that people of all ages can benefit from, and whereas Senior Center, Inc. has created opportunities for seniors to remain healthy, independent and engaged in Charlottesville since 1960.

and whereas Senior Center, Inc. through a wide variety of programs and lifelong learning, fitness, arts, recreation, travel and volunteer service has effectively promoted independence and supported community health in a cost-effective manner and whereas Senior Center, Inc. has facilitated the dignity and self-esteem of seniors

Thus tapping their experience, knowledge, skills and abilities and enabling them to continue to contribute to our community.

And whereas the National Institute of Senior Centers, NISC, is the accrediting body for 15,000 senior centers nationwide and has awarded the senior center national accreditation for the third time,

and whereas the Senior Center will be celebrating its 54th birthday on Friday, February 14, 2014, with a series of events with community leaders.

Now, therefore, the Charlottesville City Council congratulates Senior Center, Inc. for achieving national accreditation for the third time.

one of just seven such centers in the country as awarded by NISC on June 2013 and calls upon all citizens to recognize the special contributions that Senior Center Inc. makes in enhancing the well-being of seniors and all in our community.

Signed and sealed this third day of February 2014.

I have one announcement.

The city offices will be closed on Monday, February 17th for President's Day

City offices also will be closed and city council meeting will be on February the 18th, will be Tuesday.

All transit services will be normal and city trash and recycling will be on normal schedule.

On behalf of our board of directors and our staff and the people we serve, thank you very much for this.

I know many of you will be coming and celebrating some of the events for us with us on February 14th.

As the proclamation says, aging is one of the most paramount issues facing our globe, our country, and our city of Charlottesville and surrounding communities.

I hope you all are aware that we're looking at facing a doubling of our senior population in Charlottesville and Albemarle.

We're in the midst of it over about 20 years.

and everything you talk about each and every week affects aging as part of that.

Everything on the agenda tonight, transportation, public housing, pedestrian friendly, parks and recreation, public health, mental health, everything we talk about, aging is part of that picture.

and what we know are the key ingredients of helping keeping seniors as independent as possible as long as possible is continue to have purpose, continue to stay intellectually stimulated, physically active and socially engaged and our senior center for 54 years has been a kind of one-stop shop, kind of a teen center for people over 50 to have access to all those key ingredients in a very fun, safe environment.

We've done that for 54 years without any federal, state, city or county government funding.

We certainly appreciate

The praise and the proclamation and all the good words of the city council, but we do it through private philanthropy and earned income from the 8,000 people that we serve every year, about 40% of which are city residents.

So we serve several thousand city citizens each and every year, even though we're just over the county line.

Please come forward and take three minutes and give us your name and address.

I'm Kathy Welch, excuse me, I live in the Rio District at Albemarle County, 2924 Idlewood Drive.

I'm here today to talk about CAT, Charlottesville Area Transit, and it's only good things this time, only good things, because I think we're really lucky to have the team that we have now.

at Charlottesville Area Transit.

I think the stuff that they've put in motion and the stuff that they're looking to do in the near future is really pretty impressive.

We've had the new Route 11 starting up last summer, the system changes that took effect just last month.

We have the mobile app coming out.

I'm glad, Ms. Smith, that you let me show it to you that night.

and the advisory board is going to be beginning to meet probably in a couple of weeks and we have the new fair box system coming on later this year.

For me as a county resident the thing that is really, really exciting for me is that our new board of supervisors on their very first day

on January 8th, on their own initiative, ask Mr. Jones to come down there and talk to them about transit.

And I mean, this is a development.

This is a great thing.

And I really encourage you, all of you, to support them in this and to, you know, to nurture this new interest because I think it's real and I think it's really important.

and you know problems of jurisdictions working together to provide transit are not unique to our area by any means I mean it's you know sort of a by definition that's what you're going to be having because you're moving people around from place to place so you're going to have

various jurisdictions involved.

And we have this all up and down the East Coast.

You know, up in Boston, we have Boston and Cambridge working together.

We have New York and New Jersey working together, usually, except for Fort Lee.

We have, closer to home in Washington, we have the Washington area.

Transit is, I believe, is composed of

two counties in Maryland and in Virginia two counties and an independent city and then you got the district thrown in and so I'm thinking if these six disparate jurisdictions can come together and provide their constituents with what they need and want and transit them you know I'm sure we can do it here and I think this is the time to do it because we have obviously a supportive city council we have a crack team at CAT I think we have

It's a change of scene on the MPO and then we had the county beginning to just show some real interest and commitment to what we're doing.

I guess in closing I would say I'm a big fan of the Route 11 and I went

downtown on Saturday and on 11 as I've done almost every week since they came on board.

And when I talked to my husband, he said, well, I think I'm going to come down and meet you for lunch.

So he got on the Route 11 fashion square at 1 o'clock, and there was Mrs. Akos.

And I just thought, when he told me this, I just thought, OK, well, this is it.

These two people have forgone their cars.

for whatever reason, they decided they would take the bus.

And so they're on this bus that goes with these two jurisdictions, supported by these two jurisdictions, and I'm just really excited.

Good evening, Brandon Collins, 418 Fairway Avenue.

I've lived in Charlottesville my entire life.

I have three children here who have also lived here their entire lives and I'm trying to set up shop here in Charlottesville for pretty much the rest of my entire life.

I am also a staff person for FAR, Public Housing Association of Residents, which is the duly elected, duly appointed, duly recognized advisory board for residents of public housing in Charlottesville.

And I first just wanted to say welcome to Mr. Fenwick, to the city council.

I haven't been able to attend the last two meetings for the first time in years.

and I hope you all missed me but welcome Bob and you know we have great hopes for you.

I am here to talk about the strategic investment area and specifically to say that I do not think the time is right to put this into the comprehensive plan and there are a number of reasons for that.

One of those reasons being that at the last work session to discuss the strategic investment area a number of concerns very important

concerns of residents and the community in general about housing and the economic and social impacts of the strategic investment area.

We're not really given the time to be fleshed out.

There was a lot of talk about stream flows and the greenway and all those things and very little attention to issues of affordable housing and the affordable housing crisis here in Charlottesville.

But, you know, starting from the big picture, I think what goes wrong with the strategic investment area is it buys into this new hip-hot trend called deconcentration of poverty.

Now, I don't know that I'm going to sway anybody's minds tonight, but we need to call deconcentration what it is, and it is what it says it is.

So if you have a WIC check and you go and get your concentrated juice from the store with your WIC check,

To deconcentrate it, you add a whole lot of water and that's what you do with poverty.

You've got some poverty and you add a whole lot of non-poverty to the area and you dilute it.

You dilute a community if it's a geographic deconcentration.

of Poverty.

Now instead of taking real steps to address the problems of poverty in neighborhoods that affect real people, the idea is to just thin them out a little bit.

And if you combine it with something that might allow for some affordable housing to move to other parts of the city, you actually disperse parts of those neighborhoods.

And this is a problem.

And this is not a way to address poverty.

Now with the strategic investment area and affordable housing,

What we've seen is that the plan is to retain the 340 units of affordable housing there but add an additional 750 new market rate houses.

This is not building new affordable housing and that's obviously a problem and it's definitely diluting a community.

It's something that's not going to benefit the neighborhood.

You're also going to do mixed use and bring in a whole lot of business and it's going to have a huge impact on the neighborhood without actually improving their situation when it comes to poverty.

Over time, 300 million will be invested in the strategic area, investment area, and maybe only see 75 jobs for low-income residents of the area.

Those jobs are not likely to be sustainable.

So strategic investment area needs some work.

And what I would like to see is instead of, you know, the strategic investment area doesn't actually

Good evening.

Hi.

My name is Mo Nichols.

I live at 2315 Crestmont Avenue in the city.

I'm also here to talk about the strategic investment area.

I appreciate that the public has been invited to meetings and there's been a lot of articles in the press and so there's been opportunities for us to give our input and to be educated.

But when I see the tone of West Main Street changing, I see on cursory glance high rises for high income.

When I read an article about affordable housing starting at $225,000, those things don't encourage me that much.

But I am encouraged that the strategic investment area does consider things like green space and daylighting the stream and trees.

However, when I hear that term, high concentration of poverty, I agree with my fellow citizen, Brandon there.

I think I read between the lines.

I have a gut feeling that there's a lot more behind that term than well-meaning action.

The scars of Vinegar Hill have not been healed, and when I hear that 16 units from Friendship Court would be raised, no matter where, if you lived somewhere two days, if you lived somewhere two weeks, two years, two decades, and someone who had more power than you came and said, we're going to knock your house down, you're going to have to move, that's going to

I don't see that as progress, I see that as painful and I think we still need to really consider

as my eloquent compadre there said, much more about poverty in this area.

I see the note on the wall that says Charlottesville, a great place to live for all of our citizens.

And I invite you always to consider the ones who have the least power.

Good evening.

My name is Jim Hingeley and I am the public defender for Charlottesville and Albemarle County.

I'm also a city resident for many years.

I live currently at 719 Grave Street.

I'm here tonight to ask for city council support of the pay equity proposal.

This is a proposal under which the city and county are being asked to supplement the salaries of public defenders who are state employees.

in the same way that the city and county have for decades supplemented the salaries of prosecutors who are also state employees.

The public defender attorneys

provide vital services to the criminal justice system in Charlottesville.

Among the other things that public defenders do is defend the community's right to fair trials.

And I say the community's right.

We usually think of the defendant's right to a fair trial.

And that's very important.

But the community also has a stake in fair trials.

The community wants to be sure that justice is being done and that

Everybody who is brought before the criminal justice system, including those who are the poorest people in the community, have a fair shake.

So we contribute to fair trials.

We contribute to equal justice.

These are values that I believe that City Council certainly shares and supports as well as the residents of Charlottesville.

Also, public defenders make a vital contribution in effective sentencing advocacy.

Public defenders work hard to find programs for people, get them steered in the right direction, mend broken lives, help them avoid reoffending.

Also, we look for ways that people can be appropriately punished that do not cost the taxpayers excessive funds.

So we contribute to saving taxpayer money.

The public defender pay equity proposal has been submitted to the city and county.

It was submitted in November of this past year, so there's been ample time for both the city and county to consider the pay equity proposal.

The amount that's being requested of Charlottesville is $78,800 some odd dollars.

I don't have the exact figure, but it's just under $79,000.

We're asking support of this council for this appropriation.

As things stand now, public defenders and prosecutors are equal partners in the criminal justice system.

Prosecutors on average make 25% more than public defenders.

We ask you to remedy that disparity.

Thank you very much.

My name is Louis Schultz.

I live at 1899 East Market Street.

This is the ninth time since October 3rd that I've come to Council to say that I have evidence that City Manager Maurice Jones, Director of Public Works Judith Mueller and Utilities Director Lauren Hildebrand have violated Charlottesville Code and the Code of Virginia and in doing so have violated federal civil rights statutes.

More information is available by searching Google for Steep Hill Street along with Seville Weekly or Shilling Show.

I'd recommend both for a fuller understanding.

The background information for item two on this evening's agenda, the public hearing regarding blight determination for 201 East Water Street, in particular the citations of city code and the memo prepared for council by the city attorney's office, speak directly to the issue that I've been bringing before council.

Both make it clear that the city's power to seize private property is limited.

that for property to be condemned due to deterioration, it must present an identifiable threat to the safety, health, or welfare of the community and that there are specific procedures to be followed in the event that the city chooses either to condemn such a property under the power of eminent domain or to use its police powers to abate a nuisance.

That item has been rescheduled.

My point remains the same.

In the case of Steep Hill Street, limitations on the power of the city to take private property were simply ignored.

There, the city made no effort to follow the law.

It simply appeared one day and made a claim of right to take that property for a public purpose, despite absolutely nothing existing in the public record to support that claim.

City Attorney Craig Brown has made an attempt to justify that claim by saying that the street has been dedicated to the public right of way.

Since the common law dedication of the street to private use was duly recorded in 1887 in Albemarle County Deed Book 88,

at page 206, there is no doubt that his assertion is ludicrous.

Mr. Brown has also made a feeble attempt at excusing the city's actions by suggesting that a prescriptive easement applies, as if that had any relevance to the taking of a privately built bridge or a privately installed sewer line.

Even if those had been built by the city or by Albemarle County prior to annexation, and remember there is absolutely no reason to believe that they had, there is nothing remotely adverse or exclusive about any city use associated with them,

and therefore the test for a prescriptive easement fails.

Further, even if such an absurd claim could be proven, the burden is placed by law upon the city to do so before it acts, since according to the Code of Virginia, any official record of any court of this Commonwealth are regarded as prima facie evidence.

That is, that the deed of 1887 that records the creation and dedication of Steep Hill Street as a private road is all that matters until such time as the city successfully challenges that deed in the court of law.

No such challenge has even been attempted.

Instead, the city employees that I named earlier, along with others, acted to seize Steep Hill Street for a public purpose despite having no authority to do so and with no regard for due process and thereby acted under color of law to deprive me of my civil right to be secure in my property.

I've made it very clear that I can prove that the allegations that I've made are true and that I'm willing to present evidence and offer sworn testimony in a hearing if council would simply schedule one.

Acting under the advice of a seriously

Conflicted city attorney, council has so far refused.

The contrast between that refusal and council's willingness to follow lawful procedure in the case of the 201 Water Street hearing shows that equal protection under the law is another right of citizens that council feels free to disregard.

In order that justice be served, it is imperative that council finally take action to honor my request for hearing

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Walt Heineke, I'm 1521 Amherst Street.

I wanted to talk a little bit tonight about the West Main development and its impact on the community.

I'm concerned about gentrification in this community, I'm concerned about its impact on the diversity of our community.

You know, I live in the Rose Hill rugby neighborhood and I rent an apartment, a basement apartment, I've done that for about five years to graduate students, mostly at the University of Virginia.

and I've never had a problem getting a student in my apartment until last year and I started thinking, well, why is that happening?

Why am I getting no calls on my apartment?

And it struck me that that massive apartment development that was allowed to be built behind Harris Teeter might have an impact on folks calling me up and seeing if they would want to rent my apartment.

And so I thought after six, seven years of having absolutely no problem, there must be some cause to it.

And that started me thinking about this West Main development and what it's going to do to rental properties in this area.

And of course, I didn't come down here tonight to talk about my personal problems because between you and I, I think we all know that I'll survive not having a renter in there for six or seven months.

I'll live and I'll be fine.

And I'm not really worried about it personally.

But it did strike me that there are lots of folks on either side of West Main living in low income communities, low income neighborhoods.

who might be more dependent on rental income than I am for their well-being and for their subsistence.

They may rent out rooms, they may rent out sections of their house, apartments part of their house and it struck me that these massive developments that are starting to go up around West Main and other places may be having a pretty negative impact on people's economic well-being in this community, especially when it comes to gentrification and the economic well-being of people who are less fortunate than I am.

So it struck me that maybe it's time for city council to start getting serious about this kind of thinking and to be proactive about the kind of thinking when that's related to development in this community.

I know everyone here has the best of intentions for economic development in Charlottesville.

I'm sure that this isn't like a plot that anybody has to drive people out of the community.

But unintended consequences of our policies oftentimes are worse than we imagine them.

So I started thinking about what might be the solution.

And I looked at, again when I was working on the Human Rights Project, we did look at other cities and what they were doing with regards to diversity issues.

And one of them was Seattle.

and I think it was Seattle, I'm pretty sure it was Seattle, that has something akin to an environmental impact study.

I'm sure that you have environmental impact studies that are done on all new large developments.

Well, they have diversity impact statements that are required of all major development projects, both housing and other development projects.

and I'm thinking that maybe it's the time that we start acting proactively in this city and start asking developers to create diversity impact statements to gauge the impact of large-scale economic development projects and housing development projects on diversity issues in Charlottesville.

Thanks.

Hello, my name is Blair Hawkins.

I live at 614 Rock Creek Road.

I'm here to read a letter that I wrote to the Daily Progress about a month ago on this issue.

I haven't seen it printed yet.

I want to talk about the strategic investment area.

There seems to be two parts of it.

The core that we hear from Avon to Ridge, from Elliott to the railroad, the traditional Garrett Street urban renewal area and the much bigger strategic investment area.

But I'm here to talk about the core area, which I've spoken many times in this chamber over the last 14 years and ran for the House of Delegates on this very issue.

Why would anyone invest in the strategic investment area?

In response to City Councilor Kathy Galvin's letter, printed in the progress December 31st, I would like to present a different view and constructive solutions.

It's funny how proponents of a project can claim there's been no pushback when people have been pushing back for years.

On December 27th, on the Shilling Show,

I described the history.

First there was Vinegar Hill, then there was another Vinegar Hill, three times bigger than the first.

The second Vinegar Hill is called the Strategic Investment Area, historically named after Alexander Garrett.

Vinegar Hill kept its name, so most people know about it.

The Garrett neighborhood lost its name, so most people today don't know it ever existed.

The current plan is to sell city-owned open space that was occupied land 40 years ago.

During these decades, there has been redevelopment in this area, such as Friendship Court and other public housing, the Glass Building, Dittmar Condos, Luxury Gleason Condos, Norcross Apartments, ACAC.

But this urban renewal project was so big, there's still a lot of land unredeveloped.

Why not sell the surplus land at auction?

Some tax revenue would be better than the zero revenue now.

But if you buy this land, you have to invest and build what the city wants, not what you want.

And it appears the city wants more than was there 40 years ago, not more than the zero now.

Potential investors are concerned the city might take back the land before the investment is recouped

as it was taken from the previous owners.

In order to move forward, the City should do two things.

City Council should affirm true private property rights by passing an ordinance to protect existing property tax revenue

from government action that favors speculated future revenue increases.

And the city must publish the housing authority archives and tell the full history.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Paul Wright.

I live at 612 Preston Place and I'm here to ask you to

make the MPO vote for the 29 Bypass.

Possibly a surprise for many people here, but I will tell you that the 29 Bypass is in fact needed in this area and in fact suffered from significant misapplication of scientific fact and other things that would in fact

make it a good idea to do, and I think it would hurt the city enormously if it is not approved.

Number one, there's been a lot of talk about the peril of student health at these schools.

It is completely and utterly false.

There are many studies that involve pollution and its effect on young children, and that is absolutely true, but there is no pollution in Albemarle County and Charlottesville to speak of.

This is very easily verified.

The DEQ website every day has a monitor that sits at Albemarle High School and reports out

that the particulate matter, the only thing they measure because gases are so ambient and so in the background they don't even bother to do so.

And in most of the days, for example during the school year at levels so low that we are below DEQ, EPA, and even the WHO standard on particulate matter.

Now to make the link that schools are in peril, you must prove without a doubt that there is pollution in Albemarle County to do significant harm.

Here's the good news.

In the last 10 years, the EPA basically with diesel and coal plants have been so effective that pollution in this area has reduced by 30%.

is a significantly cleaner area here in Albemarle and Charlottesville than it was 30 years ago.

It is incredibly easy to look up these facts.

It is incredibly easy to find out, for example, that there is no pollution problem.

Without a pollution problem, the 700 studies that many people would point you to have no merit, have no effect.

Right today, the particulate matter in Charlottesville is around 10.

The WHO says a mean should be of 25.

In Los Angeles, they spend a third of their year above 110, which is bad.

And then you go to China at 300, and to 500, and New Delhi, which is 700.

That's pollution.

What we have here is not pollution, so therefore to say to build a bypass because of pollution, that is a fallacy, and I'm disappointed in some of the environmental groups who use this as something to hide behind to be against the bypass.

Secondly, people talk about the reservoir and we need to keep it safe.

Well, that would be really a great thing to do if they would also say at the same time, let us pull up today those two roads that go over the bypass, I mean over the reservoir that are not designed to keep trucks or anything else that would harm our drinking water.

at Bay.

This new road will be significantly better designed than that.

But more importantly than all that, we imperil all the other projects that are currently funded and that we may endure a $50 million dollar penalty if we turn back the bypass and we would put imperil the Belmont Bridge, Hillsdale Drive, and also the other projects we won't like to buy a 29 bypass, I mean the Best Buy ramp.

And I think if those, ignoring those things, putting those projects in peril, put Charlottesville's transportation in peril.

I'm here to speak on the Strategic Investment Initiative, specifically Friendship Court.

I just want to point out a couple of things.

I want to remind you of Dave's comments about the 40 years when he was on the board of PHA at the last meeting we were.

and I think back in July.

I want to point out a couple of things from Cunningham Quill and Quill's website.

On their website they have that today the strategic investment area exhibits serious challenges such as lower economic indicators, population density, income, education.

Homeownerships, etc.

And if that's the case, based on their website, if you walk around Friendship Court, which I did again in the rain today, most people are unaware of what's going on.

There's misinformation.

the residents are either saying they are not getting any information or that of the two community meetings that most residents are aware most after the fact that have happened there were two residents in attendance at the first one seven residents in attendance on the second one that was January 16th they report that at the 16th meeting the property has already been sold

I've been unable to get any factual information about that.

I actually called to National Housing Trust to ask the question whether it had been sold or not.

I was not able to attend the meeting.

I found out about it.

I ran into someone at the grocery store.

The second thing on their website it says by integrating people from all social and economic classes.

From looking at the strategic investment initiative that appears to mean, I mean I guess I would like the city to define what affordable means.

We know that our

Firefighters, police officers, teachers cannot afford to live in this area.

When I walked around, one of the questions I asked is, how much money are you making?

I was told anywhere from zero annual dollars, $5,000 annual dollars, $18,000.

So how do they fit in, someone at that income level fit into a mixed income neighborhood?

And so I just think that it's the city's responsibility to make sure, staff estimates that there are 500 people at least living in Friendship Court, I called over today.

At least 300 of those are kids, and again that's estimated.

Where are they going to go?

Will they be displaced?

Who's the responsibility to make sure they're not?

From looking at this outside, looking in, I don't live in Friendship Court, I volunteer.

The gas pedal approach appears to be used.

How are people already so far behind supposed to catch up with any decision that the city makes?

Thank you, ma'am.

Hello, my name is Shalanda Green.

I live at 420 Garrett Street and I just want to reiterate on what Nakaya just said.

I was in the meeting back in July when David Norris was on council and I was the one who spoke up and said that there was a secret meeting

where the property was being sold and like Micaiah said there's been two meetings and a representative from the private invested redevelopment sector came over and his first comments to the two residents plus Farmer Todd who works in our garden, our community garden that

We volunteer.

We get no help from Friendship Court.

All the seeds, all the weeding, everything comes out of our pocket.

So it's not like we're not out there and we're not willing to help ourselves.

But if we don't have anything to help ourselves with, then how are we supposed to do it?

And motto is if you need help, ask for it.

When you ask for it, you don't get it.

Or the words you get aren't met.

People say things to make themselves feel better.

or to get you out of their face.

And so the first thing the representative said in the meeting, he reassured us that any development that was to happen wasn't going to happen for at least 30 years.

And so once he got that out of the way, we started to talk about ways in which now until things would happen, how can we help the young women

and

We don't need another coffee shop.

We don't need another boutique.

We don't need things that are convenient for people.

I think that that is a lot of what's going on.

All of this strategic planning and strategy and redevelopment.

I never heard anyone speak about

what they were going to do to actually help the people in the community, but more or less what they could do to destroy a community, keyword community, because you're not coming into Resident Street, this is a community.

Same thing happened, Venica Hill, you actually force people into poverty than to allow them to develop and put things in place to make it better.

It's one thing to take something that's good and make it great, and it's something else to take something that's good and make it worse.

And at this point, I think that's all will be done.

You will take something that was bad, it's good.

It can make it great, but you're going to make it worse.

Thank you so much.

Is there anybody else in the audience who'd like to speak and has not spoken?

Hi, my name is Winston Greenhouse, 207 Rich Street, Charlesville.

I am currently, as some of you already know, trying to develop a transitional home for men coming home from prison.

Through my researching and doing, I guess if I'm going to set up shop in the city of Charlottesville, I'm going to have to address this issue to the city council at one point in time or another.

I've already talked with Mr. Tolbert in the zoning, and he gave me that information.

I guess I'm here tonight to ask.

Thank you.

Is there anybody else who would like to speak?

If not, we'll close this part of the meeting.

Comments by city council members?

While you're thinking, I have one piece of information.

Last to Ms. Green and Ms. Walker, you can get information you're looking for from Piedmont Housing Alliance.

Their office is right nearby on Market Street.

I'll dive in.

Several of the things that people talked about, including the SIA, are on the agenda, and we'll have those conversations later, so I hope you'll stay to hear that conversation.

It won't be, I don't think, very long from now.

So I'll hold off on commenting on those.

I did want to mention for Ms. Welch—yes, I saw your—where are you?

Are you still here?

I did see your husband on the bus.

And I am delighted at the interest of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors in transit.

And even before the election, they helped invest in that 11 bus.

And so we've had some interest on that Board of Supervisors for a while.

And I think it's only going to get stronger, and we're looking very much forward to working with them to expand the system and make it stronger.

As far as what Mr. Hengele brought forward, I am as I was last year in support of this.

It came kind of late in the budget season last time and this time it's come sooner.

One thing that I have looked at and discussed a little bit with staff is the fact that the prosecutors in the county make more than the prosecutors in the city.

And so when we're talking about equity, it needs to be equitable as far as what the city's putting in to make it equitable with city

I also know that the defenders do work that the prosecutors don't necessarily have to do a lot of investigation a lot of other things if we look at our total sort of

investment in prosecution.

It's not only the prosecutors but also the police departments.

I think this is something we do need to make sure that the scales are balanced.

I just, as far as the talking about West Main and Mr. Heinecke, where are you?

Actually, your case study of what had happened to the apartment that you have is, I'm sorry to say, one of the very reasons that I supported those projects on West Main Street.

I think what's happened

is over time apartments that used to be available to working people, to families, to artists,

to kind of neighborhood based folks who needed affordable housing has been crowded out by graduate students who can afford more and end up moving in because it's easy for them.

And so what I'm really hoping is that if they are indeed moving into those apartments over behind Barracks Road, that you will find renters.

They may not be graduate students, but I think you will find renters who need housing.

hear all the time about the need for affordable housing.

When people are moving out of Friendship Court, where are they going to move to if there's not affordable housing in our community?

And I think you're creating it.

So there's an affordable house available under Walt Heinecky's house.

So that is actually kind of the opposite to me of gentrification.

It's de-gentrification.

It's helping regular people be able to afford those apartments.

Mr. Wright about the bypass, I am on the MPO, I'm chairing the MPO, and I believe that the county board of supervisors who kind of swept in some of them on a bypass agenda, you know, for or against,

I'm really committed to taking this through the county through a lot of public engagement before it comes back to the MPO.

I expect it probably will come to the MPO and I'll certainly consider what you've said.

But I think first there's going to be a fair amount of time going by where they're going to really engage the public.

So I encourage you to participate in that as well.

Let's see.

The last one is Mr. Greenhouse.

I think you did the first thing, which is talking to Mr. Tolbert.

I think he's the one who can tell you about code and that kind of stuff.

And Mr. Jones, is there anybody else that he should talk to about

I mean, I think Mr. Tolbert would be the first good person to talk to you.

But I think that's the best first step because this council has has indicated a, you know, a desire to have such things in our community.

So we're not a kind of not in our backyard sort of place.

We are a city of second chances, but it does have to be something that

Thanks for doing that.

Yeah, I'll go next, try to build on what Kristin said.

Thanks for bringing out a lot of great things.

I wanted to thank everyone who came out to talk about the SIA.

There was a lot of community engagement sort of during the process of developing it.

I've been

I was vocally just disappointed that we haven't had more time after the full book came out and so this is a great indication that there's still a lot of concern out there and uncertainty and I really do appreciate

You're coming out because I've wondered about that.

I wanted to speak to Walt Heinecky's suggestion that we should have an impact statement.

I actually really like that.

I think we should have an environmental impact statement too.

We do have a budgetary impact.

and something that indicates whether we've had community engagement.

It's something I'd like to look at, whether it would be called diversity impact or social justice or whatever, but given that we've really made a very strong statement with creating our Human Rights Committee, I think it would be a really interesting thing to explore.

talking more with our city manager about that.

And who else?

And I too support, I met with Mr. Hengele and I support this

proposal to subsidize our Public Defender's Office.

We do subsidize our Commonwealth Attorney's Office.

And so there is we'll just need to to play with those numbers in terms of how it all falls out for equity with certainly within the city.

I think we've got to be extremely careful about that.

But but I support support that proposal.

Mr. Greenhouse, thanks for coming out.

It's a great project.

I guess I'll go.

To Ms. Welch's comments, I really do appreciate the positive that you're sharing with us tonight.

And I agree, I think we have an incredible CAT team.

I've been impressed watching them throughout the whole process in terms of how they've been responsive and problem solving.

They kind of really think outside the box, and they're not afraid to take risks.

So I really appreciate that.

With regards to our new members of the board in Elmont County, I've already had coffees with two of the new ones, another one this Sunday, and I'm a colleague of Mr. Sheffield's and he comes and

teaches one of my classes every spring at UVA.

So I do think we are going to be moving forward.

And it's very nice to hear your perspective as a citizen from Albemarle County sharing that with us in the city.

So thank you.

Yes, we will talk at length about the SIA.

I do want to mention, though, with Ms. Green, I did try to get in touch with you, and we made a connection by phone, and that didn't go anywhere.

So let's try again, if I may, because I don't know what happened.

We just never connected.

I think you had problems with your kids.

That's a problem having athletes.

Let me know where you're going to be and I'll meet you there.

I want to tell you that I am going to be going to the projects committee meeting at the Piedmont Housing Alliance Board, their projects subcommittee on February 18th to talk about two things, the growing opportunity report and the strategic investment area.

I think that it was really important that we talk about the growing opportunity report that came first intentionally.

And it is linked to the strategic investment area.

We'll talk about that more tonight.

But I think that was something that was lost in translation.

And the reason why it's a focus for our investment, our public investment, is we do want to grow jobs.

We do want to enhance the

Social mobility, getting people up and out of poverty.

And we will talk about that tonight.

But I didn't want to underline that.

I'm going to be meeting with your board on the 18th.

And it's very important to note that the strategic investment area report is committed to 340 units of public and assisted housing to replace one for one.

The city's commitment is only to the housing authority.

one for one replacement.

But in the SIA that commitment was extended to Friendship Court.

So I'm telling you now that report is committed to one to one replacement for Friendship Court as well as the public housing units independent of the fact that there is not a memorandum of understanding with the

People in Housing Alliance at this point.

So Mr. Greenow, the other person I know you've been talking with is Mr. Mike Murphy, because I know he's been meeting with you and had had several conversations.

So I'm not sure how all this relates, but we've had a meeting before.

So I think maybe it would be good to have a little kind of group meeting with some of the staff that's been involved with Mr. Greenow to see how we can move the ball forward

instead of meeting one-on-one with different department heads.

That's a suggestion.

Brandon Collins.

I miss seeing you, too, but I miss seeing your babies more.

Kathleen Welch.

You do have a great service.

I hired a young man who lived up near Fashion Square.

It took him an hour and 15 minutes to take a bus.

I think he had at least one transfer, and that was into Fry's Spring.

And since I think number 11 started running, he's cut that over half.

That made the difference in this young fellow starting out in the workforce, so we appreciate that.

Jim Hengele, you know, we came off a very long primary campaign and general election and this is the first public meeting that I've been in that the public defender's office has been mentioned.

So I also would support that.

It's a very important effort and I hope you come back often.

and keep it in front of us because it is a money saver.

It serves the people who can't serve themselves basically.

So you're doing a tremendous service and I'll do what I can to make sure that it's addressed properly.

The speakers about the SIA, I will encourage you to be skeptical because you're going to be hearing a lot of promises.

but what are the guarantees that those promises will ever be kept?

So I appreciate the message that you bring across the city about community.

It is very, very important and it is different than a neighborhood, sometimes same, sometimes the same, sometimes different.

People will promise you the moon but just be very skeptical of what's going on.

Winston, it's good to see you again.

I hope you have success in what you're doing.

Anyway, I can help and I'll be seeing you probably Thursday evening.

I hope I didn't leave anybody out.

But one thing I would like to remind the community is I've been asking for ideas on what this council can do in the budget process.

either to save money or to raise revenue.

We're going to be hearing over the next couple of months.

Everybody wants more money and all the things they want money for are very important.

But we have a budget and we have to work on it.

So I encourage people across the city to come down here and give us your ideas, even if it's only 15, 20, 30 seconds worth.

Just come up here or if you don't want to, grab me in the hallway.

That gets us all.

Thank you.

Before we go into consent agenda, we have some appointments to make.

Oh, yes.

Let's do that first.

I'd like to move the following appointments to boards and commissions.

For the Building Code Board of Appeals, we have two reappointments.

Charles Lewis IV and Peter Weems, as well as one new member, Jay Addison Barnhart.

For the Housing Advisory Committee, I move Rich Schuyler for our at-large position.

We still need one to be filled by somebody with banking background.

We didn't have an applicant.

For the Human Rights Commission, I move Karen Sheppard, who was here earlier.

Any discussion on that vote?

Thank you.

Item A, minutes for January 22nd.

Item B, in appropriation, Bama Works Fund Check and Connect Grant, $10,000, second of two readings.

Item C, in appropriation, FY 2014 Aid and Localities Fire Disbursement Fund, $122,138, second of two readings.

Item D, in appropriation,

of FY 2014 transit grants, $213,693, second of two readings.

Item E, an appropriation safe routes grant for Clark pedestrian improvements, $174,800, second of two readings.

Item F, an appropriation HVAC replacement at Gordon Avenue Library and Health Department, $90,000, first of two readings.

Item G, an appropriation for the City of Promise reimbursement from Children, Youth and Family Services Incorporated, $10,000, first of two readings.

Item H, an appropriation asset forfeiture funds for regional firearms range, $971,167, first of two readings.

Item I, a resolution transfer of funds for stormwater utility fee incentive, $16,000, first of one reading.

Item J, a resolution amendment to lease agreement with visitor center for transit center space, first of one reading.

Item K, a resolution city entry for Georgetown University Energy Prize Competition, first of one reading.

Item L, an ordinance provides neighborhood development services fee schedules, second of two readings.

Item M, an ordinance to amend CAFE and vendor fees and regulations, second of two readings.

With the transit center, so we own the transit center.

That's right.

There used to be a restaurant there before.

There was a cafe there, but that has not been there for some time, and I think

The city doesn't use that space for our own departmental needs?

Not currently.

Interesting option.

In the cafe and vendor fees, we heard some really interesting public comment last week, and I wonder if

I'm not terribly opposed to going ahead with it, but I wonder if we could build into it reassessing it in 10 months, sort of before our next budget cycle, to see if, or next time it would roll over, to sort of see if some of the unintended consequences that people brought up actually play out.

Okay.

Any other questions, comments?

I move the consent agenda.

This is an item tonight to amend the Comprehensive Plan to include the strategic investment area

plan as an appendix.

At the January meeting of the Planning Commission, there was a public hearing, joint public hearing of Council and Planning Commission, and the Planning Commission moved unanimously to recommend that you amend the comprehensive plan to include the strategic investment area plan.

Just since it's been a while since we talked about it,

just to hit a few highlights tonight.

The plan is for an area that's generally bounded by Ridge Street on the west, the railroad tracks on the north, and Avon Street on the east, and Elliott on the south.

It extends to the properties fronting on each of those streets.

and it includes the First Street Public Housing.

So there's a little bit outside the general boundaries but it's generally those areas.

This is a project that was started a little over a year ago.

We engaged the firm of Cunningham Quill to do this work and they had a series of meetings.

There were a lot of stakeholder meetings.

There were a lot of public get-togethers where issues in the planning area were discussed.

and there was a steering committee that was representative of the community that met and if approved and as intended for implementation would continue to meet and advise as we go forward.

Just to hit the goals of the SIA that council when you put together the request for proposals included

We're to rebuild and preserve public and assisted housing as part of an integrated plan for revitalizing neighborhoods, hallmarked by concentrated poverty.

To catalyze coordinated investments in neighborhood revitalization, including improvements in infrastructure, education, and community assets that attracts businesses and industries.

to build the foundations for economically viable neighborhoods of opportunity and choice within one of the city's most distressed communities by promoting mixed income residential development without displacement and employment growth.

To address interconnected challenges, housing, decay, crime, disinvestment, health disparities, adult educational opportunities, transportation, economic opportunities for youth and adults,

and to create a healthy, viable neighborhood with urban amenities such as public parks, institutions like libraries and excellent food sources and safe interconnected streets to promote walking, biking and efficient public transit.

To adhere to and comply with the Residence Bill of Rights for Redevelopment and that's the Charlottesville Redevelopment Housing Authority Residence Bill of Rights.

These were essentially adopted and included by the Steering Committee as they went forward in their work.

To boil this plan down, and you've all had copies of it, it's posted online, it's a couple hundred pages long, but essentially the recommendations that come out of it, just in summary, are

that cover a lot of areas.

One of the areas that, one of the things that was picked up on as an asset for the area is Pollock's Branch and a suggestion that it be daylit and improved and that we study in detail more about how to do that as both a greenway, as an amenity, a recreational amenity, and as a green infrastructure amenity.

Look at changes to zoning codes and design guidelines to foster quality development in this area.

to have street escape improvements to many streets including 2nd, Monticello, Elliott, and 9th Street to redevelop the public housing sites in accord with the Residence Bill of Rights, to guide the redevelopment of Friendship Court, to provide opportunities for employment, and to provide for the redevelopment of the ICS and other properties.

To try to summarize what this plan as I see it is all about and what the intent was was to take a look at how we could create a better neighborhood and a better community in this area to stimulate economic development by providing a clear picture for developers and investors of what the city wanted to see here and to create awareness and opportunities for better housing choice while preserving the affordable housing in the area

and doing it in accord again consistently with the Residence Bill of Rights.

So that's what the recommendations were in the plan.

It has been recommended to you by the Planning Commission.

I've been asked why amend the comprehensive plan to do this.

And one of the primary reasons for that is that by amending this as an appendix to the comprehensive plan, it gives us the opportunity if we want to make these changes, if we want to work with developers, if we change codes and want to be able to tell a developer what we want in the way of improvements, we've adopted it.

We have a plan in place that is part of our comprehensive plan.

and if a developer comes in with a site plan, we can say, we need you to make these improvements to the public infrastructure that are outlined in the plan.

Outside of it being a formally adopted document through our planning process, that's very difficult to do.

So this sets the goals for us for land uses and for investment in infrastructure, both by us and by the private sector.

And by, the Planning Commission asked the question,

I don't see anything in here that conflicts with our comprehensive plan.

It takes it to a greater detail in some cases and is more specific, but it doesn't conflict with anything that's in the comprehensive plan that we just adopted five months ago.

Thank you.

Yeah, I have a couple of questions.

Is there a difference between an amendment and an appendix?

Well, it's amending the plan by appending the document.

I mean, one way to have done it would be go through every single page in the comp plan and insert things.

The other way, and the way we did the last small area plan that the community did, was we adopted it as an appendix so that it's there.

We did the same thing when in 2000,

In 2006, when we updated the comprehensive plan, we did a bunch of neighborhood plans and we adopted all those as an appendix to the comprehensive plan.

And they were there for reference.

They were things where they were more specific.

They took precedent.

Right.

And then there was the statement that if there was a conflict that the SIA plan would trump.

the comprehensive plan, which I had actually a real concern about because we had a much, I applaud the public engagement to get, you know, before we got to this point, but we had a much broader public input into the comprehensive plan and there are, I do see some things in here that conflict with

items in the comprehensive plan, especially as it revolves around historic preservation.

So that concerns me, and I would actually rather the comprehensive plan trump the SIA should there be a conflict that arises, which, you know, may never happen.

But that one disturbed me.

So I don't know how my fellow counselors feel about that.

if there's a reason to put the SIA above the comprehensive plan or vice versa?

So I mean okay so there's like well there's a question so if is it

Well, we put that in there just as a caveat because it is more specific.

That is, that there is a conflict, that there is a difference.

Again, I'm not sure what there is with historic preservation.

Okay, well there's a table in here about properties that could be more dense, could be used better, and Standard Produce is one of them.

Which is, it's 1951, it's

but on our parameters that we just actually put as contributing properties in some buildings in the same era.

Well, again, that building is not contributing.

But again, we could still do that.

You could, and that's where I think the comp plan, should it be

There's not one in conflict with the other.

You've got the overarching statements that we want to look for opportunities for historic preservation and protect our historic infrastructure and the fact that we say that

That may or may not be a good example, but that is an example.

If it were a good example, and that's where I'm concerned, that something that has been deemed by the general public as a really important part of our city,

Should a conflict arise between the language of the main body of the comprehensive plan and the contents of the strategic investment area, it will be brought before planning commission and council for resolution.

That's fine.

If I can offer that as...

Thank you.

That's fine.

And then there was another statement in the resolution that says, was in the be it resolved part, that the SIA plan data is hereby approved and the city's comprehensive plan is amended to include the SIA plan including without limitation

all the goals and objectives set forth therein.

I had a problem without limitation and it being some of the things we heard today is that while it's generally, and it's general in nature, but generally has some pieces that people have come forward and really like, there's other pieces that people are still nervous about and that without limitation, like this whole book,

is going to be the gold standard.

Well, I'd like just to take out without limitation.

That would make me happier.

It's just such a

It's sort of the same problem with the trumping thing.

Is this really that important?

As I read that, it's saying that the document itself is going to keep its integrity.

You're not going to take anything out of the report.

That's what that

means, including without limitation, all of its goals and objectives.

It means that we, by the same token, can't go in and pick and choose and take out things of the SIA.

It's going to be adopted in toto as an appendix, and as we said earlier, where there are conflicts between the comp plan and the SIA, then it comes back to council and planning commission for discussion.

it's not something, otherwise you are in a way undermining the public process that went into creating this.

It says the SIA plan.

I think it's still, it's pretty definitive.

It includes all of the goals and objectives set forth herein and the map delineating the boundaries.

Okay, there's also a parenthesis in there that's kind of hanging out there by itself.

Let me see, I had a couple other ones.

You know, again, what concerns me overall is

kind of what we are approving.

So you said we're, it says in here, it's kind of ambiguous in here.

At one point it says we're approving the goals, another time it says we're approving the objectives.

I think it's the whole thing.

For instance, again, it's like a comprehensive plan.

A comprehensive plan is a general plan for the city.

A small area plan is drilling down and more specific.

It doesn't have regulations in it.

It doesn't create spending.

It shows you where opportunities are for investment, but it doesn't spend any money.

It just creates the opportunities.

And there are things in here like streetscape standards and guidelines.

They're guidelines.

For instance, if there is a guideline for Second Street in the way of streetscape, that will be the general guideline we use.

But if we decide we want to improve the streetscape there, we have to get survey and very detailed information that will adjust that a little bit.

But it's a general picture of this is what our vision is of what we want this to look like.

For the owners of the Ix property, for instance, it gives them guidance on what we would like to see

their property become, what the vision is that they've helped create so that they know that and can invest knowing that that's the direction that the city has said we'd like to go.

Okay, so the concerns that we heard about public and low-income housing in the neighborhood because I too heard in the work session we had when we first saw this, the only one we had,

This is what we need to know.

As far as public housing, it's just simply carrying forward the recommendations from the WRT study without a specific site plan that says there's opportunity for creation of more units here, there's opportunity for more low income housing and more market rate housing.

and it can take a lot of forms.

And there's some suggestions and pictures of what that could look like, but those decisions aren't made.

That's a key.

Okay, so how flexible is this by mending it to the comprehensive plan if

What happened?

For example, every special permit, special use permit, you say whether it is consistent with or not consistent with the comprehensive plan.

Okay.

For instance, if there was an area that was recommended for commercial development,

And there was a great proposal that came in for some kind of new housing or recreation use there.

The simple thing is to amend the plan, which would have been adopted,

and then you can be consistent with it.

I mean, that happens on a regular basis.

So it's, again, it comes back to council.

If council believes that is something that is warranted, then you can take the action, go through the process to amend this to make a change.

It's not set in stone forever and ever.

One question I have is really just a clarification, which I think I know the answer to.

If there's private property within the SIA and somebody wants to build something by right, can we stop them because of what's in the strategic?

So it doesn't keep people from building on their own property.

It does two or three things.

One is it gives them suggestions for what they might do in a way they might invest that's been better thought out that there's been an economist that's looked at it and many times sat down with the property owners and had conversations.

It also recommends in some cases that we might want to make changes to our zoning code that would better guide that development.

And we might want to make some changes to what

the uses that are allowed today might be in the future, but that goes to another public.

It doesn't happen tonight.

And the other question in response, Mr. Hawkins, does what we do tonight sell public land?

A related question is a number of the recommendations refer to private land, including Friendship Court and including the ex-property, so there's recommendations that get redeveloped like soon.

We can't.

I mean, there are things in here that are suggested as catalyst kind of things that are initial.

And if it's some things we can do as a city, if we choose to, there are other things that it's giving advice to private property owners that if they want to do those things, that the planters felt like are good things to do.

They don't have to do them.

For example, the Piedmont Housing Alliance will own friendship court.

Any other questions?

Yeah, I do.

Say that last thing, Jim, about everybody was at the table.

We just had people that came up in front of council that said,

Two people were at those meetings in one of the meetings.

Mr. Fenwick, the large property owners, the ones that own

Yeah, they were crafting the SIA basically.

Excuse me.

No, sir, they were making...

Excuse me, Kathy, let me finish what I'm saying first.

and we had people come from the community who said they were not really involved in what was in the formation of this.

That's my concern.

That's one of my concerns.

And I'll just have a couple others.

In the budgetary impact, it says approval of this item will not have a direct impact on the city budget.

And you mentioned it doesn't create spending.

Let me add also that city council can allocate capital budget improvements to the area and that will cost money.

and the adoption of this does not do that.

No, it says here are things that are suggested that they could be done.

I think the issue of public engagement just, you know, because there was a lot in this and there was a lot of discussion to design public engagement to give people an opportunity and that's all we can do is give an opportunity but we had on March 14th was the first public engagement open house and then

On April 22, we had discussion at both Crescent Halls and Sixth Street.

And then on May 16, we had another public discussion.

And in July, we had another public discussion.

We hand-delivered flyers to every property.

in the area, every door handle to notify people of those meetings.

Jim, the thing is, people with a vested interest will make time.

They are on the clock when they come down to these public hearings.

The general public is not on the clock.

I understand it, Mr. Chairman.

That's why we went to them in a lot of cases, trying to take meetings to the community so they could participate.

Well, I understand that.

And one last thing, Kathy, if I could.

This to me, I'm just really skeptical because it's just another project that the city is embarking on.

CityWalk, West Main, the Pavilion, and these huge things are being plopped down in the middle of our city and at the same time we're just about to task city staff with reworking codes.

We have narrow streets and part of the code rework is to make sure they stay narrow.

Now, it seems to me that the planning process is starting to get seriously out of whack.

I guess I would have almost the opposite take on it because it seems like if what we do is just sort of have projects showing up here and there around the city as they will do, then we're always chasing our tails and this seems to be much more proactive and actually looking at planning ahead of time to say, so if those come through, what sort of thing are we going to want?

engaging the public as much as we can and I think we can continue to engage the public as projects come forward and I assume we will.

But to me this is exactly what you do when you don't want to be chasing your tail.

I do have a comment.

I know I've probably been one of the ones most a stickler about public engagement and in pressing upon staff the importance of it and I must commend staff that they did an excellent job here and it was hard.

I know how hard you worked and in my

My comment to you Mr. Fenwick was that I wanted you to hear Mr. Tolbert's layout of all the outreach that was done before a comment is made that suggests an ulterior motive that was behind something.

Because I think now you've heard there was an awful lot of outreach.

Everyone was included.

Everyone was invited.

Property owners, yes, very much have to be included in that discussion.

So I think I just want to clarify that for the record that this was an amazingly exhaustive, unique process for the city to undertake.

And I think we've learned a lot from it.

I do.

The only thing I want to add is that put in the resolution that there will be an ongoing Citizens Steering Committee.

Yeah, and you did do an amazing job of community engagement before.

As I say, I was just disappointed that there wasn't more.

After this came out, it was just sort of one work session.

Most of it was presentation.

We didn't even have much opportunity to comment on it.

We had a little bit, and there certainly wasn't any

idea that there would be any input at that point.

So I just thought that was just unfortunate.

But beforehand, yeah, there was a lot.

To actually reference Mr. Hawkins, the other rather interesting aspect of this is that there was so much recognition of the history of this area, certainly as it related to the city, not necessarily to the urban renewal

but to the city and then almost none of it's reflected in the plan and I thought that was unfortunate that this was a really important part of our city and there were streets that no longer exist I mean an alternative view would be to sort of recreate what was there the other criticism I have of it that I would hope would be that's why I want to see flexibility is that the focus on Second Street which is an at grade crossing

and to get people to be coming from the downtown mall across that grade, a railroad track went two blocks down the way, there is an underpass, seems like a lost opportunity that you could have that sort of seamless connection between the downtown mall.

But it's sort of things like that that I would hope that

Don't ask me to say this is perfect in every way and I will vote just to do exactly.

And speaking of voting, there's phasing in here.

There are suggestions that the consultants made that the steering committee agreed with as ways to effect and guide development.

They are suggestions.

although there may be but you voted for this idea why won't but I don't think if it's not binding I think it may be some sort of moral bind but not I have to respond a little bit to Ms. Nichols and Mr. Collins about the gentrification and the force gentrification and the breaking up of neighborhoods because I understand these are real concerns and

And I think that when the neighborhood you have is your neighborhood, it's not a pleasant thought to think that it just may get stripped apart.

So I think that that's really important that we pay attention to.

I also, though, think that a lot of these very concentrated poverty

neighborhoods that we have are the result of racism and Jim Crow and housing patterns that happen because of racism and because of poverty, not because people who don't make a lot of money all said, oh, let's all live on the same block.

It was the only block that they were allowed to live on.

And so I think that to force people to stay on that block, because that's the way it's always been, to me is not really the best way to help deal with poverty.

And neither is decentralization a cure for poverty, and I think we absolutely have to be doing more with everything else that we do.

But we look at

I hate quoting studies, but we look at studies that show that children who live in neighborhoods where the only people they know are other people who are living in poverty, they're not only not doing as well in school, but they're downwardly mobile.

They end up doing less well than their parents did.

And there is a certain benefit to people of all incomes to be living near each other.

and for generations we've had redlining and policies that have made that impossible, especially in the South.

But to kind of put that in stone because it's the way it is, to me just sort of gives glory to a system that I think was really evil and I don't think that that's something that I would support for its own sake.

I think we have to be careful of community.

We have to be aware that sometimes

the people you live next door to are the people who watch your kids when you go to work and we have to respect those connections and those relationships and not ignore that and not think well just because they're poor they shouldn't live next door to you because that's not what I'm saying at all but I think that there are things that we can balance when we look at this and so you know my intention is certainly not forced gentrification but it is a neighborhood that anybody could live in a neighborhood that has low income or low rent houses low cost habitat houses

Can I ask one other question of Mr. Tolbert?

So you actually brought up the fact that there's street design guidelines in here.

Another agenda item coming up, we're going to talk about developing street design guidelines.

A lot of, you know, these are very specific for this area, but they will, as one of the reasons we've suggested in the next item that we can maybe do some of the work for lower cost is we've already got a lot of good guidance here for applicable situations.

Again, it's, as the resolution says, context sensitive, so it'll have to be something where it fits the context, but these will,

Right, and these can be refined against some, but they are not,

And that will happen before we build any of these.

Mr. Mayor, one last question.

It is proposed that the SIA plan be adopted as an amendment.

Well, not until you, yes, not until you appropriate money to do something.

Okay.

There's no automatic funding coming from you.

Right.

Except what has already been spent by staff and all that.

Understood.

I do have a comment please, Mr. Mayor.

Um, and it's because I do want to underline that connection between the growing opportunity report

because in the Strategic Investment Area Plan, it calls for, and then in the Growing Opportunity Report, it calls for the Schaussel Economic Development Authority to be involved with the buying of a part of land and developing it to be flexible business space to grow and incubate jobs to create more employment.

There is also the discussion that came out of the growing opportunity report to have a workforce development center.

It is ideally would go into the SIA if we can find the site.

We're looking at interim sites right now just to get that up and running.

But it's very, very well understood, thanks to the growing opportunity report, that there are multiple obstacles to employment.

It is adult education.

It is transportation.

It is daycare.

It is a history of criminal record.

It is affordable housing.

And as Ms. Szakos was saying, this has got quite an opportunity for a range of housing.

Alone, when you add the new housing in it,

It is still higher than the city's goal of 15%.

It will still have 30% affordable housing in this neighborhood.

So everyone is in the same walkable neighborhood.

And then the first and fundamental obstacle is that you gotta make the jobs.

So we have a section three coordinator on property that is owned by HUD.

Those are going to have access to that 30% rule.

30% of the construction crews have to go towards public housing residents provided they are qualified.

This is the key.

We're getting all kind of on notice that we've got to start mobilizing.

When I mentioned the Virginia Plugged In program earlier tonight, that's one example of our model pilot pathway.

We've got to do more.

We've got to grow more.

in that regard.

But we are looking at this comprehensively.

We have a plan and it's being implemented.

The growing opportunity plan is being implemented right now.

This has got a geography to it, just like this is an illustration of our comprehensive plan principles.

It's a geography to it.

And that's mainly what I want to say is that there's been a very aggressive attention

to growing that opportunity because, again, as Ms. Szakos pointed out, a recent study coming out of the Harvard School of Economics looking at social mobility.

One of the biggest, strongest correlations of downward mobility or staying at poverty is when you are in a racially, economically isolated community.

So for years, people have talked about how we're not looking at

dealing with poverty in Charlottesville.

And we looked at this area and there were no parks.

There were no safe streets.

There were no healthy food sources.

There were no street trees.

And so now we're looking at it and saying that's a healthy neighborhood.

Why isn't it possible for poor people, poor children to have high quality environments too?

And that we are committed to making it affordable

because I personally can't accept that the only way we can have affordable housing is to be in disinvested derelict neighborhoods that don't have any amenities in it.

That's not acceptable to me, and I don't think that's acceptable to most of my counselors.

OK, let me make a few comments.

You guys all had a chance, so I won't take that long as you have to.

This is a vision of the future for this certain part of our city and neighborhood.

I think the way it was prepared was the right way to do it in terms of trying to get people involved in preparing a plan.

It will provide a guidance for the future.

will be very helpful to us in the long run.

We ought to adopt this part of a comprehensive plan.

What I really like about it is that it is not just physical, it also deals with social and economic issues as part of a very holistic manner, which I think is very healthy neighborhood planning.

Any other comments?

I would like to make an amendment that the- With those amendments.

Okay.

With those two amendments we already- With adding the steering committee.

Yes.

Is that a motion?

There's no motion pending right now, so you're not amending anything.

Just remind us who's on the steering committee, just so we know what we're doing.

Or how does that happen?

Gosh.

What are the general makeup you've got?

Most of them, there's a resident of each of the three public housing sites.

There's a member representing the two schools that are served in the area.

There's a Ridge Street representative and then

And the language that if there is a conflict between this and the plan that it would be before the Planning Commission.

That was in the memo.

Wait a minute.

I will second the motion.

But now you can amend it.

Now there's a motion.

Just when you consider, and this goes to that point about the comprehensive plan, just adding at the end after is the subject of the SIA plan.

Oh, there was the other apostrophe.

As an appendix, while remaining flexible and open to opportunities unforeseen in the SIA plan.

Even if we have been told it isn't set in stone?

While remaining flexible and open to opportunities, unforeseen in the SIA plan.

Where is that?

I was adding it at the very end.

Just the very last comma?

As an appendix comma?

Yes.

I mean, that's the easiest place to put it.

Let me ask, is it acceptable to make a motion?

Yeah, I'm reading over it again because one thing that I think we don't want to do is say, yeah, we're voting for it, but we don't really mean it.

In the opposite, I would say we're voting for it, but your concerns actually we're addressing to

I have a place for it.

In the second whereas, whereas work on the SIA plan has been completed and is set forth within the document dated December 2013 and now, in order for the plan to be more effectively utilized and referenced as a guide for the development of the SIA comma without being binding comma, it is proposed that the SIA plan be adopted as an amendment.

or as a flexible guide without being binding.

Yes, sure.

Is that okay?

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

Do you accept that having moved it?

Okay.

Any more discussion on the motion from that vote?

Thank you.

Next item.

Thank you Mr. Mayor.

Yes, sir, Mr. Mayor.

Council, this is a resolution that was before you on I believe December 16th and at that meeting council had some concerns and questions about the way this resolution was structured.

You asked that Mr. Jones and I meet with counselors to have a conversation about different pieces of it and to put together some things that would

help it in its understanding, help all of us in our understanding of the process and what this really was.

And it also at that time suggested that you put up $300,000 to help pay for some of these things.

And in our conversations, Council asks that we rethink that

and look for different ways to get to the same end.

I would start with saying again just as a reminder that the idea behind this is that we do a couple things.

In your town hall meetings, you've heard a lot of concerns about traffic and particularly

not to traffic on the major roads, but to cut through traffic and the traffic that comes on the more minor streets.

And this would, one of the work items out of this would be a multi-modal transportation plan that would help us address those items proactively, those concerns that the community has about traffic.

And it's like when we met, we talked about we have a long-range transportation plan that the MPO adopts.

That deals with our major street network.

and we never get down to the really finer grain and look at how we deal with traffic and what the impacts are in those finer grain streets which are mostly in our community the residential streets.

There are still some of them that are commercial streets but in a lot of cases they're residential streets.

So the first overarching piece of this would be to help us look at how traffic moves and how we deal with it in the entire community.

because the last thing we want to do is say we're going to fix a problem over here and have it come back up in another area where we haven't anticipated.

It would also do it in the context of the land uses in that area both now and in the future.

So we would look at what the land use patterns are and currently what they're projected to be so we could anticipate where the increases would be and where the impacts would be.

That will also guide the second piece of this or a piece of that

which would be the context sensitive street design solution.

So one of the things that we would get out of the multimodal plan is what do we want our streets to look like so that they carry traffic but they also carry bikes and pedestrians safely.

They accommodate transit where appropriate and they handle all modes of transportation.

as appropriate for the context of that area.

Not every street may need a bike lane, it may not need bus accommodation, but we need to be able to address based on the context and provide solutions for that.

It will also provide opportunities that we may want to have a street where we divert traffic and we'll be able to gauge that and make some decisions about how we do those things.

And the physical standards for how we do it will be an end result of this.

One of the things that's called out is a block network plan.

And they're really all together the same, one and the same, but they are pieces of the multi-modal plan.

The second piece of the study that would be done or that would come out of this in the implementation process is a review of our codes and policies.

and while this is a separate thing, they're all so interrelated, what about our codes and policies that's causing us not to get the kind of streets and development that we want now?

And let's examine those and let's recommend changes, not to just our design standards, but to the codes that generate the projects that cause some of the issues we're seeing.

We would also, in addition to that, we would have a green infrastructure plan

that would be done to examine ways that we could, while we're making these improvements, we can better address our stormwater needs, we can take advantage of the ridges and the valleys that we have to capture stormwater, and we can help achieve some of our TMDL goals that we've talked about.

Again, this is all wrapped together that came out of the Context Sensitive Resolution recommended that we do these things.

What we've put before you tonight is the Context Sensitive Resolution is also an amendment to our, an update of our Complete Streets Policy.

We adopted Complete Streets Policy in 2010 and

It was a very simple one.

If you look around the country at complete streets policies that were adopted in that time period, they're pretty much very basic and very simple.

We want to have complete streets.

We want the streets to accommodate all users.

And that's basically we want street trees, we want bike lanes, pedestrians, transit, and vehicles as appropriate.

This one goes a little further than that.

It keeps the same vision, but it also has a suggestion for how we might go about dealing with conflicts.

situations where you can't fit all uses on a street.

And something that's outside of our, once we've adopted the context-sensitive street design standards, we'll know where we'll put certain things, but then we'll get to a field condition that may not allow all those things.

And our previous policy and current policies don't give us a mechanism to resolve those, so this policy does that.

The next thing is the implementation process.

A lot of you ask, all right, we adopt this resolution, how do we go about seeing these things happen?

And the big difference in what, two big differences in what you got December 16th and what's here, one is the amount of money.

We are suggesting here that a lot of this work we can do with our staff with, supplemented with consultants both in the regulatory and code audit piece and in the context sensitive street design piece.

This is a perfect opportunity for us because we've just got

This document finished.

There's a lot of guidance for the context-sensitive work.

They also did a lot of the regulatory and code audit piece as it affected this area, but it has general application in a lot of ways to give us guidance, plus the West Main Street study that's going on.

One of the key pieces of that that the code group that's one of the sub-consultants is doing is a regulatory and code audit.

So that can feed this and give us a lot of information, a lot of guidance to do what we're doing.

We've also are working with Tool Design Group, who is a national firm that has been engaged to do our update of our bike pad master plan that we've been talking about for a couple of years.

The first piece of that is a public engagement process.

And because these things are so interrelated, when we talk about our bike pad master plan, the own street bike and pedestrian network,

It's so closely tied to the multi-modal plan, to the context-sensitive designs, to the green infrastructure, that it makes sense to have one, at least initial public engagement process.

So what we're looking at is taking up the advantage of the fact that we're already

contracting with tool to do that piece and let them help run the community engagement piece.

So we're not going and having meetings on policy and regulatory audit, on context sensitive, on multi-modal, but we're having one set of public meetings to talk about our streets and how they appear, how they work.

And again, they just give us an opportunity here that's already in place.

Tool is also working on the Biped Master Plan.

They're going to be doing some street sections, so we'll be able to pull on that, too.

So that's one of the reasons, our primary reason, we feel that rather than $300,000, we proposed that we had $50,000 to supplement the staff work that we could do this, because we've already got the other pieces out there that we can pull and take advantage of.

The other thing that we heard from several of the council in our conversations was concern about another advisory committee that was proposed in the first resolution, in the context-sensitive resolution, and so we suggested that

rather than create another committee for all of this, that instead the place committee in January formed themselves into several subcommittees.

One subcommittee on regulatory and code audits, one on multimodal transportation, one on green infrastructure planning.

and we said as a citizen group the core of it we felt could be those individuals supplemented as we need with both citizens and members of tree commission or bike pit or planning commission or wherever we needed to pull from

and then all the staff members that need to be involved in this.

Again, I think that there may have been some thought that we were trying to say those individuals on place would do the work.

We're not asking that.

We're saying that we think that the staff and staff teams and different teams for different efforts could be able to pull the work together using those individuals and their expertise for guidance and as a steering committee.

But rather than have one overarching, we would have

the different members of place who would kind of bring it all back together in the functions that you've given them in their charge initially so it's kind of talking in circles around all this but it's it's complex but it's all related so again what you have before you today is a resolution for context sensitive streets that would do two things three things it would adopt the resolution

it would allocate the resources, $50,000 as it's written and it would amend the complete streets policy and then it would state that the implementation of these things would be done following the basic outline of the implementation strategy.

One thing we pointed out in the implementation strategy is this is an initial first cut that we did with the staff team working on this.

What we think needs to happen is if we go this route, that we get the teams together, look at each of the scopes, and refine the work that will be done by each of these, following the general outline, knowing where the end product that we're looking for is.

For instance, the green infrastructure plan.

Our new stormwater manager has a degree in landscape architecture.

His focus is water resources management, but he's very happy with our environmental

to be the team leads, but we also know we've got to have economic development and planning and all the others involved in that.

So there are different teams that will work.

There will be a lot of overlap, but we see opportunities for our staff to be creative here.

Again, one of the other pieces of it is

that with a design professional, if the council goes that route, can really step in and provide a lot of guidance and help here.

We may very well have to ask for a little more help if we don't have that, but right now we think that we can move the direction that we've outlined for you.

Let you ask questions.

Let me start.

Yes.

It says under budgetary impact that the staff believes that the technical assistance costing no more than $50,000 will be needed.

Is that for a consultant or an expert of some kind?

That's for it.

Okay, so it is a consultant study, basically, that kind of deal.

No, sir.

It would be to engage a consultant, maybe for a $10,000 piece to provide a service that we may not have the staff expertise to do.

Okay, and what would the other $40,000 be for then?

I'm just saying that's for one.

Help us with a regulatory audit.

It might be that we wanted to bring them in to help us with one piece of this.

Alright, so the traffic consultant too.

Mr. Fenwick I have the complete confidence in my staff and staff of the other departments that we could do this work however there are certain things that we don't have the expertise or we don't have

For instance, we don't have anybody that's done traffic modeling that does that.

We have some very good people on term contracts that we could say, you know, we need you to take a look at this small area for us and get us some traffic numbers that we haven't gotten and do some modeling for us to help us analyze a problem.

So that's one.

We don't have at this point anybody with a design background.

I got a lot of great policy people, a lot of great people that are good at writing plans, but not in drawing and designing.

We might be able to pull in somebody to do that piece of it for us.

So what we're saying is we don't want to go out and just hire a consultant study.

Let me just add that as you remember the first request was close to $300,000.

I understand that, you know, but all of these things that come in front of council, they're all being treated separately.

But we have this entire mix in here that all had to, the budget has got to tie all this together.

And once again, we started looking for ways to save money.

And yet we have, and we have the community saying there's too many consultants.

and they have a point there.

That's why I said I have total confidence that your department could do this if we'd only turn them loose.

On the one hand, they may not have all the expertise, but on the other hand, they know the city inside out.

They live here, they hear the people.

When you're trying to do a street vision, they know that it's tough when you put these big developments right in the middle of the city and you're crowding the streets even more.

So they bring an extra dimension as well.

And I appreciate that.

I think we do have a lot of experience.

Yeah, this is for comments.

Yes.

Well, I have a question actually because this is a technical question to Mr. Brown.

What's the difference between a resolution and a policy?

It would depend on the particular action you're taking.

Frequently, policies are expressed, or the resolution is the medium by which you express a policy.

Which we didn't pass.

But 2010, you actually had a complete streets policy.

Oh, it was.

I looked all over for it, and I asked for it, but I got it the resolution, but I never got the policy.

Okay, okay.

But it's very simple.

I mean, it states a lot of the same things.

I have just a little bit and it also has to do with the money part and I will say that I shared actually Mr. Fenwick's concern when it was $300,000 because I think that we do have a lot of capacity on staff and I was loath to spend $300,000 for somebody who'd have to learn in the community in order to start.

The $50,000, I'm concerned because I know that we're also looking at things like school funding and a budget process and so I really want to know

You're talking about it coming from the capital improvements contingency fund and is that a fund that is for this kind of thing and so kind of where it's coming from and I'll wait to get an answer to that in a second but I think that

To me, the idea of having that as an amount as part of this process makes sense because I think often the option would be to hire two new staff people.

If we wanted to do all of this in-house and we had to have somebody on staff who does traffic modeling and we had to do somebody on staff who does design work, we'd have to hire them.

and that would cost $100,000.

So I'm content that it's a reasonable amount but I do want to know as we're coming into the budget season and we don't yet have, we've already got a tight budget that we've been told isn't quite going to make it anyway.

We've got a school budget that's running at an inadequate amount.

So far we haven't made any decisions about additional revenue.

I'll defer that one to Mr. Jones.

I mean, I think you could argue that this is the type of thing that you would utilize the contingency fund for.

So it's something that came up outside of the budget process.

I mean, it's contributing to potentially a capital project, certainly.

And it's a one-time cost.

So I'm going to be the alternative view.

Number one, I've said repeatedly all week long, I think this is great.

I think this has been, this is an excellent coordinated effort.

So I am full support.

I am thrilled that this is in front of us.

And I do want to bring to council's attention that in 2003, when the code was updated over a two year process,

with NDS and the Planning Commission and members of the community, it did not result in the kind of built outcomes that we all say we want.

And that was because, from when I've talked to people that were involved in the process, that it was, it got confused, it was, everyone was overextended, it wasn't

necessarily as well managed as it could have been if there were professional outside consultant kind of at the steering wheel keeping everything on track.

So that's what I'm responding to.

What's the definition of insanity?

Doing the same thing twice and expecting different results.

I was seeing us march down that road again because the kinds of codes that

that I've been hearing this council, the kind of built outcomes this council wants, we're not getting it from our zoning.

I've had conversations with many of you.

I've identified these zoning conflicts all the last two years.

The Tree Commission identified four-page memo in October of 2013 of all the conflicts they see with current zoning.

No one was ever prepared to rewrite the zoning.

but they identified the conflict with their mission.

The Place Design Task Force in August presented a report, again, identifying these are conflicts.

Our streets are not doing what we say we want them to do.

I just came across a document that was presented by the Southern Environmental Law Center in 2008 which talked about how to improve our stormwater runoffs in new development.

and it was met with enthusiastic support from the council and the planning commission.

But we never did get pervious surfaces put into our codes.

We never did get narrower streets put into our codes.

So that tells me that there was not the capacity in staff to make changes.

So that's why I'm raising these questions.

Because there have been over and over again opportunities to change our codes, wanting codes changed, but it hasn't happened.

So that's number one.

Number two, I saw the $50,000 at first associated strictly with the tool.

And the tool was the consultant brought in to do the bike ped plan update.

That's one iteration I saw a while ago.

So now I'm here in the know that $50,000 is to be flexible.

It's to pull in Code Studio if we need them.

That's different than what I

what I was understanding.

I am concerned that that's not enough.

But that brings up the third point is there was a misunderstanding as I read this that that the places my task force was going to be assisting the staff with the newly appointed committee and doing the work of actually auditing the codes and writing them.

That needs to be really clarified because

This is a volunteer professional organization.

As I said in a memo, in an email, it would be like getting a task force of accountants and financial analysts and asking them to audit our books pro bono.

So just want to make sure that that's not happening.

And again, we have one of the best code specialists in the country on the roadside hire well team.

Setting it up right from the beginning and then, yes, picking up the ball with our own staff

and I'm very happy with the layout, the implementation strategy.

We can have all the resolutions and policies we want and we have kind of accumulated quite a bit, but if the implementation plan is not well resourced, it's not going to happen.

If our zoning isn't changed, we are not going to implement a green infrastructure plan.

We are not going to get a multi-modal plan.

It's a fundamental.

So that's why

Just on the money part, Jim, the contingency fund, that's where the money would come from?

Yes, sir.

We've made the final payment to the contractor that's working there or in process of it.

We've got close to $740,000 left in that account.

The idea is when all that's wrapped up, we'll move that money into the contingency fund so there's plenty of money.

Okay, out of the money where?

In the Old Lynchburg Road account.

Okay.

Let me make one or two comments.

I think this is a well-thought-out strategy.

The resolution is outlined in our intent.

The city council has a well-thought-out implementation plan.

I think the idea of having $50,000 is a reasonable idea compared to $300,000.

And I think maybe things have not happened previously, but I think this is well organized, well thought, and I'm confident that it will move in the right direction.

So can I clarify what we're going to be voting on?

So there's a resolution to adopt the approach, right?

It's just an approach.

The resolution adopts

or you would adopt a resolution which is the context sensitive street resolution.

No, no, no, before then.

You're adopting the context sensitive resolution which just says you want to do

these things, the multi-modal plan.

Okay, so it's these consolidated plans or that is the approach?

No, I got that.

But that's the process.

Okay, the approach is in the title of the resolution.

So, designing walkable urban thoroughfares, colon, a context-sensitive approach.

Right.

No, yeah.

It says that this is a context-sensitive street approach, which is a method of looking at our streets in a different way to accommodate all users and do it in a land-use context, which as opposed to what historically had been, we build a road, we worry about carrying cars, we don't worry about bikes and peds, trees and all those things.

This is saying

So the approach is actually on the ground when you're designing the street as opposed to then all of these different audits and that's different.

That's in the same resolution but that's then another thing we're looking at.

They're not necessarily, while they're peripherally related, they're not tied to the hip, right?

Tied at the hip.

Am I right in that?

I think so.

Okay.

So we're really looking at three things here.

So we're looking at the approach.

Now, I was told the approach had a lot to do with public engagement.

See, this is what was never clear.

The implementation.

The implementation strategy that we laid out, that the resolution says we will follow this implementation strategy in developing these things.

and the very first piece of it is the public engagement strategy for the initial part of it, going out and talking to people about what their concerns are, what they want to see.

Okay, that manual that looked a little smaller than this had a lot of

Is that not what we're talking about?

What the resolution does is says that that manual and the VRDP, whichever one it is, are the guidelines, because they're the universally accepted, one nationally, one statewide, of how you do this.

That if you're

How do you take a 60-foot right-of-way and accommodate all users in it?

You're not saying we're going to absolutely this, but those are the guidelines that you use so that you can stay consistent with your state funding, you know, formulas for maintenance and those sorts of things.

But, I mean, they provide basic guidelines.

That your sidewalks ought to be certain widths, that you ought to have tree islands, that bike lanes need to be a certain width.

and they're the guy, we're not adopting those manuals that you saw.

Yeah, I had that same question.

Context-sensitive street design is the approach.

Oh, okay, so those are the same thing.

Okay, so that's still included in it.

Right.

No, no.

Again, this manual and the other one that the state did provide guidance for.

They're a menu for how you can look at different ways to do things, but you adapt them to the context and your community.

Okay, and then my next question is, so okay, I think I got that one, but then it's be it further resolved, and we go really into a whole nother arena here of approving these, coordination of these plans and the money and all that kind of stuff.

How do the advisory committees actually work with like a code audit?

I mean, and how does the advisory committees in the same vein

interface with public engagement.

What do they all mean?

What we envision is that

The advisory committees we would work with to develop, make sure we're finding the scope and they were all on the same page about what we're doing.

They would provide input into what the code issues are in their mind, what they see, just taking a regulatory and code audit, what they see as issues in the community within our codes that we need to look at.

And then we would do the public engagement where they would participate at the level that they felt necessary.

We would come back to them with what we had heard from the community and determine these are the things that we need to fix.

And then the people doing the work, our staff teams, would come back to them with drafts of recommendations to address the issues that we had all agreed upon with what we needed to fix.

So they would be providing the guidance there.

But again, what we suggested was that they would be augmented with

residents or if tree commission member, bike head member, you know, but people from the communities.

And Mr. Tolbert, my revised language just articulates that.

And it wasn't clear in this version that you gave us that that broader representation was, in fact, desired.

No, let's just talk about the one resolution, because the whole package is really huge.

I mean, there's another whole policy.

I mean I'd rather, unless you think that they're somehow tied together.

Now therefore be it resolved.

So maybe the title is problematic rather than the content.