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HomeMy WebLinkAbout08 11 2020 PC MinutesALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – August 11, 2020 1 Albemarle County Planning Commission FINAL August 11, 2020 The Albemarle County Planning Commission held a public hearing on Tuesday, August 11, 2020 at 6:00 p.m. Members attending were Julian Bivins, Chair; Karen Firehock, Vice-Chair; Tim Keller; Rick Randolph; Corey Clayborne; and Daniel Bailey. Members absent: Jennie More; and Luis Carrazana, UVA representative. Other officials present were Stacey Pethia; Bart Svoboda; Jodie Filardo; Amelia McCulley; Tori Kanellopoulos; Charles Rapp, Planning Director; Andy Herrick, County Attorney’s Office; and Carolyn Shaffer, Clerk to the Planning Commission. Call to Order and Establish Quorum Mr. Bivins called the regular electronic meeting to order at 6:00 p.m. and established a quorum. He said this meeting was held pursuant to and in compliance with Ordinance No. 20-A(8), “An Ordinance to Ensure the Continuity of Government During the COVID-19 Disaster.” Mr. Bivins said there were no Commissioners attending from the County Office Building, and that the Commissioners electronically present that evening were: Mr. Bivins, Mr. Carrazana, Mr. Randolph, Mr. Keller, Mr. Bailey, Ms. Firehock, Ms. More, and Mr. Clayborne. Mr. Bivins said the public could access and participate in this electronic meeting by following the links available at www.albemarle.org/community/communitycounty/calendar, or by calling 877- 853-5257. Consent Agenda There was no consent agenda. Work Session Housing Policy Ms. Stacey Pethia, Principal Planner for Housing, said that prior to working for Albemarle County, she was the Housing Program Coordinator for the City of Charlottesville and before that, she came to the area from Pittsburgh. She said she has 20 years of experience in the affordable housing field and has a PhD in affordable housing policy, specifically about turning public housing communities into mixed-income developments. Ms. Pethia said she would present “Housing Albemarle,” which is the policy document with new recommendations for the new housing policy for the County. She said she would provide some background around working up to the draft document, along with the community input that was involved with that. She said she would give a brief run-through of the recommendations for the policy objectives and strategies, an overview of the proposed implementation schedule, a brief description of next steps, and open it up for discussion. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – August 11, 2020 2 Mr. Bivins said as has been the Commission’s tradition, they would open the discussion for public comment, then come back and have the Commissioners discuss. Ms. Pethia said she would give some background on the policy itself. She said in 2002 and 2003, County staff (who was then the Chief of Housing) worked with members of the Albemarle Housing Committee to draft an affordable housing policy. She said the policy was approved by Board of Supervisors in February 2004 as an amendment to the Comprehensive Plan. She said some very minor changes were made to that policy with the 2015 Comprehensive Plan update. Ms. Pethia said with the release of the Regional Housing Needs Study that was done by the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission, staff made a recommendation to update the housing policy based on the current and future housing needs presented in that report. She said the Planning Commission supported that recommendation in July 2019 and passed a resolution of intent to amend the Comprehensive Plan with an updated housing policy. Ms. Pethia said she would give a brief overview of the current policy. She said currently, the affordable housing policy defines affordable housing as safe, decent housing where housing costs do not exceed 30% of the gross household income. She said the policy sets a maximum rent for affordable units as equal to or less than 100% of fair market rents, which are set by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development each year. She said the maximum for-sale price for affordable units is 65% of the maximum mortgage limit for Virginia Housing’s first -time homebuyer program. She said this is currently equal to $243,750 per affordable unit. She said for reference, the current fair market rent for a two-bedroom unit is currently $1,262 per unit. Ms. Pethia said the affordability period for affordable rental units is 10 years. She said the affordable period for the affordable for-sale units is only the initial sale of those units. Ms. Pethia said there are five current policy objectives, which were designed to increase the supply of safe, decent, and affordable housing options for low-to-moderate income households; ensure equal access to a variety of housing types and options; create and preserve sustainable communities, meet diverse housing needs of special populations such as senior households and persons experiencing homelessness; and direct housing assistance towards households least able to find safe, good quality housing they can afford in the private market. Ms. Pethia said there were a series of strategies associated with those objectives, which were geared towards decreasing regulatory and administrative barriers to affordable housing development, such as decreasing minimum parking requirements and expediting the review processes for affordable housing; setting targets for the development of affordable units; creating mechanisms to assure the long-term affordability of for-sale affordable units, specifically the proffered units; pursuing public-private partnerships for affordable housing; and identifying additional resources for affordable housing projects and programs (i.e. funding). Ms. Pethia said after the Planning Commission passed the resolution of intent in July, staff began a community engagement process in October 2019. She said this involved three separate activities. She said there were three community-wide meetings held in October, which brought in the people who generally attend community meetings, which happen to be white, middle-class homeowners. She said part of that was because the meetings were held in the evenings at the County Office Building, and those are sometimes difficult for people of lower incomes to attend because they may have to work and may not have childcare. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – August 11, 2020 3 Ms. Pethia said recognizing those issues, staff also worked with local nonprofits to organize a series of focus groups with the families and individuals that they served. She said she worked with JABA to meet with their senior communities and senior centers. She said she worked with The Haven to meet with a group of homeless persons that they work with, among other nonprofits. Ms. Pethia said in addition to that, staff had provided opportunities for feedback on the website. She said all of the materials that were presented during the three community meetings in October were summarized and made available on the website, along with individual feedback forms to collect information from anyone who was unable to attend those meetings. Ms. Pethia said staff received a variety of information through those meetings but primarily, the biggest issue that came up was that housing in the County is just too expensive, and there are many families that are unable to afford to either buy or rent housing. She said people were needing to leave the County in order to find housing they can afford, and this was potentially having an impact on economic development and the ability of local employers to hire new staff. Ms. Pethia said residents also noted that a lack of overall housing supply, a lack of resources dedicated to affordable housing, policy and programmatic issues, and community-based resistance to new housing development (i.e. NIMBYism) were cited as significant barriers to the County’s ability to meet affordable housing needs. Ms. Pethia said after the community engagement period was wrapped up, staff began working with a nine-member stakeholder committee. She said they held their first meeting in November of last year, and the last meeting in February. She said in November, she began to share the feedback from the three community meetings held in the County and then, as each focus group was completed, she shared the information with the group. She said the stakeholder committee took the feedback that was gained during those meetings, reviewed those, talked through what they felt were the most important points from those conversations, and used those to develop the policy objectives. Ms. Pethia said in addition to feedback from the meetings, staff provided examples of housing policies that were created by other local governments both in Virginia and across the country, and best practices in affordable housing programs. She said those were used to develop the strategies that are associated with each of the objectives in the policy. Ms. Pethia moved on to the policy draft, stating that it was designed to support the County’s current vision for communities that are vibrant and active, provide a physical environment that supports healthy lifestyles and a thriving economy. She said the housing goal is to strive to provide safe, decent, and sanitary housing that is available to all incomes and age levels, is located primarily in the Development Areas, and is available equally to all current and future County residents. She said the policy was written to make sure that everyone -- no matter their income level, age, or race -- is able to access the housing they need at a price they can afford. Ms. Pethia said the policy includes 12 recommended policy objectives and 39 corresponding strategies. She said she would not be discussing all of those that evening, due to time, but that she would present these based on seven broad policy themes. She said she would identify the corresponding policy objectives for those and highlight some key strategies to achieve those objectives. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – August 11, 2020 4 Ms. Pethia said the first theme was about increasing the overall supply of housing, which is Objective 1. She said this is to address the needs of the entire housing stock and not just affordable housing. She said this is based on an estimated need of new housing of 11,700 new residential units by the year 2040. She said according to the Weldon Cooper Center population estimates, the County’s population is anticipated to increase by 26% by the year 2040. She said what she refers to as the development report shows an estimated 11,750 new households with that population growth. Ms. Pethia said the Objective 1 speaks directly to this need, and some of the highlighted strategies were to ensure that in all of those new units, 20% of those are provided as affordable housing. She said this number was chosen because in reviewing the data, approximately 20% of the entire households in the County (both owners and renters) are housing cost burdened and are paying more than 30% of their income for housing. She said the 20% is held steady across the 20-year period. Ms. Pethia said in reviewing and updating the bonus density for affordable housing, it speaks to the issue that currently, developers who use that bonus density have learned that a 30% increase in density actually puts the density for that development above and beyond what is recommended in the Comprehensive Plan, which is not allowed. Ms. Pethia said another strategy was taking an inventory of land that is currently held by the County to see if it would be appropriate for affordable housing development and making that available for such activities. She said the policy also looks at identifying areas to possibly consider as housing rehabilitation zones. She said housing rehabilitation zones are specific areas identified within the County that they would target investment and development into. She said they allow the County some flexibility in regulations, so they would be able to offer incentives to developers that they would not necessarily be able to under normal circumstances. She said these incentives are listed in the state enabling legislation. Ms. Pethia said the second theme of the policy is to increase the supply of long-term affordable and workforce housing. She said there are six objectives that speak to that (Objectives 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, and 8). She said this is to address the housing cost burdened households, which are currently set at approximately 10,800. She said this means 10,800 homeowners and renters across the income spectrum are paying more than 30% of their income for housing and housing-related costs. Ms. Pethia said key strategies to address this are to adopt an affordable dwelling unit ordinance, and to ensure that 20% of the new units developed under rezoning’s and Special Use Permits are provided as affordable housing. She said this is an effort to move away from the current proffer system. She said given the frequently changing nature of the proffer system, proffer legislation, and abilities at the state level, the stakeholder group felt it was a good idea to move to something more permanent that the County would have longer control over. Ms. Pethia said the policy also recommends redefining affordable housing and creating a new category of housing to be called “workforce housing.” She said the three remaining key strategies that were just discussed were reviewing and updating the bonus density, looking at public land for affordable housing, and identifying housing rehab zones. Ms. Pethia said with regards to affordable or workforce housing, the current affordable housing definition is based on household income and fair market rents. She said it encompasses the ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – August 11, 2020 5 income spectrum, from 0% to 80% Area Median Income (AMI). She said the current AMI is $93,900, which became effective as of April 1. Ms. Pethia said basing the maximum rents on the fair market rents can sometimes fluctuate greatly based on the various factors that HUD uses to determine what those are each year. She said the recommendation is to change what the county bases this on to 25% of 65% of the AMI, adjusted for bedroom size. She said if following that formula, what those rents would be today were listed on the left side of the slide. She said these track very closely to HUD’s FMRs, but that she believes they are more realistic because they are actually based on the AMI instead of the confusing formula HUD uses. Ms. Pethia said in terms of owner-occupied housing, the maximum sale price is recommended to be tied to 65% of the Federal Home Program, with a one-unit purchase price limit for existing housing. She said if they were to follow that recommendation today, the maximum for -sale price for affordable housing would be $191,750. She said for comparison, under the current policy, the maximum sale price is $243,750, which is out of reach for many households that fall within the 80% AMI and below category. Ms. Pethia said affordable rental housing would be available to households at 60% AMI and less, and that the for-sale housing would still be at the 80% AMI and below. Ms. Pethia said in terms of workforce housing, the stakeholder committee had a lot of discussion about who qualifies for affordable housing and who doesn’t. She said there was a lot of discussion about the fact that there are a lot of households in the area that do not qualify for the affordable housing programs, particularly single-person households who make an income limit of about $53,000. She said if one is making $55,000 per year, one still cannot afford to buy a house and rent many of the market rate units in the area. Ms. Pethia said the new policy is designed to help fill that gap. She said the definition for workforce housing would be households with incomes between 60% and 120% of AMI. She said the maximum rent would be set at 110% of the federal fair market rent, so it puts it a little higher than what people in the affordable housing programs pay now, but that she thinks this will be fine for people with the higher incomes. Ms. Pethia said the maximum sale price is again tied to the home program purchase limit, but it is for 65% of the purchase limit for new unit construction. She said this would put the for-sale price at about $215,150. She said this is close to what the Thomas Jefferson Community Land Trust has been selling their homes for, and those homes have been purchased by people with incomes at 50% AMI or higher, making it more affordable to many households in Albemarle County and opens up the door to home ownership for people who cannot access it now. Ms. Pethia said Objective 4 addresses the preservation of existing housing and communities and that while the County does need to add more units to its housing stock, they do not want to lose the ones they have now -- particularly ones that are older and more affordable. She said when there is older housing, however, one begins to run into issues with maintenance, utility costs increasing, and energy efficiency (as many of those houses lack sufficient insulation). She said those costs subtract from housing affordability in the area. Ms. Pethia said about one-third of all housing units in Albemarle County were built prior to 1980, which means there are many units the County needs to help preserve. She said looking ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – August 11, 2020 6 specifically at affordable assisted housing, there are approximately 455 units which have affordability periods that are expected to expire within the next 10 years. She said those are 455 units the County desperately needs to hang onto. Ms. Pethia said some of the key strategies to help preserve the existing housing and communities to make sure those communities stay together is to identify naturally-occurring affordable housing units, or those older housing rental units that are more affordable just because they are older and do not offer the amenities the market rate units have, and work with the owners of those properties to preserve a portion of those units as affordable housing. Ms. Pethia said they are looking at the potential to implement a pilot rental inspection district program. She said rental inspection districts are proactive in identifying property maintenance and code issues, and in reaching out to work with the owners of those properties before any code violations are noted. She said they are looking to implement a tenant anti-displacement policy, which was passed by the Board last year, with the guidelines forthcoming within the next month or so to the Board for review. Ms. Pethia said another strategy is creating a series of neighborhood change indicators, which will help the County identify neighborhoods that may be at risk of decline simply because they are older and where investment is needed in those areas. She said this will help the County focus their investment and strategies on areas that need the most help to make sure they survive. Ms. Pethia said the stakeholder committee felt that engaging the community on a continuous basis in the housing policy is important. She said doing so will help the County identify changing community needs over time, and will help keep them accountable to the community in terms of pursuing and achieving the recommended policy objectives. She said there was only one key strategy in this, which was to create a standing Housing Advisory Committee. She said she believed the County had had one in the past, which was more ad-hoc, and that this would be reinvigorating that group. Ms. Pethia said staff recommends continuing to work with the current stakeholder committee involved in this process to help create a recommended committee structure, membership, and charge for that group. Ms. Pethia said fair housing and community equity are two important parts of affordable housing. She said at the federal level, the County is required to address fair housing issues, and that she believes the state requires the County to include fair housing in the Comprehensive Plan. She said fair housing and community equity in general both promote nondiscrimination and fair and equal housing opportunities for all current and future residents. She said it promotes community diversity and inclusivity. Ms. Pethia said there were two key strategies that the stakeholder group came up with for this. She said the first was implementation of an equity evaluation tool, and implementation of an affordable housing impact statement. Ms. Pethia said an equity assessment tool is a process for evaluating the impact of policies, programs, initiatives, developments, and funding on racial equity in the area. She said the tool helps protect against unintentional discriminatory impact on protected classes from developing and implementing policies and programs. She said this tool would be developed in partnership with the County’s Office of Equity and Inclusion, which has been doing some work in that direction ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – August 11, 2020 7 anyway. She said this will help the County make sure they are actually creating the diversity within its communities that their vision speaks to. Ms. Pethia said affordable housing impact statements are similar to environmental or economic impact statements. She said they measure the potential impact of the proposed development, ordinance, or policy on the County’s current affordable housing stock. She said they can be based in quantitative analysis, qualitative analysis, or a combination of both. She said there have been a number of cities across the country that have begun to use these, including Atlanta, Georgia; New Orleans, Louisiana; and San Diego, California. She said the City of Pittsburgh has such a tool under consideration. Ms. Pethia said this tool is not something the County would be able to use to deny a development. She said the tool will help the County measure the success of this policy, and help them understand where affordable housing is lacking or where they have too much. She said it will help the County plan for affordable housing, moving forward. Ms. Pethia said the policy also addresses housing for persons experiencing homelessness and special populations, per Objectives 10 and 11. She said regionally, 165 persons are experiencing homelessness, including 15 children under the age of 18. She said this count was from 2019. She said the data for the 2020 annual point-in-time count has not yet been released. She said there is concern that given the recent pandemic and housing-related issues, the anticipated eviction numbers may increase and in turn, homelessness will begin to increase in the area. Ms. Pethia said by 2040, 26% of the County population is projected to be age 65 and older. She said currently, 9% of the County population has at least one disability. She said looking to provide housing for homeless persons, seniors, and persons with disabilities speaks to a high need in the area. She said there is a lack of accessible units in the County, which are used not only by persons with disabilities, but also by seniors. She said many seniors, as they get older, experience mobility issues. Ms. Pethia said a related key strategy is to increase the number of permanent supportive housing units within the County. She said permanent supportive housing units are apartments that are geared towards homeless individuals and families, and come with a host of supportive services behind them. She said the best example is The Crossings at 4th and Preston that sits across from the County Office Building. Ms. Pethia said another strategy is expanding the number of emergency shelter beds within the area, as a shortage of those has become apparent in the last couple months. Ms. Pethia said for special populations such as seniors and persons with disabilities, one strategy is to encourage the incorporation of universal design standards in all new residential developments. She said this will not only help persons who are already experiencing mobility issues or other disabilities, but can also help everyone age in place in their communities. She said many of those are simple adaptations, such as providing extra support behind walls in the bathrooms so that as one gets older and needs to attach grab bars in the bathtub, there would be a solid foundation in which to attach to. Ms. Pethia said another key strategy is increasing the number of affordable and accessible housing units. She said there is a lack of accessible housing within the area, and that what exists tends to be expensive. She said this is providing those units for persons of lower income. She ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – August 11, 2020 8 said there is a large percentage of persons with disabilities in Albemarle County who are actually living below the poverty line. She said about 71% of those persons have a job. She said it is difficult for them to find places they can afford to live. Ms. Pethia said another strategy is encouraging the creation of fully accessible communities. She said this is making sure that sidewalks are available everywhere and that in order to access parks and playgrounds, and any community facilities there are wheelchair accessible. She said it will make it easier for seniors and persons with disabilities to engage with the community on a regular basis so that they do not become isolated. Ms. Pethia said Objective 12, the last objective in the policy, encourages the creation of sustainable communities. She said the stakeholder committee worked to make sure that the recommendations in the policy support the three pillars of sustainability: the environment, the economy, and community equity. She said some of the keyways to do that are to encourage energy-efficiency upgrades in rental housing, particularly for affordable rental housing; encourage residential development near public transit and bike/pedestrian paths; and addressing unhealthy housing. Ms. Pethia said in terms of implementation, the stakeholder committee and staff developed a six- year implementation plan. She said the stakeholder committee itself identified six strategies that they felt should be priority strategies for action. She said the recommendation is for Strategies 2B, 5A, 6A, and 7A to be completed within the first three years. Ms. Pethia said the last two strategies, which look at housing development and reviewing and updating the Comprehensive Plan, were recommended by staff to be completed within six years, understanding that both of these take time. She said the stakeholder committee agreed to give a few extra years for these strategies. Ms. Pethia said to make sure they are actually making headway on the policy goals, staff developed a series of metrics with which to measure success. She said they set hard targets to make sure that 11,750 total housing units are built by 2040 and that 5,040 of those are affordable home ownership opportunities, with another 5,000 affordable rental units. She said another target is to prevent homelessness for 40 households annually and to recruit 10 new landlords to work with the Housing Choice Voucher Program each year. Ms. Pethia said staff recommends that these metrics be measured on a quarterly basis and be reported out annually to the Board of Supervisors and Planning Commission in an annual report, as well as make the data available to the public via a dashboard on the website. Ms. Pethia concluded her presentation. Mr. Bivins asked the Commissioners if they needed to ask any questions for clarification before going to public comment. Hearing none, he opened the public comment portion. Mr. Neil Williamson said the Free Enterprise Forum is a privately funded public policy organization focused on Charlottesville and the surrounding localities. He said the Free Enterprise Forum sincerely appreciates this effort from staff, especially Ms. Pethia. He said thanks to her proactive approach, the organization was engaged in the public outreach and have been involved since the plan’s inception. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – August 11, 2020 9 Mr. Williamson noted that as a chapter of the Comprehensive Plan, housing in Albemarle is to serve as a guide and not as an ordinance for future County activity. He said the Free Enterprise Forum sincerely hopes that part of the Commission’s discussion will be to provide more Comprehensive Plan-like language to all the strategies in the document. He said he is equally concerned that once acted upon by the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors, they will feel compelled to enforce all the strategies contained within the document. Mr. Williamson said that while well-intentioned, he is very concerned that some of the strategies suggested may (and perhaps unintentionally) decrease the supply of affordable housing and actually increase housing costs. He said several of these action items are in need of deletion or significant revision. He said Strategy 1 has an action step to ensure that housing types that are provided with a minimum of 20% of the total number of housing units in a new development be provided as affordable housing. He said if 20% of the total number of housing units must be provided as affordable, below market rate, he wondered if that doesn’t make 80% of those new units less affordable. Mr. Williamson said Strategy 4C is to examine the need for and feasibility of implementing a rental inspection district program to ensure safe, decent, and sanitary living conditions for tenants and other residents living in designated areas. He said on the surface, that sounds fabulous, but in the community, the turnover of rental property occurs very quickly. He said once an apartment is vacated (often at 10:00 a.m. on the last day of the month), property managers and contractors sprint into action -- painting, laying new carpet, and often changing out appliances prior to the new tenant moving in at 4:00 p.m. the following day, which is 30 hours. He said in a busy month, some larger property managers can be changing out over 50 units following this protocol. Mr. Williamson said the unintended consequence is that if the County inspections are mandated with a change of tenancy, these otherwise affordable apartments would be cycled out of the affordable housing stock for at least a week, if not an entire month. Mr. Williamson said Strategy 4D is to develop and implement an anti-displacement and tenant relocation policy and associated guidelines. He said this is well-intention, as this strategy seeks to protect tenants from being forced out with the redevelopment of a property. He said in reality, the only mechanism available to enforce such property rights tramping concepts is to withhold a special use permit, special exception, or rezoning for a property. He said there is nothing stopping the property owner from evicting the tenants prior to pursuing such an application. As his speaking time had expired, Mr. Williamson said he would submit his other comments in writing. Mr. Bivins closed the public comment portion and brought the matter back to the Commission. Ms. Firehock said one of her questions was if Ms. Pethia had a sense of what percent of the units the County has set aside as affordable units (primarily through proffers) are actually realized. She said the developers only have to have the units at an affordable rate for a certain period of time and then after that, they go back to market rate. She said this question has been asked before in the County, but it was before Ms. Pethia was on the job. She asked Ms. Pethia if this was something she looked into and what she found. Ms. Pethia replied that she did not have the exact numbers off the top of her head. She said she did know that they were in good shape with the rental units. She said with the for -sale units, the ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – August 11, 2020 10 percentage that have actually been purchased by income-qualified households was higher than she had anticipated, at around 45-50%. She said she could check on that number and send it to Ms. Firehock. Ms. Firehock said to follow on to that, one thing that Mr. Randolph made her aware of during his previous time as a Commissioner was the fact that the County used to have a staff person whose job it was to promote the availability of these affordable units because they are hard to find. She said she was trying to get a sense of if the County was still lacking in that task, and if they know how people such as firefighters and teachers will be made aware of those units. Ms. Pethia replied the County is lacking in that task. She said there have not been many that have come forward since she began with the County. She said the approach she has taken is that when she gets notice from the developer that those units are available, either for rent or for sale, she takes down the unit information and contact information and sends this out to nonprofit housing providers. She said she hopes to include a list of those units on the new County website and had created spaces for that. She added that the Regional Housing Partnership is looking into creating a housing search site where the developers can then go and add their units to that as well, which goes out to a wider audience. Ms. Firehock said it seems like technology has improved over the years and that they should be able to do something sophisticated. She asked Ms. Pethia if she could talk more about an affordable housing overlay or zone. Ms. Pethia replied that it is a housing rehabilitation zone. She said the state gives the County the authority to identify those. She said they would be looking at a particular area where they want to encourage housing, including all housing and not just affordable housing. She said they could provide a number of incentives to developers to provide affordable housing, and that some of those could be related to tax rebates or waiving of fees. She said the state lists these, but that the County almost has the ability to identify what they want to do. She said they can put together a package of incentives for that specific area to encourage housing development. Ms. Firehock commented that whenever the County is creating incentives for developers, they should make sure they ask developers if they are truly incentives. She said as planners, she knows they like to make up things that they think people would love to do, and she would like to find out, marketwise, if this would really be enough to make a change. Mr. Randolph said he appreciated having had the opportunity to work with Ms. Pethia on housing issues in the Scottsville District. He said he would state his comment to be constructive and supportive of her. He said he thinks what Ms. Pethia has laid out there is bureaucratically safe, and that it is what he would call “sequentially evolutionary.” He said she is following the footsteps that have led to this document and is taking the next step. Mr. Randolph said the question he would ask is that he wasn’t sure whether or not Ms. Pethia was bold enough in this document. He said the reason is that he thinks the housing needs in the County are much more significant, and that he was not confident that the solutions presented would be successful in meeting the objectives. Mr. Randolph said there is a whole range of things he would say, including that he feels racial equity needs to be part of racial, social, and economic equity, and that the entire document needs to have that infused in it, as that is the central issue on housing in this County -- about creating ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – August 11, 2020 11 equal opportunities for people to be living in housing that is not substandard, but is quality housing that is safe, affordable, and economically reasonable for people to live in. Mr. Randolph said his fundamental question for Ms. Pethia, as he looked at the document and as she laid out on page 2 “Housing Goals,” if it was time for the County, the Commission, and the Board to tackle affordable housing goals. He said housing goals and affordable housing goals are not necessarily the same thing, and what they are currently doing is subsuming affordable housing under the housing goals. He said he thinks that given what all of the members that have worked for at least a year on the Planning Commission well understand, they do not see the real benefits for people that need housing through the current proffers system and set-asides within an AMI of 80%. He said it just is not happening, and that he does not think it will happen as a result of this document, despite Ms. Pethia’s best intentions. Mr. Randolph said he knows Ms. Pethia well enough to know how intentional she is to present the best. He said he thinks the County probably needs to have a discussion about a different affordable housing paradigm where they look not just at 80% AMI, but at 20-79% AMI because that is where the most critical needs are. He said this is where what he calls RES (Racial, Economic, and Social equity issues) play an increasingly larger role, and that they are more or less invisible in the current housing policy. He said Ms. Pethia did identify them as being something important to be worked on. Mr. Randolph said given all of the work that took place between Tom Tom and the TJPDC, there is more room in the document for case studies and alternative models. He said Ms. Pethia was somewhat model-averse and case-study averse in the document, but that she knows those case studies as well as anyone in the country, and she knows what other communities are doing. He said he thinks the Board needs Ms. Pethia’s vision of alternatives, which goes back to his recommendation for her to be bold. Mr. Randolph said he thinks the document needs to be more intentional about new affordable housing and public transit. He said as a Planning Commission and as a Board, they constantly talk about the nexus between affordable housing and public transit. He said many different development proposals set aside 3-5 units for affordable housing but if there is no public transit, it is very difficult for people (even at 80% AMI, and even with two people working) to necessarily support an automobile for both people. Mr. Randolph said finally, he thinks there is a need to perhaps be more directive. He said in the past, the County has done a lot of promoting of objectives, and that he thinks they need to say they will be supporting and requiring these kinds of things. He said otherwise, the objectives just sit still, and the County will be back in another five years to talk about how to move the strategy. He said they have to support it, fund it, and operationalize it. Mr. Randolph said there were other specifics he wanted to get into, but he just wanted to give Ms. Pethia a big picture at the outset in terms of his takeaway from this. He said he thinks Ms. Pethia has done a very good job, but that he wants her to go further and beyond to look at other opportunities. Mr. Bailey said as the newest member of the Commission, he was playing catch-up to understand, as he had not been through the multiple iterations of this discussion or document. He said as such, and as he is currently experiencing this in his own personal life with aging parents, he ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – August 11, 2020 12 appreciated the call-out to the disability assistance and affordable housing options. He said he commended this and is something he would like to see fleshed out a bit. Mr. Bailey said the comments to this point were spot on, and that he appreciated Mr. Randolph’s goal to push them to think and be nontraditional. He said in terms of sustainability, in 2015, President Obama tried to present renewable energy options as a way to offset some of the housing costs. He said he knows there have been many programs around that. Mr. Bailey said fortunately in Charlottesville, they are blessed to have a number of leading, cutting- edge renewable energy companies that are pioneering this, and he supposed this is a part he would like to hear more from Ms. Pethia about in terms of the ability to push through incentives the adoption of renewable energy in some of the deed-restricted or multi-family units of solar to try to help offset the cost of housing in a nontraditional way while promoting a cleaner, greener Charlottesville and use of natural resources. Ms. Pethia replied that LEAP (Local Energy Alliance Program) is doing a lot of work in that area, and have begun to focus on affordable rental properties, particularly landlords that rent to Housing Choice Voucher families and individuals. She said LEAP is looking to partner with those landlords to increase energy efficiency. She said it was not necessarily renewable energy at that point, but was about increasing the energy efficiency to help offset the cost of housing. Ms. Pethia said the Thomas Jefferson Community Land Trust recently built four affordable homes in the City. She said they incorporated solar panels into those units as well as other features, and were able to sell those for around $215,000 each. She said they demonstrated how it is possible if the right partnerships are made. Ms. Pethia said this would require coming up with some goals that they will want to tackle and finding the right partners. She said they could potentially seek funding to support and assist homeowners and landlords of affordable rental units to make the changes. She said it would take some research and there are good examples, so this is definitely something they could look into. Mr. Bailey said this was in keeping with Mr. Randolph’s comments. He said pushing the County in that direction to understand the incentives is, to him, something they could try to stretch on. He said Dominion just committed to buying $15 billion worth of solar in the next 10 years. He said he wondered how they could use that, have the incentives, and use power purchase agreements to help educate developers on why it makes sense to use energy in a way that can offset some of the housing costs. He said his personal belief is that this is a win-win in providing cleaner energy and a better living environment for everyone. Mr. Clayborne said he remembered all of Ms. Pethia’s great work in Charlottesville when he was on the Planning Commission there. He said he was curious as to how the assessment of square footage of units plays into Ms. Pethia’s concept of affordability and the mission (e.g. using adjectives such as “decent”). He said it breaks his heart whenever he sits in different hearings and the developer says they are going to offer affordable units that are priced at $1,200-1,300 for 500 square feet. He said if that family could save $500 extra per month, they could have a nice house. He asked where the definition of square footage comes into all of this to where it is truly affordable. Ms. Pethia replied that it doesn’t. She said in looking at the way they set affordable rental prices now, this is based on HUD’s fair market rents and that square footage does not factor into that. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – August 11, 2020 13 She said it doesn’t in the proposed change to the definition, either, as it is difficult to do. She said she did not have a good example from any place that she knows of where any city or county bases affordable rental prices on square footage. She said she believes Fairfax City or County does factor in square footage when looking at for-sale affordable units, but isn’t sure how they figure this out. She said she has not had a chance to reach out and talk to them about that. She said the price that is recommended in the policy is fairly close to what they have for their units, but it would take some research on that end. Ms. Pethia said there are a lot of microunits across the county (e.g. 500 square feet) that are renting for $1,500 or more each month. She said it is difficult to set a price based on square footage. She said logically, a 500-square-foot apartment should cost less than a 1,000-square- foot apartment, but it doesn’t always work out that way. She said some of it has to do with availability in the market so if there is a shortage of one-bedroom units, a 500-square-foot unit is going to be more expensive than a larger three-bedroom unit if there are more of those. Mr. Clayborne said the way Ms. Pethia described it did sound difficult, but to Mr. Randolph’s point, he wondered if this is an area the County could be bold in. He said, this correlation is so wild to him when they hear that a 500-square-foot unit can go for $1,500 and the County pats themselves on the back for doing a great job. Mr. Clayborne said Strategy 7A was about the Housing Advisory Committee in year three. He asked Ms. Pethia to talk more about this. He said it seemed like there was a missed opportunity at year one because if they had the right stakeholders, it could set the course of some great things. He asked Ms. Pethia why this fell at year three and not right out of the gate. Ms. Pethia replied that she split the timeframe into three-year chunks to make it easier. She said this is one of the priority recommendations the stakeholder committee has recommended they work on, and that she sees this happening before year three, if possible. She said the stakeholders volunteered to be the first committee, if they go forward with that, and help set the stage for what it will become in the future. Mr. Clayborne recommended that people from the [inaudible] community would have a seat on there, the developer, designer, and architect. He said as the creators building that environment, it would make sense for them to be at that table. Mr. Clayborne asked with regard to schools and school districts if there was any cross-pollination in terms of people who have money moving to areas that have “great schools,” which drives the cost up so they can spend $400,000-500,000, whereas most people cannot afford that and go to other districts. He asked if there was any cross-pollination with school performance and housing. Ms. Pethia replied that she had not looked at that, but that it would be an interesting thing to find out. She said it was not in the policy, but something to look into. Mr. Keller agreed with his colleagues, but said he wanted to back up a bit. He said in 2016, he, Ms. Firehock, and then-Commissioner Ms. Pam Riley worked on an educational piece on affordable housing (which he thought would be nice to have in the timeline, to go back to that session). He said there are many who have been thinking about this for some time. He said it has really come to the forefront in the last year, and they are beginning to look at it under a different lens because of going back three years in Charlottesville and what has occurred around the nation and world since then. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – August 11, 2020 14 Mr. Keller said while he totally agreed with all the points made, especially those made by Mr. Randolph, he has read the policy thoroughly three times and that his first take was full of the kind of notes that Mr. Randolph was referring to. He said he could provide pages of those. Mr. Keller said he didn’t look at it again for about a week, then read it for a second time. He said as he looked at many of his comments, he thought they were getting too into the weeds for the framework that Ms. Pethia presented. Mr. Keller said during his third read-through, he asked if he could find anything that he would like to do and go further that doesn’t fit under one of the categories that Ms. Pethia has placed there. He said he thought about the movement they are seeing in their sister jurisdiction of doing away with R1 to increase density. He said he sees a place in the discussion about that here. He said he thought about his special concerns with Rural Areas and, for instance, the Heirs Bill that Ralph Sampson and Governor Northam were talking about, for traditional people of color to be able to keep the family acreages. He said this relates to affordable housing in a significant way in the Rural Areas of the County, and there is a framework to get at that that Ms. Pethia has provided. Mr. Keller said he had concerns about how they will tackle it all if they go bold and put a lot of specifics in the policy. He asked what the important issue of the moment will be that they will want to jump on. He said Ms. Pethia provided an excellent set of policies that would allow Supervisors, from this point forward, to say that they want to concentrate on certain areas. Mr. Keller said what they have not discussed is the monitoring aspect. He said former Commissioner Ms. Riley wrote a letter to the Commission, which will be a part of the public record, in which she talks about the importance of that. He said he knows that Ms. Pethia, as a numbers cruncher, enjoys that aspect and that she has a lot of rich information she has summarized. He said she could go to those numbers and give the Commission that kind of information. Mr. Keller said to follow up on Ms. Firehock’s comments, they all want to know what they have actually gotten to date from the development community in the way of affordable housing that the developers generously provided, and then how many of those are there over time. He said while tracking the public housing that rotates out of having to continue as public housing into the future, they need to also have that kind of count. He said Ms. Pethia had referred to that and suggested mechanisms for doing so. Mr. Keller said he thought they were all taken with the annual report and how that had been upgraded a few years back, and hope that will continue. He said Ms. Pethia is suggesting that this be a significant part of that. Mr. Keller said again, upon his third reading, he could scratch through much of his specifics and determine that they really can accomplish these things under the framework. He said it gives more flexibility than calling out more specifics. He said they know that Ms. Pethia, as their brain trust, has a lot of those examples. Mr. Keller said he did agree with Mr. Randolph about possibly visualizing some of those examples a bit more. He said the question is if this is the time for it, or if they should have the more general document presented to and given the go-ahead by the Commission and Board so that then in the next stage, when they are voting on it, they can call out more priority sets and more explanations ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – August 11, 2020 15 where they have those different interests of focus at this point, nothing that those might change in the next six months. Mr. Keller said he thinks the document is an excellent piece of work. He said they have to compliment the County’s bodies and the regional housing partnership for the regional housing study, and that Ms. Pethia has also brought forward her experiences from Charlottesville where she had to look at the region as well. He said the document is extremely data-rich, which is something they haven’t had. He said this was something Mr. Bruce Dotson was trying to do with the schools, and that there is now much more data there. He said he thinks that under their new director, who he thinks is interested in this, they are moving in that direction. He said he thinks this is a very positive step forward, as it stands. Mr. Bivins noted that Ms. More had been called away and that he would read what she wanted to share. He said she wrote, “I think the report for the work session tonight was very well done. I think it is a great step in the correct direction, and I think we should work quickly to get the recommendations implemented.” Ms. Firehock said she wanted to briefly bring up transportation. She said she did a search for the number of times transportation was mentioned in the report, and it was in quite a few places. She said it mostly referred to the need to locate affordable housing near transportation so people can get to work and not have to spend all their money on repairing their old cars. She said she had an older car once and knows how much it costs to keep those going. Ms. Firehock said she thinks they also need to flip it on its head a little bit and think about providing transportation to places where there is affordable housing. She said there is a lot of affordable housing in Southern Albemarle in terms of median price, but very poor transportation. She said the roads are not always reliable. She said her road washed out and took two months to get repaired. Ms. Firehock said she was sorry that the Commission was not able to hear the presentation that had been scheduled for JAUNT. She said subsidizing transportation so people can get to work from Southern Albemarle, Northwestern Albemarle, and those more remote areas of the County would be a better investment, in some respects, than trying to put housing on the edge of Charlottesville. She said she would like to see more creative linkages with transportation planning to talk about that. Ms. Firehock said she wanted to bring up NIMBY (Not in My Backyard). She said in the first few years she joined the Planning Commission during her first term, which was about five years earlier, she thinks she was more excited then. She said what she feels a little deflated about, which was no reflection on Ms. Pethia, was that she keeps thinking of the conversations they have had around projects that were proffering affordable housing and some of the testimony from the public about the problems of having lower cost housing near them. Ms. Firehock said she wouldn’t recite some of the comments she heard, but there was a real perception that having people of different income levels live near each other, or having houses that cost $300,000 near those that cost $500,000-600,000, will bring the whole neighborhood down. She said she could list all the projects where this issue came up. She said a number of them were defeated, and she thinks it was because of the fear. She said these were not projects that were 100% affordable by any stretch, but were more at 15-20%. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – August 11, 2020 16 Ms. Firehock said it was important to not ignore the NIMBYism. She said when she earned less than $50,000, she got assistance to buy a home by herself through a housing program. She said she doesn’t think that she is a scary, bad person someone doesn’t want to live next to. She said fortunately, her neighbors were not as scared of people having affordable housing. She said she is a beneficiary of that, and needed that leg-up when she was younger and not making much money when she was a teacher. Ms. Firehock said she wanted to also bring up the COVID pandemic. She said Ms. Pethia had obviously worked on this report for a long time, and had had her last meeting around it with the stakeholders in February, and everyone knows what has happened since then. She said even though the report is mostly done, she does think the pandemic is a huge obstacle they have to bring up. Ms. Firehock said Ms. Pethia mentioned LEAP, noting she was well-aware of their work and did some early work that helped lead to them getting to form. She said LEAP is struggling in the pandemic. She said nonprofits who provide these services talked about in the report are actually struggling to stay open. She said the County is supporting nonprofits who are struggling due to the economy, and that there are nonprofits like LEAP where if they go away, this will impact things in terms of Ms. Pethia’s earlier comments about energy-efficient homes and making homes more affordable. Ms. Firehock said without rewriting the entire document, she wanted it to say something about what has happened to the economy. She said frankly, Ms. Pethia did a good job of bringing in a lot of statistics to show the seriousness of the problem. She said this was not new to her, but she thought the statistics were very helpful. She said COVID and the recession, however, will make it that much more challenging, and she thinks they need to spend some significant real estate on it. Ms. Firehock said her final comment was that to the degree possible, she would like to see more benchmarks in the report, or ways to know they were successful. She said there are a number of places in the report that say that things will be catalogued, but she would like to see that they knew they were successful because of the outcomes they had. She said Ms. Pethia cannot control the market, but they need to determine what the County is actually specifically committing to do so that when they pick up the report in 5-10 years, they can say they got 50% or 75% of the way, for instance. Ms. Firehock said she was like Mr. Randolph in that she would like to be as bold as possible. Mr. Randolph said to Mr. Keller that the more he read the report, the more he felt that there was a need to become bolder. He said he read it at two different times, a day apart, as well. Mr. Randolph said to follow up to Ms. Firehock, he wrote down that the approach is intended to meet currently projected needs, but if the economic recovery to COVID-19 takes five years nationally (which two economists have already proposed that that is the time period they think it will require), he would suggest that the Albemarle County housing needs in 2030 will be even more dramatic. He said this is why he told Ms. Pethia that she needs to be bolder and, as Ms. Firehock pointed out, integrate COVID-19 into the equation. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – August 11, 2020 17 Mr. Randolph said the housing code does specify the implementation measures of construction, rehabilitation, and maintenance. He said yet, in their only housing goal (which is not an affordable housing goal, but is a housing goal), they do not mention those implementation measures. Mr. Randolph said while the report does contain a lot of quantitative analysis, one thing that he thinks would be useful to have in the report is the gross dollar distribution by Albemarle County over the last five years for maintenance versus rehabilitation versus construction. He said when they look at those three, they will find that most of the money that the County has acquired has come through construction (i.e. proffers), and they need to be talking about how they are reporting their money. He said this may be where the money is coming from in the proffers, but they need to be much more intentional about the maintenance and rehabilitation. Mr. Randolph said many of the strategies in the policy are geared towards new construction because they are looking for allies to build this. He said it is not saying for the County to create a housing division, fund it, and provide money for it. He said in the midst of COVID, people will claim that government is growing even larger. He said Ms. Pethia has quite correctly stepped aside from that landmine. Mr. Randolph said it is important, however, to take a look at the per-family average cost for each one of those over a five-year period. He said perhaps a SWOT analysis would be called for to help the Commission and Board understand what the right distribution is, and to talk about where in the continuum of housing options the County should be distributing its resources. He said the County put in a lot of money in the case of Southwood towards new construction. He said as Ms. Firehock brought up, however, there is the matter of rehabilitation in Southern Albemarle and other localities, as well as maintenance of housing. He asked Ms. Pethia to think more about where the money is actually going to go. Mr. Randolph said a lot of people (as has Mr. Williamson, in the past) advocate to say that the County should emphasize more rental versus ownership. He said the only problem is that they are a college market, and do not live in Berea, Kentucky, where they have Berea College next door, which would not significantly be a rental-intensive college. He said they live with a major international university where people come from all over the world and drive up housing costs. He said coming to Charlottesville versus going to college in New York City, Providence, Baltimore, or Berkley is a bargain. He said there is no disincentive for people with rental housing to reduce costs over time. He said the market continues to go up. Mr. Randolph said he wanted to push back on the idea of creating anything other than a housing authority. He said he thinks they are at a point where they need either a housing authority or agency. He said he thinks the housing trust fund should be under the rubric of that housing authority, and they should be responsible for it. He said that agency can be run like the EDA, where each Board member appoints a member to the housing authority so there are six representatives on it. He said as part of the authority, there can be citizen involvement. Mr. Randolph said this is a group that should take on responsibility for affordable housing to help Ms. Pethia with this, as it is a lot for her to have to implement. He said realistically, if she were able to have the two people outlined in the document, it would make it easier for her. He said given the existence of COVID and what they will be facing, however, she will not have those people coming onboard. He said he thinks the County is ready to say that they need to now have an authority that will be dealing with equity issues, fairness, and Rural versus Development Area housing issues (which are very different from one another). ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – August 11, 2020 18 Mr. Randolph said Ms. Pethia did an excellent job in outlining the needs for the County, going forward. Ms. Pethia asked a clarifying question. She asked Mr. Randolph if he meant a public or federal housing authority. Mr. Randolph replied no. He said it would be an authority that tackles the issue of affordable housing and help the Board and Planning Commission in indicating where the priorities are for housing. Mr. Bailey said COVID has created an uncertain time in the tech industry and that they are seeing massive movements by large companies that can distribute their workforce. He said it is uncertain how much of that will take hold, and how much job relocation will happen versus working remotely (e.g. for Microsoft). He said because of the uncertainty and because of having an international university, it is yet to be known of how many newly graduated don’t have to relocate and want to stay in Charlottesville because they have the flexibility of the distributed workf orce. He said this will further continue to drive up prices and create the discrepancy of affordable housing. Mr. Bailey said there is a lot of uncertainty with COVID that he thinks they do need proactive measures put in place, as suggested by Mr. Randolph and Ms. Firehock to stay on top of this. He said they are in a very evolving environment that can further create that disparity, and specifically in the context of Albemarle County and the makeup of it with UVA and the changing work environment due to COVID. Mr. Clayborne said in terms of infrastructure, broadband seems to now be elevated in light of COVID and working from home. He said broadband dependability and access should be acknowledged within the housing policy as well. Mr. Keller said he wanted to make it clear to everyone listening that he certainly agreed with his fellow Commissioners, and that he did not disagree with anything Mr. Randolph said in terms of pieces that should ultimately be added to the document. He said he was just interested in expediting it so that they have a policy they can build on as quickly as possible, adding that it was long overdue. Mr. Keller said he would go back to one of his major first draft comments, which was that he understands in being loyal to the Comprehensive Plan, the focus on the Development Areas. He said they know from the numbers (at least in terms of single-family detached), however, that there is a significant number of owned affordable houses in the Rural Area that he thinks are under threat of being rehabilitated out of the affordable housing price market. He said this is something that Mr. Randolph, Ms. Firehock, and Mr. Clayborne all touched on. Mr. Keller said when they talk about the land bank, there is also the issue of the land trust. He said if they are going to take the further step in these discussions, they need to think about whether their regional land trust is sufficient; or, if they were to go with the housing authority route Mr. Randolph suggested (which he feels has a lot of merit), it should have a land trust component to it that can focus on the rural properties and keep the cost affordable when they are rehabilitated. He said this would keep the price lower because there wouldn’t be the land value cost in the movement. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – August 11, 2020 19 Mr. Keller said one part of the figures he didn’t believe they had pertained to heritage farms (or heritage properties that may work as a 2-acre farm, in some cases, or have historically) that are owned by people of color. He said since they now have a recognition at the state level that the Governor has signed, he would suggest looking at those quickly and seeing what they might do to ensure that those stay, in checking off a couple of interests of note that were discussed that evening. Mr. Bivins said it is discussions like this that give him pure joy, but also humble him in a way. He said they have a group of very diverse individuals coming from diverse backgrounds who have, at the center of their comments, a pure, genuine appreciation and love for this place they live. He thanked everyone that evening for what they said. Mr. Bivins said as he understood it, this was the Commission’s first time seeing the document, and that it would then go to the Board of Supervisors. He said he would ask Ms. Jodie Filardo and Mr. Charles Rapp to see if there is a way that the two bodies might sit together to have a conversation before the policy gets nailed down so that they can hopefully have the kind of robust exchange that might come out of these conversations. Mr. Bivins said one of the pieces of this policy is that they might position themselves to actually have a holistic approach to how Albemarle County wants to be, going forward. Mr. Bivins said as he has observed, with the kinds of conversations they are having about new development and the number of affordable and accessible housing units in those new developments, it seems to him that long-term, they are creating or enhancing the conditions that no one wants to see enhanced. He said they are looking at putting new development in and exacerbating the existing transportation network without having the opportunity or the means by which to integrate a transportation system across the County. He said it only does the basic lateral movements up and down Route 29 and across Rio Road with a quadrant approach, rather than an integrated approach, to transportation. Mr. Bivins said he would ask staff to be thoughtful about figuring out a way not to have something that is called “affordable housing” because he thinks words do matter. Mr. Bivins said Ms. Firehock touched on something that many Commissioners have heard him speak about in the time he has been on the Commission. He said some Albemarle citizens have come to talk about new developments that have people who do not look exactly like them, and that this could be from a balance sheet. He said it could have nothing to do with race, but has to do with a balance sheet. He suggested talking about the integration of those balance sheets rather than the segregation of them. He said this is the piece that he is becoming extremely concerned with -- that they are steadily moving into a type of segregation. Mr. Bivins said page 3 of Ms. Pethia’s report talks about the overall quality of life in Albemarle County. He said the people who responded to that survey are predominantly white, wealthy, well- educated, and live north of town. He said if that is who is talking about quality of life, this likely left out 80% of the County. He said he wanted to remind everyone that as they are thinking about how land and housing are going to be used, and about what Mr. Keller mentioned in the past about seeing higher buildings to deal with density as opposed to staying in the single-family model, they (including the Board of Supervisors) have a chance to talk about all the things that were spoken to that night, and about whether or not there is partnership with the City, UVA, or UVA Foundation with land. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – August 11, 2020 20 Mr. Bivins said in looking at the UVA Foundation and the holdings they have available, and to bring this into a conversation about what would workforce housing look like, they would radically change and could push into the future a very different community that he thinks everyone was talking to. He said if they look at letting the purely for-profit model work (noting that he cares deeply about the for-profit model), he is concerned about time limits on affordability. He said whether it is 20 years or 50 years, they are not shaping their community in a way that has a long- term impact. Mr. Bivins said if five or six of them got together and formed a corporation to buy some of the houses in every new development and keep them affordable, via a land trust or land holding. He said there had been a man in the City who bought various private pieces of property and assembled affordable housing from those, and that they stayed affordable until he died. Mr. Bivins said there are different models that they can use, and that he thinks it needs to be a blend of changing the narrative and the language about what these houses are. He said if they continue using the kind of language they are using, as soon as people hear “affordable housing ” or “workforce housing,” all sorts of reactions will occur, as he has experience during his time on the Planning Commission, that derails things. He said he thinks this is a big enough issue for this County, at this time, for the next 10 years, that they need to bring in some new and challenging solutions that perhaps make people uncomfortable. Mr. Bivins said what Ms. Pethia was saying was moving towards that direction, but he would ask her, being the wordsmith that she is, if there is a way to craft th is new way forward without it dealing with the boundaries of economic segregation. He said he thinks a whole group of people will move to a place that will be better for Albemarle and for their children, children’s children, and those people who will relocate there. Mr. Bivins thanked Ms. Pethia. He said his hope was that they can put some things through the next iteration that helps the Board and the broader community to hear the narrative that at this time, they are using this vehicle to think differently about how they do this, and that it will not be as disparate and as ad-hoc as some of the development that has taken place in the community. Mr. Bivins said Ms. Pethia heard what the Commission said, and asked that if it were at all possible, when she shares the next iteration with the Board of Supervisors, that she copy the Commission so that they are prepared with what they are seeing so that they can sit together and have a conversation about what this means. He said this is not about being the Bob Cratchits of land. He said this was not about the Christmas goose. He said this was about figuring out what this community, as it is struggling and wrestling creatively with, what it wants to do in the future, how they will do that, and how they will do that in a way that works in an honest and hopeful manner. Mr. Bivins said hopefully, Ms. Pethia had enough from the Commission that evening to go forward. He said they deeply appreciate her work, and have full confidence that she heard what each Commissioner brought to the conversation. He said he knew that she would follow up when necessary. Ms. Pethia agreed. Mr. Rapp said after over five months as Planning Director, he was grateful that his first work ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – August 11, 2020 21 session with the Commission was on a topic that everyone feels passionate about and engaged in, as well as many members of the community. He applauded Ms. Pethia for laying a foundation they can build upon, and appreciated everyone’s thoughtful comments. He said they can look into accommodating a joint work session with the Board to try to get some more interaction. Committee Reports There were no committee reports. Review of Board of Supervisors Meeting – August 5, 2020 Mr. Rapp said at the Board’s August 5 meeting, there was continued discussion on Yancey Lumber and the special exceptions associated with that. He said this was ongoing and would return back to the Board soon. Mr. Rapp said there was the special use permit for the cell tower at Wild Turkey Lane, which was approved as recommended by the Commission. Mr. Rapp said the River’s Edge ZMA and special use permit was also approved by the Board, as recommended by the Commission. Mr. Rapp said Ms. Pethia had mentioned an equity assessment tool that the Office of Equity and Inclusion is developing. He said he has been meeting with Ms. Siri Russell, and they plan to test this out on the Rio Road corridor study they would be working on soon. Old/New Business Mr. Clayborne noted he would be on vacation and therefore absent from the next Commission meeting. Items for Follow-Up There were no items. Adjournment At 7:42 p.m., the Commission adjourned to August 18, 2020, Albemarle County Planning Commission meeting, 6:00 p.m. via electronic meeting. Charles Rapp, Director of Planning (Recorded and transcribed by Carolyn S. Shaffer, Clerk to Planning Commission & Planning Boards) Approved by Planning Commission Date: 09/01/2020 Initials: CSS