Planning Commission
Planning Commission
Tue, September 22, 2026
Agenda items
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Meeting summaryAI-generated
Planning Commission — September 22, 2026
This was a work session with no binding votes. One commissioner (Michael) was absent. The sole agenda item was a staff presentation on the upcoming five-year review of Charlottesville's 2021 Comprehensive Plan, led by Tori Canelopoulos, Long Range Principal Planner with NDS. There was no public comment.
Background: C'Ville Plans Together
Canelopoulos opened with a recap of the C'Ville Plans Together process, which produced three major documents: the Affordable Housing Plan (March 2021), the Comprehensive Plan (November 2021), and the Development Code (adopted December 2023, effective February 2024). Key changes in the development code included allowing more missing middle and multifamily housing by right, removing minimum parking requirements, updated affordable housing requirements, and a stronger focus on urban design. She noted that several large projects — including The Verve, The Bloom, Aspen Heights, and major 100% affordable projects like Kindlewood and First Street — were grandfathered under the old 2003 code, with close to 20 additional projects potentially still eligible to proceed under it.
Scope and Approach for the Five-Year Review
Staff is proposing a review, not a rewrite — starting from the 2021 plan's vision and guiding principles, then identifying where strategies and priorities need updating. The process will be led in-house with some consultant support for community engagement and technical mapping. Staff anticipates a formal start in early 2027 with roughly a 12-month process. A parallel work session with City Council is planned for late October.
Commissioners raised the question of whether joint work sessions with Council — rather than separate presentations — might be more productive for major plans like this one. Several noted they were seeing the same plans (urban forestry, parks, etc.) multiple times across different bodies without meaningful cross-pollination of discussion.
Existing Conditions Data
Staff presented initial data highlighting several notable findings:
Housing costs: Charlottesville is one of the most expensive metro areas in Virginia; home prices have risen faster than any Virginia metro except Northern Virginia, but are more expensive relative to income than Northern Virginia.
Commuter imbalance: The Charlottesville urban area added roughly 11,000 jobs between 2010 and 2023, but only about 3,000 were filled by urban-area residents — a ratio one commissioner summarized as "we provided a third of the homes for a twelfth of the jobs."
Cost burden: About 40% of all Charlottesville households are cost-burdened (paying more than 30% of income on housing), including roughly 55% of renter households. Commissioners noted this seems high and asked staff to compare it to peer cities and national averages.
Affordable units: Approximately 561 affordable units were completed between 2009 and 2026, concentrated in three neighborhoods. Commissioners noted a spatial equity concern — affordable development has been heavily clustered in historically lower-income and historically Black neighborhoods.
In-lieu fees: Total affordable housing in-lieu fees from completed projects totaled about $2.7 million (2009–2026), with roughly $11 million from projects currently under construction (primarily The Verve, The Bloom, and Aspen Heights) and $8 million from projects under review.
Development pipeline: As of August, the city's development dashboard showed approximately 3,314 units in various stages under the 2023 code, though no multifamily units have been fully completed under that code yet.
Commissioners asked that future data be disaggregated by income, race, and renter/owner status — a discipline used in the last comprehensive plan process that they acknowledged was hard to maintain consistently. One commissioner also suggested making the underlying data publicly available in machine-readable format so community members can conduct their own analysis.
Commission Discussion: Is a Plan Change Needed?
The commission broadly agreed that a focused review — not a rewrite — is appropriate, and that the plan's overall vision and goals remain sound. Key themes from the discussion:
On displacement and anti-displacement tools: Several commissioners said zoning has been over-relied upon as an anti-displacement tool when other mechanisms (property tax relief, rental vouchers, community land trusts, etc.) are more effective and faster-acting. One commissioner said plainly: "We've not done a great job on that." There was strong interest in elevating non-zoning tools in the updated plan and ensuring the city has a clearer toolkit for near-term displacement prevention.
On the development code and core neighborhoods: One commissioner cautioned against backtracking too quickly on the future land use map, noting that upzoning effects typically take many years to materialize — citing studies showing 8–12 year timelines in Portland and New York City. He also called for resolving the unfinished question of the R&A (Residential-and-Adjacent) zones in core neighborhoods: "It was a band-aid — let's make an actual real code for these areas."
On community engagement and developer negotiations: Commissioners expressed concern about the awkwardness of community meetings where developers are already presenting near-final designs. One suggestion was to help neighborhoods think proactively about what they'd want from a developer before a project arrives, rather than reacting in real time. On community benefit agreements, one commissioner noted Virginia law significantly restricts what the city can require, but that the city has broad latitude on voluntary incentives — for example, offering matching funds to encourage voluntary agreements.
On sensitive community boundaries: Commissioners noted that demographic conditions have shifted since 2021, and the boundaries identifying communities at risk of displacement should be updated. The university area was flagged as one that has changed considerably.
On student housing and in-lieu fees: Commissioners raised the issue of student housing projects paying only half the in-lieu fee under current policy. This question was raised at recent public meetings as well. Staff noted this criteria originated in the Affordable Housing Plan, so it would likely be addressed during the affordable housing plan review that follows the comp plan update. Commissioners also asked about the status of a prior study on this issue; staff confirmed it had not been resolved.
On regional collaboration: Multiple commissioners expressed frustration that collaboration between Charlottesville, Albemarle County, and UVA remains largely informal and staff-level. One commissioner asked whether the comprehensive plan could establish a more durable structure — perhaps an annual joint meeting or a strengthened version of LUPEC — to ensure coordination persists across leadership changes. Staff noted that Albemarle County's recently completed comp plan will include small area planning for areas adjacent to the city (e.g., Pantops), presenting a natural collaboration opportunity. A standing invitation for a joint work session with Albemarle's Planning Commission exists but has not been scheduled.
On measurable progress: Commissioners asked staff to develop clearer, publicly trackable metrics for each of the plan's six priority areas, so the community and future commissions can assess whether progress is actually being made.
Key Takeaways
Staff recommends a focused review, not a full rewrite of the 2021 Comprehensive Plan, with a formal process starting in early 2027 and targeting completion in approximately 12 months. A Council work session on the same material is planned for late October.
The commission broadly supports the plan's existing vision but wants sharper focus on non-zoning anti-displacement tools, updated sensitive community boundaries, and clearer measurable benchmarks for each priority area.
The student housing in-lieu fee discount remains an unresolved policy question that will likely carry into the affordable housing plan review.
Spatial concentration of affordable housing in historically lower-income neighborhoods was flagged as a spatial equity concern deserving closer examination.
Regional collaboration with Albemarle County and UVA was identified as a significant gap, with commissioners calling for a more structured, ongoing mechanism rather than ad hoc coordination.
AI-generated summary from voice-to-text transcript. Not the official record. Verify important details with the source documents linked above.
What happened at this meeting
Comprehensive Plan Five Year Review
# Comprehensive Plan Five Year Review Summary
Tori Canelopoulos presented the five-year review of Charlottesville's 2021 Comprehensive Plan, which is required by state code and will take approximately 12-18 months starting early 2027, led in-house with consultant support. The review will address nine major topics including parks, affordable housing, and community facilities, with the goal of refining rather than completely rewriting the plan to evaluate how the city has responded to challenges and opportunities since the 2021 plan and February 2024 development code adoption. Key data presented revealed significant challenges: the city is one of the most expensive metro areas in the US with housing costs rising faster than any Virginia MSA except DC, yet from 2010-2023 nearly 11,000 jobs were added while only 3,000 were filled by local residents, creating a regional mismatch requiring collaboration beyond city limits. Commission members emphasized concerns about spatial equity in affordable housing distribution (concentrated in three neighborhoods), displacement and neighborhood change (particularly in core neighborhoods like 10th and Page), and questioned whether zoning alone can address these issues, instead suggesting solutions like property tax relief, rental vouchers, small area planning, and clearer community benefit agreement frameworks. Staff will present initial findings to City Council in late October, with work sessions planned for both Planning Commission and City Council to establish direction and resource needs for the review process.
Tori Canelopoulos presented the five-year review of Charlottesville's 2021 Comprehensive Plan, which is required by state code and will take approximately 12-18 months starting early 2027, led in-house with consultant support. The review will address nine major topics including parks, affordable housing, and community facilities, with the goal of refining rather than completely rewriting the plan to evaluate how the city has responded to challenges and opportunities since the 2021 plan and February 2024 development code adoption. Key data presented revealed significant challenges: the city is one of the most expensive metro areas in the US with housing costs rising faster than any Virginia MSA except DC, yet from 2010-2023 nearly 11,000 jobs were added while only 3,000 were filled by local residents, creating a regional mismatch requiring collaboration beyond city limits. Commission members emphasized concerns about spatial equity in affordable housing distribution (concentrated in three neighborhoods), displacement and neighborhood change (particularly in core neighborhoods like 10th and Page), and questioned whether zoning alone can address these issues, instead suggesting solutions like property tax relief, rental vouchers, small area planning, and clearer community benefit agreement frameworks. Staff will present initial findings to City Council in late October, with work sessions planned for both Planning Commission and City Council to establish direction and resource needs for the review process.
Agenda items (1)
Procedural (1)
1ProceduralComprehensive Plan Five Year Review
The city is reviewing and updating its Comprehensive Plan, a long-term guide for development and growth, as required every five years. This affects all Charlottesville residents and businesses as it sets priorities for things like housing, transportation, and land use.
What happened
# Comprehensive Plan Five Year Review SummaryTori Canelopoulos presented the five-year review of Charlottesville's 2021 Comprehensive Plan, which is required by state code and will take approximately 12-18 months starting early 2027, led in-house with consultant support. The review will address nine major topics including parks, affordable housing, and community facilities, with the goal of refining rather than completely rewriting the plan to evaluate how the city has responded to challenges and opportunities since the 2021 plan and February 2024 development code adoption. Key data presented revealed significant challenges: the city is one of the most expensive metro areas in the US with housing costs rising faster than any Virginia MSA except DC, yet from 2010-2023 nearly 11,000 jobs were added while only 3,000 were filled by local residents, creating a regional mismatch requiring collaboration beyond city limits. Commission members emphasized concerns about spatial equity in affordable housing distribution (concentrated in three neighborhoods), displacement and neighborhood change (particularly in core neighborhoods like 10th and Page), and questioned whether zoning alone can address these issues, instead suggesting solutions like property tax relief, rental vouchers, small area planning, and clearer community benefit agreement frameworks. Staff will present initial findings to City Council in late October, with work sessions planned for both Planning Commission and City Council to establish direction and resource needs for the review process.
Verbatim transcript available
283 transcript segments indexed
You may as well because I'm not sure if Michael's going to show up. I'll be playing pub golf. Yeah. Let's go ahead and get started. So yeah. I guess we have no public, but welcome to tonight's work session.
Thank you, Chair. Tori, are you ready or do you still have some of the... Are you running this? Yes. The presentation at least, yes. Didn't want to put you on the spot if you were still setting up, but- No, no.
Thank you. Yeah, if there's something else first, I'm happy to jump in and get started. So, my name is Tori Canelopoulos. I'm a long range principal planner with NDS, and tonight we have a work session on the five-year review of the comprehensive plan.
Next slide. So, I will start off by covering the agenda. So, we'll do a quick review of the C-Ville Plans Together process, and then talk about comprehensive plans generally, including the five-year review expectations from a Virginia State code standpoint, the draft process and approach for how the city is looking at reviewing the 2021 comprehensive plan, some existing initial analysis, and then the project objectives for the five-year review.
And then we have questions for you all to provide feedback on the project scope. If people have questions in the middle of this, do you want us to ask- Thank you ... or do you want us to wait? Yes. I will pause a couple of times.
And then also if there's a question that you really don't want to forget, please feel free to jump in because this is a lot of slides to cover, so I think that might be easier. Yeah. Thank you. So starting with C-Ville Plans Together.
And next slide. So, this was a community process for updating the future vision for the city, focused on equity and affordability. So in March 2021, the first part of the project was adopted as the Affordable Housing Plan.
Then came the Comprehensive Plan in November 2021, and then the Development Code, which was completed in December 2023, and then went into effect in February 2024. So I do want to acknowledge that while I will briefly cover this process, it was much longer than what I'll be covering here.
So I'll summarize the two plans that came out of the process and the ordinance that was formally adopted, provide a little bit of context and background before moving to the main focus, which is the five-year review of the comp plan.
Next slide. So the first part of C'ville Plans Together was the Affordable Housing Plan. So this was a priority topic that then informed the Comprehensive Plan and Development Code. It was built on the 2018 housing needs assessment, which analyzed significant amount of data.
But one of the key pieces that came out of that was looking at the supply and demand side of rental housing, found an undersupply related to demand at both the highest and lowest cost ends of the market.
So the plan resulted in strategies for funding, governance, land use, tenants' rights, and subsidy. And some of the land use recommendations included increasing the total supply of housing, allowing housing in areas with access to transit, jobs, and other opportunities, and also reducing the risk of displacement of lower income community members.
Next slide. Next was the Comprehensive Plan, and the five guiding principles from the plan are shown here on the slide. So these were intended to identify community priorities and then tie them together for the goals of each chapter and provide an overarching framework for the whole plan, so guiding the goals, the strategies, and the implementation.
Next slide. There were also six priority areas identified for implementation. So that included housing, access to opportunities and resources, addressing the impacts of climate change, addressing transportation, the natural environment, and community engagement and communication.
So those six priority areas are accompanied by 30 priority strategies for implementation. Next slide. There are also objectives for future land use and a future land use framework. So that provided guidance for the future land use map categories and related strategies, acknowledging the city will grow incrementally over time, and the future land use map serves as a long-term roadmap to provide options for where that growth and change might occur.
These also helped guide the new zoning map. So they included housing that is near amenities and services, looking at the potential of vacant and underutilized properties, using a regional approach, improving multimodal transportation, protecting the natural environment, and then also tying into economic sustainability and access to jobs.
So while land use is a key aspect of the comprehensive plan, it's not the only area for setting policy, and land use policies need to work in tandem with other programs, policies, and plans to implement the comprehensive plan vision.
Next slide. And then finally, the development code, which was informed by guidance and recommendations in the comprehensive plan. So this is a very brief summary of some of the changes from the previous ordinance.
But the major highlights include allowing more missing middle and multi-family housing by right, removing minimum parking requirements, updated affordable housing requirements, and then more focus on form and urban design.
So the zoning map and districts were guided by the future land use plan designations and policies, and the development code and zoning generally are major aspects of comprehensive plan implementation and the affordable housing plan implementation, but they're not the only aspects.
And in the next section, we'll also talk about some of the other areas of plan implementation. Next slide. So now we'll look at the draft approach and scope for the city's comprehensive plan and briefly cover some kind of general expectations for comprehensive plans.
Good. Yes. Feel free to interrupt. No, because I don't know if it's going to be appropriate to ask the question later. Sure. On slides number eight and nine, under Guiding Principles, you talk about regional collaboration.
Mm-hmm. I candidly am not getting a sense that there's been a really, really strong collaboration between UVA, Albemarle County, and Charlottesville. And I don't get a sense that the leaders of those three organizations are really talking, except at LUPEC.
And LUPEC is not a decision-making group, it's just a soliciting organization. We don't get to decide how to approach things. What are we doing to work closer? I know UVA's doing a lot of great stuff with affordable housing, but what are we doing to influence that?
And what are they doing to influence the work we're doing? Same question about Albemarle, especially as it relates to the urban ring, where there is a great need for more affordable housing. Yeah. Well, I would say the probably most immediate area for collaboration will be the multimodal plans that each locality will be pursuing.
So both the county and the city will be starting their multimodal or transportation plans in the near future. We've already had- And are we doing that together or are we doing that in silos? So separate processes and plans, but working together on them at the same time and having some overlapping opportunities for collaboration and community engagement.
Are you our leader? Are you the lead representative of the city? I am not the lead representative on that, but Ben Chambers, the transportation planning manager is. But I have been involved in some of the discussions already with the county.
So at the staff level, there's collaboration. And what I think you're talking about is more transportation than it is a more of a housing strategy. And so that's really what I'm trying to understand. What are we doing to strengthen the collaboration between UVA and the county and us, and frankly, Greene County, Albemarle County, and Nelson County?
If you don't know the answer, that's cool. Yeah. But I want us to begin thinking about doing a better job of working with the other jurisdictions and entities. Yeah, and I know Madeline Metzler, our housing senior planner, has been working on the- I'm sorry, what's this?
Madeline Metzler, the housing senior planner. I'm aware of her. Okay, cool. She's been working on the regional housing study update that's been going on. So I don't think they're quite ready to share the findings yet, but I know at the city and surrounding county level, there has been collaboration on data gathering, and hopefully on the next steps as well.
So that's been going on in the background as well. But also the comprehensive plan is a good opportunity for collaboration. Same question, but transit. Transit-related, yeah. Well, yeah. Well, is it? Because my understanding is they're separate.
Every time I've asked the question, the answer's been yes. Separate or yes together? Yes together. Is that true? We'll see. I asked the question. Thank you. On the housing front, it's my understanding that the shelter has been, now that it is up and running, has been a good shot in the arm to really get those regional conversations going.
Yeah. A lot of the city's unhoused population comes from outside of the city, and outside of even Albemarle County. And how do we get those outside jurisdictions involved in this housing ladder that we now have the very first rung of?
And then the state has provided us funds for the next rung up from the low-barrier shelter, and that's being worked on. So I think it's been there, but I think now that we have this shelter, it's really created sort of a, "Hey, we're really doing this now." So how do we have that conversation more regionally, even outside of the county?
But I think it's a very good question and thinking about how we can get it written in, potentially, if there's comprehensive plan changes needed to really continue those conversations. Yep. Cool. Thanks.
So looking at broadly what a comprehensive plan is. So we'll start with this overview generally, and then zoom back into the city's process. So comprehensive plans establish a 20-year vision with recommendations to guide growth, development, and public infrastructure, amenities, and services.
They have recommendations for how and where localities should grow, supporting local economic development, protecting natural and historic resources, and then guiding decisions on providing public infrastructure.
So recommendations in the comp plan are used to guide initiating and evaluating plans, policies, and programs, developing the capital improvement program, evaluating and developing local ordinance changes, and then the review of certain applications.
Next slide. So the comprehensive plan supports the city's vision statement to be a place where everyone thrives by guiding how and where projected population and employment growth should occur, and then the delivery of the infrastructure, amenities, and services to support both current and future community members.
There are requirements in state code that are included, such as transportation planning and networks, community facilities and services, long-range recommendations for the general development of a locality, and the construction and maintenance of affordable housing.
There are also sections that are recommendations rather than requirements, such as considering resilience and considering social determinants of health, and then it's up to localities to decide how they want to meet those requirements within their comprehensive plans.
And it should also be noted that while there's the main comprehensive plan document, all of the plans that are adopted as part of the appendix are also considered part of the comprehensive plan, such as the climate action plan.
Next slide. Before we move on, so there's these nine topics here. These are generally the nine topics of our plan, correct? Yes. I did break a couple of them out separately just to show what's usually broadly included.
Sure. Like parks is within community facilities, but yes, this is covered in our comprehensive plan. So out of these nine topics, are there any that we're doing exceptionally well right now? And conversely to that, are there any of them that we're slacking on right now?
By which of the nine? Is doing particularly well, I think, under Ms. Whitaker's leadership. Yeah, right. We have had some recent progress reports, I guess, on the parks and recreation master plan. And then especially on the affordable housing topic, that was presented to council, I believe, on September 8th.
So there are some areas where we've been more clearly tracking and reporting on progress. I think we would need to dig more into the details to know how well we're doing with the comprehensive plan overall by topic.
I think there are some clear areas where we've been reporting and some where we need to do more. And then on a upcoming slide, also addressing that a lot of these have parallel projects that will be going on, which is another opportunity to look at how we're doing from a progress standpoint.
Sure. I'd be curious to see in any future updates we get on this about what staff's feelings are on progress on all of these topics. I can- I think that the discussion between us and council will narrow in on a couple of these topics, but I'd be curious to at least have a high-level overview of what staff thinks we're doing.
Regarding the CIP, we have sort of a challenging CIP process. It's largely staff-driven, and when there is staff capacity to create a really strong project, that will come through. When there isn't, it won't.
So that is a limitation. So one opportunity we could see from this plan is to get a more holistic picture of what the needs are, and that could help us to see the gaps of, well, how can we push staffing to meet those needs?
I'm thinking especially about equity issues, where we are addressing ADA, but nothing else. Not food equity, not any other topic. Thank you. So from a state code standpoint, localities need to review their comprehensive plan every five years, but then state code leaves it up to each locality to determine what level of changes, if any, are needed to their plans.
So a locality may decide that no changes are needed based on their review, or an entire rewrite may be needed. It's also a good opportunity to look at if there have been new state code requirements that are applicable since the last comprehensive plan update.
And also a time to look at how conditions are changing, if there's issues that are new since the last plan, if the priorities of the community need to be updated, revised population and employment projections, and then, as we just talked about, progress on current plan implementation.
Next slide. So the process for the comprehensive plan review is still being scoped, but this is an initial outline provided below, and there will be opportunities for community participation throughout the process, and then work sessions and public hearings with the planning commission and council.
So right now, we're still in the scoping stage, and then also a little bit into gathering existing conditions data, and then identifying challenges, opportunities, and issues to address. Then we would move into updates where needed to plan recommendations, especially the strategies, and then if there are updated priorities for implementation.
Also, coming up with a process to track and report on progress so we know how we're doing and where adjustments are needed. And then moving forward, a processing cadence for comp plan reviews, expectations for those, and then small area planning.
So this assumes that we would use the same overall vision and guiding principles as the 2021 plan. Next slide. Is this being done in-house? So it is being led by staff in-house, but we do anticipate some consultant support, especially for engagement and then technical planning services, like assistance creating maps, graphics, things like that, but it will be led by staff.
And do we have... I see there's another question here. A target for adoption of the update? We do not yet, but we would anticipate about a 12 to 18 month process, hopefully closer to the 12 month side.
Starting today or starting? Starting in early 2027. So this is still scoping, gathering data, getting ready. But once we actually formally start, hopefully about a year. I've talked with a couple of councilors about this issue.
You will talk with councilors more about the vision and any concerns they have? Yes, there will be a corresponding work session to this one, which will likely be in late October with council. So it'll cover the same slides.
We'll share your all's feedback from today, and then they'll also answer the same questions. I have a thought. This is not related to this exactly, but I just want to before I forget. There have been a number of these types of plans that are going before us and then city council at different dates and work sessions, and I guess I'm wondering if they would ever revisit just doing it together.
I think I'm seeing the urban forestry plan three times. I mean, not that I mind. Yeah. I feel like the discussion between different entities would be useful, rather than two months later, they see it and then we're like, "What did we talk about when we saw it?" So I'm just up for discussion.
Maybe quarterly. It wouldn't have to be that often, but I think on some of these things where you're presenting this, and then you have to present it again, and then we're all speaking, saying different things, but maybe not listening to what the other one is saying.
Maybe it's not that frequently, but I've been feeling this a lot in various meetings lately. Just general? If I may pick up that ball. This doesn't have to be everything, but some things, like comp plan, rise to the level of importance where that collaboration could be valuable.
Yeah. Well, and also just staff's time. I mean, at least for the parks plan, I'm hearing it, the parks and rec's getting it. On the tree commission, we got it. It's going to go to council. I think it's coming to us.
Yeah. And I know you're looking at it in different ways, but it would be useful, I think, to have everyone who's interested in the room. That's all. We could definitely look at that, especially for specific- Yeah ...
issues. Yeah. So then looking at how the city is approaching the comprehensive plan review, again, evaluating and responding to challenges, opportunities, and emerging issues since the 2021 plan and subsequent development code.
So recent community feedback shows support for previously identified values and goals such as housing affordability and multimodal transportation, but differing opinions on the best ways to achieve those outcomes.
So in talking about recent feedback, that's of course outside of the comprehensive plan review because that process has not started yet, but that would be places like council meetings, neighborhood association meetings, the neighborhood walks, specific projects like the Rose Hill repaving and Fifield traffic calming, and other venues.
So larger projects close to core neighborhoods have drawn concerns, especially regarding the potential for displacement and neighborhood change. There's also limited information to date on development code implementation, since the code has only been in effect since February 2024, and applications have had limited time to fully move through the process.
There's also continued community interest in other topics that relate to and support land use and housing, including transportation, protecting the natural environment and historic resources, and parks and recreation.
So I'll note a few other things on implementation. So with any major zoning or other code change, it takes time for developers and builders to learn, understand, and pursue development and for development to fully move through the process, along with factoring in the typical market and other constraints that occurs both locally and nationally.
So there's a couple studies that the Urban Institute did that show some examples. One in Portland found that multifamily projects took about eight years to be completed after a major upzoning was approved, so moving all the way through the process.
New York City found that the effects of their upzoning were fairly small in the first few years, and then grew about 6 to 12 years more significantly after the upzoning. So it will be different everywhere, but it does often take some time to see the effects.
And then locally, legislative grandfathering has meant that some projects have or are continuing under the previous 2003 code. So some of the projects under that code include Aspen Heights, The Verve, The Bloom, 501 Cherry, and then many of the 100% affordable projects like Kindlewood and First Street.
There are also close to 20 projects that are not under construction, but that could still potentially move forward under the old code, since they're not expired or withdrawn yet. Some of the projects that have moved forward under the 2023 code include 843 West Main Street or LV Collective, The Mark, 915 East High Street, and then several projects that are more in the 9 to 16 unit range.
And then actually, sorry, Patrick, you can go back up one slide. So then looking at the parallel plans and projects that are going on along with the comprehensive plan that covers some of the other topics besides land use.
There are multiple housing studies that either will or have been going on. There's the Missing Middle Housing Working Group. There's multiple projects under the Environmental Review Project. The Parks and Recreation Master Plan implementation is moving forward.
And then there's also the Economic Mobility Action Plan and the Citywide Mobility Plan. So this is an opportunity to coordinate across those projects. And then noting that reviewing the affordable housing plan would follow the comprehensive plan update.
And next slide. So updated data and existing conditions analysis is important for informing this project and responding to those emerging issues. So after this slide, the next section covers some of that initial existing conditions data.
So these are some of the questions that staff has been considering, have not answered all of them yet, but have at least started to gather data on them. And there will be other topics that will be very important to gather data on, but these are some important ones as kind of the starting point.
So before we move on to the next section, are there any other questions on what we've covered so far? It looks good. I think, as we all know, the last week and then tomorrow, these public forums where we're getting a lot of community input on these new developments seem useful to just-- I've just been taking notes and listening, and so I'm very interested in the affordable housing piece and where there might be adjustments, and I know that takes time.
But we're kind of at a moment where there's-- It's in certain neighborhoods' minds, and as you mentioned, the core neighborhoods. I do think that's a great focus since that was sort of like a dotted line of how do we protect this?
And so there's room for maybe adding other kinds of protections or overlays or what were we-- Were we going to learn about TIFs at some work session, I think? I mean, just other- Yeah ... other ways of helping people stay in their homes.
And I'd like to just offer a caution. In the last comprehensive plan process, we very consciously avoided neighborhood groups- Yeah ... because they are uneven. They're weird people. They are the construction of individual points in time, generally opposition to specific projects that may or may not be relevant to this comprehensive planning process.
So certainly share information with them as you would with anyone else, but I wouldn't recommend that you lean on them for essential work, especially for reaching hard-to-reach people, lower income people who are maybe less engaged with that comprehensive planning process in the day to day.
You're going to get quoted for weird people. It's true. Yeah, you guys are part of the weird... No, I'm just kidding. Were you the one discussing how data was desegregated? Disaggregated, yes. Disaggregated?
Yeah. During this process? Yeah, that was an essential part of the comprehensive plan last time, was disaggregating the data based on who is talking to us. So, income, race. A really important one turned out to be renter versus homeowner.
Mm-hmm. The big ones. It may be that there are new ones that will be relevant to this process that I don't know about. But one of the challenges previously was keeping that sort of same discipline through the process, and we failed.
It was hard to do. It was work, and we just didn't keep that rigor. So be better than us, please. And one challenge with that too can be, especially with surveys, if people don't necessarily want to answer questions.
But doing the best job we can, understanding who we're hearing from is definitely important. So then looking at the existing conditions data that we have so far, the first two slides, the information was provided by local demographer Hamilton Lombard as part of the State of the Community presentation.
So the Charlottesville metro area is one of the most expensive metro areas in the United States. And since 2000, home prices in the Charlottesville metropolitan statistical area, or MSA, which is a census designation and includes Charlottesville and then the counties of Albemarle, Fluvanna, Greene and Nelson, those home prices have increased more than any other Virginia MSA except the Washington, DC area.
But relative to income, housing is more expensive in Charlottesville than northern Virginia. Because housing prices are high in our area, but median incomes are also higher than surrounding localities, the area draws in employees that then live further away, where housing is more affordable.
And then while there are higher paying sectors, including health and biotech, there are also a large share of workers that are employed in relatively lower paying industries, including arts, entertainment and accommodation, and also education.
Next slide. So an increasing share of the region's workers live outside of Albemarle County and the city of Charlottesville. So of the 352 US urban areas that have 100,000 or more people, only the Boulder area has a higher percentage of daytime population change from in commuters, and our area is the second highest.
So that looked at primarily the city of Charlottesville and then the urban ring right around Charlottesville, so people commuting into both the city and then the urban surrounding county right around the city.
So from 2010 to 2023, the urban area added almost 11,000 jobs, but only 3,000 of those were filled by residents of the urban area. Other jobs were filled by workers outside the urban area, especially in Shenandoah Valley and other kind of surrounding communities.
So we provided a third of the homes for the 12. There's not a person- Yeah ... job. Seems like not a very good ratio of the new jobs. This goes to your point, Jose, about regional collaboration on housing.
The city can't do this on their own. Right. We don't have the footprint to be able to do this even if we wanted to. It's going to take a regional approach. Next slide. Do we know how much the daytime population differs from the nighttime population?
If I'm remembering correctly, I believe the change is about 30,000 people, but that's coming into both the city and the urban ring. Okay. So looking at where development and redevelopment have been occurring, so we started by looking at the past five years, and then anticipate adding onto this data, and also creating maps that are more interactive and more of a dashboard format, but this is an initial step.
So we are working on gathering the older permit data, but it gets more challenging the further back we go as the data quality and the unit type labeling also get less consistent the further back we go.
But this is some initial existing analysis. You can see the approximate distribution of units there. So for some of the multifamily projects, that would include some early sections of South First Street, Kindlewood, and Sixth Street, also the Sunrise Carlton development.
So those were the fully affordable projects. There were also some market-rate projects, including Dairy Central, the Hudson on River Road, and then a smaller multifamily development on Rose Hill Drive So moving forward with some of the student developments like The Verve or The Bloom, would they show up on the future chart in multifamily?
They would, yes. Okay. For completed. So these were only completed units- Yeah. Over the past five years. Yeah, I know, but this predates those, yeah. Yeah. You guys have your dashboard for the current permits that are in development, and it's over 3,000 units, I think, that are currently- I would have to- Yeah ...
check on the-- But there is a development dashboard. Yeah, I just looked at it yesterday. Yeah, the dashboard had, I think it was close to 3,500 sort of current units under- 3,314. How much? 3,314. Thank you.
And- And a third of that's The Verve? I think half of that's The Verve. No, these are units. So some of those units have four bedrooms, so that number is actually, if it were to be a bed count, it would be a much bigger bed count.
There's just a big infusion of housing that is on the precipice of coming online. May I ask a question about, just because we're on the topic of student housing, something that came up over the past couple of weeks in the discussion about the LV particularly, was the LV project, was how they're paying half of the in-lieu fee because they're a student project.
Is that something we could look at as an amendment or through this process? Because it did seem like maybe that distinction between student and-- We had the radius for a while, these different things, and I think that seems to be a place for a discussion.
I think Kelly came and talked about it. Yeah. What happened to-- There was going to be some more study on that. And did that ever-- I forget how that got resolved. Or- It hasn't been resolved ... yeah.
Yeah. It got, it was pushed down the road. Ah. So, that's actually a criteria that was part of the affordable housing plan. Yeah. So that would- Oh, so that might have been- Come up during that review.
Okay. But that is something that we would- I've heard that a lot at these meetings from neighbors. Yeah, and I think there was some loophole that Kelly pointed out that they had nothing. They only went up to three units.
Yeah. And they built four, five, six, seven, eight, or eight beds per unit. So that even further cuts into the payment in lieu. Looking at this map, I'm trying to map the small area plans we've done against it, and I suspect that generally where we've done a small area plan, we don't see many dots.
There seems to be a negative correlation just looking at the map from my eye. If I'm right, I'd like to know more about that. We can definitely look at that. Remember, these are completed units. True.
So a future map, I think is- Yeah. They're going back like 10 years. Yeah. We haven't done a small area plan for- In a while. Yeah, for quite a while. It could be reverse psychology. We strategically do small area plans to stop it at this point.
No more planning. Next slide. Then looking at the development dashboard that we were just discussing, this is filtered to only be looking at projects under the 2023 development codes. This was just a snapshot as of August.
And this is pulling from permit data, so there are some kind of smaller and non-residential projects that get pulled into the map. So things like building modifications or bus stops because they have a permit associated with them.
But you can see the kind of approximate distribution of projects that are under construction, approved, or under review on the map. And then up top, it shows the projects that have been completed and that are in progress and under review, and those are based on permits.
So each project would have an associated permit. So that's not total number of units, that's just permits. You did say you were hoping to make these maps interactive. Is that what you said? Yes. This one is already interactive, but the one before that's showing what's been completed over time, it's not yet.
Okay. But hopefully will be in the future through a dashboard as well. One of Danny's questions was if the dots could be different sizes for different size development. I think if maybe the interactive part would help with that, or I don't know.
Yeah. But that was one of his questions. Because they do start to cluster, too, and once you're able to zoom in, you can better see how they're distributed. Is there any value, because a lot, the bulk of the large developments are not under the 2023 development code.
They sort of snuck in under the old one. Is there a way to toggle the development codes in the interactive tool so you can sort of see all the development from prior to the 2023? The dashboard that we're working on will have that feature so that you can distinguish by unit type and then also which code it was under.
Next slide. So then these show projects that were actually fully completed under the 2023 development code, showing the permits and the distribution of those. Noting that as of the time that this was put together, there were no multifamily units or projects that had been fully completed under the new code.
I find interest in the 12 additional dwelling units. Is that a detached small unit in somebody's backyard? Is that how that's defined here? I believe so, yes. Probably a mixture of that and individual house lots.
I mean, we still get permits for one-off house lots on occasion, so What do you mean by a one-off house lot? Like a lot that was empty and someone builds a house on it. Oh, is that not under single-family detached?
It should be under- It could be. Okay. We can define those. Sure. I just want to... If an additional dwelling unit is a granny flat or a carriage house in somebody's backyard, people's attention to that, we've had 12 of those added into the city.
It's hard because some of those, though, could be someone putting multiple units in a backyard, not just one. It doesn't represent- Sure ... 12 people putting 12- Sure ... granny flats. But it's an example of- I see ...
middle housing being added to the city, and there is examples of successes of gentle density of something in somebody's backyard where you might not actually know that something was added back there, but there's an additional home in town for people to live in.
That we have evidence that something is working. Also, are single family detached townhomes? Yes. Because two-family dwelling- A single family attached is fee simple, right? Where a two-family might be stacked Two families typically on one parcel.
Yeah. These are terms, and this is the other hard part is we don't use these terms anymore. Right. Under our old code- Yes ... two family was two units on a property that was- Mm-hmm ... owned by one person, or they could have been condo.
A single family attached speaks to duplex and townhomes. Single family detached speaks to a typical standalone home. And then multifamily was anything over two. Can I ask a question that I probably should've asked two slides back?
How friendly are we to manufactured housing units? Is there something in our code that makes it difficult to do those in Charlottesville, or are they just zero because no one wants to build them in Charlottesville?
That's more the HUD certificate. You can do it. But we haven't done any. Yeah. You have to have the HUD sticker, which is apparently very hard to get, because you have the national HUD, and then you have the Virginia HUD sticker.
And for building code, you have to have the Virginia HUD sticker on the manufactured. And they're permitted. In theory, we may have done them, but they just haven't been labeled. They- We haven't labeled them.
They just don't rarely come in. They don't get to the level of where they would pass building inspection. Okay. Got it. Okay. Yeah. But I don't know enough about this, but nerdily looking at webinars and stuff, so one of the things good that the federal government may have done in the recent housing bill was supposedly to loosen those restrictions and encourage more manufactured housing because they generally cost less.
But I think we'd have to see if that in any way applies to our particular city. But I've noticed that in a lot of the strategies, that that's a line item, increase policies to allow more manufactured housing.
And I don't even think they mean necessarily mobile homes, prefabricated, any sort of- Yeah ... less expensive, brought to site kind of... But no, I'll find out more about that. But that seems to be a common one of how there's usually a list of the current ideas of how to increase affordable housing, and that seems to be on there, so.
See if we can figure it out for our city. Slide. So then looking at affordable housing units specifically, we estimated how many had been completed from 2009 to 2026. So about 561. The majority of those were built in three neighborhoods.
And then for the affordable units that are in the pipeline, so not yet built, those are also in three neighborhoods. Primarily two of them overlap, so North Downtown and Bridge Street. So these are gross, not net affordable units, so it's plus one unit, even if it replaced an existing affordable unit.
The projects that are under review are the ones that are likely to move forward and have a known number of affordable units. So there might be some other ones that are more uncertain, but they're not included at this point.
So these also include projects that are fully affordable and then ones that are a part of a market rate development. So both types. Are these ones that the city has deemed or required to be affordable?
Or are Habitat houses included in this list? It's a mix. So some of them are ones that had to be affordable- Okay ... from a project standpoint, but then some were just projects that are fully 100% affordable.
Mm-hmm. So, whether the city was involved- Okay ... in contributing to those or not. Okay. So it would capture- So they've been- ... like Habitat projects? Yeah. Okay. So just anything that meets the definition of affordable.
Next slide. I was thinking, the North Downtown, the 200, is that Kindlewood, or what's 288 North Downtown? That's a good question. Yeah, that includes- I think so. The lines are funny. The lines are, yeah, interesting.
That's kind of why I looked at it. Yeah. I'd written down North Downtown includes Kindlewood, but also the future MACA site. So then Ridge includes First and Sixth Streets, and then the completed Crescent Halls.
Okay. So that helps. But they're right there on the boundary. Tenth and Page, is that West Haven? The three- Yes. Is most of it, yes. Mm-hmm. I don't know what the answer is, but spatial equity jumps to mind when I look at this slide.
I think there's a spatial equity element here, but I don't know what it is. Mm-hmm. But we know what it is. I've got a guess. What do you mean by spatial equity? I have heard concerns from people in our, I'm forgetting what our term is.
Historically lower income or historically African American areas, that they're getting a lot of these and other places are not. Got you. But that's been a concern that's been flagged to me. I think they're probably right, but it would be helpful to understand the dynamics.
Well, a number of these are redevelopments, and they're also in proximity to services. So, those are other factors to think about. Next slide. So then looking at the in-lieu fee side of it. So the total affordable in-lieu fees for completed projects from 2009 to 2026 was about 2.7 million.
Then looking at projects that are under construction, it's about 11 million, and then projects under review, about eight million. For the projects that are under construction, that is pretty much The Verve, The Bloom, and Aspen Heights.
And then for all of the projects that have had in-lieu fees, it's been a combination under the 2003 and 2023 development code. And there's been a combination of special use permits, rezonings, and then just the affordable requirements based on the zoning ordinance.
So a variety of sources that all of those came from. So we have somewhat limited information on the 2023 code implementation so far, but definitely want to track that specifically as well. So this is in lieu of something?
Of providing affordable units on site. So do we have... That's basically the prior slide, but for the 2023, do we have information on how many inclusionary zoning, more specifically meaning projects with more than 10 units, affordable units are being under construction and under review?
We don't have that yet, but that is something that we want to calculate. Do we actually have any? I thought the number was zero. Well, and I don't think any have actually fully gone through the process to get to the point of having- Got you ...
finalized data. So we could potentially estimate, but until something's actually gone all the way through and is completed. Sure. Yeah. But having a number, even if it is zero, in a presentation like this would be useful.
Mm-hmm. All right, next slide. So neighborhood change and addressing displacement are priority issues in both the comprehensive plan and affordable housing plan. There are multiple ways to estimate which areas might be at greater risk of displacement, and then also to measure where neighborhood change has been occurring.
So this is a list of potential options that can be used from a data standpoint, including cost burden household, demographics, household income, and other potential indicators. One challenge is that in the smaller geographic breakdown that you get into with census data, the margin of error gets challenging to address.
But these are still useful indicators that we can take a look at. And this is just an initial list, so we would anticipate community input to help finalize what data we should look at for risk of displacement.
And that goes into the next slide, looking at how the current comprehensive plan considers which areas might be at risk of displacement. So the plan also recommends revisiting the methodology for identifying communities at risk with each five-year plan review.
So this is a good opportunity to revisit the topic of sensitive communities and what kind of data we're using to identify which areas might be at greater risk of displacement. And then that can help inform the comprehensive plan recommendations and priorities, and potential tools to address that.
In speaking with people working on poverty issues, a crucial question in terms of getting out of poverty, good or bad in this area, is do you have reliable transportation? And for a lot of people, the answer is no.
And then the answer on the good job is no. I don't know if we can access that kind of information, but it could be helpful. You mean areas adding to this list of census data about whether they have transportation needs?
Yeah. To meet their economic needs. I know that CARTA, the study they're doing has some data points on transportation related stuff like zero car households and stuff like that. So I just bring that up knowing that some sort of data is out there.
So the next two slides have some initial data on community change. And we'll be asking for community input to identify other data points, but these two topics were key components that were looked at for the affordable housing plan and the comprehensive plan.
So this shows change in income distribution, looking at 2019 and 2024 data. So the 2019 data is shown in light blue, the 2024 more recent data shown in dark blue. So this is consistent with the regional findings that we looked at earlier with income distribution shifting towards higher incomes.
The data does include University of Virginia students that live in the city, so that can sometimes skew some of the lower ends of the data. But does seem to show that there's a combination of potentially overall incomes going up, but also community members getting pushed further out, and unable to afford to stay in the city, and higher income community members moving in.
It would be interesting to see this also adjusted for inflation. Yeah. I was going to say the same thing. I think both are useful because some people's wages haven't gone up with inflation- Right ... but others have.
Inflation's been so... There's a lot of inflation in the last six months. Could look at doing that. Next slide. So looking at change in housing costs. About 40% of all Charlottesville households are considered cost burden, meaning they're paying more than 30% of household income toward housing costs.
So that's about 21% of homeowner households, and then about 55 and a half percent of renter households. And then for both the change in median rent and median home value, you can see there's a big jump from the impacts of COVID, especially on construction costs, labor costs, all the things that have impacted housing costs.
And this still includes students? Yeah, this is just overall median rent, median home value, and everyone that lives in the city, so that would include student households as well. How does student income get-- If they don't have income, is it zero?
Or do you see their parents' income? Or is there a way to-- What number gets used there? That is a great question. I am not sure offhand how that gets reported, but I do know it tends to skew some of the data on the lower end.
Okay. How does this look for the rest of the world? For example, are 40% of the people who live in Blue Banner, are they cost burdened? Is 40% just a typical number that we see around the world, around the SSA, and around the United States?
We could definitely get that data from a regional standpoint and from a United States standpoint, but it does seem relatively high. Seems high compared to the regional data? Right. Okay. It may also be helpful to look at our peers.
I'm thinking of Blacksburg or other college towns in the area. Appreciate it. Very quickly, yeah. Yeah. Next slide. So the city is looking at the comp plans of other localities to help inform best practices.
So that includes Charlotte, North Carolina. So these are just a couple of slides looking at one aspect of their comprehensive plan update that they did a few years ago. They developed an equitable growth framework with a variety of mapping and data analysis tools, including a populations vulnerable to displacement overlay that they used as an initial step in their comp plan.
So they looked at areas where residents and businesses might not have access to daily needs, choices for housing, employment, or safe and healthy environments. So then they used that to inform comprehensive plan recommendations, potential locations to study for future planning efforts, and then tracking progress.
Next slide. And again, this is just one example, but it shows the data points that they used to inform the areas that were at more risk to displacement, which then helped inform some additional mapping on access to opportunity and then comprehensive plan recommendations.
You can say just a cursory look, it looks like over half, the national average is over 50%, is cost burdened. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. There's a bunch of, I guess in 2024, there's a lot of reports coming out of the government saying that we just jumped over 50%.
That's just for the renting market, it's not all homes. Yeah. Next slide. So then just a couple of slides to summarize the objectives for the five-year review, based on what we've looked at so far. So these first objectives are the basic requirements, so they're more staff and state code focused, some cleanups and refinement.
So looking at what we need to do from a state code standpoint, updated data, any updated requirements, and then aligning a comprehensive plan with plans that have been completed since November 2021, like the Climate Action Plan and Parks and Recreation Master Plan.
Next slide. And then the next slide has the more substantive potential changes for the comprehensive plan five-year review. So looking at the current plan strategies and priorities and where changes might be needed.
So that's where we would look at any potential major policy or other changes. And this will be a key area for community and planning commission and council input We also want to establish a process for regular tracking and reporting on plan progress, establish a framework and approach for small area planning, and then coordinate across all of the other projects that we'll be moving forward at the same time.
So, there are over 600 strategies in the current comprehensive plan, and 30 of those are priorities. So, it's quite a lot to review. Can we cut some of them? Could trim for- Already done? Some number of them are probably already done.
Yes. Are definitely already done. And it's a little bit tricky, too, because when you're measuring progress, there's actually quite a few of them that I would put in the ongoing bucket, where they're general direction or policy, and they're never done.
So, it might be helpful to sort them by what they are as well. Are they- Which ones are goals and priorities that change over time, and which are actual- Like a specific project or ordinance or yeah, versus just a policy of how to do things.
Okay, next slide. So, moving to the questions. Staff has three questions for the planning commission today to help inform the scope of the five-year comp plan review. So, although it's early in the process and there will be additional topics and issues that will be identified through the planning process, staff is looking for a baseline to start from, including to help identify what project resources may be needed and have a general direction to start the project.
Staff is anticipating a plan review and not a rewrite, which means starting from the 2021 plan goals and overall approach, and then identifying during the review where changes to strategies and priorities may be needed to achieve the desired outcomes.
So, we want to confirm that approach with the planning commission and then with council. The five-year review is an important time to check in on progress and where adjustments may be needed. Typically, the 10-year timeframe would be the full plan rewrite.
And the five-year review would be for making changes if needed to achieve plan goals. So, we're asking these first two questions together since it's two ways of asking a similar question. So, we would ask the commission to discuss these together before moving on to the last question.
So, based on the information covered in today's presentation, comprehensive plan implementation that's occurred to date, and the project objectives, staff is looking for planning commission feedback on whether changes are needed to the comp plan, land use vision, and overall approach.
And if so, what should those changes address? So, not asking about the how to achieve the plan goals yet. So, asking if changes are needed, and then the how or the strategies would come during the plan review process.
So, these don't have to be final answers since we're still having a planning and engagement process that's coming up. But this does set the initial direction of the process and help staff prepare for what information and materials and resources may be needed.
So, how does that question relate to the work that Matt's been doing? With the code cleanup? Mm-hmm. Jump back up one slide. So, the code- Or just deeper in the minutia than what you are being asked here.
So, this is actually more policy range, where I keep telling you all when we're not doing policy on the code cleanup stuff. This is more policy. So, the code cleanup is coming from that standpoint of our comprehensive plan is right, our goals are right, our policies are right.
We need to change some of these actual development code sections to be more in line with that. So, it's really steering away from policy. There is a gray area, I know we've talked about that before. But, yeah.
So, the work on the code cleanup is really just about clarifications and refinements. Updating your comprehensive plan is about policies. Are we at the right policies? Do we need to change policies? Who wants to go first?
I'm happy to pontificate if no one else wants to. Hit it. This is going to be a little bit of a mess. I had something written up. I'm not sure I like how I wrote it, but- Oh, read it to us. Yeah. So, I don't think we do need to make big changes in the comp plan.
There's obviously things that we want to change in the development code. But I think we should be a little bit careful about backtracking so quickly on the future land use map. I don't think we've had enough time to actually see how stuff could turn out.
And, I may get in trouble for this. Obviously, we need to listen to the community, but I think that development is an easy target for blaming the issues around displacement and gentrification and property values going up.
Because it's easy to see that, like in 10th and Page, there's all this development that's popped up in the last 10 years, and property values have skyrocketed. And then there's been a lot of turnover in the neighborhood.
But it's not clear, did that development cause that to happen, or was it going to happen anyways? And I'm leaning towards the it was going to happen no matter what. And I'm not sure that backtracking right now is going to fix that problem.
So, that's one thought there. The other thought is, whatever we end up deciding, though, with these core neighborhoods and the R&A zones, which I would like us to solidify that and figure out, because it was a band-aid, and just let's make an actual real code for these areas- Whatever we decide, it would be nice if we could stick with it over the next five years as opposed to, we've been kind of wishy-washy about-- I know we haven't changed anything, but there's been a lot of verbal wishy-washiness about it and kind of like, "Oh, is this really what we want?" So it would be nice if we could get something that's actually, council and planning commission can really stand behind.
That's easier said than done, but yeah, it'd be nice to get that vagueness out of it. Yeah. I generally agree with keeping the vision and the policies and with what is in the current plan. As you mentioned, Tori, a lot of the upzoning takes years before you really start seeing any work come out of it.
So are there things that we can do more near term that can help close that gap? And I know the city is doing some good things around property tax. I'm not sure of the actual mechanism, but helping people pay their property taxes, if that becomes a burden, or helping people pay their rent with vouchers, if that's a burden.
Could we raise in priority potentially, or do more on those fronts that have a more immediate impact for displacement than the supply side? To tack onto that, I think you were working with Osei, and then I guess you've taken over the 10th page, Rose Hill, the whole whatever.
It was a small area plan. Now, I'm not sure what it is, but you guys switched focus from zoning to more of finding other solutions. And I think just, yeah, adding onto what Ross was saying, I think that's finding other tools to put in the comp plan I think would be useful.
Mm-hmm. I'll build on that because I think, again, often in these meetings, the gray area is coming through in some of the discussions. I think the new zoning's an easy target, but I think the process of the developers coming in where they've already spent millions of dollars designing their project, and then they have to do the one community meeting where it's already a done deal, I think has been difficult.
And so maybe looking at that process, and also working with communities-- or maybe not, but there's something around that that's been difficult. And then also working with communities in advance, and maybe they are the ones that are designated or anyone, to think about what kind of agreements or what they would want to see if a developer came.
Because there was a lot of, at least in the recent LV meeting, the developer was offering some things that no one knew about, and then it was very awkward that they were like, "Well, maybe this is happening.
Maybe this money's going here. Maybe we're starting a fund." And it seemed like they were trying to offer something. The neighborhood didn't quite understand that because it wasn't public. It wasn't an open discussion.
So working with the neighborhoods before to be like, "Oh, if this does get developed and you want to talk with them, what are the things that you're looking for?" Maybe that's the small area plans or just thinking ahead to those moments rather than-- I don't know.
It just feels very awkward at the moment. So thinking about that process more than changing the zoning necessarily, but just what is the process for when these big developments come in? And also, I think you already alluded on the maps to looking at where those vulnerable sites are, because I think the biggest lots that were adjacent to these neighborhoods are going to be filled.
So, just kind of looking out for those moments, so that-- I feel like the neighborhood leaders have been doing a lot of work, but it's not always clear what they can do. And so not having the out-of-town developer coming in and saying, "Oh, we're going to create this new fund." Or it was a bit odd the way things were going down.
So that's one thing I would just add to the sensitive communities. In their toolbox of things, how would they like to work with someone coming in and offering to do a community benefit agreement? And is there someone at this-- I don't know who in the city would be at the table or how that gets negotiated.
It seems like this one is sort of by the seat of the pants situation. And it's moving through, but maybe just adding that to the list is community benefit agreements with developers, and how do we think about that?
That's a kind of a touchy issue because it has to be private. We can't be involved- Oh ... it gets into- Covered ... potential zoning violation kinds of issues. And so I know Tori's been doing some research lately on how communities are using that.
So far it's been out of state People. Of course, other states have a lot more flexibility than we do. So anyway, it's something to put into the mix, but it's one with caution. Yeah. And maybe just clarity that it is separate.
That would be good. Yeah. Because I think that's where it was awkward because it was like these hush-hush things, and then everyone's looking around. Yeah. The places that have required community benefit agreements, it's usually been where public land or public money was involved.
Usually then localities can't actually require that, but it can happen separately outside of the formal development review process if both parties wish to engage in that separately. Interesting. Thank you.
I have a few things. So we spent a lot of effort last time on zoning as an anti-displacement tool, with repeated assertions that it's not an anti-displacement tool. To the extent that it is, there is a million tools that are better.
And to the extent that we want to deal with displacement, we should be using other tools. We've not done a great job on that. So really drilling down on that issue I think would be helpful. Because we heard a lot of anxiety about displacement then, and I'm hearing it now.
I'm hearing that that's what the public wants us to focus on. I'd like to see that. I appreciate our creativity, and really we've worked hard on this, but zoning is not doing that. The sensitive communities boundaries, I think I heard this from you, but our demographics have changed.
The ladies has changed. So updating those boundaries based on current trends and needs I think would be helpful. If we still want to do it, and I think it's been useful, at least as a spatial guideline about, "Here's where the stuff is.
Be careful." I think it's good. The university area has changed quite a bit since the last time we did this. We've got some major new developments, both the private and on the university side. I think that's worth a very close collaborative look.
It's clearly an area of serious interest, and I think serious opportunity. So to the extent that we're doing major changes to the map, I think that's a good place to focus. President Cherry. Yeah, I've heard a lot of feedback about challenges with our zoning.
I think they were well-intended, but they were very much last minute. And it's not a perfect system, which we didn't expect it would be. I don't know what the best solution is, but it's probably not what we're doing.
But I think the vision and the concepts were good and helpful. I just had a quick comment. Please. I think one of the issues I've noticed is that hard line between sensitive community and corridor. Yep.
So maybe there's something there that we could work on. Yeah. Because I think that's where the rub is. It's like the corridors. So. So community development benefit agreements. We have a lot of controls and restrictions on what we can do on mandating stuff.
We have remarkable freedom on spending. We could offer carrots, we could offer free candy. We could say, "Hey, if you want to do a community benefit agreement, we have a pot of city funds, and we will match you two for one.
If you want to." We could do things like that. That's legal. That's interesting. I appreciate your displacement comment. Again, I know I represent the university. I'm not a voting member on some of these comments.
I'm just trying to think. I think there's some great comments brought up, but this feels like we're a bit of still at a crossroads. It feels like it's been a prolonged crossroads for quite some time here.
I came in 2016, and in 2017, I feel like everything changed. And so, I agree. I think the contents are great. I was curious if the team looks at other best practices. Are there other municipal comp plans that you feel are heads and shoulders above?
I'm just looking at Denver's right now or looked at Greensboro. I was just curious if there was sort of an aspirational goal, or there's been some adoption of some comp plans that we feel like maybe we could use that as a guiding principle.
I feel like one of the best things that we could get out of a comp plan is to have clarity of the shared vision, so that as people change, people are at the risk of leaving and new people come in, there's still sort of a backbone that can help weather change, either at the council level or in the neighborhoods or anything else.
I feel like it can be a sort of a North Star, so to speak, to keep us on track. I feel like that's one of the things that's been a challenge in the last 10 years. I feel like there's been a lot of... That's happening at the university, it's happening at the county, it's happening in the city.
And so, I think that idea of how can we have that. And where I'm getting with that is Ross brought up that great point about maybe this comp plan can start to baseline if we have these six buckets that are these sort of aspirational goals.
Maybe we can start to establish the measurable baselines, so that moving forward, those six goals, which I have a hunch probably won't change. Again, looking at these other municipalities, they all more or less have the same buckets.
But maybe we could start to actually figure out what the guidelines are to see are we actually making any headway on any of these buckets. Which ones are we doing great on? Which ones have we completely done nothing?
So, again, I'm not sure what that looks like, but maybe they're just a simple sort of reading in those sort of key areas. Yeah, I was curious about the people who are at risk. How does the comp plan propose to triage that?
Because, again, we've looked at the development code, but that is very slow. It could take decades. So it'll be interesting if you identify in this process areas that- But the affordable housing plan would be updated.
I would think we wouldn't want to do this and not think about that and wait. So it seems like while this is happening, we can just have it all ready to plug in. Yeah. I think it's about maybe being very clear about where are the tools, like Lyle's saying.
I think historically we've leaned on a development code tool to try to enact change, but maybe this is another place where there are municipalities, maybe there's other levers that can make an impactful benefit in a shorter horizon.
So, that's it. Yeah. Yeah. You want to do anything? I think that's all I had. Let me double-check. I was curious, this is just an open conversation. Jose or Daniel, Carl, do you guys have experience where when it felt like the city, and the university, and the county were working together in a way?
Because I don't know if I've had that lived experience. I've had that experience. Yeah. But- Because my understanding is there were meetings that used to exist that no longer exist. Yes. And I know, with the relative new leadership at UVA, with the strategic plan going on there, with this comp plan going on, with all of these others, it does seem like it's a great opportunity to get heads together as documents are being drafted.
I'm a little worried that they're not. Could it be written in there? We've got a loop back. Yeah, it's a loop back, yeah. We don't get to influence policy. We just get to sit there and listen to what folks are doing.
It seems to me that it would be nice if we had a body that worried about this, this UVA, Albemarle County, the Charlottesville body that worried about this sort of thing collectively. Yeah. And we don't.
Or existing bodies that have joint meetings more often. Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. And again, not just a listening session, but actual work sessions where you're actually- Work session, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. It almost feels like it'd be more productive if it was a place to have open conversation as opposed to prepared presentations. We do have a standing invite from the county to do a work session with their planning commission, but I was supposed to-- The county's chair and I haven't emailed back to figure that out, and I guess they'll- We did one.
There's a chair. I think you and- We did resilient together, right? We did- Yeah. Whoever our leader is, our Indiest leader needs you, their chair, Indiest leader, need to sit down and put together a good strong agenda, a good strong objective.
That was the problem is, so we emailed each other and said, "That's a great idea." And- And what are we going to talk about? Exactly. And again, I'll point back to what I think a common interest would be for at least us in the county is what's happening around the urban ring.
Mm-hmm. And as it relates to transportation, as it relates to affordable housing, and as it relates to employment. When does Albemarle County- Because those folks that live in the urban ring, a lot of those guys have to drive into UVA to work, or get into UVA one way or the other to work.
Sorry, I was just curious, the counties, is their comp plan in similar sort of sequences as us, like I said? They wrapped up their comp plan update last year, but the next step is looking at activity center planning, so it's small area planning.
And I think they're starting with the Places 29 North Airport Road area with all the major employment coming there. But future studies, I think, would look at Pantops and some of the areas that are more adjacent to the city as well.
So it could be some good collaboration opportunities there. Yeah, I think since theirs is fairly new and adopted, it seems like it makes sense for the Charlottesville one to funnel off of, at least build on what's in there.
So. Or highlight maybe where we need to improve. So I feel like we all generally are saying that this is a review and not- Yeah. Thank you for summarizing that so well. Yeah. Thank you. Very helpful. Pointed areas of concern.
Yeah. I think that leads into the last slide. I think we've talked about a lot of these already. But looking at what are the main challenges, opportunities, and emerging issues to address with the comp plan review.
So this is the initial list, based on everything we covered today, the staff has put together. Some of these were also at least talked about with the previous comprehensive plan and intended to be revisited later.
So they include, as we talked about, concerns for displacement and neighborhood change, multimodal transportation, addressing barriers to housing development, especially missing middle housing, while also protecting the natural environment and ensuring a high quality of place, aligning the comp plan with new and updated plans, looking at limited and smaller scale commercial uses in residential districts, and then providing more opportunities for community engagement related to how the city makes decisions and what tools are available.
So is there anything that seems to be missing from this list or just generally missing from the 2021 plan, or that's new since the 2021 plan? I mean, maybe a bullet. I don't know if it's even worth a bullet, but some structure around the collaboration with the region or just, I don't know.
Maybe there's something that could be baked in no matter who's in what position, that's just an annual day, a meeting of UVA, Albemarle, and City. Maybe just a bullet about that since we're surrounded.
I struggle with those bullets because we're such a small piece of- Yeah ... picture. It's like we need to have one of these collaborative three-way meetings before we decide if we want to even put the bullet in.
Well, yeah. Maybe that's the bullet. That's it. Because you kind of want that bullet three times. Exactly. Yeah. If two of the three have the bullet, the bullet doesn't have much power. Maybe just reach out, connect, I don't know.
Something. Who from UVA would, if we had a big three-way meeting of planning commissions or council, is that the office of the architect? Is it- I think I'm going to do a little digging into that and try to figure out, because again, we have a new executive leader.
Yeah. So I think it's not clear to me right now who would... Yeah. Because it does-- No offense, but the resilient communities thing that we did a year, however many years ago- Yeah ... with the county and UVA, I felt like we had a good conversation with the county, but I also kind of felt like UVA was just, "We're going to do what they want to do anyway." What office does the Affordable Housing Initiative that you guys are undertaking, what room does that reside in?
So I think they're a subgroup under the COO, so yeah. COO. Who was that these days? I think Pace Lochte. I think she's working on it with JJ Davis. Mm. And I also know the foundation is also sort of- That's what I thought it was ...
linked into that. And I know there's different agreements with the two different sites, so. Yeah, that's the problem with UVA. There are so many people at UVA. I mean, the foundation and the CEO and whatever.
Yeah, and that's part of what I'm going to try to do after this meeting, is start to poke around and figure out where we could, and just figure what that group is. My guess is it would probably be a handful of people that would help.
Yep. Or maybe it's an adjustment to LUPEC. That would be one option is could that sort of overgrow a little bit since it's already established? Could it be work sessions as opposed to just listening sessions?
They would have to revise the mission, because then it would become a little more open than they'd like to be. Mm-hmm. Because they're a pretty closed group. Mm-hmm. I've gotten my knuckles wrapped a few times by- Oh ...
talking too much about what we talk about. That's going to happen to me. And Al's usually the one wrapping my knuckles. If there's more comments on this, let's have them, but I just want to make sure I got all of Danny's questions, so just I want to make sure we don't forget that.
But I want to stop this if there are any more comments on this page. Transportation. Hmm? I said housing and transportation. Yeah. Okay. So I think we- Yeah, remember something we talked about, and again, I'm just quickly scanning this, and I know it's in our pockets.
Sorry, Carl. No. I know this have clarity on resiliency. I just know that was a key aspect after what happened in Nashville, and I just think since 2021, that was like a real sort of wake-up call. And I don't want to lose sight of it.
I know we have other fires currently burning, but there literally could be a fire burning, and I think it would be good to- No, it's a good reminder, too, that the adaptation resilience plan will be adopted as part of the comp plan.
Okay. So then maybe taking out some of the priorities from there and putting them in the main comp plan document. Yeah, maybe. Maybe vision taking. I think resilience is one of them, but anyway, just be very clear about that.
Because I guess when money's tight, sometimes it's hard to sort of prioritize negative scenarios. Something that was valuable in Charlottesville Plans Together was some targeted conversations with people who are sort of most at the receiving end of some city policies, who generally don't show up to meetings, to talk about what their issues were and how they map to what we're trying to do with this very large, long-term conceptual process, and paying them.
Which is effort and expensive, but the information is valuable. Their heads are nodded in 10-year CIP processes. Just... So some of Danny's comments were, he was suggesting to make the data available to the public, because some members of the public may want to do their own analysis.
He asked, "How were affordable units defined prior to the new zoning code?" I'm not sure which slide that was referencing. Does that question make sense to anyone? As to why- It may be a- It was the AMI ...
more general question. Yeah. But... Let's see. He says, "The summary list of affordable units completed between 2009 and 2026, is there a yearly breakdown? Is the rate of development going up or down?" We could take a look at that.
I have a theory that interest rate changes will be important. Mm-hmm. How many affordable units have been created because of the inclusionary zoning? Again, he said there's interesting data in the presentation, and he suggests publishing it in a machine-readable format so that community members can do their own analysis.
And thinks our vision and goals are still relevant and worthy of pursuing. Our issues are more down to implementation than the goals themselves. He expects that we're going to receive a lot of feedback on the zoning code and controversial developments from the public, and he's asking how are we going to handle that.
So I think that's a good question. Yeah. That's the end of his list. And he emailed that to... I think we all got it. Yeah. Dan and Janette at least. Yeah. Any thoughts? Going on further. I'm feeling tense.
Tense? This is hard. Plus we have the rain. And the music. Yeah. Nice background music. No kids sometimes. It is hard. That's right. Oh, yay. Rap. I think that's it for our meeting. Cool. Thank you, everyone.
Well, thank you all. Thank you. Appreciate the feedback, and we'll be going to council in late October, and we'll share the feedback you all gave today, and then come back with next steps after that. Cool.