The City Council’s Housing Committee and Director of Development Crystal Surdyk discussed plans for pre-permitting some infill housing site projects during Monday’s Housing Committee meeting. P-J photo by Sara Holthouse

The Department of Development, in an effort to streamline the approach to housing development and address housing concerns, has brought before the city council a map and begun discussion regarding a pre-permitting process for specific infill housing sites.

The idea behind streamlining the permitting process is to create a more appealing development environment for for-profit and nonprofit developers of affordable housing, and to help the city’s need for quality housing. The Department of Development, with the assistance of the Zoning Board of Appeals, would have specific sites permitted with applicable variances that could be utilized for a faster development process.

During Monday’s Housing Committee meeting, Director of Development Crystal Surdyk provided the committee with a map of infill housing projects and sites that this planned pre-permitting process would apply to. She said no resolution is set to be brought before the council as of right now, as they still need to work out the zoning for these specific sites.

“We’ve been talking a lot about infill, we’ve been talking about how we’re about ready,” Surdyk said. “We did our Developer’s Forum and it was all focused on housing and opportunities for housing and infill.”

The pre-permitting site map that Surdyk provided marked out specific sites from the trolley tour that was taken during the Developer’s Forum. These include sites on Fluvanna Avenue, Spring Street, Fulton Street, Vega and Eagle Streets, Johnson Street, and Cross Street.

“These are our target areas that I think we’ve talked about quite a bit and these are the ones that we focused on on the trolley tour,” Surdyk said. “So we now have conversations that we need to have and do some deeper digging with, to look at utilities and you know, DPW and street infrastructure, driveways and sidewalks and all of those things. Because, we are really, truly revitalizing entire neighborhoods, and we want to make sure we are looking at all of the pieces that need to be revitalized.”

A number of the neighborhoods on the map have had significant demolition and clearing done, so some sites are ready to go as far as clearing, but Surdyk said utility information still needs to happen. Once the Development Department has something that they have worked on with the Planning Commission and Zoning Board of Appeals, the department will bring something to the council for approval.

Surdyk said that the department does not want to rush in and wants to make sure they are doing everything right, saying that this is sort of a pilot project and they want to do it in a way that is thoughtful to each neighborhood. There will be a lot more to come on this in the future, and Surdyk encouraged committee and council members to ask questions and come along with them in the process.

“It will be kind of looking at a number of other cities that have already done this,” Surdyk said. “It will be sort of a packet of information. So there will be some things, and we are kind of looking at it like a blanket approval, pre-approval if you will, but we want to make sure we are taking into consideration the context of each neighborhood, because they’re all different.”