Planning Commission
Planning Commission
Tue, April 14, 2026
Agenda items
Vote records
Discussion summary
Transcript
Meeting summaryAI-generated
Planning Commission — April 14, 2026
This was a regular session of the Charlottesville Planning Commission, covering a full agenda including procedural reports, a federal housing grant public hearing, a special exception request, and a substantive policy presentation on affordable housing fees and student housing regulations.
Commissioners' and Staff Reports
Commissioners shared updates from a range of external meetings. Commissioner Rooker reported on two recent LUPAC (Land Use, Planning & Environmental Committee) meetings covering regional VDOT coordination and county affordable housing fund updates, as well as a closely watched Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) case involving whether a small pocket park adjacent to the Battle Building qualifies as part of UVA's Central Grounds. The determination matters because it affects whether a development at 211 Fifth Street SW is classified as student housing — and thus subject to different affordable housing fee rules. The BZA deadlocked 2–2, with the tie going to the zoning administrator's interpretation that the park is part of Central Grounds. A follow-up BZA hearing was scheduled for Thursday.
Another commissioner reported from a city neighborhood leaders meeting (March 18) where residents raised three main concerns: updating sidewalk-clearing ordinances following the recent ice storm; the stalled development at 1011 East Jefferson Street, which received a special use permit years ago but has not broken ground; and a police department effort to promote a community emergency notification app and neighborhood policing events.
Commissioner Schwartz (chair) provided a notable legislative update: the Planning Commission's legislative subcommittee had a successful year in Richmond. Bills passed and signed by the governor include mobile home resident purchase reform (HB375), statewide ADU permission (SB531), split-rate taxation authority (HB282), expanded tree canopy zoning powers (HB549), and a locality first-right-of-refusal for expiring below-market-rate housing (HB4). A legal standing reform bill (HB447) was continued to next year.
A commissioner reported from the MPO Technical Committee that the region's Smart Scale transportation grant applications (due August 1) are moving forward, with the city's main submission being the Ridge/McIntyre and West Main intersection project. Notably, city staff moved to exclude two proposed ramp extension projects on US 29/250 near Old Ivy Road, arguing they are pure highway capacity expansions with no multimodal elements and were not identified through standard safety or congestion analyses. The MPO and county staff disagreed; one ramp extension advanced to the policy board, while the other is on hold pending further county review. City Council will ultimately weigh in.
NDS Director Kelly Brown confirmed there will be no work session on April 28. She announced that new development manual regulations went live on March 23 following last year's code amendments, that the 2026 code cleanup subcommittee will kick off in May (with staff reframing the effort as "code cleanup" rather than "tier" updates to reduce public confusion), and that a stormwater regulations RFP is forthcoming using a portion of $1.5 million appropriated by council in October 2025. She also announced that long-range planning manager Osea Kinlotan has been promoted to assistant director of communications and public engagement in the city manager's office.
The UVA representative noted two recent openings: the Center for Politics (a 5,000 sq ft addition to Monticello House, with a new dedicated access road from Leonard Sandridge eliminating event traffic on Old Ivy Road) and the Virginia Guest House Hotel and Conference Center (223,000 sq ft, 214 rooms, 25,000+ sq ft of IACC-certified conference space, three public dining venues).
Consent Agenda
The commission approved minutes from the November 12, November 25, and December 9, 2025 sessions without discussion.
Vote: Unanimous in favor.
CDBG and HOME Investment Partnerships Program — Draft Program Year 2026–27 Annual Action Plan
Staff liaison William Warren presented the draft annual action plan for the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and HOME Investment Partnerships Program. These are federal HUD entitlement programs; Charlottesville participates in HOME through the six-member Thomas Jefferson Home Consortium alongside Albemarle, Fluvanna, Greene, Louisa, and Nelson counties.
The city anticipated receiving approximately $464,924 in CDBG funds (a 4.37% increase over prior year) and a local HOME share of approximately $92,568 (a 7.79% increase, which roughly restores the level from two years ago after last year's cut).
Applications were accepted January 7 through February 7. A volunteer task force — including Planning Commission representative Commissioner Karp — reviewed submissions. Recommended funding recipients include:
Arc of the Piedmont — infrastructure improvements at a group home for adults with intellectual disabilities
Haven Day Shelter — eviction diversion counseling
Literacy Volunteers of Charlottesville-Albemarle (LVCA) — adult literacy services
Building Goodness Foundation (BGF: C'ville Builds) — a first-time applicant recommended under both programs, for home rehabilitation work and infrastructure improvements for nonprofits serving low-income populations
AHIP and LEAP — income-eligible homeowner rehabilitation and energy efficiency upgrades
Notable omissions: Friendship Association of Afghan Refugees (FAR) was not funded because much of their CDBG-eligible work overlaps with their new designation as a city "fundamental organization," which comes with a significant budget increase in the city manager's proposed budget. IRC (International Rescue Committee) was not funded, primarily because the public services category is the most constrained (capped at 15% of CDBG allocation), and limited dollars were directed toward LVCA, a fully local organization serving some of the same population.
Approximately $55,000 in HOME funds remains unallocated because the only other HOME applicant, CRHA, requested $150,000 for rehabilitation of a recently acquired property and indicated it could not proceed without the full amount. The task force chose to leave the funds unallocated rather than commit them with the clock running on HUD's timeliness requirements. The funds could be awarded to CRHA or another project if a viable plan is developed.
Commissioner Fleisher suggested the commission consider recommending that grant amounts for ARC, Haven, and BGF be capped at their actual requests, with the remaining funds redistributed to CIC (Community Investment Collaborative), LEAP, and AHIP, which received less than requested. Commissioner Mitchell declined to accept this as a friendly amendment to the motion, citing the logistical complexity that had already been navigated by the task force. The motion passed as presented.
No public comment was received in person or online.
Vote: 6 yes, 1 abstention (Commissioner Sollies Yates). Motion made by Commissioner Mitchell, seconded by Commissioner Hannes.
Special Exception Request — 408 Harris Road (PL-26-0030)
Staff presented a request from Neighborhood Properties (applicant Richard Spurzem) for a special exception to reduce the required amenity space for a proposed six-unit townhome development (three duplex buildings with side-facing garages) on a small infill parcel along Harris Road, adjacent to the Longwood PUD.
The zoning code requires amenity space of at least 10% of lot area per sublot, with a minimum contiguous area of 400 square feet and no horizontal dimension less than 10 feet. The applicant cannot meet these requirements on the lots themselves because a city-owned storm sewer runs under the sidewalk along Harris Road, preventing tree planting and making it impractical for the city to sell the adjacent right-of-way strip (which the applicant had originally sought to purchase). The available green space technically sits within city right-of-way rather than on the lots.
Staff did not recommend approval, but commissioners were sympathetic. Discussion noted that Jackson Via Elementary School sits directly across the street with a large playground, that the proposed buildings are consistent in form and character with adjacent Longwood townhomes, and that the amenity space requirement itself may not be well-suited to small infill development of this type. Commissioners flagged the amenity space standards for RB-zoned properties as a topic warranting future code review.
No public comment was received.
Vote: Unanimous in favor of recommending approval. Motion made by Commissioner (name unclear in transcript), seconded. All commissioners voted yes.
Presentation — NDS In-Lieu Fee and Student Housing Study
NDS Director Kelly Brown and consultant Amanda Klepper of 3TP Ventures presented findings from a study examining whether Charlottesville's Affordable Dwelling Unit (ADU) manual should be updated, particularly around how in-lieu fees are calculated and how student housing is treated.
Background: Under current policy, any residential project with 10 or more units must either provide 10% of units at 60% AMI or pay an in-lieu fee. Student housing — defined as projects within a half-mile of UVA's North or Central Grounds that rent by the bedroom — is exempt from on-site unit requirements and subject to a lower in-lieu fee calculated using what the manual calls a "value gap" method. The study found this fee may actually reflect a production cost methodology (and be lower than intended), and that the calculation for the standard non-student fee (based on full construction costs) may be higher than best practice.
Key findings and recommendations:
1. Change the fee method to an "affordability gap" approach (market rate unit value minus affordable unit value) for all housing types. This is considered best practice, falls between the current high non-student fee and low student fee, and may modestly improve feasibility for non-student projects.
2. Eliminate the student housing distinction entirely. Require on-site affordable units (or in-lieu fee payment) for student housing on the same basis as all other residential development. Remove the half-mile geographic buffer. The rationale: student housing is housing, and the lower fee and geographic buffer may have inadvertently incentivized dense student housing development in vulnerable neighborhoods.
3. Add a fee tier for four-bedroom units. Current fees cap at three bedrooms; many student housing units have four or more bedrooms.
4. Add an in-lieu fee for bonus height, reflecting the stricter 50% AMI requirement associated with height bonuses — or alternatively, require on-site units for any project seeking bonus height.
The feasibility analysis showed student housing remains highly profitable even at the higher proposed fees. Commissioners pressed for more transparency about the underlying modeling, and staff agreed to include screenshots from the analysis tool in the council presentation.
Discussion touched on: whether the city should pair these changes with a tax abatement strategy to make affordable units more financially viable for developers; whether increased by-right height near grounds might help pull student housing closer to campus; and the general tension between inclusionary zoning requirements (which can reduce total housing production) and the goal of providing affordable units.
This was a discussion item only — no vote was taken. Staff will present the same material to City Council the following week (tentatively in May for formal action).
Key Takeaways
CDBG/HOME funding approved for recommendation to council: Six organizations will receive federal housing grants totaling roughly $557,000 in CDBG and HOME funds; $55,000 in HOME funds remains unallocated pending a viable plan from CRHA for property rehabilitation.
408 Harris Road special exception approved: The commission unanimously recommended approval of a reduced amenity space requirement for a six-townhome infill project, with several commissioners flagging the underlying amenity space standards in the zoning code as worth revisiting.
Student housing fee reform moving to council: Consultants recommend eliminating student housing as a separate policy category, requiring on-site affordable units or equivalent fees from student housing developers, removing the half-mile geographic buffer, and recalculating fees using an "affordability gap" method for all residential development.
Legislative wins: Several Planning Commission-backed state bills were signed into law this session, including statewide ADU permission, split-rate taxation authority, and a locality first-right-of-refusal for expiring affordable housing.
BZA pocket park ruling: A closely watched 2–2 BZA ruling on whether a UVA-adjacent pocket park is part of Central Grounds — which affects student housing fee eligibility for a nearby project — was headed to a reconvened hearing with a full board later that week.
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
Special Exception Request - 408 Harris Road [PL-26-0030]
# Summary of Commissioner's Reports
Commissioner Retker reported on multiple meetings including LUPEC sessions on regional transportation coordination, a Board of Zoning Appeals decision regarding student housing designation near Central Grounds (which resulted in a 2-2 tie favoring the zoning administrator), and a March 18th neighborhood leaders meeting addressing sidewalk clearing ordinances, the stalled 1011 East Jefferson Street project, and police community initiatives. Staff then presented the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and HOME Investment Partnerships Program funding process, detailing the Thomas Jefferson HOME Consortium's six-member regional partnership and anticipated funding increases (CDBG up 4.37% to $464,000 and HOME up 7.79%), with preliminary recommendations requiring reallocation after HUD's April 6th allocation letter confirmed a 4.37% increase over initial projections. The funding allocation strategy included eligible activities such as micro-enterprise assistance, adult literacy, accessibility improvements, and homeowner rehabilitation programs, with new applicant Building Goodness Foundation introduced to provide comprehensive rehabilitation services for nonprofits serving vulnerable populations. Following extensive discussion about funding allocations and a friendly amendment that was not accepted, the Commission voted to recommend council accept the draft annual action plan for program year 2026-27, with a council vote scheduled for May 18th and a statutory deadline of August 16th. Finally, the Commission unanimously recommended approval of a Special Exception Request for 408 Harris Road (PL-26-0030) for a six-lot townhouse development, with Commissioner Rutherford noting that context-sensitive design considerations—including a nearby school playground and matching green space with adjacent properties—justified the exception to amenity space requirements.
Commissioner Retker reported on multiple meetings including LUPEC sessions on regional transportation coordination, a Board of Zoning Appeals decision regarding student housing designation near Central Grounds (which resulted in a 2-2 tie favoring the zoning administrator), and a March 18th neighborhood leaders meeting addressing sidewalk clearing ordinances, the stalled 1011 East Jefferson Street project, and police community initiatives. Staff then presented the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and HOME Investment Partnerships Program funding process, detailing the Thomas Jefferson HOME Consortium's six-member regional partnership and anticipated funding increases (CDBG up 4.37% to $464,000 and HOME up 7.79%), with preliminary recommendations requiring reallocation after HUD's April 6th allocation letter confirmed a 4.37% increase over initial projections. The funding allocation strategy included eligible activities such as micro-enterprise assistance, adult literacy, accessibility improvements, and homeowner rehabilitation programs, with new applicant Building Goodness Foundation introduced to provide comprehensive rehabilitation services for nonprofits serving vulnerable populations. Following extensive discussion about funding allocations and a friendly amendment that was not accepted, the Commission voted to recommend council accept the draft annual action plan for program year 2026-27, with a council vote scheduled for May 18th and a statutory deadline of August 16th. Finally, the Commission unanimously recommended approval of a Special Exception Request for 408 Harris Road (PL-26-0030) for a six-lot townhouse development, with Commissioner Rutherford noting that context-sensitive design considerations—including a nearby school playground and matching green space with adjacent properties—justified the exception to amenity space requirements.
Presentation - NDS Manual In-Lieu Fee and Student Housing Study
# University of Virginia Report Summary
Staff presented two major UVA campus projects: the Center for Politics, a 5,000 square foot addition to Monticello House with flexible convening space for 200-400 people that held its ribbon cutting on April 10th and includes a new dedicated access road to reduce congestion, and the Virginia Guest House Hotel and Conference Center, which officially opened with 214 rooms, 25,000 square feet of IACC-certified conference space, and a ballroom capacity of nearly 1,000 guests, with a ribbon cutting scheduled for April 29th. Director Kyle Brown from Neighborhood Development Services presented findings from the Affordable Dwelling Unit (ADU) Manual In-Lieu Fee and Student Housing Study, which identified policy concerns including a gap between in-lieu fees for student versus non-student housing, insufficient onsite affordable housing requirements, and potentially unintended incentives favoring student housing with lower fees. The study, conducted through December with public engagement via the Connect Charlottesville platform and stakeholder meetings, recommended moving to an affordability gap approach as best practice, aligning student housing with other housing types, eliminating the half-mile buffer for student housing, and adding in-lieu fee requirements for four-bedroom units and bonus height. Staff also presented a feasibility analysis finding that student housing remains highly feasible even with proposed fee increases of $100,000-$140,000 per unit, and noted that UVA's enrollment growth and target for all second-year students to live on grounds by 2030 is driving significant off-campus development including projects like Verve, Aspen Heights, and The Bloom totaling 3,500 additional beds. Commissioners expressed support for eliminating student housing as a separate zoning category and simplifying the code but requested additional visual aids and clarification on fee calculations before the study proceeds to City Council in January 2026.
Staff presented two major UVA campus projects: the Center for Politics, a 5,000 square foot addition to Monticello House with flexible convening space for 200-400 people that held its ribbon cutting on April 10th and includes a new dedicated access road to reduce congestion, and the Virginia Guest House Hotel and Conference Center, which officially opened with 214 rooms, 25,000 square feet of IACC-certified conference space, and a ballroom capacity of nearly 1,000 guests, with a ribbon cutting scheduled for April 29th. Director Kyle Brown from Neighborhood Development Services presented findings from the Affordable Dwelling Unit (ADU) Manual In-Lieu Fee and Student Housing Study, which identified policy concerns including a gap between in-lieu fees for student versus non-student housing, insufficient onsite affordable housing requirements, and potentially unintended incentives favoring student housing with lower fees. The study, conducted through December with public engagement via the Connect Charlottesville platform and stakeholder meetings, recommended moving to an affordability gap approach as best practice, aligning student housing with other housing types, eliminating the half-mile buffer for student housing, and adding in-lieu fee requirements for four-bedroom units and bonus height. Staff also presented a feasibility analysis finding that student housing remains highly feasible even with proposed fee increases of $100,000-$140,000 per unit, and noted that UVA's enrollment growth and target for all second-year students to live on grounds by 2030 is driving significant off-campus development including projects like Verve, Aspen Heights, and The Bloom totaling 3,500 additional beds. Commissioners expressed support for eliminating student housing as a separate zoning category and simplifying the code but requested additional visual aids and clarification on fee calculations before the study proceeds to City Council in January 2026.
Chair's Report
The Chair reported on recent BAR (Board of Architectural Review) activity, noting a preliminary discussion about infill development in the Oakhurst Gildersleeve neighborhood where a developer proposed maximum unit density on parcels near the south lawn, with the developer expected to return for further discussion. The BAR also discussed preparations for the mall's 50th anniversary and materiality for mall crossings currently under construction.
Department of NDS Report
# Department of NDS Report Summary
NDS staff reported that new development manual and review changes took effect on March 23rd following 2025 code amendments, and announced that no work session will be held on March 28th as the small area plan discussion is not yet ready. Regarding zoning update advertising, staff clarified that the website has been updated and informal outreach has occurred through pre-application meetings with developers, with formal outreach planned for May. Staff outlined the 2026 code cleanup effort, which will include a subcommittee composed of the chair, Commissioner Ross, and a staff member with a kickoff meeting in May; a commissioner asked about tier three changes, and staff clarified the goal is to rebrand the effort as code cleanup rather than policy changes. Additionally, staff provided updates on environmental policy and regulatory review, stormwater regulations, and upcoming council presentations, noting that a request for proposals will be released for stormwater updates with $1.5 million appropriated by city council in October 2025. Finally, Osea Kinlotan, the long-range planning manager, has been promoted to assistant director of communications and public engagement, and upcoming council work sessions will present recommendations on accessory dwelling units, student housing regulations, and short-term rental study updates in May.
NDS staff reported that new development manual and review changes took effect on March 23rd following 2025 code amendments, and announced that no work session will be held on March 28th as the small area plan discussion is not yet ready. Regarding zoning update advertising, staff clarified that the website has been updated and informal outreach has occurred through pre-application meetings with developers, with formal outreach planned for May. Staff outlined the 2026 code cleanup effort, which will include a subcommittee composed of the chair, Commissioner Ross, and a staff member with a kickoff meeting in May; a commissioner asked about tier three changes, and staff clarified the goal is to rebrand the effort as code cleanup rather than policy changes. Additionally, staff provided updates on environmental policy and regulatory review, stormwater regulations, and upcoming council presentations, noting that a request for proposals will be released for stormwater updates with $1.5 million appropriated by city council in October 2025. Finally, Osea Kinlotan, the long-range planning manager, has been promoted to assistant director of communications and public engagement, and upcoming council work sessions will present recommendations on accessory dwelling units, student housing regulations, and short-term rental study updates in May.
Matters to be Presented by the Public not on the Formal Agenda
The chair opened the matters to be presented by the public not on the formal agenda, clarifying that this was not the time to discuss the Community Development Block Grant and HOME Investment Partnership program public hearing, but rather an opportunity for public comment on the special exception request at 408 Harris Road or the NDS manual in-lieu fees and student housing study. The moderator (Dannon) asked for raised hands from online speakers and in-person speakers, but reported no raised hands and no one from the audience coming forward to speak.
Agenda items (6)
Procedural (6)
1ProceduralSpecial Exception Request - 408 Harris Road [PL-26-0030]
A request for a special exception to zoning rules for a property at 408 Harris Road will be reviewed and decided.
What happened
# Summary of Commissioner's ReportsCommissioner Retker reported on multiple meetings including LUPEC sessions on regional transportation coordination, a Board of Zoning Appeals decision regarding student housing designation near Central Grounds (which resulted in a 2-2 tie favoring the zoning administrator), and a March 18th neighborhood leaders meeting addressing sidewalk clearing ordinances, the stalled 1011 East Jefferson Street project, and police community initiatives. Staff then presented the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and HOME Investment Partnerships Program funding process, detailing the Thomas Jefferson HOME Consortium's six-member regional partnership and anticipated funding increases (CDBG up 4.37% to $464,000 and HOME up 7.79%), with preliminary recommendations requiring reallocation after HUD's April 6th allocation letter confirmed a 4.37% increase over initial projections. The funding allocation strategy included eligible activities such as micro-enterprise assistance, adult literacy, accessibility improvements, and homeowner rehabilitation programs, with new applicant Building Goodness Foundation introduced to provide comprehensive rehabilitation services for nonprofits serving vulnerable populations. Following extensive discussion about funding allocations and a friendly amendment that was not accepted, the Commission voted to recommend council accept the draft annual action plan for program year 2026-27, with a council vote scheduled for May 18th and a statutory deadline of August 16th. Finally, the Commission unanimously recommended approval of a Special Exception Request for 408 Harris Road (PL-26-0030) for a six-lot townhouse development, with Commissioner Rutherford noting that context-sensitive design considerations—including a nearby school playground and matching green space with adjacent properties—justified the exception to amenity space requirements.
2ProceduralPresentation - NDS Manual In-Lieu Fee and Student Housing Study
City staff will present findings from studies on in-lieu fees for parking and student housing needs in Charlottesville.
What happened
# University of Virginia Report SummaryStaff presented two major UVA campus projects: the Center for Politics, a 5,000 square foot addition to Monticello House with flexible convening space for 200-400 people that held its ribbon cutting on April 10th and includes a new dedicated access road to reduce congestion, and the Virginia Guest House Hotel and Conference Center, which officially opened with 214 rooms, 25,000 square feet of IACC-certified conference space, and a ballroom capacity of nearly 1,000 guests, with a ribbon cutting scheduled for April 29th. Director Kyle Brown from Neighborhood Development Services presented findings from the Affordable Dwelling Unit (ADU) Manual In-Lieu Fee and Student Housing Study, which identified policy concerns including a gap between in-lieu fees for student versus non-student housing, insufficient onsite affordable housing requirements, and potentially unintended incentives favoring student housing with lower fees. The study, conducted through December with public engagement via the Connect Charlottesville platform and stakeholder meetings, recommended moving to an affordability gap approach as best practice, aligning student housing with other housing types, eliminating the half-mile buffer for student housing, and adding in-lieu fee requirements for four-bedroom units and bonus height. Staff also presented a feasibility analysis finding that student housing remains highly feasible even with proposed fee increases of $100,000-$140,000 per unit, and noted that UVA's enrollment growth and target for all second-year students to live on grounds by 2030 is driving significant off-campus development including projects like Verve, Aspen Heights, and The Bloom totaling 3,500 additional beds. Commissioners expressed support for eliminating student housing as a separate zoning category and simplifying the code but requested additional visual aids and clarification on fee calculations before the study proceeds to City Council in January 2026.
3ProceduralChair's Report
The meeting's chair will deliver remarks and updates on city matters.
What happened
The Chair reported on recent BAR (Board of Architectural Review) activity, noting a preliminary discussion about infill development in the Oakhurst Gildersleeve neighborhood where a developer proposed maximum unit density on parcels near the south lawn, with the developer expected to return for further discussion. The BAR also discussed preparations for the mall's 50th anniversary and materiality for mall crossings currently under construction.4ProceduralDepartment of NDS Report
The Department of Neighborhood Development Services will report on ongoing projects and departmental activities.
What happened
# Department of NDS Report SummaryNDS staff reported that new development manual and review changes took effect on March 23rd following 2025 code amendments, and announced that no work session will be held on March 28th as the small area plan discussion is not yet ready. Regarding zoning update advertising, staff clarified that the website has been updated and informal outreach has occurred through pre-application meetings with developers, with formal outreach planned for May. Staff outlined the 2026 code cleanup effort, which will include a subcommittee composed of the chair, Commissioner Ross, and a staff member with a kickoff meeting in May; a commissioner asked about tier three changes, and staff clarified the goal is to rebrand the effort as code cleanup rather than policy changes. Additionally, staff provided updates on environmental policy and regulatory review, stormwater regulations, and upcoming council presentations, noting that a request for proposals will be released for stormwater updates with $1.5 million appropriated by city council in October 2025. Finally, Osea Kinlotan, the long-range planning manager, has been promoted to assistant director of communications and public engagement, and upcoming council work sessions will present recommendations on accessory dwelling units, student housing regulations, and short-term rental study updates in May.
5ProceduralMatters to be Presented by the Public not on the Formal Agenda
Residents may speak about topics not included elsewhere on the formal agenda, subject to time limits.
What happened
The chair opened the matters to be presented by the public not on the formal agenda, clarifying that this was not the time to discuss the Community Development Block Grant and HOME Investment Partnership program public hearing, but rather an opportunity for public comment on the special exception request at 408 Harris Road or the NDS manual in-lieu fees and student housing study. The moderator (Dannon) asked for raised hands from online speakers and in-person speakers, but reported no raised hands and no one from the audience coming forward to speak.6ProceduralConsent Agenda a Minutes - November 12, 2025 Regular Session b Minutes - November 25, 2025 Work Session c Minutes - December 9, 2025 Regular Session III. Planning Commission Public Hearing Items
The council will approve meeting minutes from three recent sessions (November 12 and 25, and December 9, 2025).
What happened
A motion was made to approve the consent agenda containing minutes from November 12th, November 25th, and December 9th sessions. The motion was seconded and passed unanimously with all commissioners voting in favor, with no opposition or abstentions.Additional votes recorded in minutes
Approve Consent Agenda (Minutes)
aye 8
Commissioner Carpaye
Commissioner Harnessaye
Commissioner Joyaye
Commissioner Mitchellaye
Commissioner Roettgeraye
Commissioner Schwarzaye
Commissioner Solla-Yatesaye
Commissioner Yoderaye
Recommend Council Accept CDBG/HOME Draft Annual Action Plan for Program Year 2026-2027
aye 7 · abstain 1
Commissioner Carpaye
Commissioner Harnessaye
Commissioner Joyaye
Commissioner Mitchellaye
Commissioner Roettgeraye
Commissioner Schwarzaye
Commissioner Solla-Yatesabstain
Commissioner Yoderaye
Recommend Approval of Special Exception Permit PL-26-0030 (408 Harris Road)
aye 8
Commissioner Carpaye
Commissioner Harnessaye
Commissioner Joyaye
Commissioner Mitchellaye
Commissioner Roettgeraye
Commissioner Schwarzaye
Commissioner Solla-Yatesaye
Commissioner Yoderaye
Verbatim transcript available
498 transcript segments indexed
We all ready? All right. Stop there. Yeah. Okay. Welcome everyone, to tonight's Planning Commission meeting. We are going to start tonight's meeting with commissioners' reports. Commissioner Retker, are you...
Or should we start from... There we go. Happy to begin. Let's see. There were a couple three meetings that I participated in since we last met. Two of those meetings were with LUPEC, and the first meeting was in February.
Both conversations were led by VDOT. The first thing we talked about was just general regional coordination between the university, Ravenna, Albemarle, and the city, and the planning district when it comes to any VDOT projects that are happening in the area.
And I copied you guys on the presentation or the outline of that conversation, so you got that. The second thing we talked about, again, at the February meeting, was the county's affordable housing fund.
And again, I won't go into detail because you guys have copies of that in your packets as well. I'm sorry, that was the March meeting. The second thing we talked about in the February meeting was an update from VDOT on the Fontaine project.
And again, won't go into detail. It's all in your packets. Lots of good stuff happening there, so just take a look at it. Then in the March meeting, that's when we talked about the affordable housing fund.
Again, not a lot new there, and it's all in your packet. And Ms. Brown gave us a preview of what she's going to be presenting later on tonight. The most interesting meeting was the BZA meeting, the Board of Zoning Appeals meeting that we had back in mid to late March.
The applicant. This was relating to the developer's ability to pay into the housing fund as opposed to put affordable housing on site, if in fact, a development project is deemed to be student housing.
One of the criteria for it to be deemed to be student housing is that it's got to be within 0.5 miles of North and Central Grounds. In this case, the gating factor was that little pocket park that you guys may be familiar with.
I think Clark, the Clark statue was at the pocket park, because that's Clark. And it's right across from the Battle Building, right across from the Graduate. And the real question was, is the pocket park a part of the Central Grounds?
If in fact it is a part of the Central Grounds, then the project in question, which is located in the Central Grounds, which I think you're familiar with this- Mm-hmm ... was at 211 Fifth Street Southwest.
I think that project has been before the BAR, and the BAR rejected the application, and I think they're appealing to council now. Yeah. So the debate was, is the pocket park a part of Central Grounds?
At the end of the day, we ruled in favor of the zoning administrator's opinion. He felt that the pocket park was a part of the Central Grounds.But the ruling was a two to two ruling. When it's a tie, the tie goes to the zoning administrator.
But the applicant then has the opportunity to appeal and bring it back in. On Thursday, they're going to come back to us, and hopefully, we'll have five people there to vote and get a majority vote. But at the end of the day, it was a two to two vote, suggesting that we thought that the Parker Park was, in fact, a part of Central Grounds.
So, Thursday will be interesting. This was not a merit review. This was just a technical review, and the matter review is, is the Parker Park a part of Central Grounds? Actually, one question about that.
Are those meetings recorded? Because I wanted to see it, and I didn't find the CEO. Yeah. I believe it. Patrick? This meeting, the audio for that meeting is on the website. There also are recordings if you would like.
I can get those for you as well. Okay. Well- We've had several people come and get those, get copies of the audio recordings. So it is on the website, and we can email those out, or you can come, and we can get those for you.
Okay. Let me try and find it. I'll ask you if I can't. Thank you. I'm not going to talk about CDBG because we're about to talk about it in our agenda, but I've been going to those meetings for the last month or so, and they've been very interesting.
We'll talk about it soon. I've got one report. Went to the city neighborhood leaders meeting with the city manager's office on March 18th. There were several smaller discussions that happened, but there were three sort of main discussions that the public was having.
One was about this was the first meeting since the large ice storm that we had, so there was questions from the public to the city manager's office about if they were going to update the ordinance to better clear sidewalks or something along those lines, just getting feedback from city managers on how to improve that process for future storms.
Then there was questions regarding the status of a project at 1011 East Jefferson Street that received a special use permit many years ago that has not started construction yet, so many neighbors in that area of the city were wondering what the status was and/or if there was a way to potentially adjust the number of affordable housings that that project was providing.
Then the third item of discussion was the police department was working to get the word out related to a emergency response system that I think is an app on your phone that you can get better information quicker through that, and also that they're doing some neighborhood community policing related events, sort of like walking around the neighborhood, or I've seen them advertise playing kickball or something like that, but they were trying to get the word out to invite the public too.
Have you heard from staff about the city council work session meetings? I heard from City Manager Sanders that there's a tentative schedule. Okay. But we haven't set when the first one will be. Okay. We received an email perhaps an hour ago on this topic.
Ah. Yes, we are invited to the first meeting tomorrow. Okay. Good to know. Lots of notice, right? I'd like to now offer an update on the legislative subcommittee. It has been a busy year. I have a spreadsheet.
We asked for many things, and many things have been acted on in Richmond. We asked for mobile home resident purchase reform. That turned into HB375. That has just been approved by the governor. We asked for accessory dwelling units permitted statewide.
That turned into SB-531. That has been approved by the governor. We asked for split rate taxation permission and were joined by three other localities. That turned into HB-282 and has been signed by the governor.
We asked for greater tree canopy zoning powers. That turned into HB-549. That has been approved by the governor. We asked for a locality-first right of refusal for expiring below-market-rate housing. That turned into HB-4.
That was approved by the governor. We asked for legal standing reform for zoning litigation. That turned into HB-447 and has been continued to next year. We asked for support for nonprofit affordable housing development.
That turned into, actually several bills, but especially HB1279, which the governor gave a recommendation for 13 changes, but is likely to pass in my opinion. Wow. That's a lot. Great. All right. Thank you.
Do you want me to go? Yep, please. I have a report from the MPO tech meeting that happened last week. So we reviewed a number of things on the agenda that I'm not going to mention, but I will mention that as part of the MPO's UPWP, which stands for Unified Planning Work Program, which is basically their annual budget and work program, they are going to be studying the possibility of establishing a regional bike ped counterprogram that would live with the MPO.
And I think that would be very beneficial to the localities, to both the city and the county, and I think that's something to keep an eye on, and I hope that they move forward next year and actually set up a counts program.
The main item that was discussed was our region's Smart Scale applications, which are due on August 1st. This is a state grant program for transportation projects that occurs every other year. And I would say, my opinion, just in what I've seen so far, is that it's a program that isn't perfectly aligned with our goals and principles as a city in terms of our planning for what we want our future land use and transportation network to look like.
But, many people involved in this are trying to make the most out of it and get funds for projects that would allow safer walking and biking and better transit access, et cetera. So the county is allowed to submit, the city, and then the MPO itself can submit Smart Scale applications.
And the city's main application this year is going to be the Ridge McIntyre and West Main Intersection project, which is something that I think kicked off a little while ago with some public outreach that was pretty exciting.
But in this meeting, we basically had to make recommendations to the MPO Policy Board, which is made up of elected officials from the city and county, and then MPO staff as well, whether or not we should advance the city, county's, and MPO's projects.
It was a unanimous vote on the city's projects and the county's projects, but there were split votes on the MPO's projects, which is, I think, a pretty unusual circumstance. So the four MPO projects that are currently in consideration, the I-64 Fifth Street Interchange improvements, which is proposed to be a divergent diamond intersection with paths that go to the bridge but don't cross the bridge.
The US 29, US 250 eastbound ramp extension at Barracks Road. It would extend the on/off ramp, but then it would add a path on Barracks Road itself. The US 29, 250 southbound ramp extension at Old Ivy Road, and then another, an on-ramp extension at Old Ivy Road on the bypass as well.
And these are the two projects that city staff wanted to or moved to remove from recommending to the policy board. These are two projects that have no multimodal elements whatsoever. They're pure highway capacity projects.
They were not identified in any of VDOT's statewide analysis of safety need or even congestion need. It did come out of a 2024 pipeline study that looked at the entire area, and the appendix had a bunch of different possible things you could do, and these two ramp extensions were there.
The city staff moved to exclude these two projects, but the MPO and county staff disagreed, and so one of the ramp extensions, the on-ramp, is moving forward to the policy board. The off-ramp extension is being held because the county wants to look into other options because they're interested in improvements to that movement, but maybe there's something else that could be done that isn't just a pure highway expansion.
So, those projects move on, and eventually, our city council is going to weigh in on this because they need to basically, not approve, but recommend these applications as well. That's it for me. Okay.
I think my two reports have to do with the Tree Commission, and I think you all received the state of the forest from the chair. The main thing, they're going to present it... Well, I'll go. If anyone else wants to join the city council on April 20th at 6:30, is there slots for presenting it to council?
It's like an annual thing that they do. It has in it recommendations, things that pertain to planning commission. They're interested in site plan checklists or brochures or things having to do with tree preservation from the beginning, right when someone comes in the door.
Having a tree preservation plan with an arborist, checking into it. And then some of these things are already in place, but stronger enforcement of tree removal. Some talk about stormwater fees and incentives for tree preservations.
And then, as you can see, if you look at the report, the rest of it is more like how many trees were planted here, where, kind of a statistics piece. So, that is a major piece of work for that body that did a lot of work on that.
And then I was with Parks and Rec yesterday. We had a report from a UVA class looking at Riverside Park, mainly parking and accessibility, so that was interesting. And then previously, I'd heard about trails and just where are the pieces being watched to connect where we need to connect our trails.
And then there's some talk about the rules around the garden plots that are being amended. But they're already in place for this year, so we're getting feedback now to if there will be changes till next year.
All right. Well, from the university, I have two exciting bits of information. The first is the opening of the Center for Politics. So that is a contextual addition to the Monticello House. It's about 5,000 square feet, a flexible convening space that can host events for 200 to 400 people.
They had their ribbon cutting last Friday, April 10th. And then one thing of note is that To access that facility, part of the project was the creation of a new dedicated access road from Leonard Sandridge.
So you access it from the north. Historically, you would go on Old Ivy through that tough trestle. So that has now been vacated. So you can no longer access that facility. So with the higher density of event attendees, that will not bring added congestion to Old Ivy.
Now, going over to the Virginia Guest House Hotel and Conference Center. So that is officially open. It opened last week. That's 223,000 gross square feet, 214 rooms. There's over 25,000 net assignable square feet of IACC-certified conference space, which is the International Association of Conference Centers, and we are the only facility in Central Virginia that has that certification.
The ballroom, its largest space, can hold just under 1,000 guests. And there's three public destinations for dining, if you're interested. There's a counter cafe, which is kind of a grab-and-go coffee and lunch place.
There's The Poplar, which is the main restaurant that does breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And there's The Perch, which is a rooftop amenity with really nice views. That soft opening, again, was last week, and the ribbon cutting will be on April 29th.
So, two completed projects. All right. Last month at the BAR, it was a pretty simple meeting. I think the only thing of interest was some infill development in the Oakhurst Gildersleeve neighborhood, which is the little tiny chunk of housing right next to the south lawn.
And it was a developer trying to squeeze in a maximum number of units on some parcels down there. So we gave them some feedback. It was a preliminary discussion. They will be back for more later. And then we also had a discussion about getting the mall ready for its 50th anniversary, and the materiality for the mall crossings, which are now under construction.
So, that was it. Does NDS have anything they want to report on? Yes, Chair. So, a couple of things to report on. One, we will not be having a work session on the 28th. That had tentatively been scheduled for a small area plan discussion, but that is not ready yet, so we will not have that work session.
At the end of last month, the new development manual and the development review changes went into effect. These are all related to last year's 2025 development code amendments and process updates. So we put those into effect on the 23rd of March, and so we've been rolling through that.
And on that note, I wanted to give an update on the 2026 code cleanup effort. We are moving forward with this year's cycle, and staff has begun preparing the items that will be included. The next major step will be the subcommittee kickoff meeting, which will take place in May.
The date hasn't been determined yet, but we'll be sending an email to the subcommittee members looking at a few dates. So that will be the kickoff, and at that meeting, we will be scoping out the 2026 cycle and moving forward from there.
Okay. And I'll turn it over to the chair. I mean, to the director. A quick question about the-- Oh, please, come up. But about the rollout of the zoning updates. Yes. Has there been any advertising or any...
I haven't seen anything. So I'm going to go to Cadre- Mm-hmm ... in May to talk about the updates. Our website has been updated with all the new material, new applications, formats. So we've not had any formal outreach, but we have been talking about it for the last six months at our pre-application meetings with the development community.
So we've been preparing the development community for this. Okay. May I ask, for the next year, are we looking at the tier three? I'm wondering, A, what is the subcommittee? Who's on it, and how deep are we getting into changes?
Yeah. So the subcommittee is the chair, and I believe Commissioner- I think it's Ross and myself, I think ... Yes. Are going to be the subcommittee members. One of the key things that's going to happen at the kickoff meeting is kind of rebranding this.
It's always been intended to be a cleanup of the code and just happening to catch larger issues to put in the tier three. So one of the things we're going to be concentrating on this year is refocusing that everyone understands that this yearly process is really about cleaning up the code and not going into policy issues.
Because we deal with the code, we run into these policy issues, so we capture them so they can get placed on the larger work plan for the department, so long-range planning can address those. So that's going to be one of the scopes.
I'm hoping maybe to go away from the tier and going to just calling it code cleanup or something that better reflects what this project is. Probably a good idea. I think people have been waiting to say, "Oh, when is the next level coming?" But that's probably code cleanup versus code amendments or some term for the longer- Yeah ...
the changes that'll take a little longer. And we try to be clear each time we meet in the pub that, yeah, we're collecting these, the tier three, but the tier three, they need a huge public engagement.
So they have to be something on the work plan that involves our long-range planning team. But yes, we're working on doing a better job of communicating that. As far as theZoning updates that were just issued.
Because as a planning commissioner, I didn't know when that happened. Could you guys put it on the homepage of the city's website? I know you guys, every once in a while, send out those press releases.
Just make it really obvious that people need to download a new zoning PDF. We can definitely work with communications. We can see if we can get something out. Thank you. I just wanted to add a couple of additional updates that I didn't share with Matt before the deadline.
So just to add to what's already been shared, on the topic of the environmental policy and regulatory review, we will be coming to you, I believe it's next month, with a comprehensive update. But did want to share that we are moving forward with the release of the request for proposals to look specifically at our stormwater regulations.
In October 2025, city council appropriated 1.5 million for both the environmental review project and the mobility plan. So we anticipate allocating a portion of that for this environmental review for consultant services.
And we will be looking to use that to update the city's stormwater management regulations and developing associated technical reports and toolkits. And the review team will include staff from multiple city departments to provide a cross-functional review, and consider alignment with overall comprehensive plan goals.
Also wanted to offer a staff update. Osea Kinlotan, our long-range planning manager, has been promoted. She is now the assistant director of communications and public engagement, sitting within the manager's office, providing strategic direction, and much needed support, not just to NDS, but all departments, to support the city's goals and the council's priorities for enhanced, meaningful community engagement in everything we do.
So very bittersweet. Happy to see her in this role, but sad to see her leaving our nest. Let's see. Well, Ben Kobe completed a marathon this last weekend, so that's another little note. Congratulations.
It was the Charlottesville Marathon, and he's still standing, so that's- ... great. And then last night, we had a planning pop-up at Carver Rec Center. The focus of it was to collect community feedback on conceptual options for a repaving plan for Rose Hill, restriping plans that will address safety and connectivity needs, slow speed limits, and it was a great turnout.
I think 45 people came out, including some junior planners, planners-in-training. And there's also an opportunity to provide feedback online at ConnectCville Rose Hill Restriping. So I think those were all of my...
Sorry, one more. I'm going to mention this later probably, but just in case I forget. In terms of upcoming council work sessions, we will be presenting to council on our recommendations and findings for the accessory dwelling, affordable dwelling unit manual, student housing regulations, April 20th.
And then our short-term rental study, we're providing an update to council consistent with what we shared with you. April 18th is the date for that. So tune in, and I think that's it for me. Thanks. You said April 20th and then April 18th?
I might have, but I meant to say May. Okay. May 18th. Sorry. Thank you. I think we just need to wait about three minutes, and then we can start our public hearing. Unless anybody has anything else they want to add.
Mr. Chair. Oh, matters from the public presented. That was... Whoops. All right. So now is the time for matters presented by the public not on the formal agenda. So we do have a public hearing on the Community Development Block Grant and Home Investment Partnership program.
So now would not be a time to talk about that, but if you wanted to talk about either the special exception request at 408 Harris Road or the NDS manual on the in-lieu fees and student housing study, now would be a time to talk about that or anything else you want to bring to us.
Was that clear or confusing? Clear. Okay. Dannon, do you mind moderating? Sure. Thank you. If there's any online speakers, they can raise their hand icon in Zoom, and we can call on you. And any in-person speakers can come up to the dais.
Mr. Chair, I see no raised hands. All right. And no one from the audience. Great. All right. Mr. Chair, I'd like to recommend that we approve the consent agenda. Is there a second? I'll second that. All right.
I don't know if we need to call. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstained? No. Okay. So the consent agenda passes, which is our minutes from November 12th, 25th and December 9th. All right. Now we just give it a minute, and we will start our public hearing.
Unless I forget anything else. It's all sitting in front of me. This is not a... All right. All right. Looks like it's 6:00. Mr. Warren, are you presenting? Yes. Commissioners, good evening. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to come and talk about a little small portion of the city's work to develop our community.
As you know, our city participates in both the Community Development Block Grants and the Home Investment Partnerships programs offered by United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. And as part of that participation, we're required to develop an annual action plan that outlines what we're going to do to try to meet a number of important goals, meet HUD national objectives, and to show that we are deserving of continued participation in the program.
As part of that, we come before Planning Commission, get some feedback, and hopefully, at the end, you recommend that we can take this on to city council for two public hearings. There's also another public hearing scheduled before the commissioners of the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission because TJPDC helps coordinate the home program.
I can go a little bit into that if you'd like. The CDBG program, they're both entitlement programs. CDBG, we engage with HUD on our own. We qualify on our own. But because HUD recognizes that affordable housing specifically is a much more challenging regional approach, they really try to encourage people to go into partnerships with our outlying areas.
So, for a number of years, we have participated in what is called the Thomas Jefferson Home Consortium. It is a six-member partnership between the city of Charlottesville and the counties of Albemarle, Fluvanna, Greene, Louisa, and Nelson, which means that we come together a variety of times in a regional housing leaders meeting, try to support efforts among all the partners, try to lend support where we can to each member, and most importantly, we share part of the money that HUD allocates to that program.
I can go into that little bit of the funding breakdown later, but just really quick overview. Next slide. So as part of the process, every year, knock on wood, the Department of Housing and Urban Development says, "We are going to put this much money into this program." It's originally appropriated by Congress, and then it's passed through on a formula basis.
Each year, we open an application window, request for proposals. This year, it ran from January 7th to February 7th. We try to advertise it widely. We try to let all the different nonprofit groups in the area know what's going on.
Very proud to say that we have a first-time applicant that was recommended for funding this year. So we're expanding the pool of people that know about the program and that can hopefully do good work in our community.
So we open up the window and provide pre-application workshops for people. I want to thank members of Planning Commission for giving us some really important feedback, which is to emphasize the restriction placed on a certain category of activities in the Community Development Block Grant program, the public service activities.
And so by doing that, the applicant, who was a first-time applicant to the program, who's been recommended for funding under both programs, took a look at what they were trying to do, and split their application and applied under both programs and made it through.
So, that was really great feedback, and it has helped us hopefully develop a stronger site. Part of the difficult portion of this, as I've mentioned before, is that when we go into this process, we don't have any idea how much money we're going to get, if any.
And so we start off by basing our initial review on the allocations that we received in the prior year, provided in the packet a summary of just the applications that we received between the two programs and tried to break them down into the basically different categories that HUD has set up in terms of what kind of work you're allowed to do with those.
And so you see those there. If you go to the next slide, I think that's much more interesting. This one, I don't know if you can full screen it or zoom out, but as soon as we get those and I break them down, I look at the requirements that HUD sets up.
I try to break them down into different categories.This analysis is based on, it's kind of tricky. It's based on the current year applications that we received matched against our best estimate of what money we're going to get from HUD from the prior year.
And so when we started reviewing the applications, we had big gaps in each of the categories, you can see. And then the public service activities, basically, essentially, the red 153,182.20 says that the nonprofit partners in the community asked for that much more money than we thought we would have available to us.
Now, if you go to the next slide, good piece of news is that we've been working as diligently as we can over the last couple of years to really stay in HUD's good graces, and based on congressional allocations, each of the programs is going to be seeing, or it's anticipated to see increases in funding.
And so, let me see here. We think that we are going to go from... That CDBG will increase 4.37%, an increase of about from 445,000 to 464,000. Not huge, but for the nonprofit groups that are going to receive that money, that's great.
Under HOME is a larger anticipated increase at 7.79%, which sounds great, but really what that does is that just offsets the 7.5% reduction that we saw last year. So now we're roughly in line with the amount of funding that we had two years ago.
We're getting the funding. We're all very happy about that. My job is to prepare the applications, do an internal review, and then hand them over to the volunteer members of the task force. This year, we welcomed a new representative from the Planning Commission, Commissioner Karp.
He might be able to speak about that a little bit. That is a point at which I'm very glad that I'm not involved in those conversations. My job is to be an impartial servant, liaison between the members of the review team and the applicants.
And so if they read the applications and they have questions, things that they feel they need to know more about, they come to me, they ask those questions, I go back to the applicants, and then I report word for word.
I always do it by email, and then I report word for word what they send. We did that a couple times this year, and it was actually very helpful, I think, to the members of the review team, the information that we got back.
And so, what you're seeing here is not actually the plan. The plan is a very large document that is going to be made available on the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission webpage tomorrow, the draft plan.
It's available for a 30-day period of public comment, meaning that any member of the public can go and take a look at that plan. We have links on the city CDBG and HOME webpage, and as soon as it goes live, we're going to do one of the news alerts through communications.
And so, it's up there. They can read it. They can show up at any of the public hearings subsequent to this one and make any comments that they want. We receive all the comments. We incorporate them into the plan as a special section of the final plan.
And then if all goes well, we get local approvals from City Council and TJPDC. We send it on to HUD. A lot of people say, "Oh, did HUD approve the plan?" It's very interesting, those of you who know federal regulations, they don't approve a plan.
They just inform you that it met statutory guidelines. This year, we met statutory guidelines, which then enabled us to receive this amount of funds, and hopefully with your help and input and that of the community, we will repeat that again.
A couple of things about the recommendations. You'll see that there's a preliminary funding recommendations right here, which is what the review team recommended based on what we knew at the time. And so in order to get these things done, they have to make the recommendations.
And so, what you don't see on this spreadsheet is that it's calculated out to a very precise decimal point. And then when the official allocation award letter comes through from HUD, which it did on April 6th, I then backwards math the percentage to the new numbers.
And so what that does is it presents a dilemma for the members of the review team if we have an overage, and it presents basically two options. One is that you take the overage and you split it evenly among all the applications recommended for funding, or you do an equal percentage or some other kind of complicated math to figure out that some applications might get more.
Because we didn't have the allocation letter at the time, and the typical procedure, as far as I know, for all CDBG-funded localities, is just take any overage or decrease and apply it evenly among all the applications.
What that means is that you'll see that some of the applicants are recommended to receive more than they had in their initial application, and others aren't. A great example of that would be the Arc of the Piedmont is looking to do some infrastructure improvements at their group home for adult persons with intellectualDisabilities.
They're getting more than what they asked for, but that's only because the final allocation from HUD came in higher, and with that 4.37% increase, it took them over. If you can scroll down a little bit.
Like the affordable housing applications, each one of those saw that same 4.37% application, the leap in the AHIP applications. But it takes them nowhere near what they asked for in their applications, because the amount that they asked for was so large.
So I know that there are going to be some questions that'll come up at some point about why did some people get more than what they asked for. It's only because it's a good problem to have. The allocation letter came in with higher numbers.
Based on the feedback that we get here tonight and any of the feedback received from the public, then we take these before city council, they approve, and then my job is to create funding agreements and scope of work agreements, and hopefully bring good things out into our community.
If you can go to the next slide, please. I'm trying to learn. My first packet, I think, was very long. This one is just a brief timeline of this. So we start in the prior year, publishing a consolidated notice of funding availability that tells us how much we anticipate.
On January 5th, we started the application window, and I started meeting with prospective applicants, going through what the... Basically, all we want to do is make sure that people know what they're applying for.
In the past, we've gotten applications that were suitable for the HOME program, but under the CDBG program and under the vice versa. And that they know if what they're trying to ask for will meet HUD requirements.
The last thing we want is for people out there trying to do good things in the community to waste their time and energy applying for something that the requirements for the program won't allow us to fund in the first place, and we've had those in the past.
The CDBG HOME task force met a variety of times. They finalized their funding recommendations, and then shortly thereafter, we received the HUD notice on April 6th, and now we have our public hearing, the public comment period.
The electronic version is going to be available on the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission website. That's always been there. We'll have links on our webpage. If any members of the public want a written copy of the plan, all they have to do is contact any of the staff contacts or myself, and we can get them a printed copy.
We had one person inquire about that, and then when we talked about it, really all they wanted was to have it read to them. So we talked about how to have their computer read the PDF, and we structured the PDFs to be accessible, and they were very happy with that.
So we didn't have to give a printed copy. Good. And then all of this is trying to gear up to get money into nonprofits' hands so that they can start on July 1 with their good works. If we can go to the last slide.
And so this is basically a summary of what we're trying to do and a given estimate of how many people or organizations will be assisted. You'll see these odd codes, 18C Micro-Enterprise Assistance. Basically, that's a HUD category that designates that kind of work as an eligible activity, and then it outlines all of the requirements that we and the sub-recipients have to follow.
We have adult literacy that we've done before. Accessibility and infrastructure improvements for the Arc of the Piedmont's group home, which we funded in the past for a different purpose. We have funding eviction diversion counseling this time.
That was a really big priority for the members of the review team. And then we're funding income-eligible homeowner rehabilitations and energy efficiency upgrades through AHIP and LEAP, which we've done before.
But the new applicant is a group called Building Goodness Foundation, and they've done interesting work internationally and locally, and now we're trying to use their participation in this program to create what could be a very impactful partnership among some of the existing organizations that we funded.
Meaning that they can go do certain kind of rehabilitations for homeowners that LEAP and AHIP don't do. Mm-hmm. And so kind of provide a more comprehensive package. And then under the CDBG side, Building Goodness Foundation wants to take their expertise working with nonprofits that serve the populations that we're trying to help, and use that to provide some kind of infrastructure improvements for those nonprofits.
It's a little complicated because a lot of nonprofits operate in buildings that they don't own, which makes it a little bit more complicated. But we're very excited to work with them. They've done a lot of work with childcare centers, work kind of rebuilding and rehabilitating their patios in the back to provide more shade for the little ones and to provide safer play spaces and those kind of things.
So all in all, it was long. I think Commissioner Cobb can explain. Long and difficult deliberations, but I think we have as strong a slate of recommendations as we could. And with that, I'll make myself available for any questions.
Planning Commission questions, and again, questions first, and then we'll let the public talk. Right. I got a couple of questions. The redevelopment of our public housing stock has got a lot of really good momentum, and one of the main reasons it's going so well is because we really engage the residents.
It looks like we zeroed out the request for resident-involved redevelopment. What was the thinking? Yes, that is exactly true. That was a particularly difficult deliberation, and part of that is the fact that with the advent of the new kind of funding stream that the city's offering for fundamental organizations, we really try to make sure that the other funding streams aren't doing duplicative work.
And some of the scope of work that FAR does under the program that they've been funded for in the past falls under the scope of work for their designation as a fundamental organization. So if you look in the city manager's recommended budget for the coming year, FAR is slated for a significant increase in funds.
So once we became aware of that and the fact that some of the work that they were funded under CDBG falls under the scope of work of this program, the members, if I'm capturing their sentiment correctly, kind of moved away from that and said, "Let's try to get money into these other programs." It's always a very difficult conversation, and every year that I've done this, the review team members walk away saying, "I just wish we had enough money to give everybody." But largely in that case, it was the designation of FAR as a fundamental and the significant increase in the number that they're going to see under the mayor's budget.
But there was unanimous consent, I believe, that that's a worthy program to fund. The second question relates to the IRC. We've put a lot of energy in helping the Afghan refugees who've moved to Charlottesville get integrated into our community, but looks like we're not looking to help fund that, at least not in this document.
What was our thinking? So that brings up a point that I might have glossed over before, and I apologize. That kind of work, if you look under that, it falls under this public services activities category.
And what I meant to say, but I did not, I don't think, that is a category of funds for which we get the largest number of applications and the greatest financial ask. It's also the most severely constrained by HUD, and its locality is limited to no more than 50% of their annual allocation to dedicate to those programs.
So it's the smallest pot of money that we have available to award to funds. And basically, what that came down to, I think, among a number of other considerations, is that they would have loved to have funded IRC.
We funded them in the past. We would have loved to do it again. The scope of work that they're proposing to do is similar in a lot of ways to work that's being done by other groups, other organizations, and including the literacy volunteers of Charlottesville and Albemarle, who works with some of the same population.
And the idea that with not a lot of money to allocate, I think we were limited to... I think it was 66,000. If you could go-- Oh, well, we'll wait for the slides. Never mind. But the IRC is connected to a larger national and international organization, and Literacy Volunteers is a local organization.
And so one of the considerations was trying to use what little money we have to support a local organization that can't rely on a larger national entity. Not saying that IRC gets a lot of support, that wasn't something that any of us knew from the national organization.
But when push came to shove, the idea was to try to keep that money as local as possible and award more money to LVCA. Thanks. If I'll be able to answer public questions about process, but Mike has a couple up here.
Sure. Can you go back to the recommendation allocation slide, please, Patrick? Yeah, that one. The programmatic funding and set-asides, can you just inform us what that means? So, that's a great question.
Basically, those are just a broad category of activities. So planning and admin is a set aside of funds to pay for the coordination of the program, salaries, in some part, my salary. The city covers part of my salary.
Public services cap is a programmatic. That's just that small category of funds within the larger allocation that is limited to those IRC, LVCA activities. City Council has traditionally established some priorities for public facilities improvements, and economic development.
When I started, the sheets that I inherited had these numbers on there. I believe, I guess, I don't know for certain, that at some point they were a percentage of the total allocation, but I was never able to find anything like that.
So I just kind of was recommended to carry forward those numbers. But those come out of the CDBG allocation. And then that last category, the home program local match-Is basically a requirement that HUD has.
For every dollar that they give you for affordable housing activities under the HOME program, localities are required to spend 25 cents. For a long time, the city appropriated local funds into a special category to support these activities.
One of the things that my parents said is I don't always listen as well as I should, but in this case, I did. My colleague over at the Office of Housing and Planning Commission knows more about HOME funding and activities than I believe anybody in the six-member consortium.
Her name's Laurie Jean Saloon, and what she found, she and I both started about the same time, was that we don't have to appropriate local funds specifically for these activities because HUD already allows us to count all of the affordable housing activities that a locality engages in anyway.
Which, as you know, city council has been pledging 10 million or more a year. So basically, what that means is that each year we have to record some affordable housing activity that's funded through local dollars with HUD, and then that covers the match.
And so we do that on behalf of the entire consortium. So none of the other members who have much smaller budgets to work with. We, as part of being a lead agency in the consortium, we cover that for them.
But we do that through the normal course of activities of the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund. And so what my colleague found out is that we report those to HUD, so $10 million worth of activity, any of that could be.
And then they allow us to bank up those over years. So we have a credit with HUD on the affordable housing match side of a couple million dollars that could carry us for quite some time. But because the affordable housing fund is so active, every year, we just find the council resolution that supported that activity.
We send that on to HUD along with the plan, and it kind of covers that credit. So those aren't additional funds. Those are just kind of a way to break it down, and on a memo that was generated years ago, it said programmatic funds, and I just carried it over.
So those sort of earmarked funds from the larger budget. Yeah. It doesn't add to the total amount we have available. It just kind of breaks down, kind of. Okay. So one of the things that you see in the packet is that we typically recommend priorities to council, and so I have a draft somewhere in the packet of what that priorities memo would look like.
Trying to foster a conversation so that we're not just passing the same recommendations on. If the community wants to recommend changes and council wants to adopt them. I also left that number blank because if those are still important priorities, then we should give some thought as to how we come up with a number for it, not just carry the same number for it.
Is it a percentage breakdown, like a 5% of however much money we get? That's all to be dealt with in the future. So, good question. Sure. Thank you. The different colors here, the amount split between the different colors, not necessarily within the colors, is that decided by task force, or is that programmatic?
Is the question about the amounts under the recommendations? So, like, the purple is a subtotal of 60,000. Oh, yes. Is that 60,000 determined, or is it provided by the task force? That's based on the task force.
Okay. And on the spreadsheet, that's basically... So I give them a blank version of the spreadsheet with just kind of programmatic breakdowns, and I lock it all down, and then they can plug in the numbers anywhere.
And then there's some hidden fields off to the side that shows kind of, adds up each category. So then if they put 24,000 for CIC, that number would have automatically gone up by whatever that... So it's just an auto-calculation- Got you ...
of whatever their recommendations are. And then my last question here is about the unallocated line- Yes ... of 55,000. That's a great question. I knew that was going to come up. It's a great question.
So basically, under the HOME program, so a tricky way to look at the HOME program is that the allocation letter is... So we get more funds under the HOME program. So for CDBG, we anticipate getting $464,924.
But under the HOME Investment Partnerships program, we anticipate getting $740,545. So people look at that number, and they think, "Oh, we have a lot of money to spend." Well, TJPDC coordinates that program on behalf of the six members.
So there's a 10% set aside for their planning and admin costs. Then there is a set aside from that to go to a larger award that rotates among the six members each year. It's called a CHDO. We can go into that later.
And then whatever's remaining is divided equally among the six members of the consortium. So our local share is what those are always referred to as, is I think 17.5% of the total. I can't remember the breakdown off the top of my head.
But so basically, that 92,568.21 is going to be what we anticipate our local share to be. We only received two applications under the HOME program this year. One was from Building Goodness Foundation, and the other one was from CRHA.
CRHA recently acquired a property, and it needs significant rehabilitation work. They indicated in their application that if theySo the request was for $150,000 under the HOME program. And they indicated that if...
We always ask them, "What will happen if we can't fund you at 100% of what you're asking for?" And in that, they said, "We would have to go back to kind of square one and try to do a lot of local fundraising for whatever the gap funding needed to meet that $150,000." And they'd have to start from scratch.
And so because HUD has timeliness requirements, they recommended Building Goodness to be funded at 100% of their ask, and then that went up a little bit because of the 7.79% increase. And whatever was left over is that unallocated fund.
Now, the task force would like to, if I'm capturing their deliberations correctly, awarded that to CRHA in this round. Because we've seen the property, Home Buyer took a look at it. We know it needs work, and it could potentially offer people at the below 50% of the average median income scale, eight individuals, some entry housing.
So it's an admirable goal. It's a great goal. But if they have to then raise $100,000, once we award that and it goes to HUD and they accept it, that starts the clock. And so the idea was we just put that as unallocated, and then we can either go back to council at a later date with an application.
CRHA can come back and say, "Hey, look, we know that there's this amount of money on the table. We've done some work on our end, and we think we have the funding set for the full $150,000." And then that money could be awarded to them.
Depending on how council approves it, that money could go to any group, or it could be held in reserve for CRHA if they come up with a plan that staff deems to be viable. So it's just kind of there. There are any number of projects that it could be applied to.
I think the review team's hope was that it could be used to kind of help CRHA develop a more actionable plan. One of the beautiful things about the CAF and the Vibrant Communities Fund is that they're local dollars, and so they're very flexible.
Anytime we use the HUD funds, as soon as we award them, the clock starts ticking. And especially on the CDBG side, at the end of each program year, HUD does a calculation of how much money we have kind of in our, they call it a line of credit.
How much money we have not spent of what they've given us. And if it is too large, if it doesn't meet their timeliness ratio, then we start to have a different conversation with HUD. Similar thing applies on the HOME side.
I'm available, my colleague, Lori Jean, anybody in the city is available to work with CRHA to try to come up with a plan because that property could provide benefit to the community. It's a worthy plan.
They indicated that if they didn't get the full $150,000... So I went back and I looked at all the years of the HOME program, and I think one year our local share was $147,000, but that was about 20 years ago.
And then it's never been really close since. So the review team started off not being able to fund them fully, and that's why it's kind of sitting there right now. Thank you. I have a couple questions.
The $55,000 unallocated, could that be used to supplement the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund, or could that be used in that process in some way, in a helpful way? I do worry about the clock adding complications and problems.
But it is money. Yes. The short answer is yes. Now, it can't supplement local funds because HUD is very clear that they're trying to give us money to do additional things in the community that we wouldn't be able to do.
But could it go to support a project? Yes. That is exciting. Especially if it increases what that project is able to do. Okay. In case someone on the fly made a spreadsheet, looking at ways to reallocate, assuming that people who ask for a certain amount of money should only get that certain amount of money and not extra bonus money.
Would it be possible to keep funding to what is asked for and then move money to LEAP, AHIP, and I've got CIC without problems? I can share with you the, I call it the sandbox, the spreadsheet that I kind of created.
I can unlock it, share it with you, and then you can kind of look at those kind of funding recommendations. And then there are two little boxes that are kind of hidden off to the side that show you how much is available.
In HUD terminology, funds that are available to commit is the money that you have to work with. So I'd be more than happy to share that. But if there was, say, a proposal made tonight for a recommendation for council, and the recommendation was to hold requests at the levels requested and then to add the balance to the three organizations named who are not meeting their requests.
Am I correct that would not break CDBG rules? No. I'm sorry, can you go back? What were the three? AHIP, LEAP, and Building Goodness? No. CIC. Oh, CIC.So if I understand correctly, you're saying the recommendation could be to hold all of the organizations that applied, that are recommended for funding, at what they asked for in their application and then divide?
Yeah. Okay. You guys have the power to make whatever recommendations you want to council. But that would not make CDBG angry or HUD angry at us. No. Thank you. As long as we don't... Was any of the- Well- ...
public service category? No. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Let's see. I see this. And so you guys have the authority to do that. I will say that the work that CIC does is pretty rare for a city of our size.
To have a CDFI, like a treasury designated community development financial institution in our community for a city of our size is rare. And if you've been over to the Saturday market and gotten any of the food, a lot of those people came through CIC workshops.
The Beacon Commercial Kitchen, which is thriving. I can't even begin to say how impressed I am with what they've done. A lot of the people who are in there preparing food, and a lot of the people who came up with the idea, came out of the CIC partnership.
So, I'm not allowed to have input on any of the recommendations, but you guys have far more enough within your purview to make that recommendation to council if you like. Matt, any questions? Just one clarifying question.
On the programmatic funding and set aside, so the two council priorities that are 89,000 each, are those funds that are actually set aside and the council's going to determine, or have they been allocated in this process already?
That is a great question. When I started, I started December 7th, 2022. That's one of the questions that I asked because it was in there all the time, and nobody really knew where the numbers came from.
A lot of the people who were involved at the time were gone. And we don't always get applications up to that level. So the approach that's been adopted by the review teams that I've been working with has been to try to get to that goal.
Okay. But if you can't reach that goal, then we just specify that in the notes that go to city council. Yeah. Okay. That's what I thought, but I just wanted to make sure. I think, and what I've been told is that part of that incentive for the public facilities infrastructure came from when the program was trying to do things like sidewalk improvements and things in areas that typically get that kind of work.
And one of the problems that you came up with was that that timeliness requirement comes in. This money really needs to go into a project, especially on the CDBG side, into a shovel-ready project that's already been through permitting, that already has NDS approval.
That's why a couple of years ago, we were able to invest 89,000 or so into this emergency that was encountered by Beacon Commercial Kitchen while they were digging up their pipes. Oh, wow. And we had that money aside.
They had already been through permitting. They had already been through all the site plan review and development. Their contractor dug up the connections to the municipal line, and they were in bad shape, and they were too small, and so they needed about $90,000 to replace that.
And because we had the money available in that set aside for the public facilities and infrastructure, we hadn't gotten an application, and they had all the permitting in place, they had all the approvals.
We were able to do a really quick injection of those funds. And their contractor didn't even have to really stop work. They just stopped work on excavating out the water, sewer, and electrical conduits, did some work on the inside of the building, and then when the money came through, was able to switch around, and it was pretty seamless.
So yeah. Questions? I don't think so. Commissioner Joy? Yeah. As UVA's non-voting member of the panel, I just wanted to say I don't have any questions, but I appreciate all the hard work and the commitment to supporting the community.
Oh, thank you. Quick question to tag on to what Commissioner Soliyates was asking about. So the committees, what they ended up doing was spreading the money equally, even if you're going over a requested amount.
Yes. Was there a reason they chose to do that versus not adding money to people who've already gotten everything they asked for? Well, there was deliberation of the two options, which was to take any potential overage and then allocate that in a different way or to just go with a uniform increase.
Mm-hmm. And it was basically because we really had no idea when... The HUD notice- Mm-hmm ... typically is supposed to come around January, February, early March. Last year, I think it came out end of May.
And so basically just looking at the calendar, trying to get things in place so we can get the plan to HUD, and then get the funding agreements and the scope of works in line before the July 1 start of the new program year.
It was just because we had no idea when the letter would come in. As soon as we had our final meeting and they voted thumbs up or thumbs down, we went back, had a weekend, and then The letter came in.
Okay. It was basically without knowing the final answer, the easiest. And this timeline happens every year, right? It always kind of comes late. Or is this just a federal government new thing? There's a statutory requirement that they have the allocations published by April 4th.
Mm-hmm. Okay. I will say that. In the Code of Federal Regulations, it says that. But then in terms of the guidance, they usually have dates that they set for when they want to plan from a city like ours.
Mm-hmm. That memo has not been published this year. It's usually published, it's the first or second memo that HUD publishes each year. That hasn't come out this year, so we default to the statutory absolute deadline, which is August 16th, I believe.
Mm-hmm. But we're trying to go earlier- Yeah ... in order to get funding recommendations. Okay. We go before council May 4, planning district commission May 7, and then the final vote- Mm-hmm ... on May 18.
It makes sense that I see you've got the July 1st and you've got to work backwards from that. Yeah. So yeah, I get it. I was curious how that- Yeah. Okay. I think that's all of our questions. Do we have any public?
Anyone here want to ask a question? Do we have anyone online? Anyone online who'd like to comment, they can raise the hand icon in Zoom. Mr. Chair, I see no raised hands. Yeah. Okay. Well, I guess that's the end of our public hearing.
So, comments from the commission. Okay, start with Commissioner Mitchell. I'm happy to make a motion if you like. Are there anybody have any comments? Let's go for a motion. All right. I move that we recommend that council accept the draft one-year annual action plan for program year '26-'27, and the associated draft funding recommendations as presented here tonight.
Is there a second? I second. All right. Mr. Connell, can you call a vote for us? May I comment on that? Yes. The only wording changes that I would like to see would be that we recommend that funds for ARC of the Piedmont, Haven Day Shelter, and BGF: C'ville Builds be held at the amounts asked for, and the balance be split between CIC, LEAP, and AHIP.
That would have- And I will not accept that as a friendly amendment. I- Understood. Thank you, sir ... for the logistical reasons that staff has pointed out and that the folks who deliberated on this earlier, I think would just be more difficult than it needs to be to manage it that way.
All right. So I guess the motion still stands, second still stands. So yeah, can we call a vote? Commissioner Solley Yates. Pass. Commissioner Hannes. Yes. Commissioner Karp. Yes. Commissioner Yoder. Yes.
Commissioner Rooker. Yes. Commissioner Mitchell. Yes. Chairman Schwartz. Yes. A quick question. Does pass mean yes, no, or abstain? Abstain. Okay. All right, next item. Thanks. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you.
Thank you. Thanks. Find it in here, is the... We have a special exception permit for 408 Harris Road. Yes. So I'll just briefly introduce this. This is a special exception on amenity space for 408 Harris Road.
I believe I have a few slides I've prepared. So you can go to the next slide. The property is zoned RB, as is most of Harris Road. There is a line of RC-zoned townhomes adjacent to it. That's part of the Longwood PUD.
There's also some civic zone areas there for the amenity space for that PUD development. And Jackson Via Elementary School is off to the east. The area is mostly designated medium intensity residential, which includes townhomes and duplexes and things like that.
So the next slide just has the applicant's exhibit. So this is a six-sublot proposal. So six residential dwellings and three duplex units with side-facing garages. And the applicant would like to use the green highlighted areas, which are basically very small grassed front yards as the amenity space as required by the code.
So the final slide just has the request. In order to make this happen, we would need to reduce the required amenity space per lot, which stands at 10%, and reduce the minimum amenity space dimensions because the code requires each area to be a minimum of 400 square feet, with horizontal dimensions of at least 10 feet.
Staff did not recommend approval of this, and the reasons were included in your staff report. But if approved, we would not recommend any conditions be placed on the permits. So, happy to take any questions that you have.
The right-of-way configuration. Yes. Is that at the heart of the problem? Or is it the applicant's design? The applicant is suggesting that the right-of-way configuration is a problem and not their design.
The existing right of way, there is curb and a sidewalk, and I believe the applicant is reconfiguring a bit. They did approach us earlier asking if right of way could be purchased from the city, and engineering and utilities discussed that and shot that down saying it was basically more trouble than it's worth regarding the configuration and maintenance of the utilities that were already there and that are proposed to be there.
There is some grass area that's within the right of way currently, but that can't be used as amenity space because of the way the code is written. The code specifies that amenity space has to be on a lot and not part of the right of way.
So the applicant, it would be difficult for them to redesign this thing to meet their general objectives because of the right of way. I'm just trying to understand, is the right of way really the heart of the problem, or is there more?
Is there something I'm missing? You might want to defer to the applicant regarding the specifics of the design. And the applicant will have a chance to speak in a minute. And they might be able to speak to that, but I would leave it just to clarifying questions right now, and then give the applicant a chance to give their presentation.
Okay. Yep. Sorry. I should have- I'm not questioning it. I know. And I didn't guide that very well. Again, if you would like to present. I'm sorry. Yeah. I'd like to just give a quick introduction, a little history.
I'm Richard Spursum, Neighborhood Properties. I started investing in Charlottesville 45 years ago. During that time, I've developed 200 single-family detached and attached lots in the city, 198 of which have houses on them at this point.
It's not quite the number that Southern Development has done at 630, but 200's a lot. We've been working on this little parcel for about 11 or 12 years at this point. We first thought about adding it to the PUD for Longwood, but somewhere along the line, the acreage requirements for PUDs increased, and we weren't able to do that.
We then looked at applying for a special use permit to get additional density here. That didn't really quite work out. So when the new zoning code came into effect, we started to go down that road. We've gone through various different things.
I'm a little bit surprised that staff didn't recommend approval of this since they're the ones that suggested we go down this route and not go through the purchase of the right of way route, which we were pretty far down along that road, excuse the pun.
But any case, as you all know, there's been very few projects, and no significant projects approved under the new zoning code. There's lots of little parts of it that need to be worked out, clarified.
That's the whole point of your redoing the code thing. We've tried to work with this. We're just trying to produce townhouses that are just like the adjoining development, Longwood, which was 43 townhouses, and which of course, it adjoins Flint Hill, which is now under construction, and that was all approved.
So this is a great place for this. It's just six little lots. My engineering planning costs are over $40,000 on this little exercise already. And so yeah, I'll let Dustin get into the specifics. But again, we're just trying to work with what the code is, trying to get six lots of housing that this community needs.
Good evening, commissioners. My name's Dustin Green. I'm the design engineer for this site plan. I just want to discuss this. So on the minimum amenity space requirement, this infill site is approximately about 8 or 900 square feet.
So it's a tight space. The 10% amenity requirements put us north of 800 square feet. The space is available. That's why we tried to approach this city in purchasing the right of way. Usually, that's done within a foot of the back of the proposed sidewalk.
Sometimes there's access easements that are requested by the city in order to maintain those in perpetuity. The 400 square foot space and the 10-foot minimum width are available if we were to use that area from the back of the sidewalk onto the property.
So we're trying to balance the sublot requirements for density along with the amenity space requirements, and we feel like that the special exception is basically made for these kinds of situations, and especially, the new zoning ordinance doesn't always think about some of these more difficult properties that have these tight spaces.Happy to.
Can you bring up the site plan that has the Exhibit A and Exhibit B plan? Just so I'm sure what you're... Let me see. So this is the Exhibit A, which shows... So that's the smaller. Yeah. So the smaller shows that the minimum square footage of 400 is not met in any one of those instances, and the 10-foot width is not met.
If we were able to use the area behind the sidewalk, then we would meet the 10%, the 400 square foot, and the 10-foot width. And the whole idea is, in the ultimate, people are going to use those spaces.
And that's the intent of the amenity space requirements. It's just really a matter of who owns that area. We wanted to purchase it, but this is the direction we were tacit taking. And what's going on between the three buildings?
So- In that hatched area? Yeah, those are the shared driveways going into the garage spaces. Okay. Wait a minute. Let me see. Are these lots, other than this amenity space, are they meeting all the other requirements of the code?
Yes. Like the tree coverage. We have not received- Oh, I see. We have not- Okay ... done all technical comments resolved, but we're very close. Okay. So basically, the tree coverage, the maximum building area, the front edge building width, all that stuff is already...
It's just this, as far as you know, it's just this- Yeah, there was a streetscape variance requested because there is a storm sewer uniquely in the sidewalk, and having a green space, we're not allowed to put trees there.
So that was- That was going to be another one of my questions. That was reasonable. Oh, that's unfortunate. Yeah. Along the entire sidewalk? Yeah. So, I think the idea is for this streetscape work- Mm-hmm ...
initiative is that they wanted to have some green space in between- Yeah ... the sidewalk and the edge of the back of the curb. Mm-hmm. In this case, the storm sewer you see at the corner of Longwood, just after the curb return, it follows the sidewalk.
So we wouldn't be able to plant trees in the sidewalk anyway, so the green space is allowed to be in the lot. Shoot. Oh, I wonder who designed that in the past. Okay. That answers that question. That's unfortunate.
Can I just ask a clarifying question on that? Mm-hmm. So you're saying that there's a stormwater facility under what's currently a green strip between the sidewalk? No, there's a storm sewer. Storm sewer.
Drainage pipe. You can see it up there. Right at Longwood. Yeah. Right- Right there. So that- And that runs- That follows... So that's the top of the drainage- Right ... area. So it does follow underneath the sidewalk all the way down.
That's where we're tapping into that. Okay. That kinda sucks. Mm-hmm. Okay. Any other questions? Yeah. No. Good. You want to- No, please. You asked the first question. Well, ask the question I was going to ask.
I haven't gotten an answer. Well, I have a similar question. Great. Go. You go ahead. Can you describe the six homes that you envision being on the plot? I gather that they're townhomes with a garage on the ground floor.
Can you describe the rest of them at all? You want me to describe... You need to understand the architecture. Well, yeah. They're basically just townhouses like exist directly adjacent. The first level is a garage, and then you go up to have two levels above that.
Mm-hmm. And so yeah. You're going in that little driveway where you see those little islands, and you're turning into the garages. Do you know, off the top of your head, how wide they're proposed to be?
Are they 20 foot roughly? 20 foot. Right. Okay. So if I'm not mistaken, the townhomes in Longwood front the street. Now- Or front the parking lot, if you will. Well, yeah. The one that this is adjacent to has a private courtyard- Sure ...
that it fronts. Yeah. I guess my question is, is there something driving sub-lot six, five, four, and three from not facing the street? Oh, yeah. Because the zoning doesn't allow you to- Okay ... to face the street.
Great. Okay. All right. Let me just let it out. You are asking for the special exception because there's a hardship, and the hardship is a result of the right-of-way configuration. I'm just trying to let this thing out.
Yeah. You see that the right of way... The curb and everything is well into the right of way. We could acquire this right of way, but we are- Well, yeah. You're not going... Yeah. Okay ... more complicated to try to get the city to develop.
I just want to make certain we understand the net of the problem. Yeah. This thing cannot be developed if we don't get this- Right ... exception. We've been through every other part of this and resolved.
A zillion other little issues. And, yeah, there was a plan initially back to you where you had two townhouses fronting on Harris, and then you had four front townhouses fronting on Longwood, and that's not allowed now with the sublot- I'll just- ...
sort of stuff. I'd like to add that, to me, it's a good idea for the city of Charlottesville to keep your right of way for future infrastructure. That makes sense. But on a cul-de-sac road that is lined up between floodplains, a creek, and the city border, maybe it doesn't make as much sense.
We all know that the right of ways in the city are much wider than the roads that are actually built in most places. Mr. Chairman, may I ask a question from the staff? Yeah. I emailed recently asking about our plans for Longwood.
The applicant is asserting that we are not planning a major highway through the area. Correct. Can you confirm that? Yes. Okay. Any other questions, or should we move on to comments? Well, we can ask questions again, but yeah, anyone, any comments?
I can start with either side or- I guess I- Yeah. So if I understand correctly, the main issue is that the amenity space exists in the real world, it belongs in the city right of way. But if you're walking down the sidewalk, you can't tell that, right?
So if we were to grant this, I think the main concern would be in the future, the city wants to come through and widen it, and then that amenity space no longer meets requirements. That to me seems like the main risk to approving the special exception.
Okay. Yes, sir. The other risk that might come along with it, not endorsing this one way or another, is the precedent that it sets for amenity space, including land that's not on the lot. I have some thoughts on that.
All right. I'm just going to jump in. Sorry. I'm not sure I fully understand this whole amenity space requirement that we have in the zoning code. I have to admit that I remember it being part of apartment buildings.
If I realized it was part of R-A, R-B, R-C, I feel like I would've made a much bigger stink about it when we were writing the draft of our zoning code. We have public parks for a reason, and I feel like this amenity space, a 10-foot planted strip is...
I'm not sure what that is as an amenity space. You can't throw a ball in that space. There could be trees there, or there could be bushes. Is that enough room to put a little playhouse? Which do we want to see that on our city right of way?
I feel like these driveways are actually going to be where, if these people have kids, the kids are going to be playing in the driveways. Or if they want to throw a ball, they're just going to walk out into the street because there's not much traffic.
It feels like a very odd requirement of our zoning code, and I'd really like to see it added to our list of items we want to review with the zoning code as to whether it needs to be there. So the staff report cites providing...
Let's see. What was the quote that you pulled out of there? "To ensure adequate recreation and open space area for occupants and ensure such spaces are accessible, usable, and safe." And then there was another line that wasn't included, which was, "Encouraging projects provide high-quality, pedestrian-oriented, and publicly accessible gathering spaces along streetscapes." Could I just add a clarifying thing?
Yeah. My understanding is, when I asked this question of the planners and- Mm-hmm ... and my engineer, we're going to have decks on these. Those are amenity spaces, but they're only for the tenants of that unit.
Right. So this amenity requirement is apparently only for a space for people to gather- Mm-hmm ... in a public space. As you said, people can gather in the driveway, but you're officially on... That's only the amenity space for that occupant.
So there is amenity space. Yeah. Yeah. It's better for a bigger development that has a big tot lot- Mm-hmm ... playground or a swimming pool, a tennis court, that is a real amenity space that can be used for everyone in the community.
The fact that these six people would come out and gather on the strip of grass, whether it's 400 feet or 800 feet- Mm-hmm ... and not just congregate on their own deck is a little bit absurd. That's- It's- ...
where I'm going with this. Oh, yeah. Can I ask just a quick question? Yeah. Does the amenity space, because this isn't necessarily a space people would gather, because it's a strip, can you add up all this other, between the entries...
There's some other space that could be counted if it needed to be counted just to get by the requirement. Given that this isn't necessarily like you're saying, like a- Yeah. Well, those are officially driveways, so we can't count those.
But yes, if there was- But along- ... more block parking- Along Harris, there's- You would have it on the driveway. Yeah. And along Harris, there's- ... grass and tree. There's a buffer there too. So, yeah, I can speak on that.
Yeah. I think we were trying- Can you come to the microphone? Oh, yeah. Sorry. I think we were trying to use the side of the house spaces. Yeah. I don't necessarily want people right in my front yard if I can avoid it.
This is a space on the side. Mm-hmm. And not using all the little intricate parts is because of the 400 square foot and 10-foot wide requirements. Okay. Just a thought. Yeah, I think each one has to be more than 10 feet, which even if you wrapped around- Yeah.
Between those two There can't be any dimension smaller than 10 feet. Yeah. I'd also like to point out that if we were to have the special exception reduction, we're still at, I think at 80% of the total with 10% space, and we don't meet that width, but we're close.
Yep. And just to tie this, it's probably bad planning to say, well, we're going to approve this because we don't like that section of the zoning code, although I really want to do that. I do think it's worthy of an exception because the staff's graphic that showed adjacent green spaces, there are some large green spaces adjacent to this.
There's also a school directly across the street- There's a whole school playground ... that is a very, very large gathering space that I think would be a good reason to give this an exception. And also the form of these buildings with the amount of green space that's there matches what's currently happening with the adjacent townhomes.
So it seems to fit in in that instance. If we were to pull these buildings five feet further from the street, I don't think that would be necessary to then make it fit better with the neighborhood. If I may, I'm looking at the comprehensive plan.
We use the word context 34 times. I especially like where we say in strategy 1.2, "Implement changes to the zoning ordinance needed to support community health and well-being, context-sensitive design, environmental protection, and climate change mitigation and preparedness." I think we must consider the context here.
I agree. I don't want to if too much, but and if we were to look at this in the future in terms of this, I think you're right. The context of this being almost across the street from a school with a playground, I feel like is a big plus for this.
And maybe that's something if we get into an amendment later, there could be something about a radius or adjacent parks or something that could help alleviate some of the pressure there. I'm happy to make a motion if you'd like.
Sure. Let's see. I move to recommend approval of special exemption permit number PL260030. Second. Mr. Connell, can you call the vote please? All right. Commissioner Soliesz? I. Commissioner Harness? Yes.
Commissioner Cart? Yes. Commissioner Yoder? Yes. Commissioner Rutherford? Yes. Commissioner Mitchell? Yep. Chairman Schwartz? Yes. All right. Next up, we have our ADU manual in lieu fee study, or in lieu fee and student housing study.
That's really hard to say. It is. There've been several words today that have been hard to say. Carl? Mm-hmm. I know. Doing a break? Oh, can we actually take five minutes? That'd be a great idea. Okay.
It's 7:10 right now, so we'll reconvene at 7:15. Sorry, Kyle. You were right. Brown, Director of Neighborhood Development Services, and I'm here tonight to present on our review of the Affordable Dwelling Unit Monitoring Procedures manual, affectionately referred to as the ADU manual, which must be updated on an annual basis.
And the focus of the study this year is to determine if updates to affordable housing expectations for student housing and non-student housing, and bonus site are appropriate to improve support for affordable housing goals of the comp plan, and address other concerns that have been raised with current policies, specifically for student housing.
The manual has not yet been reviewed nor updated since it was adopted in 2024. In November of 2025, staff contracted with 3TP Ventures to support this study, conducting research on practices of other jurisdictions, evaluating current policies, and studying the financial feasibility of potential changes.
Staff has also been conducting and gathering community input to confirm policy goals and make sure we're headed in the right direction. Staff presented an overview of the scope of work for this effort to City Council in January of 2026, and I'm here tonight with Amanda Klepper from 3TP Ventures, and Line & Grade, to share key findings and potential options for ADU manual updates.
Just want to clarify that this is not an action item tonight, but rather an opportunity for commissioners to learn more about this research, ask questions, provide feedback and insights. And as I mentioned earlier, we will be sharing the same material with City Council next week, and so I look forward to being able to convey any planning commission feedback to them at that time.So with that, Amanda and I are going to tag team a little bit tonight on this presentation.
I'll provide an overview and some background information, and then turn it over to her to dive into some of the details of the study. I did. I had it. Oh, you're going to do it for me? Okay. Thank you.
Okay, so in terms of our agenda tonight, I'll present on the study background, purpose, and scope, public engagement goals, and guiding principles. And am I doing this part? I'm trying to recall. Well, someone will present on the study findings, findings from other jurisdictions, findings from the initial fee evaluation, feasibility impacts, and then our potential policy recommendations.
Forward. Okay. And I've already gone through this in my introduction. The purpose of this study is to conduct an annual review of the manual to determine where changes are needed, and we're focusing in specifically with this study on in-lieu fee payment requirements, bonus height, and this is for non-student housing, student housing, and also the geographic criteria connected with student housing projects.
So by way of background, this is a presentation of really what the current expectations are in the ADU manual and in the development code for affordable housing. For residential development, any project with 10 or more units must provide 10% of units at AMI levels of less than 60% or pay an in-lieu fee.
Bonus height for units may be achieved, provided that units are provided at less than 50% of the AMI, or you must provide the same fee. The in-lieu fee is calculated as the average total cost per unit of developing a residential unit in the Charlottesville market, and there are expectations for a bedroom count up to three units.
The expectations for student housing are different. Student housing is not defined as a particular use in the development code, but it does have criteria associated with it for the purpose of this policy, and that is that it is projects that are rented by the bedroom within a half mile of campus grounds.
For student housing, no on-site affordable units are allowed. The in-lieu fee is required, and for student housing, the in-lieu fee is calculated differently. It's the difference between the value of a market rate unit and that of an affordable unit, which we refer to as the value gap.
The expectations are for units that have up to three bedrooms. And the fee structure is presented on the slide. Questions are asked, what was the rationale for a distinction between student housing and non-student housing?
Patrick, you can move to the next slide. Oh, okay. Thank you. And the rationale when the policy was created with the adoption of the development code was that there are unique requirements for student housing projects, such as the rental by bedroom rather than by a complete unit with kitchen and private amenities, and parental preference for student living conditions.
And so the decision was that since it's not likely that the market would want to deliver student housing projects that also include affordable units, we should not require them. And so to go along with that, an in-lieu fee requirement was established that had a lower expectation, to be consistent with that lower expectation for affordable housing.
And the current fee structure, again, for non-student housing and student housing is presented on this slide. Keep going. Do you want questions as you go, or you want us to wait? Let me finish my portion, and then if there are clarifying questions, we can get to those.
So this is the geographic criteria where the student housing boundaries were established. On the left is UVA grounds, and it's hard to read, but you can see north grounds and central grounds labeled there.
But on the right, easier to see, I think, is how that translates into the area of the city where this policy would actually apply. Patrick, you can shift over. Yeah. Shift the slide over, so we can see that version with the buffer applied.
Okay. And advance again. All right. So that's the summary of the background on the existing policy. I'm going to present a little bit more information on the history of student housing and the market trends we're seeing, but if you have questions on the policy, I'm happy to take them before we move on.
The in-lieu fee for non-student housing is higher than in-lieu fee for- That is correct ... student housing. You did tell me why, but could you tell me again? Well, so it's a different assumption. It's assumed that we should be capturing the production cost rather than the value gap.
And the reason why it was deemed important to have two different approaches was because the value gap is actually a lower expectation, and if we are not going to be requiring on-site affordable housing, the thought was that we should be requiring less in terms of a fee.And the value gap approach is lower This is probably for discussion, but do we want the expectations to be lower for student housing as relates to the in-lieu fee?
That's something we can talk about later. Yeah, and I think actually staff has some recommendations. Okay. Oh. This is actually the second time I've seen this presentation. I should probably You are setting the stage well.
Okay. So, in terms of how we have gotten to where we are with this question of student housing. UVA enrollment growth has steadily increased the demand for student housing, while historically, students lived on grounds in unlimited capacity and in older apartment complexes right around the university.
As enrollment has grown, private developers have seen an opportunity to build purpose-built housing, concentrated close to grounds. They're building these larger four-bedroom units with rental by the bedroom.
And it is a very profitable product type that is meeting a need in the community today. You can advance. And some statistics on how that is playing out in Charlottesville. Total undergraduate and graduate enrollment on grounds is 27,000, according to the University of Virginia information on their webpage.
Seven thousand beds on grounds, 4,000 for first years. UVA has targeted for all second-year students to live on grounds by 2030, and there are a number of projects that have been completed recently or are currently under construction.
This slide is not actually correct, that it shows that a few projects, 2033 Ivy and Darden, are off-grounds. Those are actually on grounds. There are many beds, though, that are being built close to grounds.
Verve, Aspen Heights, 1117 Preston Avenue, and The Bloom. So that adds up to 3,500 beds. It's a healthy increase in the number of beds that are available, but certainly we'll continue to see students living in the surrounding community, and not on grounds.
You can continue to advance. This is a trend that's not unique to Charlottesville. This sort of construction is happening in other communities. I've provided images of a couple of other... I guess just Greensboro for this presentation.
But it's also something that's happening at Virginia Tech. There's a project called The Rambler, that will be a short walk from Virginia Tech, and it will be eight stories, 247 units, 862 beds, 577,000 square feet.
So this product type is trending throughout the region and nationally as well. However, we don't have a crystal ball for what the future holds. It is not clear that this is a trend that will continue into the future.
It may be something that we're really just seeing at this moment in time as births in Virginia are peaking. Well, actually, the births in Virginia peaked about 18 years ago, right around the time my son was born, which helps explain why the selection process for him was so challenging this year.
But we're going to start to see a decline in the total number of kids that are looking to go to college, and we don't know what that means for enrollment at UVA. But there's also a question of whether or not we have just simply, with all of these new beds coming online, reached saturation.
I do know from sharing this information at LOOPAC and getting some feedback from staff at the university that there are no plans currently to build any additional housing on grounds until they see whether there is continued demand for additional beds on grounds, and close to the university with all these new beds coming online.
You can advance. And go ahead. Okay, so now I'm going to turn it over to Amanda to talk about the study of our policy. Thank you. So, staff gave us a number of concerns that they put into the scope of our study that they had observed kind of with the existing policy.
So one is that gap between the in-lieu fee for student housing and for non-student housing, and whether that's really the policy that we want. The way that the current fee structure was calculated, and whether or not that's actually best practice.
The fact that there's no in-lieu fee change for people to get bonus height representing the 50% AMI requirement. Next slide. And then specific to student housing, the idea that the lack of onsite requirements within that half-mile buffer might be limiting the provision of affordable housing units near campus, near grounds.
The lower feeFor student housing being an incentive, maybe an unintended incentive for student housing, and also the fact that there's no higher fee for four-bedroom units, which there are a lot of in the student housing projects.
They're just paying the amount for three bedrooms. And then also what happens if a student housing project converts somewhere down the road and becomes non-student housing, and then it hasn't met its requirements for affordable housing.
And finally, the concern that that large geography, the half-mile buffer, might be promoting displacement because it includes vulnerable neighborhoods. So next slide. So the timeline for our study back in December, we got started with the scope of work.
We did an initial study looking into the fee itself, how it might have been calculated, whether that's in line with best practice, what other places in Virginia are doing, and making some kind of initial recommendations for direction.
Go ahead. January and February, staff went out to the public for some engagement and with stakeholders as well, and Kelly's going to talk about that in a moment. Next. From there, we developed some guiding principles for the work.
We conducted a feasibility analysis with a proposed alternative fee structure and developed some policy recommendations. That's what we're going to present this evening. And then if the city wants to move forward with this, the next steps would be updating the manual and the code accordingly.
Next. All right. Now I'm going to hand it back to Kelly to talk about recommendations. Okay, thank you. So while the consultant team was conducting the analysis of the policy, and starting to dive into the in-lieu fees, we started to ask some questions to the community to get a sense of what are the most important things for this policy to achieve, and what sort of potential impacts do we want to avoid.
So we asked questions to try to evaluate potential trade-offs. Do we want fewer projects but mixed income, or more projects but units built throughout the community, more financial control of decisions versus less operational burden?
Ultimately, that translated into a number of questions we posed to the community. You can go ahead and advance, Patrick. And we used Connect Charlottesville, ConnectCville, as our platform for getting that input.
We also did meetings with committees and commissions and stakeholder group representatives. Exciting to use ConnectCville. That was one of our first opportunities to test out the new platform. Had a lot of people visit the site.
Not as many people provided input, but helped to get the word out about the work we were doing. You can advance. Some core themes we heard in what was shared was concern about neighborhood preservation and character when it comes to student housing that's being developed, concern about these perceived loopholes in in-lieu fee policy, concerns about displacement.
You can advance, Patrick. They ranked their concerns in the way they provided their feedback to us. Top concern was addressing displacement pressure in vulnerable neighborhoods, encouraging on-site affordable housing units, aligning fees with the current financial cost of producing and maintaining these units, supporting development feasibility for housing production, supporting new housing development within walking distance to grounds, and then last in order of priority was increasing affordable housing options for students.
You can imagine that probably weren't getting a whole lot of students providing input to this study. So that allowed us to develop guiding principles to help inform our analysis and development of potential options.
We want to have predictability, so we want a policy that's easy for people to understand and know what the impacts could be. We want affordable dwelling units on site in new development. We want to see development at a wide range of price points, not just luxury.
Also units that are accessible to lower income levels. We want a policy that promotes both public and private provision of affordable dwelling units. So what can we do to ensure that the market can also support production of these units?
Preservation of existing affordable units is also important, so how can our policy support that? And some things we want to avoid, we want to avoid concentrating affordable dwelling units in areas that are already the low-cost areas.
And we also want to avoid making worse displacement pressures in vulnerable neighborhoods with this policy. You can advance. All right. So I'm going to turn it back to- Quick question. Yes. On the engagement page for the number of visitors and contributions- Yes ...
you've got 270 unique visitors, but this says 45 contributions. Does that mean that- Yes ... we had 270 people look, but only 45 people took a survey? Right. Okay. Right. And it was a six-question survey, so...
Okay. Okay, so the first thing we looked into as part of this study was best practices for calculating in-lieu fees. In our research, we found two main methods that are generally used for in-lieu fee calculation.
One is the affordability gap, also called the value gap, and that's the difference between the value of a market-rate unit minus the value of an affordable unit. So this is the market rate developer's perspective of how much revenue are they losing by doing an affordable unit compared to a market-rate unit.
The other is the production cost. So that is the construction cost minus the value of an affordable unit. So that's more like the nonprofit developer's perspective of how much of a subsidy would they need to break even on providing an affordable unit, given that it does provide some amount of revenue.And fees can be fixed, so the same fee applies to every development, like your current fee, or it can be indexed where there's a formula, and it's calculated for each development individually.
Next. So we looked at the construction cost or cost of development, which is the current method, is not listed among common best practice. It's generally seen as too high or over-representing the cost of affordable housing.
Next slide. So here's some pros and cons of each of these methods. The construction cost is a high fee. It will be like if you really want to balance toward providing the units versus paying the fee, that could be one way to do it.
But also, there has been a concern that maybe the fee is too high, and it may be over-representing the cost of affordable units. It also doesn't account for affordability levels. So whether it's 50% AMI or 80 or whatever, that's just not part of the calculation.
Production cost would be in line with the subsidy for a nonprofit developer to build off-site units. However, there's not a ton of developable land in Charlottesville, so the off-site strategy has some limitations.
It also isn't dependent on keeping up to date with market rents, because that's not part of the calculation. But it's low. It's a low fee, and developers would be likely to choose paying the fee every time, probably, in the case of the production cost.
So the affordability gap falls in the middle. It's a good match for the market rate developer cost. It would potentially be enough to fully subsidize off-site units since it is larger than the production cost.
It allows for fees at multiple affordability levels. And it also may align well with the tax abatement strategy if the city wants to move forward with the rent-based tax abatement, because it's a very similar calculation.
On the downside, it is lower than the current fee and therefore may be less likely to promote on-site units. Yeah. Can I ask a question on this? This may be a dumb question, but what's the difference between the construction cost method and the production cost?
I'm getting a little tripped up there. The construction cost is just referring to the actual cost of building the unit, like the- Mm-hmm ... what the developer pays to build it. The production cost is that construction cost minus the revenue generated by an affordable unit.
Oh, okay. So they're not giving the unit away for free. They are getting some revenue. It's just not enough to cover the cost. Okay. I see. Thanks. Next slide. So we looked a little bit at other jurisdictions in Virginia.
There are not a whole lot of other places at this point that are requiring affordable units, and they're all really quite different in how they're structuring it. We found that pretty much every place that has an affordable unit requirement also has an in-lieu fee.
I think there was maybe one place that didn't, but that place also had a lot of opportunities for modifications. So they also kind of had an out. The fee in lieu structures are very different for every community.
Some other places do use the construction cost. Some say that only certain types of development can use the in-lieu fee. But yeah, in general, very few communities have requirements similar to Charlottesville, so there wasn't a lot of comparability with other Virginia places.
Next slide. We did find an interesting case study from Minneapolis where they have student housing, and they do require affordable units to be provided within student housing. So these images are showing some examples of student housing projects that have affordable units in them.
But that affordability is also very student-oriented. So it's like if you qualify for certain types of financial aid, then you can also qualify for the affordable units. So not quite maybe what Charlottesville is trying to do, but it is being done.
Next slide. So overall findings and takeaways of this initial part of the study, the existing fee does match local construction costs. We validated that. We were able to replicate the construction cost pretty closely.
But it's a high fee, and the method's not considered generally a best practice, even though there are some other places in Virginia that are using that. The existing student housing fee, which is described in the manual as being the value gap, might actually be the production cost.
So when we tried to replicate that, when we calculated production cost, it looked a lot like the existing fee that you're using for student housing. So we think that might actually be production cost fee, and therefore be too low.
So we are recommending moving forward with the affordability gap as a best practice alternative with more flexibility and better policy alignment. Next slide. I just have one question. Yeah. That maybe is really striking because the code's a couple of years old, and I would think we would know what the formula was.
And it sounds like you're kind of discovering that it's not what we thought it was. What happened? So, as you know, there's been a lot of staff turnover. So we just don't have the visibility that you would expect us to have into how calculations were prepared for the existing policy.
The best we can gather from trying to reverse engineer things, if you apply the production cost approach, it seems to be the closest approximation to what is currently in the manual. Sorry, can I ask one more?
Yeah. That sounds fun for you, by the way. When you say the current fees may be too low, by too low, you mean developers would choose to pay the fee and not build the on-site unit, right? Or something different?
Go ahead. That it is underrepresenting the cost of affordable units. Is that what you're setting out to do here? Because I'll ask you later. It's a bigger topic than a yes or no question, probably. Yeah.
It's a policy question. So we did a feasibility analysis. We used the tool that we developed for the tax abatement study, so that's already got locally sourced construction costs, market rents, affordable rents, et cetera.
So we adapted that tool to compare the feasibility for developers of three scenarios. One is including the units, paying the existing fee in lieu, and paying an alternative fee in lieu based on the affordability gap or value gap.
And so in theory, if we want to match that cost of providing the units, the feasibility of onsite and the fee should be fairly similar. Next slide. So this is showing the current fee structure and then the proposed fee structure, so you can see the difference between those two.
We also added a fee for four-bedroom units for the proposed structure, and we tested these two for feasibility. Next slide. And just to show a sample calculation since we had some questions about that, or of how the fee was calculated.
This is just a little snapshot from our spreadsheet. So you can see in detail, we've got market rents that are based on local recent apartments in Charlottesville. So the market-rate rent minus property taxes and other operating expenses gives you net operating income, and then the net operating income was converted to a capitalized value, which is how an investor would see the value of that unit based on how much revenue it's generating.
And then we did that calculation as well with an affordable rent. These are the rent limits that are in your ADU manual, and calculated the net operating income and the capitalized value from that, and then the difference between the two capitalized values was the fee.
Can I just offer a clarification? I was just thinking about your question, Mr. Carp, about the characterization of the fee being too low. So the fee that we are saying we are seeking to charge for student housing is the value gap, the difference between a market-rate unit and an affordable unit.
When we say it's too low, it's because what we're requiring is not actually that value gap. It's lower than the actual value gap, because as we are surmising, it was potentially that production cost rather than the actual value gap.
So I just wanted to clarify that because it's not that we're leaping to a policy conclusion, it's that we're just objectively saying it's low relative to what the stated intent is for the policy in the manual right now.
I hope that helps clarify. One time to go by without hanging up. Great. Any questions before we move on? I guess I have a question that I might have missed. Mm-hmm. Is this proposal for non-student and student?
I will get there, but spoiler, it's for both. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So we tested this same fee for both, or for all, actually, a variety of housing types, as you can see in the table. So this was the results for rentals.
We looked at both rentals and condos. So the metric here is yield on cost. So for a feasible development, the target would be about 6% yield on cost. So the table on the top is showing the yield for projects including on-site units versus projects paying the existing fee, and then on the bottom, it's on-site units versus projects paying the proposed fee.
You might notice that student housing is the only development type that is getting above 6% in yield. Fees don't change the yield that much, when comparing between the fee and providing units. So it's not a very big difference, and if we're trying to represent the true cost, we would want it to be a very big difference.
The proposed fee, the affordability gap, is a better match to units for most housing types, which you can see in bold where it's a better match. Mm-hmm. Next slide. We also looked at condos. There have not been very many condos, or any condos really that have been built in Charlottesville recently.
So we didn't have very much data on recently built condos and what those are going for on the market. So we have limited confidence in these results, but with what we were able to do, this is what we found.
The metric here is the gross margin. So we want that to be 20% for a feasible development. And so this is showing that most condo projects would not be very feasible. In general, the proposed fee has a much better alignment compared to the existing fee with the cost of providing affordable housing.
So the lower fee helps a bit more in this case, but would still not make condo projects feasible. How are you defining high-rise here? That is a good question. I think it's steel frame, over eight stories kind of development.So general findings of the feasibility analysis.
Changing the fee to affordability gap does narrow the financial gap between providing units on-site and fee payments in most cases. But it's not enough of a change that it's really going to make a difference in a project's bottom line.
So lowering this fee might address the perception that the fee is limiting to development, but it's not going to make or break projects probably in most cases. We also looked at different tiers of land costs like more expensive areas versus lower cost areas, and wanted to note that because the fee is an average, because everybody pays the same fee, it's based on an average.
In more expensive places, it's generally going to make more sense to pay the fee and not include the units, and in less expensive places, it's going to generally make more sense to include the units rather than pay the fee.
This is true for both existing and proposed. We just wanted to note that that is a limitation of in-lieu fees in general. And potentially bringing the student housing fee in line with other housing types, so having the same fee across the board, removes that incentive of having the lower fee, but student housing remains the most feasible housing type to construct in general as well.
Do we know how... You said that the land cost has some impact. How much impact? Is there a way to quantify? Our property values, if they came down 10%, does that make things significantly more feasible, or is that just a little bit more?
I would have to go away and look into that. I think it's maybe not the hugest impact, but I think also in the areas with higher property values, they're also getting higher rents. Mm-hmm. So I think that has a bit more of an impact probably- Okay ...
than the land cost itself. Humor me if you would, because I'm not a finance person. I'm just looking at the tables on the slides comparing current student housing and in-lieu fees to proposed. Mm-hmm.
And for studios, it's an increase of about $100,000. One bedrooms, $70,000 increase. Two bedrooms, over $100,000. Three bedrooms, $140,000. And you're saying adding up 100,000 plus dollars to the cost of a unit does not impact its feasibility to develop.
How does that work? Well, it does have an impact. It just is it's not making or breaking the project kind of impact. So you're talking about for student housing specifically? Yes. It's because the profitability of these projects is so great- Yeah ...
that having to pay an additional $4 million doesn't make that much of a difference. And this fee is calculated based on non-student housing as well, which especially for a four-bedroom, is not as much rent.
The rent is not as high, I guess, as what they would be getting for four separate bedrooms being rented out. So it's still kind of a deal for student housing. And the gap must be even higher for four or five-bedroom units because we don't charge for them correctly now, right?
Is that- Yeah. Right. Okay. If I run those numbers through the 3TP spreadsheet thing, will it make sense? It just sounds like a lot of money to me. Naively, if you say the four-bedroom cost increases by it must be more than $100,000, and that's not going to impact production, will have no impact on the number of units built.
I just need to see something that makes me believe that, because it sounds like a lot of money. Maybe you can walk council through your tool with these numbers or something like that, because it's just a little hard to...
Is that not what your previous tables were trying to show? Which- The yield tables, right? Yes. If you go back two slides. Back one more. Isn't that what these tables are trying to show? Yes. Right. Can you maybe walk through them one more time so we can just see- I know what you're saying with these tables.
I think I would want to see the process that led to the tables, right? Yeah. This is a different way of saying there's no impact, but it's so much money, I don't quite follow it. Maybe I can look at the tool later and see if it makes sense.
Yes. Because it's available on the city website? I think what might be... So the tool that's available on the city website isn't actually tailored to be able to evaluate the student housing, and I think we're still trying to figure out how we can modify that to be able to show this kind of specialized analysis that the consultants did just for this effort.
What might be the best thing to do for the council presentation is to include some screenshots- Yeah ... from the analysis to show how the numbers change. Yeah, I can share a screenshot showing the full cost of building the student housing and how much of that is the in-lieu fee.
I think that would probably be helpful. I think that would be great. I know in a previous, it might have been 3TP's work, I forget. We've seen feedback from developers also. If you were to ask, let's say, a bank that finances developments like this, would a $4 million additional fee set you back?
It would say, "No, no difference to us." Is that part of your research, and do you think that's what they would say if you asked them? We have spoken to banks in this process. That's the question, right?
Yeah. Is would the project get financing if the cost increased by that amount of money? Yeah. I think every project is going to have its own independent review for feasibility. We're kind of reporting out on the average how these kinds of changes impact feasibility.
So yes, individual projects are going to be facing different circumstances for sure. But on average, what we're trying to demonstrate is that the yield really only changes very little, if at all. Still on this spreadsheet, because we love it.
Student housing, I've noticed that the number is the closest to high-rise, which makes me think I know what kind of building we're modeling here. Are we talking about high-rise student housing here? It was actually modeled more on mid-rise.
Meaning that the number would be higher for high-rise? Yeah. Interesting. Thank you. We would have more units. Okay, so moving on to the policy recommendations. So we recommend changing the fee method to the affordability gap.
It brings the fee in line with best practices and with the true cost of providing affordable units. It addresses maybe the perception that the current fee is too high and is curtailing new development.
Potential impacts could be increased supply of housing, if that is in fact the case, and probably increased fee payment, especially if the fee being too high is holding back developments, then those weren't the ones that were going to provide the affordable units anyway.
Excuse me. We also recommend aligning student housing with other housing types, both in having the requirement for affordable units and having the same in-lieu fee as other housing types. Because student housing is housing, so it can be contributing to affordable housing in line with other housing types.
This is a simplification of affordable housing policies and also addresses the concern that the student housing could convert to non-student housing, eventually. Potential impacts would be increase in student housing fee, more payment of the fee from student housing developments, and therefore increased revenue to support community needs.
Next slide. To go along with that, eliminating the half-mile buffer, the geographic criteria for student housing, because if it's considered equivalent, then that buffer is no longer needed. This is again simplifying the affordable housing policy, and we believe that there are plenty of other reasons that student housing would want to locate close to grounds, and that that's where the students are.
It helps them be more marketable to students, and also densities are higher there as well. Slide. We recommend adding an in-lieu fee for four bedrooms. The current fee structure ends at three bedrooms.
Many units in student housing have four, sometimes even more bedrooms. This would then increase the revenue from four-bedroom units, and potentially student housing may be still less likely to include on-site units because of the profitability of their units.
Next slide. We recommend adding fee requirements for bonus height. So on this slide, we've shown the in-lieu fee calculated for 50% AMI rather than 60. So slightly higher fee that could be charged to get the bonus height.
As an alternative, if we don't want to go down that path of either having two fees or if we decide we're happy with the construction cost fee, then the alternative recommendation would be to just require on-site units in order to get bonus height.
Next slide. So to summarize the potential options to consider. Applying the affordability gap approach to the in-lieu fee expectation to align it with best practices and the true cost of affordable units.
Potentially addressing the perception that the current fee is curtailing new development. Increasing the fee for bonus height to reflect the fact that there's a different requirement for getting bonus height.
Requiring on-site affordable units for student housing, with the in-lieu fee to be aligned with other types of housing. Removing the half-mile buffer, the geographic criteria for student housing, and adding an in-lieu fee requirement for four-bedroom units.
Next slide. And so future considerations would be that it'll be important to keep monitoring how well the fee promotes on-site units versus fee payment, where things are being built, where the fee is being used compared to units.
And also continuing to monitor the market conditions, given policy and demographic changes, especially around student housing, given some of the changes that Kelly mentioned. Yeah, and also to continue updating the manual regularly.
Okay. So you can- Quick question. So you stop at four or more bedrooms. Mm-hmm. What happens if someone wants to do five or six bedrooms? Then they'd be paying the fee for four bedrooms. Okay. Is there a drawback to that, or...
So we talked about this and there not being really examples to- Mm-hmm ... look at those costs. We would propose that this is one of those things that we would monitor. Okay. And if we start to see five-plus bedroom projects come online, then next year we can come back with a- Okay ...
expectation for that product type. But at this point, it would just be really speculative trying to- Mm-hmm ... come up with a requirement for that kind of product. Mm-hmm. Would it be helpful for the city council presentation, I guess I'm trying to picture the things that are in construction in relationship to this, but I know we don't want to really just name- ...
specific developments. But to me, that would be helpful because it would help visualize what we're talking about, like which ones- The projects that are currently under construction? Yeah. Are we allowed to talk about this?
The projects that are under construction- Yeah ... I think we've included in that map. Oh, no. I mean, just a visual aid, like the Verve is this tall and this big and it has this many... So there are images in the presentation- Okay ...
of the Verve, and I think the Bloom as well. But I'm going to- Let me go back to that. Sorry ... make sure that I'm highlighting that that's been provided. Okay. The visuals are in there. Were you asking about the- Like the statistics- Like, where- ...
on how many units? That kind of, how many- Or- I can put that in. I guess when we were talking about four bedrooms, five bed, that's where I was thinking, what do we have now? We have the total number of beds.
But you're right, you do have the visuals, so sorry about that. Yeah. But we can add the statistics for these projects. If the idea is that we're building all this, and then maybe we kind of top out- We're not seeing more.
Right. Possibly ... looking more at what we already have- Mm-hmm ... versus if things might slow down. I'm just trying to wrap my head around what we already have, I guess. Yeah. I can include that information.
But thank you. I missed the- Yeah ... the visuals there. I think I skipped over it quickly. I shared a couple of questions by email previously, and I'd like to go over them. I watched a really excellent webinar with Kelly Brown from the City of Charlottesville.
Really excellent speaker. And there was a discussion about funded inclusionary zoning. And I note here, especially for three-bedroom housing near jobs and services, especially near low income and more diverse areas at high risk for displacement.
But that is not what you studied here, but it appears to be an option that Portland is doing. How could that connect with this work? Could you say it one more time about the- Funded inclusionary zoning.
So this would probably be the rent gap. Kind of like tax abatement. Right. Yeah, tax exemption. Right. So, I think that's a policy question, right? Should the city be looking to provide additional support to the development community to offset the cost for providing these required affordable units?
The idea of tax abatement to help offset some of that requirement has been suggested. We did a study recently that showed that if you apply a rent gap method where you're really seeking to abate the taxes that represent that gap between what you can charge, then you help with the feasibility of the project, although you don't completely overcome the feasibility challenges.
So that's certainly an additional tool we could consider. I think what we're finding through this analysis is that student housing is at or above the threshold for project feasibility, even with an in-lieu fee expectation that is intended to represent that gap.
So I think there's a question of whether or not additional incentive is needed to help support student housing projects. But it is certainly something that we can continue to explore as a city as a way to further incentivize particular types of housing that meet certain goals.
But I wouldn't necessarily just look at it within the context of student housing. I would want to look at it for all kinds of projects to meet a wide variety of community needs. Thank you. The second question was, we have seen a 12-story student housing building go up near the university, which was not something we thought about when we were writing the zoning, when we were creating these policies.
We were thinking 1,800 JPA at maximum. The world changed again. Does the new reality of how we are funding inclusionary zoning, even with these changes, change how we should be thinking about how high we should be going to meet this new reality?
Is the overall sort of financial map higher now? You're asking if additional density might be needed beyond what's already allowed to support financial feasibility. That's a good question. I'm actually going to look to you to see if you have any immediate reactions to that question of whether adding one or two more stories of by-right height would significantly change the feasibility of- In order to- ...
non-student housing projects, like move it out of the yellow into the green. We did find in our model that high-rise had a higher feasibility than mid-rise. It's something we could look into in more detail if you were interested in that.
Thank you. I've got a lot spinning in my brain right now, so some of this might be thinking out loud a little bit, so apologies in advance for that. I'm trying to take all of your recommendations and think about them with each other.
Mm-hmm. So the affordability gap recommendation is basically You're trying to land in the middle from where the non-student housing is and the student housing is currently and applying that across the board.
Okay. Then we're responding to the reality that these buildings that are projects being built are typically four bedrooms, so we're adding the extra four bedroom. And then I'm thinking about the removing the geographic boundary.
It's already known that, trying to avoid using student housing, but developments with units that are rented out by the bedroom are allowed by right citywide. Okay. Which is basically a single-resident occupancy building.
Okay. So this is basically just saying, in a holistic picture, that single-room occupancy is allowed anywhere, and if you choose to go single-room occupancy, you're still not allowed to build affordable units on site, because you have to go to the in-lieu fee?
No. We would suggest that there's no reason why single-room occupancy projects should have a different expectation for on-site affordable units- Okay ... than non-student housing. That that policy could apply uniformly across the board.
If it is a product type that doesn't lend to provision of on-site units, you can pay the in-lieu fee- Sure ... instead. So you have flexibility. So this is holistically, again, trying to eliminate the thing that we call today student housing?
Right. Okay. Mm-hmm. So part of the presentation was also about the goal of protecting sensitive neighborhoods. How does the idea of eliminating the student housing bucket align with that goal as well?
It removes the incentive of the lower fee that applies within that half mile. So if I understand correctly, it seemed like the concern was that half mile included a lot of vulnerable neighborhoods, that we were then having an incentive for student housing to be built within.
So this removes the incentive. Okay. And that we're assuming that student housing would have its own reasons to want to be close to grounds, but that half-mile buffer was maybe too far. Yeah, I was going to say, that was my follow-up, is there are other pressures outside of zoning and fees and things like the government can pull the strings on that are going to pull student housing closer to grounds.
Right. Okay. Right. And presumably, the closer you are to grounds, the higher your rents would be- Mm-hmm ... and so the more likely you would be to locate there if there was a greater expectation for on-site, or greater city expectation for affordability.
Okay. My last question is sort of along the lines of my neighbor here. With all of this going on, is there thoughts about increasing by-right height or closer to grounds to further pull things in that direction?
That's not something that we have looked at. There would need to be a study of just all of the potential impacts of increasing building height, impacts on the transportation network, just for one. And so we haven't moved in that direction.
That would definitely need to be something we would consider as part of our work plan and how that would shake out amongst other priorities. Sure. I just think about a comment that we heard from the school district a couple meetings ago about when one of the student housing buildings come up, they actually saw an increase in enrollment because homes that were taken by students previously were then vacated by the students, and families were allowed to move in.
So we've got a big cauldron of things going on here. Yeah. So I understand it's a lot. I just wanted to see if that was part of this study, and I understand that that's a bigger picture question to be presented in the future.
You've got a timeline in the presentation, but when this goes to council, which is next week, right? Sorry, are they voting next week, or are they going to ask you questions next week? Next week, the format would be very similar to here at planning commission.
Okay. Getting questions and hopefully getting direction on whether or not they want us to move forward with these or other recommendations. Yeah. So is the timeline dependent on council's reaction, then?
There's a lot of things, as you know well, going on right now. I'm thinking about the timeline for this moving forward. I'm thinking, I believe I've heard in the past about predictability for developers, about wanting to know what the rules are, build a model, get financing, and build a project.
So my more pointed question is, do you imagine this work affecting projects that are in the pipeline now? If you could talk about that. If changes are made to the development code, they would apply to any projects that are still under review or obviously have not yet been submitted.
So anything that has already been approved would not be subject to change by these. That's right. That's what this is about. Yes. It has to do with your vesting in governmental action. You have developers watching to see what's going on.
You have projects in the pipeline. But a governmental action is the approval of a development plan, approval of a final site plan. Mm-hmm. So that's what vests a project under your zoning regulations and your policies.
Okay. Just so I'm hearing right, I'll try and repeat it back. Anybody without an approved final site plan would be subject to the new rules. Yes. Okay. Last thing, maybe this is unfair to ask. I'm thinking about the policy goals of inclusionary zoning, right?
Which I'm going to assert to me, I'm not saying it's correct, I'm just saying the thing I'm looking for is the point of inclusionary zoning is to provide affordable homes. I'm going to dumb it down because that's where I'm at.
Right. Mm-hmm. Do you think these changes will yield more or fewer affordable units than the status quo? I think that they could, and they should. I think in suggesting to lower the in-lieu fee expectation for non-student housing, we are potentially allowing for projects that currently are infeasible to move forward.
And then we are- Sorry. Do the yields improve enough for that to be true, if you go back to that yield comparison? Just a little bit. There's a lot of other factors, right- Right ... that are playing into whether or not we're seeing units.
But I think it's moving the needle in the direction we want to go. And then I think on the student housing side, in requiring affordable units, again, that's in the spirit of just as you said, providing units.
Mm-hmm. Thanks. Mm-hmm. I do like the simplicity of not having the different categories, I have to say. And I heard that from FAR and other advocates that why can't we have affordable units in these buildings if it works out?
So I have heard that there's some advocacy for that in some of the neighborhoods around these big developments, or that option, that there could be affordable unit put in. I guess I'll just add my two cents to that.
I agree. I think simplicity is better in the zoning code. And, so I definitely support eliminating student housing as a separate category where we have locations in our zoning code that we map for that, and et cetera.
I don't know what the right fees are. I think I understand the yields and everything that I see here. I guess my main concern is that we don't set the fee such that we're making too many new units infeasible.
I definitely agree with Lyle that I would like the city to seriously consider some kind of tax abatement strategy, because if we as a public want affordable below-market units, I think it's perfectly appropriate for us to forego some tax revenue to get that.
Mm-hmm. And make sure that we're not reducing the amount of new housing units that we're getting by charging those fees. So, yeah, those are my comments. Yeah, so I'll be interested to see what council has to say.
Other comments? I have a brief comment. Mr. Carver's not taken my class on zoning, so I will forgive you for not having heard my speech about what inclusionary zoning is and what it does. Very briefly, I promise.
It does not increase housing units at all. In general, it decreases housing units. What it does provide is access to opportunity. It provides places where people who otherwise would not be able to access to have some chance for those lucky few.
Which is exciting, but the challenge is, of course, in some places, those numbers don't work. Well, that really goes to my question, which is: Is the proposal going to do that thing, right? Are we going to get more affordable units than the counterfactual?
So I'll take a class if you're taking- I'm going to sign up, too ... people in my demographic. But, yeah, I think I'm still not so confident that that will happen. But I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say anything.
Thanks for the clarification. What are you looking for from us? I think this has been helpful. I'm hearing questions that can help us think about issues that we still need to explore. I'm hearing some feedback that this is heading in the right direction.
If there are major red flags, we'd love to hear those as well. But this has been helpful so far. Yeah. I think I agree with that. This is a really sticky topic. And I think you're doing a good job of not being sticky about it The calculation of the fees, I always question anytime I see fees like this being calculated, like what they're going to do, we have no idea.
My former career was a financial analyst. I understand you can analyze it to get the best answer you can, but it still might be wrong. So I just hope to see that there's some feedback that goes on with what's going on, and the fees are adjusted.
But I think we're headed in a good direction. I'm interested to see how council digests it. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Thank you. I agree. I like the direction it's going in. And I think the student housing radius has been causing a lot of commotion, and it also, the whole circle thing versus a corridor in terms of who's being affected is difficult.
So I like the idea of just sort of getting rid of that whole category. Great. Thank you very much. Appreciate the feedback. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Dana, thank you for that. That was a really useful presentation.
Yes, it may have taken a while to digest, but it's getting there. For all of us. I believe that is it for our agenda, unless, does staff have anything you want to add? So yeah, you said we have no work session on the 28th, correct?
Correct. Okay. May. April. So we do not have a work session in two weeks. Okay. Do not have a work session. All right. Do we have a motion? Mr. Chair, I'd like to make a motion. Please do. I move to adjourn.