Sure.

Mr.

Green.

Mr.

Hugo.

Present.

Is he present?

Is Thomas?

Mr.

Tillers?

So seeing as we don't have a presenter, we don't have for there any questions that we have for city manager or anyone else present.

Why, yes.

You said you got it to get a plan pulled together.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

It's not it's not a complete plan, but it is a story.

It gives a list of the buildings or facilities.

Um that is put in three phases right now.

And they'll give it a list of of what those buildings are and what phase that those buildings will be connected.

So that is the the plan stage of what those phases are.

First phase schedule to be done in on March thirty first, second phase in July.

Yeah so my recollection is that the first phase that you said is supposed to be done by the spring of the 31st yes that's what that's that's the date that I was given.

Was contingent on us getting grant funding that I think was reported at the last meeting that we didn't get and so I asked then uh so if we didn't get grant funding is there money in the budget to do what we're talking about doing to complete phase one I think your answer was no.

So if there's no money in the budget and there's no grant money then how do we get how do we get phase one done by the springtime when we're inside of the budget year.

Well one of the things I'm talking about is is reallocating what phase one is.

Phase one is uh some existing buildings for the city so no I don't have money that I can spend connect to other buildings but I can reallocate money that I can connect building the the city buildings you know what I mean.

So that's what we're looking at doing kind of modify what phase one actually is because it's moving well maybe we'll say some of the public meeting maybe but it was more important to me that we get our city facilities off of lease lines and onto the networks that we are that's the most important part of this phase to me you know yeah we want to do some other things with some other people and get some other places connected but the thing that's gonna be the the the big bang for me is getting those buildings that we overconnected.

Yeah so uh again this is this whole conversation's been stretched out over many meetings but my recollection when we were briefed several months ago about phase one, phase two and phase three of this plan uh that it was all pointed to connecting city buildings there wasn't any part of the plan that was intended to connect to or make our uh make our pipe available to non-city entities so um it sounds like um you think that phase one two and three does have non-city entities as part of the plan.

Well what I'm looking at the builds that have listed here for phase one, two and three um some of what I would think is quasi city right what I need is that facility on on Frederick I need my fire stations.

Yep.

You know there's some there's certain facilities that I bet that I think are that should be at the top of the list.

Right.

You know what I mean um some of the outline recreation centers some of North Navy Shipyard Security Portsmouth Magistrate those those are important.

I'm not saying they're not imported I I they're not as there's not as a priority as I think some of the other places should be I'll say that way.

Well yeah because at the end of the day um the whole rationale for spending the money that we spent to invest in the local network was because it was going to save us money to get off of other people's infrastructure and onto our own infrastructure just as a intranet this the city talking to the city.

I mean the other things are interesting, but the thing that's going to save us money to pay back the return that we made on the investment and and give you some room to spend that money on other things in the budget is getting the city infrastructure talking to the city infrastructure across our own networks.

I think one of the other things that we need to look at also is a philosophy that the network has to be completely done before we start connecting anything to it.

So there's a change of philosophy as I look at how we're rolling this out.

That needs to happen also.

Yeah.

Does the plan currently include porcel public schools?

Because presumably the schools need the same intra connection as the city does, and there needs to be some interconnection between PPS and the and the city to do some of the business that we do.

That looks like phase five of this plan that I have in front of me.

That's when the schools start coming on.

So maybe we should talk to the schools to find out whether phase five works for them.

I don't recall in our liaison meetings that we've had any discussions with the schools about them having any priority to get on to the broadband network.

Not since I've been around anyway, I know that discussion haven't happened.

I know there were discussions with the schools earlier on, and they were not very interested at that time.

I think they get a very good deal on their internet.

Okay.

So the savings aren't as big as they are for us.

Okay.

Not to say they wouldn't be interested, and we shouldn't re-engage, but that's probably why they're so low.

So they have uh some type of an educational rate that they're paying through I think so.

Okay, okay.

This was years ago, then I think that would make sense.

A lot of not just network providers, but equipment providers give very different rates to educational users.

So it could it could be multi-party, it can be that through whatever broadband service they're getting, they might also be getting equipment for the students, and we're not gonna be able to help with that.

Sometimes states will kind of negotiate that for schools.

I'm not sure if that happened here in Virginia, but sometimes states will take the lead on that.

Uh even you know, some of the uh equipment or technology.

Um I know when I work with uh the San Diego County Office of Education, uh even Microsoft we had you know special licenses that we had that everybody else couldn't get just because of the size of the organization that we're in or as an educational institution, also.

So there are things that that manufacturers and service providers will make available at for education that you just can't get everywhere else.

Yeah, yeah.

And I don't know that I I don't know how it's done here in Virginia, right?

I haven't looked at that yet.

So it's certainly worth a conversation, but yeah, we don't want to make them lose something that's important to them if it doesn't work.

Well this it especially since we're the funding source for uh so if they're gonna pay more for it, I just gotta ask us for more money, you know what I mean?

So yeah, yeah.

So if again if we spend money on them and ultimately it saves us money, then that's a good thing.

Right.

If they're already got such a good deal that the savings is not gonna cover the investment for years and years, then having them at the tail end of uh of what we're doing.

The second piece of that is uh do much good for us.

What we have is dark fiber, uh which means they're gonna have to put equipment on each end of it.

Right, they're gonna have somebody they're gonna need somebody to know understand how to program that equipment and keep it functional, right?

So if that is part of their package, that's something that they're gonna have to split from the package and to make the take advantage of what we have.

Right.

We we don't have the services that go with it, we just have the dark fiber.

Any other questions?

Um is is the next meeting still scheduled for March.

Next meeting.

There's nothing else.

And at this time, uh forgiveness.

And also our city assessors with us.

And Ms.

White would like to uh call the role.

Yes, sir.

Make Bryant present Dr.

Jackson.

Present.

Here.

Mr.

Tilly.

Here.

Mayor Glamour.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Well, thank you, Vice Mayor.

Good evening, everyone.

Uh, we have a three items on the agenda for this evening.

There you go.

I didn't see him come in, so I'd want to make sure uh I didn't lose one uh presenters this evening.

Uh the first one is the uh road and bridge maintenance followed by a right-of-way crew pilot.

And then finally we have code enforcement and neighborhood quality.

Uh Mr.

Gerard Roberts.

Which one you guys gonna do?

All right, cool.

Mr.

Gerard Roberts was going to be uh the presenter first.

Um, good afternoon, Vice Mayor, Council members, Mr.

Carter.

Um we're going to talk about our pavement projects for the FY two six and FY two seven for our city.

Um what encompasses how many roles we have, how many lane miles we have, what are the primary secondary.

We'll also talk about our our budget.

Our budget as it pertains to what our current budget is and what we project our whatever we need for our future budget.

We'll talk about our project scope, what prior our priority corridors, our neighborhood bundling, and the rehabilitation, our targets.

We also talk about our performance and our strategy on how we plan to maintain and improve our roads, our road network.

And we'll also talk about our projected improvements.

Talking about bridges as well, forgive me that that item was not on the agenda, but we will uh have a brief slide for our bridges.

Our bridges, our city we we manage uh, we have five locally managed maintained bridges, which is the Churchland Bridge, the Victory Boulevard, which is Paradise Creek, London Bridge over MLK, London Bridge over Lajigan Avenue, and our Clifford Street Bridge.

The Churchland Bridge project is complete.

Our inspection, our one year, our warranty inspection is this fall in 2026.

The Paradise Creek Creek Bridge replacement is under construction and it will start this spring.

And it's an 18-month, it's uh it's an 18-month project for that duration.

And our London Bridge, our London bridges will um are part of our state of good repair.

So they will we've already submitted an application, and so that'll be a um a plan for our steel repairs and on both on both structures.

All of our bridges are in fair condition.

Um the Paradise Creek Bridge was the only one with a uh condition rating of four, the max is six, every other bridge was a five.

Um that is that's the only bridge that had that was a four, so we are um that's why we're repairing this bridge in this spring.

All right, let's talk about our our road network, what how many lane miles we have, and what are our primaries?

So we have 884 total lane miles in the city of Portsmouth, we have uh which makes up 188 primary lane miles, which are our main arterial roads that are in and out of the city, or come like your Portsmouth Boulevards, your airline boulevards, those are our primary lanes.

We also have our 696 lane miles for our collectors and our local roads.

Those are the roads that are the connectors to our main our arterial roads and our neighborhoods and our tertiary roads.

Our paving is assessed um V dot scans, the roads, um sometimes annually, sometimes semi-annually, and they give us a rating.

Rating is based from zero to a hundred, and our rating currently is a 48.

The threshold to repair uh our roads is a 60.

And what I mean by that is we're gonna scale as our roads deteriorate at 60, we should be milling close to 60, we should be milling overlaying and repairing our roads.

Our overall network, that is our baseline of our critical condition index is a 48.

So with that being said, how do we stack up not just in this on the south side, but in the seven cities complete.

Um right now, Hampton leads the region with a critical condition index of 71.

Um Portsmouth is the lowest of all the seven cities at a 48.

Um, regional average, if you take up all the seven cities, our regional average is approximately a 58.

So we are 10 points below our regional average, and we are below just we are last as it pertains to the seven cities.

Our budget, let's talk about our plan and our current and our annual commitment.

Prior to FY26, we were only spending 1.6 million dollars in our roads annually.

This year, we're spending 5.4 million dollars.

5.4 million dollars gets us 37 to 41 lane miles at an average cost of 146,000 a lane.

And that that delta is there because during milling and paving, sometimes you don't know what you're gonna get when it when you after you take the road up.

$5.4 million.

As a department, we still believe we're 22% underfunded.

And that with our CC critical condition index being a 48, we feel like our commitment should be a $7 million commitment annually.

Currently, with a our current $5.4 million investment, this for FY26 and a planned $7 million investment for FY27 with 12 point is a total of two years of 12.4 million dollars.

What does that get us?

So previously we pay prior to like say prior to FY26, we were paving less than 20 miles on an average of 20 miles per 20 lane miles.

FY26, we are projected to repair 41 lane miles in this current physical physical cycle by the end of June.

Currently we've already completed 11 miles, and we have 29 miles slated to start between now, the end of the end of this of this month until the um end of June.

Well, FY2.6 that makes that 41 miles makes up about 4% of our total net, uh our total net worth.

And FY27, we plan to, we are projecting to do 47 lane miles with an average of 5% in our network.

That total investment of $7 million.

But that also includes, I'll show you in um some slides, some upcoming slides where that seven million dollars doesn't just hit high volume corridors, we start doing neighborhood clustering.

Our condition currently is rated poorest in the seven cities.

However, we do believe that sustained funding of seven million dollars between this FY2.7 will give us the ability to move the needle, our critical condition index needle from a 48 to a 52.

That helps us close the gap as just from a regional standpoint and a safety standpoint for our roads.

That enhanced investment of $12.4 million, it gets us a good coverage and it puts us on the right path to our path of we call it path to 70.

Our goal is to get to 70 uh 70 critical condition index.

Project scope.

Our high volume priority corridors.

These are not all of the roads that we're doing in FY26, but we just wanted to highlight the major corridors that we were doing in FY26.

So as you can see, the major corridors, the high volume corridors that we're doing is fit over 50% of our budget currently, right now, um, which is Portsmouth Boulevard, a portion of Portsmouth Boulevard, portion of Victory Boulevard, Hoffless Creek Parkway, Hartford Street, and Willet Drive.

Now Victory Boulevard, we did pave portions of Victory Boulevard last year in FY25 from the 264 Interstate up to Gus Lane.

So right there where the casino and that strip is, we did pave that in FY25.

And Portsmouth and FY27, we would plan to pay the remaining of Portsmouth Boulevard, the remaining all of Victory Boulevard, the remaining portions of Airline Boulevard, Elm, and Churchland Boulevard.

These are our high volume corridors where our average annual daily travel is over 3,500.

So these are entrance and exits to the city.

So from an aesthetic standpoint, not just from a safety standpoint, but from a aesthetic standpoint, it it shows any visitors and our residents where exactly that we are we are taking a vested interest in our roads.

But if you're familiar with the city of Portsmouth, you know the highlighted in green is what we did in FY25.

The highlighted in red is what we're doing in FY26, and the blue is FY27.

were exactly that we are we are taking and a vested interest in our roads I do apologize we didn't put the street names but if you're familiar with the city of Portsmouth you know um the highlighted in green is what we did in FY25 the highlighted in red is what we're doing in FY26 and and and the blue is FY27 some things we did in FY25 we kind of moved around um trying to maximize get high volume corridors but in FY26 and 27 as you can see our our scope change we start doing neighborhood bundling because we do get a lot of complaints about hey I've been living here for 20 30 years and my roads haven't been paid so we are taking a different approach we are um taking and we are actually investing in the high corridor repairing the high corridors but not just only that we're taking neighborhoods and we are um repairing those roles as well equally this is on the south side where we consider the south side as you can see FY26 um that portion of Portsmouth Boulevard and then in FY27 that remaining portion of Portsmouth Boulevard as you can see we did that portion of Victory Boulevard in the green we'll do the remaining portion in FY27 and then we'll in FY26 we will we'll do the the the red portion our focus like I was explaining our focus is to do the high volume corridors and then do neighborhood bundling we are as far as the budget goes 24% only 24% of our total budget is going to our high volume corridors 75% of our budget is going to neighborhood bundling we do that for like neighborhoods like Peach Tree Peachtree Norcom Park yeah so those neighborhoods are next on our list but that's how we are approaching our strategy.

So high volume corridors along with neighborhood bundling um residents can actually see and feel a change two year impact a two year impact of the 884 lane miles we should complete eight 88 lane miles which is roughly 10% of our total network which is in our it gives us an ability to close the gap give give our residents something that they can see and feel and puts us on the right path to improve our critical condition index as in our road safety our strategy our strategy our our if we do nothing and we lose two points from our critical index every year just by road and travels alone so with no intervention we will lose 2.2 critical condition points every year.

So with that being said our preservation program with a million dollars which is actually the reason why from 5.4 to 7 we're asking million to a million and a half because we want to increase and start a preservation program.

Preservation program pretty much says any roads that are getting close to that threshold we may be able to micro surf we may be able to do slurry sealing we may be able to expand the life of that road before we have to mill and overlay so that puts us on a path of like I said sustained excellence our current path is our our current path is 5.4 million dollars with a a CCI of 48.

If we do nothing and maintain the 5.4 then our critical condition index will remain at 48 it it and it may decrease depending on the cost of doing business with our contractors and our um our contractors and our contractors these two scenarios um are really the same we were just trying to say 7 million dollars will get us um get us closer to a 70 uh if we just did milling and overlaying if we did milling and overlaying with also with the preservation um the ability to preserve identify the roads that need to be microsurfaced those roads that need to be snurry sealed then it would be effective but it would still amount to seven million dollars when we was putting this together we just I put scenario A and scenario B but um I was supposed to take off scenario B so um our strategy strategic recommendation is giving us the ability of

When we was putting this together, we just I put scenario A and scenario B, but I was supposed to take off scenario B.

So our strategy, strategic recommendation is giving us the ability with the with the sustained investment, it gives us the ability to middle and overlay the roads that we are uh we are we are needing to mill and overlay.

Um what we also need to do is monitor our performance, which we have been monitor the performance of the roads that we are driving.

We are also with right now and currently we are looking for vendors.

We are actually have an RFP out for vendors who looking for that can scan our roads and scan our um instead of having V dot and waiting on V dot to do it, we can scan our own roads and scan our concrete, but scan our roads to give us an idea of where we should be identifying spots where we should be slurry sealing or micro micro uh surfacing, or if we need to mill and overlay and redo redo the base.

Um that that technology is out there and we are looking to actually take part in that that technology.

We also have to have a sustained investment.

We cannot invest in our roads because if we don't invest in our road, then like I said, the natural deterioration will happen, and our roads will we will remain the lowest.

Uh we will have the lowest critical condition index in the in the 757 or in the in the um in the seven cities.

Sorry.

Our our path, our strategic scenarios, annual rehabilitation of 6.5 to 7 million dollars gets us 45 to almost 50.

And we always put that delta in there because like I said, you don't you you you don't know.

We always put in worst case scenario.

Some roads may, some roads we may build an overlay, may just need that, and it may the the quote may actually be less.

Um preservation program, like I said, if being able to uh micro surface, being able to slurry seal, being able to preserve our investment, uh maintain our uh priority corridors, maintain the priority corridors in and out of the city, um, being able to uh neighborhood bundle, and our pathway that's all the calculations, but in 15 years or 120 million dollars will get us four to five hundred lane miles approximately, which is 50% of our network.

So we talk about the pillars, and we do think that investing in our infrastructure, and if we're talking about the 2026, 2030 pillars, strategic pillars, one of the pillars is get stuff done.

And we do think that improving our roads and our road network is a part of getting stuff done.

We also think that our financial operational excellence, our investment, five year CIP, we are disciplined, um, it's cost efficient, 146,000 um dollars per lane mile.

Also economic growth and revitalization, it's a part of that.

It's a part of the aesthetics and the connectivity to Crawford Bay and the Link District because there are roads that go through.

Um safe connected community.

We do believe that improved roads, road conditions enhances the public safety.

We do believe that um neighborhood bundling builds community pride, and we also believe that uh gateway revitalization creates a welcoming beautiful beautiful streetscape.

So roads coming into the city, roads coming out of the city.

Um we think that helps revitalize the city.

And with that, take questions.

Um every time you come in here, I'm amazed at how how good your analysis is, um, and how proactive you're being, especially with hiring the contractors to go scan the revs instead of reactive.

It's very, very, very nice um presentation.

Um we think that helps um revitalize the city and with that take questions um every time you come in here i'm amazed at how how good your analysis is um and how proactive you're being especially with hiring the contractors to go scan the roads instead of reactive it's very very very nice um presentation so i've got another I've got uh six questions here the first question question is recently they dug up porcelari to run some lines underneath it um the quality of the repair work was um by the I guess was the outside vendors was horrendous um does that fall under y'all's oversight to to make sure that that no they didn't y'all didn't but was your oversight so that is the that's one of the reasons why we will pave um for some boulevard that is one of the first rows especially that portion you're talking about the portion coming in from Chesapeake yes where they did uh um speed bump yeah the gas lines they were relocating gas lines or something but we we typically if we have a call we'll we'll go out and we'll try to uh fix whatever um is the issue is so we we do have a street I'm concerned about vendors coming in and doing work like that in the future and who the oversight is that uh um mighty have that yeah yeah okay can I jump in here mayor absolutely so you have their inspection process that should happen when these vendors do any work in our city and part of that that close out inspection should be making sure that those rules are put back in a condition similar to where they were uh before the uh the work started so what we have to do better is as we do those those close out inspections hold vendors accountable right for the work that's being done who's who in the department which department holds them accountable it depends on which department is doing it yeah because engineering would do some parts of the inspection would do some just depends on what uh what particular work is being done there is who's gonna do the inspection it's not like one inspector does every kind of inspection of different types of inspectors that do different types of inspections based on the the type of work that's being done second question on that same line is uh oversight planning to see when these guys plan to dig up our roads and the repairs I'd hate to see us repair a road and then come you know six months later dig it up so y'all have some interaction with them I think before we decide we we'll put together a list of the roads that we plan to pay we'll send that out to all of the um potential contractor not contractors but potential especially internal departments that will potentially tear up go back and turn the road like utilities or um engineering so we will send that out they'll tell us about projects they have going on like we are only doing the portion of Portsmouth Boulevard because engineering has a project that's on Portsmouth Boulevard that if we do that it would it would they will go back in and tear up the road so we we we will send it out make sure that they don't have any projects in the area and then if they say no they clear it we that's when we go back and pay um so we had a uh rising sea level study done for our critical roads for the that were some of the state roads um and it came up with the plan of some of the roads we need to raise three to five feet including Eppingham and um some other ones um is there any uh foresight to see are we gonna see grants for some of that is that is there a follow-up plan for some of that you up in here give us you have the floor absolutely that those aren't roles that we're gonna take care of that way those are OLDCC made that recommendation on some roads that that affect the uh the military bases around us right so we're we're seeking some department of defense help if we can we get some of that because that that that's the reason we did that study to kind of position ourselves to be able to go after those kinds of range that's the question I was waiting to see where we're gonna go after the grants for good job um so last year when you came before us you gave us kind of an estimate of how much totally we were behind in order to get up to 70 so if you were to summarize and give us a rough estimate say we were to catch it up next year totally everything to a 70 what can you estimate what a budget for that might be just rough number I'm just curious how far we are behind basically that I couldn't I couldn't give you that answer.

That that's that that would that that's not an answer I could not give you we we don't want to just throw the number out at it that was the number you prepared for so we we don't want to just I don't want to press for it thank you but can I talk to you about it good thank you very much for your presentation just this very good analysis thank you.

Consulate yeah thanks Mr.

Mayor Mr.

Are we having trouble getting paving contractors?

Is that why we only got a third of the way through during the good weather in the first half of 2026?

Or is because I'm hearing with uh Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel and some of the other big projects around Hampton Roads that uh everybody's having trouble finding people to do paving.

Is that you want to drive?

So we have two vendors that take care of our paving.

Our strategy was to do portions of it prior to it getting cold.

Um we do know a lot of vendors, uh a lot of other big projects happen during that time from July to November, they're trying to crunch it and get it get it done.

We are got we we decided to say like we would get a portion of it done, send them the roads that we want to complete and give them a start date, and the both vendors will be working concurrently as they move through as they move through February to June.

So we we will we won't have a problem getting our roads paved in that portion.

This is the time when most municipalities take take um take an opportunity to get their roads paved.

Okay, so we've got two contractors that will are committed now to get the FY26 paving done.

Yes.

Do we have new contracts for FY27 or options on the existing contracts to keep going with the folks that we're working with?

So, yes.

So two of the vendors, both both vendors are dedicated to Pauls.

But we just have to send them the week, they've already are aware of the roles of FY27, they just want to start dates.

That's it.

Okay.

Um so uh I want to maybe pile on to the comment that that uh councilman Dodson made.

So uh I'll put this in the category of we don't have enough time to do it right, but we always got time to do it over.

So the manholes on Cedar Lane, we had to go back and do over because we got in a hurry and did the paving before we had the pieces parts that we needed to bring the manhole covers up to grade.

Uh the the issue on Porcel Boulevard where somebody dug up the road, and whoever was supposed to QA what they did didn't do a very good job of QA in based on the outcome, and so it left us with a problem, and you're gonna fix it.

That's the good news.

The bad news is we shouldn't ever have the problem to begin with if we had done QA on Cedar Lane, if we had done QA on Porcelain Boulevard, uh utility ditch on High Street, uh next to Baines Points, like speed bump.

I mean, so there's places around the city where somebody patched, wasn't a very good job, and now we either have a hole that is busting up tires, or we have a buffet that's busting up tires.

So my encouragement is if if we got multiple departments that are on the hook to do QA, maybe we ought to do some training for what that QA ought to look like so that we get the good results every single time.

Can I throw something in there on this or it's not a matter of training on this circuit?

It's a matter of holding those accountable.

We're supposed to be holding those other people accountable.

Yeah, we got to have to do a whole different mindset of how we participate in projects around our city.

We gotta have more ownership in what we do.

So it's it's not a matter of they don't know what to do.

It's just a matter of sometimes we haven't held those accountable whose job it is to hold other people accountable.

Yeah, okay.

I appreciate that.

I'm trying to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Uh and my last question.

So I'll use uh Frederick Boulevard through mid-city as the example.

So must have been concrete underneath the asphalt because now there's expansion joints, and every expansion joint has a has a bump.

We're not planning on paving for every boulevard according to our chart.

So does that mean that for now until FY28, people got to keep driving over the over those bumps, or is there something that could be done to mill?

And it's not just Frederick Boulevard, just that that happens to be my path home.

So every time I drive through mid-city, I'm bump a bump up and on to on my way home, and we got that problem pretty much any place in the city where we had concrete and then asphalt laid over the top of it.

Is there a solution to that that doesn't require repaving?

So yes, though those joints, those joints are a part, and Frederick Boulevard is one of those roads that we have we have looked at, we have looked at intensively, and we will have to do something separate than just the paving portion.

We may we are looking at uh other options as removing the concrete and just having a base.

We're looking at options of what happens if we pave over it, fix the joints and pave over it.

That's that's not a easy fix, and it it is gonna be substantial just because of the concrete base that's underneath.

So we we are looking at Frederick Boulevard.

That is that is one of the roles that are that's on our list that we say we have to fix immediately.

We just have to come up with the best most efficient game plan for it.

So I guess what I'm suggesting is that is gonna be to do the right fix is gonna be a ways out there because it's gonna cost a lot of money to do what you're talking about doing.

Is there something we can do in the meantime to shave the pumps, the asphalt pumps, so that it's a smoother than it is right now in the meantime?

We can we can look and talk to the contractors to see about fixing the joints and then repairing those joints.

It'll give us a temporary fix.

Yeah, the permanent fixes out there somewhere.

Right.

I'm just looking for band-aids in the meantime.

Correct.

So okay, yeah.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor Moody, sure you have the floor.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh great presentation, sir, Mr.

Roberts.

Uh the bridges, I noticed West Norfolk Bridge wasn't listed.

Is that uh is that because that's uh state uh it's responsibility?

Yes, sir.

Okay, so we have no responsibility for West Norfolk Bridge.

No, we only maintain the five local bridges that we that uh are listed.

Is the state uh aware because that bridge is definitely showing some wear and tear due to the uh truck traffic?

Uh uh a lot a lot of pitting.

I'm sure you travel across it as well and have seen that.

Is the state got any plans to address that?

We have to talk to uh the VDOT about that.

Uh uh, they have their own inspection process and their own grading in their own plan for the for state funded or state maintained roads.

I I haven't talked to them about that particular bridge there.

And also the the bridges, the number of bridges that are listed in fair condition, is that relative to what the the structural integrity or the paving aspect of it?

The rating.

So there's a rating from zero to six, and that six is excellent.

Five is gonna be fair.

All of our bridges are five with the exception of the Paradise Creek Bridge, which is a four, which is on the contract.

Yeah, who rates that they give us uh it's a they it's the same thing as our critical condition index.

Bridges are a GCR, which is a good condition rate.

So they score, and we we look pretty much look at the score, and we know what the thresholds are.

Fours replace, we reach restructure, fives are fair, six are excellent.

Do they give us uh punch list uh saying you know this bridge needs uh uh painting, welding, whatever?

I'm I'm not I don't they don't do that.

We go on and we look at the GCR and engineering will come up with a game plan as to when and where and when and how we replaced.

Okay.

Also uh the lining of the roads, uh a lot of our roads as I travel around the city, uh just need the uh the markers, uh uh town point road is is one of twin pines, uh could probably rule them off.

Uh that's extremely important, I think, from a safety standpoint.

Um did we how do we address that?

Is there a system in place to do that?

Or so currently we we focus on the roads that are milling overlaid now.

We that's a part of the preservation that I was speaking about earlier, not just microsurfacing, not just slurry ceiling, but actually as we scan the roads, we know where fading markers are, turning lanes, um, and replacing those.

That's a part of the preservation for the roads.

Okay.

And I know it's not done out of that department.

That's uh traffic engineering that handles uh striking.

And and and getting back to the speed bumps on enforcement boulevard, that that project was uh relatively recent project, and and uh I'm really disappointed that that we we didn't hold the contractor uh accountable uh to get get that work that repayment back to grade uh because uh saying there's speed dump bumps uh is uh uh accurate uh description.

Um thanks for the presentation.

Councilwoman Thomas, now you have a floor.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you so much for the presentation.

Um I wanted to question, I know uh councilman Dotson asked about the DOD, I believe, grant for this C level grass study that was done.

I wanted to ask about what are the VDI grants we're focusing on for some of the work that we have coming up and in the future.

There I learned about quite a bit of those grants or government grants, state funded grants uh that were available at the VML this past last week.

So um are we are we looking at any grants uh for some of this work?

So VDOT does do applications for state approved repair.

State of goods repair is only on state roads that are below of the the threshold of this um 60, and any state road that they deem we that's repairable, we have to match, but they also they give uh their grant is one point five, and we just have to match that.

We just have to identify like Frederick Boulevard would be considered a state road, however matching that wouldn't go too far in front of the boulevard.

So that's an example of the state it's called state of goods repair or we call it SGR.

Um I don't know if all of these other grants that you know I looked up after the VMLs, just learning about some of the flood grants, um the smart scale or whatever.

Are there do we have a I'm gonna ask this to you, Mr.

Carter?

Do we have a forward look always on getting whatever grant money, state funded money is available because we have a lot of road work to do, a lot of infrastructure work to do, and just want to make sure we're getting or at least applying for every available dollar that's out.

Um, because I do feel like some of our some of the projects that you mentioned maybe could fall into there if we if we kind of take a look at those.

We absolutely uh use every funding source that we can.

I ever one of the things that we have to really be careful about is capacity to do those things in the timeline that those grants have.

You know, grants come with a lot of strings attached.

And if you don't uh maneuver through that grant in exact way that the grant is designed, we end up in a worse shape anywhere before we started the grant.

We do have to do the work, you gotta pay for the work and you gotta pay for the grant.

So one of the things that I'm talking about to everybody right now is making sure that when you're applying for grants, you would actually do the work in time lines required, any quality that's required.

One of the problems we've had in our past is not really paying attention how we maneuver through those things and get those in trouble sometimes.

So we will absolutely want to take advantage of every opportunity that we have, but those gotta be smart choices, not just this that just go at the dollar because the dollar is available.

Okay, thank you.

Can I follow that?

Absolutely.

So you have the floor.

So I emailed you uh earlier um today uh an email on the grant for looking at the overpasses and other passes on the railroads.

Okay.

I think it's uh Port Smith North Belt line.

Uh we were talking about earlier about like the trains extending, and that was one of the studies that might allow some better transportation around the city.

Okay.

Um we also look at uh there's grant money available, they said right now for that study.

Okay.

I'll take what that I haven't seen it today.

Uh today was a bad day for the edge yet.

When you get a chance to club out there, I'll do it.

Council.

Thanks, Mayor.

Thank you, Ms.

Roberts.

Lots of good information here.

I love that you tied this to our pillars.

And I think you can tie it to the fifth pillar because roads are important to school bus safety.

So let's throw that in there and we're hitting all five pillars.

Um just for clarity, because this is one of the first things that you mentioned.

Can you recap what we were paying for roads?

What we paid this year, and we're going we're pushing for the seven million mark.

So we were spending for uh sixteen years, we were spending uh one point six million dollars in our in our roads.

And um FY24, we spent $3 million, and then FY25, we uh we invested five point this year.

Um we invested $3.3 million in the FI2.6, we are um at $5.4.

3.26 to $5.34.

And does this note on page budget alignment page?

It says $5.4 million planned $1.6 million under commitment.

Is that $22 target?

Does that mean you had your department had asked for more and we cut some out?

Well, we we believe that $7 million is the target.

Okay.

It's the target to keep us sustainable.

Um course, you know, the cost of doing business goes up every year, but at $7 million, we can move from $7 million versus uh uh constant um undercommitment, I should say.

So $7 million.

Can I put something in there before you finish?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

The question you asked was did he ask for war and was it cut?

Yeah.

Yes.

He asked for seven, and we ended up with 5.4 just because of budget pressures on other things.

Okay.

Yes, ma'am.

Yes.

So recap we were woefully behind, which created terrible road conditions, making us lowest in the region for our score of 48 out of 100, and we have crept toward more money, but we need to keep going higher to pull ourselves out.

But that's gonna take us at that rate, it's still gonna take us 10 to 15 years.

Okay, so that helps us understand the urgency of funding and um understanding how we got to where we are.

Um, does the preservation preserving the roads piece um the slurry, like you said, does that impact does that help our score, or does it just help us maintain?

Does it help us increase or maintain?

It helps to score.

It does.

It does.

It helps the score scores based on how the road is, um, the cracking um and the condition of the road.

So slurry is selling microsofting, I mean microservicing.

It's almost like you know, extending the life.

Okay, but um not reconstructing the base.

Okay.

Um thank you for all this information.

It was a wonderful presentation, and help us know how we can best communicate things for you.

People are very interested in knowing about road paving, and we talk to people all the time.

So if we can help you say, hey, this neighborhood, we're coming your way with some road paving in 2026 or 2027, then that's that's a good way that we can help you at.

Okay.

Well, Mr.

Roberts, thank you for your presentation.

Sorry, I came in a little late, but uh those roads are important, so I hope you and the team keep on uh paving and and making them so that uh we're happy to ride on.

Oh thank you, sir.

Thank you, sir.

Are you switching out?

You next I'm next to I thought you wouldn't give him the opportunity to he's also the second superman and Batman.

All right, good.

He's also the next uh presenter for uh the right-of-way crew pilot.

Right-of-way maintenance.

So public works department is looking to expand into a expanded to a division um specifically for right-of-way maintenance.

Yeah, um, this is enhanced the right-of-way maintenance, and it's it's really more um community improvement.

So we'll talk about um our division, the new division, the expanded division, our scope analysis, our timeline, and budget, and our risk, um, and how we are organized the division.

Uh our project overview, our strategic vision really is to launch a comprehensive pilot project, but not pilot.

When we say pilot because we were looking at just doing originally we were looking at just doing business districts, but we expanded that to primary roads and secondary roads as it pertains to the right-of-way.

We believe that a right-of-way division gives us an ability to enhance the aesthetics in the city.

To kind of curb some of the blight in the city, we we do feel that a right-of-way division will give us that.

It will also give us it will improve the sit um the city's aesthetics and it create a more attractive urban environment.

And our safety will improve and safety improvements, enhance the safety for pedestrians from debris removal, vegetation, reducing any potential hazards.

How we look at it, this division will be mowing grass, herbiciding applications on primary and secondary roads, comprehensive litter control with defined areas.

We mean by your our hot spots where we have illegal dumping, those areas where overgrown vegetation are on concrete, those areas that are in the business districts where there may be litter on those on those areas, identifying those.

Services not in services exclusions.

Parks and rec handles the inner meet the median, they already have a contractor of mowing the grass and controlling the median, but they do not do the right away.

So this division will completely do the right away.

We'll do the sidewalks and the business districts.

The tricky part is just the residential neighborhoods and tertiary roads.

Because trying to go in every neighborhood right away would be tremendous.

So we are focusing on mainly the primary and secondary.

What residents can see, what visitors can see, and the to enhance the aesthetics of the city.

Our stakeholders are the residents, council, local businesses, any business in those areas where there's overgrown vegetation or there's within the right-of-way, and the concrete is grasses growing through the concrete, we will be taking care of those areas.

What are our deliverables?

Our deliverables are clear sidewalks, controlled vegetation, debris-free right-of-ways, and a comprehensive assessment, meaning we will assess exactly what we are doing.

We will, if we say we're going to do it, then that we do it.

What are our timelines?

Our timeline starts now, council presentation.

And from there with the approval, then we sit down and we develop our equipment, the staffing, right-size staffing for the division, right size equipment.

What equipment do we really need?

What areas are we going to focus on and the rotation and the cycles of those areas?

Once the division is created, we'll do a first quarter division review.

Figure out our real track the budget, make sure we are our tracking.

Do we need to go back and adjust something?

This gives us an idea.

This gives us an opportunity to make any adjustments within the early phase of the division.

The next is a division review in 180 days.

This gives us our mid-year evaluation.

90 days gives us our first look.

180 days give us a more in-depth look at what we will be looked like from a budget standpoint.

What is our community impact?

Meaning what is the response we are getting from our community, and we'll determine if we need to strategy as far as when we sit down for the next budget cycle, do we need to expand or do we need to purchase new equipment?

The budget, we are estimating because it's estimations, and we do have we did do our research in the in the handout as far as how much certain pieces of equipment will cost and what personnel will cost.

So on the low end, we're looking at $600,000 for the division, and on a higher end, we're looking at 676 for the division.

Our major costs are labor, equipment, and chemicals for for this division.

Detail breakdown, what we think staff would cost on the low end, or we think staff in it would cost on a high end.

Also the total projected budget on the low end, the high end, and what we think the equipment purchasing would cost up front.

The labor components and supplies, chemical supplies, are things that we can't really know how much we would need, so we are those are those are those will vary, those are variables.

Our risk management strategy.

Those could be issues, newer equipment, equipment that we we have not uh been utilizing, so issues with equipment we could could could be a risk and weather dependency on rainy days on really really cold days, um those those areas.

I mean, those could be risk, but those are um just what like weather dependent.

The pillars so pillar one is always get stuff done.

This is a part of getting stuff done, and and since um council's vision and our strategic pillars, we want to tie anything and everything that we do to our pillars.

So this part of right-of-way maintenance is getting stuff done because it is it also aligns, executes, and delivers through any track milestone over 250 days.

It delivers results that our residents can see, feel, and our cleaner streets and maintain right away.

Pillar two is financial excellence.

We have a structured budget with clear cost controls.

We also will have KPIs and tracking to be able to be responsible for our capital planning.

Um, and that also supports our operational efficiency.

And the pillar four is safe as we were going through it, trying to figure out what other pillar we could tie it.

Pillar four is safe and thriving community.

It direct it directly addresses safety you can feel and pride you can see.

Um through enhanced pedestrian safety, improved aesthetics, citywide beautification, community pride, and well-maintained public spaces.

We believe that this division's total focus will be maintaining the right-of-way and controlling the and and improving the aesthetics of the city.

With that, have any questions?

Vice Mayor Moody.

Thank you again, Mr.

Roberts for uh great presentation.

Uh I'm glad to see the ring piece, the the beautification and uh maintenance of the uh uh the visuals that we see driving throughout the city, but my question is uh uh were these things previously being done by contractors?

Let me take that yes, okay.

Sporadically, uh we were more reactive than proactive on the somebody calls because somebody saw something, and we'll we'll have either part of our parks and recreation team or some contractor go out and try to eradicate that, but this is more of a proactive approach to this where this makes this maintenance would be done on a routine basis all the time.

But we did have contracts for say grass mowing, yes, yes.

Okay, will this include the the school piece uh or they do their own contracting?

No, they do their own.

Okay.

So no, we this is right-away, so I'm I'm kind of confused as what you're asking on the school piece.

Well, well, on the right-of-way, so some of that is pertains to schools as well.

Umperty or but this is we're this is for the roads itself, not on any particular property.

Well, the properties city easement, right?

Right, right.

Yeah.

Um and um so is there any savings from us doing it ourselves versus uh some of this being contracted out?

Absolutely.

But the the main thing is again it's on a regular routine basis.

We if you want to contract out to do this on a schedule basis where we're talking about doing it, it's gonna cost you considerably more than have it on your own staff that you can schedule and go and do those things with.

So yes.

Uh when we talk about city right-of-ways, uh is this gonna include uh litter control uh as well?

Yes, but it is part of this process.

Okay, that's good.

Especially in the uh entranceways uh to some of our major gateways.

Um glad to see that.

But I'm also glad to see uh Mr.

Roberts.

I don't know if you put the presentation together, but it actually had your name as the presenter.

Yeah, you you know we get a lot of papers and and sometimes we go back and want to know who made that presentation because we may have a question following that.

And one of my pet page for a long time is whoever makes the presentation should take ownership by having a name on it.

So congratulate you for doing that.

Oh, okay.

I I didn't know if councilman Tillis was before me, but thank you, Mayor.

Um thank you for this presentation.

I'm also glad to see us addressing beautification of our right-aways.

I know we talked a bit about beautification of our city gateways or entryways.

Is this part of this project process?

No, that's that's partial recreation has a whole different plan for foring with those gateways.

Now this may end up being some maintenance to that afterwards, but just because they're part of our right-of-way, but that's the beautification is a whole different set of uh a whole different project than this.

Then this, okay.

And then my next question is regarding about how many right-aways do we have, like that we will have to maintain.

That's a lot.

It is a lot.

You're talking about all of the primary roads and secondary roads.

On both sides of those double letter, double amount of roads.

So, how will we, or how will you prioritize uh where to start?

High visibility areas first.

Um where there's high visibility as far as um traffic travel and where there is foot traffic, a high visibility foot traffic.

So those are the areas that we we plan to start first and then expand ourselves out.

Okay, that's good to hear.

I would definitely want to make sure some of our more neglected areas are prioritized as well, and they probably fall into the way you're prioritizing like high visibility and high foot traffic.

Um and I think that's it.

So thank you for the presentation.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh first I want to say that I'm um I'm really excited about this right-of-way piece.

Um count as the city manager knows I sent a lot of emails and features stuff as I've driven throughout the city.

So I'm excited about this, and I've talked to people at civilians, so really I mean it's coming because I've told them it was coming.

Um, and so they've been very excited about this as well.

Awesome.

Uh first question I have though is in regards to the lawn, the current lawn contractors that we have that maintain our right-of-ways and meetings.

Um, I know that currently falls under parks and rec.

Will they now be falling under this division?

Um, so there's more of a streamlined process of communication.

Hadn't thought about that yet, but that may be something that we need to realign so that as his guys are out, they know where to actually send these people.

So we'll we'll we'll talk about that.

Yeah, that's a great good idea.

Um, and then also with like our own and off ramps that go on to the interstates.

Um I've said that they're state-owned right-way they're not, they're state-owned.

State owned.

Yes, and they will run us off of them.

Yeah, so with this division, yes.

Um, is there a way that we can build and maintain the relationship with V to find out number one?

If they can assist to come out and do those because if we we can clip our streets all day long, but those on and off ramps look terrible.

Terrible, they're still as an ISO, and I can need quite a few of those now.

Yeah, um, so I was it'll be beneficial for this division to be able to maintain and build relationships with V Talk and V lot and see number one if they could do it.

Um we can explore, but I can't promise.

Okay.

Okay.

Absolutely.

Um that's all that's gonna be thanks, Mayor.

Uh so Mr.

Roberts, thanks again for a great presentation.

Appreciate you putting your name on there.

You can add some page numbers next time.

So well I want to pile on maybe to uh what councilman Phillips was talking about.

So I appreciate that we're going from reactive to proactive.

Line line proactive means we're gonna have a schedule.

Okay, really important that we communicate the schedule.

Okay, so collaboration with Parkson Rat, collaboration with VDOC, collaboration with civic league.

So I got it that we're not going into the residential areas, but if we're cleaning up the main arteries through some neighborhood, and I'll I'll use Wilson Ward maybe as the example because Miss Elvira has coordinated Portsmouth Boulevard cleanups with her civic lead.

Right.

Well, if we're gonna do that, that's great, but we need to be communicating what our plan is so that she can dovetail a civic league plan in to get kind of away from Porcela Boulevard when we come through.

Um adopt the spot people.

I guess we still do adopt a spot.

The uh well so yeah, yeah, and kind of back to uh those those ramps.

Yeah, so if you're cleaning up the main arteries, then and if we have any adopt a spotters or the clean community commission, another group that we want to uh coordinate with, because they're out doing cleanups too.

We don't need to all be cleaning up the same places, hopefully.

If you guys are gonna take care of the main right-of-ways, then we can put some of those other resources into some of those other areas where it looks like uh you know McDonald's bags going out the window on the way to the highway.

And then once upon a time, the sheriff used to take inmates out to to do some of this stuff.

I haven't seen that in a while.

Maybe manager, you can check with the sheriff to see if there's an opportunity to uh to to work collaboratively there too.

Absolutely have that conversation.

I think they stopped doing COVID times.

I'll take it recaptured after that.

Yeah.

What the sheriff explained to me because of staff, staffing and also other regulations.

We just weren't able to reinstitute and have as many people to go out and do it as they had it in the past.

We can have a conversation, absolutely.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Councilman Docson, so you have the floor?

Yes, sir.

Um just one intersection I want to report.

Um Bob White coming into Forsyth Boulevard.

There's a mulberry tree and a set of bushes that I have reported and they've cut it down five times.

There's got to be a permanent solution to removing a mulberry tree and the bushes surrounding the fire hydrant there.

So anyway, you can put that on your list.

I really appreciate it.

Um is that city right away?

Is that private property we're talking about?

It's coming up in the corner of the sidewalk.

And it's uh what's the fire hydrant?

What's the street?

Can't get to the fire.

Bob White and Portsmouth Boulevard.

Bob White, that's the name of the street.

Not a person, right?

Also, um a citizen reported to me that our downtown trees um were scheduled to be uh height restricted.

In other words, when they got to a certain height, they were to be cut down and replaced by smaller trees, and there's supposed to be a cycle to that.

I don't know if that report that they gave me was true or not, but I'd love to get up some feedback as to the trees seem to be invading the sidewalk and the road and the sewer system down there now.

I think we've got some complaints from some of the city business owners down there who had to add their lines cleaned of the routes down there because they've become so invasive.

I don't know.

I'm sorry.

I don't know how much of the tree maintenance is true on that story, but I would appreciate a report back if we could.

I thought talk to our arborists about the tree maintenance piece of that that won't fall with these guys, so but I can get that information for you.

I thought that was a right of way there on both sides and then I gotta cut trees down or uh do tree pruning now.

If the tree is right on the side road and this overlapping sidewalk, they just you know they cut it off so that the the enter entry to the sidewalk there, but these guys are not the these aren't the surgeons for the trees, these guys are just gonna come with change on quick, you know what I mean?

That's that's kind of what they're doing.

You want to talk to the arborists about what you're talking about, can I ask then your report back if you don't mind?

Absolutely.

Thank you, sir.

I don't know the truth of that report, and that's why I was hoping to find out if there was some substantial information behind it.

Well, that's why I won't talk to the armorers that that falls on the head.

That that wouldn't be something that just didn't everybody deal with.

Mr.

Roberts, yes, so in our quest to become the best city in America.

Um I'm really excited about this strategy.

I think that it's it's it's come to be something that we should expect.

And you know, these secondary and primary roads, there are some, particularly if you go down high street headed toward Churchland when you get past where those bushes are all on the side before you get to the maybe federal.

Um those are it it really is is hazardous.

So I'm really glad to hear that we're going to be doing this.

And and it's exciting, and and you can say this to the community.

You've got a timeline, people will have something to look forward to.

So I want to encourage you and your team to get to work and get stuff done, and you know, we'll support you all the way.

That's okay.

Thank you, sir.

Awesome.

Hey, great job, man.

Appreciate that.

Great job.

All right.

Uh we got next contestant up.

Uh Mr.

Mike Moe is the uh entrance directory of uh permits and inspection.

He's gonna talk about uh the code enforcement and and uh neighborhood quality.

Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, members of council, yes.

Um here tonight to talk to you a little bit about uh code enforcement, neighborhood quality as it sort of pertains to the department of permits and inspections members.

So the purpose of code enforcement is to ensure that structures within the city are built and maintained to the standards of the Virginia uniform statewide building code, and that the properties in the city are maintained to the standards of the code of the city of Portugal.

But tonight what we're gonna do is we're gonna focus on part three with of the building code, which is the maintenance code.

That's for existing buildings, and it regulates how they're to be maintained and kept up, and then mainly chapters 17 and 23 of the code enforcement, which deals with housing conditions and uh nuisances.

So code enforcement's performed in the city of Portsmouth on a proactive basis.

We have a series of neighborhood inspectors, and the city's divided into 14 inspection districts, and those districts are broken out into five areas in each district.

So we have seven areas in the city, 70 areas in the city that are patrolled on a weekly basis by these inspectors.

So our city staff is made up of three inspection team leaders, or our division staff for this, I should say, is made up of three inspection team leaders and 14 neighborhood inspectors.

So the inspection team leaders supervise four to five neighborhood inspections, inspectors directly under them.

They manage the C click fixed program for our department, and they also manage special programs such as our commercial pool inspection program, rail inspections, dialogue structures, and our demolition program, and they train all the new employees that come in and will work directly under them.

Our neighborhood inspectors, they inspect neighborhoods on a weekly basis, they attend civic leagues, they issue notices of violation, they act as expert witnesses in court when we have to seek remedy in the court system to correct violations, and they perform strict little assessments on damaged buildings.

So the specific types of inspections that they're they're conducting when they're out there on a daily basis is property maintenance, high grass and weeds, debris, inoperable motor vehicles, rural inspections, and they perform complaint investigations.

So first off, when they ride the neighborhoods, they're doing a windshield inspection, they're open down the streets, they're looking out at the properties, and they'll say take a property such as this.

They're looking at all these aspects here of the structure itself, even the accessory structures like fences, sheds, gazebos.

They look at the condition of that as well as the condition of the property.

They're also looking at city code issues, high grass and weeds, the debris, inoperable vehicles, things such as that.

And they will write one notice of violation that encompasses everything they find at the day of the inspection.

So property maintenance, what they're kind of looking for there, these are some of the key things that are there.

Peeling paint, broken windows, missing siding, rotten wood, unsafe handrails, and property address.

Property address is kind of key, it seems minor, but it's a safety issue.

Emergency response needs to be able to know where they are.

Fire and rescue, police, if they have to respond, it's it keeps them from having to guess where they're going.

They've got an address there.

So any violations of the property maintenance code, the person gets 30-day notice with a violation to correct it.

If it's not corrected within 30 days, they get a final notice with an additional 30 days to correct the violation.

Now, at any time in this process, they can come in and request an extension, and we will sit down, look at case by case basis, see if they have a valid reason for their extension, and we work with the citizen to make sure that we can get them into compliance.

If we can't get compliance in that 60-day period, then we'll go to the city attorney's office and we'll seek remedies in the court.

So some of our city code inspections, the one that's a big one, we're getting ready to come into here in the spring, grass and weeds.

So the code says any grass or weed that grows over 10 inches in the city must be abated.

So an inspector, while they're out on in their neighborhoods, they carry along these posters you'll see in grade stakes.

So they'll notice the violation, they'll go ahead and post the property while they're there, they'll come in and issue a notice of violation where the citizens given 10 days to correct the issue.

If they don't, then we move to a contracted grass cutting service that will go out and take care of the issue.

Then that cost is billed to the citizen in a way as a lien against their taxes, and the city treasurer will collect that.

Now they're given two notices in the calendar year, and that that creates that notice for the year.

So after two notices, we move straight to cutting.

So the third time an inspector's out there, they notice that high grass, they're going to come right back and have the uh contractor come out and take care of it.

Now, another big issue we deal with around is debris.

So debris is anything that's discarded or abandoned, such as appliances, scrap metal, auto parts, and a big one that we deal with is non-weather resistant items.

And our center slide is an example of that.

What's what's there if you can't see it, it's indoor furniture.

It's some chairs that somebody took out of the house, they put them on the porch, they go out there and sit.

The issue is they weren't designed to be out there.

So they'll collect water, they'll they'll get waterlogged, mold, mildew, attract insects, so it becomes a health safety issue there.

And then the other slide, the one on the corner with tires.

Tires are a big issue throughout Hampton Roads.

All the cities are dealing with it.

It's just an issue.

It costs the dispose of tires in some cases.

If you have them, some people will just dump them.

Everybody's dealing with it throughout the area.

Now, an inoperable motor vehicle, that's a vehicle that for a period of 60 days can't be driven on a city street.

So the tags have been expired for over 60 days, or it's been disassembled for over 60 days.

So somebody working on a car, they're not reassembling it, they're leaving it like this with parts missing and things like that.

So in this case, the inspector will notice that it's either been disassembled for 60 days or it's out of registration for 60 days.

They'll issue a 10-day notice.

If they don't correct it, they'll issue a final notice with another 10 days to give them a whole 20 days to try to correct this.

And it can be corrected by repairing it, reassembling it, getting the registrations up to date, or they can cover it with a fitted car cover, and you can't use a tarp, must be fitted and designed to fit that vehicle, or they can remove it from view.

So they can put it behind a privacy fence or inside of a garage, and then the issue is uh taken care of.

So now we'll go back to maintenance a little bit, some of our bigger issues that we deal with, derelict structures.

Now, this is a structure that has heavy damage.

It's it's a little more than property maintenance with just some peeling paint or a broken window paint.

It's it's sustained major structural damage, and it can't, you know, you can't be lived in at this point, you can't it can't be used.

So what will happen is an inspector will do a structural assessment, report it back to one of our team leaders that manages this program, and a notice will be sent giving the owner of the property 90 days to come in, meet with us, get a repair plan and a timeline of how long it's going to take to get these repairs done and the property brought up to code.

It will be monitored throughout the process by the team leader and by one of our construction inspectors as the repairs are done to make sure they're up to code and done properly.

Next, we have our demolition cases.

So, what will happen here is the owner of the property will be given a 30-day notice of our intent to demolish the structure.

So they can come in and they can they can take over, they can say, Okay, we don't want you to do it, we don't want your administrative fees, we'll take care of it, and they can provide us a plan for doing that.

It also requires newspaper advertisement.

We have to we have to have confirmation that the notice was sent, so we have to do it by certified mail and get returned, and we have to advertise the newspaper for two consecutive weeks to make sure that there's proper notice given before we can demolish the structure.

Once that's done, we go through procurement, we go through the bid process, we award a contract.

We have to make sure also that all utilities are cut off, let gas and electricity, safety issues, and we also have to make sure that the water lines and the sewer lines are cut in caps so we're not contaminating the water supply or having sludge or things back up into to clog the sewer system.

In some of this to speed up here, we've we've recently redone our derelict structure and demolition uh program to streamline it more and make it move faster.

So some of these that used to run uh under previous management that didn't run concurrent, they now do.

So some of the things we're we're bound by state code, but there's some stuff that can overlap, and we we've cut out as much time as we can.

And we even start with getting the utility cutoff.

So even if the owner comes back and says, No, I'm gonna take care of it, we've started that process so that we can then hand them the cutoff letters and help move it forward a little bit faster.

And then emergency demolitions, that's going to take place on a case-by-case basis.

We'll have issues where there's a fire, vehicle impact, something like that, that we have to go out and do something.

We'll do the structural assessment, and we can move faster if we deem it unsafe to the community.

So I've got some numbers a little bit here for you.

Um, what we did in 2025.

We cited over a little over 11,000 violations recited throughout the city, combination of property maintenance and city code, and we corrected over 13,000.

So we had a little little overlap from 2024, came into 25 to get compliance.

We had 1,700 inspections that came from complaints throughout the city from many different sources.

We had 40 uh 42 that we refer to other departments.

So things that were under the fire code went to the fire marshals, zoning complaints went over to zoning, police, uh, things in the right of way go to the police.

Um 393 complaints were unfounded.

We got out there, somebody had a complaint, um, wasn't there.

A big one for that for us is grass.

We'll have somebody call in on a Friday afternoon and say, you know, the grass down the street from East Too High.

The inspector will get out there Monday morning while the person's taking care of it over the weekend, they've gotten the grass cut.

So we'll find unfounded complaints sometimes in that, or an inoperable vehicle that's got expired tags, it's still running, they're driving on the street, inspector goes by, the vehicle's gone, it's unfounded.

But they continue to look for things like that to see if it comes back.

But uh less than 12% of our violations written come from complaints.

Most of it's from our inspectors out there on the street day to day, looking for the violations and citing them as they see them.

So, you know, what can you know?

We get a lot of questions from the citizens of, you know, why am I still seeing this?

Why does this uh property you know why is it still there?

Why is this violation still there?

Well, it takes time.

Um, there's property rights and due process issues.

We're we're we're required by the state to make sure we notify the property owner, and they have every opportunity to correct it before we take action.

And a lot of times we have complications with ownership, and we have deceased owners unsettled the states that it's hard during probate.

We have to we have to try to notify everybody involved with that foreclosure proceedings.

We'll have properties, somebody defaults on their mortgage, they're they're gonna get the house will be foreclosed on, but they haven't maintained the property, haven't paid the mortgage.

So then, but then the lender has rights, so we have to then make sure we get in touch with the bank or the lending institution because they have rights, it's their property that they hold the note on.

Absented and out-of-state owners.

A lot of military in this area.

We have people buy homes in the city, they get transferred, they hold on to the home and rent it.

Then there's a violation, but we have to find them.

They may be overseas, and it's hard to find them, it's hard to get it.

The notices out there that are proper so that we can take care of it.

And another one we find is our citizens in Portsmouth.

We have a lot of lower income citizens and a lot of older citizens, senior citizens, that it's it's a hardship for them sometimes to get these things done, and we try to work with them as best we can, but it does take time.

They don't may have limited money to put them in, or they're they're just older, they can't get the work done and don't have the help to do it in some cases.

So, how citizens can kind of get involved with this process and help us know more what we're doing, is get involved with their civic league.

Get out there, our neighborhood inspectors attend the civic leagues in their neighborhoods on a regular basis.

So they're there, they can listen to what you know the citizens want to you know want done, they can provide information back for what's going on here at the city, and that's a that's a good way for citizen calling.

The other is use the C click fix program.

It's the mobile app, they can do it anywhere, they don't have to wait from eight to five Monday through Friday to call in with a complaint.

They can go on that, it's mobile, they can do it from anywhere at any time.

So the way we handle well, C clip fix last year.

We had 702 C click fixed cases.

So if you remember earlier, we had 1700 complaints.

So we took a thousand complaints over the phone or from referral, such as you know, you on council, we'll we'll send things our way that you hear when you're out in the community.

We get referrals from other departments and people that do just call in on the phone during the work tax.

So we had 702 cases on C click fixed.

We closed out 539, and at the end of the year there are 163 still open.

And as I was preparing this, these slides, we were down to 129 when I was putting this together.

So the case slows coming down there.

So how it works in our department, the um three team leads that I mentioned, they're responsible for the C click fix.

So they go on when the the ticket comes in, they look at it, they look at the area of the city it's in, and they assign it to the neighborhood inspector.

The neighborhood inspector is to investigate that request within three working days and report back to their team leader.

If it's an unfounded case, then uh a comment is put in the C click fixed to let the person that put in the ticket know, hey, we it was not an issue, we've checked it, and that's how it is.

If it is a valid complaint, then a notice of violation is issued, and the timelines that we talked about earlier, that's how it's dealt with.

And the C click fix case is updated throughout the process.

So the person that put it in will know what's going on as it goes through the process.

So a little bit about what we can do in code enforcement, and we'll get to what we can't do.

So the inspectors are can inspect the exterior of a property.

Anything that they can see from the public right-of-way, they can write up.

They can't go outside of that.

It has to be visible from the right-of-way.

They can establish compliance deadlines, they can work with the neighbors and the people of the city to get things done.

They can use abatement measures.

That's our cut the grass, remove the debris, they can issue condemnation notices, they can refer cases for legal action, and they can go to the city treasurer and place liens on the property or any work that's done out there.

Now, what they cannot do, cannot enter an occupied structure unless we're invited in.

So it may think there's a violation to that building, but we can't go in and look at it.

We can only look at what we see outside.

Um we can't cite the violations that are out of view.

You know, our friend here on the ladder, we can't do things like that.

Can't use ladders, can't use drones, can't stand on the bumper of the car to look over, can't use Google Maps.

We've had citizens send in complaints before, they want to send us a Google map aerial view.

That's not admissible.

We can't do anything with that.

Um can't deal with the aesthetics of a property.

The only enforcement the city has with the way a property looks is in the historic districts, and that falls under planning.

They can regulate the color and things like that.

All we care about when it comes to is the is it painted is it's because it's a protective coating, it doesn't matter what it looks like.

It can be any color, whatever, however, they want to do it.

We don't get into selling disputes between neighbors, that's a civil matter.

We get complaints from time to time about he parked a little over the line onto my property, his bushes are growing over, the tree fell across the line.

That's all civil, and we don't we don't settle that.

We don't enforce codes regulated by other departments.

We don't go and enforce the fire code, we don't push the zoning issues, we're in the building code, and we're in the two chapters we mentioned of the city code.

Um we cannot ignore due process requirements.

The timeline is the timeline set by code, and we must follow that.

And we have to apply standards selectively.

What helps us with that is our proactive approach in our neighborhoods.

We go down, we up and down the streets on a regular basis.

We don't single out or target any specific area.

So some things that slow down our enforcement difficulty identifying areas.

I mentioned owners, I mentioned that earlier.

Um due process times.

It takes time to get it through the system and get it done.

Outdated technology, we have a 20 to 25-year-old permitting system right now that we deal with for inspections.

Everything takes a lot of manual entry.

Inspectors go into the field, they have to use pen and paper to write down the violations, take their photographs, come in and upload all that to process the notices of violation.

Now, the city's in the process of getting a new permitting system that should be online later this year that's going to cut out a lot of that time.

They'll be able to do everything on a tablet system in the field, and only thing that would be generated in office is just at the end the notice of violation.

And then, as I mentioned earlier, lack of owner resources that slows things down.

People don't have sometimes the time or the money to get it done, and we try to work with them to if they if they truly want to do it and they're gonna do it.

We work with them to get them through the processing.

We want to get a resolution.

We're not interested in finding people and taking the court.

We want to we want to get the violation corrected.

An employee turnover is not a big one, but it is something that slows it down.

And we've come into a new process.

It used to be an employee would leave leave us, and they were instructed to close out all the cases before they left.

Well, now they work their cases until the end, and any cases that are left are then turned over to the team leaders so that they can keep being worked, and they they can move it forward.

And if need be, we can go back and subpoena the former uh inspector if we do need to get them to come in for something.

So, what success would look like.

Success looks like visible and lasting improvements in neighborhood conditions.

The fact that the derelict structures are being taken down, we're getting new construction back into the neighborhoods.

People are keeping their uh property up.

We're getting we're not having a big issue with grass and weeds, we don't have a lot of debris throughout the areas.

We have fewer repeat violations, and our main repeat violations that is grass.

People don't get their grass cut in a timely manner, and vehicles will have an issue with repeat on vehicles, and then timely case resolution.

So here's some slides showing what success looks like.

Um, this house here.

Um, this is a house that one of our neighborhood inspectors worked with the homeowner.

It's like I mentioned it was one of our citizens with limited funds.

You can see this the slides there on the left have the the condition of the property, and then this took a year and a half or so to get this from beginning to end, but you can see what turned out, it turned out to be something nice.

It's it's come through the process.

This was a property that was a we did have to demo this.

Uh, it went through a lot of ownership change and notification process, but we just finished this not too long ago.

It was a rundown house and a shop building next to it.

That was taken down now.

In the top right, you can see a white house there in the background that's run down.

That's out for bid right now, so you should see that coming down here in the near future, and the property behind it.

That's sort of an L-shaped piece of property that works around behind what we've cleared there, and that will be removed along with that other structure.

Now, these slides, the top one.

This is an example of a property owner taking the initiative to go in and clean up their property without we didn't issue violations or anything for this, but the owner's gone in and taken the strip of uh buildings along County Street and gone through and cleaned them up, and he's he's doing a nice job with them.

He's he's almost through starting to get people back in there renting the properties, and then at the end here at the bottom, we have uh it was a little four-plex apartment out in Craddock that was damaged by fire.

The owner came in and took it down and put back something similar to match the uh historic district out there in Craig.

So at this time, I'll take any questions.

And uh I may have my manager of code enforcement is here.

She hasn't clarity, she may step up and it's Robin Brown.

Council Tillage.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh thank you for this uh this presentation.

Um questions.

Um regards to violations that are related to grass versus shepherd.

And so one complaint I received uh recently was a neighborhood where the grass was high, but the shrubbery was kind of overtaking the house.

And from my understanding, I guess the city went out, uh sessed of the property.

The grass was cited as an issue, but the shrubbery was not.

Um can you elaborate on what the difference between grass and shrubbery would be and what the current code states well the grass, as I stated earlier, is 10 inches.

So when grass and meads get above 10 inches, we don't do anything with it.

Now, if it's an hockey it's an occupied property, uh this property was not an occupied property.

Okay.

So I'll defer to you, Robin, on that one.

Um there's a difference between the occupied and unoccupied when it comes to shrubs, correct?

Yes.

We don't want to miss any of your work.

Robin Brown, um code manager.

Um the difference is if it's a bacon property, we can go in and we can request that not only the high grass and weeds be cited, but also any shrubbery for safety reasons or any type of illegal activity, we can go and then a bait.

But if it's an occupied property, then we don't have under code where we can say, because now when people say they want to go green, they sometimes you can see people with it at the vines and things growing their house or on their roof.

We don't have the ordinances or the codes to say that we can go in and tell you to cut what's on your house if you live in it.

Now we do have the ordinances to say that your grass and your weeds can't be exceeding 10 inches, but not if it's uh occupied residence as far as the bushes and things that you want to grow on your house, unless it's covering windows or any type of um means of e-grass, then we can cite you.

But outside of that, we don't have the right to tell you to cut it if you live in it, but if it's vacant, we can.

Gotcha.

Um I appreciate that.

And I think that that's something that as a council committee to look at as coordinates regarding occupied properties.

Um, because I know in some neighborhoods I've been on to that uh citizens have invited me to.

Uh the homes may be occupied, and the shrubbery is so bad.

I mean, it becomes almost a safety situation uh because people can be hiding in the shrubbery, especially in some of our dark uh lit our low-lit areas.

Um, and so I think that's something we could probably look at, especially in some of our high crime areas when we talk about removing the light and increasing safety.

Uh, because for example, if you have a house at a corner, we can increase street lighting all day long, but that shrubbery has overgrown that was that area is is blocking the light anyway.

And so I think that becomes a public safety issue.

Um I saw in your presentation you mentioned um outdated technology um in your in your department.

Um so that means I'm looking forward to seeing that on your budget request this year.

It's already been taken care of.

It's actually, yeah, it's it was already budgeted in pre prior years.

It's just it's in the it's in the phase now where we're putting it together.

That's why I said it would be ready towards um the end of this year.

Gotcha.

So yeah, it's it's already we're working in getting ready to go in the testing phase here to make sure it's it's been set up like it should.

Sounds good.

I appreciate that that uh proactiveness.

And then the next one is about uh I get a lot of complaints also about individuals that park on their their grass.

And so I've I've come to learn that depending on the neighborhood determines whether or not an individual can park or not park on their grass.

Um and in addition to outdoor storage and farm animals.

So if you have a street plus you know, a neighborhood inspector who's out, how do they handle those types of situations?

Well, the things you've mentioned fall under the zoning department and planning mainly.

So what would happen there?

Is that something we would refer?

They would see it, the inspector then would then refer it over to the planning department.

The zoning officer would take a look at that.

So that's the the ordinance on parking on the grass.

The it what it does say is the vehicles must be parked on an improved surface.

It can't be in Porsche doesn't see gravel as an improved surface, it has to be a hard surface, such as concrete or asphalt.

Okay.

So with the grass for I guess with outdoor storage, I mean, if I have just stuff sitting in my front yard, could I just say that that's outdoor storage?

No.

No.

So how do we determine that?

You can go ahead and um outdoor storage is something that they will consider associated with like a business.

You know, you like you can maybe ride down Fort Smith Boulevard and see stacks of tires and stuff that has to do with uh cars or something of that, something that's affiliated with a business would be considered outside storage.

And if you have a whole lot of the same things.

But if you ride down somebody's street and you go and you just see a bunch of trash or two tires or a front door in the front yard, that will fall under debris.

That would be something that we would cite on the debris.

But open storage would be another zone of situation with the zoning would then go in, look at it, see if they have a business license, why they have these things out there, and then they would go further with their um codes or violations that they would have.

So there's a difference between open storage and debris.

Okay, so it applies mainly to commercial properties, like she's saying it's commercial and industrials where you get the open storage.

So you so you do see these cycle violations in yards.

What is I guess what I guess my question is the collaboration between your department and zoning?

How does that is it is a good and the second question is how then is it a follow-up to ensuring that like zoning did theirs and you all like a check and balance uh situation?

Well, once it anything once it's once it's referred to another department, whether we refer something to zoning or police or whatever, it's it's theirs now to handle it.

They they take care of it basically cradle to grave at that point.

We don't necessarily follow up.

Now, if our inspectors are out there, it's not to say if they see it, they hey it's still out here and then let you know, yeah.

We're all up there on the fourth floor, so it's or down there on the fourth floor.

So yeah, it's you know, there's collaboration between the departments, you know, and any of the departments that is it okay.

Thank you.

Council.

Thanks, Mayor.

Thank you both for your presentation and answering questions.

Um want to ask you a little bit about communicating expectations to residents and then the communication on the on the other end.

So there's a lot to communicate here, I would imagine about particularities related to zoning.

Um do you see any opportunities for how we could be doing that better?

I know I've seen inspectors at civically meetings and they do wonderful job connecting with people face to face.

What other ways do you all communicate the expectations maybe seasonally or just in general?

As far as the zone and permits and inspections, you mean, or just what do you mean?

Just inspection expectations.

So for example, the diagram you gave us of the house.

Right.

Well, in the past we haven't in the past had any open communication like that.

So that's something that we can certainly look at going forward.

Um I'm just into this position with what I'm doing, Robinson here, Miss Brown's isn't that long into it.

So we're we're moving forward with new, like I mentioned we've we've redone the derelict structure program.

The that so that's something we can definitely look into is a is a better um community-based knowledge um program to get get the message out there.

Government one in ones helping with that.

We're we're doing those programs, so that's getting messages out to people, but it's something we could look at in the future.

But yeah, prior management hasn't that was not something that they were working on.

I would imagine there's an opportunity there, something like we did with the winter preparedness tips, Mr.

Carter, with the the social media campaigns you involve different departments on and show people what the expectations are.

So I think there's an opportunity there.

I know this gets a lot of attention.

We get a lot of this.

I know you guys obviously do.

Um, but sometimes the visual helps, and I think there's certainly if that if you feel like that would be helpful for you all to do if you're jumping as a it probably would, and with the going forward now with the new website that the city's putting forward, that's something we can certainly work into our section where we could put something that's that's up there or maybe in the front banners like you get with Peter and see how we could put something on there.

Especially for somebody who's maybe a younger property owner or a new property owner, just moved to the city.

We had a lot of turnover with military and people live in historic districts, and I know those have separate expectations and and regulations, but um there's a lot when you're a new homeowner, and if we can sort of communicate that better.

My um other question related to communications on the flip side, the example you gave us with the house that had indoor furniture outside.

Yes, I'm certain those homeowners probably thought this I just want to sit outside and I'm gonna put furniture there.

So if we issue them a notification that there's a violation there, how much information are they getting?

Does it just say something like furniture on porch or does it does it explain the why?

How how much detailed information are they receiving so that they understand and don't just raise a complaint of you're taking on me?

No, um what the process is is that they if the inspector goes by and they see something, they not only send a notice but they put a placard in the front yard and they'll circle whether it was debris or if it was high grass, and then they leave the information.

The notice will follow, and in the notice, it tells you what the violation was, why it was a violation, and it also goes to tell you how you can correct it.

Okay.

What to do to it is specific, then so we have converbage on a no, okay.

They get a letter, they get a letter, they had a note a notice of violation and it indicates what was wrong, how to fix it, and when it needs to be fixed.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, thank you both.

That's good.

Yeah, thanks, ma'am.

So hopefully with your new technology, and maybe it's always been available, but but hopefully with your new technology, it would be interesting to see what the trends are on getting stuff fixed.

So I'll give you an example.

So our rules say uh 30 days, and then we do a demo, but it isn't 30 days, it's 30 days and then a whole bunch of other stuff, and it ends up being six months.

So we know when the thing starts, and we know when the thing ends, and if it's currently typically six months, should it be five months?

Should it be eight months?

Is six months good, is six months bad?

What's the trend?

So uh you know, one of the things I was writing down as you were going through.

So we got 30 days times two for property maintenance, ten days times two for grass and cars, twenty days for or I'm sorry, uh for grass and debris, twenty days for motor vehicles, ninety days for derelict structures, thirty days for demo.

Uh uh and the the fact is this is just uh opening salvo in each of those discussions because there's this isn't a pothole that needs fixing this is right.

This is you do something and then you do it again, and then you deal with they still haven't taken care of the problem because of whatever reason, and so I mean this is begging for a dashboard that that allows us to go tell the citizens.

Hey, the good news is the team is sh is we're we're showing improvement because we're doing neighborhood inspections, or we're not showing improvement, we're actually getting worse.

But we're we now know in the places where we're doing worse and we can do something about it.

So I don't know whether the new technology gives you the ability to to trend this stuff to put a dashboard together to see how long should it take to demo, how long should it take to get rid of a uh motor vehicle that's sitting on cinder blocks, but hopefully we can figure out how to do that.

Um so we have uh at least three or four cases I can think of where uh shopping center parking lots are being used for cars that don't belong there.

And in fact, maintenance being done on cars and shopping center parking lots that is that is that a permit thing, is that a zoning thing?

I mean, who owns that?

We do to a certain degree, and it's hard sometimes to catch the maintenance part because a lot of times we're not out there working on the car when sure we get to that, but we've recently how many do we clear?

We just got church on shopping center, it wasn't.

Yeah, we just told 11 vehicles from the church land um parking lot where the papa's is, but the other side of that is that when it's a commercial parking lot, um you have to be well with church land, we knew who it was because it was a transportation company, all the information was posted on the car, so it was easier.

But when you have to find the owners, you have to get notices sent before you can even do a toll retrial.

So when it's a commercial property, either it's going to go directly to the management company of the parking lot, or we have to find the owner of the particular vehicle.

And sometimes it's a police matter because it can be stolen vehicles, abandoned, and then it becomes a police matter.

So it can go from selling into police to us, it can it just depends on what the situation is with the vehicle.

So there have been a couple like uh parking lots along Airline Boulevard where there have been I don't know, 60 cars waiting because they won't fit inside the the car repair guys fence, so they're parked all over the the shopping center parking lot.

That's a plan.

That's it's in zoning and implant.

Okay, what you're talking about.

We were to look at that one too.

Yeah, so do I need to see click fix that or no?

That's already on the radar.

Okay.

That's how about um fences.

Is that yours or is that zoning?

It depends on that.

The fence is fallen down.

The fence is uh is on the portion of the property where it's not allowed to be uh the fence showed up over the weekend.

Okay.

Falling down is us, okay.

Where it's not supposed to be a zoning because that has to do with property lines and boundaries and things like that.

Fences don't require a permit.

They do have from from us, a building permit, but they do, however, require you go to zoning and get a zoning clearance for it to make sure that's what they look at.

They'll look at the plat and make sure that the fence is put up in the proper place.

Yeah, you're right.

Some short over the weekends, and you know, we have to go back and find out.

Falling down, that's on us.

Now a tricky thing here is if it depending on how it's fallen down.

You've got pickets missing and things like that, that's a code violation.

But sometimes you'll find this you've got a privacy fence and there's a section missing.

That's not a code violation.

I can't tell that person they can't have a missing section of a fence.

Right.

If there's nothing there, I can't cite it.

It's just a gap.

Um we have issues where fences have fallen down in the posts remain, and we've had people call up and say, fence fell down is all these posts.

I can't cite you for having posts on your property line.

It's that's not a violation either.

Yeah.

It has it it has to fit in in the proper little space for how you how you do it.

But yeah, if it's if it's say a chain link fence or a wire fence and that's falling off, it's coming clipped, and yes, that's a violation that we write.

If there's pickets missing and things like that in a fence, it's a violation we write.

Okay.

And then um on Monday morning when your neighborhood inspectors drive through the neighborhood and there's a pile of uh something that looks like what used to be somebody's bathroom sitting out on the sidewalk waiting for the bulk truck to come along and take it away.

Does your inspector like bring up anybody to say uh anybody get permission to do a bathroom remodel in uh they'll either call in directly when it's happening or they'll they'll make a note of it when they come back in, they'll check to see if there's an open permit for the property.

And then it if it's not, it will get referred over to our construction division, which will then we'll go out and issue a stop work order.

And then we also have waste management that works closely, but I would state also calling that sound form and things like that.

Okay, okay.

All right, thanks.

I appreciate all this information.

It's very helpful because you guys get lots of questions, but so do we mayor.

Uh a couple things.

Uh Councilman Hugo uh mentioned fences that that was on my list.

Uh I think as you drive around the city, uh dilapidated fences uh are frequent uh sites, uh particularly on town White Road.

Uh in the Churchland area.

The the other thing, technology, uh that won't be a new thing for uh code inspectors uh council a number of years ago uh appropriated money for uh notepads, of course they may be outdated if they still had them, but uh I know the technology was there for the same reason that the inspectors of that time had to go back to the office to write up reports and paper and pen.

And that they did they did at one point have that that actually is pre-me.

Um they they did have that, it didn't work well.

It it's hard, and we we even asked Mr.

Carter even asked us to find out because we have in our budget this year to get tablets to use with the new system to find out if we could go ahead and get them now and use them with the existing system.

It it's so old it's not compatible, and what they were using mobile back in the day didn't work well either.

There were so many issues that it caused more problems than it was worth.

So they they had gotten rid of them.

When I first started here, they had a few stands still mounted in the car where they they would actually have them in there, but they they went away.

Well, hopefully this time if they don't work, somehow communicate that.

No, this all is this is all cloud-based and it it's yeah, it's a lot different than what we've been doing with these the the other thing uh is yard clutter.

Uh you you know, you mentioned uh porch clutter, but uh what's the uh you know clut clutter from one perspective uh might be different from the owner's perspective.

What what uh determines that we we are not the pretty police is the best way to say that.

Um if if it's something that's that can be in the weather, there's not a whole lot we can do about it.

It may not look very attractive if they've got a bunch of lawn ornaments or artificial flowers and things.

We we have a few houses around.

I know of of some throughout the city that people have a lot of that and they overly decorated their yard and there's not a lot we can do about it.

The only thing we can get them for is if they don't keep the grass cut around it and they start having high weeds grow up throughout and things like that, we could cite them for a high grass violation, but we can't do a whole lot about it unless it's unless it's something that's not supposed to be out there.

Yeah, h how about uh tarps uh on a roof.

Uh does that fall under a code inspection?

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Uh somebody I guess is gonna patch in the roof or replacing the roof, uh just put a tarp on it.

Um the other thing, uh I know some of these cases have uh appeal process where they go to court.

Do you get the support uh uh of the judges uh on most of these things?

We do, yes.

I I would say so.

Um we even just gotten uh I wouldn't say a hundred percent but we did just get um two days out of the month that is designated just for permits and inspections, and I want to say animal control to cut back on some of the time, just wasted being in court on a regular day.

So I would say eighty-five percent of the time it goes our way in court.

Yeah, we need a lot of support from the city attorney's office, Mr.

Challenger's department is fantastic with all of this.

Um Ms.

Manning out of his office is takes a lot of our cases and does a really good job with seeing them through the court.

Yeah, no, they do a good job, but once it gets to court, I would obviously be up to the judges for it.

Uh and that's that goes back to some of the we were talking about times.

Judge judge, depending on what the case is, may give this person this amount of time or may give this one this amount of time.

So it's hard to dial in what the average time is right in some cases to get to get a violation code.

And and the last item, uh people living in campers parked uh in the driveway.

Is that code enforcement or that would be zoning?

Okay, that's zoning.

Yes.

Okay.

Do y'all report that to zoning if you if you notice that?

Yes.

And that's one of those things that can be hard to notice sometimes.

You can get the report from it, but we have to be able to go out and witness it.

Of course, you know, we have to witness the resonant has to witness it, and then you know, they take care of the violation.

Very good.

Thanks.

You can go next, sir.

I'm sorry, Dotson.

Um previous administration, I I got very frustrated with the responses to the C click fix and I kind of stopped submitting uh to it.

Has y'all um so can you speak to the response?

I sometimes got items closed out with no explanation.

And I was a little very very frustrated with that.

It's like, well, just tell me why you closed it out to get fixed um uh because I know myself and the House brothers we report a lot uh into the system.

Right.

And the a case is not supposed to be closed out without an explanation.

There's supposed to be a reason given either there's there's no violation present or what's gonna happen with it.

It shouldn't, it should not be closed out, and that's something that we've looked at making sure it gets done.

That's that's one of the reasons why our team leaders are responsible for this now, that they go in and look at it and then they assign it to the correct person to make sure it's getting done.

I just wanted to bring up your awareness on it how frustrated.

I don't know.

Um and just a side note with that, um sometimes if you put in the same complaint more than once or twice, then they go in and they will if you have four or five of the same complaints, then they will close two or three of them and address the other two.

So if you get one back and it's already a complaint out there, then sometimes they'll just simply say, um, you know, refer to whatever the other case was and whatever where we at with it at the time.

But that's normally when you get more than one or two of the same case.

Thank you.

Council members, I do not want to uh limit you know the interaction here.

We're getting close to the time.

So there are other times that we can talk about this.

We would we want to start the meeting one time.

So my question is if I can answer one on one, that'd be great.

If you can hold those, I'll speak with you later.

I'll yeah, I'll I'm gonna stay through the council meeting.

So if I'm councilman, if you have a question, yes, she's up next.

So I'll wait for the other questions to in the interest of time.

The only question I want to ask right now is for those homeowners that have been cited uh that might want to make the repairs or the fix.

Um that might want to make the repairs of the things.

Um a lot of times they can do an extension request.

Um they can come in.

As long as we see progress, BMA, and we work with them.

We know you know people have different situations financially or whatever.

But we do work with them, and we give them different options.

Okay.

Uh we have three public years this evening and two CMRs two uh use permits, one for a multi-purpose residential development, and one for a surface storage facility.

The other one is uh zone amendment as part of which is re renaming the innovation district to the link district.

Uh we have a um two CMRs for 38 uh 553 dollars.

I'm sorry, seventy-three dollars combined.

Um that's on your consent agenda for this evening.

And you'll be happy to hear uh that the technology that we talked about we're we're we're actively rolling that out now.

But more importantly, um things we're exploring is how there's a an issue and then you refer to zoning that we refer to where I'm looking at is how do I have one inspector do all of that instead of you know you go see it and then you tell somebody else about it.

So that's another thing that we're looking at.

How can we combine all those things to get they're still saying three sets of eyes to look at the same problem?

That same set of eyes take care of all of it.

That's it for the secret.

And that concludes our public work session.

I'll see everyone in the chamber.

We'll begin the meeting at seven ten.

Good evening, citizens of Portsmouth.

Thank you all for joining us today for this council meeting, February 10th, 2026.

Want to acknowledge all of those who are in the audience today with us, um, as well as our city staff.

Thank you all for joining us for this very important work.

Also want to acknowledge my colleagues on council and our city manager, Mr.

Stephen Carter, our interim city attorney, Mr.

Derek Challenger, and our city clerk, Miss Deborah White.

I would ask that we all now stand for a moment of silence following the pledge of allegiance.

We now are moving into our council minutes.

We have the minutes of a call meeting on January twenty-seventh, twenty twenty-six, and a regular meeting on January seventh twenty-seventh, twenty twenty-six.

Do we have a motion and a second to approve the minutes?

Would you please read now the council rules?

Yes, sir.

Ladies and gentlemen, city council rules require a limit of up to five minutes to speak.

As you're posting speaker's podium, you will notice the timer.

At the beginning of your five minutes, you will see a green light.

Four minutes into your remarks, you will notice a yellow light.

In the five minutes, you will see a red light here beat.

And we ask that you conclude your comments at that time.

While speakers have an opportunity to address council on matters of public concern.

All comments should be made in a manner that respects the seriousness of the forum and should not be made in a belligerent sarcastic or demeaning fashion.

A speaker who fails to observe this basic rule of decorum will be deemed out of order and not allowed to conclude his or her comments.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

We're now moving into our public hearing item on the agenda, item 26-42.

A UP25-13.

And Madam Clerk, would you please read the public hearing resolution we are considering for this item?

Yes, sir.

Cavalier Manor resolution ran in the request of Quota Cooper Development Inc.

for a use permit to develop multifamily dwellings at 3335 victory boulevard and the general mixed use zoning district.

The property is owned by Riptide 4 LLC, the future land use map of the Bill 1 Portsmith Comprehensive Plan designates this property as being located within a quarter linear district.

And the actual resolution reads a resolution granting a use permit UP 2513 to Water Cooper Development Inc.

to construct a four-story multifamily dwelling complex consisting of approximately 48 units on a portion of 3335 Victory Boulevard.

Thank you, ma'am.

And is the applicant present?

Yes, sir.

Sir, if you would come forward, state your name and address.

You will have 10 minutes.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mayor.

Glover, Vice Mayor Moody, members of City Council.

My name is Bruce Watts.

I'm vice president of development for Water Cooper Companies and Chief Engagement Officer.

It's a pleasure to be before you again.

I've been coming before the city council for six years.

We have two developments in the city, Holly Point and Baines Point.

And this council has been very supportive of us, Mayor.

And I just appreciate the opportunity again to present to you for another development, which we call Blunt Point and Blunt Place, I'm sorry.

And this particular development is in honor of the late Dr.

Milton Blunt.

And I met him about three years ago, and he gave the invocation for Holly Point on the Effingham Street.

And he passed away a little bit over a year ago.

But his wife is here, Miss Claudette Blunt.

First lady, she's here in support of us tonight.

And we just appreciate this opportunity.

Also was able to get two letters of support for the development, which I think you have at your disposal.

One is from Cavalier Manor Civic League, and the other one is from the church and community in action.

So what I like to do is just give you a brief overview of the development.

As you can see here, it's right next to Ripto Car Wash.

Next slide, please.

So that's the front and rear of the building itself of the site itself, I should say.

Vacant lot.

Next slide.

And the east and west.

This is actually a site plan that we've developed for this particular development.

And this is a 48 unit development, a combination of one, two, and three bedrooms.

We have one minute here.

We have seven one bedroom apartments, 32 bedroom apartments, and 11 three-bedroom apartments.

Square footage on these are 715 square feet on the one-bedroom average, 925 on the two-bedroom average, 1130 on the three-bedroom average.

Local incomes is 30 to 80 percent AMI.

The rents range rose base rates from 55 to 1475.

Some of the amenities that we have are elevators in the building.

So we're we're a little bit different than some of the other developers, which you very well know.

We put elevators in our building.

And so we attract probably 30 percent seniors because of that.

And of course, that's really nice for families too that have children or they're trying to get groceries up and down the stairs and so forth.

Uh we have a we will have a computer lab in the um development itself.

We'll have a community room, 749 square feet, uh community room that we will open up to um the community if they want to have meetings there.

An example of that is Westbury Civic League at Harley Point.

They had a Civic League meeting every month in our community room at Holly Point, and that's just a part of what we do to try to get back to the community.

We will also have laundry rooms on this on the second floor and laundry hookups in every unit.

Universal design.

So basically every unit will have about a 30% decrease in their utility bills because of the type of equipment, just say, for example, HVAC system, windows, um, uh plumbing, different things like that will reduce the cost of the unit itself for them to live there.

So having a universal design, they have basically state of the art um equipment in their units that lower the cost of your utility costs.

Um I would like to say um also if you could go to the next slide.

Um so in our developments, this is a rendering, a typical rendering, and most of you all have seen this in either Harley Point or Baynesport.

50 percent of our units, um 50 percent of our design is brick, another 50 percent is hardy plank or cement.

So we don't put vinyl sidings on our buildings, which give it more sustainability, more durability, and more attractiveness.

Um, and as you can tell, either from Holly Point or Baines, it gives it that pop when you go up to it and you look at it.

So um this is basically the overall concept that we are presenting today.

Um what I would like to do is to acknowledge um your city staff, um city manager Carter.

I remember back in in December when we were trying to get a temporary permit for occupancy permit for Baines.

His staff came through for us, Mayor.

In December, the end of December where everybody's taken off.

But they came through for us.

And uh the planning department, um, uh Rhonda, her department came through for us also.

The chief of police, um, uh Chief Jenkins, um Captain Um Blystone, um, they put a security camera at Bain's um and we had no incidents there, um, none at all.

And um, we had one on an occasion, and um I called Captain Blystone, and he was there like that.

So I say that to say, you know, we built a strong partnership in the city, and it's because of the people that I'm talking to there, the council members and the mayor, and um we appreciate the investment that we've been able to make here.

We made about 40 million so far.

If we're getting this development itself, it'll be another 20.

So we're constantly looking to see if there is another development that we can do.

But I I tell you this, this is one of the best cities I worked in in the Commonwealth of Virginia, and I've developed 13 developments in this commonwealth in 10 years, and Portsmouth is one of the best cities that I've worked in.

Thank you, sir.

So I'll open it up for questions.

Councilman Hugel, sir, you have the floor.

Yeah, thanks, Mayor.

Uh Mr.

Watts, thanks to you and Woda Cooper for your continuing investment in Portsmouth.

Uh, we we have a shortage in housing stock, particularly in the price points that you're offering at Holly Point, Baines Point, and project offer at uh Blunt Place.

Uh and so uh it's important that uh that we continue to work with with uh good folks like you uh and your team to uh to see projects like this through uh and so on.

Thank you for uh for giving us the opportunity to work with you again.

Thank you.

I appreciate the opportunity, Councilman.

Vice Mayor Moody, so you have the floor.

Mr.

Watts, good to see you again, and I echo my colleagues' uh sentiments that uh we certainly appreciate uh your faith in our city.

I know we got off uh to a slow start.

Uh you overcame that and have really produced uh some quality projects, but more importantly, uh you've produced projects that were uh sorely needed in our city, and that's uh uh workforce uh development projects.

So you're fulfilling the need, and uh you know your product uh you you mentioned uh 80 million thus far and another 20 million here.

But uh what you've done to support the uh uh the human capital in our city is priceless.

Uh there's a major need out there, and I do hope you can find another project in Portsmouth, and really appreciate your your comments about uh doing business in Portsmouth.

That's something I know this uh council has certainly been attuned to uh make making us business friendly and uh attracting people who want to invest in our city, and uh you've certainly uh stepped forward in doing that, and uh your words uh having done other projects in the Commonwealth uh certainly are appreciated.

Thank you again.

Well, Vice Mayor, I appreciate those words.

I I would like to say to you, uh you and the mayor, you all we started this journey with you all with Holly Point, and I remember you with a swing vote and uh getting a use permit for Holly.

If we hadn't got that use permit, I wouldn't be here today.

So that's uh uh you know leadership and partnerships are extremely important, and um I'm personally gonna miss you on this council.

Uh hope I can come back before you again before you retire.

But thank you for all you've done for this city, and thank you for being a partner with Walter Cooper Companies.

Thank you.

Councilman Tillard, sir, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh Mr.

Watts.

Uh thank you.

I want to echo my the sentiments of my fellow council members um for the continued investment that uh Willow Cooper has made in the city of Portsmouth and helping to make affordability a reality uh for many of our citizens, uh especially um in the workforce development income bracket.

And so um as we continue to address housing across our city, um, you know, I want to you to continue to look at Portsmouth as being an opportunity uh to invest um here in the city of Portsmouth.

Um the quality of your product is is good.

Uh I drive past Baines Point and Holly Point.

Um you all maintain your facility very well on the outside.

Grounds are well maintained, and um the question I have for you is in regards to um what is the how fast are your apartments um becoming uh occupied?

What's the occupation rate?

Well, um we're right now at Bays Point.

We're we're fully leased up, and you know, we we only have 50 units there, and you know, what are the differences between us and other developers, and that's no criticism to them, but we build low density, so we build communities and people know each other.

The property manager knows the residents, the residents know the property manager, and so um fortunate enough in in Portsmouth, but it uh in other cities too.

We lease up fully lease up before we open the doors because we don't build 150 apartments or 100 apartments.

I won't say it's easy to lease up 50 apartments, but it's not very difficult, especially when you have the quality here.

So we're very fortunate.

We got a waiting list.

We have a waiting list at Holly.

Absolutely.

The demand for affordable option housing is is is high.

And so we thank you for that.

But also want to thank uh your company for the history that you bring to each building uh from Holly Point to Baines Point and now Blunt's place.

And um, you know, I think it's a great honor to be able to name uh these buildings after people from the the from Portsmouth that have gone on to do great things.

Um and so that their work lives beyond them.

And so I think uh Milton Blunt was a good choice.

Um I think and to be able to continue the the legacy of him is great, and so thank you for that, and thank you, Mrs.

Blunt, uh, for allowing um the city of for sharing Reverend Blunt uh with the city of Portsmouth.

And so thank you, uh Mr.

Mr.

Uh Watts.

Thank you.

Any other questions for Mr.

Watts?

Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, council mayor.

If I could just uh introduce my colleague, Eric Wright, who came in from Columbus, Ohio today to be my uh backup just in case I didn't deliver.

Yes, sir.

Welcome, Mr.

Wright.

Thank you for joining us.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing.

Um, you do not have to have signed up to come speak on this public hearing item.

However, if you do come forward, we need you to state your name and address, and you will have five minutes.

Hello.

Um, you can pull the microphone down to you so you there you go.

So you look comfortable.

There you go.

Hello, my name is Angela Parrish, and I do not reside in Portsmouth anymore, but my mother resides in Portsmouth.

My mother has lived on Pinewell Street in Portsmouth, Virginia for over 35 years.

In 2023, my mother called me at 5:30 in the morning to tell me a bomb just went off.

And I thought my mother was going through that.

Ma'am, hold on a second.

This is for the public hearing item for the apartment building.

What was that?

This for a public hearing.

Public hearing item for the apartment building.

I do see I do see you listed as a non-agenda speaker, which you'll have an opportunity to come up at that time.

Okay.

But this is a public hearing item for anyone who wants to speak to UP-25-13, uh, which is the resolution uh for this development by Woda Cooper Good.

So if you would come to if you are coming to speak in that item, state your name and address.

Yes.

I'm Pamela Wilkins.

I live uh 805 Elm Westbury.

I'm also the president of the Westbury Civic League, and I'm just standing giving my support of the water company.

I just appreciate the fact that they answered the call for affordable housing for Portsmouth.

And the two facilities that they have built so far.

I'm just echoing everything you all have already said.

They are kept where they are well kept.

We have our meetings at the Holly Point one.

Is immaculate in there.

The young lady keeps it nice and clean.

You don't see trash all around the building, any of that.

So they do present a quality product, and I just want to let you all know that the Westbury community is in support of anything they want to be on.

Thank you, ma'am.

Once again, ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing item.

If you wish to come and speak on this item, please state your name and address, and you will have five minutes.

I'm Sheila Joseph, 139 Grand Street.

I'm in support because I have people calling me about paying high rent and not having quality work.

So to find out somebody care enough to make it affordable, but have something quality.

I would like to find out what the prices are that is available to certain people in come if they can afford it.

Thank you, ma'am.

And I'm sure um Mr.

Watts can share that information with you.

Ma'am, please come forward, state your name and address.

You will have five minutes.

My name is Claudette McWilliams Blunt.

Um I live at 4600 Staghorn Drive, Virginia Beach, Virginia.

But I'm here to talk to you about Portsmouth.

Portsmouth has been the heart of my husband.

Uh he loved it.

I like to thank Mr.

Um Watson for even attempting to name this great place after Blunt.

Portsmouth is an awesome place.

It is a wonderful place, and it's it's a place that my husband loved, so thank you again, even for considering that.

Um, the new Mount Olivet Baptist Church, which he pastored here in Portsmouth, is in total support of this, and we're here to say, go Portsmouth.

You're on the map, no matter what anybody say.

I always say Portsmouth is the best.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Mrs.

Blunt.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing.

If you want to come speak on this item, please come forward, state your name and address, and you will have five minutes.

Seeing none, this public hearing is closed.

Council members, we are in need of a motion and a second.

Any additional discussion?

Seeing none, please vote electronically.

This item is adopted 7-0.

Thank you, ma'am.

The next item, item B, UP-25-14.

And madam clerk, would you please read the resolution we are considering for this item?

Yes, sir.

Collinswood resolution granting the request of SAF Store Real Estate Company, LLC for a use permit to operate a self-storage, excuse me, self-service storage facility at 2830 Line Boulevard in the General Mixed Use Zony District.

The property is owned by Victory West LLC.

If you land use map of the Bill Went Portsmouth, comprehends the plan designates this property as a mixed-use corridor.

Planning commission recommends denial.

The resolution before you is a resolution granting a use permit UP 2514 to Safe Store Real Estate Company LLC to construct and operate a self-service storage facility at 2830 Airline Boulevard.

Thank you, ma'am.

Is the applicant present with us tonight?

If you are, please come forward, state your name and address.

Sir, you will have five minutes.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor, Mr.

Vice Mayor, members of council for the record.

My name is Rob Beaman.

I'm a local land use attorney at the Troutman Pepperlock Law Firm.

My address, my business address is 22 Central Park Avenue, suite 2000, Virginia Beach 23462.

I'm joined this evening by Chris Russ, who is one of the principals of the applicant, and also Eric Reichenbach, who is our civil engineering consultant for this project.

The application that's before you this evening is uh concerns a approximate 2.3 acre parcel located on Airline Boulevard just west of Choan Drive.

Uh it's currently occupied in the front by a used car dealership, and the rear portion of the site, as you can see on the on the overhead picture, is vacant.

In my understanding is it's been vacant for a number of years in excess of 40 years.

Um the applicant proposes to redevelop the site for a Class A indoor climate controlled self-storage facility that would be very similar in quality and in design to the facility that the applicant recently opened on Effingham Street here close to downtown.

Uh that building has been very successful and has exceeded the client's expectations in terms of market demand.

Um because of the success of the Eppingham facility, the client would like to make another investment in Portsmouth in the amount of about 12 and a half million dollars in order to redevelop this site for this facility.

Uh this investment would make the site much more attractive, but was also result in significantly increased real estate taxes for this property in excess of a hundred thousand dollars additional over what's currently being produced by that property uh today.

Uh we do understand that there are other uh self-storage facilities along the airline boulevard corridor.

However, most of those facilities are 30 to 40 years old, they're ground level, they're not climate controlled, and they really offer a very different service than the service that would be offered at the proposed building.

Uh these climate-controlled indoor facilities are particularly appropriate for uh commercial customers, and we do anticipate that about 30 to 35 percent of the tenants who rent uh units at this facility would be local businesses that use it for additional um uh inventory and equipment.

Uh I did also want to mention that the applicant has conducted a thorough market study, and that study did determine that there is a significant um uh demand that's currently going unmet for these facilities in the city.

Um client does place a heavy emphasis on community involvement in at least one unit per floor in this facility, the three floors, so at least uh three units would be reserved for uh charitable organizations, local charitable organizations to use free of charge, and the client is also willing to make space available on the ground floor of the facility available for a police substation if the city chooses to use it for that purpose.

I did also just finally want to touch on public outreach.

We've done a uh good amount of public outreach in connection with this application.

We've reached out to each of the surrounding property owners as a result of those conversations we've had.

We're not aware of any opposition, and there is a uh directly adjacent property owner who's expressed her support.

Uh she couldn't be here today.

She's she's in New Jersey tonight.

I believe she did come to the planning commission hearing and she I believe wrote a letter to each of the city council members.

But with that, we certainly appreciate your consideration of this application, and we'll stand by for your questions.

Thank you very much.

Councilman Hugel, sir, you have the floor.

Yeah, thanks, Mr.

Mayor.

Thanks, uh Mr.

Beaman, for uh uh coming tonight and uh uh as uh liaison to the planning commission.

I just want to share with my colleagues.

I attended the planning commission meeting.

Uh planning commission uh did vote to deny.

Uh if I were to summarize uh the conversation that they had, it was primarily around uh do we need another storage uh facility.

Um as Mr.

Beaman said uh the the storage facility that's uh being proposed is uh a little bit different from the storage that's already uh along the airline boulevard uh corridor.

Uh he does make the point that uh this property has been sitting fallow for four decades.

Uh and so uh uh as much as I'd like to see uh uh some industrial complex go in there that has thousands of jobs, uh that the we had 40 years to find that person and we haven't.

Uh and so uh given the quality of uh of the facility that that uh safety store built uh on uh effingham uh it's clear that we'll get the same uh kind of quality uh on this uh piece of property, and so uh so I intend to vote uh that to support uh the applicant.

Thank you, sir.

Councilwin Dodson, sir.

You have the floor.

Yes, uh I wanted to reiterate that same sentiment.

This is a significant upgrade in the use of this property um in that neighborhood, and by far in support of it.

Thank you very much.

Vice Mayor Moody, so you have the floor.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

I'll also be supporting the uh project as well.

And uh thank you, client for investing in our city.

That property uh as long as I can remember, has certainly been vacant.

Also, it's kind of uh an odd shape property, so you wouldn't be able to uh uh track many different types of businesses in there.

So I think uh what you're doing is gonna uh uh be a perfect fit uh for that property and also get uh a business on the tax rolls.

Uh so thank you again.

Thank you, sir.

Councilwoman Bryant, did you want the floor?

And then I saw Councilwoman Thomas.

Did you want the floor?

Okay.

Councilwoman Bryant, you have the floor.

Thanks, Mayor.

Thank you, Mr.

Beaman.

Appreciate the presentation.

Um and agree with Councilman Hugo and Council, excuse me, Vice Mayor Moody took a drive by this site and agree it's it's an odd shape and it it's an appropriate location for something like this.

I do want to say I appreciate our planning staff, of course, but our planning commission for having the conversation and bringing to our attention and the city's attention some of what our expectations are about diversifying business and um appreciate their conversation in that forum, um, but agree that this is an appropriate use and um I will be supporting your application.

Um you did say that you have storage units per floor for nonprofit use.

Yes, ma'am.

How many floors is that so three potential locations for nonprofits?

Yes, ma'am, and that program is already in place at the Effingham location as well.

And how can people find out how to apply for that?

We can work with the planning department to make that information available, but we I'll have that discussion with my client, and I can follow up with you, Mr.

Brian.

Of course, after our vote, yes.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Thomas, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, just to follow up on councilwoman Bryant's questioning about the nonprofit.

Um what is your process for selection?

Is it through the city selection or through your private entity?

I'm not believing I'm not aware that it goes through the city process, but my client is welcome to answer that.

Okay.

Good evening.

Thanks for your time tonight.

I'm Chris Russ.

Um I'm at 3016 Poplar Hill Road, Charlotte, North Carolina.

Um, yeah, to answer that, um, we typically try and work through the city with that.

That's our preference.

Um so that's what we'll be reaching out uh to exactly.

Yeah, I think that's uh great offer um if that's something in place, but definitely would need to partner with the city because they I'm sure they get requests all the time.

We know of some organizations that require storage needs nonprofits.

So uh my other question is I know you said you did a market study and the market study um show that there was not saturation or oversaturation for that corridor in terms of storage facilities.

What is your um occupation?

I guess on the one at Effingham.

Are you fully, are you full there?

Are you what how you what are you seeing right now?

Sure.

So right now we're I think approximately 37 percent leased up, um, which is ahead of our projection.

Normally at this point, um, since we opened, we would be targeting about 27 percent, so we're about 10 percent ahead, which is great, which is actually a significant number for us.

Um so really that's that's definitely what drove you know our looking to reinvest here in another property.

Um when we look at both areas, you know, it's two separate um projects, and we look at the market's specific area for each building, um, and there's definitely still still that need, or we certainly wouldn't be here to what's what's the standard market, I guess, rate for usage in that building.

You said you're currently at 37 percent, which is ahead of 27 percent occupation.

So it's because those buildings take um self-storage buildings take a while to lease up.

They're typical trajectory, can take as much as two years to fully lease up.

Um, but as I said, we're we're well ahead of it on Effingham, and and based on the numbers we're seeing.

Uh, we should follow suit here if we're successful.

Okay, thank you.

Absolutely.

Thank you for your time.

Yeah, yes, Mr.

Beaman.

I do have a question.

Uh so there was there was a discussion about perhaps the uh you have to have a BMP on this property.

Is that yes, sir?

Accurate, yes, sir.

Um, there was a discussion about placement of the BMP.

Um are you aware of that discussion of the placement of the BMP?

Yes, sir.

And what is your response?

Yeah, the the primary reason we located the BMP towards the front of the property.

There is a Taco Bell restaurant located directly next door, and we did uh talk with the ownership of that um business, and we wanted to make sure that we're not blocking views with our building of their of their site as folks drive down airline boulevard, so really in accommodation to surrounding property owners.

Okay, so my concern is there could potentially be some young people or children in the area for whatever reason, as you know, um having a BMP.

Are we going to fence the BMP in or what are we planning to do there?

We have our engineering.

And I'm just concerned because in these times when when when BMPs fill up, particularly in the winter time, it could be a hazard.

Sure.

Just a question.

Yeah.

Um let me let me just ask a quick question of Eric.

We can fence it.

Yeah.

Hi, sorry, thank you.

Great, great question, uh, Mr.

Mayor.

Um, right now our plan um is not to fence it, but we are perfectly fine fencing it.

I I think that our plan was to work with staff to figure out a combination of landscaping and fencing.

We want it to look attractive at the same time, be safe, so we're open to to anything staff suggests there.

Thank you, sir.

Yeah, thank you.

Vice Mayor Moody, so you have the floor.

Thank you, Mayor.

Your question uh brings to mind what is our code reference BMPs uh far as being fenced.

Mr.

Manners, Mr.

Carter, could you please uh take this one over?

Absolutely.

Uh unfortunately I don't know that answer.

I'm gonna ask uh Dr.

Russell if she has the information that she can share with us on that particular item.

I'm I'm happy to good evening, everyone.

Um the BMPs are not required to be fenced.

Uh per the the conceptual site plan, there is generous landscaping around that BMP, particularly in the front, um, is uh um I guess SOP.

We recommend decorative fencing uh along the front property line and maybe more secure fencing, it could be chingling, black, vinyl coated uh along the sides in the back, uh, because that tends to disappear like you don't see it as you're driving by and traversing the property, and so I think that's a reasonable compromise.

Thank you, Dr.

Russell.

And thank you.

Mayor, I got a follow-up.

Okay, Vice Mayor, you have the floor.

I'm sorry.

I believe our code also requires uh aeration in BMPs.

Is that is that accurate, Dr.

Russell?

I I don't believe that it's required.

It's it's desirable, um, but we can verify it, uh, Councilman Moody.

Yeah, we we need to as I recall it it it is a requirement.

Okay, okay but you can get back with us over.

Yes, sir.

Thank you, Mr.

Beaman.

Thank you very much.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing.

If you wish to come and speak on this public hearing item, you're welcome to do so.

However, if you do come forward, please state your name and address, and you will have five minutes.

Seeing none, this public hearing is closed.

Council members, we're in need of a motion at a second.

Any additional discussion?

Seeing none, please vote electronically.

This item is adopted 7-0.

Thank you.

Our next item, item C das 25 desk 02.

And Madam Clerk, would you please read the public hearing ordinance we are considering for this item?

Yes, sir.

Links Ordinance Amending and reenacting uh chapter 40 point two of the zoning ordinance of Portsmouth, Virginia for the purpose of amending section 208, overlay zoning district, paragraph D, innovation I, overlay district, and to make any necessary related amendments to other sections of the zoning ordinance.

The amendment proposes to rename the district from innovation to link district and redefine the list of permitted land uses, align zoning classifications with desired mixed use development patterns, and include residential, commercial, and cultural activities, and include and to include perceptive excuse me, prescriptive design standards for landscaping, parking, signage, etc.

Reflective of design quality standards envisioned in the innovation district master plan.

And the ordinance you will be adopting reads and ordinance amending and reordaining chapter 40.2 zoning of the code of the city of Portsmouth, Virginia, including sections 40.2-208 overlay zoning districts, 40.2-213, commercial uses, 40.2-21, industrial uses, and 40.2-217 use specific standards and tables 40.2-208 and 40.2-216 for the purpose of renaming the link overlay district and revising the zoning standards applicable there to thank you, madam clerk.

And we have the uh city representative to come forward.

Ma'am, you have 10 minutes.

I need three.

A number of um uh council members actually did um attend a uh visit to Greenville, South Carolina, uh, and the importance of that visit uh is that a little bit over a year ago, council adopted the Portsmouth Innovation Plan, and that innovation plan included specific recommendations for permitted uses and design standards for our corridor along High Street that begins at the intersection of High and Effingham and traverses to High and the MLK connector.

Since that time, we have had a number of experiences that caused us a moment of pause, and that moment of pause asked, well not asked.

It it caused us to reconsider some of the recommendations of the uh innovation district plan.

One of those recommendations of the plan was that we brand the corridor and that we change the name.

And so that name change from the innovation district to the link district uh is part of the proposed uh ordinance amendment today.

And so we do have an innovation district in the current Portsmouth zoning ordinance, and we are proposing to rename that to the link district and to begin implementation of a two-part plan.

And that two-part plan first identifies uh uses that are permitted in the district that are consistent with that a plan that you adopted a year ago, uh, include some design standards that we are proposing to revisit, and the revisit of those design standards are due in large part to our Greenville, South Carolina experience and our Harvard uh experience where uh Mayor Shannon Glover and I participated in a semester long course and a project that was our innovation district where we had planning and design experts that are renowned internationally, provide insight and guidance on uh ways that we could improve implementation of that district.

And so specifically the innovation plan really speaks to creating a vibrant uh corridor uh in our Portsmouth downtown community that is a place where we live, work, and play, and it is designed to attract specifically those types of activities and an entrepreneurial spirit.

We realize that sometimes the pace of development outpaces our efforts to implement, and so specifically we uh recognize that an ordinance that addresses uses that we do not want in the corridor need needs needed to be immediately implemented, and that is this effort.

It's also the reason why we're proposing that this effort be two part.

And so while we are uh laser focused on the uses that should be permitted and prohibited, specifically those prohibited uses would include drive-through facilities, convenience stores, single family um detached uses, park and ride lots, uh, construction and material sales, crematory funeral homes, vehicle sales and service, recycling centers, uh, animal breeding facilities, and um uh design features such as neon lighting.

Um that takes a negative uh connotation when we say what is prohibited, but those types of uses that would be permitted in the district per the ordinance are uses like commissary kitchens and makerspaces.

And I want to speak specifically about makerspaces because they uh embody the spirit of the innovation district plan with respect to its entrepreneurial um desire.

So those are spaces where we would have entrepreneurs who can start their visionary uh implementation of uh a business interest and really um are supported in that effort uh in a turnkey fashion in a maker space building, what we would call an entrepreneurial space until they are solvent enough financially to move out on their own in space that is independently supported.

We are proposing a public engagement stakeholder engagement process of uh representatives throughout the community uh and along our high street corridor to help us uh in the development of the specific design standards for the link district.

Want to go back and share with you in our Greenville uh experience.

Um we recognize Greenville or Greenville is recognized as uh benchmark community for those communities that want to revitalize their downtown, their main street corridors, and being in the community for just a few days.

We recognize the advantages of having both spaces where you work and you live, and you have a built-in market to partake of those uh venues, those entertainment, those eateries and retail opportunities in the communities.

We also were um keenly aware of uh how attractive opportunities like uh public art and uh pocket parks and lush landscaping and coordinated signage and facades were in encouraging and attracting visitors to come and just stay for a while.

And when you stay for a while, you're gonna eat and you're gonna buy things and you're gonna just relax and enjoy the ambiance of the experience, and we want that for Portsmouth as well.

This photo was added to the presentation post the planning commission meeting because uh two of our commissioners uh commented that we didn't get to go to Greenville.

So, you know, pictures would be nice of what you experienced, and uh I'm gonna uh liken the presentation for the proposed um uh WOTA development um project as well as the self-storage facility.

Ordinances don't have that, you know, that that the opportunity to uh ooh and wow, you know, it's verbiage and it's language, and so all that we have to bring to the table to explain what we're proposing uh in terms of the development standards are the development standards, what's permitted, what's not permitted, what the setbacks are, um, but these are pictures from Greenville.

Uh I particularly like the one to the far left corner that shows the uh the the people in the public space, and that is those are opportunities that uh we want uh more often and more frequently, and those opportunities um they occur now, but we want them to occur when they're not necessarily programmed, you know, it's just a natural point of destination for uh our current community members and visitors to the city of Portsmouth.

So uh with that with gonna make myself available to answer questions.

Uh I want to thank Mr.

Godwin for at least giving me five minutes to answer a question that he's proposing relative to uh permitted uses, uh, and I'll do my best.

Thank you, Dr.

Russell.

And we do have Councilman Dodson, so you have the floor.

Um I know we uh love the plan that you presented to us when in the preliminary and the updates you've given us to consider it.

I know at one point we talked about how do we encourage more of a higher rise development in this area.

Has that um multi-story?

Yes, I'm multi-store, more than two stories though.

The ordinance language uh includes a maximum density of 64 units per acre um in the um link district.

So you want you want development in the community that's consistent with what you already have.

So um you want multi-story developments, you don't want it significantly higher than what currently exists because it would be out of scale.

Um the market actually will function to um drive both density and height.

Um, and that's just that's just that's planning one on one, right?

So as your um uh acreage opportunities, your property opportunities are limited and more expensive, you accomplish that by the the increasing the number of units by the height of your structures.

64 units per apron is average of what height building.

It that's that's a good question, but it doesn't work here because it really depends on the size of your parcel.

So um I think the highest is it the is it the I think we're limited to 100 feet now?

Excuse me.

We're limited to 100 feet at the current zoning.

No, a hundred feet would be about a three, would be about a three, three and a half story building.

So no, it can be higher than that.

No, I thought a hundred feet took us up to like ten stories in some buildings in a residential building.

Okay.

I don't think everybody heard you because I you said a hundred feet would be ten stories, right?

Is that what that was my understanding?

Is that is that no, no, because that would be ten feet per for residential building, for commercial building, it would be different, yes.

Not correct.

Okay.

Can you update me after when we have a moment?

Yes, sir.

Not here.

Thank you.

I apologize for disagreeing with you.

You're doing wonderfully.

Thank thank you for this presentation very much.

I'm hoping to move forward with it.

Okay.

Councilman Hugo.

So you have the floor.

Yeah, thanks, Mr.

Mayor.

Uh thanks, Dr.

Russell, for the words, but punctuated with the pictures.

Uh so having attended the planning uh commission discussions and also uh several EDA meetings uh where we've had discussions about uh things that we want, things that we don't want.

Uh it's important that we finally get to this evening to uh institutionalize the things that we want and things that we don't want, at least uh uh in round one in phase one.

Uh and so I but I I do think uh that it that uh including the pictures in your brief uh is helpful to not only us but to to our neighbors who are uh here or watching uh to understand how the words translate uh into uh what we're actually gonna have in the innovation district and and maybe just as importantly what we don't want to have in the innovation district.

So thanks for uh thanks for all of that this evening.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor Moody, sure you have the floor.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Dr.

Russell for uh uh an exciting presentation.

He words, pictures, uh the trip to uh Greenville was uh very uh uh exciting and enlightening, and I'm glad to see uh the link uh innovation district uh is gonna uh reflect a lot of those things.

But getting back to the the name uh is it the link innovation district or just the link district and the reason why I ask you know people want to go to uh uh an ice cream store and it uh let's say the ice cream store was called the block.

How many people would know they sold ice cream?

I mean, what what the the link innovation district is gonna exhibit is innovation creation.

So uh just throwing that out there that uh uh I I like I like the word innovation, like the word link because that's uh uh part of our city's history.

uh let's say the ice cream store was called the block I mean people would know they sold ice cream I mean what what the the link innovation district uh is gonna exhibit is innovation creation so uh just throwing that out there that uh uh I I like I like the word innovation like the word link because that's uh uh part of our city's history so uh I I think it's something before we absolutely ink that that we might want to think about that uh from a marketing standpoint uh you know if uh if I'm a visitor to Portsmouth and I'm in a hotel and uh I see uh let's go to the link I'm saying what is the link where somebody says the link innovation district that would whet my appetite and make me want to go check it out marketing is you know 90% of the absolutely uh the game here uh to attract people uh to the entrepreneurs that are gonna be uh there uh the neat stuff that's gonna be there so we might want to uh might want to get that word innovation uh in there uh I I like the flow of that the link innovation district so I don't know that that's my opinion yes sir councilwoman ma'am you have the floor thank you thank you Dr.

Russell very exciting to hear about progress um for the link whether we call it the link the link innovation um very exciting to see the progress I know we've already had some community engagement um some charrette that we participated in as a council along with some partners and community um partnership want to and continue to encourage the community to attend those public sessions so for your input but I I don't know if I'm gonna ask you this question but maybe have Mr.

Carter also jump in I know a lot of planning is going on but how are we looking in terms of our timeline to use the raise grant funds I know we have to have it obligated those funds obligated by September 38 2026 and expended completely by September 30th 2031 are we still on that timeline given the planning that we're doing the community engagement are we still good to meet that timeline for for these grant funds that we're using towards the the link district Mr Carter sure you have the floor absolutely we've already looked at that we we we know what those timelines are and we will not allow that money to just be wasted with that that is something that we're keeping track on absolutely all right thank you councilman Tillard sir you have the floor uh you can pass me by uh I lost your thought okay councilwoman Bryant you have the floor thank you mayor and thank you Dr.

Russell um would love for you to just inform the public in just a a little bit more detail about your Harvard experience with the mayor the trip to Greenville is something I think everybody can pretty much understand but I think it's really important for people to know how um you and the mayor participated in that Harvard experience to inform our direction with the link.

Okay.

Mayor Clover I need your help you let me I'll start uh Bloomberg it was a Bloomberg um opportunity that was extended to the city of Portsmouth and the mayor invited me um along to support and uh we had to propose a project that uh the community wanted expert support uh in designing implementation and troubleshooting and so the project that we chose was our innovation district and we looked at it from um the perspective of for parties outside of the community how are we going to best inform them of what the area is and what our intent was and so our marketing department um did a uh drone video um for the um high street corridor from um the waterfront all the way down to the MLK coordinator because the MLK connector because it changes the character of the corridor changes from about the intersection of effingham um forward and then there were very prescriptive questions as as you would ex uh expect um from an educational institution they wanted to know the demographics they wanted to know uh assess values they wanted to know the nature of uses along the corridor uh challenges sales history um and this was this was you know I felt like like a mother because we had to do a presentation in front of these groups and I could not do the presentation I had to support the presentation but I couldn't do it he did an excellent job he did a wonderful job uh and we left that setting with uh we were one of the best in terms of the preparation for our audience um the and this is correct me if I'm wrong but one of the um evaluators

And this was this was, you know, I felt like a mother because we had to do a presentation in front of these groups, and I could not do the presentation.

I had to support the presentation, but I couldn't do it.

He did an excellent job.

He did a wonderful job.

And we left that setting with we were one of the best in terms of the preparation for our audience.

And this is correct me if I'm wrong, but one of the evaluators at the time scored the raise grant applications.

And so he was intimately aware of that application and Portsmouth's needs and Portsmouth's position regionally with respect to demographics, uh with respect to incomes.

He he knew us very well.

And so the feedback, and and it's it's just the nature of human behavior.

You tend to I do tend to focus on the negative feedback that we received.

We got lots of positive feedback.

But one of the things that was said is okay, you need a you need to brand it.

You need a you need a name that is going to have staying power.

Yes, sir.

Yes, so to to Dr.

Russell's point, absolutely, these are very smart people in this area.

So what they were there to really guide us, and so as a result, um, we talked about that, and we came in with the innovation district, and all these smart folks, PhDs, and people that do this for a business, they said, wait, wait, hold on.

We've got to name this place.

It can't be innovation district, because innovation and of itself, the word doesn't speak to a idea, an entity, what's happening in that area.

Innovation, of course, but bring it bring it home to something that it identifies with the community.

Part of this whole program was it was called the Just Leady, just city leadership initiative.

And what they were looking at when they went around different cities, uh, because I wasn't the only mayor there, there were eight other cities that were throughout the country.

They wanted to see how we were going to incorporate our district in to the overall community and link it to something no pun intended that was meaningful to the community as a whole.

And so that was really the impetus uh for being there.

Um remember it was a course, it was a it was a a course that we took uh from January until April.

And so we had to go through classes and put up a lot of data in order to demonstrate what we were proposing.

So after after it all came out, we do have the final report that came from that.

I will be sending that to each and every one of you.

But it was a wonderful exercise.

It gave us exposure, and by the way, those individuals that we met with, they still call on us, and they're available to guide us through this process.

So I think we were pretty fortunate.

The the other area where we were asked to beef up was the housing piece.

Yes, that we speak uh a lot about the entrepreneurial nature and creating jobs, um, but it is the or not but and it is the residents that reside in the district that are going to support those uh entrepreneurial opportunities, the retail, the the restaurant, um, and that was um stated in Greenville as well that uh the redevelopment opportunities for the condominiums and the lofts, uh bringing people back to downtown isn't an important piece in their success.

Absolutely, 100%.

Thank you, Dr.

Russell, and thank you, Mayor.

I think it's really important for people to hear that this experience was valuable and that Portsmouth was one of eight cities across the country.

So thank you for taking the time to do that for us.

Thank you.

And Mayor.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing.

If you wish to come and speak on this public hearing item, please come forward, state your name and address.

You will have five minutes.

All right, good evening, mayor.

Good evening, Vice Mayor, of course, uh City Council and also city staff.

My name is Tony Goodwin, and of course, I reside in the Parkview section, historic section of Portsmouth, but have businesses in both ends of High Street now in the 300 block and also at the 900 block of High Street, which is where our office is in the link district.

Um first of all, I thank Dr.

And being part of many charettes going back probably to 96 when it comes to envisioning what we could do with different areas of the city, specifically in downtown, but all over the city, quite frankly.

You know, some of those things came out to create plans such as form-based code from when Paul Holt was here as the planning director.

And form-based code was a great tool, which it gave us a handbook for any any developer to come in and actually look to see what was not necessarily interpreted by another person or or a planning commission.

He just basically had to follow the recipe book.

But on unfortunately, somewhere in between the the charrettees of all the public involvement and also uh the adoption here at City Council, things had gotten tweaked or changed, and a lot of cons you know it really created a mess, which uh ultimately had to be pretty much tossed and start over again, or at least have a big band-aid on it.

Um then the second band-aid created another set of issues, which of course were setbacks and all that.

So I'm I'm very appreciative to the to the planning department for taking just what we learned in those two changes alone to this area, which is known as D2.

Um, but at the same time, too.

It's a uh it's definitely an approach that is obviously being well thought out.

So I I applaud everyone for being part of that.

Um of the things that I saw, the matrix, which of course is what's in the in your package with this, uh, is basically from the form-based code approvals from back in 2010.

Um but that pretty much says what you can and can't do or what you can use.

I did want to make a note though, on one of those items is a commissary kitchen, which would be only allowed in the link district.

And we do have one particular business that's at 622 King Street.

The Expo Kitchen is operating as a commissary slash open space for uh restaurateurs, caterers, things of that nature, even food trucks to be able to utilize that space, but they don't keep trucks on that site.

But I just want to make sure that that's clarified.

One of the things that Dr.

Russell had answered real quickly was the food truck ordinance, which was very um well thought out, whereas Effingham to the waterfront food trucks couldn't be on obviously public space without being part of an event.

And but beyond Effingham, it was pretty much open a little bit more, which inspired us to look into the Safeway Cabic site and re rethink how the historic uh safeway cab could be utilized in a way that creates a food truck connection, uh possibly a food truck park, um, but more prevalent and more recent is a term called a food hub.

And a food hub gives you more than just a food truck park, whereas you get small business owners that can't afford a big brick and mortar and get kind of get started, but also it creates a freshness factor to the the customer base, which is either just residents or most importantly, our our Navy folks from the Naval Hospital.

And I think it's in the Mayors and Military's Affair Committee.

I think has been stated a couple of times.

We need some better, better product or better food products and offerings rather than fast food.

So when you get food trucks, it's usually all fresh, ingredients, sometimes farm to table.

Uh but when you add the food truck or food hub, that concept is perfectly fit in this area because of the fact that it's offering farmers to bring their products into the into the district, actually having it available through a co-op proper uh process.

Some other items on that matrix that would possibly be considered it wasn't on the list was e-commerce businesses, whereas they're retail, but they don't have a showroom or sales floor, they actually have a stock room and a small office and packing area.

Make sure we include those guys because that's a definite uh uh I guess you could say business incubator concept.

Wholesale sales having wholesale opportunities as well.

Uh courtyards on high street, uh specifically in the 800 block, which is what we're kind of planning into, similar to what's on the 600 block, beside um uh right in the right in the crux there of um gosh, I completely forgot the name.

Anyhow, the Thai restaurant, Thai Basil.

Um so something to consider with that and adding the Dora permit on private property, whereas that's uh of course why you're you prevent that obviously at the local level with the ABC's involvement.

But that's all I have, but I thank you very much for the time.

Thank you, sir.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing.

If you wish to come speak on this public hearing item, uh please come forward, state your name and address.

You will have five minutes.

Seeing none, this public hearing is closed.

Council members, we are in need of a motion and a second.

Any additional discussion, please vote electronically.

This item is adopted 7-0.

Thank you, madam clerk.

Yes, sir.

That concludes our public hearing items.

We're now moving to 26-43 City Manager's Report, consent agenda.

And Madam Clerk, would you please read the consent agenda items?

Yes, sir.

Item A, the item you're considering is an ordinance accepting adult services funding in the amount of $3,500 from the Virginia Department of Social Services and appropriating said amounts in the FY2026 Social Services Fund use by DSS.

Item B, an ordinance accepting additional specialty dockets grant funding in the amount of $35,073.91 cent from the office of the executive secretary at the Supreme Court of Virginia and appropriating set funds in the FY 2026 Behavioral Health Care Services Fund for use in connection with the Portsmouth Adult Recovery Court.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Council members, we are in need of a motion in a second to cons to accept the consent agenda.

Second any additional discussion.

Please vote electronically.

This these items are seven C RAM.

Thank you, ma'am.

That in that concludes our city manager's report.

Our next item is new business, item 26-44, boards and commissions.

Councilman Hugo, do we have any boards or commissions?

Uh we do not this evening, Mr.

Mayor.

Thanks.

Thank you, sir.

Next item, item 26-45.

Items submitted by council members.

Do we have any items submitted by council members?

Okay, seeing none, well, I have an item to submit.

As we all are aware, uh February is Black History Month.

And just to let you know, in the city of Portsmouth, we have a whole program of events and opportunities for you to participate in.

We have a program that is with our museums called Black History Now.

It is a 365-day program, and I encourage you all to learn more about the history of Portsmouth and what others have done to make our city great.

But I want to share with you one individual tonight.

Marlene W.

Randall.

Mrs.

Randall, City Councilwoman, retired educator, administrator, was born on October 18th, 1934 in Portsmouth, Virginia.

After she graduated from high school, she earned her B.S.

degree in elementary education from Virginia State University.

In 1960, she received her MA degree in early childhood education from Columbia University.

She also received her advanced certificate in administration from the University of Virginia, and her advanced certificate in administration and supervision from old Dominion University.

She began her teaching career in Portsmouth Public School System.

She was an elementary school teacher, assistant principal, principal, facilities coordinator.

She created the pattern for the pairing of schools, staff, and students that led to the integration of Portsmouth public schools.

She retired after 38 years of distinguished service.

In 2002, Mrs.

Randall was elected to the Portsmouth City Council, where she served three consecutive terms.

She also served as vice mayor.

That's just a part of our history, and certainly it is something that I think was worth sharing with our community.

Any other items to be submitted by council.

Thank you.

Any pinning items, Mr.

Carter.

Yes, sir.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

Um, in your package, did you on your and in your email?

You should have gotten a uh report back on the items from the last week.

Um the only other item I have I would like to introduce to you, Mr.

Brian Wood.

He is sitting in the front row there.

He's going to be the assistant to the city manager.

Mr.

Brian Wood brings more than 15 years of experience in local government in nonprofit service.

Uh he's worked in uh DC and uh Maine.

Uh I guess most recently he was in uh Maryland, but he has uh expertise uh in leading uh external and external initiatives and improved improved organizational efficiencies.

He's going to be um one of the persons that will be interacting with you on some of those things that you send me um and asking for report backs on.

Uh he will lead several of the projects that we have uh going on in our city right now.

He's going to be really the assistant that uh takes care of most of the uh the project management kind of issue uh that that we're trying to get our arms around.

So I want to welcome to our team, our executive team, Mr.

Brian Wood.

Mr.

Wood.

That's it, ma'am.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, and welcome again, Mr.

Wood to the team.

Our next item, item 26-47, non-agenda speakers.

And madam clerk, would you please read the speaker's statement?

Oh, councilwoman Thomas, ma'am.

You have the floor.

I'm sorry.

Thank you.

I just one quick uh comment regarding uh Mr.

Carter's report back items.

I wanted to make the public aware of at our last city council meeting.

Thank you, Mr.

Carter, for reporting back on the communication regarding the trash bins and containers, and uh just to let the community know there will be it sounds like additional messaging going out or stickers placed on the bin so that all of our citizens will be aware of how to use their bins if they no longer need to.

Um so thank you for following up on that to make that communication available for all of our citizens.

Thank you.

And Madam Clerk, would you please read the speaker statement?

Yes, sir.

Ladies and gentlemen, city council rules require a limit of up to five minutes to speak.

As you approach the speaker's podium, you will notice the timer.

At the beginning of your five minutes, you will see a green light.

Four minutes into your remarks, you will notice a yellow light.

At the end of five minutes, you will see a red light here a beep, and we ask you to please conclude your comments at that time.

While speakers have an opportunity to address counsel on matters of public concern, all comments should be made in a manner that respects the seriousness of the forum and should not be made in a belligerent, sarcastic or demeaning fashion.

All remarks shall be directed to the city council as a body rather than any particular member of city council, staff, or the audience, and should be limited to matters that only the Portsmouth City Council can influence.

A speaker who fails to observe this basic rule of decorum will be deemed out of order and not allowed to conclude his or her comments.

Thank you, madam clerk.

And our first speaker tonight is Luis Padilla.

Mr.

Padilla, if you would come forward, state your name and address.

You will have five minutes.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Manager, and members of City Council.

My name is Luis Fernando Padilla, and I reside in 301 Chautauqua Avenue, Portsmouth, Virginia, 23707.

I'm here tonight to discuss a strategic path forward regarding the 6.7 million dollar funding gap in the Portsmouth Public Schools budget.

Firstly, I want to thank this council for the six million dollars already provided.

It's a vital step.

However, we must address the remaining shortfall to fully implement the compensation study for all staff.

When we talk about retention over recruitment, we aren't talking about just teachers.

We're talking about our bus drivers, our custodians, and our school security officers.

These essential employees, many of whom are Portsmouth residents, are the backbone of our operations.

Now another question.

To answer that, we only have to look back to this council's own actions on November 25th of last year.

That night you proved our budget is a living document by passing a series of ordinances, specifically 25-109 through 25-11, which reappropriated over 30 million dollars in unspent carry-forward funds from the previous year.

If this council can successfully move 30 million dollars mid-cycle for textbooks, grants and insurance, then we certainly have the fiscal mechanism to prioritize 6.7 million dollars for the human beings who keep our schools running.

It costs just as much to replace a veteran maintenance worker as it costs to replace a classroom teacher.

By closing this gap using the tools you've already proven work, we ensure Portsmouth remains competitive and our schools remain stable.

Investing in our entire workforce is an investment in our property values and children's future.

Let's use the president already set to support the people who support Portsmouth.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Councilman Hugo, sir, you have the floor.

Yeah, thanks, Mr.

Mayor.

So Mr.

Padilla, I appreciate uh your input.

I'm not aware that we have a 6.7 million dollar funding gap.

My recollection uh from the budget discussions that we had when we put the FY20 uh 2526 budget in place was that the uh the compensation plan was in fact fully funded.

And so I'm not sure what 6.7 million dollar funding gap you think we have regarding what was done back in November, uh the funds that you have listed here, the 30 million uh dollars of funds, uh all but 12 million of that were uh uh uh budget carry over in specific funds.

So for instance, the the uh risk management fund can only be carried over into risk management, the textbooks only over in the textbooks, food services only to food services.

So there's really only uh uh 12.9 million dollars of uh carryover, and that was surplus at the end of uh FY25, and my recollection was that the school board or the school superintendent uh identified that all but about uh 160,000 of that was uh uh already uh committed.

Uh and so uh of course we're gonna uh push the money back to the to the school board to to pay bills that they have already obligated, uh which is exactly what we did.

So uh out of the 30 million dollars that you list here, there was really only about 106 160,000 uh uh of surplus uh that was uh up for discussion, and in fact, the way that was handled uh a year ago, the city council put an ordinance in place that that created uh the opportunity for the school board to populate a uh CIP rainy day fund uh and uh and with any uh general fund surplus, and so all that 160,000 dollars that was left over that wasn't obligated from the general fund uh was parked uh in the capital improvement fund.

So, in fact, of the 30 million dollars that you have listed here, uh every single penny of it was uh accounted for uh back in in October when we uh when we voted to uh to deal with the the $30 million carryover uh at the end of FY25.

So there are just things here that I don't think you got quite right, and I don't wanted to clarify for the record.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Our next speaker is Ms.

Sheila Joseph.

Again, I would like to thank everyone that giving me this opportunity.

Sheila Joseph, 139 Grand Street, Portsmouth, Virginia.

The last meeting I was in January the 27th.

Um Mr.

Carter, um I requested in an email for you all also uh share this information about the transformer and y'all requested to look into it, but I haven't heard anything about the Transformer and Fairville neighborhood yet.

And it's I've been back home 35 years, and uh it's been in our community that transformer as long as I can remember as a child that I see that Congress got and President Baden send me information about the industru uh HR 3684, and that's part of the project.

And I've been taking pictures in different areas, and just recently last year on Noble Street and Temple, which is two streets in my community, and they was uh saying that we put an update transformer, and I told y'all that the inside uh thing that was working that when it you know got affected, it submerged in my home, calls my recyclicals.

I got 12 rooms in my house.

And the recyclicals, the refrigerator, freezer, lights and everything stole had stopped working.

So I investigated and found out I needed to call uh Dominion energy about it.

But someone this year told me they put in a request, and then somebody came behind them saying the person didn't know what they were talking about.

And they said they requested it and ordered that transformer, and I documented and told them to document every word I say.

So I knew I would come and bring it to y'all's attention.

Did anyone investigate it, include you know, it was requested of Mr.

Carter to look into about the transformer.

The other thing I wanted to ask about y'all remember, and you can go back before Mr.

Carter was here.

I asked about a neighborhood sign.

So Durfort, my son and I got together and created one at his expense.

And they only wanted him to remove because under the United States trademark and copyright, when he created, they asked him to own his work so nobody wouldn't use it.

So they didn't want that.

So we removed it and decided to do something simple, saying fair will and what other comment we had, and we didn't put ownership on it.

So I was told that it was delivered, but do I want to look at it?

That was January the 21st.

I haven't heard anything yet concerning the neighborhood.

But other signs are popping up, and I never seen or known anyone addressing in that community about the way I did.

I went from my community and surrounding community during the smoke tests and everything.

And I pretty much documented everything that's supposed to be defected underground.

And I mentioned that when they started on Wall Street and Noble Street, in certain inside this uh material, and they said it would last longer if people didn't put chemicals in it.

So I researched the company and I came back to you all and told you that I didn't want that because the president said 738 million in the state of Virginia to address that uh old pipes to be removed.

So it's a lot of other stuff I asked for.

Y'all know what it is.

I'm included into the project, the different things that I was asking, not just my community, but other communities.

And um I've been addressing the streets, the stop signs.

If y'all go and look on D Creek and Douglas Park, um Grand Street, you'll see them, the blinking lights.

And also I was pointing out to different ones about the street lights that they are confusing and people having accidents.

So I've been bringing those things to you.

Thank you, ma'am.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Stephanie Ma'am.

Your last name, Lodi.

Yes, sir.

Stephanie Lodi.

Please come forward, state your name and address.

You will have five minutes.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and members of council.

My name is Stephanie Lodi, and I live out prentice.

Uh was I'm a Northam graduate and I've been a nuclear engineer for 14 years.

I'm here tonight because I believe the way property maintenance and code enforcement is being applied to my home is unfair, overly aggressive, and maybe violating the spirit of the city's own procedures and my due process rights.

Over the last several years, I've received multiple code notices focused on my property.

I am not the worst house on my block.

In fact, some nearby properties are invisibly worse condition.

Yet I am the one receiving repeated notices, sometimes over issues that are minor or simply not there.

This pattern makes me feel singled out, targeted, and possibly due to uh singled out and targeted, possibly due to a neighbor repeatedly complaining, even though the city consistently labels that my uh that my cases are inspector generated.

I want to focus on the most recent incident because it clearly shows why I'm so concerned.

On January 27th, I received a notice from the city stating that I had debris on my porch and giving me 10 days to correct the issue.

In my review, there was no debris on my porch.

I keep my property reasonably maintained, and nothing on my porch was trash, rubbish, or a safety hazard.

I was prepared to address anything the city clearly identified, but the notice itself was vague and did not match the actual condition of my home.

What happened next is what truly alarmed me.

I did not hire any contractor to come to my house.

Instead, one came on his own and I saw him on my ring camera.

When I spoke to him through my camera, he told me that he was there because the city had issued a request for bids that included my property.

He was taking pictures to prepare his bid to the city and not to do any work for me.

He also told me that according to the documents he received, the bid for my property originated on January 28th, just one day after the notice was posted, and that bids had to be submitted by February 6th.

That means that the city was already moving on my property and to was already moving my property into an abatement and contractor process before my 10-day correction period had even expired.

In other words, I was supposedly being being given time to comply, but behind the scenes, the city had already assumed a noncompliance and started the process to have worked on them done on my home without my consent.

If the city sets a deadline, the city should honor that deadline before escalating to forced abatement, especially when there is no emergency.

After learning this from the contractor, I contacted the expect the inspector that he named.

And second, that I had a van with no registration stickers.

When I asked him to read me the specific debris ordinance that he claimed, he even he read it, even as he read it aloud.

Many Portsmouth residents used indoor chairs or benches on their porches.

Mine were water resistant and weather resistant, which spoke to the debris ordinance that he read.

To treat mine as debris while ignoring while ignoring similar or worse conditions on my block is not an objective application of the code.

It is discretionary judgment call being used only against me.

Regarding the van, I understand that the city has the authority to regulate inoperable or unregistered vehicles, and that vehicles without valid plates or inspection can be addressed under the code.

My concern is not that the city noticed the van.

My concern is how it's being used in the overall pattern.

The inspector told me that he rides down the street looking for things like that and that and then bundles those observations into a complaint on my property.

Meanwhile, my porch debris is defined so subjectively that almost any personal property on my porch can be used as pretext.

Additionally, a written notice with pictures is normally sent to the home detailing the perceived issues.

To date, I have not received a paper notice, despite the inspector saying on the phone call that he sent one the same day that I called.

Without that notice, there's no reasonable expectation that I could have known what debris they wanted removed, or even that my van was a problem, seeing as it wasn't stated on the notice.

From my perspective, this looks less like neutral enforcement and more like an inspector looking for reasons to keep a case open on my address.

So we have three pieces together a vague and subjective debris claim based on ordinary chairs on a porch, a van that while addressable under inoperable vehicle rules could have been handled through a standard notice process like any other resident's vehicle, and a city initiated in a city initiated bid and contractor visit generated one day after my notice with a bid deadline before my correction period expired.

Taken together, these do not look like routine either handed enforcement.

They look like preemptive escalation against my home, driven by either a neighbor complaint pattern or the personal judgment of the inspector or both.

I want to be clear.

I support reasonable code enforcement and I understand the need to address new new uh nuisances.

I'm not asking to be above the law, I'm asking to be treated the same as my neighbors with clear standards, honest timelines, and no predecided outcomes.

What I'm experiencing instead is a pattern that looks like complaint driven or and highly discretionary, repeated.

Ah, okay.

Thank you, ma'am.

Were you done?

Uh Did you have another one?

I just had a couple of things that I would have liked to have seen.

Well, well, well, well, but I am done with the issue.

Okay, very good.

Uh Mr.

Carter, sure, do you want to address this matter?

Good evening, ma'am.

My name is Steve Carter, I'm the city manager.

Uh for that particular um complaint that you're talking about, at least the one were um the contractor came, started uh, you know, reviewing your home.

Um the procedure for that is if there's a write-up, they're gonna give that to a contractor and ask them to give us a bid on what it costs to do that.

Now they're not gonna do anything to your property at that time.

They're just gonna give us a bid so that if you don't do it, that there's there's somebody already in line to take care of it.

That's what that piece was.

Now you talked about repeated things that have happened.

I've I haven't haven't looked at that to address that because the the information I got was about that particular item.

Yes, sir.

This one was the most current one, but it's gotten to the point where January first popped around.

I was like, you know what?

Portsmouth hasn't really bothered me about anything.

You know, maybe the uh maybe I'm gonna get by January this time.

And it's pretty much right around January, February.

I can kind of expect for something to pop up from the city inspector, whether it's uh pile of sticks that was in my yard to uh I don't know, whatever they perceive is in my yard, something.

I'll have to look at the history of that because I didn't look at that.

I just I the information I got was about why was the guy on my property before anything was done.

Right.

So I looked into that.

I didn't ask about these other things because it didn't know.

You weren't prepared about that.

But I'll but I will look into it.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Councilman Dodson, sir, you have the floor.

Sheila, thank you for your for your emails.

Yes, sir.

It's not all the time we get a pleasant email in a professional manner.

And your way of handling this is has been done very well.

And I want to thank you for your manner and your professionalism in doing this.

Thank you.

Thank you, and thank you for getting back to me.

Thank you, ma'am.

Our next speaker is Miss Angela Parrish.

Miss Parrish, if you would come forward, state your name and address.

You will have five minutes.

Okay.

Okay, I started to speak earlier about um Palmwell Street in Portsmouth, Virginia.

Yes, ma'am.

Palmwell Street is a street, but it ends up in a cul-de-sack.

Yes, ma'am.

And in the area in which there's the cul-de-sac, there is a man that lives at 2807 Pinewell Street that has two 70-pound trucks and a um cabin of a tractor trailer.

That noise from his truck is what my mother called me for at 5:30 a.m.

to tell me that a bomb had exploded.

Because when he starts to truck up, my mother's property in in five feet seven inches from his truck.

Her bedroom is right there by that truck.

It's not one truck that will cause a problem, it's two 70 pounds, 70,000 pound trucks, dump trucks on that street.

He parks them also on the street in front of Mr.

Ray's house, who used to be the older man that did the baseball around here when I was younger.

And he blocked that um house out.

All of this oil mess is now in the street.

I've talked to her um Corporal Curtis.

I've called to the police department for uh Miss Jenkins, Mr.

Jenkins, uh can't remember right now.

Um we have he have sent my mother letters because my mother has spoken to him about the fact of these trucks, how they're waking her up.

She's 84 years old, and he and his, I don't know if she's now a wife.

She used to be a widow, but now this man is there.

And whenever she said something to him, this lady will leave her job down here in Portsmouth, Virginia.

I've recorded her coming to there when my mother has spoken to him about that vehicle.

It seems that he does not have rules, but I've checked, I went down to the library and I tried to find out what is your rules and policies and procedures in regard to 70,000 pound truck.

Two trucks, that's 140,000 pounds on a call de sack.

And then now he is bringing his the bed of his tractor trailer.

I don't understand it.

I spent 42 years in Maryland.

I lived in a call de sack.

You could not bring those tracks there.

They were for loading and unloading.

That's all you could do.

They were not today stay there Monday through Friday.

They were not to stay there overnight.

And your rules here, according to some of the books that I looked, if in fact, your city or Portsmo according's um laws and stuff like that hasn't been updated since 2007.

Another book has not been updated since 2010.

So I'm just trying to figure out what is your policies here about tractor trailers on Cal DeSat, because it says you're not supposed to go beyond.

I mean, and there's not a throughway street, it's not supposed to be there.

So I'm trying to figure out what is that policy.

My mother had just had surgery on the fourth, and the family was down for that.

We got a chance to hear that noise because as he says, he has to let the air pressure out on the truck.

That's why the truck had to sit there in the driveway for over an hour with all of this noise.

So I'm trying to figure out what is your policy here.

Yes, ma'am.

I hear you.

So first of all, I'm gonna ask uh Councilman Tiller, do you have a question?

Yeah, thank you, Mayor.

Um, thank you, um, Miss Parrish for bringing this to council.

Um, I sent an email back on August 7th in regards to dump trucks on Pinewell Street.

Um there's numerous trucks that have been parked that I've received numerous complaints uh from other residents um about this.

And we finally get something done with this ordinance change or not because it's multiple trucks um that are on that street, and this to Miss Parrish's point, the street is a code sack, a small street, um, and there's dump trucks that are literally parked in between homes, like backed up in driveways that are probably pushing the boundaries of property lines.

Um it's becoming a huge nuisance for the the members of that community.

Mr.

Carter, you have the floor, sure.

Absolutely.

I'm looking at some notes on this.

We'll I'll take a look at this.

This is uh new information to me about the Pine Well Street and the noise that you're talking about with your with your uh with your mother.

Um we'll definitely take a look at it.

I can't promise you what can happen right now because I gotta actually do a little research for myself before.

Well, this has been brought up at the Wilson Ward civic lead.

Okay.

And they were she my mother was told that that is his business.

He's used those trucks for his business.

And if you want him to move their truck, then you have to pay him for the amount of money he'll miss per day because he's not able to be at home and collect this.

So this has been going on for two years.

This man has sent this letter to my mother and has intimidated my mother over his desire to park his trucks on the street and in front of somebody else's property.

But those two men, he balked down.

I mean, the when the other man, Mr.

Ray bucked at him and let him know that's not happening on as far as being in front of his property.

He don't park those trucks no there no more.

But he intimidate a older 84-year-old woman.

And that ass truck is often there.

Miss Parrish, we we we've heard you, ma'am.

I'm sorry, what you said we we have heard what you said tonight, and we're going to look into the matter as someone will follow back up with you.

We understand your frustration, ma'am.

Yes, it's very upsetting.

I appreciate it.

Um I'm looking forward to you all doing something.

It's two years.

Two years we've been going through this with this guy.

Yes, ma'am, and we are going to look into it and we will have a response back to you uh on this matter.

Thank you very much.

I thank you.

Okay.