Albemarle County Planning Commission

March 28, 2006

The Albemarle County Planning Commission held a meeting and a public hearing on Tuesday, March 28, 2006, at 6:00 p.m., at the County Office Building Room 241, Second Floor, 401 McIntire Road, Charlottesville, Virginia. Members attending were Eric Strucko, Calvin Morris, Vice-Chairman, Pete Craddock, Jo Higgins, Jon Cannon and Marcia Joseph, Chairman.  Bill Edgerton was absent. Julia Monteith, Senior Land Use Planner for the University of Virginia, representative for David J. Neuman, FAIA, Architect for University of Virginia, was absent. 

Other officials present were Wayne Cilimberg, Planning Director; Claudette Grant, Senior Planner; Bill Fritz, Development Review Manager; Sean Dougherty, Senior Planner; Jay Schlothauer, Director of Inspections/Building Official; John Shepherd, Manager of Zoning Administration; David Pennock, Principal Planner; Scott Clark, Senior Planner; Glenn Brooks, Senior Engineer and Greg Kamptner, Deputy County Attorney.

            Work Sessions:

ZMA-2002-004 Cascadia (Signs #30, 91)

PROPOSAL:  Rezone 55.71 acres from RA (Rural Areas: agricultural, forestal, and fishery uses; residential density (0.5 unit/acre) to NMD (Neighborhood Model District - residential (3 - 34 units/acre) mixed with commercial, service and industrial uses); and rezone 5.06 acres from R-6 (Residential: 6 units/acre) to NMD to allow for up to 330 dwelling units and 20,000 square feet of non residential in a planned district.

PROFFERS:  Yes

EXISTING COMPREHENSIVE PLAN LAND USE/DENSITY:  Neighborhood Density Residential - residential (3-6 units/acre) and supporting uses such as religious institutions and schools and other small-scale non-residential uses.

ENTRANCE CORRIDOR: Yes

LOCATION: Tax Map 62, Parcel 25, Tax Map 78, Parcels 59 and 59A, and Tax Map 78E, Parcel H1 located along Route 20 North, across from Darden Towe Park, north of Fontana Drive and south of Broadus Memorial Baptist Church.

MAGISTERIAL DISTRICT: Rivanna

STAFF:  Sean Dougherty

Mr. Dougherty summarized the staff report. 

• The Commission has a copy of the Mr. Barnes’ presentation and a memo summarizing the viewpoints from the last public hearing. The sheet includes the waivers that are requested, staff’s position and any conditions for those requests.  (See Attachment) 

• The request is for ZMA-2002-004, Cascadia, which located along Route 20 North across from Darden Towe Park.  It is a request to rezone 55.71 acres from RA (Rural Areas: agricultural, forestal, and fishery uses; residential density (0.5 unit/acre) to NMD (Neighborhood Model District - residential (3 - 34 units/acre) mixed with commercial, service and industrial uses); and rezone 5.06 acres from R-6 (Residential: 6 units/acre) to NMD to allow for up to 330 dwelling units and 20,000 square feet of non residential in a planned district.

• There were a number of things identified as being outstanding or problematic for the proposal in the last staff report.  Those things pretty much remain.  With respect to the last time the Commission met, staff has compiled the key points and seven unanswered questions from that discussion.  The objective of this meeting was to let the information have a little more flexibility in discussing their issues and thoughts about the proposal. 

• Mr. Barnes has prepared a presentation to address some of the Commission’s questions or least some of the larger issues related to the rezoning.  Then staff can go through that and get into some of the more specific questions.

Michael Barnes and Don Franco were present to represent the applicant.

Michael Barnes stated that last time they took the comments and felt that the Planning Commission needed a little more guidance on how some of the decisions were made to arrive at this point so they could have some context to better understand the project.  Then they could move forward with some of the other more technical issues that they were trying to address last time.  Basically what they are trying to work on a here is context for a policy at the neighborhood level and the discussions will focus on that.  Then they will get into a site design level to talk about the constraints that sort of created the envelope within which they developed.  Finally, they will talk about some of the grading issues and how the twelve principles go.  He felt that they were pretty strong on all twelve principles, but there were some concerns last time on working with the terrain.  That will be the focus of this discussion.  He presented a power point presentation. 

• On the bar graph they were trying to show that the 12 units per acres on the left hand side are the ranges that they are in.  The Code permits a density of 330 dwelling that put them up at the 5.4 dwelling units per acre, which is shy of the 6 dwelling units per acres that is the cap of this designation.  The illustrious plan on the table is showing about 304 units, which is about 5 dwelling units per acre.  The difference in that they really think is primarily going to be extra capacity for carriage units, efficiency units and other affordable housing units up and above what they are already proffering.  There were a lot of concerns that surfaced last week.  They are willing to racket back a little bit to close to 300 units if that resolves some of the concerns of that the staff and the Commission  would have.
• There are also issues of potentially removing multi-family and live/work.  If they do that it would move it down to 3.9 units.  There was also something talked about last time about the single-family home option.  They think that potentially they could end up with 100 units on this site.  From an economic standpoint it would still work for us, but it might work from the policy aspect.  The policy aspect that they heard from the Planning Commission was to try to be on the higher end of that. 
• On the right hand side they were trying to compare it to the developments around the site.  One interesting thing is that some of the public transportation advocates in our community are talking about 7 dwelling units that is the density that starts to support public transportation.  He pointed out that Avemore was off the chart there.
• The next issue deals with mixed uses and beyond the residential would it be advisable to have non-residential uses.  Pantops has around the 250/20 intersection down to the bottom of the site they have the intersection there that is a regional center. Another one is developing on the upper portion of Pantops on 250 around the new hospital on State Farm Boulevard.  What they were talking about with Cascadia is should there be these type of services in the northern part of Pantops.  The decision was made that yes, there should be some mixed use components early on in the process and they should be at a neighborhood scale serving the northern part of the neighborhood.  The Comprehensive Plan defines a neighborhood center as 40,000 square feet of non-residential.  Avemore, which is on the bottom part of this site, is roughly 20,000 square feet of office and retail type uses.  They are matching that with up to 15,000 square feet in their portion of the northern part.  Basically, using those two elements of what they got from the previous Comp Plan and from the land use decisions he felt that what they took early in this process was that they were supposed to have relatively high density and have a mixture of uses on the site.  With those two goals in place, how do they fit those in?  He felt that one of the earlier comments from the Planning Commission in their earlier work session was that density was okay as long as it looked good.  Working with the environmental envelope and making it look good is what their goals are. 
• Logical factors fall into 6 major groups:  environmental concerns, the Planning Commission’s from earlier on, the ARB, the Service Authority, the transportation concerns and the citizen’s concerns.
• The environmental constraints that they have on their site include critical slopes, important woodlands and the 100 foot buffer on the stream. That is not a regulatory requirement because technically it is not an intermittent stream.  By ordinance it is not required to have the buffer.  As part of their plan they are working to provide that buffer at least for the building setbacks. He noted that they had labeled three areas of environmental constraints as ones that maybe can be balanced against other goals of the Comprehensive Plan obviously to try to get density and utilizing the site was a goal that was set earlier on.  There are two question marks on the left hand side are critical slopes that are not immediately associated with the stream system.   Based on an earlier discussion they were talking about critical slopes he knew there was talk about revising the critical slope ordinance, which was put in the process several years ago when this project started four or five years ago.  It was to sort of highlight critical slopes that were adjacent to streams as relatively more important in balancing especially in the development area against other goals.  They look at the critical slopes as something as a design challenge to work with, but potentially they could be disturbed in serving the other goals.  So they have taken those sort of away.
• Regarding the forests it is not clear where these things were derived from originally in the Land Use Plan.  Neighborhood 3 is the only neighborhood that has important forests identified in it, except those shown in Neighborhood 6 around Ragged Mountain Reservoir.  It seems to be something thought with the Monticello view shed.  This issue came up just last month in the staff report, but it had not been an issue before.  So they are trying to address that.  Some of the ways that their project does do that is that this part of the site where they have single-family homes and the possibility to come back and plant trees in this area and ameliorate the impacts to Monticello.  It will not be any worse than Fontana because this development is further away.  Therefore, they think that they can address those concerns.  They plan to focus in on the three areas noted to try to protect them.
• In 2002, the Planning Commission asked a series of questions at a work session.  To recap on that the principles things were trying to protect this area associated with Route 20 and trying to bring some of the rural corridor into the development area and not start the development area until they got to at least their entrance or across from Montessori School, which is a little closer in.  That was one of the things that the Commission supported early on. 
• The connection to Lake Ridge was assessed and again the idea of a road connection to Lake Ridge that is to the west of our site and put a joint storm water management pond down in that area.  That idea was rejected.  The concepts of trying to get the connections to Fontana were supported and the idea, of course, back to the mixed use in the neighborhood was supported.  There was talk about how it should be mixed and a lot of design issues that the Commission can see before them in the plan today.  There was also support at that time for a relatively hard edge to the pool area and density as long as it was well designed and it looked good.  So hopefully the plan today looks good.  That plan involved into this plan.
• The ARB had concerns about the high visibility of the larger buildings on the upper slopes creating a visibility issue.  It was a major problem from their standpoint on how it impacted the Entrance Corridor and elsewhere having larger buildings higher than the site. The ARB did support the idea of rural areas extending in along Route 20.  The ARB raised a major concern about the commercial area.  The plan has always been trying to deal with this problem of trying to create a commercial street internal to the site and front that, but at the same time trying to have a good relationship to the Entrance Corridor.  This plan has also tried to tackle that concern.
• The Service Authority has design constraints with Lake Ridge, which is to the west and up hill.  It is a development that is in the review process now with the county.  They attempted to try to reflect the provision of sewer from Lake Ridge to the rest of the system.  The existing system is shown on the plan in red.  To serve Lake Ridge with gravity they basically have to serve it through our site between crossing the stream corridor.  They can serve their site and not disturb the corridor.  This is a discussion that the Planning Commission needs to have.  But, the Service Authority desires for gravity.
• Regarding the opportunities for interparcel connections they saw basically 8 connections.  One connection was supposed to connect to the potential stop light at the Lewis and Clark Center.  As you know, the Planning Commission and Board chose to take Lewis and Clark and route it back around the site to the existing light at Fontana.  That has gone away.  They continue to work with the church to determine the viability of vehicular connections where our Code of Development does provide pedestrian linkages to the church.  That may be evolving as time moves forward.  The sixth connection to the rural areas, which is the boundary between the rural area and the development area.  For policy reasons and topography reasons that was never really considered.  Again, the connections to Lake Ridge that was shown as 4 and 5 are direct connections to Lake Ridge, but would impact the stream.  From the discussion of last time there is a question mark for the connection with Fontana.  At least now they were left with connections at the first and second locations and they can work from that from the site plan standpoint.
• To put all of those factors together, they have areas of high visibility. They have areas of environmental impact or sensitive areas that the need to be concerned about.  Also, there are issues along the Entrance Corridor that need to be addressed.  But, they feel that their plan has done that.  In many respects he thinks that staff supports that from their comments.  That creates a design envelope and they put their site plan underneath that, which is how it matches up. They have tried to be sensitive to that design envelope.
• With the principles of the Neighborhood Model, again, one of the major ones that came up was how they were working with the terrain.  It was okay to try to put density on the site, but at the end of the day have you created something that is workable.  The site itself sits on two plateaus.  The reason that there are 10 to 15 iterations of this plan is how you work your way up there so that it will ultimately work.  One of their major strategies when they were grading in the roads was to try to create a series of terraces.  So they have a lower and upper terrace and have worked in a third terrace in the middle as a way to work up the site.  The main road starts in at an elevation at the bottom and the max height they can get at the top is 380.  When the road leaves to go to Fontana it is at about 530.  There is a 150 feet difference. This is a fair amount of grading to try to make up as you work up the site.  Their strategy to do that is to create this long serpentine road to allow them to work up the grades.  Between each of those they are trying to push the road to the highest grade that it can so that it can go work its way up the site.  The roads that run with the grade are relatively flat from 2 to 4 percent slopes.  The residential use is fronting on those streets.  The main road serves as a way to get from the bottom to the top.  It creates a road approvable by VDOT and it creates a level plane for these houses to sit on each of these terraces.  As opposed to using retaining walls, they are trying to use the buildings to hold up the grade.  He stated that they were trying to minimize the visibility of the houses from Darden Towe Park and other places. 
• Our concern is did we make the right choices as they went through the plan. Did they balance all of these different factors to the satisfaction of the Planning Commission?  At the last meeting they by passed this issue because they thought it was a settled issue.  Hopefully, this presentation will help the Commission understand that they did work with staff.  They will continue to work with the concerns as they arise.

Ms. Joseph stated that Mr. Dougherty has written down some questions in his memo that the Commission will review and provide guidance on.  (See Attachment – Memo dated March 28, 2006 to the Planning Commission from Sean Dougherty.) 

In summary, the Planning Commission held a discussion with staff and the applicant and provided feedback on the rezoning proposal and preliminary discussion topics as follows:

1.   Does the design adequately reflect the principles of the Neighborhood Model?

The Planning Commission generally felt that the design adequately reflects the principles of the Neighborhood Model, but the waivers need to be revised to support it. Discussion was held on providing public streets versus private streets. 

2.   Is the density appropriate?

The consensus of the Planning Commission was that the density was appropriate.  Also, they felt that the distribution of the density was appropriate.

3.   What is the appropriate solution for the proposed interconnection to Fontana?

The consensus of the Planning Commission was that they would like to see the road stubbed out to provide some sort of connection for emergency and pedestrian access to Fontana at the back of the site.  Currently, the Commission could not support the actual road connection because of the road conditions in Fontana. 

The Commission stated that the road should be built to the extent possible. A complete stub out to the property line will not be possible until the adjacent property is rezoned or necessary grading easements are obtained. The applicant clarified that the adjacent owner is opposed to the connection and is opposed to providing the necessary easements. Therefore, the portion of the connection that is not possible to build without off-site easements will be bonded for future completion.

The Commission discussed how the connection through Cascadia may provide an alternative to Fontana Drive, which may provide access to Lake Ridge, a proposed by-right subdivision to include roughly 100 units. Though the Cascadia connection may serve as an alternate route in the future, the Commission agreed that the current concerns on behalf of Fontana residents relative to the rural cross section of existing roads in the Fontana subdivision outweighed the notion that this connection should be made now.

4.   Are connections to Broadus Memorial Church / reengagement of the church in the rezoning critical to the overall quality of this rezoning decision?

The applicant indicated that they are working towards an agreement to incorporate the church into the plan.  The Planning Commission generally agreed that this was not critical to the overall rezoning decision, but that it was something that would have to be worked out between the applicant and the church.

5.  Do the proffers mitigate the impacts of 330 dwelling units on Route 20 and the Route 20 / 250 intersections?

The Planning Commission concurred that they don’t know what to base their decision on because the County does not have a policy on cash proffers.  There was some discussion on what they need to take into consideration in making this determination for this specific site.  Since there was no consensus, the Planning Commission asked staff to work on this issue and bring it back for further discussion.

6.  Is the applicant’s program (15 for sale / 28 for-rent accessory units attached to a primary structure) for affordable housing adequate? 

The Planning Commission requested the applicant to increase the number of affordable units to meet the 15 percent threshold. The Planning Commission was concerned about the applicant’s proposal and asked the applicant to work with Ron White. Greg Kamptner was asked to review and provide comments about rental affordable housing as described on page 25. 

7.  What is an appropriate treatment of the edge of the Rural Areas?

The consensus of the Planning Commission was that the proposal showed an appropriate treatment of the edge of Rural Areas.  

• The applicant will submit a revised plan that will be more in depth, and will also further address the proffers and revised waiver requests. Staff will then schedule the rezoning for a public hearing.

            Old Business:

Ms. Joseph asked if there was any old business.  There being none, the meeting moved on to the next item.

            New Business:

Ms. Joseph asked if there was any new business. 

The Planning Commission will not meet on Tuesday, April 4, 2006.  The next Planning Commission meeting will be held on Tuesday, April 11, 2006.

There being no further new business, the meeting proceeded.

Adjournment:

With no further items, the meeting adjourned at 9:54 p.m. to the April 11, 2006 meeting.

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Return to staff report