Coraggio Consulting
Albemarle County Board of Supervisors Regular Second Meeting, Wednesday, January 17, 2024

Date: Wednesday, January 17, 2024
Place: Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 6h 24m (video)
Official meeting video (Granicus): https://albemarle.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=1&clip_id=912
Official agenda: https://albemarle.granicus.com/AgendaViewer.php?view_id=1&clip_id=912

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-16. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:03] Okay. Good afternoon. I am pleased to call to order this regular meeting of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors on the 17th of January at 1 p.m. in Lane Auditorium. I'd like to note at the desk we have Supervisor Mike Pruitt of the Scottsville District, Supervisor Lupisto Kirtley of the Ravenna District, Supervisor Diantha McKeel of the Jack Jewett District, Supervisor Ned Galloway of the Ravenna District, Supervisor Ann Malick of the Whitehall District, and myself, Jim Andrews, from the Samuel Miller District.

[00:00:35] quorum is present. We also are joined to the dais with the county executive Mr. Jeff Richardson and the county attorney Mr. Steve Rosenberg and our clerk Ms. Claudette Borgerson. Also let me please welcome the Albemarle County police officers present, Master Police Officer Dana Reeves and Lieutenant Angela Jamerson. We thank you for your service here today and your work and you of your work and your work of your colleagues every day to ensure the safety and security of us in the county. If all present could now stand as you were able to join us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

[00:01:14] Deflay the United States of America to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, and indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. I now ask if you would join me in a

[00:01:34] moment of silence. Thank you. I believe that our next item is the adoption of the final agenda,

[00:02:05] and i have heard of no changes suggested um if there are none then uh if someone would like to move the adoption of the final agenda so moved second we have a motion from supervisor mckeel and a second from supervisor malik without objection that the clerk will call the roll mr andrews yes mr galloway yes miss lapista kirtley i miss mallet yes miss mckeel yes mr Pruitt. Aye. Thank you. Our next item would be proclamations and recognitions. We have none, so we'll move on to matters from the public, matters on the agenda, but not listed for public

[00:02:45] hearing, or matters previously considered by the board, or matters that are pending before the board. Do you have anyone signed up to speak? You might want to do board. I don't have any, but board announcements. Oh, sorry. Brief announcements by board members. Thank you. I knew I'd get there eventually. We could have reversed it.

[00:03:02] Let's go through the brief announcements. I apologize. Supervisor Pruitt. Thank you. So I think it's no secret that we're experiencing a lot of serious weather around the county. We experienced some serious flooding last week, and there's significant ice and snow throughout this week.

[00:03:22] Some incidents that occur because of this hazards do get reported through normal county channels, but others don't. So as people continue to exercise caution, especially on some of our more rural roads, I would encourage that if you, if members of the public do encounter situations that are hazardous or situations that they think the county or even the state might have a role in rectifying, that they reach out to us and let us know what they've encountered. A person who is in my district recently encountered a very hazardous condition. Last week, they were able to

[00:03:58] personally keep themselves and their families safe. But this was not something that was naturally going to come to our attention if they didn't take the necessary steps to bring it to the attention of us and to VEDA so we can take the necessary steps to ameliorate that in the future. I really appreciate the work of that citizen and I would encourage other members of the public to continue to stay vigilant and help be part of our problem identification process as we go through these more challenging times of the season. That's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor

[00:04:28] I'm just going to briefly piggyback on that because there is a VDOT number where residents can call in, not just during inclement weather, but unsafe situations in their area. So perhaps we can put that on our website, well, website on our newsletter to let people know this is the number you can call VDOT and report a dangerous situation on the road.

[00:04:54] Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor McHugh. Yes, thank you. just a couple of items. I just want to let everyone or make sure everybody is aware that the Elmore-Charlesville Regional Jail Authority will be hosting three public meetings seeking input on the renovation project that we're planning for the jail. You all are aware of that project. The first meeting will be on January the 25th from 530 to 730 at Carver Recreation Center. The second meeting will be on February the 12th, 530 to 730 at Carver,

[00:05:31] and the third meeting, February 29th, 530 to 730 at Carver Rec. The nice thing is that all of these meetings will be recorded, and anyone that's interested in going back can't make that date and is interested in going back and listening to the recording, and I'm happy as I get that link in the recording, I'll share it with you all as well in case you want to watch. But you can find out more information. Everything is on the ACRJ website. If you're interested, you can go take a look. Then the only other item I have is, and I'm going to, I know Jim has this on his list to talk

[00:06:10] about as well. So I'm just going to briefly mention that Yancey Community Center had a wonderful MLK celebration on Sunday afternoon, which Jim and I attended. And I really want to just thank Ed Brooks and the folks at Yancey for sponsoring this and providing the great refreshments and the tour of the center. But it was just wonderful, and I thoroughly enjoyed being there. Hope I didn't take... You can give us more detail, Jim. And that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor

[00:06:45] Galloway. I just want to call out that I just learned myself here not too long ago that we had the Affordable Housing Developer Incentives Conversation in early December, and they have their meeting materials out for their January 23rd meeting in the Developer Incentive Conversation.

[00:07:04] The next step was to go to the Planning Commission for discussion, so that's happening on the 23rd. So things are progressing as we were hoping to coming out of that December meeting, so I'm very pleased about that. Thank you, Mr. Richardson, for alerting me to that info. So there you have it. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Mal. Thank you very much. Continuing on with the frigid weather. On the way down here, I saw Dominion crews trimming a lot of tree branches. It's really important when residents see trees that have come loose or branches hanging on

[00:07:37] poles that are hanging on wires, that they alert someone. I mean, I get a lot of calls that way, and I pass them along to, I think each of us has the Dominion contact, so that's probably an easy way for folks to share that information in order for the repair crews to get out there and take these hangers off in order to preserve power. It would be absolutely horrific to be facing six degrees overnight with no power in your house. So I really want to, everybody needs to help to keep each other safe on this. And also for animals. I've seen still some animals outside

[00:08:15] in pens. This is against the state law. When it's this cold, you have to make arrangements for your animals. You do not leave them out. So below 32 degrees is what the state law is to take special consideration for house pets, cats and dogs, that kind of thing. So please be aware of that and do everything you can to keep your family pets safe as well. Thank you.

[00:08:41] Thank you. Yeah, I would sort of second some of the comments already made about the being vigilant with respect to the weather and appreciate VDOT's efforts in keeping us safe on our roads. I did join Supervisor McKeel at a wonderful event at Yancey led off by Commonwealth Attorney Jim Hingley talking about the John Henry James case and other things that were discussed about restorative justice which were fascinating. In upcoming events I just want to mention I saw

[00:09:19] that UVA's outgoing law school dean, Risa Goluboff, is talking January 23rd at the center at Belvedere at 530. Charlottesville is legal history, and this is sponsored by the Alpemarle Charlottesville Historical Society. She's a renowned constitutional scholar, particularly on the topic of civil rights, and it promises to be an interesting talk. Does anyone else have anything to add? All right, I'll take this deliberate. So our next item is proclamations and recognitions.

[00:09:50] We have none. So we can move on to item seven. Matters on the agenda but not listed for public hearing are matters previously considered by the board or matters that are pending before the board. And I believe we have at least one. I know. And no online. So if Supervisor, Vice Chair McKeel will read the rules. Sure. During the time set aside for matters on the agenda but not listed for public hearing, individuals may address the Board of Supervisors concerning matters previously considered by the board or matters that are pending before the board other than items listed

[00:10:28] on the agenda for public hearing. Individuals are allowed one opportunity of up to three minutes to speak at each board meeting during matters from the public. Sign-up sheet is managed by the clerk's office. Timekeeping is conducted through a timer, a light system at the podium. The green light will go on when you begin speaking, which begins your allotted time. The yellow light indicates you have one minute to finish speaking. The red light indicates your time has expired and you will be to end your comments. To give all speakers equal treatment and courtesy, the board requests that the speakers adhere to the following guidelines. When addressing the board, state your name and if

[00:11:03] you live in Elmira County, your magisterial district. Address comments directly to the board as a whole. Any written statements or other supporting material may be given to the clerk. If representing a group or organization, you may ask others present to raise their hands in recognition. Speakers may not share any unused time with another speaker. Back and forth debate is not permitted and do not speak from your seat or out of turn. All comments are live stream, recorded, and published on the Almar County website. And today we have one speaker who has

[00:11:36] signed up and that would be Neil Williamson. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Neil Williamson, president of the Free Enterprise Forum, a privately funded public policy organization focused on central Virginia's local governments. This morning, early, I wrote about some of your goals and objectives for the comprehensive plan and utilized an acronym that is famous in MBA classes and the like, SMART goals and objectives. Now SMART stands for specific, measurable,

[00:12:15] achievable, relevant, and time-based. Now I will say that I don't know that all of your goals meet these criteria, and often the goals I find in comprehensive plans across Central Virginia are siloed and don't recognize the impact of the other chapter's goals on the very goals you're discussing. One specific objective jumped out at me as I was reading over the housing chapter, increase the supply of long-term affordable and workforce housing in Albemarle County by at least

[00:12:51] 10,000 units by 2040, promoting both the development of new units and preservation of existing units for affordable and workforce housing. Seems like a very straightforward goal. Seems misplaced the second half of that about existing housing, probably belongs in another objective about existing housing, but you need to do a little math. I'd look back at your building report, which you receive on a quarterly basis, and I find incredibly helpful. There were three

[00:13:24] years in the last, since 2015, three years, that you had over a thousand units created. You would need to double, generally double, the production of housing units to meet this goal. Is that an attainable goal? Or is the A that you're using for this aspirational? I've been in this room when members of this board and the previous boards sought to be aspirational. It would be great if you could clarify if this is an aspirational document or an attainable document. Thank you

[00:14:00] for the opportunity to speak. Thank you. We have no one else signed up, so we will move on now to the consent agenda. First of all, I will ask if there's anyone who wants to pull anything from the consent agenda. If not, we'll entertain a motion to adopt the consent agenda. So moved.

[00:14:24] Second. Motion by Supervisor Malek, second by Supervisor McKeel. Without objection, if the clerk will call the roll. Mr. Andrews? Yes. Mr. Galloway? Yes. Ms. Lapista-Curtley? Aye. Ms. Malik? Yes. Ms. McKeel? Yes. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Thank you. So we'll move now on to our first work session on the AC44 draft chapters. This is a fairly long work session, a couple hours

[00:14:56] allotted, led by Ms. Tori Kanelopoulos, Principal Planner. My understanding is, you know, we're going to do each of these chapter by chapter, so we'll be able to pause after each one and go from there. So thank you. Please proceed. Thank you all, and good afternoon, members of the board. My name is Tori Kanelopoulos, and I'm a Principal Planner in the Community Development Department, and I'm also joined today in the audience by staff topic experts for each of today's topics who I may ask to step up to the podium during the work session to help answer questions. And today's work session

[00:15:36] is on draft goals and objectives for five out of the eight total chapters for the AC44 comprehensive plan update. So we will start with a brief overview of where we are in the AC44 process, how we drafted goals and objectives, and the purpose of today's work session. Then we will move to board discussion for each of the five chapters. I will share a quick overview of each chapter and a summary of the planning commission's feedback, and then pause for board discussion and questions for each topic. So we should have about 20 minutes for discussion for each, and then we will wrap up with next steps. So AC44 is organized into four phases. In the first phase, we developed

[00:16:15] the AC44 framework for an equitable and resilient community, which provides guidance for drafting plan recommendations and envisions a community that is green and resilient, welcoming and equitable, connected and accessible, and thriving and prosperous. We also completed the land use build-out analysis to estimate capacity in the development areas for future residential and non-residential development. In phase two, we are updating goals and objectives for each plan chapter and developing planning toolkits for coordinated land use and transportation planning. In phase three, which we expect to kick off in the spring, we will have updated action steps for each plan

[00:16:50] chapter and will prioritize plan recommendations. In phase four, which will be later this year, we will bring everything together into a finalized comprehensive plan document and hold public hearings with the commission and board for adoption. The comprehensive plan is organized into eight chapters as shown on the right hand side of the screen. And I'll note that environmental stewardship is the new name for the natural resources chapter and that there are separate rural area and development areas chapters, but they each have the land use and transportation element combined so there's not a standalone transportation chapter. And within each chapter

[00:17:26] there are goals, objectives, and action steps. So goals are high level where we want to go in the future as a community. Objectives are the outcomes or targets to get there. And action steps which will be in phase three are policies, specific capital projects, planning efforts, or other activities and projects to implement the plan. There are three main steps for drafting plan recommendations in phase two. In the first step, we asked community members their priorities by plan topic and use that input to guide drafting updated recommendations. In step two, we asked for community input on planning toolkits, which are the four coordinated land use and transportation

[00:18:05] topics shown on the slide and are all topics in the current comprehensive plan. We asked for the board direction on these toolkits, and we heard that we should find ways to encourage more density and mixed-use development in the development areas and prioritize using development areas land efficiently over potential expansion and that we should continue to explore ways to more equitably allow or provide some services and some small-scale uses in the rural area such as mobile health services and community centers. We are using the board's direction on the toolkits to inform drafting goals and objectives for the land use and transportation chapters and in step three we are sharing draft goals and objectives by plan chapter including the five chapters we're covering

[00:18:45] today. Goals and objectives are drafted through a collaborative and iterative process, and while the core AC44 team leads the process, many county staff and departments are involved in drafting plan recommendations. We also coordinate with partner agencies and other departments, including Albemarle County Public Schools and the Albemarle County Service Authority, and we've also been gathering input from county committees. We review the current comprehensive plan to carry forward recommendations that are still relevant, incorporate updated best practices, make refinements based on community, commission, and board input, and use the AC44 framework to guide recommendations.

[00:19:24] So the purpose of today's work session is based on the community input heard to date and the planning commission's feedback on these topics. The purpose is for the board to give direction to staff on any changes or additions to the draft goals and objectives. And I'll note that the finalized goals and objectives will be used to draft the action steps that will be shared in phase three. And the goals and objectives before the board today are the same draft recommendations that were shared through online questionnaires and shared with the planning commission and several county committees, such as the architectural review board, natural heritage committee, and the economic development authority. And revisions will be made after today's meeting

[00:20:01] to incorporate feedback from the community, county committees, commission, and the board. And as I mentioned, many staff topic experts are here today, I think from each topic, to listen to the board's feedback and direction and to be available for questions. So the first topic is environmental stewardship, and this chapter is organized into the following goals, climate action, climate resilience, healthy and resilient waterways and water supplies, biodiversity and habitats, and sustainable materials management.

[00:20:32] And I have the draft goals and objectives listed on the following slides, but since you all receive them in your packets. I'm going to skip through them, but I can return to any of the slides to pull up any specific language if it's helpful to have for discussion. So during their work sessions, the planning commission provided the following feedback. They recommended that dark skies also be included in this chapter along with the historic resources chapter, highlighting that resilience is a priority and that we should also consider business continuity, assisting community members with staying in their homes and ways to provide funding for implementation. We should

[00:21:11] collaborate regionally for waterways and water quality, consider how new and emerging uses in the rural area could impact natural areas and find ways to mitigate those impacts, and then update some of the objectives to be more measurable. So we wanted to note this is a high-level summary of the main takeaways from the commission's feedback, and a more detailed summary was provided in the board's packet from each of the planning commission's work sessions. So we'll turn it over to the board shortly for discussion and questions. And we are asking for the board's input on the draft goals and objectives and for the board to build on the commission's feedback, specifically if the board affirms the commission's feedback and if there's anything the board would add or change to the

[00:21:49] draft goals and objectives. And I'll also add that we appreciate any more detailed feedback that may fall into action steps. Our topic expert staff can make note of any potential recommended action steps and consider the board's feedback when drafting plan recommendations. With that, I'll turn it over to the board. Thank you. Thank you. I will go through the order if there are any questions at this point. Supervisor Pruitt? I'm going to hold a question for now. Supervisor Lupisto-Kirtland? Okay. Tori and I spoke yesterday. So some of the things that I would

[00:22:27] like to, well, first of all, I commend you on the entire AC44 phase two. I think it's a great document. It has a lot in it. I mean, it has everything plus a kitchen sink in it, but that's for us to then navigate. When we talk about goal one, what rose to my mind is the maybe putting or asking our developers to use solar roof panels on developments. I don't know if that's feasible

[00:23:05] or not but that's maybe could be i don't know if it'd be required to be suggested but uh we're having large developments we're having apartments townhomes etc two over twos uh perhaps solar panels on top of the roofs that would help in our climate action plan i think we also discussed recycling by waste haulers currently i think we just have one gif and that does waste hauling in the urban areas in some of the rural areas maybe that could it be increased and i think we do

[00:23:43] i'm hoping there's a way to ensure that they really do recycle the other one was the regarding the floodplains future floodplain growth that changes evidently and i know there's a new a draft fema plan that is out that has not been certified yet it's not there's a draft plan but there's no certification of the actual FEMA plan. How is, are we keeping an eye with climate change,

[00:24:17] how that's going to be impacted? For example, I'm looking at one development in my area where they couldn't build because the parking lot was in a floodplain. Well, evidently now that parking lot is not in the floodplain according to the new FEMA draft regulations. And that's just something maybe a question to be addressed by perhaps uh frank pole um are we just on goal two are we going on through all the goals let me let me just stop right there just how would you like

[00:24:53] us to proceed on on this are we yet to the point where we're going to go through the individual chapters and discuss them so yeah so we would appreciate any um recommended well any questions first of all, and then any recommended changes for the environmental stewardship chapter, which can be any of the goals and objectives. We can go in order or if there's general comments from the board. I think it's appropriate to stick with this one chapter. Yes. Any comments related to this? Right. So we can go through the goals. Each person do all the goals in this chapter.

[00:25:33] Right. Just stick with the environmental stewardship. I'm just trying to get the rules. Right. No, I understand. I would think it would be more efficient to do the goals for this chapter together. Okay. And then proceed to the next chapter rather than trying to take each goal individually and be breaking it up a little bit too much. So continue. To the chair, can I ask one brief clarifying question? I'm sorry. Would you prefer we go through, do you think it is prudent that we go through with questions for staff first or should we begin with recommendations and questions bunched together? Because those are, I would say, very discreet kind of activities we

[00:26:12] can engage in. We'll certainly come back to everyone for additional comments. I originally thought we would do some questions, but I don't have any problem with adding questions and comments together. It sometimes just happens that way. Right. And minor recommendations, but the one regarding the FEMA floodplain, I mean, that's more of a question. I don't know how that works.

[00:26:38] Regarding, under climate action, green environmentally friendly businesses, I'm wondering about our county building or other buildings that we own going solar rooftop.

[00:26:57] That's just a comment. The other thing I was thinking of regarding climate action is we have a large surface area of asphalt, black asphalt. and there are now reflective paints being used be it acrylic or latex there's different ones some of them are even saying that the heat index is reduced by 10 percent with with painting the the asphalt so that's something that look into or that's something that I would suggest because

[00:27:34] I think it's good that we lead the county as we want everyone else to do I think we should be doing it. And of course, one of my favorites, adding pollinator gardens on property that we own. And I do understand that we also have pollinator gardens at Cobb. I would like a clarification on page 10. Oh, you probably don't have the book. It says, considering the existing

[00:28:13] use of land in any potential future development areas, expansion areas, you're considering that. for example, land that has already been cleared for agriculture or grazing or views is less important to preserve compared with mature wooded areas. Could you, at some point, I don't know if we wanted to explain now or explain at some point. I would like that. Sure. And if I'm remembering correctly, I believe that was under the community input summary. So that's summarizing kind of

[00:28:48] priorities that we've heard from the community. So if in the future, you know, there was going to be a development area expansion sometime in the future, that would be a consideration as, you know, looking at areas that have already been cleared and maybe considering those over, you know, areas that are wooded or have important habitats. Okay, but that wouldn't be heard. And that wouldn't be superseded by putting into expansion areas, water and sewer. No, which to me seems the most important. And that's it for me. Thank you. Thank you. Let me just check first

[00:29:26] whether Supervisor Pruitt, you wanted me to revisit at this point or come back around? I have some broad themes that I have interests in, but no specific questions. And I think I'd like to save that for a second round. Supervisor McKeel. Thank you. I think I have, I don't think I have really any direct questions. I have some comments and my comments may get to some questions them about. But anyway, so I'm going to just stick to no questions right now. Okay. Supervisor Galloway? I mean, if we're just asking process questions, a lot of the notes or the feedback

[00:30:01] that I expect is going to happen on the next pass, not knowing what the action steps are is what is tricky in trying to say if the objectives are comprehensive or if they're the right goals and objectives. Now, that's not a punt. I'm going to certainly make my comments today but moving forward as we continue to work on this i'm assuming that even if we say yeah we like these goals and objectives today if we start getting into action steps and that leads back to well maybe this objective needs to be altered or changed or goal needs to be changed that that's

[00:30:40] still how we're going to proceed in the big process picture that's correct all right well then i don't have any other specific questions and i'll save my commentary for when we're going to do that at that point. Supervisor Malek. Okay, so now I'm more confused because I was prepared to follow what Supervisor Lupita currently had done to address a couple of things, but my one generic question right off the bat is can you describe places where the Planning Commission's suggestions were already incorporated in these things or are they not incorporated in here yet? They have not

[00:31:16] been incorporated yet, so we did share a summary of the Commission's feedback with the board, but we did not want to go ahead and make revisions until we'd had a chance to hear from both the commission and the board okay then i will continue on with my long-range plan which was to call out some things that i found were incredibly important among all the others because um as as i warned everybody three years ago this is where i live here this sort of works so i'm sorry it's going to take a while but i think there's some important things to think about um the uh on the

[00:31:51] the 9H, the PC summaries, I think we've heard from several people in addition to the planning commission, and I've certainly heard from people individually, that the dark skies needs to be an environmental stewardship issue, as well as a scenic issue, as well as an economic development issue, because there are communities in Texas and New Mexico and Nelson County who are now welcoming visitors who want to be able to see the stars. So we have wonderful dark skies right now

[00:32:27] and if we're very careful to not lose them then and the second half of that is that the lighting ordinance does not work with LEDs. The lumen things are not appropriate for the new lighting that's now available so that it's far more devastating and so that's something that is on to-do list that we already have but it needs to be done as quickly as we can because these things are all adjustable and the fact that they're left on full blast is destroying the wildlife

[00:33:02] and everything else in addition to neighbors ability to sleep so anyway going down to the on the pc list i want to emphasize incorporating the biodiversity action plan everywhere not just as an add-on because it has not been well respected so far in our decision making. It needs to be in the checklist of things which are regularly considered. The groundwater study is another thing where the county used to have a well that was measured frequently. And when the recession came, the decision was made to not have it registered and read, but it could easily be

[00:33:42] picked up again by a citizen scientist group or some of the other water quality people who live right near the well in Meechans River to be able to get that documentation back. We have learned that the water information, the drought information from Goochland is not particularly appropriate for us, and so our area is not getting the kind of details that it needs to have to make good decisions. Okay, parks, let me try down here. Very good. Okay, we're not doing parks yet.

[00:34:18] stop right there put that over here all right i'm sorry here we go so under goal one the focus on objective 1.2 you talk about clean energy generation one of the hazards of focusing on one element of energy is that there are a lot of other things which get damaged with a siloed approach so while there are many people in the commonwealth and locally who want solar to be the answer it has to to be one of many answers. Otherwise, we're sending ourselves backwards. So there are consequences to

[00:34:55] forests, there are consequences to climate change, loss of the ability of the ecosystem services provided by forests if we're not careful. The future floodplain growth term that was already discussed, am I correct in understanding that that means as water levels rise, our floodplain is actually going to be higher because there are going to be greater impacts, as we found, with big storms, bigger than 3,000-year storms we've had in the last two years, there are going to be more acreage which is going to be impacted as a floodplain.

[00:35:30] Otherwise, I didn't know what those terms meant. So someone can talk about that later when you're ready. Let me jump over here. Many, many, many things I support, and I'm glad to share all these with you as well.

[00:35:46] We talked about that already. Let me come over here. What are you? We talked about that. tree coverage. Every year of the 16, in which I've been on the board, people have been asking for a tree conservation plan that would be part of our development process. And I hope that that will become more obligatory, rather than just chopping down everything and putting up things which are two inches around instead of, it cannot replace things that are two feet in diameter.

[00:36:23] And, oh, and here's a biggie. Under the toolkits, this may be something that was suggested by public input but it troubles me that we are this this concept that is under the fourth bullet here on page 10 land that's in agriculture most of the time is growing food nowhere in this document anywhere have we talked about food production even though forest is terrific and 60 some percent of

[00:36:59] our country our county is already covered in forest which is a huge advantage that many others don't have. But just because somebody is growing crops on something does not mean that it should be less important. And so if we can figure out a way to recognize soil for food production, that I think would be a good thing for our comprehensive plan. And I will stop there. Thank you. Thank you. I have just a sort of process question under this. We have obviously received our draft goals and objectives, and those are being commented on. But there's also with each

[00:37:36] topic report, and how does that come into play with respect to this? I felt like the topic reports were sort of inconsistent as we go through, and that we've got an entire climate action plan, yet little of that is actually reflected in the topic report. So if you could just help me understand the relationship. Sure. So we first shared the topic reports early last year as part of the early round of engagement, and they were meant to provide kind of a base level of trends and kind challenges and opportunities by topic so that community members could get a high-level overview

[00:38:11] of each topic. And so we've carried them forward and tried to provide some updated data where we had it, and we're planning to use a shortened version of those as part of the plan narrative for the chapter. So still very much a work in progress, but mostly just to show some kind of background data and recent trends and highlight some of the county's programs and other long-range plans. Okay, thank you.

[00:38:38] they want to work together on making them consistent in their approach. I think that we need to keep moving, but I want to go through one more time on this one to make sure people have gotten their comments in before we'll be able to move on to the next chapter.

[00:38:55] So through our order, Supervisor Pruitt. Thank you. So something that does somewhat leap off the page to me with this chapter, we touch it in our historic and cultural assets later, but it seems very central when we're talking about environmental issues is issues of equity and environmental justice. When you look at my district, the people who are disproportionately paying more for their utility costs, the people who are experiencing higher heat indexes, the people who have less tree canopies, are people who are living in neighborhoods that are currently

[00:39:30] and or historically more racially diverse and more impoverished. That seems like it bears explicit lampshading, highlighting in our plan and how we think about addressing issues of environmental quality. I would very much want to see some explicit discussion of how we are going to make sure that we are emphasizing, highlighting, and even prioritizing the needs of historically disadvantaged populations when we're making these kinds of environmental decisions so that we don't

[00:40:05] re-entrench existing environmental justice issues. I do want to broadly, you know, co-sign a lot of the recommendations that have been made by the Planning Commission, especially with regards to light pollution. I think this is something that's very critical, and I fully endorse everything that Supervisor Malik also said on that. And I do agree with the Planning Commission that resilience is a chapter that's really critical. I am concerned with some of the things that are left unsaid in our current chapter on resilience or rather I should say our current goal on

[00:40:38] resilience. I see a heavy focus on government assets, hardening infrastructure, focusing on green infrastructure but I don't see much about how we might help deal with either a climate shock or a climate strain in a way that's individually facing. First off I should highlight I don't see much disentangling between the distinction between a climate shock and a climate strain, which I think is an important distinguishing factor, right? Is this a sudden crisis that we want to know how to deal with, or is this an ongoing strain? Is this ever-decreasing chill

[00:41:16] hours for our apple orchards? That's a climate strain as opposed to another period where no one can go outside for five days because of wildfires in Canada, which would be a climate shock. I would hope that our comprehensive plan might make those distinctions and talk about the different ways we might respond to both of them. And I would be interested to possibly see greater emphasis on what we're going to do to help individuals struggling through that, possible energy support grants, things focusing on health issues that are raised, infant mortality is

[00:41:50] something that I know, or not infant mortality, excuse me, infant cooling hours is something that is discussed heavily when we have our environmental team up here. These are all things that we could have direct individual facing services and I don't see anything in here that would even suggest that and lastly I was curious if any of my peers I feel like something we broadly gesture when we talk about environmental stewardship are intangibles this is very much a concrete document and I appreciate mr.

[00:42:25] Williamson's discussion of it's important that things be measurable but we also write things in our comprehensive plan to signal values and to provide something can cite to in the future and reference why we're making a decision. I wonder if there isn't a place for us to actively speak some of the intangibles that we see as important. We care about duty and majesty and wonder in our natural environment. It doesn't seem entirely inappropriate that we would say that out loud if we want to be able to invoke that moving forward. I could see that put in some

[00:43:02] some poetic language somewhere in goal five, in goal three, I should say, or elsewhere, maybe goal four. So those were some things that leapt out to me. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Lupisto currently. If you could go back to, okay, that's the slide I wanted. Thank you. I like the last bullet point, especially to make sure that we can track success and implementation because as the board comes and goes, you know, I think it's important to have a history of what we've

[00:43:38] accomplished and what we've actually done throughout the years. I think that's very important because we don't all know what happened before, so I do like that. Regarding Supervisor Pruitt's suggestion regarding majestic and beauty and such, I think that's Those words aren't used, but for scenic in our rural areas, scenic byways and everything that's implied, we can actually, this is a majestic county.

[00:44:16] And the rural beauty is what makes Albemarle, Albemarle, in my opinion. With that, that's all I have right now. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor McKinn. Yes. My comments are not in any particular order, and I just want to make, just because I don't comment on something doesn't mean that I don't agree with it, right, in an effort to save time.

[00:44:48] I think the Planning Commission did a good job with what they have, what we see in front of us. I would like to make a comment. Dark skies, I agree completely. I think we need to start looking at dark skies and our lighting ordinance, which is very outdated. In some of the newer developments, I can stand in the road and read a magazine at two o'clock in the morning. Should not be able to do that. That's just one example. Having said that, I would just add that it seems

[00:45:24] like to me with dark skies, we're not going to accomplish dark skies in this community if we don't have uva and the city at the table with us certainly in my district with uva at the table but i think in general i would suggest and i'm not how sure how to go about this but lupic would be a great um organization well not organization committee to begin that discussion perhaps i don't know but it does that is the one opportunity where we have the university and the city and

[00:45:59] the county together and just sort of perhaps to start that discussion at LUPIC and then roll it out to all of us would be a great idea, it seems like to me. The other things that I wanted to just talk about and my concern for a long time now in the Jewett district, and I'm speaking really in the Jewish district because I'm the densest. I have lots of apartment complexes. I have old

[00:46:35] infrastructure. And I am concerned about how best to protect our groundwater and our waterways. And in my opinion, just an imaginary line drawn does not protect the groundwater in my district.

[00:46:59] The jurisdictional area is there, and I get that. But in the rural area, I have on Hydraulic Road and Georgetown Road, right in the rural area, I have failing septic systems because they can't connect to public sewer.

[00:47:23] It doesn't seem like to me after 30 years that's the right way. We know that there are better ways to protect our groundwater in certain areas. I'm not talking about an expansion of the development area. I'm talking about trying to figure out how to deal with failing septic systems that are 60 years old, that sometimes people see sewage bubbling up.

[00:47:47] I actually have constituents that don't even know that they have a septic system, that they're on septic. They think they're on public sewer. I'm not, I mean, so I'm just trying to figure out how do we actually protect our groundwater.

[00:48:10] And Ivy Creek, for example. Ivy Creek is in bad shape right now, and it is in that same area where we have lots of failing septic systems. And that's the rural area, a rural area of probably, I don't know, I could name Lambs Road, Hydraulic, and Georgetown Road, which is rural, failing septic systems. You go across the road, and we have the development area, and we know by our discussion

[00:48:43] last year, staff found 254 failing septic systems in the development area in the district between the Rio and the Jack Jewett district. That's not the way to protect our groundwater. So I guess what I would be, and I have to ask staff for you all to think about this, what's the best way to come back to us in this highly dense, highly developed area in the urban ring, how to protect our groundwater, whether it's rural or development. Does it mean an expansion of the jurisdictional

[00:49:17] area to just be able to connect to public sewer? Does it mean, I don't know, but we've got to deal with it somehow or another. I cannot continue to have failing septic systems in the urban ring. Groundwater study, perhaps? I'm going to leave that up to you all. The other thing that I am concerned about is speaking, and this goes to areas in both the rural area and the development

[00:49:49] area, our steep slopes, trying to make sure that we have the best software, the best tool, the best way to determine between managed and steep slopes. We had that come up when we had our solar the scottsville the solar farm that we and in gray star over on old ivy road and the

[00:50:19] developers both places had the ability to really in 21st century technology really do a great job in determining managed and steep slopes or preserved slopes um managed and preserved sorry and I just want to make sure we're up to date and we have the ability to do that too maybe we do and again that's not a question you have to answer now but I know there are tools out there that are very sophisticated that could help us determine because we really do want to preserve the right slopes

[00:50:55] but we don't want slopes that came about because we built a 250 bypass to be considered protected and i think for right now let me just double check my notes um i think i have covered the and i will just add to that that after 30 years our topography has really changed

[00:51:31] and i'm again talking about getting back to that groundwater study and looking at even in the urban In the area, the topography has changed, which means that the water is flowing differently.

[00:51:48] I can go to hydraulic road to what is going to be probably a vineyard, and they have completely changed the topography over the last five years on that piece of property. And you can see how it has changed Ivy Creek, right?

[00:52:08] So, I mean, I just think that looking at perhaps, and I guess that gets back to my groundwater study, but recognizing that after 30, 35 years, topography is different, and we're just living in a very different environment than we had 30 years ago.

[00:52:25] And with that, I'll let it go. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you. Supervisor Galloway. So I'll call out, just with the slide that's on there, that last one, the update objectives to be more measurable. And I agree with Mr. Williamson's comments about, and I think there's a place for attainable or achievable and aspirational. So to be able to define that. So if you just want to go to goal one, I'll kind of walk through these. I'm not going to deconstruct every goal. I'll maybe do it on this one. And then I would say that that applies for all of these, which goes to my earlier

[00:53:03] comment about what are the action steps to achieve these things. But I think the planning commission calling out measurable things, for me, especially if we're going to be programming revenues to do those steps, is the only way to decide if it was worth spending the resources on it. Because otherwise, how do we know where we're going? So however that's captured in here, I'm just kind of trusting that by the time we're done, all this will coalesce and be able to achieve that.

[00:53:36] So I think goal one, from a standpoint of stating a goal that's measurable, because it's done by our climate action plan and reducing the emissions by 45 percent, that's a very specific number in a specific timeline. But then I start looking at the objectives, and it seems reasonable that these will help us do that, although I'm not the expert to be able to say yes or no.

[00:54:00] If we actually achieved objectives one through four, do we achieve the stated goal? So somebody along the way has said yes, and then can back that up, and then we'll see it in the action steps. But Objective 1-1, I got a little, this is the one I'll deconstruct.

[00:54:17] The walking, cycling, and transit, I can see why those three would be lumped together. In my mind, as a supervisor, that goes to our CIP, and are we providing the infrastructure to be able to increase the use of walking, cycling, and transit? So it leads me to really pragmatic standpoints of, are we going to put the infrastructure in place to be able to increase the use of this, and are those going to show up in the action steps?

[00:54:44] Or is this just going to be educative, educating the public that you should walk more, you should buy electric vehicles. I don't know how we increase the use of electric vehicles as a government. I mean, we can put out charging stations, we can put infrastructure that support it, but at the end of the day, I get real, I don't know what the right word is.

[00:55:07] From a standpoint of wanting to take actions, I get leery of things that have to change behaviors of people. We can be supportive, we can help educate, we can encourage, but when I start making decisions of I'm going to put dollars, tax dollars to it, and my goals are trying to change behavior, that just gets murky for me.

[00:55:33] So increase the use of walking, cycling, and transit seem concrete because it's infrastructure. We can't increase the use of transit if our transit system just is dysfunctional. And we're working on that, so I get it. Telecommuting, does that mean providing broadband to allow for the capability to telecommute?

[00:55:52] Or is this us saying that we're going to enhance telecommuting within the county only? So these are the things that I'm looking to be teased out as we continue into the specifics. Objective one, action step, action step, action step. Generally speaking, that type of commentary is where I'm at on every single objective throughout all of these chapters.

[00:56:13] I'm going to call out some other ones, but when I see things like protect and support and increase and whatever the verbs are that we're going to use, then the how are we going to do that becomes important because I don't know. It's great if it's aspirational. That means we don't have to pay for it. But if it's achievable, then the comp plan is supposed to say, and here's now the backup of how we're going to get in and get at doing these things. So if you go to goal two, I don't

[00:56:50] have any specific commentary on goal three. Yeah. So this is one where in the goal language itself, unlike goal one where it states a very specific move by percentage we'll have natural waterways and we'll have riparian areas that are healthy plentiful and diverse okay we i think we know where our current state is and we all probably would agree they all need improving then i just

[00:57:25] start to ask well what's the bar that says we've achieved having natural waters and repairing areas that are healthy plentiful and diverse so that's the stuff that i'm getting at i see where these objectives are starting to get there. They seem to make sense in a line, but again, this is to the point of, all right, once we see the action steps, we might go, well, there probably needs to be an objective 3.4 because we're missing a piece of this related back to it. If you go to 4, 4.5, support. I don't, when I see objectives like increase native plant species and remove invasive

[00:58:01] species on county-owned properties, bam, I got it, clean. We've got control over our own property. It's doable. Let's get at it. But now it seems like we throw on a tag on on this objective and support adoption of these actions on private land. All right. Is that just a high five? Go put the invasives. What are the specific steps for it? But I don't like doing tag ons that just seem like good language to throw in there.

[00:58:27] Let's say to our community, the county is specifically stating that we're going to do this on our land. And then if we think it's important to encourage or support or influence or whatever the word is on private land, then that should probably be set up under a different category, in my opinion, or maybe it gets worked out in the action steps again.

[00:58:47] I mean, are these incentives that we're giving people to get the invasives? Is this, hey, we'll come on your land and we'll take those invasives out, we'll get the goats out and get them out there? I mean, what, you know, where I don't want to get into anything that states tied into really things that we can get our hands wrapped around with just tag-on items and these objectives that say, and by the way, we're going to be supportive of that too in this area outside of what we control, if that makes sense.

[00:59:13] If you go to 5, 5.1 seems really specifically connected to economic development. And I don't mean to be giving Neil this much airtime today. But Supervisor Malik also commented on the siloed nature sometimes of these chapters.

[00:59:30] But Project Enable really doesn't get at 5.1 yet. And I should move my notes along too, so I'm on the same page. But expand the presence of industries tells me that, okay, we have target industries that we've stated that we are interested in bringing into the county or keeping and maintaining.

[00:59:51] In 5.1, I don't believe it's stated, I'll have to go back, I glanced it. I don't think it's stated in there that we're trying to bring in industries that are rethinking and redesigning materials. Now, it could be that we're looking for, under the industries we did identify, that they're doing this practice.

[01:00:07] But that's a little different than expand the presence of industries that do this. Companies might do that in some level or measure in their own group without necessarily being a materials repurposer. So I guess maybe I should just ask that question.

[01:00:26] Was this specific about expanding the presence of companies and industries that are processing and reprocessing materials in the county? I will invite up. I think there's a member or two from the Climate Protection Program team if they want to come up and answer that question.

[01:00:44] The phone, I mean, we've had this. We've seen this, yeah. We've got a guy that wanted to repurpose the concrete, and you take tires, and then you repurpose that into a playground. But to me, when I read this the first time, it meant, yeah, from an economic development standpoint, we want industries like that in the county.

[01:01:03] But if it doesn't mean that, and we're just going, We want industries in the county that repurpose their paper that they use. That's a different objective. And the action steps would probably define this better, but I'm just trying to get a sense of it on that one. Sure.

[01:01:19] Good afternoon. Jamie Powers, climate protection project manager with the county. What we were trying to achieve here... We can't hear you very well. Can you speak up more, please? Thank you. Oh, sure. Is this better? Yes, sir. There we go. Thank you. What we were trying to achieve in all of these objectives in Goal 5 was to make sure we had representation from what is called all the levels of the waste hierarchy.

[01:01:45] So thinking about all the different actions one can take in the waste sector that include composting, recycling, etc. And the most important is to think about how we go about redesigning and rethink manufacturing, all that sort of thing.

[01:02:02] we do see the connection to project enable we are in touch with the folks in that department and so I think there is some work that needs to be done to kind of make these things align and that it connects over excuse me to that portion of AC 44 as well so I guess if this is then this isn't necessarily bringing in companies that do the work it's encouraging the companies to have the behavior? I think this would include both. That was the intent and supported as it was by the SWAC

[01:02:40] as well. Okay, great. And I think this as we work through the action items will probably get nuanced out and cleaned up as well. Five, five, reduce the amount of food waste and yard trimmings being landfilled by diverting from the waste stream. How was my question on that? I get it.

[01:03:01] Like, in my mind, it's, again, we provide convenience centers where people can take things and then we divert that material going somewhere else. Or we're educating on, hey, you can do this with your food waste versus just putting it in the, so I guess the action items will get there.

[01:03:20] But I think when we step out and say this is our plan to achieve the overarching Chapter 1, I want to make sure that, you know, if it's infrastructure or things that we are tangibly putting in place to help these things, we need to call that out and not have it just be that, again, that aspirational.

[01:03:41] It would be nice if people would stop putting their yard trimmings in the trash. Does that make sense? All right. I think that's all I got for this chapter. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Malek?

[01:03:57] Thank you. Let me run back to my, make sure I don't miss any of my things in yellow here because I've written down some things based on what other people said. I just, what I should have asked before, there's still to come the rural area land use and transportation.

[01:04:13] So I didn't miss it, in other words. Okay, I saw that it was referred to. The values of the comp plan was, until this draft, an incredibly important part, and it's why the narrative is 300 pages. Because people can look at it and understand what has happened in Albemarle and what's been important to people in Albemarle since for at least the last hundred years.

[01:04:35] Maybe not more than that, but it's for those who are interested, that is the place to go to have just the history. And maybe that is a way to use your topic reports, which I think read very well, and they may need some cleaning up.

[01:04:50] I think in past years, boards of supervisors have had a really hard time dealing with those conflicts of one. You can have great goals that might be, oh my, they might also, you could have two things that are opposite that might both be true.

[01:05:05] The whole, I'll bring you later a picture of the rabbit and the bird to figure out which one you see that I learned about over the weekend, but it does happen. So anyway, I will just ask that we, I think there was some consideration of having it be much shorter, but this is what gets lost when we don't take time to give some extra background.

[01:05:25] And you've done a lot of great work on the background already, so that's fabulous. Let me, I lost my place, just one second. So the mention of Ivy Creek sort of made my hair stand on end because that is like a quarter mile from the South Fork Reservoir, drinking water right there.

[01:05:47] But you could not get closer to polluting your drinking water than right there. So finding a way to, and perhaps there's a word-spending, bad thing to do right now, But a goal to add, we should solve this problem.

[01:06:04] There are going to be lots of different ways to do it, but if we're not recognizing a goal that says we need to solve this, make it possible for these neighborhoods to be brought in, if they're adjacent and already failing, that meets the criteria right there. It's just getting people to do, and it's a great expense for people.

[01:06:22] So having that, some solution there. I appreciate what Mr. Powers talked about with the waste hierarchy. McDonough Brown Dart Design Chemistry was founded here in Charlottesville 50 years ago, and they designed cradle to cradle.

[01:06:38] They invented it. They have worked with Mohawk Carpets and all these other places over the last decades to change their manufacturing processes to have nothing left at the end, but to be able to put it all right back in. So that is certainly possible. It's every time the source materials are so much cheaper to buy new, then we're back to square one again in our national economy.

[01:07:00] So I don't have a solution to that. We have several for food waste we have in Ned's district, the biggest of our local leaf composting and food waste and yard waste people. So that kind of information can certainly be shared out to help us do better on that.

[01:07:19] And I think that's all I had on that. Thank you. Thank you. I want to be able to see if we can summarize to some extent. But my specific comments, I do want to piggyback on some of those that have already been said by supervisors, particularly Supervisor Galloway in terms of measurable outcomes, measurable objectives.

[01:07:43] And this is all highlighted in the Planning Commission as well. So I appreciate that the Planning Commission has, I think, done a very good job in highlighting some of the issues. I think we've already heard several people talk about the overlap between different chapters and the tendency to want to say, well, that's in this chapter.

[01:08:03] And I think that I personally agree that we probably need it in multiple chapters because I do not want to be in the situation, for example, with the dark skies where somebody says, well, that's not really a historic, scenic, cultural issue, so we don't have to worry about dark skies because that's in that chapter.

[01:08:19] But it's also an environmental issue. And similar things can happen with respect to, I see in the notes from the Planning Commission about the effects of housing and equity and how those relate to environmental justice. So obviously there's going to be overlap between those.

[01:08:35] And this makes for a long, comprehensive plan, but so be it. With that, I think that, you know, we've heard a lot of support for the Planning Commission and measurable actions and a lot of specific comments about different items.

[01:08:54] Have you received the feedback that you need? Does anyone have anything else to add on this chapter? Yes. Supervisor Lopisto-Curtain. Yes. I just wanted to bring up under the planning tools for in Goal 5, they talked about requiring developers to minimize clear-cut, preserve big old trees, plant native species, and replace tree canopy.

[01:09:19] And that's what I'm focusing on as far as we haven't been asking that. How doable is that? Because when we clear for a construction site or development site, are we asking them to replace the tree canopy, which is, you know, I know I mentioned solar roof, but tree canopy replacement to me is the most important.

[01:09:46] That is something that we're looking at for the action steps and talking internally as staff about some of the options for tree coverage and trying to build off some of the recommendations in the climate action plan. Okay, because that would definitely help with the carbon dioxide problem, and we need to do that.

[01:10:08] So that was my comment, yes. Thank you. Thank you. With that, moving on. Thank you. and the next topic will be parks and recreation. So there are seven draft goals. Plan for and provide a county-wide parks and greenways system. Recommendations for new parks, greenways, and blueways. Enhancing and updating existing parks. Connectivity, usability, and accessibility in parks and trails. Sustainable land management. Strong partnerships and recreational programs,

[01:10:43] facilities, and athletic fields. So I'll go ahead and skip back through to the planning commission's feedback. So the commission recommended to provide and equitably distribute parks in the development areas and address gaps in where parks are provided. Consider if the county should purchase more land for parks and consider creative funding options and partnerships.

[01:11:06] Emphasize that there needs to be a system of parks and greenways that are publicly accessible and connect those with parks, employment and business centers and housing. Again, updating the objectives to be more measurable, considering where additional parks may be needed in the rural area and opportunities for recreation on rural roads, which also overlaps with transportation recommendations, and then considering safety and security, including cell towers and parks.

[01:11:32] With that, I'll turn it back to the board for discussion. Thank you. We will go through our order um again with the questions first or both um this will i think just to do both just to do both and keep us on track i think a little bit better as well timing move us around right so we will start with supervisor proof sounds good um so i want to begin by noting there's a few points in several of the objectives in goal one where we talk about creation of new parks and greenways and

[01:12:10] later, we discuss the role that also community centers play. And I, conspicuously reading through this, noted that we are maintaining and improving community centers and we are creating new parks. But community center creation doesn't seem to be contemplated in the current plan, which seems conspicuous to me, given that I feel like community centers, especially in some outlying rural communities, are actually really important methods of service delivery And something that in, like, existing drafts of our rural area chapter seemed to be an emphasis of how we're going to deliver certain key government services in the rural area.

[01:12:48] I wonder if there might be a role for more explicit contemplation of the future role of community centers and the role that they could be serving in, you know, expanding government reach deeper into the community. I know, you know, on the south side, Yancey is a deeply important community fixture that we think about a lot in our government planning, and I would hope that other parts of the county have similar things to turn to.

[01:13:16] I also just broadly think that there could be some explicit language contemplating the role of our parks and our community centers in our resilience efforts that we were just talking about. Again, I think there's actual value in, as Chair Andrews was saying, in having this explicit overlap.

[01:13:37] And I think maybe highlighting that more in this chapter could be helpful, highlighting that parks are not just a place to play. They're a place that we can emphasize our overall assets for community well-being. This is maybe closer in the realm of questions.

[01:13:55] Objective 3.1 talks about enhancing and improving and updating infrastructure of existing parks and the amenities in those parks. As a blanket imperative, this seems interesting to me because it is nonspecific but seems to create like a constant onus to always be expanding or improving or in some way changing some of our existing parks.

[01:14:25] I think about the park I personally visit the most, Walnut Creek. Love it. I don't know what improving the infrastructure at Walnut Creek looks like. Maybe this could be something where just a little bit more particularity in our objectives could be valuable. If we're talking about improving our parks, I'd be curious what that looks like. The first thing I'd think of is, does that mean there are no longer Billy Goat Trails? We're going to improve away Billy Goat Trails. Something I personally wouldn't like. It's one of my favorite parts of Walnut Creek.

[01:14:56] Additionally, when we're talking about infrastructure and amenities, something that I find deeply resonant about parks is something I immediately notice is whether or not they have publicly available water and restroom facilities.

[01:15:13] I think that's very important, and that's a critical part of equity, especially when we're talking about using them as connectors, and especially as we, you know, in other chapters talk about um making sure that people do not suffer and experience pain when they're homeless homeless people use parks for core facilities for core services and also people who are going to be traveling through parks need to be able to get water during the during hot months they need to be able to use the restroom i would like to see highlighted uh the specific importance of of water and restroom facilities in our public parks and on our interconnecting greenways that's all i have

[01:15:52] for now. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Lupisto-Kirk. Thank you. This is something near and dear to my heart as it is with all of us, frankly. I know we have 14 parks and four community centers. Does the four community centers, does that include the new one on St. John Road in a rural area? Do you know? I am not sure. I would defer if we have any of our park staff that would

[01:16:19] like to answer the question I'm not sure offhand small but good the old Rosenwald school my I'm wondering increasing our parks we receive proffered areas of land when there are new developments and would that be an area if they're too small for schools because usually the school board says well, we want to put a school there in that proper area that developers have offered to us.

[01:16:56] Are those areas that we might consider for future parks if the school district is not going to use it? Future county parks. I mean, that's just a... Yeah, I'll invite Tim Patalino from the Parks Department. That's okay to answer some of the questions. Because I'm thinking of, I'm trying to think of new ways we can increase parks, which is everyone wants to do. Thank you, Mr. Patalino. Yes, you're welcome. Good afternoon, Supervisor Lupisto Kirtley and members of the

[01:17:35] board. We absolutely are looking at proffered park properties. There's a number that are reserved for future dedication to the county for public use. There are some that have been proffered and transferred to county ownership. There are others that are under easement, but we are kind of tracking that inventory and working on mapping that in an up-to-date fashion and working closely with community development staff, just to kind of keep tabs on the status of those things, any impending sunset clauses for transfer of those ownership rights, and just looking at that as a very important way to kind of move the needle on access to parks and greenways. Okay, thank you

[01:18:14] very much. Yes, you're welcome. And one last question that might be in another area, but regarding, talking about community centers, we have the Boys and Girls Club, would that also be an emergency center in case of, you know, in case it's required? It could serve as a, you know, resilience hub or emergency center. And I think there was a project that the emerging leaders in architecture looked at, and they looked at both the Boys and Girls Club and the Yancey Community Center as potential good examples for that. Right. And I'm just wondering if we have identified those

[01:18:49] of our community centers that could be used in case of emergencies for people to go to. We are coordinating with the Parks Department and Fire Rescue and the climate team and others to work on those recommendations. Thank you. No other questions for me. Thank you.

[01:19:06] Thank you. Supervisor McKeel. Sure. Thank you. Just to follow up, I think looking at community centers is really critical, especially with climate change, because we're going to have lots of folks that are needing a space and a place to go.

[01:19:23] I believe, and a community center could serve that, whether it's in a crossroads community or a boys and girls club. So I heartily agree with the discussions about community centers. This chapter is on parks and rec, and again, I'm going to kind of keep it at a high level.

[01:19:41] I agree with everything that has been said about detailing the specific actions and a way to actually go back and look and see if we've managed to accomplish what we're talking. I think all of that is great, but I'm going to kind of keep it at a high level.

[01:20:00] We have a lot of great parks in this community. Most of them have been given to us, which is really wonderful. Hard to deny the, when someone wants to give you a park, it's hard to say no thank you.

[01:20:15] My concern is, how are we taking care of the parks we already have? We don't have a public works department. It gets to bathroom facilities. We can't put bathroom facilities in all of our parks if we don't have a staff to take care of them.

[01:20:36] It's a conundrum, a real conundrum. And I have to say that when I look at the map of our parks, there's one in the development area, one park. Now, I stand corrected, if somebody can correct me, if I'm wrong, but there's one park in the development area.

[01:21:01] Tim, two, he's showing me two. So Charlotte Humphreys Park, and what's the second one? Dardentown. Okay, Dardentown, and I was thinking about that as being a rural area, but it's development.

[01:21:16] area. Sorry. So two. Now, Darden Tower is large, and that's great. Charlotte Humphress is a little small pocket park. So when we talk about where our population center is, and through the equity lens, my constituents can't get to Darden Tower, much less Walnut Creek. So trying to figure out how to get to move the county towards thinking about pocket parks in areas where people are actually

[01:21:55] where there's where there's density or how to get folks to parks that are in the rural area that are inaccessible and i don't and i'm not sure how that could be done to say to tell the folks in in my district or take a bus they they could couldn't even get there and get back in two or three hours much less spend any time in the park so i'm just something to think about um so who takes care of all of the acreage we already have if we're going to start talking about buying

[01:22:33] or or accepting more how are we going to handle what we already have um and i said talked about the community centers can we look at the properties that we already own possibly for example northside library? And I'm just throwing that out. Or maybe, and this is a harder ask, working with some of our developers, for example, Stonefield, which is right in the middle of the urban areas,

[01:23:11] right? Is there a way that we could work with some of our developers? That's a harder ask, and I get that. But certainly, we have some properties and maybe opportunities with an example of like our library, our Northside library would be one example. And I think for right now, I'm going to let that go. I think the big overarching points I think I've already made from my viewpoint. Thank you. Supervisor Galloway. Generally speaking, I think of all the chapters in

[01:23:47] front of us today, this does the best job of aligning specific, more specific achievable goals and the objectives align up to what the goal states. So I appreciate that. I mean, these I look through and I'm like, well, okay, some of the action items are still having to be defined.

[01:24:05] But for the most part, this seems more concrete in a lot of ways. We're going to expand land for county-owned land to put parks on. I mean, that's, all right, I get it. How are we going to do that? And we can do that, but that's very clean cut. It's not support, you know, growing available land for parks and not, You know, it's very sane.

[01:24:24] The county is going to take this on and do that. The I think there was a community line in there that called out teens and seniors, you know, and I think of the urban area. We do have a lot of trails and trailways and things like that.

[01:24:42] But in addition to just walking trails, not that that's not, you know, worthwhile and healthy and enjoyable. I do it quite a bit, but I don't know that that holds my attention as a teenager when I'm doing the same walk the fourth time.

[01:24:59] So what are we doing from that standpoint? When we think of diverse populations, sometimes the diverse obviously is different types of folks, but that age bracket when it comes to parks and recreation, I think really is important. I think we're getting at it. It seems like the language is getting there.

[01:25:15] I think the hardest segment, though, are preteens and teens. especially in the urban areas, if the activities are all geared to eight-year-olds and less, or to just walking, we're losing an opportunity to provide something that gives us benefits in a lot of other ways when that aged population has something to do.

[01:25:41] So I think we're going to get there. I'll be looking forward to the action items on this one. Question 2, too, I had a specific one. Oh, well, that's the development of urban parks, pocket parks, greenways, et cetera.

[01:25:58] So when we're in there, I guess the details will fall out in the action items. But I don't want it to be lost that how to get to urban areas or the call-outs of, like in our small area plan where we said that if it gets redeveloped and there's public spaces put on, that we're going to take over, that we're happy to take that on and then maintain it.

[01:26:22] So I don't want things like that that are in these other areas or plans of county documents that we've already decided to get lost in the comp plan, you know, because if a developer goes in and they go redevelopment and they don't see that stated here and don't think to go to the small area plan, well, wait a minute, the county might be interested in taking that on and maintaining it.

[01:26:42] I hope that's going to be in this chapter somewhere as well. But it's probably under increase the amount of county-owned land that maybe we stated in there somewhere in an action item. That we would, in the development area, we take on ownership and maintenance. You know, like the trailhead that's going to come at Parkway Place or what's that one called now?

[01:27:00] Ryo Point. That we're going to take that on. So that's the type of stuff I'm hoping maintains or is captured there. Thank you. Supervisor Malek? Thank you. Some of my comments probably spill over into the community themes, which I'm trying not to, but I probably will, so I'm sorry about that.

[01:27:27] But yes, I agree, running water would be incredibly important, but I don't know how we would have bathroom facilities at a lot of places. And I'll jump right to, actually, Objective 4.3 on page 5. New recreation access improvements at Sugar Hollow with partnership with the SNP.

[01:27:46] yes to have the kiosk for the park access but this is drinking water we should not be spending money to build bathrooms and do any kind of improvements that are going to bring more people out there to create water problems for our drinking water so that is one of these tug-of-war type things where every university student sees some unwritten law that they have to go drag their beer out to the blue hole which is now the brown hole because it's been ruined unfortunately on the south fork of the Mormons. And this has been a nightmare for our rescue and our police department for the last

[01:28:23] 16 years at least and probably more than that. So I guess I would like to have a lot of care and consideration about where amenities are going to be improved. Ever since the derecho, there's been discussion about making sure that when funds were available that we'd be able to improve facilities at fire stations and at schools so that they could be used in an emergency like that. I mean, we had 10 days of 95 degree temperatures and no place for people to get cool or, I mean, fortunately the fire departments were able to bring water with the brush trucks so that people could go and get water

[01:29:01] for their livestock out of the dump tank at the firehouse. I mean, the cattle in Earliesville would never have made it without that because there were so many people who had nothing and our wells were all dry and the streams were dry too. So those kinds of existing buildings which have always been the community gathering places for the country churches schools and firehouses is where people cross and the country markets baseball store those kinds of things are also incredibly important so i know that you've

[01:29:33] represented a lot of those very well let me jump down here so regarding the proffered lands for parks i know we've gotten in pickles over the last some time about not getting them quickly enough And so I would encourage all to think about putting those on fast track to get those property transfers done absolutely as soon as possible so that when ownership changes, we don't get into more of a tug of war about things like that.

[01:30:03] The kids, kids have been begging for a skate park in Crozet with Crozet Park Board as well as with the county for a long time. You're absolutely right that they need some place to go rather than just hanging out at the Dairy Queen. So I know we're getting a little better, but it is more than just organized sports.

[01:30:22] There's a tremendous interest for things outside of soccer and that kind of thing. On page eight, and this is a community theme, but it worries me. Expand facilities in crossroads communities.

[01:30:40] So I would beg you to have lots of conversations with the crossroad communities before putting something like this in the comp plan, because the two times that I have had these discussions in the last five years both in the Whitehall Village and in Free Union, they've said, oh no, we do not want to have more traffic, more stuff, more difficulty, more, there are already a constant onslaught of logging trucks and gravel trucks, et cetera, going through all of these places because of the activities in the

[01:31:16] country. So I think that was a, you know, perhaps a wish from someone who didn't live there, and that's a concern. I appreciate the under-accessibility that I would suggest someone research the Clem John Street Park in Arlington, which is at 100% universal access. It is fabulous. I took my three-year-old twin granddaughters there, and it's fabulous for kids in wheelchairs. It's also fabulous for anybody running around, and it's a wonderful melting pot. There are funding

[01:31:53] funding opportunities from foundations across the country who are particularly interested in that particular topic. And jumping back to goal six, partnerships and volunteer programs for collaborating on improving public lands. Improving has to be in air quotes because what we cannot have is unauthorized and ill-advised trail making in places where it's not.

[01:32:23] You look at the destruction of the critical resources at Ragged Mountain done with people who were trespassing and should not have been allowed to do that. And it's only going to get worse unless we draw a line in the sand on this to say, no, this is one place in North America where certain plants are growing and you've just run your skid steer right through there to make a trail that you shouldn't have been doing.

[01:32:47] So that is something that gets my hackles up very, very quickly. And it's a danger when we have sort of generic high-level things is that everybody says, oh, well, great, then we'll just go out there. And people brag about this.

[01:33:04] Oh, yeah, we went out there on the weekends and we did all this with no concern about the fact that this was not invited. So people don't seem to think that their rules apply to them, I guess. The last one on goal five, sustainable land management, protecting biodiversity and ecological integrity is incredibly important.

[01:33:29] And that is different than using chemicals everywhere and to take out a few Alanthus when all you have to do is cut them and put vinegar on them. So we have to be really careful about chemical use that we are adopting blessing or anywhere. we have a safer chemical policy which we need to strengthen and make sure that it's actually being carried out in the way that it was intended when it was adopted in 2010 so anyway those are sort of environmental concerns that we can't say we care about natural heritage creatures and then

[01:34:03] kill them all so that's my concern thank you I'll stop with Parks and Rec thank you I am hearing a of different comments my personal take is that again the planning commission has done a pretty good job addressing some of the needs i think community centers which i've heard several people say is something that i i feel is is mentioned without really having sufficient objectives about what we really want to accomplish with community centers as part of this and i think it's an important component for us to focus on i have a question that's not really appropriate for the

[01:34:41] moment but at some point parks and rec i'd like to get a better sense of the breakdown of what it takes to to care for a park depending upon what kind of park it is because as we look at different goals for example goal six whether we're working with outside partners or doing it ourselves i'm strongly in favor of pocket parks and and trying to get more urbanized parks but i think the care of those is very different from the care of what we need for Biscuit Run or other large parks.

[01:35:15] Back to goal six real quickly, I guess, in echoing Supervisor Malik's comments, I just felt that it wasn't clear to me what was meant by partners. Who's the external stakeholders? Are these, you know, the groups that use those parks? Or are there other partners that we're contemplating? And I like to see some of that spelled out it may come out in some of the actions um are there any other comments at this point from any supervisors have you i just wanted to mention that the

[01:35:50] external stakeholders that could also be in partners that could also be uh using the newly formed parks county parks foundation that would help thank you that would help make sure that things are done maybe properly, addressing Supervisor Malik's concern about people just going out there and doing whatever, you know, possibility. I would also like to co-sign Chair Andrew's point about I would personally appreciate more information and insight on the costs related to maintaining, especially as relates to, I think, the point of serious

[01:36:28] disagreement between myself and Supervisor Malik regarding water and sewage needs at certain parks. I do see that as a really important element of reducing the accessibility barrier of certain parks, but I recognize that there is a serious financial challenge. So I think either a framework for how we would approach that that's baked into the comprehensive plan, or just more information that might allow a decision point on that. And it's interesting as we talk about that, because really we're talking about maintaining, and even if we're talking about pocket parks, what to some degree we're talking about is staffing. And that, of

[01:37:07] of course, it becomes a budgetary issue. So information, I think that's kind of what you're getting at, Mike, is what would we need in the way of, I'm just saying, right? And I'm just, I'm just going to mention that they are putting in a, because Darden Town is a very large park and is co-ed by the city, but Parks and Rec, they are putting in a restroom facility. And I don't know where Tim is, if he's here. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the price tag was approximately

[01:37:40] a million dollars. Anyone? Anyone? We can get back to you on that. I think he's receiving your request and we can follow back up with the board. And we're member Lupisto currently in McKeel. I've got the board interrupted here on your thought process. One of the things that the staff is listening for today, is requests that might be more suitable to address in the budget process.

[01:38:07] And Ms. McKeel mentioned that as it relates to analysis of how much does it cost to maintain a park, what are the amenities within the parks, and looking at staffing and other resources. And so we'll be capturing some of this information. And once the budget is balanced, once the budget is presented to the public as this board knows you have a number of work sessions to go through and right now i would suggest that our staff is flagging some of the questions on the operational questions related to parks to to more appropriately fit those in with the budget process and you can

[01:38:45] also look at that in the accompaniment of competing needs across the county as well right and that's why i mentioned that because there is a huge there's a price tag especially if there's not water and sewer there but there there is a price tag to that which is which is fine I mean I'm all in favor of that it's just uh you're correct Mr. Jefferson Richardson it's a budgetary issue for us just following up on that one more quick comment we should we do need to recognize though and this will be helpful I think pocket parks are walkable parks they're not parks that you drive to so at

[01:39:24] Charlotte Humphreys, to be honest with you, we have had many talks in my CAC about the fact that we don't want a bathroom there. We don't want a parking lot there. It is a walkable park for the neighbors. So there's a difference in the different types of parks, just to let that.

[01:39:42] Thank you. I think we can now move on to the next. Keep us going. May I add one thing to just cross my mind? This is perhaps in the action step. Investigate how other communities have used empty urban spaces taken possession of derelict properties or whatever because i know it's in the news now and then in order to create little half acre wonderful places with great big trees and a place to sit and have a picnic or whatever and something as simple as

[01:40:14] derelict properties that we could use for that in the urban right thank you thank you thank you So, the third topic, historic, scenic, and cultural resources, organized into four goals, identify, document, and increase awareness about resources, protect and adaptively reuse resources, community access to resources, and then entrance corridors and other scenic roadways.

[01:40:42] So I'll skip to the commission's feedback. Recommended that in the action steps, we should have specific recommendations for Freetown communities in the rural area and other communities with under-told histories. They said that Objective 4.1 seemed like it was two different ideas together, and it may need to be split into one focused on entrance corridors and another on renewable energy.

[01:41:05] we should consider a recommendation for a historic preservation ordinance since encouragements and incentives might not be sufficient consider stricter requirements for demolition to encourage adaptive reuse and then consider where arts and cultural resources fit into the comprehensive plan and how to build on assets including to support tourism so that would likely overlap with economic development as well and so with that i'll turn it back over to the board thank you Again, we'll combine questions and comments, so Supervisor Brute.

[01:41:39] Yes, I want to begin just by co-signing dang near everything up there by the Planning Commission. I think these are all well taken and valuable points. The only thing I might add to kind of continue a discussion that I think we started on the previous section, and I think the packet that we received helps highlight is the lack of clarity on what we truly want from crossroads communities and what even we consistently mean through them. There are certainly a lot of places in Southern Albemarle and in my own district that we might identify and

[01:42:17] think of as crossroads communities that are not, according to the county, crossroads communities. And when you talk to individual citizens, when I've talked to individual citizens, something that I've been consistently struck by is how people think of occasionally crossroads communities as a, oh, a place to locate services, oh, a place to locate community needs, where I believe they were originally conceived of, as Supervisor Malik might sometimes point out, has pointed out to me before, as a historical preservation tool.

[01:42:49] I think there's still a lot of community confusion on that. There's a lot of, frankly, sometimes personal confusion on it does not feel like we've coalesced around what we want and what we think of regarding crossroads communities. And it seems like this might be a place where we could be seeking additional clarity from that, and I'm not finding it.

[01:43:12] Supervisor Lupista Kirtley. Thank you. I also have questions or confusion regarding the crossroads communities. I know we have seven of those. Those were seven crossroads communities that were designated.

[01:43:30] The map was not very clear for me, so I could not really tell where all the crossroads communities were. So that would be helpful to know where they are. I'm concerned because Supervisor Malek was saying ask the people if they want it to be a crossroads community, right?

[01:43:51] And then we have other parts. I was clarifying that we needed to, before saying you're going to have dry cleaners and fast food restaurants and things as was suggested in some of the community comment that we need to talk to the people who actually live there right so to get a better definition of what crossroads communities uh would be is that what you're saying yes well i mean we know what they are it's just go ahead i'm sorry okay okay but okay so maybe more clarification there because it's not clear to me um on page 14

[01:44:26] of the recap engagement, you are referencing mitigating the impacts of light and noise pollution to protect dark skies. And I didn't say it earlier, but I do agree. I think with the LED lights now, they're having full force and that's a problem. And I do agree with identifying and protecting historic cultural resources. And the other one is tying in historic tourism and increasing the

[01:45:03] education about our local historic resources and tying that to the CACBB is also, or to do that, I think is also a good tool for us to use. But I don't have any real concerns. I like what I'm reading. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor McHugh. Sure. Tori, I will say just in general, six people, six different thought processes and coming at this from six different directions. And I really

[01:45:40] appreciate you all and everybody in the audience for listening so carefully because we're all human and we read these chapters and we come at it from a different direction and that's okay. But goodness gracious, bless you for having to figure this out. That's why it's 400 pages.

[01:45:56] Well, I'm just saying, we really appreciate it. But I think, in a way, we are somewhat saying the same thing. We just say it in different ways, because we're different, you know, just to say. Okay. I do think that I agree with what the Planning Commission is saying here.

[01:46:15] I think in bullet one is really fascinating, because I think we're getting in that bullet to some of our historic black communities, which I really appreciate and really like. I think that's really good. The entrance corridors and other renewable energy and sustainability, I would be interested in kind of tearing that apart a little bit.

[01:46:38] I will say, and I'm just mentioning this because it's an opportunity, I have struggled with why the ARB looks at our entrance corridors in the process that they do. They look at it before it even goes to the Planning Commission, those entrance corridors, the proposals.

[01:46:59] And it seems like to me that's backwards. Before the proposals are approved, the ARB is looking at them. And I think that causes some confusion in the community and maybe not with the developers, but certainly in the community.

[01:47:18] I've had at CAC meetings the developers say, well, this has already been to the ARB because it's in the entrance corridor and it was approved by them. So maybe we ought to look at that process. Sorry, but that's just an aside.

[01:47:38] And I guess with the only other bullet that I really want to go to on this to expand a little bit on is the arts and cultural. And let me go to my notes. I don't have a whole lot. It is critically important that we continue to support our arts community and our arts and cultural community.

[01:48:03] And a great place to do that right now, I believe, is in the Broadway corridor. I am very concerned that the Broadway corridor is going to be developed and chase those artists away.

[01:48:21] And we need more light industrial. We're losing our light industrial. And that is a corridor that could provide light industrial space along with the arts and culture. I'm just reading my notes. I'm sorry. It seems like to me, as we've been talking about all of the enhancements in that Broadway corridor, and I'm getting very specific here, but we are talking

[01:48:55] about improvements that will cause the property values to go up and to cause other players to come in. And I'm very concerned about our arts community down there. I just think we have to be very careful about how we develop that area. And I will say that getting back to the previous discussion by the two supervisors before me, I think the definition of crossroad community is like affordable housing. It means something different to everybody. And we've got to come to

[01:49:32] some sort of an agreement on really what we mean by a crossroads community. I think the idea that every crossroad community would have a dry cleaners and a Walmart, I think that's crazy land.

[01:49:49] But at the same time, there is a need to have food. Some of these communities are food deserts in a way. And we need to figure out how we can get some of the needed services to those communities without having a lot of spread and a lot of development.

[01:50:11] So looking at criteria, I don't know how we do it, but I do think we need to come together on what we mean when we're talking about a crossroad community. Thank you very much. Thank you. Supervisor Calloway. Actually, before we leave the Planning Commission, that hadn't occurred to me, that second bullet.

[01:50:35] I guess I'm still brainstorming or thinking that through, but I think I do agree with that, that those maybe need to be split out. you know the arts and cultural resources I like I like the question how does it fit into the comp plan they're not necessarily saying it has to go here arts and cultural items sometimes can always be thought of in service of other objectives and things and we can forget or lose sight of that arts and cultural activities are worthwhile in and of themselves so we probably do need to

[01:51:13] wrestle with that idea? Are we saying arts and culture items are tools to help achieve other things? Or are we saying that it's worthwhile in and of itself? And if it is, how does that fit into the comp plan? That's just building on that questionnaire that I'm agreeing with.

[01:51:31] If you go to 2.1, I'm assuming in 2.1 that we're going to... Well, actually, let me ask the question. It's one I don't know. Do we have county incentives and grant programs in place to do this now? I think we have a historic resources staff expert that I mean outside of like conservation easements and those things but specific to somebody say no. Yeah I'm getting I'm getting a no on that question. Yeah so we've got other funding streams is going to find other

[01:52:07] funding besides our own so I'm if that being the case then if we're stating here incentives and grant programs I'm assuming we're going to see what those programs and incentives are in the action items and this would be one that the budget's going to have to i mean all this stuff's going to cost them something so but this one specifically is saying we're going to create programs that don't currently exist and fund it out of our own coffers then i'm expecting to see the details of that in the action items and some of them could also be potentially through grant programs or other outside funding opportunities as well but you state that in other funding streams

[01:52:44] so other funding streams to me says external to the county the first two state county so if we're saying we're only looking for other funding streams, then we can't be suggesting to folks that we're coming up with incentives and grants. I mean, it just has to be well-defined. You know, I did appreciate Supervisor McKeel's ability for you to stand up there and do all this in front of us. I was like, do you have a kickstand behind you or something that's like propping you up?

[01:53:10] If you go to goal four, and I'm sure this is probably going to be included in land use and transportation. If it's not, I'll be bringing it up then too. But I think this is the one place where I'd say we're missing an objective. And that is, you know, objective four one is all about the pre of putting things in. And we all know what high bar we have set in Albemarle County about entrance corridors and view sheds and what ceilings are and the color of tile. I mean,

[01:53:47] it's a joke a lot of times where people are like, oh, debating the difference between two different beiges and things like that i'm not making commentary on that but once the stuff's in place what are we doing to maintain the quality of the design that's been put in place the built infrastructure and this is leading me to our medians and the litter we're making steps on it through the street sweeper and we're doing things but i think we need to get in this comp plan that we understand especially in the urban area that how things you know we we everybody gets nod head nodding when we talk about the beauty of the rural environment and the rural landscape and

[01:54:26] protecting and maintaining that and I don't think anybody disagrees that the urban areas should be looking that way too but we don't put it at the same level as we do to the protection of the rural environment and we need to because most of the people hit town through the urban ring then go out and enjoy and if it looks like hell then that suggests well wait a minute what are what are we doing. So I'd love to see somewhere here, when we think of historic and, you know, the historic resources, that it's not just what exists outside of the development area, that the development area

[01:55:04] is part of the historic resource. We've got signage and wayfinding, and we're starting to do that. But if you're standing at a historic sign, and the litter's up to your shin or your knee, then that's suggesting something that's not appreciative of the historic resource. So I think there needs to be a 443 here that states that, that once stuff is in place, that Albemarle County is going to do the things, recognizing that the action items will have to define it, because sometimes this is VDOT right away, sometimes this is private land, but we need to get at saying it's important to us of

[01:55:41] how this stuff looks, and here's what we think we can do about it, an action item. So I throw that out there is one you can add into this section. The other two items I'd call out in the packet were on page six and seven in the community piece. It may fall into this incentives and grant programs category, but somebody in the community mentioned incentives over neglect, I think, or perhaps, and then there was the thing that they don't like to see demolition by neglect, so those incentives and grant programs i guess could help get at that type of thing like there's

[01:56:20] a historic structure out there and since it's on private land that's just not being taken care of eventually it'll can just be well it's dilapidated we have to take it down but if there's a good incentive or program and we appreciate that then it can target that we can help with the upkeep and maintain it so i'm just trying to connect the line back that i thought that that was a good comment in the in the community section thank you thank you supervisor malik thank you this the historic preservation committee had some really great discussions several months ago about

[01:56:53] the concern that sort of equity was dropped in somewhere in this that didn't seem to be working and i know they shared very good details with margaret and chris too so i'm sure those will be recognized considering considered along the way uh the calling out for the ordinance and the dem and requirements for demolition from the Planning Commission is incredibly important.

[01:57:22] The seeking an ordinance has been ongoing for more than 20 years, and we just haven't quite gotten the political will to be able to say this is important to our community. It is important to a part of who we are. And the fact that other communities, other counties in Virginia have requirements for demolition, and we don't.

[01:57:42] And it's been told that we don't have the right to do it. I don't understand that, but anyway, we need to figure out how to get there better. We also need to more affirmatively recognize it's not just the Monticellos that we're talking about.

[01:58:00] It's the vernacular architecture that is particularly down in the Esmont area, the Keene area. I was down there for something, and part of the historic district down there is all of the workmen's houses, all up and down the roads. I mean, it's so much more valuable than just the big guy.

[01:58:16] And so that isn't talked about very much in here, but I hope that it could be underappreciated vernacular architecture, the regular people's homes. And those are often the ones that get gentrified right away when things happen.

[01:58:32] Now, let me jump over here. Somewhere in here is, or somewhere there's recognition about historic cemeteries, I think. but that is something that needs to be called out because we have a statutory obligation from the state to which we have not done anything to carry out. And so that's something that we should be worried about. Very supportive of all the things in your overview here, the systemic identification mapping, to make sure that we know better where things are. The current Historic Preservation Committee has worked very hard to share information about all the tax credit programs,

[01:59:12] outside funding with any new owners who come along. The detriment is that often they don't get that information in time before the guy with the bulldozer has shown up and run over or torn down and taken home an 1820 log house on the back of the property because the owners didn't appreciate the importance of it.

[01:59:34] These are kinds of things that the whole community loses out on. 2.2, preservation and adaptive reuse. Adaptive reuse makes me grind my teeth because when people buy a historic property and then come and complain that they can't, in order to afford the property they've already bought, they have to be able to change it and tear things down and put all sorts of events there.

[01:59:59] That's degrading the reason that it's on the National Register or whatever, and they're wanting the county to change rules and policies because they want financial support, and that troubles me. The access under goal three, I think that all community members to have physical access to properties is, should be fixed because that's not, I don't think, the intent. And we just need to be careful that we don't do things in print that scare people and make it. What do you mean?

[02:00:38] I, you know, I've spent the last 20 years restoring this house and now I have to have it open to the public. That's a concern. Local view sheds and landscapes, incredibly important. I'm glad to see the light pollution in there because it is part of those historic and scenic resources in addition to the environmental things, and requiring full shielding is something that we can do. It is within our authority. We just haven't done it, and we really, really need to. The entrance corridor.

[02:01:10] Here's the thing. So here's a renewable energy thing, Objective 4.1, a sustainable building in the historic district so i'm not quite sure why that's there um but it's just not necessarily a place to plunk down an industrial solar scale facility um this is sort of worshiping at the solar god and ignoring everything else that is contributing to our community so i think that we

[02:01:43] need to be watchful of the consequences for all the other uses when any kind of industrial project comes before us. And other counties have actually analyzed their utility need and based their approval of solar installations based upon that. In other words, they have no interest, Rockingham, for example, in providing all the solar for some other place. They'll take care their people and we're halfway there already with hexagon but they don't find any need to destroy

[02:02:18] themselves to take care of other to do outside page seven historic buildings in the rural area can be adaptively reused as community gathering places i would my note in blue here was only with special permit and no loss of historic asset in other words we need to be careful this shouldn't just be a by right do whatever you want because these places are part of the whole the whole neighborhood and i really got carried away with my yellow one here okay very appreciative of all

[02:02:55] the work that jesse brickens has done with the his marker the marker program and that department and i think that the hpc wants to merge those two programs together to have them be even more successful which would be great and okay i will stop there thank you all very much for your patience. Thank you. If you could put up the planning commission section here, summary. Yeah, right there. So just running through those, I certainly agree with the first bullet. The second

[02:03:32] bullet, objective 4.1, seems like two different ideas. I very much agree. And I think it's important to recognize if we discuss the overlap between chapters that when we start talking about renewable energy, that that is a discussion that we need to have. It may not be just in the context of where it fits in the entrance corridors but generally where it fits and so I feel a little bit like that's really a difficult bullet point as an objective to try to combine but that same objective 4.1 which was on the previous slide I think has as Supervisor Galloway mentioned

[02:04:10] the mention of design certainly maintenance of entrance corridors this is something that I think needs to be reflected in our uh in this part of the comprehensive plan um and the i guess from there my most significant comment would be that i do feel that arts and cultural resources have been not really laid out in here just sort of mentioned in passing as a word cultural without any specific objectives that relate to those and i'd like to see some expansion uh on that

[02:04:47] So, I don't know if we have discussed enough of the different ideas here. I did have one additional thing I wanted to note. I apologize for letting this slip past me on the first pass, but when I think historic and cultural things, pardon me, when I think assets of historical and cultural value in the Scottsville District, I think, the incorporated town of Scottsville, which is a tremendous asset of essential value and is unique in the county of being our only incorporated town.

[02:05:24] I do think it might bear explicit mention and some discussion of the potential to partner with the town in preserving and working toward strengthening cultural and historic assets. I also would just echo the point that first Supervisor McKeel and then Chair Andrews made about what do we mean when we say culture?

[02:05:44] we say it in the same breath, consistently, historic and cultural, but culture means contemporary culture. Are we talking about street art, graffiti? Are we talking about local theater? Are we talking about artisans and craftspeople? All of these seem implicated, but our objectives seem to specifically actually be talking to that more rarefied and antique culture. So if that is the intention that we're talking about, contemporary culture as well, I do think that might need to be emphasized on one board in objectives.

[02:06:18] I guess I'm going to just follow up on that with when you had the previous comment. We had previously discussed crossroads communities, and I know that appears in this section as part of the topic report.

[02:06:36] But I agree that it's not well defined. I think it's actually worse than affordable housing. I've got a good sense of what that is. i really don't we've talked about it we have some criteria and we really don't have those nailed down and i and i am very worried about the way we're treating it at this point it needs a lot more discussion so yes and can i just add one thing to piggyback on a couple of things i want to just make sure that we talk about litter and we're this is addressing the the litter issue there is litter on the ground that we can pick up and there's visual litter that we see just want

[02:07:14] to make that point because there's a lot of visual litter as well as just literal on the ground and all kinds of illegal signage. And I'm just saying, so I would think about it from the viewpoint of not just the bottle, the plastic bottle that somebody throws out, but the illegal signs that suddenly appear all over the place. Thank you. Thank you. Well, right. And this, this statement would build right on top of that. It's because this, you know, I'm not just calling out the public areas that we can go in and clean up ourselves or we can have vdot help us with etc but it's a call out to legal it's like we have ordinances that say you can't put that sign up

[02:07:52] but apparently we don't have ordinances to say you got to get these damn weeds off your sidewalk that are growing up as tall as they are in the medians and maybe we do but it's not i don't know how we enforce that or if that's a compliance issue but my understanding is it's a right-of-way issue as well just like some of the medians that grow up are private they're not public they're not vdot and then you have to get over after the business so that's in those elements it's to say it's not just oh we need to necessarily spend more money on street sweepers it's also put the put the tools in place to be able to get compliance especially inside the or along the paths of

[02:08:30] entrance corridors thank you thank you supervisor malik i will pile on one more time signage the sign jail, I would hope, will be brought back. We have state authorization. The county signed an agreement with VDOT 15 years ago at least, maybe before me even, way back then, to take responsibility for enforcing the removal of signs and fining $100 per sign for offenders in the highway right-of-way. And one of the many, many things that went away after the recession, during

[02:09:04] the recession of necessity but i hope will be brought back is collecting every intersection in the rural area has first it was the christmas lights guy and now there's something else and then later on it's going to be the tree trimmings and everything else so they do breed like coat hangers in the closet and you have to get them out of there because otherwise there will be hundreds everywhere you turn so that's a request when we're talking about resources if that's a figure out how we collect the fines to help to offset overtime when someone's on their way home

[02:09:38] to stop and pick up all those things and send the bill. So thank you. Sounds like an action step as well. Maybe so. I just want to take a moment here. Everyone's recognized how appreciative we are of your patience, your stamina, and standing before us. We have scheduled all five of these in a row. We have tentatively had said 345 is a recess, which is a full two hours for you to be there. We're going to continue, but I do want you to alert me if you'd like to take that recess at

[02:10:17] some point in between before we get to the other. Otherwise, we have space in the afternoon because we are unlikely to have any closed meetings, so we will be able to just push the next presentation a little bit we only have two chapters left right we have two chapters left and the pace we're going it'll be maybe 4 15 ish half an hour or so do you need a stool to sit on i'm good i typically stand when i work all day anyway so i'm i'm good if you all are i'm flexible all right thank you carry on

[02:10:56] Thank you. So the fourth topic, housing, organized into six goals. And much of this content was drawn from Housing Albemarle as a starting point as well. So I just wanted to note that since that was the most recently updated comprehensive plan chapter. So the goals are increase the overall housing supply and housing choice, increase affordable and workforce housing options, preserve and maintain existing housing, fair housing, ensure homelessness is rare, brief, and one time, and enable community members to age in place. So I'll move to the summary of the

[02:11:32] commission's feedback. To prioritize housing recommendations in the comp plan, evaluating what's most feasible and what should be accomplished first. Increase affordable housing options in activity centers and employment areas in the development areas. Consider implementation measures such as using county-owned land for affordable housing, community land trusts, and allowing some additional housing options besides single family detached houses in the rural area without increasing the overall allowable density. Consider the high cost of assisted living and how that overlaps with other plan chapters. Look for opportunities for

[02:12:07] partnerships, multi-generational housing options, and accessory dwelling units, and consider how aging in place overlaps with service provision in the rural area, such as health care and transportation, noting that preserving existing housing is key, and to continue to support partnerships and programs to do that, and ensure that data is tracked over time and that plan metrics are evaluated to show how progress is being made. And so I'll turn it back over to the board for discussion and questions. Thank you. Supervisor Pruitt. Thank you. So I want to begin

[02:12:41] by just highlighting the exact same objective that Mr. Williamson did, because I think it is actually kind of the central and driving one. That's 2.1. So everything on the screen there is actually in service of the line that Mr. Williamson pointed out, right? All of this is here to set us up to that 10K unit. So I just want to make sure that we're looking at that and everyone's seeing the same thing I am. So I think it's really important that we drill down into this.

[02:13:15] It is not clear to me, and I think it really ought to be, as to whether or not that's inclusive of NOAA's and if we are using a 80% and below AMI threshold there. I would read this, and I see long-term affordable, so I'm thinking, oh, like, 30-year-plus guarantees.

[02:13:34] I see workforce housing, I think, 80 and below AMI. But that's me imputing a lot from, you know, being familiar with the vernacular of this space. So I think what I'm hearing here is that we're trying to get committed affordable, contractually committed affordable units of a volume of 10K or more, which would be really cool.

[02:13:57] That's also wildly ambitious. So I want to make sure we're familiar with this. I've highlighted before people know that I'm like weirdly familiar with Arlington County, Virginia's affordable housing policies because of some personal connections. And I would point out that Arlington is more than twice our size population wise.

[02:14:15] They have an incredibly robust housing trust fund, and they've been engaging this problem for a long time, and their inventory of committed affordable units is $11,000. I think this is still an admirable goal, but I want to make sure we're all fully clocking what that means if we're talking about, first off, if I'm correct in interpreting this as committed affordable, not inclusive of NOAAs and not inclusive of things that are, say, 80 to 120.

[02:14:42] So if that is correct, this is an extraordinary goal, And I just want to make sure we are aware of that as we think about what it means to enable that goal. This would require truly extraordinary funding support. This would require some really generational efforts to enable this, which I should just, I support.

[02:15:06] But I want to make sure we crystallize that adequately, if that's what we're saying we're aiming for. Another thing, another very big theme, and I'm broadly supportive of this document as written, But something that really leaps out to me that I find concerning, and I realize I had to interrogate it myself because it's not something I've been thinking about.

[02:15:27] I do not feel like I read this and see a strategic approach to rural poverty. The discussions of needs in the rural community are primarily focused on the work that we're doing through AHIP, preservation of existing units.

[02:15:44] And we do not talk about the need for housing in the rural community. you can only preserve something for so long. You can only have a building existent for so long. I would want to see something that gestures toward a more strategic and thoughtful approach that is specific to the needs of rural communities. If we say we want people to age in place, if I have a family of more than two children and we all want to age in place, I can no longer do that by preserving existing housing. And this is not saying that I want to encourage more housing, but I think we're already, we need to reckon with the fact that we're already encouraging more

[02:16:21] housing by not taking more action on this. It's just unaffordable housing. It's developments of two-acre mini mansions. So I think we need a strategic approach to this. I might suggest that we should look at things like land banking, tailored housing grants that allow you to work with private landlords, not things that have the same kind of owner's restrictions as the HCV program. We can implement a local housing grant. And also means-tested tax rebates. Those are three different strategies that I think are specifically well tailored to rural poverty that are specifically well tailored to making sure we have housing opportunity in the rural community. This is

[02:16:57] something that's deeply resonant for my district where I have pockets of really severe like housing need in the rural community and people who are also deeply connected with that rural community. I say this as someone who is deeply connected with my rural community that I grew up in and I'm not there because we did not have a systematic focus on that. And lastly I would just point out I have also closely read Housing Charlottesville, and I know that our name is on their tongues in every other sentence when they're talking about solutions.

[02:17:30] And I think we need to grapple with the meaning of that. We are already being contemplated as a critical regional partner in the housing space. I think it's important that we grapple very explicitly with that. If other people are casting their hopes and dreams onto us, we need to be fully leaning in to a regional approach to housing.

[02:17:50] I don't have any, unlike my previous suggestion, I don't have very specific actionables on that. But that's just something I would say. I think regional is increasingly kind of the pro word of the next decade. And I think we should lean into that rather than fight against it.

[02:18:07] That's all I have for now. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Lupisto-Curtley. Well, the good news about affordable housing and workforce housing is we haven't until 2040. The bad news is it's going to be very difficult to achieve our goal, frankly.

[02:18:25] I agree with a lot of things were stated before me. For affordable, for workforce housing, I think there's a good way to achieve that. Frankly, I think we're moving in that direction.

[02:18:40] For affordable housing, I think that's going to be much more problematic. We have the homeless situation for people that are unhoused. We have Premier Circle and such.

[02:18:55] But for affordable housing, I think we do need to look into something, land trust, purchasing up properties, maybe leasing them to entities that, frankly, know how to build really affordable housing, which would be something like Habitat for Humanity, PHA, they know how to do it best.

[02:19:20] But if we have the land, that really makes a difference. And that land can be in some rural areas as far as a duplex, maybe a fourplex, something like that, without fully going in there because we all know you go to the rural areas, you need water and sewer.

[02:19:39] So that's going to be problematic also. But there are people or areas, maybe one acre, two acres, where you could have a duplex, and that could be affordable. But I do believe that we have to look at it in a different way if we want to get affordable housing.

[02:19:58] We're working toward workforce housing, which I think is achievable. I don't think affordable housing, as it is now, is achievable without rethinking how we're going to do that. And just as a side, I'm just going to say on page eight, this is from the community input, but they talked about balconies.

[02:20:20] And I thought, you know, you're right. Balconies are really, really important for people who live in apartments or townhomes, especially apartments. Balconies are extremely important. They give the person the opportunity to be one with nature a little bit.

[02:20:36] So that's all I have for right now. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor McKeel. I have to say I'm going to agree with Bea on this one because what she just said about balconies, I immediately, in my, you know, in my, I could see pictures during the pandemic of people standing on their balconies singing across the streets to each other.

[02:21:01] So while I really hadn't thought about balconies specifically, it is a good point. Now, I'm not sure we want a balcony on every window, but, I mean, it is something to think about. Let me go back to my notes here. It seems like to me we have two types of housing for the most part.

[02:21:24] We have housing for those in true poverty, and we have a responsibility to mitigate and to help. And Premier Circle and The Crossings are two examples of how we're doing that. Workforce housing, which is what we're talking about here, also has equity in environmental aspects.

[02:21:45] But it seems like to me that we so often concentrate on first-time housing, first-time single-residence housing for folks. And I'd like to sort of broaden our ability to think about more rental or at least rental.

[02:22:09] And we have been talking about rental, and I understand that. But I think it's really important that we not limit this to everybody has to have their own house. Rental is, there's a place for rental. And what I'm seeing in this community is that the wealthy are moving, as they're downsizing, they're moving to rental, which is very interesting.

[02:22:36] So I'd like us to think a little bit more perhaps of rental being a win-win in a way. um i worry a little bit about we talk about prioritizing folks to keep folks in the rural area in their homes then how are we going to provide services to them because if we prioritize keeping folks in the and i'm talking about the true rural areas and i'm not saying that's not important i'm just saying then the the other side of that coin is how do we get services to them

[02:23:14] And if we're saying that perhaps a crossroad community or an area that would provide a grocery store or a small drug store or a post office, I mean, I just think that maybe not a post office because that's not critical to health and well-being, but although maybe it is.

[02:23:33] Yes, it is. Yes, it is. I'll take that back. Exactly, because a lot of people get their medicines that way and other things. But I'm just saying that we need to think about the other flip side of that is how do we get services to them. And I do think as we're talking about what I'm seeing happening in the rural area and how we address this, I'm just throwing this back.

[02:23:59] It's just a concern I've had. I see developments that are McMansion after McMansion after McMansion. That's not workforce housing. And I understand that many of them are by right, but we have this five-acre and 21-acre mindset.

[02:24:19] And how is that helping our stock? Is there a way that we should be addressing some of the challenges that we see with those incentives, right? Or maybe we need to come up with incentives outside of 21 acres in addition to this, and if we have.

[02:24:40] And I was just looking at my points here. I think for right now, I have, and I think I've mentioned everything I need to mention right now.

[02:24:59] Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Galloway. I think for the next two chapters, I don't want to get too far down into the weeds on either one of them. We do have a housing album are all in Project Enable in place, and we are actively wanting to do the things that are set up in that policy.

[02:25:19] So I guess at some point, especially for these two chapters, when we get into the action items, making sure we see the threads coming from those two plans that we've said, yep, that's what those are the action steps. So I'm assuming action steps from those will come out and be prioritized in the comp plan.

[02:25:40] Some specifics or overview to this. Go back to the planning commission's page real quick before I go through the goals. um all right if we go to page or i'll hit some of these i think when i go through my notes so if we go to chapter one and by the way the 10 000 housing units were that i forget where that one falls in i mean that was one that i looked at and was like really are we gonna is that okay um but but this

[02:26:19] is a this is a specific and a measurable so we got we got to state what it's going to be and how we're going to get there this isn't and if it is only aspirational that it should be stated as such but if we state an aspirational goal we still need to define what we think a realistic path is to achieve a number of units if that's what we're interested in doing one three the support and increased use of energy efficient design elements and new residential development etc this this particular item didn't come come up this summer when the regional housing partnership had its

[02:26:56] work session with developers and other stakeholders around the table but materials did so if you front load any costs in the construction and building of a home or an apartment building it's going to increase the upfront barrier to get into the unit i don't know so this is a question that i'll be you probably will come back with i don't know enough about energy efficient items in in terms of construction material if it's at a premium cost over items if you didn't use energy

[02:27:30] items. I'm not saying that I'm throwing the energy efficient use of materials out, but if the person can't afford to get into the unit because the upfront cost is higher, they're not going to be in the unit to be able to recoup the financial benefit of being in there. So that's a dilemma that's going to have to be, or at least a dialogue that needs to be figured out. Electric vehicles is a good example of this. Electric vehicles are doing terrible right now over the past year.

[02:28:00] There is a premium to buy an electric vehicle, right? Now down the road, after a certain amount of time, you should be able to recoup the cost of that upfront premium. But if you can't get in the door, you can't recoup it down the road. So this is something that I think has to be discussed. We cannot, we shouldn't just assume that people can afford to get in and have it be a little bit higher or maybe we do assume that and we should state as much or we have to figure out now not just subsidizing getting the units online and making the rent affordable but taking it further

[02:28:34] because we want premium things done in addition to just getting the unit online if that makes sense and I'd say the same for design concepts this is when it comes up like setbacks like you know it costs money to get to floor four and have to set it back well okay but that's going to then make it more expensive for all those units in that particular building. So those are conversations we have to have when we're talking about reducing barriers to affordable and workforce housing. And I'm assuming some of that's going to come out in the action item steps. 3.4, if you jump to goal

[02:29:12] three, ensure safe, decent and sanitary living conditions for tenants. This is a big how. Because I've had, I'm sure, Supervisor McKeel and others have had it. I know Supervisor McKeel's jurisdiction, some in the urban rings, where we get the emails about the, you know, the facility being overrun by insects and things like that. And it seems like when I push that forward for assistance, the county is limited sometimes in how to help. And that can be, you know, whether it's mold or whether it's whatever. So this is the action items here I'm calling out both from a

[02:29:51] legal standpoint and a, like, what are we doing to ensure this? And what control and what authority do we have to enforce it and enforce it not just enforce it but force force the matter um three five i appreciated the call out for the especially for manufactured home parks i mean this is specific for displacement but i also don't want to just presume like right now like we'd all think of southwood is what we're addressing here and we're taking getting rid of a mobile home park or manufactured home park but they're going into a different type of housing type but we also have

[02:30:30] manufactured homes and mobile home parks where that's their home and they don't want to be in a different type of housing type and if we end up getting somebody that buys a mobile home park like out ryo or out burkmar and at some point the rents go where they have to get their mobile home park out of there there's nowhere for them to go in the county or there's limited options for them to go in the county to relocate the piece they own which is the mobile home park not the land underneath of it. So I'm calling this one out to make sure this tag on is not just about what we're

[02:31:04] doing in Southwood, but the action items are about if people get displaced and they want to continue to live in the part they own, where in the county are they going to go and put it and what are we going to do to help that? Goal six, to me, the way these objectives read, and I don't think it necessarily gets teased out in just action items, I don't think the two words at home is captured here in these objectives. I think it assumes somebody's put into a new unit and then they age

[02:31:39] in that place or the community is the place they're going to age in, which is fine. That may be the case. That's what the senior, the assisted living and the other elements are. But when we say at home, we have to realize that, well, if they're aging in place and in their community, they've been in the home for a long time. And I don't see objectives here that are going to continually help them stay in the home long term. And it probably gets to like what Supervisor McKeel said about services. I know that our tax incentives for the elderly is going to help with that. So I know there's elements of this there, but when I read those objectives, it just stood out that it

[02:32:15] doesn't seem to me that at home is being addressed. The other part of the statement is. And then this is a general statement for the whole housing piece. And I forget which goals it's in, but I don't need to go find it. But we often, when developers bring us rezonings, when we're increasing density. And then it seems when I was reading through this language a lot of time, we presume we've got, and I've said this before, effective transit systems in place, effective pedestrian infrastructure in place, and that everywhere is an employment center. But we don't

[02:32:53] think about in terms of across town and somebody living in hydraulic that works on pantops. Well, they're not going to walk. They could. It's going to take a while. And there's no transit system that gets them to work in a way that jumping in a car can make it happen, well, depending on the time of day can take a half an hour or more. So I get real leery sometimes when we talk about making sure we do housing development, workforce and affordable housing in areas that are on transit lines, near employment centers, and are walkable when we know that we don't necessarily have the

[02:33:30] effective transit walkable communities and employment centers there. So in the action items Versus getting to the nitty-gritty of the housing pieces, we need to make sure we're saying, well, here's what we're, you know, this has to pull in.

[02:33:51] We're going to put the sidewalks in here. We're going to put the microtransit. I mean, hopefully, if it works out, that that becomes a workable system. But let's not presume that, you know, we're going to just say yes to developments in places where we know the transit comes once every half an hour or once every hour.

[02:34:09] And that's not functional for somebody that has to go to work without a car. I happened to be doing a driving tour yesterday of my district, and a gentleman was walking around the corner into Mallside Forest with a food lion bag.

[02:34:26] And this is rounding putt-putt. So the grocery store that he went to was maybe, I presume, that he got to Food Lion at some point, but probably then walked from there because there is a transit stop right behind the food line on Hillsdale.

[02:34:43] but then he has to get across miss four o'clock in the afternoon he had to get across rio road at putt-putt which there you go i can't run that fence um but yet we would say if any development came right now in in around putt-putt and they said the the rationale that would be given for putting a development there and density there is because it's an urban center it's on a transit line it's got access to workplaces and employment centers well i'd like to tell that guy that and see what he thinks. So when we're doing these big type of planning at the comprehensive plan level,

[02:35:19] we've got to address that in some way that the county says we're going to take responsibility for that and just not assume our urban ring is set up to support the density that we all say needs to be there. There are other elements that have to be put in place for folks that are going to be in those affordable units. Thank you. Jim, can I just piggyback on something Ned just said?

[02:35:42] Do you mind? It's quick. I turned my page, and Ned is exactly right, when he mentioned the current housing stock, because I had a note on my second page that says preservation of existing affordable and workforce housing.

[02:36:00] My concern in my district over folks that are living in apartment complexes that are run by property management companies, I get calls about them all the time, and we've got to figure out a way. to wrap our arms around this and get them inspected.

[02:36:19] I don't know what it is, but we're talking mold. I mean, I could go on and on with some of the issues, and we have no ability in the county to do anything. We have property management companies that are probably doing a really good job.

[02:36:34] It's just that I hear about the ones that aren't, and it's a problem, because that is a lot of our workforce housing in the older, you know, urban areas. Sorry, but thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Mellon. Thank you, and I agree with that.

[02:36:51] Many, many things that have already been said. I very much support and appreciate the comments about housing having so many other components with it, that housing affordability goes way beyond the housing unit itself, and I agree, because it's the budget at the end of the month or maybe in the third week of the month when the money is gone, and what do you do from there on?

[02:37:15] It has been a great concern of mine for years about our focus on that first-time buyer and the lack of affordability over a long period of time. So to me, that's a really important change that's being considered in housing of Albemarle to make sure that if taxpayer dollars are being invested, that the taxpayers see a 30-year requirement to stay affordable in order to make that worthwhile.

[02:37:42] The transportation connection is incredibly important. It was mentioned about the large lots in the rural area, and there have been many people who have suggested the failure of the 21-acre minimum that was adopted in 1980.

[02:38:00] No one then thought that anyone would ever have a 21-acre front yard. It was supposed to be the building envelope and septic field and well safe enough, two acres at most, and everything else, the ideal was that it was going to be maintained in agriculture.

[02:38:16] Sadly, that is not happening. So there may be another way to do that. The downzoning gave those five two-acre lot exceptions per parcel, which is how we got so many very small lots in the rural area, houses very close to each other, barely enough room for the well and septic on each one when they're right next to each other.

[02:38:35] like that. It's the residue where we're getting the costs are out of this world. And there may be some other thinking that can happen, probably not in the comp plan, but I thought I better mention it now so that it didn't get away from me. But that has been something that has been said to me many, many times. Only in passing in this document so far, our real emphasis on the smaller housing types that we've talked about a lot. The middle density that wasn't so much the 12 units per acre, but it was going to be met by having the bungalow courts and the smaller

[02:39:14] houses. And this brings to mind what an elder in 2008 at Southwood said to me, don't make me go live in some apartment. I'd rather stay in my decrepit trailer and have a place for my chicken and my garden, don't make me go there. I won't. So regarding what you said about different people want different places to live, we have got to emphasize where we can.

[02:39:42] Our expectations for if there is higher density for something, it needs to be something other than twice as many apartment units. It needs to be different choices for people. So that, I just wanted to mention that before that got away. Energy materials, are the costs really higher to have decent insulation they may be a little higher to have really good windows as opposed to the windows that lots of our track developers put in that are leaving daylight all around i mean we've we've all heard the horror stories when leap started their weatherization visits brand

[02:40:19] new house at 600 a month in august for electricity to find that it was daylight around the houses when they ripped the frame off to look at it and so it had not been done properly and we all need to make sure that that does not happen. There are many manufactured home neighborhoods in the White Hall District and provides really good housing for people. The one at the Fairburg and Bright's place on three-notch right across from the Highlands in Crozet is a 55 and older place.

[02:40:52] And about 25 years ago, as leases were up, she took away the old trailers on wheels and replaced them with very well-done modular units. And the ones I visited in 2008, people were buying brand new ones for $80,000, three-bedroom, well-insulated with everything they needed. So I understand the benefits of that. I understand there are, if they're talking about zoning barriers, one zoning barrier that I do understand is that these are not welcome in the county without strenuous

[02:41:26] difficult. There was one that wanted to put in on Dickerson Road right there by GE and I don't know where it went but I met with the folks a number of years ago and thought it was a good idea. So I'm glad that that is happening but there needs to be a non-displacement policy that's much stronger. The Crozet Park that was just approved for renovation and 14 extra units on Adele Street and Park Road, I'm very worried about those tenants because there is no non-displacement for them.

[02:41:59] No, I'm sorry. No non-displacement policy to protect them. There is a limited one. I know when Riverview came up for those homes, those were actual homes, but there was some discussion about it back then, and many of those residents were helped to find other places when that redevelopment was approved.

[02:42:18] But it is a really big concern for me because people have spent their lives here and working here, just like many of those residents who would benefit from our real estate tax waiver program. They've done their 50 here, and they really deserve to be able to stay in their community with their neighbors and churches in their old age.

[02:42:41] A couple of quick things. Let me run through these things here. I don't know exactly whether the 10,000 units in 2.1 is all building permits or just strictly affordables of all different income levels.

[02:42:58] So someone can write that down for me later. When we take on changes in the densities, having the public process before adoption is really, really important to get those to be fully understood so that there can be support.

[02:43:14] I talked already about the smaller lot sizes and smaller house sizes in 2.3. Very, very important. 3.1, the NOAAs, that's absolutely the core of it. The 6.3, the universal design, is something where many long-time residents have made those modifications to their home.

[02:43:36] And if they're forced out, then they have to start all over the place and try to bring the counters down or find a place, which is very hard to find, that is made for someone in a wheelchair, for example. So anyway, I appreciate all of the good work that all of you have done on this chapter and look forward to more.

[02:43:56] Thank you. Thank you. if you could go to the objectives it'll start from the beginning and i'll try to be efficient here on this one just to piggyback on the comments i do think that this question of energy efficiency is something that we'll need to discuss how we go about doing that because you know there may be costs associated with that and whether there are ways to do that without necessarily burdening our affordable housing with those that said we've had discussions about solar in the rural areas and things like that.

[02:44:33] And if we don't find a way to get that kind of alternative energy somewhere, we're going to be in trouble. So this is, of course, one of those places. But going on to goal two, I guess there's been some question about whether there's mixing things up here with the idea of supply being increased by 10,000 units, but also preserving existing units for affordable and workforce housing.

[02:45:04] So I had to question as to whether or not in that 10,000 units, are these two separate concepts or are we somehow saying that we will add to affordability through existing units? There could be existing units that aren't affordable, that could be made affordable, that would help.

[02:45:24] I'm just trying to understand it better. Thank you. Good afternoon. Stacey Pathia, Assistant Director of Housing. It's a little bit of both. Exactly what you were talking about. So the idea is not to necessarily build 10,000 affordable units by 2040. Some of those will be new construction. Others will be finding ways to make existing units affordable for the people who live in them. Some of that is done with, for instance, the housing choice voucher program. So they can use those vouchers to move into privately owned rental housing. The housing is affordable for them as they pay 30 percent of

[02:45:59] their income and the rental assistance takes care of the rest. So that's really what we're looking at here, but also preserving what we have. If we lose units that are already in existence that are naturally occurring affordable housing, then we just need to build more to replace them. So finding ways to hang on to what we have, building new things, and making units that are market rate more affordable for families to move into them now. Okay, thank you. Don't go far.

[02:46:28] I think I guess maybe I'll bring it up at this point or maybe bring it up in connection with goal five that we had some conversations about this and the idea that when we look at cost burdened housing, there are statistics in the packet and the topic report about cost burden.

[02:46:51] And in our discussions, I understood you to say basically 48% of those who are cost burdened are actually already severely cost burdened. Correct. I think it's a really important point for people to understand that this severely isn't just the tail end here. It's fully half of the people who are cost burdened. Correct. So of the families, individuals and families, households that pay 30% of more of their income towards their housing costs, 48% of those spend 50% or more of their income for their housing. And that's really

[02:47:24] concentrated in households with incomes that are 50% of area median income and below. So it's really the families that make the least amount of money or are extremely poor that are really suffering the most. And they are the hardest group for us to provide housing for due to the extreme really high subsidies that are required to construct those units and to maintain them over the long over the long term due to the decreased revenue that comes in through rent collection it's really hard to keep those properties maintained over the long term and so that's

[02:48:01] why it's really hard to do thank you and then if we go to goal six and again this is sort of filling in some conversations that we've had about this and there's a there's a bar graph I believe, in our materials, where it discusses single-family households and shows based on generation.

[02:48:30] And one of the statistics is, of course, that graph doesn't include people who are 65 or older. It only adds up to 80 percent. So basically, it means 20 percent are 65 or older. And I think the number you gave me, which is over 8,500 seniors living alone.

[02:48:49] 5,500 plus age 75 or older. And I think we will need to have the discussion as to what it means to age in place. And I guess I offer here that one of the things that we explore in several places and we want to think about the purposes is accessory dwelling units and how they might be utilized to help people stay in their homes in addition to providing affordable homes. And that may be extended not just in the development areas but into the rural areas as well these are the

[02:49:27] goals that are laid out here I've heard a lot of discussion about the 21 acre rule and it doesn't seem to be reflected anywhere in here as something to revisit but I certainly do hear people saying that we have unintended consequences with that when we end up with 28 to 19 acre lawns instead of actual working agricultural areas or forest areas.

[02:49:55] That may be an important topic for another day. That's pretty much my comments. I want to make sure that everybody else has felt that their comments have been heard and understood. I just have a question for Stacey, if that's okay.

[02:50:12] And Stacey, you led me down this road, so I apologize for the question. But you heard my earlier rant about failing septic systems. So we have what is a very affordable apartment complex of some size just outside of the jurisdictional area, right off hydraulic road, that backs up to Ivy Creek with failing septic system, right?

[02:50:38] So my fear is if we don't help alleviate that, even though it's in the rural area, then the person that owns that apartment complex is liable to sell it and a developer would come in and we're not going to have that good size apartment complex left in our.

[02:50:59] So is that something that you're talking about when you reference trying to help? Do you see what I'm saying? I do, yes. So those are some of the things that we need to consider. if we see a property in that type of condition where the current owner may not be able to maintain it as is or bring it up to code. 60-year-old infrastructure. Right. So that is one of the situations where the county could, before the property goes up for sale, go and talk to the owner and see how we could partner with them to help address the issues that are there

[02:51:37] in exchange for them maintaining some of the units as affordable housing over the longer term. It's already affordable, Darren. The whole complex is affordable, but it's outside of the jurisdictional area, but just by a little bit. I'm just saying. So I'm hoping that, and I hope we wouldn't wait until he had a for sale sign in the front yard.

[02:51:56] I hope not. Anyway, but that's what I'm seeing in the urban ring rural area. Yeah. Okay, thank you. i would like to um if i may so thank you for the clarity you offered uh uh chair andrews i i would with that in light suggest that maybe objective 2.1 could stand for some revision i'm concerned that it sounds like it's currently blending households served with inventory um and i worry

[02:52:31] about this just because i think it's important that we do our best job a role that the comprehensive plan serves is to actually give our community members tools to hold us accountable to and I think it's important that they be able to have metrics that the public can clearly follow and one of those is being able to say oh is the county board taking the steps necessary to fill an inventory gap things and I would be concerned if we're blending households served and inventory together in the way that it sounds like you're describing including things like people who are

[02:53:08] recipients of mobile vouchers, then that's something that's very much behind the scenes and hard to track, and that's something that the public can't reasonably hold us accountable for. So, I personally would prefer to see goals concretely about committed affordable inventory that we're aiming to create, in addition to, I mean, household CERP, but I do think that would be valuable to have those as separate metrics that we're tracking against.

[02:53:37] I actually did have a few brief comments in response to things other supervisors had addressed. I completely co-signed the concern that Supervisor Galloway brought up with Objective 3.6.

[02:53:53] I would also just note, though, that this is something that enabling legislation has been carried recently. Delegate Sia Price last session carried a bill that would enable counties to independently investigate and prosecute instances like what we're seeing with housing conditions.

[02:54:11] And I do think that deserves continued presence in our comprehensive plan, because frankly, she's already said she's going to carry it again. I haven't looked at LIS lately to see if she is by trust that she is. And if it doesn't get past this session, then I think that's creating an affirmative obligation that this needs to continue to be a priority when we're coordinating with our delegation. Even if it's something we lack the power, it's something that we still have a next step that's identified, and I think that's still valuable. I also do take well Supervisor Galloway's point about when we're talking about making sure that people aren't displaced specifically in

[02:54:49] mobile home communities. That means that they are not displaced from their mobile home community. We're all very familiar how our current governor made all his money with Carlisle, and it's by doing just that, and that's kind of the origin story of Habitat's ownership of the Southwood development. I do hope that we have action plans identified around that in the future. Again, I might come back to land banking and having money set aside to help communities exercise their right of first refusal that I believe mobile home parks residents have. Correct me if I'm telling

[02:55:27] tales out of school, but I believe mobile park residents have the right of first refusal if they choose to form a coalition to acquire their own lots when they're offered for sale. That seems like a role that we could potentially intervene in. Lastly, this is just something I noticed while I was looking at it.

[02:55:45] Goal five, I feel like we dance around and don't explicitly state something that, again, talk about public education and helping the public keep us accountable. This seems to be gesturing toward, but not explicitly stating.

[02:56:01] I recognize, you know, our goal says that we should ensure that homelessness rare or brief one time. That's because we can't truly eradicate homelessness. Homelessness is a state that drifts into and drifts out of, could be as short as an afternoon that you're homeless, could be as long as a year. I do think we could say and set as a very clear objective that we want to eradicate non-voluntary chronic homelessness.

[02:56:24] I think that's achievable, and I think we're gesturing toward it. But this might be something that just saying the quiet part out loud might be valuable. Thank you. Because it keeps coming up regarding displacement of people who live in mobile home parks.

[02:56:46] I know that we went through that with RST, where they removed everyone and supposedly found places and everything. Do legislatively or legally, I guess this might be for Mr. Rosenberg, Legally, do we have anything that says that we can't prevent the owner of that property, that they have to remain, or that he can't sell, or that he has to make sure that they all have a place?

[02:57:17] Do we have that, I don't know, do we have that in place now? And do we have the legislative authority to do that? I believe it was in 2019, the board adopted a policy of non-displacement, particularly associated with rezonings, which would have addressed exactly what happens with mobile home parks.

[02:57:40] What the board has not yet adopted are the guidelines to enforce that policy. The ones that were brought forward back in 2019, early 2020, you all weren't happy with them.

[02:57:57] let's just put it that way. And so staff has not brought them back yet for a number of reasons, but we can definitely re-examine those and bring them forward. Okay. So it is tied. That's right. It is tied to rezoning. But if someone does not ask for rezoning. As far from my understanding, no, we would need to be something that the board is directly involved in approving or giving money towards. So a rezoning, or if we were to help fund redevelopment of the park, then we could apply that non-displacement policy, but we cannot do it for buy-write projects.

[02:58:31] Okay. And actually, if someone's going to sell that mobile home park and wants to have everyone move, they would want to rezone. So we would have that authority. I mean, that's an assumption, but I would think they'd want to do that. Okay. Thank you. That answers my question.

[02:58:49] Yes. It's quick. Okay. Just have to say, when asked where I want all that solar energy to go every parking lot every rooftop every brownfield urban but not cutting down forests and productive land so we have lots of rooftops lots of rooftops to do that another day um there you go i if you have the stamina we will we will move to our last last chapter housing i apologize to mr lynch that we are we're running behind but we have uh we knew that this might happen today

[02:59:23] let things go so thank you thank you so the final chapter for today economic development which is organized by four goals lead growth of target industries and primary businesses consistent with the growth management policy support job creation and employment opportunities collaborate with partners to support small businesses startups and entrepreneurs and collaborate to enhance career pathways and workforce development and training So moving to the commission's feedback, the commission noted that there is significant overlap with other comprehensive plan chapters, including land use and transportation and housing.

[03:00:01] Look for opportunities to leverage partnership and funding, provide support for small businesses and startups, noting that it's very expensive to find space to rent or to try to renovate a space when you're a new business that's starting out, finding opportunities for career ladder, jobs, and career mobility, including collaborating with schools, colleges, and universities, exploring sustainable land uses in the rural area that could potentially create jobs, but also considering possible impacts, to consider strengthening the language of objectives 1.1 and 1.2, which relate to development area capacity and having a diversity of sites available in the

[03:00:40] development areas, and having land that is designated office flex research and development and light industrial, and then to consider adding more specific language regarding recreational tourism with associated action steps. So I'll turn it back over to the board for questions and discussion. Thank you. Supervisor Pruitt. You know, to spare our schedules, I'm going to have very few pieces of concrete feedback other than to echo specifically what the Planning Commission has already done us the pleasure of highlighting, and that is I do think it bears repetition.

[03:01:17] and perhaps further highlighting in the draft goals and objectives that economic activity does occur in the rural area. It's normally going to be small businesses. It's normally going to be independent contractors, all manner of things. But there are types of economic activity and economic development that can occur in these spaces that are important to making sure that people can continue to live in and sustain these communities.

[03:01:39] And I think we owe it to the community to think about what kinds of non-intrusive activities can actually be cited and should be considered and encouraged in those spaces. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Lupisto-Kurt. I agree with what the Planning Commission, their feedback.

[03:01:57] I also applaud the employment by the industry. I know it's important for a project enabled to, regarding bioscience and medical devices, business and financial services, information and technology and defense and security, agribusiness and food processing.

[03:02:17] So the question I have when you're saying food processing, would you go in a little more detail about that?

[03:02:34] Barry Albrecht, board, I wanted to address this first. I reviewed the plan and also I've compared it. I want to congratulate the team. They've done an exceptional job of not only leveraging technical resources and overlapping the different plans that we've agreed to in the past, but they've also brought the spirit of smart growth to a comprehensive plan that I don't see very often. So I wanted to make sure you realize that this team did an exceptional job of not only bringing in the technical resources, but also the spirit that we maintain about smart growth.

[03:03:15] To address that particular issue, JT, the deputy, will address that. He's been here a little bit longer than I have. Thank you, J.T. Newberry, Economic Development Office. Supervisor Lupisto, currently the food processing target comes from a reflection of the density of those types of firms across our region. So we have some very big food processors. You think about like the Pepsi plant in the city, but then we also have a number of other smaller firms that are producing a variety

[03:03:53] of food products. And that's what constitutes it as a target industry for our region, the density of those farms in our area. Would that be like Bonumos? Yeah. Okay. It's a good example. Got it. They're kind of biotech and food processing together. And that's what I like about this is there's a lot of science biotech and differing with different partners intellectually and in the in the area to, um, to get to our, our, the goals of the, um, of this and that I'm very

[03:04:31] appreciative. I know they talked about, and I'm going to have to bring it up, the development areas and rural area based on the growth management policy. Could you address that? The growth management policy regarding, and I'm assuming you're going out into the rural areas or looking at that? Sure. So the intent with that goal, one, with mentioning the growth management policy is to distinguish between the different expectations for the development areas and the rural area.

[03:05:03] So while there may be, you know, some opportunities for some development in the rural area, the intent with the growth management policy is the rural area is primarily intended for agriculture and forestry uses and protection of the natural environment. And the majority of new businesses and growth should be directed to the development areas thank you very much and that's all for me thank you supervisor mickill i lost track of where i was i apologize where we were in the order

[03:05:40] um i wonder if this well it seems like to me this is an opportunity at some point certainly not today to look at our target industries it's not that i don't disagree with the ones that we have but i think going back is always a good idea to go back and look at exactly what our target industries

[03:06:07] might be because they can change. And I would say that I think we need to have a careful balance between UVA startups and sometimes industry relocations or industry startups. And I say that because UVA startups often lead to purchasing, and then they leave.

[03:06:47] I mean, many of the UVA startups end up in a few years being purchased, and they're gone. And I just think it's something we need to keep in mind when we're looking at all of our focus being on UVA, or not all, but a good amount of our focus being on UVA startups, you know, coming out of the University of Virginia.

[03:07:09] The other thing that I would add is that Richmond right now and has been talking about reducing their headcount. And when Richmond is talking about reducing their headcount, that's cuts to budgets.

[03:07:25] Budget cuts means cuts to UVA. So it's just something to keep in mind as we're going through and we're thinking about what we're focusing on. And I would also add that diversifying our tax, what we're talking about is diversifying our tax base to a great degree.

[03:07:49] And the economic development reward from our purchase of the land in the Department of Defense is a win-win. And I just want to point that out, that I'm in no way talking about what we're doing with the Department of Defense, because that is a win for this community, and that is not dependent upon Richmond.

[03:08:15] Just saying. I would also like to stress that partnering with public schools and PVCC is really critical, because career pathways, connecting to career pathways for this community is critical, Because whether it's a UVA startup or whether it's some sort of the right type of industry that we want, which we have many of in this community and people don't even know they're there, but they need a workforce.

[03:08:53] So partnering with Almar County Public Schools as well as other schools is really critical. And I would add to that, taking advantage of the Almar County Public Schools center model.

[03:09:13] The center model is a 21st century model for career and technical education. That's what it really is. And we need to make sure we're partnering with them and taking advantage of that model. Let's see what my other notes here are.

[03:09:31] I want to make sure I look at the second page this time. We do need to update our employment, our large employers, because I think that list is outdated. I noticed that, for example, State Farm is listed.

[03:09:47] I just think that list needs to be updated, and I'm sure you would have done that, but it just jumped out at me. And as we're looking at economic development, we have to remember that properties that are, and this is just in our, properties that are designated for land use taxation, we recognize that those lands are not contributing to revenues.

[03:10:22] It just has to be in the back of our mind, for better or worse, we have to recognize that. And also how that plays into our perceived ability to pay in this community, which really comes back to haunt us fairly often.

[03:10:41] So I guess those – let me just double-check my other notes here. I have notes everywhere. Career pathways, center model, integrating, taking advantage of the center concept, target industries, and careful balance of mix between startups and industry business.

[03:11:06] And when I say industry, I'm not talking about smokestacks and manufacturing. I'm talking about what we want in this community. And I think, Jim, I am through.

[03:11:23] Thank you very much. Thank you. Supervisor Galloway. I didn't have any notes on the Planning Commission feedback, So I'm just re-looking at that. But can you go to goal three?

[03:11:42] Generally speaking, I'm happy with the way these goals align with the objectives. I think it would be helpful to make my point here with this goal in front of me, but I don't know necessarily that the whole point is only captured in goal one.

[03:11:58] And I've been trying to convince myself, or in goal three, I've been trying to convince myself for what I'm about to say is captured in goal one. We have a lot of target to bring in new, and we say we're going to support primary businesses and industries that are existing, I'm not satisfied that we go far enough to how to grow and expand for something that already exists.

[03:12:23] And JT, you know we've lost, the Rio District specifically has lost some really good, productive businesses outside of the jurisdiction because they didn't have anywhere to relocate to in the county. So I'm assuming that we get at that through site readiness, diversity of sites that are there.

[03:12:41] Because, you know, yeah, it's great that they know how to start a business and we have places for them to start. But where's step two when they are successful and their employees, you know, increase by 50 percent or 75 percent?

[03:12:59] Now, maybe that could be teased out in these action steps, but I think some of that kind of sense needs to be in here somewhere. and like i said i was trying to convince myself in goal one that will lead to growth of targeted existing primary businesses recognizing the different but i don't know that it's in there so i'm just throwing this out there as a concern that i think needs to be addressed somewhere in the goals and objectives now three two specifically states provide clear guidance and pathways for starting a business great no problem there but maybe we need a three four or bump three three to three four and three three says provide clear guidance and pathways for how to grow and expand

[03:13:37] a business in albemarle county so starting a business means that we're going to be a resource i'm assuming that it's going to be a resource to them of how to do that how to set up what you got to do here's inventory that we know of but in similar fashion because i know your office does the work that if we have if you know if i own a company that has 20 employees and we're going to double that where can we go and then you start helping do that so that's just outlined and defined up front it's the same way as saying here's what you do to start a business well here if you're if you're successful in albemarle we want you to stay in albemarle we should tell them up front here's what you do to do that and then figure out how to help them because that's a

[03:14:14] worthwhile activity and then i don't know if it's an objective or if it's a goal perhaps it's in action items for diversity of spaces available but getting at how we have so few tier four sites in the county how we're starting to focus tier four readiness in one very big section of the county now but how does that having different sites at different tiers not just get all the oxygen sucked out of the room because one big segment but still thinks county-wide to say we still have to

[03:14:51] have other tiered sites ready for the other things that project enable says and where where can we fit that in here either as an objectives i think that should rise to the goal or objective level not just be at the action step item.

[03:15:10] Now, Project Enable, where was that? I lost my page number. I mean, Goal 1 of Project Enable says strengthen existing business retention and or expansion to help existing businesses be successful.

[03:15:28] So it's our Goal 1. So we need to get that elements of that, I think, more into the comp plan in addition to what's already there, which I think is well done. Thank you. Thank you.

[03:15:44] Supervisor Malek. Thank you very much, and yes, I appreciate everything that has been written here. Just a couple of things. I can't resist being a grammar monster here. In goal one, how will the county lead the growth as opposed to support or encourage?

[03:16:04] I'll just leave that thought with you all to think about because I don't have anything else. Objective 1.2, I agree completely, and we need to be very careful to stop changing our light industrial zoning to residential every time we have to. or even asked we need to say no we we're saving that for something else because this is how we got into this mess to begin with um 1.3 it's not always county barriers and getting waivers it is investing in poor quality land that has a lower cost because of its its constraints and then

[03:16:42] expecting the county to just get rid of all the rules so they can do whatever they want it so So that's always been a frustration for me. The tourism agent success in 2.6, we have a real tendency to kill the goose that lay the golden egg, and we need to be really careful about that always.

[03:17:01] If we're going to be a tourism place, then we need to be thinking about that as we're considering other things. Goal four, pathways for all community members to thrive. I love the concept, but we have to be careful not to promise things that we absolutely have no possibility of doing.

[03:17:18] So the all is what I'm worried about there. And that's, I've raised, others have taken care of the other ones that were in there. It's something I always try to watch out for. Emphasizing the different, the renovation of manufacturing spaces.

[03:17:35] We have several incredibly successful, both in the Jewett and Rio districts and even, yeah, well, both, even out of the Murray plant on Ray's Ford, which back when I was a kid, they had three shifts, 400 people a shift. And boy, talk about traffic.

[03:17:52] You just waited at the end of the driveway until the shift change happened. And then you went to school because there was no getting out. And we lost them to first to Texas and then to Mexico and then to Southeast Asia. So that's what happens to places like that. But it is still a light industrial site.

[03:18:08] And it is packed with people doing all sorts of different things from making furniture to another Patriot Aluminum guy was there. But he needed more space and ended up going to Flavana, which is too bad. But we can't beat ourselves up about hogging everything.

[03:18:28] You know, our surrounding counties need to have some success too. So that's always been a complaint. I will push back on the land use question about not contributing to revenues. The land use property, the tax is based upon the soil only.

[03:18:48] So all the improvements, all the housing, everything else is at market rate. And the state determines those values based upon the use of the property, whether it's pasture or hay or dairy or growing soybeans down on the James River. So I just don't ever want to have that go unclarified because they're revenues, but they're based upon the use of the property as opposed to being all residential.

[03:19:15] Just like it wouldn't be fair to tax all the residential properties as commercial properties. The use is important. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you. I'll be brief when it comes to what's on here, because I feel like the objectives and the goals and objectives are pretty well stated, and I agree with them.

[03:19:38] And I appreciate what we've done with Project Enable and look forward to revisiting Project Enable. I appreciate the importance of the economic base, the vibrancy, good jobs, and tax base. That said, I'm going to make one comment that I just think needs to be brought up in this context, and this comes into the topic report on page 16 where it says commute patterns measured in 2014 indicated 31,948 commuters traveling into the county for employment purposes.

[03:20:09] Now, there are also 26,000 going out, and you have to pull Charlottesville out of that where it says, I believe, leaving jurisdiction with commuters arriving from is Charlottesville City at about just under 6,000, still suggests not counting Charlottesville, where people, of course, can live and work in the county or vice versa without much of a commute. Surrounding counties, when people live out there and have to work in the county or in the city, we've clearly created a problem with housing. But I think this problem with housing also is suggestive of an issue that

[03:20:45] needs to be considered in economic development as we look at our workforce and wonder where is it going to come from as we look to develop different possible industries so I'm just going to raise that ugly issue as far as what what we're going to do about finding people and finding people homes so that they can live and work and thrive in Albemarle County are there any other comments questions on this? If not, you know I'm going to say something. This is something so foundational

[03:21:25] I missed it until we were sitting here talking about it, but we mentioned in passing in goal two the phrase quality jobs, and I feel like that never gets clarified or emphasized, and indeed other than goal four, which talks about workers who are prospective workers, we never even really talk about the people who are engaging in this economic development, which seems concerning, right? Our loyalty is not to the dirt that a business is on. It is not to the company that

[03:22:00] creates economic activities, to the workers who are members of our community who are actually engaged in that labor and earning that paycheck. And we don't talk about the need for attracting business that is focusing on worker welfare, good labor practices, ability to offer a living wage, and willingness to offer education, training, and benefits.

[03:22:23] And I worry, looking at our own priorities, this could encourage things like warehouse distribution centers. This could encourage things like poultry centers, places that are historically hostile to good working conditions, to worker organizing, to offering living wages.

[03:22:44] And I would wonder if we might want to explicitly say what kind of priorities we would want employers to be extending toward their own workers, people who we're actually representing. That's all.

[03:23:00] Thank you. Any other comments? You have, I think, some closing next steps to finish this up. Thank you. Yes, I'll keep it brief, and thank you all. Really appreciate all the great feedback. It was very helpful, and I know our staff topic experts have been listening here and online, and so we'll make sure to incorporate your feedback and direction along with the planning commissions and county committees and community members' input. So we'll go ahead and move forward with updating the goals and objectives and then writing the action steps for the chapters we just covered.

[03:23:32] And then shortly this month, we will be sharing draft goals and objectives for the remaining three chapters, including the rural area development areas and community facilities. And so that will include a definition of crossroads communities and more detailed recommendations for those also includes the multimodal plan and future land use designations for the development areas and we will be returning to you all for some discussion as well around some of the water and sewer topics that we talked about today for community facilities so we'll be sharing those draft goals and objectives and then going to the planning commission for a work session on february

[03:24:07] 12th and then coming to you all on march 20th for work session on those three chapters and then in the spring we will share the action steps metrics and plan prioritization for community input and then come back to you all and probably break up into more work sessions for for each chapter since we'll have more detail at that point so thank you thank you very much port at this point we're about 40-plus minutes behind.

[03:24:36] Tori, you have done an amazing job with this, and I cannot thank you enough for fronting this. Can we please applaud our staff? Yeah. We've taken up a lot of extra time. We do have Mr. Lynch waiting.

[03:24:52] If he's patient, I'd like to suggest a 10-minute recess instead of a 15-minute recess so that we can get back here and get our next report. Thank you.

[03:29:42] Okay.

[03:36:44] We are coming back after our recess to item number 10, calendar year 2024 real estate assessment update with Mr. Peter Lynch, county assessor. Welcome. Thank you, Chair Andrews and honorable board members. Thank you for having me today. My name is Peter Lynch, and I'm the county assessor.

[03:37:08] As you know, my office is responsible for conducting an annual reassessment, And the primary topic of today's presentation is the results from the annual reassessment.

[03:37:26] However, we also assess newly constructed buildings and add them to the tax rolls. We administer the land use program, and we administer the real estate exemption for disabled veterans.

[03:37:42] In a moment, I'm going to present the overall change to the tax rate. However, to me, the most important part of what I present today is the support of the that we have for the assessments that we we determine. So a big part of the presentation is that information, the sales information we have. First, I want to take the opportunity to thank my staff for the work that they've done on this reassessment. And just for your knowledge, my staff includes nine appraisers, nine residential appraisers, a commercial appraiser,

[03:38:20] a supervising appraiser and my deputy and they the supervising appraiser and deputy supervise the residential appraisers i also have an admin staff the resident the appraisal staff visits properties and they research sales so a lot of the work that you see a lot of the numbers that you see us coming up with is due to the work of the appraisal staff my admin staff besides answering phone calls from from property owners uh process a large number of deeds plats and and other work i have

[03:38:56] two admin staff and a supervisor to supervise them i also have a land use administrator who deals with the the land use program it's very complex program and because uh the work we do it ultimately results in taxes and a tax bill uh the our interactions with the public can range from cooperative to challenging. So the job that all of my staff does can be challenging at times.

[03:39:28] So I'm going to, this first slide is really just an overview of what we're going to talk about. So I'm going to provide the reassessment change and that change over time. We're going to discuss the process, the sales support for valuation, and state sales studies. We're also going to provide additional breakdown of value changes by different groups. We're going to provide land use

[03:39:57] information and we're going to discuss the review and appeal process. So this graph shows over the last 15 years the changes each year in the reassessment from the annual reassessment. This is actually the 2009 was the first year I believe that we did an annual reassessment and change from biennial. The major period you see here back in 2009 to 2013 was during the financial crisis.

[03:40:32] So assessments were going down during that period. And then a recovery over a number of years, seven or eight years, a gradual recovery. And then over the last couple of years, we had some very large increases. Luckily, this year, at least to me, it makes our job a little easier when those increases aren't so high as they were the last couple of years.

[03:40:57] This year, what we're looking at is a 4.07 overall increase to the tax base based on the reassessment. So, as I said, discussing the sales and the sales studies is really kind of the meat of what we do and how we come up with those numbers.

[03:41:21] So, this slide shows that the 2023 sales, which are predominantly what we use for residential properties to determine the 2024 assessments, that they were a little bit lower number of sales.

[03:41:40] And this is, I think, everybody's heard about this in the news. that the sales volume is down sometimes that gets confused with they hear sales are down people in general hear the sales are down really that has been referring to the number of sales being down and as we we show in our in these sales studies the values have actually been rising as the sales volume has been going down so as you see over the last couple years the number of sales

[03:42:12] each year went down 300 last year and then 200 this year. Overall, our median ratio is right at 100%, and we're required to be at 100% by state law. Our variance, and I'll get into a little more explanation about what the variance is, is 5.21, and that's basically how far the medians range around 100% when we look at individual ratios. I also have information on here about the state

[03:42:49] sales ratios that are run by the State Department of Taxation. And the most recent information that's available from the state for a full report for all jurisdictions in the state is 2021.

[03:43:06] We have received our ratios for 2022, but just not the entire state's report. So as you see here, our ratios developed by the state have gone down to 89% and then 87%.

[03:43:23] Now, this is a direct result of the increases of the assessments over the last couple of years. So when I say that we're in 100%, we have just, well, let's go back a couple of years.

[03:43:39] So in 2021, for the 2022 reassessment, we look at 2021 sales. And we determined at that point that based on those 2,389 sales, our ratios were at 100% with the COD that's listed there.

[03:43:59] When the state goes and looks at that data, they're looking at those same properties the year after we determine the assessment and when they sell the year later. So the appreciation that happens between the time that we assess it in the next year causes that ratio to come down.

[03:44:19] So because during those years we had an 8, 14% increases, it caused those ratios to drop between the two different time periods of those sales studies. So I just wanted to make it clear, if you were ever looking at a state ratio study and saying, well, why is Pete telling us 100% when this thing is saying 94, it's saying 89, what is the difference?

[03:44:42] So it's all about timing of the information that's used in that study. And I have a little bit more to share about that. So this is a comparison of our state ratio to the other ratios throughout the state.

[03:45:03] So there are 134 jurisdictions in the state, and the average of their median ratios is 81%, while ours in that year was 89%. So just to show, if you look at 89, it doesn't sound great. One of the items in our FAQ that's attached to our notice when we send it, and it was included in your packet for this meeting, is that how are we judged?

[03:45:30] And the answer to that was the State Department of Taxation does this study to show how well we're doing. So when they're saying we're at 89.1%, the best comparison to that is where are the other jurisdictions in the state? So overall, they vary greatly, but if you look more specifically at the 30 jurisdictions that have an annual reassessment, because the other jurisdictions can fall way behind, they're at 84%, 85% overall, and compared to that, we're doing pretty well.

[03:46:06] So I just wanted to point that information out just so you'd be aware of how that works with the state ratio study. And then this is kind of to answer what is this, this is a graphical representation of what a sales study is. So this is the 1800 and some sales that we've, we've used in this study. And each sale is represented by a dot. The ratio is represented by a dot.

[03:46:36] So if you paid $400,000 for a house and it was assessed at $500,000, you would be at around 80%, you would have 80% ratio.

[03:46:52] So your dot would be at 80% up there and vice versa. If the assessment was higher than the sale price, it would be above 100. So we plot each one of those sales and determine what the median of all of that is.

[03:47:08] And then the COD would basically be how tight are all of those together on that line. So if they were really spread out, the COD would be higher. If they were close together, it would be smaller. So graphically, that's just how a sales study works.

[03:47:29] So now I wanted to get to some actual results from our studies. So this slide only includes single-family residential properties.

[03:47:49] And the whole range of detached, townhouses, mobile homes, and anything that would be considered single family. And it breaks it down by value range. So the final assessment of the property would put it into each value range.

[03:48:06] And this shows that it'll give you the count that falls in each one. But it also shows you how much, on average, the properties in that group are changing in assessment this year. how many sales we had in each one of those groups to support the values that we came up with, and then what the median ratio of that group of sales is.

[03:48:31] Because we don't want to assess properties from $150,000 to $250,000 at 105% and properties from $1 million to $2 million at 95%. we don't it's one of the things we're always looking out for that that our ratios are coming out the same across all or in the same range across all of these value ranges we do the same study for all properties based on different criteria to make sure that our model is correct

[03:49:03] what this slide also shows is an example of if you had a home that was worth $150,000 and it went up based on what that average increase was of 4.4 percent. Based on the current tax rate, if it were to not change, the taxes would go up $53.80 more for the upcoming tax year.

[03:49:34] Similarly, a median value home of $453,000 would have a $146 approximate increase in their tax bill. So this is just to kind of relate the value change to what the taxes might be on a specific property going forward.

[03:50:06] So our land book that we create every year in May has certain ways to break down the properties. And one of those is by magisterial district. The other one is by state class code. And I will get to that slide in a second. As you see here, there is a variance based on which district you are in as to how much each district average change was. The town of Scottsville, which is a pretty small

[03:50:40] number of parcels. Typically, the smaller the group, the more localized, or the amount of change can vary greatly. So, Town of Scottsville generally tracks the other areas pretty well, but in this year, it had a larger increase due to sales that took place in that area.

[03:51:07] I also have prepared, and this has been a request in the past, that I provide you a list of neighborhoods within your district, and I've prepared that email and will send it after this meeting. And it'll have neighborhoods within your district and how much percentage-wise they changed on average. This breakdown is by the state property class code. So the urban residential, the number at the top, is any property that has county water and sewer. So that's the definition

[03:51:43] of that one. Any of the others is really based on acreage that they're considered other residential or rural or apartments or commercial. So you can see that, you know, no matter how you look at these properties or these groups of properties, there's going to be a difference in how much the values change on average. So now this is an important slide because it tells you how much, how many

[03:52:16] people are going to experience a change in their assessment in a certain range. So 58, the majority of the properties are going to experience a negative 5 to a positive 5% change because it's really easy to talk about averages in any one of our groups, but the actual experience can vary greatly. An additional 32% will experience a 5% to 15% increase. So the majority of properties are going to be in that range. And then there will be a number of properties above and below

[03:52:52] that that are experiencing different results. I wanted to provide this slide this year because this is from our records and it represents the year built on each single family home.

[03:53:13] And I just wanted to show, because there's a lot of talk and effort to try to figure out Why do our values go up so much in Albemarle County?

[03:53:31] One of the possible issues is that after the Great Recession, the financial crisis, the number of houses being built went down quite a bit. I don't think this is new news to anybody, but I just wanted to show graphically here how much of a decrease in that activity there was during those years between about 2003 to

[03:53:59] 2017 or so because it's it's a note of noticeable difference and the amount of supply of houses on the market is definitely one of those issues that causes values to go up and especially you know as as it is now, with a very low amount of properties on the market, it causes properties to continue to go up in value. And it's caused especially the increases over the last couple years.

[03:54:34] So now we're going to change gears into the land use. Land use is the preservation of land through the, basically through the restriction of development. So the whole point of the land use program is to maintain uses, qualified uses on a property and qualify for a lower tax assessment, a land use assessment, and protect that land from being developed. Because if you develop it or make

[03:55:08] a change to a non-conforming use or a non-qualifying use, then the property will be rolled back and the taxes recovered. So what I'm showing here is that in 2023 this was a revalidation year. So we went through the process in the fall of 2023 and the results of that basically reduced the number of properties in land use because I believe it was about 160 properties failed to revalidate at all.

[03:55:43] We didn't receive anything from them. So those properties are going to receive a notice at the end of the month that says your property is not in land use, and their assessment is going to be based on market instead of land use values. Now, some of those will reapply, and they'll get back in the program. As long as their use has continued, the revalidation, you know, is just kind of a step, and then a reapplication would cause them to go back under. Some of those have fallen out and the revalidation really just brought it to our attention. So the revalidation

[03:56:21] is really good for being a check every two years to make sure we're in the right place and that properties are properly qualified. But as you also see on here, the deferred value and therefore the deferred taxes continues to climb. And that's because values continue to climb.

[03:56:43] Land use rates are relatively steady and pretty low, but as the market values climb, the difference between that is your deferred value. So that amount, even with the reduced number of parcels, is climbing probably not anywhere as much as it would have if those parcels were still in the program. So the other side of that equation is when a property no longer does you know, what it's supposed to be doing to qualify, we will roll it back. So that can include

[03:57:19] a whole wide range of things. It could be like back in 2016 and 17 when certain areas were completely redeveloped and hundreds of acres came out of land use for new subdivisions. And that's why you see such large numbers during those years. But the number of properties included were relatively low, but that's kind of your classic rollback situation, but it could be that you have a property in which you build a house on land that it was previously qualified, so that

[03:57:54] two-acre area that supports that house is going to be rolled back, or it could be that you just stop your use. You're in agriculture and decide, I'm not going to do any farming anymore, so any one of those, and probably a few other scenarios, would cause a rollback. And these rollbacks obviously add up. And as you see on the right side, the amount rolled back recovers some of that $13 to $14 million that was on the previous slide that's deferred each year. So I did want to point

[03:58:31] out back in 2019 with the help of the county executive and your approval, we added a land use administrator position, the one I mentioned earlier. And this is the results of adding that and having that capability to really keep an eye on this program more closely. We figured out that my appraisal staff really wasn't able to do that job and do the reassessment work at the same time.

[03:59:02] so so adding that position was key to being able to get these kinds of results and to maintain this and that's why you see such a change from the 2019 results to the years after that and then finally on land use we have we used SLEAC use values that are determined by the SLEAC Council this is the SLEAC was set up

[03:59:39] But by state law, and their job is to determine use values throughout the state for each jurisdiction, we don't have to use those values, but we have to consider those values.

[03:59:57] And in Albemarle County, we have chosen to use the values, so this is just a report of what those values are. agriculture is based on a soil class so that's what determines which value within those eight are used and then the the same soil classes are used to determine which forestry quality is also used to determine the rate so the point of this slide is to show that those land use rates have dropped a little bit since last year so especially if you're seeing just a value

[04:00:34] based on land use only, and there's no market component to it, it would be determined based on these changes in rates. And then just some general information. We created 386 new parcels.

[04:00:54] These were created through Platts that were recorded in 2023. We are now, we're up at almost 449,500, getting close to 50,000 parcels now. And just for comparison, last year there were 991 parcels created. So we're at about a third of that rate from what was created last year in Duda Platts. So reassessment notices will be mailed on January 26th. And that mailing will

[04:01:34] include an FAQ, which, as I said earlier, you guys were, it was included in the packet for this presentation. We are also including a small flyer that tells the property owner when they receive it, why is this notice important? I was told during a meeting by someone that, you know, they look at our notice and they say, this is said at the top, it used to say at the top, this is not a tax bill. And, you know, right out the door. And, you know, so don't, don't pay any attention to it because it's not a tax bill. So, so we've changed that. And it now says this will

[04:02:12] affect your tax bill. And the key to that is that when you get your tax bill, it's too late to appeal your, your value. So we, we tend to get calls in late May and June, and it's already past all the review period and the board of equalization period. So it's, that's what we're pointing out on this this flyer this year so that they know you know pay attention to this this notice it's important and then you can throw it away if you want to and then speaking of the review and appeal process so this is what we recommend for property owners when you receive your notice and you see

[04:02:52] your value give us a call and we can explain the process to you especially as it relates directly to your property, your property and your neighborhood. We can provide sales that were used to determine that value, your value specifically, and not necessarily just the overall information that I've provided today. And if necessary, we can set up an appointment to come out and look at the property if for some reason the information we have is not up to date.

[04:03:25] Sometimes that turns into a review request, and we have the applicant or the taxpayer fill out a form so that we can track our reviews. We ask that they allow us to come do an inspection.

[04:03:42] You know, we do want to do an interior inspection because a big part of if they're contesting their assessment is that interior condition, anything we are unaware of that can have a lot to do with the value. And then we'll send results in writing after that review is complete. The next step is to the Board of Equalization. So the Board of Equalization is a judicial board that you all

[04:04:13] set up and provide members to. And those members will hear, they'll hear both my side of how we determine an assessment and they'll hear the applicant's information that they provide. And then they will determine if a change in value is appropriate or if they're going to just keep the assessment the way it is. Now, the board can decide to increase or decrease a value depending, and it doesn't depend on what is being asked for. They'll make a decision based on the

[04:04:47] information. Those hearings don't typically start till about May or June, and depending on the volume they could go through August. They all have to be done by September 1st. The application forms, when it comes to a review, we have the application forms on our website. You can go on the website and you can fill it out and send it in. When it comes to the Board of Equalization, we control that a little more just to make sure we know who has actually provided them on time. So those are available by contacting my office. Then we log it in, we send it to, or email it to, or whatever

[04:05:26] form, get it to the property owner, and then they return it to us, and it becomes an official appeal. The deadlines for the review is February 28th. I just recently found that this is a leap year, but February 28th by code is the day. It's not the end of the month, so you have to have it in by the 28th to be on time. The Board of Equalization form must be in by March 30th, and then we will process those. We will get them to the board and do any hearings we need to do.

[04:06:03] And that's it for my regular presentation. Are there any questions? Yes, we'll go through our order. Supervisor Prood. This was immensely helpful. I have no questions. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Lapisto-Curte. I do. If you could go to page six, I want to make sure I understand or slide six excuse me so the understanding is everything above the red line sold for more than the assessment am I correct or not correct no everything above the red line though this is an

[04:06:40] assessment to sale ratio so everything above the red line is assessed higher than the sale price everything below the red line is assessed below the sale price okay uh if you go to pay uh slide nine? Yes, ma'am. Okay, not sure why. No, never mind. Go to 16, please. Okay. Okay, so for the last

[04:07:14] one, because I had, as you know, a concerned constituent, and when someone asks for this to be reviewed, an appeal, is it the date you receive it, or is it made clear that it's the date that it's postmarked? Because I understand if they do it online, that's not a problem. If they mail it in, that's a problem. But you still go by, you have to receive it by this date, no matter when

[04:07:48] it was mailed? No, ma'am. So we did a review to make sure all of our different communications align this year, and all the wording is the same. But the rule is that we either need to receive it by the deadline or it has to be postmarked by the deadline has to be postmarked by the deadline correct got it okay all right and okay thank you you're welcome those are all my questions okay supervisor mccue thank you i don't have any questions and i just appreciate this good work thank you supervisor galloway yeah thank you for the report i know the items that you'll be sending

[04:08:27] out to us remind me are those spreadsheets or those spreadsheets so slide 10 we'd be able to break that out for our magisterial district that same type of we could just go in and play around with the data yes this this is countywide right so if we want this information for each of our districts we could tease it out in that spreadsheet so that spreadsheet is going to have each neighborhood's average change it's not going to have individual parcels do you have this data by magisterial district for per parcel well like just oh this i do because that would be of interest to

[04:09:06] me to know in Rio, you know, who increased over 15, between 5 and 15. And if this, not the individual parcel, Ned, but just how many. Just this data parsed out by magisterial district. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. Not per parcel, but okay. I can, I don't have that, but I can put it together. I mean, because this would just be, this is the county, right? The way that you did that. Yeah, this is the entire county. So just Rio's snapshot of this, this breakout. Right. Now this is just single family in the county and i can do that same thing within each magisterial industry i think that would

[04:09:44] be of interest to me yeah yes okay that would be probably a good thing to send all of us because i see the nodding of heads i will do that yes thanks thank you if i can just piggyback on when you say you can go in by neighborhood let's so for let's say for example it's a rio district are you talking about specific neighborhoods within the rio district you can do that no yes I can. Oh, you can. That's what we're getting. That's, yeah. Thank you. So what I've, what I already have ready to send you is the average change by neighborhood in each district. Correct.

[04:10:21] So if you're looking for how, so what you're looking for here though, is how many, what percentage of, of your district properties have gone up more than 15% or within each group? That's Okay. Is that what you're? Well, I'm wondering because, for example, if the neighborhood is Keswick, that's very large and incorporates not only part of my magisterial district, but also Supervisor Pruitt's magisterial district. So I'm wondering when you say by neighborhood.

[04:10:56] Yes. So the neighborhoods that we have, these are assessing neighborhoods and they're not, they're broke down further from magisterial districts. So when you're talking about Keswick, It could be Keswick Estates in which you live, or it could be a market area, several different market areas in Keswick.

[04:11:16] Or it could be some of the other neighborhoods that are, you know. It could be Glenmore. Exactly. Okay. Exactly. Okay. And that's how we broke those down. Thank you. And on the market areas, we give kind of a descriptor so you have an idea of where that is.

[04:11:32] Thank you. You're welcome. Supervisor Malek. Fascinating as always. So, as the slide flew by about the SLAAC values, at the very bottom was forestry nonproductive.

[04:11:47] Could you describe what that means? It is the rocky side of a mountain, I believe. So, can't even grow trees. Yes, exactly. Okay, that's why the value is so tiny. Exactly. Thank you. And I will just, we'll talk about this, my United States Postal Service issues at the end of the meeting as well, but this is a perfect example of why landowners need to know that if they throw a response into a mailbox, it will not be postmarked until the next day because it has to go all the way to Richmond to get postmarked. So if one can carry it to your post office and say, please postmark

[04:12:23] this right now in front of me and take a picture of it, at least you will know. Anyway, that's just, that's gotten us in trouble in the past, and I want to make sure that people knew that. Thank you. Ms. Malik, if you don't mind, sometimes they're not postmarked at all. So it is important that they do exactly what you say.

[04:12:42] So it has to be done in person to make sure that they're going to be able to rely on the postmark. I would recommend that they make sure they get it postmarked when they drop it off. If they're waiting to the last day to drop that off at the post office to get it to us, they really need to be careful and make sure it gets postmarked.

[04:13:01] Now, will the boxes here on the property be in operation for these types of drop-off deadlines or is it only for tax payments? So we will, I will ask my co-workers down in Rev Admin to check the payment drop boxes.

[04:13:18] Just to make sure. The next morning, well, that night at 5 o'clock. They'll check it at 5 o'clock on the deadline and if it was in there by 5 o'clock on the deadline. We don't recommend anybody drop them in the tax payment because there's just an ability for them to get lost with all the tax payments.

[04:13:35] Got it. Okay. Thank you very much for the extra guidance. You're welcome. Thank you. I have a couple of questions. Two of them are on land use, so there's a slide about the clawback, which is maybe slide 12, I think.

[04:13:54] Rollback 13. Okay. I just want to make sure I understand, I know that if agricultural land were converted to development, it would be five years. Correct. But this isn't necessarily five years if someone just falls out of land use. It is still five years. The rollback is still calculated exactly the same way. It might be calculated on a different number of acreage. When we say we're doing a rollback on a parcel, it could be only two acres are being rolled back, or it could be the entire parcels being rolled back. Okay, I just want to make sure I understood that. But the calculation

[04:14:29] is still based on five years, the current and five previous years, plus interest, simple interest added to each previous year. Okay, thank you. Slide 15, and I think some of this got answered in the previous question. Actually, no, 14, sorry. So nonproductive, rocky, low value per acre.

[04:14:55] Soil classifications, I assume these are run pretty much the same way, but it means that if you're like an eight, your soil is not very productive, but it's taxed at a lower rate because it's still in agriculture. It's just an interesting difference to me because this is trying to be used as agriculture, but it's not, you know, it's the worst classification.

[04:15:20] I want to make sure I understand it. Correct. As long as it's in production, we're going to have it in the program. It just will be assessed at a lower amount. Are those determined by broad areas and past studies, or do you actually go out and investigate soil types?

[04:15:40] So the Department of Agriculture has done studies in the past, I believe they're NCIS maps. I might have those letters off. But they do core samples in different places, and then they create these maps that follow contours of the elevation.

[04:16:03] And then they determine what type of soil it is, and each type of soil is given a grade from 1 to 8. Thank you. You're welcome. Slide 15 or 16. I think it's 16, but yeah.

[04:16:20] So I know that you speak with an appraiser. there's no, you get information, and there's no risk to that, so to speak. Correct. If you apply to the Board of Equalization, I'm pretty sure that you take the risk that the Board of Equalization will decide what the value is, and it could be higher.

[04:16:37] There is that risk, whether it's a review through us or it's through the board. If we find something that would have, either way, would have increased, caused the value to be higher, it will be increased. It doesn't happen often. It's not a huge risk, but it can happen.

[04:16:54] Okay. I appreciate that. I just wanted to make sure I clarified that both of the review types are treated the same way for that purpose. Exactly. The point is we're trying to find the proper value, not necessarily what is the lower value in that case. Okay. Thank you.

[04:17:10] You're welcome. Are there other questions? Just a quick note. You'll send us this presentation because you usually do. Yes, ma'am. Okay. That'd be great. Thank you. And I'm amazed that you actually got mail that's not postmarked. Is that what you said? I'm sorry? You receive mail that doesn't have a postmark on it?

[04:17:27] Yes, ma'am. We do. I am astounded. If you look carefully at the county mail, it has a generic single circle on it that goes through some mailing service, but it doesn't have a date, which is what's made people infuriated. No, I'm talking about incoming. But the same, when people have said, well, when was my tax bill mailed to me, they can't prove anything.

[04:17:50] I'm astounded. So this is why everybody needs to sign up for e-mail notices and all that stuff that says your tax bill is on the way. Pay attention or something. I just didn't realize that it didn't have a date on it. Or some of them don't have a date on it. I actually learned that this year and talked to the post office, and they said that they have no control over it.

[04:18:09] It's done at the processing center. Good to know, though. Yes, it is good to know. So knowing that, I don't know if you receive a lot of appeals that people complain regarding the postmark and everything.

[04:18:26] Knowing that, is that something that you could or would place on the flyer that you're sending out with the notices, or do you not receive that many? We don't, well, to tell you the truth, I don't pay attention until we get to that deadline.

[04:18:44] And we don't receive a lot of them. There are only a few. Okay. And at this point, it's too late to put it on our flyer. Okay. That's what I thought. But that is a good idea in the future. Thank you. Chair Andrews. Yes. Before you close this topic out, Pete, could you go back to slide 13? Board, I want to ask Pete to take a second. Walk the board back through what happened in 2019 regarding the additional staff member that you brought on board? Yes, sir. So we actually hired him in 2019, and that's where he's kind of started digging into.

[04:19:22] So my land use administrator is a farmer. He knows both sides of this program. He's had properties that were in land use or had other people where he farmed their property and that were in land use. So he would fill out forms for them. So what he did was to start digging really deeply into not just are you doing agriculture on your property, but does your property... One of the

[04:19:55] rules that apply to this program that's really important, and before he started digging into this, we were really not aware of that when the state legislature set this program up in the 80s, I think it was in 81, they decided that you had to meet minimum size requirements on a property in order to have, you have to have five acres of agriculture, you have 20 acres of forestry.

[04:20:28] However, because there were so many properties out there that were smaller, they weren't going to just suddenly take them all out they said okay as long as you the same person owns these these properties that are adjacent to each other and they're doing the activity across them they can continue to qualify by aggregating them however they also said as long as there's no subdivision of those properties any of the properties included and once that subdivision happens any of the

[04:21:01] properties trying to aggregate with them no longer qualify and what Eric found was that that definition of a subdivision really depended on what our county's definition of a subdivision was and over the last 20 years it's changed every I don't know four or five years from it has to be an actual subdivision from one to two properties or more to at the point maybe five years ago or so it became any boundary line adjustment you make to your property is a subdivision. So anything

[04:21:37] that gets adjusted in any way can no longer aggregate. It's not that it can't qualify by itself. It just can't aggregate with others. So some of that caused some properties to come out of the program and it caused some properties to be rolled back. But on top of that, we also are able to pay attention to really what people are telling us in these revalidations. Prior to 2019, we got a lot of paperwork, we got a lot of statements from people, but we weren't really able to say, you know, is this really happening? Does this make sense? Is what they're giving us, you

[04:22:16] know, really what's going on on that property? And he's able to really dig into that paperwork and find what's going on if things are actually changing and did they give us something but it really doesn't qualify the property.

[04:22:33] So that was really the majority of what caused this kind of change and to keep track of things that actually change like when a house gets built and making sure it gets rolled back because in the past that might have gotten missed because we just didn't have the staff in place to be able to track that very well.

[04:22:53] Tara, the reason I bring it up, and Pete, that's an excellent explanation, is that, and I can't remember back to 2019, Mr. Bowman can, but I can guarantee you that we have positions asked for in the budget that were not funded. I know we did, and this was a position that was funded in the budget. It competed with other positions. This is a quality assurance piece of our program, and if you look at 2019 and 2018 versus the years afterwards, there's a significant amount of difference. It's about $700,000. And the program in whole has grown. The previous slide shows that, that the program continues to grow. This is a quality assurance piece, and it's based

[04:23:31] on performance. We're tracking. The board is good to ask questions about how our systems, how our technology, how our investment in human resources, are we getting better at doing what we're supposed to be doing? And oftentimes our examples are not as poignant as this. We are a human resource rich organization. We don't produce product. We produce services and provide services to our community.

[04:23:55] And all the things we do is important. And this is just a poignant example of the management and the performance efficiencies in the finance and budget work. The other thing I wanted to point to, and I know, Chair, you're ready to close up, but Pete pointed to assessment growth at 4.07%.

[04:24:16] That's after two years of 8.4 and 13.46, which is an average of 10.93. So we've seen assessment go down approaching 7%. And again, Mr. Bowman can remember this, but last fall, Dr. Cheryl Bailey was in this auditorium talking and predicting an economic downturn specific to the growth that we've seen over the last two years.

[04:24:43] And from memory, I want to suggest that she was somewhere in the neighborhood of about 4%. And the last thing I'll tell you, board, is that we are continuing to work on the budget and it's going to be a challenging budget process. As you intuitively know, seeing things go from 13% to about 4%.

[04:25:06] Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Thank you very much. Chair Andrews, can I just confirm that what I'm going to provide after this meeting? Yes, please. Go ahead. So I'm going to provide what I've already prepared, which is an email that includes each of your districts and the neighborhoods within the districts and the average change by neighborhood. And I'm also going to provide the information on the slide 10 by magisterial district. Magisterial district only. Was that everything? That's it. That's my presentation. And the presentation, of course. Of course. Thank you very much. I would like to

[04:25:45] just, is that a reasonable workload? I don't know how, is this a change my filters on the Excel spreadsheet and we suddenly have it, or are we asking you to dedicate a significant amount of staff hours for those documents? Thank you for that question. It, thanks to the power of pivot tables, it is a doable, and not too big an ask. Thank you. Is your office notified proactively when there are building permits issued or do you have to chase those down afterwards no we are we

[04:26:19] we actually have an interface between community development and my system that brings those those permits in and something about houses which are under construction there used to be that you would have to wait for a phone call from the builder to say it was ready when now you can do it more 30 60 90 as far as when to bring it in is that right yes ma'am we we actually don't depend on the builder to tell us when they're done. Quite often they're going to sell it and as soon as they're done they're going to sell it and there'll be a sale of it. But if that's not the case we're going to be out there taking a look at them and seeing if they're complete. Also as of January 1st

[04:26:57] of every year we have to inspect and pick up whatever it is at that point. If it's 50% complete we have to assess it at 50% complete at that point. That's great. I think it was during the recession where things just sort of sat and there was silence and things didn't happen. I just want to put in a plug for Eric Keene and the wonderful work he has done because I have seen him also in addition to digging into the details about whether land qualifies or not so incredibly helpful mostly to older landowners who were just or especially the grandmothers you know whose husband took care of all this stuff for years and years and years and there she is trying to manage

[04:27:34] all this and he's really wonderful and Pete as well and helping to explain options and well you It might cost this much to stay in, putting up fencing or whatever, but your increase in taxes really less than that. And so I've learned so much about the process as well from listening in to these meetings, so I appreciate all of your work.

[04:27:53] Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Lange. Board, at this point, we are at item 11, which will be a closed meeting. We have no closed meeting planned, so we're going to take a recess. We have half an hour to be back here at 6 o'clock to start our evening sessions.

[04:28:11] So we're live.

[04:59:55] Good evening. We're back. And we're on to item 13, which is from the county executive. Mr. Richardson, I believe you have our report. Yes, sir, Mr. Chair. I'm here this evening to present the Progress Albemarle January 2024 report for the board.

[05:00:21] And let me take a second and pull that up.

[05:00:24] are different. My laptop says... Help is on the way. Mr. Chair, I'm a little disappointed that

[05:01:08] Ms. Kilroy came in because staff was certainly betting that I would not be able to pull that presentation up. And I think I was well on my way to pulling that presentation up, but we will never know because Ms. Kilroy stepped in. So I'm just getting ready for the grief that I will receive tomorrow morning and all duly noted. But it is the January 2024 report. As you know, board, I'm excited every month when we're able to come before you and talk to you a little bit about our programs, our partnerships, our people, the relationships we have with so many wonderful community partners. And so this is another month of that, and I appreciate the opportunity.

[05:01:48] This is about partnerships. This is the Department of Social Services, and this is the Book Basket Partnership. And it does support our strategic plan, specifically goals 1.2 and 2.3. and that is developing human service initiatives that will assist the community in accessing existing resources.

[05:02:10] And it's also about our partnering with and fostering community partnerships and engagement around county priorities. Let me tell you about the Book Basket. It's a local nonprofit with the goal of encouraging reading through book ownership.

[05:02:26] This Book Basket supplies books for the county's bright stars and family support program. participants and alumni. Program staff bring the books with them during home visits. They use them as an opportunity to build connections, highlight the importance of literacy, and whenever possible supply books in the family's primary language. Bright Stars and Family Support provide direct services to over 250 families combined. And this is just another wonderful outreach from the Bright

[05:02:58] stars program this is a really neat picture this is in december at the albemore county police department annual awards and this is under the goal number one of safe and healthy community the police department partnered with the police foundation and they honored dozens they honored a dozen officers and community partners for their contributions to the community during the 29th annual award ceremony held in december just a couple of highlights board officer of the year

[05:03:32] james potter was the primary responding officer on over 500 calls for service last year and it resulted in over 50 arrests our rookie of the year last year is amanda connor in her first year as a rookie in the police department miss connor made 74 arrests 310 traffic stops 5 dw 5 dui arrests

[05:04:04] and marked over 346 extra patrols and then finally the chair of the acpd citizen advisory committee rca police cac richard hewitt was recognized with 10 years of service quite a friend to albemar County and he's done some great work with our police CAC. So that's just a good picture of a lot of folks that are doing great things. Okay, Christmas tree recycling, supporting this goal number two and that's design programs and services that promote equitable, engaged, and climate resilient community. Board, you probably know that we're currently accepting trees at eight locations

[05:04:44] until January 21st. The recycled trees are chipped into mulch and the mulch will be available for free starting Monday, January 22 at Dardentown Park, as well as Claudius Crozet Park. The county's Christmas tree recycling program has been helping residents to appropriately discard trees and reduce the impacts on our landfill since 1988. And each year, the program collects approximately

[05:05:13] 2,300 trees countywide. Updated new employee orientation information, and this is goal six, which is recruit and retain engaged public servants who provide quality government services to advance our mission this board has done a really good job of supporting goal six and we've talked about it a lot that's workforce stability i've given you data over the past year with the number of vacancies we had and how we've reduced those vacancies down well board it's also important

[05:05:50] when we bring these folks on board that we on board them in the most effective way possible that's welcoming them into our organization and spending time on the front end letting them know how excited we are they're here what they're going to be doing that's role clarification and that's both at an organization-wide level and then further onboarding in departments and so we have dedicated two-day training it was launched one year ago we have onboarded 159 employees that have attended the two-day training since january of last year and board i'll tell you

[05:06:25] that i think we're at a point where if you want to attend some of the broader training that's in the two days just seek to just to see what we cover let me know sometime in 2024 we'll communicate that to human resources and and we'd love for you to sit in just to listen on what is a new employee here coming in the door at outmore county government it would not be the complete two days but it would be looking for the time that would where we would give you the most the most exposure to the impact that's at an organization-wide level. Just let us know. 2023 Virginia Government

[05:07:04] Finance Officers Association VGFOA Innovation Award. In November, Almar County was awarded the 2023 Virginia Government Finance Officers Association Innovation Award for its finance training platform. The procurement team implemented an on-demand online video training platform for local government and school employees.

[05:07:26] The training platform houses the finance and budgets training videos segmented by category, easy to digest, and these are three to ten minute increments. Special appreciation to Dino Turbin for his work on the project. Just pretty exciting, innovative work on how we train folks and recognizing that people are busy and trying to make it easy and accessible.

[05:07:48] Board, I've talked about the visit that Mr. Henry took to Orlando in November. This is Trevor pictured at the Installation Innovation Forum in 2023. That was a couple of days that Deputy County Executive Henry was in attendance at a Department of Defense event.

[05:08:09] He was a guest speaker at the event and he presented on the county's role in the Ravanna's future property acquisition. So I'm going to use this as a segment to ask Mr. Henry to step to the mic, and I'd like for him to take a minute to update the board on what has happened since November, specific to Ravana, with the work that he and our economic development folks are doing.

[05:08:35] Thanks, Mr. Richardson. Chair Andrews, members of the board, Trevor Henry, Deputy County Executive, privileged to be here tonight. Just a quick update related to the Association of Defense Communities. Barry Albrecht, our Economic Development Director, and I will be attending the next national conference, which is later in the spring, and I'll share more about that as it approaches.

[05:08:58] I wanted to just flag that for the radar and awareness. It's up in D.C. It'll be in Crystal City, second week of April, and it's really meeting with policymakers around senior government officials and defense, our defense executives around policies and budget.

[05:09:20] And so it's going to be a good opportunity for us to connect in April. Closer in, however, is we have an invite to present. This will be, I think, my fourth time down, probably third year in a row, at the General Assembly Military and Veterans Caucus.

[05:09:36] They started, the caucus started back up today. It will run, I think, four weeks, five weeks. Secretary Crenshaw presented really kind of the, you know, matters from his area of responsibility and kind of key initiatives in the Commonwealth that he's working on and his division is working on.

[05:10:01] He mentioned our project and the partnership that he's had with, you know, through his staff with Almar County and just wanted to flag that Barry, Emily Kilroy, and I will be down there in two weeks and we'll be presenting, you know, we'll present kind of the 30,000 foot view, but also drill down into the actual, yeah, the legislative priority request and the next steps of work that we want to do. So fingers crossed on that. I'm sure it will go well.

[05:10:31] Several of the caucus members already are aware of the acquisition and the vision behind it. But this will be a chance for us to get in front of all of them together. And so, really, we wanted to just update you on that as our last chance to meet this month.

[05:10:50] And we certainly can do a report out at our next meeting on how it went and any next steps that came out of that. There's some other activities that we have going on with the EDP related to the property and the opportunities, and we expect that that will continue to spin up through the first quarter of the year.

[05:11:10] Mr. Richardson. Thank you, Trevor. Let me give you an update on MicroCat. Since its launch in October, MicroCat has received 4,381 ride requests and has met the ride demand 97% of the time, and that is as of the 14th of January. The industry gold standard on ride demand and meeting that demand is about 95%. So at 97%, we're super pleased with the quality of the customer service that the people making the calls in are receiving. There's been

[05:11:48] a steady increase week over week, except for the week of Christmas, and there's been a peak week of 729 requests. CAT, with the support of CAPE, is now working with VIA to develop the next phase of the marketing efforts to include a larger public awareness advertisement campaign, as well as a hyper-local community outreach, like presentations to the CACs and direct outreach to community groups. CAT will continue to monitor the program and usage to determine efficiency

[05:12:19] and any potential future expansions. Piedmont pitch deadline is approaching. Along with the Central Virginia Small Business Development Center, the City of Charlottesville Office of Economic Development, and Albemarle County's Economic Development folks, we've all joined forces to offer educational programming leading to a pitch competition for local small businesses.

[05:12:45] Entrepreneurs and small business owners in Charlottesville and Albemarle can apply to participate in an eight-week program, which includes business training sessions, access to industry research, business operating tools, and one-on-one advice. Graduates of Piedmont Pitch will complete a business plan and can pitch for up to $15,000 in prize money. Interested parties should visit www.cvsbdc.org to learn more and apply. The deadline is February the 1st.

[05:13:19] just a couple more slides board a hip received this thank you card from a couple that were served in part by albemarle county assisted home performance program this recently happened a hip completed a comprehensive rehab project for this couple that included a new roof and many other interior and exterior repairs some of the work that aligns with the assisted home performance program funding included the installation of the 16 sear energy star high efficiency heat pump, crawl space encapsulation, air sealing and

[05:13:54] insulation, attic air sealing and insulation, removing a chimney below the roofline and sealing the chimney, replacing the bathroom exhaust fans with smart fans, and replacing lighting with LED. Executive Director of AHIP Corey Dimchik felt compelled to share with Albemarle County because this client was considering selling their home as they were unable to afford the costly repairs that were needed, and they were falling further and further behind on their maintenance.

[05:14:22] The rehab project made it possible for the couple to stay safely in their home, and with these needed maintenance upgrades, the house is going to be much more energy efficient. So it's a really good news story for what I think is a real key program and a key partner agency that we've got in the world of climate resiliency and also affordable housing.

[05:14:43] For the last thing that I'll refer to, that is my presentation, but you correct me if wrong emily do they have the emily kilroy is going to put in front of you a report and it's a report of communications public engagement and media coverage from 2023 we'd like for the board to take a look at this when you have a moment let me share a couple of the of the key stats we grew our newsletter subscribers by more than 20 percent in the last year our social media reach exceeds now 1 million on Facebook and X. Over 500,000 visitors reached our web page.

[05:15:23] We hosted 11 projects on our public engagement portal, engage.albemar.org. There were more than 1,200 media stories that we published. That's about 100 per month. More than half of media coverage stemmed from newsletters, press releases, and other items generated by the county. About a quarter were driven by meetings, events, the balance from standing interviews the county has, and reporter-generated inquiries. So, board, take a look at that when you have time. If you have feedback, Ms. Kilroy and her team would welcome that because it is important that Albemarle County

[05:16:00] try to do a good job of telling our story. That's feedback that the board has given us of how we connect with the community and where the tax dollars are going. With that, Mr. Chair, That is the report for January. Staff's available for questions, certainly.

[05:16:18] If you have anything for follow-up, we'll certainly follow up. Well, we'll go through our order, then. Thank you. Mr. Pruitt. I don't believe I have anything to add. Thank you for sharing those updates. Supervisor Lupito Kirkman. Thank you very much, Mr. Richardson, for your complete and wonderful presentation.

[05:16:39] Thank you. Update. Supervisor McKeel. This is really great. thank you very much you caught me up on a few things that i've missed and it's really great to to see those events um and i guess my only quick question is just to be sure i'm clear emily looking for you um i'm planning on sending this out to a couple of my neighborhoods to encourage people to sign up so if i just send them still to the website and to um into the newsletter link that's the way that and they can still choose the emails that they want to receive

[05:17:15] yes yes um and we do about a year and a half ago we launched the monthly digest so for folks who don't want the one-offs that we send okay um you can choose that one and that is probably the best one for the average person we'll just hit you once a month um and it covers everything that we've sent out in the prior month uh some previews of some things of events meetings important topics ahead so if you're very interested in keeping your inbox clean the monthly digest is the best newsletter product for you but if you sign up for all of them you will get everything that we send and i think at max we send three items a week so it's not it's certainly not overwhelming

[05:17:54] to be fully subscribed but the monthly is a nice entry if you're not sure if you want to hear from us and i didn't know about that so that's great i really appreciate it thank you thank you Supervisor Galloway. Thank you, Mr. Richardson. I especially like hearing the initial numbers on the micro cap, so thank you.

[05:18:14] Supervisor Malik. Yes, thank you. All sorts of good news, and I'm really glad that you focused on the AHIP card because they are also partnering with LEAP, and that's another way that county investment is helping to get weatherization to people who really, really need it with those two partners.

[05:18:32] Thank you. I appreciate every aspect of this every month, But particularly this media coverage and looking at the strategic plan, recognizing engagement and engage community, this is how we get there is by being out there and letting people know what's going on.

[05:18:51] And I really, really appreciate the efforts. I did forget. Thank you, sir. I did forget one thing. And this is really for Mr. Pruitt's benefit. At the end of these presentations every month, we'll package this presentation, send it to you by email. And it's got talking points with it in the event that you're in the community and you want to access that for any reason whatsoever and so that that comes hopefully ready to go for board members if they're if they're at community meetings some use it at cac's just to give an overview as to what's going on in county government immensely valuable thank you thank you lord we will uh move

[05:19:27] on to item 14 from the public matters on the agenda but not listed for public hearing or matters previously considered by the board or matters that are pending before the board do we have anyone signed up to speak we do not okay thank you which brings us to our public hearings our first public hearing the zma 2022 00012 arbor oaks towns project uh mr reidelbach is presenting thank you good evening members of the board of supervisors my name is andy reidelbach and i am a senior planner with the albemarle county planning division this evening we are here

[05:20:03] for a public hearing for a zoning map amendment application ZMA 2022-12 known as Arbor Oaks Towns. To provide some context for the location of this site, I've provided the aerial view that is shown on the screen. The site is the roughly square-shaped parcel highlighted in yellow in the center of the screen. It is to the east side of hydraulic road, which is the large road going from top of the screen to the bottom to the west across hydraulic road is the georgetown green

[05:20:43] neighborhood as well as the lambs lane campus of albemarle county public schools and then down at the bottom of the screen you can see the intersection of georgetown road and hydraulic road to provide some context for the zoning for this property again i have highlighted it here in the middle of this graphic the current zoning is our four residential which permits four residential units per acre because this property is just under one acre in size by right the property owner could put three residential units on the property the overlay districts for this property include the entrance corridor overlay district hydraulic road is a designated entrance

[05:21:22] corridor in the airport impact area overlay district as you can see there are many different zoning districts that surround the site including r10 r15 r4 a few small commercial uh commercially zoned properties georgetown green across the street is zoned r6 and then the school campus area is zoned rural areas to provide some context on this site's land use designation in the comprehensive plan it is part of the places 29 master plan and it is designated as urban density

[05:21:57] residential urban density residential recommends residential uses at 6.01 to 34 units per acre along with supporting uses such as religious institutions schools and small-scale commercial office and service uses it recommends that a residential building height is a maximum of four stories or 45 feet as you can see the adjacent properties of this site are also designated urban density residential and then farther to the east are several properties designated for neighborhood density residential and then across hydraulic road georgetown green

[05:22:33] and the school campus property are designated for rural areas so the applicant's proposal for this project as i mentioned the parcel is currently zoned r4 allowing four residential units per acre and the property is approximately 0.96 acres in size just under one acre the existing use of the property is a vacant lot with several scattered trees and the applicant is looking to rezone the property to R15 residential with proffers. R15 residential would allow 15 units

[05:23:10] per acre and because the property is just under one acre in size the applicant could do a maximum of 14 units and the applicant has proffered that they would only do a maximum of 14 units and that they would be single family attached units such as townhouses. The applicant is proposing to do a cluster division which would require a minimum of 25 percent of this space be retained as open space. The density would come out to approximately 14.6 units per acre and the applicant is proposing 15 percent of the property to be affordable housing which would come

[05:23:46] out to two units. Other parts of this proposal the applicant also submitted a planting strip waiver request. A planting strip waiver request is only reviewed by the planning commission. The planning commission did approve this request during their review in the public hearing for the CMA and no action is required by the Board of Supervisors. Also on this site a central sewerage system will be required. A private lift station in Force Main will be required. That's been reviewed by the service authority and there are no concerns by staff, by the service authority or

[05:24:24] by engineering or planning staff at this time during the conceptual stage of the zoning map amendment. And final approval of a central sewerage system would occur at the site planning stage once there's the full design and engineering of the site and the central sewerage system.

[05:24:42] This slide shows a graphic of the, a screenshot of the conceptual plan that the applicant has provided and the applicant has also proffered this conceptual plan. In this image, north is to the left, east is to the top of the image. So you can see there's one central parking lot which also It's designated as a private street, but it functions more as a parking lot.

[05:25:06] There are two rows of townhouses. The block one of about six townhouses would be to the north of the parking lot on the left side. And block two, which would consist of eight townhouses, is to the right, which would be the south of the parking lot.

[05:25:23] And the open space would be surrounding those areas, and especially in the northern tip of the property. And then the applicant has also proposed to dedicate approximately five feet of right-of-way to put in a sidewalk along hydraulic road, both a sidewalk and a planting strip, separating that new sidewalk from hydraulic road.

[05:25:44] Currently, there is a sidewalk there, but it is right adjacent to the travel way of hydraulic road. As I mentioned in the concept plan, this is pretty much what I just discussed with the previous slide. the concept plan has been proffered by the applicant. There are two blocks of townhouses which would be 14 units in total. It would be a private street as the applicant is proposing to subdivide the townhouses into separate lots and that private street really operates more as a parking lot instead of a private street. Due to clustering requirements 25 percent of the site

[05:26:21] would be required to be retained as open space with the majority of that open space being to the north of the site with several recreational and community amenities proposed for that area. As I mentioned, a pump station would be required for sanitary sewer, and then the applicant is proposing that approximately five feet of right-of-way dedication for a planting strip and sidewalk along hydraulic road. The specifics of the proposal with the proffers, as I mentioned, the applicant has provided a proffer statement with this application. The first proffer is for

[05:26:57] affordable housing that 15% of the total residential units would be affordable. That comes out to two units. The concept plan has been proffered with major elements identified. Those include the right-of-way dedication, the construction of the sidewalk along hydraulic road, and the maximum of 14 units. And then the applicant has also proffered open space dedication of 25% and that that property would be dedicated to the HOA. There are a couple positive aspects to this rezoning application.

[05:27:30] One is that the rezoning request is consistent with the recommendations of the PLACES 29 master plan, including both land use designation and density. And the request is consistent with the majority of the applicable neighborhood model principles. The only concern that staff identified with this zoning map amendment was that there is no provision for an interconnection between this parcel and the adjacent parcel to the east. Looking at the recommendation at a public hearing that took place on October the 10th of 2023, the Planning Commission did vote 7 to 0 to recommend

[05:28:05] approval of this zoning map amendment. And since the public hearing with the Planning Commission on that date, the applicant did slightly revise the proffer statement, which is included in your packet as attachment D, to list those three major elements of the concept plan that I discussed in the earlier slide. I'm available for any questions now or after the public comment period. Thank you.

[05:28:30] Thank you. Yes, before we open the public hearing, we'll go around for questions, starting with the Supervisor Proop. Thank you for the presentation. I don't believe I have any questions at this time. Thank you. Supervisor Lupisto-Kirtley. Thank you, Mr. Reidelbach. I don't have any questions. Supervisor McKeel. I do, Andy. Help me a little bit with the interconnectivity there's a another townhouse community not very large beside and then

[05:29:05] up above to up the hill is a single-family house which you really can't see I've not been able to see it for decades to be perfectly honest with you the map you had was the best that I've seen but my question is was there even was there a discussion about just a stub out I'm just thinking you know we really try and stress interconnectivity and later while i understand that the couple's not interested in connecting and i or they were hard to reach or something but

[05:29:41] having said that just having a stub out there so that there would be something in the future possibly um i think we did have some discussions with that and i've provided the concept plan back on the screen part of the problem is that when you do reach that property which is to the north in this image it does require a retaining wall of approximately four feet because of grade differences so there could be an issue with future connection if it's not already constructed at this

[05:30:14] time with this development. Okay so because of the elevation and the wall and maybe this is a crazy comment or thought but was there any thought about a connection with the other neighbor with the other townhouse um there was no discussion with staff about that because those developments are pretty much already constructed and it didn't appear there would be um a good place a good place for interconnections to occur okay all right um and i have some questions about the private parking lot street but they probably would be better to talk to the applicant about right is that correct

[05:30:54] Yes. Yeah, probably. Thank you. Supervisor Calloway. Yeah, I was going to ask the same questions about the interconnectivity. Does that loop around? Does Arbor Crest go around to Old Oak? Is that like a loop? Or is it like...

[05:31:10] It does not. Arbor Crest Drive is a private street that really only provides access to the single-family home behind this development. It's like a pipe stem providing access to hydraulic road for the single-family home.

[05:31:26] Got it. Thank you. I have no other questions. Supervisor Malek? Thank you very much. So looking at what's on screen now, the southern parking streets seem to be, parking spaces are some kind of permeable and not the ones on the north side.

[05:31:45] Is there some reason for that? I am not aware of a specific reason. The applicant may be able to provide more information as to why they were only proposing it on the southern parking spaces. However, during the design phase and site planning, due to engineering and stormwater management requirements, the applicant may need to use all the parking spaces with permeable pavement.

[05:32:09] All right. Well, that's good. And I think I heard the proffers or the sidewalk described in two different ways. So they're going to dedicate the right-of-way but also build a sidewalk across the front. Correct, yes. Okay. That was the most essential question. Thank you very much.

[05:32:26] My question is looking at the same slide here. I understand that we just have the one vehicle access. Does this asphalt path connect to another property up on the upper part, or is it just simply to another entrance on the townhouse?

[05:32:46] I believe the applicant was just proposing it as a way to get from the public sidewalk right-of-way that would be constructed over to the community amenities, such as the grill and the picnic area on this property. So there won't be any walking access to any other properties as well?

[05:33:03] No, just along hydraulic road. And with respect to hydraulic, turning in and out are both left and right turns. i know we've got georgetown green i guess across the way but this is not in any way affected by the lambs lane internal roadway plan i just want to make sure that i understand that it's been looked at there's no incompatibility and worry about what's traffic is coming out here with respect to what's in the future potentially i'm just gonna i'm just gonna say andy that i'm assuming

[05:33:43] that as VDOT is going through, because the Lambs Lane campus access has not been determined yet. So as VDOT is determining that, they will take this into consideration, I guess would be. Is that right? I mean, not trying to jump in ahead of you, but.

[05:33:59] Correct. Yes, because this is directly across from the Georgetown Green and Lambs Lane entrance there. It is likely that if this rezoning were approved, this intersection would have to somehow be configured with that intersection and VDOT is aware of it and they did look at that during the review process but since the Lambs Lane I guess layout and everything hasn't been finally determined yet there's nothing that they specific that they commented on at this time. I would add though that and you can correct me if I'm wrong my understanding has always been with VDOT they

[05:34:36] like them to be across from each other. Correct. That's the preferred is to have them directly across from each other because then they have something to work with okay thank you um and then just i know that the planting strip exception was under the purview of the planning commission but we are looking here at a proper of a five foot uh right of way along for planting i just want to make sure i understand the relationship how does so the planting strip exception request was for the private street only so it would have been between the parking spaces and the sidewalk

[05:35:14] that are shown in front of the townhouses, and because it was determined that this private street really acts more like a parking lot, it didn't make sense to have a planting strip between the sidewalk and the parking spaces. Thank you. I just remember that now. Are there any other questions?

[05:35:34] Then, go ahead. Perhaps the applicant would want to answer this later. So there are no trees or anything that's going to be put between the buildings, it looks like, since the strip is gone. in the blocks since those are just building envelopes there may be some landscaping because a site plan is required they will need to meet the canopy requirements for residential properties so there will be some trees somewhere on the site but that hasn't been fully determined at this stage but they do have to meet all landscaping requirements in the site plan section of the

[05:36:13] ordinance. All right. Thank you. Thank you. At this point, we will open the public hearing, which will begin with the presentation by the applicant, and Vice Chair McKeel will read the rules. We don't have anyone online right now. We do not. Okay. Oh, okay. I'll read only applicants. Applicants are limited to a 10-minute presentation of their proposal and are allowed a five-minute rebuttal at the close of the public hearing. The timekeeping is conducted through a

[05:36:50] timer, and light system at the podium. The green light will go on when you begin speaking, which begins your allotted time. The yellow light indicates you have one minute to finish speaking. The red light indicates your time has expired, and you'll be asked to end your comments. All comments are live streamed, recorded, and published on the Alomar County website.

[05:37:09] Thank you, and our applicant is here, I believe, Tura Roll and Tim Miller. Oh, there we go, over here. We were looking the wrong side. I'm pulling up the site plan image for me.

[05:37:27] Good evening. Good evening. I'm Couture Royale, representing the applicant fusion properties. Fusion properties. Thank you. So to address, we'll start back and see if I cover it.

[05:37:43] And if you have more questions, I'll address them. Ms. Malikans, about tree plantings, there will be, since the planting strip and the sidewalks best by the parking lot, the front yards will all have trees and shrubs.

[05:37:59] And then all the dotted area, as well as the black backyard of the block one, has remaining trees because that's the large oak trees on the property. The whole rest of that area of the site is scrubs and brush.

[05:38:16] So that's why we chose that to lay out that way and preserve the large standing oaks. Along the frontage between VDOT, the big improvements, the school activity, this minister plan, And it's going to hopefully not impact our site, but we are aligned with it.

[05:38:36] And it took a year with VDOT, to say the least, and the neighbors. And ARB wants plantings along the frontage, but VDOT wants site distance and planting wants site distance. So, you know, finally we all came to a meeting of the minds.

[05:38:53] And unfortunately, there can be no frontage trees because of the requirements and then future improvements and widening. The connection to the back, we approached the rear property owner in exchange for acquiring their land for their little strip driveway and providing them with access to their property in the back.

[05:39:20] They're a very old couple, and she's bedridden, and they don't want to make any changes until time. So we did build a four-foot wall. If you look at where that property is, it falls to their house, and their house is at least six feet or so below our rear wall.

[05:39:40] So future access, if anyone purchases it, develops it, it can provide access with a reasonable grading approach. Are there any other direct questions?

[05:39:56] Well, and there's no one signed up, right? There's not. Then we'll ask questions of the applicant at this point. Supervisor Proek. I don't believe I have any questions.

[05:40:14] Thank you. Supervisor Lupista Kirby. One question. I understand the two units you're offering for affordable housing, those could be for sale or for rent affordable housing? Correct. Am I reading that correctly? That's correct.

[05:40:29] On attachment D? Yes. Okay. Thank you very much. No other questions? Supervisor McHugh. Help me with the, and I understand the private street and it's really a parking lot. and help me with the HOA, the maintenance, who's going to take care of that parking area for the next two decades. I have one already in my district that is a parking lot street, and it's had potholes this deep at times, and I'm always very concerned. So the HOA is set up to take care

[05:41:05] of that? Yes. Yes, just like Holiday Town Center, the various HOAs for those blocks take care of their internal streets in various neighborhoods. Older neighborhoods, HOAs, are often lacking in language and determinability. The newer ones are more descriptive, responsible, and collect dues on a regular basis in order to cover those costs and improvements for the future. Also the maintenance for the open space. So you're getting to my point. So you will have in your maintenance

[05:41:41] agreement or in your contract. Collected funds, that's right. That you all will be, and somebody will be in charge of collecting that? Yes. Because that's what I've seen over the years is it just falls by the wayside. Exactly. So that will be. We are collecting. And again, like I refer to the projects I've done at Hollymead, as you know, those HOAs are set up to collect funds, hold them in account, and then maintain mowing grass, taking care of grounds, open space, parking lot improvements

[05:42:12] or street improvements so it's covered because oftentimes what you say is that there's need but there are no funds available there's no direction okay so i'm going to hold you to that oh yeah no it's two decades from now it's going to be in the language they'll be direct they'll be reviewing all right thank you that's the only question yeah supervisor galloway yeah i don't no questions thank you supervisor malik thank you okay katara i'm coming back to trees so in your narrative you talked about how you're going to save as many trees as possible but I've heard that before from

[05:42:50] others so how are you going to identify them in the plans which come subsequently to the staff about which trees you're going to protect oh yeah because I don't see any mention of the tree conservation plan or anything like that well it's all in open space so it's it's non-affected area could you pull up the visual image of the site I'm thinking especially during the construction process when carpenters love to park their trucks right on you know on top of the roots and then everything dies and then you have to cut it all down anyway so no and you know we build and take

[05:43:28] care of things but so if you look at the north half of that site it's all oaks and that's the open space area we specifically designated to preserve that large area the southern side is just scrub and brush and grass and bushes so and dead locust trees so but we kept the oaks unfortunately you can also see on the front each there that green swath and those are the large oak trees along the front in front of the power lines in the five foot area we're going to expand

[05:44:05] the sidewalk so we have to literally cut down all the oak trees along the front each in order to make the sidewalk five feet further back which is much to my dismay and we went round and round with staff about that so if you know you've driven that road you see those oak trees overhang that sidewalk so i'll be taking down more oak trees than i care to unless there's a way you can help and as far as

[05:44:41] the the comments from the taking care of the ec guidelines as far as orienting the buildings and There was a description here about it not meeting the design guidelines because it was just sort of the side of the buildings as opposed to the fronts.

[05:44:59] So you figured out a way to deal with that. Talking about like the two front units on each block that will face the street? I don't know. It's whatever was implied in the staff report is what I'm referring to. Well, we're going to play on that, actually.

[05:45:15] And I presented to ARB some beautiful designs. And actually, by standing there, you look out and it's across the high school open parking lot. And there's a beautiful mountain view, so we're going to, you know, keep them two and a half stories or maybe an upper deck that plays to that view.

[05:45:32] And it's actually very lovely. So I'm looking forward to it. Well, I copied into my notes out of the staff report, and it said, applicant proposes to preserve some of the existing trees in the largest open space.

[05:45:49] That was the other question. And then, appropriate design of the green space is important to ensure these areas can provide buffering and screening for the entrance corridor frontage. Layout does not meet all EC design guidelines. Building fronts should be oriented to the street. So that was all out of the staff report that I was looking at.

[05:46:05] That last part, though, you just read. Yes. That was what you were referencing. Yes. And we intend to play on that, that those will be the front of those homes with an entrance and a little corner terrace that looks to the view I described, because it's beautiful.

[05:46:22] Thank you. And I have no further questions. Does anyone else have any other? Okay, then you have five minutes for rebuttal. Thank you all very much for your time.

[05:46:38] Okay, and with that, I will close the public hearing, and the matter is back before the board. Given our comments, Supervisor Prood. I continue to have no comments. Okay, Supervisor Lupito Curtis.

[05:46:54] No comments, thank you. Supervisor McKeel. Yeah, I don't have any comments or questions. Supervisor Galloway. No additional, ready to vote. Supervisor Malik. I'm all set as well. All right. Well, then we have to take an action, and I'll look to the supervisor for that district.

[05:47:13] I think this is Jack too at night. It is. So I move that the Board of Supervisors adopt the Ordinance Attachment E to approve ZMA 2022-00012, Arbor, Oaks, Towns. Second.

[05:47:29] We have a motion from Supervisor McKeel, second by Supervisor Lupisto-Kirtley. Without objection, if the clerk will call the roll.

[05:47:36] Mr. Andrews? Yes. Mr. Galloway? Yes. Ms. Lapista-Kirtley? Aye. Ms. Malik? Yes. Ms. McKeel? Yes. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Thank you. Moving on. Thank you. Our next item is item 16, ZMA 2023-00008, High School Center 2 at Albemarle High School. And this is being led off by Rebecca Ragsdale, Planning Manager. Good evening. Pretty close by.

[05:48:15] Thank you. Thank you and good evening. I'll go ahead and get started with this presentation and thanks for the introduction. This is right across the street from where we were just discussing Arbor Oaks. This is a rezoning of a portion of the Elmoral High School site which I've roughly drawn in here with the blue outline. It's along the frontage of the property along hydraulic road near the corner with georgetown green and then lambs road the total

[05:48:52] prop property acreage is about 216 acres but this rezoning is for 9.9 acres really to give the the school some flexibility planning ahead for the campus in terms of setbacks because the property is zoned rural areas a 75 foot setback is required from hydraulic road so be limited to that 9.9 acres a request to r4 for that flexibility but limiting the uses and the request is really focused on that design flexibility this is just a another view of the site the area proposed for

[05:49:29] rezoning includes existing parking lots and the building services quadrant of the campus and again it's adjacent to georgetown green there are some nearby institutional uses churches there's industrial with the loaves and fishes, pantry and some residential and office across the street and we mentioned residential uses. This is a zoning map mentioned in zoned rural areas. It is on the edge of the development area, hydraulic roads shown with the stars indicating that it's an entrance

[05:50:04] corridor. Georgetown green is zoned. R6, we have some nearby R4 and a mix of commercial on the development area side of the of the line and then we mentioned the some industrial with loaves and fishes and then this again in the rural area but along the edge and already developed campus it is adjacent to a neighborhood service center and areas shown for poor residential

[05:50:35] Georgetown green and as well as in the rural area so this is the concept plan that was in your packet the rezoned area in this case is the the light pink again encompassing the existing parking layer area and building services and meant to give schools flexibility in building height and setbacks in this case they with r4 the minimum setback is five feet to the front there is a

[05:51:13] maximum setback limit of 25 feet they are anticipating not getting any closer than 35 feet that actually requires a special exception to exceed the maximum which in addition to acting on the rezoning this evening we'd be asking for your action on that special exception another element of this concept is that the no structure would be closer than 50 feet to Georgetown Green which we thought was important in terms of having those increased setbacks to residential lines for uses that are a little bit more intense and then the blue line here is the

[05:51:53] future lambs loop road which the schools have a lot of detail and will kind of walk you through their campus planning and what they've planned so far but the rezoning itself is really to give them that flexibility as the lambs lane planning evolves and it was reviewed by a number of folks including ARB buildings closer to the road along the stretch we felt was consistent with the development pattern we know that we wouldn't typically improve more intensive zonings in the rural areas but we want to in our comp

[05:52:28] plan we talk about maximizing and utilizing our existing facilities and sites and this as I mentioned is one that was already developed so with modern-day site plan we'll get modern-day landscaping requirements and stormwater requirements so that would be beneficial of course so that's you know in a nutshell that's that's really what the request is and it did go to the planning commission with the recommendation of approval and a lot of support and we didn't find any detriment to adjacent properties with

[05:53:03] that increased setback to georgetown and as i noted it's you know it is in the rural area so we did cite that as a we did point that out but we have recommended approval and i'll be happy to answer any questions for you. I have motions when we get down the road to that point.

[05:53:19] Thank you. We'll go through our order. Supervisor Pruitt? Yes, I thought I had made a note of this the first time I read through this, but now I'm not finding it, so I'm going to present this as a question. The proffered restraints on more intensive uses, is that able to travel with the land or is that going to be specific as a condition that the current owner is is agreeing to yes so we felt it was important that there were conditions that run with the land so proffers the proffers

[05:53:54] will run with the land not with the ownership or you know with schools will run with the land this is again a maybe a technical question that i've just overlooked i'm a little unclear how mechanically that is done um is that something that is i guess that's that's the whole question how is that mechanically done so um our county attorney's office might want to chime in it looks like he you want to go ahead mr herrick good evening supervisor pruitt andy herrick i'm the deputy county attorney uh it becomes a matter of zoning enforcement so to the extent that a future

[05:54:32] owner failed to comply with the proffers again code compliance the zoning administrator uh mr Svoboda would be able to go out and ensure that the property remains consistent with how it had been proffered. And just to clarify, yes, proffers do run with the land. Okay. Thank you. I believe that's actually all I had. Thank you. Supervisor Lupisto-Kerzi? No questions. Thank you very much for the presentation. Supervisor McKeel? No questions. Supervisor Galloway? None right now.

[05:55:05] Supervisor Malek? Thank you. Sorry to break the happy time here. So I am confused about why the jump to r10 when it's only a setback issue which seems like it could be resolved with a waiver for the building and what what's really behind the curtain is what i really like to know is it doesn't seem to be anything but the setback and the height that is the reason for this right and we did talk about that and there really isn't another option in the ordinance um there aren't any um for the rural area zoning district the current zoning of the property we don't have a

[05:55:41] special exception option like we do for our development area districts so we tried to find the least intensive way to go about it and that was a solution we came up with that was the answer I was missing okay thank you I guess I would follow up on that is that a is that a restriction on our authority or our ordinances or is that I mean exactly how does that arise that we couldn't do this with a special exception? We don't especially allow that for the rural area zoning

[05:56:20] district. It's local. So it's local ordinance? Yes. Okay. So special exceptions can only be granted where the ordinance says that a special exception can be granted and there's no allowance for a special exception in the case of varying a setback in the rural areas. Okay. Thank you.

[05:56:41] I have no other questions so at this point we'll open the public hearing and do we have anyone no one signed up. Okay, then we still have an applicant technically. Yep, you can read the information for the applicant. Applicants are limited to a 10-minute presentation of their proposal and are allowed a five-minute rebuttal at the close of the public hearing. Timekeeping is conducted through a timer and light system at the podium. The green light will go on when you begin speaking, which begins your allotted time. The yellow light indicates you have one minute to

[05:57:18] finish speaking. The red light indicates your time has expired and you will be asked to end your comments. All comments are live-streamed, recorded, and published on the Almar County website. Welcome. Thank you. Please introduce yourself. Yep. Hey, good evening, board members. My name is Kagan Squire. I'm a project manager working on High School Center II. With me tonight is our consultants, Quinn Evans, and then also the director of building services, Lindsay Snoddy.

[05:57:53] So tonight we'll be reviewing our request to Arizona portion of the Lambs Lane parcel, which houses three county schools and several support facilities. We'd like to provide you some information on the planned schedule and overview of Center 2, highlight the latest community engagement efforts we've been making to assist in the planning and design of the new facility, and discuss the traffic impacts from this project. Finally, we'll be sharing an updated design on this building. So Center 2, the Center 2 project has recently wrapped up its schematic design phase, which was presented to the school board last week. Initial cost estimates have come back higher than anticipated, but we currently are working through potential

[05:58:31] options to help bring these higher costs down. We will continue with the design of the building through the end of this summer, with construction projected to begin late fall of 2024, and the school facility opening for the 2026-2027 school year. For this project, we are requesting to rezone approximately 9.9 acres of the Lambs Lane campus. This request is to provide flexibility in design around setback and height restrictions. Our application requests a minimum setback of 35 feet from hydraulic road and 50 feet from the Georgetown Green neighborhood property line.

[05:59:06] The new building will serve approximately 400 students per day and be approximately 60,000 square feet. The red shaded area is proposed rezoning boundary of the parcel. We limited the rezoning effort to this area to establish a clear boundary between the adjacent development areas in the rural area, thus meeting the comprehensive plan's intent to maintain a buffer between these two zoning districts. This also helps preserve the rural character of the remaining portions of the parcel. The blue outlined area inside the proposed rezoning boundary outlines the potential location

[05:59:42] of Center 2. The dark red outlined area is where replacement tennis courts and additional parking to accommodate the needs of High School Center 2 are proposed. The blue line connecting lambs lane to hydraulic road is proposed routing of the future loop road included the lambs lane master plan although building the loop road is not a part of this project we are accounting for the space needed to accommodate this in the future whenever that project gets initiated acps has held several community engagement opportunities to diverse stakeholder groups

[06:00:17] to seek feedback on the planning programming and design of center 2 these opportunities date back to spring of 2020 before the project was paused due to the pandemic with efforts restarting this past spring. These groups included students, families, teachers, ACPS staff, local agencies, business leaders, and community groups. A traffic impact analysis was conducted in partnership with the local government to study the six intersections surrounding the Lambs Lane campus and this stretch of hydraulic road. Each intersection was evaluated on a scale to determine its current and future

[06:00:53] level of service with A being the best and F being the worst. The study also investigated the impact of completing the future loop road and studied three different scenarios for the best placement and terminus point for that proposed road. The TIA assumed that development of Lambs Lane campus would generate an increase of 25% over the existing total traffic entering the existing school complex and assumed an annual 2.2% growth rate over the next 10 years. For the two main intersections impacted by this project, which are hydraulic in Lambs Road, which is number three up

[06:01:28] there, and hydraulic in Georgetown Green, which is number five. Projected levels of service in the peak hours did not exceed a C level of service post-development. Although the TIA is still being finalized, it recommends the best location and terminus for the future loop road. The Center 2 project seeks to build a small portion of this based on the TIA's recommended routing and to reconfigure the existing internal connector road in front of Albemarle High School, which is kind of outlined by that pink line there. The projected parking and transportation impacts are shown on

[06:02:05] this slide. There are 127 additional parking spaces needed for Center 2. It is estimated that Center 2 will generate 40 student drop-up and pickups, four to five buses, and 20 bikers and walkers to the Lamb's Lane campus. Bike and pedestrian facilities will be included in the proposed facility's final site plan. Lastly, please note that building services will be relocated off campus to another location, and the existing building will be demolished. This will result in a reduction of traffic generated by that facility. I'll go ahead and turn it over to our consultants, Quinn Evans. Good evening. My name is Charles Tilly. I'm with Quinn Evans Architects.

[06:02:45] I'll walk you through a few of the images that we have here for the plans that we're developing. This is a site plan here on the bottom. See if I can curse it there. This is the location of High School Center 2, the new building, which is approximately, as Kagan said, where building services is currently located.

[06:03:06] The big triangle block here is Albemarle High School, and hydraulic is over here on the right-hand side. So we'll be building this extension of realigning the road as it comes off hydraulic. Like, it comes straight down and it turns back towards the front of Albemarle High School and makes that connection.

[06:03:26] We're also proposing to shift some of the tennis courts around and increase, add parking here for the center as well as for campus. And we spent a fair amount of time talking with the administration of the school and thinking about how traffic flows on the site from parent drop-off and pickup.

[06:03:46] up. And so you see some of the line work that we have on here that runs through the on-campus roads that's showing that, you know, development. A little bit closer view here of the building. Excuse me. The front of the building, it faces the north, faces the front of Albemarle High School. The south of the building has primarily most of the academic spaces, front doors, the north here, large common space in the center. And then, again, this is the road as it's coming along the

[06:04:21] the south edge of the property line, turns north, comes and connects back to the front of campus. We're going to convert the road that's here now to a pedestrian way that kind of flows back up towards hydraulic so students that are walking to school, taking bikes, can walk along this path.

[06:04:39] It's also a nice courtyard developed as part of the plan here for students to have indoor-outdoor spaces adjacent to the school. And you'll see the dash line here for the eventually when the Lamb's Lane Extension is built that will connect at this point. This is just a quick perspective, early on view, looking up from hydraulic.

[06:05:01] This is the center entrance to Albemarle High School. You can see Albemarle High School entrance here over to the right and the proposed building here. We're trying to preserve a lot of those great views out towards the mountains as you enter here into campus. The building is roughly about the same scale as Albemarle, but it shifts off to the south some.

[06:05:22] As you enter into campus and look back towards the building, this is the north face of the building. This is an entry that draws you into the building, creates this plaza in front that there will be a lot of students that are at Albemarle High School coming to this building back and forth during the day.

[06:05:39] So we wanted to make that connection a really strong one. As you enter the building, there'll be a large common space for students and after hours use. The building beyond these stairs, that's the two-story academic areas where all the student labs are.

[06:05:58] Looking back towards the front here, this is the administration area there to the left. You see Albemarle High School kind of out the window there to the left. And then the courtyard is over to the right. This is a view of the courtyard. The hydraulic is up a few more feet above where this courtyard is.

[06:06:19] I mean, the terrace parking is just below hydraulic, and then hydraulic is above that. Just to give you an idea of the overall sustainability approach, we've ingrained that into the project. The building is oriented towards the south with a two-story academic piece to maximize daylighting in the classrooms.

[06:06:40] And then we built that around this courtyard with native landscaping and some rainwater, stormwater collection features that could be learning opportunities for the students. Just another sustainability slide to say we'll be pursuing LEED Silver certification on this project, and it will include geothermal HVAC systems.

[06:07:07] And again, this is just some of the ways that this project and the rezoning aligns with the county's comprehensive plan. Opening up to you guys for questions. Okay, we'll go through our order. Supervisor Brewitt.

[06:07:24] Thank you so much for the illustrative presentation. I'm feeling broadly supportive. I also do just want to draw everyone's attention to a specific line from the Planning Commission that I think is very helpful. Mr. Bivens said that this is in his district, his neighborhood, and his street.

[06:07:41] He said he's been supportive of the project since its inception, and that throughout the various iterations of the project, the team made strong effort to engage with the community on issues not only related to the project, but also concerning life near the high school, that they should consider their own experiences in high school and the communities that they pass daily.

[06:07:59] I think that's a very powerful statement. And I don't have any additional questions. Thank you so much for your time today. Supervisor Lupita Kirtley. Thank you for the presentation. I'm really impressed with the natural lighting, the clear story lighting that you're proposing.

[06:08:15] I think that's very good. It's very impressive. And that's the center section where students can come after school to study, to be there. I think that was great. So I think you have a great proposal. Thank you. Supervisor McKeel.

[06:08:31] Yes, I just want to take a couple of minutes to thank the school division, because at first blush, the neighbors at Georgetown Green were very concerned about this project, and you all took the time to set up a community meeting, both in person and by Zoom.

[06:08:48] And the fact that we don't have people in the audience right now expressing their concerns says to me that you all address their concerns, so I do appreciate that. But knowing what their concerns are, I'm going to ask a couple of things. One of the concerns that they expressed was stormwater.

[06:09:08] And my understanding is, of course, with this new build, the stormwater problems that Georgetown Green is having right now will more than likely be taken care of. Is that accurate? Yes. That was a big concern they had with stormwater because of the slopes and the way the water was draining.

[06:09:31] Just to add on to that, essentially all of the area building services, you know, those sheds in the back and all of that, none of that has stormwater on it that we are aware of. So part of that is the problem, and we'll be developing this whole site to accommodate what we need for stormwater. Right, to handle it.

[06:09:47] That's great. And they did want to make sure that there were plantings buffering, and you all have accommodated that. And the only other thing that they stated in the meetings, the noise from the generators, right?

[06:10:05] And I understood that the school division said that they would make sure that there was some buffering of those generators and that noise for Georgetown Green. Are we good on that? I just want to make sure. Yeah, so we're committed to working with them to once we get farther along in design to accommodate all of that.

[06:10:28] But I felt like I needed to bring it up. This is a lovely design. I wish I'd been able to go to school, attend school in a design like this. It really is wonderful. And I think that that's all I have right now.

[06:10:44] Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Galloway. Yeah, I came in tonight looking for the clarification on the tennis courts and the parking. I didn't quite understand that, so that was clear. That was made clear in the picture and the fact that the loop road will stay where it's at.

[06:11:00] I guess the questions I have aren't even relative to this, probably this application. So I'll just ask them and maybe in a future CIP or budget conversation or something that'll come forward. I was not expecting the large commons area in the center to.

[06:11:16] And I think programmatically the way I understood it is that these centers weren't necessarily going to be attached at the hips of a current high school. Now, I understand why we're doing it and don't dispute any of that. I'm just assuming or presuming that that's all been discussed and figured out, and if somebody could point me in the direction of that conversation, I'd just be curious to hear programmatically how this works in such proximity to our largest high school already, and I would imagine there's benefits to that.

[06:11:45] But I mean, it's something that I can think of. So I'm just curious what the school board and the administration, you know, what they brainstorm and discussed on that. So if that could be provided in some way at some point, that would be awesome. Thank you. Supervisor Malek.

[06:12:01] Thank you very much. This is exciting work going on. As I was driving down today, I was looking across the site and it occurred to me to ask, are the trees which are now to the west of the building services department going to remain? Because they are tall and they screen a lot of the poles and things also toward the football field.

[06:12:21] I think you're talking about the ones that are around the stormwater. Behind building services, there's a big stormwater. We're not touching any of that. Okay, so they're evergreens tall. Right, and the ones that are up on the corner of the property at Hydraulic.

[06:12:36] That pine grove that's there, that will all be as it is right now. That pine grove has been there since I was there. Way back in the 60s. Okay, that's great. And Corey Claiborne and the Planning Commission asked about possibility of design so that it could be perhaps used as an emergency shelter in the future.

[06:12:55] And we were talking about emergency shelter options earlier today at our schools and our firehouses. So maybe that commons area is a place where people could gather in emergency. And I guess if there are generators. What are the generators for, anyway? Are they running 24-7 for school operations?

[06:13:11] No. Oh, okay. They're there for backup purposes. We have some food services. We have refrigerators and things like that. There'll be life safety systems and that kind of thing. But only during times of power out. Oh, right, exactly. Got it. Yeah, you're not. When everybody, I think everyone is totally surrounded by generators roaring nowadays, it's sad.

[06:13:30] Yes? In the Georgetown Green folks, of course, the generators have to be checked every week, so they come on every week, and that's what they were talking about. Oh, for that 10-minute thing. Okay, very good. Thank you very much. And I have no additional questions or concerns.

[06:13:48] You have five minutes for rebuttal. But if you're okay, thank you, Mr. Tilly, Mr. Squire. And we will close the public hearing. The matter is back before the board. Additional comments?

[06:14:05] I have one question in our order, unless you all do. The only thing I might add, and maybe this is even best served for other matters from the board, but I'll go ahead and address it now. I do want to just make sure we're fully highlighting the issue that I believe Supervisor Malik and Chair Andrews were keying in on, which is that we have a restriction that we have placed on ourselves against special exemptions in the rural area, which is the whole reason that we're going through a fairly onerous process here today.

[06:14:41] The flavor of both of your questions made me wonder if we think that is actually something as well serving the county, or if that's something that should be revisited as we're looking at our zoning code. So I just wanted to clearly highlight and draw everyone's attention to that. Thank you. We'll go through our orders. Supervisor McKeel. Just a quick question while you all are still here, because I know that during the planning commission, there was a suggestion that you go up one more floor. We've closed the public hearing. Oh, I can't ask them

[06:15:19] You're right. You are correct. I will just say to everyone here that during the planning commission, there was a suggestion actually from someone who works at the University of Virginia and is used to the University of Virginia building an extra story so that there's just a blank floor until you actually need to utilize it because it's much cheaper.

[06:15:45] That's where I was going with this. And it's obviously not in the design, so it's not going to come into the design now. But I will make the comment that I think going forward, when we're building and designing schools and facilities around schools, thinking 10 and 15 years down the road with growth that you know you're going to need to add on to that facility and perhaps a space above that's just sort of an empty space.

[06:16:14] We do this at UVA all the time. So I will just let that set with the Board of Supervisors. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Galloway. Thank you. Supervisor Malek. I'm good. Thank you.

[06:16:29] Okay. And I am supportive. I really appreciate the view of the plan because, of course, we're being asked primarily just to consider the rezoning and the setback. But I like the fact that the view to the west has been maintained.

[06:16:48] and i appreciate that while i'm not really interested too much in revisiting the ordinance at this point that this is a very unusual case case because we are taking something it was otherwise a use that's allowed in the rural area of school and simply trying to find a way to work around the setback requirements so with that any other comments or concerns then the matter is open for a motion you have motions you have a couple motions i think we have to do or i can just read

[06:17:25] them off the oh there we go and the first one is the rezoning from ra to r10 and then the second is the special exception right for the increase to this uh maximum front setback right and i guess these need to be separate motions and voted on separately yes probably okay um i moved to approve ZMA-2023-0008, High School Center 2 at Almar High School, a rezoning from RA to R10.

[06:17:56] Second. Oh, I'm sorry. I move to adopt the ordinance attached to the staff report as attachment E. Second. Okay, we have a motion from Supervisor McKeel, second from Supervisor Malek. Without objection, if the clerk will call the roll. Mr. Andrews? Yes. Ms. LaPesa-Kirtley? Aye. Mr. Galloway?

[06:18:12] Yes. Ms. Malek? Yes. Ms. McKeel? Yes. Mr. Pruitt. Aye. Great. And now we have another motion. And this time I won't read what was bolded. I move to adopt the resolution attached to the staff report as attachment F. Second. We have a motion from Supervisor McKeel, a second from Supervisor Malik. And without objection, the clerk will call the roll. Mr. Andrews? Yes. Mr. Galloway? Yes. Ms. Huston-Kirtley? Aye. Ms. Malik? Yes. Ms.

[06:18:41] McKeel? Yes. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Thank you. That concludes that item. We are back to item 17. from the board committee reports and matters not listed on the agenda. Supervisor Prove. I have nothing further at this time. Thank you. Supervisor Lupisto-Kirtley. Nothing. Thank you. Supervisor McKeel. I'm good. Thank you. Supervisor Galloway. Nope. I'm good too. Thank you. And Supervisor Malek. I'm wrecking it again. Okay. In your mailboxes are some little handouts for me that one is about the NACO blueprint. Oh, you got them already from the meeting this weekend. This

[06:19:20] particular storybook was written by Matt Chase, who's the executive director of NACO, National Association of Counties, with help of his sixth grade son, over Christmas break, because his son said, well, I don't even know what counties do. Oh, sorry, that's right. But the reason that he shared them over the meeting is what he learned about the difficulty of AI, because he used AI to help write this book and found it loaded with implicit bias. He had to spend days working around things because every time they put a female person in there, it had to have a business suit on

[06:19:59] and all the kinds of different ways to depict people. And I thought, when you see regular looking folks in here, please understand how difficult it is to achieve this. And it makes me understand that there's a whole lot more problem. We're going to be in a world of hurt with this AI stuff when it comes forward, because if this is a simple children's story and you're trying to tell something fairly factual, to have it go down the rabbit hole every single time you turn around was very frustrating for him, but also a lesson. The second item is the failure of the

[06:20:34] United States Postal Service, as I mentioned during the tax report this afternoon, and talked about this a little bit. We had a briefing with federal representatives, and I did ask uh mr perez if this was on the the white house's uh worry list and he said well not today but because all around the room were people from other states going yeah we got that problem too and the seven days to go from charlesville to earliesville for the mail the fact that we learned

[06:21:08] today which i did not know that even stuff coming to the county has no postmark on it uh so they're Also, you may check with your own post offices in your own regions to see what your reports are.

[06:21:24] But I'm going to be taking this to Vaco, too. But what I have learned from the folks who have talked to the Earliesville Postmistress and other rural places is that the word is out that they're going to be centralizing everything. So even mail sorting, instead of happening at the places remotely and closest to the people, is going to go to 06.

[06:21:50] which is the most poorly functioning of all of our post offices in this region the main post office on on you know where they take all the unsorted stuff and stick it under the counter so mark warner can't see it when he comes to visit two years ago it was horrendous so that's number one and getting rid of the sorting staff at the local post offices which is just the very next thing to shutting them down altogether because the federal government can't seem to figure out how to get control of the postal service and that's their problem but it's going to take all of us jumping up and down to make it happen because this is a disaster it is a health

[06:22:27] and safety issue absolutely I mean I'm sure I'm not in the only person representing people who cannot drive rely on their mail to get and send everything get their medicine send their tax bill for one of my elders up on Jarman's Gap last year trying to pay her taxes the flag was up on her mailbox for five days and she finally hobbled down to her mailbox and took out her tax bill because she was afraid somebody would take it.

[06:22:54] And this was because of the total fiasco that the current Western District Post Office had that time. They're doing much better now. But still, delivering twice a week to the rural areas of Elmoral County in 2023, that's pathetic.

[06:23:10] And so I hope that we'll be able to stir up enough of a hornet's nest on this to try to get some action somewhere. One of my constituents talked about this is the most important issue for equity that we can think about because anybody of any means or not has access to a functioning postal service. They have connection with the world and their families and everything else.

[06:23:33] They don't have to have a phone or an internet because they can actually survive. If you have an address, it's all it takes. So I'm really concerned about this and I will gather any other information that I can and keep you posted on what I learned. And hopefully you all will hear some things too and we can pull our stories and get them put together and thank you very much thank you i have nothing further to the county executive nope then board we will adjourn to february 7th 2024 1 p.m here in lane auditorium opportunities for public the public to access and

[06:24:10] participate in this meeting are posted on the albemarle county website on the board of supervisors home page and on the albemarle county calendar participation will include the opportunity to comment on those matters for which comments from the public will be received. Thank you.

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