Much of what happens in government could be described in several adjectives. Arcane. Bureaucratic. Cryptic. Dastardly? Okay, that last one is an adverb, but the words put together in every installment of Charlottesville Community Engagement are intended to try to make sense of things that could be described as either obscure, obtuse, or dare I say, obnoxious? I’m your host Sean Tubbs, and this installment is another deep dive in attempt to chart some of the current waters.
On today’s program:
The Albemarle County Board of Supervisors adopts Strategic Plan goals to help guide budgetary decisions
The Charlottesville City Council and Planning Commission are asked to weigh in on efforts to rewrite the city’s zoning code to reduce obstacles to development
The two bodies largely support eliminating minimum lot sizes but there was more concern from at least one City Councilor about an idea to increase density for deeply affordable housing projects
First shout-out: Charlottesville Community Bikes
In this first subscriber supported shout-out, Charlottesville Community Bikes believes that bicycles can be a means to social change, addressing issues of equity, access, and inclusion. They provide free bikes to adults who need one, and have a special program that provides free bikes to children. Their mobile bike repair clinics continue November 3 from 3:30 to 5 p.m. with a stop at Riverside Drive. Want to learn more or support their work? Charlottesville Community Bikes currently is seeking matching funds for a grant from the Outride Fund. Visit charlottesvillecommunitybikes.org to learn more.
Albemarle County Supervisors adopt new strategic plan goals
Longtime readers and listeners know by now that this newsletter and podcast seeks to give information about various plans, be they site, Comprehensive, Small Area, Biodiversity Action, strategic, or otherwise. Local governments in Albemarle and Charlottesville have hundreds of employees and in order to run an organization you need some kind of documents to coordinate what everyone’s doing.
Or in many cases, you don’t.
In any case, the Albemarle Board of Supervisors made progress with two overarching plans at their meeting on October 19, 2022. The first was the Strategic Plan, which sets six overarching goals for what the county government hopes to achieve. These goals and their objectives can be reviewed on the county’s website. Here’s the staff report for the October 19 work session.
Kristy Shifflett, Director of Performance and Strategic Planning for Albemarle county was on hand to update Supervisors on various changes as well as community feedback. The significance of the strategic plan is the role it plays in guiding future spending.
“The intention is that this will inform our next step as you’ll start talking about the five-year financial plan in November,” Shifflett said.
The performance indicators for the strategic plan are tied to the progress towards specific projects and initiatives.
One change made since their last discussion in September was the addition of a paragraph centering the six-member elected body’s role in county governance.
“The Board of Supervisors sets the policy direction for the future and local government staff implement it through their public service,” reads this new paragraph. “These efforts are maximized through Board-staff collaboration, guided by the Board of Supervisors’ Operating Guidelines for High Quality Governance and the Pillars of High Performance.”
A lot of the changes made since September are wordsmithing, such as adding the word “Engaged” to Goal 2 - Resilient, Equitable and Engaged Community. Objectives under this goal include implementing the Climate Action Plan and implementing stream health initiatives.
Under Goal 4 (Quality of Life), the phrase “Refresh Project Enable” was changed to “Update Project Enable.” Project Enable is Albemarle’s strategic plan for economic development.
The wording for another objective under Goal 4 related to open space was also changed.
“We focused more instead of the development area, we have changed this to urban neighborhoods to be more focused in on what we heard about being able to have the areas that don’t have the spaces or the walkability to do the Parks and Recreational opportunities,” Shifflett said.
Shifflett also went through a long list of themes that emerged from a round of community feedback that closed earlier this month. One of them was to “increase services in the rural area” while another was to preserve rural character.
Supervisor Ann Mallek of the White Hall District said that would lead to interesting conversations.
“Because there are a lot of people who do not want that at all,” Mallek said. “There are many many villages in the White Hall District that are not eager to have lots more commerce move in. They might like to have a little grocery store be brought be back to life… The rural character and the rural services are sometimes in tension with each other.”
Another broad theme in community feedback related to a desire by some for redevelopment to occur in the urban areas. That gave Supervisor Ned Gallaway some pause.
“When I see anything that says that the public body should invest in redevelopment and improvements of existing properties, we have no capacity to do that,” Gallaway said. “They are private property owners. But this is a constant conversation that comes up when we look to the development area and folks see underutilized shopping centers and open storefronts and things that could have things in them and think that we can do something.”
Gallaway said the county’s role is to set guidance through plans, such as the Rio Road Small Area Plan that was adopted in December 2018.
Shifflett said the strategic plan is intended to be wide-ranging at this point as specifics get filled in.
“These are broad and so you are soon going to hear specifics about how our organization plans to support the community and development progress and performance underneath of these things,” Shifflet said.
Supervisor Jim Andrews said he would like to make clear the Biodiversity Action Plan to be called out as something to state clearly. He also asked to add a line about emergency services and long-term resiliency.
Supervisors approved the strategic plan’s goals and objectives on a 6 to 0 vote.
In a future edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement, there will be a summary on the Supervisor’s review of the draft Framework for Equity and Resilience. That’s part of the update of the county Comprehensive Plan. You can learn more about that in this article about the Planning Commission’s discussion on September 27, 2022.
City Council and Planning Commission discuss elimination of minimum lot sizes in new zoning code
I record a lot of meetings and have hundreds and hundreds of them from the past two and a half years I’ve been doing this work on this platform. I have thousands if you want to go back to 2005.
I also deliberately avoid calling each story I write an example of “news” because sometimes it takes me a while to get to something I want to write up. But, there does come a time when it’s way too late for me to expend time summarizing something in the past. Thirty days, tops.
And with that we come to a long promised summary of the September 27, 2022 joint meeting of the Charlottesville City Council and the Charlottesville Planning Commission on the next steps in the zoning ordinance rewrite. I was able to write up half of that conversation in the October 4, 2022 edition of this newsletter. Go back for details.
Today there’s finally time to get back to discussion about this latest phase of the Cville Plans Together Initiative. Council adopted an Affordable Housing Plan in March 2021 and a Comprehensive Plan last November. The zoning is being rewritten to make it easier to build residential units with more density across the entire city. That can take many forms, such as eliminating the role elected bodies play in making land use decisions, and eliminating or reducing requirements. (review meeting materials for the September 27, 2022 meeting)
On a broad level, the Commission and the Council were asked to give feedback on specific questions. Let’s get right into this one with the second of three questions, asked by Lee Einsweiler of CODE Studio. CODE Studio is a subcontractor hired as part of the Cville Plans Together process.
“So, the second question is really about lot splits,” Einsweiler said.
Einsweiler wanted to know the officials’ thoughts on a new concept that would allow for smaller property subdivisions.
“We have proposed an idea that is called a sublot which basically says there is a zoning lot that is allocated rights and has obligations as a whole, but there could be a lot for sale which is a smaller piece of that,” Einsweiler said. “So if you had the main house and three new units, you could actually have four sublots. There would still only be one lot.”
These units might technically be cheaper due to lower land costs and smaller footprints.
Einsweiler said another alternative might be to eliminate minimum lot sizes entirely with subdivisions but that would require other adjustments as well.
“So right now, subdivision requires street frontage, it requires a certain width, and those are there for a very set of reasons which is about access and about fire safety,” Einsweiler said.
Einsweiller said homes need to be within 150 feet of a fire truck under fire code.
Another question is whether different neighborhoods should be treated differently, or if there should be one uniform set of rules.
“In which case we’d only have to draft one [zoning] district so you can make my job very easy but the challenge in talking to the community a little harder,” Einsweiler said.
Planning Commissioner Hosea Mitchell said he supported adding more flexibility by reducing lot sizes.
“I do believe that a more aggressive reduction in lot sizes is good and splitting them is good,” Mitchell said. “I am quite piqued by the sublot concept and frankly I think there are places where the elimination of lot sizes makes sense.”
Commissioner Phil d’Oronzio said he was in favor of reducing minimum lot sizes as well as elimination of sidewalk requirements. This would help with financing properties.
“That unlocks an enormous amount of potential in a couple of things,” d’Oronzio said. “One, housing under fourplex models and how those are financed. We can offload some city money into private hands because for 3.5 percent you can do a four unit property. Secondly if you configure them on a sublot that way and you decide that the common walls at a later date, you have four units that you can generate as four rentals.”
With regards to the fire department, d’Oronzio said their modeling for access issues are dated on old designs.
Commissioner Karim Habbab asked how affordability would be tracked if there many sub-lots. Einsweiler said further work would need to be done in that area if Council and the Planning Commission were to provide that direction.
“I’m not worried about tracking initial sub-lots because we’ve had some clients that have successfully done it,” Einsweiler said. “I am worried about tracking sub-lots of sub-lots of sub-lots if those begin to happen.”
Commissioner Liz Russell said she was intrigued by sub-lots if it leads to additional homeownership opportunities.
“If it’s true that one of the primary justifications behind minimum lot sizes historically was to maintain a minimum property value threshold for a city and we’re saying no, we actually want to offer neighborhoods to have a variety of property values, then that seems to be a good avenue to explore,” Russell said.
Planning Commissioner Carl Schwarz, a resident of the city’s 10th and Page neighborhood, said he wanted to make sure that the opportunity to subdivide could be accessible to people who own property but do not have the professional skills of a developer.
“I can imagine in my neighborhood people might want to take advantage of an accessory dwelling unit in their family but they can’t afford to build it, so it would be much easier for them to sell a chunk of their parcel and have someone else build on it,” Schwarz said. “I think that makes a lot of sense and does promote more homeownership.”
Schwarz said for much of this to work, there needs to be a conversation with the Charlottesville Fire Department about access issues.
“If the sub-lot thing doesn’t work with the Fire Department, then I would definitely recommend eliminating minimum lot sizes,” Schwarz said.
Commission Chair Lyle Solla-Yates also weighed in.
“I think smaller is better, consistent is better,” Solla-Yates said. “My home is about 2,000 [square feet] and I think it’s fantastic.”
City Councilor Sena Magill said she would be against different minimum lot sizes across the city because that could propagate racial redlining that historically kept people out of neighborhoods.
“If we do that and don’t make it a minimum lot size across the entire city we are not taking this opportunity to rectify that,” Magill said.
City Councilor Michael Payne said he would be open to eliminating minimum lot sizes.
“To me, the big picture goal would be allowing more of the type of development of small starter homes,” Payne said.
Charlottesville Mayor Lloyd Snook said he has done research into whether many of the goals of the Cville Plans Together could be thwarted by restrictive covenants, which are part of a property’s deed.
“In most places in the city, the single family covenant designation had a sunset provision of 25, 35 years down the road,” Snook said. “But a restrictive covenant that did not have a sunset provision said no subdivision.”
Snook wanted to know if this would prevent a legal obstacle. Einsweiler said that’s another piece of information that is not yet known.
“We’ve not asked yet whether sub-lots would be considered formally a subdivision and that may have to be litigated before we bring you the answer,” Einsweiler said.
Vice Mayor Juandiego Wade said he was supportive of sub-lots and eliminating setbacks on some parcels.
Second shout-out: The Plant Northern Piedmont Natives Campaign
Since the very beginning of this newsletter, one Patreon supporter who has been there since July 2020 has used his shout-out to draw your attention to the work of the Plant Northern Piedmont Natives Campaign. The campaign is a coalition of grassroots partners including motivated citizens and volunteers, partner organizations, and local governments who want to promote the use of native plants. We’re now in the autumn and if you’re already looking forward to the spring, this is the time to learn about what you need to plan to attract pollinators who’ll keep native species going. To learn more, visit plantvirginianatives.org to download Piedmont Native Plants: A Guide for Landscapes and Gardens.
Next question: Medium Intensity density on General Residential land?
The third question asked whether areas designated as General Residential should be eligible to be considered Medium Intensity Residential if all of the units will be guaranteed to be below-market. That could effectively triple the density.
The Charlottesville Low Income Housing Coalition sought support for this position with a petition signed by 203 people out of a concern that the Inclusionary Zoning provisions suggested did not go far enough.
“You are talking about potentially allowing middle density into General Residential density,” said Phillip Kash of the real estate firm HRA Advisors. “That’s a significantly larger and density property.”
Kash said there are examples of that happening such as in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a city of over 118,000 in the Boston Metropolitan Area. He also said that those involve heavy subsidies.
In Charlottesville, the primary subsidy comes from the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund. This year, there is about $835,000 in new funding according to a Notice of Funding Availability that went out earlier this month. In April, Council learned that about $46.7 million has been disbursed through the fund since 2010.
Let’s hear more details about what’s being asked from Jennifer Koch of the firm Rhodeside & Harwell, the main contractor for the Cville Plans Together initiative.
“In General Residential areas, the Comprehensive Plan calls for three units or up to four units if you keep the existing house and divide it up into multiple units or you add units to the property,” Koch said. “The question is asking to gauge how you all feel about the idea to allow that same base density and everything up to that up to 12 would be allowed in General Residential if it was affordable at a level to be determined.”
Commissioner Hosea Mitchell was skeptical.
“It may be feasible based on two equity multiples but based on yield this would not be feasible,” Mitchell said. “So if the only way we could do this is… through subsidies.”
Much of the city’s current subsidies are being used for the redevelopment of Friendship Court by Piedmont Housing Alliance and the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority.
Commissioner d’Oronzio said he was in support of anything that could be done to “privilege” construction of affordable housing, but he would need to see more analysis of how the financing would work.
Lee Einsweiler of Code Studio said zoning would also come into effect if the base density was increased. He said existing neighborhoods would likely change if Council agreed to make the increase.
“The decision you have to make if you choose to go there in General Residential is what is the urban form that you would allow and is it the same what you would build under the standard market affordability,” Einsweiler said. “Or are you actually adding bulk, adding mass, an additional story, additional lot coverage, less parking, less trees? Are we willing to go to those extents to get affordability in those settings?”
Commissioner Karim Habbab said the additional bonuses allowed under the inclusionary zoning provisions might be sufficient, but extending the density could open up new land for nonprofits to build new units.
“There are valid questions about scale and those are harder to tackled, but to answer the main question I do support it and we’ll figure out that scale afterwards I suppose,” Habbab said.
Commissioner Liz Russell said she could see the merits of trying to get more units in neighborhoods that are more wealthy and historically more segregated, but she said the Future Land Use Map also established some basic parameters for the community to expect.
“At the same time it’s also contrary to what we’ve said the density and form and height should be in those neighborhoods,” Russell said.
Commissioner Carl Schwarz said he supported the idea.
“For one, it’s not likely to happen unless somebody’s going to give a grant or subsidy so it’s not like we’re going to see 12-unit buildings throughout all of the city,” Schwarz said.
Schwarz added that making this change would fulfill the Comprehensive Plan goal of providing more affordable housing. He said he was not concerned about the issues of form, pointing out that apartment buildings were constructed in the Venable neighborhood before the first zoning code was enacted in 1929.
“So we’re saying, if you can make it work out and get the funding and you can do it, and you have three or four market rate units and everything else over that is affordable, go for it, add up to 12 if you can fit them on the site,” Schwarz said.
Commissioner Rory Stolzenberg said the city should not listen to what he called a minority of skeptics and seek as much affordability as it can by allowing for reduced setbacks and fewer on-street parking spaces.
“To me I think it’s a no-brainer to allow additional bulk and to allow those bonuses,” Stolzenberg said. “At the very least we need to be maxing out the current envelope that a building can be built to.”
Chair Solla-Yates said he supported allowing the additional density.
“I know this will raise some hackles because this could mean some visual changes in some areas but we’re talking about a small number of players who are out to do something and I want to help them,” Solla-Yates said.
Council will make the actual vote.
Councilor Sena Magill said she supported the idea as long as the new rules don’t make it easier to build student housing rather than housing for people with low incomes.
“Students make the classification of being below 50, 60, 40, 30 percent of [Area Median Income] usually. The students are living on loans.” Magill said. “Not that many of our students don’t deserve good housing and fair and affordable housing so they can move forward in life but that’s a separate area for our needs.”
Magill said she didn’t think this would greatly change the character of Charlottesville.
City Councilor Michael Payne said he also supported additional bonuses for density.
“To my mind, in our Comprehensive Plan update and affordable housing strategy, the most important component is deeply affordable housing for zero to 30 percent of [Area Median Income],” Payne said. “The free market won’t provide that deeply affordable housing. That’s going to have to come from subsidy. That’s going to have to come from our Housing Authority and nonprofit developers.”
The Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority has recently begun purchasing property and closed on a property on Montrose Avenue on October 18. They’re also currently overseeing the renovation of Crescent Halls which did not include any additional density above the 105 units on site. Completion of that project has been delayed, as is the opening of new units at South First Street.
Councilor Brian Pinkston also supported the idea and he said the affordability levels could depend on who the developer might be for a specific project. He was not on Council when the Comprehensive Plan was adopted, and he did have a concern how many changes to the Future Land Use Map might be perceived.
“And it feels like this is sort of doing an end run around all those conversations that were had,” Pinkston said.
Mayor Snook was sympathetic to that argument because he said some parts of the city may not be able to handle the additional traffic, whether it be vehicular, pedestrian, or non-motorized.
“We told folks last year that the difference between General Residential and Medium Intensity will be related to things like the carrying capacity of the streets and other issues like that,” Snook said.
Snook said there needs to be a very clear recognition that this approach would not work without deep subsidies. He did not support the idea.
“My first objection to it overall is that I think this is fundamentally different and to some extent a betrayal of what we wound up telling people last year,” Snook said.
Vice Mayor Wade did support the idea and suggested the Housing Authority be specifically listed as one of the entities who would be developing the units.
“It’s not just one thing that can do it,” Wade said. “Here we’re looking at the housing fund, we’re looking at Habitat, Piedmont Housing Alliance, and bonus units and things but i think we need to have the Housing Authority. They know what they’re doing. They know the population. They know how to tap into those funds, some funds they can only tap into.”
Other bits of information:
There would be no more Planned Unit Developments in the new City Zoning ordinance. Hundreds of homes have been built using these customized zoning districts since the 1990’s at density levels higher than allowed under traditional R-1 zoning.
Consultants are suggesting that there be no more discretionary review by City Council or the Planning Commission. That would mean all projects would be judged by staff on a technical basis, such as what’s happening with 245 units at 0 East High Street. More on that project coming in a future edition of the show. (Project to build 245 units at East High Street detailed at site plan conference, October 17, 2022)
No design work has yet been conducted for a sidewalk on Stribling Avenue and other improvements to support 169 units made possible through a rezoning to Planned Unit Development this past April. Southern Development has committed to contributing $2.9 million, but their permission to begin building is not tied to whether the roadway is ever improved. (NDS: Extent of design work for Stribling Avenue sidewalk improvements not known, September 29, 2022)
Other accounts of contemporary events
Va. CEOs say labor shortages, inflation hurting business, Katherine Schulte, Virginia Business, October 25, 2022
Albemarle County resident arrested and charged in connection with noose hung on Homer Statue, Ava MacBlane, Cavalier Daily, October 25, 2022
UVA joins U.S. network preparing for future infectious disease threats, Eric Swensen, UVA Today, October 25
Note from Jim: Market Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt, Appraisals, Baby Back, October 26. 2022
NAHB’s Housing Opportunity Index: Another Metric That Punctures the Charlottesville Affordability Crisis Myth, Citizens for Responsible Planning, October 26, 2022
Closing Time for #449
This one is a bit more wonky than other installments, but then again, that is what many of you are paying for. With almost 450 of these produced, I try to seek a balance, but this one tips way into the realm of details about land use. My goal is to increase general awareness of the importance of these rules.
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October 26, 2022: Charlottesville City Council debates whether additional density should be allowed for "deeply affordable" projects; Albemarle Supervisors adopt Strategic Plan goals