Following a three-hour public hearing during which scores of Blacksburg citizens stood to voice support, worry and dismay, the Blacksburg Planning Commission voted 7 to 1 to approve the re-zoning of the flagship 22-acre Main Street property.
That recommendation now goes on to the Blacksburg Town Council for a public hearing Tuesday, Sept. 25 when then the town council’s vote to accept or reject rezoning will bring to an end a year-long process of civic engagement and, without hyperbole, will define the town’s character forever.
The commission and the applicant, Midtown Redevelopment Partners, were still discussing the 14 proffers within hours of the meeting, and, in the end, the commissioners described their votes as calculated leaps-of-faith taken with “guarded optimism.”
But before that, citizens filled the Blacksburg chambers for the public hearing, spilling over into the lobby surrounded by easels displaying the developers’ proffers where they watched the televised proceedings.
In the chambers, citizens stood to voice concern about the traffic the proposed mixed-use development would bring, the loss of informal green space and small town feel.
Several citizens doubted sufficient attention had been paid to stormwater management, an existing problem as a sprawling Blacksburg paves and roofs its greenspaces.
But comments were contradictory. While one citizen questioning the sensibility of more restaurants and shops the proposed rezoning would bring citing, an unverified 13 closed businesses on Main Street, several small-business owners expressed their support for a walkable-bikeable design that would bolster foot traffic and town engagement in nearby business. It was nearly 10 o’clock when public comment trickled to an end.
Demonstrative of the immense amount of work that’s gone into the process, the commission moved to vote, but immediately, the myriad detail that lie beneath the thumping volume of the 68-page application, its pattern book and proffers bogged discussion down immediately as they considered an exception to a 48” distance requirement between houses.
The proposal requests an exception governing minimum separation between buildings in a part of the project that doesn’t meet the established standards.
Member E. Gregg Moneyhun was troubled by the exception asking whether and how an exception “would impact decisions down the line.”
She had concerns about how the buildings being closer together on Parcel 3, “inordinately close” to the neighboring parcel would affect their neighbors.
“Maybe that’s okay because all of this is really dense now, so maybe that’s okay,” she said.
Commission Chair Langrehr asked for insight from encyclopedic Director of Planning and Building Anne McClung who clarified proper procedure. She said it is a use and design standard, which vary by district.
“It’s one of those you want to look at on a case-by-case basis,” she said. “We specifically asked the applicant to go through the Use and Design standards for each of their uses to ask for them now, so there’s not a surprise later when there’s something that didn’t mesh with the pattern book.”
With that explanation, everyone approved the exception and Andrew Kassoff moved to approve the re-zoning and J.B. Jones seconded.
Planning Commission member J.B. Jones, who was in the first graduating class of the old Blacksburg Middle School felt that the proposed development is going to be right for Blacksburg
“I think it’s a good fit,” he said.
Moneyhun explained her vote against the project. Her concerns were both tangible and intangible, including the overwhelming amount of information involved in the process, the impossibility to predict outcomes and the proposal’s failure to provide affordable housing, public transit as an afterthought and the consigning of Clay Street, flanking the town’s 16 historic blocks, to the status of an access road.
“The less affordable housing is, the more attached people are to their cars, we have seen,” she said. “I agree there has been a lot of discussion. It’s the largest application we have ever or will ever consider,” she said. “And I appreciate all the effort the applicant has put into all the materials. It’s been a flurry of papers and email.”
Emails to her she said have come out two-thirds against and one-third in favor. She said that tonight the citizen comment came down the same. She was wary of the public private partnership with the applicant, but seemed resigned.
“The applicants aren’t going to be the ones building the buildings. What will the process look like if we don’t know who is in [that process]? “Where is the preservation of the history of this site, the spring and the trees,” she asked.
“There are things that could be better. Those are my concerns. What is the civic meaning of this site? It looks like it will come down to our public investment.”
In fact, the importance of “what the buildings will look like” was an oft-voiced issue suggesting a public confusion pointing out that in commercial development the public has no say in the appearance of even high-profile buildings and complaining about important downtown architecture that was called mediocre and unimaginative.
In her comments explaining her yes vote, Mel Jones, scolded citizens who lambasted the neighboring Clay Court development for its insipid architecture, encouraging citizens to be more neighborly, although the complaints appeared to be directed at the planning commission’s track record, rather than the taste of Clay Court residents.
It was not made clear that the commission had asked for, and got, the developer to agree to allow the town council, the planning commission and the Historic or Design Review Board to have oversight over the appearance of the restaurants, hotel and high-profile buildings on Main Street.
“We made some pretty substantial changes even this evening to the proffers,” Kassoff said at the end of the night. “Each of the buildings will go through a review process that town council will orchestrate, so it’s not just the front of the buildings will go through a design process.”
The agreement is unusual since the public input process may slow the development.
One by one, the other commission members explained their rationales and reservations, recognized the hard work of the applicant, and applauded vigorous citizen engagement.
“The Planning Commission has taken citizen input very seriously,” commission member Jack Davis said supporting the rezoning for the diversity of housing he said it promises.
“Blacksburg has an abundance of high-market rate single-family homes and student housing,” he said. “This project provides a diversity of housing.” he said.
Jack Davis, commission member and Virginia Tech architecture professor, who also serves on the Historic or Design Review Board, also emphasized the importance of the proffer allowing public input to define building appearance through Town Council, Planning Commission and Historic or Design Review Board.
“All three of those have public input opportunities,” he said. “That’s unusual, but the site is of critical importance to the public and the town. It can slow down the process, but they understand the importance it has.”
“This is a critical reason the decision went the way it did,” Davis said later. “This is critical for issues of sustainability, stormwater, and structured parking and how the buildings can be mixed-use. We have listened, and I did feel this is a positive direction to go in.”
“We have emphasized the need for quality materials and discussed LEED Silver on downtown commercial buildings, but we cannot mandate that or design the buildings. We can be a part of the review of the downtown commercial and the public will be part of that.”
The planned residential development in the rear of the development will be Earthcraft compliant. Earthcraft is a green building system similar to LEED.
Notably, for commission member Andrew Kassoff this was “a big night.” Eight years ago, he petitioned to join the planning commission specifically to develop this very site “to really influence the future of this little town that I had fallen in love with” he said.
He spoke picturesquely of plans bandied about then: imaginings of an international competition to bring developers in to see the site and come up with “beautiful concepts that would really put us on the map” he said.
“But I think what we ended up getting is much better. We went through a process in the town where we collaborated together. We had this a giant charrette, we had a hundreds of people come in and draw on paper and show what they wanted, and hours and hours of public input, and I think this application is very respectful of that process in the ultimate design.
“So for me, this proposal really reflects Blacksburg. It reflects this town in a really meaningful way.”
He continued, “It’s a crazy proposal when you think about it. I mean, it’s a 68-page application, it’s 13 proffers. It’s a pattern book, it’s a side deal between the town and the development plan. It’s 25 pages of exhibits with details in 6-point font.
But once you put that whole mosaic together, I think we’ve got a good plan and I think it is going to be a tremendously important thing for this town and the citizens of this town well into the future.”
In the year’s run-up to this public hearing, a number of citizens were aggrieved by the Midtown Redevelopment Partners’ constant description of the space as “an empty lot” pointing out that the grassy and tree’d land currently serves as dog walk, town park, path to school, wildlife habitat and permeable stormwater catchment.
In an emailed statement the morning following the vote, Midtown Redevelopment Partners’ Jim Cowan was unrepentant at the “empty lot” characterization.
In the statement, he said the town had “One chance to get this right.” Asked for clarification, the developers’ marketing arm explained that Cowan “is talking about what is actually done to the land, i.e., 75 houses vs. a planned community.”
The development of the property, whether as a planned development or 75 houses the large trees, one, a pin oak, planted in 1976 by Blacksburg Middle School students, will be cut down.
In a Midtown handout, listing a number of benefits of rezoning, envisioning “Establishing a legacy for the pin oak” assuring citizens that acorns will be nurtured into seedlings to plant on the site and the tree’s wood will be repurposed “as benches in the community space or as a work of art.”
Ending the meeting, final, droll comments were from Chair Don Langrehr. To laughter he marveled at level of community engagement.
“Back in 2004 I was on the Town Council just a few months and instead of having such an open process, we actually were in closed door meetings talking about putting a shopping center on that property. You’ve come a long way Blacksburg.”
Then he outlined the larger process of community decision-making, which many citizens, even those enmeshed in this development, are often unaware.
“What you’re witnessing is the mid-point of an intense negotiation initiated with the town staff by the applicants, then Planning Commission takes it on, and now Town Council will get its shot at it. And they’ll probably want to work on it a little bit.”
Summing up, he said, “I feel we have squeezed as much out of these applicants as we possibly can.”
Although disappointed by the traffic plan he called “awkward” and public transportation “an afterthought,” Langrehr said, “hopefully, we’ll walk and bike more.”
“With 800 people living on the property and several hundred working there, the bus will be on Main Street, without even a pull-off. But, overall, we’re gaining open space. Tax payers will be paying for it, but it’s an amenity we all can use.”
