We all ready? >> Welcome everyone um to tonight's planning commission meeting. Um we are going to start uh tonight's meeting with commissioners reports. Um, Commissioner Ricker, are you or should
we start from here? We go. >> Happy happy to begin. Let's see. There were a couple three meetings that I participated in since we last met. Uh two of those meetings were with uh
Lupek and the first meeting was in February and that was led by both both both conversations were led by VOTE. The uh first thing we talked about was just general regional coordination
uh between the university um Ravana um Almar and the city and the planning district when it when it comes to any any beat up projects that are happening in in in in the area and I copied you guys on the presentation or the outline
of the conversation. So you got that. The uh second thing we talked about uh again at the February meeting was um the county's affordable housing fund. And again, I won't go into detail because you guys have copies of that in your uh in your packets as well.
We um I'm sorry that was um the March meeting. The the second thing we talked about in the February meeting was uh an update from BOT on the Fontaine uh project. Again, won't go into detail. It's all in your uh packets. Um lots of good stuff happening there. So, just
take a look at it. Uh, then in the March meeting, that's when we talked about the affordable housing uh fund. Again, not not a lot new there, and it's all in your packet. And Ms. um Brown gave us a preview of what he's going to be presenting later
on tonight. The u most interesting meeting was um the BCA meeting, the Board of Zone Appeals meeting that we had um back in um in late mid to late March.
This was uh the applicant um this was relating to um the developer's ability to pay into the housing fund as opposed to um to put affordable housing on site if in fact a um development
project is deemed to be um student housing. Um, one of the criteria to for it to be deemed to be student housing is that it's got to be within 0.5 miles of North and Central Browns. In this case, the um the gating factor
was that little pocket park that you guys may be familiar with the name Clark. The Clark statue was at the pocket park and it's right across from the battle building, right across from the um right across from the graduate. And the real question was is a park at
park a part of the central grounds. If in fact it is a part of the central grounds then the um project in question which is located in the sphere rounds courts I think you're familiar with this was at uh 211th street southwest. I
think that project has been for the bar and the bar uh rejected the application. I think they're appealing to council now. The so the debate was is the park and park a part of central grounds? At the end of the day, we ruled in favor of the zoning administrator's opinion. He
felt that the park and park was a part of the central grounds, but the ruling was a two to two ruling. Um when it's a tie, the tie goes to um tie goes to the zoning administrator, but the applicant
then has the opportunity to appeal uh and and bring it back. And on Thursday, they're going to come back to us and hopefully we'll have five people there to to vote and get a majority vote. But at the end of the day, uh it was a 4 to four two to two vote
uh suggesting that we thought that the park at Park was in fact a part of central grounds. So uh Thursday will be interesting. This was not this was not a merit uh uh review. This was just a
technical review and the review net review is is a parket park a part of central grounds. Actually, one question about that. Um, is that meeting are those meetings recorded? Because I wanted to see it and I don't I didn't find.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I believe it, Patrick. >> Those meeting the meeting the audio for that meeting is on the website. Um, and there also are recordings if you like. I can get those for you as well. Okay. >> We had several people come and and get those uh record get the copies of the
audio recordings. So, it's on the website and I you can email those out or we can come and get those for you. >> Let me try and find it if I'll ask you if I if I can. Thank you. Um I'm not going to talk about CDBG because we're about to talk about our agenda, but I've
been going to those meetings for the last uh month or so and they've been very interesting. We'll talk about it soon. I've got one report uh went to the city neighborhood leaders meeting with the city manager's office on March 18th. Uh
there were several smaller discussions that happened, but there were three sort of main discussions that the public was having. One was about this was the first meeting since the large ice storm that we had. So, there was questions from the public to the city manager Joseph's office
about if they were going to update the ordinance to better clear sidewalks or something along those lines. Just getting feedback from city managers on how to improve that process for future storms.
Then there was questions uh along regarding the status of a project at 1011 East Jefferson Street that uh received a special use permit many years ago that has not started construction yet. So many neighbors in
that um area of the city were wondering what the status was and or if there was a way to potentially um adjust the number of affordable housings that that project was providing. Then the third item of discussion was the police department was
working to get the word out related to uh emergency response system that I think is an app on your phone that you can get better information quicker through that. and also that they're doing some neighborhood community policing related events um sort of like
walking around the neighborhood or I've seen them advertise like playing kickball or something like that that they're we're trying to get the word out to invite the public to >> have you heard from uh staff about the um city council work session meetings um
>> um I heard from uh city manager Sanders that there's a tenative schedule. Okay. >> But we haven't set when the first one will be. >> Okay. >> We received an email uh perhaps an hour ago on this topic. >> Yes, we're invited to the first meeting tomorrow. >> Okay. Good to know.
>> Lots of notice, right? >> I'd like to offer an update on the legislative subcommittee. It has been a busy year. Uh I have a spreadsheet. We asked for many things and many things have been acted on enrichment. Uh we asked for
mobile home resident purchase reform that turned into HB375 that has just been approved by the governor. The we asked for accessible accessory dwelling units permitted statewide that turned into SB531 that has been approved by the governor. We asked for split rate
taxation permission and were joined by three other localities. That turned into HB282 and has been signed by the governor. We asked for greater tree canopy zoning powers that turned into HB549 that has been approved by the governor. We asked uh for a locality first right of refusal for expiring
below market rate housing. That turned into HB4 that was approved by the governor. Uh we asked for uh legal standing uh reform for zoning litigation that turned into HB 447 has been continued to next year. Uh we asked for support for nonprofit affordable housing
development that turned actually several bills but especially HB 1279 uh which uh the governor gave a recommendation for 13 changes uh but is likely to pass in my opinion. >> That's a lot. >> All right.
Thank you. Um, yep, please. >> Uh, I have a report from the MO Tech meeting that happened last week. Um, so we reviewed uh a number of things on
the agenda that uh I'm not going to mention, but I will mention that as part of the MOS's UPWP, which stands for unified planning work program, which is basically their annual budget and work program, they are going to be studying the possibility of establishing a
regional bike ped counter program that would live with the MO. And I think that would be very beneficial to the localities to both the city and the county and I think that's something to keep an eye on and I hope that they move forward next year and actually set up
accounts program. Um the main item that was discussed was um our region's smart scale applications which are due on August 1st. Uh this is a grant a state grant program for transportation projects that occurs every other year.
And um the I would say my my my opinion uh just in what I've seen so far is that it's it's a program that isn't perfectly aligned with our goals and principles as a city in terms of our uh planning for what we want our future land use and
transportation network to look like. But um many people involved in this are trying to make the most out of it and get funds for projects that would um you know allow safer walking and biking and better transit access etc. Um but each
so the the county is allowed to submit the city and then the NO itself can submit uh smart scale applications and the city's um main uh application this year is going to be the Ridge McIntyre and West Main
intersection project which is something that I think kicked off a little while ago with some public outreach. So that was pretty exciting. But in this meeting, we basically had to um we basically had to make recommendations to the NO policy board, which is made up of elected officials um from the city
and county uh and then NO staff as well. Uh whether or not we should advance um the city, counties, and NPO's projects. Um it was a unanimous vote on the city's projects and the county's projects. Uh but there was there were split votes on the NPO's projects which is I think a
pretty unusual circumstance. So the four NO projects that are currently in consideration the I64 Fifth Street interchange improvements which is proposed to be a divergent diamond diamond intersection with paths that go to the bridge but don't cross the
bridge. Um the US 29 US 250 eastbound ramp extension at Barracks Road. It would extend the the uh the onoff ramp, but then it would add kind of a sort of a path on Barracks Road itself. Um the
US 2950 southbound ramp extension at Old Ivy Road and then another an on-ramp extension at Old Ivy Road on the bypass as well. And these are the two projects that city staff um wanted to or move to remove from recommending to the policy
board. These are two projects that have no multimodal elements whatsoever. They're pure highway capacity projects. Um they were not identified in any of VOTE's kind of statewide analysis of safety need or even congestion need. Uh it did come out of a 2024 pipeline study
that looked at the entire area and kind of the appendix had a bunch of different possible things you could do and these two ramp extensions were there. Um the city city staff moved to exclude these two projects. Um but the no and county
staff um disagreed and so uh one of the ramp extensions, the on-ramp um is moving forward to the policy board. The off-ramp extension is being held because the county wants to look into other options that because
they're interested in improvements to that movement, but maybe there's something else that could be done that isn't just a pure highway expansion. So, um, those projects move on and eventually our city council is going to weigh in on this because they need to
they need to basically not approve but recommend uh these applications as well. Um, that's it for me. Okay. Um I think my two reports have to do
with uh the tree commission and I think you all receive the state of the forest from the chair. The main thing which I think they're going to present it well I'll go if anyone else wants to join to city council on April 20th at 6:30 is
their slot for presenting it to council. It's like a annual uh thing that they do. Um it um has in it uh recommendations, things that kind of pertain to planning commission. Um they're interested in site plan
checklists or brochures or things having to do with tree preservation from the beginning right when someone comes in the door. Um having a tree preservation plan with an arborist um checking into it. And then some of these things are
already in place, but kind of stronger informant enforcement of tree removal. Um some talk about storm water fees and incentives for tree preservations. And then as you can see the rest of the if
you look at the report the rest of it is kind of more like how many trees were planted here where you know kind of a statistics piece. So, um that is a major piece of work for that body um that did a lot of work on that. And then I was
with parks and wreck yesterday. Um we had a report from a UVA class looking at Riverside Park mainly parking and accessibility. So that was interesting. Um and then um previously had heard about uh trails and kind of just like
where are the pieces being watched to connect um where we need to connect our trails. Um and then there's some talk about the rules around the garden plots that are being amended but um they're already in place for this year. So we're
getting feedback now to if there will be changes till next year. All right. Well, from the university, I have two exciting uh bits of information. The first is the opening of the center for politics. So, that is a contextual addition to the Montasano
House. Um it's about 5,000 square feet convening space that can uh host events for 200 to 400 people. Um they had the ribbon cutting last Friday, April 10th. And then uh one thing of note is that to access that facility there is part of
the project was the creation of a new dedicated access road from Leonard Sandridge. So you access it from the north. Historically you would go on Old Ivy through that tough trestle. So that has now been vacated. So you can no longer access that facility. So with the higher density of of event attendees
that will not bring added uh congestion to Old Ivy. Um, now going over to uh the Virginia Guest House, Hotel and Conference Center. So that is officially open. It opened last week. That's 223,000 gross square feet, 214 rooms. There's over 25,000 net assignable
square feet of IACC certified conference space, which is the International Association of Conference Centers. And we are the only facility in central Virginia that has that certification. Uh the ballroom, its largest space, can hold uh just under a thousand guests.
And um we have there's three public destinations for dining if you're interested. There's a counter cafe which is kind of a grab-and- go uh you know coffee and lunch place. There's the Popler which is the main restaurant that does breakfast, lunch and dinner. And there's the Perch which is a rooftop amenity with really nice views. Um that
soft opening again was last week and the ribbon cutting will be on April 29th. So two completed projects. >> All right. Um last month at the um at the BAR uh it was pretty um simple meeting. I think the only thing of interest was uh
some infill development in the um Oakhurst Gildersleeve neighborhood which is the little tiny chunk of housing right next to the south lawn. Um and it was uh yeah a developer trying to squeeze in um a maximum number of units
on some some parcels down there. Um so we gave him some feedback. It was a preliminary discussion. Um they will be back um for more uh later. Um and then we also had a uh just discussion about getting the mall ready for its um uh
50th anniversary. Um and um the uh materiality for the mall crossings which are now under construction. So um that was it. Uh is there uh does NDS have anything they want to report on? >> Uh yes, chair. So a couple things to
report on. one um we will not be having a work session on the 28th. Um that was going to be that had tentatively been scheduled for a small area plan discussion but um that is not ready yet. So we're you will not have that work session.
At LA end of last month the the new development uh manual and the development review changes went into effect. Uh these are all related to last year's 2025 development code amendments and process updates. So we put those
into uh those took those went into effect on the 23rd of March. And so we've been rolling through that. And on that note, I wanted to give an update on the 2026 code cleanup effort. We are moving forward with this year's cycle
and staff has begun preparing the items that will be included. The next major step will be the subcommittee kickoff meeting which will take place in May. The date hasn't been decide uh determined yet, but we'll be sending an email to the subcommittee members um looking at a few dates. So that will be
kind of the kickoff and at that meeting we will be scoping out the 2026 cycle and moving forward from there. >> Okay. And I'll turn it over to the chair to the director. A quick question about the please come up but about the um roll out
of the uh change the zoning updates. >> Yes. >> Has there been any advertising or any >> I haven't seen anything. >> So I uh I'm going to go to Kadre >> in May >> to talk about the updates. Our website has been updated um with all the new
material, new applications um formats. Uh so we we have not had any um formal outreach but we have been talking about it for the last six months at our pre-application meetings with the development community. So we've been preparing the development community for this.
>> Okay. >> May I ask for the next year? Are we looking at the tier three? What's what I guess what are the I'm wondering a what is the subcommittee? Who's on it? And you know what? How deep are we
getting into changes? >> Yes. So the subcommittee is the chair and I believe uh Commissioner I think it's Ross and myself I think. >> Yes. Are on are going to be the subcommittee members. It one of the key things that's going to happen at the
kickoff meeting is kind of rebranding this. This is it's always been intended to be a cleanup of the code and just having to catch larger issues to put in the tier three. So, one of the things we're going to be concentrating on this year is is refocusing that kind of that
that everyone understands that this yearly process is really about cleaning up the code and not going into policy issues because we deal with the code. We we rec we run into these policy issues so we capture them so they can be placed on the larger work plan for the department so long range planning can
address those. So, that's going to be one of the the scopes. So, it it is it probably will I'm hoping maybe to go away from the tier and go into just calling it code cleanup or something that maybe doesn't uh that better reflects what this project is.
>> Probably a good idea. I think people have been waiting to say like, oh, when is the next level coming? But that's probably code cleanup versus code amendments or you know some some term for the longer uh >> yeah we and we
>> changes that'll take a little longer >> and we tried to clear each time we meet in the public that yeah we're collecting these the tier three but the tier three h they need a huge public engagement so they have to be something on the work plan that involves our long range planning team. Um so but yes we're going
to we're working on doing a better job of communicating that. Um, as far as the zoning updates that were just issued, um, because I, as a planning commissioner, I didn't know when that happened. Um, is could you guys put it on the homepage of the of the city's
website or I know you guys every once in a while send out those um, press releases. I mean, just make it really obvious that people need to download a new zoning PDF. >> Definitely work with communications. We can see if we can get something out. >> Thank you. I just wanted to add a couple additional
updates that I didn't share with Matt before the deadline. Um so just to add to what's already been shared um on the topic of the environmental policy and regulatory review we will be coming to you um I believe it's next month uh with
a comprehensive update but did want to share that we are um moving forward with the release of a request for proposals to look specifically at our storm water regulations. Um, in October 2025, city council appropriated um 1.5 million for
both the environmental review project and the mobility plan. So, we anticipate allocating a portion of that for this environmental review for consultant services. Um, and we will be uh looking to use that to update the city's storm water management regulations and developing
associated technical reports and toolkits. Um and the review team will include staff from multiple city departments to provide a crossf functional review um and consider alignment with with overall um comprehensive plan goals.
Um also wanted to offer a staff update. Um OA Kin Luton uh our long-range planning manager has been promoted. Uh she is now the um assistant director of communications and public engagement. um sitting within the manager's office um
providing strategic direction um and much needed support um not just to NDS but all departments um to support um the city's goals and the council's priorities for um enhanced meaningful community engagement in everything we do. So very um bittersweet uh happy to
see her in this role um but sad to see her leaving our nest. Um, uh, let's see. One last, well, Ben Kobe, uh, completed a marathon this last weekend, so that's really >> Congratulations.
>> It was the Charlottesville Marathon. Um, and he's still standing, so that's great. Um, and then last night, um, we had a planning popup at Carver Rec Center. Um the the focus of it was to
collect community feedback on um conceptual options for um a repeat repaving plan for Rose Hill uh rest for striping plans that will address safety and connectivity needs, slow speed limits. Um and it was a great turnout. I
think 45 people came out including some junior planners um planners in training and um there's also an opportunity to provide feedback online um at uh Rose Hill Connect Seville uh just Rose Hill
restriping. Uh so I think those are all of my uh sorry one more. Um I'm going to mention this later probably but just in case I forget um in terms of upcoming council work sessions we will be presenting to council on our
recommendations and findings for um the accessory dwelling affordable dwelling unit manual um student housing regulations um April 20th. Uh and then our short-term rental study will provide
providing an update to council consistent with what we shared with you. Um April 18th is the date for that. So tune in and um I think that's it for me. Thanks. >> You said April 20th and then April 18th.
>> Uh I might have but I meant to say May. Okay. May 18th. Sorry. >> Thank you. Um, I think we just need to wait about three minutes and then we can start our uh our public hearing unless anybody has anything else they want to add. >> Mr. Chair,
>> oh, matters from the public present. >> Yeah, I was whoops. Um, all right. So, now is time for matters presented by the public, not on the formal agenda. So, we do have a public hearing on the um uh community development block grant and home investment partnership program. Um
so, now would not be a time to talk about that. But if you wanted to talk about um either the special exception request uh at 408 Harris Road or the um the NDS manual on the inloo fees and uh student housing study, um now would be a time to talk about that or anything else
you want to bring to us. >> Was that clear or confusing? >> Clear. >> Okay. Um Dan, is there any or um do you mind moderating? >> Sure. Um if there's any online speakers, they can raise the hand icon in Zoom and
we can call on you and any inerson speakers can come up to the DAS. >> Mr. Chair, I see uh no raised hands. >> All right. And no one from the audience. Great. All right. >> Mr. Mr. Chair, I'd like to recommend
that we uh approve the uh consent agenda. >> Is there a second? >> I'll second that. >> Um I don't know if we need to call. All in favor? >> I opposed any abstained. >> Oh, okay. So, the consent agenda uh
passes, which is our minutes from November 12th, 25th, and December 9th. Um all right. Now, we just give it a minute and we will start our public hearing. Unless I forget anything else. It's all
sitting in front of me. This is not a teaches people. Let's go. All right. Looks like it's 6:00. Uh, Mr. Horn, are you presenting? Commissioners, uh, good evening. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to come and talk about a little small
portion of the, uh, city's work to develop our, uh, community. Um, as you know, uh, our city participates in both the, uh, community development block grants and the home investment partnerships programs offered by United States Department of Housing and Urban
Development. And as part of that participation, we're required to develop an annual action plan that kind of outlines what we're going to do to try to meet a number of important goals. Um, meet HUD national objectives and, uh, to show that we are deserving of continued
participation in the program. Um, as part of that, uh, we come before planning commission, um, get some feedback and hopefully at the end you recommend that we can take this on to city council, um, for two public hearings. Um, there's also another
public hearing scheduled before the commissioners of the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission because TJPDC helps coordinate the home program. Um, I can go a little bit into that if you'd like. Um,
the CDBG program. They're both entitlement programs. CDBG, we um engage with HUD uh on our own. We qualify on our own. Um but because HUD recognizes that housing is affordable housing specifically is a much more
challenging uh regional uh approach, they really try to encourage people to to go into partnerships with the outlying areas. So um for a number of years we have participated in what is called the Thomas Jefferson home consortium. Uh it is a six member uh
partnership between the city of Charlottesville and the counties of Alamaro, Cleana, Green, Louisa, and Nelson, which means that we come together uh a variety of times um in kind of a regional housing um leaders
meeting, try to support efforts among all the partners, try to lend support where we can to each member, and most importantly, we share part of the money that HUD um allocates to that program. I can go into that little bit of the
funding breakdown uh later. Um but just really quick overview. Um next slide. So as part of the the process every year, knock on wood. Um the Department of Housing and Urban Development says uh we are going to put this much money into
this program. It's originally appropriated by Congress and then it's a pass through on a formula basis. Um each year we open uh an application window um request for proposals. This year it ran
from January 7 to February 7. We try to advertise it widely. Um we try to let all the different nonprofit groups in the area know kind of what's going on. very proud to say that we have um a first-time applicant that was recommended for funding this year. Um so
we're kind of expanding the pool of people that know about the program and that can hopefully uh do good work in our in our community. Um so we open up the window and provide um pre-application workshops for people. I
want to thank members of the planning commission for giving us some really important feedback which is to emphasize the uh restriction placed on a certain category of activities in the community development block grant program um the public service activities. And so by by
doing that um the applicant who is kind of the first time um applicant to the program and who's been recommended for funding under both programs kind of took a look at what they were trying to do and split their application and applied under both programs and made it through.
So um that was really great feedback and it has helped us hopefully develop a stronger um site. Part of the the difficult portion of this, as I've mentioned before, is that when we go into this process, we don't have any idea how much
money we're going to get, uh, if any. Um and so we start off by basing our kind of initial review on the the awards that we uh the allocations that we received in the prior year. Provided in the packet a summary of just the applications that were received um
between the two programs and tried to break them down into the um basically different categories that HUD has set up in terms of um what kind of uh work you're allowed to do with those. Um, and so you see those there. If you can go to the next slide, I think that's much more
interesting. Um, uh, this one, I don't know if you can kind of like full screen it or zoom out. But as soon as we get those and I kind of break them down, I look at the requirements that HUD sets up. I try to break them down into different categories. Um,
this analysis is based on on it's kind of tricky. It's based on the current year applications that we received matched against our best estimate of what money we're going to get from HUD from the prior year. And so when we started reviewing the
applications uh we had um big gaps in each of the categories and you can see um and then the public service activities um basically essentially the red 153,18220
says that the nonprofit partners in the community asked for that much more money than we thought we would have available to us. Now, if you go to the next slide, good good piece of news is that we've been working um as diligently as we can
over the last couple years to really um stay in HUD's good graces. Um and based on congressional allocations, uh each either pro each of the programs is going to be seeing it's anticipated to see
increases in funding. Um and so, uh let me see here. We think that we are going to go from uh that CDBG will increase 4.37% uh an increase of about um from 445,000
to 464,000. Not huge, but for the nonprofit groups that are going to receive that money, um that's great. Uh under home, it's a larger anticipated increase at 7.79%. which sounds great, but really what that
does is that just offsets the 7.5% reduction that we saw last year. So now we're we're roughly in line with the amount of funding that we had two years ago. We're getting the funding. We're all very happy about that. Um my job is
to kind of prepare the applications, kind of do an internal review, and then hand them over to the members of the volunteer members of the task force. This year we welcomed a new uh representative from the planning commission uh commissioner Karp. Uh he might be able to speak about that a
little bit. That is a point at which I'm very glad that I'm not involved in those conversations. My job is to be an impartial u servant u liaison between the members of the um review team and the applicants. And so if they read the applications and they have questions,
things that they feel they need to know more about, they come to me, they ask those questions, I go back to the applicants and then I report word for word. I always do it by email and then I report word for word what they send. Um we did that a couple times this year and it was actually very helpful I think to
the members of the review team the information that we got back. And so um what you're seeing here is not actually the plan. The plan is a very large uh document. It is going to be made available on the Thomas Jefferson
Planning District Commission web page tomorrow. The draft plan, it's available for a 30-day period of public comment, meaning that any member of the public can go and take a look at that plan. We have links on the city CGBG and home web
page. And as soon as it goes live, we're going to do um one of the news alerts to uh communications. And so, um, it's up there. They can read it. They can show up at any of the public hearings subsequent to this one and make
any comments that they want. Um, we receive all the comments. We incorporate them into the plan. There's a special section of the final plan. Uh, and then if all goes well, we get local approvals from the city council and TJPDC. We send it on to HUD.
A lot of people say, "Oh, did HUD approve the plan?" It's very interesting. Those of you who know federal regulations, they don't approve a plan. They just inform you that it met statutory guidelines. Um, this year we met statutory guidelines
which then uh enabled us to receive this amount of funds and hopefully with your help and input and that of the community, we will repeat that again. Uh, a couple things about the recommendations. You'll see that um
there's a a preliminary funding recommendations right here, which is what the um review team recommended based on what we knew at the time. And so in order to get these things kind of done, they have to make the recommendations. And so uh
what you don't see on the spreadsheet is that it's calculated out to a very precise decimal point. And then when the official allocation award letter comes through from HUD, which it did on April 6th, I then kind of backwards
math the percentage to the new numbers. And so what that does is it presents a dilemma for the members of the review team if we have an overage. And it presents basically two options. Um, one is that you take the overage and you
split it evenly among all the applications recommended for funding or you kind of do an equal uh percentage or some other kind of complication um complicated math to figure out that some applications might get more because
we didn't have the allocation letter at the time. And the typical procedure as far as I know for all CDBG funded localities is just take any overage or um decrease and apply it evenly among all the applications.
What that means is that you'll see that some of the applicants are receiving are recommended to receive more than they had in their initial application and others aren't. A great example of that would be the Ark of the Piedmont is
looking to do some infrastructure improve improvements at their group home for um adult persons with um intellectual uh disabilities. They're getting more than what they asked for, but that's only because the the final allocation
from HUD came in higher and that with that 4.37% increase that took them over. If you can scroll down a little bit, um, like the affordable housing applications, each one of those saw that same 4.37%
application, the leap in the AHIP, um, applications, but it takes them nowhere near what they asked for in their applications because the amount that they asked for um, was so large. So, I know that there going to be some questions that will come up at some
point about why did some people get more than what they asked for. It's only because it's a good problem to have. The allocation letter came in with higher numbers. Um, based on the feedback that we get here tonight and any of the feedback received from the public, then we take these
before city council, they approve and then my job is to create funding agreements and scope of work agreements and hopefully um bring good things out into our community. Uh, if you can go to the next slide, please.
I'm trying to learn. Uh my first packet I think was very long. Um this one is just a brief timeline of kind of this. So we start in um the prior year publishing a consolidated notice of funding availability that kind of tells how much we anticipate. Um, on January
5th, we started the application window and I started meeting with prospective applicants, going through kind of what the basically all we want to do is make sure that people know what they're applying for. In the past, we've gotten applications that were suitable for the home program, but under the CDBG program
and under the C vice versa. Um, and that they know if what they're trying to ask for is will meet HUD requirements. Um, the last thing we want is for people out there trying to do good things in the community to waste their time and energy
applying for something that the requirements for the program won't allow us to fund in the first place. And we've had those in the past. Um, the CDBG home task force met uh a variety of times. um they finalized their funding recommendations and then
shortly thereafter um we received the HUD notice on April 6th and now we have our public hearing uh the public comment period. Um the electronic version is going to be available on the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission website that's always been there. We'll
have links on our web page. If any members of the public want a written copy of the plan, all they have to do is contact any of the staff contacts or myself and we can get them a printed copy. Um, we had one person kind of inquire about that and then when we
talked about it, really all they wanted was to have it read to them. So, we talked about how to have their computer read the PDF and we structured the PDFs to to be accessible and um, they were very happy with that. So, we didn't have to give a a printed copy. Um,
>> and then all of this is trying to gear up to get money into nonprofits hands so that they can start on July 1 uh with their good works. If we can go to the last slide. And so this is basically a summary of what we're trying to do and give an
estimate of how many people um that uh or organizations will be assisted. um you'll see these uh odd codes 18C microenterprise assistance. Basically, that's a HUD cate category that
designates that kind of work as an eligible activity and then outlines all of the requirements that we and the subreients have to follow. Um we have adult literacy that we've done before. um uh accessibility and and
infrastructure improvements for the Ark of the Pedmonts group home which we funded in the past for a different purpose. Um we have uh funding eviction diversion counseling um this time that was a really big
priority for um the members of the review team. And um then we have we're funding um home eligible income eligible homeowner rehabilitations and energy efficiency upgrades through AHIP and LEAP which we've done before. But the
new applicant is a group called Building Goodness Foundation. And they've done uh interesting work internationally and locally. And now we're trying to use their participation in this program to create what could be a very impactful
partnership among some of the existing organizations that we funded. Meaning that they can go do certain kind of rehabilitations for homeowners that LEAP and AHIP don't do >> and so kind of provide a more
comprehensive package. And then under the CDBG side, Building Goodness Foundation wants to take their expertise working with um nonprofits that serve the populations that we're trying to help and use that to provide some kind of infrastructure uh improvements for
those nonprofits. It's a little complicated because a lot of nonprofits are in buildings operate in buildings that they don't own, which makes it a little bit more complicated. Um but we're very excited to work with them. They've done a lot of work with um child care centers, work um
kind of rebuilding and rehabilitating their um patios in the back to provide more shade for the little ones and to provide safer play spaces and those kind of things. So, all in all, uh it was a long I think Commissioner C explain long
and and and difficult deliberations, but I think we have a a stronger uh slate of recommendations than we could And with that, I'll make myself available for any questions. >> Um, planning commission, uh, questions
and again questions first and then we'll let the public talk. >> Right. Um, uh, I got a couple questions. The redevelopment of our public housing stock, it's got a lot of really good momentum and one of the main reasons it's going so well is because we really
engaged the residents. It looks like we zeroed out the request for um resident involved redevelopment. Any what was the thinking? >> Yes, that is exactly true. Um that that was a particularly um difficult deliberation and part of that is the
fact that with the advent of the um the new kind of funding stream that the city's offering for fundamental organizations um we really try to make sure that the other funding streams aren't doing
duplicative work and some of the scope of work that that um FAR does under the program that they've been funded for in the past falls under the scope of work for their designation as a um fundamental organization. So if you look in the mayor's or the
city manager's recommended budget for the coming year FARS is slated for a significant increase in funds. So once that once we became aware of that and the fact that some of the work that they were funded under CDBG falls under the
scope of work of this program um the the members if I'm capturing their sentiment correctly kind of moved away from that and said let's try to get money into these other programs. It's always a very difficult conversation. Um, and you know, every
year that I've done this, the review team members walk away saying, "I just wish we had enough money to give everybody." Um, but largely in that case, it was the designation of FAR as a fundamental and the significant increase in money that they're going to see under the mayor's budget. >> But there was unanimous consent, I
believe, that that's a worthy program to fund. >> The second question relates to the IRC. We uh we we we've um put a lot of energy in helping the Afghan refugees who move to Charlottesville uh get integrated into our community,
but looks like we're not looking to to help fund that. At least not on in this document. What was what was I thinking? So that that brings up a point that I might have glossed over before and I apologize. Um that that kind of work, if you look under that, it falls under this
public services activities category. and what I meant to to say but I did not I don't think that is the category of funds for which we get the largest number of applications and the greatest financial ask it's also the most severely constrained by HUD and it's
limited to locality is limited to no more than 15% of their annual allocation to dedicate to those programs so it's the smallest pot of money that we have available to award to funds and basically what that came down to I think
among a number of other considerations is that they would have loved to have fund IRC. We funded them in the past. We would have loved to do it again. The work, the scope of work that they're proposing to do is similar in a lot of ways to work that's being done by other groups, other organizations, and
including the literacy volunteers of Charlottesville tomorrow who works with some of the same population. and the idea that with not a lot of money to to allocate I think I think we were limited
to uh I think it was 66,000 if you could go oh well we're away from the sites never mind um but the IRC is connected to a a larger national and international organization and literacy volunteers is a local organization
And so I one of the considerations was trying to use what little money we have to support a local organization. They can't rely on a larger national. Not saying that IRC gets a lot of support. That wasn't something that any of us knew um from the national organization.
But when push came to shove, the idea was to try to keep that money as local as possible and award more money to LBCA. I'd be able to answer questions about process but
it >> sure um can you go back to the recommendation allocation slide please Patrick? Yeah, that one. The, uh, programmatic funding and set aides, can you just
inform us what that means? >> So, um, that's a great question. Basically, those are just a broad category of activities. So, planning and admin is a set aside of funds to pay for um the coordination of the program um
salaries in in in some part my salary. Um, the city covers part of my salary. Um public services cap is a programmatic that's just that small category of funds within the larger allocation that um is
limited to those IRC LDCA activities. City council has traditionally established um some priorities for um public facilities improvements and economic development. Um when I started it the the sheets that I were was
inherited had these numbers on there. Um I believe I I guess I don't know for certain that at some point they were a percentage of the total allocation but I was never able to f find anything like that. So um I just kind of was recommended to carry forward those
numbers. Um but those come out of the CDBG allocation. And then that last category, the home program local match is basically a um requirement that has for every dollar that they give you for affordable
housing activities under the home program, localities are required to spend 25 cents. For a long time, the city appropriated local funds into a special category to support these activities.
Um, one of the things that my parents said is I don't always listen as well as I should, but in this case I did. The uh, my colleague over at Thomas Jefferson Clity District Commission knows more about home funding and activities than I believe anybody in the
six member consortium. uh her name is Lori Jeene Toon and what she found she and I both started about the same time was that we don't have to appropriate local funds specifically for these activities because HUD already allows us to count all of the affordable housing
activities that a locality engages in anyway which as you know city council has been pledging uh 10 million or more a year. So basically what that means is that each year we have to record some affordable housing activity that's
funded through local dollars with HUD and then that covers the match and so we do that on behalf of the entire consortium. So none of the other members who have much smaller budgets to work with. Um
we as part of being the lead agency in the consortium, we cover that for them. But we do that through the the normal course of activities of the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund. And so what my colleague found out is that we report those to HUD. Oh, so $10 million worth of activity, any of that
could and then they allow us to bank up those over years. So, we have a credit with HUD on the affordable housing match side of a couple million dollars that could carry us for quite some time. But because the affordable housing fund is our is so active, every
year we just find the council resolution that supported that activity, we send that on to HUD along with the the um plan and it kind of covers that credit. So, those aren't additional funds, those are just kind of a way to break it down. And on a memo that was generated years
ago, it said programmatic funds and I just carried it over. >> So there's sort of earmarked funds from the larger. >> Yeah. It doesn't add to the total amount we have available. Just kind of breaks down kind of. So one of one of the things that you see in the packet is that um we typically recommend
priorities to council. And so I have a draft somewhere in the packet of what that priorities memo would look like. trying to foster a conversation so that we're not just passing the same recommendations on if if the community wants to recommend changes in council
once adopt them. I also left that number blank because if those are still important priorities then we should give some thought as to how we come up with a number for it. Not just carry the same number for it. Is it a percentage breakdown like a 5% of
however much money we get or that's all um to be dealt with in the future. So um great question. >> Sure. Thank you. The um different colors here the amount split between the different colors not necessarily in
within the colors is that decided by task force or is that programat programmatic? >> Uh it's a question about the amounts under the recommendations. So like the purple is a subtotal of 60,000. >> Oh yes. >> Is that 60,000
>> determined or is it >> provided by the task force? >> That's provided that's that's based on the task force and on the spreadsheet that's basically so I give them a blank version of the spreadsheet with just kind of the program programmatic breakdowns and I I lock it all down and then they can plug in the numbers
anywhere and then there's some hidden fields off to the side that shows kind of break adds up each category. So that if they if they had put 24,000 for CIC >> Mhm. >> that number would have automatically gone up by whatever that So it's just an auto calculation. Got
>> uh of whatever their recommendations are. >> And then my last question here is about the unallocated line of 55,000. >> Oh, that's a great question. Um and I knew that was going to come up. It's a great question. So basically under the
home program so a tricky way to look at the home program is that the allocation letter is so we get more funds under the home program. So for CDBG we anticipate getting $464,924 but under the home investment
partnerships program we anticipate getting $740,545. So people look at that number and they think oh we have a lot of money to spend. Well, TJPDC coordinates that that um program on behalf of the six members.
So, there's a 10% set aside for their planning and admin costs. Um then there is a set aside from that to go to a larger award that rotates among the six members each year. It's called a CHOT. I can we
can go into that later. And then whatever whatever is remaining is divided equally among the six members of the consortium. So our local share is what those are always referred to as is I think 17.5% of the total I can't
remember the breakdown off the top of my head but so basically um that 92,56821 is going to be what we anticipate our local share to be. >> We only received two applications under the home program this year. One was from
building uh goodness foundation and the other one was from CRA. CRA recently acquired a property uh and it needs significant rehabilitation work. They indicated in their application that if they so the request was for $150,000
under the home program and they indicated that if we always ask them you what will happen if we can't fund you at 100% of what you're asking for? And in that they said um we would have to go back to kind of square one and try to do a lot of local fundraising
for uh the whatever the gap funding needed to to meet that 150,000 and they'd have to start from scratch. And so because HUD has timeliness requirements, um they funded bu they recommended building goodness to be
funded at 100% of their ask and then that went up a little bit because of the um 7.79% increase and whatever was left over is that unallocated fund. Now, the task force would have liked to, if I'm
capturing their deliberations correctly, awarded that to CRAA in this round because we've seen the property. Uh, I went by, took a look at it. We know it needs work and it could potentially um offer
people at the um below 50% of the average median income scale um eight individuals um some entry housing. So it's an admirable goal. It's a great goal. But if they have to then raise
$100,000 once we award that it has and it goes ahead and they accept it that starts the clock and so the idea was we just put that as unallocated and then count we can either go back to council at a later date with an
application CR can come back and say hey look we know that there's this amount of money on the table we've done some work on our end and we think we have the funding sack for the full 150,000 and then that money could be, you know, uh,
awarded to them depending on how council approves it. That money could go to any group or it could be held in reserve for CRA if they come up with a a a plan that staff needs to be viable. Um,
so it's just kind of there. Um, there are any number of projects that it could be applied to. I think that the review team's hope was that it could be used to kind of help CRA develop a more um
actionable plan. One of one of the one of the beautiful things about uh the calf and the vibrant communities fund is that they're local dollars and so they're very flexible. Anytime we use the HUD funds, as soon as we award them, the the clock starts ticking and
especially on the CDBG side. Um, at the end of each program year, HUD does a calculation of how much money we have kind of in our, you know, the kind of they they call it a line of credit, how much money we have not spent of what they've given us. And if it is too
large, if it doesn't meet their timeliness ratio, then we start to have a different conversation with HUD. Um, similar thing applies on the home side. Um, you know, I'm available, my colleague Lori Jean, anybody in the city is available to kind
of work with CRA to try to come up with a plan because that property is could provide benefit to the community. It's a worthy plan. They indicated that they if they didn't get the full 150,000. So, I went back and I looked at all the years of the home program and I
think one year our local share was 147,000, but that was about 20 years ago. and then it's never been really close since. So, the review team started off not being able to fund them fully and that's why it's kind of sitting there right now.
>> Thank you. >> I have a couple questions. The um the $55,000 unallocated um could that be used to supplement the Charlottesville affordable housing fund or could that be used in that process in some way in a helpful way? I I do worry
about the uh the clock adding complications and problems, but it is money. Yes. Um the short answer is yes. Now uh the the qu it it can't supplement local funds because HUD is very clear that they're trying to give us money to do additional things in the community
that we wouldn't be able to do. Um but could it go to support a project? Yes. >> That that is exciting. >> Especially especially if it increases what that project is able to do. >> Okay.
In case someone on the fly made a spreadsheet uh looking at ways to uh reallocate uh assuming that people who ask for a certain amount of money should only get that certain amount of money and not extra bonus money. Um would it be possible to um keep uh funding to
what is asked for and then move money to LEAP ahip and uh I've got CI CIC >> without problems. I can share with you the the I I call it the sandbox, the spreadsheet that I kind of created. I I
can unlock it, share it with you, and then you can kind of look at those kind of funding um recommendations. And then there's a little there are two little boxes that are kind of hidden off the side that show you how much is available to in HUD terminology, funds that are
available to commit are is the money that you have to to work with. So, I can I'd be more than happy to share that. But if there was say a a a uh a proposal made tonight for recommendation for council uh and the re recommendation was to hold um requests at the levels
requested and then to add the balance to the three organizations named uh who are not meeting their requests. Am I correct? That would not break CDBG rules. >> Um what were the I'm sorry. Can you go back? What were the three AHIP leap and building goodness? >> Uh no CIC.
>> Oh CIC. Um, so if I understand correctly, you're saying the recommendation could be to hold all of the organizations uh the that applied that are recommended for funding at what they ask for in
their application and then divide. Yeah. I mean, you you guys have the power to make whatever recommendations you want to to council, >> but that would not make CDBG angry at or HUD angry at us. >> Thank you. As long as we don't any
public service category. >> No. Yeah. >> Okay. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> I see. >> And so the the work like you guys have the authority to do that. Um, I will say that the the work that
CIC does is pretty rare for a city of our size. To have a CDFI, like a a Treasury designated community development financial institution in our community for a city of our size is kind of is rare. And if you've been over to
the Saturday market, right, and and gotten any of the food, a lot of those people came through CIC workshops. um the Beacon commercial kitchen which is thriving. Like it's I can't even begin to say how how impressed I am with what
they've done. A lot of the people who are in there preparing food and a lot of the people who came up with the idea came out of the CIC uh partnership. So, um I'm not allowed to have input on any of the recommendations, but you guys
have far more enough um within your purview to make that recommendation. Council, if you like that questions, >> uh just one clarifying question on the programmatic funding and set aside. So,
the two council priorities um that are 89,000 each, are those are those funds that are actually set aside and the council is going to determine or have they been allocated in this process already? >> That is a great question. When I started
uh I started uh December 7th, 20 uh 2022, that's one of the questions that I asked because it was in there all the time and nobody really knew kind of where the numbers came from. a lot of the people who were involved at the time were gone. Um, and we don't always get applications
up to that level. So, the approach that's been adopted by the review teams that I've been working with has been to try to get to that goal. >> Okay. >> But if you can't reach that goal, then we just specify that in the um notes that go to city council. Um,
>> yeah. >> Okay. That's that's what I thought, but I just want to make sure. I think and what I've been told is that part of that incentive for the public facilities infrastructure came from when the program was trying to do things like um sidewalk improvements and things in
areas that t typically get that kind of work. And one of the problems that you came up with was that that timeliness requirement comes in like this money really needs to go into a project especially on the CDBG side into a shovel ready project that's already been through permitting that already has NDS
approval. Um that's why like a couple years ago we we were able to invest 89,000 or so into this emergency um that was encountered by Beacon Commercial Kitchen while they were digging up their pipes and we had that money aside. They had already been through permitting.
They had already been through all the the site plan review and development. Their contractor dug up the the connections to the municipal line and they were in bad shape and they were too small. And so they needed about $90,000 to um replace
that. And because we had the money available in that set aside for the public facilities and infrastructure, we hadn't gotten an application and they had all the permitting in place. They had all the approvals. We were able to do a really quick injection of those funds and their contractor didn't even
have to really stop work. They just stopped work on excavating out the water, sewer, and electrical conduits. Did some work on the inside of the building and then when the money came through was able to switch around and it was pretty seamless. So,
any >> questions? >> I don't think so. Commissioner Joy. Yeah. >> As UVA's non- voting member of the panel, I just wanted to say I don't have any questions, but I appreciate all the hard work and the commitment to supporting the community. >> Thank you.
>> Um, quick question to kind of tag on to what Commissioner Solates was asking about. Um, so the committees, um, what they ended up doing was spreading the money equally, even if you're going over a requested amount. Yes. Is there a
reason they chose to do that versus leaving them um not adding money to people who've already gotten everything asked for? >> Well, there was deliberation of kind of the two options which was to take any potential overage and then allocate that
in a different way or to just go with a uniform increase. And it was basically because we really had no idea when uh like the HUD notice >> it typically is supposed to come around
January, February, early March last year. I think it came out end of May. Uh and so basically just looking at the calendar trying to get things in place so we can get the plan to HUD before and and then get the funding agreements and the scope of works in line before the
July one start of the new program meeting year. It was just a you know because we had no idea when the letter would come. As soon as as soon as we had our final meeting and they they um voted thumbs up or thumbs down um we went back had a weekend and then the
letter came in. Okay. >> Yeah. It's basically just basically without knowing the final answer the easiest. >> And this timeline happens every year, right? It's always kind of comes late or is this just a a federal government new thing? >> There's a statutory requirement that
they have the allocations published by April 4th. >> Okay. >> I will say that in the code of federal regulations it says that. So, but then in terms of the guidance, they usually have dates that they set for when they
want to plan from a city like ours. >> That memo has not been published this year. It's usually published. It's the first or second memo that HUD publishes each year. That hasn't come out this year. So, we default to the statutory absolute deadline, which is August 16th,
I believe, but we're trying to go >> earlier in order to get funding recommendations. So, um, we go before council May 4, um, planning district commission May 7 and then the final vote, um, on May 18th. >> I mean, it makes sense. I see you you've got the July 1. You got to work
backwards from that. So, I mean, I get it. I just I was curious how that >> Okay, that's all I think that's all of our questions. Are do we have any public Anyone here want to ask a question? >> Do we have anyone online?
>> Anyone online who'd like to comment? They can raise the hand icon in Zoom. >> Mr. Chair, I see no raised hands. >> Okay. Well, I guess that's the end of our public hearing. So, um comments from the commission. Um can I start with Commissioner Mitch?
>> I'm happy to make a motion if you like. >> Um I think so. Are there anybody have any comments? >> Let's go for a motion. >> All right. I move that we recommend that council accept the draft one-year annual
action plan for program year 2627 and the associated uh draft funding recommendations as presented here tonight. Is there a second? >> Second.
>> All right. Um Mr. Okonnell, can you uh call a vote for us? >> May I comment on that? Yes. >> Uh the only word wording changes that I would like to see would be that uh we recommend that funds for Arc of the Piedmont Haven Day Shelter and BGFCville
builds be held at the amounts asked for and the balance be split between CIC LEAP and AHIP. >> That would >> and I will not accept that as a friendly amendment. I >> understood. Thank you, sir. Well, the logistical reasons that um uh staff has pointed out and that um the folks who
deliberated on this uh earlier I think would just be more difficult than it needs to be to to manage it that way. >> All right. So, I guess the the motion still stands, second still stands. So, yeah. Can we call a vote?
>> Commissioner Solates >> pass. Commissioner Harness, >> yes. >> Commissioner Karp, >> yes. >> Commissioner Yoder, >> yes. >> Commissioner Rooker, >> yes. >> Commissioner Mitchell, >> yes. >> Chairman Schwarz,
>> yes. A quick question. Does pass mean yes, no, or abstain? >> Abstain. >> Okay. >> Um All right. Uh, next item. >> Um, thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Thanks. I can find it in here. Is the um we have a
special exception permit for um 408 Harris Road. >> Yes. So I'll just briefly introduce this. This is a special exception on amenity space for 408 Harris Road. Um believe I have a few slides
prepared. So you can go to the next slide. The property is zoned RB um as is most of Harris Road. Um there is a line of RC zoned town homes um adjacent to it. That's part of the Longwood PUB. Um
there's also some civic zone areas there for the um amenity space for that PUD development. And um Jackson Via Elementary School is off to the east. The area is mostly um designated medium
intensity residential um which includes town homes and duplexes and things like that. So the next slide just has the um applicants exhibit. Um so this is a six sublot proposal. Um so six residential
dwellings in three duplex units um with sidefacing garages. and the applicant would like to use the green highlighted areas which are basically um very small grass um front yards as the amenity space as
required by the code. So the final slide um just has the request um in order to make this happen we would need to reduce the required amenity space per lot which stands at 10% and reduce the minimum and amenity space dimensions because the code requires each area to be a minimum of
400 square f feet. um with horizontal dimensions of at least 10 ft. Um staff did not recommend approval of this and the reasons were included in your staff report, but if approved uh we would not recommend any conditions be placed on the permits. So happy to take any
questions that you have >> the uh the rightway configuration. >> Yes. Is that at the heart of the problem or is it is it the application is is is it the applicant's design? Um the applicant is suggesting that the
rightway configuration is a problem and not their design. >> The existing rightway there is curb and a sidewalk and I believe the applicant is reconfiguring a bit. Um they did approach us earlier
asking if um rightaway could be purchased from the city. Um and engineering and utilities discussed that and kind of shot that down saying it was basically more trouble than it's worth regarding the configuration and maintenance of the utilities that are already there and that are proposed to be there. Um the
there is some grass area that's within the rightway currently. Uh but that can't be used as amenity space because of the way the code is written. The code specifies that an amenity space has to be on a lot and not part of the rightway. >> So the applicant would have a really uh
it would be difficult for them to redesign this thing to to meet their general objectives because of the rightway. I mean I'm I'm just trying to understand is the rightway really the heart of the problem or is there is there more is there something I'm missing?
might want to defer to the to the applicant regarding the specifics of the design. >> The applicant will have a chance to speak in a minute. I mean, we I and they might be able to speak to that, but I would leave it just to clarifying questions right now and then give the applicant a chance to give their presentation.
>> Yep. Sorry. I I should have question. >> I know. And I I didn't guide that very well. Yeah. If you would like to present I'm sorry. >> Yeah. Um I'd like to just give a quick introduction, a little history. I'm Richard Spursome Neighborhood Properties. I invest started investing
in Charlottesville 45 years ago. Um during that time, I've uh developed 200 single family detached and attached lots in the city, 198 of which have houses on them at this point. It's not quite the
number of that Southern Development has done at 630, but 200's a lot. Um we've uh been working on this little parcel for about 11 or 12 years at this
point. We first thought about adding it to the uh PUB for Longwood. Um but somewhere along the line the the uh acreage requirements for PUDS increased and we weren't able to do that. Um we
then looked at um applying for special use permit um to get um additional density here. Um that didn't really quite work out. So um when the new zoning
um code came into effect, we started to go down that road. Um we've gone through various different things. Um, I'm a little bit surprised that staff didn't recommend approval of this, um, since they're the ones that suggested we go
down this route and not go through the purchase of the rightway route. Um, which we were, uh, pretty far down along that road, excuse the pun. Um but any case um you know we're as you all know
there's been very few projects and no significant projects approved under the new zoning code. There's lots of little parts of it that need to be worked out clarified. That's the whole point of you
know you're redoing the code thing. We've tried to work with this. Um we're just trying to produce town houses that are just like the joining um development long which was 43 town
houses and which of course it is a joins Flint Hill which is now under construction and that was all approved. So this is the great place for this. It's just six little lots. Um, my my
engineering planning costs are over $40,000 on this little exercise already. Um, and um, so yeah, I'll let I'll let Dustin get into the specifics. Um, but again, we're just trying to work with
what the code is, trying to get six slots of housing that this community needs. Good evening, commissioners. My name is Dustin Green. I'm the design engineer for this site plan. Um,
I just want to discuss this. So, um, the minimum amenity space requirement. This is this this uh Intel site is is approximately about 8,900 square feet. So, it's a it's a tight space. Um, the 10% amenity requirements,
you know, put us uh north of 800 square feet. Um the space is available. Um that's why we tried to approach this uh city in purchasing the rideway. Usually that's
done within a a foot of the back of the proposed sidewalk. Um sometimes there's access evens that are requested um by uh the city in order to maintain those in perpetuity. um the 400 square foot space
and the 10 foot minimum width are available if we were to use that area from the back of the sidewalk um onto the property. So, um, we're trying to balance the sublot requirements for density along with the amenity space
requirements and we feel like, um, that the special exception is basically made for these kind of situ situations and especially um, you know, the new zoning ordinance doesn't always think about some of these more difficult prop properties that have these tight tight
spaces. happy to >> can you bring up the site plan that has the two the exhibit A and exhibit B plan just so I'm sure what you're let me see
so this is the exhibit the exhibit A which shows >> so that's the smaller >> yeah so the smaller shows that the the square footage minimum square footage of 400 ft is not met in any one of those um instances and the 10-ft width is not
met. Half if we were able to use the area behind the sidewalk um then we would meet the 10% the 400 square foot and the 10 foot width. Um, and the whole idea
is, you know, in the ultimate, you know, people are going to use those spaces. Um, and that's kind of the intent of the amenity space requirements. Um, it's just really a matter of who owns that at the area. We wanted to purchase it, but this is kind of the direction we were
capacitating. And what's going on between the buildings, the three buildings in the hatched area? >> Yeah, that's that's those are the shared driveways going into the garage spaces. >> Uh, wait a minute.
Let me see. Are are these lots um other than this amenity space are they meeting all the other requirements of the the code like the tree coverage? >> We are at um we we have not received uh
>> all we have not >> gotten all technical comments resolved but we're we're very close. >> Okay. So basically the tree coverage, the maximum building area, the front ed front edge, building width, all that stuff is already it's just this
as far as you know it's just >> yeah there was a streetcape um variance requested because there is a storm sewer uniquely in the sidewalk and having a green space we're not allowed to put trees there. So that was >> that was going to be another one of my questions. >> That was reasonable. >> Oh that's unfortunate. Yeah. >> Um
along the entire sidewalk. >> Yes. So the you know I I think the the idea is for this uh streets that work um >> initiative is that they want to have some green space in between >> the sidewalk and the edge of the back of the curb.
>> In this case the storm sewer you see at the corner of Longwood just after the curb return it follows the sidewalk. So we wouldn't be able to plant trees in the sidewalk anyway. So the green space is kind of allowed to be in behind.
Shoot. >> Oh, I wonder who designed that in the past. Okay, that's >> so >> that answers that question. That's unfortunate. >> Can I just ask a clarifying question on that? >> So, you're saying that there's a storm water facility under the what's currently a green strip between the
sidewalk? >> No, there's a storm sewer >> storm sewer >> drainage pipe on the the uh you can see it up there kind of there's right at Longwood. >> Yeah, right. >> Right there. So that that follows so that's that's the top of the of the
drainage area. So it it does follow underneath the sidewalk >> all the way down. That's kind of where we tap in. >> Okay. Okay. >> That sucks. >> Okay. Uh any any other questions?
>> Yeah. Okay. No, please. >> You asked the first question. >> Well, that's the question I was going to ask. I haven't gotten an answer. >> Well, I have a similar question. Um, >> can you describe these six homes that you envision being on the plot? I I gather that they're town homes with a
garage on the ground floor. Can you describe the rest of them at all? >> You want to describe understand the architectural? >> Well, yeah. I mean, they're they're they're basically just town houses like exist directly adjacent. there. Um the
first level is a garage and and then you go up to have two uh two levels above that. >> And um so yeah, you're going in that little driveway where you see those little islands and you're turning into the garage. The garages.
>> Do you know off the top of your head how wide they're proposed to be? Are they 20 foot? >> 20 foot, right? >> Okay. So, the if I'm not mistaken, the town homes in Longwood uh front the street >> uh >> or front the parking lot, if you will.
>> Well, yeah. The the one that this is adjacent to has a private um courtyard fronts. >> Yeah. I guess my question is is is there something driving like sublot 6, five, four, and three from not facing
>> Oh, yeah. the the zoning doesn't doesn't allow you to to face the street. >> Great. Um >> okay. All right. Let me um just net it out. The you are asking for the special
exception because there's a hardship and the hardship is result of the rightway configuration. Is that Did I have I'm just trying to net this thing out. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean the I mean you see that the rightway
I mean the curb and everything is well into the rightway. I mean we could acquire this right away but we are not Yeah. You're not going more complicated to try to get the city. >> I just want to want to make make certain that we understand the net of the problem and the net of the problem. >> Yeah. I mean this thing cannot be
developed if we don't get this exception. We've been through every other part of this and resolved bazillion other little issues and and yeah, I mean there was a plan initially back to you where you had two town houses fronting on Harris and then you
had four front town houses fronting on Longwood and that's that's not allowed now with the sublot >> sort of stuff. I'd like to add that to I mean it's a it's a good idea for the city of Charlottesville to keep your
wife your right away for future infrastructure. That makes sense. But on a close-ack road that uh is lined up to flood planes uh a creek and the city border, you know, it doesn't maybe
doesn't make as much sense. >> I mean, we all know that the rightways in the in in the city are much wider than the roads that are actually built in in most places. >> Mr. Chair, may I ask a question from
staff? >> Yeah. >> Uh I emailed uh recently asking about our plans for Longwood. We we aren't the applicant is asserting that we are not planning a a major highway through the area. Can you confirm that? >> Yes.
>> Okay. Any other questions or should we move on to comments? Well, I guess if well we can ask questions again, but yeah, anyone any comments? Um, I can start or with either side or >> I guess I
>> Yeah. Um, so if I so if I understand correctly, the the main issue is that the amenity space exists in the real world. It just doesn't it it belongs in the city right of way. But if you're walking down the
sidewalk, you can't tell that, right? So if we were to grant this, I think the main concern would be in the future the city wants to come through and widen it and then that amenity space no longer meets requirements. That's that to me seems like the main risk to approving the the special
exception. >> Okay. Sorry. >> The other risk that might come along with it not endorsing this one way or another is the precedent that it sets for amenity space, including land that's not on the lot.
>> I have some thoughts on that. All right. I'm gonna like Yeah, I'm just gonna jump in. I guess the um Sorry. Uh, I'm not sure I fully understand this whole amenity space requirement that we have in the zoning code. Um, I have to admit that
I I I remember it being part of apartment buildings. If I realized it was part of RA, RB RC, I feel like I would made a much bigger stink about it when we were writing the draft of our zoning code. Um, we have public parks for a reason. And I feel like the this
amenity space, a 10-ft planted strip is I I'm not sure what that is as an amenity space. You can't, you know, throw a ball in that space. There's probably there could be trees there or there could be bushes. Um, is that enough room to put like a little playhouse, which do we want to see that
on our city right away? I feel like these driveways are actually going to be where if these people have kids, the kids can be playing in the driveway. So, if they want to throw a ball, they're just going to walk out in the street because there's not much traffic. Um, it feels like a very odd requirement of our
zoning code and I'd really like to see it added to our our list of items we want to review with the zoning code um as to whether it it needs to be there. Um one of the other so the staff report sites um providing uh let's see what was the
quote that you pulled out of there um to ensure spaces uh to ensure adequate recreation and open space area for occupants and to ensure such spaces are accessible, usable and safe. And then there was another line that wasn't included which was encouraging public encouraging projects to provide high quality pedestrianoriented and publicly
accessible gathering spaces along streetscapes. Um, >> could I just add a clarifying thing? >> Yeah. >> My understanding is >> when I asked this question to the planners and and and my engineer,
>> we're going to have decks on these. Those are amenity spaces, but they're only for the tenants of that unit. Right. >> So, this amenity requirement is apparently only for a space for people
to gather in a public space. As you said, people can gather in the driveway, but you're officially on, you know, that's only the amenity space for that occupant. So, there is amenity space.
>> Yeah. >> Yeah. It's it's better for a bigger development that has a big tot lot or playground or swimming pool or tennis court that is a real amenity space that can be used for everyone in the community. Um the fact that these six
people will come out and gather on the strip of grass whether it's 400 feet or 800 feet and not just congregate on their own deck is is a little bit absurd. That's kind of where I'm going with this.
>> Oh, yeah. And can I ask just a quick question? >> Does the amenity space because this isn't necessarily a space people would gather because it's a a strip. I mean, can you add up all this
other, you know, between the entries? I mean, there's some other space that could be counted if it needed to be counted just to get by the requirement, but that's, you know, given that this isn't necessarily like you're saying like a
>> Yeah. Well, those are officially driveways, so we can't count those. But yes, if there was a block >> along Harris, you would have it on the driveway. >> Yeah. And along Harris, there's grass and trees, right? There's that offer there, too.
>> So, yeah, I can speak to that. So, I think we were trying >> Can you come to the microphone? >> Oh, yeah. Sorry. >> Um, I think we were trying to use the side of the house spaces. I particularly, you know, I don't
necessarily want people right in my front yard if I could avoid it. Um, this is this is a space on the side. um and not using all the little intricate parts is because of the 400 foot and 10 foot wide requirements.
>> Okay. >> Just a thought, but >> yeah, I think each one has to be more than 10 ft, which even if you wrapped it around, >> yeah, >> I don't there can't be any dimension smaller than 10 ft. I'd also like to point out that um
if we were to have the special exception reduction um we're still at I think at 80% of the total 10% space and we don't meet that that that width but you know we're close.
>> Yep. Um, and just to tie this to like if we're it's probably bad planning to say, well, we're going to approve this because we don't like that section of the zoning code, although I really want to do that. I I do think it's worthy of an exception
because it is um that, you know, the staff's graphic that showed adjacent green spaces. Um, there are some large green spaces adjacent to this. There's also a school directly across the street that is a very very large >> gathering space that I think would
>> be a good reason to give this an exception. It also the um the form of these buildings with the amount of green space that's there matches what's currently happening with the adjacent town homes. So it it it seems to fit in in that instance. If we were to pull
these buildings 5 ft further from the street, I don't think it would um I don't think that would be necessary to then uh make it fit better with the neighborhood. >> If I may, looking at the comprehensive plan, we use the word context 34 times.
Uh especially like where we say in strategy 1.2, to implement changes to the zoning ordinance needed to support community health and well-being con contexts sensitive design environmental protection and climate change mitigation and preparedness. I I think we must consider the context here.
>> I agree. And if we I don't want to if too much, but and if we were to look at this in the future in terms of this um I think you're right, the context of this being almost across the street from a
school with a playground gives I feel like is a a big plus for this. Um, and maybe that's something if we get into an amendment later, there could be something about um, you know, a radius
or adjacent parks or something that could help alleviate some of the pressure there. >> I'm happy to make a motion if you like. >> Sure. Let's see. I move recommend approval of
special special exemption permit uh number PL260030. >> Second. >> Mr. Connell, can you call a vote, please? >> All right. Commissioner Solates, >> I. >> Commissioner Harnesses, >> yes. >> Commissioner Kart, >> yes.
>> Commissioner Yoder, >> yes. >> Commissioner Ro, >> yes. >> Commissioner Mitchell, >> yep. >> Chairman Schwarz, >> yes. All right. Next up, we have our um ADU manual in LUFI study or in Luffy and student housing study. That's really hard to
say. >> There have been several words today that have been hard to say. >> Carl, >> doing a break. Oh. Um, can we actually take 5 minutes? >> Okay. Uh, it's 7:10 right now, so we'll
reconvene at 7:15. >> It's already Brown, director of neighborhood development services, and I'm here tonight to present on our um review of the affordable dwelling unit monitoring procedures manual, affectionately referred to as the ADU manual, which
must be updated on an annual basis. And the focus of this study this year is to determine if updates to affordable housing expectations for student housing and non- studentent housing and bonus are appropriate to improve support for affordable housing goals of the comp plan and address other concerns that
have been raised with current policies specifically for student housing. The manual has not yet been reviewed nor updated since it was adopted in 2024. In November of 2025, staff contracted with 3TP ventures to support this study, conducting research on practices of other jurisdictions, evaluating current
policies, and studying the financial feasibility of potential changes. Staff has also been conducting uh and gathering community input to uh confirm policy goals and um make sure we're headed in the right direction. Uh staff presented an overview of the scope of
work for this effort to city council in January of 2026. And I'm here tonight with Amanda Clapper from 3TP Ventures um and Line and Grade um to share key findings and potential updates for AD uh options for ADU manual updates. Um just
want to clarify that this is not an action item tonight, but rather an opportunity for commissioners to learn more about this research, ask questions, provide feedback and insights. And as I mentioned earlier, we will be sharing um the same material with city council next week. And so I look forward to um being
able to convey any planning commission feedback to them at that time. So with that, um Amanda and I are going to tag team a little bit tonight on this presentation. I'll um provide an overview and some background information and then uh turn it over to her to dive
into some of the details of the study. >> Oh, you're going to do it for me. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Okay. So, in terms of our agenda tonight, I'll present on the study background, purpose, and scope, um, public engagement, goals, and guiding principles. Um, and am I doing this
right? I'm trying to recall the finding. Well, someone will present on the study findings, findings from other jurisdictions, uh, findings from the initial fee evaluation, uh, feasibility impacts, and then our potential policy recommendations forward. Okay. And I've already gone through this
in my introduction. And um the purpose of this study is our uh to con conduct an annual review of the manual to determine where changes are needed. And we're focusing in specifically with a study on inlue fee payment requirements, bonus height um and this is for non-
studentent housing student housing and also the geographic criteria uh connected with student housing projects. So, uh, by way of background, um, this is an, uh, presentation of really what their current expectations are in the ADU manual and in the development code
for affordable housing. Uh, for residential development, any project with 10 or more units must provide 10% of units at um, uh, AMI levels of less than 60% or pay an inlue fee. um bonus height for units may be achieved
provided that units are provided at um less than 50% of the AMI or you must provide the same fee. Um the inloo fee is calculated as the average total cost per unit of developing a residential unit in the Charlottesville market and there are expectations for a bedroom
count up to three units. The expectations for student housing are different. Um, student housing is not defined as a particular use in the development code, but it does um have criteria associated with it for the
purpose of this policy. And that is that it is projects that are rented by the bedroom within a half mile campus grounds. Uh, for student housing, no on-site affordable units are allowed. Um, the inloo fee is required. And for student housing, the inloo fee is calculated differently. It's the
difference between the value of a market rate unit and that of an affordable unit which we refer to as the value gap. Um the expectations are uh for units that have bed um up to three bedrooms and the fee structure is presented on
the slide. Um questions are asked you know what was the rationale for um a distinction between student housing and residential non- studentent housing. Patrick you can move to the next slide. Oh, okay. >> And uh the the the rationale when the
policy was created uh with the adoption of the development code was that there are unique requirements for student housing projects um such as this the the the rental by bedroom rather than by a complete uh unit with kitchen and um uh
private amenities um and parental preference for student living conditions. Um, and so the decision was that since it's not likely that the market would want to deliver student housing projects that also include affordable units, um, we should not
require them. Um, uh, and so to go along with that, an inlue fee requirement was established that had a lower expectation kind of to be consistent with that lower expectation for affordable housing. Um and the uh current fee structure again
for non- studentent housing and student housing is presented on this slide. Keep going. Do you want questions as you're going? You want us to wait? >> Uh let me finish my portion and then if there are clarifying questions we can
can get to those. Um so this is the um geographic criteria where the student housing um boundaries were established. Um on the left is UVA grounds and um it's
hard to read but you can see north grounds and central grounds um labeled there. But on the right, easier to see, I think, um, is how that translates into the area of the city where this policy would actually apply. Patrick, you can kind of shift over, shift the slide
over. >> So, we can see that version with the buffer applied. Okay. Advance again. All right. Um, so that's that's the kind
of summary of the background on the existing policy. Um, I'm going to present a little bit more information kind of on the history of student housing and the market trends we're seeing. Um, but if you have questions on the policy, I'm happy to take them before we move on. >> The enl
housing is higher than the fee for >> that is correct. >> Student housing. And you did tell me why, but could you tell me again? Well, so it was um it's a different um assumption. U it's that it's assumed that we should be capturing the production cost uh rather than the value
gap. Um and the reason why it was deemed important to have two different um approaches was because um the value gap is actually a lower uh expectation and
um if we are not going to be requiring um on-site affordable housing, the thought was that we should be requiring less in terms of a fee >> and the value gap approach is lower. discussion, but do we want to do we want the expectations to be lower for student
housing as it relates to the end fee than something we can talk about later. >> Yeah. And I think actually staff has some recommendations. >> Okay. You know, this is actually the second time I've seen this presentation. I should probably >> you are you know you're setting you are
setting the stage well. Okay. So um uh in terms of you know how how we have gotten to where we are um with this question of student housing um UVA enrollment growth has steadily increased the demand for student
housing. Um while uh historically students lived on grounds in a limited capacity and in older apartment complexes right around the university. Um, as enrollment has grown, private developers have seen an opportunity to build purpose-built housing um,
concentrated close to grounds, they're building uh, these larger four-bedroom units with rental by the bedroom. And it is a um, you know, very profitable uh, product type that is meeting a a need in the in the community today.
you can advance. Uh, and some statistics on, you know, how that um is is playing out in in Charlottesville. Um, total undergraduate and graduate enrollment on grounds is 27,000 um, according to the University of
Virginia um, information on their web page. Um, 7,000 beds on grounds, 4,000 for first years. Um UVA has targeted for all secondyear students to live on grounds by 2030 and there are a number of projects um that have been completed recently or are currently under
construction. Um this slide is um not actually correct that it shows that a few projects um 2033 Ivy and Darden are offgrounds. Those are actually on grounds. Um there's a number of though that there are many beds though that are
being built close to grounds. um Verve, Aspen Heights, um 1117, uh Preston Avenue, and the Bloom. Um so that adds up to 3,500 beds. Um it's a it's a healthy increase in the
number of beds that are available, but certainly we, you know, will continue to see students living um in the surrounding community um and not on grounds. You can continue to advance. Um this is a trend that's not uh unique
to Charlottesville. Um this sort of construction is happening in other communities. Um I've provided images from of a couple of other I guess just Greensboro um for this presentation. Um
but it's also something that's happening um at uh Virginia Tech. There's a project known as uh called the Rambler. Um that will be a short walk from Virginia Tech and it will be eight stories, 247 units, 862 beds, um 577,000
square ft. Um so this this this product type is is trending, you know, throughout the region and nationally as well. Um however, you know, we don't have a crystal ball for what the future holds.
Um it is not clear that this is a trend that will continue into the future. It may be something that we're really just seeing at this moment in time as um births in Virginia are uh peaking um and well actually the births in Virginia
peaked about 18 years ago uh right around the time my son was born which helps explain why the um selection process for him was so challenging this year. But it's going to, you know, we're going to start to see a decline um in the total number of kids that are
looking to go to college. And we don't know what that means for enrollment um at UVA. But um there's also a question of whether or not we have just simply with all these new beds coming online reach saturation. I do know from um uh
sharing this information at loop and getting some feedback from staff at the university that there are no plans currently to build any additional housing on grounds until they see um whether there is continued demand for
additional beds um on grounds and close to the university with all these new beds coming online. You can advance Okay. So, now I'm going to turn it over to Amanda to um talk about the study of
our policy. Thank you. >> So, um staff gave us a number of concerns that they put into the the scope of our study that they had observed um kind of with the existing policy. Um so one is that gap between the the inloo fee for student housing
and for non- studentent housing and whether that's um really the policy that we want. Um that the current the way that the current fee structure was calculated and whether or not that's actually best practice. Um the fact that there's no inloo fee change for people
to get bonus height representing uh the 50% AMI requirement. Next slide. Um, and then specific to student housing, the the idea that the lack of on-site requirements within that halfmile buffer might be limiting the provision of affordable housing units
near campus, near grounds. Um, the lower fee for student housing being an incentive, maybe an unintended student housing and also the fact that there's no higher fee for fourbedroom units, which there are a lot of in these student housing projects. They're just paying the amount for three bedrooms.
Um, and then also what happens if a student housing project converts somewhere down the road and becomes non- studentent housing and then it hasn't um met its requirements for affordable housing. And finally, the concern that that large geography of the half mile buffer um might be promoting
displacement because it includes um vulnerable neighborhoods. Um so next slide. Um so the timeline for our study back in December um we uh got started with the scope of work. We did an initial study looking into the fee
itself, how it might have been calculated um whether that's in line with best practice um what other places in Virginia are doing um and making some kind of initial recommendations for for direction. Um go ahead. Uh January and
February staff went uh out to the public for some engagement and um with stakeholders as well. and Kelly's going to talk about that in a moment. Next, um from there, we developed some guiding principles for the work. Uh we conducted a feasibility analysis with a um a
proposed alternative fee structure and developed some policy recommendations. That's what we're going to present this evening. Um and then if the city wants to move forward uh with this, the next steps would be updating the manual and the code accordingly. Next. All right. All right. Now, I'm going to
hand it back to Kelly to talk about engagement. Okay. Thank you. So, while the consultant team was conducting the analysis of the policy um and starting to dive into the in fees, uh we um started to ask some questions
of the community to get a sense of what are the most important things for this policy to achieve and what sort of potential impacts do we want to avoid. Um, so, uh, we we asked questions kind of to try to evaluate potential trade-offs. Do
we want fewer projects but mixed income or more projects but units built, um, throughout the community, more financial control of uh, decisions versus less operational burden? Ultimately, that translated into a number of questions we posed to the community. Um, you can go
ahead and advance, Patrick. And we use connect Charlottesville uh connect seville uh as our platform uh for getting um that input. Uh we also did meetings with uh uh committees and commissions, some stakeholder group
representatives. Um exciting to use connectivo. That was one of our first opportunities to test out the new platform. Um had a lot of people visit the site. Not as many people provided input but helped to get the word out about the work we were doing.
um you can advance. Uh some core themes we heard um in what was shared was concern about neighborhood preservation and character uh when it comes to student housing that's being developed. Uh concern about these uh perceived loopholes and inli
policy um concerns about displacement. You can advance Patrick. Um the the they they ranked their concerns in the way they provided their feedback to us. Top concern was uh addressing displacement pressure in
vulnerable neighborhoods. um encouraging on-site affordable housing units, aligning fees with the current financial cost um of producing and maintaining these units, supporting development feasibility for housing production, supporting new housing student within
walking distance to grounds, and then um last in order of priority was increasing affordable housing options for students. you can imagine, you know, that probably weren't getting a whole lot of students providing input to this study. Um, so
that uh allowed us to develop guiding principles to help inform uh our analysis and um development of potential options. Um we want to have uh predictability. So we want a policy that's easy for people to understand and
um know what the impacts could be. We want um excess affordable dwelling units on site in new development. We want to see development at a wide range of price points, not just luxury. Um you know, also units that are um accessible to
lower um income levels. Um we want a policy that promotes both public and private provision of of affordable dwelling units. Um so, you know, what can we do to ensure that the market can also support production of these units? Um preservation of existing affordable
units is also important. So how can our policy support that? Um and some things we want to avoid, we want to avoid concentrating affordable dwelling units in areas that are already the lowcost areas. Um and we also want to avoid making worse um dis displacement
pressures and vulnerable neighborhoods with with any um with this policy. >> You can advance. All right. So I'm going to turn it back to >> Good question. Yes. >> Um on the uh engagement page for the number of visitors and contributions, you've got 270 unique visitors and this
says 45 contributions. Does that mean that we had 27 people booked but only 45 people took a survey? Okay. >> Right. And it was a six question survey. So >> Okay. >> Okay. So the first thing we looked into as part of the study was best practices
for calculating in fees. Um in our research we found two main methods that are generally used for inland fee calculation. Um one is affordability gap also called the value gap and that's the difference between the value of a market rate unit u minus the value of an affordable unit. So this is kind of the
the market rate developers perspective of like how much revenue are they losing by doing an affordable unit compared to a market rate unit. Um the other is the production cost. So that is the construction cost minus the value of an affordable unit. So that's more like the nonprofit developers perspective of like
how much of a subsidy would they need to break even on um providing an affordable unit given that it does provide some amount of revenue. Um and fees can be fixed. So the same fee applies to every development like your current fee or it can be indexed where there's a formula
and it's calculated for each development individually. Next, um, so note that the the construction cost or the cost of development, which is the current method, is not listed among common best practice. It's generally seen as kind of too high or over representing the cost of affordable
housing. Next slide. So, here's some kind of pros and cons of each of these methods. Um, the construction cost is a high fee. um if you you know it will be like if you really want to balance toward providing the units versus paying the fee. Um
that's that could be one way to do it. But it also there has been the concern that maybe the fee is too high and it's um it may be uh yeah it's over representing the the cost of affordable units. Um it also doesn't account for affordability levels. Um, so whether
it's 50% AMI or 80 or whatever, it's not um that's just not part of the calculation. Um, production cost uh would be in line um with the subsidy for nonprofit developer to build off-site units. Um, however, there's not a ton of developable land in Charlottesville. So,
the the off-site strategy is has some limitations. Um it also isn't dependent on um keeping up to date with market rents because that's part of the calculation. But um it's al it's low it's a low fee. Um and developers would be likely to choose paying the fee every
time probably in the case of the production cost. Um so the affordability gap um falls kind of in the middle. Um it's a good match for the market rate developer cost. Um it would potentially be enough to fully subsidize off-site units since it is larger than the
production cost. Um, it allows for fees at multiple affordability levels. Um, and it also may align well with the tax abatement strategy if the city wants to move forward with the rent based tax abatement because it's a very similar calculation. Um, on the downside, it is lower than the current fee and therefore
maybe less likely to promote on-site units. Um, yeah. Can I ask a question on this? This may be a dumb question, but what's the difference between the construction cost method and the production cost? I'm getting a little tripped up there. >> The construction cost is just referring
to the actual cost of building the unit, like the what the developer pays to to build it. Um, the production cost is that construction cost minus the revenue generated by an affordable unit. Okay. >> So, they're not giving the unit away for free. They are getting some revenue. It's just not enough to cover it.
>> Okay. I see. Thanks. >> Next slide. Um, so we looked a little bit at other jurisdictions in Virginia. Um there are not a whole lot of other places at this point that are requiring affordable units. Um and they're all um really quite different in how they're they're
structuring it. Um we found that pretty much every place that has afford an affordable unit requirement also has an in fee. I think there was maybe one place that didn't, but they also that place also had a lot of opportunities for modifications. Um so they also kind of had an out. Um the fee and loose
structures are very different for every community. Some other places do use the construction cost. Um some you know say that they can only certain types of development can use the inloo fee. Um but yeah in general uh very few communities have requirements similar to Charlottesville. So there wasn't a lot
of comparability with other Virginia places. Next slide. Um we did find an interesting case study from Minneapolis where they have student housing and they do require affordable units to be provided within student housing. Um, so these images are showing some examples
of of student housing projects that have affordable units in them. Um, but that affordability is also very student oriented. So it's like if you um you if you uh qualify for certain types of financial aid that you can also qualify for the affordable units. So um not
quite maybe what what Charlottesville is trying to do, but it is it is being done. Um next slide. So overall findings and takeaways of this initial part of the study. Um the existing fee does match local construction costs. We we um validated
that um we were able to replicate the construction costs pretty closely. Um but the it's a high fee and the method's not considered generally a best practice even though there are some other places in Virginia that are using that. Um the existing student housing fee which is described in the manual as being the
value gap um might actually be the production cost. So when we tried to replicate that, when we calculated production cost, it looked a lot like the existing fee um that you're using for student housing. So we think that might actually be production cost fee um and therefore be too low. Um so we are
kind of recommending moving forward with the affordability gap as a best practice alternative with more flexibility and better policy alignment. >> Next slide. one question >> that that maybe is really striking
because the code's a couple years old and I would think we would know what what the formula was. Uh and it sounds like you're kind of discovering that it's not what we thought it was. Um do we
what happened? So, um, as you know, there's been a lot of staff turnover. So, uh, we, um, just don't have the visibility that we would you would expect us to have into how, um, calculations were prepared, um, for the
initial for for the existing policy. Um we're the best we can gather from kind of trying to reverse engineer things. You know that if you if you apply the production cost approach, it seems to be the closest approximation to what um is
currently in the manual. >> Sorry, can I ask one more? >> Yeah, >> that sounds fun for you. By the way, um when you say the current fees may be too low, by too low you mean developers would choose to pay the fee and not build the on-site unit, right? or something different.
>> Uh go ahead. Um that that it is under representing the cost of affordable units. >> Is that the goal of is that what you're setting out to do here. Is because I'll ask you later.
That's it's a bigger it's a bigger topic than a content question probably. >> Yeah. Yeah. It's a policy question. Um um so we did a feasibility analysis. Um we used the the tool that we developed
for the tax abatement study. So it's um already got um locally sourced uh construction costs, market rents, affordable rents, etc. Um so we adapted that tool to uh compare the feasibility for developers of three scenarios. uh one is including the units paying the
existing fee in L and paying uh um an alternative fee in L based on that affordability gap or value gap. Um and so kind of in theory if we want to match that cost of providing the units the feasibility of on-site and the fee
should be fairly similar. Next slide. Um so this is showing the current fee structure and then the proposed fee structure. So, um you can see the difference between those two. We also added a fee for fourbedroom units um for the proposed structure. Uh and we tested
we tested these two um for feasibility. Next slide. Um and just to show kind of a sample calculation since we had some questions about that or of how the how the fee was calculated. Um this is just a little snapshot from our our spreadsheet. So
you can see kind of in detail we've got market rents that are uh based on local recent um apartments in Charlottesville. Um prop minus so the market rate rent minus property taxes and other operating expenses gives you net operating income
and then the net operating income was converted to a capitalized value um which is um how a developer would uh or how sorry how an investor would see the value of that unit based on how much revenue it's generating. Um and then we did that calculation as well with an
affordable rent. Um those are the rent limits that are in your ADU manual. Um and calculated the net operating income and the capitalized value from that. And then the difference between the two capitalized values was the fee.
>> Can I just clarification? >> I was just thinking about your question Mr. Karp about you know the characterization of the fee being too low. So the fee that we are saying we are seeking to charge for student
housing is the value gap. The difference between a market rate unit and an affordable unit. When we say it's too low, it's because what we're requiring is is not actually that value gap. it's lower than the actual value
gap because as we are surmising it was potentially that production cost rather than the actual value gap. So I just I just wanted to clarify that because it's not that we're leaping to a policy conclusion, it's that we're just objectively saying it's low relative to
what the intent stated intent is for the policy in the manual right now. I hope that helps clarify time to go by that hanging up. Uh, all right. Um, any questions before we move on?
>> I guess I have a question that I'm going missed. >> Is this proposal for non- studentent and student? >> Um, I I will get there, but uh spoiler for it's for both.
Um, okay. Yes. So we we tested this same fee for both um or for for all actually a variety of housing types as you can see in the table. So this was the results for rentals. We looked at both rentals and condos. Um so the metric here is
yield on cost. So for a feasible development the target would be about 6% yield on cost. Um so the table on the top is showing the yield for uh projects including on-site units versus projects paying the existing fee. And then on the bottom, it's on-site units versus
projects paying the proposed fee. Um, you might notice that student housing is the only development type that is getting above 6% in in feasibility or in in yield. Um, fees don't change the yield that much um when comparing
between the fee and providing units. So, it's not a very big difference. And um, you know, if we're trying to represent the true cost, we wouldn't want it to be a very big difference. Um the proposed fee affordability gap is a better match to units for most housing types. Um which are um you can see in bold where
it's a better match. >> Um next slide. Um we also looked at condos. Um we have very like there have not been very many condos being or any condos really that have been built in Charlottesville recently. So we didn't have very much data on recently built
condos and what those are going for in the market. So uh we have kind of limited confidence in these results but with what we were able to to do this is what we what we found. The metric here is the gross margin. Um so we want that to be 20% for a feasible development. Um
and uh so this is showing um that that most condo projects would not be very feasible um in general. U the the proposed fee has a much better alignment um compared to the existing fee with uh the cost of providing affordable
housing. Um so the lower fee kind of helps a bit more in this case but would still not make condo projects feasible. >> How are you defining high-rise here? >> Um that is a good question. Um I think it's like steel frame like over eight
stories kind of development. Um so general findings of the feasibility analysis um changing the fee to affordability gap uh does narrow the financial gap between providing units on site and fee payments in most cases. Um it but it's not enough of a change that
it's really going to make a difference in projects bottom line. So like lowering this fee might address kind of the perception that the fee is limiting to development but it's not going to make or break projects probably in most cases. Um we also looked at kind of
different tiers of land costs um like more expensive areas versus lower cost areas. Um and wanted to note that because the fee is an average because it's like everybody pays the same fee. It's based on an average. Um, in more expensive places, it's generally going
to make more sense to pay the fee and not include the units. And in less expensive places, it's going to generally make more sense to include the units rather than pay the fee. Um, this is true for both existing and proposed. We just wanted to to note that that is a limitation of new fees in general. Um,
and potentially bringing student housing the student housing fee in line with other housing types. having the same fee across the board um removes that incentive of having the lower fee, but student housing remains the most feasible housing type to construct. >> Do we know how like you said that it's
the the land cost has some impact like how much impact? Um, is there a way to quantify like are we are property values if they came down 10% does does that make things significantly more feasible or is that
just like a little bit more or >> I would have to go away and and look into that. I mean I think it's not a hu maybe not the hugest impact um but I think also in the areas with higher property values they're also getting higher rents. So I think that has a bit more of an impact probably >> okay
>> than the land cost itself. I'm just humor me if you would because I'm not a finance person. I'm just looking at the tables on the slides comparing current student housing and L fees to proposed and for studios it's an increase of
about $100,000. One bedrooms $70,000 increase. Two bedrooms over $100,000. Three bedrooms $140,000. And you're saying those you're saying adding a $100,000 plus dollars to the cost of unit does not impact it feasibility to develop. How does that
work? >> Well, it does have an impact. It just is it's not making or breaking the project kind of impact. Um you talking about for student housing specifically? >> Yes. >> It's it's because the profitability of these projects is so great. >> Yeah. that having to pay an additional
$4 million doesn't make that much of a difference. And this fee is calculated based on non- studentent housing as well, which is uh you know, for especially for a fourbedroom would not is not as much rent. The rent is not as high, I guess,
as what they would be getting for four separate bedrooms being rented out. So, it's still kind of appeal for student housing. And the the gap must be even higher for four or fivebedroom units because we don't charge for them correctly now, right? Is that is that
>> Yeah. >> Right. Okay. I if I run those numbers through the 3TP spreadsheet thing, will it make sense? It just sounds like a lot of money to me. Like naively, if you say like
the fourbedroom cost increases by must be more than $100,000 and that's not going to impact production, will have no impact on the number of units built. I just need to see something that makes me believe that because it sounds like a
lot of money. Um, maybe I maybe we can walk council through your tool with these numbers or something like that because it's just a little hard to >> Is that not what your previous tables were trying to show?
>> Tables, right? >> Yeah. If you go back to slides, >> isn't that what these tables are trying to show? >> Yes. Right. Can you maybe walk through them one more time so we can just see? >> I I know what you're playing with these tables. I think I want to see the
process that led to the tables, >> right? Like this is a different way of saying there's no impact, >> but it's so much money. I don't quite follow it. Maybe I can look at the tool later and see if it makes sense. It's it's available on the city website. I I think what might be so the the tool
that's available on the city website isn't actually tailored to be able to um evaluate the student housing and I think we're still trying to figure out um what we can how we can modify that to be able to show this kind of specialized um
analysis that the consultants did just for this effort. What might be the best thing to do for the cons for the council presentation is to include some screenshots from the analysis to show how the numbers change. >> Um
>> yeah, I can I can share a screenshot showing kind of the the full cost of building the student housing and um you know how much of that is the I think that would that would probably be helpful. >> I think that would be great. Have you I know in a previous it wasn't
it might have been 3TP's work I forget we've seen feedback from developers also if you were to ask let's say a bank developers like this what a $4 million digital fee set you back they would say no no difference to us is that kind of
is that part of your research and do you think that's what they would say if you ask them >> um yeah that's what their fakes in in this process >> that's that's the question right is like would the fi would the would the project get financing if the cost increased by that amount of money?
>> Yeah, I mean I think every project is going to have its own um independent review for feasibility when we're kind of reporting out on the average how these kinds of changes impact feasibility. Um, so yes, individual
projects are going to be facing different circumstances for sure, but on average, what we're trying to demonstrate is that the the yield really only changes by 0.2 um, you know, it changes very little um, if
at all to still on on this uh, uh, spreadsheet because we love it. Uh, student housing. I've noticed that the number is the closest to high-rise, which makes me think I know what kind of building we're modeling here. Uh, are we talking about high-rise student housing here?
>> Um, it was actually modeled more on low-rise, >> meaning that the number would be higher for high-rise. >> Uh, yeah. >> Interesting. Thank you. >> We would have more units. >> Um, okay. So, uh, moving on to the policy recommendations. Um, so we
recommend changing the fee method to the affordability gap. Um, it brings the fee in line with best practices and with the true cost of providing affordable units. Um, it addresses maybe the perception that the current fee is is too high and is curtailing new development. Um, potential impacts could be increased
supply of housing if that is in fact the case. um and probably increased fee payment, especially if if the the fee being too high is holding back developments, then those weren't the ones that were going to provide the affordable units anyway. Excuse me. Um we also recommend aligning
student housing with other housing types, both in having the requirement for affordable units and having the same in fee as other housing types. Um because student housing is housing, so it can be contributing to affordable housing in line with other housing types. Um this is a simplification of affordable housing policies and also
addresses the concern that um the student housing could convert to non- studentent housing eventually. Um potential impacts would be increasing student housing fee. Um more uh payment of the fee for from student housing developments and therefore increased
revenue to support community needs. Next slide. Um to go along with that, eliminating the half mile buffer, the geographic criteria for student housing because if it's considered equivalent, then that buffer is no longer needed. Um this again simplifying the affordable housing
policy. Um and we believe that uh there are plenty of other reasons that student housing would want to locate close to grounds and that that's where the students are. It helps them be more marketable to students and also densities are higher there as well. slide. Um, we recommend adding an inlue fee for four bedrooms. Um, the current
fee structure ends at three bedrooms. Many units in student housing have four or sometimes even more bedrooms. Um, this would then increase the revenue from fourbedroom units and potentially student housing may be still less likely to include on-site units because of the
profitability of of their units. Next slide. Um, we recommend adding a few requirements for bonus height. So on this slide we've shown the inloo fee calculated for 50% AMI rather than 60.
So slightly higher fee that could be charged to get the bonus height. Um as an alternative if uh we don't want to go down that path of either having two fees or if we decide we're happy with the construction cost fee then the alternative recommendation would be just require on-site units in order to get
bonus height. Next slide. Um so to summarize the potential options to consider um applying the affordability gap approach to the inley fee expectation to align it with best practices and the true cost of affordable units. Um potentially
addressing the perception that the current fee is curtailing from development. Um increasing the fee for bonus height to reflect the fact that there's a different requirement for getting bonus height. um requiring on-site affordable units for student housing um with the inloo fee to be
aligned with other types of housing. Um removing the half mile buffer the geographic criteria for student housing um and adding an in fee requirement for four-bedroom units. Next slide. Um and some future considerations would be that it'll be important to keep
monitoring um how well the fee promotes on-site units versus fee payment, where things are being built, where the fee is being used compared to um units. Um and also continuing to monitor the marketing market conditions uh given policy and demographic changes, especially around
student housing given some of the the changes that Kelly mentioned. Um yeah, also to continue updating manual regularly. >> Okay. Um, quick question. The, um, so you stop
at four or more bedrooms. Um, what happens if, uh, someone wants to do five or six bedrooms? >> Then they'd be paying the fee for four bedrooms. >> Okay. Is there a a drawback to that? um to borrow.
>> So, we've talked about this and you know there not being really um uh examples to >> to to to look at those those costs. We would propose that this is one of those things that we would monitor. >> Okay. >> And if we start to see five plus bedroom
uh projects come online, then next year we can come back with a >> okay >> expectation for that product type. But at this point, it would just be really speculative trying to come up with >> um a requirement for that kind of product. >> Would it be helpful for the city council
presentation? And I don't I guess I'm trying to picture the things that are in construction in relationship to this, but I know we don't want to really just name specific developments, but to me that would be helpful because
um it would help kind of visualize the what we're talking about like which ones >> the projects that are currently under construction. >> Yeah. Are we allowed to talk about those >> the projects that are under construction? I think we've included in the um in that map. Um
>> Oh, no. I mean like just a visual aid like the verve is this tall and this big and it has this many. >> So there there are images in the presentation of the verve and I think the bloom as well. Um
>> but I go back to that make sure that I'm highlighting that those that's been provided. >> Those visuals were in there. Were you asking about the >> like the statistics on how many units that kind of how many I can get that in. >> So it has the I guess when we were
talking about four bedrooms, five bed I guess that's where I was thinking like what what do we have now? We have the total number of beds but you're right you do have the visuals. So sorry. >> Yeah. Well, we can add the statistics on those those >> the statistics for those projects. >> If the idea is that we're building all
this and then maybe we kind of top out, >> we're not seeing more, right? possibly >> looking more at what we're we already have versus um if things might slow down. >> I'm just trying to wrap my head around what we already have. Yes, >> I can include that.
>> But thank you. I missed that. >> Yeah, >> the visuals. >> I think I skipped over it quickly. >> I shared a couple of questions uh by email previously and I'd like to go over them. Uh we uh I watched a really excellent webinar with Kelly Brown from the city of Charlottesville. Really
excellent speaker. Um and there was a discussion about funded inclusionary zoning. Um and I note here especially for three-bedroom housing near jobs and services especially near lowincome and more diverse areas at high risk for displacement. Uh but that is not what
you studied here but um it appears to be an option that Portland is doing. Uh how could that connect with this work? Could you say one more time about the >> funded inclusionary zoning? So, this would probably be the rent gap. Um,
right. Yeah, talk. >> Right. So, um I think that's that's a policy question, right? Should the city be um looking to provide additional um support to the development community to um offset the costs for providing these
um required affordable units? Um the idea of tax abatement to help offset some of that um requirement has been um suggested. We did a study recently um that showed that if you um if you uh
apply a um a rent gap method where you're really seeking to abate the taxes that that represent that gap between what you can charge. um then you you help with the feasibility of the project although you don't completely overcome the feasibility challenges. Um so that's
certainly an additional tool we could consider. Um I think what we're finding through this analysis is that student housing is already kind of uh has um is at that or above that threshold for project
feasibility um even with an inly fee expectation that um is intended to present that uh represent that gap. Um, so I think there's a question of whether or not additional incentive is needed to help
support um, student housing projects. Um, but it is certainly something that we can continue to explore as a city as a way to um, further incentivize particular types of housing um, that meet certain goals. Um, but I wouldn't
necessarily just look at it within the context of student housing. I would want to look at it, you know, for those for all kinds of projects to meet a wide variety of community needs. >> Thank you. A second question was uh we have seen a 12story student housing
building go up near the university um which was not something we we thought about when we were writing the zoning when we when we were creating these policies. We were thinking 18800 JPA at maximum. The world changed again. Um, does that change how
does the the new reality of how we are funding inclusionary zoning uh even with these changes change how we should be thinking about how high we should be going to meet this new reality? Um, is is the the overall um sort of financial
map um higher now? You're asking if additional um density might be needed beyond what's already allowed to um support financial feasibility. That's a good question. Um, I'm actually going to look to you to see
if you have any immediate reactions to that question of whether adding like one or two more stories of byite height would significantly change the feasibility of um >> non- studentent housing projects like
move it out of the yellow into the green. >> Um, I mean we did find in our model that I had higher feasibility than than midrise. Um, something to look into in more detail if you're interested in that.
>> Thank you. >> I've got a lot spinning in my brain right now, so some of this might be thinking out loud a little bit, so apologies in advance for that. Um, I'm trying to take all of your recommendations and think about them
with each other. So the affordability gap recommendation is basically you're trying to land in the middle from where the non- studentent housing is and the student housing is currently and
applying that across the board. Okay. Then you we're responding to the reality that these buildings that are projects being built are typically fourbedroom. So, we're adding the extra fourbedroom.
And then I'm thinking about the removing the geographic boundary. It's already known that I'm trying to avoid using student housing, but developments with units that are rented
out by the bedroom are allowed by right citywide, >> which is basically a single resident occupancy building. So this is basically just saying in a holistic picture that
single room occupancy is allowed anywhere. And if you choose to go single room occupancy, you're still not allowed to build affordable units on site because you have to go to the the inland. No, we
would we would suggest that there's no reason why single room occupancy projects should um have a different expectation for on-site affordable units, okay, than non- studentent housing. That that that
policy could apply uniformly across the board. >> If it is a product type that doesn't lend to provision of on-site units, you can pay the inloo fee instead. So you have flexibility. >> So this is holistically again trying to
eliminate the thing that we call today student housing, >> right? >> Okay. >> So what part of the presentation was also about the goal of protecting sensitive neighborhoods? How does the idea of eliminating the student housing
bucket align with that goal as well? >> Um it removes the incentive of a lower fee that applies within that half mile. So, if I understand correctly, it seemed like the concern was that half mile included a lot of vulnerable neighborhoods that we were then having an incentive for student housing to be
built within. Um, so this removes the incentive. >> Okay. >> And that we're assuming this that student housing would have its own reasons to want to be close to grounds, but that half mile buffer wasn't even too far. Yeah, I was going to say that was my followup is there are other
pressures outside of zoning and fees and things that the government can pull the strings on that are going to pull student housing closer to grounds. >> Okay. >> Right. And I mean presumably the closer you are to grounds the higher your rents
would be and so the more likely you would be to locate there if there was a greater expectation for on-site or greater city expectation for affordability. >> Okay. My last question is sort of along
the lines of my neighbor here. With all of this going on, is there thoughts about increasing by right height or closer to grounds to further pull things in that direction? >> We we can I mean that's not something
that we have looked at. Um there would need to be a study of you know just all of the potential impacts of increasing building height. um impacts on the transportation network um just for one.
Um and so we haven't moved in that direction. Um that would definitely need to be something we would consider as part of our you know work plan and you know how that would shake out amongst other priorities. >> Sure. I just think about a comment that we heard from the school district a
couple meetings ago about when one of the student housing buildings come up. They actually saw an increase in enrollment because um homes that were taken by students previously were then vacated by the students and families were allowed to
move in. So we've got a big cauldron of things going on here. So I understand it's a lot. I just wanted to see if that was part of this study and I understand that that's a bigger picture question to be presented in the future. >> Um you've got a timeline in the
presentation um about when this goes to council which is like next week, right? Sorry. Are they voting next week or are they going to ask you questions next week? Next week the format would be very um similar to here at planning commission getting questions and getting hopefully
getting direction on whether or not they want us to move forward with these or other recommendations. Um >> so is the timeline dependent on council's reaction then. I'm just trying to there's a lot of things as you know know well going on right now. Um
I'm thinking about the timeline for this moving forward. Um, I'm thinking that feedback feedback we heard in the past about predictability for developers, about wanting to know what the rules are, build a model, get clients, and build a project. So my my more pointed
question is, do you imagine this work affecting projects that are in the pipeline now? Like if you can talk about that. Um this any if changes were made to the development code, they would apply to
any projects that are still under review or obviously have not yet been submitted. So um anything that you know has already been approved um would would not um be subject to change by these. >> That's right. That's what we're talking
about, right? >> Yes. I mean it has to do with your vesting in governmental action. I mean you have developers watching to see what's going on. You have projects in the pipeline, but a governmental action is the approval of a development plan, approval of a final
site plan. Uh so that's what vests a project under your zoning regulations and your policies. >> Okay. Just just so on hearing right, I'll try and repeat it back. Anybody without an approved found site plan would be subject to the new rules. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Okay.
Uh, last thing, maybe this is unfair to ask. I I'm thinking about the policy goals of inclusionary zoning, right? Which I'm going to assert to me. Not saying it's correct. I'm just saying the thing I'm looking for is we should
the point of inclusionary zoning is to provide affordable homes. I'm going to dumb it down because that's that's where I'm at. >> Right. Mhm. >> Um, do you think these changes will y will yield more or fewer affordable units than the status quo?
>> I think that they they they could and they should. Um, I think in in um suggesting to lower the inlay fee expectation for non- studentent housing, we are potentially um
um allowing for projects that currently are infeasible to move forward. And >> and do the yields improve enough for that to be true? If you go back to that yield comparison, >> I mean, just a little bit. There's a lot of other factors, right, that are playing into whether or not we're seeing
units, but I think it's moving the needle in the in the direction we want to go. >> And then I think on the non- studentent I'm sorry, on the student housing side and requiring affordable units, again, that's in the spirit of just as you said, uh providing units.
>> Thanks. I do like the simplicity of not having the different categories I have to say and I heard that um from far and other advocates that why
can't we have affordable units in these buildings if it you know if it works out so I I have heard that um there's some um advocacy for for that in some of the neighborhoods around those um big
developments or that option that there could be affordable unit put in. >> I guess I yeah, I'll just add my two cents to that that I I agree. I I think simplicity is better in the zoning code
and um so I definitely support eliminating student housing as a as a separate category where we have you know locations in our zoning code where that that we map for that and etc. I don't
know what the right fees are like. I mean I I think I understand the the yields and everything that I see here. Um, I guess my main concern is that we set the fee that we don't set the fee such that we're we're making uh too many
new units infeasible. Like I I I definitely agree with Lyall that I would like the city to seriously consider some kind of tax abatement strategy. Um because you know if if we as a public want affordable below market units I
think it's perfectly appropriate for us to you know forego some tax revenue to get that um and make sure that we're not reducing the amount of new housing units that we're getting by charging those fees. So I I yeah those are my comments.
Um yes be interested to see what council has to say. Any other comments? >> I have a a brief comment. Uh Mr. Carp has not taken my class on zoning. Uh so I will forgive you for not having heard my speech about what inclusionary zoning
is and what it does. Um very briefly, I promise. Um it does not increase af uh housing units at all. Uh in in general, it decreases housing units. Uh what it does provide is access to opportunity.
uh it provides uh places where people who otherwise would not be able to access to have some chance for those lucky few. Um which is exciting but the challenge is of course in some places those numbers don't work. >> Well, it's that really goes to my
question which is are we is the proposal going to do that thing right? Are we going to get more global units than the counterfactual? So, I'll take your class for if you're taking if you're taking uh people in my
demographic, but um yeah, I think that's I'm still not so confident that that will happen, but I'm sorry, I don't need to say anything. Thanks. Thanks for thanks for the clarification. >> What are you looking for from us?
I I think this has been helpful. I'm I'm hearing questions um that can help us think about, you know, um issues that we still need to explore. I'm I'm hearing some uh feedback that this is heading in the right direction.
Um if there are major red flags, we'd love to hear those as well. But this has been helpful so far. >> Yeah, I think I I agree with that. This is a really sticky topic. Um, and I think you're doing a good job of
not being sticky about it. Uh, the calculation of the fees, I always question anytime I see fees like this being calculated, like what they're going to do. We have no idea. I I know you can, my former career was a a
financial analyst. I understand you can analyze it to get the best answer you can, but it still might be wrong. Um, so I just hope to see that there's some feedback that goes on with what's going on and the fees are adjusted, but I think we're headed in a
good direction. Um, I'm interested to see how can council digest it. >> Thank you. >> I agree. I I like the direction it's going in and and and I think the radius the student housing radius has been
causing a lot of um commotion and it also I just the whole circle thing versus like a corridor in terms of who's being affected is difficult. So, I like the idea of
just sort of getting rid of that whole category. >> Great. Thank you very much. Appreciate the feedback. >> Thank you. >> All right. You know, thank you for that. That was a really, really useful presentation.
>> Yes. It may have taken a while to like digest, but it's sitting it's getting there. Um, I believe that is it for our agenda unless uh the staff have anything you want to add? >> Um, we have So, yeah, you said we have
no uh work session on the uh 28th. >> Correct. >> Okay. >> May >> April. >> April. >> April. >> So, we do not have a work session in two weeks. Do not have a work session. >> Um, all right. Uh, do you have a motion? >> Mr. Chair, I'd like to make a motion.
>> Please do. I move to adjourn. >> All in favor? >> I >> I >> All right. I