Planning Commission/ City Council Work Session
                                  September 27, 2022 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM
                                         Hybrid Meeting – City Space
Members/Councilors Present: Chairman Solla-Yates, Councilor Pinkston, Commissioner Russell,
Commissioner Schwarz, Councilor Magill (Zoom), Mayor Snook, Vice-Mayor Wade, Commissioner
Stolzenberg, Commissioner Habbab, Commissioner Palmer, Commissioner Mitchell, Councilor Payne,
Commissioner d’Oronzio
Staff Present: Patrick Cory, Missy Creasy, James Freas, Remy Trail, Lisa Robertson, Alex Ikefuna (Zoom),
Carrie Rainey, Michael Rogers (Zoom), Sam Sanders (Zoom)
The Chairman called the work session to order at 5:30 PM.
1. Presentation – Zoning Diagnostic and Approach Report and Inclusionary Zoning Analysis

   James Freas, NDS Director – This is a big milestone for this project. This marks the end of a first
   phase of a zoning rewrite project and the beginning of the next phase. This is the third part of our Cville
   Plans Together Program, which began with our Affordable Housing Plan, which was adopted in March,
   2021. The Comprehensive Plan was adopted last November.

   Next Slide – Meeting Purpose

   Our goal for tonight is to answer your questions, get your feedback on these documents we have been
   working on and been talking about over this summer, and most importantly to get your ‘go ahead’ to
   move onto the drafting of the ordinance and map. We are not adopting zoning tonight. We don’t need to
   resolve any details. What we do need to do is to get the overview question from you. Are we generally
   on the right track as far as adopting zoning that will advance us in the implementation of the
   Comprehensive Plan and Affordable Housing Plan?

   Next Slide – Zoning Diagnostic + Approach Report

   In June, we released the Zoning Diagnostic and Approach Report. This provided an overview of the
   different ideas, strategies, and approaches that we’re proposing to bring our zoning into consistency with
   our adopted Comprehensive Plan.

   Next Slide – Draft Inclusionary Zoning Analysis

   In August, we released the Draft Inclusionary Zoning Analysis. This analysis looked at the creation of
   the exclusionary zoning recommendations, basically to include affordable housing in development as it
   happens. It also included a “Rate of Change” analysis, which is looking at how the housing market
   might respond to this new zoning within the General Residential Medium Intensity Residential Districts.
   It builds on the zone for more affordable housing chapter of the Zoning Approach and Diagnostic
   Report.

   Next Slide – Outreach & Engagement

   Over the summer, we have been involved in a lot of different activities. I want to thank everybody who
   was involved in this process over the course of the summer. We had a little over 200 people come to our
   open house event at The Pavilion in June. We have done a whole range of events. There is a lot of
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information here about the education materials we’ve done, the various communications methods, the
in-person activities, door to door work in different neighborhoods, and popup tables at a number of
events. We got feedback in a lot of different ways, both online and in person. In particular, we did a
number of neighborhood and group meetings. For those, I want to thank the organizers of those for
inviting us into their communities to give us their feedback and ideas.

Next Slide – Community Feedback Themes

Across the board and no matter what one’s perspective on the details of this work, there was widespread
support for the idea that we need more affordable housing and more housing options in the city. We also
had questions about the need for clarity around what we mean when we say house-scaled, concerns and
interest in seeing more around tree preservation, historic preservation, stormwater management, parking,
a significant emphasis on the connection between zoning and climate change, desire to see more focus
on multimodal transportation options, and how we can promote and support those with the zoning
ordinance and a lot of conversation around the particular inclusionary zoning proposals that we made.
There will be more conversations about that.

Next Slide – Residential District Testing

The residential district testing was our method for testing potential zoning tools for infill residential
development looking at the General Residential and Medium Intensity Residential areas in particular.
The scenarios that were developed for that were meant to illustrate the maximum development potential
understanding that is not necessarily the likely development of any given lot. We know that there are
always going to by physical and financial considerations that will limit the development of any
individual lot in the real world. There is some information here about some of the things we learned in
that analysis including the idea of dividing up zoning districts into house-scaled districts, medium-scaled
districts, creating variable requirements, or separate districts for what we have identified as the sensitive
areas within the Comprehensive Plan.

Next Slide – Updates

Relative to what we updated, we added new scenarios allowing curvilinear and cul de sac streets. It is
something we heard clearly from the Planning Commission. We hope those were useful. We provided
some clarification on what it means for a building to be house-scaled.

Next Slide – Better Zoning Standards

This covers a wide range of topics from how we measure height to setbacks and how the ordinance
would be administered are included in this section. Overall, what is very clear is that our existing
ordinance is built on a greenfield development model. It is geared towards that type of development and
responds well to that. Most of the development we see in the city is infill and redevelopment activity.
We really need a zoning ordinance that is geared towards that type of development and responds to the
types of issues that arise when you’re doing infill developments/development on tight urban lots or
redevelopment of existing properties. One of the things I want to highlight here is the importance of the
ease of use of our new zoning ordinance. We want a zoning ordinance that is readily accessible to the
average resident of the city so that people can pick this up and understand what they can do or what can
happen in their neighborhood.

Next Slide – Updates

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There are a number of updates related to this section. We clarified that the existing tree policies in the
zoning ordinance would largely stay in place. We clarified what it means for zoning standards to be
flexible in order to support more housing development. We want to make a clear statement that our
historic preservation rules within the zoning ordinance (the historic districts and conservation districts)
are remaining untouched. We’re not proposing any changes to those as they exist.

Next Slide – Key Questions

This is where two of the three key questions we have identified for discussion tonight can be found. The
first of these have to do with parking minimums. Looking at the issue of parking minimums or
eliminating parking minimums and looking at the issue of subdivision. In particular, what are the
minimum lot sizes required in association with the subdivision of property in the city?

Next Slide – Zoning for More Housing Affordability

The most significant part of the report on inclusionary zoning was this issue of zoning for housing
affordability. The diagnostic and approach report took a high level look at this. The inclusionary zoning
really digs deeper because it proposes the actual inclusionary zoning program as we have proposed it
today.

Next Slide – Zoning Tools for Affordability

Coming out of the Affordable Housing Plan and the Comprehensive Plan, we’re really looking at the
five zoning tools on the right.
1. Allowing more units on every lot that is zoned for a single unit today.
2. Allowing more rental and ownership options.
3. Identifying and creating more zoning incentives to increase affordability
4. Inclusionary zoning ordinance.
5. A tool kit to avoid displacement in at-risk communities

Next Slide – Inclusionary Zoning Recommendations

The inclusionary zoning recommendation that is included in the report calls for a mandatory
inclusionary zoning component. This is a requirement for projects that are ten or more units in size. Ten
percent of those units must be affordable at 60% of Area Median Income level for a term of 99 years or
effectively into perpetuity. Those units must be effectively indistinguishable from the other units within
the project. We’re proposing this for the entirety of the city, not excluding any districts and not varying
in relation to districts. That is all of the residential districts and the mixed use districts. It is for ten units
or more where there is nine or fewer units, it would be voluntary. The incentives attached to this are a
25% density bonus for projects that are ten units or greater. Nine or less is a two unit bonus in the
General Residential Medium Density and a parking reduction of up to 50%. What is important is
whether or not you can accommodate that density bonus or those parking reductions on your site.
Whether you choose to use the parking reduction or you can accommodate the additional density on
your site, the building requirement is mandatory as we are proposing in this.

Next Slide – Examples

These are examples that show how that would look. You see the 5 unit project on the right. You see a 3
unit project at its base: an additional unit plus an additional affordable unit. Nine units have the same
basic concept. The 60 unit development on the far right.
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Next Slide – Updates

We aren’t proposing any updates at this time.

Next Slide – Key Questions

In terms of key questions, there’s a really important question here around this idea that has come in
through the community comments and was included with a petition proposing the idea that in the
General Residential area up to medium intensity densities be allowed across all the General Residential
area where all the additional units are affordable at some level.

Next Slide – Timeline

This is the culmination of this first phase. We now move into the drafting of the ordinance. We’re
anticipating in the January timeframe to be releasing a draft zoning document and map and entering a
review and comment phase for that work with a goal ultimately of a final draft of the zoning ordinance
and zoning map in front of the Planning Commission and City Council in the spring of 2023.

Commissioner Stolzenberg – You previously talked about having three different drafts. Is this a change
to that?

Mr. Freas – No. This is not a change to that. I am hedging to a certain degree. What we’re looking at is
likely releasing the zoning ordinance in three chunks within a short timeframe, January into early
February. We still have some work to do on solidifying that schedule and how we’re going to structure
that.

Commissioner Mitchell – Can you talk about yield on cost? It looks like for a project to be feasible, we
need 6.7 to 7 percent yield cost. How exactly is that calculated? Over what number of years do you need
to achieve the 6.7 to 7 percent?

Phillip Kash, HR&A Consultant – When we looked at yield and cost, we were really looking at a For
Sale property. That is pretty straightforward. For a rental property, we applied a capitalization rate.
Basically, the valuing of the net operating income on the property, how much revenue it generates. If
you were the property owner and you were going to sell it, what would you make at that sale? Yield and
cost is more applicable to the For Sale property. We also looked at the internal rate of return and cap
rates when looking at rental properties.

Commissioner Mitchell – That is event driven as opposed to the month-to-month operating yield; the
event being the actual sale of the property.

Commissioner d’Oronzio – The way to look at that is the price to return rate. If you’re satisfied with a
5 percent cap rate, you’re willing to invest twenty times that amount to get that property.

Commissioner Mitchell – At what point in the operation of the property do you realize that you’re
going to get there?

Mr. Kash – When it is stabilized.

Mr. d’Oronzio – An investor looks to get a seven percent return once they have themselves sorted out
the cost and what they have actually put in.
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Councilor Magill – We keep running into this affordable housing issue of definition. We keep talking
about AMI. For many people, that’s very hard to translate into cost of an apartment. At 60 percent AMI,
one person’s income is $39,360. One third of that income is what they should be spending on housing
including utilities. The total amount they should spending on a property for one person at 60 percent
AMI should be no more than $1,181.40. Questions around that are: What utilities are we including?
How are we going to enforce that if these are rental properties in particular? It is easier to enforce that
when it comes to sellable properties. That’s a one-time set amount. If we’re looking at rental properties,
we’re going to have to have people in place to make sure that is being enforced for the next 99 years.

Mr. Kash – If you have affordable rental properties, you’re going to have to monitor the affordability
requirements. That’s true for all affordable housing. Someone has to monitor the requirements. Any time
the city is investing money in affordable housing, somebody needs to be monitoring that. A lot of times,
there’s somebody else investing in the property. You can have agreements and share the monitoring
costs. For exclusionary zoning, you won’t be able to monitor costs because these costs are private
transactions. In terms of the calculation on affordable rent, for a one bedroom, we don’t necessarily map
it to a single person. Those rents aren’t going to exactly match up. With utilities, your housing authority
has to put out utility numbers. You can use that as the backup. As you write policies and procedures, you
can establish how you want to consider utilities. You will update the rents for all of your affordable units
every year and how rents can go up for all your affordable units every year. You can peg it to low-
income tax credit or federal standards so you don’t have to do those calculations yourself. We’ll
probably end up recommending as an administrative policy. Rents do change with affordable properties
annually.

Callahan Seltzer, Cville Plans Together – When referring to the administrative costs, our biggest
recommendations when we did some work on the CAHF, in a similar way, some additional monitoring
is going to be needed for affordability covenants particularly along into perpetuity covenants. That falls
on such a small number of staff right now. What we see in other cities is a larger number of staff
monitoring that over time so that it does have enforcement. If it doesn’t have enforcement, it won’t have
‘teeth.’

Councilor Magill – I wanted to make sure that I was going around the right way. We talk about AMI.
That is really hard for many people to understand and translate over to the actual dollars and cents of
renting and utility costs. We are also recommending that we are following this with the HDA Guidelines
that one-third of the AMI is given towards rent and utility costs and that additional caveat is put in there
so it can be translatable to how much someone is spending out of pocket.

Councilor Pinkston – With the IZ presentation, all of the analysis that was cleverly and thoughtfully
done with about 10,000 parcels with a general residential approach. Basically, we’re looking at less than
two percent of lots or parcels per year being infill developed with a general residential framework. Is
that what it says?

Mr. Freas – That’s correct. That’s the general expectation

Mr. Kash – That’s the top end of where we think the number will be. When we did our analysis, we
looked at the suitability of the site, the market strengths, and whether it was financially feasible. There
are all kinds of reasons why you won’t see that happen as much. When you look at other places that
have allowed for middle density, you don’t see the volume that you might expect. That’s one
homeowner not making financial rational choices and still choosing to do single-family even if there’s a
way to make more money doing a multifamily development and development capacity to actually do it.
I am sure that it feels like a lot of developers in Charlottesville, this would be many projects, hundreds
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of projects. The development capacity in many markets take on these smaller projects lags. There are
numerous other aspects about the site. We couldn’t look at topography issues, slope, or easements
related to water or non-suitable building sites that are also potentially going to take some parcels. The
two percent is actually on the higher end. The other thing that goes on is that it is tied to the rate
homeowners, occupants, and investors are selling their homes right now. When you up-zone like this,
there’s not a huge shift in homeowner behavior for the earlier reasons I stated. Homeowners are not
economically rational. They are making decisions based on multiple factors. Even when there is massive
appreciation in property, it doesn’t tend to shift the rate people sell their house.

Councilor Pinkston – One takeaway that I took from that was the concern that many residents have in
that the whole city is going to be infill developed. I don’t think it is going to happen. If we want to get
more, we have to get more aggressive with the proposals.

Mr. Freas – A lot of our objectives broadly within the Comprehensive Plan are going to be met, not just
with zoning, but with other activities that might be more important than zoning. Zoning is a critical first
step. It creates the opportunity that doesn’t exist today. In terms of increasing production numbers, you
guys already know that regarding city investment that is something you are already wrestling with and
dealing with. It is going to require other moves as well as we go forward.

Councilor Pinkston – My takeaway was the fear that people have that the neighborhood is going to
quickly change. That doesn’t seem likely to happen.

Mr. Kash – That is correct. That is what our analysis shows. That has been how this has played out in
other places. The pace of change is real. This is real change. It is not the radical change in their
neighborhood that people are afraid of. It doesn’t play out along those lines.

Commissioner Habbab – I saw that we probably still have to do cash in lieu option. Is that a state
requirement? We still use those funds.

Mr. Freas – It is generally best practices inclusionary zoning that you do that.

Mr. Kash – I am not sure that state law requires it. It is a good thing to have. You can set the fee high if
you want to encourage people to build on site. You can set the fee lower if you want to generate revenue
to put into other projects. It can change over time. There might be a point in time when you really want
to generate the revenue so you can pay for additional vouchers for other housing priorities. Where you
set the fee really drives the behavior. If it is significantly more expensive to pay the fee, developers are
pretty economically rational.

Commissioner Habbab – The other question I had was regarding the Floor Area Ratio calculation.
How does that tie into our current FAR? How does that tie into what we’re proposing?

Mr. Freas – It doesn’t have to be Floor Area Ratio calculation. There are a number of different formulas
out there.

Mr. Kash – You can do it as an FAR. You don’t have to. You can tie it to bedrooms or units. In a lot of
places we have done it, we have tied it to number of bedrooms so we don’t create perverse incentives
about building small units or building certain types of units. You can set the fee up. There is a wide
range of ways to set the fee. You really do want to talk it through with your developers. You can
incentivize bad behavior or have unintended consequences.

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Commissioner Mitchell – The recommendations still suggest that we need to move critical slopes out
of the zoning and to the water protection chapter. If we do that, what will be the role of the Planning
Commission and what will be the role of Council? The reason I worry about that is that I still believe
that we should still make recommendations and Council should still make the determination of whether
the community benefits more from allowing the steep slope to be disturbed. The example that comes to
mind is the Housing Authority on South First Street. Where are we on that? I am not willing to cede that.

Mr. Freas – My immediate response is that I look forward to hearing from your colleagues. Our
perspective is that it depends on your objective with regards to critical slopes. As we have proposed at
this point in time, looking at the critical slope policy, both as it is written and as it is implemented, our
inclination is to shift that to a staff responsibility and make it part of the site plan review and stormwater
review process. It is operating today effectively as a Special Use Permit in nature. It goes to the Planning
Commission and City Council. If there are elements of what is accomplished in critical slopes that we
want to roll into the zoning ordinance, we can consider that as well. That’s where we are. We look
forward to a discussion on that.

Commissioner Mitchell – The worry is that most of the development we’re going to do is going to be
infill development. Most of the infill development is going to be in difficult places to develop. I would
rather leave it to elected officials to make the final decision about what we do in such critical areas of
our community as opposed to a staff signoff.

Councilor Magill – I want to go back to affordable housing especially with the acceptance of Housing
Choice vouchers. I know that legally everyone in the state has to accept Housing Choice vouchers. We
all know there are ways of getting around that. One of the biggest ways is through background checks
and credit checks as well as making renters pay first and last and one month’s security deposit. Is there a
way that we can legally put in there that if somebody has a Housing Choice voucher that they don’t have
to require a credit check especially since the voucher (the government) is going to be paying for a
significant portion of the rent?

Mr. Kash – I don’t know what is legal in Virginia. There are examples of inclusionary zoning policies
where there are significant rules about how you screen and select tenants. That is generally addressed on
the administrative side. You can set up all kinds of standards for both not having and not allowing for
credit checks but also not having the normal property manager be the ones screening the tenants for
these particular properties. Any changes you make in that space, you want to make sure that you have a
good administrative system to make it work. When it’s not well designed, you end up having units sit
empty, which is a financial harm to the developer and doesn’t advance our goal of affordable housing.
There are examples of that working well and not well. When we get to the administrative side, we will
be happy to share those things. In other places, there are plenty of examples of signing over to housing
authorities, nonprofits, or specific entities who manage the screening and selection of those tenants.
When it is done well, that’s good for the developer. This is a different segment of the population that
they’re marketing their units to. They have to have a different marketing plan, outreach, and screening
process. That’s a real administrative cost. If you can fill their units and give them tenants they are
comfortable with, that can be a win for everybody if it is well run.

Councilor Magill – This is an opportunity we can look at some of that we normally don’t consider
because it’s fair market. The state says that it is pretty lenient when it comes to saying that you can find
loopholes to deny somebody. Unless it is PHDA or LI HTC property, you can still be a full-time student
and qualify. I can see this loophole happening where it ends up being student housing.


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   Commissioner d’Oronzio – There are tools in the toolbox that aren’t used because they’re awkward. If
   you start combining a couple of them, you can address some of what you are dealing with. For example,
   it is an equal credit violation to consider the source of the money. If you’re using credit checks as a work
   around, which a lot of people do, you can ‘smack’ them pretty hard under that. Unfortunately, that
   requires following federal law. They’re stingy about what they will allow states to enforce or not and
   what circumstances. It seems to me there are ways that you can stack two or three of these things to
   make it much more difficult to walk away from a voucher as a landlord.

   Councilor Payne – On the issue of vouchers and as part of the inclusionary zoning program, I would
   definitely want us to explore a pilot program in Connecticut where they pair vouchers with their
   inclusionary zoning program. I believe that New Haven was similar to us. They had 10% of units
   required to be affordable. On top of that, 5 percent had to go to voucher holders. Their housing authority
   had a first right of refusal of who the tenant would be. That would have a huge benefit of getting the
   AMI level of who is benefitting from this down to 0 to 30 percent, help us get through our existing
   waitlist for vouchers. Overall, it would improve it.

   Ms. Seltzer – We both have policies. If that is interesting all of you, we fully support that approach.

   Commissioner Stolzenberg – I want to jump on what Mr. Kash said about bringing that verification of
   income and marketing to get a full benefits in-house. There are a lot of advantages to that. I see
   something similar in the county where they’re starting to create a wait list because 50 percent of their
   affordable units were timing out because they couldn’t find a buyer. They reverted to market rate. At
   what point in this process do we create those rules and that in-house office and expertise to make
   something like that happen?

   Ms. Seltzer – We need to consider the administration part now. We have made previous
   recommendations in the Affordable Housing Plan about staffing up for the affordable goals that you
   have set. There is a staffing need for sure for monitoring. Our analysis includes the governance and
   administration recommendations. You actually haven’t yet seen all of those. You have only seen the
   analysis. When we draft the policy, we would be including all of that with the language on the voucher
   piece. We would want to be specific about how vouchers are utilized; a policy in no way hinders or
   makes it more difficult for voucher holders to access these units. That’s in the public policy goal. On the
   backside is the administration of that goal. We would be giving you recommendations on both of those.
   One through the policy and one on the other side/what that means in real terms for staff on the ground.

2. Discussion of Key Questions and Other Planning Commission & City Council Input

   Parking Minimums and Administration Question

   Lee Einsweiler, Cville Plans Together – Out of this set of questions (the first two), I am going to help
   manage that conversation. CODE Studio will be dealing with the question of what goes in the zoning
   ordinance and HR&A will be working on the affordable housing.

   The first question is about parking. I know that all of you have read the literature about parking. We’re
   hearing about parking all the time. It is a bit of pseudoscience. One of the things that truly happens with
   parking is that as it gets tighter, people make alternate choices. At what rate, at what pace, and what
   kinds of ways, I am not quite certain what would happen here. I really don’t have solid answers. This is
   not a definitive science. That’s the biggest challenge. I don’t have just an answer. The question is:
   Would you be willing to support the idea of reducing parking whether for affordability, only in certain

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portions of the community, and however you might want to support it? Are you willing to support
changing the thinking in Charlottesville about how parking is handled? I am going to suggest that no
matter what we decide about this issue, the management of parking from the public front needs to be
increased. We are going to have housing in places where we currently don’t have housing. We’re
perhaps going to have more housing than what we expected in certain portions of the community. We
need to think about parking management. It really is a management challenge. If you count the overall
spaces, we probably have enough spaces. It is just at certain times of day or when certain activities
happen and we have challenges that are associated with it. Some of the ideas that would be embedded in
that would be time of day management. There might be management associated with residency if this is
regarding neighborhoods. They might be associated with commuting. We have seen parking examples
where permit parking is allowed to be bought for the purpose of commuting. There is likely going to
have to be a fee component associated with this. We can’t make this work on the free parking model.
The free parking model doesn’t allow us any dials to turn to create more and less demand. We’re not
talking about managing in the real time. We are talking about managing it in some fashion, whether over
the course of a day, over the course of a month, or over the course of a year. The question to you: In
trade for enhanced affordability and enhanced walkability, are we seriously willing to consider reducing
parking either in some bracket related to affordability or in some portion of the community?

Commissioner Mitchell – I like the way you framed this parking piece. I am very willing to support a
significant reduction in the parking requirements for new residential development. We need to be very
strategic when we think about the overall parking configuration. I would like to keep Charlottesville as a
destination as opposed to a place people drive around or pass through. We need to think about the needs
of the businesses in Charlottesville and their parking needs and support those needs.

Commissioner d’Oronzio – It seems to me philosophically that we don’t have a science here. You have
inferences that you can draw and trend lines that you can make. It is not reproducible experiments. It
seems to me that one of the larger concerns of the public is parking vehicles, traffic, and the impact of
any development. In reviewing this with the comments and emails, we need to be much more aggressive
about parking. The impetus that brings people to the table is to start yelling about parking and traffic
might be a development. It is really a constant problem. We all know that it is not going to get better
unless we change our behavior significantly. We’re not going to move that needle at all. That needle has
to move. We can’t be held hostage in all of this to parking. How we take care of and house people is
going to be driven by how we take care of a 4000 piece of Chinese steel that is burning hydrocarbons.
To make Charlottesville a destination, we’re going to have to get aggressive with that to move that
needle. That means tram-like stuff from larger lots to move people into the downtown.

Commissioner Habbab – I am in support of reducing parking. One thing that does bring me concern is
that it can’t work with the free parking model. It makes sense that it doesn’t. It has to tie in with another
program that can afford the paid parking model. It feels like it would unintentionally burden our lower-
income residents disproportionately.

Mr. Einsweiler – One of the keys there is to spend your revenue in ways that support that segment more
heavily than the other segments. That might mean focusing on bike lanes and helping support the
adoption of e-bikes and whatever else you can do that provides alternatives in a different price range and
begin to make sense for a certain category of people. I can definitely see that. There is also roadway
design as you move forward and consider how your roadways are built. There are some pieces there that
if you brought that equity component to bear, you would probably get some different solutions than
what you have today.


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Commissioner Russell – A concern I have is if we wave parking requirements in areas where the
sidewalk infrastructure isn’t adequate and you pushed cars/people into conflict and burdened the
existing neighborhood in that regard, I can see being very close to General Residential or Medium
Intensity. I would want to understand how we would manage that parking in an applicable way. Your
parking management strategies sound really interesting. I would be interested in hearing more. We
should consider the cost implications of some of these management strategies.

Commissioner Schwarz – I think that parking should be market driven. I am not too worried about the
larger developments. A larger developer is going to be smart enough to know that if they need a certain
amount of parking, they’re going to put it on their site. It is more of a concern with people who live in
the neighborhoods that might lose their parking spot that is currently out in front of their house. Are we
going to do a citywide permit parking in all residential neighborhoods? If we do that, who is going to
enforce it? Is the city going to put money into making sure that permit parking is actually going to be
enforced? I would be fully supportive of letting it be market driven.

Commissioner Stolzenberg – I am fully in support of market driven parking requirements. I am not
under any allusion that people are going to stop putting as much parking into their buildings. I think
everyone agrees that we want to move to a city where more people get around without a car. Some
people think that is a great goal that is laughable in practice. The answer to that is that we really don’t
know if things are going to change over time. I don’t have any confidence in our ability to keep updating
these continually as practices change from factors like e-bikes becoming popular and the $150 million in
infrastructure improvements that we’re planning around the city and have currently funded. We are
looking at 2 percent of the parcels changing every year. It is not going to be a rapid change even if none
of them were to include parking. It makes a lot more sense for people to make their own choices for
themselves. You have to divide it into commercial requirements and residential requirements.
Commercial are even more of a nonsensical pseudoscience than the residential. Everything from
bowling alleys, that has to have a certain number of parking spots per lane, to bakeries. All the parts of
the city where people like to go probably don’t comply with those. The amounts are made up. Business
owners can decide for themselves how much they think their patrons need to have a successful business.
Those, in particular, need to be eliminated. Even if we were to ban all building across the city, people
are already mad about the on street parking situation. For residential, we have a better idea of how much
parking for how many cars each household has available right now. We know that over a tenth of renters
in the city don’t have any cars available in their household. Many others have a parking spot separate
from their home that they park in and do just fine without an onsite parking spot. There are many
options available and so many different factors that affect a personal parking decision. It doesn’t make
sense to set any blanket standards for the city.

Commissioner Palmer – I generally agree with everything that has just been said. At UVA, we manage
parking every day. There is a lot you can do with technology that wasn’t there five years ago. To take a
close look at that it would be a lot different than what people have in their minds. It is interesting to
think about how many parking spots we do have in the city. Where are they? I haven’t seen that
analysis. That could go a long way for formulating these plans. What Commissioner Habbab said about
tying this to your goals if the goal for reducing parking minimums is to support more affordability in the
city. You have to look at those unintended consequences but also formulate your plan for that to support
those goals.

Chairman Solla-Yates – I like the way Hartford rolled it out. That seems reasonable to me. I am very
concerned about making this a net win for accessibility. We are not the most accessible place in the
world. We can do a lot better.

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Councilor Magill – It’s a difficult situation. We are not the most accessible community. Being an older
city, we’re taking what we already have and trying to make it work. I am not big on parking minimums.
A lot of that is a pseudoscience that is made up. I do see people working to get rid of vehicles more. It is
going to take time. We also have to address the fact that we have significant infrastructure issues to
support non-motor transit. We also have to face the fact we are the urban center for a large rural area.
Things like Park & Ride lots can assist with that to a certain extent. The Park & Ride lots near the 64
exits and 29 exits are where the majority of people come in and go to key centers. All of that is going to
mean we have to have a good robust transit system, which we are trying to work on. I have a lot of hope
for the micro-transit coming forward. The micro-transit is being piloted right now. That could
potentially help with some of the issues that people are worried about, especially in areas that don’t have
sidewalks on either side of the road. A phased approach is a good idea. The market is not going to start
putting in new parking spaces because they are looking to sell it. I am more towards letting the market
dictate and not having parking minimums. I do hope in our zoning that we are anticipating
electrification. In the zoning itself, we are putting in that new construction needs to have the ability to
handle electric vehicles and electric charging.

Councilor Payne – When it comes to building 100 percent affordable developments, I would absolutely
support reducing or eliminating parking requirements to get deeper affordability and more affordable
units across the city. It makes sense to explore seeing where there are areas in our ordinance where the
parking requirements are overly excessive or don’t make sense. There is plenty of room to reduce it. The
only thing that gives me a little hesitancy about the final question is completely eliminating parking
requirements citywide. In making that decision, I feel that I would be flying a little bit blind in terms of
not understanding what we should expect the practical impacts of that to be. It gives me some hesitancy
around that final piece of eliminating it completely citywide. We have to acknowledge that our public
transportation system and bike/pedestrian infrastructure is not very usable for a lot of people,
particularly if they need to get to work on time. We are ten to fifteen years out until we implement a
regional transit plan and until we have bike/pedestrian infrastructure connected. I was talking with
several people about parking. We could expand parking requirements and people would still have the
same if not more complaints about parking. There are some real tensions. Neighborhoods like Tenth and
Page and Fifeville residents are very concerned about parking and parking that is taken up by UVA
students, staff members. There are a lot of people working and the bus system is not adequate for them.
Their transportation options are going to need to be relying on a car. They feel that they don’t have the
option or desire to follow the transportation decisions of wealthier, young professionals. That’s a class
tension I am thinking about a lot. If we’re going to go all the way, I want to understand what the
implications are and understand what actual level of bus service we do need to make that not have a
negative impact on working families. Reducing or eliminating for 100 percent affordable housing
absolutely makes sense as does generally reducing it.

Mr. Einsweiler – There is some recent experience that has been reviewed. Buffalo is one of the earliest
places. There are a variety of places. The key finding from that work is that people are producing
parking, perhaps at different rates. In Buffalo, for example, they have not had to resort to residential
permit parking programs. They are constantly talking about one for their most active development
portion of the community. There is not a residential program that has been put in place. It is interesting
to watch it play out. I do think that you would be an early adopter on these issues. We can do a whole lot
of good on the way there if that’s all the farther we get.

Councilor Payne – I absolutely think it is necessary for the city to look at citywide parking
management strategy analysis. That’s another piece of it that needs to happen.


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Councilor Pinkston – On so many things that we’re dealing with, we’re trying to resolve legacy issues.
Because of that, we can’t figure out a way forward. I think we’re going to have to take a ‘leap.’ Having a
robust parking group within Mr. Freas’ portfolio or someone’s portfolio and maybe doing that with a
contractor. I am for us thinking long and hard throughout the entire city about what parking is really
necessary and having the market decide that. There should be a price involved. If you’re living in the
city to have a car, there should be some sort of price. We should be thoughtful about equity concerns,
particularly for these sensitive areas. We should focus on parking throughout the city. I would like us to
be more proactive, thoughtful, and engaged. As far as parking minimums, I would error on the side of
not having them. If we’re only looking at a couple percent here and if we’re talking with developers
(going to include parking anyway), it seems like it is a red herring to think that’s going to be some major
issue and cause problems throughout the whole community. I am for being more aggressive about this.

Mayor Snook – When we think about parking minimums, we talked about it or thought about it
primarily in terms of the commercial areas (downtown areas) where the premise is that parking lots and
garages satisfy the demand. That’s not really very likely in a residential situation. The premise of
eliminating parking minimums for residential property has to be that a significant number of the
occupants can make do without access to a car either because there is transit available or because it is
close enough walk to where they would need to get to or because of e-bikes. One of the letters that we
got made a good point about this. If we eliminate residential parking minimums in areas that have good
transit access, that makes sense. If we were to eliminate parking minimums and then have a significant
development of some sort built in the middle of Greenbrier, where there is no transit for at least a half
mile, that is simply not very reasonable. It is an area that is not very walkable to downtown. There are
some places where it makes some sense, some places where it doesn’t. We need to think about that
critically and to look at how we tie transit and transit availability and increase density that furthers that
transit availability in places where we think we are going to get the kind of density necessary or where
we think we’re going to be able to make sure that there is adequate transit, it might make more sense.

I have been struggling with this since I was on the Planning Commission 40 years ago. Whatever we are
doing, people don’t like. We have every 5 to 8 years come out (there has been enough built up
frustration) with a new parking plan. I suspect that we still have in a warehouse all the parking meters
that were erected in 2017, which we took out in the wake of August, 2017 and concerns that downtown
was going to be seen as inhospitable. We have all kinds of these solutions in our history. None of them
have turned out to be terribly satisfactory. Or maybe we haven’t had the patience to sticky with any of
them long enough.

One of the bits of management that is going to be essential, in addition to all the nice theories has to be
enforcement. We have to be willing to know that we’re going to get stuck with parking tickets. That’s
part of having parking management. A lot of people don’t like that.

Vice-Mayor Wade – I will be in support of looking at reducing the parking and the parking
requirements. After doing this type of thing (doing transportation for the county for many years), we
love our cars. We can do all of the incentives that we can. I love walking the Tenth and Page
neighborhood. I recall walking on the street just outside the permit parking area. I was talking to a
resident. She had gotten some produce and some things. She was trying to take it to her house. She
couldn’t get the space in front of her yard. There was a car parked there. The person worked at UVA.
She had talked to the person. It is a good distance to the university. The university had an incentive that
if you walk so many steps, you get an incentive. It was a win-win situation for that person but not for the
resident. We went to Burke a few weeks ago. I think they have a parking minimum there. There are cars
lined up along the major adjacent streets outside of the development. If we don’t do this right, we’re
going to get that type of scenario. We have to be collaborative with the adjacent neighborhoods and the
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adjacent localities. They’re likely going to be the ones coming in. We want to incentivize businesses and
things to come to Charlottesville to build. They have to know that these are going to be the parking
requirements. This is where we are at this point. We mentioned different localities. We have to
remember that Charlottesville is ten square miles. We don’t have a lot of options to do different things.
Most of the property is already used. We have to keep that in mind when we use different examples
other than Charlottesville. I now do employment. One of the first things I ask them: What is your
transportation like? If they’re in the city and on the bus line, that works. That’s what I try to work with.
If they have transportation, it can really open up some options. A lot of people rely on public transit.
Once this is done, it is really not done. It’s not set in stone. Whatever we decide, people are not going to
like it. We’re going to have to be willing to go back and change it and not take a 3 to 5 year process to
do that. I am for it. I would like to see the impact on affordability. It is definitely worth reviewing.

Minimum Lots Sizes Question

Mr. Einsweiler – The second question is about lot splits. As proposed, we are suggesting that the
various lot size in residential neighborhoods get their original lot sizes as the minimum size of the lot to
subdivide to. If you had a larger lot in that neighborhood, you could split it into two lots only if you had
whatever the previous/current number is. Actual lot splits, meaning true subdivisions, would only
happen at the same rate that they do today. All of those people that have that option today will continue
to have that option. That’s about allocation of rights and leaving those underlying allocation of rights the
same even though we’re increasing the rights/the number of lots that people would be allocated would
remain the same. That’s what we have proposed to do. There are lots of reasons to consider other
options. People have brought those up. I would like to have a conversation about that. I want to remind
everybody of an idea that is also embedded with this concept. There is this sense that the additional units
that we are proposing to allow on existing single-family lots would most likely be rentals and that we’re
pushing a rental model. I want to remind everybody that we have proposed an idea in there that is called
a sub-lot. It says there is a zoning lot that is allocated rights and has obligations as a whole. There could
be a lot for sale, which is a smaller piece of that. If you had the main house and three new units, you
could actually have four sub-lots. There would still only be one lot. All this does is allow more people
the opportunity to buy less land. The alternative to sub-lots and the management of density that model
implies is that you could have no definite lot size to subdivide to. We still have challenges associated
with subdivision. Subdivision right now requires street frontage and it requires a certain width. Those
are there for a very real set of reasons, which is about access and fire safety. Those would remain true in
the sub-lot model because the full lot would have that access. The sub-lots would not individually
necessarily have that same access. They would have to meet the building code and the fire code. They
are passing those tests. There is an option to have no minimum lot size at all. As each subdivision come
forward, those decisions about access, life safety, etc. would have to be made on the basis of the
subdivision itself. It would mean that the subdivision process and discussion might be more
complicated. There would have to be heavy involvement of the fire department to determine whether the
lots were appropriate and met the fire code. There are options all along the spectrum. One of the options
proposed is to use a single lot size citywide. We can certainly do that. One of the intents of what we
have done in the diagnostic and in the modeling is to show you the implications of a variety of lot sizes,
which would generate different mixes of unit types, different availability of various unit types, in
different parts of the community. If we were to use a single lot size and a single allocation of rights
citywide or an allocation of rights that was based perhaps on the form and bulk of the building, there
would be options for even more flexibility. There are many places you could land on this spectrum. We
chose one to present to you in the diagnostic and in the modeling. We would love an opportunity to talk
about that and make certain of where we stand. It is the difference in terms of the drafting between
drafting fundamentally multiple sub-districts that are associated with today’s district in our one large

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general residential district that we have proposed. Those multiple sub-districts would have different
variables. The metrics would be turned up and down. Or whether we use a uniform set of standards
across all of that land. We would have to draft one district. The challenge of talking to the community
would be harder. We can select something in the middle or anywhere along that spectrum.

Mr. Freas – I don’t know if I have a concern. There would be more subdivisions if you go with no
minimum lot size scenario. There is a larger process there than what we might see in the sub-lots. We’re
also untested in the sub-lot territory. I don’t know exactly how that would play out from an
administrative perspective as well. I can’t give you a definitive answer.

Christy Dodson, Cville Plans Together – This conceptually shows that you may have a site. That site
can consist of lots. Those lots are based on the minimum lot width and lot area. Wherever we land on
those, the concept remains consistent. The sites will be divided into lots. It is the lot that all of the
zoning requirements would apply. Your setbacks would apply to the lot. Even if you divide a lot into
sub-lots, your front and side setbacks, whether it one lot or divided into four sub-lots, the number of
dwellings, the affordability requirements associated with that, the setbacks, building coverage
requirements, height, and massing is all going to apply to the zoning lot. In the individual sub-lots, they
are essentially there for property ownership. There are maybe some easements that would be required.
We want to make sure that there would be access through the front lot to provide access to the rear units,
whether that is vehicular access or pedestrian access. The idea is that whether this is a fully rental model
or whether it’s four separate owners, we’re still controlling things based on the lot rather than the sub-
lots. We want the configuration of those to look the same. The model, whether it is four owners for rent,
it doesn’t have different outcomes from a form perspective.

Commissioner Mitchell – I do believe that a more aggressive reduction in lot sizes is good. I am quite
‘peaked’ by the sub-lot concept. There are places where the elimination of lot sizes makes sense.

Commissioner d’Oronzio – I am generally in favor of disposing minimum lot sizes for a variety of
reasons. The sub-lot idea here, particularly if we can deal with these side lot requirements and
elimination of those, that unlocks an enormous amount of potential in a couple of things. One is housing
under 4-plex models and how those are financed. We can offload some city money into private hands.
For 3.5% down, you can do a 4 unit property. Secondly, you configure them on a sub-lot that way. You
have four units to generate four rentals. They are all connected. It unlocks other tools in how we finance
affordable housing. You can condonize that. That can be a very powerful tool to subsidize affordability.
You now have a condo association. What that pays for and who funds that condo association are wide
open. You can say that utilities are covered by the condo association. The condo association is
subsidized. In terms of building up flexibility, that’s just one direction. These access issues are evolving
all the time. It seems to me that a lot of their modeling going for access is based on fire trucks from the
1960s. Firetrucks from the third decade of the 21st century operate more like Abrams tanks when it
comes to getting access to something. I am generally in favor of it. I think it opens up a lot of flexibility
on how we finance on rent versus homeownership. I think it is a must-have.

Commissioner Habbab – I am also supportive of reducing lot sizes. I am really interested in the sub-lot
idea. How do you track the affordability requirements?

Mr. Einsweiler – In the model that we proposed, it is not an issue. I am not certain that we have
completely thought that through. Those additional sub-lots are principally sub-lots for tax purposes and
title purposes. They exist in terms of the zoning. We don’t have a zoning problem if we use them. We
potentially have some of these affordability and other management problems. If we head down this road,
Code Studio and HR&A will have to talk about that. I am not worried about tracking initial sub-lots
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because we have some clients who have successfully done it. I am worried about tracking sub-lots of
sub-lots of sub-lots if those begin to happen.

Commissioner Russell – Describe a scenario where we would have millions of sub-lots. If it is
governed by the underlying zoning, you’re only getting so many.

Mr. Einsweiler – One of the arguments is to have no lot size minimum. Theoretically, a sub-lot could
become a lot through the subdivision process if there is no subdivide to size. That is one of the questions
and one of the things that leaving at least one size in place would help us with. You could only do one
set of sub-lots.

Commissioner Russell – That is speaking to the intent of the unknown zoning but allowing for that
homeownership, which I find very intriguing. If it is true that one of the primary justifications behind
minimum lot size historically was to maintain minimum property value threshold for a city and that is
something we’re saying that we want neighborhoods to have a variety of property values that seems to
be a good avenue to explore. From an urban form, good design, streetscape, I would be curious to
understand how those are implemented in a way that doesn’t result in “hodge-podge” carve-outs. It
sounds like there are a lot of other things that govern subdivision. I am sure that there are those tools. I
am very interested in the idea of opening up more homeownership options.

Commissioner Schwarz – I came into this meeting supporting eliminating minimum lot sizes. I did not
pick up on this sub-lot concept. It is very intriguing. What would be important is to make sure it isn’t as
simple as subdividing a lot. In my neighborhood, people might want to take advantage of having an
accessory dwelling unit on their property but they can’t afford to build it. It would be much easier for
them to sell a chunk of their parcel and have someone else build on it. If it’s that simple and that easy,
that makes a lot of sense. That does promote more homeownership versus the way that I was
understanding it; if you want to maximize your lot, have 4 or 5 dwelling units on it. Nobody can do that
unless they are developer. A homeowner is not going to afford that. If this sub-lot thing could work, that
does solve a lot of problems. It does make things simpler. I am still thinking reducing lot sizes is a good
idea. We need to have a serious conversation with the fire department and to make sure that this will
work. If the sub-lot thing doesn’t work with the fire department, I would definitely recommend
eliminating minimum lot sizes. If they don’t allow you to have a little sub-parcel behind your house,
you’re sunk. Most properties in the city have large backyards.

Commissioner Stolzenberg – The subdivisions we’re talking about are for zoning lots. You could have
simple ownership of a sub-lot. I don’t understand the idea of eliminating lot sizes for zoning lots. The
whole point of a zoning lot is that is the unit. If you can infinitely subdivide, then subdivide it to a
square and that gets three units. If you want to talk about getting rid of density restrictions entirely, I am
happy to have that conversation.

Mr. Einsweiler – You would have to switch to a density restriction. It could be a high one. The only
real remaining question, based on what you have written to date, is whether you want multiple lot sizes
across the community to remain intact or not.

Commissioner Stolzenberg – That is the real question since you can’t allow infinite lot subdivisions.
The question is if we assume some lot sizes per zoning lots, what should those be? We really don’t have
minimum lot sizes in Charlottesville. If I am building a bakery, there is no limit on how I can subdivide.
You are saying that you are keeping the existing the minimum lot size for a single-family detached
house?

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Mr. Einsweiler – For what we are calling the smallest zoning lot in the general residential districts, yes.

Commissioner Stolzenberg – It would be the equivalent of the current zoning single detached house
prescription. For that we have these two standards, the 8125 square feet in an R-1 large lot and the 6000
square feet everywhere else in the city.

Mr. Einsweiler – That’s correct.

Commissioner Stolzenberg – The reasoning for that doesn’t make any sense to me. It really is a
historical artifact where it is not associated with what your current distribution of lot sizes are. It is just
based on what was R-1 in the beginning back when there was R-1 (two family) and everybody else with
unlimited density. They both became two family but still slightly different. They became one family,
two family, and converted again in 1991. The only thing left is that artifact of minimum lot size, rear
setbacks, and side setbacks.

Mr. Einsweiler – The only argument is the allocation of rights today. It is easiest to keep that allocation
of rights tomorrow because it takes one argument out of these changes.

Commissioner Stolzenberg – It is a little bit less of a change. It means having twice as many standards.
I am for making your job easier at the expense of making our job a little bit harder.

I think sub-lots are great. I am a little confused about how they would also be the subjects of the fire
problems even in a single lot. If I have an acre lot, I can’t just build a house in the back with no
driveway.

Mr. Einsweiler – No. You have to follow the fire code. How you get your access is much easier. We are
no longer talking about a formal access for the lot. We are only talking about access for your house. The
150 foot hose haul is the most important element, not the width of the street. That will be the game
changer: how close can you get a fire truck and can you get it within 150 feet of the building? That will
be one of the key factors in the fire code.

Commissioner Stolzenberg – It is great for making homeownership more obtainable. There are no
restrictions on the size of sub-lots. I can split my lot into four?

Mr. Einsweiler – Maybe. We will have to meet building code standards and fire code standards for that
thing as if it was being subdivided in spite of the fact we’re setting aside subdivision requirements. That
will still have to be buildable. No one is going to allow you to create a sub-lot that would not be
buildable.

Commissioner Stolzenberg – That is reasonable. I do have some concerns about how setbacks work
around your zoning lot. The difference between R-1s and R-1 is your side setbacks. In urban form, we
want to be careful about front setbacks, side setbacks, and rear setbacks. The way you set those is going
to determine the form the buildings take, the way they face, and a variety of other things. We do need to
work out exactly what that looks like.

I suggested we standardize our lot size. The obvious thing to do is what R-1s is. In R-1s right now, a
third of R-1s lots are already too small to be conforming. What you standardize that to is still an open
question. I don’t know if it is 6000 square feet. Set to 5000 square feet you get a lot less non-conforming
lots.

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Mr. Einsweiler – If you asked us to change the allocation of rights to a single allocation of rights, we
will likely do an analysis of the existing lot sizes similar to what you have done and make a
recommendation.

Commissioner Palmer – When I hear square feet, it is a little bit harder to understand than acreage. In
reality in our city, maybe hearing a little bit about acreage in addition to the square footage talk will
make the public understand better.

Mr. Einsweiler – At 6000 square feet, it would be less than seven units per acre.

Chairman Solla-Yates – For me, smaller is better. Consistent is better. My home is about 2000 square
feet. I think it is fantastic. I would suggest looking at that kind of analysis.

Councilor Magill – We have cleared up that there wouldn’t be a way to utilize this to subvert, by sub-
lotting, the SUP process to stop the need to bypass the affordable housing overlay. I just want to be clear
that is not possible in this.

Mr. Einseweiler – I don’t believe there is any subversion possible here. There is the ability to create
sub-lots that are as large as or larger than the existing requirements. Don’t think of these as always being
the smallest possible thing you could create. You could see a future re-subdivision of that site. That
would be the opposite of what you’re concerned about, which is someone under-utilizing the property in
order to create perhaps larger homes.

Councilor Magill – To bypass density issues by sub-lotting it down?

Mr. Einsweiler – Density would fundamentally not exist. There would be a practical density at some
point. Density would be a very specific factor in lot by lot based on what people produce there. There
would be a maximum density set for new lots. We are also enabling the same number of units on any
existing lot, not as nonconforming, but rather we’re saying all of them are conforming and allocating
them the same rights. The tightest lot today would still be able to do 3 new units and save the main
house if that was possible or maybe tear down the main house and do three new units even if they are
very small. The allocations of rights is to the lot and it is to all lots that exist today in the General
Residential district.

Councilor Magill – How do PUDs fit into this?

Mr. Einsweiler – They don’t. They will no longer be in your ordinance after this. The Planned Unit
Development is a model for flexibility. The level of flexibility is higher than most Planned Unit
Developments you’re getting. That tool is challenging. It is always one-off and someone gets these
particular rules. Someone else gets these particular rules. It’s very hard to do enforcement for those
areas. It’s very hard to manage those over time. We don’t like to recommend the Planned Development
as a tool.

Councilor Magill – My gut reaction when I heard lot splitting to meet the location of that particular
area’s minimum lot size. It gave me a gut check on redlining. If we do that and don’t make a minimum
lot size across the entire city, we’re not taking this opportunity to rectify that; but enforcing old lot sizes
that were propagated during redlining. I would be against having various, different lot sizes throughout
the city. I feel that is continuing something that we have a chance to begin to fix to some extent. It
would do more than the minimum lot size be the same throughout the city if a minimum lot size is kept.
I do agree with previous speakers that a lot of our lot sizes are more about old equipment and old
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standards versus what our current capabilities are and what our current building materials provide. A lot
of our technology is what actually reduces our house fires now versus the 1930s and 1940s. Guiding that
kind of safety, more towards lot sizes and accessibility, is where I go.

Councilor Payne – I am generally open to eliminating the minimum lot size requirement. If not
eliminating, the smaller, the better. The big picture goal would seem to be allowing more of the type of
development of small starter homes and more affordable homeownership and rental opportunities that
exist in a lot of the nonconforming lots that we can’t build today that I think a lot of people like in terms
of the built form. There could be more affordable. The overarching goal would be how to get/incentivize
that more. It would seem our current standards are one barrier to that. I would also second what
Commissioner D’Oronzio said about some of the issues beyond minimum lot sizes that also contribute
to making it harder to build that kind of development, including subdivisions and other things.

Councilor Pinkston – I am in favor of smaller lot sizes. The notion that you make providing a
recommendation sounds like looking at existing lot sizes as they have been built over the years (many
are nonconforming) you can make a recommendation of what you thought was appropriate. The notion
of completely disbanding no minimum lot sizes sounds good in theory. It seems, in practice that would
run into some barriers. If you’re able to provide a recommendation, I would support that approach. The
notion of sub-lots makes a lot of sense. I might say ‘let’s pick four;’ you could divide this four ways as
opposed to ten ways. Trying to make it infinitely divisible seems very cumbersome. Being able to divide
it into four sub-lots would give a lot of flexibility.

Mayor Snook – My first comment would basically be to agree primarily with Mr. Solla-Yates and with
others that smaller is good. More consistent is good. I will also add that a year ago I was doing a lot of
research into the question of whether single-family covenants were going to turn out to be a problem.
One of the things I discovered in my research was that most places in the city, a single-family
designation had a sunset provision 25 to 35 years down the road. A restriction that did not have a sunset
provision was no subdivisions. I will be curious to know more about how, from a legal landscape, we
are going to connect some of that.

Mr. Einsweiler – We have not yet asked whether sub-lots would be considered formally a subdivision.
That might have to be litigated before we knew the answer. We will ask the attorney.

Vice-Mayor Wade – I am supportive of the sub-lot notion. In certain parcels, we can look at
eliminating the setbacks. In certain parcels, it has probably already been done. It is probably few enough
that we can do that.

Commissioner Stolzenberg – I feel we could improve our terminology here. We have been using lot to
refer to a zoning lot and sub-lots as a buildable or saleable lot. I feel that is causing a lot of confusion.
Maybe it is a matter of always saying zoning lot.

Mr. Einsweiler – That is the best because that is its function. We do use site and lot. A site might be a
zoning lot. A zoning lot might also be divisible into a smaller set pair or three. We will be very careful
in the language of the ordinance. We should work among ourselves to try to use the set of them
correctly. I believe that we have started a glossary on the website. We will try to make sure that each of
those is clearly defined the way that we think they ought to be used. We will see if those glossary terms
help.



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Affordable Housing Overlay Question

Mr. Kash – The third question is really looking at middle density and allowing middle density in single-
family neighborhoods through an affordable overlay. When we looked at this in our analysis, we looked
at it first through an incentive approach. If you were to allow a high level of density, how much
affordable housing would it create through an inclusionary standpoint? You can do that. It’s going to
give you a relatively modest amount of affordable housing; about ten percent. People that are advocating
for that talk about the example of the affordable housing overlay. Cambridge, MA has done this.
They’re not necessarily thinking along those lines. They’re thinking about along the lines that if you
were to allow this, it lowers the total cost for housing (on the land side) and makes them more
competitive for purchasing the site and opens up more sites for development. It allows for more housing.
Those are all valid points. This approach of allowing moderate density is not going to be a particularly
effective approach from an inclusionary standpoint. It can be a way to open the door to create affordable
housing in General Residential neighborhoods and make the subsidy necessary to build out housing that
is significantly less. You still are going to need subsidy to build the housing. It is going to be particularly
less if targeting 60 percent AMI.

We (HR&A) are a real estate, economic development, and policy consulting firm; not a land use or
architectural design firm. You are talking about potentially allowing middle density into General
Residential. That is a significantly larger and denser property. I have opinions on that topic but I am not
an expert on that topic. There is a real benefit here. There are examples of middle density being done.
We have talked about Cambridge. Cambridge has a different building style. It has worked in Cambridge
largely in coordination with subsidy from the local government. It can be a useful strategy. It is very
different than the inclusionary zoning. It is a very different thing and it should be done separately from
the inclusionary zoning. The inclusionary zoning analysis that we have done and the analysis we did
about general density for single-family neighborhoods general residential allows for up to five units. For
those kinds of developments, the real benefit is that you might get some affordable housing. You’re just
creating density at a lower price point. Affordability as opposed to affordable, those are lower price
point houses closer to households that are more entry level homeownership. It is not the same thing as
getting deeper levels of affordability. That’s why we have a recommendation focusing on that
affordability piece and allowing some with up to five units on sites with a two unit bonus. You could
take it farther. You could go to Middle Density, which is 12 units. It is a tradeoff here. Whether you
want to allow that level of density is primarily going to be for subsidized projects. With the cheaper land
prices, you’re going to need other funding to come in.

Ms. Seltzer – As a reminder on your CAHF, which is the primary vehicle of subsidy right now. It is
about $45,000 per unit on average. Those are multifamily projects. Given the land cost of your General
Residential areas, it would represent an uptick in subsidy that would need to be committed for those
areas. You all have committed to increasing the overall level of the CAHF. It’s a density question and a
subsidy question. In particular, if the concern is improving opportunities, reducing displacement, and
how we encourage historically marginalized groups to have entry points into neighborhoods that have
been historically exclusionary, it is a deeper level of affordability that calls for a deeper level of subsidy
that is needed.

Mr. Schwarz – When we’re talking about everything above the base density would be affordable, what
is the base density? Is that 3 or 4 market rate units and everything above that is affordable? Is that what
they’re asking?

Jenny Koch, Cville Plans Together – In the General Residential areas, the Comprehensive Plan calls
for three units or up to four units if you keep the existing house in either divided into multiple units or
                                                                                                                  19
you add units to the property. The question Commissioner Schwarz is asking about is to gauge how you
feel about the idea to allow that same base density up to 3 or 4 and everything above that up to 12 would
be allowed in General residential if it was affordable at a level to be determined. That would be
determined later.

Commissioner Habbab –When we first talked about using an overlay that had some repercussions in
the zoning in the way that it was going to be written that we worded that into some kind of affordability
bonus type of description. Would it make sense to keep that and have a tiered bonus for the purposes of
keeping with the same language that we set up? Or would we have that as an overlay?

Mr. Freas – Broadly, our objective is to stay away from overlays to the extent possible. Leaving aside
the subject matter of the conversation. The term ‘overlay’ has been used a lot. Whatever kind of decision
we come to, we would aim to build it into the zoning itself. An overlay is a separate level of zoning that
overlays on top of the base zoning. We would just build it into the base zoning and not create the
challenges of an overlay. You only do an overlay if there is a geographic component. If you say that
you’re only going to allow this in this area, then it makes sense to use an overlay as a vehicle to get to
that objective. I don’t think that is what is being proposed. This is being proposed across all residential
districts. There is no reason to stick it in a separate section.

Commissioner Russell – In that regard, it really is what Commissioner Habbab is describing. It would
be a ramped up version of the inclusionary zoning?

Mr. Freas – It would be a different set of standards. This is not part of the inclusionary zoning.
Inclusionary zoning is a bonus system. It would just be another section within the base district. This is
another option available for property owner or developer. It would be as Commissioner Habbab
described.

Commissioner Mitchell – This is a little confusing for me. You helped me with the yield question. The
answer to the question that I would ask about this is that this is not feasible based on yield. The other
point I would make is that it is feasible based on the equity multiple. Based on yield, this would not be
feasible. The only way we can do this is through subsidies. Do we know how much money we have
available for subsidies? How many developments like this would the subsidies generate?

Mr. Freas – The short answer is no. We don’t know how much subsidy we have. What you are hitting
on is exactly right. The level of subsidy available would be the limiting factor on this type of project
going forward. Generally, production of affordable housing is limited by the amount of subsidy
available, the money available from public sources, and land availability, which limits all development
to a certain degree. In some respects, what is being proposed is a way to loosen up that land availability
issue.

Commissioner Mitchell – The only value this has in the moment is freeing up land to be developed?
Frankly, we can’t make any decisions. We can’t begin writing any ordinances until we know what sort
of money Council is going to be able to allocate.

Councilor Payne – The adopted Affordable Housing Plan is ten million a year. That would be the
expected amount if we live up to that commitment.

Commissioner Mitchell – A lot of that money is legally spoken for.


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Commissioner Stolzenberg – Not necessarily just limited to the city subsidy. Mackenzie Scott just
gave a whole bunch of money to our local Habitat. Habitat is really thinking about building units here.
We often subsidize Habitat. They can often find other donations too sometimes to build homes. It would
still apply to those as long as they are affordable.

Commissioner d’Oronzio – It would seem to me if we were privileging affordability by starting with
the base of General Residential. My understanding of this is that we’re allowing a sliding scale all the
way up to the full maximum density if it is workable. If we’re trying to generate affordable units, it
would seem to me that the idea of an overlay or a privileging for affordable units needs to be set at a
level that produces affordable units under General Residential density in a more privileged way. The
bonus that we’re giving in General Residential is “you get your extra unit.” Does the math add up if you
say that you can build three or go up to five if it is affordable. Does it make sense if we’re going to start
privileging in General Residential to structure General Residential to be more heavily weighted to
privilege the upper level of what we’re calling General Residential? I don’t know if the math adds up for
that. Anything that privileges affordable housing and pushes that is something that I generally support.

Mr. Einsweiler – It is getting out of math territory and into urban form territory. What we have seen,
based on market affordability would mean a high number of units would be needed. We then get
subsidized affordability. The decisions you have to make is if you choose to go there in General
Residential is what is the urban form that you would allow? Is it the same as what you would build
under the standard market affordability? Or are you actually adding bulk, mass, an additional story,
additional lot coverage, less parking, and less trees? Are we willing to go to those extents to get that
affordability in those settings? We can get affordability. We have proved out that we can get
affordability under the ten and above units, under our IZ program. What we’re talking about now is
taking that up to ten unit piece and trying to find a way to make it work. The way that you make it work
is that you give them more height, give more lot coverage. You give them something so you can get
those extra units at reasonable size on that land. You can choose to do that. It will generate some results
that we will struggle to write the right form rules to try to truly make it match. It’s not going to be a
perfect match for the existing neighborhoods. We’re already pushing that envelope with what we’re
doing. Perhaps this is an acceptable thing. I just want to have a real clear answer to that before we go
marching down that road and try to make of that more intense form fit in successfully in those settings.

Commissioner Habbab – I like the concept. We will have our regular bonus that gets us, from what I
read, up to five units in the General Residential if you provide an affordable unit. Even if it’s not
feasible for our regular developers, it’s really opening up the land for the nonprofits to develop up to
medium intensity anywhere in General Residential. I think that’s a good goal. Those questions about
scale are harder to tackle. To answer the main question, I do support it. We will figure out the scale
afterwards.

Commissioner Russell – I understand what the strategy is attempting to do and to allow for more
affordable units in historically more segregated and wealthier neighborhoods. At the same time, it is
contrary to what we have said density in form and height perhaps should be in those neighborhoods.
What is housing size? If it is smaller units, denser fits in? Is that good? I am struggling with this one. I
am little more reluctant than with the other strategies.

Commissioner Schwarz – I think that I support this. For one, it is not likely to happen unless there are
going to be grants and subsidies come in. It’s not like we’re going to see 12 unit buildings popping up
throughout the city. At the same time, the goals of the Comp Plan are to provide more affordable
housing. We’re saying that if you can make it work, you can get the funding, and you can do it, and it’s
all going to be 3 or 4 market rate units and everything about that is affordable, go for it. The forms that
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you are describing for the medium intensity residential districts are not that crazy. They’re not huge.
There is stuff we probably would have seen in Charlottesville had we not instituted a new zoning code.
If you look at the Venable neighborhood, there are apartment buildings fitting in very nicely next some
of the large, expensive houses. I think it could work. I am in support of this.

Commissioner Stolzenberg – Speaking to form and bulk, what I hear over and over from skeptics of
the plan, aside from a small minority who say no affordable housing/no change in the city, the vast
majority of people in the city say that we care deeply about affordable housing. They are skeptical of
this plan because you’re going to allow this bulk especially medium intensity. You don’t even know if
it’s going to be affordable. Our IZ rules and our bonuses will help us get some affordability in those new
market rate projects. It is important to have new market rate housing. Practically everybody agrees that
if something is 100% affordable or everything is affordable above base density or just extremely
affordable, you’re getting affordable units, we’re willing to make those sacrifices of seeing an extra
story on the building down the block. To me, it’s a no brainer to allow additional bulk and allow those
bonuses for 100 percent affordable over base density units. There probably does need to be some leeway
even within the normal bonus amount. There is language in the Comprehensive Plan that supports both
of those. Even going to three stories if that five unit within your normal density bonus is very
reasonable, especially considering the current R-1 height limit is 3.5 stories. I am still skeptical of how
we’re going to do that. I know we talked about 35 feet and putting 2 stories and 35 feet. You’re getting
high ceilings. It seems to be a weird incentive. At the very least, we need to be maxing out the current
envelope that a building can be built to. If it’s affordable, it is a no brainer to give those rights for
additional bulk. Aside from bulk, how that is implemented as a bonus, in general residential, three units
is your base. Your bonus is you get one market rate unit if you get one affordable unit. It makes sense to
carry that pattern forward. If you do one more affordable unit and one more market rate unit that
approaches 50 percent affordable, which is good if you’re building it without subsidy. On most sites,
that’s not going to pencil anyway. There might be some sites where that does work. If we recognize
that’s a good thing, I don’t know why you wouldn’t allow it. On subsidized projects, the penciling
doesn’t matter as much and it will work there. That’s what I would recommend.

Chairman Solla-Yates – A core principle that I have been bringing into this since the beginning is how
we give people access to opportunity, how we deliver on these equity goals. I haven’t seen it clearly in
the code yet. I think that I am seeing it here. This could mean some visual changes in some areas. We’re
talking about a small number of players who are out to do some good. I want to help them.

Councilor Magill – What we currently have in the inclusionary zoning is that it stays with the current
density that area is designated. Over the allowable by right, it is 60 percent AMI affordability. How
many is that?

Mr. Kash – For General Residential, if you build one affordable unit, you get two bonus units. We have
set up a mandatory inclusionary zoning policy for ten and above. We think there’s enough market rate
units to actually support the affordable units. We also set up a voluntary inclusionary zoning for less
because there may be situations where it works or people are paying subsidy. We want to give them
some bonus support to support that.

Councilor Magill – At ten and above in what zoning area?

Mr. Kash – Ten and above anywhere you are allowed to build ten and above.

Councilor Magill – That is not General Residential?

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Mr. Kash – It is not General Residential.

Councilor Magill – The current inclusionary zoning says that you can build ten and above. If you go
above that, they have to be at 60 percent affordable?

Mr. Kash – If you build ten units, one of them would have to be 60 percent affordable. A middle
density site can only build six units, you don’t have any requirement there. You could get a bonus and
build affordable. For General Residential, it is two. What we’re talking about is just cranking up that
bonus and maybe having multiple tiers to it for General Residential for a deeper level of affordability or
allowing more bonus units. There was a comment made about allowing that one-for-one match. Not
requiring every additional unit be affordable; you could do that in the rezoning. It still wouldn’t pencil.
It would reduce the amount of subsidy you would need to do a development. It might be helpful to a
developer.

Councilor Magill – We keep going tangential on this. This is not my ‘wheelhouse.’ The overlay idea
wouldn’t be an overlay. I am using the language that is being presented.

Mr. Kash – It is additional units in exchange for affordability. You have a great deal of flexibility on
the level of affordability. The main thing we’re talking about right now is how far you would let people
take that in General Residential areas. We don’t have a great economic and financial analysis for you on
that because the economics on the deal don’t work. It’s going to have subsidy. By allowing more
density, it does reduce the amount of subsidy that is needed. It does benefit affordable housing. It’s not a
2 to 1 ratio or 3 to 1 ratio.

Councilor Magill – What is being asked/posed is that all of them are 50 percent. If all of the units are
50 percent AMI or below, that can go up an entire level of density.

Mr. Kash – That is my understanding.

Mr. Einsweiler – The base in General Residential is 3 new units. You can have 4 units on the site if you
retain the existing home. That’s the base. When people are talking about going above the base in
General Residential up to medium intensity, it’s just raising the total number of units. There would be
open conversation about whether you would get the 3 market units or not or whether all of them would
have to be affordable. All of those are ideas you guys could talk about. The fundamental challenge that I
feel we’re really up against is how you feel about allocating rights that change the urban form in that
district in trade for affordability.

Councilor Magill – As long as it is all affordable, it is affordable for the 99 years plus. Can that happen
with LI HTC property? A LI HTC credit is a 30 year credit. How can we guarantee that beyond 30
years?

Mr. Kash – The LI HTC credit is a 15 year credit. There are 30 year affordability periods, 40 year
affordability periods, and 50 year affordability periods. There are places in the country where you can go
to 99 years. The major challenge that goes with that is whether there is going to be sufficient capital to
maintain and repair the property. By eliminating the rental income on property, you create a challenge of
not raising the rent to pay for new things on the house.

Councilor Magill – I am all for this in a lot of ways. When I work out the rents again, it is 902
difference down in rents that could be also utilized for student level housing. Students meet the
classification of being below 50, 60, 30, 40 percent AMI. The students are usually living on loans. Not
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that many of our students don’t deserve good, fair, and affordable housing so that they can move
forward in life. That’s a separate area of our need. I just want to make sure that as we are putting things
in that are meant to be for affordable housing for our population that is here after four years and that we
are making sure that it doesn’t get abused.

Mr. Kash – Affordable housing programs can absolutely reach students separately with tax credits
developments. Tax credit development don’t treat them the same income-wise. The same rules can apply
for the inclusionary zoning. We haven’t written all of the administrative rules. We could use tax rules
for these properties. While you value students, the primary population we’re serving are long-term
residents.

Councilor Magill – I also don’t limit our population to those who want to end up going and bettering
themselves and have to choose between their housing. We also have to look at something in that too that
allows for people to grow. It is people coming in, using the resources for four years, and leaving.

Mr. Kash – This is more of a case when we get into the administrative side about how we’re defining
students and what the different definitions allow. Going back to school part-time while you’re working
wouldn’t necessarily qualify you as a student. We can write these rules and try to get them as inclusive
or we can write these rules and exclude students. The challenge of including students is there is not an
easy way to differentiate students who have low incomes because they’re currently students and students
who are coming from a low-income background. There are rules and methods you can start to look at
related to the families they are coming from. That gets much more complicated to administer. There are
some fair housing limitations. You have a great deal of flexibility when it comes to students. Drawing
the line is not a case by case situation line that applies to everybody. You’re either to include some
people you didn’t want to include or exclude some people you wanted to include.

Commissioner d’Oronzio – We have been wanting to avoid using the word ‘overlay.’ This is the time
to call it an overlay. When we look back at the 1991 downzone, that student area is out. It’s the rest of
the city that gets the overlay. It doesn’t make it perfect. It will segregate that large student population
area and unprivilege it for that General Residential swing up to 12 if you want to avoid having the
students be the inadvertent over-benefited persons.

Mr. Freas – A lot of these are issues that are going to be addressed in the administrative section. The
key question we’re trying to get answered is that tradeoff around density for affordable housing and see
where the feedback is on that.

Councilor Magill – Fundamentally, I agree with others that spoke. I don’t think this is going to be a
massive problem throughout the city. As far as increased density all over that was zoned otherwise, this
is going to be very particular areas that still have some ability to increase some density. As long as we’re
making it that all of them are affordable or that we’re working to make sure that the longevity ability to
maintain the property is somehow addressed and we’re thinking forward on some of this.

Councilor Payne – I strongly support the approach of the additional bonus. Philosophically thinking
about the approach to it and other things going forward are our Comprehensive Plan update and
Affordable Housing Strategy. The most important components are deeply affordable housing at 0 to 30
percent AMI as the most critical point and 30 to 50 percent AMI above that. It is important for us to
acknowledge that inclusionary zoning is one tool. All things considered, it is a pretty weak and limited
tool. It is better than nothing. If we’re expecting to rely on that, we’re going to be massively short of our
expectations. Supply and density are necessary but not sufficient. It is critical to acknowledge that
supply on its own will primarily benefit people the first 30 years or so until that new housing ages. It
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will primarily benefit people making $80,000 to $90,000 a year; not a family or a single parent making
$15 an hour working full time. The free market won’t provide that deeply affordable housing. That’s
going to have to come from subsidy, our housing authority, and nonprofit developers. Anything that
supports and promotes that is absolutely necessary and critical. This is something the market will not
respond to but it will help the housing authority if they have purchased land through a land bank. It
would have the ability to provide more housing under this framework. That is why I think it is a positive
thing that I support. When it comes to development, deeply affordable housing of 0 to 30 percent AMI,
all bets are off in terms of what helps produce that. Whatever it takes to get there, I am in support of.

Councilor Pinkston – I think this is a great idea. I support it. I understand the point that you’re making
about the tradeoff being how you get this to fit with the form of adjacent areas. The whole piece about
how much is affordable, what those levels are going to be will really depend on the case itself and
Habitat or PHA and the case they can build and the funding. It will be decided on a case by case basis in
terms of what that particular developer can figure out. If I was a person in the public who was unhappy
with all of this, you said that the Comp Plan said that this is General Residential; this is residential with
a sensitive overlay and medium intensity residential. There was all of this furor about areas that are
medium intensity residential. It feels like this is an ‘end around’ those conversations and we will just
allow this to happen. I think it is a great idea. The actual number of developments that would happen
will be very small. I wonder, from a credibility perspective from people who were here before, what
their opinions might on that.

Mayor Snook – We told people last year that the different between General Residential and medium
intensity level would be related to things like the carrying capacity of the streets and other issues like
that. We were going to have houses and buildings that would essentially look like the other houses in the
area and various other reasons we were giving particularly for those spots where we took a parcel out of
the medium intensity residential and put it back into General Residential. There was a reason for that.
The reason for that had nothing to do with affordability. It had everything to do with the conditions on
the ground, on the street, and what it was going to look like. This proposal basically says that we’re
abandoning that logic and that discussion we had last year.

The second point is that we have to acknowledge that this proposal cannot work without significant
subsidies for each one of the units. Let us acknowledge that one of the purposes of the rezoning request
and the Future Land Use Map was that we would be able to incentivize non-subsidized market based
solutions, not more excuses to spend whatever the current figure is per unit. Let’s acknowledge that this
is a very different philosophy from what we have previously been discussing.

The third point is that the present value of 10 years’ income stream of the difference between a 50
percent AMI and 100 percent AMI (for a two bedroom apartment) would work out to around $1000 a
month/ten years/6 percent is about $92,000, not $45,000. If we want to look at a 99 year period, it goes
to a little more than double that; about $200,000 difference in the income stream. What we would be
doing is hoping that a contractor or developer would take a $92,000 hit on potentially 8 more units for
what reason. It is great if it’s nonprofit. Only a nonprofit is going to look at that. Let’s not be under any
allusions that somehow or another, you’re not going to get very many people other than nonprofits. If it
is a nonprofit, we’re in the business of $45,000 per unit subsidy from the city.

My first objection to it overall is that this is fundamentally different and a betrayal of what we told
people last year. If you’re in General Residential, we are distinguishing between you and the medium
intensity residential for reasons that are true planning reasons and not just political reasons. I would be
fine with the idea of maybe an additional unit or two, an additional unit if one is affordable, that’s a little
bit of a change. It’s not going from 4 to 12 or something of that seriousness.
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Vice-Mayor Wade – From what has been said, I agree with what Councilor Payne said. I would like to
specifically have the Housing Authority be listening in. The plan has a strong component of affordable
housing. They are the nonprofit that can do it. Part of their title is development or redevelopment. They
can serve that role. They’re willing to step up in that role. When I was in school at Norfolk State, the
Housing Authority played a major role in addressing the affordable housing. It’s not just one thing. They
can do it. We’re looking at the housing fund, Habitat, PHA, bonus units, and things. We need to have
the Housing Authority. They know the population. They know what they’re doing. They know how to
tap into those funds. We can get a lot more units done if they play a bigger role.

Commissioner Russell – Is this a situation in which our discretionary process actually would be helpful
to have these cases come to the Planning Commission and Council and talk about the merits of what it is
as part of the public process?

Mr. Einsweiler – In general, any discretionary process is a deterrent to asking for more. As planned at
the moment, the only bonuses we’re proposing are within the code. You can access them without saying
“mother may I.” I don’t disagree that a public conversation can yield a better project. Very often a public
conversation yields consternation, maybe on both sides. There will likely be people who believe very
strongly that the project needs to go through regardless of the issues associated with its urban form.
There will be others who think that is a terrible thing you have done to them and their neighborhood.
There will be no choice in that conversation but to set up that dichotomy. We don’t have a good way to
have that conversation other than a battle in a win or lose vote. I’m not certain that we shouldn’t just do
it once; meaning bodies like yours should make the decision twice. You will have to make a
recommendation to us. We will have to draft the language and come back. You will then have to adopt
it. Fundamentally, that brings us to more of a policy decision. While making that policy decision, you
will be hashing out the best answer. It will be a more generic answer across the wide variety of
neighborhoods. Doing that once is much more beneficial to all the players in the system than having to
do it continually. My guess is that it would simply be avoided by all but the most stalwart entities who
have a great track record and really know how to do it.

Commissioner Stolzenberg – Even if it is a by-right bonus, they’re probably coming to the CAHF
Committee for the local funding. At that point, the CAHF Committee will decide whether it is an
appropriate use of funds. I am sure there will be a variety of projects asking for funds depending on the
nature of the site and the project. There might be one in General Residential that comes in at $30,000
and seems worth it per unit. I feel you end up getting that public process regardless because these would
be nonprofits and almost certainly require local subsidy.

Mayor Snook – The decision is being made by CAHF. It is not being made by City Council and the
Planning Commission. It is coming down to, regardless of the conditions on the street, we’re saying
‘sure, we’ll give you $30,000 per unit’ or ‘no we won’t give you $45,000 per unit.’ That’s the only
criteria for the decision.

Councilor Payne – My concern is also the part of the Comp Plan is that we would be prioritizing deeply
affordable housing. We just be up front. Without this under our current zoning rewrite framework, let’s
make it concrete. Let’s say a single parent working full time making $15 an hour, there is absolutely
nothing in our zoning rewrite process will benefit that parent at least for 30 years when that housing ages
and becomes affordable. I don’t think there’s been any analysis to suggest otherwise. There are still
other benefits that may make it worth doing for other reasons. The only way we’re going to get to that
deeper level is public subsidy. The free market is just never going to provide housing at 0 to 30 percent
AMI, probably 30 to 50 percent AMI. We should be upfront. We have other aspects like land banking
                                                                                                              26
housing strategies and subsidy. When it comes to anything in our zoning, if we don’t do this, we should
be up front about it. A lot of people would consider that a betrayal of the goals of the Comp Plan.
Everything is a tradeoff. The points that have been raised are legitimate.

A final point, let’s take a look at the affordable housing on Park Street that the PHA is doing. My
concern is: Do we have an approach, if we removed discretionary decision-making on the City Council’s
end, make that project less feasible or not feasible in terms of getting to the level of density we decided
was worth it because it was 100 percent/significantly deeply affordable?

Councilor Pinkston – One of the major points of the Comp Plan (Councilor Payne) was to get to the
lower ranges of AMI that you listed. Another part of it was to increase density in housing for missing
middle and everything else. That’s part of what we’re doing here. It is not as if this is not doing any
good for the city, this overall approach. It is not meeting (by your analysis) one of the key things we said
that we wanted to do, which was the lower ranges for the AMI. I can appreciate that. Is that the case
even if with the MIR in the high intensity that we’re not getting to those lower ranges?

Councilor Payne – I would think not really. The inclusionary zoning may include a few units
particularly if we’re pairing them with vouchers in some way. The absolute number of units isn’t going
to be that much. There are people who make significantly less; a single mom working full time making
$15 an hour. I don’t see it opening up housing options for them even in medium and high intensity
residential at least for 30 or 40 years until that new housing ages.

Councilor Pinkston – Can somebody from the team help me understand with the (Medium Intensity
Residential) MIR and high intensity? Are we getting some of that with the bonuses?

Mr. Kash – The 60 percent AMI units are not households making $30,000 a year. The statement made
earlier is something we worked through with the housing planning process. Land use doesn’t get you the
deepest levels of affordability. You have to have subsidy in play to reach those prices. The market
cannot build the price point and maintain the property that the incomes can support.

Councilor Pinkston – Zoning was just one piece of the Affordable Housing Plan that was adopted.
We’re committed to doing at least $8 million a year in direct subsidies.

Councilor Payne – With the zoning piece, there would be some symbiotic benefit of combining our
subsidy if you have 100 percent affordability, they’re able to build more units because we are
landlocked at 10.5 square miles. That’s just going to help get more of that deeply affordable housing
realistically out into the community.

Some people would say that it is still a fight to get a wage to $15 an hour. People would consider that a
win. Sixty percent AMI isn’t even meeting that. There are plenty of people who make less than $15 an
hour. My concern throughout this whole process has been that we said we were going to focus on both:
focus on that person making $90 to $100 thousand a year who still does need housing and deep
affordability. My concern has always been and continues to be that it is way easier meet that higher end.
We will fulfill that commitment for young professionals, middle class, or upper middle class families
who need housing. We will never actually fulfill our commitment at 0 to 30 percent AMI. There’s a lot
of inertia that makes that the default outcome. That’s my concern. I see an opportunity to advance that
end through this.

Councilor Pinkston – I would go along with that if a commitment had not been made to the public a
year ago that we’re not going to push that out into the General Residential.
                                                                                                               27
Mayor Snook – We are already saying that we want hundreds of lots to now become medium intensity.
If we get to the point, where we have filled up those hundred lots without doing any of this. There’s no
reason why those hundreds of lots can’t have $45,000 worth of subsidies on them if the CRHA finds the
correct opportunity. We don’t need to be going into the General Residential at this point in order to
use/soak up whatever market may be for this kind of project for the next 20 years probably.

Councilor Magill – We need to have a process. If there is a chunk of land that a nonprofit can move
forward with; I am going to use our local churches who have recently been coming forward with
property and wanting to do something else as part of their social mission to be part of the solution for
affordable housing. If that is in a place that is General Residential and we don’t have something like this
in place and we don’t have an SUP process, how do we provide that? The current SUP process is
prohibitively expensive, especially for small nonprofits, who are trying to make that affordable housing.
By having something in place, they can use with these more extensive, deeper levels of affordability
already in place, gives an ability to have more deeply affordable housing. Sixty percent AMI is
approximately $19 an hour.

Commissioner Habbab – When we were looking at the Comp Plan, we did look at the overlay. We
pushed that into the affordability bonus with an undefined number bonus or affordability to figure out. I
still think it is in line with what we previously talked about. Most of the public speakers, from my
recollection, were in support of that move and if it truly provided affordable housing. That was the
biggest concern.

Commissioner Stolzenberg – In the plan, there’s aub strategy for land use 1.4 that says “consider
deployment of an affordable housing overlay or similar designation to incentivize long-term
affordability for a variety of housing types, prioritize methods that support deep affordability, and
affordable housing overlays.” It is exactly the thing we discussed last year at length that the HAC
(Housing Advisory Committee) proposed even in the General Residential chart. It says allowing
additional units and height in an affordability bonus program. I think we intentionally kept it on the table
precisely to allow a program like this that would allow nonprofits to provide more deeply affordable
units in conjunction with and supported by our commitment to funding our affordable housing plan. If I
could also address the idea of it being a betrayal of the planning; some of it doesn’t pencil. It will need
an explicit benevolent nonprofit or CRHA partner to do. You’re looking at low single digits, probably
no more than two of these in the entire city feasibly. Because it is so few, from a planning perspective
and capacity perspective, anyone would agree that any single street in the city could handle a 12-plex on
it. The areas we designated for medium intensity (it will take many years to get there) could conceivably
all be 12-plexes. It’s very difficult for me to see an argument where a street in the city could not see a
single parcel go to more than 5 units without hitting capacity. When I think about the Rugby House (the
12-plex the whole Rugby neighborhood was subdivided from), it is on Cottage Lane. That is a small
street. It is a very typical neighborhood street in terms of being capacity constrained.

Mayor Snook – It is also the only house where many blocks around meet those criteria. There’s nothing
in this suggestion that would say you couldn’t have two or three of them on a street. We would maybe
have to write that in. It is being written as though it is a by right at that point if you come in with the
right set of numbers.

Commissioner Stolzenberg – I think that is true because it is such a rare thing for it happen; because it
is so financially infeasible that you’re only going to get one or two a year across the city. Is it possible
that a nonprofit could do the same street year after year and go one by one?

                                                                                                               28
Mayor Snook – That just happened with the people on Park Street. They have two proposals within
three blocks that are going to drastically increase their traffic and their population density. They feel that
they’re exactly in that situation.

Councilor Payne – That’s an important example. One of my concerns is that if we’re changing our
fundamental land use decision-making process, without this are we setting up a situation where we say
‘think the projects on Park Street are a bad idea or shouldn’t be able to happen.’ There were tradeoffs
with those projects. Ultimately, we decided to support them because we thought the tradeoffs were
worth it. I don’t want us to box ourselves into a situation where that doesn’t become possible going
forward or it becomes harder for it to become possible. Everything is tradeoffs. We all agree that they
were worth it in that case and necessary.

Commissioner Stolzenberg – They’re not in General Residential. They’re many times larger than even
the most we’re talking about under the overlay.

Councilor Pinkston – This brings me back to Commissioner Russell’s point about whether invoking
this might call it SUP Lite, some sort of mechanism where there was a level of review with Council.

Commissioner Habbab – We heard it from the public. It is the concept of having that affordability
requirement for homeownership that might have a negative impact on some of our nonprofits. I just
want to raise that concern in terms of length of time. If there’s a possibility of splitting the requirements
if there is homeownership, what could we do to make that work for them?

Commissioner Mitchell – We do need a commitment from Mr. Freas that two unanswered questions
will be addressed. One was the 99 year and the other was the critical slope. We need a commitment that
you’re not going to move forward until we have a debate/discussion about that.

Mr. Freas – I think we already noted on the 99 year. In the presentation, we already included a note in
there that is easily addressed in the administrative rules. For us, that’s easy.

Mr. Kash – The 99 years on the homeownership is a big ask and locking it in at 60 percent AMI really
does limit the buyer pool. It is a valid point that is being raised. There are a numbers of places where we
can set it. We can keep it 99 years at 60 percent AMI. There is a whole spectrum of options. On one end
is deep affordability for 99 years at 60 percent AMI. The other end is after the initial homebuyer owns
the house and they choose to sell it, there is no long term affordability restriction. In between those two
are several different options which we laid out in the original housing plan. What we’re going to do in
the administrative policy is lay out a couple of those in-between options for the city.

Ms. Seltzer – One addition is that we would recommend that policy also matches whatever the
requirements are for your down payment assistance programs, the types of programs that Habitat is
using and a critical part of production. We would look closely at how those mortgages get made and
sold on the backend through programs and make sure it lines up.

Mr. Einsweiler – I was going to suggest that things we are thinking of as simple is not because the
policy question is simple but amending the documents that go with this is simple. What we are talking
about here are that we have a limited amount of money to draft as does HR&A. We’re trying to mostly
do it once. Elements that require us to generate additional districts require us to generate variations on
things. We just want to know and go draft those and hopefully come back. If you want to take something
out later, that’s fine. We should not be trying after the first draft to add to the set at this stage. It will be
pretty challenging to do that in terms of having had these conversations where we’re hoping to reach
                                                                                                                    29
  some closure, not limiting you in what you can change. A simple thing like a change to the AMI is a
  number in a code. It has enormous implications. In terms of drafting, it’s very simple to work through
  the policy implications of that. Questions about generating different urban forms that we now need to
  speak with the public about and have some fairly difficult conversations, those are more important to us.
  If you want unlimited form in a trade for affordability, we need to be able to work through that issue
  with the public and help them understand what you’re talking about both financially and physically on
  the ground. We were looking to reach some closure on these issues so that we can get closer to drafting
  just once. I am not sure we have reached closure on this last one. I don’t know if I want you to do a
  straw poll. If we are to keep this idea alive of all affordable or only the new affordable, that’s easy. If
  we’re keeping this idea alive, that’s what we need to hear tonight. We will have to draft a district that
  does that. Whether we allow that district only through a discretionary process or not, that’s easy.
  Whether we draft it in the first place is the fundamental question that we’re asking.

  Commissioner Mitchell – I do want a commitment that we’re going to talk about the critical slopes at
  some point. I do not think Council should delegate its authority away to an engineering department.

  Mr. Einsweiler – With critical slopes, one part would be the standards that are in it, the requirements
  for review, the documents that are needed, are all related to engineering. We would like to move it to
  engineering for that reason. If you want to retain the review process, I think we can do that. The one
  implication is no variance. A variance goes to the BZA. There would have to be another model for how
  you achieve the equivalent of a variance in a Planning Commission and Council review of critical
  slopes. If the expressed language of the code says the flexibility only applies up to 30 percent slopes and
  somebody has a 32 percent slope, normally he would have to go to the BZA to break a rule like that. It
  would be similar to that. We would need to add a piece of flexibility. That issue would have to be
  worked on. You would not be in the zoning world if we move these. It is part of the intent. It doesn’t
  mean you can’t have the flexibility to think the kinds of settings it might be OK to modify the basic
  standards of critical slopes. We think it is an engineering discussion. The planners and others should
  fundamentally not be the key and the keepers.


3. Public Comments

  The Public provided comments via email and cards. The follow pages contain the emails and cards that were
  submitted by members of the public.

  The meeting was adjourned at 8:49 PM.




                                                                                                                30
                                                Cville Plans Together <cvilleplanstogether@gmail.com>



Public comment on Work Session with City Council and Planning Commission
1 message

Steve Myers <steve@writetosteve.com>                                      Sun, Sep 25, 2022 at 3:27 PM
To: engage@cvilleplanstogether.com

 Dear Council and Commission,

 I am writing to share some thoughts as a homeowner regarding on the "Key Questions"
 under discussion at the Work Session.

 This whole exercise is completely unnecessary and I would suggest it is being done for
 the benefit of the organizers rather than the community. The organizers want to feel
 good about themselves. If individual residents need financial assistance, then that is
 what should be provided. You will recall that "Obamacare" destroyed the healthcare of
 92 percent of the US population in order to help a tiny minority who could not afford it,
 and incidentally still don't have it. Likewise, this plan would destroy nice neighborhoods
 in the city, containing homes that people have worked hard to afford, in order to help a
 tiny minority who are having financial difficulties.

 If the city government feels it needs to become involved, why not offer housing
 subsidies to the less well-off or even help them to put down a deposit, so they can lift
 themselves out of poverty?

 Consequently, I oppose the reduction or elimination of parking minimums. The city
 could also improve public transit to reduce the need for car ownership before reducing
 parking minimums. This is poorly considered and should be abandoned.

 Lot subdivisions should only be allowed according to current minimum size and street
 frontage rules. To remove these restrictions would create a free-for-all and before you
 know it, Charlottesville will become another Baltimore, Detroit or any number of other
 Democrat-controlled cities which have deteriorated into crime scenes worse than many
 found in African and Latin American cities.

 Finally, I also object to any further overlays that would allow excess intensity maximums
 in any of the FLUM categories. It seems to me that this whole proposal is based on
 emotions, not facts, and is merely an attempt to be seen to be doing something rather
 than actually doing it.

 Sincerely,


 Steve Myers
From:            Bishop, Kitter (klb4f)
To:              engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:         A more nuanced look at the JPA Neighborhood
Date:            Tuesday, September 27, 2022 7:17:51 PM


Dear Neighbors on City Council, Planning Commission and NDS,
I urge you to take a second look at the side street neighborhoods in the Jefferson Park Avenue
Neighborhood—the JPA corridor between Stadium Road and the railroad tracks, up to the medical
center and out to Fontaine Exit. I have two suggestions.
Suggestion one: Reconsider the streets bordering Stadium Road which are currently recommended
as “Higher Intensity Residential.” My view is that the current FLUM recommendation is ham-handed
here, and this area specifically deserves another look. Large swathes and multi-block pockets of this
area consist of single-family houses and small duplexes (for example, on Observatory Ave and
Montebello Circle). This area is well suited to be a house-scaled Medium Intensity Residential area,
in my view.
Suggestion two: Model how Medium Intensity Residential zoning plays out in an Architectural
Design Control district such as the Oakhurst-Gildersleeve ADC zone. Please show examples or a
vision for how house-scaled higher density can be built out around a small historic structure, such as
exists on Valley Road, Maywood Ave and Gildersleeve Wood.
In conclusion, please take a nuanced look at the side streets of the JPA neighborhood. There is more
to our neighborhood than student highrises whose model of development does not accommodate
affordable units for working singles, young couples and retirees who desire a different set of
amenities.
Thank you,
Kitter Bishop, 8 Gildersleeve Wood   
From:          Penny Keiter
To:            engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:       Affordable and sustainable neighborhoods
Date:          Tuesday, September 27, 2022 7:22:29 PM
Attachments:   Response to the Inclusionary Zoning Analysis and the the Zoning Diagnositc Report.pages
        The voluminous and highly graphic design-configured Inclusionary Zoning
Analysis and the Zoning Diagnostic Report needed, (in addition having made hard
copies available to the public,) was all well and good from the mass-marketing for
building construction’s standpoint, however important HUMAN components
were missing.! Specifically, these professionally-consulted and City funded
zoning expositions, they did not meaningfully provide for affordable housing or an
uplift to the individual household’s social, economic and environmental well-
being, in Cville Proper.

   Projection of infrastructure exigencies: roads, (including accurate present
and future, (non-granular,) traffic patterns,) and utilities, eg., plans for
underground electric, aging waste water system renovations—including the ones
presently scheduled, were left out! (Also, nothing has been integrated with
Albemarle’s planning.)

   An analysis of deep environmental impact regarding new construction for the
surrounding areas, moreover accurate data on present and FUTURE population,
business, driver and social service numbers are not included.

   I did not see prohibition of new gas hook-ups. Commensurately, I did not see
architectural design for healthy buildings as MASS' (Model of Architecture
Serving Society) have, eliminating traditional HVAC. In many MASS’ new
construction or renovate structures, increasing window placement and size,
using solar energy or geothermal cooling, (including mechanical—creating
natural air flow—, convection,) other passive solar and for cooling and heating
needs to implemented. 1,2
—-Prohibition of new gas hook-ups for new construction nowhere to be found!


1
  Modern refrigerant. . . the gas in fridges, freezers, air conditioner and anything else that
cools mechanically. . . arrived in the 1930’s, with the development of CFC/s. . . HCFC’s
were not as stable or lucrative. . .CFC’s continued to dominate the market until the
1980’s, when . . . their presence in the upper atmosphere . . . was causing the chemical
breakdown of the ozone layer. . . [A} ban invited a second wave of refrigerants. . .HFC’s. .
. [which] have an ozone-depleting potential of zero. . . are highly potent greenhouse
gasses. . . like carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and water vapor absorb infrared
radiation from the sun and the earth and block heat from escaping into out space. . .
Refrigerants have global warming potentials as high as 12,400 and 13,900 times that of
CO2. . . So while the number of refrigerant molecules in the atmosphere is far fewer than
those of other greenhouse gases, their destructive force, molecule for molecule, is far
greater. (Wilson, Eric Dean. After Cooling: On Freon, Global Warming, and the Terrible
Cost of Comfort. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2022, pp. 3-4.)
2
 . . . Some studies have found that repeated exposure to consistent air temperatures, (ie.,
air conditioning,) weakens tolerance for other air temperatures. Ibid, (pp. 96.)
   Where was a complete listing of all LLC’s or other corporate entities that own
rental properties for housing, in the City. (Also, ones that hire and pay the local
development companies.)
—A comprehensive description of all the federal and state subsidies that
construction companies can receive for building affordable, durable, aesthetic
and sustainable housing.)
-An adequate statement about UVA's student impact on the City neighborhoods
congruent with the school's present housing provisions and “ non-profit”business
plans.

   RHA and Cville Plans Together may believe that density as it pertains to social
and economic design dynamics were addressed, but they were not. Their plans
speak to the mass-privatization of space rather new innovations for use of space
and building design to promote privacy and personal space. For example, when
too numerous a number of fortress-style buildings and their entrances are too
close to each other and the street or. . . lo and behold, windows are open, safety
and privacy are compromised, if not forfeited. Further, crossing busy streets, in
the newly envisioned roundabouts at intersections that have been addressed with
our sister county, wasn’t addressed. All the aforementioned affect, with a some
exceptions, everyones’ feelings of safety, comfort and well-being!

    It may be that we, not only, find ourselves in a slow but sure tsunami of
social, technological and economic change, environmental degradation, no
longer slow, withstanding, but I’m not sure many know or care to know
about all the profuse undercurrents—many profoundly personal—regarding
the character and change of this City and those in the world around us. We
don’t need to be marketed and solicited on the road to Hell, replete with
good but ineffectual intensions3




3
From:         Barolsky Ruth L.
To:           engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:      changed zoning proposals
Date:         Tuesday, September 27, 2022 6:09:13 PM


Members of the Planning Commission:

The updated zoning proposals are even worse than the previously proposals.

In the meeting we attended with Mr. Freas, 9/7/22, there were many voices asking
for improved tree canopy, especially in new building in which trees have had to be
removed for construction purposes, with some means of enforcing the planting of
trees.

The new plans state that " the existing tree protection standards should be retained
in the new zoning, with minor improvements."

In a city that aspires to be “green” this is a disgraceful statement. It is vague. It
leaves much too much to the discretion of the builders. It provides no standards for
increasing the tree canopy. There are no means of making builders and residents
maintain and increase the numbers new trees and replace those trees which which
have died or needed to be removed.

During that same meeting, and in older plans, it was said that new building in MIR
districts should be house sized.

In the new plans and illustrations, bigger buildings that are not house-sized are to be
allowed in MIR districts, as long as they “look house-scale” from the street.
Does it not matter what they look like to the neighbors, both behind and at the
sides? Charlottesville is a city with many steep slopes, and such rules permit houses
2 or 3 stories larger than “house-size” to loom over the neighboring houses. Please
go to Augusta Street, and take a look at Greenleaf Terrace (corner of Rose Hill Drive
and Amherst Street) from behind, down a hill, where the four story behemoth looms
over the existing 1 and 2 story residences. Remember that what a building looks like
from the street, is not necessarily what it looks like to it neighbors, and unlike
passers-by on the street, the neighbors will to live with these new buildings. Existing
neighbors, not “street level view” should be more important.

Did we simply waste our time attending the Walker meeting with Mr. Freas.
Everything the participants asked about has been made even worse in the updated
plans.
Yours truly, Ruth Barolsky
From:           Louise Bibb
To:             engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Cc:             Louise Bibb; charlotte meadows; Olivet Charlotte and Vern Buchanan; Vern Buchanan
Subject:        Changes you are considering...
Date:           Tuesday, September 27, 2022 7:28:32 PM


I have watched with amazement the plans to alter irrevocably the atmosphere and ambience of
a historic town - one which, ironically, has often appeared on, even topping, lists of best places
to live in America. Your goal seems to be to eliminate the homes people save up to buy. Of
course those homes should be available to people of all races and ethnic backgrounds. Of
course they always should have been. But we cannot change the past. And destroying the
neighborhoods many aspired to live in is not the answer.  

A few decades ago, well-meaning people thought public housing would solve the very real
housing needs of minority people. And we lost Vinegar Hill. I was horrified at the time and
have experienced grim satisfaction in the final realization by the powers that be what a tragedy
its destruction was.

If you go ahead with your plans for denser and denser housing, smaller and smaller yards, if
any yard at all continues to exist, higher and higher buildings dwarfing the normal houses,
obliterating the sunlight, and the houses vanishing, one by one, as residents die or realize that
the town has become unlivable, there will be no question of the Charlottesville of the future
appearing on "best place to live" lists. It will become a city of starter homes, a few of which
may be affordable for at most ten years. As time passes, the undesirability of the city to live in
may increase its affordability. Perhaps that will look to some like success.  

It is within your power to save or destroy Charlottesville. I implore you to carefully consider
your course of action.


​Louise Bibb, 1545 Dairy Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903
From:           Robert Ramsey
To:             Cville Plans Together
Subject:        Comment for minutes
Date:           Tuesday, September 27, 2022 10:07:10 PM


"There are no solutions, there are only trade-offs." - Thomas Sowell

I have several objections to the Future Land Use Map and resulting upzoning proposal.
The proposed upzoning is certainly no "solution" for meaningful affordable housing. And an
objective review shows the trade-offs here are ones not worth making in most instances.

To highlight just one specific example: there has been a complete failure of city officials to
acknowledge the valid concerns of residents in neighborhoods near UVA now contemplated
for upzoning to Medium-Intensity Residential designation (e.g., Rugby Rd, Rugby Ave,
Alderman Rd). Any development in these areas will not result in increased housing stock for
working families, but rather off-campus housing for wealthy UVA undergraduates. Student
sprawl would transform longstanding, peacefully settled family neighborhoods.  

This is a poor policy proposal, and simply not a trade-off worth making.

I urge city officials to remove the Medium-Intensity Residential designation along Rugby
Rd, Rugby Ave and Alderman Rd, among other areas.

Sincerely,
Robert Ramsey
Hilltop Road
From:           Josh Krahn
To:             Cville Plans Together
Subject:        Comment for September 27 Work Session
Date:           Tuesday, September 27, 2022 5:32:57 PM


Hello,

In lieu of a verbal comment at tonight's joint work session, I am writing to urge the City to:

   1. Move forward as quickly as possible with the rezoning process and implementing the
      Comprehensive Plan.
   2. Eliminate Parking minimums. Mandatory vehicle storage makes our neighborhoods less
      walkable, less desirable, and less safe. It is a huge cost burden on new housing
      construction and takes up valuable space that could become infill. It raises the cost of
      renting or buying a home and is an environmental nightmare. We will never reach our
      climate goals with parking minimums in place.
   3. Reduce or eliminate design restrictions that inhibit infill housing and mixed-use
      buildings in existing neighborhoods. Current requirements for setbacks, parking, slopes,
      and building heights make much of the City unbuildable without teardowns (and barely
      buildable even with teardowns). We need to encourage the creation of as much new
      housing and density as possible. We are decades behind on housing supply and need to
      act fast and take brave, bold steps to avoid becoming even more of a sprawling car-
      dependent metro area where only the rich or very lucky can afford to live.


Thank you,
Josh Krahn
630 North Ave. Charlottesville
From:            Emily C. Dreyfus
To:              Cville Plans Together
Subject:         Comment from CLIHC
Date:            Tuesday, September 27, 2022 9:05:02 PM


Thank you for your assistance this evening. I appreciated all that your team brought to the meeting,
as well as the thoughtful questions and commitment shown by many City Councilors and
Commissioners.

I am writing to ask that the comment the email below be included in the packet.

Thanks again,
Emily


From: Emily C. Dreyfus
Sent: Monday, September 26, 2022 10:51 AM
To: Council <Council@charlottesville.gov>; planningcommission@charlottesville.gov
Cc: Freas, James <freasj@charlottesville.gov>; engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject: Behind the scenes - public comments for the work session tomorrow
Importance: High

Good morning,

I am writing to provide information about public input re: the draft zoning analysis and potential
Inclusionary Zoning (IZ) scope. The information for tomorrow evening’s meeting does not show how
many people supported particular changes, with the exception of the section detailing the 71
responses to the “feedback form,” which were predominantly from white people with moderate-
upper incomes. Unlike the details given for those respondents, the vast majority of comments
received over the past several months were portrayed in a laundry list of concerns, with no
explanations of the magnitude of respondents backing specific issues, and no coverage of the
particular concepts which received support from hundreds of local residents.

Earlier this month CLIHC, CHAAHC and Livable C’ville authored a sign-on letter which received
endorsements from 14 organizations. We also shared a change.org petition which received more
than 200 signatures. The letter and petition were released on Friday 9/2 and closed on Tuesday 9/6,
due to the end of the comment period.

The large responses over a holiday weekend show very strong agreement that the consultants
have “missed the mark” and that we need more pro-active and meaningful solutions. I have
included the full text of our documents at the end of this note.

The consultants included these widely supported positions in the following items from their
overview of engagement, and I wanted to ensure that you are aware over 200 individuals and 14
organizations supported these issues within a four-day turn-around:
      Need for improved opportunities and reduced displacement… (#5 under Affordability)
      Support for pairing vouchers…. (#4)
      Need for additional incentives… (#3)
      Desire to see more support for affordable ownership… (#8)
      Need for flexibility in long-term affordability… (#11)
      Support for eliminating minimum lot size… (#3 under Design & Form)

The presentation of engagement items in the report obfuscates the breadth of the support for
the above items, as well as the magnitude of agreement that the consultants’ recent work is not
going to fulfill the Comprehensive Plan, but instead will continue Charlottesville’s pattern of
racial and economic segregation. Equity is at the very core of this matter. As is widely
acknowledged, the voices of lower-resourced residents are under-counted because engagement
takes time and expertise, especially due to widespread feelings of futility toward government
involvement. The report mentions that 700 households received a survey but is silent about whether
any input was received. From my own experience, I can share that flyering is unlikely to result in
input. Peer engagers were supposed to be hired to provide one-to-one conversations that were
focused on sharing information and gathering input, but this does not appear to have happened.

The consultants’ presentation provides a few questions you will be asked tomorrow evening, and I
ask that you respond with your eyes on the goal of improving racial and economic equity. The third
question acknowledges the need for an affordable housing overlay where medium intensity level
development is allowed in general residential areas where all units above the base density are
affordable (potentially including units below 50% AMI, especially if the city and CRHA collaborate to
pair vouchers). We strongly urge you to approve this, and to encourage the consultants to provide
more progressive approaches than they currently propose.

I would welcome the opportunity to talk with you about these issues, as would other members of
the supporting organizations. Please feel free to contact me if you would like to meet.

Best wishes,
Emily
Emily Dreyfus | Senior Supervising Organizer, Economic Justice Program | Legal Aid Justice Center |
1000 Preston Avenue | Charlottesville, Virginia 22903 | 434-882-3796 (c) | emily@justice4all.org
Sign-on letter:

The draft Inclusionary Zoning (IZ) analysis badly misses the mark established by the
Affordable Housing Plan and Comprehensive Plan. The approach in the IZ analysis does not
go far enough to create a more equitable and inclusive city. We need prompt and meaningful
action to address our community’s housing needs!

We ask that the following priorities and recommendations be incorporated into the proposed
Inclusionary Zoning policy and the zoning rewrite:
1. Fulfill the Comprehensive Plan and stop promoting exclusionary neighborhoods!
   Meaningful affordability needs better incentives than currently proposed. The draft bonus
   density incentives will not result in enough affordable housing in general residential and
   medium intensity districts. The city should support development of affordable housing by
   allowing more incentives for Inclusionary Zoning, such as 1) allowing an affordable
   housing overlay where medium intensity density is allowed in general residential areas
     where all units above the base density are affordable (potentially including units below 50%
     AMI), 2) tax abatements, 3) infrastructure cost-sharing, and 4) process-based tools such as
     expedited reviews.
2.   Pair vouchers with development to create additional opportunities at all income levels.
3.   Eliminate minimum lot size requirements altogether. Minimum lot size rules will
     exclude smaller, more affordable housing. Additionally, any public safety benefit is
     addressed in the building code.
4.   Increase flexibility in long-term affordability provisions to balance the goal of long-term
     preservation with a variety of housing models. The proposed 99-year affordability period
     potentially limits affordable homeownership and wealth-building.
5.   Improve opportunities and reduce displacement of people from historically marginalized
     groups by ensuring that all parts of the new zoning code work to improve racial equity.  

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Charlottesville Low-Income Housing Coalition
Charlottesville Albemarle Affordable Housing Coalition
Livable Cville

Co-Signed by:
International Rescue Committee - Charlottesville     
Cultivate Charlottesville Food Justice Network
Casa Alma Catholic Worker  
AHIP  
Bread and Roses       
Serenity Solidarity      
SURJ - Charlottesville
UVa Student Council Executive Board         
Indivisible Charlottesville       
On Reserve   
Young Democratic Socialists of America at UVA     
From:              Jane Larew
To:                engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:           Comment
Date:              Tuesday, September 27, 2022 5:54:38 PM




I thought for sure that such an important meeting would be live cast on our Community TV station. But it’s not!
That is surprising and disappointing. It limits community awareness and participation.
Jane Larew
From:          Kathryn Laughon
To:            Cville Plans Together
Subject:       Comments for work session
Date:          Tuesday, September 27, 2022 8:56:05 PM


I am writing to urge you to keep moving forward with the Cville Plans process. We have an
affordable housing crisis and need to address it without further delay. Please include
reductions or even elimination of parking minimums.

Kathryn Laughon
From:            Sarah Malpass
To:              engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Cc:              Carmelita Wood; matthew gillikin
Subject:         comments on affordable housing for today"s PC worksession
Date:            Tuesday, September 27, 2022 5:56:48 PM


Dear Planning Commission, City Council and Cville Plans Together Team:

I am writing to support the following:

       Move the Cville Plans process forward without delay - there have been many pauses in
       this process already and LOTS of community engagement. We are in an affordable
       housing crisis that needs to be addressed and cannot afford to delay this process further.
       Expand Inclusionary Zoning incentives to maximize effectiveness
       Eliminate parking minimums and encourage additional infrastructure and financial
       support for multimodal transit throughout the city
       Put a LOT of effort into forthcoming work to protect vulnerable neighborhoods and the
       affordable housing toolkit - please specifically have the Cville Plans Together planning
       team collaborate with the Fifeville Neighborhood Association (FNA) to review zoning
       changes in our community and the development of the toolkit.
       Be engaged with forthcoming efforts in the Fifeville Neighborhood to drive
       development of deeply affordable housing and other neighborhood amenities in
       alignment with the Cherry Ave SAP and ensure that final zoning updates and toolkit
       resources are all in alignment with these neighborhood priorities --- specifically
       investing in and incentivizing deeply affordable housing units in our neighborhood and
       preventing displacement of current residents.

Thanks for all your time and efforts,
Sarah Malpass
(VP and member of the FNA but writing in a personal capacity as a Fifeville resident today)

--
Sarah Malpass
sarah.e.malpass@gmail.com
434.409.6340
From:               artusoa@proton.me
To:                 engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Cc:                 anthony.artuso@comcast.net
Subject:            Comments on Inclusionary Zoning Analysis
Date:               Tuesday, September 27, 2022 11:59:23 PM


Comments and Recommendations relating to the draft Zoning Diagnostic and Inclusionary Zoning
Analysis
Anthony Artuso
September 27, 2022

General Comments


       The inclusionary zoning analysis clearly indicates that market-based redevelopment of
       General and Medium Density Residential areas will not contribute substantial numbers of new
       affordable housing units even with substantial inclusionary zoning incentives are provided.
       A similar financial feasibility analysis is urgently needed for areas designated as High Intensity
       Residential and Mixed Use areas in the FLUM --- Inclusionary zoning requirements/incentives
       cannot properly be evaluated by the public or Planning Commission without these
       projections.
       The City’s Comprehensive Plan states
                   “It is imperative that we recognize that growth in the County and UVA student and employee
                   populations puts additional pressure on the Charlottesville housing market, particularly for those
                   most in need of more affordable housing options.”
           This “imperative” continues to be ignored. The planning team has not explored how other
           “college towns” are addressing affordable housing issues, has not conducted any analysis of
           the student housing market and, beyond a few general recommendations in the Affordable
           Housing Plan, there is little evidence that the City has engaged UVA in a full partnership to
           relieve the pressure UVA’s expansion has placed on the City’s housing market.
Recommendations
       The Planning Commission should direct the planning team to conduct the following analyses
       before further resources are expended on the rezoning process.
             A quantitative projection of affordable housing production from market led
             development/redevelopment of parcels currently proposed for High-Density
             Residential land uses given alternative inclusionary zoning requirements and incentives
                An inclusionary zoning feasibility and potential production analysis for the mixed use
                and downtown core land use categories
                Analysis of the student housing market including on- and off-campus supply, demand,
                locational preferences, and rental rates.
                Analysis of affordable housing supply and demand over the past decade that separates student from
                non-student supply and demand.
                A review of UVA land purchases and land development trends over the past decade and UVA’s
                announced development/expansion plans.
                Analysis of housing market dynamics, zoning developments, and innovative town-gown
                affordable housing initiatives in “college” towns/small cities of comparable size to
                Charlottesville such as Bloomington IN, Ithaca NY, Champaign-Urbana IL, Ann Arbor MI,
                Burlington VT, Athens GA, Bozeman and Missoula MT, and Davis CA.
       Shift resources to rapidly develop a final version of the affordable housing plan (AHP) that
       includes fully defined policies and programs as well as quantitative goals and objectives.
       The final AHP should give greater emphasis to public and non-profit funding and organizations
       to develop/convert additional units of permanently available affordable housing. These
      organizations are better positioned than for-profit developers to ensure that additional
      affordable housing units remain permanently available for truly low-income households
      Set a deadline for submission of the final AHP to the City Council for approval and funding
      authorization.
      Quantitatively evaluate options for placing further restrictions on development that does not
      include low-income housing in combination with a package of inclusionary zoning incentives
      and public funding/subsidies designed to ensure development of additional affordable
      housing units generates equal return to market rate housing development.
      Immediately initiate a high-level dialogue and affordable housing planning process with UVA.
      Objectives should include
            Development (on and off Grounds) of sufficient incremental housing units (i.e that
            would not have been developed without UVA/public funding and incentives) to ensure
            a reduction in the number of UVA students (undergraduate and graduate) competing
            for housing in the general housing market of the city.
             Jointly agree to a set of affordable housing objectives that includes a numerical target
             for the percentage of housing in Charlottesville that meets affordability guidelines (e.g.
             affordable for households earnings 60% of median household income).
             Develop and obtain City Council/Board of Visitors approval for City and UVA supported
             programs and initiatives that can reasonably be expected to achieve these housing
             supply and affordability goals.


Anthony Artuso
313 Kent Road
Charlottesville, VA
From:           Danny Yoder
To:             engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:        Comments on Parking Minimums and Lot Sizes
Date:           Tuesday, September 27, 2022 5:02:10 PM


Hello,

Eliminate Parking Minimums
I am writing to express my support for eliminating minimum parking requirements in the new
zoning ordinance. Eliminating parking requirements increases flexibility for developing
smaller, more affordable infill housing in the city. It will also facilitate a shift toward less
driving as the city develops better infrastructure for walking, biking, and transit, and the city
becomes more dense.

Eliminate Minimum Lot Sizes
I would also like to encourage the city to do away with minimum lot sizes. Charlottesville has
a lot of great houses on very small lots. This enhances walkability, makes the built
environment interesting, and allows cheaper forms of housing. The city should not take an
overly-prescriptive approach to zoning. We can't perfectly predict the outcomes produced by
our zoning code, therefore we should simplify it and allow people greater flexibility to split
their lots and build houses on small lots.

The zoning code will affect decades of city growth and we do not know what the correct
requirements will be for off-street parking and lot sizes 20 years from now. Let's allow for
maximum flexibility and do away with parking and lot size requirements.

Danny Yoder
From:               Ruth Bell
To:                 Cville Plans Together
Cc:                 Bell Ruth
Subject:            Comments on today"s work session
Date:               Tuesday, September 27, 2022 11:51:29 PM




The meeting was interesting and enlightening. Thank you for taking comments from the public who attended, even
via Zoom, as I did.

1. Regarding waivers for encroaching on critical slopes, I think it is an excellent proposal to give that prerogative to
the engineers. One could then hope that more serious attention would be paid to protecting steep slopes and the
environment, and that developers would have to follow the relevant rules. The Planning Commission seems
routinely to have granted a waiver when one has been requested. I am skeptical of the argument made by
Commissioner Mitchell that those decisions were, and would be in the future, entirely consistent with the analysis
and recommendation of environmental engineers. If that is, indeed, the case, the rules governing critical slopes and
other sensitive and vulnerable environmental areas should be stricter.

2. When looking for solutions to the parking problem, can the city consider levying a tax on the inefficient land-use
of flat lots given over to cars? There would be room for more residential structures if there were fewer empty lots
just for parking. A few more, dispersed multi-story parking garages would help make this change feasible.

3. Cheers for the push to improve and increase infrastructure for pedestrians and bicycles, and for improved public
transportation. Where you require re-charging stations for electric cars, there should also be adequate, covered
parking places for bicycles.

4. I strongly urge you to keep discretionary power over the decisions on scale, height, density, and aesthetic
impact. Developers, should not have so much by-right freedom (to, potentially, ruin our visual and physical
environment).

Ruth Bell

433 First St. N

      
From:           Mary Summers Whittle
To:             engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:        comments on tonight"s session and the IZ plan
Date:           Tuesday, September 27, 2022 11:50:01 PM


Dear Engage,

I've copied below a list of questions about the inclusionary zoning presentation to which I
never received answers. First, though, I've written a few more comments and questions based
on my recent interactions with Engage and Mr. Freas.

1. I read the public comments on the proposed zoning. The comments were overwhelmingly
and deeply negative. Folks all over the city wrote to you with concerns about crowding, taxes,
affordability, traffic, sidewalks, bike lanes, water, runoff, storm drains, trees, lack of
infrastructure, lack of parking, public services, schools, the plan's economic rationale, failure
to coordinate with the county and with UVA, and destruction of homes and neighborhoods.
Why don't you care?

2. Mr. Freas, you and I had a funny conversation at the MHRNA meeting on 9/22. You told
me that "a lot of people" were writing to you in support of reduced parking minimums. I said
that that sounded like a lie. You told me I was being unfair. In fact, though, when I read the
comments, I found that indeed you do seem to have been lying: virtually nobody wrote to you
in support of reduced parking minimums! People were concerned about traffic, overcrowded
roads, lack of sidewalks, and lack of public transportation, bike lanes, and parking...but pretty
much nobody wrote to you in favor of reduced parking minimums. BTW, you were also
wrong about "concentrated" zoning in the city.

3. Did you all notice that the only group (albeit very small) that liked the new zoning plan was
developers? Weird. Also, I didn't realize how interested the city is in housing UVA students.
Double-weird. It kind of looks like your plan is to let developers build a lot of super-profitable
student housing and hope that maybe some affordable units emerge somewhere, somehow.

4. I did notice that your friends at LAJC were pretty happy with the plan. Did you work to
coordinate a petition with them? Why were they updating you on the number of petition
signatures and telling you to check your spam folder for updates? Do you regularly coordinate
with them for PR purposes?

5. I was disheartened to see that local student housing magnate Woodard had a private meeting
with Jenny Koch. What other major property owners have had private meetings with RHI?
Why did RHI have time to meet with developers, but not with neighborhood groups? I
thought they were going to be doing arduous, block-by-block zoning work.

Below are the questions I sent some weeks ago, which nobody ever answered.

I read with interest your recently released inclusionary zoning presentation. Can you please
answer the questions below?

1. The slide on p. 50, titled "key recommendations," states that allowing upzoning will have
the effect of "creating affordable homeownership opportunities that are more affordable." The
slide shows a single $600,000 home replaced by two townhomes, each costing between
$375,000 and $450,000. Even if we accept the dubious mathematics of this illustration, (which
appear to assume that a developer or homeowner would accept a large financial loss on this
project), the duplexes labeled affordable are not at all affordable--they're just small market-
rate homes, priced right at Charlottesville's current existing typical home value ($447,000).
Moreover, one would surmise that such townhouses have limited square footage and acreage,
rendering them small, expensive dwellings. Why are these labeled "affordable" homes? The
average price of a townhouse in Charlottesville is $330,000, so these townhouses are actually
really expensive.

2. The caption beneath the aforementioned townhomes notes that a family in the 80-90% AMI
range could afford the monthly mortgage payment of $2400-$2700/month. But the chart on p.
52 shows that such a mortgage is only barely affordable to a family at 100% AMI. Again,
why are the townhomes labeled "affordable"? Moreover, are additional $450,000 townhomes
the solution to the affordable housing crisis about which you've professed to care so deeply?
Why does this presentation contain such a major and misleading error?

3. P. 33 contains a statement that "a single-family home sees an increase in land use value as
the development potential of the lot increases." The statement is made in relation to a
$460,000 home, which the illustration shows increasing to market value of $1.1 million.
Given that you consider $460,000 to be an "affordable" home value, it seems clear that the
upzoning plan will lead to the displacement of many low- and middle-income citizens. Is this a
goal of the new housing plan? In addition, if the price of buildable land increases, the price of
homes will likewise increase, leading to a situation in which affordability becomes impossible.
How do you plan to mitigate this economic reality? Moreover, why are so few areas deemed
"sensitive" to displacement? Many--if not most--homeowners will have trouble paying
doubled or tripled property taxes. Are you okay with the prospect of forcing out citizens in the
non-sensitive zoning areas?

4. P. 45 shows a maximum buildout, within 5 years, of 619 new housing units. The report
notes that some 10% of these units might, under the most optimal circumstances, be affordable
(undefined). At this rate, it appears that the city might see, at best, the construction of 60
affordable homes over the next 5 years--and that construction of the approximately 2500
affordable housing units identified in the 2018 housing needs assessment will take decades, if
not centuries. How does this timeframe comport with the urgency of the affordable housing
crisis, and the stated guiding principles, (equity and affordability), of the comprehensive plan?

5. The FLUM contained in the comprehensive plan allows for the construction of more than
62,000 new homes within Charlottesville. My understanding is that a comprehensive plan is
supposed to guide a city's development, but the IZ plan appears to show a comp plan
implementation rate of less than 1% in the coming five years. I can't help but ask...why have
you designed a comprehensive plan that--as outlined in the IZ plan--will prove to be a 99%
failure for the foreseeable future? Is there any possibility that you're publicly stating the new
zoning will produce negligible results so that you can avoid thinking about (or state oversight
of) the massive transportation and infrastructural plans that would be entailed by the
successful implementation of the pan-city upzoning and population quadrupling outlined in
the new comprehensive plan?

6. These two questions are somewhat tangential, but I'd like answers to them. First, can you
give some clear, understandable, specific examples of the sort of "dismantling of dynamics
and structures that perpetuate continued inequity" called for in the comp plan RFP, as well as
of how you're achieving such dismantling with the current zoning plans? Second, just out of
curiosity, why was there no competitive bidding process for the comprehensive plan contract?
My understanding is that a competitive bidding process is called for by state law.

Thank you for your work on behalf of the city. Mr. Freas, I hope you'll choose to move into
Charlottesville so that you, too, can enjoy the benefits of increased density and rising tax
values.
From:              bill emory
To:                Cville Plans Together; Council; James Freas
Cc:                Robin Hanes
Subject:           community engagement
Date:              Tuesday, September 27, 2022 6:56:04 PM


Dear Folk,

This email is written in haste, I have previous commitments that limit my time to correspond
in the 5:30 to 8:00pm window. I'd rather have the benefit of hearing your discussion this
evening. Possibly you'll address many of my concerns. Alas, can't do that.

The community engagement foundation of the comp plan and now the zoning rewrite has
seemed woefully inadequate to me. There have been "opportunities" to engage but messages
from our hearts and mouths don't seem to be reaching your ears and brains.

Speaking just about the neighborhood where I live, Woolen Mills. You propose radical (MIR)
upzoning to a number of affordable houses here but, to my knowledge, you have not contacted
the owners or the residents of these houses. How is this different than the targeting of city
neighborhoods in the past based on race or socioeconomic status?

Additionally, the proposed zoning and land use of MI land in the Woolen Mills is made
possible by zoning decisions made in the 1950-'s by City Councilors who housing activists
and your steering committee have not been shy to label as racist (and presumably classist).
There was no community engagement in 1958 for a large portion of the M1 land.
Additionally, like the Medium Intensity Residential designated properties, to my knowledge
you have not spoken to the owners of the 28+/- MI acres of "industrial" land, adjacent to
Woolen Mills residential property. There are two ownership entities. Two letters, two phone
calls, is that an overwhelming burden?

I am an RHI fanboy. a huge supporter of their West Main work. Please don't take this letter as
criticism of the consultants. Rather, look within, ours is a City that is planning challenged.

One example, the recently introduced 0 High Street Project. The City paid for advice from
Torti-Gallas in 2000 (+/-) about the corridor. There have been multiple studies, beginning with
the State of the Basin report in 1998. The Planning Commission got on the subject in 2008.
Brian Haluska has written up some preliminary thoughts. There has been begging and
pleading from the community to establish Rivanna Corridor zoning, or, at the very least, to
pattern your floodplain proscriptions on Albemarle County's rather than the City's current

           stay out of the floodway, fill to a foot above BFE (base flood elevation) and build.

The planning is disconnected from the people who live here and love their neighborhoods.
Earlier tonight, one of your presenters said that developers are economically rational and that
homeowners are economically irrational.

So, economic rationality is building 245 residential units in the floodplain next to a massive
parking lot?

No. Economic rationality is building a place worth caring about.
Best regards. Please do better.
Bill Emory
1604 E Market St
22902
804-462-9968
From:           Becca Jones— Charlottesville Piano Teacher
To:             engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:        Concerns
Date:           Tuesday, September 27, 2022 9:35:29 PM


I am concerned about the plans to eliminate required parking minimums while also increasing
population density in previously small peaceful neighborhoods. People who purchased homes
and land with the understanding that there would be ample parking and space for their children
to play safely are now facing a completely different reality, with no say or warning. It’s
disheartening to feel as though our government cares more about bringing in more people
from out of town than it does about people who have been decades-long contributors to the
community. Please consider the impact of what you are doing to the citizens who are
struggling in our current recession. We need to band together to survive, not make things even
more difficult.--
Rebecca Jones
(434) 981-6055
rebeccadesbrisay@gmail.com
charlottesvillepianoteacher@gmail.com
www.charlottesvillepianoteacher.com
From:            Chris Schopper
To:              Cville Plans Together
Subject:         Cville Plans 9/27/2022 Work Session Comments
Date:            Tuesday, September 27, 2022 8:03:34 PM


To whom it may concern,

I would like to advocate for several policies as the city looks to amend existing Zoning Code
through the Cville plans process:

       Removal of mandatory parking minimums wherever possible, to ensure new housing
       (and commercial development) does not needlessly contribute to stormwater
       management issues and exacerbate the cost of development
              This is particularly pertinent near UVA, but also near the downtown mall where
              proximity to offices/classes, restaurants/stores, and other amenities makes it much
              easier to maintain a car free to car-lite lifestyle
       Reduction of minimum lot sizes, to provide more parcels for development
       Only use limited building lot coverage and setback requirements in extremely limited
       instances--there is a potential for misuse here which will conflict with affordability
       goals
       This is more building code focused, but explore effective construction/building methods
       that are leveraged in other parts of the world, like point access blocks for medium
       intensity apartments
       Lastly, I would like the Board of Architectural Review to be less involved in any new
       development, as their recommendations often end up delaying projects or leading to
       trivial changes at substantial cost to the developers involved, further increasing costs
       when units or new development comes to the market.


I continue to think that the changes being discussed in the Cville Plans process are neither as
bold or impactful as is needed. I think many ideas have been watered down considerably as
loud voices, particularly homeowners, have spoken against them in fire and brimstone terms. I
saw in the engagement slide that 81% of commenters were homeowners and 69% were
residents of 10+ years, which I'm almost certain is not truly indicative of Charlottesville's
demographics.

To conclude, even before these past couple of crazy years, affordability in Charlottesville was
increasingly an issue for many. As interest rates have climbed over the past few months and
supply chain shortages continue to make the cost of building a house more expensive, we
should take stronger actions to address supply side shortages and make it easier for first-time
homebuyers and renters.

Thanks,
Chris
From:           Annie Alston
To:             engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:        Cville Plans Feedback
Date:           Tuesday, September 27, 2022 8:30:49 PM


Hello,

I'm writing to express my support for moving forward with the Cville Plans Together process.
I know there are voices in the community asking for a delay, but from my perspective there
has been ample opportunity for feedback to date, and there will be additional opportunities
before the zoning rewrite is complete. This process is long overdue and should not pause.

I also want to encourage you to expand the inclusionary zoning incentives to ensure they are
effective.

Thank you,
Annie Alston
Charlottesville City Resident
From:            kate F
To:              engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:         Development planned for 245 apartments along the river
Date:            Tuesday, September 27, 2022 7:04:15 PM


I am very opposed to the plan to build 245 apartment units along the Rivanna River and in a
known flood zone. That area periodically floods and suffered a major flooding event in
2018. In addition, the nearby road, High Street, already is insufficient for the existing traffic
and not could not handle the increase due to the proposed new development.

The city should be preserving the existing riverfront and not contributing to any future
degradation.

Kate Fincham
From:              Fox, Cliff
To:                Council; Planning Commission
Subject:           The minimum lot size in a R-1S district is 6,000 sf. How does an .88 acre lot take advantage of this? The by right
                   capacity would be substantial, the street frontage requirement are not achievable
Date:              Tuesday, September 27, 2022 6:53:46 PM




** WARNING: This email has originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments
unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.**


NO Minimum lot size; 225 Douglas Ave as an example.
From:          Katie Darden
To:            engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:       Email for tonight"s meeting
Date:          Tuesday, September 27, 2022 6:32:28 PM


Hello,
I'm a Charlottesville homeowner, and I'm writing to express my support for more inclusive
zoning and housing density and against parking minimums.
Thank you.
Katie Darden
To:             engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Cc:             council
Subject:        Feedback for 27th Sept meeting
Date:           Tuesday, September 27, 2022 5:41:33 PM


(I prefer my comment to be anonymous – thanks. I live in Locust Grove.)

Comments on plan

I do not believe that the summary of received public input is properly balanced. There are a lot
of very unhappy responses that raise a number of substantial - not trivial and not NIMBY -
issues. The PC and CC have created a vast trust deficit. Instead of trying to bring the public
along with them, they have foisted a plan on them. There are winners and many losers. The
losers are not happy.
Inconsistencies in the FLUM noted - in North Downtown and on Locust Ave. Lack of
coordination with county. Even developer input notes the flaws - such as the lack of transition
zones. Evidently, the consultant (J Koch) had time to speak directly to a developer (Woodard) -
in relation to specific refinement of the FLUM. Too bad that neighborhood engagement was
limited and mainly one way - driven by the opinions of the steering committee. This
committee is packed with activists intent on a specific output no matter the costs on long
term current residents. You could have developed a scaled and appropriate plan (e.g. city wide
GR with up to 3 or perhaps 4 units in exceptional cases) and you would have had 10% of the
opposition you now have.

No coordination
Over recent decades, populations growth has primarily been in the county. Why, therefore,
does this plan continue practically zero coordination with the county? - despite stating clearly
that such coordination is necessary.

Misguided basis
The plan involves dismantling allegedly exclusive neighborhoods - doing away with R-1. You
would think that the logical place to start is to stop building exclusive neighborhoods. But no,
the county continues to build places like North Pointe and Old Trail Village with typical
exclusive mansion / cul-de-sac design. Meanwhile, this growth puts stress on city residential
streets because the county cannot be bothered to build the infrastructure to support this type
of irresponsible development. Meanwhile, the plan is being led by a man who was recruited to
city staff and is one of the few who could afford live on practically any street in the city or
county. He chose to live in an exclusive neighborhood on a county cul-de-sac. Very
unfortunate appearance.

"Targeted"
The chair of the PC in a NYT article last August was quoted as telling us that some neighbors
are being "targeted" - getting up zoned. It sure feels that way living on an MIR street. Let's
take a look at these MIR streets - some align with arterials (Elliott, Cherry, Avon etc.) but
further north what is this about Park St and Locust being GR inside of 250 and MIR outside of
250? Where is the rationalization for that? There isn't any. Studies have been made to show
correlation with amenity (e.g. "walkscore") and there is none. What we have left over is a
patchwork of "targeted" streets - that has unfortunate appearance of being unaligned with
the personal interests of PC and CC members - except in a few instance(s).

Non car transit etc.
The plan assumes residents can take public transport or bike or walk to work. Unfortunately,
most new job centers are outside of the city core. Jobs are widely scattered across the
city/county. The built density will not allow for a viable bus system as much as one might like
to think it might work. Bicycle infrastructure is missing in action. W Main St is a core bicycle
corridor with the accident record to match (including fatalities). What has the city done about
bicycling on streets like W Main in the past few decades? Next to nothing.

Scrap MIR
MIR is creating significant pain - probably out of proportion to whatever its value could ever
be. It would be wise to drop it. Replacing R-1 with GR with up to three units per lot would be a
much more realistic and equitable solution. We are not going to buy into the happy talk about
4-12 units might not happen - it is in the text in black and white. The building costs in the plan
are also unrealistic. Massive unresolved appearance of conflicted interests / hypocrisy in that
PC and CC largely, but not entirely, personally detached from MIR. Dishing out pain on other
people.
People in MIR feared anonymous LLCs buying up lots, lot consolidation, tall buildings - and
tear downs. We have seen all this recently in Locust Grove - in the context of the Mtn View
Bapt Ch. We live the nightmare today. Who will sell out and send a street into a downward
spiral?

R-1 already dead
Several controversial developments have moved forward with next to no analysis or
systematic accurate assessment of traffic / parking etc. This includes Park St MACAA and Park
St Chr. Ch. redevelopments. The traffic studies were fundamentally flawed - middle of COVID
distortions etc. These rezonings went through with scarcely a speed bump - single public
meetings etc. This tells us that R-1 is basically dead already. Rezoning to higher density is
moving forward quickly - at least in some neighborhoods. Why then does the plan make a big
deal out of the need to rezone and extend "by right" to eliminate public process? These recent
rezoning undermine entirely the overall argument for the new ordinance - it isn't necessary
because seemingly the tools are in place to do what you like wherever and whenever.

Unused public property
The plan appears to take no account of several places in the city where underused public
space exists - such as the city utilities space near W 4th.

“By right”
Today, the controversy over the 245 apartment proposed for flood zone near Free Bridge
shines a light on why “by right” might not be a good idea. Especially, this means that ugly
developments that technically meet the letter of the code will just go through. Especially, for
MIR impacted residents, this is very troublesome. You better get this right because fixing it
may be expensive, slow or impossible.
From:           Navarre Bartz
To:             engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:        Feedback
Date:           Tuesday, September 27, 2022 12:00:15 AM


Hello,

I’m writing to say that I’d support the removal of parking minimums in the new zoning
ordinance. Every place in town is a little different, and as the city densifies we need to be
reducing the number of car miles traveled and converting unused spaces like parking lots into
more housing and green space. Let residents and developers decide what’s right for each
situation instead of managing it from above.

Coupled to this, we need to actually invest in good pedestrian, bike, and transit networks so
people don’t need to take a car for every trip. It’s better for people’s health and for the
environment.

Good bike/ped infrastructure is also a great opportunity to increase the ecological density of
the city. Greenways like the one along the John Warner Parkway provide opportunities for
pollinator habitat as well as more ways for wildlife to move around without getting hit by cars
which is good for animals and will reduce car wrecks.

Thanks for all the work you’ve been doing on what I know is a big project!

Navarre Bartz
From:        paulwright@comcast.net
To:          engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:     FLUM, historical districts and trees
Date:        Tuesday, September 27, 2022 6:49:58 PM


I live in Venable, a historic district with a massive tree canopy, that parts
of are proposed to go from residential to high density. Given that today
the speaker said historical and trees rules are not being changed, how do
official reconcile those two statements. The FLUM and today’s presentation
are in direct contradiction. I have asked for the logic of the proposed
zoning change to my street and have not gotten a response other than
“That what the non-elected consultants recommended.”

My 2nd question will the city be looking at individually changed properties
to determine if proposed zoning changes will be consistent with deed
restrictions already recorded by the City. Without that examination certain
properties will be in a kind of limbo, where what can be done with a lot
with be in direct conflict with proposed zoning changes.
Paul Wright
Preston Place
From:             John Hossack
To:               engage@cvilleplanstogether.com; council
Subject:          Followup to earlier comment / Pinkston
Date:             Tuesday, September 27, 2022 9:05:36 PM


The comment was made that in observed practice real turnover is much slower than allowed – so do
not panic.
A few comments on that.
    1. It is easier to say this when living in a GR street
    2. It is also easier if living on a cul-de-sac further from the core and bus, pedestrian and bicycle
       infrastructure.
    3. The comment assumes that the Charlottesville plan is similar to current experience nationally.
       Actually, per an earlier email from last September, I contend that the Charlottesville plan is an
       outlier. Thus, when for example, a 12 plex appears across the road, neighbors are more likely
       run for the exit because the prior cases cited (or implied) are not for 12 plexes but something
       more modest – such as a few incrementally added units. An incremental unit does not
       destabilize. An 8 plex or a 12 plex will. I have spoken to my neighbors about this. It is the kind
       of conversation we have in MIR. Would you know?
    4. The city staff recommended against the Mtn View Bapt Ch. Nevertheless, the PC and CC
       seemed very enthusiastic about going ahead following minor changes. This was over the
       objections of staff on compatibility and many strongly expressed resident concerns about
       parking and traffic. Neighbors do not really buy the conflicted traffic analysis of the developer
       or have much time for the traffic engineer who insists he will only do another traffic study if a
       petition is produced (where did this come from?) The MVBC development involved
       anonymous LLC purchases, lot consolidation, two house tear down, 35’ tall, 60 units on 2
       acres and grossly inadequate consideration of road access, serious drainage problems, slope
       compatibility (roads too steep to meet national code) etc. Given all this, the PC and CC want
       to plough ahead. Why on Earth would people in MIR not be scared about what the future
       has? (As an aside, in case anyone reading this, the developer also insisted that his density was
       compatible with GR – using one of his mathematical contortions for which he is well known in
       town.)


From earlier email:
They could have adopted recruitment to their vision as a challenge. Instead, there appears to be an
exercise in ramming through an unpopular policy. Little regard for the warnings or the cautions –
most specifically the warnings that irreversible changes will result and that the data produced do not
support their contentions because the scale of the changes are NOT matched in so called peer
examples. The proposal to impose “up to 12 units” on SFH plots is simply not consistent with other
progressive city policies (look them up – I did – see below) It is a radical experiment – so no wonder
the depth of anger and concern. (I am sorry if I over generalized the PC – but as someone watching
the proceedings, it sure looks like it has one mind.)
I would also like to point out the obvious fact that there are large 2-3 story houses in Cambridge,
Berkeley etc. These houses can be logically divided into 2-4 units. In fact, there are already a few such
divided houses near downtown Charlottesville (I am aware of a few on 2nd St NE). However, with a
typical Charlottesville ranch house, you can logically divide it into two levels (if it has a basement)
plus an ADU in the back – that’s the limit. Proposing something compatible with existing
neighborhoods wouldn’t generate the storm of opposition.

https://www.berkeleyside.org/2021/02/24/berkeley-denounces-racist-history-of-single-family-
zoning-begins-2-year-process-to-change-general-plan
The Berkeley City Council unanimously denounced the racist history of single-
family zoning in the city on Tuesday night, beginning a two-year process to
change the city’s general plan and introduce more multi-unit housing in every
part of the city. (Feb 2021)
https://cambridgema.iqm2.com/Citizens/Detail_LegiFile.aspx?
Frame=&MeetingID=2757&MediaPosition=&ID=13192&CssClass=%3C
 ORDERED:            That the NLTP Committee and Housing Committee convene a joint meeting to
                     discuss the question of whether limiting parts of the city to single or two
                     family only zoning should continue to have a place in our zoning
                     ordinances; and be it further
                     (in December 2020)



https://minneapolis2040.com/policies/access-to-housing/

In neighborhood interiors that contain a mix of housing types
from single-family homes to apartments, increase housing
choice and supply by allowing new housing within that
existing range.



In neighborhood interiors farthest from downtown
that today contain primarily single-family homes,
increase housing choice and supply by allowing up to
three dwelling units on an individual lot.

https://oaklandside.org/2021/03/17/oakland-takes-a-step-toward-banning-single-family-zoning/
The City Council voted unanimously to look into allowing
fourplexes citywide and removing long-standing laws that officials
called “exclusionary.” (March 2021)
From:            Jennifer Koch
To:              Cville Plans Together
Subject:         FW: Online Form Submittal: Email Contact Form for Planning Commission
Date:            Tuesday, September 27, 2022 1:40:33 PM


Sending to Engage

From: Freas, James <freasj@charlottesville.gov>
Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2022 1:01 PM
To: Jennifer Koch
Subject: FW: Online Form Submittal: Email Contact Form for Planning Commission

Sending these to you as they come in.


From: noreply@civicplus.com <noreply@civicplus.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2022 12:59 PM
To: Planning Commission <PlanningCommission@charlottesville.gov>
Subject: Online Form Submittal: Email Contact Form for Planning Commission


    Email Contact Form for Planning Commission

    Please complete the online form below to submit your message.


    Contact Information

    First Name                         Jonathan

    Last Name                          Rice

    Contact Phone Number:              4342493585

    Email Address:                     cvillejon@gmail.com

    Enter your message here            Hello Planning Commission people, I have a quick question:
                                       what is the average lot size for Charlottesville's single family
                                       residential houses? I am surprised when people who are
                                       opposed to increasing housing density claim in public meetings --
                                       often without being challenged -- that Charlottesville is already
                                       "maxed out". I am almost always astounded whenever I see my
                                       neighbors' backyards. My own house (1144 Meriwether Street) is
                                       on what is probably the smallest in the neighborhood because it
                                       was initially an accessory dwelling that was awkwardly and
                                       ungenerously separated from the original single family residential
                                       unit to which it belonged. Even so, our modest backyard could
                                       easily accommodate an additional smallish housing unit (there
                                       would be an issue of driveway access but this could probably be
         managed). Many of our neighbors backyards are enormous by
         comparison, so it seems to me that some hard figures on
         average lot size for the city's single family residential homes
         would keep the discussion of density better grounded in the
         reality of the space that is potentially available for housing
         growth.

         A second statistic that might help put the arguments about
         density in perspective is the average height of Charlottesville's
         multi-housing unit buildings (i.e. apartments and condos). I may
         have lost track, but there's 1800 JPA and the former hotel in
         Court Square as pretty much the only tall residential buildings in
         the city. How does the height of Charlottesville's multi-unit
         housing buildings compare with those in comparable cities? I
         suspect buildings in Charlottesville are much shorter on average
         but I don't have any data. Where the topography is favorable and
         where there is a gradual transition in height (or a large enough
         distance between the two types of buildings) to one and two story
         residential houses, there is space to build much taller buildings
         than we have at present without there being any negative impact
         on single family homeowners. Could detailed drawings or models
         be made to show how taller residential buildings could fit quite
         well into Charlottesville as it is today?



Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser.
From:           Mary Summers Whittle
To:             engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:        Fwd: comments on tonight"s work session
Date:           Tuesday, September 27, 2022 11:47:39 PM




Dear Engage,

I've copied below a list of questions about the inclusionary zoning presentation to which I
never received answers. First, though, I've written a few more comments and questions based
on my recent interactions with Engage and Mr. Freas.

1. I read the public comments on the proposed zoning. The comments were overwhelmingly
and deeply negative. Folks all over the city wrote to you with concerns about crowding, taxes,
affordability, traffic, sidewalks, bike lanes, water, runoff, storm drains, trees, lack of
infrastructure, lack of parking, public services, schools, the plan's economic rationale, failure
to coordinate with the county and with UVA, and destruction of homes and neighborhoods.
Why don't you care?

2. Mr. Freas, you and I had a funny conversation at the MHRNA meeting on 9/22. You told
me that "a lot of people" were writing to you in support of reduced parking minimums. I said
that that sounded like a lie. You told me I was being unfair. In fact, though, when I read the
comments, I found that indeed you do seem to have been lying: virtually nobody wrote to you
in support of reduced parking minimums! People were concerned about traffic, overcrowded
roads, lack of sidewalks, and lack of public transportation, bike lanes, and parking...but pretty
much nobody wrote to you in favor of reduced parking minimums. BTW, you were also
wrong about "concentrated" zoning in the city.

3. Did you all notice that the only group (albeit very small) that liked the new zoning plan was
developers? Weird. Also, I didn't realize how interested the city is in housing UVA students.
Double-weird. It kind of looks like your plan is to let developers build a lot of super-profitable
student housing and hope that maybe some affordable units emerge somewhere, somehow.

4. I did notice that your friends at LAJC were pretty happy with the plan. Did you work to
coordinate a petition with them? Why were they updating you on the number of petition
signatures and telling you to check your spam folder for updates? Do you regularly coordinate
with them for PR purposes?

5. I was disheartened to see that local student housing magnate Woodard had a private meeting
with Jenny Koch. What other major property owners have had private meetings with RHI?
Why did RHI have time to meet with developers, but not with neighborhood groups? I
thought they were going to be doing arduous, block-by-block zoning work.

Below are the questions I sent some weeks ago, which nobody ever answered.

I read with interest your recently released inclusionary zoning presentation. Can you please
answer the questions below?

1. The slide on p. 50, titled "key recommendations," states that allowing upzoning will have
the effect of "creating affordable homeownership opportunities that are more affordable." The
slide shows a single $600,000 home replaced by two townhomes, each costing between
$375,000 and $450,000. Even if we accept the dubious mathematics of this illustration, (which
appear to assume that a developer or homeowner would accept a large financial loss on this
project), the duplexes labeled affordable are not at all affordable--they're just small market-
rate homes, priced right at Charlottesville's current existing typical home value ($447,000).
Moreover, one would surmise that such townhouses have limited square footage and acreage,
rendering them small, expensive dwellings. Why are these labeled "affordable" homes? The
average price of a townhouse in Charlottesville is $330,000, so these townhouses are actually
really expensive.

2. The caption beneath the aforementioned townhomes notes that a family in the 80-90% AMI
range could afford the monthly mortgage payment of $2400-$2700/month. But the chart on p.
52 shows that such a mortgage is only barely affordable to a family at 100% AMI. Again,
why are the townhomes labeled "affordable"? Moreover, are additional $450,000 townhomes
the solution to the affordable housing crisis about which you've professed to care so deeply?
Why does this presentation contain such a major and misleading error?

3. P. 33 contains a statement that "a single-family home sees an increase in land use value as
the development potential of the lot increases." The statement is made in relation to a
$460,000 home, which the illustration shows increasing to market value of $1.1 million.
Given that you consider $460,000 to be an "affordable" home value, it seems clear that the
upzoning plan will lead to the displacement of many low- and middle-income citizens. Is this a
goal of the new housing plan? In addition, if the price of buildable land increases, the price of
homes will likewise increase, leading to a situation in which affordability becomes impossible.
How do you plan to mitigate this economic reality? Moreover, why are so few areas deemed
"sensitive" to displacement? Many--if not most--homeowners will have trouble paying
doubled or tripled property taxes. Are you okay with the prospect of forcing out citizens in the
non-sensitive zoning areas?

4. P. 45 shows a maximum buildout, within 5 years, of 619 new housing units. The report
notes that some 10% of these units might, under the most optimal circumstances, be affordable
(undefined). At this rate, it appears that the city might see, at best, the construction of 60
affordable homes over the next 5 years--and that construction of the approximately 2500
affordable housing units identified in the 2018 housing needs assessment will take decades, if
not centuries. How does this timeframe comport with the urgency of the affordable housing
crisis, and the stated guiding principles, (equity and affordability), of the comprehensive plan?

5. The FLUM contained in the comprehensive plan allows for the construction of more than
62,000 new homes within Charlottesville. My understanding is that a comprehensive plan is
supposed to guide a city's development, but the IZ plan appears to show a comp plan
implementation rate of less than 1% in the coming five years. I can't help but ask...why have
you designed a comprehensive plan that--as outlined in the IZ plan--will prove to be a 99%
failure for the foreseeable future? Is there any possibility that you're publicly stating the new
zoning will produce negligible results so that you can avoid thinking about (or state oversight
of) the massive transportation and infrastructural plans that would be entailed by the
successful implementation of the pan-city upzoning and population quadrupling outlined in
the new comprehensive plan?

6. These two questions are somewhat tangential, but I'd like answers to them. First, can you
give some clear, understandable, specific examples of the sort of "dismantling of dynamics
and structures that perpetuate continued inequity" called for in the comp plan RFP, as well as
of how you're achieving such dismantling with the current zoning plans? Second, just out of
curiosity, why was there no competitive bidding process for the comprehensive plan contract?
My understanding is that a competitive bidding process is called for by state law.

Thank you for your work on behalf of the city. Mr. Freas, I hope you'll choose to move into
Charlottesville so that you, too, can enjoy the benefits of increased density and rising tax
values.
From:               Jonathan Rice
To:                 Cville Plans Together
Subject:            Fwd: comments
Date:               Tuesday, September 27, 2022 6:20:27 PM


Note: I'm not sure this makes sense but I gather I submitted my comments on the zoning rewrite plan prematurely so
I am re-submitting now. Sorry for the confusion.

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Jonathan Rice <jon@jon-rice.com>
Date: Tue, Sep 27, 2022 at 4:37 PM
Subject: comments
To: Cville Plans Together <engage@cvilleplanstogether.com>


I favor increased housing density and significant increases in affordable housing. I applaud you for being clear about
the definition of the level of affordability the plan is seeking (60% AMI) and the term for which housing should
remain affordable (in perpetuity) and I urge you to stick to those specific features of the plan.

I do, however, have serious concerns about the plan:

(1) Sidewalks: Charlottesville has long ignored this basic feature of proper city planning and it's no longer tolerable.
EVERYONE in my neighborhood (Little High) is obliged to walk in the street to go more than a block or two in any
direction. This was only tolerable because Charlottesville's population and flow of traffic were modest.

But now so many of your goals clearly assume the existence of decent sidewalks which we simply do NOT have:
people can't continue to walk in the roads as population density increases; we cannot reduce dependence on
automobiles if people can't safely walk around the city; we can't reduce parking requirements for housing
development projects if people can't get by without a car (if you cut back parking requirements without building
sidewalks the effect will be to put greater hardships on low income residents who can't get to work safely on foot
and who won't be able to afford taxis, Ubers, Lyfts, or the private parking garage fees that wealthier residents can
pay); we cannot reduce our greenhouse gas emissions if people can't safely walk around the city; we can't have a
city with any claim to equity when our older residents and our residents with disabilities can't walk safely on decent,
ADA compliant sidewalks.

I'm attaching a photo I took recently of just one of my elderly neighbors who uses a walker to get around. You will
notice that he is walking in the street on 12th Street NE because there is NO sidewalk between Meriwether Street
and Little High Street. This is shameful. You have the opportunity to address this, so please put sidewalks at the top
of city infrastructure improvements required by the zoning rewrite.

(2) Do whatever you can to attract the kind of businesses that people use frequently to our neighborhoods. In
other words, we need grocery stores we can walk to. This would cut down enormously on the amount of driving in
the city. You can successfully cut down on parking requirements if people can manage without cars and a huge
factor is the ability to walk to a grocery store. Incidentally, you can only fit so many groceries on an e-bike and no
one is going to use an e-bike in the rain or in the cold. But people can bundle up and walk in the rain or the cold.

(3) Gradual transitions between building heights: This is a long established principle of urban planning which
city residents have been assured would be an integral part of the zoning rewrite. As far as I can tell, the number one
concern Charlottesville homeowners have about the zoning plan is the (totally reasonable) fear that a huge building
will be built next door or very close to their homes and this will cause a huge increase in traffic and noise and cause
their houses to lose value. You can allay these fears by reiterating and adhering to (thereby rebuilding public trust)
your own commitment that transitions between building heights must be gradual. I urge you to make absolutely sure
to adhere to this guideline. Incidentally, I support taller residential buildings in Charlottesville -- I think taller
buildings are essential to managing density. There are many places in Charlottesville where much taller buildings
could be built: just follow the topography -- and don't make exceptions.  
(4) A note on process and interaction with the public: It would be helpful if city planners would back off on the
tired narrative that the only city residents who could be opposed to your plan are wealthy white elitist racists. I'm
sure some people who have criticized the rezoning plans in part or in whole fit this description but I'm also
absolutely certain that this is a caricature when applied to city homeowners as a whole. Most of the city's
homeowners live in houses that they could not afford to buy at current market rates. There are a lot of people who
live in very valuable houses who are definitely not close to being wealthy. I would wager that there are many
"wealthy white elitist" local homeowners who don't have adequate retirement savings (it's well-known that only a
small fraction of Americans have any substantial savings so I wouldn't expect Charlottesville residents to differ very
much) and who are hoping they will be able to sell their houses for enough to buy into an assisted living facility.
People in this situation are legitimately concerned about anything that might cause their house to be worth less when
it comes time to sell. So it would be helpful if you didn't paint all critics of the plan with the same brush and that
includes informally on social media.

My own neighborhood, Little High, was distinctly working class until the cost of real estate began to explode about
20 years ago. The great majority of the houses in the Little High are modest ranch-style houses that were regarded
as starter homes but which are now only accessible to wealthy people. Yet when I and some of my neighbors took
part in a public meeting with Cville Plans Together, we were obliged to identify ourselves by neighborhood -- but
our actual neighborhood was NOT among the options we were given. So we had to falsely identify ourselves as
North Downtown residents. Most of Little High's residents could not afford a house in North Downtown, even years
ago. After the meeting, someone released the phony demographic information and the case was being made on
social media that all the criticism (and no attempt was made to distinguish between residents who support the
general plan as I do but have specific concerns vs. residents who were completely opposed to the plan) was coming
from wealthy white elitists in North Downtown. That was a cheap trick and this sort of thing is helpful to no one.

(5) Having just defended Charlottesville homeowners, I am hoping city officials generally can distinguish between
two general types of homeowners who actually reside in their Charlottesville homes as their exclusive or at least
primary residence and businesses and homeowners who own more than one house. People who are trying to buy a
house have to compete with businesses who buy houses as investments which they rent or sell at the highest possible
market rates. This is a key factor driving up the price of real estate in Charlottesville. I frequently meet people here
in town who have more than one house -- it's surprising how common this is. I strongly recommend that these two
different types of home buyers/owners be treated differently. Houses purchased as investments should, at a
minimum, be taxed at a higher rate. People who already own more than one house should be taxed heavily on any
house they own that is not their primary residence -- unless it is available as affordable housing. If you can include
something to level the playing field between the two types of home buyers/owners, please do so.



  
From:           Livable Cville
To:             engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:        Fwd: Letter Recommending Elimination of Parking Minimums
Date:           Tuesday, September 27, 2022 5:35:50 PM
Attachments:    Livable_Cville-Parking-Minimums.pdf


Dear Cville Plans,

Attached is public comment from Livable Cville in regards to parking minimums.

Thank you.

Matthew Gillikin
Co-Chair, Livable Cville
                                                                                       LIVABLE
      September 21, 2022                                                               CVILLE



      Dear City Council, Planning Commission, and Mr. Freas,

      We are writing to recommend that the city eliminate parking minimums in the zoning code.
      We believe this is an essential step towards addressing the city’s housing, climate, and equity
      goals. Hundreds of cities in the U.S. of all sizes have come to a similar conclusion and reduced
      or eliminated parking requirements.

      Parking minimums require an often arbitrary number of parking spots as part of any new
      development. It is important to recognize that eliminating parking minimums does not
      mean that parking will no longer be allowed or that suddenly a large amount of parking will
      disappear. Eliminating parking minimums gives developers flexibility as to how much parking
      is provided in new construction.

      Charlottesville currently requires parking as part of nearly all new development, with a few
      exceptions on the Corner and on the Downtown Mall, regardless of whether the developers
      or occupants want off-street parking. The drawbacks of parking minimums are significant and
      will limit the success of the Cville Plans process.


                    I. ISSUES CAUSED BY PARKING MINIMUM POLICIES
      First, parking minimums are a major barrier to affordability. Mandated parking is an
      expensive amenity that drives up the cost of residential and commercial construction. The
      city’s own inclusionary zoning analysis demonstrated that reducing parking requirements
      significantly improves housing affordability.

      Surface parking can easily cost $10,000 per space, and structured parking spaces can cost
      upwards of $50,000 each. Numerous studies have shown that for both affordable and market
      rate housing, parking requirements drive up rent by hundreds of dollars a month and the cost
      of homeownership by tens of thousands of dollars. One national study found that the cost of
      garage parking raises the average tenant’s rent by 17% and another found that parking can
      raise the cost of low-income housing by 25%. Mandated parking also increases commercial
      construction expenses and consequently rent for businesses, which is then passed on to
      consumers in the form of increased costs.

      Second, parking minimums are not equitable. Because car ownership can easily cost
      $8,000 to $10,000 a year, lower-income households are less likely to own a vehicle and to
      drive to work than higher-income households. Requiring every home and every store to
      provide an overabundance of parking undercuts public transit and makes Charlottesville
      less walkable; thus reinforcing the need for car ownership. By forcing all housing to
      include parking regardless of vehicle ownership, parking minimums burden lower-income
      households disproportionately.


                                                   1/3



Livable Cville         livablecville.org             livablecville@gmail.com
                                                                                       LIVABLE
                                                                                       CVILLE



      Third, parking has significant negative environmental impacts. Parking spots are
      impermeable surfaces that increase storm water run-off and pollution into waterways.
      Parking garages are made out of concrete, the production of which emits large amounts of
      greenhouse gasses. Mandating parking increases driving, which increases carbon emissions.
      Transportation emissions account for 28.5% of the total carbon footprint in Charlottesville
      and more than half in Albemarle County. Additionally, requiring on-site parking will limit
      the feasibility of building smaller attached homes, which use significantly less energy than
      detached single family homes.

      Fourth, parking minimums prevent quality infill development, the dominant form of
      development in Charlottesville. Parking spots take up a lot of space on valuable land and
      mandated parking can make urban infill projects geometrically and financially infeasible.
      This makes it difficult to repurpose and preserve old buildings and to build on the smaller,
      irregularly shaped lots common to many parts of Charlottesville.

      Fifth, parking minimums hinder the best use of scarce land. Decades of policies
      prioritizing cars over people have resulted in more than 20% of land in Charlottesville
      being parking. That much parking spreads out our community, making it harder to access
      daily activities by walking or biking. Instead of housing, green space, and easily accessible
      neighborhood amenities, these policies have resulted in a shrinking tree canopy and
      expanses of ugly asphalt. Moreover, dedicating so much land to parking negatively impacts
      the economic viability of our city.


                 II. CONCERNS ABOUT ELIMINATING PARKING MINIMUMS
      Several concerns come up in discussions about eliminating parking minimums. One is
      that doing so will result in a significant short-term impact to parking availability. Evidence
      suggests, however, that this is unlikely to occur. The Draft Inclusionary Zoning Analysis
      indicates that the rate of redevelopment in General and Medium Intensity Residential areas
      will be gradual. And other cities found that after removing parking requirements about half
      of higher density developments included as much parking as before, though shared parking
      arrangements and adaptive reuse became more common.

      A second concern is that local transit systems and bike/ped infrastructure are not adequate
      to serve people without cars or allow more people to opt out of driving. Getting around
      Charlottesville without driving will become much more feasible over time as the Bicycle and
      Pedestrian Master Plan and the Regional Transit Vision are implemented. As this occurs, more
      developers will opt to provide fewer spaces than are required today.

      A third concern is that increased development will result in more commuter parking in
      residential areas. This is already an issue, and the city can and should reexamine on-street
      parking management citywide.

                                                   2/3



Livable Cville         livablecville.org             livablecville@gmail.com
                                                                                          LIVABLE
                                                                                          CVILLE



                        III. ADDITIONAL POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
      Parking is one part of Charlottesville’s housing and transportation ecosystem. Elimination of
      parking minimums should be paired with the following commitments by the city:
      1. Make significant investments to improve transit and paratransit service and bike/ped
         infrastructure.
      2. Reevaluate on-street parking management, especially in neighborhoods most impacted
         by non-resident parking.
      3. Prioritize low-income resident needs in bus route planning and transit infrastructure
         improvements.

      In the long run, eliminating parking minimums will create a virtuous cycle in which more
      affordable housing is available in the center of the region rather than on its fringes, daily trips
      are shorter whether in or out of a car, and traffic is far lower than it would otherwise be.

      We appreciate the tremendous amount of time and energy each of you have dedicated
      to addressing our city’s affordable housing crisis. We look forward to continuing to work
      together to come up with real solutions.



      Sincerely,
      Livable Cville


      Co-signed by Community Climate Collaborative




                                                    3/3



Livable Cville          livablecville.org              livablecville@gmail.com
From:              Fox, Cliff
To:                Council; Planning Commission
Subject:           Have UVA remove student vehicles from the community
Date:              Tuesday, September 27, 2022 6:44:14 PM




** WARNING: This email has originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments
unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.**


It’s sound environmental policy.
From:           Charles
To:             engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:        I support the elimination of parking minimums
Date:           Tuesday, September 27, 2022 7:41:34 PM


cities are built for people, not cars. Downtown charlottesville mall is a great example of the
awesome business and livability that removing cars provides. Requiring tenants and
homeowners to own a car or subsidize the cost of a parking spot is absurd, especially in a
dense, college city like Charlottesville.

Sincerely,
Charles
From:               James G.
To:                 engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:            Input regarding Charlottesville"s rezoning process
Date:               Tuesday, September 27, 2022 8:18:42 PM


Find
How will Charlottesville’s population change by 2040 if its new Affordable Housing Plan is successful?
Given
           1.       Charlottesville proposes to require one (1) affordable unit for every ten (10) new
           housing units built in the City. [2022, Inclusionary Zoning Analysis]
           2.       Charlottesville estimates that without action its affordable housing gap will reach 2,700
           units by 2040 (i.e., 2,700 units priced appropriately for those earning 60% of area media
           income or less) [2018, Housing Needs Assessment]
           3.       Charlottesville’s current population = ~45,000 [2021, U.S. Census Bureau]
Assume
           1.       General residential, medium intensity residential, and high intensity residential will
           deliver 60% of the 2,700 units needed by 2040 or 2050 (i.e., 1,620 units)
           2.       On average, 2.6 people will occupy each new housing unit built. [2019, Pew Research
           Center]
           3.       The City Affordable Housing Plan will completely close the affordable housing gap by
           2040.
Calculation
1,620 affordable units = 10% of the total number of the new units to be built in rezoned residential
districts
16,200 units = 100% of the new units to be built
16,200 units * 2.6 people / new unit = 42,100 new residents
Conclusion
The City’s proposed Affordable Housing Plan will essentially double Charlottesville’s population in
the next 20 years, from about 45,000 to 87,000. For perspective, in the past 25 years, the City’s
population has grown from about 40,000 to 45,000.
From:             James G.
To:               engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:          Input regarding zoning rewrite plans
Date:             Tuesday, September 27, 2022 8:17:04 PM


The City continues to push forward with its three step process: 1) Complete an Affordable Housing
Plan (March 2021), 2) Complete a Comprehensive Plan (November 2021), and 3) Complete a Zoning
Rewrite (In progress). The Affordable Housing Plan points to the 2018 Housing Needs Assessment for
data regarding the magnitude of the affordable housing deficit. Table 10 of that 2018 report
suggests that without action the City will have a deficit of about 2,500 units by 2040 for household
incomes below 60% of area median income. Presumably the City should be advancing a plan to
eliminate that deficit by 2040, but is that what we see emerging?

This summer, the City’s project consultants completed an Inclusionary Zoning Analysis document
and estimated how many affordable units could be produced by zoning rewrite. They conclude that,
in the early years, the general residential and medium intensity rezoning action that they
recommend will produce at most 43 affordable units per year (p. 43). They do not provide a mid-
level estimate of affordable unit production rate. They do not provide a low-end estimate either.

There are other strategies in the Affordable Housing Plan for meeting the 2,500 unit deficit, besides
rezoning. However, let’s assume for the moment that the rezoning alone should deliver 50% of the
needed units by 2040. That means that rezoning needs to produce 1,250 affordable units in the next
18 years. The initial production rate will be at most 43 units per year. If that rate is achieved but
doesn’t increase, 1,250 units of affordable housing will not be delivered before 2052 or 2055.

Now, to deliver at most 43 units per year, the City’s plan proposes the construction of 9 other units
of housing for every 1 unit of affordable housing. Thus, under the advancing plan, the City will need
to construct 12,500 total units to yield 1,250 affordable units. Pew Research indicates that the
average U.S. household size today is a little above 2.5 people per household. So, if we construct
12,500 new housing units in the next 18 or 30 years, with 2.5 people per household, that would
suggest that we will add 31,250 residents to the City – just from the zoning rewrite portion of the
plan.

John Pfaltz’s recent Daily Progress editorial indicates that 31 years ago our City population was
41,267. Today our population is 45,672. In 30 years, we’ve added 4,405 residents. Now, if (and that’s
a big if) the City’s plan actually could solve our affordable housing crisis in the next 18 - 30 years, it
proposes to do so by adding 31,250 new residents, bringing our City population to perhaps 77,000.

So, in sum, if the City’s plan actually is capable of eliminating our affordable housing deficit by 2040
or 2050, are we as a community prepared (in a host of ways) for such an influx of new residents? If
the City’s plan is not going to eliminate the affordable housing deficit by 2040 or 2050 then why are
we pursuing it? Shouldn’t we be working together to find a realistic way to maintain the character of
a City distinctly different than northern Virginia while simultaneously providing housing for all those
in our community?
From:           James Graves
To:             engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:        Medium and High Density Zoning Increase
Date:           Tuesday, September 27, 2022 7:56:20 AM


I live in Johnson Village across the street proposed for medium density zoning around Johnson
Elementary School. This zoning change will destroy a pleasant, single family home
neighborhood and do nothing to alter the affordable housing shortage in Charlottesville. If the
City Council hasn't been paying attention to who buys neighborhoods and trailer parks in the
post pandemic world I can catch you up. After the demise of indoor shopping malls
and decline in demand for office building leases, limited liability corporations (LLCs) and real
estate investment trusts (REITS) are refocusing on residential housing. Rezoning the city like
this will be akin to ringing the dinner bell for these institutional investors to swoop in and buy
up blocks at a time, offering more money than the homes are worth, razing them, and building
large apartment buildings for UVa students and other well heeled tenants. If the city wants to
increase its tax base, it should get UVa to pay $15 or $20 million annually rather than
wrecking Charlottesville while enriching the pockets of out of state institutional investors.
There are much better ways to increase the supply of affordable housing than this
sledgehammer approach which will miss the mark completely.
From:               Clifford Fox
To:                 Charlottesville City Council; Charlottesville Planning Commission
Cc:                 Cville Plans Together
Subject:            Minimum lot sizes and SRO"s
Date:               Tuesday, September 27, 2022 7:25:54 PM




Why would one not allow an SRO to exis as a lot, legal parcelt; it could be a 525 square foot structure or
condominium? Flexibility is essential to increase supply.

Cliff Fox
From:           Eric Holmgren
To:             engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:        Planning Meeting
Date:           Tuesday, September 27, 2022 6:11:21 PM


Hello,

Charlottesville is facing a housing shortage that is worsening. I hope that the city can move
forward quickly on this plan. Expanded Inclusionary Zoning incentives will maximize new
homes that are urgently needed. Elimination of parking minimums will help this process save
space, reduce carbon emissions, and protect pedestrians including the children who walk to
school.

Thank you for your consideration,
Eric Holmgren
From:          Judy Sandridge
To:            engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:       Planning Meeting
Date:          Tuesday, September 27, 2022 8:46:09 PM


I watched this meeting tonight and I want you to know I support CLINC's priorities. Thank
you for letting me join tonight

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android
From:      Elliott Casey
To:        engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:   Public Comment from today"s meeting, 9.27.22
Date:      Tuesday, September 27, 2022 8:49:57 PM



Dear Members of the Charlottesville City Council and Planning
Commission:

I am writing today regarding the proposal to eliminate parking
minimums and permit 12-unit structures anywhere in
Residential districts.

I am stunned to learn that, after last year’s lengthy and careful
conversation about setting a four-unit per lot Residential limit in
some areas, and a twelve-unit per lot limit in other areas, the
City has decided to undo that decision less than a year later,
ignoring all the community feedback and input regarding that
map.

Last year, the City made a clear ruling about what density
should be based on enormous public input and extensive
debate. Everyone gave up something, but the process included
everyone. Now, with almost no input and essentially through a
back door, the City is undoing that and proposing to put 12 unit
dwellings anywhere. The City made a commitment after a
public process - why should we ever trust the City’s
commitments in the future?

Honestly, I feel stabbed in the back after participating fully in
the process last year. We were told that the comprehensive
plan was related to honest planning reasons, such as the
character and needs of each neighborhood. Now, we see that
is being thrown away. I heard the witness testify today that he
thought that seeking pubic feedback would simply result in
inconvenient opposition to the plan. His rejection of democracy
was a little jarring, and the opposite of the City’s stated goal of
“Charlottesville Planning Together.”

Parking is a perfect example of why this proposal does not
work, but it is only a small issue in the larger impossibility of
building 12-unit lots in a tiny neighborhood like ours.

Alongside this proposal is the proposal to eliminate parking
minimums, that is, pretend that new units do not require
parking. It is true that requiring that new construction actually
be able to accommodate new residents means that some
houses will not be built. But the reason they will not be built is
because the City cannot accommodate the residents - there is
no parking for them. The proposed plan would say to existing
residents that they can no longer park in their own
neighborhood.

It’s important to be honest - this proposal eliminates the
parking requirement because it recognizes that parking does
not exist and new construction cannot accommodate the
people who move in. In other words, once residents move in,
they will park in spots currently occupied by existing residents.
Thus, this proposal would literally squeeze current residents
out of our neighborhood and potentially make our daily travel
impossible.

It does not matter that the changes will come slowly. I live in a
neighborhood where most streets are one-way (either officially
or in practice). There are often no sidewalks and, if there is a
parked car on the street, there is just enough space on some
streets for either a pedestrian or a car, but not both. Mr.
Stolzenberg indicated that he did not know of a street in the
City that could not sustain a 12-unit structure. I invite him to
visit my neighborhood.

The city is talking about redeveloping 2% of its property per
year. That means that in 5 years, 1 in 10 properties will be
redeveloped; In 10 years, 1 in 5 houses will be redeveloped.
Under the City’s proposal, the simple addition of only 2 four-
unit structures to our neighborhood, with no minimum parking
requirement, would essentially drive us out of our
neighborhood.

Our neighborhood has slowly become dominated by multi-unit,
student housing.
Each time new housing is built, it quickly becomes student
housing as UVa adds more students to take advantage of the
additional housing capacity. Landlords tempt students with low
rents for 12-month periods, and do not care that they do not
have parking. They do not expect their tenants to return.

Our street has about 8 on-street parking spaces, total, for all of
the residences on this street; the street connecting to ours has
a few more. Beyond that, during the school year, there is
almost no available parking within a half-mile radius. Students
who cannot park at their residence park farther away each
year, and our surrounding streets have gradually filled with
student and UVA commuter vehicles. This neighborhood has no
paid parking, either, as UVA owns most of the lots in the area.

The City’s plan, with just 2 new 4-unit structures, would push
16 more cars into our neighborhood (32 at peak hours) with no
existing place for those cars to go, except for our street. We
have no transit options in our neighborhood, much less options
that take us to our jobs, etc. This proposed solution would
simply choke the streets of our neighborhoods with cars that
have no place to go.

Offering strict enforcement is no solution either. The City police
department is already down to 60 officers from full staffing of
120. The City has moved away from law enforcement in the last
decade and pretending that it will suddenly start enforcing
rules is a false promise. The City does not appear to be on a
road to enforcing laws strictly.

The City is focused, rightly, on bringing in residents who cannot
afford to live here, but if the decision is to bring them in by
driving out existing residents, that is a terrible choice. The
proposals discussed tonight will simply turn my neighborhood
into 100% student housing and drive the existing residents out.
Please do not make that choice.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Elliott Casey
905 Tunlaw Place
Charlottesville, Virginia 22903
From:           Benjamin Heller
To:             engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:        Public comment on joint work session
Date:           Tuesday, September 27, 2022 5:47:03 PM


Dear Council and Commission,

I am writing to make a public comment on the materials under discussion at the 9/27 joint
work session. Let me preface my comments, which address the specific discussion points
referred to in the meeting materials, by registering my continued disagreement with the land
use chapter of the CP and the entire rezoning process. I reiterate that the no one involved in
the process has attempted to make a case, let alone made a convincing case, that the basic
premise behind the exercise is true: namely, that current zoning has meaningfully restrained
the quantity of housing supply or distorted its composition in a way that is responsible for a
crisis of affordability or an unusual level of separation of housing types within the city. In
fact, there is abundant evidence that Charlottesville has neither a high level nor high rate of
increase in housing prices relative to the US average, that Charlottesville has a better-than-
average ratio of wages to housing cost and better-than-average decadal change in that ratio,
that Charlottesville has high elasticity of housing supply and a high overall rate of housing
supply, that Charlottesville has a relatively low degree of spatial separation between uses and
housing types, and that Charlottesville has relatively loose zoning de facto and de jure. All
this would have been apparent had the city undertaken an honest process with the guidance of
consultant selected under functionally competitive bidding, rather than beginning with the
conclusion and picking a gormless and pusillanimous consultant from a list of bidders that
amounted only to that consultant to serve as a rubber stamp to the scheme of a narrow group of
activists.

With respect to the specific issues under discussion tonight, I have the following comments:

1) Parking minimums. Reducing parking minimums can be a useful tool to reduce the cost of
housing production. GIven that other aspects of zoning are not driving cost here, we are a
"marginal cost" market and reducing construction costs can reduce housing prices. That said,
Donald Shoup, the dean of the "parking scholars", puts it best when he says that a jurisdiction
must not tinker with off-street parking minimums until it addresses on-street parking policies.
To simply reduce parking minimums without doing anything about on-street parking
allocation and pricing is to invite developers to externalize the cost of parking to neighbors.
This has adverse consequences for livability and for the environment. Shoup describes
convincingly that underpriced on-street parking leads to tremendous excess energy use by
allocating through "cruising time" rather than a more efficient pricing scheme. The city
should not reduce parking minimums until it has developed a scheme for on-street parking
permits for affected neighborhoods, one that prices on-street parking properly, and which, if it
does allocate any permits for free, does so on a per-parcel or per-unit-of-street-frontage basis.
Finally, the city should recognize the difference between reduced vehicle miles and reduced
car ownership. The bar, in terms of public transit convenience and bike/pedestrian
infrastructure, for people to fully forego car ownership, is extremely high. Charlottesville is
nowhere near meeting it. If Charlottesville does not meet it, then reduced parking minimums
will not reduce the amount of parking developers provide. If car ownership is inevitable, then
a development will not be viable without a certain level of parking, regardless of minimums.

2) Minimum lot size. Not surprisingly, the description of this issue lacks detail and context. If
the idea is that any lot should be subdivisable into infinitesimally sized lots that have the same
zoning entitlement as any GR or MIR lot, then reduced or eliminated minimum lot sizes
completely gut any limit on the number of units in town. I don't believe than even RHI, the
Commission, or their puppetmasters in the activist community are stupid enough to think that
is a viable idea. Therefore, I am going to work under the assumption that the idea here is to
allow separate ownership of structures that would belong to one lot (with a normal GR or MIR
unit entitlement) rather than to insist on a single lot that observes minimum lot sizes with a
condominium or cooperative ownership structure. If this assumption is correct, then the idea
is not entirely without merit, but the city and consultants would need to do more analysis to
show that this is a good idea. The purpose of condominium and cooperative ownership
structures is not merely to "circumvent" minimum lot sizes, but to provide security to property
owners in situations where the value of their home, both financially and hedonically, is
inseparable from the behavior and choices of their near neighbors. As such, in those
situations, there need to be tight legal arrangements for the relationship between these near
neighbors. To simply allow subdivision into tiny "lotlets" would leave property-owners
vulnerable to harsh externalities, with no recourse.

3) The criterion of "harmoniousness". I am not a fan of the enforcement of narrow aesthetic
principles via zoning, except in cases of truly compelling historic preservation. I think,
however, a "harmoniousness" of building size, setback, height, and massing is indispensable
for a liveable streetscape. Therefore, while I think it would be appropriate to make clear that
outside of historic districts there is no requirement of "aesthetic harmony" (i.e. everything is
brick, or Georgian), this should not extend to removing the requirement of harmonious form in
the broader sense.

4) Overlays. The purpose of zoning for density in nodes and corridors is to make sure the
infrastructural predicates of density are available or at least attainable at reasonable cost. This
requires the city to be able to predict where density is going to happen and focus it in a way to
avoid duplicative infrastructure. An overlay completely traduces that goal. As such, it is not
just a bad idea, but patently ridiculous. PHA and Habitat already dominate affordable housing
development here. They have done a TERRIBLE job, producing housing slowly and at an
exorbitant cost. This idea is their baby, and they keep bringing it back no matter how many
times sane and competent people point out its absurdity. I believe Ms. Dale, on the Steering
Committee, has made this point about the importance of predicting where density will go
rather than having it pop up randomly, multiple times. Enough already. The city should not
abandon sound principles just because they are inconvenient for developers, even if those
developers are mission-oriented rather than profit-oriented.

Thank you for your consideration,

Ben Heller
From:           Lee Scott
To:             engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:        Public comment on Work Session with City Council and Planning Commission
Date:           Tuesday, September 27, 2022 5:47:51 PM


Dear Council and Commission,

I am writing to express my opinion on the "Key Questions" under discussion at the Work
Session. I oppose the reduction or elimination of parking minimums, unless and until the city
fulfills important predicates for such a policy choice. The city must devise and analytically test
a scheme for on-street parking management, so that developers do not simply externalize
parking costs to the street. On-street parking permits should be issued on a per-parcel or per-
unit-street-frontage basis. The city must improve transit and pedestrian infrastructure to reduce
the need for car ownership before reducing parking minimums.

Lot subdivisions should only be allowed according to current minimum size and street
frontage rules. To remove these restrictions would be to gut the already-feeble protections the
zoning approach currently offers against uncontrolled and extreme densification.

Finally, I oppose any further overlays that would allow developers to exceed use and form
intensity maximums in any of the FLUM categories. The density/intensity entitlements are
already too unfocused as it is.

I attended the open house at the Ting Pavilion and was absolutely horrified by the out of scale
infill proposed for established neighborhoods. This plan is nothing more than a communist
government land grab, using nice sounding words like equity. One size shoe DOES NOT fit
all.

Don’t ever be fooled that “equity” means fair and equal treatment. It means nothing of
the sort. It means state-enforced equality of outcomes, and bureaucratically driven
discrimination.

The booming diversity, equity, and inclusion industry is divisive and destructive, and it
cannot help but be. It is an outgrowth of Marxist ideology.

The process thus far has been marked by a surprising and disappointing lack of analytical
rigor. The "key questions" being raised at this meeting will not be answered by activist
pontification, but rather by solid analysis. Please do your homework this time.

Please note, my engagement with the "Key Questions" in this presentation should not be taken
as an endorsement of the plan more broadly. I oppose the housing strategy of the CP and
believe that the Zoning Ordinance rewrite should wait until a properly grounded housing
strategy and land use map can be devised.

Sincerely,

Lee Scott

1711 King Mountain Rd.
From:        Kimber Hawkey
To:          Cville Plans Together
Subject:     Public comment on Work Session with City Council and Planning Commission
Date:        Tuesday, September 27, 2022 5:45:48 PM


Dear Council and Commission,

Please forgive our use of some of the form arguments in the mail below;
however, after 20 years of fighting for appropriate development and true
affordable housing in this city while the City consistently bows down to the
money interests in this town, our anger and disgust over the incompetence
and apparent greed has risen to such an extent that I no longer have the
energy to write civil emails. Feel free to add expletives throughout this
text below which only begins to enumerate the many problems, errors,
and lunacy of what the Cville Plans "Together" has proposed. So little of
what is being done is appropriate or "harmonious". It certainly does not
and will not give us truly Affordable Housing. Your recent JPA decision
only proves that once again for all to see.

We are writing to express our opinion on the "Key Questions" under
discussion at the Work Session. We oppose the reduction or elimination
of parking minimums, unless and until the city fulfills important predicates
for such a policy choice. The city must devise and analytically test a
scheme for on-street parking management, so that developers do not
simply externalize parking costs to the street. On-street parking permits
should be issued on a per-parcel or per-unit-street-frontage basis. The
city must improve transit and pedestrian infrastructure to reduce the need
for car ownership before reducing parking minimums. The parking and
traffic in the city are already highly problematic - stop making the problem
worse.

Lot subdivisions should only be allowed according to current minimum size
and street frontage rules. To remove these restrictions would be to gut
the already-feeble protections the zoning approach currently offers against
uncontrolled and extreme densification. Start acting ethically and honor
your promises of appropriate development that is "harmonious" and
"house-sized"; maybe then you will start to recoup the trust in city
government.

Regarding overlays:  we oppose any further overlays that would allow
developers to exceed use and form intensity maximums in any of the
FLUM categories. The density/intensity entitlements are already too
unfocused as it is. The only overlay should be that the entire city be
accorded the "sensitive area" designation. We realize that the City will
probably still allow developers to skirt around that protective designation
(as in the Shimp/Nassau St. development decision this past year, i.e.
where was the affordability?); however, at least it would show equal
respect for protecting neighborhoods in the entire city from the free-for-all
that you have set up for speculative investment and profit-driven
developers..

The process thus far has been marked by a surprising and disappointing
lack of analytical rigor. The "key questions" being raised at this meeting
will not be answered by activist pontification, but rather by solid analysis.
Please do your homework this time.

Please note, our engagement with the "Key Questions" in this presentation
should not be taken as an endorsement of the plan more broadly.
We oppose the housing strategy of the CP and believe that the Zoning
Ordinance rewrite should wait until a properly grounded housing strategy
and land use map can be devised.

Finally, please confirm receipt of this email so that we know that it has
been read and put into the public record.

Sincerely,
Kimber Hawkey and Charles Gendrot
Charlottesville City Residents
From:         Steve Myers
To:           engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:      Public comment on Work Session with City Council and Planning Commission
Date:         Tuesday, September 27, 2022 5:45:24 PM


Dear Council and Commission,

I am writing to share some thoughts as a homeowner regarding the "Key Questions"
under discussion at the Work Session.

This whole exercise seems completely unnecessary. I would suggest that the whole
rezoning project is being done for the benefit of those organizing it rather than the
community. The organizers want to feel good about themselves - at the cost of
permanent damage to our community.

If individual residents need financial assistance, and if the city feels that such
assistance is a suitable and appropriate use of taxpayers' money, then that is what
should be provided for a limited time. By way of comparison, you will recall that
"Obamacare" destroyed the healthcare of 92 percent of the US population in order
to help a tiny minority who could not afford it, and who, incidentally still don't have
it.

Likewise, this plan would destroy many settled neighborhoods in the city,
containing homes that people have worked hard to afford, in order to help a tiny
minority who are having financial difficulties - and would do nothing to relieve
their financial difficulties, as might job training, entrepreneurship, counseling and
other options. If the city government feels it needs to become involved, why not
offer housing subsidies to the less well-off or even help them to put down a deposit,
so they can lift themselves out of poverty?

Consequently, I also oppose the reduction or elimination of parking minimums. The
city could also improve public transit to reduce the need for car ownership before
reducing parking minimums. This is poorly considered and should be abandoned.

Lot subdivisions should only be allowed according to current minimum size and
street frontage rules. To remove these restrictions would create a free-for-all and
before you know it, Charlottesville will become another Baltimore, Detroit or any
number of other Democrat-controlled cities which have deteriorated into crime
scenes worse than many found in African and Latin American cities.

Finally, I also object to any further overlays that would allow excess intensity
maximums in any of the FLUM categories. It seems to me that this whole proposal
is based on emotions, not facts, and is - like many well-intentioned proposals - an
attempt to be seen to be doing something constructive rather than actually doing it.
Sincerely,


Steve Myers
Lewis Mountain Road
Charlottesville VA 22903
From:           Joseph Davis
To:             engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:        Public comment on Work Session with City Council and Planning Commission
Date:           Tuesday, September 27, 2022 5:45:16 PM


Dear Council and Commission,

Granted, this is a form email, but it expresses better than I the concerns I share with others
about zoning rewrite.

I am writing to express my opinion on the "Key Questions" under discussion at the Work
Session. I oppose the reduction or elimination of parking minimums, unless and until the city
fulfills important predicates for such a policy choice. The city must devise and analytically
test a scheme for on-street parking management, so that developers do not simply externalize
parking costs to the street. On-street parking permits should be issued on a per-parcel or per-
unit-street-frontage basis. The city must improve transit and pedestrian infrastructure to
reduce the need for car ownership before reducing parking minimums.

Lot subdivisions should only be allowed according to current minimum size and street
frontage rules. To remove these restrictions would be to gut the already-feeble protections the
zoning approach currently offers against uncontrolled and extreme densification.

Finally, I oppose any further overlays that would allow developers to exceed use and form
intensity maximums in any of the FLUM categories. The density/intensity entitlements are
already too unfocused as it is.

The process thus far has been marked by a surprising and disappointing lack of analytical
rigor. The "key questions" being raised at this meeting will not be answered by activist
pontification, but rather by solid analysis.

Sincerely,
From:            Donald Morin
To:              engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:         Public comment on Work Session with City Council and Planning Commission
Date:            Tuesday, September 27, 2022 10:24:34 AM


Dear Council and Commission,

The comments below have probably been submitted by many others. I am submitting this email to
you to join in those comments. But in addition, the City should first state what the affordable
housing goal is. How many units are to be built, over what time period to be built, and by defining
affordability. Without these metrics, the City cannot determine what the impact of the new zoning
plan will have on existing housing and neighborhoods and on the environment. I am particularly
concerned about any consideration of eliminating minimum lot sizes. Is it the intention of the
planners to return to building large apartment blocks that have the impact of imprisoning their
inhabitants. Please consider the impact of that type of development such as the Pruitt-Igoe buildings
in the City of St. Louis. First define the problem: how many affordable housing units does the city
need in the next 10 years; what is an affordable housing unit. Then you can begin to solve the
problem by promoting the development of sustainable affordable housing.

I join in the following comments: I am writing to express my opinion on the "Key Questions" under
discussion at the Work Session.  I oppose the reduction or elimination of parking minimums, unless
and until the city fulfills important predicates for such a policy choice.  The city must devise and
analytically test a scheme for on-street parking management, so that developers do not simply
externalize parking costs to the street.  On-street parking permits should be issued on a per-parcel
or per-unit-street-frontage basis.  The city must improve transit and pedestrian infrastructure to
reduce the need for car ownership before reducing parking minimums.

Lot subdivisions should only be allowed according to current minimum size and street frontage
rules.  To remove these restrictions would be to gut the already-feeble protections the zoning
approach currently offers against uncontrolled and extreme densification.

Finally, I oppose any further overlays that would allow developers to exceed use and form intensity
maximums in any of the FLUM categories.  The density/intensity entitlements are already too
unfocused as it is.

The process thus far has been marked by a surprising and disappointing lack of analytical rigor.  The
"key questions" being raised at this meeting will not be answered by activist pontification, but rather
by solid analysis.  Please do your homework this time.

Please note, my engagement with the "Key Questions" in this presentation should not be taken as an
endorsement of the plan more broadly.  I oppose the housing strategy of the CP and believe that the
Zoning Ordinance rewrite should wait until a properly grounded housing strategy and land use map
can be devised.

Sincerely,
Donald R. Morin
2571 Palmer Drive
Keswick, VA 22947
434-906-4596
drmorin1310@gmail.com
Formerly a City of Charlottesville resident for 31 years and still deeply concerned about this
wonderful City.
From:           Lise Stoessel
To:             engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:        Public comment on Work Session with City Council and Planning Commission
Date:           Tuesday, September 27, 2022 7:34:33 PM


Dear Council and Commission,

I am writing to express my opinion on the "Key Questions" under discussion at the Work
Session. I oppose the reduction or elimination of parking minimums, unless and until the city
fulfills important predicates for such a policy choice. The city must devise and analytically
test a scheme for on-street parking management, so that developers do not simply externalize
parking costs to the street. On-street parking permits should be issued on a per-parcel or per-
unit-street-frontage basis. The city must improve transit and pedestrian infrastructure to
reduce the need for car ownership before reducing parking minimums.

Lot subdivisions should only be allowed according to current minimum size and street
frontage rules. To remove these restrictions would be to gut the already-feeble protections the
zoning approach currently offers against uncontrolled and extreme densification.

Finally, I oppose any further overlays that would allow developers to exceed use and form
intensity maximums in any of the FLUM categories. The density/intensity entitlements are
already too unfocused as it is.

The process thus far has been marked by a surprising and disappointing lack of analytical
rigor. The "key questions" being raised at this meeting will not be answered by activist
pontification, but rather by solid analysis. Please do your homework this time.

Sincerely,

Lise Stoessel
Arbor circle
Charlottesville 22902
From:               Pete Marshall
To:                 Cville Plans Together
Subject:            Public comment on Zoning Work Session
Date:               Tuesday, September 27, 2022 5:38:38 PM




Sent at 5:38pm
My wife and I own our house on Gentry Lane in Charlottesville…we bought in 1999 with the idea that we would be
able to age in place, not so that our house would be a stepping stone to somewhere else. Our 0.17 acre lot slopes
away from the road with the result that a driveway/off-street parking was never designed into the property, and we
park on the street outside our home. I am therefore particularly concerned about street parking in relation to
proposed upzoning…with increased housing density, what are the chances we will be able, or allowed even, to park
anywhere near our house? It seems you all have already decided to relax off-street parking requirements for new
builds, even for multi-family units, so you can cram even more residents into Charlottesville. Will I eventually be
forced to spend a considerable amount of money that I don't have to put in a driveway which will destroy the
integrity of my front yard, all so that I can park close to my house?

It doesn’t appear that any thought has been given to the idea that increased residency will result in increased
traffic…there is no apparent provision to require developers to even contribute to the building of more sidewalks, or
am I wrong? Where are the plans for infrastructure upgrades, and who will pay for them? You can wish all you want
that residents will walk more, but without adequate sidewalks and with increased traffic, people who are brave
enough to be pedestrians will have accidents and we will all suffer poorer air quality, as new residents will most
likely bring vehicles with them. (Even now, with no changes to zoning in place, air quality is already a problem….I
invite you to come stand in my yard on Gentry Lane and watch the stationary traffic, all with their engines idling,
lined up to pick up children at Walker School *every* schoolday.)

Re affordable housing, I know about the Dillon rule, but has *any* effort been made to lobby the state legislature to
enable rent control to be enacted in Charlottesville? I suspect you haven’t even tried. Rent control should have been
priority #1 in addressing affordable housing.

The Future Land Use Map and the proposed zoning changes are a gift to developers and absentee landlords, who are
undoubtedly licking their chops at the prospect of the windfalls they see coming.

For all of the above reasons, and more, I remain firmly opposed to this plan.

Pete Marshall
From:           vern buchanan
To:             Cville Plans Together
Subject:        Public comment to CC/PC Joint Work Session
Date:           Tuesday, September 27, 2022 10:06:55 PM


  Thank you for asking for public comment

Please, Please, Please reconsider the plan that you are embarking on.
I believe It will completely alter the character of the city & the lives of its inhabitants in ways
that were unintended.
       I believe the logic of the plan is faulty.
Since this plan has emerged prices of housing has gone thru the roof.
How does that make housing affordable? Or even buildable?
Our infrastructure cannot handle what is being proposed; roads and schools are already too
crowded. There aren't enough bus drivers to safely take our children to school, thus increasing
traffic immensely.
How does that make Charlottesville livable?
     Logical actions & plans usually produce Livable results.
  Charlottesville has not Planned Together leaving many residents feeling ignored & discounted
.
If you are going to call yourself Charlottesville Plans Together please do it .
Sincerely
Charlottesville resident
Greenbrier Subdivision
From:            David Aller
To:              engage@cvilleplanstogether.com; David Aller
Subject:         Public comment to CC/PC Joint Work Session
Date:            Tuesday, September 27, 2022 9:45:05 PM


I have read the comments submitted to Charlottesville Plans Together on the proposed Zoning changes.

The vast majority of very thoughtful commentators have severe misgivings about the direction the
leadership of the city is taking us.

Please read these comments and give them your careful consideration.

James D Aller
From:             David Aller
To:               engage@cvilleplanstogether.com; David Aller
Subject:          Public comment to CC/PC Joint Work Session
Date:             Tuesday, September 27, 2022 9:40:30 PM


I was able to view some of the presentation and discussion by Zoom tonight

My comments:

The parking consultant stated that parking approaches were based on "pseudoscience" and things just
had to be tried. Very disconcerting. The city must improve available transit such as is now being done in
Wilson, NC, otherwise reduced parking requirements will just put cars into existing neighborhoods, and
the developer benefits and no one else!

If all the proposed up zoning increases the value of property as is projected, is city council going to
reduce the property tax rate to allow for the increased value? Residents living on fixed incomes who do
not want to move want to know!

James D Aller
Locust Grove
From:                Pfaltz, John Virginia (jlp)
To:                  Cville Plans Together
Subject:             Public comment to CC/PC Joint Work Session
Date:                Tuesday, September 27, 2022 6:31:51 PM




     How much is too much? This question in key in the discussion of the proposed 72 new apartments ajacent to St.
Clair and River Vista Avenues near the US 250 Bypass. [Daily Progress, Sept. 15]. Several residents have
complained of the increased traffic on their narrow streets which the developer said “might double”. Unfortunately,
it is difficult to know if these fears are justified or not. In its quest for more housing density our city has said little
about its gradually deteriorating streets.

    The op-ed in Sunday’s Daily Progress [Sept. 25] argues that eliminating/reducing the need for developers to
provide off-street parking will reduce the cost of development (true), encourage more affordable housing (possibly),
and make our city less dependent on the automobile (dubious). When I was commuting to U.Va. by bicycle, passing
parked cars always forced me into the travel lane. It was more dangerous and I tried to avoid such streets. On-street
parking is more likely to deter bicycle usage.

   I often drive along Preston Ave. and Barracks Road to Emmet Street.   In the FLUM this is all designated for
Medium Density Housing (up to 15 units per lot). Will the requirement for off-street parking in this area be
relaxed. Limited on-street parking is already allowed on portions of Preston; will it be permitted its entire length?
Will on-street parking be permitted between the steep banks of Baracks Road? Tell us.

    As the desire for more affordable housing through higher density development has been unfolding, various
unexpected consequences have appeared. In the rush to achieve this goal, we must not sweep these issues under the
rug. Mr. Freas, in various neighborhood meetings, has repeatedly pointed out that “nothing will happen overnight, it
will take a long time for these policies to take effect”. Good. Then we surely can take time to provide the residents
with a more detailed plan of just what to expect.

   Together with the FLUM and proposed Inclusive Rezoning proposal the city should provide us with a detailed
analysis of our road network. What is the current vehicle load (especially at rush hour) of each segment? and how
much more would overload it? The road by our house had steady traffic and seems capable of a bit more. But
Preston Avenue and Long Street at rush hours (and much of the day) are slow moving disasters. So are other
streets. What is their VDOT rating, A, B, C, D or F? Give us a that map.

   The city should also provide a detailed map of which streets it considers appropriate for on-street parking. If the
off-street parking requirement is reduced/eliminated as an incentive for denser development some streets could be
noticeably worse. Neither of these should take more than 6 months. As Mr. Freas has pointed out, we have time.

John Pfaltz
From:               Lee Scott
To:                 engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:            Public comment to CC/PC Joint Work Session
Date:               Tuesday, September 27, 2022 6:14:44 PM




Members of City Council and Planning Commission,

I am listening to this discussion on affordable housing and the city's
entire tax policy suppresses this.

You are promoting a new FLUM and zoning that will increase taxes,
forcing people to sell their properties. Who buys them? Usually
developers who then promise to include "affordable housing" in their
developments.

The folks who were already living in the house probably wanted to stay
in their house that was "affordable" when they bought it.

This is such a racket. Increase property taxes, making housing
"unaffordable", then developers purchase the property and promise
"affordable" housing. This is deliberate destruction of neighborhoods
and family housing for government ideas about equity. This is COMMUNISM.

It's criminal.

Sincerely,

Lee Scott

1711 King Mountain Rd.
From:            Carolyn Talley
To:              engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:         Public comment to CC/PC Joint Work Session
Date:            Tuesday, September 27, 2022 5:56:59 PM


I wish to express my concern about the lack of required parking spots for upcoming development in
the city of Charlottesville. There needs to be 2 spaces for each unit and there should be a charging
station for each unit based on Charlottesville’s commitment to green energy. Developers do not
need to be allowed to cut corners on providing these services to the citizens of Charlottesville. And
the lack of green space in the proposed new housing density is incredibly wrong.
Carolyn Cason Talley
From:         Nancy Summers
To:           engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:      Public comment to CC/PC Joint Work Session
Date:         Tuesday, September 27, 2022 5:51:27 PM




   1. Feasibility studies. Before you undertake a plan for eliminating parking
      requirements, I suggest you do a feasibility study first. (I have noticed that
      you make plans first, and then study their feasibility. . This seems
      backwards. You did not do a feasibility plan before you did the CP and
      FLUM and you promised the public more affordable housing. It turns out
      this is not feasible.
   2. Please base decisions you make about what should be done in
      Charlottsville by analyses of conditions in Charlottesville, not studies done
      in other utterly dissimilar cities, or merely theoretical studies. For
      example, Mayor Snook has said repeatedly that he thinks that the CP and
      FLUM will protect Charlottesville from becoming like Palo Alto. Obviously,
      Palo Alto, the birthplace of Silicon Valley, the global center of the high
      tech industry is not Cville.   A cursory glance at the economy of Palo Alto
      and the Silicon Valley will make it clear that these two college town are in
      no way similar. There are many reason why home prices are almost ten
      times as high in Palo Alto than they are Charlottesville. Zoning is hardly
      among them. Charlottesville has unique issues. Mr. Frees did not realize
      how little anticipated growth in Charlottesville is predicted by the official
      demographers of Virginia. In the next 30 years only 3,000 people are
      expected to move to the city.! Even this number were doubled, the
      housing needs could be easily handled. And it is practically meaningless
      to imagine that 10% of the increased housing units for 3,000 or 6,000
      people would in anyway address the need for affordable housing.
   3. One issue that is not sufficiently addressed is the relation of UVA student
      renters to the city as a whole. The city population is small, 48,000 and
      student renters – there are 20,000 students looking for a place to live
      every year – comprise a large portion of the city’s populations- perhaps
      20% and a large percentage of renters – perhaps 50%. . The city needs to
      know exactly how many students are renting in the city. The UVA is
      placing an enormous burden on housing in the city. The UVA is a rich,
      non-tax paying entity, and the city should not be redesigning itself to
   accommodate this transient body of student residents/renters. The only
   obvious market where developers can profitably build in the city is
   student housing. The UVA is not doing its share, and the city should not
   be caving to its needs.
4. Lee Einsweiler, the man hired by the city to rezone the city, understands
   full well that he cannot zone the city in such a way to make housing more
   affordable. He has expressed himself clearly on this issue. He stated that
   he was hired by the city to make more, smaller housing units, but that
   these units would not be any less expensive than the larger housing units
   that presently exist. To make his point clear, he compared what he was
   doing for housing to “repackaging” in grocery stores, when the store
   charges the same price for a smaller amount of the product. Indeed, when
   he was asked if he meant that a person would go to the grocers and pay
   the same amount for one-half pound of hamburger that they formerly did
   for a pound, he agreed that this was what he meant. There would be
   more half pound packages, but they wouldn’t cost any less than the
   pound packages. So many organizations were so supportive of the CP and
   the FLUM because they thought it would create affordable housing. These
   people need to be told that affordability has nothing whatsoever to do
   with the rezoning of the city. Lee was being realistic and honest about
   what he could achieve by zoning in Charlottesville. He should not be
   forced to walk back these statements.
5. A harmonious city: Since rezoning the city has nothing whatsoever to do
   with affordability, and everything to do with student housing, I would like
   to point out that the “charm”, the famous “beauty” of Charlottesville is
   not only a good in itself, but contributes to the great allure of our region
   as a tourist destination. Tourism is an important part of the economy.
   Getting rid of restrictions on lots size, on height of buildings, on the
   amount of a lot that a building can cover could create a very unattractive
   city. Being an attractive city in a beautiful region is an economic asset, a
   source of jobs, an important tax base for the city..


6. I would like to emphasize that Charlottesville has an obligation to directly
  address the needs of the most disadvantaged citizens. My heart sank
when I read that Seminole Square was being developed for market rate
housing. It was an ideal spot for affordable housing,
From:            Scott Ruffner
To:              Cville Plans Together
Subject:         Public comment to CC/PC Joint Work Session
Date:            Tuesday, September 27, 2022 5:45:54 PM


I want to provide two pieces of feedback for the Zoning rewrite. I do not generally support the
proposed upzoning at all, as it seems - at best - mostly ideologically driven - and at worst -
specifically designed to "break" what are currently SFR neighborhoods by targeting them for
higher density development. At a practical level, there are two major considerations which the
proposed plan more or less ignores:

- First, MIR - as originally sold - doesn't actually accomplish the stated goals because it
"doesn't pencil", as even the report admits. To accomplish affordability, MIR now has to
contemplate much higher unit counts and eliminate lot minimums. So much for "house like"
properties interspersed among existing single-family homes. The city presently has lovely
examples of this kind of housing - the Fontaine/JPA neighborhood - well sited for the student
population pressure driving this demand - abounds with them, and they are incompatible with
the existing SFR and have displaced it. It's not surprising - it's predictable.

- Second - the elimination of parking minimums. While a car-free city is clearly one of the
upzoner's other ideological goals, it's a clear denial of reality to expect that simply eliminating
parking will eliminate cars and the desire - really need - of people to have them. Eliminating
parking minimums will not result in fewer cars; it will simply push these "externalities"
elsewhere.

Since the FLUM and first planning steps were taken, Great Eastern Management has started to
redevelop a shopping center to provide another 352 apartment units, and even with this
"density" emergency, the planning commision saw fit to refuse a rezoning for a high-density
development in North Downtown - a cynic would suggest they see the "crisis" slipping away.
Throw in the bait-and-switch on MIR, and it gets difficult to take any of the arguments at face
value. What the upzoning does consistently do is attempt to bust up traditionally wealthier low
density neighborhoods.
From:            terri dicintio
To:              engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:         Public comment to CC/PC Joint Work Session
Date:            Tuesday, September 27, 2022 5:42:57 PM



Councilors and Planning Commissioners:

I write this evening to express my concern over the proposed Zoning Rewrite. I have lived in
Charlottesville since 1989. Lack of affordable housing was being discussed then, and I assume,
for many years prior. No real progress has been made since then, and I wonder if it will be
now. Let me be clear - I support the concept of affordable housing. I believe that clean and
safe housing should be within economic reach for every resident of our community. But I
have serious doubts about your proposed ideas for making that happen.

First of all, the idea that upzoning and creating more density will somehow lead to affordable
housing is naive and ridiculous. Please show me a place where that has been successful
because I cannot find even one.

Second, increased density and unchecked development over the 33 years I lived here, have
created many problems. This city simply does not have the infrastructure to handle its current
population and density, so adding to it will only exacerbate the problems that already exist.
The plan does not address today's needs, let alone the needs that will be created by future
growth.

While I have many, many, many concerns, I would like to highlight two:

1) Reducing or eliminating parking minimums without first creating a plan to control on-street
parking would merely lead to externalizing developers' parking-provision obligations to the
streets, to the detriment of current residents; and that reduction of parking minimums will
only work to the extent the city makes major infrastructural improvements that would induce
a reduction in car ownership - which is a tall order and unlikely to occur in the recent future.
The lack of reliable and frequent public transportation MUST come first.

2) Reducing, and potentially, eliminating minimum lot sizes would gut the already-minimal
protections the current draft offers against uncontrolled density increases. Destroying homes
and neighborhoods that currently exist will not solve the problem, and will create additional
issues. Creating affordable housing and preserving existing neighborhoods are not mutually
exclusive.

If City leaders really want to deal with the lack of affordable housing, City land, real estate, and
funds are required. The City government will need to be responsible for the creation of the
housing. Allowing, and/or leaving it up to for-profit developers to create affordable housing is
laughable. Real estate developers are in the business of making a profit. They are not
interested in creating a vibrant, inclusive community. They are not interested in solving
societal or economic problems. They are not interested in righting past wrongs. They will do
the very least for the highest cost. If you do not believe that, just look around you at what they
have built thus far. You should not be looking to developers or consultants to solve our
problems, you should be looking to the community and listening to what residents want - all
residents. If you alienate those who have built their lives, raised their families, paid their taxes
and your salaries for many years, you will find yourselves with even bigger problems in the
future.

Thank you for you time and attention.

Terri Di Cintio
From:          Clay, Jenny S (jsc2t)
To:            engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:       Public comment to CC/PC Joint Work Session
Date:          Tuesday, September 27, 2022 5:40:49 PM
Attachments:   Outlook-e0dipncu.png



You have asked for public comment; here's mine:

I quote from FLUM's statement:

IMPLEMENT THE AFFORDABLE HOUSING PLAN
“The recommendations within the Charlottesville Affordable Housing
Plan are built with three guiding principles in mind: racial equity,
regional collaboration, and a focus on a comprehensive approach.
These guiding principles inform the design and implementation of
recommended strategies and will enable the City to track the impacts of
its affordable housing activities. Aligning the City’s affordable housing
policies, programs, and investments with these guiding principles will
help the City to more effectively address the affordable housing needs
of its residents and workers.”

› Allow more units on every lot zoned for only a single unit today ›
Allow more rental and ownership options › Create zoning incentives
(see next section) › Adopt an inclusionary zoning policy (see next
section)
› Create a toolkit to avoid displacing at-risk communities


It seems to me that if the main goal is more affordable housing in
Charlottesville, that, rather than re-zoning and increasing density,
should be front and center. I can nowhere see a straightforward
statement showing where and what affordable housing is actually
planned. Under the plans I have seen (which seem to change every day
to create more, rater than fewer problems), I do not see how many
affordable housing units are needed. Saying that developers can build
x number of units and then set aside one or two "affordable" units
seems rather backwards to me. Do we know how many developers will
be involved? And hence how many units will be built? No. No we
don’t.   

Can you give me a straightforward answer as to how many affordable
units and where will be available with the new plan? Why don’t we
start over with a plan to figure out how many such units we need and go
from there.

I want facts and numbers; not vague aspirations.

JSC


Jenny Strauss Clay
William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Classics Emerita
1511 Rugby Avenue
Charlottesville VA 22903
434-979-3599 (H)




πάντηι δ' ἀθανάτων ἀφανὴς νόος ἀνθρώποισιν
γηράσκω δ' αἰεὶ πολλὰ διδασκόμενος.   
From:               Tracy Carlson
To:                 engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:            Public comment to CC/PC Joint Work Session
Date:               Tuesday, September 27, 2022 10:11:02 PM




To the CC/PC:

While some modest relaxation in parking minimums may merit consideration, this only makes sense if there is a
plan in place to control on-street parking first. Developers who get a free pass on parking minimums will simply
dump their problems on current residents. On-street parking permits should be granted on a per-unit basis, so it
doesn’t become an ugly and contentious battle on the streets. It’s wishful thinking at best to imagine that somehow
things will simply “work out” with no planning and no major investment in infrastructure to reduce the need to own
a car.

In addition, I’m very concerned about the potential elimination of minimum lot sizes. The plan is already an
unconscionable boondoggle for developers, who will be granted permission by-right to exponentially increase
density in neighborhoods that can’t sustain such an increase. The result will be ever more high-end condos, with
little to no affordable units that actually allow lower-income residents to build wealth.

As you might imagine, I oppose the plan. I support the intent to increase affordable housing, but I believe the plan is
a an unforgivable giveaway to developers that will potentially destroy the character of neighborhoods while not
producing any meaningful amount of affordable housing.

Respectfully,

Tracy Carlson
704 Evergreen Avenue
Charlottesville, VA 22902
From:           charlotte meadows
To:             engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:        Public comments on work Station with CC and PC
Date:           Tuesday, September 27, 2022 11:12:54 PM


Dear Council and Commision,
  This is to record my opinion for 'key questions' in the discussion at your work session. It's
appalling that you're suggesting eliminating parking minimums. The city needs to take more
responsibilities in setting the trends and limitations on current minimum size and street
frontage rules rather than letting the developer take charge. It would also appear that the
current proposals shoves parking as well as excess traffic into the neighborhood already
struggling with lack of parking.
  There has been a consistent history of using emotions and haranging residents of different
opinions rather than valid analytical studies of what's worked in cities of Charlottesville's size
vs places like Chicago. Lot subdivisions need to be formulated to current size and street
frontage rules. I oppose any future overlays that allow developers that exceed intensity
maximums of the FLUM categories. Please conduct valid analytical studies to fully study the
effects of such high intensity development in such a limited space.
 Another major concern is the road infrastructure that's been ignored in a practical manner of
how to handle traffic as well as parking. In our current shortage of bus drivers as well as other
city employees; residents can't drive their children to school without having adequate
transportation.
  Then, there's the issue of our 100 year floodplain history as well as rising sea levels due to
climate change. How is higher density/intensity going to help with flooding and probable
 subsequent loss of lives and properties all along the Rivanna? Of course we need
affordability. What about liveability and some desire to enhance our historic nature? The
subsequent housing very often doesn't provide affordability nor is the developer held
responsible for not meeting our affordability standards.
  Please consider all ramifications of your actions to either make or break Charlottesville.
    Sincerely,
    Charlotte Meadows, Greenbrier Subdivision
From:           Holland McBryde Mason
To:             engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:        Public Comments
Date:           Tuesday, September 27, 2022 7:37:21 PM


Thank you for the information provided in the webinar.

As a long term resident of our city and as someone who fully supports affordable housing, I
remain concerned that our goal of increased densification does not include a true evaluation of
the infrastructure to support this growth. Specifically:

(1) Emergency services/police/fire/EMS. We must ensure that we do not violate principles
of safety with increased densification. Our zoning rewrite must have safeguards to keep our
community safe.

(2) School systems. While recognizing that zoning does not appropriate funding, we need to
ensure that our schools and our teachers have the necessary funding to accommodate more
growth. I believe we should study this issue when developers submit plans in our
neighborhoods.

(3) Parking/traffic. While I encourage walkability and lessening our dependence on personal
vehicles, as one of the Commissioners pointed out, Charlottesville is a 10 square mile urban
center for a large rural area (the surrounding counties). As such, there will continue to be
significant use of personal vehicles on our roads. We will not eliminate that situation.
Therefore, parking cannot and should not be ignored. Additionally, while we value the work
of developers to create and build sufficient parking, I have seen more than one proposal that
makes erroneous assumptions about the need for parking. For example, assumptions that a
three bedroom unit will only generate one additional vehicle are inaccurate. Many of the
individuals with whom I work have three to four people in one apartment, all owning
vehicles. We must have requirements for a sufficient number of parking places for units being
built.  

Thank you for your work on this important subject.

Respectfully,

Holland McBryde Mason
From:            Lise Stoessel
To:              bill emory
Cc:              Cville Plans Together; Council; James Freas; Robin Hanes
Subject:         Re: community engagement
Date:            Tuesday, September 27, 2022 7:29:40 PM


Well said! Thank you, Bill, for your long-view and your dedication to quality of life in
Charlottesville.

Lise Stoessel
Arbor circle


On Tue, Sep 27, 2022, 6:56 PM bill emory <billemory@gmail.com> wrote:
 Dear Folk,

  This email is written in haste, I have previous commitments that limit my time to correspond
  in the 5:30 to 8:00pm window. I'd rather have the benefit of hearing your discussion this
  evening. Possibly you'll address many of my concerns. Alas, can't do that.

  The community engagement foundation of the comp plan and now the zoning rewrite has
  seemed woefully inadequate to me. There have been "opportunities" to engage but messages
  from our hearts and mouths don't seem to be reaching your ears and brains.

  Speaking just about the neighborhood where I live, Woolen Mills. You propose radical
  (MIR) upzoning to a number of affordable houses here but, to my knowledge, you have not
  contacted the owners or the residents of these houses. How is this different than the targeting
  of city neighborhoods in the past based on race or socioeconomic status?

  Additionally, the proposed zoning and land use of MI land in the Woolen Mills is made
  possible by zoning decisions made in the 1950-'s by City Councilors who housing activists
  and your steering committee have not been shy to label as racist (and presumably classist).
  There was no community engagement in 1958 for a large portion of the M1 land.
  Additionally, like the Medium Intensity Residential designated properties, to my knowledge
  you have not spoken to the owners of the 28+/- MI acres of "industrial" land, adjacent to
  Woolen Mills residential property. There are two ownership entities. Two letters, two phone
  calls, is that an overwhelming burden?

  I am an RHI fanboy. a huge supporter of their West Main work. Please don't take this letter
  as criticism of the consultants. Rather, look within, ours is a City that is planning
  challenged.

  One example, the recently introduced 0 High Street Project. The City paid for advice from
  Torti-Gallas in 2000 (+/-) about the corridor. There have been multiple studies, beginning
  with the State of the Basin report in 1998. The Planning Commission got on the subject in
  2008. Brian Haluska has written up some preliminary thoughts. There has been begging and
  pleading from the community to establish Rivanna Corridor zoning, or, at the very least, to
  pattern your floodplain proscriptions on Albemarle County's rather than the City's current

           stay out of the floodway, fill to a foot above BFE (base flood elevation) and build.
The planning is disconnected from the people who live here and love their neighborhoods.
Earlier tonight, one of your presenters said that developers are economically rational and
that homeowners are economically irrational.

So, economic rationality is building 245 residential units in the floodplain next to a massive
parking lot?

No. Economic rationality is building a place worth caring about.

Best regards. Please do better.
Bill Emory
1604 E Market St
22902
804-462-9968
From:            Bertram, Edward H (ehb2z)
To:              Cville Plans Together
Subject:         RE: Work Session Tomorrow
Date:            Tuesday, September 27, 2022 4:15:49 PM


I am very concerned that this notice arrived less than 24 hours before the scheduled meeting. Few
will have much or any time to review the massive amount of information to evaluate the community
reaction. It is not appropriate to have a discussion about how to move forward unless there has been
a reasonable period of time for the obviously many concerned residents to review the comments
(many of which appear to raise a number of valid concerns over this draft.

Edward Bertram

From: Cville Plans Together <engage@cvilleplanstogether.com>
Sent: Monday, September 26, 2022 7:28 PM
To: Bertram, Edward H (ehb2z) <ehb2z@virginia.edu>
Subject: Work Session Tomorrow



                                         View this email in your browser
In this newsletter:

     Upcoming work session: link to agenda and materials, including the draft
     summer 2022 community engagement summary



           Reminder: Work Session with Planning
              Commission and City Council


Work Session with Planning Commission and City Council
Tuesday, September 27, 2022, 5:30pm
Tomorrow, the Cville Plans Together team will meet with the Planning
Commission and City Council to discuss the proposed approach to the zoning
rewrite. The team will provide an overview of the various elements of the
proposed approach, share a summary of community input from summer 2022,
and discuss Planning Commission and City Council comments and questions.

     Meeting materials are available here. This includes:
            Agenda
            Meeting slides
            Draft Zoning Diagnostic + Approach Report updates (material packet
            only contains pages with proposed updates)
            Draft summer 2022 community engagement summary, with links to
            appendices containing written comments from the open house,
            feedback form, and emails
     This will be a hybrid meeting (Zoom and in-person).
            Register here to attend online via Zoom: link
            More information about how to attend in person here (limited seating
            available): link
     Community members are invited to share written comments to be
     included in the meeting minutes. Submit comments on paper at the
     meeting, or via email (engage@cvilleplanstogether.com). Written
     comments received between 5:30pm and the end of the day (midnight) on
     September 27 will be included in the meeting minutes, which will be
     shared with the City Council and Planning Commission.




     If you know anyone who may wish to receive these project update emails, please
    forward this email to them and let them know that they can sign up for the list here.
                                        Thank you!




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From:               Jonathan Rice
To:                 Cville Plans Together
Subject:            Second round of comments on Planning Commission / City Council meeting
Date:               Tuesday, September 27, 2022 10:31:24 PM


Dear Cville Plans Together,
Here are a second round of comments and questions about various points raised in tonight's meeting.

(1) I agree with most Planning Commission members and city councilors that reducing lot size is a good idea. As
I've mentioned before, many single family houses in Charlottesville have enormous lots and could easily be divided
into additional housing units. Sena Magill made a good point that lot sizes should be uniform throughout the city
because of the history of red lining. I don't know what the minimum lot size should be but I agree with Chairman
Yates that smaller is better.

But there's a huge distinction between reducing lot size and having no lot size minimums which could easily become
a bit crazy. It's hard to believe eliminating minimum lot size requirements could even be discussed as a serious
option.  

(2) Likewise with parking requirements. By all means, reduce parking requirements. Sprawling parking lots are
environmentally disastrous in terms of eliminating green space, runoff, and creating heat island effects. But
sidewalks will have to be built to make a significant reduction in parking requirements feasible.

Getting rid of minimum parking requirements entirely, however, is thoroughly bad public policy. I suspect those
who speculated that developers would provide parking entirely on their own to enhance the appeal of their property
have never actually lived in a large city and don't even have friends who live in large cities. Developers can make
plenty of money without providing parking. It may be true that parking requirements are not solidly grounded and
based on empirical data but that's not an excuse to wash your hands of any responsibility for establishing reasonable
parking requirements.  

(3) The proposed dramatic increase in density in General Residential areas for the goal of affordable housing was
the surprise of the the evening: I actually think this idea has a lot of merit and I'm not personally opposed to it (I
grew up in a very dense housing environment and I'm comfortable with it) BUT the time to have proposed this was
last June at the latest when the public could weigh in. Charlottesville residents have been told for more than a year
now that the density limit in the General Residential zoning areas was 4 units (just raised to 5 last month, I believe)
total. Now that the public input period is over it's not fair to change terms to allow 12 housing units to be built. This
is a dramatic change and it is going to take city homeowners by surprise. One person said that city residents
shouldn't be too concerned because there are probably very very few situations in which this would happen. This
doesn't make sense -- if it's not likely to happen in more than a few instances, why do it at all? There's a lot of
distrust throughout the city of our local government. City governance is not a popularity contest and sometimes
government officials should make tough and unpopular decisions for the public good. But telling the public one
thing for a year and then changing it dramatically after the public comment period has ended will raise serious and
legitimate questions about the integrity of Charlottesville's planning processes.

(4) Finally, I have a question about inclusionary zoning and the stipulation that 10% of a project of 10 or more
housing units must be affordable. I don't understand, and no explanation was offered in tonight's meeting, about
what happens with, for example, the 11th through 19th housing units of an individual project? Housing units are not,
of course, divisible into fractions when it comes to market vs affordable rates so which way do you round and at
what point do you round? If a developer builds a building with 15 housing units will it be required to still have just
one affordable housing unit? Or do you plan to round up and require 2 affordable housing units when 15 total units
are built? If a developer can build 18 market rate units with just one affordable unit, this is a serious weakness in this
part of the affordable housing plan.   
From:           Maureen McKenna
To:             engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Cc:             council@charltotesville.org
Subject:        Strongly opposed to MIR rezoning
Date:           Tuesday, September 27, 2022 8:47:18 PM




Dear City Council,



I’ve previously voiced my concerns regarding the proposed zoning change for
Locust Grove residents (at least for those of us not on city council) and would like
to reiterate my opposition to the plan. The reasons, to name a couple, are as
follows;

       Increased congestion resulting in parking issues, traffic, and less opportunity
       for children to play freely. Charlottesville City does not have the infrastructure
       to handle a significant increase in population, which will result in traffic
       congestion that will adversely affect everyone’s experience living here.
       Neighborhood dynamic changes (I purchased my home on the pretext that it
       was zoned for general residential)
             Most people, like myself, that move into single family neighborhoods
             have moved from what you define as medium intensity, and have moved
             out of medium intensity housing for good reason. Medium intensity
             housing is associated with more noise, more congestion, more
             crime, less families, and less open space for children to play. The
             argument is circular, but this is why people move from less
             expensive medium intensity housing into more costly general
             residential. It’s also the reason, I presume, our city counselors have
             had their streets exempted from the zoning changes.



It’s very clear that the areas subject to the new zoning have been “targeted”, which
is inequitable. Locust being GR inside of 250 and MIR outside of 250 doesn’t make
any sense.



MIR zones are subject to anonymous LLCs buying up and consolidating lots and
building tall buildings. This changes the nature of the city, encouraging speculative
development charging high rents. That does nothing to solve the affordable housing
issue in Charlottesville and only encourages a situation where those who own the
properties aren't the ones actually living there.



Reconsider the plan, the majority do not want the rezoning.
Maureen McKenna
540.421.6189
m.maureen.h.mckenna@gmail.com

                                  
From:            Contini-Morava, Ellen L (elc9j)
To:              engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:         Student cars and overlay issue
Date:            Tuesday, September 27, 2022 10:17:40 PM


Student cars account for a large proportion of parking problems, especially in the UVa area. Why
not lean on UVa to prohibit students from having cars? Other universities do this.

With regard to the overlay issue, I think it’s reasonable for the city to retain some discretionary
control over size/form, as suggested by Liz Russell, and to consider proposals for extra-large projects
on a case-by-case basis.

Ellen Contini-Morava
225 Montebello Circle
From:           Allison Gray
To:             engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:        Supporting Inclusionary Zoning
Date:           Tuesday, September 27, 2022 5:45:38 PM


Good morning Planning Commission,

I'm writing ahead of this evening's working session to express my support for moving the
Cville Plans process forward without any delay. We are in the midst of a housing crisis, and
we must act quickly to allow new, dense infill to be built. I urge you to expand inclusionary
zoning incentives to maximize effectiveness. Lastly, please eliminate parking minimums. We
need housing for people rather than more real estate for cars.

I understand that folks in our community call these radical measures. However, we know that
these policies (like eliminating parking minimums) create healthy, dense, walkable urban
areas that can support the population growth that Charlottesville has been experiencing.

Thank you for all your work on this project and listening to countless opinions on all sides.

Thanks again,
Allison Gray
From:              Clifford Fox
To:                Charlottesville City Council; Charlottesville Planning Commission
Cc:                Cville Plans Together
Subject:           There are other ways to address the minimum lot size
Date:              Tuesday, September 27, 2022 7:16:28 PM




One can allow additional unrelated people within a signal dwelling. Like twelve (12) unrelated people per lot as an
example. And/or people could have a .45 acre lot in a R-1S district that would allow 3, 6,000 lots by right without
the access and provide for up to 12 unrelated persons on the property. Fire code will be an issue with existing
structures. Its also a financing challenge.

There is no need to maintain a minimum lot size; how it works in the market place is complicated.

Cliff Fox
From:              Melissa Spitzer
To:                engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:           Tonight’s meeting
Date:              Tuesday, September 27, 2022 8:53:02 PM




Yes! Use the housing authority to help. He was exactly right when he said they know how to work it and would be
glad to help make this work.
While this may not benefit right now. In ten years it will definitely be. Blessing to some.

Sent from my iPhone
From:            Paul Barolsky
To:              engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:         Trees and Houses
Date:            Tuesday, September 27, 2022 8:27:34 PM



City Planning Commission:

I think it is an utter disgrace that in a city that considers itself “green,” it allows developers to
get away with murder by not holding them accountable when they say they are going to
replace trees and then do nothing.

I am appalled that the city has allowed the canopy to shrink and still offers no incentives to its
residents to plant trees that would increase the canopy.

What do residents of Charlottesville do to get the city’s attention to the crisis of a shrinking
canopy?
                                       *************

We attend meetings but to no avail. As one resident said at the 9/27 meeting, the city has no
plan.

What is also appalling is the city’s lack of attention to scale. It offered no resistance when a
developer decided to build at the corner of Rose Hill and Amherst a structure that is 4 stories
high when seen from Amherst.

Are we watching the city commit architectural suicide by allowing for buildings that look
house size?

What is so deeply depressing is the city’s lack of standards.

Paul Barolsky
From:      Clifford Fox
To:        Charlottesville City Council; Charlottesville Planning Commission
Cc:        Cville Plans Together
Subject:   Um and Uh seem to be big words in the public process tonight! Um Um Um. Very meaningful.
Date:      Tuesday, September 27, 2022 6:40:56 PM
From:           Phil Varner
To:             engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:        Zoning Comments
Date:           Tuesday, September 27, 2022 10:34:39 PM


Charlottesville is a city, not an HOA. As such, zoning should be used to facilitate the next
level of development everywhere in the city, instead of attempting to preserve (usually
wealthy) neighborhoods in amber. We made a huge mistake with the 1991 upzoning, and
many people have been harmed by being forced to leave the City because they could no longer
afford to live here. We have a chance here, if not to repair those wrongs, to at least prevent
more harm.

As such, we must expediently move this process forward, even if it’s not perfect, as it never
can be. Our risk here is that we do too little rather than too much, as the analysis even shows
what a minuscule effect most of these policies will have on increasing natural or explicitly
affordable housing. But, we have to do all we can with policy, and hope for better outcomes.

Phil
From:              Fincham
To:                engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:           Zoning issues
Date:              Tuesday, September 27, 2022 6:44:58 PM




Please don’t reduce much less eliminate parking minimums in proposed rezoning areas.

And don’t reduce minimum lot sizes. We don’t need higher density.

And thumbs down on the upcoming consideration of three apartment buildings along the Rivanna!

Joanne Fincham
1410 Chesapeake St.
From:           Sandra Staggers
To:             engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:        zoning rewrite in progress
Date:           Tuesday, September 27, 2022 5:49:39 PM


hello
it is my understanding that in order to comment , emails must be sent in during the
mtg of 9/27 between 5:30 & midnight. I have 5:41 pm.

I would like to add my voice to those many citizens who would be opposed to
reduce/eliminate parking minimums for multi unit building projects. The building
project alone with drastically increase traffic & parking (for visitors, for ex) & it is not
feasible to add to the parking on the streets. Current residents should not have to
compete for parking with new buildings.  

Also, reducing the minimum lot size will similarly increase traffic, increase parking
problems, further decrease the tree canopy, & decrease the poor protection against
massive density increases that the current plan provides. The entire increase in
density in established neighborhoods shows no concern for current residents, and
there is no current single family home neighborhood that should become medium
density. Council this week voted to turn the old KMart into more shopping??
Really?? How could we need more shopping? Why not build a few hundred
affordable units on that site? There are already many available sites that units could
be built.

I am absolutely in favor of affordable housing. Why does it have to destroy current
neighborhoods for the few units that are in the current plan?

thank you
sandy staggers
1604 Rose Hill Dr
From:           Jeff Roberts
To:             engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Subject:        Zoning
Date:           Tuesday, September 27, 2022 6:18:39 PM




To the Team:

If the crisis is Affordable Housing and the quantity of housing stock generally, why would you
take areas that are currently zoned residential and convert them to mixed use?

The FLUM depicts this happening on St Clair Ave and down Mowbray Place in a
neighborhood that's been there over 60 years. It's in the walking path to Burnley Moran School
and adjacent to the school.
This section of land is also on Long St facing 250, ie, the entrance corridor.

If you want housing then zone for housing please. Put multi-unit housing in; put
unconventional housing in; put subsidized affordable housing in, but don't create space for
more vape shops and oil change vendors in a residential neighborhood.

Thanks,

Jeff Roberts
826 St Clair Ave