Council makes decisions on powers of BAR related to height 

At the December 13, 2023 City Council work session on the Development Code, Neighborhood Development Services Director James Freas had questions for Council on remaining issues.

“We are at the point of making some final decisions about moving forward with the ordinance,” Freas said. 

The first decision Freas wanted was what level of design review that Council wants to have in the hands of appointed bodies rather than by staff. 

“One of the challenges we face is that many of the places that make a lot of sense for the purposes of new development to happen also are places where we significantly want to see historic preservation,” Freas said. “Most prominently of those is probably downtown itself.”

Next up, Freas wanted a final decision on the role of the Entrance Corridor Review Board, which is a different group than the Board of Architectural Review that operates under different rules. Council had floated the idea of restricting by-right heights based on a concern expressed by Mayor Snook on November 29 that there are no required stepbacks. 

“To me, I guess maybe the real relevant policy question for us to decide on is to what extent we want any discretionary processes that remain,” said City Councilor Michael Payne. 

Payne said he supports the special exception process that will be part of the Core Neighborhood Overlay District which is currently designated for portions of Cherry Avenue and Preston Avenue. Payne said he would like to see that extended to portions of East High Street. He said he does not support restricting height in entrance corridors as suggested at the November 29 work session. 

Snook said he still wanted there to be provisions to avoid areas becoming canyons, but said that a suggestion from Freas to have a different standard for the streetscapes in such areas was one step forward for him.

“Maybe the answer is not to say nothing over CX-5,” Snook said. “Maybe the answer is to have some additional streetscape considerations similar to what’s being proposed for 29 north. Maybe that’s the better solution.” 

There was discussion of other map changes as well as Council tried to answer the question before them. 

For instance, the intersection of Long Street, River Road, and East High Street is currently designated as Corridor Mixed-Use 8. Payne had suggested that was not consistent with the Urban Rivanna River Corridor plan which is part of the Comprehensive Plan.

Councilor Pinkston seemed to agree, especially given the city’s recent $5.9 million property purchase. 

“It is interesting we just bought all this land up right there at the upper quadrant where we are saying you could build a CX-8 building there,” Pinkston said. Much of the rest of East High Street is CX-5. 

Deputy NDS Director Missy Creasy said the Urban Rivanna River Corridor plan does not address building height. 

There appeared to be consensus to change the southeast corner of that intersection to CX-3 down from CX-8, and to reduce the river side of East High Street to CX-3 all the way up to Meade Avenue.  That land had been slated as CX-5.

There was also consensus to not have discretionary review of buildings on Fifth Street Extended, Fontaine Avenue, and Jefferson Park Avenue. 

Part of the discussion then went back to 2117 Ivy Road for which a rezoning has been requested. That property is CX-8, but much of the remaining property on that side of the road is owned by the University of Virginia or the UVA Foundation. 

But Council seemed to no longer proceed with limited heights in entrance corridors.

“I am generally in favor of the goal of trying to reduce the number of discretionary permit processes that we build into everything and the more I’ve thought about things over the last couple of weeks, the more I’ve thought that maybe where we were headed with everything over a CX-5 requiring some sort of a permit, even in the entrance corridors, even temporarily, maybe wasn’t the best solution,” Snook said. 

A solution suggested by Freas is to require a step back after five stories in the entrance corridor and Snook supported that concept. There was a discussion about whether this should be required as a base, or required if the ECRB insisted. 

Lee Einsweiler of the group CODE Studio weighed in. 

“The likely impact of setting it at the fifth story is that you’ll get five story buildings so they don’t have to deal with the challenge of it,” Einsweiler said. 

Council reached consensus to allow for a range of stepback heights for buildings in entrance corridors. Precise details would be promulgated while the entrance corridor review guidelines are revisited. 

At tonight’s meeting, Council will address affordable dwelling provisions, the Core Residential Neighborhood Overlay District and the Residential Neighborhood A District. Those topics came up last night, but there’s still more of the discussion to go.

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