City Council Meeting   3/21/2016

Dr. Michael F.

Dr. Michael F.

Okay, good evening everyone.

Ms. Szakos?

Here.

OK, we're going to do awards and recognitions.

Let's go down the order, Mr. Fenwick.

Announcements?

This will be.

I don't think we have any.

Well, we have poison.

Oh, I'm sorry.

This is a proclamation from the city of Charlottesville, Poison Prevention Week 2016.

whereas the Blue Ridge Poison Center has been instrumental in saving lives and money by providing free and confidential treatment, information and advice in a poisoning emergency, and whereas last year the Blue Ridge Poison Center responded to nearly 25,000 calls for assistance in its 54 county service region, including 2,216 in the Charlottesville-Albemarle area, and whereas poisoning is a leading cause of injury hospitalization and injury death in Virginia, and more people die from poisoning than from motor vehicle accidents, and whereas poison prevention

Education is an important mission of the Blue Ridge Poison Center, and whereas it is fitting to recognize the annual observance of National Poison Prevention Week to highlight this preventable health hazard and help educate all Virginians to better understand how to avoid the dangers of accidental poisoning.

Now, therefore, I, Michael Signer, do hereby recognize March 20th to 26th, 2016 as Poison Prevention Week in the city of Charlottesville, Virginia, and I call this observance to the attention of all of our citizens.

Thank you very much.

I would also like to introduce with me today Dr. Heather Bork and Dr. Jennifer Parker Cody.

These are two of the health care team that we have working at the Blue Ridge Poison Center who are together saving lives and helping to take care of poisoned patients all over the state of Virginia, in fact.

Every eight seconds, someone in the United States needs a poison center and calls the toll-free poison center hotline for help.

whether it's a parent whose child has just found a bottle of cleaning product and has taken a few swallows or someone who is working in a woodworking facility and picks up what they think is a Sprite bottle, takes a sip only to discover that it's turpentine someone was storing in a Sprite bottle or if it's a senior citizen who accidentally took her morning medications twice.

Those accidents and more are never planned.

They're always unexpected.

It's nice to know that the Poison Center is a place you can call day or night

for free and talk to our health care team for any kind of poisoning emergency, big or small.

There's no question too bizarre or too small for us.

We're happy to help you.

And it's completely confidential and completely free.

So it's hard to find the number, especially if you're upset and panicked.

So I brought some magnets with our toll-free number on them.

For those of you at home, the number is 1-800-222-1222.

You're welcome to call that number and the nurse that answers will be happy to take your address and we'll mail you a magnet if you're not here to get one today.

Everyone, please get one and put it on your fridge.

All right.

Fontaine Fire Station, LEED, platinum, March 21st.

We are excited to announce that the Fontaine Fire Station has achieved LEED certification at the platinum level, the highest level offered by the U.S. Green Building Council.

The project integrated numerous sustainable building practices, extensive use of recycled, regional, low VOC and non-toxic materials, stormwater practices consisting of two biofilters and a 20,000 gallon rainwater harvesting system

Efficient water fixtures and the use of captured rainwater for flushing and apparatus washing that result in a 51% reduction in potable water usage.

An energy efficient standing column well, geothermal heating and cooling system, LED light fixtures coupled with occupancy sensors.

Extensive use of natural lighting including use of 24 rooftop solar tubes.

Owner installed solar PV system with a 17.7 kilowatt capacity.

Modeled energy cost savings of 48%.

This project is now the sixth city-owned LEED certified building, further carrying out our 2005 green building policy commitments.

And there are copies of the project fact sheet at each of your sheets.

This thing refers to those seats and not these seats.

And there are a few extra copies.

There are a few extra copies on the front desk of it.

And the next announcement is a community budget forum.

March 23rd, this Wednesday, 2016, from 7 to 9 p.m. in city space.

Join city council and city staff for a community budget forum to weigh in on the city council's proposed fiscal year 17 budget.

The fiscal year 2017 city manager's proposed budget may be found on the city's website at www.Charlottesville.org forward slash budget.

Other upcoming budget work session dates March 31st, council budget work session at 4.30 p.m. at the city space meeting room.

April 7th, council budget work session 5 p.m. city space meeting room.

And April 12th, adoption of budget 5.30 p.m. second floor conference room, city hall.

Thank you.

So we have an announcement in regards to Chancellor Park.

Before we get there, I did want to make another announcement, if I may.

March is Women's History Month and I think it would be really good if we could honor and if we could give a round of applause to our two ladies who are sitting on council right now in honor of Women's History Month, if we could please.

as well as Ms.

Page, our clerk, and all of our former female city council women, as well as all of the ladies who serve and help us become better men.

I'm going to admit that women, in my opinion, are smarter than men.

Y'all normally have more sense than us, so thank you all for all that you do.

All the ladies, thank you.

We really appreciate it.

So happy Women's History Month.

All right, now that that's out the way,

We have an announcement in regards to Tonsler Park.

So the Department of Parks and Rec is holding a series of meetings on the design and operation of the splash pad proposed for Tonsler Park as part of the park's master plan implementation.

The second planning meeting for the new Tonsler splash pad will be held on Tuesday, March 29th at 6 o'clock at Tonsler Park.

At the first meeting there was a unanimous agreement to develop a plaza style splash pad.

At this second meeting, development options for a plaza-style pad will be discussed with the preferred option for development being selected.

For more information, contact Mr. Doug with the Parks Division.

His number is 434-970-3021 or you can email him at EHMAND at Charlottesville.

So we are happy to share, and I am happy to share, that the composting at the City Market program will be restarting on April 2nd this year.

And I don't know that we have a separate announcement, but that also means that the City Market is starting on April 2nd this year.

A separate piece of good news.

Residents can pick up free compostable bags to collect their food scraps in, get information and tips about how to compost, and drop off their household compostable items at the city market composting station every Saturday, April through October during the city market hours, 7 a.m. to noon.

Stop by the composting station for more information or go to the city's website.

www.charlottesville.org slash composting.

And if you have composting, as I will, before April 2nd, you can still take it to the McIntire Recycling Center just inside the gate.

And just before I begin my announcement, I just want to acknowledge Mr. Bellamy's

tribute to us.

I will say that I had no choice in the matter, it just happened when I was born.

So I'm probably even before that.

But I must say I enjoy being a girl.

And with that, I have two announcements.

Streets that work open house.

That's Thursday, March 24th, this Thursday, 7 to 9 p.m. at the city space, 105th Street Northeast.

It becomes

A very festive occasion.

There will be light refreshments beginning at 7 and at 7.15 there will be a presentation of the final streets that work guidelines.

A lot of you have been coming to these events weighing in about the details about what makes your intersections safer, what makes your streets safer and more attractive.

So we're going to be looking at street types, cross sections, and then coming up with implementation strategies.

There'll be a demonstration project at 7.50 and at 8 o'clock, question and answer, and 8.15 in open house.

So please come and learn more about it.

The website is www.scholastville.org slash streets that work, all one word, or call 434-970-3182.

The next announcement has to deal with the Ragon Mountain Natural Area Master Planning.

The Department of Parks and Recreation is undertaking a master planning process for Ragon Mountain Natural Area and will be hosting a series of public meetings to provide information and receive public feedback on how to manage what is now being referred to as the RMNA, the Ragon Mountain Natural Area.

The second meeting of three is coming up this month.

Tuesday, March 22nd, that's tomorrow, six to eight.

And then the third meeting will be Wednesday, April 6th, six to eight.

All meetings take place at the Trinity Church, 3101 Fontaine Avenue extended.

During this process, public comment can also be sent to raggedmountain, one word, at charlesville.org.

Or you can mail your comments to Parks and Recreation, care of Ragged Mountain, 501 East Main Street, Charlottesville, Virginia 22902.

or call 434-970-3610 and you can leave a message on the park planning hotline.

I wonder they're so good.

And a couple of brief overview notes for the meeting itself.

As folks know, this is the second meeting under our new procedures.

The new procedures, for the first time, are trying to move more of our work sessions into the official meetings on television and public view on these regular meetings.

So tonight is the first, the second meeting of each month is a working meeting.

The first meeting is a business meeting.

so this is a working meeting and we have for that reason the agenda has been designed tonight where we're spending 60 minutes the normal default time for an agenda item is now 20 minutes but we're spending 60 minutes talking about the West Main streetscape plan and that is going to be off of the regular very formal rules where you have a motion and then you have discussion this is going to be an open informal discussion between us as counselors over the course of that 60 minutes and that's meant to put us working in a working session in front of the

public view on television in the interest of transparency and deliberating before the public.

And that is, this is the first of those meetings under the new rules of this business meeting, working meeting set for each month.

So I just wanted to let everybody know that.

And then the other thing is that we are doing public hearings tonight on the 2017 tax rate on the amendment to the city code with the lodging tax and on the proposed 2017 budget.

And the signup sheet is right here if anybody's not.

signed up, so we can have you sign up as well for those.

And that'll be a little bit later.

OK, so let's move on to boards and commissions.

Thank you.

So here are the new appointees for the boards and commissions that we currently have.

The Charlottesville Albemarle Airport Authority, we are appointing Mr. Donald Long,

Excuse me, nominating Mr. Donald Long, excuse me.

For the Charlottesville Albemarle Airport Commission, we are nominating George Binford, as well as Stephanie Phelps.

For the Charlottesville Economic Development Authority, we are nominating Ms. Tara Boyd.

For the Historic Resources Committee, we are nominating Ms.

Crystal McNeese.

For the Jaunt Board, we are nominating Jude Jason.

Yes, that was a motion.

I second.

Any discussion?

All in favor?

Motion carries 5-0.

Now we're doing public comments.

We have, this is our second meeting under the new public comment procedure.

We have 12.

All the 12 slots are full.

And we welcome public comment.

It's an important part of our meeting.

Time is reserved near the beginning and the end of each regular city council meeting for matters by the public.

Please follow these guidelines.

If you're here to speak for a public hearing, please wait to speak on the matter until the report for that item has been presented and the public hearing has been opened.

Each speaker has three minutes to speak.

This device here will

Please pay attention to it when you speak.

This is just like a traffic light, so green is when you've got plenty of time, yellow is when you're getting close, and red is when you're up to three minutes.

Please give your name and address before beginning your remarks.

Please do not interrupt speakers, whether or not you agree with them.

Please refrain from using obscenities, and if you cannot follow these guidelines, you will be escorted from city council chambers and not permitted to re-enter.

I'll try to move quick.

I'm not going to change minds, I think, in a minute and a half.

We've had three years, lots of information.

You've received the unanimous recommendation from the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee to adopt option one

of the West Main Street plans.

West Main Street is the only level and direct connection between UVA and downtown and is the highest use bicycle route in the city, as well as the US bike route 76.

The city should recognize the continued use of West Main Street as a bicycle and pedestrian corridor and adopt a design that incorporates all users.

We are opposed to the design of option two, which eliminates bike lanes entirely in favor of sharrows through the central portion

Sharrows in this context are not safe.

Sharrows on roads with daily volumes over 3,000 vehicles are not recommended in the national standards which the city follows.

West Main Street is 16,000.

Peter Firth, transportation design expert, describes the way such a design would work as dense and turbulent.

We've provided a wealth of documentation, not just now but throughout the process.

The cities that moved away from cars versus pedestrians versus bikes,

to a true multimodal infrastructure have found the result is better safety for all users, improved traffic flow, and improved economic vitality.

Two quick quotes.

Jenny Keller from the Planning Commission and the Steering Committee, the plan we have, option one, is a compromise developed with all constituencies giving a little.

And I continue to support it for that reason as a person who does not and never will cycle seriously.

I feel obliged to compliment the cycling community on their participation in this difficult process.

I do not feel anyone or any group has been kicked to the curb.

Hi, Peter Castiglione, 1516 Chesapeake Street.

The Midtown Alliance consisting of members from Starr Hill and Fifeville neighborhoods.

The Midtown Business Association and First Baptist Church urge council to consider the following.

Parking, sidewalks, and utilities are the paramount variables that need to be addressed on West Main Street, especially the Midtown corridor from Bridge to Ridge.

Option one will remove over $3.7 million of on-street parking revenue from a five-block area to the detriment of all businesses on West Main.

It will force cars into the adjacent neighborhoods seeking parking access.

We believe the current and proposed cycle tracks to be substandard and unsafe.

With the impending increase in development, density, and traffic, coupled with the needs of city transit and first responders,

inviting casual and recreational cyclists onto West Main seems illogical.

Mimi Poll, 1603 Kenwood Lane I'm representing myself, my family, and several other families that live in the strip of Kenwood Lane from Meadowbrook Heights to Yorktown It's come to our attention that the plans to build a sidewalk on our part of Kenwood Lane has been deferred

We, the residents living on this section of road, would like to share with you why a sidewalk is needed on Kenwood Lane as soon as possible.

Being in close proximity to 250, the John Warner Parkway, Charlottesville High School, and Hydraulic Road, we receive a high volume of traffic from commuters and high school students.

Since we are on a hill, many drivers tend to speed on this section of road and were forced off the road onto neighbors' yards to walk in the middle of the road to ensure drivers see us and force them to slow down.

There are 11 children aged 1 to 13 that live on this section of Kenwood Lane.

These children attend or will be attending our city schools of Greenbrier, Walker, and Charlottesville High School.

My 10-year-old daughter walks with her friend up Kenwood Lane to Walker.

As of now, they do not have a safe way to navigate our section of the road.

I also have a six-year-old and an eight-year-old that will be attending Walker in the next four years.

Our children need a safe route to walk to school.

There are many other walkers, dog walkers, and parents pushing strollers who use our road.

They also have to navigate the speeding traffic down Kenwood Lane.

There are few homes on the east side of Kenwood Lane that flood during large storms event as a result of public storm water flowing down the road from beyond Meadowbrook Heights.

The resident that has flooded the most has contacted and met with the city engineer to show them the problems.

Installing a sidewalk with storm inlets along the west side of the road would alleviate flooding.

From what we understand, our road tied for first place with Bunker Hill Road to receive a sidewalk in the next five years.

And it was decided to build a sidewalk on Bunker Hill and not ours on Kenwood Lane.

Why not build sidewalks on both roads in the next five year period?

If it's only possible to choose one, please consider our high volume of car traffic and the fact that there are 13 residents on Kenwood Lane between Yorktown and Meadowbrook Heights that would be benefiting from the sidewalk compared to only five residences on Bunker Hill.

We are asking you to reconsider our strip of road on your priority list.

We love our neighborhood and we love being part of our community.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Peter Kleeman.

I live at 407 Hedge Street in the city.

I am again a lucky lottery winner to have the opportunity to speak before council.

And as per the guidance given to us, we should speak to council members as a group and not to individuals.

but we have also been told that we should not expect to get a response from council members either individually as a group but instead we would get a response from the city manager or perhaps another designee of the city's staff.

I came before you last time and the time before discussing some of the attributes of this resolution that we discussed as being the meeting procedures

And after 10 days or so, I got a response from the city attorney to my question about the appropriateness of having rules or regulations that affect citizens have open public hearings as part of the process.

So I was under the impression that if the rules were pushed forward as an ordinance, a public hearing would be included.

but I was informed by the city attorney that not all ordinances which are the rules or the laws of the city require that the public be involved through a public hearing.

I went through the code of ordinances today and there are identified ones that do require public hearings but not all of them.

I think this is a shortcoming in the city's communication with the public that if laws are going to be

expected to be followed that we should as citizens have an opportunity to consult with counsel and others involved on the staff in writing those laws that we would then follow.

So I hope that you will consider if it's not required when passing ordinances or even resolutions that affect the public that you take the opportunity to hold a public hearing as though it were required

and I would expect or I would hope that you may actually consider writing into the code of ordinances some other ordinance that says all ordinances will include input from the public as through a public hearing or some other appropriate means.

But I think if we're going to have a meaningful dialogue between members of the public and city councilors, we need to reconsider how we interact.

I would like to be able to

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, my name is Heather Peck and I live at 760 Lexington Avenue.

and I'd like to bring to the attention of all of us that there's a saying from one of my favorite rabbis and he says, the first thing we're asked on the day of judgment is, have we traded fairly?

And there's another saying from one of the great rabbis who said, as we do the least of us, so we do unto me.

and at the end of my time I will ask people in the room who believe that our whole community is stronger when we pay a living wage plus full health care to our city employees.

And I am so grateful for the privilege of paying a lot more taxes in the city because generally we take care of people better.

However, the least among us who are employees in this city

are called temporary workers.

These folks receive $10.95 an hour.

I have the privilege of having great health.

One reason is because I get to use the fitness centers here.

They're fabulous facilities.

The people who are up at work at 5.30 in the morning and 6 in the morning at the fitness centers, these folks are also working on Dr. King's birthday.

You know, last month when there was no council meeting and city people were on holiday, these people were working with no pay differential.

These people get zero health care, zero retirement.

So in other words, if these folks are heads of households, we're quite certain that they're using public assistance in addition to their compensation.

This is not great for me every day going to the fitness center knowing that these people who take good care of me are not

taking good care of by our city.

And I love our city.

I love these people.

You know, the question is, you know, would you want your children to be working?

Would anyone in the room want our kids to be working at 5.30 in the morning or in the evenings or on the weekends or on Dr. King's birthday with no pay differential?

Do we want this for ourselves?

Do we want to pay these folks less than $11 an hour?

for my part, no.

And I just want to say, you know, I really care.

And I just want to, you know, I like to present problems with a solution.

We pay 58 bucks a month for our gym membership.

If I were to go across town less than a mile away to the competition, I'd be paying 175 bucks a month.

I'm willing to pay more money myself.

so that we can provide living wage employment.

Good evening, Brad Worrell, 213 Sixth Street.

I come before you tonight as a representative from the Starr Hill neighborhood, the smallest neighborhood in Charlottesville.

and a neighborhood which uniquely straddles West Main Street with part of the neighborhood on either side.

There, as you all are well aware, there are a number of development proposals on the table in our neighborhood.

Three that I am aware of, the Atlantic development, the development behind the Moon Diner and the proposed development of the parking lot next to Land Track.

These will

bring a huge number of people and a huge number of cars into our neighborhood.

And we ask that the city council consider the impact that these developments will have on the adjoining neighborhoods.

Obviously, we live in an urban neighborhood, and we support thoughtful development.

but we want development that is cognizant of the history and culture and community that exists in our neighborhood and the other neighborhoods between West Main.

I think it is particularly important to think about foot traffic.

As someone who walks to work almost every day, I can tell you that walking on West Main is one of the favorite parts of my day and I really want all of you to

Keep in mind the fact that there are people, some people who have lived in our neighborhood for 85 years, and they need to be respected as these development projects are being created.

The Atlantic proposal has faces on two streets, and I think it's very important that that be remembered.

Commerce Street is a street, it is unfortunately a tiny street and a street that will not accommodate increased traffic particularly well.

but it is a face of any development that goes on that property.

I am here as a representative.

I won the lottery for what that's worth.

It's the only time I've ever won anything in my life as far as I can remember.

But there are many, many people in our neighborhood and I would encourage those of you in positions of power to talk to those in the community and hear what they have to say about all of these projects.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor Signer, Members of Council, Mr. Jones and Mr. Brown.

My name is Morgan Butler.

I'm with the Southern Environmental Law Center at 201 West Main Street.

We wanted to again express our support tonight for the West Main zoning text amendments that are before you for their second reading.

Overall, these changes strike an effective balance between protecting the character of the historic West Main corridor and promoting its ongoing redevelopment.

We urge you to adopt these overdue zoning changes tonight before any more proposals slip through under the current inadequate zoning.

We also wanted to take this opportunity to follow up on the email we sent Friday that touched on two peripheral issues.

First is the Midway Manor parcel.

We agree with staff and the Planning Commission that this parcel should be included in the West Main East District.

However, if you decide to rezone it to the Water Street District as its owners have requested, we wanted to be sure that three additional protections that the Midway Manor representatives themselves have proposed do not get left on the table.

We therefore urge you to reference them during your discussion tonight and request staff to make sure these three provisions get back to you for formal consideration.

Just as important, we urge you to publicly state tonight your expectation that those three protections be a bare minimum of any special use permit application that may be submitted for the Midway Manor parcel in the meantime.

The second issue is the Rooftop Pertinence Waiver.

As explained in our email, we recommend striking the provision that would allow either the Director of NDS or the Planning Commission to waive the limits on the height and the area of rooftop appurtenances.

The reason for this new waiver seems to have been the concern that the current 16-foot height limit for appurtenances might preclude some types of mechanical equipment, such as high-rise elevator shafts that occasionally need closer to 18 feet.

But rather than addressing this concern with a waiver,

We recommend just increasing the maximum permissible height of rooftop appurtenances from 16 feet to 18 feet and having no waver.

We're concerned that allowing those size thresholds to be waived with appurtenances extending beyond 18 feet or the 25% roof area limit would just create a whole new incentive to misuse the rooftop appurtenance allowance when these zoning amendments are intended to do just the opposite.

Thank you.

Tate Pando, 818 Bellingham Circle.

I'm here tonight in regard to the West Main streetscape.

First, I am here on behalf of my employer, Continental Divide, a West Main restaurant for 22 years, and our thousands of neighbors and patrons that stand to be impacted.

I'm also here as a cyclist.

It's my only mode of transportation, and I have biked to work nearly every day for the past four years.

As a daily bike commuter, I strongly contend that it is absurd and irresponsible to pretend that wider bike lanes, whether continuous or not, will actually make West Main a safer road for cyclists.

All you will be doing is creating a false sense of security for more recreational bikers that are not nearly experienced enough to navigate it safely,

and because current plans offer no solutions to existing parking or traffic issues, you would be encouraging more casual ridership along a corridor that otherwise is being approved by council for more development, more residents, and consequently more traffic from these additions, as well as the newly built John Warner Parkway.

Thus, to facilitate biking directly contradicts everything else you are doing on the corridor.

and without admitting this to yourselves, you are just asking for tragedy.

Historically, physically, financially, it is simply unrealistic for West Main to be the preferred biking corridor.

If you are really concerned about bike safety, I urge you to start with a mandatory helmet law and to enforce traffic laws for bikers and better signage which promote road sharing.

How much do these things cost compared to what West Main visitors and businesses stand to lose?

We have a rule that you can only speak once.

You can't split time multiple times.

You want to continue through the end of your time?

OK. Mr. Brown, is that correct?

Meredith Richards.

I'm Meredith Richards, 1621 Trail Ridge Road, speaking to the Amtrak station.

As you know, both Amtrak and the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation have said they won't further expand passenger rail services to Charlottesville without improvements to and a transfer of ownership and control of our train stations.

A member of my Seaville Rail board pointed out that I have not made it clear that an immediate implication of this is that the second frequency of the state-supported Lynchburg Northeast Regional will not stop in Charlottesville.

It would be tragic if Charlottesville could not benefit from the second frequency, which is already funded and due to be launched within two years.

It will literally pass Charlottesville without stopping on its daily runs between Lynchburg and Boston if we do not commit to these changes.

The first Lynchburg train tripled ridership at the Charlottesville station and is presently running near capacity.

I recognize you've inherited the situation at the station from decisions by previous councils and from our take it for granted approach of the past 20 years.

I'm grateful for the stewardship of Union Station Partners,

in keeping it in use for public transportation for the services brought to us by Amtrak in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

And I'm confident you'll protect the public interest in your zoning decisions tonight and not make it any harder for the public to afford these changes as a result of increasing market value for Amtrak property.

A great vision would be for the station to be a regional facility, much as the airport is owned and operated regionally.

Perhaps the Amtrak station could be the city's airport in that respect.

Finally, I would like to ask you to look into and review the revenue sharing that takes place, if it does, if it does, between the city and union station partners for the profits from the parking spaces on city-owned property at the station.

I paid $2 today to park for an hour in a city-owned space next to the CSX tracks.

The daily fee is $12, the weekly fee is $50.

I would like to know what portion of those fees goes to the city.

Thank you.

I'm Del Irwin and I live at 1721 Arrowwood Drive, Charlottesville.

First, thank you for serving on the city council and helping to maintain the beautiful city that I have come to love after living here for 17 years.

In our recent history, our city has demonstrated a concern for justice and equality.

One example for this is that we host an astounding 952 nonprofit organizations in Charlottesville.

You have supported many moral and justice issues, such as banning the box on city applications, establishing a living wage for city employees, and working on affordable housing.

I love coming downtown and supporting our businesses, especially I appreciate our downtown library housed in a historic building whose marble and woodwork I admire whenever I'm inside.

But, yes, a buck.

My frequent trips to the library cause me great discomfort because I always see the looming statue honoring General Lee.

which in my view is a blight on our community.

Why do we continue to honor a treasonous general, a man who seceded from the United States, who fought and supported the killing of many thousands to support states' rights for slavery?

I have never heard of a nation that so honors treason and the losing army.

That shameful history and heritage should not be honored.

How would we feel if Germany displayed statues of Nazi generals and displayed the swastika?

Both are part of their history and heritage.

This statue is a constant reminder of an indescribably evil system, a symbol we should denounce.

A history and heritage we should denounce, not honor.

Even though I am a white woman who grew up in Alabama, a significant branch of the Confederacy, I deplore the symbol that honors something so horrific.

I cannot begin to imagine the pain this must cause my African American brothers and sisters.

Let's replace this blight with some true heroes.

What a courageous statement this would make to our youth.

Such removal is but a small token of recognizing grave injustices done to our African American community.

We all know some of Charlottesville past racial evils such as destroying the Vinegar Hill community, our history of racism,

Lighting Integration, and Closing Schools.

Isn't it time we make this gesture towards righting some wrongs committed?

In closing, I'd like to imitate President Reagan's admonition to the Russian leader Gorbachev.

Hi, I'm Jean Hyatt.

My home is at 1534 Rugby Avenue.

I'm currently the president of Preservation Piedmont, a local historic preservation organization.

We applaud the council's strong support of the staff's West Main Street zoning ordinance amendments and we thank you for your interest in reducing the allowable building heights on West Main Street, setting clearer guidelines about setbacks and step-backs on buildings, and removing the options for developers to increase building heights

through special use permits.

We urge you to move forward swiftly this evening to pass these new well-designed and thoroughly researched zoning ordinance amendments.

It is my understanding that a significant majority of Charlottesville residents will be very pleased and relieved when these amendments are passed.

My concern is the pending decision on the land at 100 Ridge Street, a property that is adjacent to three historic districts, West Main Street, South Street, and Ridge Street.

The city staff and the Planning Commission concur that the most appropriate zoning classification for this property is West Main Street East.

Allowing this property to be transferred to the Water Street District could allow a new building on this elevated site to be as tall as 101 feet with a special use permit.

Such a building would be remarkably similar to the flats on West Main Street and the uncommon, a new second enormous building at the corner of West Main and 10th.

The citizens of Charlottesville are hopeful that council will be able to prevent such massive out-of-scale projects in the future.

If the council is determined to move Midway into the Water Street District, it is our understanding that the Midway Manor property owners have already offered several concessions, such as increased setbacks.

Please include in the motion to ask staff to prepare language for a zoning text amendment that will set guidelines to more closely control what can be built at that site.

Thank you.

Good evening, my name is John Cruikshank.

I live at 324 Parkway Street.

This evening I am speaking as a representative of the Piedmont Group of the Sierra Club.

On April 20, 2015, Council passed a resolution which states that City Council is committed to reducing overall pesticide use and eliminating pesticide use where feasible in as many city sites as possible, particularly in and on our school grounds and in city parks.

This coming April, you will receive the report from Parks and Recreation on their integrated pest management program.

I believe you will find that some progress has been made in achieving the goals set last year.

In 2015, synthetic chemical pesticides were not used in the interior section of McGuffey Park, where so many children play each week.

There's been a pilot program using the weed dragon to manage weed growth on hardscapes.

This is a propane torch that is used to kill weeds and it can be used in place of using something like Roundup.

Signs and flags have been used to notify the public when a chemical pesticide has been applied to farms and school grounds.

However, to eliminate the application of synthetic chemical pesticides in our parks and our school yards, it may be necessary to purchase special equipment, safer organic products, and to employ additional gardens.

This is a very good investment.

The city must ensure that our children are not exposed to toxic chemicals that could have adverse effects on their health,

and their ability to learn.

The Sierra Club is asking council to end the use of these poisons in the parks and school grounds in 2016.

What could possibly be more important than our children?

In addition, the Sierra Club would like to also express support for the new zoning regulations for West Main corridor that will ensure the new buildings are more in line with the area's historic character

while also making this a bike and pedestrian friendly area.

The plan adopted by the Planning Commission is a reasonable compromise.

Please approve these proposed zoning rules.

Thank you.

Mayor Signer and Councillors, I'm Paige Williams, a law firm with Lenhart Pettit.

My address is 530 Main Street.

I'm also a two-time lottery winner.

I represent Union Station Partners, which is managed by Alan Kajean, who spoke to you at the March 7 council meeting about his frustration with the city's stance on development, and in particular with the property commonly known as the Amtrak site.

I'm supplementing my letter to you from March 18.

We ask that you follow the recommendation of the city's zoning code consultant to have text map parcel 30-2 be fully included in the West Main West District and those portions of text map parcel 30-2A and 30-2B which are west of a line from Cream Street also be included in the West Main West designation.

Additionally, this action was commented on by Chris Engel, the city's Economic Development Director

as potentially being a beneficial change from his economic development perspective.

You should not be guided by what's simple.

Anyone interested in developing a piece of land will look into the zoning.

Rather than by simply adopting a physical feature such as the Drury Brown Bridge as the dividing line between West Main Street West and West Main Street East zoning districts, we would encourage you to consider the particular attributes of the Amtrak site for development purposes and the challenges

or Development that affect this and no other property.

Then these can be mitigated by additional height.

What other site in the West Main Street corridor can be better suited for development than this property?

The Amtrak site is roughly a triangular piece of property with two sides that are adjacent to railroad tracks.

Just over the tracks on the west is the West Main Street West designated area.

We're right next to it.

The portion of our client's property which we seem to have included in West Main Street West is largely a surface parking area, which is as much as 25 feet below the grade of West Main Street.

Other than the train station, which my client renovated, no other building on the site would be impacted, which is different from other areas.

The large portion of undeveloped real estate, not covered by buildings historic or not, makes the impact

site different from those other properties in West Main Street East.

Also, the Amtrak site is required to maintain public access and parking for riders on Amtrak trains.

Train travel has become very popular, as Ms. Richards points out.

I hope it's not Council's position on zoning to drive down the value of this property so that it might be converted for public use.

Howard Riff developed several floors of the building constructed on the Amtrak site will be dedicated to structured parking.

No other property on West Main Street east has this impediment and we need the additional height to accommodate this.

So we'd like a tax map 30-2, 100% West Main and the other two portions I mentioned west of Green Street.

Okay, so we, I thank you all for your comments.

We generally do a response from the city manager to the issues raised the last time.

Yeah, I'd like to make a few comments.

Peter Klayman, I agree with your sentiment about the wording of the council meeting procedure, and I brought it up.

I have been told that it will never happen, that we won't be able to respond directly to the citizens, and my response was if it's never going to happen, then take it out of the council procedure.

I have just one quick thing on something that's not on the agenda, which is the, Ms. Peck, who's talking about the living wage.

One quick comment, just like to say very quickly, it is refreshing to see a full house, quote unquote, in here at the city council meeting.

Community and civic engagement is very important to us.

I know that there may be some individuals who may be waiting to hear about one particular topic, but that will not be discussed until the end of the meeting or in the business.

So I just want to make sure that everyone is clear about that.

That's good.

We had a couple of issues that came from the 27th meeting.

Ms. Nancy Carpenter had questions about the gender diversity of a flyer that had been developed for an upcoming re-entry resource fair.

We did review the flyer, found that there were two women who were on there.

They weren't prominently featured.

There was a male who was prominently featured.

But we did take a look at that.

With that in mind, we've taken steps to ensure that other materials that we produce for that

will not leave any impression of bias.

There's no intent there at all.

Vice Mayor Bellamy requested that the city consider providing funding for dinner for the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority board meetings.

We've asked CRHA for their thoughts on that offering.

I believe they will be discussing that issue at their next meeting a week from tonight.

And Mr. Louis Schultz raised two issues during the last meeting, one questioning the legality of having the city council elections in November and the other on the term of

the city manager's contract with the city.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of council.

Let me respond to those in the opposite order of which the city manager raised.

The first is the claim that the city manager's contract is inconsistent with state law because state law requires public employees to be at-will employees

and the city's charter with regard to the city manager specifically states that the city manager shall serve at the pleasure of the council, which I would submit is just another way of saying the city manager must be an at-will employee.

Now, an at-will employee, and these are the words of the Virginia Supreme Court, they've said, in Virginia, an employment relationship is presumed to be at-will

which means that the employment term extends for an indefinite period, and this is the important part of it, and may be terminated by the employer for any reason upon reasonable notice.

So in summary, you don't need cause to discharge the city manager.

He can be discharged for any reason or no reason.

So what does his contract say?

Section 4A.

Nothing contained in this agreement shall impair the right of the City Council to terminate the employment of the manager pursuant to Section 7B below at Council's sole discretion without any formal investigation or hearing and without stating charges or complaints against the manager.

Now, just in case that's not clear enough, Section 7B, the City Council may terminate this agreement and the employment of the manager without cause at any time during the contract term upon written notice of the termination given to the manager at least 60 days prior to the effective date of the termination.

I think if you would ask Mr. Jones, he would confirm that he is well aware that he is an at-will employee subject to being discharged by counsel at your discretion and that he does not have a fixed term.

The second issue that I will address is the allegation that the city's elections were illegally moved from May to November.

There is a state statute which says that, and the basis for that is because the city's charter says that the city's elections will be in May.

There's a state statute which explicitly says, regardless of what the statute says, elections for city council members shall be in May.

And the purpose for that state statute is to provide for uniformity in elections

and avoid confusion which might result if towns and cities were permitted to conduct elections throughout the year for purposes of electing council members.

So that's one statute.

A second statute passed in 2000 changed that rule and said councils have the option of moving their council elections to November in the same year.

November of even-numbered years.

Two years after that, that statute was amended to say councils can move their election to any November, to November of even numbered years or a high number of years.

After that statute, the city adopted an ordinance which was supported by the city's electoral board and by an election task force appointed by the council.

It was reviewed and pre-cleared by the United States Department of Justice and the Federal Voting Rights Act and council elections, as you know, were moved to November of odd number of years.

In my opinion, that was consistent with state law.

Now, I do feel compelled to point out that that's not just my opinion.

The exact same argument was raised, unbeknownst to me,

or I think anyone up here, last October to the State Board of Elections.

And their conclusion, without consulting with the city, to the best of my knowledge, was that the city had properly moved its elections to move them afterwards.

So I will be happy to answer any questions on those two issues.

Or can we?

We can ask the General Assembly to do that.

Now let me mention one other thing that's going on right now.

Right now we're working from a city code that was adopted and approved in 1990.

and we're in the process that we've hired a company to recodify that code and we have a meeting scheduled in the next few weeks because we've gone through the entire code not for the purpose of making any substantive changes but to update the code to reflect things that have happened in the intervening period and you know in some time in the ensuing months we will bring that to council for approval of a brand new

Thank you very much.

We have a very busy agenda.

So I'll be here to get started.

We have the, we're gonna move on to our budgetary, oh, I'm sorry, consent agenda first.

Ms. Rice, will you read the consent?

And thank you all so much for coming.

This was a really nice showing for the first hour of our meeting.

Item A, minutes for March 7th.

Item B, in appropriation, CATEC to the CATEC IT Networking Academy Project, $10,000, second of two meetings.

Item D, in appropriation,

Piedmont workforce network increment worker training matching grant, $3,010, second of two readings.

Item E in appropriation, CATEC to the CATEC IT Networking Academy Project, $201,500, first of two readings.

Item F in appropriation, 2015 Edward Byron Memorial Justice Assistance Grant, $24,950, first of two readings.

Item G, an appropriation for the Community Mental Health and Wellness Coalition donation from Charlottesville Albemarle Community Foundation, $10,000 versus two readings.

Item H, resolution, safe routes to school, non-infrastructure grant application, $66,000 versus one reading.

Item I, a resolution, allocation of Charlottesville affordable housing fund for repayment of CDBG funds, $12,598.95 versus one reading.

Item J, a resolution easement for temporary construction of right-of-way easement with the United States Postal Service, Hillsdale Drive extension, first of one reading.

Does Council have any questions on the consent agenda?

If not, is there a motion to approve?

Any discussion?

All in favor?

Motion carries five to zero.

Thank you all.

Yes, sir.

Update on the budget for you all.

Before we move, is there a presentation, then a public hearing, then a presentation, then a public hearing?

OK, great.

Sign up sheets again are right there if anybody wants to sign up.

Members of Council, it's my pleasure to present once again the proposed budget for fiscal year 17.

Several themes for this year are strong support for our schools, preserving the quality services that we offer to our residents, to the businesses that we serve here in Charlottesville, and visitors to our city.

We are enacting some savings and efficiencies in our government operations that will continue beyond just fiscal year 17.

Our focus continues on our strategic plan that city council passed about a year ago, almost two years ago.

And as we've mentioned before, we do propose maintaining our real estate tax rate at 95 cents for $100 of assessed value.

So let's take a look at just kind of recent history when it comes to changes in our general fund budget.

So as you can see, our proposed budget of close to $162 million is a 3.5% increase over fiscal year 2016.

as you've seen over the last four or five years or so, we've seen small increases in the fiscal year budgets.

Revenue projections for fiscal year 17, similar trends as previous years, relatively slow growth but kind of in the new normal that a lot of folks across the state and across the country are dealing with.

Our real estate assessments are healthier than the last couple of years.

We have positive news when it comes to new city development

and we do have a revenue base that's diverse and well-balanced and that has served us well over the course of the last five, six, seven years or so as the country struggled with recession.

So we are proposing as part of this budget an increase in the transient occupancy tax, that's our lodging tax, from 6% to 7%.

This generates approximately $566,000 in new revenue to help fund schools' needs,

Just a snapshot of where we are when it comes to hotels and hotel rooms here in Charlottesville.

We currently have 1,900 hotel rooms with 500 or more that are on the planning tables for the next couple of years.

We have a couple that are under construction right now, and I can attest that we need those hotel rooms.

This past weekend was proof positive of that.

I had a friend come to town, couldn't find one hotel room because of an Elton John concert, the Virginia Festival of the Book,

in addition to that, the Ten-Miler.

So, Charlottesville was very popular this weekend.

Very healthy revenue trends, up 14% since fiscal year 13 and fiscal year 16 is performing better than we had projected going into this budget season.

Just to give you a sense of where we compare to other cities around the state of Virginia, if we were to, city council was to pass the increase in the

Lodging tax would go to 7%.

That would put us at about 18th, tied for 18th, out of 38 Virginia cities.

So still in line with other cities and lower than many tourist destinations in Charlottesville, I mean in Virginia.

So this is our general fund revenues.

Taking a real quick look at this, 68.8% of our general funds come from local taxes.

The biggest source of that is the real estate.

Our revenue projections, real estate is up 5.7%, personal property up 5.5%, sales up 2.84%, meals up 5.5%, lodging, if we moved from 6 to 7%, that would increase revenue overall by $880,000 per lodging.

General fund expenditures, you can see there that

Education is our largest piece of the pie at 33.35%, public safety at 25%, infrastructure at a little over 9.5%, and then also healthy families and community is third at 18.29%.

Just talk to you a little bit in detail about the funding for the schools, $49.3 million for fiscal year 17.

That's an increase of close to $2 million or 4.2% increase over our current fiscal year that we're in right now.

once again demonstrates how much this city supports our schools.

There are a few other major budget drivers, compensation and benefits for our employees, healthcare costs have increased.

This budget would fully fund our city's requirement towards our retirement fund, and there is a 2% COLA cost of living increase for our employees.

Regional jail, detention center, library system,

Paratransit services that's jaunt for our region.

Those are all going up and there was a slight decrease in funding for the 9-1-1 center.

Debt service requirements are increasing to support our capital budget once again.

So our CIP program, over $20 million in projects for next year, almost $2 million going to the schools for capital improvements, $600,000 in sidewalks, the general district and

at Circuit Court Projects, a million dollars towards those.

First installment in the West Main Street Improvement Project for $3.5 million, McIntyre Master Plan and a million dollars, a little over $4 million for Public Safety and Justice, and the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund at $1.56 million.

So our budget calendar, of course tonight we have several public hearings, one on the real estate tax levy, as I mentioned before, that's 95 cents per $100 of assessed value,

The transient occupancy tax rate is being proposed to go up from 6% to 7% and then a third public hearing on the city manager's overall budget that has been proposed to city council.

So three public hearings for us to consider tonight and hear from the public.

Just a couple of days from now, on Wednesday at 7 p.m. in city space, we'll hold our community budget forum.

It's an opportunity for the public to speak with city council and our staff.

March 31st, we'll have a work session from 5 to 7 p.m.

The council will concentrate, they'll talk a little bit about the CIP, but they'll also concentrate on outside nonprofit agencies.

And of course, we have public comment for our work sessions at the end of those work sessions.

April 4th, we'll have our second public hearing on the budget.

At 7 p.m., that's also the first reading of the budget, right here in City Hall.

April 7th, another work session for the city council if it's necessary.

Public, once again, invited to speak

at the end of that work session.

And then April 12th, the City Council will get together and approve the budget 5.30 p.m. 2nd floor conference room here in City Hall.

With that, we will return to the Council and open things up for consideration.

If you have any questions whatsoever or thoughts or want to learn more about our budget, you can go to our website charlottesville.org slash budget.

You can always email the City Council and our staff

Thank you, Mr. Jones.

This premium, unefficiency foretells great things to come.

I've got two questions.

But short-term temporary employees do not get a raise?

Just two then.

No, those are categorized as temporary employees.

OK, let's move to the public hearing.

Currently, nobody has signed up for the two hearings on the tax rate and the lodging tax.

We have eight people signed up for the proposed 2017 budget.

So I will open each hearing.

I just wanted everybody to know.

So we're doing the public hearing on the, well, let's

Public hearing on the fiscal year 2017 tax rate, opening that hearing, closing it.

Anybody?

Yeah, would you like to?

And this applies to each public hearing.

I'm Peter Kleeman, I live 407 Head Street in the city.

My understanding that the city publishes in the Daily Progress or some other publication what the tax rate is proposed and what the effective tax rate is and it basically identifies how much additional revenue is being raised because of the change in the assessed valuation of all properties in the city and then it would publish what the

effective tax rate would be, I'm not sure the terminology on that, but it would say what it would be if there was no additional revenue so that the tax rate would be lowered to accommodate.

So instead of being at 95 cents, it would be 2.3 or whatever the number might be.

And that, I have not seen that and it would seem appropriate that we should see those information bits before we have to comment on the tax rate.

We're being asked to comment on something that we have not yet been given all the significant information and the legally required information.

Thank you.

Mr. Mayor, can I?

Yes, of course.

Okay, I'm going to close that public hearing.

The next one is the hearing on the amendment to the city tax code of the transient occupancy and lodging tax.

Nobody signed up, but does anybody want to speak on this?

I have some information here, a list of 17 questions that I submitted to the mayor for his meetings of which city staff was kind enough to take some time and respond.

Therefore, my knowledge in our workings of the budget

It's gotten much better than the last time I was up here complaining about it.

There are a few things I would like to discuss with you in my couple of minutes and maybe share with the public.

One is that ultimately since the year 2009

We're under budget about $28,000, so the city's created a $28 million surplus since 2009 to 2015 based on the general fund year end performance chart that I have here in front of me.

It's quite impressive.

One thing I am very concerned about going into the fiscal year 17 is the capital improvement program.

We're looking at $20 million

as a line item for this year's proposed budget.

$15 million of that is bonded.

We're currently about $82 million in bonded debt, and we're looking at raising debt service limits and creating, I think we're at 17% now, a security fund, which sits in an account at 1% savings while we borrow at 2.2%.

So as we look down the next five years of the capital improvement program, we see the numbers start to dwindle.

I start to get very concerned that the only way to maintain if this trend keeps up is that we're just going to raise a tax this year, raise a tax next year, raise a tax another year.

We're bonding and bonding to do capital improvements.

I don't know that that's necessarily the safest route to go, in my mind.

In the transportation and access line, there's a nice line that we saw in the presentation called the SIA Immediate Implementation Line.

I would propose to Council on Management that we find a way to put in a West Main Street immediate implementation line and use that to create a left-hand lead green turn signal onto 7th Street.

I know we have $3.5 million in the budget in the next two or three years for West Main, but to get something done now with some of that money would be a great idea.

Left-hand turn between the church, First Baptist Church and the Amtrak station was the one thing

Steering Committee, and West Main, all unanimously agreed to.

There were not many things that were unanimously agreed to.

I'm a little concerned with one more thing.

That's the amount of money that has been spent on consulting over the last three years.

2013, $2.4 million.

2014, $1.8 million.

And 2015, $1.8 million.

That's service listing items.

Roadside and Harwell's there.

A lot of other projects are there.

I know not all of them are 100% consulting.

Thank you.

Good evening.

I'm Brenda Castaneda.

I live at 269th Street Northwest, and I'm the legal director for civil advocacy for Legal Aid Justice Center here in town.

I'm here tonight to ask the city council to restore the funding to legal aid as a part of the ABRT process.

About $52,000 was cut from the civil advocacy program.

Legal aid provides legal services to low-income folks in the city and surrounding counties.

Last year in the city alone, we got $187,000 in judgments and settlements for clients and prevented the loss of over $240,000 for city residents.

I think we're pretty unique in the service we provide in that we are able to use multifaceted strategies to achieve results for our clients, including both individual representation and also

Community organizing, assisting community members in learning their rights and organizing for results they want and also impact litigation including class actions and legislative advocacy as well as other strategies.

I want to tell you a little bit about two of our clients who are city residents who I was hoping could be here but I think we've had some transportation and timing issues.

Lisa Briggs and Darlene Johnson.

Ms. Briggs came to us a few years ago.

She was working hard to acquire the title to her house.

She needed to clean up her credit in order to complete the transaction, and she came to us because she had some tough debt collectors that were hanging out that she couldn't pay off.

We helped her negotiate with four separate debt collectors.

to pay off or get rid of those debts including two that had gone to judgment because of abuse of misleading collection notices from the debt collector.

So we stopped collection on all of those debts and she was able to get the title to her house.

This last year one of those debts in typical zombie debt manner came back to life and another debt collector was trying to collect on that and we

filed a federal lawsuit on her behalf and stopped the collection and we had also sued the debt owner and this time we got as part of the settlement an agreement that they will not attempt to fuck that debt again.

Darlene Johnson was a client who lives in the city in low income tax credit housing.

She was sued by her landlord for rent she didn't owe.

She had a receipt, she brought it to the office and they sued her anyway.

The first time they sued the case was dismissed and the judge admonished them about that.

And yet they sued her again and refused to dismiss the case despite us presenting the receipts that she had again for rent she did not owe.

Ms. Johnson has a number of health issues and these legal setbacks caused her to miss some dialysis appointments which made her health worse.

We were able to file a counterclaim against the landlord resulting in a judgment for Ms. Johnson and get them to stop attempting to evict her for rent she didn't owe.

Thank you.

Lisa Briggs.

My name is Nancy Carpenter and I live in the Rose Hill neighborhood section.

To speak tonight about advocating for additional funding for the public works, the CAT and Jaunt Transit Services.

The PowerPoint said that there was increased funding

but actually the level of service may be going down.

You talk about Route 7, which is one of the seven day a week routes that both the city and county fund will be dropping a bus per hour going back to 20 minutes.

And if you look on their app, a mobile app, and you're waiting for a bus, times are sometimes five to 10 minutes either way.

So what starts as a 20 minute

change in the number of buses per hour can sometimes be 25 or 30.

Or if they're running on Route 29 and we just heard that they had to shut down a lane because of some steel plates moving, that it could even be longer.

And if you're looking at a goal, an overarching goal of that funding is to create self-sustainability or to assist with self-sustainability of city residents in order to get around to the jobs.

We have a lot of new job fairs starting.

You've got the resource

Green Tree Resource Fair.

You're having one for teens.

There's another one coming up.

You have a lot of go incentives through the city.

Go driver, go CNA, go hospitality.

What else is coming?

But you want to promote economic opportunity for a lot of people that have felt inequality in this city and to look at decreasing

the number of service routes.

And I know that you're talking about Avon Street and the 5th Street Station, however that comes out.

But the city fell, I mean the city, excuse me, the county fell down on that planning because initially the developer had proffered annual contributions to transit each year.

And so that was proffered down to one initial payment of a hundred and some thousand dollars, which as we see is not going to really do a whole lot.

And I know that the county

is looking at their budget when

I think that we need to put more money back into the budget or put that less back on Route 7 or try to incentivize some of these employers to

to participate in the regional transportation.

You've got a lot of big box stores coming on 5th Street.

We have a lot of big box stores.

The 8th I see on Stonefield.

I don't see very many people getting off the Route 8 going to Stonefield.

I don't see that as a destination when I ride the Route 8, which is the one that goes there.

So I just want to advocate for some more money for public transit.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Barb Albemarle.

I live at 1642 Meridian Street in the city.

I haven't paid much attention to what you people have been doing for probably about 15 years.

And when this year's budget number came out, it hurt my head.

So I did some research to figure out why.

Your 97-98 budget was $65 million, the whole thing.

If we had gone and adjusted for inflation, which over the last 20 years has been 48%, your budget this year would be $96 million.

You're telling me you have to have tax increases because your budget of $162 million is just what you have to do.

That doesn't make sense to me.

I don't walk around this city and feel like

Wow, this year, $60 million more stuff is happening that I can see in my transit or my big spot holes or my sidewalks or increased skilling of safety.

I don't feel that increase.

The budget has increased 150% over these last 12 years.

The school budget increase is 225%.

I don't know where we are with per capita spending, but I seriously doubt that our enrollment numbers have gone through that, otherwise we'd have crowding problems and we'd have heard about that.

I feel like everybody looks from one year to one year to one year and it's not so much and it's not so much and it amps up and it's huge.

If you only had

you know, the inflation number to work with.

What would you be doing this year if you only had $96 million?

Where are the 60 million cuts you'd be looking for, 66 million?

What would you not be doing?

Where do I see that verily?

Where do I go to find that value?

The graphic you put up about the percentage increases, that looks nifty because it goes down because you go from the high of 12.08 increase

2007-2008 to an actual decrease for one year of 1.19% in 2010-2011.

That looks like a big improvement, but what it really is is a big amp up with one tiny jag down.

I find that sort of graphic to be misleading.

I find when you send me the pie chart with 20 some odd pieces in it and text below it and there are 16 or 15 line items and they don't line up with the pie chart,

Thank you.

Good evening, Councillors.

Collette Hall, 101 Robertson Lane in the city.

As Councillors passing the city budget, as Councillors passing the city budget is the most important thing you can do each year.

Most decisions you will make will be predicated on the budget.

Thank God the city is required by law to pass a balanced budget.

Most revenue and expenditures come from the local budget.

We know that mandated state and federal laws and regulations now depend in large on the local budget.

State and federal monies have tightened up or are nonexistent.

The notice of proposed real property tax increase was in the daily progress.

As an intelligent person, I had to read it three times to understand it.

I even emailed the Clerk of Council for clarification.

Have any of you read the legalese speak of this notice?

One of the largest ways the city increases revenue is by increasing real estate assessments.

This year, many assessments will be up around 3 to 3.76 percent.

This year, my assessment did not increase, but last year it increased by almost 5 percent.

Remember when last year's budget controversy was a 1% increase in the meals tax?

My husband and I do not go out to eat, not because of the 1%, but because of the almost 5% increase in our real estate tax.

Many commercial buildings have recently been built in the process of being built or proved to be built.

The point is, why does so much of the burden fall on residential owners?

I can remember a few years ago, the value of commercial real estate was so under assessed that that council directed the assessors to refocus on commercial properties.

What about the residents who rent out a room or their house for a weekend?

How many of them are paying tax on their revenue?

I hope you fix that in equity.

There are thousands of people living in Charlottesville, I do not refer to the university students, but to those thousands who pay no real estate tax at all.

The burden falls on fewer and fewer.

The proposed budget is a 3.5% increase.

Every year it goes up by a significant percentage.

Please don't blame this only on the increased cost of living.

It is also a lack of fiscal responsibility.

Residential owners are being crucified on the cost of needless expenditures.

Thank you.

Good evening, Brandon Collins.

I live at 418 Fairway Avenue.

I've lived in Charlottesville my entire life.

I have three children who've also lived here their entire lives.

and I wanted to add support for funding for the Legal Aid Justice Center through the ABRT process.

I think it's really important for this council and really everybody in the city to recognize what it is that Legal Aid does over there that is so important and so unique.

In the criminal justice system, if you are going to court, you have a guarantee of representation, right?

You have that right to defense.

In civil court, you don't get that.

And what legal aid does is provide that to low-income residents.

And as we know, in Charlottesville, we have an inequality problem.

We can chat all day about why that is and how that plays out and whether it's overinflated or whatever.

but the truth is there's a lot of people in this town who get run over by landlords, they get run over by debt collectors, all kinds of different experiences that these folks have and without Legal Aid they have no way to confront those things.

Does Catherine Yetta explain, you know, just two instances of people being served by their organization but they do this every day in large numbers and without their support they can't do their job as well and it's vitally important that we keep Legal Aid Justice Center

I also want to put in a pitch for the Just Children program at Lehigh which really helps families and children move things forward and advocate on behalf of children, kids with disabilities, folks who are having problems in schools and really have an effect on their lives and can turn lives around in the most fantastic

and emotional ways that are so beneficial to those families and also to our community.

So I really hope you'll support fully funding the Legal Aid Justice Center.

I also wanted to add a pitch for the COLA, the cost of living adjustment for temporary employees and also a pitch for a living wage for temporary employees.

This city talked a big game a number of years back about having a living wage, passed a living wage ordinance for its employees

went to UVA and said, hey, UVA, you ought to pay a living wage.

And UVA didn't really listen.

And the city said, no, there are other workers at UVA that should get paid a living wage as well.

And yet the city doesn't pay all of its employees a living wage.

It's really a loophole.

And it's disingenuous to say that the city pays a living wage.

Also, your wage is still a little low to be called a living wage.

But you can do that another day.

Point is, all workers for the City of Charlottesville should be paid at the same base pay, whether they're temporary or not.

And finally, support for public transportation is vitally important for this community.

Please always stand up for public transportation.

It needs to be the wave of the future.

Okay, thank you all.

We are now moving on to the next, let me close that.

Do you have a comment?

Good evening.

On March 7th of this year you had a first reading on the West Main Street proposed code changes.

The item today is on your regular agenda items as opposed to your consent.

agenda per your request at that March 7th meeting.

I'd just like to note that the report provided to you today is the same report that you received from March 7th with the exception of the proposed zoning ordinances which have been updated per your conversation on March 7th.

I'd actually like to ask in light of this, just for a

explanation from our city attorney for kind of a problem that he's found in what we got already.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the council.

At the first reading, there were a number of changes proposed to the materials that were put before council.

And one of those proposed changes was to change the allowable density by right in both the West Main Street East and West Main Street West mixed-use corridor districts.

The proposal that had been brought to you

by staff through the Planning Commission would have retained the 43 units per acre by right and allowed up to 200 dwelling units per acre by special use permit.

On first reading, council changed that to allow up to 200 dwelling units per acre by right with no additional units by special use permit.

We went back and looked and the ad that had actually run to give people notice of these proposed changes, it said that 43 dwelling units per acre by right would not change.

So our concern is that the motion that was made on first reading in that one respect is inconsistent with the published notice and arguably reasons property to what some could argue is a more intensive use.

and the general rule is if you are going to do that, you must follow the same procedure submitted to a public hearing after notice, recommendation from the Planning Commission and in action by council.

So one of your options tonight, and I have placed on the dais there in front of you, is a resolution that initiates

a text amendment which would in fact be consistent with what was proposed on the first reading and that would go back to the Planning Commission for an advertised public hearing and their recommendation on allowing 200 dwelling units per acre by right.

I would suggest you make a motion, second, and vote just on that amendment and then you can proceed to second reading regardless of how it turns out.

Then with the intention of

asking to put at the end of our agenda under new business a zoning text amendment requesting that the Planning Commission review precisely that, and I have wording for it that I'll add when we get there.

Your second.

Second.

All in favor?

Carries five to zero.

Now we're moving back to the discussion.

The motion as it now stands.

The motion as it now stands, right.

Another issue that is in this is

making Midway Manor part of the Water Street District rather than the West Main East.

And several people have recommended and the Midway Manor has agreed to actually suggested some zoning text amendments to the Water Street District which I think will lessen the perceived, well the real impact of what development there could be under existing

and the other.

include a required step back after 45 feet along both South Street and Ridge Street frontages, required 10 foot setback with a screening buffer where the property abuts the South Street zoning district, and a prohibition of ground floor residential uses along Ridge Street, thus promoting an intersection that is activated and more pedestrian friendly.

This was a, so I want to explain one thing too, which is under our new rules we are really focusing on getting through discussion about emotion quickly.

But when we have a complicated motion, we're going, we could do more discussion and explanation with the public about what went into that motion.

So we have five minutes to explain emotion and introduce it.

So that's part of what we're doing here is engaging the public a little bit more about what happened with this fairly complicated motion last time.

We still have 10 minutes left in this agenda block.

So if any of us wanted to ask questions in the midway manner, folks, we could do that.

I just want to say that or do anything else about this issue.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of council.

I'm Valerie Long with the law firm of Williams Mullen.

We represent the owners of the Midway Manor property at 100 Bridge Street, and Mark Rinaldi is here with me with Midway Manor Associates.

Absolutely, Mr. Fenwick, the offer is still on the table.

It was the suggestion that we brought forward

with the original request that council consider the Water Street District zoning for the Midway Manor property.

We worked closely with staff to identify areas where perhaps there were just some, they had first identified, I should say, some shortcomings in the way the Water Street District regulations were written just because at the time the zoning on this particular block wasn't contemplated for Water Street District on the south side of Water, of South Street.

So after they raised those issues and some others had raised an issue about the lack of a buffer to this adjacent South Street zoning properties, we suggested those two amendments to the zoning regulations and then we also realized on our own that there was, I think it was just an oversight, there was no express prohibition of ground floor residential in the Water Street District, so we suggested that as well.

So absolutely it was at our request.

We're grateful you're moving forward with it and appreciate your consideration of the Water Street Zoning District.

And I'd just like to point out that the reason that I'm proposing this, that the Planning Commission considers this zoning tax amendment and the moving of Midway Manor into that district, I think makes good zoning sense and that's why I've done it.

But I also just wanted to call out the fact that this is a property owner that has provided supported affordable housing in our community well and well maintained.

And that's something that I think is important to consider.

Yes, Mr. Mayor, I would just like to make a comment about why I support this amendment as well and why I support the inclusion of the Midway Manor site to the Water Street district.

I do believe that that's in good planning practice as well for a couple of reasons.

One, it would promote the same scale of architecture as the Lewis and Clark building, thereby completing that street elevation along that segment of Ridge McIntyre

I believe in a more cohesive manner, as seen from the intersection of West Main Street.

And I noticed that very clearly the other day, that without some consistency of building height and massing, the Lewis and Clark building is quite an outlier.

That needs to be a background building, it needs more background.

Second, that building

The new fabric on that segment of Ridge Street would signal a change in character reflective of a very different district from West Main Street beyond the wide intersection at Ridge Street, which it would be signaling an entry, a gateway into a much more robust business and entertainment district.

By the same token, I believe keeping the other properties on Ridge Street within the West Main East

zoning designation makes for a better physical transition to the adjacent lower intensity zoning areas surrounding those pieces.

And that is also more compatible with the SIA's form-based code orientation.

So again, the public has come to me and wanted a better explanation as to why we did what we did, and that's an explanation.

Thank you.

Mr. Bennett?

I wanted to raise the other issue that the public brought before us this evening, and that's the waiver issue.

I'd like to know what the sense of the council is.

As it stands now, this proposal is for the Neighborhood Development Services Director, or I think for the Planning Commission.

My thought is it should go back to the Planning Commission if it goes to anybody or I guess it wouldn't come to us before it went to the Planning Commission.

Mr. Mayor, I have a motion to make that could be a way to debate this.

And the motion would be to eliminate the waiver provision of 34-1101B

I'll put that as an amendment to the amendment.

That's a motion.

Yeah, I'll second.

Okay, great.

So, I guess my concern in doing that tonight and

I don't personally know if there might be a kind of an elevator, a piece of an elevator

19 feet high that would be perfectly reasonable under a waiver process if the NDS director were to look at it and say, yeah, that makes sense.

Whereas if we do this, then we're just completely eliminating any possibility for any kind of new technology or some new kind of apparatus that might make an elevator work more efficiently or more energy-efficiently quicker.

Mr. Mayor, to confirm or to kind of explain the rationale behind this motion.

The idea being is to actually discipline the process and limit any kind of unpredictability in the process.

So that once the rules are very clear, the architects, developers, the applicant adheres to those rules.

So open up discretion in this one area

does enter into this whole notion of negotiation waivers can be then viewed as a way to extract things.

This way it is, in no uncertain terms, this is the end of it.

This is as tall as it can be.

No one is left guessing.

And so that is what the beauty of this code has provided us, greater clarity, greater predictability, much more efficiency in the processing.

And that also can enhance the

We've got three more minutes left in this block.

We can move for more time.

All in favor?

And I just have one other question, comment.

I think the question was brought up of whether we were doing this to lower the price of property and kind of how that would affect that property.

and again having made the motion I just want to say that when we look at the way that property heights or the building heights are measured along this corridor we're measuring the height from West Main Street and so if that were zoned West Main West we would have enormous buildings right there at the curbside and so that's why I support making it West Main East to keep it from towering over the rest of that side of the neighborhood.

It's already a high point

on the street.

And to add height there, I think would be a mistake.

Hi, Mr. Mayor.

If I could add a couple more clarifications to that same point.

And Mr. Petit, somebody did say that this 25-foot differential between the top of West Main Street to the bottom of the parking lot by the Amtrak area, that's at least two stories.

So that is an additional two stories to a building that from West Main Street will be perceived as four stories.

So there is ample development rights on that property.

The other thing to keep in mind is that that side of West Main Street currently has a 15-foot setback.

And both sides now of the street are 10 feet.

So that is an additional five feet of additional buildable area.

And the width that one can build on the parcel has gone, I believe, to 85% of the parcel's width as opposed to 80%.

There's been an increase in the width of the parcel that can be built out.

So I just want to clarify that.

Thank you.

OK, we are just at the end of our block.

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

By my count, I believe there are four

Section 34-621 which provides for the density for West Main Street West will be 43 dwelling units per acre by right and up to 200 dwelling units per acre by special use permit.

Section 34-641 density for West Main Street East will provide residential density of 43 dwelling units per acre by right and up to 200 dwelling units per acre by special use permit.

Section 34-1101B which authorizes modifications of

The height or roof coverage of appurtenances by the Director of Neighborhood Development Services or Planning Commission is deleted.

And in the next paragraph, no rooftop appurtenance shall itself measure more than 18 feet in height rather than 16 feet in height.

Two density, one deletion of the modification, and changing the 16 feet.

Any corrections to that or concerns?

Questions?

Okay.

All right, that is ready.

All in favor of the motion that Mr. Brown just read.

All right, that carries five to zero.

Thank you all.

Okay, let's take a, this is our nine o'clock break, so we're taking a five minute break.

All of us, all of us.

Five minutes, thank you all.

you

The End

Thank you.

All right.

So we have allocated 60 minutes.

And this is a working session, essentially a work session.

This is a formal period to talk and ask questions.

We have the experts here.

And Ms. Carrie Rainey is going to present.

We don't necessarily need to take this entire 60 minutes, but we have it.

Good evening.

Carrie Rainey with Neighborhood Development Services.

I'd like to be very brief before I hand the floor over to a representative from our steering committee that's going to present the project to you today.

I'd just like to note that we have several members from our consultant team here today, Elliott Roadside and Ron Sessions from

Roadside in Harwell, and Jeff Dreyfus with Bushman Dreyfus Architects.

So they're here to answer any specific questions that might come up.

There's some plans behind you that were also included in your packet in addition to some additional plans in your packet that you might have questions for.

And I just wanted to make a note that since council decided in September of 2015 to send back approximately 16 items to the Steering Committee, they've met twice to deliberate those items and come before you now with a new consensus.

Good evening, I'm Rachel Lloyd, a 10-ton lawn place and I'm a member of the West Main steering committee.

And I thank you for giving us the opportunity to present some of the steering committee deliberations and process that we've gone through over the last couple of years.

I'm not here to present the schemes or to weigh the advantages of the schemes, but just to share our process and our thinking.

The West Main Steering Committee members have been involved in over two years worth of committee meetings, public open houses, work sessions, lectures, and almost innumerable conversations, emails, and separate meetings with our stakeholder groups.

We've had a lot of interaction with the design team here tonight and have issued two memos to council which have been included in your packets for this evening.

The steering committee was composed of a big variety of stakeholder groups representing different interests and locations and connections along the corridor with neighborhoods, institutions such as the First Baptist Church, UVA, particularly the medical center, first responders, the midtown businesses, and representatives from the bike ped committee, place, planning commission, BAR, and the tree commission.

We had diverse ideas and opinions reflecting our particular stakeholder interests, but we all shared a very high level of commitment to the success of the project.

Several of the stakeholder groups had representatives that have been through the older West Main planning process in previous decades.

Many committee members are long-term Charlottesville residents or have long-term interests in the corridors.

We all agreed on several things.

We all agreed that West Main is changing and most felt that the old trajectory of change wasn't creating the best environment for people who work, live, and travel in the corridor.

We're glad to have the opportunity to help shape the future of West Main.

We all agreed about many of the problems in the corridor, the unmanaged parking,

broken inaccessible sidewalks, the unhealthy trees that are heaving the sidewalks and growing into utilities and some building foundations.

We worried about the dangerous travel lanes, the overhead utilities blocking pedestrian passage in the sidewalks and creating excessive visual complexity in the street.

We worried about the aging subsurface utilities, especially gas lines at the end of their

There was a lot of discussion about the traffic and parking spillover to the traditional adjacent neighborhoods and the generally deteriorating conditions.

And I'll point out at this moment that the parallel project in the city, the streets that work, has identified West Main in their top ten list of priority projects based on their own comprehensive assessment of crashes and other deficiencies in different corridors in the city.

We also shared many common goals for the corridor.

We all wanted to be safe, functional, accessible, thriving, sustainable, diverse, and comfortable public space for our community.

These goals translated into different but very heartfelt priorities.

Some wanted to ensure first responders had rapid access through the corridor, some wanted plenty of access and parking for business patrons and institutions, some wanted safe, multimodal travel opportunities, and so on.

Meeting those goals suggested that we arrange a pretty standard set of street components in the corridor.

The basic program for the street included vehicular lanes, bike lanes, parking, street trees and other plantings, sidewalks, bus stops, and lighting.

We discovered pretty quickly that there simply wasn't enough room in the entire right-of-way to fit all the site program in a way that perfectly satisfied everyone.

We all sensed at the beginning of the process that the concept plan

would likely require a compromise solution.

As a response to the situation, the design consultants have created different design options which offer slightly different strategies for accommodating street components.

Rather than recommending one preferred alternative for council consideration, we chose as a steering committee to send forward the two options that you have in your packet and that are

illustrated in the diagrams above you.

And I will tell you that I just did a back of the neck in calculation today and my sense is that the sort of area that differs between these two schemes probably accounts for about 5% of the overall study area.

We're really, they're very similar in many of their characteristics.

We really kept circling around the idea that better parking management, especially for off-street parking, would make a big difference in the success of the plan.

There are hundreds of parking spaces and off-street lots in the corridor, some privately owned and some public, and we would like to unlock these parking opportunities.

The parking study pointed to better parking enforcement, better signage and wayfinding, legal agreements between private parking owners for shared parking agreements as management options that may take time but not necessarily a lot of cost to implement.

We understand that there are many factors in the decision to

pursue a plan for the future of West Main and we hope that council will consider adopting one of the plan options either for pilot study or for the next phase of design in which some of the details that have troubled us at the concept level can be worked out.

We've spent a tremendous amount of time and money on the planning for West Main and we truly hope that the work bears fruit for the good of the city.

Thank you.

I have questions.

It is like, they're very close.

and by the way, I do appreciate the tremendous amount of work you all have done on this.

It's just an incredible thing.

Are there any other concerns about, do we want to hear anything in terms of presentations right now?

Most briefly, option one features continuous bike lanes throughout the entire corridor

It only has parking alternating on one side of the street or the other, whereas option two has continuous bike lanes for portions of the corridor.

But in the central area, most closely associated with the bridge and near the Amtrak site, there's transition to shared lane markings wherein the bicycles share the lane with motor vehicle traffic and there'd be parking on both sides of the street.

I think we have an answer to that right at this point.

Okay, well that's good.

And we can ask questions of any of the other folks here.

Because we're also doing

Let me just ask a couple questions.

And I guess, Kerry, this is to you.

Yes, as far as I understand, certainly they have representatives on the committee and we've heard through email regarding both options.

I believe there's a preference for option one slightly because of the increased emergency responder time that would be associated with that.

With continuous bike lanes, that provides an opportunity for motor vehicles to move out of the way of first responders.

Our first responders with the city have also noted that that's a preference, although they can make option two work.

A very preliminary look has been given to the traffic and certainly if the plan moved forward, one of the two options into schematic design, more detailed traffic information would be used to make decisions about traffic.

the corridor and the changes that happen.

At this point in time there's no reduction in travel lanes, there's no reduction in left turn lanes with the exception potentially of the slip lane at Ridge Street which we've shown in the design as being removed but which we've noted in your matrix as potentially being able to stay.

What I was concerned about is this is a plan that's gonna be there for a long time no matter how it turns out.

So I was concerned about the projection

It has been, again, maintaining the existing lanes as they are so that we're not making any changes in terms of what would happen if we did nothing to the corridor.

Okay, I think you've answered the question.

This is Mr. Confuno, would you mind

doing a quick response that's also on the traffic flow questions because this came up additionally and you had another well-formulated response.

Okay, nothing to add to it.

We did not do traffic projections as part of this preliminary study.

All of the existing traffic lights in place at includes Ridge, McIntire, 4th, 7th, 10th, and JPA.

We also retained the turn lane at 4th Street.

And as Kerry mentioned, we provide the opportunity to consider removing the slip lane at Ridge Street as well.

Could I tease out one element from this?

Because a couple of years ago, I was on this committee, there was discussion about reducing traffic flow and changing and slowing down traffic.

And that is no longer in the design or the intent, which the public should understand.

That's right.

Can I ask one quick question about that?

Because just intuitively, and I don't know, I haven't studied this so much, but intuitively, it feels like if we have

Continuous bike lanes, we're more likely to get people who are biking who aren't biking now because it will be a little less scary to bike and actually a couple of members of the public talked about that we would be encouraging more people to bike.

I think the hope for the plan with especially being able to accommodate bicycles through dedicated facilities is that as the corridor develops we have a lot of residential development occurring on the west end of the site of the study corridor.

So the hope is that we provide opportunity for multimodal accommodations on the corridor where people can have the option to bike from UVA to the downtown mall.

We identify this corridor as a primary bike route.

It's one of the flattest, easiest ways to get from UVA to the downtown mall, which are two primary destinations on the corridor.

So do you anticipate all the additional bike travel going down West Bay?

During the planning process we did consider Cherry and Preston Avenue as two alternative routes.

West Main is the most direct, it's the most flattest route to get from those two major destinations.

Preston Avenue is much further north and not as accommodating

of a route for bicyclists.

It's kind of out of the way.

People are naturally going to take the shortest route.

So we think that West Main Street is a heavily traveled bike route today, and it's continued belief that that will continue into the future.

So that's a significant amount of bicycle trips on this main street.

So people naturally have identified the corridor as a major route to get from one area of the town to the others.

One of the items that somewhat

With removing parking on one side of the street and alternating parking, there could be theoretically opportunities to create parking on both sides of the street.

Right now you have with that cross section you're talking about a five foot travel lane.

Two 11-foot drive lanes, a 5-foot bike lane, and then on-street parking.

So in the future, if one was to get completely rid of all the bike lanes, you could accommodate parking, theoretically, utilizing that 10-foot bike lane space.

But that's something that would completely change the overall direction of that.

I think that's a great concept having dedicated bike facilities.

Are you including off street parking in that?

Yes, that's definitely something that we still want to put forth for consideration is parking management.

I think it's really important to think about how do we make sure that we don't have to

The more development that's coming online along West Main Street that has parking decks and parking facilities within those new developments, there could be opportunities for partnerships and public-private partnerships for the city and those developers to incorporate some shared parking opportunities within those new developments.

It's a strong opportunity for that.

When you've been thinking about remote parking for staff, there's a lot of businesses along West Main Street and oftentimes employees utilize on-street parking.

Those on-street parking spaces could be used by patrons.

So in your profession, the demand in terms of

I think that we have two alternatives that are completely viable that we think are two good alternatives.

One does reduce parking spaces to allow for dedicated bike facilities.

And the other one is kind of a split between the two, having dedicated bike facilities and shared biking facilities.

I think that me, I'm not an avid bicyclist.

I would be more drawn to option one because it's a dedicated bike facility.

I'm out of traffic.

I have my own area to utilize.

But then a lot of people that do bike would feel perfectly fine with option two perhaps that they would be in traffic.

I would note that NATCO recommends that

shared bike facilities, B, Accommodate on Roadways, less than 3,000 vehicles per day.

West Main Street has 16,000 vehicles per day.

I just have one comment.

because I do recall when I was sitting in listening on the steering committee's last meeting and the discussion came up about the difference between option one and option two.

In option one, and you have it listed in your characteristics of each option, but option one was also preferable to many members of the steering committee including

and the university community and the medical community because the bike lanes provided for some flexibility for vehicles to pull over as well to allow passage of emergency.

So I think that's just an important point to make.

And also on that same point that with the shared option and not having the five-foot bike lanes on either side of the travel lanes for pullover

In the condition in option two where we don't have those two bike lanes, it's still within the emergency responders minimum curve to curve distance of 21 feet.

We're providing 22 feet.

So we're still within the minimal distance that first responders would need to utilize the port.

So I think you are correct.

Just one other question about the bike lanes.

Is there any sort of data about

Kind of how much more bike traffic you get when you have bike lanes is when you're expecting people to be in lanes with cars.

Because just intuitively, as a non- avid biker, I can imagine being in a bike lane and then suddenly having to get into traffic and there's a truck in front of me and a truck behind me and feeling like I'm about to be at the end.

And having the truck behind me thinking, oh gosh, what am I going to do?

There's a bike in front of me.

And then when I zip in and zip out of traffic,

Are people turning right going to know where I'm going to be?

And are they going to be able to predict that?

So I'm just wondering, do you find there's more demand kind of built into more bicycle traffic when you do have that as opposed to not?

I haven't read any particular data that suggests that.

But I think you're absolutely right.

And intuition is that cyclists feel more comfortable in having those dedicated facilities versus having to

merge and re-emerge out of traffic as an option too, which would occur.

And actually I think there's going to be a lot of driver education and bicyclist education.

You know, what it is to have a share or a shared street condition and, you know, watching out for each other on the corridor as well.

So I think that's going to be, that's a good point that you brought the signage in.

And we do recommend as part of option two utilizing some innovative treatments using the super sharer where it is considered experimental by NATCO which is a national organization that oversees the

bike and pedestrian amenities such as bike lanes and sharrows that we can use enhanced sharrows where they're actually green and spaced closer together to give more significance to the shared street conditions versus just having the white sharrows spaced every 200 feet along the corridor, making something a little bit more prominent and noticeable for drivers and bicycles, I think is going to be great as well.

Okay, well then without further ado I would like to offer this resolution for the discussion and I'll make it in the form of a motion in the event that we can proceed with voting.

And you've all gotten paper copies of it and it hasn't been able to be posted and so the public does not have the benefit of reading the whole resolution, but I would like to just simply say that the

The eight whereases are pulled pretty much directly from the staff memo that talks about the 2014 vision areas and how this West Main Street improvement plan addresses those vision areas.

So without getting, I'm not going to read all those eight whereases.

because they are in the staff memo.

But the resolution to adopt West Main Street Scape Improvement Plan for option one has the following be it resolved statements.

And again for discussion.

Be it resolved that the Charlottesville City Council hereby adopts the West Main Street Scape Plan, option one, as the guiding document for executing street scape improvements to the West Main Street corridor

and be it further resolved that the Charlottesville City Council shall henceforth serve as the West Main Street streetscape projects review body during the construction documents phase availing itself of the expertise of its advisory groups as needed and be it further resolved that the city of Charlottesville through its representatives on the Planning and Coordination Council and key staff shall engage with the University of Virginia to identify shared investment opportunities within three months of passing this resolution

and be it further resolved that Charlottesville City Council directs the city manager, his staff and consultants to within six months of passing this resolution, one, authorize the design and engineering team of Roadside Harwell to proceed immediately with construction documents needed to bid and execute the work and secure all necessary approvals without the use of a pilot project and two, develop an implementation action plan including the following items.

Parking Plan, including but not limited to developing new structured parking within the West Main Street corridor, on-street parking meters, restriping spaces, and enhanced enforcement.

Second, a cost estimate based on more accurate design development drawings inclusive of undergrounding utilities.

Third, a funding and financing strategy including an evaluation of and advice regarding tax increment financing strategies.

parking meter revenue dedicated to infrastructure maintenance, business improvement district, general obligation bonds, revenue bonds and applicable state and federal grants.

Four, a phasing plan based on allocated and potential sources of funding and a timeline for construction.

Five, a construction mitigation plan including strategies and a timeline for informing West Main residents and businesses about construction, alternative routes and appropriate signage.

Next, a property owner outreach plan, including meetings with owners about the streetscape improvement plan, a coordinated, timely community engagement strategy, a project management strategy for pre- and post-groundbreaking to ensure proper coordination of the above and contract monitoring, and quarterly progress reports to the City Council.

And be it further resolved that Charlottesville City Council directs the City Manager to conduct an analysis of jobs required by the West Main Street Improvement Project that can be

I will second with a request for a friendly amendment.

So one of my concerns with, as we look at the plan option for one of these galleries, just moving to specifically places like First Baptist Church.

That's why it's very important that there's a phasing plan and we're going to need to really tap into the expertise of staff and the consultant team to make sure that we do an improvement and there are many parts of the Main Street that wouldn't necessitate taking the parking off right away.

So you phase it to the point where then as you're moving through with

So just for clarification for the public in regards to in this potential phasing kind of model it's plausible to believe that First Baptist Church or the businesses or ventures

surrounding it maybe in a 500 to 1,000 or even 2,000 feet radius would not all be affected if we did it in phases because you could have one portion in the beginning then followed by others.

And while their particular phase is going on, then they could utilize the on-street parking in other parts of West Main Street.

Now in that regards,

I think your option has a lot of validity.

However, when I think about, quote unquote, the elders or the seniors who need to get out of church and they have to be dropped off right in the front of church in order to go in.

Or, for example, places all across West Main, they have issues like that where you have disabled individuals, elderly people.

Right.

Well, it'll function the same way it does today.

There would certainly be an opportunity for disabled spots.

Those won't go away.

I'd like to say something.

At the biggest level,

I am a supporter of this plan because I think that this works together with the rezoning.

So we want to create this street into a beautiful destination, tree-filled corridor that we're proud of.

Just as we're proud of a lot of other corridors that have taken advantage of the best of Charlottesville and improved and grown them, I see that's what could happen through this plan and this corridor.

I've been on this committee for a couple of years, three years.

I haven't been in the most recent meetings because of this job, but I do know a lot about the evolution of this plan.

With that said, I think that there are two points that I want to emphasize as my thinking about this.

Number one is I don't think there's a more crucial function to government than safety.

What I have heard over and over and over again from people I know and trust from meetings with UVA students, from people I know, I live half a block off, is that it is fundamentally unsafe to bike right now in this corridor.

It feels unsafe.

It's intimidating.

I watch.

I walk the corridor several times a day.

And it's just not safe.

And that repels a lot of people from using it for biking.

I think that biking, for all the caricatures

I think it's a good thing for the community.

I think parking is really important.

I think it's important for the church, I think it's important for the businesses, I think it's important for where this corridor is going to go.

I don't think we can blow it off.

I think we need to take it deadly seriously.

And so that is one of the reasons that I pushed and advocated for very clear instruction to staff that we are including structured parking that's new in this plan going forward.

I think that's one of the ways to crack this puzzle because the difficult thing has been how do you get a lot out of

I think one of the

Pay for itself.

It can pay for itself.

There are public-private partnerships.

You can pay for the parking through a different revenue stream by the revenue it brings in.

A lot of cities around the country have been doing this.

And this is explicitly in this motion that Ms. Galvin has introduced.

So we are really listening.

I was at First Baptist on Sunday.

I care about you guys a lot.

I understand that churches have been hurt when parking.

You need parking right there.

It's a historic church.

We're proud.

We love having you there and we love also having the businesses and restaurants that are there.

And parking is your bread and butter, literally.

So we want to pay attention to this and it is really important to us.

So I wouldn't be on board with this if I didn't think, if we weren't explicitly including that there.

So that is, and Mr. Bellamy, that is at least where I am.

and how this has evolved.

And this has not been within Roadside and Hartwell's brief to design new structure parking off, but it's where city council is as a policy matter.

And I'd just like to make some comments that I think the West Main Street improvement discussion has been going on since 1988.

That's a long time.

as long as I've been married.

That's as long as I've been alive.

There you go.

I have a lot of wisdom to go along with that.

That was 32 years on earth before you were born.

The important thing to keep in mind though is that this has been a passionate discussion for this community for a long, long time.

and making a solution is always going to seem painful because there's going to be change inherent in making any kind of change.

Having said that, we understand completely that the African American church is in order to stay downtown.

in order for them to thrive and grow need to have parking facilities.

We understand completely that the businesses that have been hanging in there on West Main Street during the hard times in the 1990s when businesses were closing, when it was a very, very unhealthy, unsafe place, and yet they hung in there and they are there today.

But losing the 30 spaces, 33 spaces for the bike lanes

but then getting a commitment from council to build a structured parking facility that will provide over 200 spaces however we can get them to fit.

I think on the smallest site that we looked at was the property owned near the Starr Hill Park.

I think it's a major, major accomplishment.

What's driving those decisions has been a desire to get a plan that brings the community together.

And we've heard you, it is in the resolution

We are going to move forward and we've separated the modes of transportation for safety, for efficiency, and then for beauty.

This is going to be a beautiful, beautiful street that will make us all proud, as proud as the downtown mall did over 30 years ago.

It's time for the next new big thing for this city to make us feel.

like we belong in a world-class city.

So I hope it's been very clear.

And I want to give a shout-out to the Place Design Task Force, because in 2013, that task force came up with a plan, its first annual report, that cited the West Main Street.

It's now or never, people.

Those gas lines are going to blow.

We can't put that off anymore.

and while we're doing it, why don't we check the massing of the buildings?

Make sure that the zoning's right.

We just did that just an hour ago.

We've got the companion pieces together.

It's a major accomplishment for our advisory groups.

It's a major accomplishment for our community.

The biggest flaw that I see is there's no projected traffic study.

We talk about the increase in bikes.

Automobiles, if the state statistics hold, it will still outdo the bikes, the registrations.

I don't know how we can do a plan for a street when we're not planning for the future.

I just don't know how that works.

I can understand the promises of parking, but that's what they are, they're promises.

I don't think I've seen anything in the CIP for a structured parking thing on West Main unless I missed it.

Is it in there?

I prefer number two because it leaves the option of going back to number one.

West Main is just, like I said before, just barely being redeveloped and developed.

West Main is not the only route from east to west or west to east.

Preston Avenue is a beautiful boulevard, basically, and it's already striped.

From what I've seen, there's more recreational biking on Preston

is on West Main Street.

West Main Street is a dangerous street for bikes.

I've seen it.

What we're doing with West Main Street is we're not turning West Main Street into something beautiful.

That was started by Alan Kajean and Gabe Silverman.

So we're continuing that.

and it is an important part of what the city should do.

And I think my concerns about the study itself are well publicized and I'm not going to belabor those.

But I'd also remind the community that Jeff Speck came into town and he was not paid by the citizens.

No taxpayer money and he was asked about West Main Street and he said it's a beautiful street, it's working right now.

So I have grave concerns.

But I understand with the work that's been done and I understand with the businesses and the churches and this being a concept that it's a workable, it's a work in progress is what I view it as.

So with that caveat, I will support this and I'll work to make it work.

But there are things we have to look at

if it's going to work, and not just assume that either parking is going to work or the density of traffic is not going to occur, it will, and it's going to affect what we do.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Fenwick.

I'm inclined to go along with Councillor Woman Galvin's

explanation in regards to the resolution also after the very compelling argument made by Councilor Galvin as well as Mayor Signer and Councilwoman Szakos.

I have no reason to believe or rebuke the fact that they won't make good on their word in terms of phasing as well as in terms of ensuring that we will have the spaces needed to protect the places that, in my personal estimation,

need the protection.

Pastor Haddari Hamilton of First Baptist is here tonight.

Essentially, it seems as if he is okay with option one.

I believe with that being the case, as we get a thumbs up from the crowd, who said these council meetings aren't fun?

So with that being said, I'm definitely inclined to go along with option one.

And I believe that as Ms. Galvin stated, this is indeed a new day.

We have had two huge

accomplishments tonight, and I think the future is bright, so thank you all for your leadership in regards to this.

And I concur with Counselor Fenwick.

I'm sure he will be the watchdog in this, and I'm going to be right there behind you.

All in favor?

Motion carries 5-0.

Thank you all very much.

We are now on to the update from the Early Education Task Force.

Mr. Mike Murphy, Assistant City Manager.

Is there a PowerPoint?

I'm Mike Murphy, the Assistant City Manager, and I'm the city's representative on the Early Education Task Force convened by the United Way.

I'm going to give a couple introductory remarks tonight, and then you'll hear from the Executive Vice President from the United Way, Erica Vixillia.

Say that as the city's representative I am aware of your interest in Pre-K and as evidenced by your recent discussions with the county board of supervisors on this issue as you consider various MOUs and of course the discussions you've had with the superintendent about her desire to expand Pre-K in the city of Charlottesville schools.

As you know, that discussion centers around the expansion of three-year-old slots and we have some issues with physical plant space in the city and creating the addition of classrooms.

The work of this group really focuses on four-year-olds and the United Way has done a lot of work to bring the community together on this issue and I think that

One of the reasons this is such an important group is that we're bringing together schools, local government, private philanthropy, and nonprofits to work on solutions and to provide quality childcare to every child who's getting ready to enter kindergarten.

So the goal of this group is to provide

for four-year-olds access.

We estimate in Charlottesville and Albemarle combined that that's a little over 250 kids each year who don't have any kind of pre-K before they go to school.

And of course, the city is not the lion's share of that, but I think that probably, conservatively, that's 60 or 70 of those kids.

I'm aware that the city does not have a wait list

for preschool, and you've heard that from the school system.

And I think that we know in the work that we're doing with the community that we can identify particular areas where folks are electing not to be on that wave list, right?

For a variety of reasons that the current schedule may not work for them, right?

Because

Not everyone values Pre-K, and for many other reasons.

And so part of the work of this group will be to make sure that we have outreach about that, but also to look creatively at whether it's with the city schools, private day child care facilities, Head Start, or any of the other partnerships we can leverage, how can we make this access possible.

I particularly have an interest also in how do we expand the hours of our program, right?

One of the things that will make it work and also mesh with Council's interest in workforce development and take more of a dual generation approach would be to go beyond the five hours that are currently offered in some of the programs and having earlier and later hours.

That's a little bit about where we are with the task force.

Eric is going to give you some detail, talk a little bit about our progress, and of course we'll answer any questions.

Thank you, Mike, and thank you all for the opportunity to be here.

I wanted to tell you how the Early Ed Task Force got started and several of you were at the Early Childhood Summit that United Way hosted last April and there was really a palpable sense that everybody wanted to get something done as it relates to Pre-K and really wanted to create more access and so the United Way after that received I'd say a full court press from not just local leaders but also some leaders of the state with the Virginia Early Childhood Foundation to say

See what you can do.

Let's come together as a community to really create access for more children entering high quality pre-K. And that's really been our focus and that is the Early Ed Task Force has been meeting on a monthly basis since July and that is our single goal is to place all at-risk four-year-olds in high quality pre-K. And so I did want to emphasize some of the successes we've had to date

The work plan that was included in the packet you got outlines some very robust goals and objectives for our work over the next year and I feel like we're really well positioned to deliver on what is in your packet and what you're reading about.

And a couple of the things that have gotten us a great launch, I would say, is that we received an innovative partnership grant from the Virginia Early Childhood Foundation

and they were really recognizing and celebrating that the two localities were coming together to create a community plan for Pre-K.

So we received funding to accelerate that work and we are, what we're doing, our progress is being documented and it will be shared to hopefully be replicated throughout the state.

So we've got to get this right.

And so some of the funding too is also we're just getting started on a fiscal mapping project and I know that you all will find that information helpful.

We've called on everybody in the city and the county to submit all of the financial information in the zero to five landscape.

Though the task force is focused on four, we know that we need to get the full picture of resources coming into the community for early care and education zero to five.

And so we're collecting that data now, and then we have a consultant that's doing all of that, and then we have a second consultant who is going to begin working with us on creative funding models.

So we want to look at places where we could be leveraging the funding, braiding and blending the funding to make better use of the funds.

And so we know that ultimately we want to create a smart and sustainable plan for high quality pre-K. And so to get these resources and to have people sort of tracking our success I think is really going to help

to see some opportunities that we might not have envisioned before.

So that work is underway.

And we also received a grant, the city and the county both received a grant from the Department of Education, a Virginia Preschool Initiative expansion grant opportunity.

It was a one-time opportunity to apply for grants from unclaimed VPI slots.

And so what I really appreciated is that while the locality is applied separately, we plan for what to do together.

And that's really what we're recognizing is going to be essential, is that we approach this work together.

And this demonstration project, we're using this opportunity really as a demonstration project to see what can we do, because the capacity is an issue in both localities.

If we have 250 children that need to have this opportunity, we're going to have to look outside of the walls of our schools.

And so there are examples of a lot of mixed delivery models that have been very successful where we're using public dollars to fund children in private school placements.

And so we're right now in collaboration with many people.

Ready Kids, for example, is working on the quality initiative.

One of the things we've identified is that we don't want to just find people that are on wait lists and put them in empty seats anywhere.

We want to really identify partners that are going to be committed to accelerating the quality.

of their pre-k programs and meeting standards that everyone is comfortable with.

And then we also, as Mike alluded to, not everyone's on the wait list who we want to touch.

And so a lot of this is about going and finding the families who can really benefit from this, helping to understand why it's not working for them now, why they might not be interested in the opportunity now.

and developing a plan that addresses some of those things as well.

So we really have a tremendous opportunity with both of these funding opportunities to be developing a community model and then that leads us, all those things are already underway and I'd say as we are looking to the future, we're really looking, we have some opportunities for some local

We know that we'll need to leverage philanthropy to really be the glue for some of the funding that already exists.

We know that we need to have a boost to that.

Child Care Scholarship Program has done that in a number of ways and thank you for the support of that.

It really allows us oftentimes to provide wraparound services for the children for whom the traditional school day ending at 2.30 would not allow their participation if we weren't able to do that wraparound care.

So Mike's identified that as an issue and I know we're going to find more as we engage these families and come to understand

what some of the barriers are and just the fact that some of our families may not rank pre-k as a top priority.

They have full and stressed plates and that might not be what they're considering and so there might not be a level of comfort with the schools.

No, I think that's great.

I'm gonna wrap it up just by, I think I've talked about the sustainable bottles.

The one other thing I want you to know is that we are also planning another one of the community symposiums.

The tentative date is June 8th.

And part of it is to report back out and to let the community know that this is happening.

And we really do wanna bring in more of the pre-K teachers and providers actually this time, so we have them helping us to design a day that will really matter to them.

And so I guess I will close then by sharing a thought about the importance of high quality pre-K from local early child education expert and the Curry School Dean Bob Pianta.

So in addition to the social and economic benefits for young children, Pianta comments on the financial gains downstream.

Analyses of various statewide and experimental studies estimate a total return on investment between three and seven dollars saved per child

for each dollar spent on Pre-K.

Findings consistently show that the benefits of high quality programs significantly exceed the costs by producing immediate improvements in school readiness, cuts in school spending related to retention and special education, and long-term impacts related to reduced delinquency and increased productivity.

These benefits over the lifetime have been estimated to lead to savings of $9,901

Per participant, taking into account the short, middle, and long-term outcomes, making pre-K a high-quality, cost-effective intervention.

So we are at an unprecedented time in our community and in the Commonwealth to offer high-quality pre-K to all of our children, to give them the best opportunity for success today and later in life.

Thank you.

I have questions.

One question if you could stay up.

Two points, one that you made and one that our assistant city manager, Mr. Murphy, made that I thought were very, very interesting.

One, in regards to your point about how we are indeed looking to how we can collaborate with the county to see what we can do moving forward.

I know this council has spoken at great length as well as several of the board of supervisors at

how we can collaborate more with Pre-K exploring the idea of a joint use facility.

Absolutely.

And I appreciate your interest and leadership and was very pleased about the conversations that you all are having together.

It matches what we're doing in the community.

And so thank you.

And thank you for this opportunity.

And I would say all options are on the table.

I've asked both Pam and Rosa about their interest in a shared site.

And I think that there's nothing that we aren't considering at this point.

And thank you for your presentation.

I'm recalling a study or some statistics that I've read that yes, there definitely are profound positive impacts of early childhood education.

However, by third grade, those impacts can dissipate without additional supports in schools.

Yes, I mean, we're aware of that study as well.

And what it really points to is the importance of the quality of the preschool experience.

And so if you look at the studies where the emphasis was on the quality,

those gains are being sustained, they're sort of recovered if you will in the fifth grade and so that is an anchor part of what we're doing is the quality piece and we're in great company to do that with one of the leading experts in the community and advising our group and organizations like Ready Kids and Teach Stone so that focus

The quality piece, there are three components of the work plan as you saw, capacity, quality, and funding.

And so I would say that the quality is an anchor and so as we're shaping what we're going to do, we're making that a pillar.

And that'll be a focus at the summit as well.

One quick thing.

This goes out across the city.

If somebody were watching and they wanted to get

They can contact me at the United Way.

It's 972-1701.

Or Google United Way, Charlottesville.

Sure.

Yes.

That would get them started.

The city has been participating over the past five years as a partner in the City of Promise which is at this point just one neighborhood where we're looking at supporting children really who need extra support from birth all the way through because we know that the school day and the school year and the school period

is not the majority of a child's life, and most of their time they're spent out in the community, and the majority of that is before they begin school.

And so I just, I want to really offer my appreciation and praise to United Way, to the folks on staff who have been participating in this, and to every organization in the community who's coming together, because I think that our goal in the City of Promise

neighborhood is that ultimately we become a city of promise, that that's not just a neighborhood thing, that it's our whole city.

And this is really beginning that commitment in a really meaningful way at that early stage.

Thank you for your work to get that underway.

Thank you all so much.

By golly.

We're going to definitely get Mr. Bellamy.

Hopefully this will be relatively quick.

I know that council got the text for this earlier.

I know the public has not, so I'd like to just read the whole thing, if I might.

Not all of the text stuff, but all of the amendments that are involved.

So this goes back to what we were discussing before in our West Main zoning.

The one thing that was a clarification of Water Street District zoning for the Midway Manor property and the other is looking at the by-right density along the whole corridor.

Whereas the City Council recently enacted a number of changes, very recently enacted a number of changes to the zoning district regulations for the West Main Street corridor.

As a result of those proceedings, Council seeks consideration of two additional zoning text amendments, and whereas the comprehensive plan calls for a wide range of housing options in the city, a high by right density minimum is a growing practice to achieve a range of affordability in highly desirable districts.

and whereas Council finds that the public necessity, convenience, general welfare, or good zoning practice requires consideration of the following zoning text amendments.

Number one, changes to the regulations governing street wall characteristics and mixed use developments within the Water Street corridor district as set forth within the discussion draft text amendments attached as Exhibit A in this resolution and two,

Changes to the West Main Street corridor districts West Main East and West Main West proposing to allow residential density of development up to 200 dwelling units per acre as a matter of right in each district.

Now therefore be it resolved by the City Council and the City of Charlottesville that the zoning text amendments referenced above within this resolution are hereby initiated by City Council.

The Planning Commission is directed to review the proposed text amendments, conduct a joint public hearing with City Council to allow effective persons to be heard on these matters, and then report its findings and recommendations back to City Council within 100 days of the date of this resolution.

And that time period is by law.

and the particular text amendments are Section 34743, Street Wall Regulations in A, Stepbacks, and I believe you can correct me, Mr. Brown, if I get these wrong, to add the language at the end of that paragraph along South, well, let's see, no, I'll just read the whole Stepbacks.

For properties with frontage on South Street between Ridge and Second Street Southwest, the maximum height of the street wall of any building or structure shall be 45 feet.

and after 45 feet, there shall be a minimum step back of 25 feet along the length of each street, such street wall along South Street and a minimum step back of 10 feet along the length of Ridge Street.

On item three in that same, oh, B3 in that same street wall regulation section,

Abutting South Street Mixed Use District.

A minimum setback of 10 feet from any parcel zone South Street should be required for all buildings located on South Street and an S2 buffer should be provided within the setback.