Name: Charlottesville Planning Commission meeting, Jun 9, 2026
Start: 2026-06-09
End: 2026-06-09
Location: City of Charlottesville

Planning Commission

Tue, June 9, 2026

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Meeting summaryAI-generated

Planning Commission — June 9, 2026

This was a regular session of the Charlottesville Planning Commission, notable for the announcement that NDS Director Kelly Brown is stepping down and for two substantive action items: a minor zoning special exception and a significant update to the city's federal community development grant process.

Commissioner and Staff Reports

Commissioners and staff shared a wide range of updates before the formal agenda items.

UVA Buildings & Grounds: Commissioner reporting on UVA shared several recent approvals: demolition of the old university police building at 2302 Ivy Road (formerly a visitor center and 911 dispatch); schematic design approval for a 60,000-square-foot, five-story School of Data Science Entrepreneurship building on the Ivy Corridor; a phased fuel conversion of the main heat plant away from coal (which currently provides 90% of the university's heating), with expected benefits including improved hospital operational reliability, staffing efficiencies, carbon emissions reduction, and improved viewshed near 14th Street and University Avenue; and a capital plan authorization for an athletics multipurpose grass practice field east of Copeley Road.

MPO Transportation Update: A commissioner reported from the MPO Technical Committee that Smart Scale applications from the city, county, and MPO are in pre-application stage with an August 1 deadline. The city's submission is the West Main/Ridge/McIntyre intersection. The commission is also selecting one corridor for a new VDOT/OIP pipeline or STARS study; staff is considering either the Ridge Street corridor (Cherry to West Main) or Preston/Ridge/McIntyre. The county is proposing studies at Route 29/Airport Road, I-64/Route 29, and a cross-jurisdictional study at the Route 250/Free Bridge area. The US 29 STARS study update revealed that extending the Hillsdale shared-use path is no longer under consideration; instead, the study is looking at new crosswalks, turn restrictions, and pedestrian improvements, including some unusual concepts around Hydraulic/Emmett such as a traffic "jug handle."

City Schools Capital Update: A commissioner reported from the May 13 CIP meeting that the Walker Pre-K project cost has jumped from $35 million to $60 million, with a projected 2029 completion. Solar installations are planned for Charlottesville High School and Middle School this year. Four elementary schools will receive lighting updates. The city projects $475 million in school facility needs over 16 years; $240 million could come from a new sales tax if approved. A new high school (if the existing one is not expanded) would cost an additional $200–$250 million. Jackson Via is flagged as the highest-cost elementary school project.

Development Code Cleanup: A commissioner noted that a subcommittee kickoff meeting was held May 19. A public builder/developer listening session is scheduled for June 23 at City Hall at 5:00 PM. Full Planning Commission work sessions are planned for July 28 and October, with a target of March 2027 for new amendments to take effect.

Board of Architectural Review: A commissioner summarized recent BAR items including: an ADA upgrade at Ridge Street Fire Station (missed opportunity noted to reduce the oversized curb cut and add street trees); a historic 1700s house on Keith Valley Road likely headed for a special exception due to code length limits; and 835 West Main (LV Collective), now proposed at eight stories, with a memory walk alignment now coordinating with West Haven's revised pedestrian path—providing a straight shot from West Main into the 10th and Page neighborhood.

NDS Director Departure: NDS Director Kelly Brown announced her resignation, with her last day being Friday, June 26. James Fries will serve as acting director during the transition. The commission expressed appreciation for her leadership during a turbulent period for the city.

Missing Middle Working Group: NDS staff announced a new cross-departmental working group on missing middle housing, with a kickoff planned for July or August. Commissioners Harness and Rudger were named as Planning Commission representatives.

Special Exception Request — 1138 Rose Hill Drive (PL-26-0063)

The city-owned property at 1138 Rose Hill Drive, occupied by the Blue Ridge Health District, is replacing an aging chiller unit. The replacement equipment requires a slightly larger mechanical pad, which must be located in the front yard—prohibited under the zoning code without a special exception. NDS Planner Dan O'Connell recommended approval, noting that front-yard mechanical equipment is common throughout the neighborhood. The applicant clarified that the layout change is driven by the new chiller's access clearance requirements, and that the enclosure will use Trex composite fencing (rather than natural wood), which will be double-sided for airflow and meet code height and opacity standards.

Commissioner Yoder (who serves on the BAR and lives near the property) raised a question about whether an adjacent ADA parking space might be compromised by the two-foot fence expansion; the applicant confirmed the space would be slightly reduced but that all spaces in that area are designated handicap accessible. The commission moved to condition the approval on use of Trex material rather than natural wood.

A broader comment was made that similar code conflicts—where routine equipment replacements trigger special exceptions—should be addressed in the upcoming development code cleanup process.

Vote: Moved and seconded; approved 5–0.

CDBG and HOME: Revised Citizen Participation Plan

Anthony Warn from the city's Office of Budget and Grants Management presented proposed updates to the Citizen Participation Plan (CPP), a required HUD document that governs public engagement for the Community Development Block Grant and HOME Investment Partnerships programs. The current CPP has not been updated since 2016.

The two most significant proposed changes are: (1) removing the Planning Commission public hearing step from the annual funding approval process, and (2) restructuring the CDBG/HOME Task Force from neighborhood-specific seats to five at-large city seats, with a preference for representation tied to affected populations rather than specific geographic neighborhoods.

Warn explained that removing the Planning Commission hearing step would bring CDBG/HOME into alignment with all other city grant programs, which go directly from a public comment period to City Council. There is no HUD or federal regulation requiring Planning Commission review. The current process creates a tight timeline that constrains the task force's ability to deliberate and sometimes leaves no room to revisit recommendations. The task force itself has long advocated for streamlining.

On the task force seat restructuring, Warn described a specific instance in which a highly engaged community member was disqualified from participating after being forced to move between neighborhoods mid-term, even though they remained a city resident—illustrating why neighborhood-tied seats can be counterproductive.

Commissioners expressed some ambivalence about removing themselves from the process, with one noting that CDBG/HOME goals align with the comprehensive plan's community engagement values. However, the general consensus was that since the task force already does substantive review and City Council has final authority, the Planning Commission step adds procedural delay without commensurate benefit—especially if the Planning Commission-appointed task force member can brief the full commission informally when recommendations are made.

Commissioners also asked for: a redlined comparison of the old and new CPP documents (Warn noted the document was substantially rewritten from scratch, making a traditional redline difficult, but he committed to highlighting key changes); and consideration of adding photographs to make the document more accessible to the public (Warn enthusiastically agreed).

The commission moved to recommend approval with an explicit recommendation that a more effective community engagement strategy—focused on the people most directly affected by CDBG and HOME spending—be developed to replace the Planning Commission hearing step.

Vote: Moved and seconded; approved 5–0.

Key Takeaways

UVA's main heat plant will be converted away from coal, improving hospital reliability, reducing carbon emissions, and improving the visual character of the University/14th Street area.

City school facility costs are substantial: the Walker Pre-K alone jumped from $35M to $60M; total projected need is $475M over 16 years, with significant dependence on a not-yet-approved sales tax.

The Planning Commission approved streamlining the CDBG/HOME grant process, removing itself as a required review step while retaining a seat on the task force—intended to speed up annual funding decisions and better align with how all other city grants are handled.

NDS Director Kelly Brown is departing June 26; James Fries will serve as acting director during the search for a replacement.

Development code cleanup is moving forward with a public listening session June 23, and Planning Commission work sessions in July and October targeting a March 2027 effective date for amendments.

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 - 1138 Rose Hill Drive [PL-26-0063]

# Commissioner's Reports Summary

The chair opened the meeting to begin commissioner's reports. A commissioner provided updates from the University of Virginia Buildings and Grounds meeting, including approval to demolish the university police building at 2302 Ivy Road, schematic design approval for the School of Data Science Entrepreneurship building, fuel conversion plans for the main heat plant to reduce carbon emissions, and capital plan authorization for an athletics multipurpose practice field. Another commissioner reported that Smart Scale applications from the city, county, and MPO are in pre-application stage with an August 1 deadline, with the city's submission focusing on the West Main Ridge McIntyre intersection, and noted that the city must select one location for upcoming Stars and Pipeline studies from two options for the policy board to review. NDS Planner Dan O'Connell presented a special exception request for 1138 Rose Hill Drive to expand mechanical equipment in the front yard of the Blue Ridge Health District building, and after discussing code compliance regarding screening requirements and ADA parking space impacts, the commission unanimously approved the application with the condition that Trex material be used for the fence rather than natural wood.

Community Development Block Grant (“CDBG”) and HOME Investment Partnerships Program (“HOME”): Revised Citizen Participation Plan

# University of Virginia Report Summary

Anthony Warn from the city's Office of Budgets and Grants Management presented proposed updates to the Citizen Participation Plan (CPP) for the Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) and HOME Investment Partnerships Program, which require revision to align with current HUD guidance and regulations. The staff recommended streamlining the public review process by removing the Planning Commission hearing before City Council presentation, though Planning Commission representation would be maintained on the CDBG HOME Task Force, and proposed revising task force composition to five at-large city seats with expanded representation for public service organizations. Commissioners raised concerns about removing the Planning Commission from the approval process and requested additional community engagement strategies, including increased outreach to neighborhood associations and more accessible documentation with visual aids. Staff clarified that the CPP update grew from longstanding task force concerns about timing constraints and the need to meet HUD's 45-day deadline before the July 1 program year start, and acknowledged a separate long-standing challenge regarding codification of procedures for handling excess funds allocations. The 30-day public hearing runs from June 15 through July 15, with first and second readings scheduled for July 20 and August 3, respectively.

Chair's Report

The Chair reported on recent Board of Architecture Review (BAR) meetings. Projects discussed included the Ridge Street Fire Station ADA upgrade where the Chair noted potential cost savings through coordination with the fire department on parking lot modifications and curb cut reduction; a 1700s house on Keith Valley Road that may require a special exception due to zoning code length restrictions after a breezeway fill-in; the LV Collective apartment building (835 West Main) which was reduced to eight stories with improved pedestrian connectivity to West Haven and a memory walk space, though some public angst remained and BAR was generally supportive; and an infill project on Valley Road with three-story townhouses among one-and-a-half story brick Cape Cod houses, which BAR found generally supportive.

Department of NDS Report

# Department of NDS Report Summary

The Department of Neighborhood Development Services reported on several key initiatives, including the formation of a missing middle working group with cross-departmental members and design professionals, for which Commissioners Harness and Rudger were nominated to participate. A code cleanup project for 2026-2027 was announced, featuring a public work session on June 23rd at 5:00 PM followed by a Planning Commission work session on July 28th, with a subcommittee meeting scheduled between these dates to address development code issues. Director Kelly Brown announced her resignation effective June 26th due to personal reasons, with the Chair and commissioners expressing appreciation for her service in maintaining organized operations during a challenging period for the city. James Fries will assume the role of acting director during the transition, while Dannon and Matt will continue providing staff support to the Planning Commission.

Matters to be Presented by the Public not on the Formal Agenda

The Chair opened the floor for matters to be presented by the public not on the formal agenda, clarifying that the two action items later would not be public hearings. The Chair confirmed no raised hands from online participants and one staff/applicant member present indicated they were there for the health department exception. No public comment was provided.

Agenda items (6)

Procedural (6)

1ProceduralSpecial Exception Request - 1138 Rose Hill Drive [PL-26-0063]

A property owner is requesting a special exception to zoning rules for 1138 Rose Hill Drive; the council will review and decide on this request.

What happened

2ProceduralCommunity Development Block Grant (“CDBG”) and HOME Investment Partnerships Program (“HOME”): Revised Citizen Participation Plan

The city is updating its citizen participation plan for federal grant programs that fund affordable housing and community development projects.

What happened

3ProceduralChair's Report

The council chair will deliver a report covering relevant city matters and announcements.

What happened

4ProceduralDepartment of NDS Report

The Department of Neighborhood Development Services will present updates on their programs and activities.

What happened

5ProceduralMatters to be Presented by the Public not on the Formal Agenda

Members of the public will have an opportunity to speak about topics not included on the formal agenda.

What happened

6ProceduralConsent Agenda a Minutes - January 13, 2026 Regular Session b Minutes - February 10, 2026 Regular Session

The council will approve meeting minutes from the January 13 and February 10, 2026 regular sessions.

What happened

The consent agenda including minutes from January 13th and February 10th, 2026 sessions was presented. A motion to approve was made, seconded, and passed unanimously with all five commissioners voting yes.

Additional votes recorded in minutes

Approve consent agenda (minutes from January 13 and February 10)

aye 5

Chairman Schwartzaye

Commissioner Gutteraye

Commissioner (unknown 1)aye

Commissioner (unknown 2)aye

Commissioner Yatesaye

Approve special exception permit for 1138 Rose Hill Drive (mechanical equipment in front yard)

aye 5

Chairman Schwartzaye

Commissioner Harnessaye

Commissioner Mitchellaye

Commissioner Solly-Yatesaye

Commissioner Yoderaye

Recommend approval of CDBG HOME Citizen Participation Plan amendments and associated City Code amendments

aye 5

Chairman Schwartzaye

Commissioner Arnesaye

Commissioner Mitchellaye

Commissioner Soliyatesaye

Commissioner Yoderaye

Adjourn the meeting

aye 1

voice voteaye

Verbatim transcript available

192 transcript segments indexed

So yes, I mean I'm going to say Hey, we're live. Put your microphones down, guys. All right. Welcome, everyone, to tonight's Planning Commission meeting. We will start with commissioner's reports. Sure.

Okay. Well, I'll give a brief update from the university. So just last week, we had the buildings and grounds convene, and so I had given kind of a preview of it at a previous session, but I just wanted to close the loop here and give the final action items.

So the first was, it's a county building, but I thought it was still helpful because it's sort of visible from the public way, but it's the approval to demolish the university police building on Ivy Road.

And so that's that white brick, single-story building at 2302 Ivy Road. It's kind of notoriously served as the visitor center and the 911 dispatch call center at the same desk. So, that is with UPD's recent relocation to Zeemer Hall and the Virginia guest house having a welcome center in it, it's sort of not currently occupied.

So that will be demolished in the coming capital effort. And then we have the schematic design approval for the School of Data Science Entrepreneurship building. That is phase two of data science at the end of Ivy Corridor.

It's immediately west of the School of Data Science, where there's currently a service drive and a lawn. It's about 60,000 square feet across five stories. And so again, classrooms, research, seminar spaces, offices, and entrepreneurial engagement space.

So, that building, you can see the renderings are now online if you want to Google them. And the design sort of picks up on the palette of the existing School of Data Science and has a couple of references to the guest house and the future Center for the Arts.

And then the last one I was going to-- There's actually two other ones. The main heat plant. So I mentioned the coal towers, which are prominently visible down at the corner. That is going to go through a near-term fuel conversion.

And so the background on this is that that plant actually produces 90% of the university's heating. It's used for sterilization, waste decontamination, research at the hospital, dining, and the domestic hot water.

So it's a real workhorse. And so currently, it's coal and gas and some fuel oil. And part of the challenge is sourcing the coal and the operational complexity associated with operating the coal plant and clearly, the environmental compliance issues around burning coal.

So the great news is the benefits is that operational reliability for the hospital is going to improve. There's going to be efficiencies with staffing it and operating it. It's going to have a fairly substantial operating savings by getting off of coal, and it has significant carbon emissions reduction, and it's going to improve the viewshed from the corner.

So that's quite visible from 14th Street and along University. So just to give people a sense, there's going to be a three-phase sequence. So the first one is to remove some existing ground-mounted equipment to make room for the new fuel oil tank.

And there will then be the existing equipment that was associated with the coal plant to be then removed, and then the final part will be the coal silos will come out. So I don't have specific dates for those, but I can report more as that project starts to move forward.

And then the last one was there's a capital plan authorization for the athletics multipurpose practice field. So this was in the master plan. It's a site east of Copeley Road along the railway. It is just going to take where the training grounds, the modular units were for the Olympic sports locker rooms.

That is going to be replaced with a grass practice field. So again, it's all sort of conforming with the athletics master plan. So that's all I have, Chair. Thank you. We had a MPO technical committee meeting last week, so just a couple highlights from that.

One is the Smart Scale applications from the city, county, and MPO are kind of in the pre-application stage. They're being entered in the system. It takes lots of supporting documentation, and the deadline for submitting all of that is August 1.

And then, OIP is the state agency that will crunch the numbers and rank the projects. And then the CTB, the Commonwealth Transportation Board, has the opportunity to rearrange things, and that happens in the December to January timeline.

So by early next year, we should find out a little bit more about how the projects did, including the city's submission is the West Main Ridge McIntyre intersection. There's been some public meetings about that recently.

So that's kind of the city's application for this upcoming round. A couple other things. On a similar note, the localities and VDOT, OIP, et cetera, are starting up the next round of stars and pipeline studies.

So Pipeline is a program that is run by OIP, and it kind of is specifically intended to kind of produce Smart Scale eligible projects. It's not necessarily its only purpose, but that's Pipeline. And then Stars is run by VDOT, and that is for projects that are on corridors of statewide significance.

And both types of studies are very similar to each other. They're kind of managed centrally at the state level with project managers from VDOT's, our district office. We're in the Culpeper district. And then local stakeholders obviously will be very important to these.

And so, the city gets to submit one potential study location, and at that meeting, staff are suggesting two locations, but then it needs to be whittled down to one. So that's the sort of a short corridor on Ridge Street between Cherry Elliot up to West Main, and then the other is the intersection of Preston Ridge McIntyre.

And I think they're both great locations for studies. They connect in well with other work the city's doing, including our current Smart Scale application. So the policy board will be looking at those locations at the next meeting.

The county is submitting two locations on their own. 29 and Airport Road has a lot of injury crashes. They're going to look at that. They're going to look at or they're suggesting to look at the I64 exit at 29.

I think that's like 118, which is the big mess to take on, and they want to look at that. And then they're proposing a cross-jurisdictional study location, which is 250 at the Free Bridge, so kind of looking to the intersection with High Street, River Road, and then back across into the county there.

So they have identified activity centers on Pantops, and they feel they can't achieve these activity centers because of kind of mobility and access issues. So I think this is a really great opportunity for collaboration across jurisdictions, and I hope there'll be room for some creative thinking because it'd be really hard and expensive to widen a bridge, and I don't think you could really squeeze more cars into the city coming in from the county.

So, it'll be interesting to see what the stakeholders can come up with in terms of potential projects to evaluate how to move more people through the area without necessarily adding more kind of vehicle capacity.

We also got an update on the US 29 Stars study, which has been ongoing for a while. The kind of high-level summary from my mind is that kind of extending the Hillsdale shared use path is no longer on the table for various reasons.

I'm a little bit new to this one, but one reason is there isn't as much of a nexus between 29 and Hillsdale anymore because I think they were looking at some concepts of diverting some traffic to Hillsdale, and they're no longer looking at that.

So a lot of what they're looking at is new crosswalks on 29, so one in Greenbrier, one up by the mall, and a lot of kind of turn restrictions, so you're inconveniencing some drivers, but you're increasing throughput.

And then also adding some pedestrian improvements and crosswalks. So I think those are some exciting options that they're looking at. I think there's still a long way to go. And then on the southern part of the corridor around kind of Hydraulic and Emmett Street in the bypass there, they've come up with a few concepts that are a little bit more unusual that will be interesting to track through the process.

If you've ever driven around in New Jersey before, they've got a jug handle they're looking at, which is really fascinating. So, we'll be paying attention to that as it continues. So, that's what I got.

I have a question. Yes. Crossings on 64, near PVCC or Monticello, any thought consideration? We haven't discussed that at recent meetings. I will say that the county did mention in talking about the study of the 64 exit with 29, I think it's 118, that they are looking at a kind of pedestrian, maybe pedestrian bike crossing under the interstate at that location.

That's something they want to study. So I think that's something to be encouraged for sure. Thank you. Yeah. We'll let him finish his thought. Then you're next. Hello, all. The quarter two city school's capital improvement plan meeting was on May 13th, and it was a doozy.

The Walker pre-K cost jumped from $35 million to $60 million. Time has passed. Things cost more. We know more. We're expecting a 2029 completion. The Charlottesville High School and Charlottesville Middle School solar install will be this year.

Four city elementary schools will get a lighting update: Tall Oaks, Sunrise, Trailblazer, and Summit. The sales tax powers we asked for are in state budgetary discussions. Fingers crossed. $475 million in funding needs over the next 16 years are projected just for schools.

$240 million can come from the new sales tax, if it passes, we think. The cost of a new high school, if we don't expand the existing high school, would be $200 million additionally or maybe $250 million additional.

Just giant numbers. Jackson Via is projected as the highest cost elementary school of all of them because of larger needs, capacity issues, and there is land to build on. Trailblazer this summer is on track for breakout spaces, and the Greenbrier bathroom is expecting a summer 2026 completion.

Thank you, Lyle. That was a lot of fun. Thank you. We'll worry about that later, I guess. Mm. In December. I promise. On May 19th, Chair Schwartz and I attended the Development Code Cleanups Subcommittee Kickoff meeting.

That's a mouthful. It's basically a cross-functional group of the chair and I, and city staff to kick off the development code cleanup for the next round of changes. This serves as the next step in what was previously the tier one, tier two, and tier three items.

I believe that Matt's wanting to move away from that structure, but that's what this is the second piece of. And the general timeline is intended to get this sort of cleanup on a bit of a yearly cadence.

So our next work session on June 23rd is the builder and developer listening session. We encourage you all to come out and let us know what is still going well with the development code and what still needs tinkered with.

Then July and October planning commission work sessions, we will be diving deeper as a full group on the potential amendments. Then in November, there's a presentation to city council, and the end of 2026 and early 2027 is when planning commission and council will hold public hearings on these items with a goal of March 2027 as being the effective date as the new amendments, which will be one year after the last set of amendments were completed.

Separately, I attended the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transport statewide rail update last week. It was basically an overview of survey results from an April survey that they did. And overall, there came off a strong preference for expanding rail access, with the vast majority of respondents supporting service to more destinations, and specifically favoring that expansion within Virginia and the DC area, rather than more out-of-state connections.

Then, I found it very interesting that many respondents were not today daily or even weekly riders, but still showed very strong demand for more rail connectivity and passenger rail capacity. And then I think the most useful data point for the city of Charlottesville and this body is that when asked about conditions at existing stations, about half of respondents wanted dedicated public transit connections to other local destinations so that when they get to where they're going, they don't have to rent a car or find other rideshare ways to get around.

They can continue to use some form of public transportation to get around. So overall, pretty strong demand for increased connectivity and system growth statewide for passenger rail. Thank you. Nothing to report.

All right. At the Board of Architecture Review meeting last month, we actually had a number of interesting projects. We looked at the Ridge Street Fire Station, which they're just doing a simple ADA upgrade to their front doors, and the pathway leading up to that.

And they're going to be tearing up the parking spaces in front of the building. I noted that there's enough room behind those parking spaces to create a full drive aisle and still have enough room for a seven to 10-foot wide planting strip between that drive aisle and the street.

So currently, there's a curb cut that extends the full length of that property, and they could chop about 50 feet off of that. But that would require the city coordinating with the fire department on this project, and it didn't seem like there was much appetite for that.

But I tried to bring it up with a couple different people. I wasn't really sure. I don't know. It doesn't seem like it's going to go anywhere, but I figured I'd mention it again just because it would be a way to possibly save money.

That while they're tearing up some asphalt, they could tear up additional asphalt and then get rid of this monster curb cut and add some trees on a street that has no street trees, and has a lot of pedestrians and could use some additional safety improvements.

We looked at a house that's dating back to the 1700s on Keith Valley Road. And the interesting part about that is the house is too long for our zoning code, so we will likely be seeing it for a special exception.

They areThere's a garage that's been added sometime in the middle of last century that they're going to tear down and replace. But because they're filling in a breezeway that connects to the garage, staff has determined that the house is now the length of the house plus the garage, and it's longer than our zoning code allows.

So, I just thought that was interesting. We looked at 835 West Main, which is the LV Collective, the apartment building proposed adjacent to West Haven. They've lowered it to eight stories. They are providing space for a memory walk that aligns with a newly aligned pedestrian access that goes through West Haven.

So what's interesting is, I guess West Haven changed their plan a little bit, and the LV Collective changed where they were putting the space for the memory walk, and now it all lines up so that you can actually have a straight shot from West Main Street into 10th and Page, as a pedestrian, which I think seems pretty cool.

Yeah. There were still some angst from the public. Overall, the BAR was generally supportive. They still have some work to do. They did mention that they're caught in a little bit of a puzzle where they have to provide something to the BAR to approve, but they also want to leave time and space for the community to help design the memory walk, and there's some public spaces along West Main Street that they're providing.

So, it'll be interesting to see how that turns out. I believe that they want to come to our next BAR meeting, so we'll see them again. I don't know if that'll be a final approval or if that'll continue to be another step in the process.

We also looked at an infill project on Valley Road, which is down by the UVA South Lawn. It's a street that's full of brick Cape Cod houses that are one and a half stories tall, and they're inserting some three-story townhouses.

So that's an interesting puzzle of trying to figure out how to make those fit in. Generally, the BAR is supportive. And yeah, that was it for the BAR. So, do we have a report from NDS? Yes, I have a couple things and then I'll turn it over to Director Kelly.

So Chair, as Planning Commission is aware, NDS is working on a missing middle working group. This will comprise of cross-departmental members and some of our design professionals in that space of missing middle, and we're requesting two commissioners to be on this working group.

And if you can give me the name of those two commissioners, I will include them with the working group. I think it'll be Commissioner Harness and Commissioner Rudger. All right. Thank you, Chair. And we're aiming for a kickoff meeting for this in July or August.

Still fine-tuning, but it should be this summer that we'll be kicking off the missing middle working group. As stated earlier, we are moving forward with our 2026, 2027 code cleanup. There will be a work session on Tuesday the 23rd in city space at 5:00 PM.

This will be an opportunity for the public with a focus on our local builders and developers to work through what is currently working with the development code and what areas do need to be cleaned up in this cycle.

That'll be followed up by a July 28th work session with Planning Commission to get into a little more detail, and between the listening session on June 23rd and the July 28th work session, we'll be holding another subcommittee meeting, to get into a little bit more of the meat.

And with that, I will turn it over to Director Brown. All right. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. I'm just here to share a quick update with you, which I think you're probably all aware of. But I will be stepping down in my role as a director of Neighborhood Development Services, for personal reasons.

This is coming with some mixed emotions, but my last day with the city will be Friday, June 26th. And just wanted to say thank you for all of your support, NDS plays such a critical role in supporting the needs of the community, and as do you in your role as planning commissioners.

So thank you for your service and thank you for your support and your partnership over the past few years. I wish you all the best. Nothing will change in terms of your staff support from NDS. Dannon and Matt will very capably continue to support you in your needs.

And James Fries will be serving as acting director during this transition time. So thank you very much. All right. Well, I just want to say thank you, Kelly, for your service to the city. You came at a really chaotic time for the city, and I think you've kept us organized, and you've kept us on a good track for keeping things...

Making this be a really smooth process. And, yeah. I'm terrible with words, but I think we're all extremely appreciative of all that you've given to the city. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you very much. Mm-hmm.

Well, I look forward to seeing all the exciting things that you all continue to do. And good luck. Thank you. You too. Thanks. All right. I guess matters to be presented by the public, not on the formal agenda.

Neither of these are a public hearing, correct?Okay. So if there's anybody in the public, maybe not here, but online, that wants to speak on anything pertaining to the planning commission, including the two items that are our two action items later on, now would be the time to do so.

Please raise your hand online. I'm assuming you both are city staff or applicants. I know you are. I'm here for the exception for the health department. Got you. Okay. Mr. Chair, I see no raised hands.

All right. So that is the end of matters to be presented by the public. The next is our consent agenda, which includes the minutes from January 13th and February 10th. Do we have a motion? Mr. Chair, I'd motion to approve.

All right. Is there a second? I'll second. Great. Let's call a vote. Commissioner Gutter? Yes. Council Yates? Aye. Yes. Yes. And yes for me. Okay. We got five minutes. Or are we allowed to start right now?

No, it was advertised at 6:00, so- Okay. I will wait five minutes ... wait five minutes. Thank you. As an example, and it was all gibberish. It was kind of funny. Yeah. 6:00, right? Yeah. Yes. All right.

So we will begin again. Our first item on the agenda is a special exception request for 1138 Rose Hill Drive. Mr. Chair, Dan O'Connell, NDS Planner, and I'll be briefly presenting this special exception request for 1138 Rose Hill Drive, which is for expansion of mechanical equipment located in the front yard of the property.

So the next slide is just a few maps. This property is zoned NX-3. It is owned by the city of Charlottesville and is occupied by the Blue Ridge Health District. And, most of its neighbors to the north and south are zoned NX-3.

Across the street is CX-3, and there's an old PUD development that's zoned RA and civic on the right. The area is designated in the comp plan as a neighborhood mixed-use node. On the next slide is just the description of what site element screening is supposed to accomplish per our development code.

And this is some excerpts from a plan that was provided to us for the property that shows a top-down view of the building. So this is located in the front yard, and the red highlighted area is on the left is the current mechanical equipment area, and on the right is the new expanded area.

So it's not really more equipment coming in so much as the existing equipment is being replaced and is shifted around a bit, so the pad has to expand slightly. But this is in conflict with our regulations that state that mechanical equipment, ground-mounted, cannot be located within the front yard of any building.

But I ultimately recommended approval of this special exception permit, in that you can go drive down Rose Hill Drive and see numerous examples of screened and non-screened mechanical equipment located in the front yards of neighboring properties.

So it's not really a detriment to existing structures there. So recommend approval, and we do not recommend any conditions for the special exception permit. Does the applicant have anything you want to add, or nope?

No, the only reason everything's being rearranged is the chiller is being replaced, and it requires greater access to the sides than the old original chiller did. So we had to move things around to make it accessible.

Okay. For those at home or on the recording, the reason for this is greater access to the equipment. Things had to be rearranged. Okay. Questions from the planning commission. I have a couple questions if no one else does, but you go first.

I guess mine are more of a comment. All right. Let me start with a question, and then we can go to comments. So the current condition is... Actually, if you don't mind coming to the microphone, just so I can get...

I'm sorry. Make sure it gets all recorded. The existing conditions, we didn't get any pictures, so I had to use Google Street View. Am I understanding correctly, there's a, it looks like maybe a four-foot tall little brick wall that faces Rose Hill Drive, and then the rest of it's enclosed by a wooden fence of sorts?

That's correct. The brick wall will stay. We'll be installing a Trex new and improved fence. Trex, okay, so it won't be natural wood. It'll be something- It could be, but we plan on installing Trex- Okay ...

is what our plan is. And sorry, my comments all disappeared. Here we go. So, somewhere in here it said that you were proposing to use the code sections 4.7.4C, .4B, C, and E. And I'm just curious, so B says that screening isn't required if whatever's being hidden isn't visible above ground.

C is-Anything that's above ground would be screened on three sides of the wall, minimum six feet tall. D talks about access gates being provided on the fourth side, minimum six feet tall. And E says it needs to be 90% opaque.

Was the intention to be C, D, and E, or was it... I don't want to be technical. I sit on the BAR, so this is what we do. As I recall, the fence will be six feet tall. It will be? Okay. And I'm assuming it'll be opaque.

It won't have a bunch of holes in it? No. So the fence is a double-sided fence in that you have the facades are going to be like six-inch boards, half-inch in between each one. And then on the back side, you'll have a board that intercedes with that open space- Got you ...

so that there's free air flow- Mm-hmm ... through the fence so that the chiller itself can operate properly. Okay. So it sounds like the memo to staff should have been C, D, and E instead of B, C, and D.

Karl, which code section are you looking at? From the memo from SEDI, at the bottom of it, it says code section 34-4.7.4.C.4. Yeah. I think what you might have been quoting was the waste receptacle screening, which is .1, but this is ground equipment screening because it's a chiller.

Right. Okay. Well, I was confused by that, too, so maybe I did read the wrong one. Okay. Well, what do those sections say? Yeah, that's- What are we holding them to? ... page 4-69. It's the last page of the section.

But it has A, B, C, and D. A is can't put in the front yard. Okay. B is equipment visible from a street must be fully screened by an opaque wall or fence at least six inches higher than the topmost part of the equipment.

Okay. C is screening must be 75% opaque. Okay. So we're just holding him to the wall needs to be six inches taller than the tallest piece of equipment, and it'll be 75% opaque. Okay. That makes sense.

Explains why I was confused because I, yeah, didn't know why they would have picked that other section. Okay. And, yeah, can we hold you guys to the Trex as opposed to an unfinished wood? Absolutely. Okay.

That's what we've planned on. Great. That was my questions. Sorry, guys. I just had a quick question. Again, this is Jess. I happen to be a neighbor to this property, and so I noticed there's an ADA parking spot sort of adjacent to where the fence is expanding.

Is that being relocated? Not to my knowledge. So that entire, if memory serves, there's like four or five parking spaces there, and every one of them is handicap. So regardless of where you pull in there, it's going to be a handicap space.

Because our fence is coming out, I'm going to say approximately two feet, it will overlay that to the left-hand side of the first handicap space. It will come out approximately two feet more than it is currently.

So it will impact that, but you still have handicap access on either side of that space, and all of those spaces are handicap. We didn't do anything to add any spaces, but I'm sure that handicap space is still available.

It's not quite as available as it was. I just know there's strict definitions on what the approaches are on either side, and you may just want to- Understood ... check that so it doesn't become an issue.

Any comments? My comment is just about there's a part of the public or the staff comment is about how there's many properties that have a similar issue, and I'm sure that there are other properties throughout the city that have similar issues, and if there's a way that through the cleanup process, either this year or next year, if we can try to address this so things in my mind that are relatively straightforward, switching out chillers and stuff like that, don't have to come before us.

All right. Anybody want to make a motion? I'll move to recommend approval of the application for the special exception permit in the NX-3 node mixed use district at 1138 Rose Hill Drive to permit the construction of expanded medical equipment area in the front yard.

Can I offer an amendment? Just that we state that the material will be a Trex material and not natural wood. I will accept the amendment. Okay. Second. Do we have any... Oh, yeah. Okay. Dan, can you call vote, please?

Sure. Commissioner Solly-Yates? Aye. Commissioner Harness? Yes. Commissioner Yoder? Yes. Commissioner Mitchell? Yes. Chairman Schwartz? Yes. So that passes. Thank you. Thank you. All right. And now our next item is the Community Development Block Grant and Home Investment Partnerships Program revised citizen participation plan.

I cannot speak tonight. I'm sorry. These federal slides have to be very wordy. Yeah, well, is there a clicker? I can just-- I can move the slides. Anthony. Oh. I just say, "Next slide now." Okay. Oh. Good evening, commissioners, Chair Schwartz, members of the public.

My name is Anthony Warn. I'm with the city's Office of Budgets and Grants Management. We're a relatively new office. We work with all the departments across the city and offices on the multiple grants programs.

And of these two are our HUD-funded programs, Community Development Block Grants and HOME Investment Partnerships programs. As you have seen me before, part of the existing protocol is for us to bring plans that are eventually going to go to HUD for approval before the planning commission to get recommendation to go on to city council.

I'm here tonight to ask for your consideration and review of proposed updates to the Citizen Participation Plan, and I can go into a little bit of the background on why this is coming before you right now.

Next slide, please. So the Citizen Participation Plan is a component of our consolidated plan with HUD, which is a five-year strategic plan that's updated on an annual basis. Citizen Participation Plan clarifies and spells out a lot of the rules that we follow in order to facilitate active engagement by the public, to make sure that the public is aware of what's going on, to provide them multiple opportunities to get involved in this work, so that we can make sure that what we are doing is responsive as possible to community needs.

HUD recommends that these Citizen Participation Plans are revisited every five years. Our current CPP plan was last updated and approved in 2016, which suggests that it might not be current in terms of HUD guidance and regulations, but also city's practices and needs.

Overall, we are now part of the Office of Budget, now with the Budget and Grants Management. And so we're trying to bring a more consolidated approach to all of the city's many grant-funded programs, in part to streamline the process for staff and to reduce the amount of recurring tasks that have to be done, but also to clarify things for the public and to clarify things for the sub-recipients that we work with, that we provide money and support to so that they can go out and do their good work.

Currently, the way it stands now, CDBG and HOME are an outlier in that process in that they happen to... Just the way it's happened is that the public review and recommendations and coming before Planning Commission and City Council occurs much later than all of the other programs.

And so we're trying to bring those in much more of a close alignment. And so part of that is to revisit all the different processes involved. So this is in full transparency, this is to put before you part of the consideration to remove that hearing before Planning Commission, before we go onto City Council.

CDBG and HOME are the only two programs that I believe we do that for. There's no specific HUD regulation requiring that. There's no specific requirement for that in the Code of Federal Regulations. Doing so will help shorten the amount of time it takes to put forth all the different pieces involved and allow us to present City Council with a much more coherent consideration of the full grant funding portfolio.

There was a lot of interest in making sure that before any changes were made, that you were involved in the process because this has gone on, this has been part of the practice for a long time. Don't want to do anything without your approval and say so.

So as we revisited the Citizen Participation Plan, we started with all the different HUD requirements, and then we started to work on the things that are much more of a local purview. Okay. Next slide, please.

Sorry. So highlights of what we've proposed are to, of course, update all the references to HUD guidance and implementing regulations. There have been a number of changes. We've added new language to clarify the partnership that the city has between TJPDC, who coordinate the HOME program for us, because it is a regional approach.

There was not a lot of reference to TJPDC in the previous document. We've tried to streamline the public hearing process, as I said, to maintain Planning Commission representation on the CDBG HOME Task Force, but to streamline the amount of time it takes to go through the application process, the review process, the formulation of funding recommendations, the 30-day public comment period, and then to get these before City Council closer to when all of the other funding recommendations are presented to them.

We preserve the number of seats available to all members. We want to keep it at nine. But we have revisited the representation as those are aligned. The original citywide members were divided between seats that were tied to specific neighborhoods, and then there was one at-large city residency.

Then there was a permanent seat for a member of the Planning Commission, permanent seat for a member of the school boards-And one member who represents public service organizations, kind of nonprofits that typically do the work or work with the populations we're trying to benefit.

We have revisited that, and the city has moved away from, and this is great news for the city and the work we do, our neighborhoods tend to be less economically segregated than they were before, largely because of mixed-use developments and a lot of the progress that's happened over time.

Having representation tied to particular neighborhoods is a little problematic because sometimes you have two people from one neighborhood who would be great and active members of the task force, but if that one at-large seat is filled, then there's no place for them to go.

If they don't work for a public service nonprofit, if they're not on the school board or planning commission. So we've revisited that and what we recommend are five seats for people across the city at large, with a preference that city council consider for people who are tied to particular populations that are at the heart of the work we do or particular areas.

So there will be consideration for that. It just won't be tied geographically to a particular neighborhood, especially as that neighborhood may have changed considerably over the last at least 10 years since this was revisited.

We took that as an opportunity to expand the number of seats available to representatives of the public service organizations who do the kind of work that we're trying to support. In the past, we have had people who were very interested to participate, but they didn't live in any one of the priority neighborhoods, and they didn't belong to a public service group.

So maintain the planning commission representation, school board representation, expand representation by representatives of public service groups, and then have five other members at large. We have also updated the municipal code that is the implementing guidance for this, just to reflect these kind of changes.

That's Article 13 under Section 2, Administration. That was, again, last revisited in 2016, and it has very specific references to things that are no longer part of what the city is doing or focusing on.

So, those are the highlights. Next slide, please. Currently engaged in the 30-day public hearing. We are open to hearing public comment before and after that. It starts on Monday, June 15th, and it'll run through July 15th.

The dates changed a little bit before they were going to be taking this before council. It was moved from the June 15th. The first public hearing, first reading, was scheduled for June 15th, but it's now been pushed back to the July 20 meeting.

So that is going to be reflected in the public notice and on the city website. And then the second reading would be on August 3rd. So those two dates have been updated on the city CDBG and home website, and people can go to the CDBG and home public notices page right there to get copies of the proposed documents and to find out.

There's additional information provided there as well. Next slide, please. If the public wants to provide public comment, we are open to that at every... There's opportunities provided in writing by mailing it to us, providing written comment by email, or showing up at any of the public hearings that have been scheduled.

And members of the public can also contact any of the people here, myself, my colleague Taylor Harvey Brian, our colleague over at TJVBC, who does a lot of great work for the city and the regional consortium, Boygene Tullon, and then if anybody had, I just include the accessibility assistance information because I find it to be very helpful.

Next slide, please. Thank you. And I make myself available for any questions. Questions? So this basically removes this body from the review process. Not completely. It- We have one planning commission on the board- Yes ...

but we don't get to see it. That is up for discussion and for consideration. If you guys would like to keep us bringing the plans before you, as policy, more public hearings are a great approach. We're trying to get civic engagement and public awareness of what we're trying to do.

But this process does streamline and bring into alignment with what we do for all the other programs, which is we have our public comment period, and then we take them before city council. So, Mr. Soli-Yates, how do we feel about that?

Because you didn't have a lot of input into this. Conflicted. So broadly, I'm looking at the community engagement chapter of the comprehensive plan. We want people involved. We want transparent, effective processes.

We want the people who are affected by these things to be involved in these things. I understand we have some Virginia law barring some best practices that otherwise we would do. How are you thinking about that conflict, our goals in the comprehensive plan, and what we can actually do, and to what extent are we in harmony in what you're sharing with us?

We share those beliefs and values and priorities for civic engagement. We are open to any considerations that you guys might have. If you feel strongly to keep this, that you feel like it adds value, then that is definitely a consideration.We have found that we've always struggled to get awareness out there about these two programs.

They've been involved in the city for a long time. One of the approaches that we've been trying to have is maybe get somebody more involved again in the meetings of the neighborhood associations and getting out there more and having discussions, especially focusing on the neighborhoods that we've traditionally operated in.

We're open to any suggestions. Again, conflicted. Yeah. Share the concern. I'll ask a couple of basic, I don't know, process questions. So there's the engagement plan, or the CPP, has to be updated every year.

Right? Or what's the process? Because I thought I saw you said you have to have one every five years or something. The code of federal regulations requires that we have one- Yeah ... and that we follow it.

Okay. And that it's publicly approved by the locally elected body, city council- Mm-hmm ... and that it is approved by HUD. Mm-hmm. That was done in 2016. Mm-hmm. There's no specific language about how often it needs to be renewed.

HUD recommends every five years, and we are revisiting the current annual action plans that we have operate under the consolidated plan, which is a five-year plan, and this is the last year of that five-year plan.

Okay. So in '27, '28, we'll be revisiting the whole process again. The consolidated plan, which is a lot of public hearings, a lot of discussions, a lot of community outreach. It's a very complicated process.

Is the consolidated plan the CPP that is done every five years? I'm getting mixed up. The consolidated plan, in federal regulation, is required to be updated every five years. The consolidated plan. The CPP is a supporting document to that- Okay ...

which is HUD's attempt to ensure that localities are involving the community. It spells out how we're going to make things publicly available to the public, how we're going to operate our public hearings.

A lot of the language is just what's already reflected in Virginia state law or traditional practice. And the current public hearing or notice that's happening for public hearing, that is to eventually have council approve the CPP, or that's the consolidated plan that they're considering?

I think there was a- Before you now is for the citizen participation plan. Yeah. Okay. In a year, we'll be revisiting that five-year plan as well. Okay. Okay. I think I understand now, thanks. I have not been that involved with the HOME and CDBG programs, but I don't really have a fundamental problem with moving it to removing a step in the process, especially since it has to be done every year.

I do think council... We don't have final say anyway, we're just making recommendations, and I never know what our recommendations really do sometimes. And so I think as long as we have a commissioner who's involved in the process, I don't have an issue with giving up a little bit, having one less step on the way to final approval.

But I haven't been that involved in it, so I'm open to other opinions, but that's just me. Did these set of updates go in front of the task force? So the update to the citizen participation plan did not necessarily go before them, but it grows out of a longstanding concern that they have about the timing that's involved.

Because the way things are right now, they're doing their reviews starting in... So we have the open application window. It's open to all the community groups from January to mid-February. And then that leaves the task force members starting their analysis, evaluation, discussions, considerations, into late February.

And the goal is that we have this done 45 days prior to the start of the July 1 start of the new program year, that we have this before HUD. And so basically having all these steps really constrains things, and it also leaves people feeling sometimes like there's not a lot of opportunity to revisit things because they're not going before the public boards with enough time to say, "Hey, let's revisit this in a week," because then the next hearing is contingent upon approval from this body to go before council.

And so part of this concern grows out of a longstanding concern among the task force members to try to streamline things. Why are we doing this if nobody's requiring us, and there are other opportunities to get it before the public as well?

So that's related to the potential of removing this commission from the process. What about redesignating the different seats out of the neighborhoods into an at-large position? That distinctly grew from theMembers of the task force.

Having people tied to those neighborhoods has for a while now left other people from being involved, and then in the last round, we had a very active member of the community who was appointed to a seat within a particular neighborhood.

During the term of their service, they were forced to move. They stayed within the city. They never left the city. Their lease was not renewed for whatever reason. They moved out of the neighborhood to which they were appointed and into another neighborhood.

Never left the city, never wasn't a city resident, but were prevented from being an active member of the task force that whole time, because as soon as they moved out of their appointed seat, their membership was null.

And so that seat closed. We didn't have time to bring anybody in from that neighborhood, even though there were people who had been interested. That person showed up at every meeting and was involved in every discussion and conversation and provided a lot of valuable input.

They even took minutes at some points, when we had some pretty interesting discussions on technological issues. But they were not allowed to be an active member simply because they were forced to move from one neighborhood to another.

So that's why that gelled up as a very particular issue, because the members of the task force felt very strongly that that was not fair to that person. Sure. So yeah, the two big pieces of these updates, other than bringing it to current HUD guidelines from 2016, is those two pieces, removing this commission and changing the designations of the chairs.

Yes. And it sounds like both of those came from comments and concerns from the actual task force? Yes. Okay. And then the last question I had was, was there consideration, it may have been in there, but I didn't see it, about...

I've only been in this discussion once, and most of the discussion was about what to do in case we get excess funds, and how do you allocate those excess funds across the different parties. Was there consideration about codifying that or coming up with a solution about how to do that?

Because that was a big part of this commission's discussion. Right. And if you're removing us, then that discussion goes to council, or how do you think about dealing with those over-allocations? So that's a good question.

That has long been a challenge for the task force, and ways to handle. They have expressed interest in coming back together after things settle down to try to formulate some kind of a priority. Because we base our initial funding recommendations on the amount of money we got last year, and then we wait for final notice from HUD of what the new number's going to be.

If that were to happen, that opens up a lot of discussion, often at the last minute, because those happen in March, April, May. Sometimes the HUD notice comes in extremely late. There has been discussion about how do we codify something like that.

The city council has expressed an interest in having a say as well, which is wonderful. How do we do that when there are two public hearings, two readings between one and the other? So one of the discussions was to make an informal presentation, maybe through some informal process or during a work meeting well ahead of time, of what the recommendations are, so that they have that in their minds as they're going on.

And that's part of the interest in streamlining the process too, is we've always started the application process in January. We want to push that back to, I believe, November. I can confirm the dates for you later, but I think we're looking at November 7 into December, which then would allow the task force members time to review before that, and then come back together in January, so that then we can have a public hearing and maybe space out the public hearings before the first reading and the second reading before council.

There are a lot of discussions. Nobody's really figured out how to formulate a policy per se. Sure. And the last thing is, between now and the council public hearing, can you provide us a red line of the changes between the documents?

I know you provided the current and the proposed of both the CPP and the ordinance. Is there a way you can provide us a red line so we can more clearly see what language was changed? That question's come up before.

Mm-hmm. And I will get you whatever I can. The two documents, the original document was so out of date that we really started with a new document instead. Mm-hmm. We can try to highlight places where there were changes.

I can show you things. It wasn't simply an update. It was a ground-level rewrite. That's both the CPP and the ordinance? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Well, the ordinance less so, but we can show you. To go a little bit behind the scenes, the majority of the things that are included in both plans are very similar.

One of the things when I joined in, the Citizen Participation Plan is supposed to be a document that enables the public to become actively engaged. From the very early on, the first time I read it, it seemed like a very technical documentAnd one of the pieces of feedback I've gotten from people is that when things are presented to them, it's very technical.

So could we provide a translation? So as we were working through all the discussion about these kind of changes, the document that you have before you, the proposed update, it's still technical, but hopefully it reads as a more layperson-friendly document than the original.

More about the values that drive art. That's what I noticed when I looked at other localities, how they approach their CPPs. Some of them are very technical, and basically what they've done is they've taken the HUD guidance and the requirements, and the Code of Federal Regulations, and put them in an outline and put that out there.

What we tried to do this time was to make it a more friendly public-facing, accessible document, if you will, that still has all of the technical requirements and laying things out. So I'd be more than happy to get you what I can to show those.

But it wasn't just a simple rewrite of the original, like a red line version. Thank you. Is it too late to make changes? No. Just a broad editorial recommendation. Pictures. Pictures are very engaging.

They make a document more lively, interesting to read, provide a break for the reader, and can give ideas that are relevant to the content. Didn't even think about that. That is a wonderful recommendation, and I find that including pictures in some of the other things I've done help show off the work that we've done.

We've created a webpage under the budget and grants management for celebrating our community partnerships and putting pictures on there so that people can go see. And that's the thing that has gotten me more people in the community saying, "Oh, I saw that," and some of the projects that we've done in the past.

So can definitely do that. I will say I'm in favor of removing the planning commission from the process if it streamlines it. And I'm assuming that it might give you a better chance at when the funding comes in late, you have more opportunity to make clarifications, rather than dealing with us as a step in the process.

I always feel funny about it because it's like the CDBG task force does all this work, and it feels very weird to come in and second-guess them, especially when council's going to do that anyways, or they have their own opportunity to do it.

But one of the things that we did discuss among the task force was the idea that in lieu of a kind of formal presentation before the commission, as soon as the initial funding recommendations are made, maybe that can be an opportunity for whoever has that seat from the commission.

They can make a more formal presentation, kind of like what you guys do with your updates. And then that would give a little bit of time for you all to discuss and consider, and then to provide feedback to the member in the seat, and to maybe more utilize that person.

We definitely wanted to keep that representation in there. That's important. So that's a possibility. Mr. Chair, I think I have a motion. Okay. I move that the Planning Commission recommend approval to City Council of the proposed amendments to the CDBG HOME Citizen Participation Plan and associated amendments to Chapter 2, Article 13 of the Charlottesville City Code, with the recommendation that a more effective community engagement plan for the people most affected by CDBG and HOME spending replaces the Planning Commission public hearing.

For commission . Isn't that what this whole thing is? Just thoughts. Would you read that again, please? The language from the packet, and I added this sentence. Yes, I just want to hear it again. With the recommendation that a more effective community engagement plan for the people most affected by CDBG and HOME spending replaces the Planning Commission public hearing.

Isn't that what the CPP is? Well, it's built into the document. Yeah. Yes, but he's just being more explicit about it. If there's a question of creating a new position, for example. This document doesn't create that position.

A new position. Oh, okay. All right. I'll second it. Does it make sense to you? Yes, I believe so. Okay. Part of the consideration in even pursuing this was the idea that we could definitely benefit from a lot more discussion about what are the active ways, what are the high impact ways of getting more community engagement and activity.

So we're always open to that. I take a variety of people out from the community for coffee periodically just to learn more about them, but to share what we do. So we're always open to any suggestions.

All right. Dan, can you call a vote? All right. Commissioner Soliyates? Aye. Commissioner Arnes? Yes. Commissioner Yoder? Yes. Commissioner Mitchell? Yes. Chairman Schwartz? Yes. Thank you, Arnes. Thank you.

I think that is it. So, we'll see everyone at our work session on June 23rd. Did I hear a- ... a confirmation that the work session next month is happening? Yes. July 28th, 27th, something. 28th. 28th.