We are in a housing emergency. Approving these new apartments is a no-brainer.

Below are two things, first an email sent to City Council on 04 December 2023 in advance of the meeting where they were set to vote on the Verve and 2117 Ivy projects. The second are the public comments made during the meeting after Council failed to approve and the vote was deferred to the next meeting on 18 December.

Please check out both!

I'd like to share my thoughts about the 2117 Ivy and Verve buildings here for your review and comment if you'd like.

Thanks so much for the consideration,

Natalie

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I hope that all or most of council supports these proposals as they provide a much-needed boost to the housing supply in our community. I truly think both projects are a net positive and I'd be an enthusiastic yes. I know there may be concerns, so I'd like to address some here.

If they don't quite have a satisfactory amount of contribution to the affordable housing fund, they will balance that with significant contributions via property taxes, which are a recurring source of income instead of a one-time payment. The housing affordability fund can be leveraged to build and to subsidize, and there needs to be increased supply all over to make subsidies useful and to help slow rising market rates. Market rates that stay level, rise more slowly, or even go down because of increased supply allow more folks to be able to afford homes without assistance, and it allows that assistance to stretch further. If there's not maximum possible direct contribution to the AH fund via proffers, there is still an immense ancillary contribution via increased supply and taxes. We can't let perfect be the enemy of good enough.

There may be some hesitation about the design of the buildings, but not approving them for design reasons is like not buying a house because you don't like the paint color in the dining room. It's quite fixable! The hard part is the general site plan and engineering, the envelope is easier to adjust. Ultimate design is not something the city has minute control of, and that's ok. But we can encourage good design by not placing onerous and arbitrary requirements on the designers. "Breaking up massing" with layers, cutouts, step backs, and material variation can be goofy, whereas not mandating these could lead to building that people enjoy a bit more, or could even match the Palladian/Jeffersonian design of the rest of central grounds.

Breaking up massing:

More freedom to design:

(Slap some cornices on the second buildings and now we're cooking!)

I worry that there is an instinct to make things smaller as a conciliatory gesture. Like, "well they've proposed 10 stories so let's make it 8." But if they had proposed 15, then 10 would seem fine. That kind of centrist flexibility can lead to projects going from dramatically good to merely fine, or even bad, for sort of an arbitrary reason. These locations could not be *more perfect* for a whole bunch of students. And I say that as an advocate but also as a former UVA undergrad who didn't have a car and wanted to live close to grounds and friends. These would have been amazing choices for my classmates and I, and certainly would have saved some friends from the privately-owned hovels they were able to find in the neighborhoods.

I know there is neighborhood outcry, I've gotten some of those messages too, from individual homeowners and groups like Preservation Piedmont running down the greatest hits of anti-change and limited opportunity advocates. There is also a huge outcry from folks who need housing, and we have to prioritize those in need over those who already have. It's not like the projects will damage the existing neighbors the way building a big road through a neighborhood does damage, they merely place new neighbors next door, in proximity to their destinations, resulting in a minimal desire for car usage by the new residents. So many organizations that represent marginalized or under-resourced folks have signed on to support the new zoning changes and these kinds of projects, and that is weightier to me than a handful of single-family homeowners who are afraid of expanding opportunities to others. Once these buildings are approved and built, they will hardly be something anyone thinks twice about, or someone might say about the Ivy project, "can you believe that people wanted to preserve a strip mall/parking lot!?" They will easily be part of the fabric of our city and 1,800 people will have an opportunity to chose a new home. Many of those students can move out of single-family homes that are rented in the neighborhoods, freeing up that space for actual families.

Also, it is not the city's responsibility to be UVA's bodyguard, specially since they don't provide any compensation to the city while we still are expected to provide services for them and we lose out on tax revenue and land use options for each parcel they pick up. Much of the traffic that chokes our entrance corridors are UVA faculty and staff commuting from the county via car. Some of those commuters cannot afford to live in the city, so we need to consider how provide more housing of all types in more locations will help adjust that commuter lifestyle. If these projects fail, then the developers may not be able to recoup their costs and be forced to sell, and there sits UVA with plenty of money to buy them out, leaving the city high and dry again. It would be irresponsible to let these parcels fall into UVA's portfolio.

UVA is disgruntled by the Ivy project because they don't have control over it and disgruntled by the Verve project because it interferes with the "viewshed" of the Rotunda, but probably also because they don't have control over it. We do not need to punish the developers on UVA's behalf because UVA missed the chance to buy these pieces of land. These seem like very reasons to prevent housing for students. On a practical level, it's a guess about the Verve's effect on the viewshed. On a historical level, Old Cabell Hall, Rouss-Robertson, and Cocke Hall themselves were not original to the design of the Academical Village and were a major project that blocked the viewshed of the Rotunda! Alas, I assume the Verve architects probably aren't quite as famous or dramatic as Stanford White. On a pragmatic level, we need more housing for students (and all the benefits that begets - relieving pressure on residential neighborhoods, tax revenue, fewer cars, etc), and to me, that easily overrides these concerns of the UVA committee. If UVA saw fit to provide for their students back then by constructing those three additional buildings on the southern end of The Lawn, then I would think they would want to see the needs of current students met as well.

Recently, I was alarmed to see the sale of a house on Hinton Ave with a $934k price tag. Just 10 years ago that same house sold for less than $350k. That pricing is driven almost solely by scarcity, so we have to do whatever we can to smartly increase supply. Both the Ivy and Verve projects, because of their proximity to UVA and ability to pull students out of renting family homes in neighborhoods, as well as increasing the tax base (a benefit we do not get if UVA is the only one providing student housing) make these perfect smart steps in the right direction.

(As an additional note, this sale shows that people are happy to live near mixed commercial uses in neighborhoods.)

I hope we can count on you to vote yes on these projects so they can provide maximum benefit to the community, especially the needs of city residents.

Thank you,

Natalie

Public Comment given during 04 December 2023 Council meeting, after Council failed to approve the projects and deferred to the next meeting:

Hello,

I wasn’t going to speak tonight in order to save time, so I emailed in my thoughts instead. But we’re still here and I’d like to reiterate some points and address some new concerns that were brought up. If I get the chance to vote on these projects, I am a yes, an enthusiastic yes. 

These clearly benefit the community, helping address the housing emergency in general and the student housing shortage specifically. There was a recent article in the Cav Daily describing how difficult it is for students to find housing, often starting their search as early as September of the year before the lease starts. I remember this struggle - of the members on the dias and most people in the room tonight, I most recently was an undergrad student at UVA and vividly remember the crush of leasing month. Something that hasn’t been discussed in this room yet is the condition of the options that ARE available for students. My friends and I had limited options for new construction, so many people found housing in the neighborhoods, run by landlords who didn’t care, because they assumed student standards are low, but also because the students had NO other choice! So we lived with mold, collapsed ceilings, soggy carpets, and more than one person per bedroom. You would not want to live in these homes, you would not want your children to live in these homes. Projects like Verve and Ivy give students a CHOICE, and can drive the overall standard of living up by maybe even encouraging the absentee landlords to clean up a bit to attract students now that there is competition. 

Also, I very much understand the desire for a healthy and robust affordable housing fund. Right now, this land contributes ZERO to the fund. Allowing the Verve, for example, means that we get $6 million more in the fund, and then a continuous stream of money in tax revenue each year. This is a good thing. If you think about it as the difference from 0 to $6 million, this project is even more of a no brainer. If you think about it as the difference between $10 and $6 million, then you are missing how we currently have zero.

I know there is neighborhood outcry, I've gotten some of those messages too, from individual homeowners and groups like Preservation Piedmont running down the greatest hits of anti-change and pushing to limit opportunity. There is also a huge outcry from folks who need housing, and we have to prioritize those in need over those who already have. It's not like the projects will damage the existing neighbors the way building a big road through a neighborhood does damage, they merely place new neighbors next door, in proximity to their destinations, resulting in a minimal desire for car usage by the new residents. There was a chuckle when the applicant made the point that it’s a 25mph zone. Bad drivers are not an excuse to not provide housing for people. It’s a road problem, not a housing problem. A roundabout, a speed bump, a road diet, these are all tools in our toolbox to make the road safer.

Housing pricing is driven almost solely by scarcity, so we have to do whatever we can to smartly increase supply. Both the Ivy and Verve projects, because of their proximity to UVA and ability to pull students out of renting family homes in neighborhoods, as well as increasing the tax base (a benefit we do not get if UVA is the only one providing student housing) make these perfect smart steps in the right direction. 

Please remember we are not beholden to UVA. We may work with them, but we, as Councilors, do not work for them. They buy our land, don’t pay taxes, push against paying staff a living wage. We can ask them to be better, we don’t have to force a separate private builder to bend to their will.