Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

and welcome the public. We have two very familiar faces, so we're glad to see you all. Please give the electronic notice.

This meeting is being recorded and held in person in the fifth floor conference room of City Hall. While staff and apartment planning commissioners are attending the meeting in person, members of the public may choose to participate in the meeting virtually. All written comments that were received by email prior to 12 p.m. today have been provided to the planning commissioners in advance of the meeting. During the public comment period, speakers will be asked to limit their comments to three minutes for an individual or five minutes of representing a group. In addition to verbally stating your name, individuals attending in person are asked to utilize the sheet at the podium to accurately document your name for the public record.

Thank you very much. For purposes of establishing a forum, please call the roll.

Mr. Poole?

Here.

Ms. Greenfield. Here. Steve Burt. Ms. Knight. Here. Mr. Pennock.

Here.

Ms. Robertson. Ms. Rowe. Here. Mr. White.

Here.

And Mr. McKenzie.

Here.

We have a quorum.

Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, we have minutes from August 18th of 2026. Is there a motion? It's approved.

Question.

Need discussion? Voting on approval of August 18th, 2026 minutes, please call the roll.

Mr. Poole.

Aye.

Ms. Greenfield. Aye. Ms. Stephenson. Aye. Ms. Knight. Proceed. Mr. Fennec.

Aye.

Ms. Rowe. Aye. Mr. White.

Aye.

And Mr. McKenzie.

So say.

Motion passes and those minutes are approved.

Mr. Director, I'm going to defer your report for the end of this project. Are there continuances or cancellations from the agenda?

We do. We have two requests for continuances. The first is item three, ordinance 2026-093 to authorize the special use of the property known as 3317 Rear Monument Avenue for the purpose of up to four single family attached dwellings upon certain terms and conditions. And this is a request to continue to the November 2nd meeting.

Is there a motion to continue item number three to November 2nd, 2025? So moved. Second. Any discussion? Hearing none, I'll call the question. We're voting on continuing item number three, 3317 Rear Monument Avenue to November 2nd, 2026. Please call the roll.

Mr. Poole? Aye. Ms. Greenfield? Aye. Ms. Knight? Aye. Mr. Fennec?

Aye.

Ms. Rowe? Yes. Mr. White? Aye. And Mr. McKenzie? Aye. That motion passes. You guys will see that item again in November. We have a second request. It's item four, ordinance 2026-189 to authorize the special use of the property known as 5706 York Road for the purpose of eight single family attached dwellings upon certain terms and conditions. And this is a request to continue to the September 15th meeting, two-week continuance.

Is there a motion to continue item number four, 5706 York Road to September 15th, 2026? So moved. Second. Any discussion? Hearing none, I'll call the question. We're voting on a continuance. Item number four, 5706 York Road to September 15th, 2026. Please call the roll.

Mr. Bull. Aye. Ms. Greenfield.

Aye.

Ms. Knight. Aye. Mr. Penick.

Aye.

Ms. Rowe. Aye. Mr. White.

Aye.

mr mckinsey all right motion passes and you guys will see that again in two weeks very much so we have one item on the consent agenda item 5 udc 2026-13 this is the conceptual location character and extent review of a proposed renovation at little john park located at 1401 little john road so request to be referred to the september 10th urban design committee meeting

That's the consent agenda.

That is the consent agenda.

Any questions from members of the commission on the consent agenda? Hearing none, I'll open a public hearing and ask if there's any member of the public who wishes to speak on the item that's on the consent agenda. Anyone online?

Seeing no one online.

We'll close the public hearing, bring it back to the commission, and ask if there's a motion on the consent agenda. Second. Any discussion? Hearing none, I'll call the question. We're voting on approval of the consent agenda as presented. Please call the roll.

Mr. Bull.

Aye.

Ms. Greenfield. Aye. Ms. Knight. Aye. Mr. Bennett.

Aye.

Ms. Rowe.

Aye. Mr. White.

Aye.

Mr. McKenzie.

Aye.

Motion passes and that item will be referred to the September 10th UDC meeting and you will see it back.

And we have no regular agenda.

There is no regular agenda items.

Mr. Director. Would you like to give us a report on code?

Sure. Thank you very much, director. Just provide an update. Commissioner and. Page three dash twelve point three point two four. You know, he's in a single building located missing the word. So.

There's your typo. See able to. Share.

Great, so purpose of today is to be able to provide an update where we are with draft three to provide. I'll say a high level overview, noting some of the significant changes provided an opportunity for Commissioners if they have any questions to ask questions or clarifying things. I think we discussed at last meeting, talked about this maybe in two parts, and that is today providing an overview. I believe at our next meeting to have another session, maybe consider bringing forward the resolution of intent to officially adopt and amend the zoning ordinance. But I think first thing is to get through today. And if the chair wants to have some discussion or ask questions available to do that, there's homework we need or want to take a deeper dive. We can work on that at our next meeting.

So let's. Sharing this.

Alright, so. Don't have to go through this super full because you are very well versed, but just context right developing as a city. We are following Richmond 300, which is for guide for growth, right? Who we aspire to be as a city and within that the citywide vision and talks. in terms of how we move forward. So a few different maps from nodes, priority neighborhoods, future land use, future connections, and then our five topic visions that we're trying to achieve. Very important there in terms of implementation is six big moves. If we want to be this city that we say we want to be, we've got to do these six big things. And top one is rewrite the zoning ordinance. So that is something we've been heavily working on over the past few years. So why code refresh? Our zoning ordinance that's on the books today cannot get us there. It doesn't align with our master plan, especially when we talk about housing choice, neighborhood walkability, economic vitality, and climate resilience. So we need a zoning code that lets us follow two things, more homes for more people, complete neighborhoods and a diverse economy, beautiful communities, and a sustainable city. And again, pulling from the master plan, you know, Our goal has been to see at what point, instead of looking at these as competing options, how can we get to a yes amp, made it in balancing all of these important objectives that are laid out in Richmond 300. And so craft the draft code. We got Richmond 300, somehow we got to boil that down into a new zoning ordinance. And this planning commission has, elected to have our Department of Planning and Development Review put this code together. And so we've been working on it from some time, and it's really important to kind of look at, right, all the pieces that go into making this code. Most importantly, Code of Virginia saying what we can and can't do. You know, there's a lot of things I think we would like to do or the public would like us to do, but the state has not allowed for that yet. And so a combination of, again, research from our consultants in terms of our pattern book analysis, to the economic analysis, to our zoning advisory committee, their working groups, public comment, internally working with our partners, and then externally whole different mix of stakeholders from very big formal public presentations to very small informal presentations, and then a lot of online presence. So we've been doing this again over the last few years, working through these iterations to get us where we are today and draft through. So I think it's also important to kind of recognize the context of doing all of this and also like what is happening in Richmond. And I think just three things for. You know, framing this contextually, you know one is talking about you know, housing affordability and then the supply issues we have in the city. This is from Mayor Cronenberg. He's an urbanist, he's an architect, he's a developer, and he done a lot of research in terms of looking at housing across larger cities. And so this is for all cities over 100,000 people and looking at different household incomes, right? As a household with a certain income level, like what could you afford and how much housing is out there for you? And he found right across the spectrum, There's a housing of shorting. There's a shortage of housing units for every income bracket that is out there. And right, not just like tens of thousands, but like hundreds of thousands of units that we are short in cities over 100,000 people. And so how this plays out in terms of, and I think we've really seen, you know, demand can increase pretty quickly, but our housing supply is really inelastic, right? It takes a long time to kind of, right, get more housing to fill up and be able to satiate that demand. And simply like, right, when we don't have enough homes, everybody competes for what's available. And so, you know, we've seen, and as we've gone through communities, like neighbors are surprised, like, wow, I never thought like a house in my neighborhood would sell for $400,000, $500,000. But what's happened is in an era of shrinking supply, we have households who come in who can afford it. And maybe those who are living there couldn't afford it, but from the outside, people are coming in and outbidding and driving up prices in areas where that market and that supply is tight. And so in terms of one of the, I'll say, pieces of context we have to acknowledge is, you know, what is happening here in our city and then saying in Richmond in particular, especially post 2020, right, that demand has significantly increased.

That is weird. Sure. Pretty maximum too. for data shows that we're 3.7 million units short across the country and it's because we have not caught up with 2008 session that's across the country obviously not Richmond not Virginia but 3.7 million units and across all yes yeah I think um you know there's good data out there and I and again if you show

graphically, just over time, right, in the US, like how many housing units we've produced per year, the bottom kind of fell out in 2008, it really never has come back. And I think, right, for those of you who work in that industry, you know, like a lot of people just left that industry. You know, with the economics, they shifted and got other jobs and then did not go back in to the home building industry. And I say not just like in terms of like direct construction, but like, yes, direct construction, but then all the other things associated with it in terms of financing and real estate, there's big gaps from where we were prior to that time. And so I'll say we were already kind of a little behind starting then, but yeah, since that point, it's just been even tougher. So thank you for that information. Second piece of context. Richmond is a much different place in 2026 than it was in 1976. So this looks at going back to our census. 1970 is the top bar and 2020 is the bottom bar, right? So this is the most, I'll say recent census prior to a zoning effort. And if you look at 1970, our population was just under 250,000. In 2020, 226,000. We're getting a little bit closer. So latest estimates have us about 239, 240, 241, in 2025. But you're like, wait a minute, the bottom bar is bigger, but our population is smaller. Well, that's because the bars are measuring the number of households we have in the city. And so in 1970, we had just over 80,000 households. Today, we are over 100,000 households, right? So 20,000 more households with fewer people. Why is that? Because Smaller households and we're taking up more space. 73% of households in Richmond are households of one or two people. And so when you think about what that means from again offering housing and what types of products that we have in our city, how does that match up with our household sizes? And so you think about right? You know how much space does a household need? You know there's only can't dictate that or mandate that, looking at, you know, what we have across the city, right? We have a lot of single family detached homes, multiple bedrooms that may only have one or two persons living in them. And so I think you look at this twofold. One is a combination of newer households that are moving here, but also households who have been here a long time of people who are aging in place. And so they've elected to stay here. And so just I think it's important, again, to consider when we talk about zoning and we talk about regulating housing and we talk about, right, providing enough housing to house all those households, it's important to look at this difference. And then a third piece we talk a lot about here is like, why do we make it so difficult? And I think one of the things, you know, a sage piece of advice from Mitch Silver, he's a great public servant. He's been involved in both different communities. If you're lucky enough to see him, I think it was, what, two years ago? started this came to Richmond and you know one of the things he said is like when you talk about your zoning code you should make it easy to do the things that you want and difficult to do the things that you don't want and our code I'll say is a little bit backwards in terms of some of those things and so you look at this neighborhood the house on the left required a special use permit to build even though it's a house that again kind of fits the character the style The temperament of of this whole neighborhood and you like right zoom out. Look at this whole neighborhood. Well, just because it was the last one to arrive on the block and couldn't beat one of our dimensional requirements, it needed especially used. I think right you look at our docket. We did 103 last fiscal year trying to think count. It's a lot, I mean, but we've been over 100 since I've been here, I think. 4 out of the five years, if not five and six years, right? close to 100 special use permits. Many of those being just for one or two family going in. And so we're making it really difficult. We say we need housing and we want to build housing. And even when we talk about single family detached housing, sometimes still make it difficult to do just like the simplest things in terms of development so i think kind of putting these things in context about how um you know we put together a new code it's important to think about right so supply household size and then like the rules to get actually where we want to go so i want to go through and just talk about some of the changes from two to three and these are based around some of the big questions that we discussed we discussed them directly here some of them um what we heard allowing up to three dwelling units on a lot, maybe too rapid a change for some of our residential neighborhoods. So we reduced the maximum number of dwelling units in residential districts to one primary dwelling unit and one accessory dwelling unit under 1,200 square feet. If your ADU is detached, it's going to be smaller than the primary. And so if you look at how many dwelling units on a lot, this is what our current code allows. So just a quick way to interpret this. Blue means it's an existing building. Red means it's new construction. P means it's the principal. A means it's accessory. And so today, we passed three years ago an ordinance that allows accessory dwelling units by right on units that have one dwelling unit, you're allowed to add another accessory dwelling unit up to a third of the size of the principal dwelling unit. Or there's a base of 500 square feet if you have something smaller. And so The proposed code increases the maximum allowable out to 1,200 square feet, but then it also contains some provisions in terms of, again, allowing for development that's contextual to the neighborhoods in which it exists. So, 1,200 square feet, and I'll say adding to that here is it cannot be larger than the principal dwelling in it. And it's also the lesser of 20 feet. or the primary dwelling unit. So if you only have a one-story dwelling, your ADU will only be able to be one story. And then the footprint of all your accessory buildings shall not exceed the footprint of the primary building. So if you have a garage or shed or some other things in there, those all count against the coverage and those cannot exceed what your principal dwelling unit is. And again, the thought is like, if it's accessory, it should be de minimis to what the principal or primary structure is on that lot. How many people in a household? Well, we heard, we said allowing eight individuals, unrelated individuals, may lead to overcrowding. We came up with that eight based on some things in Code of Virginia that allowed for group living up to eight individuals. And so what we changed, and again, this is separate from Code of Virginia requirements. There are certain stipulations for by right group living for individuals with disabilities. We changed the definition of household to include not more than five adults. And so I'll say some of the guidance we got was we needed a number, so we're coming back with a number.

How do we make new development more sustainable?

What we heard is, hey, these new developments are coming in, paving the whole lot and contributing to increased stormwater runoff and urban heat. And so what we changed is we added Minimum vegetation space, which requires actual real vegetation to every new development in almost every district. I have almost there because we don't have a minimum requirement in open space in our cemetery districts. But I'll just say by their nature, you can't really build much there anyway. We need to, we can't reinforce it. But there's now a minimum standard for having something, right, permeable and alive in every zoning district. this is an addition to minimum tree canopy requirements that are as high as code of virginia allows i think also part of clarifying this is you know we talk about making development more sustainable today um i noticed use r1 as an example right it says maximum block coverage in that district shall not exceed 20 of the area of a lot but it's really important to remember when you look at lot coverage in our definitions it means the portion of the lot that's covered by buildings What it does not say, it says nothing about the minimum amount of vegetative space or tree canopy on a lot. And there's nothing about the maximum amount of space in a lot that may be covered by impervious surfaces.

I have a question. Yeah. The lot coverage. And I don't have a personal opinion to this. I'm really just trying to understand. I know many houses in my neighborhood, the building cover exceeds 20% of the period of the lot. The original dwelling and the amount of additions that have been put on some don't even have any backyards it's just a tiny little front guard how does so obviously what's done is done but now we're saying going forward we're trying to match the character of the neighborhood someone couldn't do that same addition or would they have to go through the sup sure um so i will say within the new districts um some of the percentages did come up a little bit to allow for um

And I'll say when we did our testing of like looking at what coverage was for the RD, for the detached zoning districts, I'll say about 90, at least 90% of lots would be conforming when it came to coverage. So we looked at like, and I think this is a reason if you remember draft one coverage, lot coverage is really high. And we got some pushback on it saying, whoa, that's a lot of coverage. And then we went back and did some more analysis this appointment, the exact one, but one of the exact meetings we talked about, right? We showed the bell curves. Yes. And so we tried to get it where we at least get 90% in there. So there may be a few cases where they might exceed. And so they may need a special use permit. Or again, like we're talking about pathways that may be through the Board of Zoning Appeals for certain types of exceptions. But but essentially, we're trying to and will capture most development as being conformed. other thing is if you look at um and each of the districts has a i'll call like a two-page panel right that talks about like form and building requirements you'll see that lot coverage is increased um if you have a second dwelling unit and so that is the the goal was to say look if you're rather than building one huge unit the incentive is to build two units and then maybe not quite as large but you get a little bonus if you have a second unit instead of just one And so that analysis on coverage is also kind of based on where we're at with one unit today. Just the last thing is there are some exceptions that don't count for coverage for like porches and decks and things that are covered, but like unconditioned. So that's why maybe some can seem a little bit larger than.

Yeah, there's a lot of that. So they literally people's backyard. It's just that they're having.

Yeah.

All right, minimizing impacts of new development. We heard, we hear it here a lot, right? Greater assurance about what those impacts may be and say probably top of the line is talking about traffic, right? The increased traffic that this development will bring. And so what we changed is requiring uses that generate substantial amounts of vehicular traffic. So things like doing stations, drive-throughs, car washes, service and repair shop, vehicle sales, rental businesses, things that are literally designed to generate auto traffic and generate people going in and out. Most of them has been removed as permitted uses in the non-industrial districts. We also eliminated the C district, CG district, which allowed many of these uses by right. And so they will most likely require special use permits, which gives this body the opportunity to make recommendations to council to figure it out, depending how big it is, like how do you mitigate those negative impacts? Also talking about minimizing impacts is I think one of the things is important is a scale of what uses may be. And so you'll see in some of the use tables that in categories there's different sizes or different parameters depending on how big that use is. So for example, food and beverage, if it's only going to be 1,500 square feet or less, it's permitted in a few more areas, again, with some stipulations. A P star means it's permitted with some special conditions than would be something 3,000 square feet or bigger than 3,000 square feet. So trying to, again, kind of calibrate that smaller things, look, they could be found in the right places in some of the residential districts, but larger, they're more of it for the mixed use districts. And so looking at how we balance those, you will also see there's a lot more Cs in this chart. And so an emphasis being on our ability to use more conditional use permits. And I think we will still have, and we'll always have, a special use permit and a special use permit process, which is, I think, really good when it talks about, you know, coming up with particular conditions for form of structures. But it's really tough when it comes to use. And I think one of the challenges we have, right, is that the special use permit runs with the land. And so you start out with a really great user and then, you know, a decade down the line, they sell it to like a not so great and maybe 10 years later they sell it to like a really terrible user who is entitled with that use and things don't go the way I'll say they're intended to. So I think in our ability to have a conditional use permit process where we can have stipulations that are more temporal. And I think you've seen our recommendations for nightclubs recently, right? They go for 18 months and so right, let's see how it goes. And then when they come back, you can see how they've been operating Make recommendations based on that. So I think the ability to be able to like have some of that differentiation gives you know this body and then Council a lot more. You know, I'll just say a greater ability to prevent things from going sideways sooner than later. The only places worship draft two. We took places of worship. It's on the next three. So pretty much across the board, across the city. And that was based on some discussion about, all right, furthering different types of housing products and development in neighborhoods, and also being able to introduce commercial to places that might not have had it, or people said, hey, I want to be able to walk to something in my neighborhood. But we also understood like just MX3 as a standalone may lead to some small or large scale commercial uses. that really didn't fit in those. So we changed places of worship to a variety of our RM districts based on where they are located. So an RMA, which now allows up to four units, RMB is 12 units, RMC is kind of a low rise. There's no limit on the units, but it's limited to four stories. RMAs, like if it's deep in the neighborhood or on a smaller street, RMBs a little bit busier, and then RMCs in some of the more urban areas, or even, again, major corridors, maybe one of the MXs. But this was to balance allowing for different types of housing products. But then also, again, if you remember that chart, like some smaller scale commercial, maybe 1,500 square feet, depending where they were located. High-frequency transit corridors. Zoning high-frequency transit corridors. And again, part of Richmond 300 focused on density, development, growth in nodes and along corridors. And so one of the challenges is taking those that have a pretty extensive and historic built environment. So we have a lot of transit corridors that had two story buildings where we had zoned MX4, MX5 and MX7. There is some concern that that may encourage demolition, displacing local business tenants. I think if you've read through some of the RKG studies, you can see that Overall, throughout the city, there's just not a lot of demolition happening because it's very expensive to demo a building and then put something in its place that you'll be able to recoup your costs. Nonetheless, we changed several of these transit corridors that have mostly two-story to MX3 with some select MX5 on corners or vacant lots. Neighborhood mixed use areas concerned that in draft two RMA was six units and so those buildings and it's not a ton but that at three units would be able to go from three to six might be too rapid of change and so we reduce the maximum number of building units for RMA from six to four and apply that in the map I'll say just overall right we have a lot of I'll say two units three units four units we don't have a lot of fives to sixes. It's kind of like a weird spot. So those then that would be five and up would move to the RMB, which allows up to 12 units. Oh, we heard too many parcels zoned in RDC would be eligible for bi-rate lot subdivision. This is a tough one, right, in terms of it's kind of the, you know, most dense detached areas. And so there's a lot of variation in lot widths. but we felt that when we looked through again, that yes, you could by right split a lot of the lots. Again, from a practical standpoint, you also have to consider like where that house is and if the house is right in the middle, you can't split it. Nonetheless, moving from 25 to 30 feet, I think made us a lot better in terms of conforming where our RDA and RDB standards were in terms of like how many lots you could split by right, which gets it down, I think each of those is somewhere around like two to 3%. And so RDC was a lot higher. I think it was like eight or 9%. So to get that closer to those percentages. And then what we heard, you mapped it wrong. People always said it like that nicely to us. And so what we changed is, again, this is based on some of the changes in the code, but changing some of the RA and RMA lots to reflect existing conditions. Again, trying to match what's on on the ground there today. We had an RMS to better reflect garden style low rise apartment complexes. So RMC again is a low rise up to four stories and allows for an unlimited number of units. It's meant for an urban context. The RMS was meant for a little bit more suburban context. So there is still some push towards urban form right about buildings fronting the street, but it's not as intensive as the RMC in more urban areas. And then adding CMP, which is our campus district, to better reflect nuances in their institutional uses. So big institutional users, VCU, University of Richmond, VUU, that have lots of buildings, right, organized around courtyards or green spaces, multiple buildings. Those got a campus designation versus institutional. It's still used on, I'll say, single structures. They'd only take up a parcel or block. So schools, libraries, other government facilities that are just kind of in one spot, we separated those out. So that is a overview of the major

changes and now for the chair how you want to handle question earlier discussion from this i'm sure we have a multiple number would we just like to mr white you want to start i'll start it off sure uh i think um this third draft is is the best i've seen in this process and i i'm hopeful that we can move towards adoption i think i love the uh growth the conditional use controls and some of the, I think it was politically necessary to get us back to having some single family zoning. But I do still have some real concerns about some of the building standards that just kind of putting this out there and I will speak in terms of multifamily because that's the financing that I understand the best. But for most buildings like that, you would need 10% of your building to be open space, which means you got to build it and you got to maintain it, but you don't get any rent. You got to have bicycle storage for one out of every three or one out of every four units. It's a lot. You got to have an expensive tree canopy, and then you got to wire for 10% of your parking spaces with wiring and conduit for electrical vehicles. Doing all that stuff together, coupled with the reality that the city is eager to adopt the recently authorized inclusionary zoning, I'm at a loss to understand how this isn't gonna bring some multifamily residential development to a stop. That's my concern. Most of the rest of it, I'm happy and comfortable with, but wanted to put that out there.

Commissioner White said, I agree. And I guess I'm trying to figure out like what problem we're trying to solve, particularly for multifamily buildings, because they're already going to respond to the market and put in amenity spaces, particularly whether it's a pool or a clubhouse, they're putting in something. So I'm not sure. like what the complaint is that we're trying to solve for about making this kind of mandated percentage that could really challenge projects for penciling out. But I think it'll be an absolute deal killer for smaller infill projects where they will not be able to pencil out with a 10%, particularly on the amenity space. I understand tree canopy, vegetative. I heard that loud and clear throughout the stack. That is very important. i think the amenity space discussion is project specific and you know just assigning a percentage to it is is going to be deal breaker for some projects it needs to be something that's discussed project by project maybe in order as a policy that is of importance sure um i think maybe just in context of rationale or raising for um

some of these standards. I think in terms of, you know, amenity space, vegetation space, I think a concern in terms of trying to address is the amenity space is right. Being able to talks about charter and code access to like fresh air, light, those types of things. And so the thought is, OK, can you provide that in some of these denser projects? I think one of the things also in there is from draft two to draft three scraped a lot of I'll say like more nitpicky detailed requirements in there. I think in draft two there's a lot of things about specificity about like seating and coverage and things like that. I think this is more focused on just the percentage. Still in there though is a reduction in percentage if that is accessible to the public. And I think that was given from The desire to be able to introduce more I'll say semi public spaces and areas where like we just don't have them. And so there's a benefit for the public if you're opening up that or any space to them and there's a benefit for the developer and that is you only have to do half as much if it's open to the public.

Real quick, who maintains that? So I mean, developers obviously going to pay some sort of property management firm that's going to be cost built into the tenant's rent. And then if it's a for sale, like a simple product where we require HOAs, because otherwise like that's an added cost or you're basically telling people the HOA or a private management company is going to maintain the space they pay the rent and mortgage for and everyone can use it. Seems a little flawed to me.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, and look, I think in terms of we talk about balancing objectives, I mean, some of the You know, things that we've heard through this process is like, okay, um, I'm good with like density and I'm good with development, but I want some quality that goes along with it. And this is a way to, I'll say indirectly, um, put some things in there. I think the addition of a vegetation space, I think it also tries to make clear, um, in terms of, again, just the challenges like we have with urban storm water and heat that vegetation coming in there. But I also want to make sure that it's understood that I'll say in part of the Venn diagram, like some of these things can be overlapped. It's not separate. And so if that amenity space is like a lawn or a vegetated area, like it can double count. And I think trying to be flexible with the vegetation space, you know, in terms of like with amenity space, right, there's minimums for like right dimensional things. And the vegetation space can be cumulative or like added up in like the nooks and crannies across the parcel. The you know, and so I think just in terms of where we landed with some of those, I think some of those percentages. Have come down and and. Where we were at and then tried to make them, I'll say like as least intrusive as possible, and I'll say this is yeah, we're we're starting to hit pinch points of like trade offs in terms of like the cost of things versus the I'll say. amenities or quality that that this code is asking for in some of those new projects.

MX 13 as an example proposed once. Built to the. Uh, property line, right? You don't. You don't want things set back right in the next 13, right? So if you've got. Uh, 12 or 13 story building there. really your only option for open space is on the roof. You can't get 10% on the roof if you've got a 12-story building.

Yeah, or I mean, I guess it could be on the ground because your building coverage is so limited to 90%. You can't cover the whole lot with the building. And so that's, I guess we're trying to make it over and above so the math worked. And so... Yeah, and I would say then if it, and again, the challenge, like there's a cost, but if it's open to the public, then it's down to 5%. There's still 5% workload.

I would just point out that my experience with apartment residences, they value security. They don't want anybody in the city to be able to come on to where they live and do as they please.

I don't disagree. And I would say it's a fee simple project. I'm not going to pay my HOA fees to let just anybody come in and area that I'm paying to maintain. I know the position that the city is in, but this, I mean, that's right. There's privacy issues, there's cost and getting back to making some of these projects work. You're going to end up, as Brian said, possibly with vanity space on the roof where people are going to be looking to cut parking, which is not required. But when it comes to financing, it's required, and it may not be required in the code, but it's still very much required to get cases passed.

Is there a definition of amenity space? I'm sorry. Yes.

Let's go section development standards. And there. So section 2-6-7. Yeah.

Sorry, just had to scroll on a little bit. something specific when we tackle 269 really comment out directly space. Okay.

Just to point out my other point again about 12-story buildings, you're going to have some air conditioning units up there. You can try to ram them as much as you want. But if you're covering 90% of the lot and you can use a third of the roof for your outdoor space because you've got air conditioning units on the other two-thirds, I just don't see how anybody could be able to do that. I'd love to see somebody show me on a piece of paper how that could work.

Particularly for a space that is more of a project-specific, because every project is going to be different based on the size, the space, the lot of availability, and I can guarantee you will lose units and driverates on this.

Old guarantee there.

I feel confident and I've seen three case studies applying it to projects.

Other questions, Mr. White? Yeah. Ms. Greenfield?

Yeah. I'll just say one more thing, I think, just in terms of, again. Take notes. Take notes. trying to balance a lot of competing parts of this is that like I acknowledge like there is going to be, right, there is a cost with doing some of these things that impacts the cost of housing. I think the trade off that we have looked at through the code is the trade off is the savings that you will get by hopefully us moving more things from requiring a special use to a buy right. And so taking away the holding costs, the risk costs that goes in, with having something for nine months, a year or more. Again, it's not exactly be a one for one in every case, but I think that was some of the balance that we were looking at in terms of like, if we're going to make things more by right.

To one of the points you made at the very beginning, and that is the goal for the zoning is encourage those things that you want and discourage things that you don't want. It sounds to me like if you're making it more expensive to build, you're discouraging that.

Yeah, and I'll say, right, this is the yes and of like what you've heard, I think, pretty clear from the public that we want this zoning ordinance to bring more green, to bring more vegetation, to bring more amenities to projects. So we're trying to figure out how to do that with balancing the cost piece. You know, and so I think that's

these are the balancing things that we're stuck with.

Well, I appreciate the acknowledgement of moving things through thicker because of the SEP, but relatively what's in these chapters is going to make the site plan probably double. And so it's great. It's going to look good. We're going to have green, we're going to have trees, but it's going to come at a cost. And I think it's going to be a real challenge with the site plans, which not followed. That's not an issue with PDR. Just put that up there.

I have a question, but it's more in relation to the conversation about the housing shortage that we have nationwide. And you mentioned the essentially the fallout of housing in 08 and how everyone just stopped building. Do we know what the shortage was of households in 08 compared to now? Is that a data point that we can find out?

Yeah, let me I'm back because I know there's some things I want to make sure I align some of the numbers that our housing and community development has been at. I know it's in say tens of thousands range, but I just I want to be able to come back with you for like the exact numbers of what they feel we are missing in the city of Richmond. I was going to say nationwide or the city. So the city. Yeah, I can come back with some numbers specific to the city because I know we've talked about it before. I feel in terms of one of the things that we feel the code and where we're at in terms of like housing production. So like last, we've been putting say online anywhere between, I'll say on average about 2,500 units per year. This past fiscal year, we just finished up. We actually put 3,000, so at the higher end of things. But in terms of like, again, that's just to say kind of keeping up, it's not addressing like some of the deficit that's been out there. So I will, for the 15th, make sure to get some of those data points to show like how far we need to catch up.

Do you have, and also data points between single family and multifamily? Yes. So the housing, the way that it's set up with the primary and the accessory, do you think that we're going to, I know we're trying to solve for a problem, but I can see us having an influx of SUPs. for subdividing the lots and trying to accommodate for adding more units. And so are we solving a problem or are we creating more work?

Sure.

So I think, again, the goal is to be working on solving issues. Let me just go back up to like one of the residential detached areas. So I'll just pull out like RDFV. Um, so when you look at, um, you know, massing and the building, sorry, coverage is that in most of the districts, like if you're going to do an accessory dwelling in it, get greater allotment of lot coverage. that you're able right whether you're adding on if you just do it inside your house right it doesn't make a difference but if you're adding on or building a separate detached units there's an increase in all the zoning districts for more allowable lot coverage then in terms of like if you were to be in a space where you wanted to sell that instead of rent it there are provisions for doing sub-lotting where you could after creation of the dwelling unit create a sub-lot so the Zoning conditions like all the coverage still apply to I'll say the master lot, but you could create a fee submit sub lot to sell off as an administrative process. You would not have to go through a special use permit to sell. I'll say like the ADU. Now if you wanted to create a whole new like fee simple lot with subject like all these new requirements and you didn't meet those requirements, you would have to go through a special use to create that. But the intent was like, hey, on this lot, if you're building an accessory unit, you shouldn't have to go through that process. So that's why the sub lot provision is in there.

Converted garage, so someone converts their garage and you're accounting for the square footage. Does it matter that it's now converted because that would increase the allowable square footage for the EDU? Or are you saying it does not?

So like, let's say you have an existing house and a garage. The garage is used as garage right now, and they want to convert the garage to the ADU.

They just want to convert the garage, right? Which then increases the footprint of the house, which then increases the potential footprint of the ADU.

I'm not understanding.

Am I wrong?

So like, is a garage attached or detached from the house? Attached.

Attached.

So if you're attaching it, so the increase in... lot coverage is for whether that ADU is attached or detached. So it doesn't matter. So you're still allowed the increase on lot coverage because you added that second unit to it.

So say you have a house that has a garage that is attached right now. And then I just convert that garage into usable space. It's not an ADU. And then I add an ADU to the property. I've now increased the footprint, which then increases the allowable ADU, correct? Footprint as well.

Got it.

okay yeah so part of it would be like if your garage right now if it's conditioned and conditioned space counts in terms of coverage but like once you do let's assume it wasn't and it does move to a fully conditioned space then yes you would be increasing like the area of your principal dwelling units So that yes, therefore you would be able to build a larger ADU. Again, still subject to the 1200 cap, the height cap, the space coverage cap. But yes, that there would be some proportionality there that I'll answer yes.

Sure.

Your residential detached districts where you made the limit one plus one, correct? The attached, does that allow two principles, right? It does. Help me understand the logic. Sure. So that's going to have particularly, potentially effects in the fan, museum district, Churchill, things of that nature.

Maybe. And I'll say maybe, but probably not.

I guess potential and maybe are up there.

OK, well so. Sorry, I've gotta reload. It just crashed out.

So if you talk about the residential. Sorry. The residential attached allows for two primary dwelling units, but it still also only allows for two dwelling units on a lot. So what I'm saying by that is if you have a building You can have two principal units within that same building. If you build a second building, a detached building, it has to be an accessory dwelling unit. You cannot build a principal, you cannot have two principal, to clarify your question, you cannot have two separate principal buildings on that plot. They have to be two principal units in one plot. So you could have, right, a 4,000, square foot building split into two 2,000 square foot units. A duplex. A duplex, by right. You could not have a 2,000 square foot building and then build another 2,000 square foot building. It would still have to apply to the stipulations for the accessory dwelling. So it's still only two units. The duplex can only happen, again, if they're both in the same building. So you could not, if you have that duplex, you could also not add an ADU, so you can't get to three. So it's still two. Part of, again, the thread is that most of the areas that are going into RA are the R6, R7, R8, which allow for two units by right. Again, there's some technicalities and the weirdness about like the lot coverage, especially for attached units, but most of those do have As a start right now, the ability to do a duplex, so we're continuing that with the R80.

I'm guessing, but in the fan, probably 60% of the houses in the fan don't meet the R6 requirements.

In the fan? So if you take a look at the core of the fan or museum district, it's closer to 80%.

So if you make that distinction between the attached and the detached, you're allowing more duplexes, whereas on the detached, you're allowing a principal and an ADU. Strikes me that you're... I don't understand why the difference. And that's why I think there's a potential for a major effect in those districts like the fan museums. Churchill, maybe Oregon Hill, maybe.

Yeah. I think if you look, and again, part of the code is putting together, you know, what the current zoning is, but it's also looking like what exists on the ground. And if you look at the fabric of a lot of the areas that have RA, you'll see that there's been, that there are a lot of units that I'll say are like legally nonconforming duplexes. But prior to, like, I'll say the advent of 76 code and even before that, like you've had, I'll just say it's common for those buildings to go from one unit to two units or two units back to one unit. And so in terms of the fabric that's there, the ability for somebody to, you know, convert to two units, I think maybe just reestablishes the historic context of how those neighborhoods were built.

I would suggest that many of the non-conforming uses in those areas that were built prior to World War II became non-conforming during World War II because of the need for additional housing. You see this doing the same thing?

I would say potentially, I think it's no secret in terms of like what I showed in terms of household sizes, like 73% are one and two people. And so if somebody has an opportunity to look at a dwelling that has four bedrooms in one unit and be able to convert it into something that can house two households, I think there may be a market section to do it. And again, at the end of the day, like it's going to be up to every individual property owner, all they want to is their property. And so whether they do or not, but I think in terms of that's one of the things that we were looking at when we look at the size of housing stock compared to the size of households, I don't have a number for you, but like, there's a lot of unused bedrooms out there in terms of like how we efficiently use our space. And so I think the ability to look at either, and again, whether it's carving out a second unit, I'll say accessory dwelling unit in size, which they could by right, right to up to 1200 in the inside, or today they could do up to a third to just move that. So you could have two equal units. I think, yeah, I mean, it fits in in terms of like recognizing post-World War II, right? There was a definite demand for a lot of housing very quickly. And I think part of this is responding to that. And the same aspect, I think what you will see is, you know, still at the end of the day, like preservation of the existing housing stuff. Again, one of the things that if you look at it, the RKG analysis, when it looked at demolitions, and one of the analyses they did, you know, is back when you can actually have three units, like they just weren't a lot of demolitions in the city. And then so they found like it didn't make financial sense to do some of that. And so I think, yeah, you'll see the creation of housing units, but not through like the demolition of existing ones today.

I'm moving on to the ability to take church property in residential areas. And I have a specific example in mind. Look, in Wilmington, there's a church there that owns six different lots. Basically from Wilmington to Laburnum, pretty much half of the block.

And then they have another lot across the street.

What are they going to be able technically, with the way you've got the zoning ordinance established or proposed, what will they be able to do there?

Sure. So, are these the lines?

As a matter of fact, just to be clear, I don't think that church is going anywhere. They're going gangbusters, but they bought it from a church that folded. So, It does happen.

Sure.

Yeah. Yep. Just the map. This is what you're looking at. Here's Brooke. Here's one. It's just kind of like the south side of Alexandria. It's Bellevue.

These parcels right here. Yep. Commissioner Fould's question is specifically to what is allowed with the city. The judges are going to have all different by right enabling authority state soon.

So yeah, I totally get it.

This this does not. Address that legislation and there may be forthcoming legislation that city or code of Virginia. The city has an option to produce a local ordinance that would meet the intent of it. I'll just say we've discussed it internally, but there's it's not in this.

I'm just making sure for the public listening that you know there just will be opened up for more opportunity.

Without a doubt.

Without cover brush.

Without a doubt. That is correct. So this, right now, there are two parcels. And just so I'm absolutely clear, right, like all the RM districts do allow places of worship and assembly uses like to continue. So we're not zoning any of those uses out. Correct. They have two parcels. Each of those parcels is zoned RMA. So on this parcel, they could have up to four billing units. And on this parcel, they could have up to four. That's what would be allowed. One of the changes also from draft two to draft three.

It's on the south side of Wilmington.

This one, they on this one too? Yeah. Yep, same thing, RMA.

Some would also be more about the L-shape on the north side.

Right now I have three parcels for them. One, two, and three.

I can't quite see what you're talking about.

Okay, two on the north side of Wilmington, one on the south side of Wilmington. So three parcels. As it rates now, each of those parcels would allow up to four dwelling units.

They own the ones on Laburnum too.

Down here?

Oh, going up.

That's Laburnum Park.

Go north.

Up here?

Yes, those three there.

Sure. These are RDB, which is still a detached one plus one. unit plus maybe. Okay.

I'm not trying to do anything other than basically understand what your goal is and putting specific rules with respect to that.

Yeah. I will say just for clarity, one of the changes.

There's multiple churches around the city that are having trouble surviving.

Yeah. So again, I think the thought Back again, the next three was still like look provide. Back up one of the reasons we looked at places of worship was really from I'll say geography and that they are some of. The largest land owners in some neighborhoods and or there's sometimes like at strategic corners or busier corners. So if you were to introduce any type of like housing product, I'll say that's denser than what exists in the community. Or you were to introduce. any type of commercial like these would probably be more appropriate places to do so. Again, MX3 probably went too far. And so with the RMB, it allows four units per lot. A change from two to three is in the RMs. In draft two, it said number of units per building. In draft three, it's number of units per building and number of units per lot. that is to be much more clear about like ultimately like how many units could you see here so for you know the one that's on brook itself like a sanctuary building that can house four units you could build a four plex outside you could build four row homes again like meeting some of the other requirements like there's two duplexes but a max of four dwelling units on that lot um if it's a larger lot and say you wanted to do more than that well then you would have to go through a subdivision process. Subdivision process, again, in most cases, under 50, right, is administrative. But then I'll say like the check and balance on that is that's a review by city agencies to make sure there's a sufficient infrastructure about like, right, creating new lots and being able to service all of those. So I think this was a way to try and balance the ability to, right, do more, survive, or again, right, housing products that didn't otherwise exist in a way that, again, stayed with some context in the neighborhoods. And that's why we went back to the RMs, which I think you can see, right, in some of the neighborhoods, like how they show up generally, right, places of worship end up being those RMs.

Thank you.

One of the major factors or tenets of Richmond 300 was preservation of existing neighborhoods, both residential and commercial. Do you feel the buffers that are currently proposed along Broad, Main, Cary and Wall Street are sufficient to protect the existing buildings, the existing businesses and the existing residential?

Can you define what you mean by buffers? Well, setbacks, sure. Yes, if you look at.

Pull up the section here. It's called the right. In. Section 4.4, if you look at.

So this talks about transitions and screening and. In short, the chart shows how much transition and how much screening you need between two different zoning districts. And premise is the greater apart they are, the more disparate they are, like the more transition stuff you need, the more space, the more trees, or in some cases, the more step back and setback you need on buildings. And so in cases where you have, I'll say, right, MX five and up, right? because most residential districts, right, still have a three-story height limit. Again, contextual standards, but like there's nothing else there, three stories. So MX3, mix and match with those, it's just an A standard, which I'll show is just generally just like some spacing or screening. A B standard is like really like deep separation, and then the C standard is both, but also has some impacts on the building. If you look at, right, so A is just, hey, like a little separation, but your buildings are going to kind of be generally the same height. B is like a little more space and a little thicker screen in there. And then C is where you get into actually stepping back buildings. And so this is where it requires, and again, differences whether or not there's an alley or not, so you account for alley width, but it's set back. And then as the building goes up, once you get, You know, you have to have that first setback and in terms of what can be right at the line is only three stories. Then there has to be 15 feet before you can go up to five stories and another 15 feet before you can get the rest, which 713 or unlimited. And so this, I think, helps to have some of that spacing. It's very similar to what's in the TOD one right now. tries to make the math easier than instead of an inclined plane by just having some straight numbers, which have been difficult, right, when the line is not exactly straight. But this...

Conversation on TOD 1 on Broad and Grace as far as what the separation was between Broad's TOD and the residential on Grace. Do you feel like this is better or just...

easier to do the math um it's both so i think it's it's better and is easier to do the math i think the other thing if you look particularly at broad street itself and and the angle we did do some preliminary uh shadow modeling because i think there was concerns about shadows and actually the majority of shadows get cast because of the orientation of the street and the way to say like can't change the sun's orbit, at least not yet, most of the shadows get cast to the west, not to the south. And I would say the extreme test, right, when the sun is on the furthest north at the solstice in June, very early on, like tested that, the shadows are going west, maybe a little bit into the alley, but like they're not casting on degree stream.

Two more questions.

As you know, I'm the representative from the Board of Zoning Appeals. I was trying to find, are all of the current special exceptions that exist today included in that section six?

Yes. So all the ones are in there today.

we have discussed and as we're going through, if you go to 6.2.8, that is where we start talking about some of that.

Variances and exceptions.

And so talking about things in terms of both from the perspective of the zoning administrator, but also the Board of Zoning Appeals, all of the ones that we're in that we do currently have all come over. Talked about potentially, go ahead.

There might be, I think there might be, excuse me, I might be messing it up.

So because the charter has some variance rules and also some specific rules for city owned properties. I just couldn't find where that was in here. But you're comfortable that all of that's included?

Yes. And I will say part of our review at the city attorney is for diving into some of the sections about variances and exceptions to make sure we'll go to the Code of Virginia and also those charter provisions so that all of those things that we can do will be in there.

I just want to make sure they're there because, as you know, I feel like that board runs a pretty tight ship and I don't want to lose what we're able to do there. I think You made mention earlier in one of your comments that you might be looking for the BGA to be able to help make this easier.

Right. And so that's one of the things in terms of we've discussed some sections where, again, working with the city attorney's office to determine would those be eligible to be either put as some type of variance or exception to see if there's paths forward so that, right. that you would not have to go through a special use permit case to do some of these things. And so, yes, that is something that I'll say between this and the final version for introduction. One, we'll make sure that, right, this is Code of Virginia compliant and has all the things that we need, but that is one from an administrative perspective, want to make sure that, and again, as we talk about some of these challenges, like are there ways to get exceptions without having to go through that BZA process?

Do form-based regulations apply to the old and historic districts?

Yes. And so in terms of like, right, the things that talk about like forms of the building. Yes.

I just couldn't find a distinction on that.

Yeah. I mean, yes, to the extent that I'll say they don't get in the way of car rules. I think we're trying to make that more explicit um and again in the verbiage that the uh the language for city one historic districts i mean actually has like the teeth and that needs to have to make sure that that board can you know implement uh decisions that doesn't really respect that that's the old historic district so i'll say in terms of like being able to if there's a conflict between, like, the base form regulations and CAR, that CAR would be able to prove it. And that's where I'm going, is, like, I think the way we've looked at it, like, a lot of the form regulations are just, like, basic urban form regulations. They're not going to be really out of sync with, like, things that, like, CAR is looking for in historic homes. Like, they're, I'll say, for the most part, historic urban principles over time of just, like, doors, windows, and spacing that I don't think in the way again, like maybe I don't think we have, but just say we'd have some list district that like has no windows on anything. Maybe it'd be a tough one there, but like right for the most part, our districts are in line with just those basic form requirements.

One last thing you, you made mention of the conditional use permits. Do you perceive them? as providing more flexibility and encouraging more folks to use those rather than the special usefulness?

I'm going to say yes. I think in terms of the ability to condition temporal limits is a huge advantage. or a special use permit. And I think it's in some cases with some of the difficult special use permits we've wrestled with here. If there were a conditional use permit option, maybe it would have moved forward, but there wasn't. And so we can't make one up. And so I think that it will be something that provides just better flexibility and better compliance and better, I'll say recourse if things don't go well in terms of according to plan. Yes, there's recourse with a special use permit, but I'll say like those that have a left versus, you know, a conditional use permit that has an expiration date of 18 months. Sure, there might be a way to, again, revoke that early, but like at the end of the day, council would be under no obligation to do a new one.

Other questions? Yeah.

Can you just touch on that a little bit more? What do you envision swapping out the conditionals with the SUPs? Like what is an example of a case that might have been an SUP now that moves to condition?

Yeah.

I think SUPs are good for like, getting over form requirements and getting over things that like really aren't going to change much, right? So when you talk about like the placement and the envelope of a building, like generally, right, you hope a good new building is going to last 50, 75, 100 years. There it is, right? When we talk about uses of like saying, okay, this is a restaurant use or like, I mean, I can bring up a case in terms of, you know, Lavender Hill. where we talked about like what is this and it's event space and so like how do you define some of those things and again trying to think about it long term that if you allow for this use to be codified through an sup like it's going to remain in perpetuity and so regardless of operator right they're going to pass on those rights to somebody in the future i think what you can do or with a conditional use permit is like again The first, the biggest thing I think is in terms of like the temporal piece of it, but then additional conditions that either one, you can have some pre-banked in the ordinance, which some of these do for, for example, for small retail commercial in residential areas, right? It already starts out saying your conditional use, you know, it's limiting your hours between. And so there's some expectation of like, I kind of know what I'm getting into within the ability, again, based on, I'll say warrant, Add more conditions to make sure like that thing does what it's supposed to do. And then so I just think the conditional use and you see it right now. I'll say for a handful of uses right in our current code. Retail sales, liquor, nightclubs, some adult uses, right? Like it's a it's a tighter. I'll say you know. Pullback period in case something else happens with it, and so it's like as we discussed, why couldn't we use? that process or that tool to do more uses where, like, there might be more notes or potential to, like, have something not great happen. Got it.

Thank you. Looking back at a few previous drafts, I know that some corridors have been upzoned, you know, MX3 to MX4 and such. Was that based entirely off of, like, public feedback or staff decision based off of some type of metric?

Yeah. Uhm, so I will say if we look at I'm gonna.

Our maps. You know. The biggest thing I think was. Really looking at.

Maybe you want me to pull it up, but really starting with like Richmond 300. that looked at, okay, these corridors, these corridors generally had one of the more intense use categories. So they had either a community mixed use or a corridor mixed use. And so again, right, if we're saying, correct me if I get these wrong, but community mixed use, I think was like up to six stories and corridor mixed use was up to 10 stories. um is saying like look future land use like we're good with kind of like this intensity and density of development along these corridors now the zoning that gets us there doesn't have to go to the vax in every situation in areas where maybe there is more vacancy or more parking lots or more things that like you know are say more of a blank slate than and I'll say also have the infrastructure that's ready, then maybe you do zone something like more appropriately, like MX-7 or MX-13 or on areas, and I think this is what some of the conversation around like corridors, like Bain or Cary or parts of Jefferson, that's like, yes, there's high transit activity there, but the existing stock is like two stories. And so we're going to start with an MX-3 that kind of like, again, legalizes what is there. Maybe if you have X5 on vacant parcels to kind of fill in there, but that's not necessarily at a place where we want to kind of say, hey, we're ready for that level of development. Now with that, that's where I'll say the SUP process still comes in, that on these corridors, like sure, as plan says, you could put a six-story building there or a 10-story building there. But if we're going to do it, then we're going to have a little bit more nuanced conversation about how that works. So that was the balance with, I'll say some of those corridors is trying to figure out. Yeah. Looking at the master, looking at the land use plan and the master plan is kind of the ceiling. Like how far does the zoning bring us there in terms of like by right development.

Thank you. And you talked a little bit earlier about the transit corridor. I didn't quite, that's what you mentioned as far as, protections from them being demolished. You were touching a little bit on that.

Um? So protections or I couldn't quite hear. Yeah, so what I was saying in terms of I was referring to some of the analysis that are sub consultant did when it looked at like, OK, if we zone in this way and looking at the zoning districts and how we applied them across the city, like what's going to happen in terms of plot splitting, housing production and demolitions. And what I'll say is like the analysis found that there just wasn't a lot of demolition happening in the city in terms of, I think a few things, one demolition is expensive. And so, you know, if you're going to demolish something, you need to be able to recoup those costs and what you build back. And so, you know, if you're spending now kind of like twice that amount, could you get twice that amount out of it, either in sales or rent in the future? And in most cases, like, And so I'll say what it showed in that analysis was like, yeah, there'll be still some demolitions in the city, but the number that they were looking at isn't really any higher than demolitions that we see today. Like last fiscal year, we did, I think, 80 sub-demolitions across the city, and this was projecting kind of that same .

In previous draft, there was an attempt to address displacement with the preservation bonus. So what type of tools are in this draft?

Sure. Preservation bonus, go on. And that's really because it was intended, right, as an incentive if you wanted to go from two to three, that you needed to keep the two in line to get that there. So now, since we're basically at one plus one for most districts, that's essentially where we're at today. And so that I'll say tool wasn't needed. I think really what helps is a few things. One is zoning appropriately. So trying to look at again, you know, what is on the ground, especially in residential neighborhoods and being able to like legalize what's there. But when you add in something like contextual height, I think if you look at areas that might have, right, smaller homes that are only, you know, ranch or one and a half stories, that if contextual height now says, okay, if I come into this neighborhood and I say, want to tear this house down, like all I could build is like two stories or two and a half stories. Like I can't get much more than what's there. So I think there's a balance in terms of allowing for development. But again, like there's not incentive to like, oh, I can go in and build like, you know, a big house or like multiple units, right? I can only kind of get what's there. And again, going back to like mapping correctly, I think that is one of the things when you look at some of the corridors and one of them is Chamberlain, is that in a lot of other transit corridors, again, provided some upzoning, the north part of Chamberlain, north of Brooklyn Park Boulevard is basically zoned to kind of capture what's there and allow what's there. You know, as we talk about bus rapid transit coming up in this area, There's some different entities that are looking at, you know, from a housing perspective, like, how do we make sure we have a lot of naturally occurring affordable housing there? Like, we don't set the table to push a lot of development and potentially displacement. And I'll just say, like, the last thing is, you know, thinking about, you know, those kind of talk about, I'll say, like, physical displacement, like somebody actually coming in and, like, tearing down something and pushing you out. I think the other thing in terms of, like, economic displacement or something that's indirect is right. I get displaced because like the prices in my neighborhood keep going up and up and up. If I have a fixed income, my taxes keep going up and up and up and like it's really tough to like live here now. There's a whole set of tools I think right like City Council's been discussing in terms of like what it can use, but I think from a zoning perspective is in what ways from a supply side can we bring the ability to do housing units in some of those areas to soak up some of that demand that's coming there. So if you look along, like the corridors, like, can we build a lot more housing here in these areas or in other parts of the city or nearby that like soak up that demand for that neighborhood and new housing units, instead of pushing it onto some of the existing ones. And so I'll say to the extent that it can, like it's working to bring supply to help balance out some of those economic challenges.

Anyone else?

I don't have a question, but first I have one question and one, I don't know, praise. I really appreciate the contextual piece that's in this and the role that hopefully that will play in preventing certain demolitions. My question isn't so much about the code about what's in the document right now, but What are the next steps after this?

Sure. So what we need to do is, I think in terms of where this third draft is at, feeling like this is probably, I'll say, from a staff perspective, I think we've really, and that's why we took a long time, right, as to really trying to get to this compromise document. I believe this is a document that we would like to be able to bring forward through a formal adoption process. With that, there still may be some like tweaks to it. So like stuff we've talked about today in terms of like some of the development standards or obviously like clinical errors or things maybe on the map that we might have missed. But for that process, this body, and I think what we're looking at potentially for the next meeting is a resolution of intent. That planning commission needs to have a resolution to say, We are going to amend the zoning ordinance. In this case, we are going to amend, kill and replace the zoning ordinance with something, you know.

Is that our next meeting?

Most likely. And so what that does is it formally authorizes a process to do so. And so that can, I mean, it could have been done, I'll say, like at any time or, but it just, it needs to be done before anything is formally considered. And once that is done, Then that turns on a green light for us to prepare a final ordinance or introduction that council would introduce it. And they would send it to this body and this body would deliberate and make a recommendation to city council. And then city council would deliberate and vote off.

So is there.

time built into the rest of that process for any more um public engagement yeah um i would say our engagement um shifted a little bit in terms of i think our role is educating on what is in this draft but if this is going to be somewhat of the product that moves through the process. It's working with our colleagues on Council and Council members to like get them in the process and really. I'll say for those who do want changes and sorry if it's going to start. Open your email inboxes, but to like to be directing them towards planning Commission and Council in terms of like we love it. We don't love it. We want to see these changes and so I'll say. the the shift is moving from i'll say us and pdr towards those bodies that are ultimately going to make a recommendation and approval on it and so i think it's really important and i think um you know both debbie pitts and myself and some of our staff are like we're making the rounds with civic associations we're making the rounds but at council uh district meetings to really kind of Importantly, I think go through and like right talk about what is and what isn't in here because there's a lot of misinformation that's going around and so to just cut through and answer questions right to go through, make it sometimes helpful for like just walk through hypothetical. Like if I have this, can I do this? And so in terms of some of that engagement, I'll say it's it's shifting towards now having those responses go to this body and Council.

Thank you.

Yeah. I should have opened earlier with thank you and Marianne and all of your staff for all the work that you've been doing on this. I know it's been a lot and it's not always been fun. And I appreciate the outreach that you're continuing to do, particularly because of how much misinformation and false information that's out there. It's an attempt to scare people. So I know that you don't have an easy task in front of you. I do have a question. And if it's in this document, then I've overlooked it and have been asleep at the exact, but What is the process for implementation? Because once this is passed by council, there's obviously, you're going to have STPs and applications that have been introduced prior to passage. Staff in all departments is going to need time to get up to speed on this. I mean, it's been through Chesterfield where it was passed by the board, but applications up to a certain date were under the old ordinance. And then after a date, they went under the new. That's something that you could discuss.

We have discussed, we have not decided. I will say there will be likely some delayed implementation to allow us to like internally, right, calibrate and get all of our systems in place so we know how to do that, but also in fairness, right, for the public or our property owners, like right under which auspices they're working. So it will not be effective upon adoption, but also like, not be a year out that it takes us to do it. And so we're just looking at like what that right timeframe period is. I'm just going to say like ballparking, it's probably in the range of like, I'll just say 90 days, just in terms of right enough time to like be able to get there, but also not so much time that it's like, why are we still operating through the old system?

I appreciate that. And I think it might be helpful for applicants to know, you know, if I have filed or if I file by this date, I'm under this ordinance after this date, I'm under the new ordinance because there needs to be some level of certainty where what you're going to be weighed against. So even if so, if there's just a 90 day delay, it's like, okay, well, what if I filed three months ago? It seems to have worked in other localities that have adopted ordinances, although I have not been an applicant, but it seemed to work.

Working group discussions. Yes. That's it.

Any others? Just wanted to follow up. You outlined the process, but ideally, the best case scenario, when would this come back for the final, after city council introduces it?

After city council introduced it, I mean, we're working that you would probably see it sometime this calendar year.

Lots of long meeting and order of pizzas. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think that part of it in terms of like the discussion, yeah, we're going to talk about process and venue and all those things involved in that.

Anything else? Council action update.

Still don't have a council action update. They meet on the 14th right before our 15th meeting. So far on September 15th, we've had York Road continued this evening. There's also 1219 Overbrook Road, where the hospital is, that is slated for the 15th. It was continued then. And then I'm hearing now potentially we'll see a resolution of intent for code refresh. And then council will meet the day before that. And so you guys will have lots of information at the next meeting. And then just as a reminder, because it is in the rules of procedure, please either email me or give me a call back. I'm not doing it to be annoying. I'm required to call you the day of the meeting. So please just try to send me an email or give me a call back to confirm attendance.

I will be sure to leave a voicemail.

Anything further that anyone wants to bring up? Thank you all very much.