Planning Commission Work Session
                                    March 30, 2021 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM
                                               Virtual Meeting
Members Present: Commissioner Russell, Chairman Mitchell, Commissioner Stolzenberg, Commissioner
Palmer, Commissioner Lahendro, Commissioner Solla-Yates, Commissioner Dowell, Commissioner Heaton
Staff Present: Missy Creasy, Alex Ikefuna, Joe Rice, Brenda Kelley, Patrick Cory, Matt Alfele, Carrie Rainey,
Lisa Robertson
The Chairman called the work session to order at 5:30 PM.
1. Draft Future Land Use Map and Comprehensive Plan Chapters

Jennifer Koch, Cville Plans Together – This is the first draft of the Future Land Use Map. There are going to
be revisions and refinements as we move forward. We’ve already identified some potential things that we might
need to update.


Since we met on February 23rd, we’ve refined the original land use framework that we shared with you the last
time we met. We have drafted the future land use map we will be discussing tonight. We met with the project
steering committee on March 8th. We talked with them about this land use framework. We did get some
additional comments. We had a really good discussion with the steering committee. We put some of the
comments on the slide for you to read. The steering committee wants to see a clearer role for Economic
Development related to land use, recognition of urban agriculture, food justice, and food access. There was a
discussion about protecting vulnerable communities from unattended consequences of this plan or other pieces
of the land use plan. On the framework, we talked about the different locations in the scaling of nodes and
corridors. We talked about the need for identifying places for potential denser land uses. We also wanted to
focus on improving multi-modal access and safety in those areas instead of focusing development there. There
was also discussion about the potential for organic node development as opposed to defining specific nodes for
development. We also talked about land use issues related to industrial uses as well as uses along the river in
protecting the river. At the end, we also talked about engagement. At the request of one steering committee
member, who represents CADRE, we met with that group. We gave an overview of the land use framework.
They raised some issues that were similar to what we heard from the steering committee. Outside of the land
use map, we have also been working on revisions to the chapters of the comprehensive plan. We have sent some
initial revisions to staff for their input. We got comments back at the end of last week. We’re working through
revisions to those chapters this week based on the comments we have received. We’re starting mostly from the
2018 drafts on those chapters. We asked staff to help get those up to date and refine the goals and strategies in
those chapters but also to provide thoughts related to implementation such as timeframes, responsible parties,
and measures of success for each kind of action. As we move forward, we will use that to create the
implementation chapter of the plan.
We talked with you about the land use objectives and we got your feedback on those. We also got some
feedback from the steering committee. We have updated those a bit and have refined them. We also made some
small adjustments to the existing conditions maps. We haven’t included those maps in this presentation set.
We’re using them as we refine the land use map. You can see here our refined land use framework, which
builds on what we talked about last time to make a more detailed framework that we base the land use map on.
Ron Sessoms – I did want to provide an update to some of the other components of the future land use map that
we have updated based on the conversations with you, CADRE, and the steering committee. We heard a lot of
good feedback, particularly regarding the future land use planning objectives that you see before you. The last
                                                                                                               1
time we met, we had 5 objectives. Since that time, we have updated them and we are now up to 9. This is a list
of objectives as we think about the future land use planning and making sure that we’re encompassing these big
ideas as we move forward.
Point 5 – Maximizing access to public open space. We also included schools. We heard a lot about making sure
that we provide density and access to school. We thought that was something important to add to our list.
Point 6 – We included this objective in our last presentation. We did add in UVA. They’re an important
community institution. We wanted to recognize that importance as we think about planning particularly around
the University. Keeping in the urban ring, the area right outside the city that lies within the county, has an
important contextual relationship with the city.
Point 7 – We heard a lot about making sure that we touch on the city’s climate goals to reduce greenhouse
emissions by 45% over the next 20 years. We can do that through some of the planning instruments that we
have for our use. One of those is to increase access to transit. We want to make sure that we call that out as a
specific planning objective.
Point 8 – Natural and cultural resources. We want to make sure we respect the natural environment.
Charlottesville is a historic, culturally rich community. We want to make sure we recognize that as part of our
planning objectives.
Point 9 – At the last meeting, we talked about housing. We also want to make sure we talk holistically about
economic development in the city and economic sustainability. We added a ninth point to ensure long term
economic sustainability to the city by planning for a wide range of commercial land uses and making sure that
we’re not focused on just housing, which is a very important component. We’re also addressing the need for
economic development.
Chairman Mitchell – With number 8, that is where we talk about, not just the cultural resources but we talk
about the environment as well. Is that your intent?
Mr. Sessoms –Yes.
Chairman Mitchell – I would like for us to be very intentional when we talk about preserving the environment.
When staff writes a staff report on a project we’re considering, one of the things that staff will point out and will
take into account the need to preserve and enhance the environment. I want us to be intentional in the comp
plan. When staff writes their report, one of the bullet points that a developer needs to think about, especially
with critical slopes, is protecting and preserving that critical slope and protecting the waterways. Preserve and
protect and enhance would add value to this point. I want to make certain that we are very intentional and the
developers know that when they’re submitting a site plan to staff, they need to protect the slopes and
waterways.
Mr. Sessoms – With each one of these planning objectives, we will be sure to include sections in the
comprehensive plan that explicitly covers these objectives in much more detail. We can have that as a resource
as we move into the future and as we start thinking about implementation of some of these future land uses.
At the last meeting, we had a discussion about how the future land use plan should be illustrated. We have two
options. One is a parcel based approach. The other would be a land use gradient approach. The parcel based
approach is very similar to what was developed in 2013. We have crisp lines between different land uses based
on parcels. The land use gradient approach would be more of a ‘fuzzy’ boundary. There are no hard edges. It
wouldn’t be defined by parcels. It allows for flexibility in the future. The lines are not as crisp as with a parcel
based map. As part of the discussion, we were asked as the design team, to go and provide our professional
judgement as to whether or not we should proceed with a parcel based approach or more of a land use gradient
approach. We have come today to recommend a parcel based approach. Three key reasons why: 1. The zoning
rewrite is part of the scope. Once we work through the future land use plan, we will move into the zoning
                                                                                                                       2
rewrite. The more consensus that we have on the future land use plan, the better we will be able to support that
zoning rewrite. That’s something that is very important. 2. The gradient map does provide flexibility in zoning.
However, it does offer less certainty to the community about what the future land use would be. What happens
in those ‘fuzzy’ areas is undefined. That can cause confusion and uncertainty. The more we can be detailed
now, the more it will help us in the long run. 3. We want to make sure that we strengthen the relationship
between the future land use map and the zoning map. The implications are very different. Zoning is legal.
Future land use map is more of a guiding document. We want to make sure they are inline as much as possible
so we know what to expect moving forward and help in that zoning rewrite. From the last time that we spoke,
we have taken our future land use framework diagram to develop that parcel based approach. We have taken
that to define which parcels are located along corridors and what parcels are in nodes. As an approach to that
along the corridors, we are thinking about those as more block based parcels. Those are the parcels immediately
touching the corridor. Nodes can be larger, mixed use focus areas that can be where you have larger parcels that
are not located adjacent to the corridor.
Equity is something that we talked a lot about on the last call. We’re keeping the issue of equity in the forefront
as we begin to develop the future land use map. We have developed some key points as to how we’re balancing
equity considerations as part of the future land use map. We’re providing more housing opportunities, including
affordable housing. We’re including those areas where people want to live. This would be places near parks,
school, transit, city services, and employment centers. We can provide more affordable options to those
community amenities. We can support community wealth building through enhanced home ownership
opportunities. When we think of home ownership, we think of single-family housing. That is certainly not
always the case. Home ownership can take the form in many housing types, including condos and townhouses.
We can provide a variety of housing types that can accommodate a variety of budgets and allow more people to
climb the economic latter of home ownership by providing more options. Increasing the availability of housing
in single family neighborhoods that have historically exclusionary zoning while minimizing destructions and
displacement pressures on low income neighborhoods. We heard a lot about how we can begin to provide
equitable housing distribution throughout the city. Doing that through introducing a variety of housing types in
different areas of the city that historically have not included that type of approach and displacement of low
income neighborhoods. We can’t solve it all through the land use map. The land use map is not a ‘one all, be
all.’ It does need to be taken into consideration to other programs and community ordinances that can promote
the availability of affordable housing in the city. It is a balance between what we do in the plan and what we do
in policy and how they work together to create the community of equal distribution and provide less pressure on
low income neighborhoods.
Commissioner Russell – I take pause with the phrase low income neighborhoods. What the consultant intends
is something more like historically marginalized or even as direct as African American. Some of these
neighborhoods are transitioning (from low income). I don’t know that low income applies and is the right
adjective there.
Mr. Sessoms – We’re looking beyond income. We’re looking at a variety of different neighborhood types that
could include more diverse neighborhoods. We can definitely revise that to be more of the marginalized
neighborhood definition. I think that would certainly be appropriate.
Ms. Koch – We certainly do want to look at where there are lower wealth, lower income neighborhoods. There
are historic African American neighborhoods that we would want to consider in that category.
Mr. Sessoms – The diagram on the left is the future land use framework diagram. The framework is a guiding
tool that we use to develop the future land use map. On the left is where we were in February. On the right is
where we are now. The map on the right is much more detailed. It has evolved a bit since we last spoke in
February. We have been working hard to make sure that we incorporate many of the ideas that we have been
hearing from you, the steering committee, and CADRE. You can see on the map on the right that we have
included neighborhood corridors. We heard a lot about, not just focusing on the major corridors, but to consider
                                                                                                                  3
these more granular corridors that are located within existing neighborhoods. We pulled in a number of those
based upon feedback we heard and some analysis we have done in the city. We have also taken a closer look at
the mixed use nodes. You can see those larger bubbles being larger concentrated nodes. We also have the
smaller neighborhood nodes. We have switched some things around. For example, the Dairy Road gateway
area. We have removed that node because of topographic issues. We have heard a lot about moving them and
having more of a community node near the high school at Grove Road and Melbourne Road. We have moved
that node over to that area. We had a spirited conversation about the Locust Avenue gateway node that we had
shown last time. We went back and we re-evaluated that opportunity. We moved that small community node
north towards North Avenue and the Park to get away from this high traffic intersection at 250 down to the
southeast of town. We heard some concerns about calling this area Downtown Belmont. We have renamed it
Belmont Center. Instead of thinking about this area as one big potential redevelopment area, we have added in
two additional nodes along Carlton Road and Market Street and Carlton Avenue. We heard a lot about Avon
Street. With Cherry Avenue, we were not showing the entire corridor as part of the plan. We did pull that in to
have both nodes and corridor conditions in that area. With the Fry Springs Beach Club, we pulled that into the
mix. We heard that there is some interest for some light commercial uses at that location. That could be the
opportunity to create some neighborhood nodal activity at that location. We pulled in Ivy Road particularly
because of the relationship to UVA.
Ms. Koch – Did you mention the 5th Street corridor?
Mr. Sessoms – We still have nodes at the end of 5th Street at the entrance way into 5th Street.
Ms. Koch – In an earlier version of the map, there had been more of a larger node along 5th Street.
Mr. Sessoms – I did want to point out the Rio Road area to the north. We looked at this area a little more
closely, particularly with recommendations in the urban ring that is calling for mixed use development on the
east side of Rio Road. We did signify that as an opportunity to create a neighborhood node at the city border on
Rio Road to the north.
Chairman Mitchell – We talked about Woolen Mills at the last meeting. Woolen Mills is not on the new map.
What did we decide to do about that?
Mr. Sessoms – Before we were showing some Woolen Mills node in this location. We thought it would be
more appropriate to show there some light in the office uses on the south side of the railroad track and along
Carlton Avenue. We thought that would be more appropriate for a node versus out in this residential area to the
east. We went back and took a closer look at that. That nodal opportunity was moved further to the west to
encompass more land that would be acceptable or amendable to some redevelopment opportunities.
From that framework diagram, we began to develop the future land use map. There are 13 categories of land
use. There are nine core developable land use categories that range from downtown core, urban mixed use, and
urban mixed use corridor, industrial mixed use, neighborhood mixed use node, neighborhood mixed use
corridor. In the three residential zones, they include low, medium, and high intensity residential area. In the
2018 plan, the Planning Commission developed seven. It was reduced down to six. We have about three core
land uses more than what was shown in that plan. We are getting into a finer grain of detail with these
recommendations. You can see the land use categories reflect the corridor and the nodal approach that we
describe in the future land use framework. You can see how that land use framework is beginning to translate
down into those future land use plan recommendations.
This is an overview of what the future land use map looks like. You have the key/legend to the left with the map
to the right. With the colors, you can begin to see how that framework has come alive through the future land
use map. You can see the corridors extending from downtown reaching out to the Rt. 29 corridor. This is where
we are.

                                                                                                                  4
Ms. Koch – Emails were sent to the Planning Commission before this meeting with this information. This is the
first draft of the land use map. We know that there are going to be things that will need to be adjusted. We have
noted a few things thanks to the Planning Commission and to some community members, who have noted it.
There is an area where light industrial extends more than what we originally meant. We are showing proffered
open spaces here. These are open spaces of private development. We thought it was important to show that. It
really extends out the open space throughout the city. The method we used to do that was pulling from the
parcel data that was available to us. It pulled in some areas that are actually developed not as open spaces.
We’re going to be cleaning that up. There might be some questions about those.
Mr. Sessoms – There was one comment about the area around Courthouse Square where there were some civic
spaces that might need to be refined. We have 16,000 parcels. There will be some cleaning up with a few of
those parcels as we get into the details of the plan.
Downtown is the core of the city. It is one of the highest intensively developed areas of the city. It is the
primary employment, civic, and commercial hub of the community. We see that being the case as we move
forward. We want to make sure that we are providing places where people can live close to the amenities of the
downtown, close to work, and all that the downtown has to offer. Downtown is in the center of the city. This
downtown zone is very similar to what is shown in the current future land use map. The zoning map matches up
quite well with that. We have kept that intact. We have not specified every building height within that district.
There is going to be more detail moving forward particularly with the zoning piece of this. We do recognize the
identified opportunities for building heights to range up to 10 stories. The former Landmark Hotel site is a 10
story building. These are all preliminary heights and preliminary ideas that we want to and will be working
through as we have conversations with you and the public moving forward. That’s where we are. We have
included a few images of the downtown core development. It is very urban in nature. We can have articulation
in the buildings with the setbacks, other means and methods, and urban design tools that we have at our disposal
to create a walkable, pedestrian friendly, good urban design district for the city.
Commissioner Lahendro – The downtown core that you are showing on this map is very similar to the
downtown historic district. You are showing 10 ten story heights. What is in here that references the historic
districts and their overlays for your intense urban mix and residential and commercial uses, and not only the city
recognized historic districts but also the federal and state registered historic districts? Even though the city
doesn’t recognize them. There are opportunities provided by those historic districts. If they are delisted because
of inappropriate development, it takes away economic opportunities for landowners in those districts. Will this
make any reference to the historic districts?
Mr. Sessoms – These were high level descriptions. One of our objectives is respecting those historic resources.
With the building heights, we do say “range up to 10.” We know there is already a ten story building in
downtown. We will have to have architectural control for these new developments that will control the
character and the scale of these buildings. Thinking about setbacks, proximity to historic resources will have to
be considered as part of those development opportunities. That’s something that is going to be very important
moving forward, particularly in thinking about this range. Where we do have the lower heights within this
district? There are potentials for the higher buildings like the Landmark Hotel. Those are things that we will
have to consider beyond this future generalized land use map, the detail of scale, and how those buildings are
articulated from an architectural point of view. That’s something we definitely will want to make sure we note
and describe within the comprehensive plan regarding all of these districts.
Commissioner Lahendro – I know all of those controls are in the background. I worry about the implication of
what this might say to potential developers or landowners. This makes it look so easy. This is a concern that I
have on many of these color-coded zones.
Mr. Sessoms – That’s a good point and something that we’re making a note of that we want to address moving
forward. It’s very important.
                                                                                                                5
Commissioner Russell – I would like to suggest and encourage different images. Those buildings connontate
new development brought down in a cityscape than existing historic fabric. You mentioned that we want to
have good urban design. We have good urban design. We want to make sure we retain it and treat it
appropriately.
Mr. Sessoms – We will update those images so that it will be more contextual. These images don’t show any
historic context and how you would treat building a taller building where you have lower buildings or historic
context. We can pull more images and replace these images that could be more translatable.
Ms. Koch – In the final comprehensive plan, there will be several more images for each of these different
sections. We can think carefully with all of you about what those should be.
Ms. Dowell – These images are not images of Charlottesville? I would make the recommendation that you find
an example of images actually in Charlottesville. If that’s the context we are going for, I know that we have
several new structures that have been placed in Charlottesville. I am sure that we can find something in the
actual city that can be a reference map.
Mr. Sessoms – I think that’s an excellent idea. We will definitely incorporate that.
Commissioner Solla-Yates – In the 2013 land use key, we didn’t list heights. We were trying to be more
specific in having any heights. That does have dangers and benefits.
Mr. Sessoms – When we saw ten, it was a red flag for discussion to have around that. If we leave it without any
height range, then we could get anything.
Commissioner Lahendro – The Landmark Hotel is an anomaly within that historic district. It is the exception
to the future rule.
Commissioner Stolzenberg – We do have two historic, contributing structures in this zone designated
downtown purple. The Wells Fargo Building at 10 stories and 500 Court Square, the Monticello Hotel, at 9
stories. I really do like the idea of adding actual pictures. I agree with Commissioner Russell that the look of
these building look modern and consistent with the downtown and auto-oriented in terms of spaces.
Mr. Sessoms – The next category would be our urban mixed use node. These are urban mixed use areas that
support the city’s employment, commercial, housing needs at key locations. This will include the areas of the
Strategic Investment Area (SIA) and properties along Rt. 29 and the Emmet Street corridor. At the Stonefield
Development, north of the city’s border, there is a proposal to develop a 6 to 8 story mixed use residential
building at that location. We are seeing some demand for more urban style development in that corridor. We
think these areas can support apartments, office buildings, and ground floor aggregated uses. We did include a
cap here at 10 stories. These areas are located in close proximity to downtown. With any tall buildings, we want
to make sure there is a step down in relationship to the surrounding residential areas. If you were to get 1 to 2
tall buildings in the core of that purple area, we want to make sure we step down development to these
neighborhoods. That’s also defined in the Strategic Investment Area Plan. We want to make sure we incorporate
that into the comprehensive plan. You can see some urban style residential development with some activated
ground uses, particularly at intersections. It can be continuous along the entire ground floor. These areas are
urban in nature and provide opportunities for great public space amenities. There is a plaza space that is
incorporated as part of a courtyard in a mixed use building. You would find this kind of development in the
Strategic Investment Area. I did want to show the opportunity for more town-center type of development
opportunities. US 29 could be a development type that would be appropriate in that area.
Commissioner Solla-Yates – How do you see this and the last one different in terms of land use regulations?
Mr. Sessoms – These areas would be lower in height. The range is up to ten stories. We think there is some
opportunity for a more point tower condition. The Strategic Investment Area Master Plan identified that two

                                                                                                                   6
block area had that opportunity for greater than six story height to create a point tower condition in that zone.
The same could be true along US 29. I can see these areas being more of a master plan, multi parcel
development versus downtown, which may be parcel by parcel. These areas have a higher opportunity or
chance of being developed in a multi parcel way versus some of the sites within downtown, which has
implications as far as recommendations of how you treat those sites as far as development.
Ms. Koch – They also present more of an opportunity for more of a residential development. They have mixed
use, given that larger space. That could be a focus for additional residential development that might be more
difficult to find space for in the urban corridor.
Mr. Sessoms – Another issue that is different between these areas and downtown is parking. Parking is at a
premium downtown. It will be at a premium in the Strategic Investment Area. Because we have these multi
parcel opportunities, there is more opportunity to incorporate that better in the urban form to get some of that
higher density development along US 29. We have these large commercial properties. That’s another difference
between these areas and how we might approach the regulatory framework for these areas versus downtown.
Commissioner Stolzenberg – Is now the time to talk about specific boundaries? This is a little too aggressive
in places to go with the entire SIA. There is already built out low density, single-family homes within the SIA.
This is everything west of 6th Street down to 4th Street. In the SIA plan, it is a little bit more nuanced than that.
We are seeing the redevelopment being focused in sites like IX and stepping down. I think it would warrant a
different designation than these. There are some places that it should be like the CFA Building, north of High
Street. It is one of the biggest asphalt expanses in extremely prime land. I think it would be very appropriate to
put that there. I would also say the scrap yard north of the railroad tracks. I would put as much density in there
as we can to alleviate the pressure around the rest of the city. I also wonder why the 5th Street shopping center
isn’t considered this category and the US 29 centers are. Next to Meadow Creek, we should be really careful on
the Michie Drive Apartments in significantly upzoning that. That is a huge source of affordable housing in the
city. If we’re putting development pressure on that, it would probably end poorly.
Mr. Sessoms – I wrote down all of those locations so that I can go back and look at those areas.
With the SIA, the plan was more nuanced. Some of these parcels are so large where they encompass some areas
they might be calling for more density development. It might be good to go back and look at the categories
overall to make sure that we’re capturing some of those nuances of the plan.
Commissioner Stolzenberg – That makes sense and finding those subdivided and built out residential parcels
that already exist. Another parcel I forgot to mention would be the Vinegar Hill Shopping Center. The Starr Hill
Vision plan that was recently passed calls for that to be the most intensely developed part of that area as well as
the city yard.
Mr. Sessoms – We did include those under neighborhood mixed use.
Commissioner Stolzenberg – My recommendation would be to bump those up, which I think was the intent of
that plan.
Commissioner Russell – I am not sure that they would all support the heights up to ten stories. I don’t know
that height was expressed in Starr Hill. This is a place where that gradient would actually benefit the step down
to the edges. I am not sure how it would necessarily differ from the zoning that is currently recommended in the
mixed use corridor.
Commissioner Stolzenberg – With the Vision Plan, I don’t believe that it specifies stories. It did say that it
should be set back towards the residential part of Starr Hill. It should not be set back towards Ridge/McIntire.
Specifically, the eastern and northern part of those parcels call for the most intense.


                                                                                                                    7
Commissioner Lahendro – I would agree with Rory about the south end of 5th Street. You show it as a
neighborhood mixed use corridor. It’s hard for me to picture that as serving the neighborhood more than the
automobile traffic coming off the interstate at that location. It seems more appropriate as an urban mixed use
node.
Mr. Sessoms – I think that would be a nice balance for some additional density down on the southern end.
We have the corridors. These are areas that we want to encourage our intense mixed use development that link
employment, commercial, and civic hubs of the city. The land uses may include apartments, office buildings,
and ground floor activated uses. These heights may range from 5 to 8 stories, with the tallest buildings,
potentially, near intersections. We want to have some variation in the urban form. You can see these here and
how it reflects the framework diagram where we are showing Ivy Road around the University area, Preston
Avenue from McIntire towards the triangle where we have the Dairy Central site, West Main Street with
University development on the west side and an opportunity for more contextual urban mixed use on the east
side that would fall within those story ranges, and JPA that connects UVA to the west where it meets Fontaine.
We have identified that as an opportunity for urban mixed use. Further to the east, the High Street corridor from
the downtown to the east towards River Road. Long Street that connects High Street towards Pantops and that
mixed use area on the other side of the city border and the urban ring as primary locations for this urban mixed
use. This area near the Edgehill Community near 250 north of the Harris Street corridor; we are envisioning this
area to be medium density residential. We will be updating this. It looks out of place because it is out of place.
It should be medium intensity residential around the school. We will correct that in the next iteration of the
map.
Commissioner Palmer – As I look at this and previous map around the UVA area, one thing we need to settle
on would be showing UVA property versus UVA Foundation property. The maps should probably show UVA
property as UVA property and treat Foundation properties as any other property that is privately owned. There
are a lot of ways those could develop in the future; whether UVA would use it or the Foundation would develop
it on their own under city codes and zoning. There is too much uncertainty there. I think it would be a better
way of treating those properties. The one that caught my attention was Arlington Boulevard that will notch out
at Milmont. I don’t know why that should be different. That’s a Foundation property.
Mr. Sessoms – We went through the information we had and turned off the UVA Foundation in the dataset that
we have. We can go back and make sure all of them were included.
Commissioner Stolzenberg – I would like to talk about JPA. We should really focus on jamming as much as
we can to keep those students contained and stop them from spilling out into the rest of the city. It would be
appropriate along JPA to go potentially higher to the urban mixed use node designation if it allows more. There
are some tweaks to be made to those exact boundaries. Along Maury Avenue, we have that small shopping
center that is designated as residential. There are some apartment buildings that could potentially be
redeveloped that is also designated as high density residential. As you go north of JPA, all of those streets are
small scale housing. The vast majority of them are occupied by students as rentals. Personally, I think it would
be appropriate to look at redeveloping some of those into denser housing.
Mr. Sessoms – Do you see most of this being urban mixed use node or just in some areas expanding beyond the
corridor?
Commissioner Stolzenberg – This is where I get a little confused about the distinction between node and
corridor. A node is a place and corridor is along a road. More intense land uses associated with that node
designation might be appropriate even though it is a corridor.
Commissioner Solla-Yates – It is a corridor associated with UVA. There is a very high desire for development.
Mr. Sessoms – We have the industrial mixed use areas. We heard in previous meetings that light industrial and
light manufacturing has a place in the city. We should explore opportunities to keep that designation while
                                                                                                                 8
allowing for opportunities for integral land uses. We have identified it as industrial mixed use designation,
which include those employment areas. It allows for limited commercial and residential development with the
height no more than six stories in these districts. We are going back and refining boundaries of this zone. That
Edgehill area to the north of the Harris Street industrial area should not be included as part of this. That is
something that we are cleaning up. We did see these as light manufacturing and light industry areas of the city.
There’s an opportunity in that. As these sites turn over, there’s opportunity for these sites to clean up over time.
We heard a lot about environmental stewardship along the river in the comprehensive plan in our environmental
considerations section. We will have a discussion about what that means along the river by pairing setbacks,
building setbacks from the actual stream, stormwater management, and other environmental considerations that
comes with redevelopment of these sites along the river. It is something that we are keeping in the forefront.
The three images here are an example of ground floor maker space or light manufacturing space on the bottom
floor with some office uses above. You can see how that becomes integrated together. You can have a mix of
uses with light industrial uses where appropriate.
Commissioner Russell – With that boundary cleanup, it would be good to see a little more green along the
river there at River Road. That is a very sensitive area.
Ms. Koch – It can also serve as a buffer between the light industrial and the river. Are there any spots you
would identify as either existing or similar uses that you would want to see as retained as that?
Chairman Mitchell – There are a number of intense development opportunities throughout the map. We need
to make certain that we put a little green space or stream buffer in all of the intense areas that are adjacent to
many of the waterways.
Commissioner Russell – I wonder if there are any opportunities that align more with the county with more of
those tech industries south of town. The boundaries are hard to delineate when driving through town. It seems
that we run out of Charlottesville pretty quickly going down Avon Street.
Commissioner Stolzenberg – These two areas are not the only industrial spaces. It’s a reduction from the 2013
future land use map. The Harris Street area also included some space on the west side of the tracks up by Rose
Hill Drive and down by Preston Avenue along Albemarle Street. It is something to think about. There is the
whole Carlton Avenue scrap yard, industrial space. The whole area where Carlton Views is now was designated
industrial space. There are some little spaces in Belmont by Palatine Road, southwest of Belmont Park. There is
a small half-block square of industrial. It is in the old plan. Maybe we should be intentional in trying to say that
some of these areas change to envision non-industrial use. I think there’s a question over ‘light industrial.’
Would that be non-conforming? The lighter of ‘light industrial’ is much less impactful than the surrounding
area. When you pull back that industrial area, I would also pull out the Allied Street-McIntire Plaza from
industrial and turn that into a mixed use node. It’s no longer industrial. It’s mixed use residential and
businesses. I would put that between the industrial areas at Birdwood Court.
Mr. Sessoms – That would be, as shown here, the move forward. It would show the concrete plant as a non-
conforming use. It would not be allowed to expand in the future. That’s how it would be treated. If somebody
does come along to redevelop it, it would have to conform to this future land use guidance.
Commissioner Solla-Yates – These are two of largest low lying developable areas. Low lying and large that
can be developed to me suggest height. Six stories might be a little low; maybe think higher.
Commissioner Russell – What would be developed at six stories? What would that look like?
Mr. Sessoms – We are allowing for a limited residential, commercial uses. We want to make sure that we don’t
characterize these areas as mixed use commercial districts like our urban mixed use and neighborhood mixed
use areas. There could be a mix of uses supporting residential and commercial development in these locations.
We talked about the light industrial, manufacturing maker space that could be compatible with a residential
component. On the ground floor, we can have some of those maker space activities and allow for additional
                                                                                                                     9
uses on top that are compatible with that maker space. That’s how you would get up to six stories, with a
ground floor commercial/maker space with residential or commercial space above.
Chairman Mitchell – What is ‘maker space?’

Mr. Sessoms – It is more of a space where light assemblage happens with a technology component to it. It is
below light manufacturing. A ‘maker space’ could be something where you make fencing or robotics or artistic
functions like iron work. It’s not large scale manufacturing. It’s something that requires a smaller space that can
accommodate a wide range of those types of ‘maker’ type activities.

Commissioner Stolzenberg – The River Road area gives me some concern as well. It is important to have
industrial space in the city to provide those blue collar jobs. That is all in the flood plain. That is the worst
possible use to put in the flood plain. If we want to protect the Rivanna River and make it more accessible, I
wonder if we want to encourage that redevelopment. There is an apartment building going in there now.
Ms. Koch – We have thought about those issues as well. We have been hearing a lot about that. One thing that
came up was allowing for redevelopment of this area and how these industrial areas can incorporate better
technologies to protect the river as well. That would be one positive of that. As we look at refining that area, we
can also look at creating some kind of buffer whether it is a green space or another type of use. We can take a
look at what that might be. There is a planning effort going on of the river. We will want to see what is coming
out of that effort as well.
Commissioner Russell – Where does a small auto repair shop fall in this future land use map?
Mr. Sessoms – That would be part of this light industrial area. It could be commercial. It could fall within
those. We don’t have an explicit commercial future land use category.
Commissioner Russell – It is definitely something to consider as we talk about vibrant mixed use instead of
trying to relegate what is industrial versus what is a useful amenity for neighbors to have. I am thinking about
little light industrial uses that are currently in Belmont or along East High.
Ms. Koch – I think that is something we can consider when we’re looking at the next phase, when we’re
reaching out to the community to get feedback on the next phase. That can be something we include under
example uses under the different categories. People would be curious to know what would be allowed in those
types of land uses.
Commissioner Palmer – It is an interesting one, talking about the light industrial and manufacturing. I
immediately think of the building where Firefly restaurant is at the corner of East Market and Carlton/Meade. It
is an interesting building. It has a restaurant and catering. It has light industrial sign making. There’s a lot going
on in there with a little of housing.
Mr. Sessoms – That’s exactly the type of maker space that we will be talking about.
Commissioner Palmer – If it gets that other designation on it, would that preclude businesses like that having a
place in a redevelopment of a site like that? It’s going to be a dilemma.
Mr. Sessoms – We had originally designated it as industrial mixed use. It does allow residential and
commercial uses. Does it preclude that? If we flip it the other way around, we can start to get that wholesale
redevelopment, residential, ground floor retail, exclusionary by right, industrial manufacturing uses that
wouldn’t accommodate those types of uses you describe. We’re trying to balance the two so that we can create a
vibrant district.
The next category is neighborhood mixed use node. These are compact neighborhood centers. They emphasize
a mix of land uses that range in smaller scale buildings that are compatible. The key word is compatible and
                                                                                                                    10
having compatibility with surrounding low and medium intensity residential areas. In the bottom image, this is
an example of a little neighborhood node. The buildings are oriented towards the street with the parking in the
rear. The buildings are no more than four stories. Some of these include half a story but generally 3 to 4 stories.
It can even include some neighborhood services. When we talk about neighborhood mixed nodes, this is the
type of rich, diverse type character where we’re thinking for these nodes. The range would be up to 4 stories.
We don’t want to get too high where it comes out of context with these finer grain residential communities that
surround many of these areas. We want to have density. We want to have appropriately scaled density. We’re
thinking 3 to 4 stories is the benchmark and would be a good cap for these areas to protect that sense of scale
and balance between these areas and adjacent residential communities.
Chairman Mitchell – What are we thinking about with Belmont Park? It looks like you surrounded the park.
Mr. Sessoms – We did hear the idea of having some mixed use opportunities around the park and making that a
node. We colored that purple around the park. We saw having mixed uses around the park as an opportunity
based on what heard. The majority of the area to the east is R-1.
Chairman Mitchell – I wonder if we’re going to range it up to 4 stories if that makes sense for that area.
Mr. Sessoms – Maybe a place where we don’t go to 4 stories. I will highlight that as an area of concern.
Commissioner Russell – There is something to be said about places where infill is going to be more
appropriate when there’s an existing building and to what degree is it even realistic to think about wholesale
changes there.
Commissioner Dowell – Can I get more clarification on the Fry Springs Beach Club?

Mr. Sessoms – We learned from the planning staff that there has been some interest in the private development
community to incorporate some commercial activity on that site, which will make it a node for the community.
It won’t be a large one. Because of that interest in commercial activity on that site, we identified that as a
potential internal node to that Fry Springs community at the Fry Springs Beach Club site that could be evolved
over time. That’s probably not going to be something that happens overnight. It can, over time, evolve into a
small node on that site.
Chairman Mitchell – People are thinking of developing a greater hospitality offering on that site.

Commissioner Dowell – Compared to the other nodes that are mentioned here, I figured that was private. You
had to be a member to even exist in that node.
Commissioner Solla-Yates – With heights, some of these should be way over four stories. Some should be
under four stories. When we talked about this in 2018, we said five stories. It is arbitrary and doesn’t make
much sense. If we could have some basis, that would be helpful.
Mr. Sessoms – With four stories, we were thinking about how that contextually fits within the residential
character and surface parking. The higher you go, the more surface parking you get. We start going up to four
stories, with that residential and/or office component with commercial on the ground floor, you are going to
need a lot of parking. That begins to effect the buffer between that site and existing residential. A lot of these
sites are not that wide. They’re going to be able to accommodate a limited number of parking. As we go higher,
you are going need to park all of the people that need to access that site. We kept it at four stories. It seems to be
an appropriate scale that fits in the context. Up to four stories, there are some areas that we probably want to
control. With four stories and the parking requirements and land use requirements, we thought four stories was
a good stopping point for these neighborhood scales and mixed use nodes.



                                                                                                                   11
Ms. Koch – Parking considerations are something that we will be talking about more. There could be changes
potentially to that. We are trying to consider that. The other thing that we will be considering with these nodes
and these corridors, is improving multi-nodal access.
Commissioner Lahendro – Around Belmont Park, these are very small parcels that are being pointed out as
going up to four stories. Those parcels are surrounded by one story bungalows and very small residences. I am
curious about the details of what that transition is like between these very narrow parcels and the one story
bungalows surrounding your proposed use there.
Mr. Sessoms – I do want to reiterate up to four stories. We’re not going to go wholesale four stories. The future
land use map does keep it generalized with a much more detailed description than the three bullet points in front
of you on this slide. Zoning will have plan control, setback, and step back controls, which is going to drive how
high you could get on many of these sites. If you can’t meet the regulatory requirements set forth in the zoning
code, you can’t go up to four stories. We will be using those regulatory constraints to help drive how high and
how dense you can get on many of these sites. When we say range up to four stories and regulatory
requirements to develop these sites, some of them certainly won’t go up to four stories. They will be lower than
that.
Commissioner Lahendro – There is going to be more description with your recommendations here that further
defines the context for these recommendations.
Mr. Sessoms – That’s correct. And even greater detail in the zoning code.

Commissioner Lahendro – That’s good. The Planning Commission will need that kind of description detail in
the future as they interpret the land use plan.

Commissioner Stolzenberg – We have talked a lot about heights. I wonder if we should really be talking about
setbacks and building to the front and side lot lines for these designations, especially those lots within the
neighborhoods like Belmont Park and Grove Street. The height is going to be ‘touchy.’ Small setbacks make for
good, walkable, urban places. I think some of these sites could potentially stand to add a 5th story or 4 over 1 to
get that parking podium underneath so that it’s not on the surface. The main chunk of that parcel is in the flood
plain. We need to give that some consideration. On the northwest corner of that, there is a big parcel that might
be appropriate to go more intense given the context. With Grove Road, the parcels assigned to it could use some
tweaking. Charlottesville High School has that big parking lot that could conceivably be redeveloped. I wonder
if it makes sense to take a chunk of that in there as well. Looking at the map of housing assessments in that area,
it seems like the ones on the east side of Melbourne Road are the cheapest houses. The ones to the west along
Grove Road are some of the more expensive houses.

Mr. Sessoms – We did take a look at the high school site. There is a large, high voltage power line corridor that
extends along the entire parking lot. It is one that likely will not change. It’s a major line for utilities. We did
not include any development on the school site. We can go back and look at Grove Road. We did include some
higher density residential along Grove Road. We can look at it more closely to see if we can have higher
intensity along that area, not just focused on the area to the east side of Melbourne.

With the neighborhood corridors, you can see them here. They include University Avenue, along the UVA
periphery on the east side, Cherry Avenue areas noted in the small area plan that can support mixed uses along
Cherry Avenue, 5th Street – This might need to be more intense as a neighborhood mixed user corridor,
Monticello Avenue – Maybe higher intensity use. Carlton Avenue, Monticello Road, Carlton Road, the
transition area along Park Street from this higher density area along East High Street. Rugby Road, Rose Hill
Drive – Some opportunities for some small scale. Rio Road mirroring what is proposed on the east side of the


                                                                                                                  12
road with the county onto the west side so that we can get a balanced corridor along Rio Road. That could
provide some neighborhood services for the Greenbrier community to the north.

Neighborhood Mixed Use Corridors are walkable, mixed use areas that will support residential districts. We’re
envisioning these corridors to include small multi-unit buildings and support work opportunities. In the bottom
right picture, you can see there is small retail and/or office space on the ground floor. It allows for some
residential. You can live above where you work as an opportunity. The building heights along these corridors
can range up to four stories with three stories along constrained sites. In looking at these corridors, some of
these sites are quite narrow. Those narrow areas are not as high. Some areas are going to be up to 2 or 3 stories
because of requirements for parking, setbacks, and buffers to adjacent residential uses. Any districts that want to
allow neighborhood service and commercial convenience uses, particularly near key intersections, this is
allowed the length of the corridor. We can’t get retail everywhere. If we can get it at the corners and
strategically located along the corridors, that would promote a good, walkable, and friendly environment. You
can see this is a very organic, urban form that can begin to take place. You can see some of that 3 story type
development that could occur along these corridors.
Commissioner Solla-Yates – Why not five stories? We had them at five stories in 2018.
Mr. Sessoms – We want to think about context and neighborhood context. With the parcel development
potential, we have specified 3 to 4 stories because of that reason. We want to make sure these neighborhood
mixed use corridors that serve the community are contextual to the community that they serve. We have limited
those height ranges to 3 to 4 stories.
Chairman Mitchell – Commissioner Solla-Yates, are you asking why not five stories at all?
Commissioner Solla-Yates – I am asking why none of them could be five stories. What is the public harm?
Mr. Sessoms – There’s no public harm. Our recommendation from an urban design/form contextual point of
view would be to have them range up to four stories, three stories with constrained sites. We can look at some
areas where it may be appropriate to go up to five stories, particularly those areas where we have wider parcels.
We also can take into consideration shading and building adjacent to residential areas. When we did the future
land use framework for West Main Street, there was a lot of concern from the community about looming
buildings next to adjacent residential areas. When we start suggesting these lower heights in the fabric of these
communities, we just want to be careful on how tall we get and making sure the public is comfortable giving
them a height that the public will be comfortable with and an increased density and increased services within
these communities.
Chairman Mitchell – One example I would add is Rose Hill Drive.

Mr. Sessoms – High intensity residential are areas that primarily have existing major apartment complexes on
them. There are some other areas that could support higher intensity residential that are highlighted here. These
will primarily be residential focused developments that range up to 4 stories within these areas. They can
accommodate some ground floor uses at select locations. Where we have major apartment complexes, we want
to keep them and have opportunities, if we were to intensify in density, they can redevelop that. We retain that
primary residential function on these sites. There are areas that we have identified as new opportunities. We
have done that as well. With the Harris Street corridor, we did contain the future light industrial mixed use area
to the east side of the railroad tracks. We reclaimed a lot of the area that has some intermittent industrial,
residential uses on the west side of the railroad tracks for those residential mixed use opportunities.
Commissioner Lahendro – I would recommend that the images shown here are aggressively modern. I would
recommend being a little more careful with the selected images. I liked Commissioner Dowell’s
recommendation that they be of Charlottesville and making sure they’re traditional buildings that can be four
stories tall that don’t have to be so aggressively modern.
                                                                                                                13
Mr. Sessoms – That’s a good idea. People can relate to the images and understand exactly what we’re
proposing. It makes the presentation more contextual to people.
Commissioner Russell – I don’t think you have a viable high intensity residential zone down at the end of East
Market. What you might be trying to capture is the apartments that are maybe on county land. I think what
you’re showing is single family homes.
Commissioner Solla-Yates – It was five stories in the previous process. If we can’t do five stories for health
and safety, that is understood. If we can, that would help.
Mr. Sessoms – We can look at the high intensity residential for the stories here and come back with a refined
recommendation.
For the apartments at four stories, I think we can go up to five with those without a big issue.

Commissioner Solla-Yates – There is a loss of continuity along Madison/14th Street. It looks like we’re slicing
it up. Why?
Mr. Sessoms – These are existing apartment complexes in this area to the west of Barracks Road. In our future
land use map, we have this as medium intensity residential. There are homes within much of this area. We can
go back and look at the continuity of this. It would read stronger if there was continuity of these high intensity
areas. We can certainly go back and look at how the continuity of that district evolves where we are showing
this high intensity residential. There could be some opportunities to expand that.
Commissioner Stolzenberg – I would second that. Along Grady west of 14th Street, some of those might look
like houses externally. They’re almost all student housing. I think it would be very appropriate to add that. I
would also add University Circle as a mix. There are some pretty high intensity apartments along there. The
ones that are not are some of the most expensive homes in the city. It would be appropriate to subdivide if that
was the best use.
Commissioner Heaton – I had a question about the Court Square Apartments across from the Courthouse.
That’s a ten story building. Is that only that plot? You’re not going to change anything adjacent to that lot?
Mr. Sessoms – Some of the buildings were a loss. Ms. Koch had touched on the issue with the common area
designation covering up the parcel underneath. We’re showing the common spaces on the map because we want
to show the continuity of the green spaces within the city including public and semi-public and private open
spaces. The parcel inadvertently showed the entire parcel as green. That’s one of the things we will be going
back to look at and making sure that we have properly shown all of those land uses on the map and we’re not
covering anything with the park layer.
Commissioner Heaton – Is that building technically going to be noncompliant with the map?

Ms. Koch – Does that building fall within the downtown designation that we showed first?

Mr. Sessoms – It does fall within the High Street corridor or downtown, which does go up to ten stories. We
will fix all of those open space issues in the next iteration.
With Medium Intensity Residential, these are beginning to encompass many of those missing housing types
including row houses, townhouses, multi-unit buildings, and small house size unit buildings that are compatible
with adjacent low intensity neighborhoods. The height of these range up to 2.5 stories. That is a residential scale
so that they fit within the context. Many of these areas are deep within existing neighborhoods. The community
has concerns about the scale of development, particularly in the core of these neighborhoods where we’re

                                                                                                                 14
showing this medium intensity residential. We can see some precedent images. There is not a lot of height but
you can get a lot of units in it. Here are some examples of townhouses, quadplexes, and triplexes that are 2.5
stories tall. We thought that would be an appropriate height for this medium intensity residential development
type. We have located them within proximity of open space so that we can get a little more density around these
open space opportunities. This would also include splits of existing single family. Along Locust Avenue, we’re
not calling for the demolition of all of the existing housing along Locust Avenue. There is an opportunity to
provide more units within those lots. There are many ways to approach to building in density within existing
neighborhoods that do not require the demolition of existing residential structures. We want to keep that in mind
as we see these medium intensity residential uses on the map. We are sensitive to that. We are providing
opportunities for more housing units in these areas close to amenities and within existing neighborhoods.
Commissioner Solla-Yates – This was a very big area of tension in the 2018 plan. We broke pretty evenly on
this. I think there were four votes for four stories and the rest for three stories. We narrowly went with 4 stories
for this group. I certainly see advantages to going lower. If you see strong health and safety arguments for going
below three, I would like to hear them.
Mr. Sessoms – We also want to make sure we are putting forth recommendations that can be digested by the
community and what they’re willing to accept for infill development within these communities. Four stories is
very tall. We are talking about some of these small lots deep within these existing neighborhoods. Two and a
half stories is about the height of an existing two story house. That two and a half story building form can allow
for that third floor use within it. Technically, we are about three stories on these uses. We can go back and take
a look at that. We probably don’t want to go higher than three stories within these districts.
Commissioner Dowell – Especially if we’re a medium intensity residential. I don’t see the need to why we
would have the same height as our high intensity.
Commissioner Stolzenberg – The existing R-1 height limit is 35 feet. We see around the city a lot single
family detached houses going up as three stories. I see the argument for not going above that. 2.5 seems like a
reduction. Are we requiring pitched roofs?
Mr. Sessoms – That’s another reason why we went two and a half because of the pitched roof. Three stories flat
roof with that 35 foot height, you get 3 stories and a flat roof. You don’t have enough height to get a true
pitched roof. This is something that we can certainly go back and take a look at and evaluate the height here
with the 2.5 versus 3 stories and pitched roof versus flat roof. Is there a particular appetite for pitched roof
versus flat roof conditions in these existing residential neighborhoods? We thought they would want to be
pitched roof. I don’t know if there’s any strong opinion one way or the other.
Commissioner Russell – I think it is important to try to dis-incentivize speculative tear downs in not having a
drastic height in some of these existing neighborhoods. I think that it would help not make that so appealing.
Unless a neighborhood has an existing historic district overlay, it’s going to be ripe for tear downs to build
density and may not result in affordability. We should try to discourage that.
Commissioner Stolzenberg – I wonder if lower heights with more allowed on it encourages the tear down
rather than using the available, open space on a parcel while maintaining and converting the existing unit. It
reduces the development potential of the vacant land parcel. It means you would need to add extra space
wherever the existing house is in order to make that. In general, I wonder if we could come up with incentives
to save that existing house like the County is doing in Crozet for the middle density residential where they
would give benefits if you saved or converted the existing structure.
Commissioner Russell – We should definitely do that.
Mr. Sessoms – The incentive program is a really good idea to help with that effort.


                                                                                                                  15
Commissioner Lahendro – For the areas being shown here, the pitched roof is certainly the more predominant
context for these areas.
Mr. Sessoms – At 35 feet, you can’t get a true architecturally respondent pitched roof with 3 stories and 35 feet.

Ms. Creasy – The current zoning definition allows for you to take the middle portion of a pitched roof. That’s
in the current code.
Commissioner Stolzenberg – It is basically 3.5 stories as the limit right now.
Ms. Creasy – If you had a very extreme pitch.
Commissioner Stolzenberg – It does remind me of what we talked about last time with the topography of the
area. There are some places around the city that modest houses have three stories because of extreme grade
change. I don’t know how you codify that into something. It is something to think about.
Mr. Sessoms – That’s something that will be accounted for in the zoning piece of this in how we handle the
topography with height in making that correlation and having a regulatory framework.
With Low Intensity Residential, all of the other parcels are existing residential, we want to explore a wide range
of housing types in these districts including ADUs, splits of existing single-family homes, heights, and allowing
organic, urban form in relation to having community services within the neighborhoods. We will have a
discussion about opportunities for limited ground floor activating uses in these areas.
We did some overlay comparison with the 2013 and 2017 plan. There are some similarities and differences
particularly with intensity and where we are showing intensity within the map. With the urban ring, we want to
contextualize what we are doing within the city with what is immediately outside the city. We are beginning to
overlay that.
2. Public Comments

Cecilia Mills – When I sent this out to my neighborhood, people were shocked. There needs to be better
outreach so people know that this is coming. People shouldn’t feel like they’re going to be blindsided. The
white participating dropped. Some of those nodes are in areas where traffic is already bad. I work in an office
that used to be a house. I wish that you could turn those back into houses instead of offices. You’re proposing
that things be torn down and turned into offices. That didn’t work. The Landmark is a joke in this town. Please
take that out of any presentation you make again. I don’t understand how you split streets. I live on a 2 block
long street. One block is medium density and the other block is low density.
Lucy Midelfort – I am encouraged to hear about the ideas for incentivizing in keeping the current housing
stock that we have here. I think single family housing is ripe for adding ADUs. Adding density is possible
without incentivizing demolition. I was encouraged to hear that.
Andrea Massey – We’re taking some steps forward to changing some racist policies and zoning in the past.
There is still more to be done and clarified. I am speaking for the Charlottesville Low Income Housing
Coalition to say that you need to go further. With affordable housing, I am talking about affordable housing at
50% or below on AMI. The map looks almost the same for the past decades following the same segregation
lines. The public deserves to know what will changes and where past racist changes will be upheld. I want to
know when the changes are being if we get that change analysis. Will it increase density? Will it add more
affordable housing? Will it preserve neighborhoods in danger of gentrification and displacement? I want to
know why there was no upzoning in North Downtown and Greenbrier neighborhoods from the consultants. It is
not equitable. How does the map protect predominantly black neighborhoods from more gentrification? How
does it slow/stop displacement?

                                                                                                                16
Nancy Carpenter – I support what Andrea Massey was talking about. I have lived in the Rose Hill
neighborhood. The plan appears to be halfway there. What we’re dealing with is the racist policies from 60
years ago and trying to fix it. You don’t want your children and grandchildren to be dealing with these same
massive headaches that you are dealing. Let’s not continue with a land use map with work done by community
members and look at racial covenants that excluded black residents. It still looks the same. Ms. Massey is
correct in having higher density in neighborhoods that were excluding a lot of opportunity for people. We have
to be careful with the words used in this plan, the context, and the definitions. There is still a ways to go. I am
looking forward to a robust public engagement now that perhaps some of the neighborhood associations can get
back into this community engagement.
Jake Gold – I want to thank the consultants for putting together this map. I want to speak in favor of the
comments from previous commentators and Commissioner Stolzenberg about North Downtown and Greenbrier.
The consultants made an explicit goal that we target exclusionary neighborhoods for density. North Downtown
and Greenbrier are perfect candidates for that change. There was a huge number of racist covenants in the past.
I would encourage the new map prioritize what the consultants call medium intensity development along the
main roads and the interior for those neighborhoods. I would be eager to hear justification for keeping those
areas low intensity. I don’t know if it makes sense that areas we would like to preserve as low intensity, low
income neighborhoods and neighborhoods of color, have the same zoning as Greenbrier and North Downtown
furthers the goals of economic or racial justice.
3. Commissioner Comments

Commissioner Stolzenberg – I would like to comment on the low density. One of the failings of the 2017 map
is that it focuses all of the development on historically marginalized areas and completely exempts the richest
and historically segregated areas. I look at this assessment map, all of those bright, red areas in North
Downtown and the Rugby Hills area, those are all kept as low density residential in this new map. For North
Downtown, that really needs to go a lot higher. The infill potential is going to be limited by individually
protected properties in historic districts. The medium density could go further significantly into Rugby Hills.
The medium is basically what we said the low was in our old narrative or key. Rather than eliminating the
triplexes, that’s where the federal requirements for accessible units kicks in. If we want to have senior housing,
we really need to allow that 4th unit as well. I think we need to allow row homes. We keep talking about
affordable home ownership particularly simple home ownership where you own the land too. If you want to
have cheaper homes that you can buy, real homes is the only way to do it. I would like to see that medium
density bumped up to your larger plexes. That is something we should be encouraging.
Commissioner Russell – I do think that there is infill potential in historic districts. That shouldn’t be written
off. I think the concern for residents and for those who find value in historic homes is preventing them from
being demolished and in recognizing (1) the significance that they have in our community. The potential that
they serve is the ability to subdivide although that’s not guaranteed if the zoning doesn’t incentivize
demolitions. And finally is the role that some of our smaller housing stock does play in the affordable housing
picture. We should find more ways to protect the existing housing stock that we have.
Chairman Mitchell – I would like echo what Mr. Stolzenberg and Ms. Russell said. It goes back to my
question about Belmont Park. I will talk about the low wealth/economic community that we need to worry
about. A lot of the property that we live in is zoned R-1. As you begin to think about increasing our density,
remember to bring to equity into the equation. How much of the black community in certain parts of the city are
living in R-1 areas. We need to make sure we protect the home ownership and don’t make it possible for
developers to buy them out and build up.



                                                                                                                 17
Commissioner Solla-Yates – I do wanted to briefly talk about parking. A big part of the conversation in 2018
was parking. At that time, we were talking about different ways of encouraging shared parking instead of
mandating everything be onsite in building concrete and steel. I would like to encourage that kind of thinking in
2021. We don’t need to be restricting our height thinking by parking.
Ms. Koch – Based on the discussion tonight, we’re going to take your comments and will be working on a
revision of this map. We are working towards a larger community input on this map. We need to talk with NDS
about the best steps for working with you all as part of this process.
I wanted to share some thoughts on the community engagement. In this next phase of community engagement,
once we have the final land use map and final chapters, we will be looking to share those pieces for community
input. We’re going to be focusing on sharing that in a way that can be really easily understood by people, who
aren’t used to looking at a 2D map of the city. We want to make sure it is clear what the comprehensive plan
and land use map can mean for life in Charlottesville. We will be looking at distilling it and making clear what
the purpose of our recommendations are and the potential impacts. We will be looking to get information from
people and making sure they understand what we’re showing. Do they like the direction that it is heading? Does
it support what they think is important for the future of Charlottesville? Trying to tie it back to those vision
statements and working with people to craft those in November and December. We’re also working on being
really intentional about who we reach out to for outreach. It is a citywide process. We know homeowners and
developers are very interested in land use. We want to make sure recognizing that a large portion of the
Charlottesville community is renters. We want to make sure they’re aware how land use could impact their
experience in the city in a variety of ways. While this will be a citywide conversation, we want to focus our
efforts in a few areas. One of those will be neighborhoods where we haven’t had a lot of participation
previously. We want to look at neighborhoods that currently have small area plans or vision plans in place. We
really want to talk with those communities that have traditionally been negatively impacted on land use
decisions in the city, particularly communities of color as well as lower wealth and lower income communities
in the city. As we move forward, we will be looking at virtual engagement efforts and popups, as we get closer
to warmer weather. When we’re getting ready to roll this out, we would like to reach out to you all and have
you help us connect to residents and business owners. We hope that you will want to stay involved with that.
This slide speaks to the questions that Commissioner Dowell has had in the past wanting to know who we have
heard from. The charts show two key demographics: race/ethnicity and annual house income. These are only for
the surveys. We have done a lot of outreach that wasn’t in this survey. The orange bars are the census
demographics for the city. The pink bars are the first survey. The blue bars are the more recent survey. You can
see the different types of responses that we received compared to the census. We were happy to see some
changes between our first and second survey as we look toward a closer balance in some of these areas. This
information that we’re sharing in our summary after each set of meetings will tie closely to our strategies as we
move towards our target. We want to make sure we’re reaching a representative group of the city, as many
people as we can.
Chairman Mitchell – Belmont was the biggest response group. Fry Springs’ response was not as robust as
Belmont. I have seen that the African American engagement has dropped off a bit. It is still not awful.
Ms. Koch – It actually picked up a bit between the first and second survey.
Commissioner Dowell – I would be interested in the comparison of the demographics of who are participating
now versus the demographics we got from the first time. I do see that we had more African Americans
participate. I want to make sure that we are able to show the progress that we’re making this go around.
Chairman Mitchell – The challenge that we had was with African American participation and younger people?



                                                                                                               18
Commissioner Dowell – Younger people, ethnicities, and people of color. Not only black people, but people of
color in general had not chimed in. I think it would advantageous all of us to the city to show that progress. The
next time we have this, it doesn’t take this long and it should not take as much effort to be able to extract the
information we’re looking for. We already have it in writing and proof in graphics how to go about doing that.
4. Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at 8:06 PM.




                                                                                                                19