Yeah, the total life is going well as I was telling some tunnel.

Yeah, I mean the right so it's what you do.

That's mixing it with the writing a section of the parkway or chindow.

Good morning, everybody.

Hope everybody's doing well.

This is the Thursday, April 16th, 2026 meeting of the Urban Design Committee.

Mr.

Secretary, do you mind reading the public access and participation instructions?

Yes.

To access the meeting by Microsoft Teams, please use the link available on the agenda on the calendar website in the city.

Or dial star 67804 316 9457 and enter ID 742 420 550 out.

Public comment will be requested in turn for each item on the agenda.

Please stay on mute during other times to reduce background noise.

Using your phone to access the meeting, you can use star six to mute and unmute.

You might call in the roll.

I forgot to print out one room.

That's what I have for you today.

Just a second.

Ben Edwin is not here.

Pearson?

Here.

We hunt.

Here.

Mr.

Brut's mark is not here.

Hamnet.

Here.

We do have a core.

Thank you.

You mind reviewing how we approve minutes?

Yes.

A high-level summary statement will be provided before voting on a final motion.

For each individual item, the summary statement will be transmitted to the planning commission along with the motion outcome and be recorded as minutes for the trick.

Probably get a report you remind reviewing our scope of work.

Yes.

Scope of review reminder.

1707 of the city charter.

General location character extent approval for public buildings, structure, streets, parks, etc.

Items of a specific nature that are designed by professionals, such as engineers or architects are not considered general.

1705, UDC may make recommendations on specific design items, uh, public structures, apparently, and street pictures.

And I don't believe we have any continuances or deletions from the agenda today.

Great.

And no items are currently on the consent agenda.

We do have one item on the regular agenda.

And that is UDC 2026-05.

It's uh conceptual location character except review of Prime Park dam removal and stream restoration located at 4308 Hermitage Road.

Yes.

Bringing up presentation.

So this is a conceptual review for dam removal and wetlands restoration, Burton Park.

There are two dams uh to be removed.

I have lovingly named them one and two.

You can see them here.

And I'll keep them throughout the presentation.

Uh you can see Hermitage Road here to the right, uh, and Bryant Park Avenue here to the north of this project area, and then the rest of Bryant Park to the south.

Uh and the fall line trail is currently designed and will more than likely be constructed as uh crossing Hermitage Park at the intersection of Bryan Park and Hermitage and uh entering the park at dam number one, crossing dam number one and going south on Joseph Bryant Light.

I I have a uh drawing to show that better here in a second.

Here is a three 3D view of the area.

And here's a view from the street toward dam number one, uh, but you can't see it, it's around the corner.

And this is from the street dam number two.

And the proposal is as we said, restoration of wetlands, uh, pretty significant here and removal of the dam.

Uh so that'll reduce the size of the ponds, but actually make the water uh kind of functional again and wetlands.

Uh dam number one, dam number two there.

Or bridge number one and bridge number two once they remove the dam are there.

This is bridge number one.

This is the one that the fall line will get one.

Proposed proposed, yes.

Again, bridge number one.

This is what it'll look like.

Uh, this is kind of the standard bridge that parks has been used at lake.

Okay, the proposed or bridge number two.

A little bit longer than bridge number one.

Same design except not arched.

And signage will be provided as well.

Uh, it'll address history of the area as well as wetlands and the work that the wetlands restoration has done.

There's very significant amount of planting of new trees through here, as you would expect with the wetlands restoration and planting of other plants as well, but I only included the trees for time's sake.

And provision of new trails and a couple of new amenities, like a um.

And here's my little drawing of the fall line trail, uh, where it is currently proposed.

So with our new guidelines, I've gone through and found all the relevant master plan references, which has been very helpful for me as I do these reviews.

These are the relevant master plan references.

Um objective 2.1 implement green infrastructure.

4.1 protect and restore natural resources 16.4, increase green stormwater infrastructure and 4.3 natural rather than hard landscaping in parks.

And this project meets all of those.

And the recommended conditions are that the applicant amend plans to show the fall line trail alignment on and adjacent to the project site for final application.

So when they come back, uh, what we're looking for there is you know, they're removing the dam and putting in the bridge.

Uh so seeing what the fall line will look like on there, but also on either side, just to make sure it all connects.

Uh, currently, as the fall line is designed, it is split.

So the fall line trail and the secondary pedestrian trail or whatever.

Um, I think probably what'll happen is it'll just be one through this area and just dark sky compliant.

Condition number two, uh, natural area makes sense for it to be dark sky compliant lights and number three is that signage can include wetlands and the site's history, which is the staff recommends approval with conditions.

That is my position.

Thank you, Mr.

Secretary.

Like to address the committee.

Good morning.

These two reading commission beam right now.

Good morning, everybody.

I'm Lisa Richardson, deputy director of capital projects in the parks and recreation.

We are very excited to present this project to you today in partnership with Department of Public Utilities and our consultants, um, who are going to give you details here in just a few minutes.

Um, but I just want to take a minute to say um what it's worth coming from the environmental background, working for Department of Conservation and Recreation, um, which division of Dam Safety is housed within, uh, also working for the environmental nonprofit community for years.

This project really has done a beautiful job.

Our consultants have done a beautiful job of recognizing the ecological importance of dam removal as it restores passage opportunities.

Um the like the plant plan that you'll see brings natives to which are beneficial to water quality and also food for fish, just leaves fall off trees and things like that.

So the attention to detail for our planting plan for um removing the dams and restoring the flow of the stream to natural conditions is really um beautiful and thoughtful.

And so I'm excited to have the consultants come and talk to you about that.

Uh we're very excited about what the final conditions will be for Brian Bark.

Um, so with that, I'd like to introduce Ann Housman.

She's with Hazen, soyer, and she will begin the presentation.

Thanks.

Thank you, Nisa.

Thank all of you for having us come and present today.

Is it okay if I share my screen on the teams meeting?

Okay.

So great, great overview of the project.

I know that you all have had access to these materials for a few weeks, so I'm not going to dive super deeply into any one specific part of the project.

We'll just give an overview, and of course, we're happy to answer any questions that you have.

Existing conditions, as was noted before.

The project is in Brian Park, which is in the northern part of Richmond, right on the border of Henrico County.

Our project site within Brian Park is in the northern part of the park, bordered by Bryan Park Avenue to the north and Hermitage Road to the east.

And we're focused on what's currently known as Young's Pond.

So Upham Brook is impounded by two dams, dams one and two, or the upper dam and the lower dam, as we'll be referred to in our presentation.

So the objective of this project is to remove the dams and restore Upham Brook to a more natural state.

Jordan's Branch is a key tributary to Upham Brook from the Southwest and enters the pond upstream of the upper dam, and then Princeton Creek is a tributary from the south that enters Upham Brook, just upstream of the lower dam.

A review of the project drivers, purpose and benefits, just so you all understand kind of why we're here, what initiated this project.

It's really coming from a regulatory place.

So the lower dam is currently out of compliance with DCR's dam safety program regulations due to the structural condition and insufficient hydraulic capacity.

So in order to address that noncompliance and kind of looking forward and keeping in mind potential future noncompliance of the upper dam, both dams will be fully removed to eliminate that dam safety risk and like I said, current and future regulatory noncompliance.

So I'm going to read this from the slide, but the purpose of the project is to ensure full compliance with DCR dam safety program regulations through the dam removals and stream restoration to leverage this opportunity and to leverage this opportunity to make ecological improvements and enhance the experience for Brian Park visitors.

As Nisa mentioned, we have lots of benefits that we're able to capture in this project aside from just the regulatory compliance.

We are providing fish passage for over five miles of stream, and in some cases, depending on the species of fish, up to nine miles of fish passage.

So really excited about that benefit.

We're also focusing on invasive vegetation removal and native plantings.

Water quality is going to be improved just through the nature of taking what's currently a stagnant body of water and returning it to a more natural stream state.

That moving water is going to increase dissolved oxygen and decrease water temperatures, which improves the environment for aquatic life.

So overall having a restorative effect on the aquatic and riparian habitats.

There's also lots of park user benefits.

So we've done quite a bit of community engagement.

People are excited about these benefits.

DCR regulatory compliance, of course, stays front of mind.

We have personal and cultural connections that folks have already expressed they have to the park.

So we want to make sure that they maintain the opportunity to continue those connections into the future.

We're enhancing the scenic and recreational value of the area and ensuring that existing and future programming is supported.

I do want to focus just a little bit on community engagement because this has been such a such a big part of the project and really exciting for us to see the level of engagement that the communities had and how much folks care about the park.

And so we're trying to take all of their feedback and to the extent possible and implement it into the design.

So first want to focus on this engagement cycle on the right-hand side.

From the very beginning, even our feasibility studies, we were focused on public engagement.

So we had a public meeting back in 2024 at the very initiation of the project to introduce the idea to the public, give them some idea of concept designs, and through the collection of feedback during that meeting, we were able to review responses and then modify the design accordingly.

We've continued that engagement cycle for two more cycles.

So after 30% design, we had some really fun pop-up events in Bryan Park, one at the RBA Big Market and one on the dam itself.

Received some great feedback.

I'm going to show an example of how we took that feedback and directly implemented it into the design.

And then recently, as of you know, Tuesday and yesterday, we were engaging with the public again on site, as well as at Pine Camp with a public meeting.

And there's currently an online survey that's live that has more targeted questions since we're advancing in the design process that's going to allow you know continuation of direct public feedback into the final product.

So here's a quick example of our 30% design public engagement.

We posed three open-ended prompts to the public, both in person and online.

So generally, what do you love most about this area of the park?

What would you change or imagine for the next generation?

And what else should we be considering as we move forward with this project?

As you can see, we had lots of lots of responses.

This is just a small sample of the over 100 folks that we engaged with at these events.

So wanted to kind of demonstrate how we took these notes, these direct thoughts and ideas from the public and translated those into design adjustments.

So there's two on this slide that I'm going to highlight.

Everything that's on this slide was included in the application, so you can review that in more detail.

But first, I wanted to highlight the bottom left.

All we received a sticky note that said, please use the digital atlas of Virginia Flora as a guide in the selection of native species.

So obviously, we have community members that care a lot about the plants that are selected for this project.

Water Street, who is with us today, has done a fantastic job of really diving in and doing a lot of research to make sure that we're not just selecting plant species that are native to Richmond, but specifically native to the microcosm of Brian Park itself.

We then on the bottom right have a sticky, and we received lots of these about the trees.

Please protect our trees.

Mature trees in the park are beautiful, takes a long time to replace these trees.

So we've gone through an extensive effort to adjust our grading plan and our trail layout to protect trees.

And we actually even moved the location of the lower bridge upstream a bit to save a particularly large and beef flow tree on the right abutment of the existing.

So I'll walk through the design plans.

We already saw several of the renderings.

But first wanted to orient everybody with the master plan.

So Ubbham Brook will no longer be a pond, it'll be a stream.

So it'll start just downstream of where Jordan's Branch comes in from the southwest, travel under a series of two bridges, and flow back under Hermitage Road to the east.

Princeton Creek will have some work done done on it as well, where it comes in from the south.

We're maintaining a relatively large pool feature downstream of where the existing dam is.

There's some nice bedrock in that area that's going to offer habitat diversity and opportunities for public recreation.

And then the bridges themselves.

So the first bridge, the upper bridge, is in the exact same location as the upper dam.

So it's just going to replace the dam there and provide connectivity along the fall line trail.

And then the lower bridge is just about 100 feet upstream of the location of the existing lower dam.

And that provides an additional route for connectivity from Bryan Park Avenue to Gabriel Crosser Circle.

Some other elements that you see on this master plan include the trail system.

So we have a couple of trail networks that I'll call out here in just a bit.

We have a gathering space, we have the educational signage.

So just really excited about how all this comes together.

You know, this is a project that was originally driven from a regulatory need, and we were able to add a lot of public benefit and ecological benefit.

I did include a few stickies on these slides just to demonstrate, you know, how we are continuing to think about the feedback we received from the public.

So this one, for example, asks us to replicate what or to preserve and replicate wetland experience.

We actually are going to fully preserve the wetlands upstream of Jordan's branch by using grade control structures within the stream design.

So quick fly for say that again.

Yes.

So we're preserving, there's currently a wetland system upstream of Jordan's branch.

We're using grid control structures throughout the stream design to make sure that the water surface elevation in that wetland system in the proposed conditions is the same as existing conditions.

So that wetland will be preserved.

So we've seen these renderings.

This is from Brian Park Avenue looking downstream at the at the upper bridge and fall line trail.

One thing I want to point out here is that there's a lot more flow capacity under this bridge than there currently is in the existing upper dam.

So that's going to reduce overall flood risk in the park and allow you know the channels kind of naturally connect with its floodplain, slow down flows, and you know, keep things a bit safer during storm events.

Here's a before and after of the upper dam removal.

And then just a zoomed-in version of that upper bridge, 150 feet long, 14 feet clear between the rails, which meets the exceeds the minimum required for the fall line trail shared use path.

And you can see a little bit small, but on the on the left-hand side here, the one year and 10-year flood stages.

Another view looking downstream along Ubum Brook.

And I think this does a nice job of demonstrating just how critical the landscape design is to the overall success of this plan.

We're reclaiming a lot of the existing lake bed as riparian area, which is going to offer really rich diverse habitat for wildlife as well as serve as a natural filter before pollutants and contaminants to make sure the water quality is improved.

This is from the existing lower dam looking upstream at that new lower bridge, just kind of offers an idea of the how we're maintaining the scenic value of the area and also gives a really good representation of fish passage.

So fish currently can't get past that lower dam, and now they're not just going to have a stream to go to, but they have options.

And then finally, the current and proposed plan for the lower dam removal and that boulder area downstream of the lower dam offers a really great tie-in point for the downstream end of our design.

All right.

So as was noted previously, we have 450 new trees that we're planting on site.

We're focusing these plantings all native species, trying to set up groves of trees where we've observed that certain species are already thriving on the site.

So river birch, pine, and uh bald cypress, there's lots of lots of variety here.

Um we're focusing the plantings on areas where we know we're going to have impacts during construction.

So this demonstrates the 250 trees that our team has surveyed on site thus far.

The green trees are those that are going to be protected during construction, and the red tree trees are those that need to be removed during construction, either because they abut the dams that are coming out, they're within or adjacent to the grading limits, and we're just going to have too much impact on their critical root zone, or they are within what will be a heavily used construction access corridor.

We tried to cluster and really target those construction access corridors to a few specific locations to minimize impact.

You're also seeing orange areas here that indicate the approximate invasive vegetation management areas.

Out of the 91 trees that are going to be removed, 20 have been identified as either invasive, unhealthy, or already dead.

In fact, yesterday we saw that one had already fallen.

So there are impacts, we acknowledge that, but we're trying to minimize those as much as possible.

Like I said, Water Street's done a phenomenal job of really digging in, doing their research, getting on site, observing what works in the park currently in terms of native vegetation.

So everything that you see with a pink banner on these slides is not just native to Richmond, but already observed thriving in Bryan Park.

So we feel very confident that this planting plan is going to work and be sustainable into the future.

The shrub layer is very important for combating invasive.

So we're we have a robust invasive management plan.

Shrubs are going to be planted along the trails and within those invasive zones currently to kind of keep them at bay.

And the same goes for our ground covers.

So those are going to be really rich kind of grass-like covers that extend from the riparian area up to the lawn areas of Crime Park.

And finally, our riparian edge.

These are plants that need to be resilient to both wet conditions and dry conditions.

So again, lots of research has gone into the selection of the various species that are going to be used in these locations.

All right.

And now for the trail system, what you see here is three circulation routes are really four.

So you have your primary paths that are going along the bridges themselves, connected to major thoroughfares by asphalt.

The pink paths is a five foot wide decomposed granite trail.

The blue is a three-foot wide compacted earth trail.

So think of that as a spur trail or kind of a single file, you know, a way for you to get into the nature of the park and really feel connected to the streams and the trees and all the beautiful plantings that we're doing.

And the fourth circulation route is actually the disc golf course.

So we've been coordinating with River City Disc Golf Club to make sure that our our plans and our project, specifically our vegetative plantings, are not going to interrupt the ability to folks to get out and have fun and play disc golf.

We also are being sensitive to the fact that the dams, while non-compliant, are in fact historic.

They've been there for over a hundred years.

So we want to take you know pieces of the dams and incorporate them into the site.

So one example of that is the concrete bollards that you see in the center photo on the on the right, will be cut flush to the ground and actually turned horizontally and embedded in each of the trailheads.

So the trailheads are going to be on either side of where the dams currently exist.

So you'll have kind of that nod back to, you know, if anybody's feeling nostalgic about the dams being taken out, they can see a portion of the dams that's being reused.

So not only sustainable sustainable practices, but also honoring the heritage of the site.

Similarly, there's really nice cobble um walls and storm drains throughout the site.

So we're going to be collecting the cobble, kind of excavating that, salvaging it, and then using it in the primary gathering space on site.

Finally, as was mentioned before, we're going to have a series of historical interpretive signage throughout the site.

So we've identified seven locations for this series of signage.

We have some ideas for the signage content.

The currently live public survey is collecting additional thoughts and feedback from the public to confirm that what we include on these signs is in fact what the public would like to see in the park.

So just wanted to finish with the master plan, kind of bringing everything together.

We have achieved a lot of additional benefits besides just the regulatory compliance.

And our team, I think it's very very excited about the project overall.

Engineering and design is going to continue through July.

Of course, we'll be back to see you guys before that wraps up.

Permitting, we anticipate July through probably March of next year, just depending on how many rounds of comments are received.

Bidding and procurement, the award, the mobilization will continue for the remainder of 2027.

And then we anticipate construction would last about two years, kicking off in early 2028 and continuing through late 2029.

And of course, after construction, there will be a maintenance and monitoring period.

Wanted to call back to that community engagement cycle.

Like I said, this week, we've been very active with the community.

We had a public meeting at Pine Camp that went very well.

And we're currently receiving input on our open public survey.

So if anybody is a visitor of the park, a fan of the park, if you'd like to complete the survey, feel free.

But with that, we thank you for your time and just happy to be here.

Thank you so much.

What a wonderful project.

Are there any questions for the applicant?

Just uh contextual, they've been there, the dams have been there a hundred years.

What was their original purpose?

Was it recreational or stormwater or so?

It's interesting, yes.

The the mill ponds date back to quite a while before that, I think 1700s, there were ponds established on this site to power mills that were used for various industrial and um and yeah, industrial purposes.

Ice harvesting happened at one point on this pond.

Um, and so now you know both of those uses, like the original intent of the dams are no longer being used, so the dams themselves have become uh purpose standpoint, obviously.

Is there like a cross-section or a plan drawing of the bridge showing how wide it is and what infrastructure will fit on it for bikes and pedestrians?

We've not developed that cross section yet, but that will be included in the plans.

Any other questions?

Love the community engagement process that you've organized.

And it looks like you you've had really good turnout, especially this week, um, judging by the photo.

Generally speaking, are you finding that the community is supportive of the project?

Have you received any significant opposition to roof or the project in general?

Yeah, great question.

And I, you know, the community tends to be in in various camps, you know, for any project like this.

Um, anytime there's change, there's there's often a little bit of questioning or resistance, but overall we found that people have been very, very much um you know supportive of the project, asking really thoughtful questions and just wanting to be to be heard.

Um, so overall very positive interactions.

Uh I'll say I have a friend that lives on um in the neighborhood adjacent to the park and moved him a few months ago.

His concern was not having access to the park.

So it looks like with the two bridges, you're accommodating that community and making it easy for them to access Brack Park.

Exactly.

So the access that folks from Brian Park Avenue and the Lakeside neighborhood currently have, they have two points of access to the park and they will have those two points of access to the project.

Thank you.

Uh I have a fall line question, but it may not be answerable by you.

You suggested that um that perhaps walking path and the fall line trail would not be the same location, and then you didn't say that later.

So, do we know if the fall line trail gets its own bridge and the pedestrians get their own bridge in the future?

On the Fall Line Trail in this particular section.

Um so the upper bridge will is designated currently to be the Fall Line Trail Path and shared use.

The thought would be that that would continue when our so that's at the on the upper dam currently.

The thought would be that would continue when that's on the upper bridge, which was replaced in the exact same spot.

However, if you were a pedestrian and you wanted to go to the lower bridge, or you were a cyclist and you didn't want to be on the fall line trail, you also have the lower bridge as an option.

Um can I make another comment fall line trail or am I sidetracking us?

The routing of the fall line trail along the soccer fields is a terrible idea.

Terrible idea.

And all the residents who uh of the Bellevue and um and lakeside neighborhoods that I've talked to agree that it is a terrible idea to mix cyclists who may not be going as slow as we want them to uh with soccer players, young kids trying to traverse that road uh when there is already infrastructure that works great following um Jones Branch Creek and the perimeter of the park.

And if the reason is to not route it that way is to keep it out of the traffic way of um of people going to the big market or whatever that monstrosity is called, you should move that market to the Richmond Raceway and get it the hell out of Bryan Park because it's a terrible idea that it's there.

So I will leave the rest of that to UVC and the greater powers that be.

I have also in my expertise, have never been happier that that is the section of fall line trail that's in my CTC.

It's great.

Can I also say that um I had a question about the design?

So you're taking out sorry, it's my diatribe.

I got off my stone box there.

This is a question about stream design at the existing dams.

There's a lot of concrete right there.

Who gets to decide where the boulders and rocks are placed in the river?

How do we how does that process happen?

And this is not a critical question like my former soapbox.

This is just a curiosity question.

Yeah.

Um, so I'm happy to address that.

I would also like to invite Tim Schuler with Pazin to speak as well.

Tim has been leading our stream design effort for the project.

If you can address Fisher people, fishermen, Fisher, Fisher people too, because I do see a lot of folks on that bridge.

I mean, I love that the dam and all the that we call felled wood that stacks up at the dam, you know, it's going to be gone, or at least seems like it would be gone with this plane.

But I'm just curious, how does that who gets to design the stream?

Who gets to play God?

So I will start by saying that any any existing bedrock and large boulder features that it that are part of Upham Brook will not be moved shifted.

We would adjust our design should we find major bedrock outcroppings.

That's a benefit to the stream design.

So we're not going to be jackhammering bedrock to plow our way through with the with the vision that we have for up on brook.

There are suggests that you're finding boulders underneath the concrete that's existing as you're removing that concrete.

Is that kind of where the dams themselves are built on a foundation that should be it?

It may have bedrock contact at the bottom, but there shouldn't be boulders in the dams.

Downstream of the dams, there are boulders and bedrock outcroppings that we would maintain as part of the stream design.

Additional boulders on site.

There's also broken concrete.

We won't be using the broken concrete, but where there are boulders and granite available on site, we'll be repurposing that in the stream as part of our structural grade controls.

And then we're also importing large rock material to ensure the structural grade controls remain in place, not just for the existing hundred-year storm, but we've also evaluated a 500-year storm just for you know forethought climate resiliency, making sure that the stream holds up over time and many things.

Yeah, uh team Schuller, Hazen and Sawyer.

So the rocks that are chosen for design are all based on modeling for you know pure stress velocity to make sure that you stay in place.

Um we also use a lot of our experience having done this you know for several years.

So we're trying to actually when the dams are removed, we're more or less allowing the stream to be back at its original grade.

So we don't have to uh uh you know cut uh very much.

We're not trying to remove any boulders, we don't have to.

Um there are a number of brake controls to keep things from you know moving laterally or in size.

Uh we put a lot of thought into what that material is and its size, but most of it's buried.

So when we've done our job correctly, when you look at the stream, you won't see an engineered feature.

Um you'll see where the water comes through the low point.

And actually, as as fishman, that's where we want to be.

So right now we've got these two ponds to fish, but they're you know, they're very shallow, as you know.

Um, when we're done, we're going to have a lot of variety in topography of the stream, pools, fast-moving ripples.

Um, and so if you're uh a fisherman wanna walk the stream and do that, you can also still fish from the bridges.

So we're excited about that.

Uh I I sort of insisted that that question be put on the questionnaire, you know.

You use the park for for fishing and you know, and if so, you know, how much?

So that is uh something we're we're excited about.

Um the truth is that most of the access to the stream will be done by people who just want to go down and take a look at it, kids that want to scrum uh scramble around.

Um so design the stream to have fairly you know low grades so that we're not creating any hazards.

Um and you know, should uh in most places you can walk across it.

So I'm gonna stop to make sure that I don't go any farther than you wanted me to.

Does that answer your question?

It does.

Thank you so much.

You are God.

Yes.

Question the renderings of the final um vision.

At what year of construction are those?

Um, so those renderings are meant to represent you know, several years after construction.

Um the trees that we're planting are going to be, I think two and a half inches or so at planting, so they'll grow over time.

I think that two and a half inch diameter is gonna be the smallest that we plant.

So you'll see the vegetation spring up relatively quickly, but it does take a couple seasons to fully establish.

Um I would suggest the um as a part of your community engagement.

You may consider having like a during construction and immediately after construction, and then your ultimate vision.

Um so that people understand that it will take um several years to get to the pictures that you're showing.

It's good.

I um these are I guess comments from committee member Van Imwigen who couldn't be here today, but I'm gonna frame them as questions.

Um he is concerned about the decomposed granite.

It's been used at Monroe Park, which is a project here, Versailles, and it washes out every time it rains, he said it washes into the drains.

Do you guys have any concerns about using that material or do you have any success in using that material?

That's a great question.

Um I will start to respond to that question, Rebecca, if you'd like to comment as well.

I'm happy for you to.

Uh, we've designed all of the trails to be relatively low gradient, so we shouldn't have any steep sections where you're getting that major washout.

Maybe the location of them in the floodplain.

So when the stream does come up out of the bank, you've been intentional, right?

About locating the the um the trails, specifically those trails so that they're not inundated as regularly as the actual banks and repairing the area.

Yes, thank you for pointing that out.

So we've done hydraulic modeling to determine approximately where a one-year recurrent storm, a two-year, a five, a 10-year recurrent storm would land on site, and we've put those trails you know outside of those most frequent inundation zones to prevent heavy erosion.

And then the second comment that he had that I'll frame as a question.

First of all, I think it's a beautiful project and a beautiful presentation.

I think it's gonna be a magical little world to get to go visit.

And I love how the community engagement has been folded in, and I love the reuse of materials.

However, um, I share his concern that the cobblestones are not accessible in the gathering areas.

Um can you talk a little bit about that?

Um I'm Rebecca Hinch with Water Street Studio, um, landscape architect on the project.

Um so the standards for accessibility that we're using for the trails are the US um forestry standards, um, which are not fully ADA compliant.

Um basically those standards are making areas with great natural resources as accessible as possible given a lot of constraints.

So mostly that's where like decomposed granite becomes um an acceptable option because it's better for drainage and it is quite stable, but not as stable as like an asphalt trail.

So something like the cobblestone.

Um we will do our best, or at least it's shown in our drawings to keep it level as we can.

But because they are mortar site, it won't be a perfectly flat surface.

Um so as it will be as accessible for most people, but probably not to code standard.

It will fit those forestry standards, but not ADA accessibility standards.

What is that standard called?

Um the US forestry standards for trails, rail accessibility.

Yeah, thank you.

I would say uh I think because it is an urban park, that may not be entirely appropriate for at least the gathering areas because I imagine that's where people have like family gatherings where they invite any family member that may have difficulty walking on uneven surfaces or uses of ability device.

And I think because you have so much leeway with the materials you have to make parts of it at least welcoming to everybody who wants to enjoy it.

Yeah, you don't have to use the cobbles here.

Or you can use it in a part of it or for the walls that they mentioned that they were coming from.

Yeah, I would just take another look at that.

Great.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

And a question about water quality improvement by dam removes.

Do you have an idea at this point in the design process what the pollution reductions look like as a result of this project?

We will be doing water water quality monitoring before and after construction.

Yes, but we we don't have an idea of that now, other than the qualitative fact that dissolved oxygen will go up and temperature will go down.

Got it.

Okay.

Nutrient reduction wise.

This came out the other night in our public meeting.

Umrient reduction-wise, so nitrogen phosphorus sediment, which I know.

Um it's not quite the same as you would see in a typical stream restoration because a typical stream restoration, you you've got incised banks and you've got heavy sediment erosion from those banks and from the bed of the stream.

And so your goal is to lay the banks back, slow down the velocity, stabilize the sediment, keep it in place so that it's no longer in the water column, right?

And so this project, we've got dams that are holding that sediment in place and keeping nutrients out of that the rest of the water column because the sediments don't move.

Um, in this situation, we're so you're not really gonna see the same type of sediment and nutrient reduction that you would out of a stream restoration project like that.

Instead, what you'll see is improved habitat and the water quality conditions that um fish and uh foul waterfowl can thrive in.

So it'll slightly different, but still good, still all in.

Any other questions?

situation where so you're not really gonna see the same type of sediment and nutrient reduction that you would out of a stream restoration project like that instead what you'll see is improved habitat and the water quality conditions that um fish and uh foul waterfowl can thrive in so it's a little slightly different but still good still all on up any other questions thank you so much thank you okay brings us to public comment if anybody in the room would like to provide public comment please raise your hand not seeing any hands anybody participating online would like to provide public comment please raise your digital hand seeing any hands closing public comment uh can you have a motion from admit to approved project with staff conditions and an additional condition to resty the hardscape locations for increased accessibility great so we have a motion from Ms.

Gimmer staff conditions and the additional commission condition to explore uh skate materials to improve accessibility and I heard a second second seconded by Mr.

O'Dunnell discussion great yeah I think yeah it's nice yeah it's a really it's a really wonderful project very very yeah thorough in every aspect of it and look we look forward to seeing it um come back but um I guess we can call the the book Mr Secretary so the I wrote a I wrote a condition applicant to consider accessibility and the use of cobblestones and gathering areas does that make what you want or did you want something a little bit stronger so I'll read all of the condition staff recommended conditions where applicant can amend plans to show fall line trail alignment on an adjacent to the project site for final application staff recommends that lightning be dark sky compliant or similar staff recommends signage include information on surrounding natural areas and wetlands in addition to site district and the additional conditions applicant to consider accessibility and the use of cobblestones and the gathering areas a vote yes is a vote for it approved there we go uh o'donnald yes oil yes you ever yes yes we hunt yes yes it passes thank you thank you thank you yeah thank you brings us to the end of the regular agenda we do have other business and do an active presentation mr secretary on the urban design guidelines update specifically the sustainability section and for this presentation we're gonna see the presentation we'll open public comment closed public comment then we'll have our own discussion we'll have an opportunity to ask questions and uh provide feedback we have to make a motion and vote or make a motion in order to have discussions good question I am looking for a vote um yeah so we will probably sorry there's too many presentations looking on so here is our schedule um that I'm keeping uh as we go on this is the sustainability um section here we go a sustainability section here in April our next section is going to be building design uh which I've already started working on back to you guys uh and then site design and then park design I will engage uh friends from parks uh for probably both of those and uh I did want to let you guys know uh I just found out that DBW is updating their their street standard street standards their better streets manual um and I was intending to use that for our street like a basis for our street standards uh I'm not entirely sure their timeline but our our timeline may uh extend a little bit to fit their time I will start on the sustainability presentation here we go so this is just the sustainability section of the UDC guidelines um uh the UDC is updating guidelines reviewing one section at a time

Here we go.

So this is just the sustainability section of the UDC guidelines.

Um the UDC is updating guidelines, reviewing one section at a time throughout the year.

This report will be the sustainability section.

The city's Office of Sustainability and the Division of Urban Forestry have reviewed the proposed document, provided comments, which have been incorporated.

Staff is looking for input edits, revisions from the committee here today.

The committee has the option of approving the section that's been proposed that staff has provided.

So the document that I gave today as it is, approving with recommended edits, so y'all can recommend edits here today, uh, and then I'll make them and then bring them back at the final point when you see the document.

So probably smaller edits, or you can request edits and then see the section again at our following meeting and then approve the actual section.

Uh approved the UDC will review an entire finalized guideline document consisting of all the approved sections at the end of this process for one final approval, and that'll be the actual uh document that'll go forward.

Uh, I feel like it's probably possible that additional items will come up on later sections that maybe we'll want to address uh in this section or other, uh, is why I did it that way.

So the intent of the guidelines is that it's a common starting place for us to review applications and plans uh for us here at the committee for me as I review plans before they get to you, and for project managers as they design uh their projects, kind of just offering something to help everyone start at the same place.

Uh, the intent is to reinforce the Richmond 300 master plan goals as well as drill down into some specific options on reaching those goals.

Uh, and my overarching I'm trying to do is make it easy and an actually useful document.

Uh so our master plan gives really great general goals like we should do sustainability.

I'm trying to say we should do sustainability by doing something specific.

Uh with that in mind, RBA 300 master plan is the primary source of where all of this stuff is coming from.

I also went through RBA Green 2050, which is the sustainability plan for the city.

Um, I also used what we have now the Richmond Sustainability Guidelines document.

Um, I'm gonna call that the RSDS to keep it kind of separate from our actual sustainability guidelines.

Um, that is a document I'll explain here in a second.

We also have the Richmond cool kit and the professional knowledge of my team and myself, uh, which is where all of these have come from.

In the actual document, RVA 300 master plan items copied and paste are in blue italics for reference.

Uh that's kind of what I said in my presentation earlier, uh, has been really helpful for me as I review.

Very happy with how that turned out.

Um there will be priorities and strategies on reaching the master plan goals, and my intent in writing these has been to try to balance specificity, so like how to actually reach the goal with flexibility.

We see so many different kinds of projects, there's so many different ways to be sustainable, and we can't do everything in every project.

Flexibility, uh, and also considering the length of the section, considering that we have many other sections that we're probably going to make longer anyway, uh try to keep this short and to the point.

Um, I've also tried to emphasize items that are specific to our review uh or have been topics in previous reviews that have come up.

Uh, this is an opportunity for when maybe in previous reviews we had to figure out something between two options uh to try to drill down a little bit more, uh, think about it, and we can come to a common solution.

Uh as I said, there are the Richmond sustainability design standards, which are what I'm going to call the RSDS.

Uh, that is the first section.

We have the green site design section, the stormwater management and low impact design section, the urban heat, urban tree canopy, and disaster resilience.

So I'm going to link directly to the document and go straight through that.

This works this time.

And I can make uh simple updates or changes here directly in the meeting today.

Um, but um more complicated ones.

Um, I may have to sit down and think about how to word it.

Uh so that's why I gave you the different options for conditions.

Um, I'll read the introduction and then I'll go through the different sections and just hit the highlights of what's been written.

The guidelines for sustainability can provide a framework to help ensure responsible resource use, improve energy efficiency, reduce costs, protect biodiversity, reduced carbon emissions, and manage natural resources and mitigate increasing risks from climate change.

There are many different options and opportunities to apply sustainability to a wide range, wide array of project types.

Solutions should be targeted to fit the specific goals of the project while still providing the most benefit per investment.

Not all sustainability options may be applicable or appropriate for each project.

So what are the Richmond sustainable design standards, RCIS?

Um, they provide a framework to ensure that new new city projects, uh only cities projects, not private projects, integrate city goals of environmental responsibility, economic resilience, social equity, among other things.

Code of the city of Richmond was updated to require that the SDS be applied to all new city projects that meet a certain threshold.

There are smaller projects that they would not apply to.

Many of those smaller projects are not projects we would see anyway.

And the RSDS only applies again, city projects.

That document, as well as our document was made to be flexible to allow projects different sizes, budgets, and types to maximize opportunities for sustainability.

And it gives the RSDS tends to give goals for projects, list and bullet point a number of different goals, several possible paths of achieving them.

However, certain things are prioritized, and some of these may be important to the UDC's location character, extent in view.

And the RSDS provides goals for projects.

The only requirement is that projects meet lead silver.

So now, according to the City Code of Richmond, uh projects that meet this threshold have to be lead silver.

And so my highlights are that it really tries to drill down on EV charging.

It really tries to drill down on renewable energy on site with the goal of 10% generation of renewable energy on site, rooftop solar, uh especially on parking garages, parking areas.

It recommends, recommends that dark sky compliant lighting be provided, sidewalks throughout the site, connect to off of the site and adjacent to the site, uh, but as well connect to trails and transit and other amenities.

Um, should be provided on site as like parking for these things on site.

It recommends that future bike chair stations be provided a location, not necessarily the station, but just the possible location and a concrete pad for uh prioritize bike parking locations on site, so visible visibility, kind of primary visibility from the street.

The EVs, Purple Heart parking, uh, which is uh related to the military uh rideshare and motorcycle parking as well, and it uh really likes permeable papers as we do too, and it really likes to see them in the right way, especially.

That was a very informal um review, but it is a great document, and I'll send you to the actual document for specific details, although we have prepared to answer questions today if you do have them.

Uh, on the screen now is an example of the goals that have been put into the document, our document uh related to Richmond 300.

And these are what I use to say, for instance, like the project we just saw, explore programs, the daylight streaming and decult streams.

You know, that's a goal.

We did that with that project, how that project actually achieved that goal, that would be kind of how we're considering writing these documents.

I didn't say much about that specific, but that would be how it's used.

Um highlights are that the section uh really talks about environmentally based infrastructure that mimics natural water processes.

So again, the project we just saw is returning a engineered water system to a more natural water system, and the impetus there is that that is more efficient and better for the stormwater reduction than uh most uh engineered ways.

That's not saying engineered shouldn't happen, it must happen, uh, but the goal is to make it more.

Uh green site design is a priority, not an add on feature.

It should be the start of a project, not added on to the end.

Uh preserving existing natural resources, tree stands, extreme slopes, natural ground cover uh and close to waterways would be the priority here.

Uh so if we have to take down existing natural stuff, um, we want to keep those particular things, especially uh the previous guideline document as well as this one, reduce impervious surfaces uh and use green stormwater facilities adjacent to pervious surfaces to catch the runoff from those uh and to use in look and more low turnover areas for traffic uh gravel or other surfaces, it doesn't have to be paved, it could be gravel or something like that.

And for renewable energy, solar is the most likely uh thing that we'll see on city property and city buildings.

Um, but it is also an option for geothermal as well as um geothermal heating and cooling, and that'll be probably on more larger sites and and parking areas, it makes more sense, uh, as well as rooftop solar heating.

So that's kind of geothermal is water circulating through pipes underground, rooftop solar heating is water circulating pipes on the roof, and the reuse of materials, even from other sites, uh which we also saw on the previous project, um, was a great reuse of materials just too.

And I realized um, it's just not showing up.

You can't see in red here.

Some reason it's much more bright on my computer.

Uh, I realized that I missed a step as I was writing the renewable section.

Um, I said renewable energy, and then went straight to geothermal, but I forgot to talk about the solar panels.

Uh, so I did insert that in there.

Um, so I'm looking the document you guys saw did not have that in there.

I'm looking forward if you guys vote today to adopt a staff as recommended.

Can I interrupt and ask a question?

Yes.

Could you help me understand a little bit more fully?

What is unique?

Like this is pointing to all these other master plans, master plans and documents that exist.

What is unique to what we like the UDC has created for guidelines versus what is referential?

And and maybe the answer, the easiest answer that is like in your head, a rough percentage, like five percent of our guidelines are or zero or ten are things that we specifically have created outside of these existing documents, and what percentage is just referential.

I'll have a follow-up question to that, but that would be helpful for Brown.

That's a good question.

Um, I debated on as I was writing the specific section.

Uh, we we do have general location characters that and that is our actual our actual review thing that we can require changes to certain things, and the intent with that is to enforce the master plans.

Uh so we can say the master plan wants to see X, Y, and Z.

And if it is a general location character extent item, that is something that can be enforced.

Uh, I debate it on as I was writing this.

Should I call out those specific items?

And it ended up kind of just being such a complicated document that it didn't really make sense.

So at the beginning of this entire standards document, I explained what general location characteristics was, and just kind of use it our judgment as we go through it, and we see so many projects anyway.

It's hard to do.

Um, so I did provide those master plan references.

Uh, and that there may be one or two in the master plan that I missed, um, but I really tried to put what's relevant to our review as those references.

So those are a really good source of like what is coming from the master plan and actually relates to the stuff that we can control here at the UDC and the stuff that we actually review.

And then the further drill down is beyond what we can actually control.

We can make suggestions on everything else, basically.

So a lot of these are suggestions.

And it's always hard where to draw that line, like where what is general and what is too specific.

So kind of take it as it is, and staff is always a resource.

But we have been given the direction that if you have to be an architect or an engineer or professional to figure out to do whatever is being asked of them.

That's not general.

So I like to think about like say solar panels.

We want solar panels.

That's general.

We can put that in the master plan, and any of us can say, hey, let's do solar panels.

Let's put solar panels on the roof.

It's still fairly general.

Using XYZ solar panel and pointing it toward the sun at XYZ degree is specific.

We wouldn't want to do that.

So that's kind of how it did.

Kind of.

I it's helpful context.

I think I think it's funny that the embodiment of this committee and who was who is representing each discipline that we can't make specific things for an architect and engineers when we have licensed architecture.

Technically, I'm the only citizen member here.

Everyone else is professional.

Um I also work in urban planning.

So that's beside beside the point, but I think so.

So I guess my overall understanding that like percentage of what are we referencing outwardly versus what are like what percentage is a good example is we talk about these bike lanes on bridges a lot.

That seems to be like something that's very internal that if we were to put in the guidelines would be would be kind of specific to what the UDC wants that is that is beyond just referring to like the Richmond 300.

So that's what I was trying to understand is like what percentage of the But is there's that addressed already in Better Streets Manual.

I cannot say for certain, but I I do feel like there's I guess I think that's where it's kind of goes to my point.

It's like what what is out, you know, like what is unique to our suggestions that isn't pulling from Better Streets panel or the um and my larger point that I would like to get to from a discussion point later is kind of like if we're just referencing 99, if 99% of our guidelines are just referencing outward, you know, other documents that exist.

I kind of question the usefulness of like having such a long guideline for us that it's just like pointing elsewhere.

And I think about that in the context of if you're the city preparing an application to come present to us.

I would like, you know, when I present when I prepare applications for the planning commission and I do a comprehensive plan analysis, I have to specifically state here are here's how I conform to the comprehensive plan.

This is you all have told me what you want to see.

So let me tell you how I'm complying with that.

And I feel like our design guidelines as written, don't really give the don't make clear what we want to specifically see outside of pointing that me, that me, that me, that.

And so that's what I'm trying to get it to understand better, and then hopefully have a discussion of how useful is it to just point to things that they that and the city as they put applications together should be taken into account anyway, versus what are the specific things that we would like to see beyond that and and really putting that up front from a like a checklist perspective.

I'm not sure if that makes sense, but this is just kind of how how when I prepare applications for localities, those are the check boxes that I go on the website.

Is there a checklist?

What do I need to show?

And I kind of question like, do we have that for ourselves?

And is it clear?

You know, it's tough because the applicant for us is the city, not a private developer.

I mean, often it is.

I wrote these paragraphs, uh, thinking about kind of the upside down triangle.

Um, I started with master plan and then tried to drill down.

Uh, and on the screen, I've highlighted the things that are the drill down.

So, you know, natural whatever.

Um I or one of our drill down documents um has said that we want to see these things, you know, natural areas in close proximity to waterways using gravel.

This one was for me uh in certain areas may make sense.

Uh and also from me, uh, we should also be considering geothermal heating and rooftop solar heating.

Um our documents are rooftop solar power, and that rooftop solar heating, the utility parts of that should be not particularly visible from the street.

So though those are the two this section's not particularly good to answer that question, but on the next section, I think I can answer it a little bit better.

I'll I'll let that sit.

I know that was a lot, and then we can finish the presentation.

That's just a wider discussion for the group later on.

I mean, can I just tag one thing onto it though?

Which I'm I'm not sure I'm understanding.

Like if I if I am building a new public building, the city of Richmond, it's not this committee's job to review all this stuff, right?

It's going to get a permit and it's going to go through all these agencies.

And if the city has decided that we've got to meet lead silver, I sure hope they're not expecting the urban design committee to we're not reviewing for viewed silver.

Uh we're just reviewing for the general location character extent stuff.

Right.

Which is the stuff that we're reviewing the design.

Yes, stuff is not really the design.

This is like the performance characteristics.

The RSDS, about 80, 90% of that is performance characteristics characteristic.

Gosh, that never be honest.

Um, which I did not pull over into this, right?

So I mean, if a path is that's their job to do solid slate versus gravel or something, and it happens to have a sustainable benefit.

Great, but I feel like it's our job to consider if it's an appropriate material for that urban condition based on how it looks, how it performs, maybe also sustainability.

I don't know.

I guess I I do wonder what the charge of this committee's responsibility is regarding sustainable design.

Not that I don't want it.

Well, I might be location character and extent, doesn't sound like uh in this comment, but I feel like being part of the urban environment how it handles energy or creates heat or doesn't provide shade, like even all that building design is the urban environment.

So I like that we have some leeway to say this needs to be more sustainable.

I understand your point.

You know, we arguing it's essentially part of character.

Yes.

Um, and maybe location yeah, occasionally.

Um it's pretty loose.

I mean, I'm for it.

I was I was kind of as I wrote this, I kind of was thinking more like they have chosen the new sustainability feature.

How is it done in a way that we want it to be integrated into the urban fabric, you know, the character of the neighborhood or whatever the actual design.

I I also think referencing all those other master plan, this document this document.

I think that's a lot of stuff for other people to kind of wade through.

So by having it all in one place, I think is is valuable.

True.

Um, I do think that we should have also have more specifics like, I mean, again, for the wildlife bird safe glass would be a right recommendation to be in here if they're going to be looking at this for sustainability and not just general.

That is actually in the master plan.

Oh, that was in the master plan.

Is it a logistical nightmare to have direct links to all the things that claim here to the process that they or the um the other master plans guideline, whatever it is that you need to refer to?

I know that that means you have a living document and that's a little hard to chase down.

I well, the exact same thing.

Uh and I came to the conclusion that it just be better to under Google.

Uh, because we we have a lot of documents now that open links throughout.

And a lot of times it's a printed document.

Uh question, and I'm sorry, I think when you introduced the idea of doing the guidelines, you might have said this, but how different are these kind of on a percentage basis from the last approved round?

Did you start from scratch?

No, uh I I took our existing and moved things.

Move things around.

Um, existing is in here, uh, and I can probably go through and show you, but it was just so changed.

It was all red, you know, when I was writing what I didn't remove a lot.

I really didn't remove anything from the previous guidelines and expanded upon them.

Maybe just that'd be helpful because I think we all understood.

I mean, I understood the old guidelines, so I think it's just helpful to know this isn't a new set of guidelines.

I was gonna ask, was it is would a red line be helpful, or did like you said, is it so redlined that it's not helpful to document?

Um I can tell you on the section I just read, like the first and second paragraphs are almost directly from the existing um the stuff about load impact development and stormwater list straight from the existing.

And I again I don't I don't want to overkill this, but uh, what I'm thinking about is like if we have our charge general location characters set, and I and what I was thinking of like when an applicant comes to present.

Would could we have more specific guidelines that that has them present their project within the context of location character extent of these documents?

So that and I know because it's so that's such a general term, but to give both groups kind of more of a narrow focus because you know, we do this reminder every every time of like what is our charge, and I think it could be helpful for the applicant's presentation and how they put together materials to maybe mirror what our charge is.

Um again, that's can be difficult because it's kind of ambiguous.

We but again, I think of planning commission meetings that I've been to where a county attorney will tell the commission commissioners like this is outside the scope of your review.

You're your determining conformance with the comprehensive plan, and typically the applicant is presenting that information within the context of how do you conform to the goals of the comp comprehensive plan, and we're pointing you you are pointing to specific goals within the master plan, and I wonder if it would be helpful to say here are the specific goals that we want you to conform with.

Tell us how you conform to the general characters and you know.

But I don't think we are asking people to conform.

These are suggestions, right?

So you're asking for an action as we review future projects, not necessarily a change to these documents, or are you thinking we need the drill down to understand the difference between general location character set and recommendations?

I think I'm just asking generally like what is unique to the UDC that's outside of these, like so that there's clarity for the app like the applicants and the the committee.

Our guidelines to me should be specific to what are we reviewing by pointing to different places, like and and I think what what Ray's highlighting like the specifics that yeah, that is what I'm kind of interested in.

And I when I started here, I would go through the guidelines for every project and like control F all the keyword, because I didn't know them very well, and like find all those things, and I would be like, Well, in this section of our guidelines, it says this, and you're not doing that, and which I think is what you're hoping the applicant will do.

Yes, and I think there's a lot of information in here they can do that with it, just relies on them to break it.

Yeah, the goal is to have this as a resource we're done.

The goal thank you.

Um next section is stormwater management, and I'll I'll highlight the things that are specific.

Um stormwater management, low impact design.

Uh again, these a lot of this section is got one based from our existing section.

Um low impact design is defined essentially as I said previously trying to stormwater to be uh more as nature would manage rainfall at this and that tends to be at the source, uh, like you know, when the rainfall hits the ground, uh and with smaller scale innovation and interventions that mimic the natural water cycle.

Um places that stormwater facilities can be provided are rooftops with green green rooftops, uh anywhere in the street, it could be in the median or on the side of the street, parking lots, sidewalks, mediums.

Um again, natural settings like meadows or small forested areas are priorities to keep or put back.

Uh these are great places that both catch stormwater and old stormwater prioritizing uh in high heat index neighborhoods.

You'll see that over and over through here.

Uh so basically any requirement, probably this entire document, especially sustainability section, high heat neighborhoods, and most of the time those are low-income neighborhoods, uh, are the priority here.

So projects in those neighborhoods, we should really extra be trying to make sure it has some sort of green aspect.

Um of my drill downs is to, as I call it, avoid useless law.

So you know, if it's not a for people to be doing things like a park on the lawn, like maybe we don't need a lawn, maybe it could be more natural meadow situation.

Um I go on to say green stormwater facilities equals landscaping.

So all of our projects have landscaping there or green stormwater should be fairly easy to fit into that.

Um, and a priority of uh bio tree planters uh in the street.

Uh so when you have a tree well, you know, it could also be a well, we we've seen them in a few different places.

I should have put a picture in here.

Um, but the kind of the rain garden situation on the side of the street.

Green roofs and urban areas as well.

Um are a priority.

There's not a lot of space in the urban area, so you got to put it where you need to put it.

Um high heat vulnerability uh should be a priority for the heat planters.

Permeable pavers, as opposed to permeable pavement, permeable pavers are like uh cobblestones, permeable pavement is like concrete with kind of little tiny pebbles in it.

Uh, what I'm saying here in a couple of our documents also say is that we should prioritize permeable pavers over permeable concrete.

Uh and those pavers should be put into as a priority parking areas, alleys, and other low traffic areas because that'll reduce the maintenance costs of those things.

That's not to say don't do them in the street, uh, but we should prioritize those if they're not being done.

That makes any sense.

Um, and this is a specific drill down of my own thing that I've seen kind of come through here a couple of different times.

Um, if you can imagine, say Brian Park, and you have a sidewalk through Rhine Park where there is a great deal of green space on either side of the sidewalk.

Does that sidewalk need to be permeant?

And the rain just hit the sidewalk and go into the green space.

And in here, I'm suggesting that that's the case.

Like it does not have to be permeable.

There's been a few instances where we've kind of gotten stuck on like we want permeable stuff, absolutely, and we've interpreted that to be that every sidewalk should be permeable, and maybe that's like a green roof on the dugout at the baseball field.

That's true.

That is very true.

Wasn't that situation?

Yeah.

Um, and then a copy from our existing guidelines are that green storm water cleans pollutants and it goes into the details of how to do that.

So I'll I'll highlight the drill downs.

So rooftop streetscapes, parking lots, sidewalks, and mediums are priorities for going back design.

Uh meadows and small forested areas should be put back.

Simple open lawns should be avoided.

We're not active.

Fire retention planter beds and tree wells.

That's what's trying to say earlier.

Should be prioritized in urban areas and sites with limited space.

And also used in the right-of-way, prioritized in areas of high heat vulnerability index.

So you can imagine, like Southside, if we get a street project or something, we really want to see uh bioretention to that, especially trees, at minimum trees, which we are seeing.

I'm not saying that, but we do.

This might be interesting to you.

Um, are intended permeable pavement systems in an urban area.

If you think the rain is hitting that system and then going into the ground, is probably not the case with how it's actually working because the ground is so compacted in an urban area that it won't perk into the ground.

These things usually operate as a holding system.

So the water hits the permeable paver, probably goes into some sort of cistern or something, uh and then through an under drain is put into the actual stormwater process processing system, and that is advantageous because that slows down the water as it's going through, say, in a uh torrential rain.

It keeps it after the rain has finished, and it doesn't all hit the processing plant at the same time.

That is kind of the goal, just in general.

Uh, a lot of those devices, and that is why pavers should probably be prioritized over pavement because pavers are a little bit easier to make into that sort of system.

And pollutants, I won't go into that because it's a little bit long.

But as you can imagine, rain hitting the ground can pick up pollutants, rain going through the air can pick up pollutants.

Rain hitting a bunch of natural area, the natural plants and soil, and the pull out as a filter, pollutants, and then the water continues on.

So moving on to urban heat.

So reading the overall review.

The city of Richmond has a Richmond cool kit.

It's a pretty cool document.

It is a great reference guide to reducing urban heat, and the document identifies urban greening, shade, smart surfaces, and de paving as primary avenues to reduce urban heat.

These include street trees, reforestation, bioretention, mini parks, water features, shade structures, putting shade into building design, reflective and cool roofs, green roofs, and solar roofs and cool pavement, heat resistant materials and removal of unneeded existing hard surfaces, which is a common theme.

My drill down is to say landscaping is the best way to reduce heat island effects, and that is because of basically two reasons.

Natural areas, trees as a system, absorb heat a lot better than anything else.

So they're going to reduce heat instead of just providing shade.

But those systems, those trees also provide a bunch of other benefits.

Street trees increase property values and health values and all kinds of other things.

Taking all that into account, not just heat, landscaping should be the best way to do it.

All of these documents want to see light colored roofs, white white color roofs to reduce the heat burden on buildings.

That's a pretty established trend.

And all these documents go into sidewalks and streets, should use like light colored covers.

Mindrill down is that we should be avoiding the lightest colors, you know, stark white, because you know, these things do reflect heat and do reflect sunlight, but that reflects it onto the pedestrian, onto the adjacent buildings, into the eyes of drivers, into the eyes of pedestrians.

Maybe we don't want stark white, maybe we just want light, lighter than black asphalt.

You know, probably is what we're shooting for here.

And we can also focus on materials.

And when I say we have a city, not necessarily us in every project, but materials choices can reduce the amount of heat that they absorb.

Shade can be included into building design.

Um shade, both the building shading itself and the building shading adjacent to the building, which might be sidewalk or public area.

Uh especially for bus stops when a building is adjacent to a street.

Uh, we should be thinking about the bus stops and providing shade for that.

Uh my drill down is in this is particularly useful for us.

Wide expanses of open space, wide expanses of plazas, say, uh, should be avoided without shade opportunities as a pedestrian and you're moving through a space, you want to move between shade areas and when it's hot, those areas should be provided, uh, and that should be provided first by landscaping, but if that's impossible or undesirable, shade structures.

And this is my drill down as well.

Shade should be provided for seeding areas, especially, but some opportunities should be provided to sit in the sun.

Sometimes it's cold outside, sometimes you want some sun.

This is what I already said shade, prioritized by landscaping.

Uh, and also street trees provide shade during the summer if they're alive, um, but allow light through during the winter when warp may be preferred.

So moving on to urban tree canopy.

This is the section, particularly uh that I talked to the uh urban forestry division about.

Um trees are really important, they do a number of different things, uh, they promote environment and environmental sustainability, but also social health and economic benefits, as well as natural cooling and are essential to heat resilience.

Maximizing tree canopy can be an easy priority for most projects.

We see a lot of projects with a lot of open space, green space.

Almost all of our projects, again, include landscaping.

So it doesn't have to be just kind of shoehorned at the end of the project.

There will be sites where it will be possible just by the nature of the site, but we can take this as they come.

As our previous documents and our previous design guidelines have always said, native trees are a priority.

But we do need to keep in mind that urban areas are notoriously difficult on species survivability.

Trees that are native to Virginia are meant to be in forests, not cities.

Those are very different things.

There may be instances where species that is not native to the city of Richmond specifically might still be the best choice.

And the urban forestry department is a great resource to making those decisions.

And the urban forestry department consults on almost all of the projects that we see before they get to us.

So those have usually been already worked out.

And I think interesting here is a drill down.

We all know climate change is happening, but maybe we don't know how that applies to our projects.

And I tried to drill down and provide some context for that.

Climate change moving forward, it seems that we're moving to more extreme weather.

So more extreme rainfalls at once, more extreme drought after those rainfall, more extreme heat, more extreme cold.

So we can keep that in mind as we design.

And specific to tree species, species that thrived in Richmond and Virginia are going to be shifting through 2050 and through the end of the century.

We're planners, we have to think on that timeline, right?

So utilizing tree species that are more from the Southeast United States, the Gulf Coast and such might be, but it's being moved to.

And the forestry department has already adapted kind of their forestry tree selections to address that.

Some of our previous forest tree or previous street trees are performing poorly with climate change, and they have adjusted to that.

They really like red butts, it seems like, and the maybe 10 trees that we see on parks projects, especially are the are the set of trees that are working really well through their experience.

And then moving on to disaster resilience.

This is probably a section that I drilled down maybe the most resilience can mean anything.

What does it mean in this instance?

It means that the design reduces physical vulnerability during a major weather event, and that government emergency responses can be maintained during that event and throughout the crisis.

And then after the event, you know, say a hurricane or whatever, citizens are able to access those critical services in the aftermath of disaster as well as access shelter if needed.

And physical threats could include wind, flood, ice, and heat, many of which will be driven worse and worse as time goes on, presumably by climate change.

So providing shelter in critical needs and services to citizens after a disaster can be integral to disaster response.

Community facilities can do double duty to provide those services in time of need.

You can imagine the library or a school gym or any of those things.

They have a certain purpose 99.9% of the time, but maybe they can also be used as a disaster area.

That is from the master plan and from a lot of other plans as well.

That we can view for some of these things.

Obviously, these buildings will need to be designed to higher levels of resilient systems.

One drill down I did that I probably shouldn't put in here because it is not general and it's interior to the building.

But these buildings need storage space for essential supplies that other buildings would not need.

So if it's a double-duty building, the designer has to actually think about how it's double duty.

It can't just say it's double duty.

And this is from uh the RSDS actually hits this really really well.

Um, how to address emergency and sustainability and stuff like that.

But it does talk about how critical infrastructure and buildings should be elevated above the base flood level, which we have seen when we reviewed projects at the Switch treatment plan.

They have already started doing that, and otherwise flood-proofed.

And this is another drill down that's a little bit not general location character extent, but archive space storage of documents should be located on upper floors when in flood flown areas from areas.

I've worked in a place that had the archive on the basement and the lower floor and a gut of flooding and lost all of our documents before 2005.

That was a big pain in the butt.

Um go on to say, and the master plan is kind of the impetus for that, and I drilled down a lot on this.

Electrical power is essential to most critical functions during and after a disaster.

Burying power lines can drastically reduce the chances of damage and priority given should be given to trunk lines that provide service to a larger area, as well as power lines that serve primary facilities such as government facilities, grocery stores, and hospitals.

And again, priority should be given to low-income neighborhoods.

And on-site energy generation, similar energy is important to how we respond to disasters.

Um RSDS hit that really well as well.

Renewable energy tied to necessary battery spelling state.

Uh infrastructure is ideal because it doesn't have to use fuel.

So if you have disaster, you don't have to have the fuel there.

Use the renewable energy.

Opportunities also exist for energy storage through batteries, but I did drill down and say, you know, it seems like uh we're finding more and more out these days that chemical batteries, you know, the existing batteries are really bad for the environment.

There is also an option that I don't think a lot of people realize of physical batteries.

Um these you can imagine as like a dam with water on either side of the dam.

The water goes through the dam when it's not a disaster, but can no the water can be pumped above the dam when it's not a disaster when it's a disaster and you need the electricity sent back through the dam to generate the electricity.

That's an example that's probably not going to happen in Richmond.

That's kind of the idea.

So I just wanted to point out those are opportunities.

And I did drill down and say realistically, uh, as we all know a battery can run out.

Uh sustainable renewable energy doesn't always have the sun or the wind.

Uh fossil fuel generators may still be necessary and should be designed and located to avoid damage and maintain operation during emergency situations.

We have seen this a few times as well on some of our school properties and the uh switching like the section is basically what I already said RVA green fifth green 2050 and the other sources of this are great references to uh further driven down.

He does.

So that is the end of my presentation.

And as you guys have been kind of talking, um, this is just what I come up with.

You can if you want to see something specific, we can add it.

You can add it today if it's simple or if it's complex, you can say, Ray, I want you to go figure out something related to whatever.

I'll go figure it out and I'll send it back to you next time.

Thank you for walking us through the sustainability section.

Um, don't believe anybody in the room would like to provide public comment.

Comment is there anybody online that would like to provide public comment?

I believe the numbers of the public.

Yeah, so it's so public comment is closed.

So to clarify to confirm you are you're willing to accept provisions at this moment in time or at following the meeting.

Yes.

And we'll update us at the next meeting on this revision.

Okay.

Circling back to the discussion that was happening during the presentation.

Why do you have not Mr.

Dry, Mr.

O'Donnell?

Do you have um any other questions?

Well, one, I like everything I said here.

So nothing is context, but I think a few of the things you brought up are kind of like what confused mean that these are guidelines that make sense.

I'm on board with everything in here, but how like how would you structure if you were going to give a condition based on our guidelines that I we would say we we recommend that you bury power lines?

You know, because of some of those things in here that you said, yeah, these are guidelines, but they're really outside of general character sent location.

But that is that is my, I guess what I'm trying to wrap my head around is why do we have guidelines and in one?

I understand why we have guidelines, but you know, if we use our guidelines to justify our um recommendations, yet we have things in our guidelines that are outside of our scope.

That is what I was trying to kind of put together because the master plan creates these guidelines from from a larger perspective.

And I guess it comes back to what Mr.

Pearson asks, are we enforcing these or are we acting within them?

Which I know we are acting within a much more limited scope.

So things like the archive beyond second floor makes sense.

But how would we like how would we come about and in and put that in the context of general uh a condition that makes sense that even goes before the planning commission that they even take seriously, you know?

Um so I kind of think of additions as having two different types.

One is uh UDC wants to see plans changed to address whatever.

Uh and that would be the master plan preferences.

So a condition can say the master plan says bury power lines.

That's a really difficult one because it you have to be an expert to bury a power line.

Um so maybe I should use a different way.

But it that's a really good question.

Um we can require somebody to bury a power that's one of the same project.

So no, we can recommend we can require similar to what the recommendation that you made during the prime part case to explore more accessible partscape materials.

I don't think we can require them to do it, but that was I don't think I can say like put it in a star shape so there's a border around it.

Um but I mean, I do the second line under our review reminder is may make recommendations on specific design of public structures that pertinence is the street fixtures and power lines are street fixtures, so that we can make a specific design and specific design of public structures.

It does not specify X theory.

I mean, we should, but uh but there's nothing in so you could that requires you to bury it, but so we can recommend it until we're blue in the face.

They don't have the money in the design, they're just gonna say right.

That is an interesting recommendation you make.

So one thing to end all of this and our review and everything, uh, is that this is a public document that I have personally experienced, other documents using this as a starting point.

So for instance, the RSDS used our guidelines as a starting point and then did their thing.

So a lot of their guidelines were our existing document uh are just kind of copied into there.

So things that we say do have legs, uh, even if it's not you know immediate for something that we can't control.

And that is kind of why I did a few of these things to our our previous guidelines push the envelope, and I wanted to continue on both a little bit.

Um but yes, you can make recommendations on basically anything.

Uh so that would be the condition, you know, UDC recommends or would like to see you know, whatever how we ever worded it, um, that our lines be undergrounded.

I like this because it makes people that are planning public projects, we raise the bar, like let's move closer to sustainability.

It may not be on the radar.

So what we suggest are just new things for them.

They may not happen, but we're getting them to think about that and just encourage them to do it.

Why is it only a silver uh lead silver certification that we're required?

Seems like a low bar the when the feds are at the feds at platinum.

The step was that we have sustainability guidelines.

And then the next step is to start making it more and more and the RSDS document is really forward-looking.

It has a lot of really good stuff in there.

It is very, very pertinent.

And it does recommend how weeds over cheaper.

And we we also have to remember two costs.

Uh so that was a lot better.

I think this is gonna come up later.

And I don't I don't know if we can bolster this in another chapter.

What but a couple of projects have come across where sort of I guess I'd call it the like fundamentals of infrastructure and a public space haven't been followed, and there's like a generator in front of the building, or there's giant rooftop units that haven't been screened and they're extremely visible because the buildings below a bridge or whatever.

Or and you sort of start to get at it in these guidelines with the solar panels, and I don't know if we just want to visit this later when we're in the building character objector.

I've already written that exact section that I think you're referring to.

Love it.

Um do we want to point them there when we're talking about some of these things in here?

Yeah, we could uh summarize like utilities being visible from the street or when noise is part of that.

Noise is gonna like you don't want to hear a generator code tested.

Sequencing with other uh city departments, right?

Like you just finished your project and then they come in and rip up the street in front of it for something else, and so or rip up the sidewalk in front of it, like could there be some pushback on the city to make sure that there are different like wire building every bridge in the city all at the same time?

Yeah, something like that.

I I know that's like not we're not talking to the client now, we're talking to the city, but um I can tell you that the city code has a very specific requirement that if a utility rips up, I shouldn't say that that sounds horrible.

If utility you know addresses the street and it it has to pave it back, it has very specific requirements on how it does it, the timing of that, and then when they come back and repave that entire section of street.

So if you do just a uh tiny cut, you know.

Uh and I I can tell you as well that I hear very, very often from DPW and DPV, uh, that they are trying to do their best to coordinate stuff that the city does.

Um so that is happening.

Okay.

Um, but the utilities, Dominion and everybody else, they have their own schedules and stuff.

I actually this is more personal questions, but our neighborhood uh needed our street, they were pro our streets were private, we gave them to the city.

So the city is now going to be taking care of our streets and repaving them, but they are where they repave them, they're updating our water and sewer lines, and their heavy, heavy trucks are park parking on common property where trees existed, and I talked to them at the very beginning saying you've got to remediate the soil, air spade this area to protect our trees.

They everybody seems to be saying, Well, you need to talk.

I I don't even know who to talk to, and if that's standard practice.

Yeah.

I do not know.

I I am familiar with that need, um, but I don't know anything about how we require it.

You have you talked to urban forestry.

I talked I've talked to City Arborist, and they said that's not our product.

You need to talk to DP.

They said you need to talk to DPU and they will talk to the contractor, whoever damaged your soil compact of the soil, and they should fix it, should is the not like they will um send a communication to the track of it.

Okay, thank you.

Um for these, I don't have really any any comments.

I think they look great.

I I do think the interior parts that you pointed out, those two comments.

I get wanting to leave it in to kind of raise the bar, but it is technically, I think one step beyond both urban design.

Um so that I would be fine if you took that out.

And then second of all, and maybe this is in the park section, and maybe something that you can weigh in on.

I when we had the monument avenue people come in and talk about replanting the trees, they're really specific about not planning a monoculture, which wasn't a term I was super familiar with, but I feel like that goes into sustainability.

Um might go in the same section with the native plants.

Um, and then my oh no, did I just lose it?

Yeah, just to uh piggyback off of that.

I remember when I first joined the committee, they would present the landscaping plans and they had very few native plants, and we kept phasing it, and now I haven't seen a plan come through that was not mostly native plants.

So we do make a difference, we do make a difference in the way people think and approach projects.

When when Ray when the secretary was talking about the current urban design guides design guidelines being referenced, I was thinking back to six years ago and what we used to see, and there has been a positive change.

Totally that I think applicants know this committee expects certain things now, and I think the the guidelines play a big role in that.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you all.

I remembered my last thing, just uh to not be annoying, but uh life cycle of materials.

I feel like this is a really good section for encouraging builders to use materials that are long-lived, uh, because we have that recommendation about reusing existing materials.

I feel like we should be setting up urban projects to eventually have materials that could be reduced.

Okay, I think you backing off of that.

Is there a graveyard?

So if a project comes through when they aren't going to be reusing their old fences or gates or cobblestones, where do they go?

Sewage treatment plan is where all the monuments are.

Is that what you mean?

I think that's what you mean.

And surplus yard.

Okay, and the old city landfill on the isn't that line camp as well, has some um uh some stuff, I think in a field that I camp.

Has some um uh some stuff I think in a few by camp.

Yeah, but if you Google uh if you Google map the um wastewater treatment facility, you can see the old parts of the old monuments there.

There's a nice video of Jamie walking through that area too, explaining what's there.

Kind of interesting.

What's that?

You know where it is.

Where's where can I buy that video?

It's on YouTube.

I I forgot how it got there.

I mean, I guess lean requires you to divert certain land for waste as a base requirement.

So did you have any revisions that you'd like to share it during the meeting today?

I don't okay.

Ms.

Wehan.

Uh no, thank you.

Mr.

Hammond, Mr.

Pearson.

Go for it.

Okay.

I found a few typos, so I'm just gonna set some of the green, please.

I was impressed with you there were I know.

He visited it.

Um do you want to provide those after the meeting and we can just say or would you rather go now?

It's up to you.

Okay.

After oh yeah, I like that after.

Are you go ahead?

I added a new section about lifespan.

Awesome, thank you.

I might slightly work.

And then I took out the timeless sections.

Yeah, it will I just want to remind the committee that this isn't the final approval of the section.

We can always circle back to it.

At the end, yeah.

But do we have a motion if there are no more questions or comments or revisions?

Is there a motion to approve the section?

We have a motion for Ms.

Clark to approve the sections as revised during today's committee meeting.

Seconded by Mr.

Hammond.

We do have a voice note or do you want to do all real quick?

Okay, all in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Any abstentions?

Motion tasks.

Okay.

Cool.

Motion for adjournment.

Thank you, Ms.

Gilbert.

Seconded by Mr.

Hemman.

Thank you all.

Have a good afternoon.

I get to tell people what to do.

Thanks for here.