A Richmond City planning subcommittee voted to return a revised Cultural Heritage Strategic Plan (CHSP) and related zoning guidance to the full Planning Commission with agreed edits after public comment and extended discussion about design overlays, demolition review and Section 106 compliance.

Public commenters and committee members concentrated on three recurring topics: whether neighborhoods want city-authorized design overlays, how demolition review should apply and be funded, and whether a federal review process (Section 106) should be "leveraged" or instead "informed" by the plan. "There is no community support for design overlays, or there's no community interested in design overlays. That's completely false," said Momen Khan, who identified himself as a resident of Oregon Hill while speaking during the meeting's public-comment period.

Why it matters: the subcommittee's edits will determine what the city formally recommends to the Planning Commission and, later, City Council. Those bodies make the final legal and zoning changes that can affect demolition review, potential design restrictions, and whether neighborhoods can secure additional local protections.

The meeting included three public commenters who expressed differing views. Barry O'Keefe, a Maymont resident, urged caution about tightly constraining neighborhood character, saying overly prescriptive rules "could potentially prevent us from growing and changing, in the ways that we need to as a city." Laura Taylor, of Forest Hill, said her neighborhood supports design overlays and wants stronger review of demolitions for properties that were contributory to historic district designations.

Staff said the current draft code rewrite already has a stronger form-based approach than existing rules and described a menu of possible tools, including a demolition-review process and neighborhood-driven design overlays. A staff member said the draft "is form based in nature" and noted overlay options could be pursued only if a majority of affected property owners asked for them and if council approved an ordinance.

Key outcomes and planned edits discussed at the meeting included:
- Change the plan language from “leverage” Section 106 review to wording that it will "inform" Section 106 review and mitigation options. Committee members expressed concern that "leverage" could be read as using federal review to impose goals council declined to adopt.
- Add a requirement that design-overlay proposals include a fiscal-impact or financial-viability statement during the review process so property and construction costs are clear to residents and decision-makers.
- Clarify that the city will conduct and fund archaeological assessments tied to the plan (staff noted the intent is that the city would seek grants but not pass assessment costs to property owners).
- Define "significant view shed" as an unobstructed public vantage shown on the official zoning map (the subcommittee added language that view-shed protections must be tied to public rights of way and the official zoning map and thus require council action to create).
- Limit a proposed demolition-review/civil-penalty mechanism to city-owned historic districts as drafted (the document was clarified to state the demolition penalty language applies to city-owned historic districts, not all demolitions).

After discussing the edits, a member moved to send the revised document back to the Planning Commission with the changes agreed at the meeting. The motion passed by voice vote among the members present; the chair noted the committee was meeting in a reduced quorum and proceeded with a recorded affirmative voice vote.

The subcommittee and staff also discussed process points: whether staff would recommend overlays only when a majority of property owners supported them (staff said they would not recommend an overlay without majority property-owner support), how overlay ordinances would be written and adopted by council, and that any new regulatory layer would be implemented only by ordinance and not by this plan alone. Staff emphasized that properties listed on the National Register are eligible for incentives such as federal tax credits but that National Register listing alone does not change zoning.

Members asked the secretary to capture the agreed edits precisely in a redline before the Planning Commission hearing. Staff said some revised pages had been uploaded to Legistar and that additional language changes discussed during the meeting — including the change from "leverage" to "inform" and adding fiscal-impact language — would be inserted before the referral to the Planning Commission.

The subcommittee directed staff to check with the city attorney and the publication schedule to determine the next available Planning Commission meeting date when the revised document can be properly advertised.

The meeting closed after the committee recorded the motion to return the plan to the Planning Commission with the agreed edits.