The Land Use, Housing and Transportation Committee of the Richmond City Council met on July 22, 2026, at 2:15 PM to consider a range of items including appointments to boards and commissions, a five-year evaluation of the partial tax exemption program, an amendment to the weed ordinance to allow native plants, adoption of the Oak Grove Hillside Bellmead community plan, a resolution to support planning in the Historic Westwood neighborhood, resolutions supporting Smart Scale projects for Chesterfield and Henrico, and a memorandum of understanding for the Gilpin Court redevelopment. All members (Chair Jones, Vice Chair Robertson, Councilmember Breton) were present.
All right, madam clerk. We'll call the land use housing and transportation committee meeting to order. Madam Clerk, can you read the chamber of emergency evacuation announcement? Upon activation of the emergency alarm signal, all persons should immediately exit the building. Please use the exits to the left or right front of the council chamber or the north or west stairwells outside of the rear doors of the chamber. Do not use elevators or escalators. At the exit in the building, security would direct everyone down 9th Street to the fenced area located between Clay and Lee Streets. Able persons, so this is visually inherent pair of visitors with exiting the building. Persons wish you to speak during the public comment period and or public hearings. Persons appearing before the committee are now allowed to campaign for public office, promote private business ventures, use language or personal nature, which is also demeans any person, including comments directed at public officials or staff members that are not related to their official duties or just in question staff members directly. All questions are to be directed to committee chair. Fair to hear to the guidelines, members and speakers for any meaning time and further disciplinary action as necessary, which can include barn from attendance and future meetings of the committee for a period of six months. Members of the public who register in advance to speak virtually will be called at the appropriate time, either during the public comment period or during the public hearing for the legislation on which they sign up to address. This concludes the announcement. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Can we uh move to public comment period? Oh well, yes, that's the public comment and then boards and commissions. Is there anyone that would like to address the committee regarding items not on today's agenda? Seeing none, the public comment period is now closed. Thank you. We'll do move to uh boards and commission report. Okay. Would you like to do the approval of the minutes? Yes, ma'am. The minutes to be approved from the June 16th, 2026 land use housing and transportation standing committee meeting. If there are no amendments or corrections, then those meeting minutes stand remote as presented. Those minutes have been approved. Good afternoon, Chair Jones, Vice Chair Robertson, Mr. Breton, Pamela Nichols, Council Management Analyst. And so I will be reviewing for you today the caring and projected vacancies through November of this month. And starting with the Affordable Housing Trust Fund Supervisory Board, there is one vacancy for service provider assistant low-income individuals, and we have two applications from one from Karen Imus and Sandra Smith. And we did reach out, and um staff does not have rejections for either any of these individuals. So for the Affordable Housing Trust, we're going to continue the um service provider assistant low-income individuals to get more applications, and we're going to approve um the representative of a charitable institution. Hi Banks, great, thank you. And also would like to note that on the 21st, the mayor did fill his last vacancy for a lender from a financial institution, uh Mary White. So she will be she has now um become a member of the affordable housing trust fund. And then moving down to the commission of architectural review for Richmond Association of Realtors nominee, and we have a reappointment application from Larry Nutt and an initial application from Marie Crow. Accept the reappointment. We'll accept the reappointment. Wonderful. And then for the community transportation advisory committee. Um we have Rodney Bonner and Kawisi Powell. We what were you gonna say? Yeah, so even though district representation is not a requirement, the um the roster currently assists of an individual from the first, third, and seventh district. So let's continue that one as well to uh provide for more applications. Okay, and then moving down to the public arts commission. Um we have one vacancy and we have three applications, Yanika Buster, Kimley Newberry, and Kat Bromley. We have received a recommendation that you all would consider um recommending Unique Abuster. Okay. Yep, that's good.