I was wondering, >> but for me personally, it's just not that great of a thing. >> I've done a little deeper into this from the other night. Do we need to share? >> So I think we just wait to see you know
nothing's then we'll just carry on communicate >> right here. Oh, >> after this I gota run a bunch of people because >> Yeah, I don't need
How are you? >> What could be better? >> I'm not going to >> I wanted to talk to him was overruled by a very important stakeholder. Did you make a decision about declining
development committee? And so um >> yes while >> yeah I I would do it but >> I I also told I'm fully >> any logistics figured you were
>> back home. >> Oh you can hear me squeaking. No. >> Oh, >> this don't mind the big bubb. >> Oh, okay. >> Yeah. >> Tighten your brake dust quarter turn clockwise. >> I've tightened them. It's been a while
since I tightened them. You try to keep them. >> No, I don't. >> Nobody ever does. >> Well, the first time I had these kind of brakes, I went into a bike shop. I'm like, they need your brakes. They're like, you just need to tighten them. Oh, that's really good.
>> The hub like that. >> No, there's like a key thing that right where the on the disc break the caliper whatever you call that squeezes. >> Okay.
>> Slowing us down. couple years ago once I think it was the city bikes in New York that was my first disc brakes on bike and I was like >> no I thought we were doing >> consultation because I got my kid one of those bikes.
>> Yeah, you're right. There wasn't like Yeah, some cool tricks. I always had the old um I have the reverse I had different kind of building
right across the >> street. He is um should we wait for Ben? Hey, >> give them a few more minutes. >> Bigger space seems like >> it uh tiny
>> probably our total square footage is actually probably lower. Okay, >> got a couple offices. >> Really beautiful building over there. >> There's a bunch. Yeah, and we're in one of those. We don't take up the whole
Yeah, there's that one that's next to I think it's >> got the little back. I think he does >> but then the house itself got the >> tile. I know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know you're talking.
>> It is funny though. Okay. What's that summer? >> Yeah, we're we're immediately across the street from First Press. >> Gotcha. Where that street that runs south of it dead ends right into our such a great area.
>> There's a really talented uh wife that's architects there. They build a lot. Um, >> yeah. >> They used to be granted it wasn't an equipment, >> right? Yeah. of
>> no mist and like two of the times literally not even like go through the ex I'm like all They're very thorough. >> I think they get bored. So
>> I had some news. So >> no no no at first I was like I thought but I didn't see >> I speak that Kelly went to the wrong place. got lots of messages in lots of places.
second of the agenda. Yeah, I'm sure he'll >> kind of get they should never get As long as you train basically other similar things
now >> I mean I think it's one of those things you said solar Yeah. >> Something I did once and it just >> that came in. Now it's just >> yeah just get a wire coming. That's the easy part.
neighbor years ago science fiction series and a bunch of space foundation. They said, >> but it is interesting. I almost get you. I think it's it's interesting. It's just
not artistic license 530. >> Oh my god. London. >> Yeah. >> Any different individual. This is reflection. I read book.
>> I remember reading the book being like, "Oh man, someone's going to make it." >> Well, I feel like I did The Martian. >> He's figured out, >> but it's up to you guys. >> All right. Um, >> all right, guys. We're going to get started. We're just going to flip the agenda around. Um, so welcome to
tonight's planning commission work session. Uh, we have two items on our agenda. We have an update in the city's transportation planning and a report on the city's homeay ordinance. Um, unless Ben shows up in the next 30 seconds, it looks like we're going to do the home state ordinance first. Um, no votes are going to be taken tonight. Um, any votes
in the home state ordinance are at least a month or a few months out. Um, council hasn't even seen this presentation yet. Um we are uh we don't usually take public comments at our work sessions, but we will tonight for the home state ordinance. Um so what we're going to do is first we're going to hear from staff
about it. Um and then uh we're going to have the planning commission ask questions and after that uh the public can provide comments. Um you can also always uh email us. Um you can get us at the planning commission charlesville.gov or if you go to the planning
commission's page on the city's website, uh there's a um a link there to provide feedback. >> Yep, that's it. >> Hey, good evening everyone. Uh my name is Missy Creie and I'll be guiding you
through the materials that have been compiled related to this project. This would be the home stays and short-term rental. Um, I'm going to attempt to complete the presentation with time for questions following, but I do encourage
commissioners if there's questions for clarity to to do let me know as as needed there. Um, next slide. All right. So, our agenda will be as follows. We're going to have an introduction. Um we'll go into the study
process, uh research and data, uh potential options for changes to the code, um some of the community and stakeholder engagement. We'll provide some background on that as well as implementation and next steps. Um I also
want everyone to note that there is a website that has a lot of information about the details of this project. This is very much an overview. Um, but there's a lot of different um, information there. So, next slide, Patrick.
All right. So, we're going to begin with the definition of housing. And this is specifically a residential property that's rented less than 30 days. Um, and the properties that we've been studying in this uh, opportunity have been the
residential properties um, in the residential areas which is RA, B, and C. and most of the light yellow that you can see in this map, those are the areas that were um were most of focus. Um property owners who reside at the
residence for at least 185 days of the calendar year have the ability to apply for a homeay permit. Um once it was determined it well, it was determined it was time to review the current current ordinances. It was a decade old. Um it's
been it's one of the early ordinances that were formed uh for short-term rentals around the country. Um in fact, we have many communities all over that, uh use our ordinance as they are forming their own ordinance. Um so, uh there are
a lot of times where you'll see something that looks pretty familiar out there. Um the number of home stays is uh increased pretty significantly. um and it was a good opportunity to look at the regulations and context of current comprehensive plan goals. In
fact, there is a specific goal to look at um at this and that was part of the reason why this became a project. Um next slide. All right. So, I'm going to go through kind of the high points of the current
regulations. This is what is on the books today. Um, this includes a proof of residency, um, including some sort of photo ID. Um, home state permits valid for a year with a $100, uh, fee. Um, the
code states the operator is required to have a number of safety measures, including smoke and carbon monoxide detectors and fire extinguishers. Um, the code requires the permit holder allow staff access to the premises once a year if notified in advance. So that's
already included in the code. Again, they must reside within the unit at least 185 days of the year and up to six adults and any number of children may lease at homes. Yes. >> The Florida requirement is that are we adding that or is that does that does
that? >> It's a proof of residency. The code gives a couple of examples. Um we have found that um some of the examples that are in there do not prove uh do not provide proof of residency. Um so our
person who works through these permits works back and forth with applicants to make sure that they have something that shows that the individual is a resident. >> But it needs to be a photo ID. Yeah. Me for example, my photo ID, my driver's
license has a different address from the one I live at. there probably lots of folks like that. >> Well, I I know that they work with individuals, so um it's it's it's definitely not a one-sizefits-all. So, >> all right.
>> I have a question on current regs, too. On a previous slide, it says there's a maximum of 30 days per year. Um it's not repeated on this slide, and I've been when I was preparing for this unable to find that reference. Do you know where that 30-day maximum is referenced? um
not off the top of my head, but I believe it has something to do with um the levels of residency because if it's over 30 days, it's a long-term situation. So, it's a res of 30 days at a time. Okay. >> Yeah.
>> Thank you. >> Yes, agreed. >> All right. So, the study process. All right. Next slide. So this is a um a diagram time timeline that we have um that shows the progress of this project.
So we started um in spring of 2025 with scoping of the project and then information uh gathering time frame followed by a community survey and then procurement of the granus system which we'll talk a little bit more about as we
move forward. So drafting um of the re recommendations based on findings began following an additional comm followed occurred and then followed uh following in the winter of um of 25 we met with uh
the community and had other outreach opportunities. Um, so we're now in the process where we're meeting with you all as the commission in the phase five and then we are scheduled in May to provide a presentation to city council.
Next slide. All right. So the granaticus system, what is this system? Um, so this is a software that's tailored um to the city. So, it shows the city um and provides um a number of data points um for us as we
are looking at short-term rentals. Um one is it locates them and it locates them by um finding listings online. Um so, it helps assist us with uh proactive enforcement um and licensing. Also, the
Commissioner Revenues office uses this if if it's showing up that a location has been listed. Um, they also link in and um and make sure that that individual is following the rules that
they need in that realm. And it also has the system of generating and sending out letters that help us through the enforcement process. Um what we've gained from the system so far um was the identification of 529 short-term
rentals. That's what it's showing. Again, we're mining through that um to see exactly what um that is. Um we we kind of think the number is a bit lower, but we're having to do a one by one to try and figure that out.
>> Is that 500 more than we previously knew about or just 500 >> total? Okay. >> Total that are showing up. Um, it tracks rentals on every platform. So, any sort of uh home stay, short-term rental type
platform that's on the web, um, they mine that data into this, um, system and it cataloges the rental history. And so, it's actually taking, um, the information and if it's been rented in
the past, it kind of gives us a flow of what that's looked like. Um so it's become a a you know we're in the beginning stages of using this but it's um really uh made a big difference in us being able to figure out the research
phase of concerns that come in. Um, so prior to this system, uh, we had a staff member that would go from each of the different servers, each of the different websites, from website to website, plug
in the address, try and gather the information. If there was a listing, we'd have to screenshot everything because the data changes. Um, and this system has allowed for, you know, we click on the address on that map and it
links us to the listings uh for that address. So, it's been a huge timesaver in trying to uh increase our enforcement issues. All right, next slide. All right, so this is um some data that came out of
the system. Um, again it talks a little bit about um, you know, it shows us in most cases an entire house is rented. You know, that's that's a data point. Um, and it also shows us uh information on the number of bedrooms that are uh
that are listed through the system and how you know percentage throughout the community. So good another set of good information. Um, next slide. So, um, we've got some data from the commissioner of revenues office
concerning a transient lodging tax. Um, so short-term rental, um, is 17%. Again, 17% is anybody who's using an on online hosting site. So this is a combination
of the the uh anybody who's in the commercial or mixed use areas or the residential area. So it's not just the residential area that we're talking about that that's wholly what's coming from from that. Um and it does note that
we still have a a very robust market for hotels and motel as well. >> These numbers are a little confusing to me. These are the 12,000 bucks. Is that per homeay or is that per >> No, that's total. >> That's a total
>> re for business license. >> The cost for the business license. >> Yeah. >> Oh, wait a second. No, that's the 18. >> Okay. What is it? >> Oh, you're here. I didn't know Todd was here. Let's let Todd answer that. Todd
Divers, our commissioner of revenue. Um, yeah, the the top line's business tangible personal property. So, that's business equipment. Um, >> tangible. >> In a hotel, that's going to be like your beds, your fixtures, your things like that. Airbnbs, they don't really have
very much. They might report a bed or a TV that's in a bedroom or something. So, there's not much money there. Um, there's no meals tax from home stays. Hotel, a lot of hotels pay meals tax. Uh, transient occupancy tax. That's kind
of the big one. Um, you see the hotels and motel pay 7.6 million. I think this was from last year. Um, the home stays are doing about 1.5. >> Is that the 9% you referenced earlier? >> Few slides earlier. You represent
>> the 83%. >> No, 9%. >> 9%. So nine 9% is the >> that's right >> the rate of attack >> right so yeah so yes >> percentage of yes
>> you want to go first I've got a quick question um do we have a sense of like the the the scale between hotels and and the short-term rentals like how many rooms hotel rooms are there in the city versus how many rooms there are in short-term rentals I don't. Chris Engel,
Chris could give it to you. >> We have that data, but we can get it to you. We just don't have it at our fingertips. >> That would be more I think useful like putting that the >> Thanks. >> Hotels generate more revenue, but I would guess it probably a lot more rooms, hotel rooms. >> Kind of a similar question, but do we
know what fraction of home stays are actually compliant and paying taxes as of 2025? Um, with regard to the transient occupancy tax, I can tell you that that is now almost entirely paid by the
online platforms. Um, so Airbnb, VBO, they're collecting the money and they're sending it to us. Um, virtually none of the hosts have to do that anymore. There's been some changes in enrichment. >> Okay. So, the the Granicus compliance end is about making sure other rules are
followed, not tax collection >> primarily. I mean, we're still getting business license from them. We're still getting tangibles from them. But looking at this chart, it's not much. >> The bulk of money is from the platforms, not through granite gas. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Thanks, Todd. Appreciate that.
>> Next slide. >> I think step back for me. Hold on. Okay. Yes. All right. Next slide is wonderful. Thanks, Patrick. Sorry. All right. So, there are a number um of uh
in addition to tax revenue that comes in, there are a number of industries that benefit from short-term rentals. Um and that includes a lot of our tourist dollars that come into the community. Um wedding breweries, vineyards, those are kind of big things we have around here.
Restaurants and businesses. And then um the uh accelery um other areas where we have u cleaning and repair companies. Um again there's business that's involved with that as well. All right. Next
slide. All right. So we started out by doing comparative research uh from uh other communities. So, um, online we have charts that show the communities and the details, but this is just the highlights
of of that. Um, and we found that um, most localities uh, require proof of residency. Um, and the fee for a homeay permit is it definitely varies quite a bit. Um, we're
not even in the middle. We're just kind of on the uh, on the side there a bit. um inspections. Many do require safety inspections. Um guest limits. It's very common for there to be a limit per bedroom or um and or a number per
property. So that is a a common thing. Uh proof of insurance is often required. Um proof of residency requirements. Um all the localities that we were able to find had some sort of proof of residency
requirement. And then new for for Oh, next slide, Patrick. Sorry, this continues over because there's quite a bit. Um, new for Virginia is this human trafficking certification that operators in Virginia are going to have to be um
compliant with. Again, this is something from the state. I know that as we've talked to providers, they're not sure exactly what that is, and we haven't gotten a straight answer either. We know it's going to be a requirement. Um, but until there's clarity, we'll uh but our
understanding is it'll be an online training that would be offered to cover that. And I'm sure some of our folks may have some more feedback when we get to that point. All right, next slide. All right. So, um the general assembly
passed a new law requires localities to allow tenants to be able to operate short-term rentals with the permission of the landlord. Um that that is a change and uh the requirement would uh would have to be put in place if we made
a change to the short-term rental code. Um so that is something that uh came out as part of our study. um that has the potential to open up the use of home stays to more operators within the community um and uh increase the numbers
as well um as potential increase to neighborhoods. So there's a lot of unknowns with what that might result in. >> All right, next slide. J just just because this confused me and >> I suspect no one else is confused but just to be sure everyone understands
>> if we don't revise the ordinance bullet number one doesn't doesn't come into play. Bullet number one only comes into play if we go in and change the ordinance. >> Correct. Yes, we've gotten that interpretation legal interpretation as well.
All right. So, next slide. So, proposed options. All right. to the next slide. We have a a chart that was put together um that provides information concerning the current regulations um besides some of the proposed um that
uh had been under consideration. Many of these were items that we had uh taken to the public when we went to the open house. Um and so this is a good visual and I know folks have had this um it's been online for the last week. um good
opportunity to kind of see what what is currently on the books required and then what was um a potential uh proposal uh given the feedback that we've had so far. All right, next slide.
>> The um we're cutting I mean there's a proposal to cut the days that can be rented in half. So we're going from 180 to one to to 90. that you remember I'm reading that right >> that was uh one of the proposals that
came through >> you know what was driving that >> so >> went away though >> to to my question earlier current regulations are you can rent it out as many days as you want >> to well you could if you are there >> if you're there you have to be there for
185 days but you even if you're there you can still rent out a room >> and the other 180 days you could rent out your entire place. >> Oh yeah. >> And so then to further clarify, these proposals are community proposals or staff proposals?
>> Mostly staff from the research. >> Okay. >> And those came forward to the community meeting. Um again, we wanted as this has all evolved, we wanted to kind of give the record of the steps that have come along the way. >> Sure. >> Because I didn't get that.
>> Yeah, it's confusing. I'm just trying to reconcile these proposals with a future slide that says the staff is recommending there. >> Okay. So, I'm just I'm just trying to understand where these proposals lie within a no change recommendations.
>> We thought about doing a spoiler alert slide basically said we're going to go walk you through like all of the recommendations that we considered but ultimately have decided not to make any recommendations for changes. So what was the thinking uh what were staff's
thinking when you decided that uh cutting this into half might be the the way to go. >> And I just wanted to try to clarify that as well that question. So the the regulation today is that you have to live there 185 days. So more than half
of the year. The proposal that we have been considering is that you can rent the unit no more than 90 days. So we weren't proposing to cut the requirement in half. It was just saying >> right >> right >> right so the proposal that we had
>> you have the proposal we had been considering was that you can actually rent out your unit no more than 90 days but you were still going to be required to have to live there at least half a year you were going to have to be able to demonstrate that you were a permanent resident but on top of that we had been
considering an additional provision that you could only rent it out 90 days out of the which kind of translates into >> maybe I'm confused but >> part of the part of the conversation >> 365 days >> if you live there. >> Yes.
>> Right. >> So part of the conversation was is again this is is accessory in in a lot of ways. This is not supposed to be the main use of this of this dwelling. The main use is it's where the person lives.
And so with the estimate of 90 days, uh we talked about the potential to rent every weekend, which is a lot of people do do the weekends or do special events in the community. And so kind of
narrowing down that um that's that's where that proposal came. Again, it was not very popular at the community meeting at all. Um, but it was it it was something to to continue to enforce that
that this is one piece of a puzzle and that people live in these houses. >> One question there clarification. I'm trying to understand the why because >> we'll have time for public.
I may have involved a question. Why Why are we talking about things that you aren't recommending that that anybody do? >> We're we're sorry. I'm sorry. This is so confusing. Um we're we're we're providing kind of the process of of this
project. Um and and obviously that's led to some confusion. So it it this was a piece of of where we landed and or where we progressed through this. We had this set of recommendations, more information came to light and we
changed as we move forward. So I'm really sorry Mr. Karp that we and others that we've this is a little confusing. >> It may be less confusing if so we will have a chance to ask staff questions when Missy is done with the presentation. So maybe it'd be less confusing if we kept these like little
clarifications and then we really get into questions. >> No, it's not it's not confusing. It's we're talking about things that we're not talking about, right? None of this is actually happening. >> But it could I mean we we we could advise staff to maybe we like these
proposed changes when we get to the end of the conversation tonight. We don't get to vote on it tonight, but staff is going to be looking for some sort of feedback from us at the end of this to say, "Wait a sec. No, maybe you should go ahead and do some changes." Or we say, "No, we agree with you. Keep it
as it is." Or we say something else. And let's let let's let staff finish their presentation and then we can get them with some questions and then we can um yeah, figure out from there where we're going. That make sense? That >> Yep.
Thanks, guys. We're most of the way there. It'll be okay. All right. Next slide, Patrick. All right. So, cost benefit of amending the ordinance. So, we had a lot of, you know, weighing a lot of different things. Um, and and as we move forward,
I'll talk a little bit about the highlights that we've received from the community so far. So benefits um you know more stringent requirements uh to demonstrate owner occupancy um internal safety inspection requirement. Again we
currently have the ability to do that um but the proposal would pro provide more of a requirement. Um the occupancy allowance increased from 6 to 8 um allowing for some flexibility um which
would work for a lot of places within the community not all. Um and then a permit term would reduce staff time approving permits on an annual basis. Um but some of the costs to consider as part of this is increased staff time on
internal inspections. um code changing, we would have to um we would have to jump into the tenant operation allowance at this point in time and then uh their potential impacts with more guests. All right, next slide.
>> All right, so community outreach. So we had a survey that went from um Wait a second. Okay. Yes. So, these are kind of our our some of our uh our big uh outreach
opportunities. We um met or we uh conducted a survey online in May and June of last year. Um and we had 500 respondents to that and I'll talk a little bit about kind of the areas where we information we heard from that. Um we
also had a community meeting right in this room on December 3rd. Um and then we met with a group of advocacy uh STR advocacy group in February. Um and this is in addition to just ongoing dialogue. We've had a lot of people provide
inquiries. We've talked to a lot of u people throughout this process. Um so there's been opportunities to to gather feedback and I'm sure that we will gather more as we continue. So all right, next slide Patrick. All right.
So, the community survey. So, there were a couple of highlights I want to point out here. Um, so again, we had uh 500 people respond. That's pretty pretty hefty response for for a survey. Um, key benefits noted were economic
opportunities for the owners, uh, tourism and, uh, visitor options. So, they're provide more options. And some of the primary concerns that were outlined were housing impacts, uh, neighborhood fabric, and then a variety of nuisance related items, including
noise, parking, and traffic issues. Um, there were there was a grouping that identified no concerns with short-term rentals. Um, and most of those folks identified as uh resident homeowners. So, that's additional information for
consideration. >> Do you have any idea? It says a subset. Is that 1% 5% 10%? Do you have any idea? >> I I do not and I do not see our individual who worked with the survey, but that is a question that we can get at.
>> Thank you. >> Okay. All right. So we held a community meeting in December of 2025. Um we had a diverse group of um participants, a lot of different uh neighborhoods, ages,
people in different housing situations. Um it was opportunity for attendees to uh review displays, ask questions of staff and provide comment as well as uh we had a formal presentation and a question answer session as part of that.
Um, and it was noted in the summary that home stays generate economic benefit, boost tourism, and offer a unique lodging option that helps support local businesses. Um, and some of the concerns that were noted um had to do with rising
cost of housing uh due to lack of availability and the permanent loss of resident base. Next slide. All right. So during the community meeting, um a group of the short-term rental operators organized and contacted
the zoning division with a different model for regulating home stayings. Um so this group provided a number of questions um for review and had suggestions as to how the ordinance might be changed. And so highlights of that are noted here on the slide. Um
staff does want to note that we received comment from other providers in the community who are not part of this group and don't feel that that group represents them. So that's another thing to consider. Um so next slide. >> So what would folks like to see the 185
day rule replaced with? They just would like to see it loosened. >> Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah. General >> I'm I'm sure we'll we'll get some feedback more feedback and there there is a um there's some information also that's more detailed. This is just some
highlights. All right. So, next slide. All right. Key findings and staff recommendations. So, next slide. We um we have a number of things that we've learned andor confirmed uh through this process. Um, community engagement
indicates support for short-term rentals um within the community with increased enforcement efforts. Uh, community occupancy limits of six adults, limits larger property properties but provides a number of opportunities or many operators within
the community. Um, strengthening requirements for home occupancy would be challenging to enforce. Um key item that came to light in this process was the uh state code provision. Um it's an unknown
potential impact um that uh you know making a change to the code. We would have to put in uh this allowance for renters to operate home stays with the owner's permission. Um, and
because we're just beginning to implement a lot of our new measures with our enforcement tools, um, we're concerned about, uh, introducing that unknown at this point in time. Um so speaking of those new measure measures
um staff has also determined uh with the new resources that we have the new software and we have dedicated staff due this to this effort um that we're hopeful for um improvement on the concerns that we've been facing as a
community. Next slide. All right. So here is where we have landed at this moment in time with a recommendation um and that is to maintain our existing code um without any amendments at the
moment um to strengthen monitoring of homeay compliance permitting requirements and education about homeay requirements. Um in addition um to continue to monitor the impacts of the state code provision allowance um as
that is implemented in other places throughout the state of Virginia. Um and then for home stays that are located in zoning districts that are not the residential districts. Again, we did not look at that those specifically as part of this process. um to to conduct the
yearly inspections. Um our um it those in in commercial and mixeduse areas actually end up in a different building code kind of situation and our fire marshall has been researching the best way to handle those. Anyway, so that kind of as an aside, there's that kind
of side project going on and then continue to study those issues pertaining to those um situations uh for a future work plan priority and that is the presentation.
>> All right. So, um yeah, I guess I don't do we we can go just around with questions. Um, we'll start with that and if it has to become more conversational, we can do that. But, um, Michael, do you do you want to start or >> Okay.
>> Um, I guess maybe a comment before a question. I think maybe we got hung up on the proposed language on that one slide. So, if it was just like a option you considered, I would suggest just not calling it because it sounds like someone's proposing to do this when it sounds like you've considered it but are
not proposing to do it. that might help with our >> the word option that that does make some sense. Um um I just got information that the subset category was 20%. So 20% of the 500 >> in the survey the community survey
>> 20% had no issues with the current >> and I think there was also a question about data on um number of listings. So, we were able to research that as well. And um one statistic we can offer is that in 2025,
um there were 4,100 hotel rooms in the market, over 1.5 million listing nights available for hotels. Um sorry, this is 2024 data. Short-term rentals accounted for 14% of that inventory. So, >> interesting. >> Is that pre or post granite?
Pre this is a different this is a different data source. Yeah. >> Is that sorry is that pre sorry is that pre- or post platforms dispersing money to the city directly. >> This is data that we get from a source called air DNA. Um so I'm not sure how
it relates to the question you're asking about granica. >> I don't know. I don't know if it's complete. I if it's from the platforms they hopefully aren't telling you lies. If it's staff screenshotting listings, then you're going to miss things.
>> Yeah, this source is AirDNA and it it provides it it it does this kind of market research to provide the to develop these sort of statistics. So, you can take it with a grain of salt, but that's that's what AirDNA tells us about the share of the market that's coming to the home states. >> Could you say those numbers just one
more time that the the number of hotels? >> Uh 4,100 hotel rooms in the market. 14% for shortterm term rentals >> and 1.5 listing nights available for hotels and short-term rentals accounted for 14% of that inventory in 2024.
>> Thank you. >> Um so I guess one issue with in or one question about enforcement, you know, the the code is set up so that you can't have a full-time short-term rental, right? Like you have you you can't own a
property and Airbnb it full-time. you have to live there for, you know, more than half a year. Um, but I think, you know, we all know that that there are full-time Airbnb homes in in in the city. I mean, I think I live two houses down from one. Um, so
since the um since the platforms I guess I have two questions. the platforms are paying the occupancy taxes directly to the city. Does that mean that there are, you know, unregulated short-term rentals who are
still paying the occupancy tax to the city? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Um, and can you talk just a little bit about enforcement of the full-time short-term rentals? like I don't know do
you have any numbers or just order of magnitude kind of how many or what do you do when you learn that there is a unregulated short-term rental and or that isn't following the 185day uh residency requirement you know like what are the steps and I'm just curious to
get a sense of scale like how often does this happen >> um well I must say that that is one of the hardest things to enforce so the best that we have through the code. Um, actually, as we've gone through this process, we have been meeting with our
attorneys as as part of this and so they they have been with us along the way. Um, and enforcement of that is is going to be a challenge. It will be a challenge all around. In fact, as part of our proposal, we met with the Commonwealth Office as well um trying to
work through different enforcement opportunities that would be available. And it's a really tough thing to do. Um so there is a lot of um you know we have to rely on the the regulations that we have. We get uh concerns from people on
a regular basis. We investigate them. We do the best we can with violation letters. Um and uh you know it it's it's always going to be a challenge. Not but you would given the new software
I mean just because you the taxes coming in you would automatically know about it right? >> So our our efforts are kind of separate in some ways. Um yes we we know that that people are paying taxes for
something that they may not be doing with all the proper proper paperwork. Um, again, the software gives us the opportunity to more quickly find these locations. Before it would take hours to
go from site to site and try and pick the information um off of them, whereas now we have it kind of coming in one one thing. So, there still be violations. We're just able to find them quicker um based on the data that's online because we don't
have to go individually to find it. it comes to one place. >> What is the um what is the violation for, you know, running a foul of the of the short-term rental code? Like, do you get a fine?
>> There is a fine opportunity. Um it is uh very limited. Again, this is in the zoning code and we have um we do have fine opportunities, but they are um limited to a zoning violation level. Um
again we have um attempted to explore other opportunities for trying to continue to enforce this. >> Um we've found some of the most effective ways are um you know peer related. >> Yeah.
>> Because you know people want to have the opportunity to do this in the community and if there are people who are making it difficult that becomes a challenge because again that that is another option. this use could go away for the community. Again, the community doesn't
want that. In fact, we've shared, you know, that they're very interested in keeping this use in the community. Um, but that is an option that's on the table if it becomes something that's not um working for the community. >> Yeah. So, so it sounds like the the
violation, the fine amount, whatever it is, is not is not that effective as >> it's not a huge deterrent. Yeah. Um but uh you know there's you know >> once once you get on the radar of your neighborhood >> Yeah.
>> Um it it gets complicated because then you're getting letters and you're getting concerns and you're getting calls and um you know if the rules are there. They're pretty straightforward. Um it's it's it's struggle. We have we
the majority of people are doing what they need to be doing and the ones that we hear about are the very complicated cases and it's very similar to any kind of of property zoning violation that you know most people are doing what they're supposed to and then um there's
situations where there's just struggle. >> Can you remind us what that fine is? Is that $75 a day? >> I don't think it's a per day. I think it's $200 >> flat. Yeah, >> $200 >> per occurrence per year
>> per violation. >> So, what's the is a violation? There's a max. >> It's a couple thousand is the max. >> Yeah, that's what I thought. So, it's >> Yeah. >> So, we could we could send letters, send violations constantly. Yeah, >> that's not the most effective way.
Again, it is a method and it's one that we do employ. Um but it it's you know it's a challenge. >> Yeah. >> Um I guess I'm mostly looking forward to hearing from people who are using this
probably in the room who have comments. Um, and also a question about ADUs. When you say the number of days that you're living in a unit and you have an attached or detached second unit, which
we'll probably have hopefully have more of in the future, how does that work when you have >> you can have one on site? So, if you >> at one time or like if you let's just >> you could move it four little units on your lot or something. you can have one
ADA or one uh short-term rental. >> Again, this is an accessory to people living in a residential area. This is not meant to be sole source. Again, that's, you know, I know folks have different opinions on that, but this is
this is something that's supposed to be compatible with residential neighborhood living. And and my read of it is that not only can it only be one unit, it has to be the one that is occupied by the operator, but you can't live full-time in one unit and rent out the other one
as a homestead. >> There you go. >> Yeah. I know people in my neighborhood that who have like a separate one-bedroom unit in their backyard seem to live in one and rent the other. I just >> What would staff's take on that?
>> Um, typically in in those cases, uh, it's it's not going to rise to the level of violation that other things mainly, you know, the ones that we spend the most time are nuisance related. So, it's
technically a violation, but it's not one that we we bother with. >> Okay. >> So, you can't I'm just >> It's not You're allowed to have two. You're allowed to have your house and your ADUs. >> You're allowed to have them as units,
but not as a homeay. >> Hey, uh I don't know if you can hear me. This is Reed Broadhead, the zoning administrator. >> Yeah. >> Hi. um to uh well, first I wanted to mention that uh for violations it's $200
for the first violation and every 10 days we can send a $500 violation up to 5,000. So it's a max of 5,000. Um and then to mention about how many a um
Airbnbs you can have on your property, it's one. You can have one Airbnb on your property. It can either be in the house, it could be in the ADU in the backyard, it could be the ADU in the basement. Um, but it's one per property.
>> Okay. So, one at a time on a property. >> Yeah. So, if you have if there are multiple units again on on a property, one because again, this this code, you know, th this is something that's supposed to be compatible with neighborhood living.
And again, things can always change in the future, but that that's kind of where we are now. >> Okay. >> Um, I have a little question and a bigger question. Be brief. Small question. I assume you've already thought about this and rejected it. For
enforcement, is it possible to say if you've broken the rules in some obvious way, you you don't live in the state, for example, can we deny permission to to rent on these platforms at all, or is that not possible to do? Um, well, we we can't we
we wouldn't be able to tell the platform. I mean, we could tell them, but they can do whatever they want. We can revoke permits. Um, and we can not issue permits. And I mean, since this is a yearly permit, every year is an opportunity to
re-evaluate what's going on on site. >> So, you can deny a permit, but the operator can still ignore you and pay possibly. Okay. That happens with all sorts of things everywhere. >> Do staff currently
deny or revoke a permit if something comes to their attention for enforcement? Is that is that or is it not worth doing? >> We have we we go through the the checklist of items to get the permit and if the individual can meet that permit
requirement then we issue the permit. >> I I'll follow up afterwards. I think there was a BCA ruling where >> that was not done where someone didn't live on the site and BCA determines that they you couldn't take the permit away from them. I'll ask afterwards when I
have more information. Um or is that is that >> I heard I just remember that. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Again, the the the if we're in a situation where we're ready to remove a permit because of violation, we're going to be working with our attorney's office to make sure
that everything is in place to do that. Um that would not be the first route we would go. Um we're we very much work with people as much as possible. We want people to take advantage of the opportunities that the community
provides. We also want to everyone to do that in such a way that allows for um uh you know a I don't know it's done. It's >> okay. Um last thing trying to be quick.
Um I'm trying to understand if there's a problem to be solved here or if it's just been 10 11 years in time to revisit the ordinance. It sounds like there's no recommended changes, there's
not a huge problem, and this is more a refresh and we checked and things are roughly okay. Are there problems that we need to solve in the ordinance or is this just a review where we said, "Yep, good enough. Keep going as we are."
>> I I think there are always things that can be tinkered with. Um, I I think we would be having a very different conversation if we weren't based with the state legislation that we're we're working with here. We we might get a little bit more into the weeds and make
some adjustments. Um, we have a pretty good ordinance for for what it is. Um, again, back, you know, a decade ago, the the industry was not quite what it is today. It's a lot more robust now. Um,
and it's very lucrative and you know, if folks are doing it according to the rules, cool, go forth. But when people don't do things according to the rules, we hear about it um from various sources
and we just try to um do the best we can to get folks back into the proper compliance. >> Okay. question. >> Uh we'll get to staff in or to public
com questions. Um shortly. Yeah. Yeah. >> You want to go? >> Yeah. Go ahead, please. >> Uh I have several questions. Some of um first off related to sort of the zoning text directly. There are some
references from the homeay section to the home occupancy section that are contradictory. uh mostly related to well the contradictory one is that the homeay you're not allowed an exterior sign where the home occupancy that's
referenced is you're allowed an exterior sign. So maybe it's worth cleaning that up. Then, um, one that I think could confuse people trying to do a home stay is, uh, subsection 4 of the home
occupation code. It states that your customers can't visit earlier than 8:00 am or later than 900 p.m. It's kind of hard to have a lobbying place where people can't visit you at night. No, this is that you're you're you're not
you're not going into anything that we aren't already struggling with. When they put forth the new code, um things were in provisional use and things were in home occupation um and in temporary use and those things
kind of got mumbled together and so we're struggling with some of the the changes that that have come forward. So, yes, we know that those are uh potential conflicts. Again, we we've got to balance all of all of
the activities that are going on. But yes, we we we surely realize that that that is not as clear. Um and usually when we get calls concerning that, our zoning staff is able to provide some clarity. >> Sure. >> Just bringing it up for zoning text
amendment conversations that we're having periodically to include those in there. Yeah, I read Reed. Um, isn't that one we talked about is already in the mix. >> Uh, yeah, that's uh the sign issue and then the of course people use uh
short-term rentals after 900 p.m. So, it's ridiculous to have it in there. So, yes, it's not. So, I don't think it was meant to limit uh the you know when a guest can go in and it's just like lumping one code into the next and and
so it caused some issues. Now, that being said, I've only I've only heard one complaint from one person about that section of the code, but it is definitely something that needs to be cleaned up. >> Um, from a larger standpoint, I
understand that when this was developed, basically, it's trying to prevent displacement from our residential neighborhoods. It's trying to maintain neighborhood character, if you will. their reasons of trying to allow
short-term rentals within the city without it causing a disruption which other localities and municipalities have experienced from them. Uh, I think it would be important to try to strike that balance along with
potentially using short-term rentals as a method of building more housing units in the city, along with uh student housing, the larger discussion we're having. The reason the student housing is being built is because they will pay a premium over
what a single family will pay for a unit. And so with that premium, developers are willing to put their money at risk to build new buildings to be able to supply them housing. And with the study we were shown the other day or the other week, we're not really getting
that anywhere outside of student housing. Well, short-term rentals operate similarly that they will uh provide a return to operators potentially over and above what a
long-term rental will and that's why people gravitate toward them. Could we use that dynamic as a way of saying that if you, this is just an idea that if you bu build an ADU or just a second unit on
your house, since we don't really have an ADU ordinance on your property and you intend to use that as a short-term rental, you can build that extra unit as a way to continue to grow the housing
supply in the city because that extra unit isn't going to be an STR forever. >> You can already do that if you are living in one of the units. Again, um I this is a hard one and we'll get into it in more I'm sure, but um the the code
that we put forward in 2001, that's going to take a while to come into play. Um I've been here a while. >> Um we had a vision in 2020. Um, and it took over 15 years for that vision to
start moving forward. Again, these things all take time. Um, and anyway, I just want to throw that out and note that, you know, the to be, you know, if the person lives in one of the units, that's great. But you're saying
>> under current Rex, >> sorry, just under a different umbrella of affordable housing incentives >> like maybe there's some >> Well, no, no, but construction to happen.
>> Maybe there's some something if someone was deciding what to do with their property, maybe there's some incentive for a different discussion. >> Yeah. >> Push more people into the longer term. My my my condensed point is just short-term rentals can bring outsized
returns. That's why people want to do short-term versus long-term. >> Can you use that dynamic to try to build housing where a long-term rental housing doesn't pencil? >> You're also not displacing anybody in residential areas because the house isn't built yet. So, there's no one to
displace. >> Do you um do you have more clarifying questions with a question mark at the end? We will because I'm going to let the planning commission talk once the public has had a chance to make their comments. >> Oh, sorry. Our time. >> No. >> Oh, >> yeah. This is for This is for us to
clarify stuff from staff so that fewer questions from the public and they can have a chance to actually make comments to us. >> Perfect. >> That's my question. >> Do you have any questions? >> I've got a thought, not a question. >> Okay. I've got a series of questions. Um, and unfortunately, they're scattered throughout the PDF, so uh bear with me.
Um I what is the current practice for multif family projects? Um suppose like a condominium or like the Belmont lofts or something. >> If you're in a multi- if you're in a a non-residential district, >> then you are considered general lodging
under the zoning code. Um and so that is that doesn't fall within homesick. So there there are other building related things that come up with that. >> Are people generally allowed to if they're in a condominium allowed to do
an Airbnb? >> They do it. >> Okay. >> And we we work with that or we or it's uninforced. >> Reed, um are you able to speak to that any? >> Uh yeah, sure. Uh, so
I think it's really it for multifamily buildings, you have to get your landlord's permission. And so that prevents many from doing it. I mean, occasionally in like a student housing complex, you'll see them for about a month and then they disappear when the landlord finds out.
>> I'm thinking a condominium like like the Belmont Lofts where people own their their unit. >> Yeah, they can do it there. Okay. as long as there's no HO, you know, it's we don't follow HA, like if there's an HOA and they prohibit it, then they wouldn't be able to do it, but uh we would allow
it. Uh you know, as Missy said, it would be general lodging. >> Okay. Um you said that, uh Granicus has identified 500 plus of these properties. Do we know how many we knew before we
had Granicus? um a couple hundred. >> Okay. So, this actually really did expand how many we know about. >> Yeah. But again, it's like any sort of data thing. Um yes, we see all these dots on the page and you know, we're
like, hm. Um so, we're still digging into into that to to mine down to an actual like we haven't split out the ones that are residential from Granicus. We've done that a different way. And so there's still much work to be done
there. >> So this data it's new enough that it's not we haven't had a chance to figure out if all those properties are to enforce things or to figure out if they're all complying. >> Um there's been some limited with that. Again, we're at the beginning. Well,
we're at the time where all the applications are coming in because uh uh TUD was able to send out a notice to remind everyone they had to pay. Um, so between that and a notification we sent out to everyone that we have on record,
uh, we just got an onslaught. Um, and so we're working through that, but we're getting kind of through that now. And now we're strategizing on the people who have chosen not to apply for permits, but are showing up as having listings.
>> Um, so the uh you said that we have a $100 fee uh per year. Um, does that I guess that does not cover enforcement currently or does it like how much how close does that come to paying for the city's costs? >> We don't typically cover our costs.
>> Okay. >> Um, for the proposed option, the option that may not come to be um 500 for three years, would that actually cover our costs? >> We figure it would somewhat come closer.
um it won't completely um but again we also wanted to be reasonable about a fee >> um because you know that's how all this works too. Yeah. >> I mean yes it's the cost of doing business but you know if it gets too
high then you lose the balance. Here I'm going to break my own rule and make a comment just that it seems like that would be the typical non homeay person taxpayer subsidizing people who are operating homeays seems a little unfair
but um sorry I'll go on from that um >> they collect occupancy tax too but yeah >> yeah yeah no I guess that okay that is true um 100 Um uh
these uh let's see um All right. Yeah, sorry. I think that's all my questions. Um unless there are any more clarifying questions, we'll let the public talk. Great. Um let me see. You guys want to moderate or
should I or how does this work? I >> think he has a question. Todd has a question. >> Oh, Todd, I'm sorry. >> I was I'm sort of public here today. >> Well, your staff you are you being public? >> I'm sort of being
>> Well, you got to pick a commission revenue actually, but really part of the presentation. So, um I'm mostly here to pee in the cornflakes. Um, so I'll answer a couple of questions. The 30-day
occupant or that really has to do with the rules around transient occupancy tax and license. Okay. >> Um, >> the 500 or so listings, a lot of times you're going to find >> um multiple listings for one property. So, it tends to inflate that. She's
right. We've we've seen about 250 or so business licenses every year for several years. So, I'd say that's a truer number of how many of these we have. Um, with respect to enforcement, um, in addition
to what they have, um, if you operate a business in the city of Charlottesville and don't get a business license, that's class one misdemeanor. We used to spend a lot of time chasing folks down. Uh, and and that's actually a pretty stiff fine. Um
the the problem with that is, and I'm going to get into this in a minute, the way that the business license interacts with the home state permit. Um I am not supposed to issue a business license to somebody until they have their home
state permit. So, if I go out spending a lot of time, you know, tracking down somebody on one of these for $35 business license and then they don't bother to get the home state permit. Um, it's it's a waste of time. Um, and so we
have pretty much for years we were actually the office that was really driving the enforcement of these things. Um, and it's it's kind of shifted over to these guys and now we've got Granicus. It's probably going to happen more. Um
um what what I really want to say here is if you want to know the single biggest impediment to enforcement, it's the annual fee. Um and I I've expressed that to these guys and
whatever. Um it's the annual fee because the zoning inspectors spend all their time chasing down checks. Um, that's it. Full stop. And then the way that impacts me, I can't issue a
business license until the home state permit's been paid. So, the result is that my office sits on hundreds of business licenses that people have filed for and paid for, but that I can't issue because they didn't go to NDS to get the
homeay permit. My suggestion has been and remains that the home state permit, like every other home occupation permit, should be a one-time thing. >> You run a hair salon in your in your
basement, you pay $100. Now, I know we've got other fees that, you know, other permits that that get renewals. Um, they don't have another license hinging on. I think Missy pointed out to me that I guess the the cafe spaces and
the vendors on the mall, that's a fraction of the number of people. Um they're much easier to track and they don't have a business license attention on that. If you guys are going to make a change, the only change that I'm here to advocate for is to make the home state
permit a single time fee. Make it $500, make it $1,000. I don't give a damn. But I I don't need to have to deal I don't I it is a huge pain to have to wait to see
if they've got their homeay permit um before we can issue that. I'm right now I got hundreds of people who've paid for the business license. They've got 60 folks who've gotten their homestead permits. So I'm sitting on those licenses and it's like that every single
year. So if you make a change, that's what I'd advocate for. Sorry if you want you >> we work with Todd quite a bit, Todd Bob from his office as as we're working through this and this is kind of the one
thing that that we go back and forth on quite a bit because we understand where where Todd's coming from on this. We get that. Um, but the yearly review is really the main time we get to see what
changes have happened and be able to make sure that it's maintaining as following the rules from that standpoint. And so that's why we push back on ours our folks have pushed back on that one just because of trying to
keep things from that enforcement end. But we love Todd. we work with him as we're we're working with this. >> I would just counter that you don't need to collect a fee to enforce the rules. >> You could do that.
>> Anyway, that's it. >> All right. Um, >> looks like you're moderating chair. >> I'm moderating. All right. Do we have an online? You got it, Grace. Thank you. >> All right. We'll start the public hearing starting in in person. You could come. >> Not a public hearing. Just comments from
public comment from the public. here. Why don't you go ahead, Deborah? >> Please state your name. You'll have >> Okay. I'm Deborah Weiss. Um, I've been in Charlottesville since 1995. I feel like I'm the poster child for this short-term rental thing. I was
instrumental in getting the ADU passed in the early 2000s because I wanted to build a house in my backyard uh before the city was even upon. So, that's what I did. and um I started short-term renting it in 2013.
My house does not face the street. It's in my backyard. It has its own parking. I greet every guest. I've never had one single complaint. Uh the city keeps raising the assessments on properties and the property taxes. And now, um
without my short-term rental, I would be completely priced out of my neighborhood. and the property taxes that I have to pay now are over $11,000 a year. Um, so I just want to switch it around for a second and let you know that my short-term rental keeps my house
affordable to me. Okay? And the other point that I want to make is the correlation between somehow affordable housing and short-term rental is one, for me, I didn't take away housing, I added housing. And second, even if I
long-term rented my place, it would not be affordable. Okay, my house in my backyard, I feel is my retirement account. It's my real estate investment, you know, and it's how pretty much I put food on my table, right? And um, you
know, I need it. And so, uh, I think we're all for responsible uh, hosting. And, um, I think I do a really good job. And the other point that I want to make is that this is a business and it's really hard work and it's not something that people think, oh, I'll just Airbnb
my place and make a ton of money. It's a lot of work. And I think a lot of people try it and then they just realize, oh, I'm not going to do this, you know, and then they either long-term rent it or shortterm, you know, they long-term rented or they stop doing it. And third, I think that there's a lot of places
that might show up on your software where it's people who rent their house out for graduation or they rent their house out just for uh football season. You know, they're not like doing it like all the time. So, I think that you need to take, you know, the amount of places with a grain of salt. So, that's what
I'm saying. Thank you. And just a heads up, we are going to try to limit these to three minutes each. Dannon, do you have >> got the clock going? >> Oh, I can't see it. Okay, there we go. >> Switch between online and in person. Do we have any online? >> There'll be people. >> Yes, we'll have one after. Okay. My name
is Chaz Webster. You may have seen some of my emails. Um I two parts here really. Um I think some of us have gotten some texts from our STR group that we were a little surprised today. We had thought from well first we were
the ones that came to this meeting last minute finding out about it um and so kind of shared with other people within our group that also were hosts hey this is going on did you know about this we didn't so we didn't feel it was overly transparent had some questions then and that's why we started writing in yes and
asking for things to slow down so we could be part of the conversation um and then today our understanding was that they were going to basically not ask for anything at this point and work on judgement enforcement and conversation and communication with us which we've
welcomed. Um it seems that there may have been another agenda and that's confusing to us. Um I personally have commercial and residential properties with a business partner of mine, many downtown and Midtown. Um a lot of
residential units. Some of those we do rent to Airbnb and I think one of the pictures that we and Airbnb companies, people who rent from us and we allow to do Airbnbs. Uh we haven't turned much of our inventory into Airbnb. We keep it as longterm. Um it's easier to us. We have
a lot of it so it' be more work for us. Uh, that being said, part of the picture that's not painted here is we without following all the rules and regulations or being regulated like just a citizen in a neighborhood can turn all of ours into Airbnb and 365 days a year. uh that
seems a little convoluted when we're looking at being stringent and strict on literally citizens in a neighborhood, which also I think the part of the picture missing here is in that neighborhood there are buildings and stuff that could do the exact same thing as I'm doing. We can turn them all into
Airbnbs and remove long-term rental from the market and take extra expendable income just from citizens, which historically has been proven is spent in the area. They're still going to take their yearly family vacations, but they won't eat out as much. They won't order
out as much. They won't shop locally or spend as much locally. Well, as a person that rents a commercial, this is where we saw, my partner and I, a real problem here. And we know that currently restaurants especially are having a really tough time. And so, we want
tourism to grow. We want the local people to keep eating out and spending locally. And Todd, I don't know when this started, but as long as I've known about Airbnb, and 99% my understanding of short-term rentals are on one of the two major
platforms, the majority being Airbnb, they've collected 14% 14.5% tax and 9% has been going to the city without any problem or extra work. It's it's not like we could an Airbnb person can't not pay it. So it's almost that to your
point earlier, we should be incentivizing people certainly in some of these areas where there is upzoning to build more of these and actually tax them as much as possible and benefit as much as possible from this so we're not having to constantly just raise property
taxes or and we and to be honest I feel a little I the last thing we have a full email and everything we sub submitted to NDS we would have submitted to you if we had known that we were actually going to get in this conversation. So, we will get all that out to you. Thank you very
much, Mr. >> Chair. I have a Colleen Kelly online who has a hand raised. Colleen, would you like to speak? >> Yes. Sorry, am I unmuted now? >> Yes. Go ahead. >> Okay, perfect. Uh, well, thank you for the meeting. Um, I think a couple
things. Um, first of all, I appreciate that um that we're addressing this and u miss you for your work on the research. I'm glad that the recommendation is to keep everything as it is because Granicus really hasn't been running for very long and um so you don't really
have really great data that's out there and I think a lot of the problems is um you know just these people that are gaming the system and I run a very legal fully compliant Airbnb and we actually get hurt by um people who are taking
advantage of the system. they deflate the prices, they undercut us, they cause problems in the neighborhood, and then we get overregulated. Um, my second point is the fact that just back of the napkin calculations, um, if we're if Airbnb is generating 1.58 million in
taxes and we're only 14% of the, um, occupancy, that means that we're punching above our weight in terms of how much revenue, tax revenue we're giving because of the total amount. That's 15.7% of the total. The third thing is I would
like to say is that whenever I am a community member, I want to reiterate what other speakers have said is that the Airbnb makes it possible for me to live in Charlottesville and to upkeep my property. Without it, I would be in a world of financial hurt and it is a lot
of hard work and it is a lot of my hours. So um another thing is the fact that um whenever we talk about all this is that um we're we're we're good with I
guess the the compliance right um but uh it'll be great to that that things are paused until um we get a better picture all this then I actually had a little bit of a question about one of the data points um it says um x amount of the
entire house is rented. Um, so I'm a little bit curious because technically we're like a duplex and whenever you put things on Airbnb, you either have to say you're renting out a room or you're renting out an entire home. Um, so technically even though we're an under duplex, we would fit into the category
if you're using the um Airbnb metrics of entire home, we would fall into that category, but we're not in a situation where we're doing rooms. So I just kind of want to put that out there. Um, and the thing is is that as opposed to um, the Hilton or Marriott taking the money
that they earn from short-term rentals and spending it wherever, paying out tax, you know, their their dividends to their shareholders, I'm spending all the money that I earn in my Airbnb after expenses in this local community. And so I feel like um it's a real it's just
another thing to think about whenever you're considering the calculus of how much or how little um short-term rentals are contributing um to this to the city of Charlottesville. So thank you. >> Thank you.
There's any other online speakers. You may uh click the raise hand icon and I can call you out. >> And you also have community members here. >> Yes. So, seeing none, let's even go back into in person speakers. Uh, good evening. My name is Sam Gand. I
live at 1292 Kenwood up in Greenbryer. Um, so I came kind of midway through the presentation, so it seems like the agenda is not actually being considered or proposed, but just wanted to offer my comments. Um, so for background, I do not operate an Airbnb. don't really have
skin in the game, but I just wanted to kind of speak in support of uh people's rights to operate a short-term rental. And um specifically, I thought that the the eight person maximum um was an unreasonable regulation. You know, I
think people should be able to um you know, rent their property on a long-term basis or a short-term basis. I think some reasonable rules make sense, but the eight person seems kind of arbitrary. you know, if you have a six-bedroom house, um, that that seems
unreasonable. I also noticed, I guess there's a six adult limit. I don't know if that's something that's actually enforced, but that also seems if that's on the books now, I think that should be reconsidered. Um, we're not really sure what the what the reason for that is.
Um, and just a couple points, you know, these rentals provide significant benefits. These are big tax revenue for the city, and these are activity for local businesses. Um, I think if some of these were eliminated, specifically the larger ones, um, you might just lose some of that economic activity or maybe
it shifts to hotels or shifts to the counties to Elmor County and then that goes to county businesses. Um, and this is a it's a cool resource for residents. Um, I got married in the city a few years ago and um, the wedding party, we
rented a big house in our neighborhood and that was a lot of fun and if that had not been available, it would have been a very different weekend. So, I think, you know, maybe it's a a special event, maybe it's graduation, maybe it's a reunion, but, you know, these are often good resources for people to live
here. Um, it's an opportunity for homeowners. You know, there's a guy on my culde-sac. he's looking at adding a unit and he's kind of thinking maybe I'll rent it long term. Uh maybe I'll do an Airbnb, but if you take away that option, you might get less housing built. We've kind of given homeowners
the tools to add one unit or add an ADU. If we increase regulation on what they can do, you're going to get less of that. Um and then last, like I said, I don't I don't operate an Airbnb, but there are people that have operated these uh in good faith and built small
businesses. So, you know, what I read in the agenda would would really be killing those businesses. I was very surprised. Um, there was no consideration for them. So, um, that's all I had, but I think these are are provide meaningful benefits for, you know, people that
operate them and others as well. Thanks. Good evening. Uh, Genevie Keller, 504 First Street North. Once upon a time is that where you sat and it happened to be during the period in which we crafted this ordinance and we worked on it for
months and we had much debate. We had a very diverse uh group of people sitting on the commission at that point in time. Variety of ages distributed across the city. Two people who were operating a bed and breakfast or a short-term
rental, whatever you want to call it, one sort of independently and one on a platform. Uh strong housing advocates. And this was really kind of the best we could come up with. Um there were those who argued for more than six and we decided that six was
based kind of on a twoerson uh per three bedrooms and any more than that even then we were thinking about housing our community. Any more than that then why don't you have an apartment um because at that point you still could have one ADU u in in your house. So this is
really what we came up with and and it I've been an operator for if you'd asked me 20 years ago I was going to have this I would say you're absolutely crazy um because spent most of my life being a consultant flying all over the country and this is a little bit easier but the reason I did it was because my my son
had graduated from college traveled on a fellowship around the world and came home and before he was going to go back to school he just said can I have a B&B? these these are great things. I've done them all over the world. So, I let him do it. And then, you know, like kids do, he left me with the football season all
booked up. So, mom was left holding the bag and and I it turned out to be a pretty good bag. And I I have to say I kind of enjoy it. And along with other people that that talk about paying their real estate taxes and my family, we're talking about a great grandmother who raised turkeys. And the family didn't
eat the turkeys. She sold the turkeys to pay her taxes. So, I make bets to pay my taxes and I don't have to fly all over the country and stand at a TSA line to be a consultant. So, I've enjoyed doing it. Have a great number of people. They come for weddings. They come for
football. They come for vineyards. They come for sick children. They come for dying parents. They come for lots lots of things. Because I've been a planning commissioner and I believe in housing. I don't rent anything as a B&B that I could rent as a dwelling unit to
a long-term renter. I don't have any kitchen units and I say in bold letters, no kitchen. Support our local restaurants. I think we have as good an ordinance as we could have. I support you keeping what what we have now. I
think to open it up, open up a big can of worms. Missy has talked about what you might have to do uh if you do make a change. And hopefully there are ways that you can work with Todd and other ways to collect fees so that you can take care of those things and there's
always another general assembly session next year. So I think what you're doing now is a is a good thing and the only thing is the week link has been the enforcement. Thank you. >> John McDonald's online. John, would you
like to speak? I think you're muted there. You are trying to speak. >> Can you hear me? >> Yes. >> I have I find this whole thing a little confusing. Uh I'm looking at your
current requirements for up to six adults and any number of children. And then your proposal is two adults per bedroom up to eight people. So in your current requirement, there is
no requirement of bedrooms or the number of people, any number of children, which seems to me to uh leave that open to quite frankly an infinite number of people in a house. And now you're saying you can have up to two adults per
bedroom, up to eight people. What happened to the children? Uh is it still unlimited children? And what is your definition of a bedroom? That's it. I This is why I find this
very confusing. And at one point I you did say that you were increasing the number of people and I'd like to know how that increase works. Thank you. >> Thank you. Do you guys want to answer that real fast or is that um
>> read the bedroom question? >> It was part of the proposal but aren't actual proposals, >> right? Well, >> yeah. >> Reed, can you speak to the question of bedrooms? >> Yeah, sure. Um, so it is limiting. I think it is something
that I've talked with with the city attorney and that we would probably allow children to come in as well. I mean it it it's hard it you it's hard to deal with um and we we don't have the answer but yes
so right now it's six number six adults and any number of children. We've heard from lots of people staying with wedding parties and and what have you and and so they're exceeding the occupancy right now. Um, in the future it would be eight
per uh home, two per bedroom, and we would probably exempt children from that in a proposal. So, you could still have families come and you're getting more. Um, so hopefully that helps answer your question. Once once again I would say
through this whole presentation there's been so much research and so much time spent trying to come up with a proposal and we ran into roadblocks and many different uh routes that we were trying to take and and ultimately with this code section that would open
it up to renters to be able to potentially um utilize uh the short-term rental ordinance. We decided to recommend nothing. Um, so that's where we are. Thank you.
>> More public comments. >> Hi, I'm Sarah Sheldon. I want to talk about kind of like a couple different separateish topics. The first one being I'm a mom. When I look to go stay places, I don't look at hotels because that sounds terrible with like a child.
>> I want an Airbnb. If I'm gonna stay with family, I want an Airbnb. So, the last thing that I would want is for the city to make this more difficult for families to come and stay. Like Charlottesville is very family friendly and I don't want families to look at it and be like,
"Let's just go stay somewhere else where I can put my kids in a different room to sleep because my child won't sleep quietly. He needs to be on his own so he can mumble." I don't know. Kids make a lot of noise. Um, so it's just really nice to be able to go somewhere and have multiple rooms and have a kitchen, have
a bathroom with a tub. Like, these are just things that I don't want the commission to forget. Um, but I was actually talking with our cleaner and most of her business or all of her business is Airbnbs and the same thing applies to a lot of
other vendors in the area. Um, and I think that it's important not to forget the financial impact that Airbnbs themselves have. Like there are cleaners in hotels, there are landscapers for hotels, but like there are small business owners who rely on that. if
Airbnbs became totally outlawed or if it was just single bedrooms. I don't think my cleaner's name is Alicia. She's great. If you need a cleaner recommendation, let me know. She's awesome. Um, but if these were to suddenly become single bedrooms, her job would be infinitely more difficult. Um,
and she might not have a business at all. Uh, so I just wanted to make sure people like her were seen and heard because I asked her if she wanted to come. She said no. She didn't have time. She's cleaning. So, makes sense. But, uh, alternatively, I'm actually a
wedding photographer in the area. None of my couples want to stay in an Airbnb. Much like the gentleman said earlier, his wedding party wanted to stay or they wanted to stay in an Airbnb, not a hotel. And weddings that I've captured
in hotels, they just feel cold and sad and not as comfortable and fun. Whereas the experience that wedding parties, wedding guests, wedding clients have is better in an Airbnb because it feels
more communal. Um, and just from that, yeah, I guess the point that I'm making is people like Airbnbs. They want to stay in Airbnbs. And I would personally hate if housing went from like allowing eight people to like it has to be four
or six. You can have your mom stay with you. And that sounds terrible. Like, I'd like to let more people stay in these Airbnbs so they can have fun so they want to come here so they don't go to Charleston or New York City or somewhere else. Instead, I want them to come here
so I can shoot their wedding in an Airbnb that Deborah owns. That sounds great. I think yours is to you, but I'd love for them to go there because I actually had a couple stay >> Yeah. >> I had a couple stay at your Airbnb after their wedding and they loved it. >> Thanks. like I'd rather they have that
experience. So that's it. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> My name is Robin Cely and I have a teeny tiny little Airbnb Airbnb. It's just over 300 square ft. It does not have a full kitchen. It is not going to help
solve the housing crisis. I think if that is one of the things that we're trying to do here, and I honestly still not sure exactly what it is that we're trying to solve for, um, I think you'd have to look individually at each Airbnb to discover
whether or not a studio like mine is going to be any great, um, contribution to the city's uh, housing stock. It doesn't have a kitchen. It's a studio. Uh it's teeny tiny. The other thing I'd
say is even though it's a teeny tiny place with, you know, half a kitchen, it is helping me tremendously right now because I'm now retired. I bought the thing in uh in my house in 2019. And in that time since then to this date, my
tax bill has doubled is actually doubled. I was paying under $5,000 a year. I'm now paying almost $10,000 a year. it would be infinitely harder for me if I didn't have the income from that Airbnb to um
make a contribution to that cost. So, uh I know there are others who are in the same boat. Let me vote on them. Um I understand I'm not the numbers person, but on the STR uh uh list serve, there are about 130 people on that list serve
and it's not just people who own um Airbnbs. It's also people who own businesses in the city because they have uh a vested interest in keeping Airbnbs open because that is what is also bringing folks to their restaurants and
restaurants. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Anyone else? Hello, I'm Janice Kavanagh. I live on Douglas app and like Debbie, been doing Airbnb and short terms for a long time
since 2010 when the market real estate kind of tanks. Um, but I have more questions really than comments. Mine doesn't have a kitchen either, so it would never be in the housing stock. But, um, it's my understanding that the
Airbnb and Verbo do not itemize the taxes to the city. Like they don't list every property owner taxes. They just send one little chunk. Is that correct? >> No, they do. They they break out by address and gross receipts. Perfect. >> But I can't share it. >> No, that's okay. I was told by someone
there that they don't or somebody told me that they just send one check, but >> they do send one check, but they send a report. Per >> Perfect. Okay. Um and then how do you determine if it's 181 days is the cap? Like who's
tracking Nobody. >> So, it's really not even worth putting that in there because there's no way to police it. >> I'm not looking at you specifically, but you you answer. >> You'll find it.
>> And then in reference, someone asked about condos. I sell real estate. The bulk of the condo associations do not allow short-term rentals. So, Belmont Lofts or the Gleon and stuff, I'm sure there's people who get by with it and do it, but overall you have to have like a 60 or 90day minimum lease and that lease
has to be approved by the condo associations. Um, and then how does the city, I guess, police or determine because there are companies that manage multiple properties for individual homeowners and
they put them on Airbnb and Verbo and then those people live somewhere else. So, is there any way that the city can determine how that is controlled? each uh >> each individual I'm sorry, each
individual property owner is responsible for getting a permit. So, it's not up to the state Charlottesville or Airbnb >> get a permit for their uh for the homeowner. But if that homeowner lives in Ohio, they can't get a permit
because they don't >> they have to they have to establish their residency in Virginia, provide us with a photo ID, and sign the document that says, "I swear that I abide by all the regulations and and we'll comply with all your regulations."
>> Okay. >> All right. And in reference to the stats you put up earlier, there was the bulk of the properties are onebedroom, two-bedroom, and threebedroom and very low percentage was higher bedrooms. So how you going to fit 8 10 people in the
bulk of the places that have three bedrooms? If it's two people per >> it would be up to I mean the proposal the proposal was an up to >> number of people >> because based on the potential safety inspection it would determine how many
bedrooms were per building code and then it could be up to but still based on two people per bedroom. Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. Any more inerson speakers for public
comments? Any more online raised hands for public comments? >> Chair, I see no more. All right. Thank you. And just to remind the public again, you can always email us um >> at uh planning commission charlesville.gov or there's a link on
the city's website on the planning commission's page. Um all right. So, comments from the planning commission. Um, do this one this time. Ross, go ahead. >> Um, yes. Let me get back to my list of comments
from last time. >> Um, I guess I want to open up the discussion about allowing renters to have home stays. It seems like the proposal to not make any changes by staff is largely
predicate on that would then allow renters to have home stays. I don't necessarily see why that's a bad thing. Um, in the current situation, you're allowing homeowners to
beef up their own income like we've heard several times here tonight. I don't know why we would allow that privilege to only be for somebody that owns their property and not somebody that rents their property. Of course, this would need to be
part of an agreement between the tenant and the person who leases them their homes, but that's not something that we're here to discuss. I don't see a reason why the city should prevent renters from being able to have their
own home state in their unit. Um then an item related to occupancy is um maybe a reason a way to get around some of these comments about what the exact number of max people available for
a homeay unit should be. I'm pretty sure that there are fire marshal regulations about occupancy of residential units. leave it up to the fire marsh. And then my last comment that I would make is whatever changes are made, if
any, to not make them more ownorous than what we're doing for other home occupations in the city and residential areas. The comment from the commissioner of re revenue about
decoupling enforcement from getting a permit or getting a fee I think is a smart idea. That's the end of my comments. Okay, >> I don't think I've got anything. I think this is um this is headed in the right direction.
The I would disagree with with Ross. Um and and again I I can't wrap an argument around it yet. It just doesn't feel good. So I need to think about a little bit more. But the idea of tenants being renters being able to participate in the
homeay um thing just doesn't feel good. But I need to give that a little more thought to make sure that's where I'm going to land. Josh, >> um I think I'll just be echoing things. Um I like what we heard from the
audience. Um it sounds like the ordinance that we have now, the goals make sense. The rules mostly make sense. Um I think it would be a mistake to drop the max number of nights to 90 days. That sounds much more ownorous and for no public benefit. I also don't think it
would be smart to remove the residency requirement like has been suggested. I think having the goal of having owner occupied homes that do Airbnb, as long as the owner lives there, that's working fine. Let's keep doing it. Um,
I also don't see any public interest in preventing tenants from renting out part of their home, especially because it requires the landlord to approve it, and if they don't like it, they can say no. So, I I think it' be a marginal change. I think most people would say, "No, you
can't do it." But I don't see why I would tell a landlord they can't their tenant rent out part of the property. Um, I do possibly like the proposed change to require the affidavit, although I think Reed mentioned there already is one. It's it's in the document, so I'm
not sure. But I think requiring the owner to say, "Yes, I live here." Um, some of them don't, and people don't like lying, I hope. And signing a document saying, "I'll follow the rules. wouldn't I wouldn't mind that happening.
Um I certainly wouldn't want to use the fear of tenants renting out part of the unit to prevent us from doing things that are useful. Um but mostly I'm happy with the proposal of not making changes because I think the main problem is enforcement. That's
out of the scope of what we can do here and the regulations sound mostly in good shape to me. I wouldn't want to make this any harder for anybody to provide the the service to the the community. So stop there. Yeah. Um I would echo the same comments and I think the tenants thing maybe that
it's good that nothing's happening now that could be a future study but I it seems like there's a lot of the subleasasing you know because we have student this and that. I mean that's kind of happens in a way there's a lot more of these informal
someone's going abroad they need someone to stay there for two months. So maybe there's something around around that perspective um to think about. But um I'm glad I learned a lot more about this through this process whether or not it
was a little messy. And I'm glad we heard from people who are providing these. Um and I'm you know again I think what we have now it seems to be working as well as it can. And so maybe with time with the new software, there'll be
new opportunities to make some smaller changes if needed. But um I'm good with what we have. >> I'm on the same page. I think I think it's processing be going in the right direction. Um I don't want to, you know,
unreasonably curtail short-term rentals. I do think um on the issue of tenants being able to to do short-term rentals, I don't think it's good if we're in a place where we can't update the ordinance because we don't want to comply with the state law. Um so I I get
that like um kind of quickly putting in place a way to to manage this like how do we track that the owner has given permission to the tenant? that that's kind of an administrative headache, but I hope that we can figure that out in the future so that we're not stuck with
a frozen code that we can't update because we don't want to allow tenants to rent out a short-term rental. Okay. Uh I have a few comments and first I just want to thank the public for coming out and speaking. Um I didn't announce earlier when I said I didn't have any
questions, but I'm a non- voting the UVA rep for the planning commission. My name is Michael Joy, associate university architect there. So, um, my comments here again are not framed as a representation of the university or, uh, anything along those lines. And, uh, I didn't want to thank Missy for the great
presentation. I found it to be very informative and, uh, and and sort of thoughtprovoking. And so, one of the things I was just going to throw out are, um, just some questions and also maybe some recommendations of of possible ideas and, uh, hearing from the community. Um, you know, part of me is
wondering, it sounds like it's the kind of the the people who aren't conforming with the current one that seems to be causing the issue. And so the idea the enforcement sounds it's too ownorous uh for the local you know for our government to do and it's hard and
tricky legally and this and that but I was curious if we could transfer that onus to Airbnb and VBO and the others that they can only collect fees their booking fees if they're doing business with a legally certified property. Oh,
no. I can tell you. >> I'm think this maybe this is a state level thing we could work with. Maybe they could do a Commonwealth thing that it I don't understand why if they're sitting there saying that they're having accommodation that accommodation is not in conformance with local law, how they
can make money on that. >> I >> I know overseas you've got to in certain countries you have to be licensed and show your license at the bottom. So, maybe there's a way to do it. >> I understand this is a bigger question. It may not be a bunch of communities can come together. I just think it's crazy
that they can profit on what they're offering as being legal because I feel like there's people who are following the rules who are doing it and making limitations and you have other people who aren't and they're anyway it's just the big software company which has no presence in this town seems to be benefiting the most
from these issues. So that was one. Um it seems like there's a number of college towns across the country that have heightened or enhanced their STR restrictions or they fully have prohibition on it uh because they are dealing with the same housing crisis that we are dealing with and the same
cost of living crisis and I was curious if the city has had any chance to be in conversation to see some of them adopted them a number of years ago and uh it seems like some of the anecdotal stories are quite beneficial. I was just curious if we're getting a a you know, we were a thought leader when we adopted this uh
back in the day and seems like there's some other communities that kind of have chosen a path and I'd be curious if it's actually helped their housing issues and their cost of living. And then the last one I was thinking of is I wonder if there's a way, you know, with these private equity firms snatching up properties all over town, empty houses
that are being used as Airbnbs, like Danny mentioned, we all see them in our in our neighborhoods. Um, could we consider a twounit minimum in order to apply for a homeay? Like could you your property which is in RB but you have to
have two units there whether it's an ADU whether it's a it has to be an ADU. And so the reason I'm saying this is in order to get the ADU you have to go through NDS you have to get permitted. You have to have it inspected. It has to be up to code. It has to be safe. It has to meet all the necessary requirements.
And then once you have two units on the property, it sort of implies that you live in one of them. And I feel like it doesn't take a perfectly suitable home for a family and just have no one lives in it and it's constantly illegally being used as a short-term rental. But
it seems like most people if everyone who came up today is doing that where they have a two-unit property and um I just wonder if that's kind of like a very simple way to sort of leverage something that could protect the people who again are following the rules.
That's all I have. >> Sorry, we don't have two units. We have our houses and then we have like a basement a >> I know but I think this is I think indas would call that a two unit, right? if you had an ADU basement and a and a main residence. >> Maybe I'm not using language right. I >> to me I have two.
>> No, but I think even you can have an ADU in your basement and I think from a am I wrong? Is that a two unit when you >> there is no such thing anymore as an accessory dwelling unit. It's just units. >> Okay. So that's what I'm getting at. So the ADU language told units is a new language. >> I have two bedrooms a bathroom and they use the front door. It's part of my
house. So it's not any separate section. It's a separate section but it's not like an ADU and it's not a basement. It's two bedrooms I don't need, so I rent them to the public. >> Yeah. >> And that would be the thing that would maybe be be the risk because you're doing it right. But but that most of the people, at least my anecdotal, I see
empty houses that no one lives in there 150 days a year. >> I get I get that point. >> And you could make conversions to your home to make those units. >> I'm not going to spend money to accommodate stuff that I I'm making money off of it to pay my bills. >> Just trying to find a way to create a
level playing field that it can enforce. Um are are you done? >> Yeah. >> Okay. Um didn't want to jump in um ahead of you. Uh yeah, I um I kind I tend to agree the idea of
holding off on doing updates just because of the um not wanting tenants to participate um seems a little odd to me. Um I know it's already happening. I mean, I have friends who rent who also do Airbnbs, and I guess it's a matter of time till you guys find out or or don't.
Um, >> it does help them. >> It It helps them pay their rent. I mean, it's it's something that's it's useful to them. It makes Charlotte affordable to them to be able to do that. And it seems like um it seems like we we don't want to ever step in the way of people
being able to rent out their houses for um graduation weekend. I mean, that's one time a year doesn't seem like it's a bad thing. I don't know. I don't want to make this so honorous that people can't just do a one weekend out of the year or something that they burn out their
houses and make some extra cash. Um I Yeah, the enforcement thing is frustrating. It seems like we're we still need to work on that. Um I um Let me see. Sorry. all these notes and
questions mixed up together. Um I so the the fees thing I mean if we do end up making a change I I think it would be important if we find a way to cover our costs. Um, and I the $500 for three years, um, that would
effectively prevent tenants from using this process anyways if we wanted to go ahead and update. Um, I have a feeling that someone who rents probably they may not want to spend $500 to have a three-year license for something that
they may only have a year to, you know, they're leasing year to year. Um, and it is an awful lot of money um to just um if you're only going to be renting for a few weekends or something. Um, yeah. And the I guess the the cap on six
units or six people that we currently have uh or six adults does seem um I mean we are a wedding community and it does seem like there's I imagine that there probably are a number of business owners there or Airbnb operators that are upset about that that they can't
lease out their larger house for um you know more than six individuals. Um I mean is there >> there are cons that we yes concerns have been raised for folks in larger places but they as as the number of people
increase the external impacts increase >> and is the are those parking or what are those external impacts that we >> parking and um is is definitely one of them. Um noise concerns as you get lots of people together. Um Reed, I don't
know if there's anything else you want to add to that question. >> Yeah, I would just say parking and noise, uh vehicles, especially in the houses that don't have an off street parking adds more to the neighborhood. Um and and frankly, I mean, that's the
major concern that we hear is that these are groups that are getting together, they're excited, they're, you know, reunions and so they're going to stay up late every single weekend. It's like being next to a party house often because you're going to have large
groups of people and there are um operators that actually have pretty good policies and they hold their tenants uh or renters to those policies like noise policies and what have you and and that works really well in like uh well-managed properties, but then
there's also others that don't. So that's what we hear from is the the people that are not operating it um responsibly. >> I guess I guess whatever we do, we're probably not going to be fully satisfied. So I don't Yeah, I mean you guys have you've
put a lot of work into this, so thank you for that. Um I just Yeah, my two cents are the the tenant thing is already happening. I'm not sure I see the problem with that. But if um if updating the the code has other implications then um yeah I don't
I don't know um final thoughts for anyone else. >> Can I do one? Sorry. >> I just want to echo something that Commissioner Harris said earlier about how to regulate problems. Um, you mentioned the fire code. If there's a
safety concern about occupancy, put in the fire code. If there are concerns about parking, that belongs in current parking. About noise belong to noise ordinance. None of these these are all concerns that I share, but they're not concerns with STRs. They're concerns with people and they have their place
being regulated in other other areas and the STR rags. Sorry, I'm done. >> No, it's it's true. And I think um is it right that that's still we have to find a way to >> Yes. I mean, you know, when these concerns happen, you know, we we want
the responsible party to be able to to get some relief. Um, I said that wrong. Sorry. The fire marshall has been at the table with us, by the way, throughout this proposal. So, so that that lens has been um part
of contributing to to the discussion. Um, but you know, when there's when there's a situation where things are not going good at a at a Airbnb, I mean, folks are encouraged to call the police for activities that are not occurring
properly, but ultimately the owner ends up in a responsible spot. Um, and so again, most people do the right thing. Um, and then there's the things that make it difficult for all the people who
are doing the right thing. >> So, what I'm hearing her comment is that there are some of these other avenues to go down, but at the end the day, it really comes down to the owner. So maybe instead of having individual occupancy limits and noise limits and X Y and Z
and parking limits as part of the permit, there's just a line that sort of references those other things that says if your occupants aren't following those limits, we have the ability to pull your permit as a way around that instead of having completely
new occupancy limits and those other things. Just an idea. Yeah, I guess it'll be interesting to see what council thinks. Um, if that's it, I guess we should move on to um in chambers.
>> Thank you for sorry that we uh >> move you to the end of the agenda. >> I'm Ben Chambers. I'm the police manager. often get a chance to come speak with you. You don't really have a lot of the right transportation items that come up regularly as part of your
business. So, I appreciate the chance to come give you an update. Part of this update is telling you when the next time I'm coming back to Texas speak with you is so spoiled back in there after. So, first I want to introduce my team.
Um I know we don't have two tape as school coordinators, so I'll clear that up. My team is me, Tommy, Kyle, and Zoe. Tommy is our bike pet coordinator, Kyle is our safe rout to school coordinator, and Zoe is our transit planner and I deliver.
Uh, next slide, please. >> Uh, so you can probably tell from our job titles, we touch on quite a array of different topics. So, we do transit planning. Uh, we work with schools to do planning to get people to school safely. Uh, we work on traffic calming with
public first partners and fire department as well. uh we have helped set the sidewalk priorities which inform the CIP. That's usually when you come when I come to speak with you uh is once a year to talk about the CIP. Um and the biggest item that we usually have in the
CIP is the sidewalk priorities. Um we're also responsible for planning out corridor intersection improvements and we operate uh some biking and walking programs. Um next slide, please. So that translates into a pretty long list of
projects that we're working on. This is just a sample of what we're working on. Probably just the highlights of of what we've got on our plate today. Um we've got a star study with VOTE that we're doing right now for the intersection in the middle of town at West Main Ridge.
Um that will turn into the city's first smart scale application in four years if it's endorsed by city council in July. Um we've got a second SARS study that we're working with on uh VOTE on um that also involves the county and that's for
250 north and the 250 uh sorry 29 north and 250 bypass what exactly these >> uh stars is a is a VOTE program. It is a specific planning program. They have stars program and pipelines program.
They both kind of do the same thing. Um they're basically just uh VOTE doing a planning study. Um it has some very long acronym like strategically targeted blah blah blah blah but it just means VOTE is coming in and doing a study and they're planning on doing this study so that it
will uh support a smart scale application down the line. >> Yeah, I was going to say strategically targeted affordable roadway solutions. >> Yes. >> So got it. We do a lot of work coordinating with
DOT. Um they don't actually own roads in Charlottesville aside from the bypass. So a lot of it is them coming to us and saying we know that this is a regional or statewide need that we need to address here and it's in the middle of your city. How can we work together? So we've had a great uh opportunity work
with them on West Main and Ridge and then further work with them uh going up 29. Uh we also work closely with the region and with our transit agencies um to expand and improve transit. That includes uh realigning routes, putting
in new bus stops. So we're doing that with the route two. Um that is an expansion out into the county which will allow city residents to connect to such glamorous locations as the jail. Um but also to the Mil Creek Reef Shopping Center and PBCC. Um we're also looking
through all of our bus stops while we do that. Um, we've already performed an inventory on all of our bus stops to understand what's all on the ground today. Um, kind of surprisingly, we didn't already know the answer to that, but now we do. Um, and that's going to help us set up the next step of how do
we improve what's on the ground? What are our priorities and where should we be spending money to put more shelters, benches, uh, look at lighting, look at traffic bands, look at improvements to our signage. Um, so we are working through that. At the same time, we're
working with the county um to figure out how our regional transit authority is going to work and what priorities it has and where it wants to spend its money once it potentially gets a funding source. Um we also, as I mentioned, support um access to schools. One of the
biggest changes that we've had in that front this year is updating our city code around school zone flashers. Um our city code had outdated names for schools. it was missing some school names. Um, and it didn't provide consistent guidance on what the speed
limit should be when school is in session and what it should be when it's not in session. We've standardized that to it should be 25 uh when school is not in session. That's the maximum speed in front of the school when school's in session to 15. We are rolling out the
the changes to those signs. Now, um the other issue is there were some spots where we didn't have signs where we want to expand our signage coverage. So Kyle is working through a lot of that right now. Um we operate a few different biking and walking programs. One of them
is our ebike voucher pilot program um that gives vouchers to city residents um four times a year quarterly basis. We put out a lottery and say hey sign up if you want to do this. Um we got a lot of interest last year. We got believe it's
90 vouchers were actually redeemed. So there are 90 new bikes out on our streets. Um this year we changed that program just a little bit so that we could sort of tier this the vouchers that we were giving out so that we could target um some higher valued vouchers to
folks who wouldn't be able to afford a bike on their own. So the top tier of voucher now allows a low-inccome resident who can demonstrate that they are participating in low-inccome assistance programs that they will be able to cap a $1,500 voucher that will give them the bike at one of our local bike.
>> Can I ask a quick question? >> Sure. You said 90 of them were redeemed. How many of them were issued? >> Believe it was over a hundred. We're close to 110. So it wasn't a 100% redemption rate because people were getting them and then going to the bike shop and saying, "I don't really want to
buy a $1,500 bike because I only have a $1,000 voucher." >> So there was some of that. There was also some feedback that we got around bike parking and where am I going to put this thing? Um there were folks who live in in some of our public housing who are saying, "I don't really have a place to lock this up. I don't really want to
store this in my living room. what do I do with this? Um, so that's a different, you know, process that we're working through is figuring out the parking uh question, but with this program specifically, we wanted to address that issue of, okay, what happens with the folks who can't afford that full? So,
that's the big change this year. >> The vast majority of them were still redeemed. >> Vast majority. Yeah. Um, the other big change with that program this year is we've added on an additional $100 voucher for all of our winners that we're calling our safety voucher that is
to be used for helmets or locks. Um, we wanted to make sure everybody had those tools so that they were storing their vehicles safely and also riding safe. Um, along with that, we also have our our monthly walk series. This is our official walks that we do in
neighborhoods every second Sunday of the month. Um, we rotate around the city, so we get to check out a different neighborhood every month. Um, it's been a great way to engage with the community, learn what they're seeing. Um, and also get to point out some things that we're working along on along the way. Um, we have a slightly less
official weekly bike ride that does a similar thing, not as programmed um and or as advertised as our neighborhood walk series, but we love having people uh come out on both and see the city with our eyes. Um, the last one before I'll jump into the big bold one is our
Rose Hill Drive restriping concept plans. This was an opportunity that came up because Rose Hill Drive is going to be repaved in 2027. Um, we saw that as an opportunity to change some of the striping on Rose Hill so that it could serve all the users who are trying to use that corridor. Right now, you're
looking at a Rose Hill Drive that is very wide and sort of delineated with a series of different lines. Um it's 35 mile per hour road in front of a county school. So that sort of goes against our issue that we pointed out with our school zone flashers. We want to slow
down traffic on that road so it's safer for the school uses for folks who are using corridor biking and walking and using transit. Um so we kicked off this project with the neighborhood at the beginning of this month with a a walk audit up and down the corridor. Um we'll be returning to them in April with some
design options. um and hopefully from the main council with a referral alternative that's been uh vetted and and discussed with the community in June. The last big one on the list is what I'm going to spend most of my time talking about this evening. Um we are
working on scoping out a citywide mobility plan. So this is the item I'll be coming back to you with later, but we'll talk through sort of what the process looks like for this and what the timeline is. So Patrick, >> so first why do we need this? Uh why do
we need a city-wide mobility plan? So um our comp plan actually points to this as a strategy for how we are going to achieve our goals. Um it says secure funding for a transportation master plan as part of it goal number one for
complete streets. Um I can say that we have achieved that goal already. Council has already set aside funding for this effort. Um, so we can say we checked a box on that, but there's other uh items under goal number one that we need to
work on um to be able to create that uh connected network for all users. This is also something that we identified as staff last year in January of 2025. We rolled out the safer street strategy which was a phased strategy for us to work on um sort of the small problems
and the big problems all at once. Um, this was sort of the second phase of our strategy. Our initial phase was focusing on sort of spot improvements and existing work that we already had on the books. Phase two is looking at things like rewriting all of our plans. Um,
sort of bigger in scope. Phase three is implementing those plans. So, this is a step along the way that we've been following for a little over a year now. Um, and part of the reason that we identified this as a need last year was we were trying to turn to our existing plans and figure out what we were
supposed to do next and finding a lot of conflicts. We were finding that they weren't coherent amongst themselves. And so, uh, some plans would be emphasizing one mode over another. Some would be saying we needed to be considerate of these factors versus those. And in the
end, they all had priority lists that didn't really jive with each other. Um, so we needed to come up with a way to do that. Um the other thing we needed to do was look at our comp plan and say where did we make progress? Where do we have updates to these strategies and goals? Because some of this stuff is, you know,
five years old. So where do we need to make updates there? Um and where are the gaps? Where are the things that we need to make progress on? So our goals for this has got to advance that vision of the comprehensive plan um so that we can have uh multimodal
access, equity, sustainability and health and communities addressed through this plan. It's got to prioritize actionable strategies that build connection across the transportation modes. So not just a a plan of wish and dreams but things we can actually go out
and do. Um it will perform improve system performance through measurable implementation focused outcomes. So, how are we going to measure whether we're actually doing what we're saying correctly? And in the end, this needs to support the city's mission to be a place where everyone can thrive. Uh, mobility
and making sure that you can get both to home and to work and to all of the other things that make life a joy are important to that that goal. Next slide. U, the key elements of what we're doing as part of this scoping effort. Um the first one up top is
something we already did um back over late fall, early winter, which was look at our comp plan and see where we're at. Um it was it was pretty high level overview to sort of understand what goals we've we've achieved and what things we much progress on and where do
we need to uh fill in those gaps. That sort of highlighted we needed to take a even closer look. Um, not everything that the city has said about transportation is captured in the comprehensive plan. So, we wanted to do a deeper dive to see are there goals and
strategies that the comprehensive plan isn't even addressing. Um, that existing conditions assessment is something we're working on right now. And it's not just looking at, you know, demographics or what's the the current physical infrastructure on the ground. It's also
looking at our existing plans and saying what has happened out of these. What data do we still need? What data do we have? And sort of laying the groundwork for um identifying where the the the missing
links are. Um that will help us start writing out a scoping report which will summarize sort of key topics and key deliverables that we're looking to achieve uh with this plan. Our scoping report will also include an engagement plan which will align the expectations
for how we are going to be talking to people about what this plan is along every step of the way. Um, and as we do this, we're also coming to you and other stakeholders to solicit your feedback uh on that existing conditions report and
on uh the scoping report. Patrick, next slide. So the timeline for this uh right now we are working through the the internal draft of the existing conditions report um and the scoping report. Um in May we
will have bike month which will be a big uh ton of events that we'll be talking about but we'll also be doing a lot of engagement for the scoping of the mobility plan. On May the 5th, we plan to release the existing conditions report and draft scope report on the connect Charlottesville project page for
the mobility plan. On May 7th, we'll be presenting uh those materials to BPAC. And on May 7th, we'll also be opening up a public survey on the Connect Charlottesville page that's related to the key topics within the the scoping report so that we can get a feel for what are the priorities of the
community. Um, we'll be talking to BPAC and getting their feedback uh on the 7th, but we also want to hear from the broader community. And then on the 26th, I'll be back here to speak with you so that we can also solicit your feedback and make sure that that's incorporated.
Um, we will be going to June uh to council on June 1st. I typically go to council in late spring every year to give them sort of an update on what's going on with transportation planning kind of work. um this is that opportunity this year and it's largely
going to be focused on the mobility plan and the scope that we we're recommending to move forward with during June. We'd be finalizing that scope based on feedback that we received from you, from council, from the public um and then working with our procurement team to uh
get consultant support for that scope sometime this summer. Next one didn't show up. Great. So, if you want more information, we'll be posting information on the Connect Charlottesville web page for um the mobility plan. It's
connect.sharlottzville.govcn. Um not a ton of info up there at the moment, but it will start fleshing out as we get an existing conditions report, a draft scope document, um and a survey posted there. I believe that's the end of my slide, so happy to answer any
questions. Is that schedule that you just posted going to be on the connection also site? Is that on there yet? >> Um, it's the generic schedule at the steps. >> I think we have it based on month, but we can flush that out further
questions when the Rose Hill restriping I seem to recall. I don't remember it was a we they talked about a rose hill some of the upcoming projects. It was like a mini roundabout. number one other ones is that including that that one that's >> so the mini round is actually partly why
we stumbled across the repaving project and and saw this opportunity. We were going to our public service team to say all right we're going to go put this on the ground and they said oh hold up a minute we're going to repave that road soon so maybe you don't want to do that. >> Got it. >> When we got that feedback we said oh now we actually have a little bit more
window to go to the community and see if there's a different thing they might want to have here. Um mini roundabouts could be an option right now >> that's back on the table. >> Yeah. that that we will be coming to community in April. On April 13th, we'll be doing a public engagement event that
will show off design options for Rose Hill. It won't be saying like this is the full corridor, but it'll give you different opportunities at different points. Like an intersection might look like this or a strange a cross-section of a street might look like this. Many roundabouts could be a design option
that's on the table, but it's just something we want to solicit. just happy to hear it depistically because I I couldn't tell if I was like something I dreamt or it actually happened. >> Thank you. >> I'll just share a couple of quick like high level thoughts on the um the
mobility plan. So I I would just encourage you at a high level to like um use clear language with with the community. I think transportation people and I put myself in this camp like we use a lot of jargon you know we're improvements level of service all this
stuff and like people want to think like well do I have options for getting places like if I want to walk can I do that or do I have to drive um and like I you know I think one of my favorite transportation thinkers is Jarrett Walker which I think you probably know
well and I once got to participate in like one of his transit network redesigns and So much of the process was just focused on well we have tradeoffs. You can have this and we can have that and but we
can't necessarily have everything. So what do we want to do and what are your priorities and goals and values? I just thought that was very clear and and valuable and and one example I think you know I've seen a lot of like level of
stress analyses for bike bike plans and I personally really hate them. Um, I think it's like simpler to just say, you know, well, are we a NATO member city? Charlottville. Okay. So, like NACTO has the all ages and all abilities guidance for for bike network design. And I've
seen some cities where they do plans. It's like, are you really close to an all ages and all abilities facility so that if you're eight or 70, you can be like, you know, there near you. And that's something that I think people can kind of be like, yeah, not like your level of stress is 70, you know, like I
just So anyway, that's that's my my main thing is like let's be really clear, legible, speak in language that people actually think about and and talk about trade-offs and priorities. So really excited to see see how it goes. >> Yeah, I I appreciate that comment and I
think it's very important to raise that topic of the trade-offs. A lot of what we saw in our plans, um, and the reason that it was hard for us to make choices with our existing plans was that they didn't really tell us what to do when we had that trade-off discussion to have. Um, when we have a plan that says, "Yes,
a bike lane should be here, yes, a sidewalk should be here, yes, parking should be here, and yes, two travel lanes should be here, and there's only enough room for one lane of parking and one lane of travel, which is a lot of our streets. It doesn't really tell us which one mode is most important for So
working through how how are we going to make those decisions is really partly what we're trying to solve here. That will be part of our scoping effort is coming up with how how do we develop policy that tells us what to do with this. >> Yeah. And and I think like getting council to go through a process where
they think about the tradeoffs and like where do they fall will help you know get political buy in for maybe some challenging corridors and things like that. We got some questions, a couple random ones and then some about the plan. You
mentioned school speed limits and I think you use the phrase when school's in session. Do you mean like all the entire school day or drop out and pick up time? >> No, it's just drop off and pick up. >> Okay. I was that's what I thought. I was hoping it was >> drop off and pick up during the time of year when they're in session.
>> Next year we'll get um let me see. Oh, you mentioned I know you weren't covering everything you do. You mentioned traffic calming. A bunch of it as you know went up last year. Here's your website, not a website which lists more projects. Um, and after that
initial rush of projects, which is great. I haven't seen much more construction and much more planning there. Is that an active area of work between now and and the end of this plan or is that on hold? >> It's an active area of work that we're discussing with public works. What's the next step of what that looks like?
>> Okay. But that will be continuing before the plan's adopted. >> Yes. I mean there's still evaluation on these projects that needs to happen. There's still consideration of whether they're things that we want to keep on the ground. Some of those were testing kind of things. So um that's still something that public works is valued.
Um I I would encourage you to encourage whoever can do this to keep the websites up to date um with both credit status evaluations. People I was just at FNA a week or or two ago and people have a lot of interest in this
topic and they will email you Wes if they can read more on websites. Uh me too. >> Um I know it's not your website. >> Share that feedback with other people in the organization as well. Uh, if I'll ask you later. I don't always know who owns what website, but
>> so the manager's office is a good place to start. >> Okay. Oh, yes. Thank you. Yes. Um, okay. Some questions about the mobility plan. Um, I appreciate your diagnosis of why the current plans have not led to the
progress that we hoped for. Um because I think uncontroversially as you've said the plans are in conflict. They ask for things that can't all happen at once and so as a result not much happens. Um I think since we
adopted any of the plans take your pick we have not really built much of the facilities that that you're talking about anywhere in the city. Um so I think having a single plan I I think having a plan that allows things to be built will be really
important as you said. Um I would love to see in your planning process for the plan having whatever you can written down about implementation such that implementation and metrics and concrete goals so we can check in after a year or two or three and say we aren't meeting
our targets and we couldn't get the right of way and we're stuck on this and we're going to adjust um and not just have goals that we can't measure progress towards. Um, but I would love to see in your implementation chapter, we'll we'll evaluate each year like
this. We'll report to council in this way with the following metrics so we can tell how it's going without having to wait for someone to tell us after 10 years, oh, it's not working. Sorry. Um, I think you're the expert, but I I would love to see things like goals around um
actual lane miles of whatever built, about measuring um carvmts, about measuring mode share. If we could say, for example, here's our current mode share for different modes. Here are our goals for 10 years from now. Um, the more this can be in the plan so we can
see how we're doing, I think the better it's going to work. I don't think we have much of that right now, but tell me if I'm wrong. Uh I think uh we don't have very much of it right now but I do think that's an area that we have uh definitely highlighted the need for more
of that so that we can keep track of our progress which is largely the reason that we've stood up the strategic office in the city manager's office. >> Right. >> Um so I'm sure our new chief strategic officer Jen Hendrickk is going to make sure that I I am including this as part of our planning. Um, but it is part of
our our goals around this is to make sure that we have actionable measurable things that we can be doing going forward and not just a list of projects that we'd like to be able to do. >> Right. And I specifically will sorry to repeat to I want to know what your reporting will look like every year
after adopted which I think it sounds like you're doing but that'll be great to see. Um, and then last question about the mobility plan. are you how much are you all working with sustainability because I can't really separate transportation from
climate in my mind they're kind of the same issue I think transportation is now according to Crystal's office the biggest source of emissions is in the city and the only source that is growing um and so I would love to hear how
that's part of how that team and that goal is part of your process >> yeah so they're one of the the many people who's going to be engaged pretty heavily in this process. So, they're they're part of our project team for this uh the scoping effort specifically. Um and I would assume that they're going
to be pretty heavily engaged throughout the entire process of planning. Um but I mentioned they're just one of many of our our partners. We're also partnered with folks not even in the city. Um our our partners over in Almor County, they're actually going through the exact
same parallel process as us. um they hired on a new principal transportation planner and her job is write a countywide mobility plan. So um they are having a series of meetings sort of in parallel with us where they are informing their planning commission and
their board of supervisors and their uh local advisory committees um on the exact same process that we're going through in the city. We're trying to align those to make sure that we're speaking the same language, that we're talking about the same needs because a lot of people don't know where those
boundaries are. So, we want to make sure that, you know, if we're talking about improving mode shares for biking and walking, we're accounting for some of that is track trips that are coming from Almor County that we need to account for, too. >> Thanks.
I think along those lines, I would just add um well, and I know you guys already do this, but uh sitting on parks and wreck, you know, the trails are always like super popular topic. Um so making sure that there's
any connections or shared funding for that. Um, and then also just density neighborhood wise, like I'm thinking um the whole South First Street, Friendship Court areas got a lot more population. West Haven. I've been in a lot of
meetings in the past where people have a lot of questions about bus stops and where they are and can they be moved when there's changes happening already in the neighborhood. And so just making sure that some of those big projects that are happening get aligned
with, you know, the best possible bus stops for >> um people who have trouble getting to bus stops. But >> yeah, on the parks point um luckily their plan is not that old. So it's not sort of one of these ones that we're dusting off and saying, "Man, this
doesn't really match up with anything we're doing." Their plan was adopted last year and it had a pretty robust uh trails >> Yeah. uh strategy aligned with it. That's definitely something that we want to make sure is aligned with anything that we're planning for the rest of the transportation network because it's part
of the transportation network. So, uh yeah, that will definitely be a part of it. Um and then yes, bus stop planning always going to be a part of our transportation network and always going to be a question that comes up of how we can move those. um around bus stop
planning. It's actually getting harder to move bus stops because a lot of people think of a bus stop just being a sign in the ground and it's a lot more than that now. We cannot put out a bus stop now. We can't make a new bus stop or uh change a bus stop without having a
5 by 8 foot concrete pad that we can have someone in a wheelchair roll off of a bus and onto safely. >> Putting out a 8 by five foot concrete pad sort of makes that permanent. So when we're talking about moving stops >> as soon as the concrete's poured.
>> Yeah. And I was thinking more of these like project big developments that are under construction where there's time to plan for that. Not necessarily small, you know, moves. But when I've been hearing about things, it's usually like five or 10 years down the line like, oh
maybe this would be a possible location. But then I don't know what happens to that. But yeah, like when things are already maybe torn up. >> Yeah. Well, and and to the point of the developments, um our zoning code changes have changed
their requirements for what they need to do when they uh submit site plans. And part of that change is they have to not just do a traffic impact analysis, but a traffic demand management plan um if they're above a certain size. So, your larger uh public housing developments or
any private developments, they're sending those in and saying, "This is where we think people are walking. This is where we think people are biking. this is how we think we're going to draw down the amount of vehicular trips that are going to impact this neighborhood. So, we have that opportunity built into code in a way that we didn't prior to
the zoning code. So, that gives us some flexibility before we get the mobility plan passed, but the mobility plan will also provide us with some policies that will inform how we review those TDM plans and direct. >> Any questions from listeners
>> uh for your timeline? Yep. >> You have through this summer having contracting with a consultant to put together the plan. >> Yeah. >> Do you have any sort of idea of when we might have an adopted plan? >> It depends on how fast procurement goes,
but then beyond that, I would say it's probably going to be like an 18 to 24 month process to get through. >> So that puts us at >> summer of 28. >> Okay. I'm glad we're getting started now.
I figured that could be the answer. Um, but I just wanted to to get that out there. >> Then, um, I've been looking through the comprehensive plan and trying to understand all of the various appendixes appendices that come with the
transportation section of the plan. And there are numerous ones and the transportation. Oh, man. the name of this describing or leaving me but like master plan for transportation then references like six other plans. >> So is this mobility plan you're
discussing intended to replace all of that spiderweb of various plans? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> That would be good because right now it is as you probably know very hard to follow um and figure out what's actually happening. So I think if we could stream
and minimize the number of appendices for the transportation section would be helpful. >> Yeah. It may not cover everything that all of those cover because some of them were like small area plans that we adopted into the the transportation master plan section of the the comprehensive plan. We're not going back
and updating any small area plans necessarily as part of this effort, but sort of the bigger like the bike ped master plan, the streets that work, those kind of larger efforts that were around specifically transportation. That's what this is aimed at simplifying and streamlining.
>> Okay, I like that a lot. Um, we've talked about it a few times, but the integration of CAT into this plan. CAD is a organization that spans jurisdictional boundaries and has funding from the county. Are we I'm coming from the position of
transit is an extension of walkability and bikeability of a city. um you can make a somebody's a pedestrian's trip much longer using good transit even across the city or into the county if you will. How much
how deeply integrated are we expecting CAT to be into this mobility plan? >> So some of the answers around how we would want the CAT network to be laid out are going to be addressed before we really get into this plan because we're working on the Carta prioritization study right now. So sort of the regional
big lines that you might see heavy investments on for high frequency service or weekend service or late night service, a lot of those are going to be sort of laid out on the network already. And then when we get into the mobility plan, we can talk about, you know, where
do people within the city specifically need additional access to that network? Where are there places where they have challenges on a local level and not on a regional level to access to a bus stop at a regional surface? Or where do we need access to a bus that may not be
serving a regional purpose but is just going into a neighborhood and serving uh maybe in on a lower frequency but is serving an access need in the neighborhood. Those are the kinds of questions and policies we can talk about in mobility plan. But I think a lot of the larger scale like what does the
basic bones of the system look like you should probably more interested in the card prioritization study if you're interested in >> okay that's good information it also sounds like the cadence of these studies and plans is working in our favor
whether that was planned or not I don't know but >> sure you planned Carta to pop up I like that answer Okay, good. Um, yeah, I think this is really a pertinent conversation. There's been a lot of discussion over the many years previous
to me being here and even in the city about development and housing and that sort of stuff. And we hear a lot of comments about parking issues and neighborhoods. You've heard that for today, specific to short-term rentals about how that one of the primary nuisances that those bring is parking on
the street. And having a good mobility plan and a a plan that is actionable that we can work towards can really also help mitigate some of those issues that um the development that the plan the city is hoping to have in the near future. These are really going to work
together well. So, I'm excited that this mobility plan is coming up now. That's it for me. Uh my only question is um I guess at some point there had been floated the idea of some sort of transportation mobility committee. Is that something that would be part of this or is that you guys would stick
with just the typical stakeholders? And >> we're trying to figure out how we will have a stakeholder group that sort of stewards this along and that might be what we go with, but we're still sort of fleshing out with that. >> Gotcha. Yeah. >> Okay. >> So when you see our the draft scoping document, it will sort of lay out where
we actually ended up on that recommendation. Okay, final thoughts. >> Thank you guys. >> Um I actually I did promise I would ask um there was a comment by mail about uh
whether we should always allow public comment during work sessions. My response is it needs to be a case by case type situation because I promised I'd ask. >> I always like public. I mean it just
seems like it's usually helpful for us to hear if you know and maybe maybe there's a time limit associated with it. You know I think that's probably the question. It's like okay we we all would have up to 15 minutes or up to whatever
because that that would be the issue I think. >> Yeah. I mean it is because these are usually constrained and >> the purpose is for us to give feedback and not we don't we don't vote on anything. >> Right. True. True. >> I don't Okay.
We'll come back to this.