City Council Meeting   4/21/2014

Mr. Fenwick?

Here.

Ms. Smith?

Here.

Mr. Huja?

Yes.

Kristin Szakos?

Here.

Here.

Whereas in 1872, J.

Sterling Morton proposed to the Nebraska Board of Agriculture

that a special day be set aside for the planting

Clean the air, produce life-giving oxygen, and provide habitat for wildlife.

And whereas trees are a renewable resource for giving us paper, wood for our homes, fuels for our fires, and beautify our community.

And whereas trees in our city increase property values, enhance the economic vitality of business areas, and beautify our community.

And whereas trees, wherever they are planted, are a source of joy and spiritual renewal.

I, Satyendra Singh Huja, Mayor of the City of Charlottesville, do hereby proclaim April 25, 2014 as Arbor Day in the City of Charlottesville.

I urge all citizens to celebrate Arbor Day and to support efforts to protect our trees and woodlands.

Furthermore, I urge all citizens to plant trees to gladden the hearts and promote the well-being of this and future generations.

Mayor Huja, members of the City Council, my name is Maynard Seip and I'm Vice Chair of the Tree Commission here in the City of Charlottesville, and I'd just like to thank you very much

for making this proclamation and recognizing Arbor Day this year.

And I would like to remind everyone that the Arbor Day celebration in the city of Charlottesville will be at 10 a.m. this Friday, April 25th in Azalea Park.

And it's in Azalea Park this year in part to celebrate, I believe, the planting of 200 trees in the park.

recently.

So I'd invite you all to come if you can.

And of course, any citizens of the city who can be in attendance, it would be nice to see them there.

Next proclamation is

Well, this is an honor for me to read Proclamation honoring the Charlottesville Cardinals.

Whereas the Charlottesville Cardinals wheelchair basketball team was founded in 1980 and has been jointly sponsored by the City of Charlottesville and the Independence Resource Center since then.

And whereas the Cardinals have just completed their 34th competitive season and have been ranked as one of the top 16 teams nationally by the National Wheelchair Basketball Association for each of the past 12 years.

and whereas over 475 local disabled athletes have participated with the Cardinals and the team has performed before over 100,000 people in the United States, Canada and Central America since 1980 and whereas the team typically performs approximately 20 exhibitions a year for schools, community groups, churches and colleges in Central Virginia and whereas

The Cardinals lineup includes men and women, young and old, ranging in age from 18 to 82, and whereas team members are dedicated to their mission of eliminating attitudinal barriers towards people with disabilities by energetically demonstrating their abilities rather than disabilities on the basketball court.

Now, therefore, we, the Charlottesville City Council,

to hereby congratulate the Charlottesville Cardinals on a 34th successful season and express our admiration for their teamwork and dedication to the sport of wheelchair basketball.

Signed and sealed this 21st day of April, 2014, Satyendra Singh Huja, Mayor.

Mayor Huja, when they're coming down I'm going to recognize these gentlemen by name.

Jeff McDaniel, Brandon Rush, Chris Robinson, Eddie Wimbish, and of course Tom Vandiver.

First of all, I wanted to remind everybody here and audience watching

and on 26th of April, which is Saturday, will be Dogwood Parade.

And I hope you'll come to downtown and enjoy.

There's a 1050 in downtown.

Dogwood Parade, fun for all people of all ages.

And I think you'll find many of us there.

So I encourage you to take part in it.

Second announcement is a public meeting on Belmont Bridge Replacement, which will be held.

The two meetings will be held, one on Wednesday, April 23rd, 630 to 830.

at 209 Monticello Road.

And second will be Thursday, May 8th, 6 to 8 p.m. in City Space on Downtown Mall.

And then City Council will be holding a public hearing in June the 2nd.

So there's plenty of time for discussion.

And so I hope you'll take advantage of this opportunity.

I have two announcements.

Engineering Excellence Merit Award.

Earlier this year, the Virginia chapter of the American Council of Engineering Companies presented the city, the Nature Conservancy, VHB and Coastal Construction, the Merit Award for Engineering Excellence for the Meadow Creek Stream Restoration Project.

This prestigious award was presented at the Virginia Chapter's annual awards gala in Richmond this past February.

The award represents the partnership and commitment of all parties toward a comprehensive and natural approach to stream restoration.

The project is also the largest urban stream restoration on public lands undertaken to date by the Virginia Aquatic Resources Trust Fund in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Congratulations to city staff, staff from the Nature Conservancy, VHB and Coastal Construction for this prestigious award.

Yes, real briefly, thank you members of council.

Thank you.

Brian was just reminding me that it's been almost exactly a year since we did our vine cutting in the creek to celebrate the completion of the project, so it's hard to believe it's been a year already.

In the rain.

But I was actually out there this morning, it's beautiful, just continuing to grow in, and I hope you all get a chance to visit and walk the site.

It's the biggest project we've done yet, it's something we're very proud of, and it could not have been possible without Brian and all the great city staff.

throughout since 2006 in support of all of you.

Thank you.

I wanted to tell you that recently I took a hot balloon ride and took a picture of your stream.

Yeah.

And I really appreciate that this got an engineering award because just as a

The 2014 Charlottesville Community Job Fair will be held on Wednesday, May 7 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the John Paul Jones Arena in Charlottesville.

60 employers from a wide variety of industries such as hospitality, healthcare, retail, food service, education and government will be present.

To see a current list of employers, oh, click here, you can't do that.

I'll give you a website.

The fair is open to the public and admission for job seekers is free.

We do recommend that job seekers pre-register online at www.Charlottesville.org slash job fair.

The fair is sponsored by the City of Charlottesville in partnership with Albemarle County, American National University, the Department of Aging and Rehab Services, Offender Aid and Restoration, Piedmont Workforce Network, the Adult Learning Center, the Virginia Employment Commission, and the Virginia Workforce Center.

That's a great collaboration right there.

Excellent.

So I hope everyone who needs to do that can avail themselves of that great opportunity to just get exposed to what the area has to offer by way of jobs.

www.charlottesville.org?

I want to let everyone know about the 2014 Fair Housing Forum.

I don't know if there are some of these.

I think maybe back there as well.

April 29th from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

in Charlottesville City Council Chambers, right here.

In this community forum, a panel of state and local experts will share information about current fair housing protections and resources.

The film Seven Days will chronicle the history of the passing of the Federal Fair Housing Act in 1968.

The film A Matter of Place will give current examples of housing discrimination.

Participants will discuss what actions we can take locally to advocate, educate, and build community in our neighborhoods.

It's sponsored by the Piedmont Housing Alliance and the Office of Human Rights.

And we've discussed over the years that a lot of when people feel discriminated against, it's often because either landlords or employers don't understand what the law is.

And so this is a really good way for tenants to understand their rights and for landlords and people who are selling houses to understand their obligations.

So I encourage people to come April 29th at 6 p.m.

I'd also like to recognize the high school students that we have in the room.

Yes, I have a couple not so brief ones.

The storm water utility fee reminder.

Great, I get the fun one.

The city of Charlottesville approved an ordinance establishing a storm water utility fee in February of last year.

The storm water utility became effective this January, 2014.

Storm water utility fee is a fee for services based on calculation of the amount of impervious area on every eligible parcel of improved real estate or real property in the city, regardless of tax status.

The fee will provide a source of dedicated revenue to fund the city's water resources protection program.

Stormwater utility fee will be billed for the first time on April 28th.

and combined with the real estate tax bills for taxable properties, tax exempt properties will receive a separate bill, which will also be issued on April 28th.

And an information insert will be included with all bills.

For more information, you can go to Charlottesville.org slash WRPP, that stands for Water Resources Protection Program.

On a more upbeat note, I have an announcement about the Mildred W. Spicer Arts Fund.

This is a call for nominees.

The Mildred W. Spicer Arts Fund, a Charlottesville-based initiative designed to enhance artistic discovery and creativity,

is seeking applications for an inaugural award to celebrate inclusive art opportunities within the community.

The award will recognize an artist with a disability or an individual or organization promoting art opportunities within the Charlottesville Albemarle area.

The Mildred Spicer Arts Fund was created in May 2013 in honor of Mildred Spicer's retirement from Charlottesville Parks and Recreation Department.

after 33 years as their therapeutic recreation manager.

The major goals of the fund are to provide an annual recognition art award in addition to an individual art training scholarship program for individuals who have a disability or who work with individuals with disabilities.

The eligibility is anyone who has made a difference in their life and others through art.

and such individuals can be nominated for the award.

There's a number of eligibility guidelines here.

I would encourage anyone to go to, it doesn't say.

Oh yes, to Sarah Blex, that's B-L-E-C-H-S at Charlottesville.org.

You can just go through Parks and Recreation too, I'm quite sure.

And to Mr. Mayor, City Market.

City Market is held Saturday morning 7 to noon from April through October and is located in downtown Charlottesville between Water Street and South Street.

City Market features over 100 local vendors that sell a variety of fresh produce, herbs, plants, meats, handmade crafts, a large variety of delectable edibles, fresh coffee and much, much more.

City Market, which is managed by the City of Charlottesville Department of Parks and Rec, provides a fun, safe, family friendly environment for local vendors to display and sell their homegrown or handmade products.

Launched in 2010 and continuing for 2014, market customers who receive the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits will be able to use their benefit cards at the market to buy fresh produce and meats.

Debit cards will also be accepted.

This program is managed by Market Central, a nonprofit organization that supports city markets.

For more information, contact Stephanie at 970-3371 or Google City Market Charlottesville or citymarketatcharlottesville.org.

The Charlottesville Sister Cities Commission announces a call for grant applicants.

The Charlottesville Sister Cities Commission, CSCC, is now accepting grant applications for projects between July 1, 2014 and June 30, 2015.

The commission invites Charlottesville nonprofits, art organizations, schools, businesses and individuals to apply for project funding up to $2,000.

Grants are available to projects that benefit the Charlottesville community as well as our sister city communities in Bassignon, France.

I hope that's close, Kristin.

Pleven, Bulgaria, Winnebagoana, or Poggio Acciano, Italy.

I'm Irish, not Italian.

The mission of the Charlottesville Sister Cities Commission, the CSCC, is to promote understanding and foster relationships

between citizens and organizations in the Charlottesville area and our sister cities through cultural, economic, educational, and humanitarian activities.

Grants will be awarded for a wide variety of activities that promote this mission.

The grant application deadline is May 1st, 2014.

Did we announce the work session on the city market?

I can go ahead and do it just because I have my calendar in front of me.

On Thursday, this Thursday the 24th,

from five o'clock till seven p.m. in the Water Street Center of the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission.

Oh, it's changed, it's here in chambers.

City Council chambers in City Hall.

Council will be discussing four proposals that have come in response to an RFP for creating a combination use for the City Market lot that includes City Market as well as buildings.

So if you'd like to know more about it or talk to us about it,

Thank you.

May I respond public?

If you please come forward, identify yourself, your address, and take three minutes to make comments.

Mr. Mayor, Members of Council, thanks for having us.

Mr. Jones, Mr. Brown.

My name is Mike Signer.

I'm an attorney here in town, a lecturer at UVA, and a member of the Fifeville Neighbors Association.

My wife, Emily, and I live on Fifth Street Southwest in Fifeville.

We wake up every morning to find about a dozen of these bottles on our street about 75 feet from our house and about a couple dozen of these.

Small bottles of liquor.

These are Mickey's or hip bottles.

These cost about $3 at the ABC.

These cost $1.

About a week ago, with the help of Bob Fenwick and the city staff, we did the first neighborhood cleanup in Fifeville with the leadership of the Midtown Business Association.

And I'm here to tell you a little bit about the experience, what it has led to, but also to have a couple of asks for you.

We had about 25 volunteers come out.

It was a pretty remarkable showing and work about two hours cleaning with bright orange bags that city staff very helpfully provided.

We cleaned up hundreds of bottles that were all around the city, not just bottles, the city also provided mulch that helped kind of brighten up, spruce up the businesses a lot, which was terrific.

It was really remarkable, it was probably 30 or 40 large bags of garbage that were in our streets.

What this, and I was curious to see what would happen in the week since.

We're going to do this once a month in the spring and fall months.

I have done a lot of reading about the broken windows theory, which says that

It's an academic theory which says that if you kind of let little things slip that it'll lead to big things I hadn't really had a vivid example in my own experience of doing anything like this.

I'm here to report that in the last week there are no new bottles on our street with the exception of this one which I snapped up this morning as quick as I could and what I take from that is that it's true that if you kind of let the standards on the street slip that people will

It's a guy threw a cigarette pack on the ground right in front of me as I was walking by a couple weeks ago.

But if we all kind of work to try and make the streets a little bit brighter, that it will actually create a more kind of vivid civic culture around making the streets better.

So the request for you all here is to provide more resources to this program, it's called

Charles Sparkles and the neighborhood cleanups around.

It was very helpful to have city staff bringing us these bags, but they were not actually picked up on the side streets.

They were supposed to be picked up when we left these bright orange bags.

A couple of them weren't, and we had to bring them and put them in our trash.

So a little bit more support that could happen if it becomes more of an institutionalized thing.

The second bigger request for you all, and this is a bigger one, and Mr. Jones was kind enough to hear me out at the Neighborhood Leadership meeting last week.

The ABC Store, I think there's unanimous consent in Fifeville and also with Midtown Business Association, is a problem.

It's located kind of in a Bermuda's triangle of vulnerable populations with The Haven, where I volunteer and a lot of people have.

Salvation Army and The Crossings.

This is two blocks away walking distance and if you live in the neighborhood you see rampant alcoholism, public urination, and a lot of this kind of stuff.

And I think that it would be well worth the city's time, especially with the West Main redevelopment that's underway, to work with the state ABC board to try and relocate this ABC store.

It's fine to have it.

people want to buy drinks in the city, but it should not be right where it is, which is a really bad place for the city.

That's going to involve city work, lobbying, dealing with the state governing board, but I think it'd be well worth the city's effort.

Good evening, Council.

Mr. Jones, Mr. Brown.

I'm here to talk, I'm Mary Carey.

I live at 100 Ridge Street, which is Midway Manor, which the front of the building is on South Street.

I'm here to talk about the traffic that's up and down that street.

It's awful, and it's not getting any better.

what the gentleman just said just now, little things will lead to bigger things.

And this is what's going to happen if something isn't done about the traffic up and down South Street.

And I think y'all waiting for somebody to either get killed or something, I don't know.

But we have a lot of senior citizens that walk down on the mall

for exercise to get their medicine.

We have motor operated handicapped people that use those roustabouts or whatever you call them.

They ride across the street.

We have people that push walkers.

The traffic that comes down through there doesn't have any consideration about anybody crossing that street.

You also have traffic, you have bicycle riders that's going up South Street.

Now South Street is going from west to east.

City market is a problem.

At the city market, people are standing around like they're in the park talking, and the traffic is coming down the street.

Sometimes traffic is backed all the way up to Main Street.

Now you have a lot of impatient drivers, so they go into Lewis and Clark, turn around and go back the way they shouldn't be going.

This is a problem.

The bicycle routers go up where the traffic's coming down.

The building across the street are loading and unloading constantly every day.

This is a problem.

And senior citizens walk a little slower than most people.

You have to get out in the middle of the street

to see if it's a car coming around the curb.

By the time you look at that, see that car coming around the curb, a senior might turn around.

People do not care anymore.

Motorists are in a hurry.

I don't know where they're going because Charlottesville ain't that popular.

I mean, on Friday nights, Friday after five, that's a problem.

People come down through there.

They take all our parking spaces.

They take the parking spaces of the people that live on the street.

It's a problem.

And if you ever come through there about 12 o'clock to 2 o'clock in the afternoon, you will see what I'm talking about.

It's a dangerous street.

Something needs to be done.

And if you want to do more studies, I understand studies have already been done and nothing has come of them.

And a lot of people at Midway Manor always say, the city council do not care about the seniors.

But seniors vote.

They are your voters.

They are the ones that go to the polls.

They go on the off voting dates.

They go in the midterms.

You're welcome.

Good evening.

My name is Jim Rounswell.

I live at 1113 Monticello Road.

In regards to replacement of the Belmont Bridge, I am pleased to announce that the recent Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for a better visual understanding of the proposed underpass was a resounding success.

We surpassed our goal, raising just over $8,000.

There were at least 61 supporters who gave money because they believe in this concept.

Last Sunday, the project was part of the Visioning Wall exhibit at the Belmont Bridge Tom Tom Festival.

There were many supportive and positive comments and a consensus that the public is increasingly aware

that the concept is much bigger than simple infrastructure replacement.

While there are many facets to the picture, the landscape within the Federal Highway Administration, which is ostensibly tasked with providing most of the funding for this project, is changing.

In the current paradigm, the cost of roads and bridges are not only treated separately, but maintenance and repair have been excluded from the assessed value altogether.

Furthermore, intangibles like the effect of the infrastructure may have on the collective whole,

has also been precluded.

For example, a game-changing transformation like the downtown mall simply does not calculate in the soon-to-be outdated existing framework.

Locally, what is especially troubling and missing from our current conversation about true cost is that because of the nature of state and federal funding, the city will incur future costs for maintenance and repair that will come out of revenue that otherwise could be allocated for things like school budgets, social programs, etc.

Again, capital outlays are principally federal, while upkeep and repair is a local expense.

Focusing solely on the initial, mostly federally funded capital expense is simply short-sighted.

But this is about to change.

Perhaps as an outgrowth of the failing economics of bridge replacement, the Federal Highway Administration is taking an important step in proposing its Asset Sustainability Index, or ASI, which uses more complex metrics to assess transportation systems holistically.

For the first time, maintenance and repair costs, as well as the intangible collateral benefit of assets, like a downtown mall, are included in the assessment of the value of what the federal government pays for.

Some states like North Carolina and Missouri are already incorporating this life cycle logic into planning of their infrastructure.

The bottom line for us is this.

This replacement infrastructure should be evaluated with full cost accounting, treating maintenance and repair on par with construction costs, the city's ability to pay its share over the decades to come, and most importantly, the direct impact the investment will have on generating revenue in the form of higher property values.

It's no coincidence that the 2008 DOT-commissioned study by Northwestern University concluded that in-ground structures, quote, should be accorded serious consideration as an alternative to bridges, especially in urban areas, unquote, because they last longer and are cheaper to maintain.

This is as important a decision about what lies ahead for downtown as the choice to turn Main Street

into a pedestrian mall 43 years ago.

I strongly urge the public to attend the meetings, learn the facts, and make your voices heard.

I also hope to see all members of council at upcoming meetings and that all of you approach this with an open mind.

Our future depends on it.

Good evening.

I'm Mary Gilliam, and I live at 218 West South Street.

I happened to catch Mary Carey on television the other day about the traffic on South Street and I have lived on South Street 20 years and I must say I totally concur.

You can't see up the street.

I can't get out of my driveway.

The street has 24 hour permit parking.

except for the area that they park around Midway Manor.

Coming out of my driveway, you can't see up the street if it's totally parked up which it always is because everybody is trying to evade parking in the city parking garage.

The street has no stop signs so I think, I don't know what the speed limit is, 35 miles an hour and they go at least 50 miles an hour in the morning going into the parking garage.

I mean the traffic really is getting quite

extraordinary 24 hours a day.

Waterhouse has only brought more large trucks holding up traffic, unloading half the time they have to park on the sidewalk so that the cars can get through.

Sometimes the cars can't get through.

The city market with the addition in the pink warehouse of one business has people drumming on the street.

They're well into the traffic area.

so that on Saturdays it's become almost very, very difficult to drive.

So I didn't realize you'd all done a study on South Street traffic, but if you did, you didn't come to the right conclusion that something has to be done.

Thank you.

Good evening.

I'm Peter Kleeman.

I live at 407 Hedge Street in the city.

I think it's commendable that council is concerned about the health of our natural resources, particularly our water resources, and I am proud as a citizen to have supported in some way, financially and other, the improvement of the Meadow Creek stream restoration project that was given an award earlier in this meeting.

Also, we had an announcement about the fact that citizens of the city will be supporting further stream and natural resources protections through the storm water fee.

And so I, along with thousands of other Charlottesville residents, have invested in having a healthy natural resource, both recreational and natural resources.

Interestingly, item number seven on your agenda

is a sale of land that the original discussion about what the purpose of this land would be.

One major alternative was to provide access to these very resources, these natural resources, the Meadow Creek area that has been improved through these many thousands of dollars of city funds.

but the sale of this property was debated about which of the city goals were going to be addressed.

Was it going to provide additional workforce or low-income housing that the city is in need of or would it provide enhanced access for citizens to use these resources, get to these streams and rivers, walk the trails but at the time council, I think this was in December, opted for

the housing as the primary goal to be fulfilled in the sale of this property.

Since that time, however, it's been determined that it is not appropriate to carry out the wishes of council and have a workforce or low-income unit at that location because of some legal restrictions on that land and so now the

The issue before you is whether to just sell this property to a private owner without any competition for that land or to reconsider and use that land for the other intended purpose which would provide access for all of the citizens of Charlottesville to get to these resources in which they have invested heavily and will get great benefits both educational and recreational

Rebecca Quinn, 104 4th Street, here in the city.

I'm glad to see you're taking action on the mall crossings.

I do have a logistic question.

I'm sure you'll be informing the public over time as to whether they're going to be closed at the same time, how traffic will be rerouted, that sort of thing, as well as pedestrian access during construction and pedestrian safety.

It wasn't clear to me, and probably because I didn't read it completely, but I read in the materials that there was discussion about restricting large truck traffic.

And is tonight's action also legislative action that would do that?

I'd also like to know, I know the trolley was exempt.

What about trash trucks?

I don't know how many axles they have, but I imagine once fully loaded they can be pretty big.

I also want to again talk about the salt crust on the bricks since we're talking about maintaining our mall.

Let's take a look at that.

I've heard that, well, maybe nothing changed or the solution that's used is just salt.

Well, something has changed.

I live above the mall for seven winters now.

This is the first time I've seen this crusting.

I've noticed it's temperature dependent today.

The middle of the mall was clear, but the shaded area on the south side between the Reynolds and the building

Solid white crust in many areas.

I at first thought it was the new bricks.

Well, it turns out the medium bricks, middle bricks down here in front of City Hall also have crusted.

I did notice that the bricks in the Runnels don't crust.

Maybe they have a different smoother surface that the salt doesn't adhere to.

I don't know what it is, but it's ugly.

It's been persistent.

We've had three, possibly four,

Long, hard rains and this salt crust does not wash away.

And it doesn't move.

It's not like, well, it washes off of the high spots and kind of accumulates in the low spots.

I'm a water person.

I know how water flows.

Okay, this is persistent.

It doesn't just wash away.

So please look into it.

I don't know what was different.

Are other cities that have

bricks that are now have shifted to this saline solution as opposed to granular.

Are they seeing the same sort of things?

I don't know.

I understand saline is less expensive, but this is a price that is not cost associated when our downtown mall looks really bad.

So I appreciate your attention.

Anybody else in the audience would like to speak on any topic?

I'll start out.

Thank you all for coming.

Just wanted to actually thank the Midtown folks and Bob Fenwick for the really successful Charlottesville Sparkles.

Wow.

That's great.

I wonder whether the ABC store at Barracks Road has the same issues or, I mean, is it a placement issue?

I know that moving in, you know, one problem into another area, you don't want to create another problem, but

It's hard to say.

We have not heard the same level of complaints out of the Barridge Road location or the location near the Kmart, I mean near the Kroger as well.

But in both the cases, there are private property management.

Right, right.

And I just wonder how much, you know, in thinking about where these really should be, how much you can mitigate the

Thank you, Ms. Carey.

As we examine the West Main options, South Street does play into those.

In one scenario, they actually changed its whole orientation to access onto

I think it's a great question, and I think it's a great question.

who is using it for what purpose, but also these trucks seem to be a problem.

But anyway, I just wonder how much we can take advantage of the expertise we have now.

And Mr. Kleeman, thank you.

We will be talking about this later.

You bring up some really good points.

I did find it ironic myself that we're getting awards for a stream restoration for a park for which there's not very good access for the public.

And about the salt, we've been hearing about this and I know the script is that it's going to wash away.

I agree that we've had some pretty big rains and I just wonder at what point, particularly as our Fridays after five and the whole good weather

I have a question on the salt issue.

You used to power wash the mold.

Yeah, we did.

I don't recall whether it took the white off or not at the time.

But we have brought this up with Parks and Recreation.

They're taking a look at it.

They do feel strongly that it will wash away.

You've seen portions of the brick that have washed away the salt in the last couple of weeks or so.

Mr. Mayor, let me chime in on that too because Rebecca Quinn and I have a difference of opinion.

If anybody watching or listening or out here now will remember, I believe when they were replacing the bricks they had these like pans

with no outlet.

And I was thinking at that time if that thing ever got full of water, where would the water go?

So I will check, Rebecca, but my theory is when those things get saturated, the water stays in the pans.

And as the surface salt washes away,

If that saturated sand is full of a saline solution, it's going to wick up not just through the sand, but through the brick.

So I'm going to make sure I'm there when they start that repair that we're going to talk about later.

Because on the runnels, if those runnels, which are the drainage channels, have deteriorated to the

Point that the water gets into the soil, then the water in the runnels doesn't stay under the brick.

It goes into the soil.

And that could be a reason why, in the runnels, you don't have that continual bloom of a saline solution.

Any comments for Councilor Lewis?

Yeah, just thank again everyone for making some comments and to Mr. Signer that I think it really would be very important to look into whether we can relocate the ABC store.

That location has residential neighborhoods.

bumping right up against it.

It's not like Barracks Road that's surrounded by retail and parking lot.

So I would really like to see that investigated as part and parcel of this West Main Street improvement strategy.

So I don't know.

Is that something that we need to bring up again in another council meeting to get more support for that?

Could staff just look into what's involved?

That'd be great.

Then

Yeah, that's a great initiative with the Charlottesville Sparkles and it's also just something that goes hand in glove with investments and improvements.

With Ms. Carey, that whole intersection is part of the West Main Street design and as Ms. Smith talked about, they had two options.

We haven't focused on that at all yet as a community, but it's being teed up.

Now, independent of that West Main Street project, though, the city is undertaking a citywide kind of review of its street network.

Is my understanding that Mr. Tolbert is going to be coming out with a schedule?

of St. Louis.

You're not technically part of West Main Street.

You're another area.

But you're highlighted some serious problems so that we have and Mr. Tolbert's here.

So it's going to be one of those things that we have to look at near term and long term, as we've done in some other neighborhoods, I would think.

But we've got something on the ground going on now with West Main.

That whole intersection is going to be redesigned.

and pedestrian infrastructure is key.

It's fundamental to that improvement.

And then later on, another wave of involvement with city staff and engineering consultants will be looking at other street network issues all across the city.

I was just going to add, even though I didn't have anything the first time back as it comes back,

that I really appreciate both of you coming with this information to us.

I worked with the residents at Midway Manor several years ago with similar issues and did some things, some tweaking that seemed to help a little bit, but it sounds like there's more traffic now.

It's going faster now.

and it's time for us to be looking at that freshly.

And staff, we are looking at that.

And I know that if you put a crosswalk right in front of the building, as you mentioned, you can't tell if a car's coming.

They can't tell if you're there.

So if we put a crosswalk right in front of the building,

It's setting somebody up to get hit.

So we need to figure out how to make that safe to cross rather than just paint lines on the road.

But a sign doesn't stop somebody who's not reading.

We hope that all drivers are following the laws and paying attention, but we know that they're not.

And so we need to make sure that

I wanted to make a comment on Charlottesville Sparkle.

I think it's a great idea involving neighbors and business people and Bob to the leadership in the issue, and I hope that city staff can help out in picking up the garbage and things in support of this because we're getting a great service to the community.

Mr. Mayor, I'd like to thank Mike Signer and Emily Blogg for providing a lot of the energy for Midtown.

They really did a marvelous job and it really does make a difference what the Midtown, what West Main Street looks like now.

And I've had a lot of contact with North Downtown residents.

with Belmont-Carlton, with Fry's Spring, Locust Grove, and this is a great example to point them to, that this really does make a difference.

And I hope it takes off and you'll be hearing a lot more about it.

Mr. Mayor, please.

Mary Gillum and Mary Carey brought up the traffic.

This is a problem we've been hearing about for years and we have a difference of opinion on the council.

I say there's enough that we know right now that we can do something about it.

We don't need a consultant or an expert to come into our city and talk to us about speed bumps yet again.

The residents who are out there every day know these streets and I'm going to try as best I can to make sure we do something.

Plans and consultants and experts are fine, but this has gone on too long with nothing being done, very little being done.

North downtown just got a boost.

The mayor showed up there 10 o'clock in the morning.

Seven o'clock that morning, the people were out there working, and they made a big difference.

So I will do what I can to make sure something gets done.

Item B in appropriation, Greenstone on Fifth Corporation Sponsorship Agreement, $84,194, second of two readings.

Item C in appropriation, Domestic Violence Services Coordinator Grant, $44,836, second of two readings.

Item D in appropriation, Department of Public Works, Division of Public Service Reimbursements, $80,204, first of two readings.

And we often put things in the consent agenda that are just money flowing into the city for a particular purpose.

And most of the stuff that we discuss in our discussions on items further down the agenda involves spending money.

But I just want to point out that this is $250,000 coming into the city from non-tax sources.

Can I actually ask you a question about the Design for Life?

It talks about city-funded housing construction.

Is that on any housing construction for which city funds have been contributed?

Yes, I was on the HAC.

Oh, no, I'm sorry.

It's for new construction where we put dollars in is where that requirement is.

So any dollars?

Any city dollars, yes.

Any city dollars for new construction.

Right, they talked about that.

And does this have anything to do with Energy Star?

Yes, she knows the details.

The original resolution that was passed in 2008 stipulated that all housing built with city funding was built to Energy Star and to the accessibility standards.

So we are just updating the accessibility piece, the Energy Star place remains in the same.

Great, thank you.

There's no other discussion on these items, but let's vote.

Thank you.

Next is a public hearing, a resolution for bond.

Hi, good evening.

I'm Chrissy Hammel with Finance.

I'm here to present to you the bond resolution.

The resolution authorizes the city to sell general obligation bonds in the amount up to $16 million in new money and up to $3 million in refunding bonds.

The new money bonds were adopted as part of the city's 2014 and prior adopted capital improvement plans.

As we get closer to the sale date, city staff and along with our financial advisors are evaluating market conditions in relation to the city's current outstanding debt to determine if the refunding is financially feasible.

and will provide the city with savings.

A summary of the projects that are to be financed with these bonds are included on page one of your memo and more detailed information is on page three.

We are meeting with rating agencies next week for this bond issue and we expect to maintain our AAA.

As you may recall, there are only four cities in the state of Virginia with a AAA rating.

Us, Alexandria, Fairfax, and Virginia Beach.

If you lump counties and cities together in Virginia, there are only 12 that have a AAA rating.

We expect to get those reports and that confirmation around the first week of May.

And the bond sale is actually scheduled for mid-May and we're anticipating closing by the end of May.

and we hope to get excellent rates.

I just have one.

I have one question.

They do not factor into the 8%.

Sorry.

I guess that's what I was getting at.

Any other questions before I go to public hearing?

If not, I'll open for public hearing.

I move to approve.

I just want to make one comment that this is a funding for all capital projects which have been approved so all the things that you see improving streets sidewalks this comes from this money and it is an important part of our quality of life.

No, but in saying that, it's also important to understand, to look at the water and wastewater and stormwater improvements and note that the implications for those are on our utilities and on our stormwater fee and it goes beyond just our tax rates.

There's no discussion, let's vote.

Thank you.

Next is the ordinance.

Remaining Chapter 10 of Citywide Water Protection.

Yes, sir.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of council.

The city solicited and received proposals for its curbside recycling services.

Our former contract was up.

During the past several years, we have run two pilot programs, one in the Greenbrier area and one in the Belmont area.

where we have shifted from either the red or green bins that people have to 96 gallon covered wheeled containers.

We have done a customer survey from the folks who participated in that and we had 615 households that participated in the two pilot programs.

277 returned the survey, which is a 45% return, which is, we think, really pretty good.

87% of the people were satisfactory or very happy with it.

The one major complaint that we got, there was an opportunity for people to write on the survey, is that some people did not

feel they needed a 96 gallon container, even though we were looking to go to buy weekly.

So one of the things when we put out our our bid this time was to ask for an option of smaller containers.

As you know, I'm somewhat restricted in what I can say due to the state procurement law.

And so if you ask me a question, I may have to ask Mr. Brown what the status of my answer can be.

The options are a 96 and a 65.

We have since the time that we put this out to bid discovered that there's also a smaller container.

So we would negotiate with, should you choose to go this way, our plan in, we've talked to the purchasing agent, is to negotiate with the selected vendor to create that option.

And in all fairness, I mean, we understand

If we choose to do this, we've got a heck of a public information program ahead of us.

Can you tell us if there are any advantages to buy weight leave collection?

Well, for those folks that, you know, a couple things.

Number one, they're on wheels.

And we've found that even elderly folks find it much easier to wheel a cart than to have to pick something up, especially if they have glass in it.

The second thing is they're covered.

So for those folks, and we have a lot of people in the city who do not have garages at their homes.

Let me ask you the question again.

There's two things.

Number one, the biggest advantage that I see, that's half the number of trucks going down our streets.

and given this past winter, you've probably seen the alligator and some of the other things that we're finding in our streets.

And we were, that was one of the things we asked the people in the pilot program, is this convenient to you?

Is there any difference in what can be collected?

Can I say that?

This is at least the basic and potentially a little more.

The other thing, no matter which decision you make, I'm not asking for any money.

Our budget was built in such a way that we can

It's not tray.

No, sir.

Correct.

Garbage pickup was still due every week.

And is there, it seemed that there was, in our current system, some

So they don't have access to recycling?

Is there any advantage in terms of expanding who has access to recycling?

Could we add them?

Or any disadvantage?

We only looked at the people who are currently receiving the service.

I would certainly be interested.

Yeah, it seems only fair.

Other questions?

OK, now we're going to have a public hearing on this item.

Rebecca Quinn, 104 4th Street, downtown.

I'd like to hear how the various options, I didn't look at the RFP, how's this going to serve the downtown residents?

I mean not just the commercial uses but residents.

I can tell you that even though my apartment building number is prominently displayed on two, for just six apartments we have two cans, they're almost always full.

of Commercial Trash, that's a whole other issue, but what it means is if we're going to have these bins downtown, they're going to be readily accessible to anyone who walks by, they really need to be well marked.

Nobody reads single stream and goes into all the details.

Let's have them really well marked if they're going to be dedicated for this purpose.

I'd also like you to work with the landlords.

There are a lot of landlords downtown.

We have to

Have our trash somewhere, and if we have more bins, which I very much support, we need more space, or some of them may need more space.

But I think in the long run, most people I know want to recycle, but they also just want it really easy.

So let's make it really easy.

Does anybody else would like to speak on this issue?

I'll close the public hearing.

I would second it.

I would also ask that as part of the negotiation with whatever vendor we choose given this that we talk about things like downtown and how we pick up from apartments downtown and if we can add

I guess, are there any other parts of town besides the downtown mall that would be of special consideration?

Well, other kind of properties, probably.

In most cases,

Large apartment complexes are not served.

And again, I think it's a good idea that Ms. Quinn had, we can talk to landlords.

And again, at that point, there may be some additional cost.

Right.

That was not really part of the motion.

And this doesn't impact our trash?

No, ma'am.

That's a separate contract?

Yes.

We have another five one-year options.

So we have some options.

Are there any comments on this proposal?

If not, vote.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Now, the ordinance dealing with Chapter 10, water protection.

Good evening.

You have in front of you as part of your agenda materials a memo that I provided to you.

There is a quite lengthy ordinance in front of you that is a set of updates to chapter 10 of the city code which is called water protection.

The bulk of the updates are necessary to implement

what's called a stormwater management program or a Virginia stormwater management program within our locality.

State law now requires us to do that.

There's been ongoing discussion of which localities have to come into the enforcement of the state regulations on behalf of the state at which times

but because we're MS4 locality, we're required to implement a local program by July 1st.

A local program involves not only the administrative components of enforcing state stormwater regulations but it also involves the adoption of a local ordinance that is consistent with state regulations.

As I noted, the ordinance that you have

basically has three sets of changes.

The vast majority are established by a

Department of Environmental Quality checklist and a model ordinance that they sent to us.

There's a second set of changes.

The new state law requires integration of procedures between erosion and sediment control, storm water management, and then your local approval of things like site plans, subdivision plats, and building permits.

They require you to integrate all those processes, but the state laws and the model ordinances don't tell you how to do it.

They leave you some room to manage those procedural issues as you see fit within your own ordinances.

Then there's a third category of changes.

It's a relatively small one where we make some recommendations.

provided some updates also to the erosion and sediment control article within Chapter 10.

Not only so it would dovetail with the new procedures, but also there were some places where the references to particular city code sections that constituted violations were incorrect in our

And also we made some suggested changes to that table of penalties to

I ask you to consider that for some of the more serious violations, something more than a $100 fine might be a deterrent.

So particularly as we're going forward and we're going to have a lot more local responsibility, we also want people to understand that the requirements are significant ones and make sure that they're not just paying the $100 and going about their business the same way they were before.

So with that, I hope you've had some chance to look at it.

I have some.

And it's kind of a real practical one.

Would this prevent, I was trying to understand all the legal terms, would this prevent another PUD like the Stonehenge project that we had in Belmont where there was a kind of complete kind of

taking down of every tree on the site, and it wasn't even clear whether there was the proper permitting in place, but the long story short, it seemed to cut muster with our existing subdivision ordinance.

We're trying, it won't solve that problem entirely.

So the short answer is no.

We are trying to tie the processes and procedures together.

So up until now, we haven't had a real clear provision that says at the time that you are seeking your land disturbing permit, you must already have a final approved site plan or subdivision plan.

And so what we're trying to do now is say we're not going to let you, if we know that you're trying to do a development that involves a sizable area of land, we're not going to let you, consistent with state regulations, just submit an ENS plan that just says you want to clear some trees.

The new regulations require that all common plans of development

It will help.

The state stormwater regulations don't prohibit you from taking down any particular trees or clearing large areas.

What they want to make sure of is that when you do that you comply with certain water quality controls and water quantity controls so that when the water leaves your property

it's not going to do any more damage than it was doing pre-development.

Now going from the other perspective, and I'm thinking, for example, we have the strategic investment area that has a large linear park that also is doubling as a stormwater management facility.

So you could argue and you could see that many of the properties that would eventually be developed and redeveloped in that area would be benefiting jointly from that shared facility.

I couldn't understand whether there was any provision in this

ordinance that allowed shared facilities between parcels.

It all read as if if anyone was doing any disturbing of soil on any parcel, they had to have their own permitting process.

And does this does this preclude the idea of a shared facility?

Because, again, the strategic investment area is one area and kind of almost any redevelopment of a grayfield site on our corridors might fall in that same category, that it's a it's a public good.

Yes, right, yes.

I might need to consult with my technical consultants on that question.

Marty Sillman and Dan Frisbee

have been trying to help me understand from the technical aspects what the new regulations are going to require.

And they might be able to answer that better.

I'm not sure that in my reading I've necessarily seen something that entirely precludes the use of something that's proximate to a development site but not necessarily on that site.

But I think that there would need to be enough control or documented agreement or something

so that meeting the permanent requirements for the treatment and management of stormwater could still be met.

Good evening, I'm Dan Frisby, our Water Resources Specialist in the Public Works Department.

I think we'd have to do a little bit more looking into that.

I don't believe that the ordinance as written explicitly allows that.

I think we would have to set up some kind of a special district into which properties that are redeveloping in that area might be able to contribute into a stormwater management fund in order to work something like that out, which we don't have on the books currently.

Is Mr. Tolbert here?

Yeah, I mean I guess that would be something that we need to coordinate with the zoning overlay of the strategic investment area as well as any zoning changes for West Main Street and again I just don't want to box us into a corner that somehow we

by proving this, and those pieces aren't developed yet, that we're going to not allow some really good innovative info and redevelopment to occur because we're lagging behind in a code development.

This is a first of two readings.

I think we can make some mention of it.

Right now, what we need to do to satisfy DEQ so that we can set it by July 1st, what we have to promise is that our local regulations are consistent with state law.

and that we're not including provisions that are more strict than state law because those require advanced DEQ approval as well.

So as long as we had some language that said to the extent consistent with state law and regulations, we will allow this.

That would be fine.

No, those are some related changes to the zoning and subdivision ordinances and the procedural provisions that you'll be seeing I believe on your next agenda.

Those tie into this, but this water protection ordinance

It's not a zoning or subdivision ordinance that has to go to the Planning Commission first.

There are state regulations that will govern what

technical requirements may be waived by your local administrator.

Marty in particular will most likely be assisting whoever our administrator will be.

I just have a very, I had shared one of those questions, but my other question was, when you mentioned about penalties and the amount of penalties rising,

Do we assess many penalties under this?

Yeah, I just have a couple questions.

And I had a question about the administrator because the administrator is referred to a lot in here.

And will it always be the same person or does

I believe the formal administrator will always be the Director of Neighborhood Development Services or someone that you all might select by changing the ordinance and that's just to make sure that in terms of meeting the state's program requirements we've identified in the ordinance who that's going to be.

What I anticipate is it will be the person that's certified and trained in that.

Right, and we may have more than one.

And you know, we're so deep into stormwater now, it does make sense that if we have a lot of expertise, that that would be the person who's waving waving things.

So and I think Bob asked one of my other questions, which is for anything that's happening now, particularly for some of these projects that were approved 10 years ago and are still

You know, going on and doing egregious things.

It will depend on what you're looking at.

So an erosion and sediment control plan is good for a specific number of days.

I think it's 180 and then the locality has a chance to go back and look at it.

The stormwater management plan, the new regulations have certain grandfathering provisions that relate to

different things.

So one might be when you had a site plan or subdivision plan approved.

Another might be if you had a development approved, but you had coverage under what's called the state general permit for stormwater discharges.

And so there are a couple of different ways you can become grandfathered.

But the simple answer is, is yes.

Once these changes are in place, people who already have approved and permitted developments

There has always been an agreement in lieu of a plan available for an individual single family dwelling being constructed.

The General Assembly had continued to tweak with this legislation so

they very late in this year's legislative process threw in the requirement that there be an agreement in lieu of a stormwater plan available for single-family homes but we'll need to see there's some pending regulations coming out how that will apply will be the subject of some training for staff to go through because as I said

Large developments are going to have to have a storm water management plan for the entire area within the development so you wouldn't under this new scheme of things

have to obtain a separate approval for an individual home on a home site within that development anyway.

So we're going to need to look at some of the new state regulations to figure out when that agreement in lieu of a stormwater management plan might be available.

And just one last thing, and it's not surprising if this came from the state,

But there is a lot of gender reference in this ordinance.

A lot of he's and him's and hers.

I think if you would like to do that, you can.

It tends to make an already difficult to read document a little more complicated.

The only place I wouldn't recommend changing it would be

I'm really more afraid when it says, and he did this, and particularly when it refers to a staff member, and not all our staff members are men.

So yes, you have the ability to do that.

I noticed in the design for life was actually his and her.

I mean it was very respectful.

So I would just like to say that I could approve this if we could make sure that there is inclusion of language that will allow shared facilities in future special districts provided they comply with state requirements.

The qualifying language, but I just didn't want to close the door on that kind of innovation.

This is the first meeting today.

We were here, gosh I think it was in December or maybe that we came and talked to you about the State of the Mall crossings and concern that we had for them and suggested that and asked you to appropriate $120,000 which was the estimate that we had to make the repairs and

We went through a lot of history of that.

Just to recap, when we redid the mall in 2007, we did a lot of work.

There was a lot of discussion about the mall crossings and how they would be built.

The BAR had a lot of input.

We were concerned about the solution, but it seemed to be the design solution that was wanted for that, and we went ahead with the solution that was proposed.

and we have suffered a lot of damage in the six or seven years since that time.

We think that the damage is primarily related to two issues.

One is the longer aspect bricks that are used.

When we started working on the mall redesign, we went to the National Brick Institute.

and asked for their guidance and their help as experts in the industry with the product.

And they basically told us that using bricks with heavy traffic was going to be difficult no matter what.

Longer aspect bricks would be more apt to break because the longer they are with the pressure on them, the more apt they are to crack and to break.

We also, by putting the bricks that are sand set adjacent to the granite, we've seen the granite break.

And if you remember, the original design of the mall had granite highlights.

It was not installed.

Instead, concrete was a cost saving measure.

But one of the things that we wanted to go back to and Council wanted to go back to was to put in granite.

We've seen that there's been, because of the rocking of the granite, there's been some failure.

The other thing is we think is a significant problem is the continued use by heavy vehicles.

The proposal that we made to you the last time was to eliminate the granite pavers and the runnels and then use heavy duty 4x8 pavers laid on an asphalt sand setting bed.

to give it the most security that we could and keep the appearance as close to what we have now there.

And it won't be exactly the same.

We would still want to take this to the BAR who is

charged with reviewing, once you give us a solution and run it by them to make sure they were okay with it.

But that was the idea.

We also suggested to you that we restrict heavy truck traffic across the mall.

And you asked that we do a little more outreach, and that's the reason that you didn't vote the last time.

We delivered flyers, we set up a meeting, delivered flyers to every business on the mall, and

We had very low attendance at the meeting, but then we got a good bit of contact on the street having conversations and then you got some emails.

I think a lot of the emails that you got were sent because there was a misunderstanding about what we were going to do.

The word went out from one of the merchants that we were trying to restrict mall deliveries.

And so I responded to each of the folks that emailed and said we don't want to restrict delivery to say we're not trying to restrict deliveries, we're just concerned with the larger trucks.

And I've only had a couple of people that were concerned about keeping the larger trucks.

businesses that has a lot of soda delivery by those heavy trucks, talked to his delivery people and they said, you know it would inconvenience us but we use it as a shortcut, we don't use it, we don't park there, we don't have any reason to use it, so there's the, you know, I think that there would be support for restricting the heavy trucks from crossing the mall.

If council was willing to do that, we think the solution that we proposed would work and the bricks would last.

I think when Mr. Halperin designed the improvements to the mall, if you remember there were no crossings and there was no intent of a crossing and so they didn't even think about that.

And the constant pounding and the moving off to the side is from the heavy trucks is what we're getting that's causing our biggest problem.

So, before you tonight is our recommendation to

to make the change to appropriate to $120,000.

If you want to consider the restriction of trucks, that would have to come back to you in an ordinance that we would put together for your action at a very near future meeting to coincide with the time that the improvements were made.

Just to answer a couple of questions, I know they're out there.

We would not do both of these crossings at the same time.

We would do them one at a time.

Best estimate is it would take about a week to do each of them, a week each.

And we would look for, we would not want to do it during the peak summer season.

We would, since we're into the season now, we would wait until a down time, the best time we could figure out when there would be decent weather and we could do that.

We also have looked into

What if we just made it a street and we could not restrict anybody crossing?

And that is what some cities that have these situations do.

Their streets on either end or in the middle are actually real street sections.

They may be narrow to restrict the flow, but they're constructed as a city street.

So that would be an alternative.

It would be about the same cost.

But we believe that, you know, in keeping with the spirit, keeping with

the desires of the community and the BAR back when we redid them all in 2007 that we ought to try to maintain the appearance to the extent possible.

We would take out the granite, we wouldn't have the granite banding, we would use shorter aspect bricks

and we would take out the drainage runnels so it would be flat and it wouldn't be the dip that you have now.

If the drainage runnels were left in place originally for two reasons, one of them is that they are the place where the stormwater runs.

The engineers believe that at those two locations, and I say that along the mall, they were left the entire length, but they were also the soldier corps where

the sand set bricks were adjoined the mortar set bricks to give it a firm edge and so you wouldn't need that at that location so if you take the runnels out everything would still be asphalt sand set but it would be you wouldn't have the runnels so you wouldn't get the brick rocking against the other with the up and down motion and that's where we're getting the problems where it meets a hard surface be it the granite or the runnels so we would remove the runnels we would use the shorter aspect bricks the 4x8's heavy duty bricks

So there would be no white stripe, it would all be red.

I do have a question, and I raised it in an email earlier today because, and Mr. Talbot, you were there with Ms. Myers from the Place Design Task Force, who is a landscape architect, teaches at UVA, is an expert on the downtown mall design.

and she offered assistance in providing design consulting so that when it is engineered to be a street it would be a design that's compatible with the helper intention.

That it is not necessary to be exactly what it used to be there but you can design something to be compatible.

So my question then is given that we have that expertise at our disposal and given that you just said that there's no price difference with having a street that's engineered as

I just wanted to, before you ask this question, I think that decision, whether it ought to be steered or not to be maintained, the current

No one's saying that.

I guess the thing is, I'm not convinced that we've identified when we don't have a delivery truck that's not over two axles.

You know, until maybe 2002, the second street was restricted and fourth was not open, and so they adequately made deliveries at that time.

The additional piece of this that I failed to mention is we've been looking at loading zones and if the trucks were restricted we've identified four to six places that we could add for large vehicle loading zones that would be

A couple of them would be all day long and the others would be through the morning hours and then they would convert.

So that was one of the requests we had from some of the merchants is to try, particularly on the west end, is to try to get some additional loading.

And we're going to take a look at that regardless, but most of them do not deliver

you know we were kind of thinking about this and what's a two axle truck and what kind of how big that can be and I know that you know like Brinks trucks are two axle trucks and beer trucks are two axle trucks and those are some of the heavier trucks that are coming across and so I don't know if we want to look at it in the terms of weight limit as well as two axle might be something to think about I'm fine with with taking out the granite I like the look of it I do want it to be consistent with the mall I want

To me, it's a pedestrian mall, and the pedestrians are first.

And so somebody going down Main Street is the person I want to have the experience of saying, this is my street.

And then the cars coming across are sort of interrupting that flow as people are willing to stop, because pedestrians have the right of way all along there.

I got a question.

First of all, let me ask something a little bit off.

Well, MMM is the

is an engineer that was on our on-call list that went through a competitive process to be selected to do design work.

And I'd like to see an item in the budget once this gets through that specifically mentions maintenance because I think we discussed

a month ago or so that there will be maintenance on this thing.

And I'd hate to be surprised, you know, three, four, five years down the road.

But I also, when the Board of Architectural Review reviews this, will they get the same packet that we have here?

Yes, sir.

Okay.

For anybody watching, a professional engineer, the shorthand is a P.E.

So I can't read who the P.E.

Who stamped this?

I don't remember if this one was Joe Shinstock or the other.

The Board of Architecture Review I assume has architects on it and they should be able to look at things like loads.

I would call them footers because I'm in residential construction and that's what I would be looking at.

The base is already there.

We wouldn't be changing the base that's under there.

No, it's a sand, asphalt sand base that's down that the bricks sit in that.

Concrete, and how thick is the asphalt sand base?

Asphalt sand base is the standard that's recommended both by the brick industry and engineers that do these.

So that's the reason that the old bricks were all mortar set.

And we knew that with a freeze thaw that that's where we were getting a lot of problems when we redid them all a few years ago.

One reason I asked was I couldn't read how thick that base was supposed to be, the asphalt sand.

I'm not, I don't think VDOT

It's not as heavy as some of the beer trucks as the 18-wheelers.

I mean, it's pushing the limit, but we felt that there's an importance to trying to keep it going across the mall for letting people out.

You know, unloaded are not too bad.

One thing I think we can also do with the trash trucks who work on, for us, or at least, you know, are under some sort of contract with someone, and the trolley is talk to the drivers about

because often the problem is partly that just the sheer weight of the truck partly it's hitting them hard and kind of going a little too fast to be there so we can really make sure that those drivers know that they have to crawl through.

And I think the trolleys do.

I just would like to add, though, that there's a lot of questions, very good questions here tonight.

We don't know the weights of these trucks.

We don't yet know whether there'll be some trucks that would be over two axles, but mainly it was the weight.

We don't have drawings that we can read and understand whether these details can withstand the loads and the impacts.

and I'm not convinced that we've got actually a design that ostensibly looks like it's going to be compatible with them all, but it looks like it was the same design that was in 2008 that failed.

So I want to repeat again that

We have Beth Meyer who has offered to provide some design assistance and just giving the guidance on how the finishes can be compatible.

But this road needs to be able to withstand loads and impact and time.

Would she be interested in coming before the BAR?

She's an engineer.

Yeah, but.

And they've been working with the law.

And there is a member of the BAR at the place

the design task force meeting that thought that would be a good idea to have Beth come and provide a consent.

Other comments and concerns, questions?

Is there any motion?

This is, what's our motion?

I'll make a motion.

Correct.

And I think that it still has to go through the process of going through the BAR and all of that before it happens.

So I'm comfortable that there is a layer of review by professionals.

If they need more money, if this is not adequate source of funds for the structural engineering?

Well, if the BAR rejects it.

That's purely aesthetics and the exterior.

And I don't understand, and Kathy, I actually have a lot of sympathy with the expertise in design

Well, because this seems to be patterned after what there were some changes on the granite and some changes with the, she said, the size and the length of the bricks.

But it's still not a road.

It's still not designed to accommodate all vehicles.

And that is my concern.

Yes.

That was what we discussed at the PLACE meeting, that we would have a road that would be designed

Didn't we meet February to talk about this?

Was it February or sometime not too long ago where we agreed to take

No, what I'm surprised is there was no change in drawings after what we had asked for.

That's what I'm concerned about.

We were concerned about loads, we were concerned about weights, and we got the exact same proposal today as we got last several months ago.

I think the request that we got was to go back to the community about the issue of

vehicles, you know, types of vehicles and restrictions, it wasn't to make any changes in design.

And so that's, we didn't, you know, we didn't leave here with that.

I'll second the motion.

What I would tell you is give us a chance to go back and come back with a design.

We don't think that if you allow heavy trucks that there is a brick solution based on the information we've got.

And you're saying that I would like to have that further discussion to make sure, because that way we would know that we've uncovered.

No, we've left no brick unturned.

Yeah, and I want to make sure the money's going to be in the lab.

Mr. Mayor, if y'all want to defer it, we're not going to do anything this summer now that we're this late into it.

We can go have that one additional discussion.

I would appreciate that.

One last thing.

Well, what we'd like to do is come to you with a recommendation and you say what you want as the owner, but then we would go to the BAR for their review and their input.

I would just like to say that what we're setting is a performance standard.

What we're setting is a money amount for the job.

Well, and we may change, the money matter may change if we come back with something radically different.

I think what we can do is we can take it to the BAR before we even come back to you and see where they are

I'm comfortable either way.

I'm not so comfortable bringing in somebody who's not on staff to be a third oversight.

I think if she wants to work with the BAR, it's great, and I'm hoping that they will.

If the BAR wants that, that's fine.

At least just make it known that she's available.

I must say I do not want it to change from primarily pedestrian to vehicle.

It is the intent as well as always to be pedestrian is dominant.

Absolutely.

We may have to see some deterioration.

I don't want to give up the quality of pedestrian.

I would appreciate that.

Did I move?

Yes, you did.

Then I would withdraw the motion.

What should I do?

Okay.

I can second it.

Okay.

So who's making the motion to defer?

I'll make the motion to defer.

Thank you.

We had a first meeting, but we had some questions.

I was prepared to give you a little background tonight.

Excellent, okay.

Well, Citi advertised a request for proposals back in the fall of last year, requesting applications for the CBG and HOME program, and that stands for Community Development Block Grant.

HOME is not an acronym, it's just actually H-O-M-E.

and the RFP was based on priorities that had been set by council.

There were three of them, economic development, workforce development and neighborhood stabilization, including housing rehab and homeowner assistance.

The city received four applications for housing, six for social projects, three for public facilities and oh, and five, excuse me, for economic development projects.

A summary of each of those applications is actually in the packets.

It gives you a brief overview of each of those and how much they requested.

Then throughout the winter in 13 and 14, the CDBG task force reviewed and recommended housing and social projects and the Strategic Action Team or SAT reviewed and made funding recommendations regarding economic development and workforce development projects.

Minutes for all those meetings were included in your packets as well.

On March 11th of 2014, this went before Planning Commission and Council for a joint public hearing.

Planning Commission accepted the report and unanimously recommended a proposed budget for approval by City Council.

CBG program has approximately 404,000 for program year 2014-15.

In addition to the priority neighborhood, which is the 10th and Page area,

with the exception of a start-up child care program or Blossoms Child Care and CRHA funding for IT and support maintenance.

All CDBG applications for economic development and social programs were recommended for some level of funding.

Only one public facilities project, Barrett Daycare, was recommended for funding.

because the SAT believed it was consistent and aligned with the SAT report entitled A Path to Self-Sufficiency.

Requests for public facilities from CRHA were not recommended.

However, these funds as well as those requested for IT support and maintenance that fall under social programs could be funded under CRHA community, our Charlottesville affordable housing fund.

set aside for CRHA with council approval.

Home funds represent an additional $83,500 including the city's match.

Again, the number won't be known final until HUD comes out with that.

For home funding, we have four applications.

All four of those were recommended for funding at some level with differences based on kind of their measurables and outcomes as specified.

All the dollar amounts are shown in your packets.

The Planning Commission as well as the CDBG Task Force and SAT had recommended that proposed dollar amounts be revised on a pro-rata basis once the actual HUD numbers are known.

At the April 7th meeting for Council there was some discussion regarding when this was pulled off the consent agenda

about taking money from the Office of Economic Development ACE program project and moving it to the Community Investment Collaborative.

No action was taken and the matter is going to be reconsidered tonight.

We'll tell you that after that meeting that staff reached out to both the task force, CBG task force, as well as the SAT team and just inform them as to what discussion the council had had and asked for feedback.

We did get feedback from several and all

All those were really in support of, strongly in support of keeping the funding recommendations as is.

So I will pass that along.

But should council choose to change any or all funding recommendations, you can do that.

I made a suggestion last time that we transfer $10,500 from city business development program to community investment collaborative scholarship program.

Mr. Mayor, I would like to point out the discussions of the applications though.

It does give some clarification as to their rationale for funding $7,500.00 for the CIC and I didn't know this before myself.

Some members had concerns about who they are serving and if it is truly the low- and moderate-income population of Charlottesville.

It was noted that the CIC currently has a large cash balance and a request for $60,000 is too much given their available assets.

All members supported awarding $7,500 to support the 20 scholarships of those under 80% AMI.

So again, the CDBG is for very low income.

This is not what I understand.

When I talk to them,

They felt that they could use some more money as a good successful program.

One of the things that I think the economic development piece that you're proposing that we take the funding from, I wanted to sort of hear from that office about what kind of impact that would have on what they could do.

because what they're doing is stuff that we as council ask them to do in response to the RSAT report.

So the ACE program is one year old.

It's going into its second year and it was started with community development block grant funds last year and we're growing the program.

We actually see the program, the two programs that you're speaking about being compatible with one another and actually one leads to another.

The focus of the ACE program is to help an existing business, not a new business, but an existing business that might have been in business a year, two years, or three that needs some help, some strategic planning, and potentially some equipment or something to get them to the next level.

Absolutely yeah we see CIC graduates as being you know the farm team so to speak for the ACE program when it's functioning well and we've actually had some folks referred over and are using the program so I think your question is what would happen to the ACE program if this

If the actual amount of money were changed, we would just be able to serve fewer folks on an incremental basis.

I think the request this year was for 50,000 from CDBG.

It'd be a service change.

All the money that we are using through the block grant is for direct service to businesses.

Not specifically, but we anticipate that there would be in the first year, we've reached capacity at 10 in the first year.

Likewise for the CIC, is there, identify that there is need beyond what our funds, scholarship funds.

Is there a waiting list?

Thank you for that.

Oh, good.

We were just talking about how these funds, is there the demand for the funds instead of just arbitrarily moving funds around if you're

Allocation has doubled.

Is there double the demand for city residents?

And this is low income.

Yes, low income.

Do you have a waiting list?

We haven't had to turn people away as of yet, although we do have been increasing in our applications.

I shouldn't say that.

There has been a small waiting list, but for folks, but not necessarily city residents, especially city residents who qualified for

Moving into next year, the current grant allocation of $7,500 would allow us to serve to provide about 10 to 12 scholarships for low income entrepreneurs, city residents to participate in the program.

And this path for 2013, I believe we served about

18 to 20 city residents who were low income who received some sort of scholarship.

Yeah, the full scholarship, the full cost of the class is $750.

A scholarship would be $625.

We require some investment from the individual just to ensure that they get as much as they can out of the program and take it seriously.

When it doesn't go specifically to scholarships, it would be overall operational.

So 10,000 goes a really long way.

Well, so if each class costs $7.50,

And that's the value of the scholarship, right?

No, $500 is about it.

I mean, that's...

Even you want $8 more, that would get you to what you've served 18 residents this past year.

That's $18 to $20.

So it would be add $5,000 to this and take it from... Before we make a motion, I actually have a question about another part of the

and so for Ms. McHugh in the home funds in our materials it talks about how the staff or perhaps it's a task force was very reluctant to use home funds for down payments yet most of the home funds are being used for down payments so is that can you explain that?

I'm looking at Page

Well, it's the December 5th task force meeting.

And it says the new rule significantly changes what is required for down payment assistance projects, and staff is extremely hesitant to use home funds for these types of projects in the future.

So is that it?

Subsequent to this, we had advice from the attorney's office at that point in time that the interpretation of the new home rule from HUD

was making it, or was adding some requirements for down payment assistance.

We subsequently learned that that was, they weren't quite as prohibitive as we had originally thought.

So, you know, it was a change of, and that wasn't reflected in the minutes.

So, that was a piece you wouldn't have picked up on unless you'd been privy to that information.

Yeah, let's, and so on the same, actually for, so there's 30,000 for Habitat for Humanity and 15, 10,000 for PHA.

Can we guarantee those will go to city residents?

So they might not go to city residents.

I would assume AHIP could not use our small homeowner rehab money for

So it is a mechanism to assure that our funds are going to city residents is to use them for- Habitats money would only be used for a home inside of the city limits, but we couldn't prohibit them assisting with down payment assistance somebody from a county, outlying county, coming in and moving into the city.

Mr. Jones and I were talking recently.

I think it would be really instructive for us at some point to have a work session about our goals for our housing funds of these various sorts and how they interface with our city residents.

My other question is whether

In terms of Habitat for Humanity's down payment assistance, is that in addition to what the city might contribute in terms of Charlottesville housing funds?

If we're putting, you know, $30,000, $40,000 into a house, and then the family gets a down payment assistance city home fund?

Yes, it will be in addition.

So it's actually in addition?

Yes.

Is there any way of knowing how much we subsidize any given project, whether it's

Habedat or AHIP or PHA, I mean, per structure.

I mean, is anybody keeping track of that?

Cost for benefit per structure?

No, we're not tracking that.

In order to piece together the project, they have that somewhere.

They just haven't published it.

They have to make sure that they're on pro forma's work, so to speak.

So they must have that information.

I'm sure Habitat has that information.

That would be, you know, if we in fact want to have, you know, sort of a work session to talk about housing goals, that would be a good information to have.

I noticed that the CRHA requests were not funded in this, but you mentioned that they could potentially be funded through the housing fund.

And one of the things is that I know that the housing authority has just adopted a budget that was significantly smaller than the previous budget, and they're really tightening kind of what they have to work with.

And so I'm wondering if, rather than just sort of transfer those things

to request to the housing fund if we shouldn't kick it back to the housing authority to see if given their tighter budget if there are other things that might be more important to them to request if we did make that decision and not make that decision tonight but just to kind of bring that up as rather than a restrictive process where those are the only things they could ask for see if there are other things in those categories that might now be

What housing authority has done this budget cycle?

They have to lay off some people.

Yes, and I'm worried about that.

They have no choice.

Any other questions before you go to the motion?

Mr. Mayor, there are actually three separate items here, so the motion may want to reflect that.

There are, I think, two resolutions and one appropriation.

Yeah, and can I ask again about the down payment, sort of why, does PHA, they get significantly less than Habitat.

Is there an operational difference there, that the task force, so I didn't see that reflected.

You know, sort of, I mean PHA helps in many cases, workforce.

They asked for a lot less.

PHA has a down payment assistance program and a fund that's been in operation for many many years.

They get funding from a lot of other sources.

They do and as repayments are made they have an equity share agreement

So Mr. Mayor, I make a motion to adopt the following three resolutions.

The first resolution

is appropriating funds for the city of Charlottesville, Charlottesville's 2014-15 community development block grant for the total sum of $400,000.

With these two changes, we would increase the community investment collaborative scholarship monies up to $12,500 and decrease the Office of Economic Development small business development program by $5,000 and make that $45,500.

I then would move that we adopt the resolution appropriating funds for the city of Charlottesville's 2014-15 home funds for 67-500 dollars and that we also adopt the, what?

As distributed here.

As distributed, well Mr. Brown has advised that we name them.

Okay.

And the last resolution would be the appropriation amendment to the community development block grant account.

Can we do that?

Unless there's a motion to separate them.

Okay, I'll second.

It's not required by regulation.

Do you second the motion?

Do you second it?

Yes.

Any more discussion on the motion?

I vote.

Thank you.

Next item on the agenda is sale of

1239 Kenwood Lane property.

Mr. Mayor, members of council, this is a parcel of land which the city council authorized the sale of in December of last year.

For a number of years, it was the site of a single family home that had been rendered uninhabitable due to fire damage.

The city's staff made a number of overtures about obtaining some type of access or easement through this site in order to provide access to Greenbrier Park.

While that was unsuccessful, the owner did agree to sell the entire site to the city, and the city did in fact acquire the property, demolished the house that was on the site,

drafted a proposed subdivision which divided the site into two lots with the idea that the city would retain ownership of one lot for purposes of access to the park and then sell the remaining lot for housing.

The Department of Neighborhood Development Services drafted a request for proposals to purchase the lot for housing.

They took a number of steps to circulate that through the community.

There were, in fact, I believe, six offers to purchase that property.

Staff recommended

and Council agreed to sell the property to Mr. Scott and Ms. Wood who had submitted a proposal, albeit with I believe three changes.

One of which was to increase the width of the pipe stem of property that the city was retaining ownership of from 10 to 15 feet.

The second change was to adjust the rear boundary line to compensate for that loss of property on the side.

And the third was to require the purchasers to include an accessory apartment in the home they were going to build on the site.

The purchasers decided that those changes were acceptable.

We negotiated new language to the sales contract and had a new subdivision draft which showed the 15 foot wide pipe stem access to the park rather than 10 feet.

All was proceeding as planned until a title search was done and it was discovered that a restrictive covenant is on the property which limits its use to one detached single family dwelling.

The purchaser's attorney has advised them, and in my opinion correctly, that including an accessory apartment, a separate accessory apartment in the dwelling technically makes it a two-family dwelling and would be in violation of that restrictive covenant.

They have therefore come back to the city with two requests.

One is

to ask council to remove the requirement for an accessory apartment in the home that they will build on the site.

And there is a proposed ordinance to that effect that is with your council materials.

And the second

is because they had arranged financing and this has been delayed unexpectedly, they are asking that council waive the normal second reading of the ordinance.

If that is amenable to council, the process you would require is to move and second the ordinance that has been provided with your agenda materials

and then if it is council's desire there can be a motion and second to waive the second reading and to adopt the ordinance as presented.

The city code allows that process but only if it is approved by four-fifths vote of council.

In other words, the waiver of the second reading requires a four-fifths vote.

I just have a couple clarifications.

So that they it could have been just them living in the house as long as they wanted it was just to have it structurally there That's that's correct, and I believe this Notion or this condition originated with Councillor Galvin so she can correct me if I'm to state it but I think the way it was stated was this was an affordable housing opportunity and

It was my opinion that you could not force them to rent it, or force them to rent it to anybody in particular, but it could be a condition of the sale that there be an accessory apartment.

And that's kind of a stand-alone unit with bathroom, kitchen, bedroom facilities.

And I voted for that.

I believe that we were doing a good thing and asking for it,

But they didn't do anything to make this happen.

They did not.

The sales price was $105,000, but 3% of that goes to their real estate agents.

We did not hire a real estate agent.

Well, it's not really ours.

Their proposal was— Since there wasn't a real estate agent.

They had a real estate agent.

They said they were paying the real estate 3% out of the $105,000.

And so we gave them more area in the back when we moved over the thing.

I don't know whether the House has been designed yet or not, but that was not their request.

I believe that was... That was just to keep the same acreage.

And Mr. Daly, can I ask you just a couple questions about access?

What I'm going to ask is, in addition to this access, how can someone who doesn't live in the neighborhood utilize this park in a car?

There are one, two, three locations, actually four.

How about Mickey Drive parking lot?

That was in the materials about the sale.