Coraggio Consulting
Albemarle County Board of Supervisors Regular First Meeting, Wednesday, March 5, 2025

Date: Wednesday, March 5, 2025
Place: Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 10h 37m (video)
Official meeting video (Granicus): https://albemarle.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=1&clip_id=1302
Official agenda: https://albemarle.granicus.com/AgendaViewer.php?view_id=1&clip_id=1302

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 2026-10-15. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:44] wave in to Jim. Okay. Good afternoon. I am pleased to call to order this regular meeting of the Alburo County Board of Supervisors on the 5th of March at 1 p.m. in Lane Auditorium. I'd like to note at the dais we have Supervisor Mike Pruitt of the Scottsville District. Thank you. Supervisor B. Lapisto-Curtley of the Ravana District. Supervisor Diantha McKeel of the Jack Jewett District. Supervisor Ned Galloway of the Rio District. And Supervisor Ann Malick of the Whitehall District, and myself, Jim Andrews, representing the Samuel Miller District. A quorum is present.

[00:01:20] We're also joined here at the dais by our county executive, Mr. Jeff Richardson, our county attorney, Mr. Andy Herrick, our clerk, Ms. Claudette Borgeson, and our senior deputy clerk, Mr. Travis Morris. Also, let me please welcome Albemarle County police officers present, Master Police Officer Dana Reeves, and Sergeant Matthew Riley. We thank you for your service here today and every day on behalf of the residents and citizens of albemarle county for our safety and security if all present could stand as you are able and join us in the pledge of

[00:01:52] allegiance thank you thank you and if you could now join us for a moment of silence thank you

[00:02:39] board as always our first item is to adopt the final agenda i've heard of no uh recommendations or requests for change to that agenda so if we have a motion to adopt the final agenda so moved Second. We have a motion from Supervisor McKeel, second from Supervisor Malik. Without objection, the clerk will call the roll. Ms. Lapista-Kirtley? Aye. Ms. Malik? Yes. Ms. McKeel? Yes. Mr. Pruitt? Aye.

[00:03:02] Mr. Andrews? Yes. Mr. Galloway? Yes. Great. Thank you. First item, then, is brief announcements by board members, and our order for today's meeting starts with Supervisor Malik. Thank you very much. I just returned from Saturday-Sunday Steering Committee meetings in Washington at the National Association of Counties.

[00:03:25] 18-hour days, lots of good work done. It is interesting, every year there are staff of the various legislative committees in Congress who come and speak to the Environment, Natural Energy and Land Use Committee, of which I'm a member, and also the Veterans and Military Affairs Committee, about what they expect to be happening in Congress.

[00:03:48] And they used to be 40, 50-somethings, and now they're all 20-somethings. So it's really interesting. There's been a generational shift as far as the people who are in charge, and we'll see how that all goes. But there was great concern, particularly at the Veterans Committee, about the number of veterans who have been let go, who are providing services, caseworker services, medical care services to other veterans.

[00:04:15] So I do hope that that is remedied KSAP, because 6,000 staff gone out of an agency where there are already tremendous backlogs in getting service to our veterans is not a good thing. Thank you. And I'll be back with more at the end of the meeting. Thank you. Thank you.

[00:04:31] Supervisor Pruitt. A few quick events to put on y'all's calendar. The Active Mobility Summit is going to be on the 6th and the 7th in Woolen Mills, that secret gym of the Scottsville District that everyone is confused to learn is actually part of Albemarle County.

[00:04:47] So this is a great event. I attended it last year. It is all about kind of how we can work to make kind of human-powered pedestrian mixed-use systems work and more successful in our community. So that is on the 6th from 530 to 8.

[00:05:03] and then on the 7th from 9 to noon. Additionally, there is going to be a ribbon cutting for a new project by SCAN, that's the Scottsville Arts and Nature Foundation. In Scottsville, they've acquired a historic commercial property in downtown Scottsville that they're converting into a new public art gallery space.

[00:05:24] So the Gallery on Valley, which almost rhymes, at 460 Valley, is going to have its ribbon cutting on the 20th at noon, and their first their first show is going to run from that time until april 27th additionally so long as we're talking about things that are opening in scottsville i would like to call attention uh so town council approved two years ago one of the largest housing projects in uh in scottsville in recent memory probably in modern history frankly because it's been quite a long time since uh there's been new housing approved in scottsville they did that in uh in 2022 and there was groundbreaking on it so this is going to put 36 new single family homes on bird street

[00:06:03] and it's going to significantly i think um start to reshape kind of what scottsville looks like and hopefully bring a little bit more pedestrian traffic to a lot of the small businesses that really depend on it in scottsville and hopefully get a little bit a spark in those uh farmers markets again that's all i got thank you supervisor lepizzo currently yes thank you very much i I'm proud to announce that in the Vivanna District, we have closed off Freebridge Lane as part of Darden Town for a one-year pilot project to see how the numbers go, whether or not people are really using it.

[00:06:41] I'm proud to announce that in November, December, because we have a counter as people walk by, 2,302 people used the Freebridge Lane. From January to March 3rd, so another two-month period, 6,405 people used Freebridge Lane.

[00:07:08] Now, remember, it's been cold in January and February, and they were still there. So I was really, the numbers are there. The people are really enjoying that. So that's a good thing. The next thing, this is kind of a personal heartfelt thing.

[00:07:26] I received a call yesterday. I was actually in a meeting with County Executive Jeff Richardson when a resident from St. John Road called to thank me, to thank the county, really, everyone involved, for giving them fiber, which has been a long uphill battle because of the area and other things going on.

[00:07:55] And he said, my grandson is now able to do his homework from home. That really meant a lot to me. And I will give a shout out. The president of CVEC is Gary Wood. He was instrumental in getting fiber to that location, along with our own staff, Mike Culp and Jason Enufuentes and others.

[00:08:19] So just thank you very much to CVEC. They really stepped up to the plate where they didn't have to, and they did, to provide fiber internet for this group. Thank you. Supervisor McKeel. No announcements today. Supervisor Gallup.

[00:08:35] Yes, thank you. A couple. Real quick, just as all the other supervisors, we'll also have the Rio District Community Budget Town Hall will be Tuesday, March 18th, from 530 to 730 at the center. So I just want to start calling that out.

[00:08:51] I'll have more opportunities to do so I also want to call out that next Thursday that would be what would that be the 13th yeah yeah is the regional Central Virginia Regional Housing Partnerships biannual housing summit so I hope that if you're not already signed up you may be boxed out I think it's already it is sold out but there be a lot of good conversation around solutions to helping solve the affordable housing issue. This year is definitely a solutions-based summit, so I hope

[00:09:26] those that are registered to go will enjoy that event and look forward to seeing people in attendance there. And then I, too, was able to attend the National Association of Counties Legislative Conference. I'm on the Community Economic Development and Workforce Committee for NACO, and Saturday was a long day of different things. I'll get into a couple of these at the end of the meeting but the one i wanted to call out now um there was a i mean as you can imagine there was lots of presentations on affordable housing on economic development pieces

[00:10:01] but one of them was called breaking the paper ceiling and it's uh it's also called stars or workers who are skilled through alternative routes so these are folks that don't necessarily have a college degree but they may just have a high school diploma but there's a large contingent of folks who have a lot of experience, a lot of work experience, may have some college but haven't gone all the way through to get the four-year degree, and those folks often find, in terms of upward mobility from a career standpoint, obstacles to applying for jobs

[00:10:38] that require the degree, the four-year degree, for the application. So what STARS, Opportunity at Work, and the folks who are trying to break the paper ceiling are doing are working with employers, both public and private sector, to remove that four-year degree when and where appropriate, depending upon the types of jobs, to open up so that you could at least explore and talk to applicants who may have the experience and the wherewithal of what you're looking for for a job who otherwise wouldn't apply because they don't have the degree.

[00:11:13] And then once employed, these programs then can work with those folks if they need to get the degree, can get them into a path to help do so. So I thought that was an interesting thing. I hadn't necessarily heard of that program before, but calling that out for all of our business owners and our own organization and different folks here in Albemarle, I think that's a good idea.

[00:11:37] You know, a lot of times you could, especially if you're frustrated with perhaps what you're seeing come in the door applying for jobs, that this would expand your funnel, and it may just be that you're frustrated with the folks that have earned the degree and that there could be other folks out there with the experiences you're looking for.

[00:11:55] So I thought that would be a good thing to share at the top of today's meeting. Thank you. Thank you. And I'll just add, you know, of course that we have seven budget town halls coming up, and I encourage people to look for the one that they'd like to attend. I'll be at, personally, Monticello High School on March 20th at the Yancey Community Center on March 27th, but other supervisors will be either at those or at others and encourage people to attend, regardless of which one you can go to.

[00:12:22] A little more upcoming, I just saw in the news in an email that the Energy Resource Hub is having a launch party, and I thought this was interesting. It's at the Carver Rec Center on March 11th from 4 to 7 p.m., but this is a joint initiative of the county and the city working with nonprofits on looking at ways to help people save energy and also improve our environmental footprint.

[00:12:47] And then finally, just working backwards from furthest out to the soonest, it may be close to too late, but not quite. I just looked. There are still a couple slots in the March 8th tire collection down at the Southern Convenience Center.

[00:13:02] They haven't done that before there. So I encourage people to sign up ahead of time. It's between 8 and 4, and I think it may be the 8 o'clock that's available. But that's just a prelude to more hazardous household waste and other collections at Ivy, which are coming up April 25th and 26th.

[00:13:19] So we'll hear more about that later. With that, Board, we turn to proclamations and recognitions. We have a couple today. And we're going to start with Supervisor Galloway for celebrating CAR's 100th.

[00:13:35] Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I will read this proclamation in the form of a motion. This is a proclamation celebrating Carr's 100th anniversary, whereas since its establishment on June 22, 1925, the Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors, or Carr, has been the leading voice for real estate in Central Virginia.

[00:13:56] Today, Carr represents more than 1,300 real estate professionals and affiliate members, And whereas, over the past century, CAR has made significant contributions to the Albemarle real estate industry by advocating for the protection of private property rights and providing its members with the tools and technology needed to achieve expertise in serving the needs of their customers and clients.

[00:14:19] and whereas reflecting on its past the association recognizes the profound changes it has made in recent years to embed diversity equity and inclusion into every aspect of its operations and it remains committed to advancing these efforts in the future the association's commitment to professionalism and ethics has established it as a trusted and reliable resource in the real estate community and whereas car members are deeply committed to enriching albemarle's neighborhoods. The association engages in a variety of educational programs and community service events each year, demonstrating a steadfast dedication to community development

[00:14:57] and welfare. This community engagement has helped foster a stronger, more vibrant Albemarle County. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that we, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, do hereby commend the Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors for their significant contributions to our community and extend a heartfelt congratulations for their 100 years of service to the residents of Albemarle County. Signed this fifth day of March 2025, Chair Jim Andrews. Second. We have a motion from Supervisor Galloway, a second from Supervisor Lupisto-Kirtley.

[00:15:31] Without objection, if the clerk will call the roll. Ms. Lupisto-Kirtley? Aye. Ms. Malik? Yes. Ms. McKeel? Yes. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Mr. Andrews? Yes. Mr. Galloway? Yes. Thank you. And I understand that Mr. Josh White is here from Carr as the president and might have a few words and we'd like to congratulate you in person. So please, welcome.

[00:15:51] Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, thank you guys so much. Thank you, Board of Supervisors, County employees here as well. And yes, it's amazing to be here, you know, to think about those who have gone before us 100 years is a long time to be helping the community. And it's fun to come alongside of people in one of the biggest transitions that they are going to make in their lives but not just helping first-time homebuyers but developers investors all kinds of folks um in their journey to real estate is uh is a real blessing so we appreciate you guys recognizing car in this work thank you yep and there may be a few words from supervisors if you remain for a

[00:16:28] moment supervisor malik well thank you for being the first voice welcoming people to our area it's really important that at each stage when someone is new or even considering that they meet friendly people in stores and friendly people in offices to think that this is maybe a place where they'd like to be. So thank you for doing that. Supervisor Pruitt. A hundred years is a long time. Thank you for all your work. Take care. Thank you. Supervisor Lupista Purtley. Thank you, Josh, for coming today and accepting this on behalf of all the CARS members who have done such a great job. And we

[00:17:02] really, we rely on you. We really appreciate the fact that you do so much for our community. Thank Thank you. Supervisor McKeel. Yes, good afternoon. Thank you for coming. A hundred years is a long time. I will say that I haven't needed your all services because I've lived in my house for 50 years.

[00:17:22] But you all do a great job aside from that. And you do have another lovely new facility. Yes, ma'am. It's fairly new in the realm of things. Thank you. Anyway, thank you very much. Supervisor Calloway. And that facility, I'm happy to say, is right in the Rio District. A hundred years, that means that must be a pretty big cake.

[00:17:41] So when and where is the cake going to be served? It's going to be barbecue, actually. Oh, barbecue. Yeah, family barbecue for members and guests. So that'll be fun. Well, there's a lot there to celebrate. I would simply say that I'm, and I had the privilege of attending a forum that was held that I believe was part of a leadership academy that you all hold for your members.

[00:18:01] I think that the training and the professional development you do for everyone is first rate. So I appreciate that look on it, but it's not lost on me that whether you're a one-person realtor or you're a part of a huge agency, there's a lot of small businesses that are in real estate, and small businesses are the engine of most localities.

[00:18:21] So that, I appreciate the fact, and it's not lost on me, what we gain from you all having a vibrant real estate industry here in our locality. So I wish all those well. And it's also not lost on me that, you know, the biggest purchase you make can be a house.

[00:18:38] Cars or, you know, car, an actual vehicle, can be close to follow. That was my industry. But the ability to give your clientele a first-rate experience, I think, really matters to helping the community have a little bit different sense or a feel to it.

[00:18:54] And I know you all are committed to that. So I appreciate you being here, and congratulations on your 100th. Thank you, sir. And I'll just add my congratulations and echo the fact that the trust that people have to place in the real estate agents and the people who have helped them with that big transaction is enormous and I appreciate all that you do for them.

[00:19:13] So thank you for the community. Yeah, thank you all. Appreciate it. Board, we have another proclamation. We're going to picture here first. Stand here, not everybody here.

[00:19:29] Okay. Proclamation that celebrates Women's History Month and read by Supervisor Malik. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm thrilled to be reading this. As the oldest woman on the board, I'm very glad I'm going to be 75 in April, so I'm going to take advantage of that.

[00:19:54] I'm reading this as a motion, proclamation celebrating Women's History Month. Whereas Women's History Week originated in the United States in 1978, launched in California during the week of International Women's Day and the movement spread across the country. Whereas a consortium of women's groups and historians successfully lobbied for national recognition of the week honoring women's contributions to American history until the first presidential proclamation was issued by Jimmy Carter in 1980.

[00:20:22] Whereas subsequent presidents continued to proclaim a National Women's History Week until Congress passed a law in 1987 designating March of each year as Women's History Month and authorized each president thereafter to issue an annual proclamation. Whereas Albemarle County honors all the women, past and present, from our country, commonwealth, and country, our county, commonwealth, and country, whose invaluable contributions are often not recognized or recorded, and whose determination and leadership positively impacts our lives every day.

[00:20:53] Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that we, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, do hereby acknowledge and commemorate the month of March 2025 as Women's History Month, with special recognition of the women who diligently led our county to a brighter future for all. Signed this 5th day of March 2025, Jim H. Andrews, Chair.

[00:21:14] Second. We have a motion from Supervisor Malik, a second from Supervisor Lupisto-Kirtley without objection. The clerk will call the roll. Ms. Lupisto-Kirtley? Aye. Ms. Malik? Yes. Ms. McKeel? Yes. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Mr. Andrews? Yes. Mr. Galloway? Yes. Thank you.

[00:21:29] And I believe we have a number of people here to help us celebrate this, but in particular, Ms. Brandy Sullivan, I believe, is speaking on behalf of the Albemarle County Women and Government Affinity Group. welcome all of you friends with me Christie are you going to stand up as well good afternoon mindful that your agenda says that my colleague Brandy Sullivan will be accepting this proclamation today my name is Kathleen Baines I am an Albemarle County employee and member of the women in

[00:22:07] government affinity group I'm joined by a small group of my colleagues and members of this group as well. So on behalf of the group, we'd like to thank you jointly for this proclamation. We're grateful to be recognized, but also must acknowledge that this is a testament to the collective strength and support of all women who work here at Albemarle County. This recognition reflects our county values of integrity, innovation, stewardship, learning, and community, and highlights the importance of creating an environment where all women can succeed and thrive.

[00:22:46] The Women in Government Affinity Group has been a cornerstone in building connections. Through this group, we're forging meaningful relationships, we're sharing experiences with each other, and we're developing a platform for mentorship and professional development.

[00:23:03] The positive outcomes from the network are countless, and it continues to empower and uplift women working for the county, providing us with tools and support needed to thrive in our roles. Please identify yourself as well. Thank you.

[00:23:21] I'm Kimberly Price Chambers. Thank you. The connections and conversations that happen in the Women Infinity Group meetings are also a testament to the power of vulnerability. It is through our shared experiences, our willingness to be open and honest, and our courage to embrace our imperfections that we find strength.

[00:23:39] Vulnerability allows us to connect, to empathize, and to support one another in ways that nothing else can. And this affinity group provides opportunities to make this happen. Thank you. I'm Erin Buchanan.

[00:23:55] I work for Social Services. As we celebrate National Women's History Month, let's continue to uplift and empower each other. Let's also honor the legacy of the women and men who came before us and paved the way for future generations of women to thrive and succeed.

[00:24:12] Together, we can face the challenges that lie ahead with resilience and determination. Thank you once again to the board for this honor. The Women in Government Affinity Group are proud to be a part of such a remarkable organization, and we look forward to the future. Thank you. Thank you all.

[00:24:30] We'll go through our order just to add to this celebration. Supervisor Mallett. Oh, goody. Thank you. So I'm going to roll it back to the 19-teens when my grandmother was a sewer for the Zygfed Follies and escaped from a Swedish household to ride the train and sew costumes all around the country.

[00:24:49] Next generation, my mom, was a beginning of the water quality effort here with Enie Nash and Charlotte Humphreys to try to organize our community to take better care of our rivers and streams. So we all have lots of shoulders on which to stand and to rely and to keep building forward.

[00:25:07] And I'm so impressed with what you all have accomplished. In 1971, I worked at Harvard Medical School, and they admitted that I was getting paid half of what a man doing my job was going to get. And that was perfectly acceptable to them. It wasn't so much acceptable to me, but I'm very glad that we have made a lot of progress in that vein, I hope, as well.

[00:25:26] So you're worth every penny, and I appreciate all the work you do for all of us. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Pruitt. So since we're receiving, or you all are here on behalf of women in government, I think it's really helpful to think about that lens as we think about the role of women's history in the United States.

[00:25:47] You know, the previous thing that came before us was an organization celebrating its 100th birthday. That means when Carr was founded, women would have been able to even vote in this county for, what, six years? Is that right? Do I have that right? It is significant how massive a change that is, right?

[00:26:09] I imagine that when Carr was founded, every single person on this board would have been a man. It seems reasonable since several of them would have stood with no women being able to vote for them. And now we have perfect parity on this board. I think I mentioned this last year when this came before us, but in India there was an act that actually provides for reserved seats for women on Grand Panjshat, the basic equivalent of county local government or village local government.

[00:26:41] And there have been a lot of studies showing kind of how this shift in representation actually affects what happens. And what they've seen is that the people running for office are often of lower, more underrepresented castes because this is a new opportunity that are afforded to these women that they wouldn't otherwise be able to get there because of their cast.

[00:27:00] So it actually opens up beyond just the sex boundary. It opens up access through class, through race. They have pushed for policies that are more deeply equity-minded and more fundamentally care-minded for their community. And I think this is just really powerful for us to remember how much we're unlocking in government, how much we're unlocking in our economy, how much we're unlocking in our community when we extend participation and cooperation to women.

[00:27:28] The role of women growing in government has been a boon in how we approach government fundamentally. It has reshaped how we engage with the problems that face our community. Thank you so much for what you all do, and I'm so happy to celebrate women's history with you all.

[00:27:45] Thank you. Supervisor, please do currently. Well, you all know what I think because you are outstanding women. There was one word used by the young lady right in front of me. You used the word imperfections, and as I look at you, I don't see any imperfections.

[00:28:04] You're all perfect. And also, I wanted to let Supervisor Pruitt know that when I joined this board, we had five women. And we had our token male, which was Supervisor Galloway. As you should.

[00:28:26] But so proud that you're all here and that we can celebrate this week of Women's History Month. I just couldn't be prouder of the advancements we've all made. You all a lot younger than I am, but the advancements that have been made and the advancements that you all will continue to make.

[00:28:48] That's what I'm excited about because we're not stopping. We're going full bore forward to make sure that, well, I won't say take over the nation because that may be a little premature, but, you know, we'll get there.

[00:29:04] But thank you very much for being here. And it's an honor to have the proclamation and to honor you all. Thank you. Supervisor McKeel. Thank you for being here. And I certainly appreciate and recognize your leadership in our county and for our county government.

[00:29:24] And we also have other female leaders I see in the audience. I see one back there in a pink jacket and another one up here. Anyway, we have lots in the room of female leaders representing Elmar County in the room.

[00:29:40] I'm going to take just a minute because we're, as you might imagine, as elected officials, we're all pretty competitive up here. And I'm going to challenge Ann's comment that she's the oldest person at this dais because my birthday is the first week in April, and I will be 75, and I think I beat her.

[00:30:02] Mine's the 17th, so I guess you did. Thank you. So I hold that title, and I'm not saying a word. And I'm proud of every minute of it, every minute of it. Having said that, I just want to take a couple of minutes because we really do have a lot of women in Almar County and in our government to celebrate.

[00:30:25] But I want to take us back to recognize someone at the state level as well as at the local level, two women. The first person that I'd like to recognize is Maggie Lena Walker.

[00:30:44] Maggie Walker was born to enslaved parents in Richmond, Virginia. And at the turn of the century, she was one of the foremost female business leaders in the United States. She gained national prominence when she became the first woman to own a bank in the United States.

[00:31:08] She worked for a newspaper for a while, so she was a writer. And then she began to focus her efforts on accounting and math, which is the connection to the bank. She founded the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank.

[00:31:26] She was the first woman of any race. She was African-American, of course, but she was the first woman of any race to charter a bank in the United States. The bank was a powerful representation of black self-help in the segregated South.

[00:31:42] The Penny Savings Bank not only attracted adults, but she worked to appeal to children by passing out banks, savings banks, which encouraged them to save. In 1924, the Penny Savings Bank had spread to other parts of Virginia and included 50,000 members.

[00:32:05] While other banks collapsed during the Great Depression, St. Luke's Penny Savings Bank survived, which is really cool. The bank eventually consolidated with two other larger banks and moved to downtown Richmond, and it's still in operation today.

[00:32:22] She died in 1934, but the Walker House has been maintained in Richmond. It's been designated a National Historic Site by the National Park Service. And when you're in Richmond sometime, if you want to go by and visit it, you can.

[00:32:42] Although they've shut down now three days a week based on the cutbacks by the Trump-Musk administration. But I believe they're open still two days a week. So check before you go. Anyway, I wanted to celebrate Maggie Walker.

[00:32:59] The next person that I'd just like to celebrate locally is someone I think that most of us have heard of or knew, Emily Couric. And, of course, Emily was a state senator representing this locality.

[00:33:19] She was a passionate, she had a passionate commitment for lifelong learning, and she especially motivated young people and really loved to work with young people. She was on the Charlottesville School Board.

[00:33:36] A lot of people don't realize that, but Emily served on the Charlottesville School Board, and then, of course, in the Virginia Senate. She was a friend and mentor to me, and I know to many people in this community as well as probably sitting here in the audience. The Emily Cancer Center is named after Emily, and she has a leadership scholarship award that is presented every year by a group of local folks that honors young people in our high schools, women in our high schools that are leaders. So with that,

[00:34:15] I just really appreciate you being here, and think about Maggie Walker and Emily Couric in yourselves. All of you are leaders. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Galloway? I wasn't about to get into the whole who's the oldest woman on the desk. I learned that during those years at the board. I really enjoy this proclamation. As I have said in past years, that all the strongest, most influential folks in my life, especially through my childhood, were women. I did not have

[00:34:53] grandfathers in my life, so my grandmother was the sole influence up until she passed in 2004. I like to think that every time I talk to my daughters who are now going out into the world and finding their way, that it is through those influences that I am speaking to them to give advice. They are independent and strong, and I have no doubt that they necessarily need dad's advice, but I'll probably give it anyway. While I was in D.C., I had the opportunity, I snuck away for a few hours to go to the National Portrait Gallery in D.C. and walk, you know, to walk through

[00:35:30] the museum. I did not know this, so I don't have a whole lot to say to celebrate, but Jeanette rankin was the first woman elected to congress in 1916 and i didn't know that montana gave the vote to women before it was before it was granted nationally i didn't know that um she again got re-elected later in 1940 um but she stood together and while she said with the her she was notable because she said i want to stand with my country but i cannot vote for war she joined 49 men at the time against the U.S. entry into World War I. So I came across the, you know, you know how you come

[00:36:10] across things. I was like, I had no idea. So I'm looking forward to going back and learning more about her. But you want to talk about women in government to be able to be a part, and she was inspired by the women's suffrage movement. And I would say that Montana did well, not just to elect her, but they sent her back in 1940. And I'm looking forward as maybe a way to celebrate Women's History Month is that's who I'll be focused on here in the coming weeks but thank you all for what you do and thank you for being here today with us and let me just add my appreciation for all that you do and for the celebrating Women's History Month I noticed in the

[00:36:48] proclamation that we started with International Women's Day we went to Women's History Week and now we're in a month I think this is a good trend and I very much appreciate learning more about the Women in Government Affinity Group That's fascinating, and I'm glad you're working together and talking about these things.

[00:37:04] So thank you for being here. I appreciate all you do. You can take a field trip to Maggie Walker's house. A moment for a quick picture here.

[00:37:35] Okay. Thank you. Board, the next item up on our agenda is public comment on matters previously considered or currently pending before the board other than scheduled for public hearings.

[00:37:55] We have a couple sign-ups, so Vice Chair McKeel will read the rules and the names. Yeah, pull my, thank you, pull my mic down, and we have two individuals who have signed up, and we have no one online, so I will put my form out here.

[00:38:16] During the time set aside for public comment on matters previously considered or currently pending before the board, individuals may address the Board of Supervisors concerning those matters previously considered by the board or pending before the board other than items listed on the agenda for public hearing.

[00:38:35] Individuals are allowed one opportunity of up to three minutes to speak at each board meeting. A sign-up sheet is managed by the clerk's office. 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.

[00:38:51] 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. When addressing the board, please state your name, and if you live in Alamara County, your magisterial district. Address comments directly to the board as a whole.

[00:39:08] 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.

[00:39:25] And all comments are live streamed, recorded, and published on the Elmar County website. And our first speaker this afternoon is Lynn Gephardt. there she comes welcome please adjust the microphone to you can be heard hello good yes

[00:40:01] and introduce yourself as well for the record yes yes i am lynn lynn gebhard a resident of the scottsville district of albemarle county an equine business owner and an equine business farmer. Biscuit Run is the largest park and the gem of the county park system. The equine community has requested consideration for adding the equine trails back into the park. We have offered to meet

[00:40:39] with Director of Parks and Recreation, Mr. Krickenberger, to discuss a proposal. We are patiently awaiting an answer. A consideration for the Board of Supervisors that is yet to be presented is the economic benefit of equine trails as they relate to tourism. Horseback riding leverages the historic significance of Albemarle County and adds to the number of attractions and

[00:41:18] activities that our community offers. It further adds the ambiance and character of the community for many people who are looking for vacation activities or weekend getaway. The other activities that would dovetail into an exceptional experience in our community that fits into tourism model includes wine tasting, fine dining, Monticello, and other historic sites that would round out

[00:41:52] a complete package i'm asking what are your intentions of adding horse trails to biscuit run at any point in the future and i invite all board of supervisors to our horse farm to become more aware and educated of the horse farming in albemarle county thank you in advance for your

[00:42:23] consideration. Thank you all very much. Got to finish under this time. Thank you. Our next speaker is Mark Gebhard. Good afternoon, board members. Thanks for the opportunity. I'm Mark Gebhard, resident of the Scottsville District of Albemarle County. I'm an equine business owner,

[00:43:02] a horse farm owner, retired military officer, and professional engineer. The first issue I want to talk about is that I'm concerned as to whether the county is run as a democracy or a bureaucracy.

[00:43:21] The actions and decisions of the county planning commission and the board of supervisors will add to my final determination. My observations of the process lead me to believe the planning commission is acting more like professional cheerleaders than elected officials. I've discuss this issue with Mr. Pruitt, but will allow him the opportunity to brief the rest of the members, and I'll continue with no further comment on that issue. Today's comments are largely in

[00:43:57] reference to the AC44 Appendix B, Parks, Recreation, and Open Space. I have been up here before and talked about, in my view, this is a plan to create a plan or possibly a strategy to create a strategy.

[00:44:15] I've been in communication with Mr. Bob Krickenberger on this issue, and I've outlined a number of what I call deficiencies that he has written back, and the response is noted or contact the CDD.

[00:44:35] So that brings into question who is ultimately responsible for this particular section, and I would hope that when we hear from Mr. Ben Holt this afternoon, he might shed some light on that. So another criticism would be that the actions, the objectives and actions need to be quantified, specific, measurable, and achievable.

[00:45:00] This would allow us to communicate to the community, the taxpayers, what the exact plan may be and what we can expect. so my final comment is for the plan as a whole the comprehensive plan needs to be a living document that is flexible and meets and meets the demands of market forces that impact the development area

[00:45:31] so the other thing i would like to know from mr hold is if he got the the the questions i had to Mr. Krickenberger and whether they implemented any of that into his plan before he presents it today.

[00:45:48] Thank you very much. Thank you. And that's our last speaker. Thank you. Board, this brings us to our consent agenda. I've heard of no items to be pulled or otherwise. No, I just have a comment to make. Do you want me to make it first? Sure. About the consent agenda. And this may be for jeff to be perfectly honest with you but we had on the consent agenda the cost of community

[00:46:19] services study and i would very much like to have the opportunity to just have a probably a quick agenda item at some point jeff about that study i think it has some interesting information in it that would be good for not only us but for the public to hear and i don't think i know our agendas are tight and i don't think this has to be a long agenda item but i think if my fellow supervisors agree i just think it'd be good to have a discussion about it and that's all i don't want to pull it today or anything like that yeah and at this point this is an item for us to receive

[00:46:54] for information at this point but um take that under advisement so okay yep that's great thank you very much with that do we have a motion to accept the consent i move um approval of the consent calendar. Second. Second. Motion from Supervisor Lupisto-Curtley. Second from Supervisor Malik. Without objection, if the clerk will call the roll. Ms. Lupisto-Curtley. Aye. Ms. Malik. Yes.

[00:47:17] Ms. McKeel. Yes. Mr. Pruitt. Aye. Mr. Andrews. Yes. Mr. Galloway. Yes. Great. Thank you. Board, this brings us to our first action item for today, which is the special exception SE 2025 36701 Rockfish Gap Turnpike Country Store. And I believe this is being presented by Ms.

[00:47:38] Leah Brumfield, Senior Planner 2. Welcome, Ms. Brumfield. Thank you, members of the board.

[00:47:59] As noted, I am Leah Brumfield, Senior Planner 2 in zoning, and I am bringing to the board a special exception 2025-03 for 6701 Rockfish Gap Turnpike, the Greenwood Grocery Country Store expansion. The request is for a modification of the maximum gross floor area of the Greenwood grocery. Per the regulations in country stores, supplementary regulations 5.1, the maximum gross floor area for country stores class A is 4,000 square feet. This is a request for an expansion

[00:48:35] from 4,000 to approximately 5,600. Here is an aerial view of the grocery on the left, the larger building and then the smaller building that as described in the staff report is requesting to be included in the country store and then here is an aerial that's flipped the plan that's provided from the applicant showing the one-story block building which is the country store and then the one and a half story frame residence which would be incorporated into the country store class a

[00:49:13] and as a quick building history the grocery itself was built as a hut for fruit sales around 1957 time is a little bit fuzzy there the the hut was expanded into a country store between 1960 and 1990 with regular changes and updates and expansions it was burned in 1999 and then rebuilt between late 1999-2000 through 2003 as a longer process

[00:49:52] as a non-conforming Class A country store with non-conforming status. Then in 2008, the Class A country store regulations were adopted, establishing the Greenwood Grocery as a Class A country store.

[00:50:08] So the residence that they're requesting to add was originally, not originally, It was occupied by Basil and Vernell Morris between 1951 and 1999. They were also the operators of the country store during that time period.

[00:50:24] And the location was used for fruit sales and later additional sales from a picnic table and a pickup truck before they moved to the grocery location on the parcel next door. Following the fire which destroyed the country store building in 1999, The residence was used as a primary sales location for the business of the country store.

[00:50:49] And then recently, the current owners put in for a building permit to do alterations to the building that raised questions about what type of building permit it should be. It was originally submitted as a residential permit.

[00:51:05] And following some discussions with the applicant, we realized that it needed to be a commercial permit in order to be used for the country store. That led to a letter of determination, which established that the residence was not traditionally part of the actual country store building.

[00:51:23] And that's why they have applied for this special exception today. So there was a stock work order on the construction of the building while we got all of this figured out. The construction is still paused right now. And so now we are here to request, the applicant has requested the expansion of the overall square footage.

[00:51:48] Oops, sorry. So kind of looking at the building itself, this is a view of the country store from the front in the parking lot area, looking over to the side of it. And then on the other side of the property, as you noted in the area plan, this is the house where you can see the construction was started and then halted to renovate the location to be more conducive to country store use and less of a residence.

[00:52:23] The applicant has noted that they would combine the two properties into one parcel, which staff does recommend, as that would be a singular use on the one parcel of a country store, being the single use instead of a residence and a country store.

[00:52:43] Because the two properties are still currently owned by the same property owner, there is a fence in between them for any operations that are behind the fence for the country store operations. This is looking from the country store to the turnpike, and there are some trees and some bushes in the front yard.

[00:53:08] Overall, there isn't a large amount of screening there, but that would be something that would be, if there are any changes to the exterior, that would be something that we would have to address later. So we do recommend that board adopt the resolution of the staff report.

[00:53:31] And I wanted to just quickly go through those to give a little explanation of the history on that building. But if the board has any questions, I'd be very happy to answer them. Okay, thank you. We'll go through our order, starting with Supervisor Malik.

[00:53:47] I don't have any questions. Thank you for helping them to facilitate this. Supervisor Pruitt. Nothing at this time. Thank you. Supervisor LaPito-Curdling. No questions. Thank you. No questions. Supervisor Galloway. Yeah, it seems pretty clear no questions.

[00:54:04] I may have a comment if we go through another round at some point, if that opportunity presents. I guess my question is that we have two different buildings, which would then become one lot, one place. If they had been two separate owners with separate stores, that wouldn't have been a problem, or is that?

[00:54:28] If the residents had been used as a country store and established as a primary use as a country store, then that would be a country store. But because it was not primarily used as a country store, as that was what the building was for, it was used primarily as a residence with accessory uses, then that would be a different situation.

[00:54:54] I have no other questions. Any additional thoughts? I'd just like to, at our last board meeting, when we were talking about the rural area, we were talking about things that could exist in the rural area.

[00:55:14] We talked about country stores and things like that. So I couldn't help, I can't help, but just to draw our memories back to that conversation that this is the type of thing that came to be because of the individuals involved and they made it work. Now, that's a similar thing that's happening now.

[00:55:31] But back then, all the regulation didn't exist to allow it to happen. And I don't think any of us are going to have any problem with supporting this. And this isn't anything, you know, it's not a criticism against anybody. But this does make everything more expensive for those involved and ultimately for the people that end up purchasing from them is how this works.

[00:55:52] So I just wanted to call that out, that, you know, okay, would we really have a problem, you know, the 1,600 square feet in another location? Maybe, I suppose, which is why it's coming before us to look at each individual application. But, you know, if we want this sort of thing, we like this sort of thing, are we allowing any of our regulations to get in the way of allowing it to happen or expand?

[00:56:17] to help that business prosper. So thank you for allowing me to make that comment. Just to piggyback on that, Ned, certainly one of the issues you're referring to is the expense that it takes to bring this forward and the time it takes, right? Yeah. And I think there's a really good point.

[00:56:33] And staff time. And staff time as well. So staff time is basically doing the regulation that if it goes the way I think this is going to go, this is a quick item for us almost, what else could staff time have been used for? Great points.

[00:56:49] Thank you. Supervisor Mell. I will just say at this time, this is an example of how things in transition, things that have been operating for 50 or 100 years, have had to fit in with modern regulation. And so I'm glad that's why I thanked Leah at the beginning because it's complicated from a civilian's point of view, including me, who asked for the wrong building permit regularly, to get it right and to make sure that we have help provided for people.

[00:57:16] So after the vote, I will have another comment, but I don't want to prejudice anybody right now. Okay. I'm ready to make a motion whenever. Well, it's in the Samuel Miller district. Oh, it's on that side of the road. Yes, sorry. It's west of Birch's Creek. So anyway, just wondering, sure.

[00:57:34] Okay, I thought I was west of Birch's Creek. She's challenging both of us today in different ways. Go for it. You're not older than her, is she? No, no, that's true. He's a baby, just like you. I would make a motion to approve the special exception in the form of attachment D.

[00:57:58] Second. And with that motion by me and second by Supervisor Malik, without objection, clerk will call the roll. Ms. LaPiesto-Kirtley? Aye. Ms. Malik? Yes. Ms. McKeel? Yes. Mr. Pruitt?

[00:58:14] Aye. Mr. Andrews? Yes. Mr. Galloway? Yes. Thank you. And you had a comment you wanted to make in addition. to say that Greenwood Grocery is a real gathering place, and they provided wonderful food for the VACO board when they came to the county last spring and had wonderful contacts with local growers and sandwich makers and wonderful things that are sold and are made available through the catering. So it is a gem, and I'm very glad to have them continue in operation, and the best strawberries ever. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Brunfield. On board, this brings us

[00:58:51] to our biggest item for the afternoon, which is a discussion of the AC44 Parks, Recreation, and Open Space Policy and Actions chapter. This is led by Mr. Ben Holt, Senior Planner 2. Welcome, Mr. Holt and Mr. Palladino. Appreciate you being here.

[00:59:10] Thank you, Mr. Chair. Members of the board, if you'll allow me just one moment to get the presentation. Bring it a little closer. Is that better? A little. I'll try to speak up. Thank you. Give me one moment to bring up the presentation.

[00:59:26] Thank you. You have to remember, Ann and I are old, and we are hearing. Sorry, couldn't resist. All right, thank you all.

[00:59:46] Yes, my name is Ben Holt, and I'll be presenting on behalf of the Long Range Planning Team. Today's work session is a focus on the parks, recreation, and open space chapter. I'll try to keep my presentation relatively brief. I'll be sharing those duties with Tim Patilino to my right, and we'll make it a point to allow plenty of time for you all to discuss the chapter and share your feedback. Our presentation today will cover previous feedback that we've heard from both the Planning Commission and the Board to date, and this includes our recent work session with

[01:00:22] the Planning Commission last week. We'll also take a look at community input on the topic, as well as general content for the topic chapter, and we'll take a sneak peek at the upcoming stages of AC44. Focus topics will include expanding the development of parks and trails within the development areas of the county, as well as creating more walkable access, improving sustainable management practices within parks facilities, and increasing multimodal connections within the

[01:00:56] greenways network. Previous commission and board feedback to date includes support for the new parks and green spaces within the development areas, and also noting that we've previously relied too much upon developers to provide green space, which is often not accessible to the general public. Also noted is the need for new funding sources, a desire to enhance connectivity for the parks and greenway system, provision of community gathering spaces, and considering the cost

[01:01:30] associated with expanding and maintaining our park system. At our work session on February 25th last week, the Planning Commission noted that the language should be vetted to ensure that the objectives within the chapter are measurable and achievable. They also indicated a consensus of support for this focus to expand the parks network within the development areas, also utilizing area plans to integrate parks planning and trails connectivity. They talked about exploring funding

[01:02:08] sources, and that could potentially include a land acquisition fund, as well as a desire to expand the Rivanna Trail system to potentially include additional launch facilities for canoes and kayaks, and also to consider how our parks and recreation facilities may function as gathering spaces for events and arts. Our public feedback supports the expansion of the parks and trails networks that focus within the development areas, as mentioned, as well as expanded amenities and programs for different users and age groups, as well as accommodations for art and entertainment

[01:02:48] and more inclusive accessibility for all types of users. Additional input supports sustainable management practices. Again, the expanded Rivanna access and expanded facilities for pools and splash pads as popular amenities with the public. At our community open house event on January 29th, we received support for parks and recreation master planning process so that we can continue as a county to involve the public in allowing them to inform the plans, our parks plans

[01:03:27] and our needs assessment. There was also support for acquiring new land for parks system and revisiting specific recreational uses desired by the public. As you've also heard, we've received lots of ongoing interest about the desire to add equestrian trails within biscuit run park although specific amenities such as individual trails within each park are not addressed at the comprehensive plan level such uses would be considered and assessed as part of the county-wide parks and recreation needs assessment as well as the future park master plans which are noted in

[01:04:04] actions 1.1 through 1.3 the goal statement of the chapter indicates that our parks and trail system will provide both passive and active recreation opportunities active modes of transportation will support climate resilience and feature welcoming and inclusive amenities chapter objectives include planning for the needs of our current and future community increasing county land ownership for parks facilities and greenways expansions of park

[01:04:40] expansion of parks and greenways within the development areas improving accessibility enhancing sustainability, and expanded multimodal connections and expanding our recreation facilities and programs for the public. So, continued themes from the 2015 plan are continuing to develop the parks and greenways, protection of our natural areas, expanding public access to these parks and greenways, and enhanced multimodal connections. And at this point, I'm going to hand it over to Tim Patalino. Yeah, thanks, Ben. As noted, I'm Tim Patalino, your

[01:05:17] chief of parks planning. I'm happy to be here and engage with the board around AC44's parks, recreation, and open space chapter. In terms of the emerging themes that we're focusing on and weaving into this plan, increasing county-owned land for parks and greenways, expanding parks and greenways within the development areas, including pocket parks, increasing walkable access to parks and greenways measured by a quarter mile or 15 minute walk, and enhancing our focus on environmental resilience and sustainable land management practices has been alluded to,

[01:05:52] including things like invasive species management, restoration of forests, riparian areas, and streams, and conservation of natural heritage resources. An additional, okay, that's the new emphasis. Go ahead, one more slide, please. Yeah, perfect. So one additional point of emphasis staff wanted to highlight is the Rivanna River, and more specifically, the combination of separate but interrelated plan projects along the river corridor. So this vision of a Rivanna Greenway and Blueway is essentially a regional river park system with expanded greenway trails and improved

[01:06:30] Blueway access points or river parks. And the idea is that this is really something that becomes more than just the sum of its parts. It's a relatively large-scale vision from Brookhill River Park down to future Buck Island River Park, encompassing 17 total river miles, which would link Places 29 and Pantops development areas, the City of Charlottesville, Monticello, which is a World Heritage Site, and the rural area within the Rivanna District. Currently, the top priority projects would be upgrades to Brook Hill River Park, the extension of the Old Mills Trail Greenway

[01:07:06] from Pantops to Milton, and development of the future Milton Landing River Park. And I'll note that based on the terms of our Greenway easement deed with Monticello, Albemarle County would need to begin construction of the Old Mills Trail extension by or before August 2027, which really requires us to begin the design and permitting phase in fiscal year 26, and that's currently unfunded. I'll mention also that Buck Island River Park is another excellent opportunity as a future county park. It's perhaps less of an immediate priority than the River Park projects in Greenway trail extension I just mentioned, but I wanted to highlight that for your awareness. And this is

[01:07:44] not a new idea. This Rivanna corridor vision is already in our comprehensive plan, in the master plans, and also spelled out in the urban Rivanna River corridor plan prepared by TJPDC for the city and the county. So just to sum that up, the Rivanna really is the primary waterway in the Charlottesville Albemarle metro area. It's currently an underutilized asset, but potentially a top highlight of our region's outdoor recreation and open space portfolio. And then for my final slide, I'll just add one more point of emphasis, and that's the fact that we currently have documented needs for additional parks, greenways, athletic fields, and sport courts, and other recreation infrastructure

[01:08:23] and opportunities, plus the additional factor that those needs are growing based on things like anticipated population growth, urbanizing land patterns, especially in the development areas, and also increases in visitation and use, all of which adds up to a deepening importance of parks and greenways to our quality of life, health and wellness, and even our economy. So just as a brief example, with the coronavirus pandemic, we saw a 16% increase in visitation in 2020, and then an additional 14% increase the following year in 2021. And zooming out more broadly, looking at

[01:09:00] visitation levels, we have over 600,000 more visitors in Alpenborough County Parks in calendar year 2023 than we did in 2019 so that's a 40 plus percent increase over that short span of time and that's consistent with national trends from coast to coast and border to border it's clear that parks and greenways really are essential infrastructure for thriving communities thank you tim thank you um so just in terms of how this parks and recreation chapter fits in with other chapters we have overlapped with transportation as portions of the county's

[01:09:39] trail network are maintained at a higher level, and these are part of the transportation network. Environmental stewardship is another chapter because our parks land also helps preserve some of our native species, and it also overlaps with our development areas, land use, and housing as open space areas and pocket parks are critical amenities to have near housing for community access. It also overlaps where there are historic, scenic, and cultural resources

[01:10:15] chapter, our thriving economy chapter, community facilities, and resilient communities. And just looking at our AC44 schedule overall, we will continue our discussion on land use and community design guidelines with you all on April 2nd. Thriving economy will be reviewed at work session on March 11th with the Planning Commission and with the board on April 16th. We also recently had a Lunch and Learn event to cover our Thriving Economy chapter. Community Facilities and Infrastructure will be covered with the Planning Commission at work session on March 25th and

[01:10:55] again with the board on April 16th as that will be a joint session to discuss economy and community facilities. We also have a tentative date for our Lunch and Learn with the Community Facilities chapter on March 27th. Our Engage Albemarle website will continue to be a critical part of our engagement efforts as we continue to publish draft chapters for the rest of the AC44 topics.

[01:11:24] And with that, that brings us to our discussion portion. We'd like to highlight in particular objectives three, five, and six as areas that need particular input, and then we'll open the floor to any other objectives and actions you all would like to discuss. Thank you. Thank you.

[01:11:47] We'll go through our order, starting with Supervisor Malik. Okay, just so I understand, so we're not talking about the charts. This is just these sort of introductory pages? We'll do these, and then we'll come back. We'll come back after later on. Okay, so that's a change of my plan here. So I'm just going to clarify, because I'm sort of with Ann just to make sure. So you all are stressing three, five, and six for discussion, which is fine. Different numbers well we have we have one two three four in our packet and i get that but we're going to talk about three five and six are we going to do those separately or do you want us to do those

[01:12:22] jim at the same time as we go i'm just trying to figure out how to process this what's the easiest i understand yeah i do understand are we doing these first we're going to do these first and then we'll come back and do other comments on this chapter yeah so that no on the on the rest of this chapter. But as far as trying to separate out these three, I think it might be better to take them one at a time, just to be sure that we're on the same page. So if you have comments

[01:12:59] about Objective 3, I don't see specific questions so much as general feedback you're looking for on these. So help us out if there are specific questions that you have, for example, starting with Objective 3? Sure. Nothing specific. We had just highlighted these previously. We went over these objectives with the Planning Commission as well. These are areas where we feel like there might be pointed investment into our system. So I wanted to make sure that these were covered. But again, staff is fine if you all would like to cover the objectives and associated actions in

[01:13:38] any order you like. So if you prefer to do it consecutively, you know, starting with one, that's absolutely fine. I would prefer to keep with what we've got. Let's just start with three. Start with three and we'll come back to the others. Okay. Thank you. So three is a grand idea, certainly to have more small places with shade and a bench. I mean, many people over many years have said we don't have to have, can we start with something simple that we can actually get there rather than have something that's all paved and all sorts of games and things. I mean,

[01:14:15] a boulder, a shade tree, and a bench for mom to sit on is a really great thing. And several people have spoken about these particular very small pocket parks where they might actually fit in easily to our growth area for many years. So I certainly support that and would be a chance, Certainly during the approval process that the board could do more of a job to make sure that those particular little areas are designated and not lost on that.

[01:14:52] So I guess I will, since we're doing three only, I will stop there. Okay. Supervisor Pruitt. I don't think I have any issues with three as drafted. I do appreciate, like, at some point this board needs a forcing function.

[01:15:12] This is something I think the board talks about and generally agrees on, that we need urban parks, pocket parks, we need to invest in them. But it is all well and good for this board to say that. But if we don't have some kind of forcing function that is going to say, staff shall create a proposal for this, it shall require the investment of public money, and we are going to bring it to the board, then there's no, at some point someone has to push the ball down the hill.

[01:15:39] And I see this as the board being able to weigh in to push the ball down the hill so that staff can now also push by developing an actual proposal to get this off the ground. So I appreciate the point you're making, right? This is going to implicate money, but this seems to be like a necessary first step if we're actually going to accomplish that.

[01:16:01] I ALSO KIND OF ASSUME THAT THIS DUFFS TAILS INTO THE PREVIOUS OBJECTIVE, WHICH TALKS ABOUT THE FACT THAT WE DON'T JUST HAVE COUNTY-OWNED LAND SITTING AROUND IN, LIKE, THE DENSE URBAN, LIKE, RIO REGION, RIGHT, OR OTHER DENSE REGIONS, LIKE DOWNTOWN CROSÉ.

[01:16:18] WE'RE NOT FLUSH WITH LAND, AND THERE PROBABLY NEEDS TO BE SOME STRATEGIC APPROACH TO ACQUIRE, WHICH ITSELF ALSO, OF COURSE, IMPLICATES FINANCE. I also do want to just stress this, right? We, as a board, bandy about the word equity with some regularity, and it appears quite a lot in this chapter.

[01:16:37] And I do think there's a reason for that. We need to think about what the actual literal definition of it means, right? And I had the opportunity to think about this this Sunday because it was in the psalm that we read at church, right? It is literally just doing to someone what justice requires, providing the thing that is necessary for that person based on their position.

[01:17:01] When we talk about this in the context of parks, that means this is an amenity that is not available to someone, and therefore they are due it, right? This is the person who cannot easily take their kids to Wild Rock because of distance or cost should have access to a park.

[01:17:19] And so this has to, I think, be something we remind ourselves with parks because it's easy to think of them as an unadulterated normative good in all circumstances. But if we're not actively thinking about the population it's served, then we are potentially having a regressive use of our own money, right?

[01:17:40] Which is why I have shared with respect to our advocates who have come today and during previous board meetings, I personally find in most cases an equestrian trail be a regressive and inappropriate use of funding because most equestrians are people who have access to significant amenities on their own.

[01:17:59] They're in the upper strata of incomes, and that is fundamentally an inequitable use of funding. So I mention that because it particularly bears on the necessity of urban parks. These are often serving several lower-income areas. They're often serving people who do not have access to travel, but also as it informs the broader chapter.

[01:18:20] Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor LaPiesto-Curtley? With Actions 3.1 and 3.2, I have no concerns. I'm fine with the way it is. I do agree that we have spoken about urban pocket parks.

[01:18:39] I would like to know, do we have any land, county-owned land, in the urban areas to be able to put in a park? If we do, that's a huge step forward. If we do not, we need to plan on where we might be able to purchase some land and to be able to do that.

[01:19:00] Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor McKeel? Yes, thank you very much. As you all might imagine, this particular Objective 3 is where my heart lives. Everybody's smiling at me.

[01:19:17] Exactly. So I have to say that the 5% at this point should be the driver. And when I say 5%, I'm talking about the 5% of the development area. We have a lot of park land in the hinterlands that are completely unaccessible to many of my residents.

[01:19:41] And so looking at this through the lens of connectivity for those folks who can't just get in a car and drive somewhere or ride a bicycle somewhere or a horse, whatever it might be, So I think of this as the 5% driving.

[01:20:00] I do want to take an opportunity to mention, though, we do have two areas in the development area, the Charlotte Humphreys Park and the Ivy Creek Natural Area.

[01:20:16] Both of them need attention to accessibility. I'm going to take the opportunity to mention this, right? the charlotte humphress park we need some safety improvements around getting across roads that are dangerous and you're not in your head too so you know exactly what i'm talking about right so that's charlotte humphress park but then when you look at ivy creek natural area that is a wonderful park for a an area that it has really high density and people cannot walk there i'm

[01:20:56] looking at connectivity for the ivy creek natural area i want to specifically talk about this from the rock store down to the ivy creek natural area it is impossible to walk and we have all those apartment buildings net all of that density in that area so let's think about connectivity from the rock store a multi-use path down to the ivy creek natural area at the same time that is a very dangerous. We've had, you all know, multiple wrecks, close calls. We need to look at improving

[01:21:33] the site dissonance with the bank. Maybe that's part of that multi-use path work, but a turn lane, we're really in need of the turn lane that goes down towards Earliesville Road because there are lots of fender benders, and people are always going into that guardrail. I'll bet you I go by there almost every weekend it seems like somebody's gone into that guardrail we have a resident who is willing to give us right-of-way for that turn lane the entrance needs to be looked at from the

[01:22:12] viewpoint of safety and accessibility and to look at this as a big picture of people should be able to walk from hydraulic road where they live or commonwealth or whitewood to the ivy creek natural area, and we need to be providing a safe access for that area.

[01:22:33] I just want to take a minute and look at my notes, see if I'm missing anything. Yeah, we need to be adding the east-west turn lane is the one I'm talking about, right? Because we have the reverse. We have the turn lane coming up the other way. And I guess the other, I want to flip now to we don't have, you all are correct, we don't have a lot of Albemarle County land in the development area and especially in these urban areas.

[01:23:08] But we might have some opportunities for commercial partnerships. And I think really looking at Fashion Square Mall as it evolves, the shops at Stonefield, there's a great free space over there.

[01:23:24] I'd love for them to determine that that should be a green space and not just another building. But we have Rio Hill that has the ability right now to consolidate and perhaps provide some public space for us, Hollymead Center.

[01:23:44] So let's think about partnerships in that development area, in the rural area, I'm sorry, in the development area, but in the urban area, around working with some of the perhaps commercial businesses and developers so that we're just not looking at dog parks and totlots for new development, but to think a little bit differently.

[01:24:10] And again, give me a minute to look at my notes. But I think I am close to, for example, Hollymead Center. Burkmar Drive has some great opportunities. And I might add that working with the school system,

[01:24:34] We may have some opportunities with the school system, because we have the Lambs Lane campus right there, but some opportunities with the school system to create more public spaces or to create some park areas that we haven't really taken advantage of at this point.

[01:24:55] And I do think that probably is what I have for right now. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Calloway. Ditto. a lot of what supervisor mckeel has brought up i guess i would start with on that page so in the the overarching well it's right there but it it's paraphrased but the 15 minute walk from a public

[01:25:32] park and or public greenway trail um and i think in some ways this is a call out to it was mentioned like we look at smart goals you say achievable measurable and achievable in your presentation we had a public speaker speak to that but the next letter is realistic i think it's probably realistic to have a 15 minute walk to a public greenway trail if we use all our multi-use paths that we're talking about but 15 minute walk from a public park in the development area is a very

[01:26:05] different goal i'm not thrilled not i mean i don't know maybe thrilled is not the best word but when we say a 15 minute walk from a public park and or public greenway trail you can see what i'm leaning is like oh well it's we've really been trails but it's not that's probably realistic but if the other one's not realistic that in the development area that you could walk 15 minutes and get to a public park how realistic is that it would be very realistic for some that's over by charlotte humphreys but you know 15 minute walk if you're in uh and i guess if you

[01:26:44] want to include school grounds as parks i'm going to have more comments about that it's probably fits better in a different objective than here. But I feel like we're advertising that we have, we kind of claim that we have more than what we have to offer. And I know we're trying to get there, but I think public parks should, and this isn't being judgmental to what Supervisor Malik said, but it should be more than a bench and a tree. You know, we require on private development

[01:27:19] to do a lot of playgrounds for the younger kids. And most of our school spaces, all of our school spaces are designed more towards younger kids we seem to think that teenagers all they need are open fields and then we have very passive for anybody that's older so unless you're involved with an organized club or activity there's really not a lot of pickup games happening except i love it at cobalt ridge where they the tennis court is basically turned into a soccer field and there's a term for that now it's like in like a different i forget what it's called but there's a different

[01:27:57] term for that like futsal futsal yeah um but that's basically what what's going on there um based on the community that's living there but you know giving teens something to do probably means that the life of the the the long-term tenure of small children's playgrounds will last longer um you know it's it's i sometimes get emails about the dugouts at woodbrook on the baseball field and sometimes they get vandalized etc well that's usually idle hands right that

[01:28:34] turns into that but what are what would we say to them that if well if you don't want idle hands where where should they go if they're 12 to 18 and so i'm not i think we can provide it all i think we have the means and the ability to provide across the whole age spectrum but i think especially in the development area since it's going to have the most intense development it should be representative of all the age groups that are going to live there, and if we're going to be asking families to be living in multifamily buildings, that we're really missing the opportunity

[01:29:12] to provide something for a segment of the population that doesn't need an organized soccer event in order to get out and do a pickup game of whatever. And that, unfortunately, would include, I think for some, like basketball courts. Where the, if you, somebody asked me one time, Where is there a basketball court that kids could get to in Rio?

[01:29:38] Yeah. There's one little hoop over by a church by the mall, and there's another hoop up on the church on the other side of Rio. And lo and behold, what happens? Those churches are open to it. Some pickup games can start to happen. But they're not advertised.

[01:29:55] I think they're more connected to the church community than just being open to the community. But that's the type of stuff that's not even being provided in private development. We don't, I don't, I can't think of a basketball court that's outside at a school. I'd have to, because most of that are fields.

[01:30:15] I can't think of an actual outside court. So even at the schools, they have an outside court? I don't remember that. I'd have to go over there and drive around and look. At least they used to. I haven't been there for a while. But school stuff is not open.

[01:30:32] We call it, we like to think that they're open to the public and they're public parks. But you have to know that access to school stuff comes with some restrictions and they're not just open to the public. So if you want to use a basketball court inside or anything inside a school, you've got to go through a process, and then it's dictated by the school calendar, et cetera.

[01:30:50] To me, that's like a quasi-public park. Same with their fields. You know, you can't access it during the day when all the children are out there, right? I mean, you could, but, I mean, good luck trying to get on the seahorse or the hobby horse or whatever you're trying to get onto. But this is something that you would think that parents of teenagers would be lobbying for.

[01:31:11] Most of the folks in my community that bring this up are seniors who recognize that teenagers need things to do and would like things to do and would use it if we offered it and added. So I'm just using this as the point where the development area, I think, has to provide that.

[01:31:28] Like, I think it would be dumb to put a basketball court out in one of the, you know, at Beaver Creek or something. You know, like, why? Why would you do that? But in the development area, we have to think of programming in a little different way, I think, that may somewhat be performed by our last activities survey that we did.

[01:31:47] And I don't need basketball courts or things like that called out. I agree with you that the programming level of what happens at these places doesn't need to be in the comp plan. But it is the visionary place that says if we're going to provide parks and rec, we need to think of the whole spectrum of the population.

[01:32:04] And that's just a glaring gap, in my opinion, in the development area when you're talking about the urban parks and such. That 15-minute walk into points that Supervisor McKeel made become real critical in terms of then the connectivity or the ability to get there.

[01:32:22] Because once teens get the driver's license, it does change what they do. But before that, they're going to have to walk or ride a bike. And how well are we doing that? did did you all go through the rio 29 small area plan i mean there were commitments made and design elements and things made in that plan that speak to this so was that reviewed and said like all right like i didn't really see any call out to the small area plan the rio 29 small area plan

[01:32:58] at the comp plan level in terms of implementing what work we did that would address parks and rec and those four quadrants so is that in there is that i mean i'm sure it's part of the process but I just and I might have missed it in my prep. Yeah that's a good question Supervisor Galloway.

[01:33:16] I know that we reviewed it and have been working in that plan in connection with the form-based code and other kind of parallel initiatives but I don't think it's really very present in our action items. I think it would behoove us to call out what we committed to during the Rio 29 small area plan then. Specifically we talked about the park-ish type of thing or amenity we could provide behind the library and behind that quadrant it was like a stormwater rain rain garden or I forget the term floodable park I think we also committed during the small area plan planning afterwards that the county would take on some ownership working in partnership with private

[01:33:55] developers to to take on maintenance and ownership if something were to develop to the small area plan in the form-based code so I think that needs to be addressed in here so that if a developer is looking at our comp plan and go, oh, well, wait a minute. We could provide an amenity and then that could get handed off. The county's already committed, which we have. We've committed to that.

[01:34:16] So I think there's some opportunity to revisit the small area plan and figure out how to work that into the comp plan, because I think this is the right level for that particular commitment. And then, objective three. I wrote it down as objective three, but I think it's really my comments are more born out of the overarching goal. When you say connected, parks so it it talks about i wrote it down for probably because of the 15-minute walk but the

[01:34:55] overarching goal of the entire chapter it says connected and accessible or why can't i find the goal we'll have a connected and accessible network of parks and trails so connected i i mean by that should i mean that all of our parks are in fact connected together in some way or to something where i can get from all these parks to other parks is that what we're talking so it's not just a trail but if it's biscuit run to the boat launch up at rio rio and uh or not rio up uh

[01:35:34] ravanna and 29 like are we saying that we want those two parks connected to one another to be able to get from a transportation i mean i'm just trying to understand what connected means right yeah i think the idea is from a holistic view especially within the development area to create a network that consists of the parks, open space pockets, and the trails networks so that the community has enhanced walkable access to these features and that they can move between them from one space to another.

[01:36:10] Yeah, that's great. And to build on that, Ben, I think the goal is not literally to have each and every park connected by unbroken Greenway Trail connections. That would be a wonderful vision to achieve over time. I think the goal statement is more broadly intending to say, let's increase the level of connectivity, whether it's residential districts to our parks, residential districts to greenways, greenways to parks, trying to make progress in all of those different types of connections.

[01:36:37] And then, again, if we're able over time to get to a point where all of our county parks are interconnected by greenways, ideally with other recreational opportunities in the city or at the university, that's really what we work towards. I don't know that the goal statement is intended to be quite that literal, but more of that ambition.

[01:36:57] I just, that was calling out, like, transit and how that could, I'd be curious, within the pilot program of MicroCat, you know, somewhere in the analysis, how many folks are using them to get to one of the few parks that are inside that pilot area. That would be, and Darden's, is Darden in the pilot area?

[01:37:14] No. Pantox is. Pantox, but Darden, but I don't think Darden is. I can't remember. But like Charlotte Humphreys would definitely be within the pilot area. I'm calling that out that if it were to be connected, if we had a microtransit type of thing, that could be the way to move people around because it's not like you need a fixed route from all of these.

[01:37:37] Thank you. Thank you. I'm just going to add my agreement that the idea of this Objective 3, accelerating development of urban parks, pocket parks, greenways, is something I support. And the way it's phrased in this objective with 15-minute walk from a public park and or public greenway trail I think is important because I think it's the achievable objective here and something that we should look to.

[01:38:02] So it's part of a connectivity master plan, if you will, and may also point to something that we have to pay attention to sidewalks and things as well because that may be part of the issue. I certainly agree with making things like Ivy Creek more accessible to people would be wonderful.

[01:38:20] I'll push back just for a moment, though, not that I don't think that this acceleration of urban parks isn't the direction we should go in, but I do want to make sure I make the point that a rural park isn't necessarily accessible to people who live in the rural area either.

[01:38:38] It is a question for anybody who is going to go to a park that's further away that they may need a car or some other mode of transportation to get there. That said, you pointed to statistics about the dramatic increase in the usage of our parks, and I would like at some point to drill down into that to see which parks are getting this dramatic increase in usage and does this give us a sense of utilization of the closer-in parks compared to those that are further out.

[01:39:09] And so I think there's some interesting information to learn there. But I'm supportive, and I think we should move on to the next. And just let me make a really quick point, because I think it's easy to forget. Ned's talking about accessibility, and I've been talking about, remember that we are building a pedestrian bridge right now across 29 North, which has been a huge barrier for connectivity.

[01:39:32] Charlottesville has lots of trails and parks. I'm just saying, and that bridge is going to provide connectivity. And at some point, we also hope transit connectivity, because the plan is to have a transit stop on one side. So I'm just saying, remember that that bridge that's not completed yet, but that will connect Charlottesville and Albemarle together when we're talking about connectivity.

[01:39:57] And I'm about to knock my mic over. I'm sorry. Thanks. You know, I do know that this is actually in this figure that we have that shows the different parks for three years and how the usage has increased. And we could see, you know, the D'Orton Tau and Rosé Park are the two biggest uses.

[01:40:14] Yes. I had one other point just on Objective 3 before we move off of it, and it speaks to Objective 3, but it's actually at a different point in our presentation. So we have on page 5, there's a box, Parks by Location, that does, I think, a really good job of kind of clarifying the different nature that parks have based on their location.

[01:40:36] Just for the public, what it says is rural area parks are primarily intended as recreation opportunities with scenic and nature resources such as mountains, streams, and forests. These parks are usually geared toward hiking, walking, biking, paddling, fishing, and equestrian uses. Moving down in the development areas, park sizes tend to be smaller and have amenities like playgrounds, athletic fields, and indoor recreation facilities.

[01:40:58] I think that is helpful to kind of put texture on what these different parks are doing. But what I would raise is that is a descriptive statement, and it is not a normative statement. And I mean, I do not know whether or not it is this board's intention to have that be a normative statement.

[01:41:19] I think that is reasonable, right? Like a rural area park is there to be a destination and is there to be a public amenity for access to nature, right? Sometimes we get critiqued that we're preserving all this nature, but it's actually all private.

[01:41:36] So what are we even preserving it for, right? And so I see the value in that, and I see that as a different value than the futsal fields that we need in the development area for kids to play. But I'm not sure we capture that as, like, a specific concrete objective or a component of an objective for how we want to, like, demarcate this.

[01:42:00] Or if we did, I missed it. And I guess I would just maybe almost raise that as a discussion point. Like, I think that makes sense to adopt as a normative, like, performance standard. This is what we want in this area, and this is what we want in the other area. But I am one member of the board.

[01:42:19] Yes, Supervisor Malone. Let me run over a couple things that I wrote down as everybody else was putting in, their wonderful comments. My comment about the boulder and the bench was just as a beginning to get a foot in the door, not that that's all we should ever do. But here's a piece of property.

[01:42:35] We get people used to going there with lovely shade trees, and then we go from there. The one of the things that's very popular at Crozet Park that the community board has had to deal with in the last six months is the competition between parking and the pickup games for adults who want to play there when they're away from their work for an hour or two in the middle of the day.

[01:43:01] So those are the kinds of things where the multipurpose of it is really important. And if you have a basketball court, you need to make sure that there are not cars being parked there so that people don't have to walk the extra 30 feet to get to the connector trail. That's been worked out.

[01:43:16] But it just shows, I think, the level of interest in that. I totally support what others have said about what the teens are up to because for years they hung out at the four-way stop there at Crozet Avenue and Three Notch Road. and have begged for a skate park for years.

[01:43:35] So it's in the Croce Park Master Plan, but somewhere down the bottom. So those are the kinds of things that have been long in discussion. And certainly for Ivy Creek, getting that turn lane in there is so important because it's only a miracle that I personally have not been creamed from behind or from the front of somebody either hurrying to cross in front of me or coming down too fast and not being able to stop behind me, especially in the snow.

[01:44:04] The other thing is that we can do it more simply, and that's another thing. It's like the boulder and the rock, only if it's for roadways. We have been priced out of so many different things because we've gone for the Cadillac version, and we need to go for the very safe, minimal accepted VDOT version to get it done.

[01:44:25] The pedestrians, I just wrote down because I don't know if it's even possible, but there's both an electric utility easement and an ACSA easement from the Rock Store 2, And perhaps a crossing at Squirrel Ridge would take it right into Ivy Creek. So I think there are lots of ways that other smart people could do a really good job to figure this out and move this forward.

[01:44:45] I did have a couple of notes. I just don't want to, since we're moving away from this area, I'll send those to staff. I would encourage staff in the Greenway map to put red dots at all the places that are lacking red dots right now, Milton, Buck Island, Dardentow, because they may not be in operation right now, but they should be. And these are places, Buck Island particularly was donated to the county in 2010, I think. And for $200,000, we could have put a driveway in to allow it to be used. So that's the sort of simple way to get access to people. At the very least, they can put in their

[01:45:24] boat at Brook Hill and somebody can fish them out 17 miles later, which is an exhausting paddle, but fish them out at the Flavana border is a wonderful thing. And it would really be a benefit for our tourism dollars and begin to get people to recognize that there are lots of different things they can do here. We will have additional opportunities to comment on the other sections of this chapter. Very good. I will, I'll just provide these to the staff directly. And I'd like to jump in, Supervisor Malik, just to mention that your point is well taken and we struggled with

[01:46:00] where, which map to include which detail. We decided at this draft level to go ahead and make Rivanna River specific map on page 8 of the chapter and that does call out the kind of planned future river parks and greenway trails. Some of that information overlaps with the greenways plan but we zoomed in a little bit and looked at the river oriented planned future projects on page 8. Just for the board's awareness.

[01:46:27] Thank you very much. Very good. I'll stop there. Well, we're actually then back to you for objective 5, right? If I'm correct. Okay, but without going through the charts, we're jumping to five. Okay, where's the question for number five?

[01:46:43] Increase environmental sustainability and resilience. It's called out as a particular focus topic for this discussion. It would help that there are questions that you have that you'd like us to focus on that would certainly help the discussion. Thank you.

[01:47:03] We need to, what I wrote above the objective in five is that there are parks which have different features and need to have different management levels. Arrowhead should not be where soccer is happening because of the rare plants and things that are in there, one of like five places in Hall of North America where those things are growing.

[01:47:21] So we have an obligation for that. Under 5.1, I had written the safer chemical policy, which was adopted in 2010, needs to be made more powerful and used to the full extent of its intent. Right now, it's basically file a form and get approval, and there's no alternative discussion. There's just go and do it. And this is allowing a lot more chemicals to be used in our parks than was intended when the policy was adopted. And that's all I had written for number five. Thank you. Supervisor Pruitt?

[01:47:57] I recognize it's not always easy to, like, consolidate a SMART goal for something. But I'm particularly attenuated. I have blinkers go off when I notice one that I'm like, oh, well, we have already accomplished that.

[01:48:17] This is, like, day one when we implement it, we can check something off because we have met a technical, like, definition of having done that. So I'm looking at 5.6, which we are doing currently. So this is one that I would think if we're going to include it, it's a good activity we do.

[01:48:35] I think the work that we're doing on this issue is really great, and I might like to see it expanded in some way. But I think if we're going to include something that we could plausibly already take credit for, then it needs to have a smart goal connected with it, showing what we're actually trying to accomplish there.

[01:48:53] And otherwise, broadly, I'm not sure I have major flags or concerns on five. Unlike our previous discussion, it is not as immediately clear how this flags as a major budget commitment.

[01:49:11] This seems like almost more of a planning dimension for the department's ongoing work. If I'm not correctly understanding that, let me know. But I'm thinking, for example, I'm thinking of Chair Andrews' comments on the unveiling of Biscuit Run, where he discussed a lot of the regenerative work that had been done to the ecosystem during that.

[01:49:32] that was a planning dimension that was a consideration and a goal that was incorporated into other park activities that were going on during that time um so i appreciate how that needs to be an objective but i guess i'm saying i don't see this as a a major external additional commitment i'm not seeing like major externalities that this implicates um but if there is something that maybe i'm not missing that maybe that i'm not capturing in this let me know but i i see this is, I think, less immediately impactful and consequential than the previous one.

[01:50:10] And I kept putting commas on that sentence, and I kept seeing you getting ready to interject to answer my question. I just kept being like, oh, what about a semicolon here? That's a great comment and question, Supervisor Pruitt. I think this board should be recognized for creating a full-time position as a natural resources specialist within Parks and Recreation recently.

[01:50:30] So there is a financial commitment there, of course. My understanding working on this kind of peripherally and not being the expert on the team is that there are resource needs based on the extent of the need and the extent of our parkland acreage in the county. I know there's others who understand the issues on this dais better than I do, but there are a lot of invasive species spread that's happening both in upland parks, in future parklands like Hedgerow, and also certainly along the Rivanna River.

[01:51:00] In some cases, there have been great partnerships that, you know, leverage our caring and well-resourced community to help tackle those issues. But removing invasives is one major overhaul. Installing native plant communities is another separate investment.

[01:51:16] And then, again, the scope and the scale of the issue, I think, is quite significant. So I know there have been resource requests in the past and perhaps before you now. But just want to kind of politely add that there are some things that can be done without resources, and then there are a lot of actionable things that need to happen that would require additional resources.

[01:51:38] Supervisor Lefezio-Curtley? On 5.6, are we, by the statement, are we coordinating volunteer teams? Is that an objective, or are we going to continue to coordinate?

[01:51:56] Because of my understanding, that's already going on. I mean, we have that in Pantops, and we have that along the Rivanna River, et cetera, et cetera. So would that be better stated, or should it not be stated that way to continue to coordinate volunteer teams?

[01:52:17] Yeah, Supervisor Lapisa currently. I think that's really good. I would agree that maybe this could be improved with a continue and expand, as others have noted, the coordination of volunteer. And then maybe have some metrics. Since this is something that we do now, that would help determine exactly what we're trying to move towards.

[01:52:34] I mean, it's made a big difference with the volunteers along Freebridge Lane, where you can now see the Ravana River. So, yeah, I think continue to coordinate and expand. Thank you. Supervisor McHugh? Sure, thank you.

[01:52:51] 5.1 talks about the management of the park, and it does occur to me, maybe what we really need, and this is just a thought, is management, a template of some sort, of management plans for parks and open space of different sizes, because we're talking about pocket parks, and then we're talking

[01:53:27] about biscuit run very different so in in my mind if i was looking at a template might be something based on size um and the other thing that i i didn't have a lot to say on this one other than because i don't disagree with much of this i do and maybe i misunderstood what mike was saying but i do think we have to be careful with these documents to make sure that they just aren't

[01:53:59] a list of action items that, you know, and I know it says action, but just in my head, I always get concerned when we have page after page after page, because the more you have, the harder it is. You know what I'm saying. It's really good to skinny some of these down so that you really know where your focus is. Having said that, 5.3, I had a big question mark about because, and this is not my expertise at all, but implement best practice lake management

[01:54:36] strategies to reduce harmful algae blooms and improve water quality in county lakes. My understanding is that the biggest problem with that are people that live along those waterways or those lakes and what's coming down off of their yards. And you're not in your head, so I'm not off base here. I think that's correct, Supervisor McKeel. I think upstream land uses are probably the primary determinant of downstream water quality and this I'll just add to that I think this is one of those actions that might be better stated continue to implement

[01:55:10] best practices I know our superintendent Jim Barber with our department leadership has done a lot in recent years to kind of address harmful algae blooms do proactive monitoring and take the steps necessary to kind of keep our lakes open to the extent that we can yeah and this specifically Blue says lakes. Streams, but it says lakes.

[01:55:32] And so that's what my mind went to. And to try and figure out what the action steps will be to make that, those homeowners, because it's easy to say it, but we have a targeted population that we need to work with, and how we do that is a whole other topic.

[01:55:53] And this is an important topic that might have an intersection with other chapter topics. Yes, exactly. Environmental, I would think, right off, whatever. But I think, Jim, that's all I have for this. Thank you. Supervisor Calloway? Yeah, at that point that Supervisor McKeel just finished on is the only one I wrote down about this.

[01:56:11] I mean, it wasn't, I remember back in the fall, Supervisor Malek and I made the comment that, well, of course we didn't have any algae blooms at Chris Green Lake because we had a drought and there was no water running into it. Right. So nothing was pouring in. And short of doing the Chris Green Lake Act and doing that with all our lakes, what can we do?

[01:56:30] Our stream buffers, our ordinances that are in place should be protecting this public asset from the upstream things that are there. This speaks to dealing with it when it occurs. So it does seem to call out that somewhere else we need to be dealing with the fact that, you know, when I remember back when they were redoing some stuff over on the Raya Hill Shopping Center and paint got into a waterway and all the streams behind Woodbrook were going white.

[01:56:58] I mean, that was like, oh, call to action. Let's get out there and fix this. and find out who's doing what and figure it out. But we don't do that when Chris Green Lake shuts down with an algae bloom. We go and do, we shut it down. We say to people, you can't use this, et cetera. But then, and great, I appreciate that.

[01:57:16] That's to the extent that's all Parks and Rec Department can do. But it calls out another department, just like when we went and found the source of the white paint and told them what you're doing and what you're doing wrong, we went and corrected a behavior that was happening upstream. And that seems to me that that needs to be addressed, whether it's in this comp plan or not, at least saying, well, we're not just going to fix your problems because of your bad behavior upstream, that we have to call out that we're going, you know, some, I don't know if that's enforcement.

[01:57:46] I'm sure it is. Maybe, I mean, others have talked about the Chesapeake Pay Act itself. But to me, not just the environmental concern of it, but if we had other behaviors that made us shut down a public asset to the community, we would, in fact, go into further steps to mitigate that.

[01:58:11] And sometimes I don't necessarily know if we're doing that to the same degree when one of our lakes gets shut down. Thank you. Thank you. I don't think there's much that I can add to this. I do think that the comment made about recognizing in the Action 5.1 and in general for this that we have different sizes, different uses, different locations, different uses particularly for parks dictate different management styles.

[01:58:41] I also think that when we're looking at some county-owned properties that are not yet parks, it's kind of a bit much to try to manage invasive species at what you're calling a hedgerow property right now without any real access or anyone using it.

[01:58:59] It's tilting at windmills, I guess, is what's going on in my head. But I agree with the comments that have been made for the most part. So I'll let this as a priority item stand. Thank you. Supervisor Mallow.

[01:59:16] Thank you. I would just like to pile on to the algae bloom because we're right now just treating it with putting more chemicals in. And that's not helpful either because we don't really know what the impacts of those are going to be to all the swimmers out there. But we do have an option.

[01:59:32] Supervisor McKeel has brought it up multiple times. is that if we adopted more chapters of the Chesapeake Bay Act, these things would not be happening. There would be control of buffers upstream in all of our waterways, and that would give Mr. Barber authority, which he does not have today.

[01:59:49] We have the same problem out at Beaver Creek with people weed whipping down to the ground when they're not allowed to do anything for 200 feet. And it's the same people over and over again. It's just you can make yourself crazy trying to deal with this, But more authority would be helpful.

[02:00:06] And I'm such a big proponent of the Chesapeake Bay Act. I'm going to jump in here right now because you use a better word than I do. What is it you call biosolids? Sludge. Sludge. I thought you had another word, too, as well. But if we adopted the Chesapeake Bay Act, you'd take care of that because that's not allowed.

[02:00:26] We're actually looking at 3 o'clock, which was a scheduled time for us to take a recess. We would come back and look at Objective 6. And then we would go around one more time looking at the remainder objectives and comments otherwise on this chapter. Thank you.

[02:00:42] So we will recess for 15 minutes.

[02:15:46] We are reconvening, please.

[02:16:11] I appreciate it. And we will look to this list of first objectives to give comment on before going back and looking at the chapter as a whole. And that would be objective six.

[02:16:28] The next one expanded the Greenway's network to enhance outdoor recreation and increase multimodal connections. Emphasis on increased multimodal connections. Supervisor Malik. So this will give me a chance to put in a plug for recognizing the value of our gravel roads for walking, bicycling in the rural area where the density of people is too far separated to worry about sidewalks or anything like that.

[02:16:55] But the value of the gravel roads is tremendous for the people who live along them and also for people who actually portage in in a vehicle and either walk long distance or bike ride in these areas. And just as an example, I was out at Ridge Road with VDOT and county staff on last week talking about the parking situation where people are just parking all over, and we need to find a solution for that.

[02:17:22] But all the people who were coming and going were living in the growth area and coming out. You know, I meet my friend, and we walk the five miles to the other end and back. we see the scenery and it's great it's much more fun than walking round and round and round in circles but this is the kind of thing that's available to us in the rural area if we have the determination to take care of our gravel roads so i will leave at 6.1 was what we were supposed to look at and make sure i didn't forget something no that's fine thank you i'll wait till the next one okay thank you supervisor pruitt um like with our previous uh the first one we started with

[02:18:01] objective three. This is one that I think we're discussing it because it's a big block, right? We've used this terminology in budget discussions before, but this implicates a lot of county resources, right? This is a major project. It would require us to bring a lot to bear if this is something we're committing to. It's also something I think you know personally I'm very committed to. I mentioned at the beginning of this board meeting, now I'm blanking on the word for it. The event that Peter Krebs helps organize annually, the Active Mobility Summit. The Active

[02:18:36] Mobility Summit last year, we talked in great depth about kind of the broad vision for this and how deeply energizing this could be for the region. I think we only need to really look at the current attendance of a non-county park, Riverview Park, right next to the county, right?

[02:18:53] you can walk to it very easily from my district. But that is one of the most trafficked places in the city, and it's not even near a clear amenity other than itself. I think being able to energize this entire corridor with that kind of activity. The thing I would compare also and evoke would be the Washington Old Dominion Trail, where it cuts through northern Virginia.

[02:19:18] There are industries, there are pop-ups, there are commercial activity that exists along that. There are bike shops that would not exist but for the proximity to that. There are breweries that would not exist but for their proximity to the Washington Old Dominion Trail because there is such a tremendous amount of multimodal transit for pure recreation purposes that cut through that.

[02:19:39] And I see this as, like, maybe the county's, like, most immediate way to kind of achieve that same kind of economic engine. And, frankly, it just sounds cool as hell. I want to be on this trail. I want to be on this one continuous trail. well, I want to go run 20 miles one day and have my husband come pick me up on the other side because I can't walk anymore.

[02:19:58] I'm really excited for it. So it is a major commitment, but it is one I'm excited for. Thank you. Supervisor Lopisto-Kirtley? I think this is extremely important. Of course, we always, unfortunately, have financial concerns, and now with the government and the state may be pulling back on something.

[02:20:23] However, this is a 20-year plan. This is something that will actually be very helpful, not only for the residents who live here, but also for tourism. A lot of people will come from outside the county, hopefully spend the evening, spend their money here, and this will directly affect tourism.

[02:20:44] So this is an economic engine, I agree with Supervisor Pruitt, this is an economic engine to augment what we already have and to bring in others who come in, walk the trails, do hiking, et cetera, and spend a couple days and then leave.

[02:21:03] So we benefit from that. So I don't have anything to add other than I'm really impressed by 6.6, continue to sustain volunteer trail maintenance programs. I think that is so important. I was going to say put in continue to sustain and support, but I think sustain would answer it.

[02:21:27] But if you want to slip in support, that would be great, too. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor McKeel. Yeah, just I don't have any real concerns about anything that's here for the most part. Just kind of an overarching high-level thought.

[02:21:44] I am very supportive of improving and maintaining what we have. When we're talking about new purchases and taking on big expense new, I'm not in favor of that, to be honest with you.

[02:22:02] I mean, we have a lot of parkland right now, and we have limited funds. But I will say that I do think we need to spend some money around safety and health issues in some of our parks. For example, we have kiosks at the rural parks, but they're not staffed very well now.

[02:22:22] It would be helpful to have enhanced communication options. I don't know what those might be. I'm not an expert. If we can do something that can increase safety but without having an actual person there, I think that's great. But I do think we need to look at that and see how that, because people shouldn't, you know, anyway, I don't need to belabor this.

[02:22:45] So looking at health and safety issues, I think, is really critical. And, of course, health and safety water quality issues as well. But outside of that, and I know I sound like I'm fighting with myself here because some of this does talk about new, and I'm not against what you have here.

[02:23:06] I just think we have to be cautious to make sure that we're not taking on more than we can handle or finance. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Galloway. uh yeah and if we were we may prioritize other things of why we might acquire property exactly um i think here the only i'm satisfied with six i would and i don't know if this is the right place to maybe connect it or not but six five i know this is funded by a raise grant hopefully

[02:23:43] that grant doesn't go away um but the other raise grant we've been trying to get to for years is the bike ped bridge going over the revana river from pantops to wool mills so i don't know if there's a way to call out alternative funding or raise grants but also note that project because in a lot of ways that particular bike ped bridge if that can come to fruition really connects two areas that have that are difficult to connect any other way so that's something that i think should be in here but i want to emphasize more the alternative funding piece of it almost than i

[02:24:20] do necessarily the project but the only reason it brought came to my attention was because you called out the raise i mean that's a funded raise grant the two the two attempts to get the planning grant for the bike ped bridge has scored exceptionally well and they keep encouraging us to come back so i know that that's going to go back forward for a third attempt to try to get that planning grant so i'll just leave that for you guys just do one thanks thank you uh and i I am supportive of everything that's in here.

[02:24:54] I obviously agree that the Three Notch Trail study is funded. We want to continue that work. There was a description when you introduced this topic. You were talking at one point about the old Mills Trail and concerns about losing opportunities there.

[02:25:12] I'd like to understand that better, but I certainly would hate to see us lose an opportunity that takes us east as well as west. So connecting up, again, not just our parks with the community, but also other amenities like Monticello that are made accessible by our greenways.

[02:25:32] So I'm very supportive. Thank you. With that board, I want to give us an opportunity. The last item was others, if I recall, the other objective actions needing input.

[02:25:49] But in addition to that, there are a lot of pages of description in this chapter that we haven't really focused on. And I want to give everyone an opportunity. I think I'm going to just open it up once here, and then we'll have a more free-throwing discussion.

[02:26:04] So just have one more time. One more round, and then we'll see where that leads as things come up. For one, two, and everything. For the others or anything. For the other things, right. Things that you're concerned about that had not been discussed.

[02:26:21] Thank you. So we'll start with Supervisor Malik. I know you have comments on a lot of different sections. Well, a lot of them I will have mentioned, so I won't do those again. So at some point later, please tell me what happened to draft goal number one, because it's nowhere. And you may point me in another direction afterwards, and that's fine.

[02:26:39] I had written down here, template management plans can be adaptable to different size parks if we can figure out a way to do that so that we don't have to recreate the wheel every time a great idea comes up or a donor like buck island comes up and says oh by the way i want to give you this 200 acres or arrowhead i want to give you this 500 acres and so how are we going to do that um evaluate and update maintenance standards for rural roads which are used for rural area and draft 2.4 is also missing now planning to include opportunities for nature nature focused

[02:27:16] recreational experiences, so those may have been put somewhere else, and I just miss them, and I will give you these sheets so you don't have to worry. Talked about gravel roads already, access to and partnership with the Shenandoah National Park. We've talked in the Blue Ridge Committee about the possibility of, of course, before the layoffs, about the possibility of a weekend kiosk at Sugar Hollow, which is similar to what they do at Oak Leaf Canyon, where they collect gobs of money and it pays for the ranger and is that safety thing that would help our fire

[02:27:52] and rescue as well um did that did that did that somebody already mentioned the three notch trail i think i'll dump that on jeff to worry about that and what's happening to it because the possibility of clawback if we've already spent the money is terrifying to me so i know that's going to be a scary thing um we talked about updating this safer chemical partnerships um expanding for 7.3

[02:28:26] expand existing programs in community centers and partnerships to identify reuse of existing buildings for community center activities uh gravel road festivals in other counties i think we can copy some of the things that they're doing we had some correspondence from community members about a new objective adding on improve opportunities for walking biking and other outdoor recreation the rural area on existing unpaved and low stress routes so this is a topic which is sort of floating in never never land among parks transportation and

[02:29:02] natural resources maybe and so i don't know whether you will have some kind of a reference that says c page x on transportation for a thorough discussion of this but last time we dropped it and we're worried about it getting dropped again so first one suggestion identify and map routes that are frequently used and there's the strava thing but also there were some i was trying to find the maps of the running routes one of them is a 16 mile loop through whitehall district another one's a 25 mile loop all on gravel that i think the long distance runners just like dan and his long distance bicycling where he does

[02:29:40] It's an 80-mile loop around the western part of the county on his bicycle is really helpful. And limiting the paving to high-maintenance challenge areas as opposed to paving the whole thing.

[02:29:57] Locate parking areas within a public right-of-way. Post signage among recreational routes to increase driver awareness. One of the problems that we have on Ridge Road is that nobody knows what to do. And so I'm hopeful that Dominion will actually give me permission to talk to people about under the highway line between DECA and Ridge Road, in which case that would provide a wonderful location for a little trail connection.

[02:30:21] So we're trying to find solutions, and I know that staff does this as well. So I think that's important. Educating road users. Work with businesses and community groups to educate all road users about etiquette and safety. Some of the state laws have done a pretty good job with that.

[02:30:38] in recent years as far as people moving over three feet but we're still seeing a lot of danger for pedestrians as well as bicyclers and when i was a kid we rode ponies along the country roads and everybody would slow down and move over and we never ever felt dangerous and now i don't go outside my own gate even hardly to mow the grass because it's just too scary with people driving by. New objective, explore creative ways to fill funding gaps for park and greenway infrastructure. So I've shared these with all the board. I will send these around to county staff, but I think

[02:31:17] there's a lot to chew on here that we can really do a good job, a better job. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Pruitt. First, I want to just begin with a real quick comment on a previous section, and then I have two sections I had specific comments on after that.

[02:31:34] So first, I actually, I neglected to mention this, and it wasn't until my peers mentioned it that I remembered. 6.5, the support, the study, the race study for the three-notch trail, right? I'm deeply excited about the three-notch trail.

[02:31:50] May it be built while I'm still alive. But I just want to call attention. This is a 20-year plan. 6.5 says do the thing for the money that we've been tasked to do in the next, like, two years, right?

[02:32:05] If we are going to commit to something around three-notch trail, I think it should be a 20-year goal around three-notch trail. And I recognize that that is challenging when we don't know what this study is going to say about feasibility. But this feels very much, oh, three-notch trail, what's in front of us?

[02:32:24] Oh, this is the thing. We'll continue doing that. And it doesn't actually commit us to any kind of strategic vision on three-notch trail. So if we're going to plant a flag there, I think we should plant a flag there. And actually, like, I'm not giving you the exact checkpoints or milestones, but this should have a milestone that is actually in our future in a meaningful way.

[02:32:45] I want to call out 2.1. I already mentioned this previously, but this calls for a land acquisition policy. And I want to, because I think this might have been, like, alluded to, and it's certainly on my mind, but, like, the county acquires land for different reasons.

[02:33:02] I can really think of three big reasons we might talk about. One of them we don't really do yet, but we might talk about acquiring land. That's schools, housing, parks, and trails, right? Housing we don't really do, but there's certainly a lot of community interest around land banking and land trusts, and it's something that comes up a lot.

[02:33:19] Schools have been a recurring perennial problem of how we get the land for them, and there's a variety of different tools we would use for housing. The main way we would do it would probably be through, like, blight condemnations. That would be how you would put things in a land bank. And parks and trails are quite different than those.

[02:33:35] In my understanding is that we are normally acquire, trails at least, my understanding is we normally acquire that through voluntary donations, easements, and gifts of individual donors, but we might want to outstrip that. It is my also understanding that I don't know that we have bright lines that are communicated, that are official.

[02:33:56] I think we do have bright lines of our rules in the acquisition policy, in the acquisition policy such as it is, a set of things that we do. But I don't know that it's clearly communicated what those are, which can make us, it is my impression that we might be a challenging negotiating partner at times because our bright lines aren't advertised.

[02:34:17] So I would be really excited for this because I think it helps us if we can coordinate and consolidate a set series of practices, things we negotiate on, when we actually put money up, what we do and do not cede ground on as part of an acquisition policy for this.

[02:34:33] I see that as being something that allows us to act faster. And maybe I'm wrong, but I see that as something that helps us accomplish these other goals that require a lot of individual discrete easements and acquisitions. The more that can be fit and slotted into a clean framework, I think the faster we can engage with that.

[02:34:51] So I guess I'm not proposing any change on this, but I just want to highlight the importance of this for my peers on the board is something that I think is really critical. One other thing, so I already mentioned issues of how equity and what it means in the context of parks and recreation.

[02:35:12] I also talked briefly about economic development in the context of trail development. And I would say there are things that are core to the behavior of a county government that are fundamentally unequitable.

[02:35:29] We do things that are deeply inequitable. A great example, and I'm going to explain this on the back end, economic development. Full stop. This is money and benefits that we give to capital, to business owners, in order to get them to do things.

[02:35:44] We give money to rich people. We do that because we understand that it has broad-term, long-range, equitable impacts. It creates desired outcomes for people who would not otherwise be served. It helps generate jobs for the target population that we're trying to create those jobs for.

[02:36:03] It helps grow our revenue base in a way that lets us decrease taxation. So I want to raise, it would be helpful if we consider and align economic impacts as a consideration for when to potentially deviate from equal access or equitable requirements or standards that we're creating, right?

[02:36:28] One of our commenters kind of touched on this, and I'm not trying to make this too much of a lightning rod issue. I can see a cocked eyebrow. But one of our commenters touched on this, right? Equestrian trails, which I've already said I'm generally opposed to, spending public funds on, can have economic benefits.

[02:36:47] And if we can argue that those economic benefits outweigh the regressive nature of spending that kind of money on them, then I think there's probably a serious case to be made for them if there's not other incompatible uses. There are other, we can sit here and probably brainstorm other types of recreation that would primarily benefit people who have access to amenities, that would primarily benefit a strata of society that does not need it.

[02:37:12] Say again? Mountain biking. Mountain biking, potentially. Yes. Comes to mind. But these have economic benefits on the back end that might have broader structural implications on equity. I think it is helpful to kind of enshrine that somewhere, that we would align these kinds of economic considerations and the broader impacts it might have on equity if we're considering how to allocate county funds, Because that is not, I don't think that's currently enshrined in there anymore, anywhere.

[02:37:42] And I do see that as being like a potential 4.8 that could have some value. Maybe I'm mistaken, right? There's a lot of words here on the page, sorry. But I just raised that, right?

[02:37:57] There are things we do that are not strictly equitable, but in the long range they are, because we are trying to generate that kind of rising tide. That is all I think I have. Supervisor Lupisto-Curtley.

[02:38:13] I am good, and I approve. I like everything that we have here. I'm good with everything. I'm bringing up only one point, actually, and that's 2.3, and that's for a point of clarification to make sure that it's clear that the Albemarle County Parks Foundation is separate from Albemarle County.

[02:38:36] It's a separate 501c3 that raises money by itself. It doesn't join with the county to raise money, but it does use the county's opinion as far as what we can raise money for.

[02:38:52] So I would like to, 2.3, I would like to see us take out the first one to, well, expand public-private partnerships and increase resources to, or that, remove that and start the sentence with accelerate the implementation of county parks projects through joint efforts with the county, with the Albemarle County Parks Foundation and others.

[02:39:24] The reason why I throw in others is a 20-year plan, and we do not know what other entities, organizations might come to bear. They could then also raise money and could also be of service to the county. That's my input.

[02:39:41] Thank you. Supervisor McHugh. And I would be happy to support that. Thank you very much. I appreciate your support. So, just for clarity, just big picture here, we're looking at Elmar County 44, which is a 20-year comp plan.

[02:40:01] However, we update our comp plan every five years, supposedly. Maybe this is six years, but anyway, whatever. But we are required by law to update it. So, what I'm getting at is that there is nothing in here that is in stone.

[02:40:19] This is not a tablet that we have brought down from the mountains and can never be changed. I'm just saying, it's important for people to understand that. It's just like our CIP. We pass a CIP, a five-year and a 10-year CIP, but we change that along the way.

[02:40:38] It is not, again, on a tablet that's brought down from the mountains. So it is a guideline. I just think it's important. So if there's something that's not in here or we realize that it needs to be in year five or six or seven, we can add it or we can subtract.

[02:40:56] I think it's just good to have that on the record. I do agree with Mike on some of what you were saying. I think I got the gist of it about equity. And I want to just make a comment, and I have to be careful about how I say this, because objective, and everybody always gets interested when you say that, but anyway.

[02:41:22] And objective one, it says perform robust community engagement with multiple venues for community input. I've noticed both at the school board level and the board of supervisors level.

[02:41:41] We do extremely robust community engagement in this community, much more robust than most communities do. And I support community engagement. I just want to make sure that the community engagement that we're doing is not a delay tactic used by our community to delay things for years.

[02:42:08] Because I've seen that happen, not often, but I've seen that happen, right? And the community engagement should be used to inform the decisions, not determine necessarily the decisions. And that's Diantha McKeel saying that.

[02:42:25] But I'm just saying that we need to have robust community engagement, but we have to put it through a practical lens. I get very concerned because we often have the same voices at the table, the same groups at the table, and there are voices from the community that we struggle to hear from.

[02:42:50] And I've never really figured out in 28 years exactly how to get all those voices at the table. It just doesn't work for various reasons. I'm not criticizing anybody. But we have to also make sure that while their voices aren't at the table, they're represented.

[02:43:08] When I used to make school board decisions, I would say to folks in the audience, I have to represent the children and the parents that are not in this room. Now, that's a little tricky, but it's doable. And sometimes people fail to realize that staff and the elected often have a broader understanding of the issues than a community member.

[02:43:37] And I'm not criticizing anybody, but we have much more information at our fingertips. And no matter how we try and share that information in the community, people just don't always hear it or get it. And that's just an overarching comment when I saw community engagement that I've been struggling with for several years.

[02:43:57] Okay, so having said that, let's go down to 1.7, art. I am thrilled to see art in this document. I go to parks all over the, or have gone to parks all over the United States. I don't think I'm going to have access to the parks much anymore, but that's another topic.

[02:44:16] But I have gone to many parks that have wonderful art. and it can be all sorts of medium I mean different types of art when you if you travel in Europe or in other countries Japan Australia New Zealand you see art in the parks and I think that would be wonderful for us to take that on I don't know how we do that because but we have a lot of local artists in this community and starting with local artists would be kind of cool so I'm all for that and I don't want to keep belaboring it.

[02:44:49] And let me just see. Going on down to, so number two. Oh, objective two and objective three, I think those two could be easily combined.

[02:45:09] I really think that to separate them out is, could you take a look possibly at combining them? Yes, I think that's a pretty well-considered comment, Supervisor McKeel. I think two almost reads like an action item for the broader objective of accelerating the development and delivery of parks and greenways.

[02:45:30] And there's even some actions in Objective 2 that don't seem to relate to the overarching objective. I'm thinking of 2.2. And I'm always willing to reduce these types of documents. I've said that earlier today because I think more targeted and shorter is better than to throw the kitchen sink in.

[02:45:48] So if we could combine those two, I think that'd be great. And I'll move on from there, and where am I? I'm down to four. Collaborate with Elmar County Public Schools. I think I mentioned collaboration with the schools, and I think Ned spoke to that very nicely about the schools and how collaboration, and I think we could do more of that.

[02:46:10] And I am all for offering our students, our young people, and I think, Ned, you said 12 to 18, 11 to 18, something like that, but maybe whatever. something to do because you're right idle what's the expression idle fingers getting not it's not idle fingers whatever it is but if you don't have something to do you can get in trouble it was really interesting because when the when the school board when we changed our school hours at the high school and middle school level to uh to getting out at four o'clock rather than

[02:46:49] three crime in this community went down we saw documentation and i don't mean serious crime but just juvenile crime that kids were getting into because they weren't around to get in trouble and they had they had less time alone without their parents being with them so i am all for figuring out something to do with this group of young people that's great um and let's see i think increase public transportation access i think we're working hard on that so i think hopefully

[02:47:24] with the new authority formed and work that we're doing with transit that hopefully will take care of itself we've we did five and now i'm on and six and so i'm up to seven um trying to go fast jim um outdoor lighting so we are hopefully going to i'm at seven right outdoor lighting 7.2 i'm just jumping on this because hopefully our update to our extremely old lighting ordinance is going to be coming to us and i'm mentioning here dark skies because i think for our parks

[02:48:03] it's really important right and our neighborhoods dark skies is important in this community having said that you can take do you can have dark skies and have safety lighting they're not it's not either or I feel like sometimes the university doesn't understand that very well but um and again when we're talking about dark skies I really would love to see us working with the university and the city but the university is the bigger and I'm going to say this publicly

[02:48:39] light pollution um entity that we have you only have to come over pantops and take a look at it to see what we're getting from the university if we could somehow or another get them to the table with that it would be wonderful um and the only other thing i have is just a very weird this is but i it's a time that i can bring it up our signage in this community is filthy dirty i think

[02:49:11] most of it is vdot vdot signs but you go down the bypass or some of our hydraulic road the signage is so bad at night that sometimes you know because it's reflective beads is what most of it is we have some signage that some of the signage is green and I guess those are state signs I'm not even sure the difference having said that it really makes this community look like nobody loves it and I've pointed it out to VDOT over and over again but somehow or another if we could all work together

[02:49:47] because it's not a good look for our tourism and it's not a good and it's not safe and healthy for our community as they're driving around at night or people that are new to the area just moving in and i don't know what you can do about that but i am mentioning it right we can look at our park signage absolutely um and this sounds like a great uh topic that intersects with other chapters and other staff and departments but i think that's yeah it's a well-considered point but it's mostly what i'm really pointing out here is our vdot signage really needs to be and i don't think it's as simple as they just go in and clean and wash it. But what you said, yes, thank you very much for

[02:50:24] making that connection. And it's just a good opportunity to mention it. Thanks. I'm done. Thank you. Supervisor Gallimore? I'll do some, I'll just go in the order of the document. Page four, you know, we talk about community centers, and I think somewhere in there it might say have all over the development area. But, and this goes to schools, this goes to private, nonprofit, et cetera. We really rely on others to provide community centers. Like we have one official county community center, which is Yancey. We have four original, like actual,

[02:51:04] tell me what they are. Greenwood, which is an old school. And Yancey. And then Scottsville. Sorry, Scottsville, BF Yancey, and Greenwood. The fourth is the Meadows, which is not the same level of services in the urban ring what community centers do we have urban ring none so in the development area we need when we talk about community centers it's really the centered belvedere north side public library the schools and that's that's fine because we we don't have the ability to provide in the cip to build all these different pieces but we act like we have

[02:51:42] community centers and they're not really community centers and in here it talks about being free of having to do retail purchases and free to use well free to use while it might not cost something also means schedule wise it's free to use so that's where the limitation on the schools any of the private stuff is dictated by their own schedules and i'm i just don't want to act like we have community centers in the development area that are that are albemarle county community

[02:52:17] centers we might as well just embrace the idea that we partner with other places and then say that that's how we're going to do this until such time that we may be able to invest in our own community center if we do the word change that supervisor lapista currently was talking about with the parks foundation which i have no objection to but i don't want to limit we need to call out because you have p3s that happen like the crozet development out there's a p3 involved with that right my crozet trails group yeah

[02:52:54] And then if things happen in the small area plan, that would come about as a P-3. We're taking the trailhead on as part of the Rio Point development. So there's a lot of other private-public partnerships that can happen or could happen, and not just through the Parks Foundation.

[02:53:10] So whatever rewording is there should just embrace that idea and capture that. Excuse me for interrupting, but that's why I included and others. Well, I don't think and others tells developers we would like to partnership with you. so whatever appropriate but you got rid of public private partnership and that's the wording that calls out okay that so i'm fine with the rewording and understand what you're getting at but we need to embrace the idea that p3s especially in this chapter are really what help us get things accomplished and have in the past no objection yeah um one three just to call it out is where

[02:53:48] the whole part of teenage the teenager access stuff that i've already made comments on which I won't repeat, but 1.3 is where that really kind of pulled out, equitable access, right, giving recreation opportunities to everybody, and I think that's a gap, so that's why it stood out there. 1.6, who does this? Is this a, and I'll, let me, I'll ask, the question's rhetorical at this point. Do we have a FTE, whether it's a full FTE or a portion of FTE, dedicated to identifying

[02:54:27] and pursuing alternative funding sources and partners for? I think that's a difficult question to answer from my perspective, but just drawing attention to the Office of Grants and Agreements, we work pretty closely with Mrs. Morgan Rakes and Ms. Brandy Sullivan.

[02:54:44] Often Parks and Rec staff will be the ones to ID a grant opportunity and then partner with OGA to kind of develop that through executive staff and other departments sometimes. But in addition to grant opportunities, You know, some examples include the legislative agenda that Mrs. Kilroy and the Economic Development Office have been so far successful in identifying General Assembly funding for development of Biscuit Run Park.

[02:55:09] So that's multiple different types of alternative funding sources. Well, that's good because, you know, I get concerned that when you put something like that in a plan, that if you don't actually have, if it's almost a passive type thing, it's like some of the other stuff.

[02:55:25] oh, well, we'd like to do it. But if it's not a day-in, day-out focus, then it will never get done, then you don't actually identify and pursue it. But it sounds like we have a game plan on that. So thank you for that. You're welcome. Thank you for the question. Oh, sorry. For four schools and community centers, I think I've made comments on that earlier.

[02:55:48] We just have to, again, embrace the partnership or embrace it that, you know, The community center, it's limited in availability because of the school's schedule. I don't know.

[02:56:04] I can't remember. Do the schools charge fees for building use if it's to an outside group? They do, Ned, if it's not, for example, PTO or a group that's associated with the schools, they don't. But if it's an outside group, they often do. So the free-to-use part, like that, if we're counting schools as community centers and they charge a rent like we do, then free-to-use, we've got to deal with that.

[02:56:27] And I think, let me just clarify, I think the trigger is if the meeting or the group that's meeting charges an entrance fee, then the schools charge a fee. Is that making sense? I think that's one of the nuances.

[02:56:43] I can't remember if it's a rental or not. I guess maybe it depends on who's doing what. The rent, yeah. And then number seven, I mean, I wrote the question down. It's not for you all to answer. it's probably directed at super at my well it was directed at myself and other board members but number seven i wrote can we really do this and really thinking of seven three and then probably commentary on supervisor mckeel's talks about the arts and wanting more arts in there and this this doesn't i don't mean this to be a harsh criticism or sound like a criticism but this board based on

[02:57:22] our prioritization of funding is what dictates these tend to be the things that get lost it's like small road projects they get the oxygen sucked out of the room from all the bigger stuff all this other stuff that's existing above it that gets prioritized so what falls to the wayside arts and pure public spaces providing actual parks programs to a greater extent to meet the demand that exists out there that is being filled by other organizations or private organizations so um i mean i think when i look at seven three and think about the comment about the arts and

[02:57:59] even providing a community center that's not partnered with somebody else so when i say can we really do this that i'm looking at you all but it really should probably be a mirror sitting there that i could look back because we'd have to do that in our budget we'd have to say this is a priority and put it in the cip or put it put it in the budget to accomplish but thought it was worth just a call out here and that's all i have thank you people want to comment on this real quickly and then i'll go okay yeah on on 7.3 i understand what supervisor galloway is saying but also what

[02:58:39] has been envisioned uh for example free bridge lane of working with some some of the art community and just having volunteers come down display some of their artwork and such where and you know you You may want to have a food truck, or it doesn't really encompass, except for maybe a little bit of staff time, perhaps, but it doesn't really encompass a necessary budget.

[02:59:02] That's what, you know, some of the things I think we can do that won't cost the county really any money, but people can come down and do a presentation. You may even have some musical concerts or something like that in the future.

[02:59:19] And the other thing, I'm thinking of your, when you mentioned about 2.3, I think, and maybe taking out the word others and putting in, as well as public-private partnerships. I think they can work on the wording. Yeah. They can work on the wording.

[02:59:34] Okay. Got it. But I would support that wording also. Yes. Thank you. Just quickly to piggyback on what Ned was saying, if that's okay. The arts. When we went to Greenville, we saw some great examples of how the city of Greenville was working with their Visitors Bureau and putting up artwork that were attractions to bring visitors in.

[03:00:00] They were using it as a way to increase tourism. And that is one way to look at it. we also have a lot of benefactors in this community, I believe, that would love to help us if we wanted to put some art in different places.

[03:00:21] But it did strike me that Greenville has some great examples of local art and art that's being funded by their, not their CACBB, but by their Visitors Bureau like we have. Yep. Thanks.

[03:00:39] I'm going to short my comment by referring to the PEC letter, email, which I hope staff has received. There are a number of points in there that I would just highlight as something I think are important to consider, such as the mentioning in here a little bit more about the importance of our parks and our recreational activities to our tourism industry and the connections to our tourism industry.

[03:01:10] And there's been discussion of community centers and their relationship to other areas, not just the three that are designated community centers. And I think that PEC calls out how we have a lot of private properties and open spaces that we try to connect to that also could be brought into this in a way that highlights that those connections are important as well to our community to give them access to parks and recreation, whether it's, as I mentioned, Monticello, Highland, Fox Haven, Fox Field, and others that are not necessarily our parks.

[03:01:46] They also have several comments about the maps and things that they feel that should be considered as potentially greenway connections on the maps and indications on the maps as to extensions of these beyond the map, and I think those are good comments, So I just want to highlight those.

[03:02:06] They also talk about community events in our parks, which may be something to be considered. They have other comments. I want you to obviously vet those comments because I'm not sure all of them are quite consistent with what we have laid out as our framework, but they're still worth considering.

[03:02:28] I will back up, though, to just a comment I made earlier about the number of visitors we have in the parks and how that has grown, that the page 13 total visits and chart of visits for the last three years are not consistent with that.

[03:02:48] So there's something wrong with the document in that location, and we can talk about that further as something to look into. if you want to know what i mean you can just look at 2013 we have more visitors than we had at 2021 but if you look at the the green and the blue bars it looks like the blue bars are way bigger than the green bars so something happened um somewhere in here so um those are comments that many of those were made by the by the pecs email and and i want to support those so um i will So a quick follow-up on the arts.

[03:03:29] NEA, National Endowment for the Arts, has rolling grant programs all the time. I did not know there was a new person at the grants office, but I will forward things I get because I'm on that commission. I just couldn't get to it this time. From where those are at, Jay Dick is the executive, and he's always sending out emails about all these things, and anybody who is interested in joining the Arts and Culture Commission, just please do that because it's important.

[03:03:55] The community centers and private properties, it's important that when events are happening, then they welcome people. But if there's farming going on, you don't want to list something as open all the time because then people have interactions with cattle, et cetera, and that's not always a good outcome.

[03:04:14] But for Panorama, for Foxfield, things like that, it's fabulous to listen that events are held at XYZ, and that certainly widens out the opportunities for people to learn about this, as well as dog shows and search and rescue exhibitions and all sorts of things.

[03:04:35] I do think that that comment needs to be tempered by the fact that this is our county's comprehensive plan. It's really about how much we are going to seek out these kind of opportunities to partner in connection with these events as part of our parks and recreation focus.

[03:04:53] Ann, I just want to add one quick thing. To get back to community centers, I did notice and I forgot to mention it that we have listed a community center in the south, the east and the west, but not in the north. which is where our popular a lot of our population is just adding to what ned was saying you that little diagram we have here if you look it's it's south east and west but not in the north and we've been luckily using the community the big rooms at all three firehouses but something else would definitely be better um i would just raise there was a conversation a bit

[03:05:30] about accessibility and cost related to community centers and also a conversation about 7.3 and And something, if I were to look at 7.3, I would actually raise the critique you've heard from me. I think this will be the third time, which is I think we can take credit for this today.

[03:05:48] And so it needs a specific and quantifiable goal because I get my little, like, trifold from Albemarle County Parks and Rec that tells me all the classes we're doing, and they are public-private partnerships for the most part, my understanding. There are individuals who have reached out to us and are like, hey, we'd love to offer a reduced price yoga class at the scan center or whatever.

[03:06:14] And so if we're going to do goal making, then we should do goal making. Either expand them, increase or aspire to have some that we are actually staffing ourselves or offering at lower or reduced cost or free.

[03:06:32] right which gets to kind of the questions of universal access we were also talking about community centers i i would raise i think the community centers you also pay in all of them to reserve rooms a quick look i think shows that they all have a fifty dollar an hour fee for reservations that doesn't mean you can't walk into them but the same could be said of our schools so if we're going to be if we're concerned about we're concerned about the issues of access that are posed by relying on the market and private partners for that, then it might also raise that

[03:07:07] we should be addressing those issues, right? Like, I can reserve a room for free at the library, and I can't at Yancey. If that is something that we don't like, then we should grapple with that. A lot to think about. Do you have any specific questions or needs from us at this point?

[03:07:35] Not in particular. This has been a really constructive work session. You've given us a lot of detailed commentary, a lot of high-level feedback. I'm already eager to kind of get with the long-range planning team and process this and get with the park's leadership team and figure out how to refine this before it's finalized. Right. Thank you. Yeah, and just one more comment to Ms. Malik. I believe the document you shared where you had marked up some notes from previous goals objectives draft that was an earlier version we did most of those that you think are missing

[03:08:12] they've been shifted we've combined some of the action steps we moved some things around so i would encourage you to do a markup on the current draft and if you have any questions about where did this go where did this go just follow with staff and we'll point out where that was moved okay latest email from tanya so that's what i'm working right thank you thank you thank you we appreciate your feedback. Very helpful. Thank you. Thank you. With that board, we are ready to move into closed session, I believe. Yes, I would like to move. It's a doozy. I would like to move that the Board of Supervisors convene a closed meeting pursuant to Section 2, Decimal 2, TAC 3711A of

[03:08:50] the Code of Virginia, first under subsection 1, to discuss and consider appointments to various boards and commissions, including, without limitation, the Agricultural and Forest District Advisory Committee, the Crozet Community Advisory Committee, the Economic Development Authority, the Equalization Board, the Historic Preservation Committee, and the Jefferson Area Board for Aging.

[03:09:06] Second, under subsection 3, to discuss and consider the acquisition of real property both in the Scottsville Magisterial District and along Commonwealth Drive, Dominion Drive, each for a public purpose where discussion in an open meeting would adversely affect the bargaining position or negotiating strategy of the county and the board.

[03:09:23] Third, under subsection 8, to consult with legal counsel regarding specific legal matters requiring the provision of legal advice related to substantial risk orders and emergency substantial risk orders and, fourth, under subsection 29 to discuss the negotiation of a public contract with the Charlottesville Albemarle Society for the prevention of cruelty to animals involving the expenditure of public funds where discussion in the open session would adversely affect the bargaining position or negotiating strategy of the county and the board.

[03:09:52] Second. We have a motion from Supervisor Pruitt, a second from Supervisor Lupisto-Kirtley. Without objection, if the clerk will call the roll. Ms. Lupisto-Kirtley? Aye. Ms. Malik? Yes. Ms. McKeel? Yes. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Mr. Andrews? Yes. Thank you.

[04:18:18] Okay.

[05:03:46] Good evening. I'm sorry for the delay getting started here. We first have to come out of closed session. I believe Supervisor Lupisto currently has a motion to take us out of closed session. Yes. I move that the Board of Supervisors certify by a recorded vote that, to the best of each supervisor's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirements of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and identified in the motion authorizing the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered in the closed meeting. Second. So we have a motion from Supervisor Lupisto-Kirtley, a second from Supervisor Malek without objection if the clerk

[05:04:24] will call the roll. Ms. Lupisto-Kirtley? Aye. Ms. Malek? Yes. Ms. McKeel? Yes. Mr. Pruitt? Not here. Mr. Andrews? Yes. Mr. Gallery? Yes. Thank you. And I believe we have a couple motions coming out of closed hearing from Vice Chairman McKeel. We do. I move to adopt the resolution approving an agreement with the Charlottesville Almaro Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals for Public Animal Shelter Services. Second. We have a motion from Supervisor McKeel, a second from Supervisor

[05:04:55] Malik. Without objection, the clerk will call the roll. Ms. LaPiesto-Kirtley? Aye. Ms. Malik? Yes. Ms. McKeel? Yes. Mr. Andrews? Yes. Mr. Galloway? Yes. The second motion that I'm going to make is, this motion is about appointing to boards and commissions folks from the community.

[05:05:13] So I move that we appoint to the Agricultural and Forestal District Advisory Committee, Jonah Fielding, Joseph Jones, Brad Kogan, and Ann Craddock. I move that we appoint to the Crozet Community Advisory Committee, Sean Bridge, Michael Monaco, and Andrew Bowers.

[05:05:35] I move that we appoint to the Economic Development Authority, Frank Friedman, to the Equalization Board, Frank Friedman, to the Historic Preservation Committee, Luke Rourke, and to the Jefferson Area Board of Aging, Novell Thompson and Jane Foy.

[05:05:52] Second. Motion from Supervisor McKeel. Second from Supervisor Malek. Without objection, if the clerk will call the roll. Ms. Laquisto-Kirtley. Aye. Ms. Malek. Yes. Ms. McKeel. Yes. Mr. Andrews. Yes. Mr. Galloway. Yes. Thank you. Next up is whether we have a report from the county executive.

[05:06:11] Okay, thank you. We will next have public comment on matters previously considered or pending before the board other than scheduled public hearings. And let me make it clear that these are comments that are not for the public hearings tonight, the public hearings being on the budget and on the Chestnut Grove Manufactured Home Park.

[05:06:38] So these are public, these are just simply other matters. Right. I was just double-checking with the board clerk that we have the right sign-up sheet here. So we do. So I will read the rules.

[05:06:54] During the time set aside for public comment on matters previously considered or currently pending before the board, other than scheduled public hearings, individuals may address the Board of Supervisors containing matters that have been previously considered by the board or that are pending before the board.

[05:07:14] Individuals are allowed one opportunity of up to three minutes to speak at each board meeting. A sign-up sheet is managed by the clerk's office. Timekeeping is conducted through a timer and a light system at the podium. The green light will go on when you begin speaking, which begins your allotted time.

[05:07:30] The yellow light indicates you have one minute to finish speaking. The red light indicates your time has expired and you will be asked to end your comments. In order to give all speakers equal treatment and courtesy, the board requests that speakers adhere to the following guidelines. When addressing the board, state your name and, if you live in Elmar County, your magisterial district.

[05:07:49] 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.

[05:08:06] Back-and-forth debate is not permitted, and do not speak from your seat or out of turn. All comments are live-streamed, recorded, and published on the Elmar County website. And with that, we have four speakers that have signed up for this portion of the meeting.

[05:08:25] Our first speaker is Victoria Velke. Welcome. And please adjust the microphone as you come up to speak so make sure that we can hear you. Thank you. Is that good?

[05:08:40] Can you hear me? Great. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Victoria Velke from the Scottsville District. I've learned a lot in the last two weeks. First, it was equestrian trails were not to be considered at Biscuit Run Park. How did I miss that?

[05:08:58] Then, it was the equine business wording was now missing out of the new comprehensive plan. How did I miss that? Then, I heard about AC44. What is that?

[05:09:13] So I took an entire day and did a deep dive and I tried to get caught up on what's happening in Albemarle County. I was getting caught up on Biscuit Run Park. I was getting caught up on the words land use and what that means, specifically the land use tax benefit for equine businesses. And I was getting caught up on your beautiful AC44 plan. If you're watching me on the live feed or you're behind me in the auditorium, I encourage you to do your due

[05:09:50] diligence and get caught up on any of your interests that will be in the AC44. Then I noticed our tax assessment went up. How did I miss that? Then I noticed our taxes are going up.

[05:10:07] How did I miss that? AC44 is going to be with us for the next 20 years. My observations of February 19th board of supervisors meeting the planning commission meeting on February 25th and today's board of supervisors work session on the parks and rec presentation is that our leadership has big expensive plans in the AC44 the comments I observed are broad and they're specific is this

[05:10:45] where my tax dollars are going toward. I have some suggestions where my tax dollars could go. Reinstate the words for equine business use in the AC-44. Include equine trails at Biscuit Run, and please notify me by certified mail if either of these things are not going to happen. Thank you.

[05:11:09] Thank you. Our next speaker is Ann Wicks. Welcome. I'm Ann Wicks from the Samuel Miller District.

[05:11:24] I'm here for three reasons. To show support for new horse trails as referenced in Action 6.1 in the Parks and Rec draft, to ask the board to revisit the decision about equine access to trails at Biscuit Run, and to request that AC44 include language that recognizes the county's thriving equine industry and supports its future growth.

[05:11:47] Ten years ago, I was familiar with the 2015 comp plan and excited about the state's plans for Biscuit Run, which included horse trails. Busy with a full-time teaching job and life on a small horse farm, I missed the two community input gatherings held after the county leased Biscuit Run, though I'm pretty sure I completed an online survey.

[05:12:07] Living in a county whose 2015 comp plan clearly recognizes the economic impact of the local horse industry and specifies wanting to find ways to support it, I was surprised to learn in December that horses were not included as part of Biscuit Run's multi-use trails. As we equestrians in Albemarle now know all too well, even when things are written down, community members need to pay attention and speak up. By assuming the horse trails specified in the state park plan would carry over to the county, we were naive. By not showing up to express our desire to have horse trails at Biscuit Run, it was assumed there was

[05:12:43] no interest. Trail access is critical to a thriving horse economy, a fact clearly recognized at the state level. And though horse trails were originally planned by the state, lack of local input led to loss of trail access. I am one of many horse owners in the county who would like to see that changed. Beyond the general agricultural category under which horses fall, the 2015 comp plan makes several direct references to the county's equine industry and identifies goals to support that industry under the rural area goal on page 29 strategy 1f reads quote study

[05:13:19] ways in which the county can better support the local horse industry end quote this is expounded upon on page 200 where the plan states quote opportunities exist to grow this industry even more further study is needed to determine the extent to which the county should take advantage of this growing industry end quote i would love to know if any studies done and how they are informing AC44. Other than Action 6.1, which mentions providing new trails for horseback riding, I'm concerned the current draft of AC44 does not reference the equine industry and the many ways it contributes to our county. If you envision horses as part of the rural,

[05:13:58] cultural, and economic fabric of the county's future, there needs to be continued access to horse trails beyond the two parks on the northern perimeter that allow horses. And AC44 needs to include references to the importance of the county's equine industry along with plans to support it as mentioned in our current 2015 comp plan. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Shawnee Baker. Welcome. Good evening. I will say this is either my fourth or fifth week in a row

[05:14:36] trying to hit each of these committees as we in the horse community have realized the changes for the AC44, the equine business use, and the land use, and the Biscuit Run Park differences. I am Shawnee Baker. I live in the Whitehall District. I'm speaking on behalf of the equine industry in central Virginia. I have managed a busy local tax shop for 18 years here in town.

[05:15:02] Virginia has a very large equine community, and many people travel to our local area drawn by our facilities. The horse enthusiasts who come from all over Virginia shop, buy gas, stay in town for lunch, ride at the available facilities that are available, visit the parks, and are responsible for increasing the tax revenue for our community. The local riding programs, farms, and parks are a big draw for riders, and we want to continue to welcome them. The success of Pretty Creek and

[05:15:36] Pleasant Grove, and others prove the importance of these facilities, and I want to encourage the board to focus on continuing to develop horseback riding trails at Biscuit Run Park as originally contemplated in the Virginia State Park Plan. And again, all of this industry is tied together by having the AC44 business use, land use, all of that evaluated to continue to include all the equine

[05:16:07] Industries. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Liz King. Welcome. Good evening. My name is Liz King. I own Millington Stables in the Whitehall District. Our farm has been in continual operation since 1969, and I've been there for 37 years. We have brought continual revenue to the community for 55 years, even during COVID. We currently offer more than 80 riding lessons per week. Each

[05:16:43] of those lessened families add value to the community by supporting the feed suppliers, tax stores, farriers, veterans, veterinarians, farm workers, tractor repair, industries associated with riding programs. Our program is varied and offers beginner lessons, horse shows, hunting, trail riding, gymkhana, clinics, 4-H, and pony clubs. We utilize all the facilities in the area that are available to us for different experiences such as Pretty Creek, Pleasant Grove. I'm very distressed to see that the plans for Biscuit Run Park have changed. I want to encourage the board

[05:17:20] to focus on developing horseback riding trails at Biscuit Run as originally contemplated in the Virginia Park plan. Thank you for your consideration and concerns. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is a public hearing on the county executive's fiscal year 2026 recommended budget presented by our County Executive, Mr. Jeff Richardson. Again, I'd like to remind the public that sign-up sheets are under the window, and I think people have signed up, but do now before we open the public hearing.

[05:17:57] So take a moment to also mention that we're not expecting any action by the board tonight

[05:18:26] on this matter. Mr. Chair and members of the board, thank you very much for the opportunity for me to make some comments tonight about the fiscal year 26 budget. As the board knows,

[05:19:05] We introduced this budget on the 26th of February, and tonight the purpose is for our public hearing. It'll be our first public hearing since this budget process has started. Prior to that public hearing, I will make an overview of remarks regarding what is included in the fiscal year 26 budget.

[05:19:23] I'd like to thank our staff, in addition to our board, and the hard work that the board, where you have leaned in and helped us this budget process started in the fall. I would like to take an opportunity to thank all of the county staff that has worked together tirelessly throughout the fall, throughout the winter, into the early part of our spring here to get us to where we are tonight. So thank you, staff, for your hard work to get us to where we are this evening. So I will talk about what is in the recommended budget. Before I do, I'd like to talk just for a couple of minutes about our strategic plan and how we align our resources

[05:20:02] through our strategic planning process into our each annual budget. So I'll talk just for a second about the three lenses. These lenses really are, I believe, how our community gauges how county government is doing through each of these lenses. As you see at the top, economic vibrancy is basically the health and strength of our local economy. Lens number two is service delivery and response, and that obviously relates to our people, our policies, our response times, as well as our business systems that help us provide services to every community member. Finally,

[05:20:38] our quality of life lens, which is, in my mind, a subjective term, and it can mean anything from commute times to affordable housing to job opportunities, greenways, good schools, lower taxes. All of these things fall into quality of life. I would suggest to our board and community that our connection to service delivery does have a direct effect on our community's quality of life.

[05:21:05] So I'll take a second and talk about some of the things that we have put in the budget through these lenses. Before I do, I want to take an opportunity just to examine quality of life. Again, I said it's subjective, it's broad, and it's action-oriented.

[05:21:21] We're going to get some idea tonight from our public who are here to talk about the budget, what they are looking for in the budget, and what matters most to them. This has just been, as this slide, just to be an overview of typically what people in communities talk about when they talk about how their quality of life is affected, what they need, what they look for.

[05:21:40] It's a tall order. There's a heavy load on the backs of local government to address quality of life issues, and local government cannot do it by itself. That's why you'll see during this budget process, one of the key ingredients in our budget is the connection we have to our key partner agencies because we lean into those key partner agencies to be able to do more with less and to be able to positively impact the community that we serve. So how do we prioritize our resources as we go

[05:22:16] into the budget process? Board, you see here that we have our six strategic goals. Our approach is to prioritize through the alignment of our multi-year strategic plan these six goals to each year our budget process. We do a five-year strategic plan. These goals represent our current five-year strategic plan. We are in year three of our current strategic plan. We also do five-year financial planning, and you'll see each of these six goals represented in the budget, both in

[05:22:49] operations with ongoing funding, as well as the county's almost $129 million CIP that's just devoted to local government infrastructure, investments, and ongoing projects. And we have to look through these strategic goals aligned with our finances through the affordability lens.

[05:23:11] And I often say that regardless of our financial situation, we're going to run out of money before we run out of both opportunities and problems that present themselves through our strategic plan work. As an example of our multi-year budgeting process, we do budget on an annual basis, and as in every year, this year's budget is balanced. We'll talk more about that in just a second, but really what this slide represents is multi-year budgeting, recognizing that our

[05:23:46] decisions that we make in one year will affect what happens in the next year. If you look back at fiscal year 24, several years ago, we had this slide in front of the board, and this slide guided some of the decisions that we made during the FY24 budget process. If you'll look down at the bottom left side, the left corner of the page, there's a $4.9 million amount of money that is inside the rectangle, and it's associated with what I call out-year obligations. The obligations are on the

[05:24:19] top right, they're also in the yellow box. And so we withheld almost $5 million of ongoing funding in that fiscal year 24 process, recognizing that we had obligations that were already underway, that we had committed to, that was directly tied to service delivery in this community. And we said we've got to save some of the ongoing revenue to plan for out-year obligations. I'll highlight a couple of things. One is three new schools, three new schools for the public school system that we

[05:24:54] committed to. All three are under construction. Two will open in fiscal year 27, and it's the first new schools that have been built in Albemarle County in 20 years. In addition to that, we're going to talk more about it in just a few minutes, we made a multi-year commitment to fire and rescue additional personnel to offset the loss of volunteer professional services in our county.

[05:25:21] This is a combination system that serves residents all throughout Albemarle County, and we developed a strategy by competitively pulling down federal safer grant dollars that would allow us to put positions in place in our fire rescue department, knowing that that had out-year obligations attached to them. And then if you'll notice, Board, on the far right, you see the small blue triangle, and that is FY27 and beyond. And so in fiscal year 24, we were recognizing that really beyond two years, it was difficult to predict exactly what our obligations would be

[05:25:59] three to four years out on the operations side. But as we look into fiscal 27, which is just a year away. As I discussed last year, I mean, I'm sorry, last week, we are already looking at the operational costs associated with opening two of those new schools next year. We're also paying close attention to the fact that there is a connection with schools to state funding. I'll remind the board in the community that our local government bears the cost of 72% of our local school system, the state bears the cost of about 28% of the local school system. And we're looking

[05:26:37] at that state funding going into next year because that is tied into a term called local composite index. Happens every two years where the state will evaluate all the communities in Virginia and then that evaluation that is a complex formula helps to guide the state funding. So there's a chance next year that it could be adjusted and if it's adjusted downward that creates some of the gap that local government has to consider. We're also looking in 27 at our revenue sharing agreement with the city, our relationship with our key partner agencies in the services that

[05:27:12] we provide. I've mentioned the federal safer money as well as just the relationship we have with our local government services to the federal government and the federal funding that we pull down every year. Board, I shared this slide with you last summer and we continued to work through the summer and fall, recognizing that really I just want you to focus on fiscal year 26, where last summer we looked at the fact that when we loaded all of the expenses with our predicted expenses that we knew, along with our expected revenues, we were looking at about a

[05:27:48] 3.1% gap in our total budget, which represents about $13 million. And so I knew going into the fiscal year planning process for fiscal year 26, that we were going to have to work hard to be able to balance the budget. And again, that is driven so much by the obligations that we're going to talk about in just a few minutes. So this budget is recommended and balanced on 89.4 cents real property per 100 of assessed value. That represents a recommendation and consideration

[05:28:24] for a four cent dedicated tax rate increase. On the far right, it also is recommending the personal property go to 4.28 cents per 100 of valuation, and that would fully restore the pre-pandemic rate that we had enjoyed, I think, for about 20 years prior to the pandemic.

[05:28:45] The board will remember that during the pandemic, when used car prices skyrocketed, that we purposefully cut the personal property tax by, I believe, $0.86 during the pandemic as a strategy to give personal property owners in Albemarle County relief from what we were hoping to be temporary used car prices going up. And those have settled out. They are stabilized. And we're asking that that be fully restored back to $4.28. The two bottom revenues will go unchanged,

[05:29:20] both with food and beverage and transit occupancy tax. I'd like to take a second to spend with the board explaining the four cent dedicated tax rate increase. 3.2 cents or 80% of this recommended dedicated tax rate increase would be dedicated to public safety. In fiscal year 26, we are obligated to pay $9.9 million to pay back the FEMA grants that help fund 57

[05:29:56] firefighter positions as well as new police officers to fully fund our public safety plan and other related public safety expenses that will be part of our ongoing obligations in the operations budget. So that is 3.2 of the four pennies that would be fully dedicated for public safety obligations and initiatives. The remaining eight-tenths of a penny has been recommended to be split between operational revenue with the county school system four

[05:30:32] tenths of a penny represents 1.2 million beginning next year and that would support continued education funding and that would be on top of the 1.2 million would be a supplement and be on top of the the rest of the revenue that is coming in that goes through the normal split between local government, schools, and our capital program. The final four-tenths of a penny, also $1.2 million beginning in fiscal year 26, would be Albemarle County's first ongoing revenue stream that would be devoted to affordable housing. It would remain that way for as long as the board determined that

[05:31:11] to be the case to ensure ongoing investment in county accessibility. There is additional one-time money that is set aside in the recommended budget. It's about $3 million that would also be dedicated to affordable housing if the budget were passed by the board. Our general fund revenues for the upcoming year, we tend to focus most on general fund revenues because that's where all the tax revenue is received. It is the primary funding source for schools, capital, debt, local government, and it's where our board has the maximum amount of policy discretion. General fund

[05:31:50] revenues have grown in this recommended budget by 9.7 percent. That represents $42.5 million in additional revenue from last year or the current year that we're in into fiscal year 26, the recommended budget. And I'll track for the board in just a few minutes where the majority of that $42 million in the recommended budget is being earmarked. Quickly, I'll just point to on the expenditure side, the recommended expenditures are balanced to this based on revenues. And I

[05:32:26] would point to the transfer of schools for all of our expenditures going out that approximately 45% of the money is sent to Albemarle County Public Schools. So it is easy for me to say they are our closest partner on a day-to-day basis that we work with. Some of that is dictated through the framework of the state laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia, but we take that obligation very seriously. So I'm going to take a minute or two and just dig into some of the investments more specifically, and then we'll wrap it up and I'll turn it back over to the board for the public

[05:33:02] hearing. I'll step through some of the revenue, some of the earmarked revenue going into fiscal year 26, tying it back to the strategic plan. So you'll see regarding the strategic plan, And when we talk about the certain topics, we're looking at our strategic goals, and we're tying this into strategic goal number one, which is safety and well-being, and also strategic goal six, which is our workforce and customer service.

[05:33:31] And this is the case all throughout the recommended budget, where we, again, we do align our five-year strategic plan back to our year-to-year budget planning. So Atmar County is committed to ensuring fire rescue and police have the resources that they need to serve the community effectively.

[05:33:49] So as I said earlier, in recent years, the county successfully leveraged four federal grant funding opportunities from FEMA's SAFER program to hire firefighters. These hires addressed critical challenges, including volunteer shortages and an increasing demand for fire and emergency medical services, especially in the urban ring.

[05:34:13] Since 2021, calls for service for fire rescue has increased by almost 16%. In addition to the call volume going up, I would suggest to the board that the complexity of the calls have continued to rise as well.

[05:34:30] I'll talk a little bit more about that with police and the evolution of our work to include the creation of the HART team. While this funding allowed us to defer the cost that's associated with bringing the 57 positions on board, as you can see on the slide, we pulled down $12.7 million in federal funding.

[05:34:51] Basically, how this funding works, it is pulled to the community, it is earmarked for what the gaps are, and then over a period of time, the federal government steps away with the funding, and the local government is expected to step in and to take the funding over. In our case, it was a thoughtful strategy about five years ago that we started this process because we saw the slow but predicted decline in volunteer professionals across Albemarle County, and we began to use this as a strategy to be able to pull in, in an expedited manner, additional positions all across the county to be able to handle our calls for service.

[05:35:29] In this budget, we are also recommending the funding for six new police officers that will support public safety. The six positions that I've asked for in this budget is the highest number of positions that we have added, if the board approves this, since fiscal year 16. When I look back over the request for positions from our police department since 2022, this request has been in place from our police department since 2022. Since 2021,

[05:36:09] We've added 13 police officer positions to cover a wide range of needs in our police department. We do have a full-service police department, including Animal Control, CID, as well as an agency that partners with the federal government, the state government, and our local agencies.

[05:36:30] So I was convinced, after looking at the number of miles that they cover, the fact that our calls for service have increased by 17 percent since 2021 and in fact in 2024 we crossed the 75,000 calls threshold. So I'll say that again in 2024 we received 75,402 calls for service in the Albemarle County Police Department. So I believe that these additional six officers, which would go directly to patrol, will create a more favorable staffing situation

[05:37:09] on a day-to-day basis as we cover the county, 725 square miles, and we do that 365 days a year, all six positions going to patrol. And this investment will help with coverage times during especially busy times, as well as also improving response times, especially in the rural area where sometimes our officers are spread far apart. I want to flag for the board that we're also undertaking a public safety comprehensive staffing study that is going on currently that will assess both police and fire rescue departments, and it's to help ensure that we are most effectively

[05:37:48] providing public safety response. The study will not be available until later this year. It will not inform the decisions that are made during the budget process, but we will look at industry standards and best practices, and then we will make recommendations for infrastructure and deployment and staffing that will address the changing risk profile of the county as we continue to grow year after year. I finally wanted to mention the HART team, which when you talk about the complexity of the calls, we've got the volume of calls, but the complexity of calls have really

[05:38:24] continued to increase, which led the county with the board's support to the creation of the HART team, which is an interdisciplinary team. We now have two separate teams. The board took steps to fund an additional team in last year's budget that is a cross-discipline team of police, fire, and social worker. These folks are dispatched to calls that present themselves through the E911 system as potentially a mental health crisis. It has been very effective. We have continued performance data on how this is going. So I want to focus this for a few minutes on

[05:39:01] human services funding. This supports goals one and four in our strategic plan. With the recommended budget for next year, which is $1.6 million, that is a $385,000 increase, 31% from this current year, to fund 26 separate programs that partner with Albemarle County government by funding local, nonprofit, and community organizations. We strengthen the regional safety net and improves residents' access to vital services. So this includes in the 26 programs, and you see pictured

[05:39:35] here, including organizations like Loaves and Fishes that provide emergency food, PACHEM, which provides emergency shelter, and the Ready Kids program, which provides mental health care for kids and teens. I would suggest that this area of our funding is our force multiplier where we look to getting vital services to our residents through our community partners. Speaking of community services, let's look for a minute at our investment in community services. Albemarle County partners

[05:40:10] with regional agencies and organizations to ensure residents have access to vital community services without taking on the burden of the full cost of operations. In public safety, that's about $12.5 million. A good example of that is our Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail.

[05:40:29] We are in the middle of taking on renovation through our regional partnership to renovate our regional jail. It has not been renovated. It's the first renovation in 50 years. The county's share of the debt service next year, along with our continued operational funding, is about $5.3 million.

[05:40:51] It also includes a partnership with Blue Ridge Juvenile Detention Center, the Charlottesville Albemarle SPCA. There's an increased funding need there, as well as our partnership through the Emergency Communications Center, our E911 system.

[05:41:07] That's a partnership between the city, the county, and the university where we house those staff under one roof to save money on infrastructure. And we're focused on enhancing 911 services and the emergency response coordination. The county's share of that partnership is also $5.3 million.

[05:41:27] I want to talk just for a minute about our investment in schools. I talked about the schools being our clearest partner with our funding obligations and responsibilities. In next year's budget, I have recommended a $14.3 million increase to Abmar County Public Schools for operational support.

[05:41:50] That represents a 7.3% increase in operational funding. That also would ask the board to consider allowing staff to move $6.2 million in one-time funding to support our jointly owned health care program.

[05:42:09] It is a self-funded health care program between all of county, local government, our schools, and several partner agencies. I've also mentioned that the county is in the process of building three new schools and are planning for two schools to open in 2027.

[05:42:28] Affordable housing. I said earlier that of the four cents, we would take the four-tenths of a penny. That equals $1.2 million of dedicated revenue that would go to affordable housing if this budget is approved with an additional $3 million of one-time investment.

[05:42:50] That totals $4.2 million that has been earmarked in the fiscal year 26 budget for your consideration. This adds to the prior investment of $17.7 million in housing investments over the past five years.

[05:43:07] I'll take a minute just to talk about the importance of our economic development fund. We've earmarked about $1 million of additional one-time money that would be in the economic development fund for next year. We continue to need to focus on the growth of our target sectors, focusing on biotechnology and our national security innovation.

[05:43:29] This includes Ravana Futures. This includes support for the Commonwealth BioAccelerator. As pictured here today in front of you, the recent announcement with Afton Scientific, where the CEO, Tom Thorpe, announced a $200 million capital investment in this local homegrown company with his intention to add an additional 200 workers in this Albemarle County industry.

[05:43:57] So we need to be positioned with this additional money to partner with our Albemarle County school system, PVCC, UVA for future, I'm sorry, yes, for future life sciences, advanced manufacturing and cybersecurity job opportunities in our county.

[05:44:13] We need to continue to partner on redevelopment projects that deliver public infrastructure. One good example of that is our current partnership with Home Depot out at the Fashion Square Mall site. Our partnership with Home Depot has resulted in them investing $26 million in that site, over 100 jobs, and this is all to open later this year.

[05:44:38] If you remember the slide on the strategic plan, we've got our five goals that's followed by our goal in the middle, which is workforce and customer service. budget does have support for our workforce. We're earmarking three and a half million dollars for a market adjustment for our staff. That's a three percent pay increase for county staff. It also, we're also recommending a continued funding of our public safety pay plan to keep our salaries in county government market competitive as well as to fund continued market studies to make sure

[05:45:17] that we remain competitive. That helps us with our recruiting and with our retention and turnover. also board we've seen a 24 percent increase in our health care rates we are fully self-funded which means that our health care plan costs are completely generated by the performance of our health care plan and we have seen rising health care claims and increasing costs for the county over the last several years and therefore i'm asking for the board to allow me to transfer nine million dollars over into our health care fund fund balance separate from that we have also recently announced by the picture on the left side of the screen, the opening of the first ever

[05:45:56] county health clinic for county employees and covered lives that are on our health plan. This includes schools and local government. This is a best practices model not only in Virginia but across the United States. I want to take a second to talk about in workforce and service delivery our eye on cost savings and efficiencies. This board challenged us last year to look for reengineering and cost savings within our budget, and we've worked hard in this current year to identify about $500,000 in annual cost savings. Next year at this time, we believe that we will

[05:46:35] identify $1 million in cost savings that cover both fiscal year 25 and 26. This includes looking at vacant positions and reengineering processes, ensuring that staffing is aligned with priorities. We're also focused on fully implementing our new systems modernization work through all of our departments, internal and external, to get the absolute most efficiency that we can as we put new systems online in all of our operating departments. You can see on the slide that we are recommending 11.7 positions be eliminated. These are all vacant positions on the

[05:47:13] local government side and those positions would go away in fiscal year 26 if this budget is is is approved and that 11.7 is offset by the six new positions in police still with that you've got about six positions total in the county our position count would go go down year over year i'm almost finished board i just want to talk for a second about our recommended fiscal year 26 through 30 CIP highlights. You can see up here really a snapshot of the things that we're into regarding

[05:47:52] the things that we do on the local government side. We have a lot of multi-year investment. We do a five-year capital improvement plan, and we're doing a lot of things both at the local government side and on the school side. When you combine those two CIPs together, local government in schools. It is over $300 million for the next five years of infrastructure investment in our community. On the school side, that's almost $190 million. I would really point out, in addition to

[05:48:25] the schools, that our being able to meet the expanding capacity request with the Northern Feeder Pattern School for the elementary school for the schools, I think that's a really big deal that we've been able to meet that request. In addition to that, we're fully funding the school school bus replacement program for the next five years within our current CIP. We're trying very hard to meet the school's expectations with their infrastructure and CIP needs. In local government, it's a little broader with what we do, and so we're into a lot of different investments that

[05:49:02] cover really all six of the strategic goals within our organization. Some of this is partnerships. A good example would be central library renovations where we're partnered with the city. And then some of this, we do it by ourselves. As I wrap up, board, it's ironic to me that earlier today that we looked at AC44 specific to parks, recreation, and open space.

[05:49:30] And I like this slide because it's a snapshot. I talked earlier about our strategic plan, but when we really look at day-to-day operations and we track what do we do every day in this community, it's a lot of stuff. It really is. We show this slide to our new employee orientation.

[05:49:46] new employees every two weeks and we ask people to point to something that they didn't know about and people talk about different things but all of this matters all of this matters as it relates to quality of life our calls for service the response that we give our citizens each and every day bottom line i said i'd come back to the 42 and a half million dollars i'll remind the board that three years ago we were looking at our out your obligations most of which are you can tie a string through that ties back to public safety. And so we do have a lot of obligation that we're

[05:50:23] trying to make a meaningful difference in this community. When we look at the revenue growth, $42.5 million, we can see that we are investing ongoing and one-time money of about $20 million in education, $10 million in public safety. This is additional dollars. Human services and housing 2.2, workforce and service delivery 3. Our revenue sharing agreement with the city continues to grow.

[05:50:47] It will go over $20 million later this year, and this year's additional increase is 2.4. We've also got an additional 2.4 in CIP and debt, as well as our partnerships with our community partners. Let's cover real quick what next steps are, because we have a lot of work after tonight.

[05:51:10] This is the fiscal year budget calendar. We are kicking this off on March the 5th. Here's our public hearing on the budget, followed by a series of work sessions in March and reaching into April if necessary. Coupled with that, we have a number of town halls which board members will be accompanying us to.

[05:51:29] It's aligned to the different districts through the county where we will be going in and bringing operational staff to visit with our community members. We'll also give an overview of the budget and also hear the community's thoughts about our budget. And then finally, we're hoping that by May the 7th that we've got a budget that the board will approve and appropriate as we plan for fiscal year 26. Mr. Chair, that's my presentation for this evening. Thank you very much again for the opportunity to be here, and we look forward to the community's remarks this evening. Thank you very much. Thank you. Before I open the public

[05:52:09] hearing, I just want to look to my right and left. I want to make sure we hear from all the public, and I believe we have quite a few people to hear from. So if there are any questions about the presentation you'd like to raise now, we'll have many work sessions on this and, of course, opportunities to talk to the public. But I do want to give a chance if there are questions.

[05:52:26] Otherwise, I will open the public hearing. And with that, we have a list of people who have signed up. Do I have a number?

[05:52:49] Okay. So Vice Chair McKeel will, again, read the rules for this portion, which is a public hearing, and then read the names of the over 30 people who signed up.

[05:53:06] So, thank you. So, we request tonight that during the public comment portion of the hearing, the board will acknowledge speakers addressing the items listed for public hearing.

[05:53:25] Speakers are limited to one appearance of three minutes per public hearing item. For in-person speakers, timekeeping is conducted through a timer and light system at the podium.

[05:53:41] 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 asked to end your comments. For community members who are attending the meeting electronically, and we do have one, timekeeping is conducted through a timer.

[05:54:05] The timer will commence when you begin speaking, and this begins your allotted time. You will be notified when the three minutes are up, and you are requested to bring your comments to a close, as your microphone will be muted after five more seconds. In order to give all speakers equal treatment, the board requests that speakers adhere to the following guidelines.

[05:54:24] When addressing the board, state your name, and if you live in Alamara 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. When making comments through Zoom, you may upload written comments through the e-comment portal or email your comments to our clerk.

[05:54:45] 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 please do not speak from your seat or out of turn.

[05:55:01] All comments are live-streamed, recorded, and published on the Elmoral County website. If participating by phone, press star 9 to let us know you want to speak, then star 6 if from a landline to unmute. If by Zoom, please remain muted until you're called on to speak.

[05:55:18] And with that, we have seats in the very front rows that are empty. What I'd like to do, if possible, is to call three names at a time.

[05:55:35] As I call the three names, if you can come down, to be prepared to speak, it just saves some time and makes it a little bit quicker for us. So I'll call three names at a time. And ahead of time, I want to apologize if I mispronounce or misread anyone's name.

[05:55:56] It's certainly not intentional. So our first three speakers tonight, if you will come down, and you can sit in any of the seats in the front. Karen Egan. Brad Rogers, and Tom Eckman. So Karen Egan, Brad Rogers, and Tom Eckman.

[05:56:14] And Karen, you're the first speaker. And the others can just join us in the front. Welcome. Please adjust the microphone to your height so we can hear. Thank you. Go right ahead. Karen Egan, Ravana District.

[05:56:31] I'm grateful for the support provided by the board for Albemarle County Public Schools. However, I'm here to speak about the need for this CIP funding as capital improvement needs are high and urgent. ACPS schools are overcrowded and antiquated. The majority of ACPS students currently attend schools that are at or over 95 percent capacity with several over 100 percent capacity. Currently seven elementary schools are over capacity. Agner, Baker-Butler, Greer, Woodbrook, Murray, Mountain View, and Red Hill. An eighth, Hollymead, will be over capacity any day due to the growing the growth in the northern development plan. While the capacity

[05:57:09] data currently shows that all middle schools have room to fit more students. I'm concerned about stories being shared. An example is that at Lakeside Middle School, currently there's a shortage of classroom space. Classes are being held in the library or the gym. Teachers have to use each other's classrooms during their planning periods to teach due to this shortage. And most urgently of all are high schools. All three are over capacity and have been for many years. The plan center too, due to its small scope, will not be enough to reduce overcrowding in Albemarle High School. The Long Range Planning Committee projected that the future growth due to development in the Northern Feeder will indicate that Albemarle High School student population is expected to be

[05:57:48] nearly double the other high schools in only 10 years, raising equity concerns. This Long Range Planning Committee also recommends building a new Northern Feeder High School, and their data indicates it would consist of a very diverse student body. The needs are great. ACPS currently has 77 portable classrooms in use, the majority of which have students actively in them, leading to safety concerns with monitoring potential intruders, health concerns with poor ventilation, mold, noise, and low daylight. In addition to the overcrowding, our schools are antiquated.

[05:58:19] Our oldest schools were constructed over 80 years ago. They are now averaging over 50 years old per school. There are much needed school improvements that have not been funded each year and keep getting pushed off. They are desperately needed as many of our schools have received inadequate, poor, or borderline facility rankings. In addition to this poor facility ranking, these are some of the same schools that are overcrowded. So they need repairs that have not been done. The data shows that the public has supported our schools in the past. In 1974, the public supported a referendum to use to build Western Almara High School. In 2016,

[05:58:53] the bond referendum passed with 73.52% in favor. We cannot keep pushing CIP needs to future years and not addressing them. The needs are high. The needs are urgent. The buildings need repair, and we need new facilities. They are needed now. Each year that we put it off, the costs get higher and higher. Thank you. Thank you. Brad Rogers, you're next. My name is Brad Rogers. I live in Hollymead and I'm here tonight to emphasize the urgent need for Albemarle County school facilities

[05:59:29] in the county's budget for our schools. For 15 plus years, Albemarle has underfunded school facilities and even though a few projects are now underway, our children and our teachers carry the burden of poor school facilities. The school board presented a $500 million needs-based capital improvement plan, CIP. I want to encourage each supervisor to work with their school board member to tour each school and understand what is included in the CIP list and its importance to the community. I also encourage you all to develop a funding strategy to update and modernize

[06:00:05] all of our school facilities countywide. We have heard of far-off legislative solutions such as a 1% sales tax that has failed to receive the support it needs to be enacted, but there are many other tools at your disposal that can be used right now. Please consider bond referendums, public-private partnerships, specific tax-based carve-outs for schools and or additional methods to fund critical school facilities. Thank you for your dedication to the future of our students and for considering these critical steps in moving our school infrastructure forward. Thank you. Thank

[06:00:40] you. Tom Eckman, you're next. Good evening. I'm Tom Eckman. I'm from the Ravonna District, a member of IMPACT. For eight years, IMPACT has been advocating for an affordable housing trust fund. These trust funds have been successfully implemented across the country, helping

[06:01:10] seniors, essential workers, families, and individuals find stable housing. For every $1 put into a housing trust fund, nonprofit developers can leverage an extra $8 from other sources. This maximizes the impact of the fund to build new and also preserve existing affordable housing for those who need it the most. The trust fund should prioritize the people who need it

[06:01:45] most, namely households making 60% AMI and below. Those are the people who need it. With my work through Potchum, I've met many hardworking people that were staying in shelters, and the reason they were there is because they couldn't afford the rent of having an apartment.

[06:02:05] The county has put money into the housing fund, but it hasn't been effective as it could have been, because there is no trust fund structure in place to leverage these dollars. The policy was approved three years ago, and the affordable housing crisis is growing, and this inaction is missing some opportunities.

[06:02:30] Having a housing trust fund is a good idea. In my career, I learned firsthand that a good idea is worthless unless it's acted upon. I worked for a small business in DuPont. We made a reverse osmosis device to desaline water, and we were facing a possible sale or a shutdown.

[06:02:56] And many resisted making changes and didn't want to take the risk of making improvements to the product. But one day our research manager said something really powerful. He says, he told us, if you have a good idea, I empower you to do it.

[06:03:13] And we took action. We had a good idea on how to redesign the device to make it work better. These changes improved the efficiency, doubled its flow, made it less expensive to manufacture and install.

[06:03:30] And our business turned around, and 3,000 of these were used in the world's largest desalination plan because we were asked to have a good idea, and we were empowered to do it, and we did it. Today, we need at least four supervisors to get the county staff to approve $10 million to their trust fund annually and empower the staff.

[06:03:56] If you have words that you aren't able to make, please provide them to the clerk. The clerk has it, and thank you very much. Our next speakers, and again, I'm going to call three speakers, and if you will, I'll come down. Dave Norris, Lois Sandy, and Michael Monaco.

[06:04:13] And Dave, you're first. Welcome. Good evening, Supervisors. I'm Dave Norris, and I'm here tonight as Executive Director of the Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors Foundation. We cover all the county and the city.

[06:04:30] Realtors are on the front lines of our community's housing challenges. They see the impact every day of rising housing prices and how it places homes out of reach of the very people who do the hard work of making our community function. That is why several months ago, the Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors sent a letter to the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors on the subject of your budget.

[06:04:54] Dear Chair Andrews, the letter read, the Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors, or CAR, supports the inclusion of a $10 million line item for an affordable housing trust fund in the county executive's FY2026 proposed budget and beyond. Providing such a clear level of proposed funding shows the community that housing affordability, both rental and ownership, is a community investment priority.

[06:05:19] Carr does not take this decision lightly. This is the first time, to our knowledge, that Carr has ever taken a position regarding a budget line item. Carr's Public Affairs Committee and Board of Directors both discussed this policy at length and determined we could not remain silent on this important community issue.

[06:05:35] At the August Carr Property Rights Luncheon, Piedmont Housing Alliance Executive Director Sunshine Mathon stated, quote, development of affordable housing is hard. It is not for the faint of heart. Financial engineering is required to achieve affordability.

[06:05:51] Housing affordability does not exist without some form of subsidy. The letter proceeds in some detail about the benefits of a substantial housing trust fund commitment and concludes with, thank you for your service to our community, sincerely, Ann Burroughs, 2024 Carr President.

[06:06:08] And just one final note, I was on the Charlottesville City Council when we established a housing trust fund for the city. And I can tell you there's no more effective way for a local government to spur affordable housing development than to make a robust financial commitment to the cause it works please do your best to achieve this goal thank you thank you next speaker is lois sandy and miss sandy you're going to need to adjust your mic so we can hear you better i will i also i'm third day into a laryngitis so

[06:06:47] bear with me i am lois sandy an albemarle county resident for more than 50 years today i know there are several thousand, I don't know the exact number, but several thousand adults in our Albemarle community unable to afford housing to live close to their work. Several years ago, or a couple of years ago, a verbal commitment was made by the Albemarle County School Board at a Nehemiah Action

[06:07:26] meeting commuting $10 million toward a trust fund, affordable housing trust fund. Well, instead, This trust fund in this year's budget has been reduced drastically to something like $4.2 million, which is not at all able to supply the needs that are there.

[06:07:50] By the way, I didn't say I'm in the Hillsdale District. I share a personal story as an example of the kinds of problems citizens of this community face today.

[06:08:05] One of my longtime friends and her husband, both born and raised here, have three children and rented for three years a duplex. But early last spring, they were informed that the owner was going to sell the units and that they would have to leave their duplex by the end of school year.

[06:08:34] So they frantically looked for other rentals. Unfortunately, by the end of the school year, they combed the area and hadn't found a thing that was affordable for them to rent. Both of them work.

[06:08:53] The family had to manage their lives for over six weeks in the hot summer months to somehow board in a local business, bug count.

[06:09:09] They found rentals were too costly, so they decided to pool their resources, found a realtor who found them a little house far from here, and they ended up purchasing one with an hour commute and with a change of school systems for their three children who started this last fall in a new school district.

[06:09:37] this to me should not happen they have an hour commitment not only time maintenance gas everything has been disrupted to me it isn't right when an industrious couple thank you appreciate if you have comments in writing you give to the clerk i can submit this yes thank you thank you claudette will be glad to take them um michael you're next good evening supervisors my name is michael monaco i live in the emerson commons neighborhood in the crozet development area in the white hall district

[06:10:16] And I'm currently, as of 20 minutes ago, still the chair of the Crozet Community Advisory Committee. I'm glad to see an increase in the real property tax rate in this budget. I'm particularly glad to see that this creates a dedicated stream of funding into the Affordable Housing Fund.

[06:10:33] The roller coaster of annual funding amounts in the Affordable Housing Fund is a barrier to predictable, sustainable development of affordable housing. But the actual dollar amount in this draft budget, the $4.2 million, is not sufficient. Affordable housing is near and dear to my heart.

[06:10:54] I am a member, my wife and I, are one of the 58 households that successfully purchased a designated affordable for-sale proffered unit in the county in the last decade. At just below 80% AMI when we bought it, we barely threaded the bureaucratic needle to qualify and still wouldn't have qualified for a mortgage without help from family.

[06:11:14] Our good fortune and privilege truly opened my eyes to how fragile housing is in Albemarle County. Since living in Crozet, I have known too many people who live in Waynesboro, Stanton, Fluvanna, Madison, Nelson, just because they can't afford to live in Albemarle County.

[06:11:35] Census data actually supports this, too. 58% of workers in Charlottesville City and Albemarle County live beyond the borders of Albemarle County. Just today, I learned about someone new, who I know, who plans to leave her job in Crozet and move to Richmond because Crozet is too expensive for her.

[06:11:52] Working in affordable housing for the past seven years has only shown me more of this simple and undeniable truth. That housing here is too expensive and that the government action to provide for low-income families has been slow-moving at best and inadequate at worst.

[06:12:09] 80% of the additional four-cent real property tax is in this draft earmarked for public safety. And we heard earlier where that money is going. I would ask that you think carefully about what it really means to address public safety. Are our unhoused neighbors safe?

[06:12:26] Studies show that unsheltered populations are at a significantly higher risk of being victimized in cases of violent crime. One study found that nearly half of unhoused people surveyed said they had experienced violence while being unhoused. If someone doesn't know where they're going to sleep next month, next week, tonight, they're not safe.

[06:12:47] housing is a crucial piece of improving public safety. The latest county affordable housing report says we need 2,320 total homes affordable to families making below 30% AMI in the next 15 years. Seriously meeting that need starts now and requires significant public investment to the tune of $10 million. Thank you. Thank you. Our next three speakers, Matthew Gilligan, Kevin

[06:13:15] mclamoury and heidi gilman bennett and matthew you are first up good evening i'm matthew gillican i'm a city resident i'm one of the co-chairs of livable seaville an all-volunteer organization that advocates for good housing and transportation policies in the charlottesville area

[06:13:53] i'm here to remind you that 50 local organizations some of the great organizations that serve our community all signed a letter that was sent to you asking for 10 million dollars a year for affordable housing and a trust fund we're asked we're continuing to ask that we hope that you will understand that bringing my signs out again you remember that from last time housing for all that's what we're here for this is what we're thinking about how can abomaro county be a

[06:14:26] place where housing is a human right where there's housing for all or as the housing abomaro housing goal states and maybe not the best pros in the history of the english language abemar county's housing will be safe decent and sanitary available to all income and age levels located primarily in the development areas and available equally to current and future county residents so the county is committed to housing for all as a concept i saw today that in 2024 the average detached single

[06:15:01] family new construction home in albemarle county how much do you think that sold for think of the number in your head eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars that's how much a house costs a new house costs in albemarle county last year the green dot or the orange dot report came in out in october it said that 18 percent of albemarle county families are struggling to meet their basic needs and it specifically highlights housing as an area where that need is being stretched the most. So what do we need to do? We need to say yes to housing. We need to say yes to the policies that will make it possible for fewer families in the county to struggle, for more

[06:15:41] people to stay in the county, for their families to have a future here, and for there to be opportunity that goes on for generation after generation. So I ask you, we ask you to increase the funding in the FY26 budget to $10 million a year at least for the Housing Trust Fund.

[06:15:59] Thank you very much. Keith, you're next. Good evening. I'm Keith Glamoury.

[06:16:16] My wife, Sammy, and I have lived in Albemarle County for 12 years. We live in Supervisor Malik's Whitehall District. I appreciate the opportunity to share my thoughts about the Housing Trust Fund and affordable housing in Albemarle County.

[06:16:33] Before I say more, let me thank the Board of Supervisors and the County Executive Richardson for including $4.2 million in the proposed budget for the Housing Trust Fund. Near the end of these comments, I urge you to fund the additional $5.8 million for all the reasons stated below.

[06:16:49] The Board is well aware that there are many factors to consider. For Albemarle County, it involves a statistical analysis of the financial investment in affordable housing needs and the necessary tax revenues required to address those needs. Of course, those analyses are considered in conjunction with revenue demands for other county services.

[06:17:08] As supervisors, you face the challenge of addressing competing needs with finite resources. This evening, you have already heard from other speakers about those financial issues and choices insofar as it affects affordable housing and the housing trust fund.

[06:17:25] In my brief remarks, I would like to focus on benefits of the personal, familial, emotional, and other so-called soft impacts on the lives of our county residents with low income, of which those of us fortunate to have more financial security sometimes lose sight.

[06:17:45] I want to bring attention to the role of housing trust funds in enabling homes, not just building houses. A familiar expression is a house is not a home. A house provides shelter from the elements and is made of wood, steel, bricks, and mortar. However, it is the people who live in it, particularly families, who transform it into a home.

[06:18:05] In their home, a person can experience safety and security and a sense of belonging and acceptance. A home is a sanctuary for all who reside there. The places a person considers home and remembers as home in the past play a major role in influencing how people live their lives.

[06:18:25] Utilization of the Housing Trust Fund, fully funded at $10 million to create 300 new affordable houses, would have the corollary benefit of being a significant investment in the quality of home life in those houses. Family life and domestic discord may be expected to improve in ways large and small.

[06:18:43] With a significantly reduced threat of eviction or foreclosure, the attention of the parents may become more focused on their children's education, health, and overall well-being. The result would be a significant benefit to the lives of residents. Further, more stability in those families may result in less involvement of other county agencies.

[06:19:03] In effect, the housing trust fund expenditures for low-income housing would likely contribute to healthier communities in the parts of the county in which such housing is located. Thank you for your attention and for your consideration of the requests I've made in these remarks. Thank you. Heidi, you're up next.

[06:19:23] Heidi Gilman-Bennett, Samuel Miller District. I'm speaking tonight on behalf of Family Council, an all-volunteer organization that represents families across all ACPS public schools and clearly needs fancy posters. I have spoken with you before about the capital improvement plan request and the urgent need to fund our overcrowded and antiquated public school buildings.

[06:19:47] But tonight, I will focus on the ACPS operating budget. The cost of running quality public schools is not inexpensive. Yes, the ACPS budget has increased, but so have the costs for school divisions across Virginia.

[06:20:04] On a per-pupil cost basis, ACPS is well aligned to other school divisions in costly areas like Northern Virginia. This makes sense. As you know, the bulk of ACPS operating budget goes to paying our amazingly talented teachers and school staff. Also aligned with the bulk of school divisions across the state are our class sizes across all grade levels. I will send you the data.

[06:20:29] So yes, I am usually standing here in this spot addressing the school board about things they should be doing better, but I would like to remind you as a parent of two kids who are currently in our public schools that it's a good investment. The services kids in our community need are urgent and heartbreaking, and school is the right place to offer those for many of our families, from mental health to homelessness to basic medical and dental services not to mention cte career technical education and basic academics your past investments indicate that you as wise stewards of

[06:21:03] the county know much of this and i know that given potential tax increases and high cost of living here there will be extra public scrutiny of the acps budget but i want you to know that acps will present a needs-based budget just to maintain the current level of much needed services. We have kids struggling to read and do math, but the right instruction is finally being put in place.

[06:21:31] And, for example, I also understand that central office staffing is finally being reorganized and reduced. These are important things. Family Council will continue to keep the pressure on central office decision makers and on the school board to use the funds that you provide wisely.

[06:21:49] Just please continue to find every way possible to support the ACPS operating budget request. There are amazing and beautiful things happening in our public school classrooms. Thank you for making an investment in our kids, in my kids, and in the county's future. Thank you. Thank you. Our next three speakers, if you'll come down, Larry Brown, Jane Colony Mills, and Vicki Bravo. And Larry, you're up first. Good evening. I'm Larry Brown from the Ravonna District, and I'm here tonight

[06:22:27] to talk about loaves and fishes. I know loaves and fishes very well. I started there as a volunteer and a donor, and I recently joined the Board of Directors because I see the value that organization brings to our community. I'd like to thank County Executive Richardson for including Loaves and Fishes in the operational and capital improvement budgets for this year in his recommendations. Loaves and Fishes provides a week's worth of free, healthy groceries for more than 10,000 individuals

[06:23:02] from Virginia each month, and 40% of these individuals are residents of Albemarle County. 65% of the food that the pantry distributes is perishable, including fresh fruits and vegetables, proteins like milk, eggs, meat, and alternative, excuse me, proteins. Loaves and fishes distributes food that we obtain through the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, and that's approximately

[06:23:34] 52% of the food we obtain. 33% is rescued from local grocery stores, and 10% is food we purchase from other sources and from food donations to the pantry. To give you an example of the size of this organization, in 2024, Loaves and Fishes distributed 2.8 million pounds of food to 128,000 individuals in over 33,000 households. Most recently, in January of this year,

[06:24:10] the amount of food we're seeing needed and distributed continues to increase. So in January, we distributed food to 3,286 households. And this was an average of 16 distribution days.

[06:24:26] That went to over 13,000 individuals, and 37% of those were children under 18 years of age. Loaves and Fishes operates with a very small staff and a lot of volunteers. in january again we hosted 560 volunteers they contributed over 1200 hours of service to the organization so thank you for support and we look forward to continuing to work with you thank you jane you're next thank you what do i say now because larry said it all i'm jane colony mills

[06:25:02] i live in the whitehall district and i'm the executive director of loaves and fishes food pantry which is located in the jack jewett district first i'd like to thank you mr richardson and the Albemarle County staff for including loaves and fishes, vital food services in the county's FY26 budget through the human services funding process, and money for capital improvements program to help upgrade one of our walk-in freezers. As Larry said, 65 percent of the food that we give out is perishable, so increasing our capacity to safely store perishable food expands our ability to respond to the increased need in our community.

[06:25:40] In January of 2025, 50% of the people who came to the pantry for help were Albemarle County residents. We provide a week's worth of nutritious, healthy groceries customized for special diets, cultural preferences, and household size to more than 10,000 people each month.

[06:25:58] In 2024, the number of people needing our assistance increased 28% over 2023 and 92% since 2022. with one-third of pantry visitors coming two times each month.

[06:26:14] The people that we help are seniors, children, adults, people with disabilities, victims of domestic violence, and unhoused people. 973,000 pounds, or 33% of the food that we gave out last year, was donated by grocery stores or food freight haulers who have been rejected by the Walmart Distribution Center in Louisa.

[06:26:37] This food rescue effectively reduces the amount of food waste going to the Ivy Materials Utilization Center. Any food that we can no longer give to humans goes to pig farmers. We have someone who speaks Spanish at every one of our distributions each week and someone at our Wednesday and Thursday distributions who speaks Dari, Pashto, and Arabic.

[06:26:58] So pantry visitors can communicate in languages other than English. We also have a full-time dietician who teaches cooking classes live and through social media. She works with visitors on their special diets and offers samples and recipes of food that might be new to pantry visitors.

[06:27:15] I'd also like to thank the county for proposing continued funding for microCAT, which has given so many county residents without transportation access to healthy food. And thank the Sheriff's Department, the Police Department, Fire and Rescue, Departments of Social Service, and Albemarle County Public Schools for helping direct traffic, get people food, all the different pieces coming together to make food access accessible in our area.

[06:27:44] Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Jane. Vicki Bravo? Good evening. My name is Vicki Bravo, and I'm here speaking on behalf of IMPACT, our Interfaith Direct Action Group, about the proposed budget.

[06:28:02] I'd just like to ask all the people who are here tonight in support of affordable housing to just raise your hands. Thank you. Currently, $4.2 million is proposed for housing. We need $10 million.

[06:28:18] Why $10 million? $10 million from the county, along with outside funds that would be leveraged by the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, would build around 300 affordable apartments.

[06:28:36] In 10 years of this funding, that would be 3,000 apartments. The need keeps rising due to higher eviction rates since COVID, and buildings that were formerly affordable are being changed into luxury apartments.

[06:28:54] So we're not just standing still, we're falling behind. The New York Times had a piece on Saturday entitled, America is Pushing Its Workers into Homelessness, which I'll share with you all through Claudette.

[06:29:10] They give an example. At 10 p.m., a hospital technician pulls into a Walmart parking lot. Her four kids, one still nursing, are packed in the back of her Toyota. She tells them it's an adventure, but she's terrified someone will call the police.

[06:29:29] She stays awake for hours, lavender scrubs folded in the trunk, listening for footsteps or any sign of trouble. Her shift starts soon. She'll walk into the hospital exhausted, pretending everything is fine. In our community, we have the program PACHEM that our faith organizations sponsor to house people during the cold months.

[06:29:55] We might assume that the people who are sleeping in my synagogue and in our churches are unemployed. But as you heard from Tom Eckman, right here in our community, people with jobs are sleeping in churches in the winter.

[06:30:12] We know the county has many financial responsibilities. If the workers who support our economy can't afford to live here, what kind of county are we? Thank you. Thank you.

[06:30:27] The next three speakers, Lindsay Hepler, Deanna Gould, and I'm not sure if this name is marked out, but it says William Frazier. If I don't see him, I'll go to the next. There you are. Okay.

[06:30:45] Oh, okay. Then I'll move on to the next person, which is Suzanne Keller. Good evening. My name is Lindsay Hepler, and I'm the Engagement Director for Lighthouse Studio. We appreciate the chance to speak with you all tonight about increasing the amount of recommended funding for Lighthouse in the county budget report. As you know from the email we sent yesterday, Lighthouse has consistently received funding through the Human Services Funding Program

[06:31:15] since 2019, when we were appropriated $16,642 in the FY20 budget. In FY24, we requested $20,000 for our educational programs. We received an exemplary rating and were granted $17,308.

[06:31:33] In FY25, we requested $25,000. We received a solid rating and were again granted $17,308. This year, we were rated as a Tier 3 program, which is described as a positive impact and protective community factors, yet we are looking at 100% decrease in funding from the county this year. To go from consistent funding for six years to $0 was quite a shock, and this would be a significant loss for Lighthouse Studio. This year we requested $25,000 for our educational programs

[06:32:10] and our application was rated as exemplary, yet we are recommended for zero dollars in funding. We continue to offer the same quality programs for our community, especially through our work with Albemarle County Public Schools, and we submitted the same quality information in our application. Last year, we served 543 students in Albemarle County, which includes partnerships with 18 county-based non-profit organizations and schools. Our students resemble the demographics of the area we serve. Across Lighthouse programming in 2024, 23% were black, 9% Hispanic,

[06:32:50] and 59% white. By comparison, in the 2020 census, Albemarle County was 11% black, 8% Hispanic, and 80% white. Our needs have not changed, and this reduced amount of funding creates a material financial strain for our organization. There was no conversation or other indication that the county would revoke our funding. Our partners at the Boys and Girls Club recently reminded us that research consistently finds that students who participate in the arts demonstrate higher levels of engagement, civic participation, and career readiness. Again, this loss would be significant

[06:33:28] for us. We're asking you to consider restoring funding for Lighthouse Studio in FY26 at $17,308. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Suzanne Keller. Oh, I'm sorry. I went to the wrong name.

[06:33:47] One was scratched out. I apologize. Deanna Gold. Yes, there you go. Thank you. I'm Deanna Gold. I live in Free Union. I'm the director of Lighthouse. In addition to the county's support in fiscal year 25, Lindsay and I secured grant and foundation funding to cover filmmaking education for 18 county schools and non-profits. While your support does not cover all the funding that we need, it is significant, and suddenly losing all of it would greatly impact us. We see you as our partner. We were both working toward the same goal to provide a service for those who otherwise

[06:34:25] would not have access. County funding has helped us partner with many others, including Albemarle and Monticello High Schools, Mountain View, Blue Ridge Detention Center, Boys and Girls Clubs, among others. And we work with most of these institutions multiple times throughout the year. The grant application focuses on numbers, but it doesn't allow you to see what we see every day and why we know what we do matters. I want to share with you some feedback from our community partners. Center One. Since fall 22, we have partnered with Lighthouse to provide our students

[06:35:02] with an opportunity to gain work-based learning experiences, but the partnership has done much more than that. Lighthouse provides teenagers with authentic hands-on learning that targets a wide range of skills. Under their leadership, I've seen my students grow in a collaborative setting where they are treated as professionals and given an opportunity to showcase their ideas.

[06:35:23] Their entire organization is a wonderful asset for our community. Henley, student engagement is at an all-time high when Lighthouse is here. The filmmakers do a great job making connections between writing, filmmaking, and the creative process. They make sure all voices are heard.

[06:35:41] Ivy Elementary, for many years my students have benefited from Lighthouse classroom instruction. They also provided vinegaral theater as a screening venue and an unbelievable field trip destination, which also welcomed our families. Reclaimed hope. Our kids have some type of disability or mental health diagnosis.

[06:36:00] The Lighthouse team came in without any judgment. Our staff stated that Lighthouse has been the only provider that we've had come in and keep every kid's interest. Tech girls. Lighthouse is an inclusive, welcoming space that makes students feel excited to take creative risks.

[06:36:17] Our collaborations have increased access to computer science and helped young women to build confidence in robotics. I know that Lighthouse's work is an asset to our community. Tandem, I've been involved with Lighthouse over 10 years as a parent of a student who attended many workshops and made 23 films and as an educator who has brought my students to Lighthouse to make films for my classes.

[06:36:42] The professionalism of the staff, incredible high quality film instruction and the creativity and joy they inspire in their students makes Lighthouse very deserving. Thank you. Suzanne Keller.

[06:37:06] My name is Suzanne Keller. I'm here with Impact, and I live and vote in Scottsville District. I live at Cavalier Crossing on 5th Street, which is an affordable housing complex that's been bought by a developer and is being turned into luxury apartments.

[06:37:23] The current residents are being kicked out the last day of July. That's over 100 low-income people who are going to flood into the Albemarle-Charlottesville housing market on August the 1st. Are you ready for this? Do you have enough funding to provide even basic assistance to people like us who are essentially being displaced right into your community?

[06:37:47] This is why we need a housing trust fund of at least $10 million. Not only because of this particular large emergency, but because this emergency is being played out daily on a smaller scale, over and over again, all over the county.

[06:38:05] Rents are being jacked up and people are losing their housing. Where are we going to go? And how far is $4.2 million going to go toward getting a handle on this reality? I'm here to speak for people who, like me, live daily with fear in the pits of our stomachs that we're going to end up on the street.

[06:38:25] So when you go home, and I assume all of you do have homes, I hope you'll give this issue some serious consideration. Thank you. Thank you. Our next three speakers. And I'm not sure, I think this is Todd Cohn, but I guess it could be Cole.

[06:38:46] Todd, there you go. You recognize your name. come on down please and the next one is david is it volts david from scottsville i'll give you a clue david there you go have a seat down front please and heidi june all right and you're on you're first okay thank you welcome uh my name is todd cone and i live uh in an apartment in

[06:39:20] the Ryo District. I'm a retired person, live alone, and I just want to talk about the housing situation, what it's like. Last year, I wanted to find a cheaper place to live, and I had a two-bedroom apartment, but my wife had passed away, and I thought it was time for me to move to a one-bedroom.

[06:39:48] It turned out there was a one-bedroom apartment available in the same building I was in. In fact, It was right across the corridor from my apartment. So I had them show that apartment to me, and it was fine.

[06:40:05] It looked okay, and they quoted me a rent for it. And the rent was actually more than what I was paying for the two-bedroom apartment. I asked about why that was, and they told me, well, there's more demand now for one-bedroom apartments.

[06:40:25] I bet there is. They also had some question about whether I might have to reapply and re-qualify to rent there, even though I'd been renting there for nearly eight years. So I looked around at other places around the area, and I found out that the one versus two bedroom situation was not that unusual.

[06:40:54] There was a lot of places where that was the case, and there wasn't that much differentiation between rents as far as the size of your apartment. So I ended up staying where I was, even though that rent increased considerably, and my income did not.

[06:41:18] So I say that to say that I have applied for the lottery for a position on a waiting list for a housing voucher. And my application was accepted, but I haven't heard anything since then.

[06:41:42] So I don't know what's going on, but when I find out, I'll keep you posted. Thank you. Thank you. David, and I apologize about your name if you'll restate it. It's probably my writing. David Vellakey, Scottsville, I'm here to speak on the rate increase in the Omaha County budget.

[06:42:07] Thank you, Mr. Richardson, for your presentation. I believe it's $42.5 million. Better? $42.5 million increase in one year. That just sounds like a lot of money to me. So I went back and started looking at some of the properties I have associations with. So the first one I went to is currently assessed at $356,000. Last year it was assessed at $336,000. Five years ago, it was $261,000. That's an increase of 36%. Another property

[06:42:46] is now assessed at $574,000. Last year, it was assessed at $520,000. That's a 10% increase. Five years ago, it was $431,000. That's a 33% increase. Another property I have is now assessed at $343,000. Last year, it was $325,000. Only 5% increase. But five years ago, it was 251. That's a 33% increase. Another house, $256,000. Last year, it was assessed at $212. That's a 20%

[06:43:22] increase. Five years ago, it was assessed at $173,000. That's a 47% increase. Another house, $377,000. Last year, it was assessed at $304,000. That's a 24% increase in one year. Five years ago, it was assessed at 235 that's a 60 increase and last but not least house in stony point road assessed at 378 000 last year was assessed at 285 000 that's a 32 increase five years ago it

[06:43:57] was assessed at 205 that's an 84 increase in value and taxes so my question is how can it not be feasible for the Board of Supervisors to get by with increases on the order of 84 percent in tax revenue increase over five years and still maintain that they need to add tax revenue to the base. I would like to talk equity. So if it would be flipped and the government would like to reduce

[06:44:36] their budget by 84 percent, I would consider that fair. Does that seem ridiculous? Thank you for your time. Thank you. Heidi. Dear members of the board, my name is Heidi Yoon. I am a Rio District resident and ACPS parent and also represent Agner Elementary and Family Council.

[06:45:06] In our community, we are witnessing development projects being built around us right now along all over Rio Road. ACPS has projected that over 200 students will move to our area who will attend Agner or Woodbrook Elementary, Journey or Burley Middle School, and Albemarle High School.

[06:45:28] With the growth in our county and the continuing rising needs in our schools, we support the current capital improvement projects to build new schools and renovate our aging schools. The construction of the Center II High School and the Upper School at Mountain View Elementary are the first projects to break ground since 2002. We ask that the board continue to support capital improvement projects for our schools.

[06:45:52] We can't wait because the need is already here and we're already bursting at the seams. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Excuse me. The next three speakers, if you'll come down, Sawab O'Flynn, Sarah Delgado, and Lanika Hester.

[06:46:15] I'm trying, guys. Okay. Just have a seat right in front somewhere.

[06:46:31] You're first. Yep. Come on up. I think I'm getting better with your name. You are, you are. I'm getting better. So, Sai Voflin, I'm a climate justice policy manager at the Community Climate Collaborative.

[06:46:48] I'm here tonight in support of both the Housing Trust Fund and the Affordable Housing Ask, as well as in support of an initiative to set up a $1 million annual climate action implementation plan. I want to reflect on the idea of obligations.

[06:47:07] The draft budget presentation earlier outlined the city's existing financial obligations for the next five years. It illuminates a difficult pathway ahead of us as a result of many compounding obligations apparently landing all at once. The more you learn about inequities that reach deep into how our societies have evolved and now operate, the more it becomes clear that we have an obligation to redress these inequities. It becomes impossible to not to see how intertwined the principles of climate justice are with affordable housing. Affordable housing and density are climate solutions. As Albemarle County works to advance its climate goals it's also become clear that locally assured funding is critical to ensuring that the county can fully

[06:47:45] realize the vision outlined in the climate action plan. I asked both the board and the executive to consider are we not obliged to meet the goals set out in the climate action plan. There is no climate funding recommended in the FY26 budget. Without a committed implementation fund for climate action addressing the current existential crisis of climate change risks becoming optional in its planning processes the county recognizes and reiterates that climate change mitigation and equity are the foundational principles that determine how we realize our future when will this translate to reliable annual allocations in the budget until climate action becomes a

[06:48:24] budgetary obligation we have to anticipate we'll continue to see emissions reducing projects getting dropped from county budgets i provided a few specific examples in my memo yesterday Climate change mitigation is now a universally inescapable obligation. As the federal landscape continues to attack climate action, affordable housing, and all things equity, we must rise up and not shrink back.

[06:48:46] Regardless of federal denialism, the accounting for climate change will continue to come due here in Albemarle County in the lifetimes of everyone currently living in the county and those who have not yet been born. The question is, how much interest do we want to pay on that obligation?

[06:49:03] C3 and our partners therefore recommend the county match the city of Charlottesville in the creation of a dedicated annual $1 million climate action plan implementation fund available for use in cross-departmental collaboration and for community climate action. We ask the board to display the bold leadership in supporting this much-needed initiative.

[06:49:20] Please ensure community-sustaining funding sources like the Community Climate Action Grant are not ended this budget year or any budget year. Thank you. Thank you. Sarah. Good evening. My name is Sarah Delgado, and I am speaking to you as a resident of Albemarle County in the Rio District, as well as a member of the Community Climate Collaborative, and I'm a mother.

[06:49:45] I work directly with the community and local youth at C3. I'm a proud resident of this community, and I appreciate the support you've given to the Climate Action Plan and the county goals for greenhouse gas emissions reductions. In order to achieve these goals we have set, it's going to take funding, and federal money for energy efficiency is going away.

[06:50:05] So we have to do what we can here at home to reduce emissions without that support. I'm calling on you today to support an annual $1 million climate action plan implementation fund to support climate resiliency. The climate crisis is critical. The youth that I work with don't question that it is imminent, but they do question the commitment of the adults in charge to continue to take actions that they have known for years are the right things to do.

[06:50:31] I'm asking you to put in place a funding mechanism that will not only reduce emissions, but also reduce the impact of rising energy costs on our small businesses and most vulnerable residents. With only $100,000 a year, funds like the Community Climate Action Grants have supported some amazing small-scale projects.

[06:50:50] And imagine what we could achieve with additional funding for community climate action. Thank you for investing in the future of our community. Thank you. Make sure you adjust the mic so we can hear you.

[06:51:08] Yeah, there you go. Hello. My name is Lanika Hester. Go ahead. My name is Lanika Hester. I am in the Jack Jewett District. I grew up born and raised in Charlottesville. I've been a resident of Almar County for the last 17 years. The last time I came up here and I spoke, I spoke on about how I was living in a house to where I was breathing a mold for a very long time and didn't know it.

[06:51:32] And when it was brought to my attention, it took them approximately 10 months to even try to correct. But in the midst of that time, I became very sick, very ill. My daughter, very sick. She ended up had to drop out of school. And the recovery in that, that was just a really bad time. I get anxious, anxiety thinking about going through it. We were just put in a really bad situation. I was then forced to choose between rent and health care. And then I couldn't afford to take care of both of our health. And then now I'm battling to afford to pay the rent. So I come up here because one of the bigger questions that were asked to me was like, well, why wouldn't you just move? I couldn't

[06:52:10] afford it I couldn't afford it um so I come up and I'm asking that you increase the funds for affordable housing um and not just for people in situations like myself that are finding housing we have a lot of homelessness cases that you see everywhere you go uh and as you heard before affordable uh the affordable housing has turned into luxury apartments and so with the increase of rent and no increase of income it's leaving a lot of us without a things we without a lot of things we need for ourselves and our family we can't you know do the basic things so the housing

[06:52:46] trust fund is the best way that the county can provide a safety net if more developments go up for sale the county needs to help non-profits be able to preserve affordable housing i hope you will increase the funding for the housing trust fund to 10 million anything less would mean that it is unlikely that the county's help will be able to stop more people from becoming homeless The Albemarle County Emergency Relief Program, if you could increase that to $2 million, I understand that currently it's at $800, but there's no rent, not even for one bedroom that's $800, that that would even help a person in a situation of need.

[06:53:23] So I want to be short. I just ask that you guys would definitely consider increasing that for the affordable housing. Thank you. Thank you.

[06:53:32] All right. The next three speakers. And I believe, is this Ang Khan? Ang Khan? There we go. All right. And I believe it's Michael Williams and Elizabeth Carpenter. Welcome. Yeah, I was hoping my battery wouldn't die before. You might want to address. Dear, we're having a hard time hearing you address. It's okay. Better? Thank you. Awesome. Hi, my name is Ang Khan. I'm the director of housing programs at The Haven, where I administer rapid rehousing.

[06:54:16] homeless prevention, and the Laura Dillap Haven Housing Fund. All three programs provide support to Charlottesville City, Albemarle County, Fluvanna, Louisa, Nelson, and Greene County. Sorry. I'm here to emphasize the critical importance of affordable housing in our community.

[06:54:35] As the Director of Housing Programs, I have witnessed firsthand the struggles faced by an overwhelming number of county families and individuals who are unable to maintain their current housing or secure safe stable housing a couple of factors that contribute to this is instability to this instability our lack of affordable accessible housing units and screening tools that are used to prohibit households from accessing housing affordable housing not only provides a roof over their heads but also fosters a sense of security and belonging which is essential for the overall well-being and development of folks in our

[06:55:15] community. Because you all are tasked with the decision-making power, it is your responsibility to ensure that every Albemarle County community member, regardless of their social economic background, has access to affordable housing options. Investing in affordable housing is not just a matter of social justice. It is an investment into the future of our community and ensuring the health and well-being of every community member. The benefit of affordable housing extends beyond, extended, I'm sorry, the benefits of affordable housing extend beyond individual families. Stable housing contributes to better education outcomes for children, improved health

[06:55:55] care for residents, and increased economic opportunities for the community as a whole. When families are not burdened with the high cost of housing, they can allocate their resources towards other essential needs such as education, health care, transportation, and food. By allocating a portion of the budget to affordable housing initiatives, we can create a more inclusive and prosperous community where everyone has the opportunity to thrive.

[06:56:20] I urge you to consider the long-term benefits of affordable housing and to allocate the necessary funds to support these vital programs. Thank you. Michael Williams? I think I signed up on the wrong sheet.

[06:56:36] I'm here for the Chisna Grove. We need to move your name, though, to the other sheet. Just to go over there and just make sure that you sign up on the correct sheet so we don't forget you completely. Then Elizabeth Carpenter. Hi, my name is Elizabeth Carpenter and I'm a resident of Charlottesville and I am here speaking from my experience as a nurse in our community for

[06:57:11] over 20 years. I currently work in primary care at UVA and in the past have been a home visiting nurse with child health partnership. And in those experiences, the importance of affordable housing has been really clear. This is a public health issue. And I got to say, in this world right now, you guys don't have a lot of impact on Medicaid cuts that may be coming. You don't control the federal budget. You don't control that state budget. You can't put somebody else in the

[06:57:46] Secretary of Health and Human Services. But you can have a huge impact on the health of our community by fully supporting affordable housing. You have kids in every school in your district who are either actively homeless, doubled up with family members or friends, or on the verge of homelessness. And that impacts their learning. It impacts their health. You can't take care of your chronic or acute health conditions when housing is not stable. So I ask you to do what

[06:58:24] you can here for public health and fully fund the housing fund. Thank you. Thank you. All right. I think I'm in another of the next three. Veronica Vitko, Catherine Riley, and I believe this is Amelia Kishap. Kishap. So if you all would come down. And Veronica, you're on first.

[06:58:52] Good evening. My name is Veronica Vitko, and I'm a junior at Albemarle High School. I'm here today because I believe that Albemarle County must uphold its commitment to climate action, not just in words, but in action and funding. Climate action isn't optional. It is a responsibility we owe to our community, our health, and our future. The county made a promise with this climate action plan, but without funding, that promise remains unfulfilled.

[06:59:23] We need real investment in sustainable solutions that will benefit both current and future generations. As a young person, my generation will face the consequences of inaction. The choices we are making today change what our future will look like. We are at a pivotal moment in time where actions that support climate action have the potential to rectify our past mistakes, but at the same time, inaction will further harm our communities and environment.

[06:59:50] I urge you to recommit to the Climate Action Plan by establishing an implementation fund. A budget is a statement of priorities. Let's make sure that climate action remains one of them. Thank you. Catherine. Hello, county supervisors.

[07:00:11] My name is Catherine Riley. I'm also a junior at Elmoral High School. This is my second time appearing in front of the county board. As a teenager in this community, I must stand up for my future and those of the generations after me. Now, I want you to think about your children.

[07:00:29] What kind of world will they grow up in? A world where we have raging hurricanes, devastating forest fires, and polluted air, or a world where we are fueled by renewable energy, sustainable housing and transportation, and clean air?

[07:00:44] You have the power to make a difference and a big change in this community. Take responsibility and create a world that you would want your children to live in. Small changes can be everything. By cutting climate resource funds, you're directly impacting your life, your community, and the lives of your children.

[07:01:04] Take action now. Be a part of the change you want to see. Thank you. Amelia. Hello, my name is Amalia Kesha, and I'm a student at Albemarle High School. As a member of the next generation here in Albemarle County, our community's impact on the environment is an issue that closely influences my and my peers' lives.

[07:01:30] Each day at school, I learn about and work to prevent the effects of climate change through environmental science courses and student-run clubs and projects. To see this effort reflected through our entire county would mean the world to me. We cannot remedy climate change alone. To fund climate action would be to fund opportunities for a better future that includes a safer planet for all of us.

[07:01:50] thank you thank you and the last in-person speaker i believe is nels akersol welcome good evening supervisors my name is nels okerson and i live in the city of charlottesville i'm speaking to you though because i want to amplify the stories of those who live outside of charlottesville and

[07:02:27] albemarle county but work in charlottesville and albemarle county i'm speaking to you today in support of increasing the funding for a housing trust fund in the Albemarle County for housing trust funding in the Albemarle County provides in the proposed budget for fiscal year 2026 as recommended by the Livable Seville Housing Coalition Letter in the fiscal year 2026 Albemarle County budget. Like you already know, the proposed budget provides $4.2 million for affordable housing, but there's a greater need for affordable housing in the area

[07:03:00] than $4.2 million can provide. The housing shortage is severe. Approximately 5,000 affordable units are needed by 2040 and rents are averaging $2,000 per month. As a former teacher who taught in the area, I know that a teacher's salary is insufficient to cover this average monthly payment. In fact, many of my colleagues had to commute from Waynesboro and Stanton and Louisa County because the cost of living here was too high. Let me give you some numbers. The area median income for Almaro County is approximately $124,000. A first-year teacher with a master's

[07:03:37] degree in Almaro County will make about $59,000. This means that a first-year teacher would be considered very low income because a first-year teacher is making less than 50 percent of the area median income. As we all know, a rent or mortgage is only one expense of many that each person has. There's food, child care, student loans, health care, and transportation among many other expenditures. With all of these expenditures, some households do not have as much flexibility with their finances. You all have the power to change this. I aspire to live in a community

[07:04:15] where everyone, including teachers, can find housing if they choose to. I urge you to consider the financial strain many families in the area have and increase the funding for the housing trust fund to $10 million. That way, this board of supervisors can ease the financial burden on many families in the area the the need to do so is dire again i urge the board to ease the financial strain and the financial burden on many in the county that you all supervise by fully funding the housing trust fund with 10 million dollars thank you for considering my request and

[07:04:52] for your time thank you and our clerk handed me another sheet so we have one more speaker rolf braun hi uh rolf braun i live in whitehall district uh like others who spoke earlier i lived in an affordable unit in the city. An aggressive speculator bought it, forced everyone out of the building. I was evicted. I was this close to being another statistic out on the street and it's becoming more common, not less common. The city is trying, but they can't meet the need alone.

[07:05:23] There's more land in the county and most people I know are already commuting from Stanton or Louisa or somewhere like that. I found it absurd looking at the slides earlier that while the problem keeps getting worse by everything I hear, the county is planning to spend less in the next five years on ongoing funding than they spend in the last five years, if I ran the numbers right.

[07:05:44] And from looking at the expenditure of eight times the ongoing funding on hiring more police, obviously there's money, and that's kind of a discretionary justification on response times. It's a good thing for the community. But if you can find the money for that, you can find the money for housing. But I'll focus on one place you can also find that money. Zero out the so-called economic development money, which is really corporate welfare for the national security industry. If you can't find the money for housing, zero out Rivanna Futures. Spend the money on housing instead. Those not only militarize the county's economy, but the jobs they create due

[07:06:19] to exacting and discriminatory security clearance requirements and very specialized job descriptions are mostly for people moving here. So they are creating demand for housing. They're moving people here, not jobs. But it's shameful that you fund something that creates a need for more housing, more people moving here without funding the supply of the housing, because at some point it's all the same pool of housing. And it also has made the county rely disproportionately on federal spending and hiring that now seems to be at risk. It's made our county economy vulnerable to vicissitudes in Washington. It's ironic to me one of the only respites in that demand might be if Doge stops

[07:06:57] spending and lays off employees here, but I assure you that respite will only be temporary, given the scale of the housing problem so until you can adequately fund housing supply and you should spend the full 10 million or more on the housing on the affordable housing fund please stop giving rundle wood and the military industrial complex and corporate defense contractors a giveaway yes to housing and no to a militarized county economy thank you and our next speaker is going to speak to us electronically um her name is jenny rector and clonad i'll let you handle this electronic

[07:07:36] jenny rector welcome hello miss rector you can you can speak here me yes yes we can speak up please uh hello jenny rector scottsville district tax bills go up and up and up and up every year

[07:08:04] But residents' income does not go up enough or at all to keep up with these increases, along with other widespread increases, food prices, health insurance premiums, out-of-pocket health costs, water, other utilities, everything.

[07:08:32] Many people are falling behind year to year. Many people do not get a raise every year. Many people must pay the full increase in health insurance premiums that come every year.

[07:08:49] Things are not good. People are losing their jobs. Uncertain times. High prices for food and everything continue. Please do not pass a higher tax rate.

[07:09:06] Please do not pass a tax rate that would keep tax bills the same. Please pass a tax rate low enough to actually lower tax bills. Lowered tax bills is an important component of affordable housing.

[07:09:30] I support more funding for affordable housing. Please look for other areas of the budget proposal to scale back expenditures. Thank you. Thank you.

[07:09:46] That's it. That's all I have. Okay. Okay. thank you at this point i will close the public hearing i would like to recognize our appreciation for all of the speakers tonight and all the other people who came to support them and give the board a chance to express their gratitude as well and we'll do that by going through our order once then we will take our brief recess starting with supervisor malik oh boy there's our rain thank you all very much for trekking down in the rain and sharing your very important thoughts with us

[07:10:23] this is just the beginning of the process even though there's been a lot of work done so far and i encourage all of you to continue to attend or listen to the group meetings which are in our schedule and to continue to be involved thank you thank you supervisor prove um thank you all so much for coming out um i do want to i did this at our initial uh budget um announcement so i'll do it again while we have everyone here we had that calendar uh during the county executive's presentation that showed the the calendar for work sessions town

[07:10:59] halls and importantly the one I want to drive home is when we advertise the tax rate anything that would require more total county funds right rather than zero based budgeting actually increasing would be set in stone really by that advertising of the tax rate after that any increase in funding that the county wants to do would need to come at the expense of something specific that we are zeroing out. So if you are very passionate about a budget item, I would say that that should be the target for any advocacy. While we do not adopt the budget for two months after that, realistically,

[07:11:35] it becomes much more challenging. So I just raise that as that is really when most of the work has to be done. It has to be done in the next really two weeks because we advertise the budget quite early. So I raise that for everyone. I would also strongly recommend that if you want to be engaged in the budget process, that you pay attention to what goes on in the work sessions.

[07:11:56] That is where that actually gets trimmed, where we actually hash out individual disagreements on line-item discussions, and that is where a lot of the work gets done. I don't believe we afford the public opportunities for comment during those. Those are work sessions, but it is important if you are someone who wants to be deep in the weeds on this, a lot goes on in those.

[07:12:17] They have specific issue area focuses, so find the issue area that you are interested in. And I would recommend you see what goes on in those so you can see kind of where each of your representatives actually stands on issues and you can make sure you understand what we're talking about, right?

[07:12:35] It's an important part of advocacy. And, again, I want to thank everyone for coming out today. This was a lot of valuable perspectives that we heard. Supervisor Lupisto-Curtley. Thank you very much, and your input is important to us. We do listen to you.

[07:12:50] You email us. You call us. Coming to meetings is very good also, and we respond to you. And I do thank you for coming out. This is not an easy process. You can see by state law we have to have a balanced budget.

[07:13:07] There are a lot of things that we need to pay for. There are a lot of, I think Jeff Richardson, our county executive, said that we're focusing on health and safety. The whole process is not easy, but we do appreciate your input.

[07:13:30] Bottom line, the tax rate hasn't been changed since 2019. Assessments have gone up, yes, as they do every year, but the tax rate hasn't changed since 2019. This is a very difficult decision for us even to be looking at a tax rate increase.

[07:13:49] It's not easy, but we have a lot of things that are necessary to keep our community safe that we do need to pay for. And thank you for coming out in the rain. Thank you. Supervisor McKeel. I think we're all saying the same thing, but we really appreciate everybody's attendance tonight.

[07:14:08] I will say that I am thrilled to hear that rain because I know how busy our fire department has been in the last 10 days putting out fires. Brush fires, mulch fires, all along the roadways because it's been so windy and dry. So that rain is a really good thing to hear right now.

[07:14:27] But again, thank you very much. It may be slacking off so that may be a good time as we're finishing up for you all to slip to your cars. Oh, I will say, though, that to piggyback on what the others said, our work sessions are in the afternoon. And if you can't come in person, you can still listen in.

[07:14:45] and if you have trouble figuring out how to do that claudette is always willing to help you so just let claudette know because if you can't be here you can at least be listening um and they are recorded for later as well but thank you very much yeah i joined my fellow supervisors in thanking everybody who came out uh to offer their thoughts tonight i would call out two things that i heard that i think i think have been repeated but i would like to repeat as well our first speaker in the earlier matters from the public was talking about paying attention and staying informed. It's getting harder and harder for all of you to do that. If you look around the room

[07:15:22] right now, you don't see any TV cameras in here. We used to have board meetings where there would be TV cameras at every single meeting that we did. So it's getting harder and harder for you to pay attention to what we are doing. But those items are all televised and recorded, or live streamed rather, as Supervisor McKeel mentioned. So I encourage everyone to do that. There was also a gentleman that said, why do you need the increase? I would say that you need to ask that question of us every year. Why do you need the tax dollars? All of these work sessions will explain dollar for dollar where those dollars will go. We will get down into the

[07:16:01] weeds of every item. So that's why it's important to definitely pay attention and stay informed about that. As Supervisor Pruitt alluded to, I have often said publicly that if you want to see what an elected person's priorities are, pay attention to them at budget season.

[07:16:18] And I also like to remind folks, because that's where the words that come out of our mouth when we're campaigning should align with how we vote during the budget. So hold us to account. I think we all appreciate that you come out to and will hold us to account. I just want to call out that the Rio District, specifically the town hall, again, is at Tuesday, March 18, 530 to 730.

[07:16:43] All the supervisors will have different budget town halls. Those will have an opportunity for you to interact with staff to be able to see where the dollars are going, hear from, a little bit more in-depth presentation, and then we'll certainly offer Q&A where you can interact with the supervisors and staff a little bit more closely.

[07:17:01] But thank you again for coming out this evening to share your thoughts. Again, thank you. I also remind you that the sessions are all recorded, even though we don't have the press as much as we used to. So they are going to be this. Today's meeting will be available on the website in a day or so, and any of the subsequent work sessions as well.

[07:17:24] I see Supervisor Malek has. Super quick. The county being very large, one can go to whichever of the town hall meetings is most convenient for you. It does not have to be in the district you represent. So a lot of the northern Whitehall district people will go to the Rio place because it's 10 miles instead of 30.

[07:17:42] So I expect that there will be people traveling all over, and the board members will be floating as well. Thank you. Starting March 18th and running through April 14th, there are seven currently scheduled. Mr. Richardson, do you have anything additional to add at this point?

[07:17:58] Yes, sir. Okay. Well, what I propose, board, is it's 8.20 on that clock, so we take a 10-minute recess and then come back for the next public hearing, which will be on the Chestnut Grove Manufactured Home Park. Thank you again.

[07:24:54] Yeah.

[07:31:36] Okay. Good evening. We're going to come back to order. The next item is a public hearing, two public hearings, and consider deliberation on Chestnut Grove Manufactured Home Park Community, ZMA 2023-17, and then SP 2023-20, and then Special Exception 2023-41.

[07:32:04] And these are going to be let off by Mr. Kevin McDermott, Deputy Director of Planning. But before we get to that board, a matter of sort of technical importance is that only today did the staff technically receive the signed proffers from the owner of the Chestnut Grove property.

[07:32:24] And board rule 5A4C requires that final signed proffers be received by the county no later than nine calendar days before the date of the advertised public hearing. For the board to consider these proffers this evening as advertised, technically the board would need to first suspend this rule, which the board can do upon a motion with a vote under board rule 13B.

[07:32:46] Is there a motion to suspend rule 5A for the purpose of considering the proffers, which of my understanding have not changed, submitted today, though, for Chestnut Grove? They've been discussed, they were known, but they just had not been signed officially for submission.

[07:33:03] And these are consistent with what's already included in the packet? That's right. They are what's included. They have not changed. They just simply hadn't been signed. They've been reviewed. That's correct. So the content is identical to what's in the package, just what's in the package has not been signed, had not been signed.

[07:33:20] But we have... The rule says signed proffers must be received. So do we look for a motion to suspend Rule 5A4? So moved. Second. So we have a motion from Supervisor Pruitt, a second from Supervisor McKeel. Without objection, the clerk will call the roll. Ms. Lapista-Kirtley? Aye.

[07:33:36] Ms. Malik? No. Ms. McKeel? Yes. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Mr. Andrews? Yes. Mr. Galloway? Yes. Thank you. With that, I'll turn it over to Mr. McDermott to introduce the application. Thank you. All right.

[07:33:52] Thank you, Chair Andrews and members of the Board of Supervisors. My name is Kevin McDermott. I'm the Deputy Director of Planning for Albemarle County. Tonight, I'll be giving staff's presentation for the Chestnut Grove Manufactured Home Park. The project includes an application for a rezoning, a special use permit, and special exceptions.

[07:34:10] The board has requested that we hold separate public hearings on the legislative items, and therefore I'll provide an initial presentation that contains the detailed proposal and the necessary information for the rezoning. I'll allow for questions in the public hearing and a vote on the rezoning.

[07:34:27] And then I have a brief separate presentation on the special use permit. once again allow for questions then public hearing and then finally we'll have the uh the brief presentation on special exceptions and uh allow for the vote on that so that's the order of how this all will work through thank you uh so the property of this project is located in southern amara county on the south side of chestnut grove road approximately one mile west of the intersection of chestnut grove road and james river road the existing conditions it is uh it is zoned rural

[07:35:04] areas it's approximately 50.62 acres. There is a WPO buffer and that you can see in purple here and some critical slopes on the property. This flips that that view so you're looking sort of southward but what you can see in this picture is the the site which is approximately right here right in this area and this is Chestnut Grove right here. So just to give you a clear aerial view of what we're looking at for the site. The surrounding area is rural character with a variety

[07:35:41] of rural area uses, which include low-density, single-family residential, forests and open space, and agricultural uses. The zoning, as I mentioned, is rural areas. The uses permitted by right are single-family homes at half an acre per unit, agriculture, farm wineries, country stores, for example. The uses permitted by special use permit include community centers, private schools, and daycare facilities. The comprehensive plan does recommend

[07:36:15] this area as rural area four. The purpose of rural area is to preserve and protect agricultural, forestal, open space, and natural, historic, and scenic resources. It does allow for residential development at half a unit per acre in development lots get into the details of the proposal rezoning is for to rezone to R4 residential includes a special use permit to permit a manufactured home park the R4 zoning district is the lowest density residential zoning that

[07:36:53] does allow manufactured homes with a special use permit the plan on the screen shows the general concept plan proposed you can see the 50 unit manufactured Home Park. The manufactured homes are in orange. There are two entrances to Chestnut Grove, one for this portion and then another over here on this portion. The manufactured homes would have parking along new proposed internal streets and there is on-site well and septic system.

[07:37:22] You can see some potential locations of wells on the site and potential locations of drain fields on the site the applicant has volunteered proffers that would restrict the uses and density of the property and to provide affordability the proffers also address some of the staff concerns with the special use permit therefore we won't talk about conditions as part of the special use permit the certain uses certain uses that aren't as compatible or supportive of the surrounding area have been proffered out those include that not permitted by right under the proffers would

[07:38:00] be triplexes, townhouses, and public uses, and not permitted by special use would include assisted living facilities, hospitals, and standalone parking. So those are things that would not be allowed based on the proffers. They also restrict the density to the number of manufactured homes at 50 units. There would be a maximum of six units if they weren't manufactured homes. So that would be what would be allowed on this property by right. By right uses six residential units. If they don't do the manufactured home, they are still restricting the

[07:38:38] zoning to that. Related to affordability, the applicant has proffered affordability requirements. 33% will be affordable land lease units at 50% AMI. The remainder of the land uses will be 100% AMI. The units not land leased will be affordable rental units. It's 60% AMI. Staff does find that the affordability component is a positive aspect of the development,

[07:39:11] and that is the one positive aspect we've identified. We did identify a list of concerns that you can see here, and we're in your packet. They include that it's inconsistent with the rural area found in the goals and objectives and strategies found in the comp plan it's inconsistent with our growth management policy as it does propose additional residential development in the rural area there are inadequate services facilities and infrastructure to support the development there's inadequate information to determine whether the proposal can be supported

[07:39:46] by the proposed central water and sewer service facility because the virginia department of health hasn't received enough information to review those locations of wells and drain fields. And also, until the stream buffer field survey has confirmed where the buffer limits are, there is potential conflict with the home sites in the buffer.

[07:40:07] There were, if you noticed on that concept plan, a few of the homes that were located within that stream buffer, the WPO buffer. So those were the identified concerns. Overall, the staff and the Planning Commission have recommended denial of this rezoning.

[07:40:29] And with that, I'm happy to take questions. On the rezoning, as I said, there will be a future follow-up presentation on the special use permit. I will highlight that Dr. Stacey Pethia is here and available if we have questions related to affordability on the project.

[07:40:48] Thank you. We'll go through our order with questions before we open the public hearing, starting with Supervisor Malik. Thank you. Can you provide more information about how land lease units work as opposed to, and would the person bring their own manufactured home to put on somebody else's property on which they would then pay rent?

[07:41:12] Yes, that's correct. Under the land lease units, the leasees would be bringing in their own unit and placing it on there and paying lease rates to the owner.

[07:41:32] And I did not see, but perhaps I missed it, any stabilization of these leases into the future. I'm asking because of what happened in Adele Street in Crozet, where the land prices immediately went up significantly after a new owner took over the property.

[07:41:50] So I don't know if that was provided in this or not, and I can wait until later if that's better. I'm going to have to verify on the proffer statements to see if there was a... Are you referring to a time period that they would remain affordable? Is that the question?

[07:42:05] Well, or a time period where they would not be increased. Let's put it that way. For land license. The land rent. Okay. Yeah, I'd have to... Let me check back with that. Or the applicant may be able to answer that question better than that. This is the problem with my proffer vote.

[07:42:21] Very good. Thank you. That's all for now. Thank you. Supervisor Pruitt. I similarly must confess, like, I like to fancy myself someone who's quite expert on these things. And I am not quite sure how an affordability standard pegged to AMI actually applies in the context of a land lease model.

[07:42:38] I don't know what we're calculating that to because it's obviously not their entire housing cost. They would, one would assume, have a separate chattel loan that is also part of their housing costs, which I can't imagine the applicant is able to incorporate in there. So I guess I'm just not sure what we're guaranteeing.

[07:42:55] with the affordable land lease models. If that is something that we have staff available that could answer that, I'd invite that. But I truly, I don't understand how it works. It seems like the only thing it would be guaranteeing is that the lot rents themselves stay at an affordable AMI level, which is not a significant guarantee because that would still be sitting on top of the chattel loan.

[07:43:21] So that ended up, I said that as a question, but I guess it's more of a statement right now. Can you remind me what the servicing fire station would be for this? Because I know this is going to be important. Is this Northgarden? Sorry, I don't have that information immediately, but let me get that for you.

[07:43:41] Am I correct that you said there's going to be a partner presentation to this? Because I know there's like a list of six special exceptions that are also requested. Should I say that's going to be explained following this? Yes, correct. But before the applicant speaks in the public hearing, is that accurate or after?

[07:43:58] It will be, the special exceptions will be after both public hearings. We will be holding two public hearings on this. And so if the rezoning were approved, then the special use permit were approved.

[07:44:14] Then we would evaluate the special exceptions. And there will be a public hearing after each of the rezoning, after this right now, and then after the special use permit. I have one more, again, I think complicated question about how this works.

[07:44:30] And again, I'm going to be like eyeballing Dr. Pethy in the corner to see if she might know the answer. But I know we have an admittedly weak TOPA law in the Commonwealth of Virginia, a tenant opportunity, a tenant option for purchase that applies in the context of when a landlord of a, excuse me, it's late, y'all.

[07:44:58] When a landlord of a mobile home park sells, there's a tenant opportunity for purchase. I am not sure if that is in any way interfered with by the fact that this is a blended community, right? A blended community, as in it is both landlord-owned rentals and also tenant-owned rentals paying lot rent.

[07:45:21] I don't know if that impacts how a TOPA works or if there is an additional consideration with that. Is there anything there? Good evening, Stacey Peth, the Assistant Director of Housing. It's been a long night sitting, so I apologize for stumbling my way here.

[07:45:39] Under Virginia Code, mobile and manufactured home parks are considered rental housing anyway, despite the fact that some tenants own their own manufactured housing or rent ones that are already there. So that does have any impact on it?

[07:45:57] Okay. Okay. Good to know. But I think that is all I have at this point. Thank you. And I just want to, because you raised the question, I mean, would there be any value to showing at least what the special use permit part entailed without having the public hearing separately, or is it okay to proceed with just zoning?

[07:46:26] Well, I mean, I think it's appropriate to answer any questions that the board might have about what the special use permit, keeping in mind that that's a separate application. Exactly. I just want to make sure you've got a question answered, so if you could jump ahead. Sure. So the special use permit is a request under Chapter 18 of the code.

[07:46:48] Manufactured home parks are a special use permit or special use permitted in the R4 residential district. So that is what the special use permit is, is to be able to have that manufactured home park there. Would you like me to go through the assessment of the factors with the special use permit?

[07:47:06] I would recommend that that be held for the... Hold on, hold on. Okay, so we know what this is. Do you have a similar slide for the special exception? Is it probably not as important? Yes, I do, and the special exceptions were listed in the staff report, But I can just show you the the list of these and I have notes if you want more information on any of these But each manufactured home park has to in front on an internal street according to section 5.3 point 4b They are requesting that we use internal travel ways instead of streets. So they would need an exception from that regulation

[07:47:45] that Outdoor living areas are required for all manufactured home lots, and those have to be of a specific size. Those include a 100-foot hard-surfaced area and an area for storage buildings.

[07:48:02] They are asking for an exception to that so that they aren't required to have those outdoor living and storage areas on their properties. They are requesting an exception from the requirement for off-street parking, and that, once again, is related to the streets, the requirement or the exception they want to get away from the streets.

[07:48:31] The recreation requirements, we have specific recreation requirements in there. They are providing a system of trails as opposed to the parks that we typically require in place of formal recreation requirements and a request to waive the requirement for pedestrian access, meaning sidewalks.

[07:48:59] So they do not want to have to put sidewalks on the streets. Those are the six special exceptions that they will be requested. Thank you. I just want to just be aware of these, but these are what we'll discuss afterwards so that there's no question. Since that has been raised, Chair, I do just want to very quickly maybe speak to it, because I wasn't sure if we were going to have the opportunity to talk to it.

[07:49:18] We will talk about them. If we approve them. If we approve the rezoning, right? No, there will be a separate hearing on the SP regardless of how the ZMA fares. Okay. Supervisor LePistro-Kirkman.

[07:49:40] So for this application, I understand that the private internal travel ways, so travel ways would be what, gravel? Yes, that's correct. So that's to be maintained by the residents?

[07:49:57] Correct. So the owner owns the land. Someone brings in their manufactured home. They have to maintain the travel ways. And now they're asking for an exception not to be able to have a storage area.

[07:50:15] because they said a lot of the manufactured homes come with a patio. I mean, I didn't quite understand why they couldn't have both. Is there not enough room between them? Is that it? Well, the applicant could respond to why they don't want to have both, but staff would recommend that we – staff does not support that special exception because we think that it would be worthwhile to allow the outdoor spaces and storage areas

[07:50:46] in in the area on the site um in addition so just to clarify uh the owner would be responsible for the maintenance of those travel ways those unpaved travel ways that they're the owner of the park overall now the the owners of the individual lots of the lease that might include a fee that would be something that the applicant would have to explain how they plan to do that but um overall while the owner of the park would be responsible for the maintenance.

[07:51:17] The manufactured home park community? Yes. Would be responsible? Yes. Which is made up of the people who have the manufactured homes? Correct. Okay. So they're paying for the maintenance of their own travel way while they do not own the land underneath them.

[07:51:37] I was just pointing that out, not really making a statement. Okay. Okay. The other on page, on our summary page, page 8, there's inadequate information to determine whether the proposal can be supported by the proposed central water and sewer facility, sewer service facility.

[07:52:01] And the Virginia Department of Health has not proposed receiving enough, has not received enough information to review the proposals for et cetera, et cetera. has that changed or is that still in effect that has not changed we have not received any of the soil reporter any additional information from the virginia department of health i'm not sure if the applicant has uh engaged more with a consultant to do the appropriate analysis or not but but we have not received any additional information on it okay and lastly this is they're asking for an

[07:52:36] R4 in a development, in a rural area. Correct. It would be R4 zoning in an area that the comprehensive plan recommends for rural. Correct. Correct. Which would be, isn't that R?

[07:52:56] RA. RA, yeah. Okay. That answers my questions. Thank you for now. Supervisor McKeel. Thank you, Kevin. I think most of my questions right now are for the applicant, Okay, so I'll just hold off right now. Supervisor Galloway? So the sewer piece that Supervisor Lapista currently brought up, process-wise, if it happens, it's site plan.

[07:53:19] So are we to take away that the fact that they haven't provided it somehow should influence our decision on the rezoning? We are not able to determine if this would be allowed by, or if this would be feasible to construct at this time.

[07:53:37] So that's for the board to consider. But we typically wouldn't be able to figure that out until site plan stage. So if the board decided to do the rezoning and then it wasn't supported or wasn't put through, then they're just stuck with the rezoning that they can't do the development they wish to do with the sewer plan that they have.

[07:54:04] All right. Some of the questions I'm going to ask, Kevin, I'm glad to see you up there, Kevin. You've been in the saddle many times, so you can deal with some of the questions that we'll bring at you. and i want to focus on the staff concerns so that just simple list out of the items you put in the staff summary so number two is the proposal is inconsistent with the county's growth management policy so i guess it's a matter of degree i'm i'm presuming that it's inconsistent

[07:54:41] because it's not directing the residential development to the development area but does our growth management policy say that we can't put any residences in the rural area uh it does not say we can't put any residences in the in the rural area because there are development rights and exactly and there's follow that exactly the development rights and the requirement for um one home on every two acres in the rural area whereas this would allow uh four homes or uh i'm sorry it would it would be four homes per acre total so what what's the

[07:55:20] buy right build out six homes um so would you think that 50 i don't see how a development like this gets built anywhere in our county if it's it's too it's not dense enough to get approved for our development area um would you say that i mean is that a fair statement i think that is a fair statement yes uh i'll just say that when we're analyzing this we have to look at what the

[07:55:58] What the comprehensive plan says understood and so that's where the recommendation comes from so early when I said it's a It's a it's kind of a degree, right? So if six is allowed but 50 isn't then is there a judgment call that it could be allowed where when we're typically in development area dealing with densities of 250 300 if not if not more But specifically it was about big since the resident because it's something over the buy right amount that that's what makes it inconsistent with the growth management policy correct and the growth management policy that states that we should be directing growth

[07:56:38] to the development areas number three states that there are inadequate services facilities and infrastructure to support the development but they are adequate to support the six um what the intent of that is really to say that there is an expectation for a certain level of services in the rural area and a different expectation for services in the development area so what we're looking at here is that we're putting development area densities in the rural area so there's a conflict there between what we would expect the services you would expect to get

[07:57:17] in a develop at a development area density while it's in the rural area um okay i mean that's fair but i think it's again a matter of degree because six homes can produce children that have to go to schools, albeit it might be smaller. But in the staff report, it says that there's concerns about being able to provide transportation to these students. Well, whether there's one student out there or 20, we still got to get a bus out there. Correct. All right. And in terms of fire, it seemed to suggest that 50 put some sort of strain on the fire department that didn't seem to be what the

[07:57:56] fire department said. If I was reading the staff report, that seemed to be coming from the CDD staff report. Does 50 put an additional strain on fire services in this area? I'm not going to make a judgment as to whether or not they wouldn't be able to handle the 50. The point of that is to say that 50 units is more than six, and so it could require additional services that we would then have to fund. I think that's fair, but I also think that we should recognize that whether it's

[07:58:33] tree that catches on fire one home that catches on fire or one of 50 that the fire department still has to get out to the property so response times and such it seems well i guess the argument could be made that well there's 50 more chances for a home to catch on fire but a fire is a fire regardless of how it exists and the fire department's going to have to get their butt out there correct um okay there was a portion where you said i didn't catch what you said it was on slide

[07:59:09] eight you said something about restricting zoning to that even if i think i was writing a note when you said something that i missed yes so in the proffers um if uh the manufactured so you if you were to approve the rezoning which moves it to r4 the proffers state that even if it's under r4 the only way they can go to the 50 units is if they do it in a manufactured home so they couldn't put 50 single family homes out there yep yep and the homes that are i noticed on one of the slides

[07:59:46] the i forget the slide number but you show the neighboring there's like four homes oh yeah um i think you can see it on the uh go back to the gis the other map that's cleaner um this this one where you just want to see the lots so 13346a through 1344c and and we may get the opportunity to hear from these folks tonight but the um i was looking at what those this was a point i made back during some of the conversation on ac 44 in the rural area

[08:00:21] it seems very difficult that homes like those four could exist anymore at the price points that they may have existed when they were built um so if this planned property were to go forward under the buy right we would be getting six units on two acre land and i i mean somebody mentioned a home in the development area was 750 800 000 um so i'm just curious you know six if we had to do the buy right six on this particular property and they were just one unit per two acres i mean i

[08:00:56] would imagine those price points would be i don't even know what the multiplier would be to those neighboring properties correct and um just to clarify the the parcel current parcel overall is 50 acres. So the six is what you would be allowed to do with the development rights. So some of those could be on two acre lots, but there could be some with much larger acreage. But even at two acres, it would probably be. Yes. I mean, I appreciate you answering these questions. The

[08:01:35] other one on transportation, and I honestly don't know the answer to this, but this is the first time I understand when we're going to talk proximity to services businesses grocery stores and all of that but it says there's no reliable public transportation service within the immediate vicinity of this development etc but the last line of this says while the proposal does provide an affording housing affordable housing option other costs including transportation greatly impact the real affordability level of this development proposal according to AAA owning a personal

[08:02:12] vehicle costs over ten thousand dollars per year we've certainly heard arguments why we need to put money in our affordable housing just earlier tonight because people are having to commute from you know waynesboro and stanton and the cost of owning a vehicle when have we used this sort of rationale for or against a project that's adding on in an additional element to go yeah it's an affordable project but we're going to throw in the cost of having a car because of where it's located and it makes it less affordable. When have we used that kind of rationale before to sway an opinion that staff is recommending? I'm not sure if we've used that before, but because this is

[08:02:52] being proposed as an affordable housing option, we thought it was an important consideration for the board to make. I think that when you consider affordability, it's a matter that you have to look at that transportation cost is the second largest cost that a household would have so it was something that we wanted to make sure that was a consideration because this was specifically being proposed as an affordable option for housing those are my questions i'll have some comments

[08:03:28] later on i don't want to get into that now but those are my questions thank you thank you just Just to make sure everything's clear on this slide, you have uses permitted by right, single-family homes at 0.5 acre per unit. Wasn't that supposed to be unit, 0.5 unit per acre, two acre?

[08:03:48] Am I reading this incorrectly? No. You need a, I'm sorry, you need two acres to build any unit. Right, which would be 0.5 units per acre or instead of acres per unit. Yes. Okay, you got that right.

[08:04:04] Sorry. I think the next slide or the previous slide, I also had a similar question, 0.5, okay.

[08:04:20] Yeah, I think you've pointed that out correctly, that I got my units and acres mixed up on this one. It's correct on this one. Correct. Then it says in rural area four of the comprehensive plan, but that's not R4. This is a rural area for, it's different from R4, which is what is being requested.

[08:04:38] Correct. The comp plan does break up our rural areas. But the numbers that are being thrown out here, because as you went through it quickly, I was like, wait a minute. I guess most of my questions have been asked.

[08:04:57] I'm not sure they've been answered about what's included in affordability, what are all the different costs that are included in affordability. But for that, I think we can wait. If it's okay, I think it's time for us to open the public hearing.

[08:05:15] You'll have the rules for the public hearing. The applicant will go first, but she'll read the rules for everyone. We have a lot of people signed up. They're only in person.

[08:05:33] Everybody's in person. There's nobody. Yeah. Oh, I see it now. No one lied. All right. During public hearings, the board will acknowledge speakers addressing the item listed for the public hearing. Speakers are limited to one appearance of three minutes per public hearing item.

[08:05:52] 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 a light system at the podium. The green light will go on when you begin speaking, which begins your allotted time.

[08:06:08] The yellow light indicates you have one minute to finish speaking. The red light indicates your time has expired and you will be asked to end your comments. In order to give all speakers equal treatment and courtesy, the board requests that speakers adhere to the following guidelines.

[08:06:24] When addressing the board, state your name, and if you live in Elmar 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 hand in recognition.

[08:06:41] Speakers may not share any unused time with another speaker. Back and forth debate is not permitted, and please do not speak out of turn or from your seat. All comments are live-streamed, recorded, and published on the Almaro County website. So, Mr. Schimp, I think you're first.

[08:07:00] The applicant also has, I believe, perhaps a couple other people here. Let's introduce.

[08:07:16] Good evening, everyone. I'm Justin Schimp. I'm the engineer of this project. I'm also an investor in this project. I'm here with James Moss, who would be the primary owner and operator of this facility.

[08:07:35] He's here in the room. I want to start just, I have a presentation, but quickly, as maybe our people are wondering, why is this proposal even here? And the answer was gotten out a little bit is it can't be done anywhere else. In order to, this is a one unit per acre development.

[08:07:52] We are normally doing in the development area, six units an acre, 15 units an acre. It's six units an acre, it's still a $600,000 house to justify the construction of that development. We cannot deliver affordable housing with those prices, with the land prices, the infrastructure prices, period. It can't be done. You, the government, or other governments, would have to subsidize a tremendous amount of that to make that happen. Of course, you've heard tonight, it's interesting timing. Folks came forward and were far more eloquent than I could be about why this is an important issue. I really appreciate that they all did that. I know all of you all,

[08:08:32] and I know there's no one in front of me or around me, the county staff, has any kind of desire to be inequitable in housing or anything in this community. I'm sure of that. But sometimes there are policies that have been long-standing not looked at that can result in an outcome that's that way and that is what I'm really presenting here tonight and why I think this project is important. One more thing to start with I suppose a little context you know I years ago I bought a little affordable housing kind of complex out in Nelson where I live and it did give me a different

[08:09:08] perspective because when you know folks who are housing insecure you think about these things differently. And for many years, I didn't. But then when I started to understand that, it really got me in thinking of how do we make more affordable housing in the ways that people want to live in a way that's affordable. You heard tonight the concerns about raising taxes and how much other things you have to spend money on. This is a way to provide affordable housing without doing that. I've been at this now 10, 12 years in this kind of arena, and the problem has got worse. We talk about it, every project, affordable housing, the spread between what people can afford and what a house cost has gotten worse not better in that time and so i said you

[08:09:47] know what i've got one way i can approach this and it's this and that's why i want to bring this forward so at the planning commission meeting there was interesting discussion short but maybe 20 minutes about the overall context of this and generally speaking the plan said well you know this is a great cause but we can't just approve these developments you know everywhere all the count one commissioner brought up a very interesting point of the idea of green lining and redlining of course was a historic injustice that took away the rights of african-americans and others because of race and didn't allow them to build equity in housing in many ways i think

[08:10:24] we've done that inadvertently by creating exclusivity of albemarle county's rural areas that drives the prices up i checked today and the last 12 months the median new construction in rural areas of albemarle county was 1.35 million dollars for a new house if we do our math we often use to think about affordability. That is a $366,000 household income to afford that traditional mortgage. Now, people are bringing their own wealth. They don't have a mortgage like that, but if you use the conventional math, that's a number. So that's 360% of area

[08:10:59] median income. And that number bounces around, but give or take, that's the number. I don't have the exact data, but according to the last census data I could have, 19% of residents in the county and made over $200,000 a year. So it's very possible that if you were to pick 366, the number, you may be at a 5% income threshold that can afford a new house and 95% of the county.

[08:11:26] Think about that for a moment. That's essentially the math that we've come to. Proximity was a discussion about this, and I emailed all of this while I touched on it briefly. This is the red line is the sort of boundary of the parcel, and that blue dot is all my employees from my survey company.

[08:11:46] And you'll see some of them are thin, but many of them are fat. We have folks from Dillwyn, down near Scottsville, in fact, Lovingston, Stanton, all the way over west of Stanton, who commute to Charlottesville to work. That's the housing they can afford. Our project is a community. It's 50 units. I think it's 120 residents or so. Those folks will have the ability to own a boat, an ATV, have some space, have a storage shed if they so choose. As I noted earlier, our density, one unit per acre, would be the lowest development probably proposed in years. It's just not in the development area, right? It's in the rural area. We could not possibly do a one dwelling unit breaker in the

[08:12:25] development area. The houses would be $2 million apiece. So that is twice the density of the rural area. We're talking about houses that are a third of the size. We are, we'll hopefully get some questions on this. We are basically guaranteeing all the units to be at most rented to folks at 100% AMI, but 33% at 50% AMI. The reason for that jump is folks might start off in 50% AMI, but they may make more money over time.

[08:12:55] We don't want to have to displace them because they simply make too much money to live in the park still. Please ask questions about that later. I can go to more details. Site concept you saw, and Kevin explained that. Here's our open space. It was a 70-some percent open space area.

[08:13:12] So that's the area that will be a pond, some drain fields. That's grass, basically. No real roads or development in that area. We zoom in a little bit. So these, I can describe them best as a Belmont lot. Imagine that you could have your little home in Belmont.

[08:13:28] You have a side yard, you have a backyard, you can have a garden. I don't know if we'd allow chickens here per se, but you could, in theory, have those little amenities that folks in a more rural setting have the opportunity to do who have land. If you live in an apartment in Charlottesville off South 1st Street and other projects there, those just aren't really options you have in your own backyard.

[08:13:48] Or if you have extra cars or a trailer for your work, if you're in landscaping maintenance, you don't have that opportunity to park that trailer at your home, pick it up in the morning, and go to work. So these are all things that this sort of housing product gives people the opportunity to do.

[08:14:03] The rent numbers, you are familiar with these, but there's about 10,000 households plus that are rent burdened in this county. You've heard a lot of that tonight. A breakdown from 2022 shows that 44% of the renting households pay more than 30% of their income to rent expenses.

[08:14:26] Things you know, but this is where it gets interesting. We calculated the 30-year cost of living in the park, paying land rent, and buying your own home. Folks at Clayton Homes gave me some numbers about what that would cost. And basically, if the land rent is $500 a month and you buy a $90,000 home, which you then put 20% down on, $18,000 down, throw a little money, in the first year, it's $16,000 and change.

[08:14:57] If you live in an apartment on Avon, it's $23,000 and change. Well, the math is interesting is that if you have a fixed-rate type of loan, in 20 years you paid off your home and you paid just a lot rent.

[08:15:13] If you rent for 20 years and the rent appreciates at 4% year over year in 20 years, your rent is very expensive. And so folks who have the ability to live in these communities cap their costs substantially more than those who rent. So our numbers showed that over 30 years somebody was $700,000 better off living in a mobile home park community than renting an apartment.

[08:15:36] And you may have some added transportation costs to things, but that's a substantial amount of money. Over 50 units, that's $35 million. If you take that out per year and imagine if the county were to subsidize that, it's about $1.2 million per year that is being created in value, not given to the park owner, but these are the folks who live there because they're saving that money.

[08:16:00] These units will have, again, as I mentioned before, added bonuses. You can have pets. You have more privacy. You can certainly have your own storage shed if you want to have it.

[08:16:15] All these things that are not afforded in many places. Saving that much money may say, hey, I don't have to work two jobs. I can work one job, and I can take my kids to school or do other things that are beneficial to your family. Now, end with this. I think when I got looking at this, I asked myself, why do we treat this so differently?

[08:16:34] I've cleared 14 acres of land to put homes for 50 moderate to low-income households. If I cleared a 14-acre horse farm there, nobody would think anything of it. That's normal. That's what we do. but that disturbs land. That creates erosion runoff impacts. All farming activities do.

[08:16:54] Why is that normal? Why if we create six large homes, as I alluded to earlier, and they're 5,000 square feet apiece and they have driveways and barns and garages, that's okay. It's a similar amount of impact as far as the land goes, but it's a very different outcome for the 50 families who don't get to live there because they're not going to afford those six houses at the price that they're going to be offered at if this kind of product is not built so i'll end it there and i take any questions and i'll look forward to a few more things that i'm at five minutes after public

[08:17:31] hearing thank you we'll go through our orders supervisor mallet thank you can you clarify how in one place you talk about paved roadways and another place you talk about gravel travel ways and so if someone is disabled or has a baby in a pram um how are they going to get around without paved roadways or sidewalks or cinder trails or something to be able to go visit their neighbors.

[08:17:59] Right. So to clarify, the roads are not gravel. They're like a tar and chip surface, which is very similar to what you see in a back road getting to this site, in fact. And then you would be able to park maybe five to ten feet from your porch where your home is, and you would have a short walkway up to that. I think I would contend this is probably far more accessible than many apartment complex in the sense that many of those you want to go up three flights of stairs maybe if you're technically disabled you may live in an ada unit the first floor but if you're not and you're 70 years old and you're going up three flights of stairs every day because that's the apartment available to you then this option where you can drive and

[08:18:37] park right next to it is it's fairly accessible and the photo you showed looked like a sort of front-on house as opposed to the arrangement that you then show in your big lot so where would this house be on your lot with them all stacked in so this house will just be turned sideways this picture doesn't show that the homes around it right so this would just be and this is a more expensive home but someone could choose to buy that any of these lots in here you would just tuck it it's just a little wider than these but you'll see i know it's hard to see the smallest scale but

[08:19:12] there's room for a wider house in these setbacks so the house the house goes a long ways and the porch always faces off to the side and then you park in the front of your house and you can walk along for the porch inside. I know it's hardest in the cursor, but we have not obviously site planned this yet, but that is how it would be, how it would function. I guess I'll stop there.

[08:19:41] Thank you very much. Thank you. Supervisor Pruitt. I want to begin by just acknowledging and I think commending what is a very unusual style of presentation for a public hearing. I don't think I've ever seen someone just come and almost exclusively make normative policy arguments without talking much about the site.

[08:20:00] And I think it shows that you've listened to us quite a lot in previous hearings and know what you think might resonate. Can you help me understand, actually, on some questions on the site? This is very tight clustering for what's a really large parcel, right?

[08:20:16] You've got 50 acres to work with. You're working with, in practice, a small fraction of that. Can you help me understand? I'm sure part of that's cost, right, save on paving. But can you help me understand some of the other factors that play into that? Sure. It is cost-driven. It's also the topography drives it, right?

[08:20:33] We want to build these units on the spot that requires the least amount of land disturbance for purposes of not disturbing more land than we have to, but also cost. That's expensive. So the most suitable property on this whole area is this front zone. So this area we can build with relatively minimal disturbance, place the units on the ground as it exists.

[08:20:55] If you go back into the site, there are more challenges with that. that's part of it i think also to me there's a logic these these are you know 6 000 square foot lots and that's a not a bad lot size so having a rural area project that's one unit an acre but has 75 open space to me speaks to the idea of residential in the rural area but also preservation in the rural area um i from kind of your last question my understanding is that the gravel is mostly what i was picking up is kind of a parking pad right uh and i can picture that i can picture

[08:21:33] like developments on some historic houses on scottsville's valley street have just a gravel park pad right there parallel to the road and that would be kind of what we're looking at here is this are you looking at probably like a one car size park pad or or is it larger than that i think the county code requires two minimum so it would probably be two spaces per home got it um i you touched on this briefly during your presentation but you had uh 10 minutes and a lot that you wanted to get to so i want to revisit how how you're saying the um the land lease ami limitation

[08:22:11] works can you just walk us through that one more again sure yes and i think you bring that up and i and i'm if you gave me 20 minutes i would have gone into more detail but it's a late night and all too so i want to be respectful of everyone's time but basically it is tricky with a land lease because you don't know how someone's paying somebody could just pay cash they may have twenty thousand dollars three thousand dollars be very low income but buy a used home it's in good shape and move to the park. So their cost is very little. Somebody may have buy, as you noted, like a mortgage on one. So we've done is we've simply said we're capping the folks, individuals.

[08:22:47] Some affordable housing, most of us, we would say we're going to lease it only a 50% AMI individual. So we have to cater to something that they can afford, basically. There's really no other great way to do it because of all the variables in how somebody might own their home. Can you remind me of the duration of the time limit on that proffer?

[08:23:06] Forever. Okay. And that would travel with the land, meaning BlackRock comes tomorrow and snaps it up. That still is the case. They've got to go by the scene rules. Okay. Help me understand an additional thing.

[08:23:23] I know there's a lot of different ways that these kinds of developments can emerge as far as how the different capital partners and business partners are actually working together. and it's not uncommon that you might have an exclusive dealer for the actual homes that might be later put on that site. As in, you might have a sign up saying, hey, our exclusive partner in this deal is X who sells mobile homes and they're also the sole financer for their own mobile homes.

[08:23:52] Are there any partners that you anticipate working with or that you've already identified for individuals who want to bring their own homes to this law? No, we don't intend upon do anything like that. There's providers in the area, but I think we want to give people the maximum flexibility to do what's best. There'll be a minimum stand. You can't bring any home. It has to mean a certain kind of construction standard to come in, but we don't want to say, oh, you have to do this, you have to do that. Basically, Mr. Moss and myself and one of the individuals are the investors, and it's going to be a small business-owned enterprise. Have y'all already sourced the builder that you'll be working with for the ones that y'all are going to own?

[08:24:33] We have not, no. And I take it that the second part of that, as far as a financing partner, y'all aren't planning to be a financing partner for any of the owner-tenants? No, we are not. I think those are all my questions for now.

[08:24:51] Thank you. Supervisor Lefezio Kirtley. Thank you very much. And so you won't be purchasing the mobile homes that are going there. People will be purchasing their mobile homes and bringing them onto the site. Is that correct? We may purchase some.

[08:25:07] there's a provision for a renter occupied so for example the park owner could choose and probably will to help get it going to buy say 10 homes it would be rented out at the 60 percent ami threshold also in perpetuity so there would be some of those units most likely and then other folks would come in and buy from whoever they want it could be a new from clayton or the other dealers or a used model and set their own home okay and so the writers uh would they all be new homes new mobile homes i'm asking for a reason oh i don't i don't know that i can answer that i don't

[08:25:47] it could be either and i wouldn't want to tell you one of the other because there's options out there okay because you showed a slide saying after 30 years the person would own the home and you know blah blah but mobile homes usually have a lifespan of between 30 and 50 years correct i new ones might last longer i i know that the the construction standards are significantly different than they were years ago. And so I think 50 years sounds very reasonable to me. But the payoff, most of the loans are paid off in 20 is the typical financing time of that. So the theory would be that if you can buy a home that will last you 50 years, and if you can live in it

[08:26:23] 50 years and pay it off in 20, the latter 30 years of your life, just as though you own your own home outright, you're not paying a mortgage. Right. And that's if you buy a new one, but actually if the lifespan is about 30 to 50 years depending on for a new one. I think those are all the questions I have right now. Thank you. Supervisor McKeel. Yeah, I know that lifespan surprises people, but the new manufactured homes are very different than what we used to think about as the old field trailers, right? I mean, for sure, yes. Yeah, because I've been in some of them and

[08:27:02] there it's amazing to be fair there when we did the crozet mobile home park expansion there were some folks who live in their homes that were you know from the 60s for like 50 or 60 years and they were in kind of rough shape but they were their homes and they loved them yeah so i you know i don't want to discount that from folks who are happy with that but yes i think generally speaking anything this park is going to be all new hud standard construction no we would not permit anything that was 30 years old. So that's what I wanted to jump to next, because I heard you say construction standards. So what I, what I believe you're saying is, is there will be controls on

[08:27:42] what types are the construction of the mobile, what type of manufactured homes there'll be. So help me with that a little bit. Sure. Well, you want, you know, we, we want the park to be, you know, a clean need of parents. We don't, folks can't have a house where something's falling off it in practice speaking you if a home is in that condition you're not moving it anyway but there will be minimum standards that's normal for all parks where folks say hey you know it's got to meet this wide has to have the skirting around it has to have a certain path or walk but this is basically requirements that somebody sets uh and we would set those for all the units to be placed

[08:28:17] that way okay um help me a little bit and i understand i was thinking about gravel at first and that was concerning, but I understand what you're saying because what you're using is it packs down, and you could actually.

[08:28:35] So that makes more sense to me, right? Yeah, it's a tar and chip surface. So you put gravel down, you put tar and chip over. It's very much what VDOT does when they do the rural elastic road conversion. It's like that. That's right. Right, so it does provide more of a solid surface than just a gravel where you're trying to push through gravel.

[08:28:52] That's right. Yeah, so that's helpful. Help me understand the piece about the health department and why the health department hasn't received enough information. Is that information from you? Help me. I don't understand why that is.

[08:29:08] It is. So the health department, it's a state agency and they have their own set of requirements that are normally dealt with at construction. Like they issue construction permits. And so, for example, this is approved and we go forward and they say, hey, you don't meet the soil requirements for this many units. We would have to build fewer units. Now we did a soil test early on to verify we had enough area for those for our own purposes right we certainly wouldn't want to go through all this should it be approved and say oh we can only build eight homes here but we can't get a approval from the county on the site plan until to build this until the health department

[08:29:41] receives all the soil borings it'll probably be 80 soil borings that will be performed on the site and soil profiles done a calculation of how large a drain field you need for this use and it'll be a mass drain field shared among the users and the water is similar they the waterworks regulations require us to drill a well and pump it for 48 hours to confirm sustained yields and so forth so those are things that we would not typically do ahead of a zoning action they're very expensive right and it if we don't have it that's our problem basically and the state will regulate

[08:30:17] that and there's no exceptions i can't go to them and say well the board approved this but dad don't have any water they'll be like yeah you wasted your money so yeah that's why we haven't done it okay that makes sense to me um so the picture you showed of the manufactured home had a porch and it you know the skirt around it um and some of them will look like that some of them will probably be not quite at that level um so the but you're going to offer rental and

[08:30:54] ownership, but they do not own the land. They're renting the land. I'm just trying to figure this out because we don't deal with a lot of manufacturing homes. I think no one has proposed one since like 1986 or something like that. So yes, so what happens is the park owner owns all the dirt. It's a corporation, right? So who's the park owner? I don't understand that.

[08:31:17] That would be myself and Mr. Moss and our investor. So they're not these nebulous people out there, you would actually be the park owner and someone else. Correct. Now, to be fair, these things can always be sold and so forth, but that is a structure right now is that we own the land and would build it ourselves and operate it ourselves. Okay. So does a park like this, a manufactured home park like this, have a homeowners association? Do they have a structure for the people that live there? Maybe not. I mean, I don't know. My neighborhood doesn't.

[08:31:50] It's very similar if you live in an apartment complex, right? There's a discussion of who pays for the roads. Well, you do, right? If you pay rent, it goes towards paying to plow the snow off your parking lot. And that's really what this is. Part of your land rent includes the maintenance of all the facilities you need. Oh, okay.

[08:32:05] So when you pay a rent of $500 a month, that includes somebody pushing the snow, making sure the road's in good shape, things of that nature. So that is really covered by that. And you're responsible for your 6,000-square-foot lot there. So you may need to mow your own grass, or if you want to put up your own fence, things like that, those are on you.

[08:32:22] But the infrastructure to get to your home is paid for by your rent, essentially. So you all wouldn't be mowing all of the grass, but the common areas would be taken care of, is kind of what happens in a lot of neighborhoods. Yep. Okay. All right.

[08:32:39] Can you go back and show us the—I just want—well, maybe this is it. I wanted to see the green space. I thought there was water on this. I thought there was more than just the holding pond.

[08:32:50] Well, that's good. Yeah, it's a good question. Thanks for bringing that up there. So this, the green space is as you see sort of this, you know, green hatch. But if I were to go back a page, there's this overview, there's a pond here. Yeah. And I'm actually going to suck because one of this did go through a site review with the fire marshal's office. And one of the comments they have is we want a water source. Why this site is uniquely well suited for this type of project is we actually have a spring that can supply a pond. So we would build a pond here as a water supply pond and put a dry hydrant in.

[08:33:21] so the fire department has water on the site another one of the reasons i've mentioned before like to find this property where i can do this this may be the only time i ever come to you all with this because the unique factors on that to make it work are are challenging to find at a price that you can build it for so you're not going to be built you're not going to be covering up any stream beds or building no there's no disturbance of the stream for any kind of buildings the pond itself will sit in a stream so there is sort of a disturbance of the stream but it's to create the pond.

[08:33:52] There's no disturbance of the stream for any kind of housing. Gotcha. And no manufactured homes in floodplains? No. None? Nope. Because that's a non-starter. Yeah, there's no floodplains near here, and they're way above that stream by many feet.

[08:34:08] Okay. All right. Interesting. I think that's all I have right now. Thank you. Supervisor Calloway. Thank you, Justin. Kind of a different tack than what I took with staff earlier. So, you know, in terms of the water supply out here, anytime we've done anything in the rural area, I know that water gets everybody nervous.

[08:34:38] So if the buy rate's 60 and you have to provide water for six units versus 50 units, there could be concerns about is there plenty of water, is there plenty of supply, is there plenty of that for not just what you're trying to do, but for the remaining area as well. So what have you found or what could you speak to about that?

[08:34:56] sure well two things one is this is a effectively a closed water system we withdraw water out of the ground we send it back to a mass drain field the water returns to the soil which it came now there's layers of geology to get there but effectively the water goes back to the source part of our also interest in finding a you know a 50 acre site is there's a natural groundwater recharge per acre basically sort of a known thing uh in the you know in the your commercial areas in the ordinance is a 400 gallons per site acre per day limited it's been the code forever but i think goes back to some kind of health department rule from i don't know when but

[08:35:33] for example we have 50 acres that would be 20,000 gallons a day at the 400 gallons per site acre you know our use is probably six or seven thousand gallons a day so the acreage basically gives you a cushion in your groundwater recharge because as it rains water recharges so we feel like this area is large enough that there's plenty of natural groundwater recharge there will be a tier three or tier four groundwater study with this if it moves forward a site plan where the county will then require us to actually submit very detailed evaluation of that we did a FOIA request to the health department for all the wells around before we bought it we found quite a few

[08:36:12] reasonable wells now folks will contest what that you know number means but we had seven gallons 20 gallons 30 gallons and to us that was signed that there's water in the area and because we are effectively putting the water we use back in then we're not a consumptive use that would drain the aquifer basically so those are tier three groundwater study we'll basically calculate and demonstrate all that as part of the site plan and then you know we've dealt a lot in upzonings regardless of where they are about the number that you shoot for so you're going for 50 a lot of times that tends to be because that's what makes the project viable but can you just speak a little bit as to how you

[08:36:51] arrived at 50 rather than 30 sure i mean i think a lot of it was a simple math of hey the normal density development acre development area excuse me rural area is a two acre lot right so one unit for two acres so if i'm building a sort of half of that house then a one unit per acre density has a logic to me and just sort of zoning right we are doing something different here but the density is not substantially more than what the rural area would be and then it's a it is certainly a numbers thing you have to have a certain amount of units to make the project work it's also what

[08:37:29] fit the land the the suit the flat land suitable for building 50 homes basically that also led to that now you know could the board could approve this and put a condition for for fewer units on and i recognize that's a possibility but for us you know 50 is a number that makes it viable certainly especially because we are limiting rents for example for all the rental units we own to 60 percent AMI hope that answers um you answered that with super thank you so the entrance and

[08:38:08] exits to this i mean you know again it's like any project or rezoning anywhere the impacts on the other folks that live there versus you know the buy right impact versus what the potential for the upzoning or the rezoning impact could be so in terms of the i see the two different ways that cars could enter uh exit off you know off the the whole property um you know you know this area better than i do what and i would imagine we'll hear about some of this from from folks to give speaker from from their perspective but what is your take to make sure that entry exit from this

[08:38:45] property is different than say i mean the one upside of having one house on two acres is that you know not but so many cars can come out of there unless i guess it's a saturday night and they're hooting and hollering or something yeah i mean certainly you know vdot has different standards for different number of traffic, right? So if I have a house, I'm required to have, let's say, 300 feet of site distance coming out. If I have this kind of entrance, it's going to be 550 feet or something like that. So there's basically a higher standard of construction of my entrances on a commercial entrance versus a private driveway entrance. So I think we would say we

[08:39:21] follow the VDOT regulations for that. There are very few trips in this road, I think it's like 160 trips right now something like that and so we will be adding another 350 so it is more traffic in the road but if you were to compare to other traffic increases in other areas you know it's it's not one you'd even measure typically if you were in the development area you wouldn't need 350 you'd be nothing you wouldn't even think about it well understood but given the area this this is

[08:39:52] a significant increase over what exists now um thank you i think that's what i have right now Thank you. I think I'm going to allow the public to speak, and then we'll come back with additional questions and give you a chance to rebut as well.

[08:40:17] Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you. All right. I'm thinking that because we have 20, 35 people signed up to speak, that I'm going to call three at a time because it makes it a little quicker.

[08:40:40] So if I call three names, and you come and sit in the first row down on either side, there are empty seats in the first row, and we'll just do it three at a time just to speed us along a little bit, if that works for everybody. Our first three speakers, I'm sorry, I'm getting tired.

[08:40:59] First three speakers, Isabel Zaluka, David Roadcap, and Matthew Gilligan. So if you'll come on down, and Isabel, you're first. And if I mispronounce anybody's name, I apologize.

[08:41:18] It would be my fault, but I do apologize. And we do want everybody to say your name and where you live, so that way we'll get your name corrected. Please adjust the microphone. And pull your mic down. Thank you. There you go. Thank you.

[08:41:34] My name is Isabel Zaluka. I appreciate being allowed to speak and your consideration. I am recently in the area. I'm building right now, so I can speak to about the well, septic.

[08:41:53] My property is about a half mile from this proposed site. So I bought 20 acres plus a smaller parcel, which I put together, considering the rural area. The small parcel wasn't very useful.

[08:42:11] I thought it would be nicer, you know, more rural-like, and I was able to get the forestry deductions and land use. I'm already, I have already put in several native Virginia trees. I plan on doing a lot of planting and, you know, not agricultural, but just keeping the forestry going.

[08:42:35] So in starting the process for building, there was an existing road. It took a long time to get the whole process started and a lot of issues with runoff and abatement and the county coming out.

[08:42:54] It's not very steep or anything. The road was, you know, very significant already, but I abide by all the rules. And then went to Well and Septic. Septic was very tough. It's a very rocky area, so I do have the alternate septic system.

[08:43:17] Then we go to a well, which the first one I drilled was a dry hole at 400 feet. And I imagine I'm pretty sure I'm the most recent well in the area.

[08:43:33] The second one was 400 feet and just enough water. Let's just put it that way. And Matheny, who did my well, said the area is well known, no pun intended, for dry wells.

[08:43:51] He said he's done it quite a few times. I think he's done most of the wells in the area. But if you all have ever been to the site, that is a ravine that is extremely hilly.

[08:44:06] It goes down towards the James River or Chesapeake Bay Waterway. I mean, it is a rocky, wooded ravine. It is not open space. There would have to be a lot of earth moving.

[08:44:23] And so I just hope that they put all those regulations I had to do in force for this project, which I don't think is in keeping with the area. Thank you. Thank you. David, you're next. Let's take this thing up.

[08:44:45] All right. Hi, my name is David Roadcap, Samuel Miller District. I encourage you strongly to reject this development because it flies in the face of the criteria that Albemarle County says that it uses to determine what development to allow in rural areas of the county.

[08:45:01] As I'm sure you're all aware, because of the ongoing AC44 process, you as the Board of Supervisors, the Planning Commission, the county staff, and the community at large put a whole lot of effort into developing or contributing to this development plan. For that reason, the plan represents the consensus and desires of the community, and you as the governing body should respect their wishes and not deviate from that plan without extremely good reasons.

[08:45:32] As you notice, Mr. Pruitt, this is largely a political argument on the part of the developer. And, you know, politics go into the development of the plan, but considerations of developers wanting to overrule that plan should be taken with a large grain of salt.

[08:45:51] Looking at the plan itself, in my opinion, and the opinion of many community members who showed up at the community meetings about this proposal, The development doesn't even come close to meeting the criteria for developments in the rural areas.

[08:46:08] I don't have time to go into the 10 specific criteria that are essential according to the plan in my talk here today. But my email I provided as part of the package lays out how I see the packages woefully failing under at least 9 of the 10 of those criteria.

[08:46:24] And the 10th one, to be frank, I just didn't have the data to be able to comment on it. IN ADDITION, WELL, BUT JUST BRIEFLY, REASONS THE DEVELOPMENT FAILS TO MEET THE CRITERIA INCLUDE ITS EXTREMELY HIGH DENSITY RELATIVE TO THE SURROUNDING AREA, THE UNACCEPTABLE STRESS THAT IT WOULD PUT ON THE ALREADY OVERBURDENED EMERGENCY SERVICES IN THE AREA, LIKELIHOOD OF GROUNDWATER CONTAMINATION, INCREASE IN TRAFFIC, ETC.

[08:46:54] SO JUST A LITTLE BIT AT THE END, WE'VE HEARD A LOT ABOUT AFFORDABLE HOUSING TODAY. there absolutely should be affordable housing of sufficient quantity in Albemarle County. However, it should be done right and done according to the development plan. I already went into the criteria why, you know, I feel like it doesn't meet the criteria of the development plan.

[08:47:16] But in addition, affordable housing can meet the needs of the residents who are going to use it. And this one just wouldn't. You know, it's far from amenities. It's a long distance travel from work for anyone who lives there.

[08:47:34] And, you know, for a variety of other reasons, it's just not suitable for the area. Just so to conclude, I urge you to respect the analysis of the staff, the planning commission, and reject this development. Thank you. Matthew. My name is Matthew Gilligan.

[08:47:54] I'm a city resident. I'm one of the co-chairs of Livable Seville. Thank you for an opportunity to speak twice tonight in support of affordable housing in Albemarle County. I'm here to speak on behalf of Louisville in support of the Chestnut Grove development. Escalating housing costs in Albemarle County and the limited amount of new affordable housing jeopardize the vibrancy of the county's rural areas.

[08:48:16] We are concerned that increasingly the benefits of rural Albemarle County are accessible only to those with significant financial means. Chestnut Grove will allow 50 families to make rural Albemarle County their home. Families who would otherwise not be able to do so thanks to the affordability proffers.

[08:48:35] This is an excellent opportunity for the county to address its affordable housing goals without spending a single dollar from its affordable housing funds, leaving budget room to support deeply affordable housing in the urban core. This is where teaching assistants, CNAs, truck drivers, restaurant staff, and other vital community helpers would have a chance to live.

[08:48:56] This is a place where many retirees would be able to go after they're done with their working careers. Otherwise, these folks will end up in outlying counties and not be able to be part of the, as Mark Lorenzoni said a few weeks ago, the 24-hour residents of Albemarle County instead of 9-5 residents.

[08:49:14] As over 70% of this development will remain open space, approving this development is consistent with the county's desire to balance the benefits of living in the rural areas, the environmental benefits of rural areas, and the urgent need to address the housing shortage for residents at lower income levels.

[08:49:31] If denied, you're likely to get six very expensive homes at this site. Despite its many benefits, manufactured housing has been stigmatized through association with negative stereotypes about lower-income residents. We hope you'll see beyond these negative associations and stereotypes.

[08:49:46] The county has seen its number of manufactured housing parts dwindle over the last few years, and this is an opportunity to build back up this very affordable form of housing. Housing is a basic human right, and manufactured housing is a good option for many community members who would like to live outside the development area.

[08:50:02] manufactured housing is part of the solution for rural albemar county addressing its affordable housing needs i think you're kind of as supervisor galloway was getting out in his questions to staff you're dealing with a number of competing priorities that you all have it's clear that the comp plan is well a well-oiled machine to build million dollar homes in the rural area the path is much more straightforward than other types of housing like this i hope this can be an opportunity for you all to start to figure out what does affordable housing look like in the rural areas? How can we make it happen? What are the policy changes we need to make with a

[08:50:39] comprehensive plan, with our affordable housing requirements, and things such as that? Thank you very much for your consideration. Okay, the next three folks, William Frazier, Steve Batten, and I can't tell if it's Dan or Don Blake. Oh, okay. So then the next person is, is this Casey Chisholm?

[08:51:04] There you go. Okay. Thank you. Welcome. Good evening. Thank you. Yeah, I'm William Frazier. I was born and raised in Alamo County, 73 years old. I now live on Social Security.

[08:51:21] About a year ago, I lived in a motor home in Colton, Trello Court, and my home caught on fire. And when I got through to Trello Court, I said I couldn't replace my home there because they were selling the property, and so I didn't have anywhere to put a home.

[08:51:40] So now they've changed it. They sold all the property, and 51 more families have got to be out in three years. So y'all will have 51 more families to find a home for. For the last year, I've just been living at different places.

[08:51:58] I lived on Chestnut Grove Road with my niece. I lived on the next road over, Porter's Road, with my other niece. I lived on President Road with my brother. And now I'm staying some in the basement of my sister's home, which is on 250 Boyd's Tavern.

[08:52:18] But I've been in this place my whole life. And I hope that y'all take the time to vote for this thing. Because, you know, I'm not going to have anywhere to live. Social Security doesn't rent anything. The cheapest apartment I could find, I looked for a year, was $1,800 a month.

[08:52:37] I couldn't find a house at all. I could find a house payment that was under $1,200. So I just, right now, I'm just trying to survive. If I get a trailer cord, I might be able to move in it. When I bought my trailer, I gave $16,000 for it.

[08:52:55] I paid for it in four years. After I got it paid for it, I only had to pay $350 a month in rent. So with my Social Security, it gave me enough money to eat. You know what I'm saying? So I'm just here to ask y'all for your vote.

[08:53:12] And that's basically all I got to say. I want to thank y'all for your time, too. Y'all have a nice evening. Thank you. All right, you're next. Hi, I'm Steve Batten.

[08:53:28] I'm actually a resident of the city. Most of my family lives in the county. It's obvious with the support that was here earlier, we need affordable housing. It's obvious with the budget that was proposed that some of that cannot be funded by the county.

[08:53:50] Here's an opportunity that the county can create affordable housing without tapping into the fund that is already drained or spray it thin at least i'm in support of it i think it's a great idea it's going to be something that gives first-time homebuyers uh young couples an opportunity to get their foot in the ground you know get started and that's something you need because these young couples if they move away they won't move back and that's a talent drain that we're losing and i i think one

[08:54:28] of the speakers earlier said something about basically we I got the impression that he is a for affordable housing but not in his backyard and I don't think that that's a appropriate way Scottsville which is not too far from this area does have amenities does need young workers or workers that are not necessarily making three hundred thousand dollars a year yet and so there's

[08:55:05] area this area will support um is close enough to support those other people so thank you um casey chisholm i couldn't see you for the podium i was had good evening um don't let me make this um casey chisholm currently scottsville um and i spoke before but um i'm prepared i'm gonna try i'm not saying um a lot um as i say i stand before you not only as a single mother but as a member of

[08:55:43] our community who is facing one of the most difficult challenges of my life finding affordable housing as a single mother i'm doing my best to provide for my children to ensure they have a stable and secure future but the reality of rising rent and lack of affordable options has made it incredibly difficult to give them a home where they feel safe and comfortable every day i worry about how we will manage the high cost of living and whether we'll have a place to call home next month. I know I'm not alone. Many families in our county are facing the same struggle and it's

[08:56:16] something that is affecting our entire community. What we need are more affordable housing options, homes that are within reach for families like mine. That's why I'm here today to ask for your support on this project. I'm asking you not just for myself but for all the hard-working families who deserve a safe place to live without the constant worry of eviction and homelessness.

[08:56:42] In my opinion, this project isn't just a roof over our heads. It's the foundation for a brighter future. With stable housing, we can focus on our work, our children's education, and our community's well-being. I understand there may be concerns about the project, but I truly believe that with the proper planning and collaboration, this project can be a positive addition to our county.

[08:57:05] Together, we can offer a modern, safe, and affordable solution to housing while supporting local growth and prosperity. By approving the development of this community, we can create affordable living spaces that will attract new residents and provide an option for those struggling to find suitable homes.

[08:57:22] Not only will this benefit our families, but it will also generate increased tax revenue, creating opportunities for local businesses and services. I know that there are challenges, but I believe that by working together, we can find solutions that make real difference for our families in need.

[08:57:39] Please consider us in your planning and decision-making and help create an environment where families like mine can thrive. Thank you for listening, thank you for your time, and thank you for your consideration. Thank you. Thank y'all. The next three speakers, Teresa Warren, Curtis Moon, and Rayleigh Wade.

[08:58:04] So Teresa is the first speaker. Teresa Warren. Yeah. Hello there. Teresa Warren. I'm residing in Scottsville as well. I have to say that listening to everybody discuss the affordable housing this evening was really needed.

[08:58:28] I spoke at the last meeting about the same project. I live in Scottsville. I've lived in Scottsville for, well, I live on the Fluvanna side, but I've lived there for five years now. I absolutely love it. I lived at the lake before that. I don't want to move away from there, but the housing is a problem. There's not a lot of housing in that area. And I do understand that there was a project made that is 36 houses going up in Scottsville, 36 houses that are probably going to be over $300,000, where a lot of us in Scottsville can't afford that. So it's just the affordable housing is a big issue and it just needs to be

[08:59:07] corrected. And this project, I think would help not everyone, but some of us, and it would be a great project for us. Thank you. Thank you. Curtis? Evening, guys. I'm Curtis Moon. I live here in Charlottesville. I think this is a great idea, this proposal. From what I've heard tonight, housing is a really hard thing for a lot of people, especially for myself. I'm on social

[08:59:42] security and disability as well, and I feel like that gentleman there does. It's hard to pay your rent and your medical bills and stuff off, you know, $1,200, $1,400 a month rent. So, you know, if you've got two good guys that's going to throw in together and make a difference at least for 50 people you know to have a home a place to stay and some place where they can pay their bills so i support it fully and i don't see why there should be a problem for y'all to say yeah on it too so thank y'all guys for having me and i appreciate you thank you thank you thank you

[09:00:19] rayleigh wade good evening i should say good night uh my name is rayleigh wade uh i'm a business owner in waynesboro my wife and i own an assistant living home for senior citizens okay um we have 15 employees six of them live in mobile homes and we're on in waynesboro in augusta county but six of them live in mobile homes i've spoken to several of them about their experiences living in mobile homes and parks and consensus a they're very content happy with affordability and the value

[09:00:58] for their money. It's a good thing. You know, a single mom, her name's Becky. She moved out of an apartment, got into a mobile home, country estates and grottos. I'm sorry, Camorra. She loves it. First time she's ever had a yard for a kid. It's great. I talked to five out of six.

[09:01:24] They love it. Not one bad word. Nothing. This is a good thing. I don't know the numbers. I'm not going to pretend like I do. I don't know what the numbers. That's y'all's. This is a good thing. This is going to provide 50 families with a home. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The next

[09:01:49] three speakers, Ronald Morris, Cully Baggett, and Darby Lowe. And Ronald, you're first. I'm in support of the Chestnut Grove Park. I am a resident of Greene County at the moment. I lived in a mobile home park all my life. I watched my father, we were poor, save money, bought the first trailer

[09:02:23] on Harris Street. I was four years old and I lived there until I was 16. And in the process of him living there, and he paid that trailer off, he saved enough money from living in a mobile home park to purchase a piece of land. And when he purchased that piece of land, he moved that mobile home from that park to that land. And today my father still lives in that home. He's content with that home. And honestly, if it wasn't for a mobile home park, I don't know what my

[09:02:57] family would have did. I started out poor and we had a roof over our head. And honestly, I'm in 100% support of it. And if it happens to go through, I may even move there myself. Thank y'all.

[09:03:15] Thank you. Coley? Geez, I thought I was going to be the first person to bring up affordable of housing tonight but apparently not the case seems to be a pretty big issue but my name is Cully Baggett I'm a lifelong citizen of central Virginia I'm a building contractor local land developer and I'm here tonight to speak in support of this much-needed project it's not just a project this is a necessity it's a need it could be a step in the right direction for so

[09:03:54] many people. For many of these people this could be the first step of the American dream of homeownership. You know sure it might not be much but to them it could be all the start that they would ever need. For example let's say that I'm a young person in today's world in this particular part of the county and I don't have the financial means for whatever reason to buy or build a brick and mortar home but I can afford to buy a new mobile home from one of our local manufacturer home sales business because it's a small fraction of what it costs to do a brick and mortar home

[09:04:30] so um you know you can buy a thirty thousand dollar manufactured home um but then where are you going to put it um i don't have the hundred thousand dollars it costs it takes to um you know buy a lot and put it on that lot um and i think that that's where uh chestnut grove could step up and you know really feel that void you know and and if somebody so they buys one of these mobile

[09:05:07] homes you know they don't have much start they buy this mobile home they pay on it for eight ten years well now they have some they haven't just thrown their money away and rent they own something they have something tangible in their hands they can sell they can use it to try to help with a down payment for a new home that may not be in in this particular area but you know i had a lot of other things that i wanted to say about this project but you know after hearing

[09:05:36] tonight um what a crisis it is um for affordable housing i just i don't see any um any reason not to push this project forwards i'm sure it's outside of the comprehensive plan for the county um but that's what these special use permits are for um and you know as justin touched on earlier

[09:06:00] You know, if you move a project like this, a high-density project like this, closer to the city where it's already zoned for, the cost of the land is going to be so exuberant that it's not even going to – it's never going to make sense to be able to put that manufactured home park there due to the cost of the land.

[09:06:23] So I think the rural area is the place for it. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Darby? Good evening. I'm Darby Lowe, and I live on the corner of Chestnut Grove Road and James River Road.

[09:06:39] I've been there for 30 years. I'm the first person that you're going to hear from so far, other than the very first lady who couldn't get a whale on two tries, that lives from the community. All these other people are from other places talking about the laudability of the project of affordable housing. And no one in this community denies the need for affordable housing, but I want you to know that you're now going to hear from the community and most of the community, the hundred people that went to the meetings with the Planning Commission that they had at the Yancey Center and at the Scottsville were against it because it's not the right place.

[09:07:13] The only approvable reason in the Planning Commission study is the first, which is the affordable housing piece, and I'm going to talk about that in a minute. But everything else about this doesn't work. That site falls off. It's completely steep. That stream and that buffer there, which is a minuscule amount from where they put the pond for the fire hydrant and the piece for the septic system, runs right to the James River.

[09:07:37] We have conservation easements in the same area to make sure that the James River doesn't have septic running into it. And look at the site plan, that blue part right there, that's the stream. You'll hear from other people who know this, too. But that's one of the things. The traffic.

[09:07:53] They say it's 150 trips on Chestnut Grove Road. That's true. But James River Road is not talked about. It's the intersection. 950 in 12 hours, I counted it myself. That's important. You can't put 50 more cars into that kind of road.

[09:08:09] Everyone at the meetings talked about all the close calls. James River Road is the oldest road in Albemarle County. It's twisty, it's turny. It was designed when the settlers were building back there, and it goes over hills and it's curvy. 50 cars, 150 trips additional is part of the issue.

[09:08:26] The emergency services, everyone talked about how long you wait. 50 minutes for the emergency squad is one of the issues. 50 minutes for the police. You can't put 50 homes out there and not have that kind of service.

[09:08:41] The seats at the school, it's not mentioned. There's 33 new homes in the Blenheim subdivision and 30 new homes in the Bird Street in Scottsville. All of that. There are no jobs. There is no public transportation. There is no child care.

[09:08:57] This is the end of the earth. If you went there and saw where this place is, you can't, it's not the same setup. Now, last thing on affordability. It costs $90,000 for the trailer, $70,000 to have it set, 20% down. Only two banks in Virginia will loan.

[09:09:13] I called Clayton myself. Personal property tax has to be paid because it doesn't affix to the realty if it's a single wide. And this park doesn't afford double wides based on the picture. And then finally, there is the lot rent. Only 17 of the units are affordable, 50% of AMI.

[09:09:29] So do the numbers crunch the numbers? Affordability is absolutely correct. This does not provide that. Thank you. And the next three folks, the first person is Emily Dreyfus, but I think Emily left. Oh, no. She's here. She changed her.

[09:09:45] You were over there. Emily Dreyfus. Jeff, is this Russo or maybe? I just can't tell. I'm sorry. And then Brent Harding. I was sure you left.

[09:10:02] No problem. Good evening. Thanks for the opportunity to be here. I am going to keep it short and sweet. I want to underscore what all of the supporters have said so far. As we all know, these issues, affordable housing issues, are so interconnected with health and safety and economic development.

[09:10:20] And ideas like this should be rewarded, applauded. I have spent a lot of time, actually, on Shady Grove Road, if I'm remembering the name right. Sorry, Chestnut Grove Road. I work with another group of people, similar name, because my best friend lives down there.

[09:10:41] So I've been back and forth on that road many times and have actually never encountered another car. And it's wide enough that if I did encounter another car, I wouldn't be worried or even a rescue vehicle. So I think we have the typical response of not in my backyard, and I understand that.

[09:11:02] I think it's human nature quite often, but we need to reach beyond that. This is really important, and we need to be creative. I hope you'll be flexible and move this forward. Thank you. Thank you, Emily. Jeff. Yes, you're next.

[09:11:18] Hi, I'm Jeff Rawson, and I live in Charlottesville. But more importantly, I'm a supervisor in the OR at the University of Virginia. I have 10 employees that work for me, and I am the only person that lives within 45 minutes of the university.

[09:11:41] And it's because they all make between $30,000 and $45,000 and cannot afford to live in the Charlottesville and Albemarle area. Projects like this make it to where people who take care of patients every day, you know, you, me, everybody in this audience, need health care at some point.

[09:12:02] And these people are not able to live in our community because of the house prices. So projects like this, private funded, you know, I heard many arguments where everybody says we need more budget for affordable housing.

[09:12:21] We need $10 million. You know, the government can only give so much. So if you've got a private investor or investors willing to help you out with this, I implore you to take that opportunity. Thank you. Thank you.

[09:12:39] Brent Harding, Brent, maybe he's left, Brent Harding, okay, Nick Hamner, Hamner, I believe, Nick Hamner, there you go, and then the next person is going to be Tim Taylor.

[09:12:58] Good evening. We've heard a lot about affordable housing tonight. However, the board must carefully consider the type of housing it approves. In addition to the recommendations by the planning office and the planning commission in opposition of the proposed development, additional comments covered considerable reasons why this development starkly contrasts with the county's comprehensive plan but i am here to talk about dirt my primary objective objection to the proposed development is

[09:13:37] it fails to create a true home ownership opportunity as the only owner of the dirt the owner of the lot stands to create wealth and build equity the home in this case is not an asset but a liability depreciating in value from the moment it leaves the sales lot only by requiring home ownership of the dirt, ownership of the lot by the residents, would the proposed development offer a true opportunity to achieve the American dream of home ownership? Without resident ownership of the dirt, the proposed development is nothing more than a predatory lending scheme. Thank you.

[09:14:15] Thank you. Tim Taylor? But that was the easiest name you've had all night. I want to thank you all for being here and accepting my voice, as you've heard many about affordable housing.

[09:14:34] Excuse me. It took me 90 minutes to get here because I'm in Spotsylvania and I work in Fredericksburg. But I am a native of Charlottesville, and I have been here all my life except for the past 10 years. I am 55. I am excited about this project because I have a twin brother here.

[09:14:53] I have two other siblings here and I have one sibling in Florida that came up and stayed with me over the hurricane and she was talking about moving back because we just buried our mother last year anniversary. One year anniversary was a couple days ago and this is my home and when I talk about quality of life, I don't have to have, even if I could afford the $800,000 home, I don't need that. It's more about the quality of life, where you're going to spend your time with friends and family. When I came in the door, I recognized about 15 people, and the smiles and

[09:15:31] the waves really solidified and confirmed that I need to get back here. Because I'm a senior citizen, I'm 55, I've survived a couple heart attacks, and I don't know how many days I'm going to live. But I do want to have an opportunity, if this goes through, to have an affordable house.

[09:15:53] Because at one time, I've had four houses here when I was married with my wife that I supported through med school. We moved to Fredericksburg for her job, and she's gone off to Myrtle Beach with another husband. So I'm alone on a fixed income. But I don't have to have the expensive of houses and again i like the opportunity to consider a purchase like this because it's quality of life i'd love to go fishing in the james river uh one of my best friends is the retired captain of the police force bryant bibb we play golf and my twin brother is here and i want to spend that

[09:16:29] time with him and get back to this area so i do appreciate your guys concern and to come up with all this money affordable housing it's where is it going to come from it's not easy i understand that. So you guys have been nominated for your position to do the best that you can, and I'm sure after everything is all said and done, you guys will make the best decision to have this affordable housing, because I've been trying to get back to Charlottesville for about five years now when I got divorced. So please consider my plea along with many others tonight, and thank you for

[09:17:02] your time. Have a good night. Thank you. So the next three people, Adelaide, O'Brien, Kevin, And is this Fitchum, perhaps Fitchum? And then Sean Williams. So Adelaide, you're first.

[09:17:21] Good evening, I'm Adelaide O'Brien. I live on Hatton Ferry Road. I want to address the misconception that mobile homes are per se affordable housing. Mobile and manufactured homes can be affordable housing if the homeowner owns the land beneath the home.

[09:17:46] The proposal for Chestnut Grove is not affordable housing, as the homeowner will not own this land. And unless the mobile or manufactured homeowner owns the land, and in that case it's considered real property, they can typically only get personal property loans for their mobile home, such as a car loan.

[09:18:08] And these loans are typically a higher rate with a shorter duration for payment. Mobile homes depreciate over time versus the site-built homes. And mobile home parks are known as a predatory industry with minimal financial risk to the mobile park owner and serious financial risk to the mobile homeowner.

[09:18:37] Owning their home but not the land beneath leaves residents vulnerable to rent spikes for the lot. And while these homes are mobile, as they're brought onto the site from a place where they're manufactured, once they're in place, the cost to move them can be out of reach for most tenants.

[09:18:58] I want to reference a New York Times article entitled, Investors Are Buying Mobile Home Parks, Residents Are Paying the Price. This was published in March of 2022. And I quote, Industry leaders are blunt about the business model.

[09:19:17] According to materials for a boot camp for aspiring mobile home park investors prepared by the Mobile Home University, which is run by two of the largest mobile home park owners in the country, the fact that tenants cannot afford the $5,000 it costs to move a mobile home keeps revenue stable and makes it easy to raise rents without losing any occupancy.

[09:19:46] So in closing, I request you please not consider the rezoning of this partial, nor provide a special use permit, as to do so would benefit only the property owners, and it would be at the expense of not only the mobile homebuyers, but the community at large.

[09:20:05] Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Kevin? Hello, I am Kevin Fletcher. I live at 7814 Chesna Grove Road, so I'm saying that I am not in favor.

[09:20:22] of this project. They have not done a traffic study. They are only going on a guesstimate of what the traffic might be on Chestnut Grove Road. They do not know. They have not done anything along those lines to find out what the traffic is in the area. Also, their plan for their water and septic, that's just also just a guess. I hope that it's going to work. The idea that they're going to would think that they're going to be able to regenerate the water through a septic field for 50 homes and not have any problems with it. That's just kind of a pie-in-the-sky type of idea.

[09:20:59] If it fails, then they still have their land that's been rezoned. Also, some of the largest swaths of conservation easement land is down in southern Albemarle County in that area. So the private citizens are doing their part to try to protect our rural areas. The idea that the county would go against it um is not uh is not a good idea to me um like i say it's just uh it's it's a we need affordable housing in albamore county but this is a bad plan and it goes against the comprehensive plan if you want to do something about affordable housing in the county the staff

[09:21:36] need to come up with an idea on what is all is it should be in a proposal for a mobile home park not just let it all be hashed out right here today and let it go from there because it'll pop up everywhere throughout the county it'll be over on raised ford road it'll be on davis shop road next thing you know it's on stony point and it's because it's going to be almost like a buy right because the only thing they're offering is affordable housing other than that they're like i say this project doesn't really work the water's not there the traffic is horrible so that's it

[09:22:10] thank you thank you for your time thank you sean sean williams how y'all doing my name is sean Williams. I'm from Scottsville. I live on President's Road. Well, I used to live on President's Road. I moved back in with my parents. I have two kids. My son's two. He has autism. He goes to VIA on 29. My daughter, she's seven, second grade. We've fell on tough times here recently, and we've just moved to Buckingham. Prices went up there. House sold there. Moved

[09:22:49] back in now we're just all piled on top of each other just trying to make it through uh and this is actually like a gold mine i mean people talk about you can go finance a trailer go finance that there's if you put the research into it i already have a trailer i've already bought five thousand i just need land and this would be a gold mine for me i mean i understand it might not be water well alamore county as i've known my father's done remodeling the codes y'all have pretty strict

[09:23:23] and I've done put some wells in around I mean you don't know till you try I mean this is giving people like me my kids an opportunity and I really hope y'all push forward thank y'all thank you and we have four more people so I'm just going to call all four right Alan Herndon is first and then Melissa Cobb Ralph Braun and Michael Williams and Alan you're first yeah good evening thanks for the opportunity to speak. I just recently purchased 127 acres on Chestnut Grove Road

[09:24:01] and I'm a general contractor for 35 years building houses and whatnot and we excavate a lot of land you know in the soil erosion we don't have any literature on that from the proposal. I personally know this land for 38 years. I've been on every piece of it. It's very steep. If you look at them lines anybody don't know what they're looking at the closer them lines are the steeper it is and uh you know they call this area right there old people call it dry creek that's because the creek bottom right there in the bottom right hand corner of that picture and it actually goes dry

[09:24:38] in the summertime the other side of the road mr road cap was here earlier he bought that piece of ground the creek goes on the other side and guess what that does in the summertime it goes completely dry and like i said i've been on every piece of it i own a piece of land down the road i think you strongly should not do this. He's going to be shaving a lot of ground off DEQ. As far as water runoff, I don't see any sediment control ponds. We have to put in a lot of things to build a house, silt fencing, super silt fence, different things. And then if you jump straight across the road, they spent like $22 million doing a saved at bay with the old long oak farm y'all might be familiar

[09:25:17] with. That's just across the road. So this is pretty close to the James River. And they've Redone the whole stream on that farm, so just jump over the hill 250 yards. As far as the traffic is concerned, traffic only goes there one way. First thing in the morning, it goes back towards Route 6.

[09:25:32] Nothing comes towards James River Road. I'm up there a lot of the time of the year. And, you know, it's just not fitting for the community. And people talk about, you know, affordable housing. I'm an affordable housing. I lived in a house trailer when I was little, too. You know, so, you know, that is what it is.

[09:25:49] But you can't wrap all that into letting them come in and shave off the ground. There, a lot of excavating is going to be done. Lots of trees are going to be ripped out. Just a really, really bad idea for this general area. As far as the fire and rescue is concerned, I don't live up there.

[09:26:08] I know the boys at Scottsville, they do all they can do. Y'all are getting ready to probably can that whole fire department and put a professional team down there. And if y'all put these 50 in trailer park, then that's what this is, a trailer park at the end of the day. If y'all put 50 more homes in there, y'all better have professionals down there because y'all will have people dying up on that road because they can't get that fast enough. So I appreciate y'all and I'd like to see y'all shoot this down tonight. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Melissa Cobb. Hello. My name is Melissa Cobb.

[09:26:43] I'm a lifetime Almoron County resident. I live on James River Road just shy of Chestnut Grove. Let's talk about responsibility. I agree the county has a responsibility to accurately address housing issues within our county, among other and many other concerns. However, it is irresponsible to ignore the facts, experiences continuously presented by this community, personal experiences from community members about strained resources, such as emergency resources, water supply, public services, the emergency services was mentioned earlier in the budget meeting,

[09:27:23] and road maintenance and traffic concerns. In each meeting over the past year, we have presented these concerns. In each meeting, the developer presents the same old, unchanged plan. While the developer and supporters continue to blindly support the idea of affordable housing, this is not the answer. I ask you to make the educated, safe, and responsible decision to deny this

[09:27:56] proposal. Thank you. Thank you. Ralph? Yeah. Ralph Brown. Hello. Ralph Brown. I live Whitehall district. I don't know a lot about some of the specific issues at the site and the site plan present. I think that people raised some legitimate concerns for example about water supply, transportation, affordability, traffic, how the parking is done, is there enough outdoor space, and I don't personally know how to address this is the first time I looked at this, but I think that

[09:28:34] there were also some concerns that were raised repeatedly that don't align with the county's priorities one of those is a comprehensive plan the uh i think the question the county needs to ask is not if we approve this how many others are going to be like this that people practically think they can always get approved for i think the concern is if you don't approve this what can be approved the developer said and this was unchallenged that you couldn't do this according to the comprehensive plan anywhere in the county not only that you couldn't do unsubsidized affordable housing it practically anywhere in the county that's a pretty bad

[09:29:12] situation to be in if that's the case the comprehensive plan is not worth the paper it's printed on and the other the other concern that I thought was not didn't really make a whole lot of sense was traffic issues can be worked around this this road goes it goes up to I looked at a map it goes up to route six it goes down to James River Road I wouldn't call it the end of the earth and the person who did call it that I find it ironic she's a judge she serves on JDR court and

[09:29:46] she didn't once say one thing about the merits of how housing precarity issues cause domestic violence, which she ought to know from her court experience. And so it really seems like the backyard that people wanted not to be in is maybe about a mile from where they are.

[09:30:08] And practically everyone from outside of that is so concerned about the overall situation that you've got to have something that can be built somewhere. if you don't you got to go back and say well what can we build in the county so the question you ought to answer is if not this what if not now when i would i would urge you to approve it if the site issues can be addressed the legitimate specific site issues and if you have concerns about those i would urge you to defer rather than deny it thank you thank you michael williams

[09:30:44] your last but not least yes yes finally you definitely got to uh to sell your product you got to make it appealing. I've been living in Chestnut Grove for over 32 years. That house is from my right. The third one is me. So I know about this area. And the house next to me,

[09:31:14] the one further right next to me, has a cistram because they could not get well water. And the other house on the opposite side of me, I had to put in a second well because his well went dry.

[09:31:34] And this, I'm in favor of affordable housing because where I live, you know, I have benefit of affordable housing. But I own the land and I own the house. And I'm actually getting ready tomorrow to have a new roof put in, which will benefit me, not anyone else.

[09:31:57] You know, and this plan, this proposal with the lease property does not make it affordable. You got the land lease, you got the road maintenance, of course you're going to have taxes, and then commuting to work, that does not make it affordable.

[09:32:20] My house is appraised for $220,000. It's on a two-acre lot. And this, you can put affordable housing in the area without putting a mobile home park there.

[09:32:38] My house is a perfect example of that. So I just wanted to come up and just say that I'm in favor of affordable housing, but this location is not the place. That's all I wanted to say.

[09:32:53] Thank you. And thank you for waiting until the very end. Thank you. And that's all we have. So I believe we look for a rebuttal. from the applicant yeah welcome back thank you all very much uh thank you to everyone who came out and spoke there was a lot of interesting comments in this i don't need to say a whole lot about the need for affordable housing you've heard of a lot of folks who were very directly impacted and i think that's the most powerful evidence you can hear is folks who need housing

[09:33:29] can't find it and you heard a lot of different ways this can work right the man can find a nice home if you can find it for 10 20 000 in good shape and move it here that's kind of a life changing thing versus paying $1,800 a month rent for five years, saving no money. All these various variables, the benefit of this product is it gives folks choices. You heard a lot of the usual things. Any development we ever bring here, there's going to be more traffic, right? We just happen to be in a space where there is very little traffic because nothing has happened here in a long time. There's a lot of timberland around here and conservationism. That's good. That doesn't

[09:34:03] mean it's not a good place to put some housing. It just hasn't been done. You know, all the water, every drop of water, any development comes down to James River, right? We have, and the county has regulations to protect streams, stream buffers, regulations that have the most teeth when you're a developer. If I'm a cattle farmer, I can go blaze right through there and run my cattle across the stream and the state protects my right to do that. Developers have to be more careful when the county requires it. I think the last thing I would close with and what I think is most fascinating what you've heard and what's most exciting about this project is that when you provide, like the

[09:34:43] best thing any of us can do is provide an opportunity for somebody else. I get folks who are living in the area will say, oh, this is a detriment to me in some fashion. I understand that feeling, but I try to live by the rule that you can't let your own privilege or benefit interfere with the opportunity of others. And land use, I see so much as folks are saying, hey, we have this, we like it, and they do. And you all as a county do a great job of running a local government people want to be a part of. But then if you say, well, sorry, that opportunity cannot be afforded to you because you don't have $500,000 to live in a townhome or $1.2 million

[09:35:22] to live in the rural area. That strikes me as unfair, and I think it's a great opportunity for us all. The purpose of this project is to give all the folks you heard the opportunity to have housing that works for them and benefits their lives. Comprehensive plan does not say there shall be no residential development in the rural areas. It happens all the time. In fact, I do subdivisions every day of two-acre lots in the rural areas. No one's come forward to this yet.

[09:35:49] comprehensive plan does not it also says the majority of affordable housing is in the development areas but not all how else will we do affordable housing in the rural areas if not like this so i i think you've heard a lot i really appreciate everyone's time i'm you know very hopeful this project can move forward and we'll build it and the people you've heard from will benefit from it thank you thank you um we'll go through order with any additional questions before we close the public hearing. Supervisor Malik? Thank you. I heard some very concerning things about water,

[09:36:27] and while I'm not an engineer, I can certainly look at your green shapes on the screen right now, and those areas for your septic fields are steep. And I understood that there was a three percent grade limit on septic fields, so I don't see how, with a 50-foot increase in elevation, those would work. So talk to me about, or us, your comment about how this recharge was somehow supposed to make, you used the term closed loop water. It takes 10, 15, 20 years to recharge groundwater

[09:37:02] down in the ground. So I would like you to repeat what you said about the water supply here. Sure. Well, the septic fuel, the max slope is 25%, not 3%. That's a long health department rule. is probably the origin of the part the county's critical slope rule so if you look at this drawing all those gray hatched areas those are 25 slope zones and so when we talk about like a closed loop system the right word is really is your water usage consumptive or not and so i could go here and build a winery and i could drill well and i could pull water out of the ground i can put

[09:37:38] it in bottles i can ship it away so that is a consumptive use of water because water is taken from a spot and then returned and taken away from that basically from the watershed right now it may take years for water to green charge in this fashion right but it doesn't mean that you've taken the water and just taken it somewhere else if i took the water i discharged it into the stream for example with like a direct discharge plant then i pull the water out of the ground and i send it down the jammed river that's also taking water sort of out of the source of which it comes from so this is not a science where i can stand here and say oh it'll be a 82 percent ground charge

[09:38:15] rate over you know x number of years but fundamentally that you are not being a consumptive user of water here and that's again that's the groundwater studies that are done with the site plan show that and calculate that and are presented as part of the site plan review but that's that's how we look at these systems we're not consuming the water we're using it and putting it back in the source at which it came which is the ground would you be offering these lots for sale to actually have your residents have a chance to build personal wealth as opposed to

[09:38:51] you doing that as the owner or whoever the owner would be sometime in the future. Because I think those statements which were made were pretty clear about what the home people are not allowed, not able to finance as a brick and mortar house would. And it puts them, I think, at a great disadvantage. And certainly the other residents in the Whitehall District who have seen their their parks sold have found themselves at a disadvantage as costs go up and up and up and up on the lots so do you have anything to share about that question i don't believe in this sort

[09:39:29] of park we can actually sell an individual lot there's a different county type of zoning that permits that but i don't believe we can do that here and i in a perfect world absolutely somehow we find a way where every single person who wants to live here can live on a 6 000 square foot lot they buy themselves they own the dirt they build a house but that's the reality we don't have those those people cannot afford otherwise everyone here spoke would have done that and i and i don't disagree with the premise that it is preferred folks to have that but where we're trying to be in between somewhere where it's that and if you rent for 30 years and that's a big

[09:40:06] difference this is a much more secure environment than a rental you have your own home you get to decorate it the way you want to it's a very different thing is it is it is ideal as owning your own piece of dirt? No. But this is a product that is out there to help folks, you heard many of them, who aren't in that spot that can do that, but live a better life in this sort of housing community. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Pruitt? Don't actually believe I have anything at this

[09:40:38] time. Supervisor Lupisto Curley? No, I don't have any questions for you. Supervisor McHugh? As usual, we heard a lot about traffic, and there's not been a traffic study, and there's often not a traffic study when vdot doesn't consider that there's enough traffic to do a study i mean is that the position that that's correct and kevin's but basically we're the usual threshold is a thousand new trips a day and we're at 350 so it's just a matter of you almost can't people who live there

[09:41:14] will know there's more traffic but i can't say it's going to go from level service a to a level of service c because it's not there's so few trips that in the metrics of a traffic study it's not going to actually change the results is why we don't do it right and i've been around the barn long enough to know that there that's right that they don't do traffic studies when they've determined that there's not enough traffic to impact to the traffic to make a yeah um help me understand better well maybe that's not the right way to phrase it if you can't get water and you can't get septic this isn't going to happen correct i will spend a bunch of time money

[09:41:54] after I think a noble cause but I will have burnt it but we've done enough research to feel that that's a very low if almost impossible probability very low probability that that would occur based on the studies we have done right but but you're correct I have to prove those things before I build a single unit right right and there are rules and regulations around storm water and discharge of water and i mean and all of that is dealt with with staff at a later time but that's right yeah and potentially if you built only six houses you might be able to

[09:42:32] not have to do as much stormwater permitting for this but if you do a development as we are you would have to do a full stormwater permit plan the whole works um just looking at my notes i think that's all i have right now thank you supervisor galloway all the questions i had have been asked and answered uh and i uh i will say the same thing um it doesn't mean all the concerns

[09:43:07] that i have but all the questions that i have specifically supervisor mallock yes following up on the the uh how does would you plan to access with your backhoe the area to develop these leach fields with the grades and crossing the stream and establishing those um just that just occurred to me that it's, the access is going to be tricky. I mean, these maps at this scale with these contours look much steeper than they are. This is a very large scale. But to answer your question, there's actually a road already that comes down through here and across and gets over to this side. So

[09:43:47] there's actually kind of a logging road that was built many years ago. You can drive, you can drive a pickup truck down across the other side to this area here. The trees cut and so forth, but there's developed road actually from years of agricultural use to get there now kevin let's follow up with that because old aggroves are not allowed to be used without all the drainage and stuff like that a la advanced mills farm from many years ago so how do we bart knows what i'm talking about how does that you don't just get to drive your machinery across the stream even though because

[09:44:23] there was a logging road there many years ago to be able to to get across there yeah i'm wondering if our zoning administrator might be able to respond to that whether or not we're allowed to utilize old forest roads for construction access kevin i probably can't answer that but feel free i'll have an answer and if you want to hear further please so we can use it after we get a permit so our survey shows the road that does not mean you can just go out there and blaze through the forest and use it we go through the county permitting process and put up silt fence other

[09:45:00] stabilization before we go into it but to answer your question like this practically speaking there's a culvert already across the stream we've crossed it's been who knows when it's put in we have to get the county to approve the permit to use that area but just so you're aware it is very drivable across the terrain after a permit is received and i saw bart nodding his head yes just so everybody knows yeah thank you chair i have one more question please um i was honestly hoping someone else would ask this because i think it betrays how little i understand about

[09:45:35] how certain things work but help me out here several people implied that all this particular area uh the wells are often running dry and the groundwater is not stable if you can't get water out of any of your wells what do you do then i run some cattle across the property basically i mean the health department has a rule is i had to meet chief x number of gallons per minute tested for each unit so we would go out there and we'll spend a bunch of money drilling a well

[09:46:09] a class 2c i think is like a waterworks class well for a public water supply for this many residents and then we'll test it and we have to do a 48 hour drawdown test basically pump the well for 48 hours and determine how much it drops to confirm a sustainable flow basically that flow tells us how many units we can have if we can't achieve the required water flow for 50 units then we don't get to build 50 so what you're saying is you're you are confident enough to take the risk correct yes i do i did not drill a well out there so i do not know but i did enough steadying of the wells

[09:46:46] around and i have enough experience with hiring geologists who source like these high yield wells to believe that if i pay the right amount of money for the right professional they can find me one or two or three, actually. There will probably be three wells in total. So can I just ask a quick question?

[09:47:06] So you and your partner or your whoever, I don't remember the person's name, but anyway, are going to own, you all own the property. We do now currently, yes. Right. So do you have any immediate plans to sell it pretty quickly? I mean, what are you, I'm just, so if you sell it, what happens then?

[09:47:23] Well, first, I'm a build and hold type, but that doesn't mean that I couldn't sell. I should take that reality. So, basically, I could sell it. I could build it out and sell it. Whoever should buy it will be accountable to the proffers, basically, that have been laid out by us tonight for this project.

[09:47:43] And it was run with the land forever until you would decide to let someone change it if you ever did, as far as the affordability and so forth. I think I don't have any more questions. I mean, there was a comment made several times that you looked at other places or that this was the only place in the county.

[09:48:03] And, you know, we've got 695 square miles of rural area, let alone the 725 total. How did you make the decision on this particular property and why was it the location? Yeah, that's a great question. So for us to do this without any kind of subsidy, our capped land price can't go over about $10,000 a unit.

[09:48:29] That's the most we can pay. So if I went out, just for example, we've been looking ever since we brought this property to the county. And they said, hey, this is kind of a cool idea, but man, it's pretty far out. And that's 24 miles. I don't know if I agree with that far out. I commute 28 miles myself each way. But we've been on the lookout ever since for something like that, recognizing that it would be more ideal if it were closer.

[09:48:51] But the combination of the terrain, again, soils that work for the drain fields, access to water for a creek, to build a pond for fire suppression, and then also just the price. So there's a 63-acre piece for sale over in western Albemarle County, kind of the Batesville-Afton area.

[09:49:09] I think it's like $1.7 million or something like that. And so that immediately is, if I'm at one unit per acre, above the price we can pay for it. And the price is not wrong because you could divide that up into smaller lots. I don't know if that's maybe as easements on it, but let's say if I had that land, I could divide it into eight lots at probably $300,000 to $700,000 a piece.

[09:49:31] So you would build that. This is why I say this may be the only time I come to you because I don't know how many parcels we can find like this because the market value to buy a property and subdivide it into two-acre lots and sell a $1.3 million house is more than the value of buildings affordable housing from a dirt standpoint. So that's how we arrived at it was simply in our searching. That's all we could find. We couldn't find anything different between then and now. With that, I will close the public hearing.

[09:50:08] Thank you. This public hearing, this matter is back before the board. There's more public hearings. matter is back before the board um the staff has a recommended motion um i i know the order well i think you're going to put it up probably but uh the order is that i speak last but it is my district and i intend to make the staff's recommended motion but i want people to um

[09:50:46] certainly have the chance to talk about their thinking on it and i will give you my thinking on it as well but with that i will go back through our order now for our discussion um supervisor ma'am thank you i will be supporting staff's recommended motion as well i am very concerned about many aspects as you can tell from my questions but also that it is not a slam dunk that it is a benefit for the residents because of the cost of the unit plus the almost as much

[09:51:23] cost for the unit to put it in place, in which case then you can't necessarily remove it and go to some other place. And all the time, the equity is not coming to the person who owns the unit.

[09:51:39] That is actually a depreciable unit, which cannot be financed in the same way. So I think it creates a situation that is, I think, putting vulnerable people in a really big trap. And so of where I am. Thank you. Supervisor Pruitt. I don't want to make light of how incredibly challenging this is as a matter. I think this is probably the hardest vote personally that I've

[09:52:15] encountered. I want to just lay out from my perspective probably the two biggest issues I have with it first. First is it is I think abundantly clear as we work through this that we have not adequately contemplated mobile home parks in the comprehensive plan and in our own zoning code frankly um our comprehensive plan does not seem to entertain the fact that this could ever happen or be proposed and in doing so we have not really established limiting factors um i do

[09:52:51] personally hate the argument of oh if you approve this you functionally approved everything but the the point isn't lost on me that um we have treated this historically as a bright line um uh up zoning in the rural area for residential purposes is a bright line that this board recognizes and we would be crossing a rubicon on that uh bright line with the approval of this and so i i want to just point that out right we have not created a framework for this board to allow rural mobile

[09:53:25] home parks full stop right that framework does not exist uh you cannot retain a rural area designation you cannot be in the rural area and have a mobile home park without rezoning it and crossing that rubicon i see that as kind of a fundamental like um foresight failure on the part of this this board um which is easy for me to say because i wasn't here when we made the last comprehensive plan sure um but that that's a serious concern uh we also uh we have gestured toward this, and we may have the opportunity to talk about it in more depth, depending on how

[09:54:00] relevant it is based on what we're about to decide. But it is pretty clear from the list of special exceptions that are going to be required that we have not adequately contemplated what the hell we even want to do with mobile homes, because the criteria that we currently have in our zoning code are quite onerous. We don't have mobile home-specific zoning districts.

[09:54:22] I've looked at, I believe it was Chesterfield, has like four or five different mobile home zoning districts based on different levels of amenities and standards and density and spacing. We don't do that. We don't have mobile home districts, period. That would be an important way to address a lot of the concerns we have.

[09:54:40] We just haven't freaking done it. So our own, I think, failure to anticipate and grapple with this problem creates a serious issue because it forces us into crossing the bright line. which is deeply serious. It is serious to upzone the rural area in any small portion.

[09:55:04] And additionally, I do think mobile home parks are inherently predatory. I'm sorry, Justin. I think you're doing good work here, but they are intrinsically predatory. They are one of the, any land lease model is inherently extractive and can be weaponized very easily. You have a So long as you are the owner, I feel a certain level of comfort, but there is nothing binding you to that.

[09:55:32] We do have proffers that are binding you for 30 years, for 30 years. But it is still deeply concerning, right? I could show you the incredible amount of research I've done on how dangerous land lease models can be.

[09:55:50] Those are the concerns I am weighing, and I take them all really seriously. I also, I've mentioned this recently, James River Outdoor, The Bateau, Ludie Bell, James River Boutique, James River River Runner, which is the rafting company, just sold.

[09:56:13] They're still open, but the others are all closed. Lumpkins closed about eight months before that, and they took Rodney the Rooster with it. This is, I know, terrible. Those are all businesses that have closed in Scottsville. And the first four of those were ones that have closed in the last 30 days.

[09:56:35] I might have that slightly off. It might be 60 days now. But Scottsville needs people. They need a sustainment population. And increasingly, the folks who are living in that area don't want to go into town, right, because they're increasingly the people who are buying the $1.3 million houses who might have better things to do with their time than go to Loody Bells.

[09:57:00] And so I do see an incredible need to increase the foot traffic in Scottsville and to increase the population who are actually able to work in these places and who are actually able to shop in these places because of the economic strata that they're fitting into. I think that's deeply important.

[09:57:16] And frankly, I found the statements from the public deeply persuasive today. I'm just going to say it. I normally come in with my mind mostly made up. This was some incredibly persuasive public comment that really got to me. I've said before from this board, from this dais, that there is a missing voice because they don't come out, specifically in the rural area, of working class folks, poor folks who have grown up country their whole life who do not engage with our government.

[09:57:46] And those folks normally want amenities, and they want somewhere to live. And we don't hear from them. The people who we hear from in the rural area are the people in the $1.3 million houses. We actually heard from some folks today, which was really cool. folks who came out at some amount of personal expense and some amount of distance, and they were really moving statements.

[09:58:09] I don't like it. I think I'm going to be supportive of the project and not of staff's proposal. Supervisor Lupisto-Curvin. For me, I think that this is a good idea but a bad location, and I think it goes to the rural versus the development area.

[09:58:37] And we as a board have said we're not going to increase the development area. I do believe that in the development areas that, oh, yeah, I do believe in the development areas there are places for mobile home parks. We're not saying no to mobile home parks.

[09:58:54] If the developers don't want to build in the development area a mobile home park, because we have had some before. In fact, just a couple years ago, the RST project was a mobile home park prior, before it was RST.

[09:59:14] Once again, we've decided not to enlarge the development area. This project, it's one thing that it's not supported by staff nor the Planning Commission, although I feel I make up my own mind, and I'm just concerned about the water.

[09:59:31] I'm concerned about the fact that the people that would be living there would not own the land. I do believe that we need more affordable housing. I definitely believe in that. But we have to make sure where we're putting it.

[09:59:48] I think there's places in the development area, but we as a board need to choose to go higher and denser in the development area to provide for affordable housing. So I will be recommending denial.

[10:00:06] Supervisor McKeel. Yeah, I understand the complexity of this, but I'm certainly in favor of the development. I think I probably won't be able to sleep tonight if we deny this because of the folks that we've heard from today who desperately need a place to live.

[10:00:30] And I am willing to give Justin a chance at this. If there is no water, he's not going to be able to do it. If he can get the septic, he's not going to be able to do it. And I do not think that there's a 30-year limit on the proffers, but is that right?

[10:00:53] There is a 30? I thought it was more than that. It's correct. It's a 30-year term. But that still doesn't change my mind. I just feel like we have got to start doing something different. We've been doing the same thing for the last 12 years that I've been on this board, And the affordable housing situation has gotten worse and worse and worse.

[10:01:14] And I'm really ready to draw a line in the sand here and say I'm ready to do something different. And I do appreciate the fact that this is an unusual site. We are not setting any precedent for anything.

[10:01:32] But this is a site where we can get some affordable housing for folks. And it's not going to happen in the development area because the development area property is too expensive. They're not going to be able to do this in the development area, period.

[10:01:48] I do agree that we have been – one of the reasons why I'm going to support this is because for the last 12 years, we have not gotten our act together to be able to create a development like this. I am embarrassed that Chesterfield has four districts.

[10:02:07] I think they have an affordable housing problem, too. But that's a whole other – so I am very supportive of this. I understand why staff gave the recommendations they did. We're here to overrule staff if we disagree.

[10:02:24] They had very good reasons why they had to do that because they were locked into certain things that they had to agree to. We can make some judgments about what is right in specific situations. That's our role, and I'm saying that I do not agree with staff on this, much as I appreciate your hard work, and I will be supporting this project.

[10:02:46] Supervisor Galloway. Yeah, I appreciate all the remarks, and I appreciate that, you know, just like many upzonings that we've all had to deal with, they're never easy decisions to make. It comes down to impacts, and, you know, often if they can be mitigated or not, I think a couple of the comments just said, you know, like, this just isn't the right place for this type of project.

[10:03:20] and not using Justin's argument. This decision is this place or no place in our county. I'll tell you why. The reason why mobile home parks can't exist in the development area, a big reason why, if they connect to water and sewer, each unit you've got to pay the connection fee for it.

[10:03:44] And in addition to a lot of the other costs in the development area, it's just right there, stop, full stop. We've already talked about this with the folks that have owned and operated mobile home parks that currently exist that no longer exist and will get redeveloped.

[10:04:00] It used to be that you could pay one connection fee and get multiple units for it. That's just not the case anymore. So we're basically in Albemarle County, I feel, saying that we have no, denying this says we have no place for this type of thing to exist in our county. I think that's wrong.

[10:04:16] You know, I have heard a lot of concerns about, well, you have to own the land to have homeownership. All the density we're pushing into the development area is all rental. Holy cow, we just approved one up where RST was supposed to be that may have some home ownership in it.

[10:04:32] I think that with the exception of what, or that they are suggesting does it need to be subsidized where all the other ones are subsidized in some way. You know, I mean, it's not, and it's not lost on me that what else have we allowed in the rural area that's really out of context and character that I voted for?

[10:04:56] We had three homes, like the three or four homes that border this property. They got bought up for four or five times the value of it. And we put a big electronic transformation station there. This would house 50 people that gives us somewhere between rental and home ownership that provides another option.

[10:05:15] And frankly, sometimes, you know, I always like to kid sometimes to folks, especially if I'm campaigning for something, that not only am I a politician, but I've been in the car business, so now I'm a car salesperson too. So if I can just go to law school, I get the trifecta. But the thought is there are certain circumstances that folks find themselves in where their options are incredibly limited.

[10:05:43] But my, you know, you can't allow your own good intentions or well intentions restrict their choices of what they want to do. All right. This provides an option that doesn't currently exist, that could be a stepping stone to a home ownership situation or at least the rebuilding of a situation, that the next decision doesn't have to be dictated to you.

[10:06:09] And I, for one, am getting a little bit troubled by the fact that we're only allowing a certain type of profile to be able to build and to purchase land and build a new home in this county in 95% of the area.

[10:06:25] We can't allow 50 units in the development area. We've been talking about it the whole comprehensive plan. It's not dense enough. We're going to do a scorecard that shows us that if we don't approve the maximum re-density, how we're eventually going to not have a successfully utilized development area, then we're really up against it in the rural area.

[10:06:47] And I don't say all of this out of lack of empathy for those that live there, because this would change what it looks like and the impacts would be greater. But one of the speakers did say you can't decide on this for no good reason.

[10:07:05] Well, I have a good reason, in my opinion. You know, getting some of this type of population that could be younger or could trend younger, I'm not even necessarily convinced that it would all be younger based on learning who needs the affordable housing.

[10:07:26] But when we think of our rural areas, and the comment was made like, well, we'll have to go professional, and if we keep adding folks, but we're not putting any new young population necessarily into the rural area at any real significance, which, you know, we don't have a volunteerism issue at our fire department on Burkmar.

[10:07:44] Well, there's a lot of people, Ned. There's a lot of people there. Well, you need some people to get enough volunteers to do it, or else you will age out. So I think that this is worthy of consideration. I respectfully disagree with the fact or the notion, as I have in the past in similar situations, where just because we approve one automatically means that we approve two, three, and four, or whatever.

[10:08:10] But there's just, you know, this has been a concern of mine. I appreciate the applications forward. I think it provides a type of unit and housing stock and fulfills a need, and I think it backs up my statements that I've said working on the comprehensive plan where if we don't figure out a way that the rural area can help solve affordable housing then we're not going to be able to move the needle and help solve affordable housing 50 units i think is something that can be accepted and is an acceptable piece i don't consider 50 units as sprawl or

[10:08:47] opening up the floodgates into the rural area of all this development so i'm sure there are other points here that i want to make i was going to go through each of the items but i think my questions earlier about the schools fire i think my my points of view are probably clear based on my my questioning there but i you know just because i have the microphone at the moment i would appreciate that if we're going to use things like vehicle cost and things to try to dictate whether or not it's going to be recommended or not i think that needs to be given some more careful thought

[10:09:22] than it necessarily was here because these the folks that the profile that would live here are already doing that but at least they'd live in our county and they're not in waynesboro or stanton and they can live and work work here in our boundaries because i'm i'm frankly getting more and more uh concerned of having to look people in the eye we've already pushed a certain segment out so we're starting to push out another segment and i truly believe that and this at least shows a little bit of a stopgap uh to that concern thank you thank you a lot of different directions i can

[10:10:00] go. There was a comment about the age and age of the people in these. My father, at the end of his life, lived in a mobile home. He built no equity by doing so. That's where he lived. My grandfather, when he was older, lived in a mobile home. So I don't think this is necessarily an opportunity for young people. It varies who's in there. But in any case, they didn't really build equity by doing this. I don't have a problem directly with mobile homes. I do have a problem that

[10:10:34] we have a comprehensive plan, and our mode of operation is that the comprehensive plan leads to rezoning. So as we are brought applications for rezoning, we look and see if it's consistent with a comprehensive plan, and then we decide whether we're going to approve that rezoning or not considering all the different factors in this case i feel a lot like this project is something that's come out of out of the the interest of the developer in doing it and you know obviously helps with an affordable housing issue that we have in one way but when i look at the housing album

[10:11:13] moral uh plan that has been approved by this board it talks about uh you know wanting to make sure that it's low priority and not feasible to do transit to the rural areas, that we preserve and maintain the county's aging housing stock in existing communities, but environmental sustainability is supported by locating new development in the development areas, close to employment opportunities, et cetera, et cetera.

[10:11:38] We've got the housing album, we've got the comp plan. These all lay out reasons why we've thought this through and said, this is not the direction that we were choosing to go so now someone's brought a proposal before us and yeah there's a tremendous need for affordable housing and i hope we do not wait 12 more years or whatever we start to address it we may need to consider for example rules regarding where manufactured homes can be placed because i do think that there's evidence that manufactured homes aren't necessarily the

[10:12:16] mobile homes of the past and that there may be ways of of making a home modular uh off-site that can make it much more affordable to build and and i i think it's kind of a straw man argument to start picking on somebody because they built a 1.3 million dollar house in the rural area that that's the only thing that can be put there we've heard examples tonight of of more modest houses in the rural area it's just a question of you know is that what the person who's there able to do If there are impediments to our having certain kinds of houses, then we should talk about that.

[10:12:54] But I'd rather have us talk about these issues and have some coherent way of having heard the staff think it through, help give us some sense of what are the pros and cons before we just launch into approving a project because it's before us, but it isn't really consistent with anything that we've planned to do in the past.

[10:13:20] So without really feeling like the comprehensive plan has been attended to, that the housing album model has reflected this, that we've considered what is available to us for manufactured housing and other options that might fit into this, I can't be supportive.

[10:13:41] It just feels too ad hoc. Supervisor Malek. To clarify, one thing to just make sure that it was clear that the only thing that I was concerned about was the financing benefits that people would not get.

[10:13:58] I was not making any illusion. I want to make sure that's how it understands. I am not making an illusion about anybody living in a certain kind of house as not being the American dream or whatever. That is not what I was talking about. But I think I don't want to put people in a vulnerable situation where they're making a lot of money for somebody else and they have no access to any kind of asset building for themselves.

[10:14:21] The other thing is let's think about when we're doing this that there are ways the county can support tie-in fees and things that are causing impediments to be able to have these smaller houses and smaller lots. That is another way to go about it.

[10:14:39] Thank you. And thank you for reminding me that I just wanted to make the comment that I see a difference between rental and this in that there's a certain amount of inertia if someone decides that they're going to make a commitment to live in this situation, they're going to have to buy their mobile home and they're probably going to have to buy it on credit and make a commitment to that.

[10:15:06] Now, it's not to say that it's not sellable, but it's very different from a year-to-year lease where you really do have a lot more flexibility in a rental as to how you want to choose your next year, your future, whereas this is a kind of a commitment.

[10:15:22] So I don't think it's really easy to say, oh, well, you know, this is a lot better than renting. Go ahead. I will tell you what's driving me crazy is I know what we all, I feel I know what we all want.

[10:15:37] We want affordable housing. We want different housing types. but we've got these the old comprehensive plan we're going into the new comprehensive plan but it would be nice to be able to just have maybe a work session on what do we want and then with this find out where can we put it I mean we heard from one of the nice people in the audience tonight that they said he said that you know a one bedroom house was or excuse me one one bedroom

[10:16:11] apartment a house wasn't that much difference in price than a two-bedroom so I mean there's things like little you know tiny homes there's things like mobile manufactured homes there's different types of affordability that we could offer but I think it needs to be strategic we need to look out where we can place it and as a board make that decision and ask staff to come up with some recommendations but we ourselves need to agree with what we have now we're not doing that so

[10:16:46] enough said i mean i i'm gonna if we still have more discussion but i'm going to move to recommend that the board adopt a resolution found in attachment d of the transmittal summary denied agency on May 2023-17 Chessmet Grove Manufactured Home Park for the reasons stated in the staff report. Second. And we have a second from Supervisor Malik. Is there further discussion?

[10:17:15] Go ahead. No, I just process-wise we do this first and then we do the other one. Yeah, we do this first and then we'll move on from there. Well, then without any further objection, if the clerk will call the roll. Ms. Lapista-Kirtley? Aye. Ms. Malik? Yes. Ms. McKeel? No. Mr. Pruitt? Nay. Mr. Andrews?

[10:17:35] Yes. Mr. Galloway? No on the motion to deny. So we have a 3-3, which is a no on the motion to deny. If someone wants to make a motion to approve, that's possible, but I suspect it'll be a 3-3.

[10:17:51] So I would recommend that just to clarify the record, and I've just sent out a proposed ordinance to approve. If any board member wishes to make a motion supporting an ordinance to approve, I've just provided that. Thank you. All right, Andy.

[10:18:16] Help me, point me to the magic words I'm supposed to say. Is it the text of the board? It would just be I move to approve, I move that the board adopt the ordinance to approve the Chestnut Grove zoning map amendment. I would like to move that the board approve the motion for the Chestnut Grove map amendment.

[10:18:34] Second. The ordinance to approve. I would like to move that the board approve. Adopt the ordinance. Adopt the ordinance to approve the Chestnut Grove map amendment. Thank you. It's late, y'all. We have a motion from Supervisor Pruitt, a second from Supervisor McKeel, without objection if the clerk will call the roll.

[10:18:51] Ms. LaPiesto-Kirtley? Nay. Ms. Malik? No. Ms. McKeel? Yes. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Mr. Andrews? No. Mr. Galloway? Yes. So both motions have failed.

[10:19:10] The next step in this... So therefore the rezoning has failed, the rezoning application has failed, so then the next step would be to entertain and hold the public hearing on the special use permit. All right. So with that, you have slides on this, and I will open up the public hearing for the special use permit.

[10:19:35] Yes, once again. I'm not sure how this works without rezoning. Yeah, and I will cover that real quick for you. So the applicant has requested the special use permit for the 50-unit manufactured home, which is permitted in an R4 residential district.

[10:19:52] Therefore, because of the motion to deny the rezoning to an R4, this is not going to be able to be approved, but it does require a vote from the Board of Supervisors. We did consider the factors if this was approved, but still the staff did recommend denial.

[10:20:11] I'm happy to take any questions before you open the public hearing. The question, I guess, is just procedurally, I just want to understand what it is we can have a public hearing on it and discuss it, which is fine, but then when we make a motion, I'm not sure how this...

[10:20:37] The motion would be the same motion you would have for denial, yes. Okay. So I will open the public hand and first ask the applicant to come and speak to this.

[10:20:56] Is this your opportunity to speak? Thank you. Yes, it is late. I won't take long. I'm disappointed in the outcome, the last vote. I just want to really make it clear I'm in this business. I do development plans for people.

[10:21:11] You cannot build this product in the development area. You would have to, someone would have to give you the land and you would do it with zero, there's no economic incentive or possibility of it happening. It cannot be done because the density, you can't stack these units, you know, 10 stories tall.

[10:21:32] The only way you justify the price of land development area is the density, the 30 or 40 units an acre, not one unit an acre. i cannot give somebody an affordable house in like any kind of small home like this that they can buy or they can rent on a 6 000 square foot lot development area cannot be done i said i gotta say that for the record and people may disagree with that but i just tell you i do this all the time i work for all developers in town no one could do it and that's why we came out to where we did um we'll rethink what we can you know do i'm not gonna give up on the idea of building

[10:22:10] affordable housing in the rural area because I see no other way to achieve what you're trying to do without doing it and I wish that the board would have given this a chance and maybe I don't know maybe over the days somebody could reconsider I don't know if you all would or not understand your positions but this is a once in 18 months process to find a spot we might be to do this and there are 50 families that won't have this opportunity without that being approved so I'm disappointed but I understand you all are sometimes and I respect your opinions but I do really wish you would reconsider or have to consider differently because simply I can't

[10:22:49] build this anywhere else. Thank you. Thank you. We have some people to speak. Yes three minutes please identify yourself again. My name is Alan Herndon and we don't the public had already spoke on this thing. I don't know anybody that would say it was okay all y'all's rules say it's not okay to do this in Almoor County. Almoor County come up with 21 acres busted up at Lone Oak Farm there. Again, I use that for reference, 11 lots on 1100 and some acres right here. And he's talking

[10:23:23] about putting 50 mobile homes on 15 acres and using 50 acres and calling it 50 acres, one mobile home per lot. You can't use that land there. I just told y'all that. If any of y'all go out there and walk over that land, you take somebody with you because it's steep. Everybody knows that.

[10:23:40] there's no water up there but at the end of the day he's wrong and there again i want to tell you one more thing i forgot about earlier he didn't show you a picture of a mobile home he showed you a picture of a regular conventional stick built home i'm glad you you spoke on that miss ann because he's totally wrong and this whole thing should never been close to approved and i don't know how you have a special use hearing on something that ain't even been approved by the people before y'all much less y'all that's all i gotta say i gotta thank you are there any

[10:24:09] other people to speak at the public hearing on this would you like any further time oh we have one more person who's excuse me just one more person yeah just very quick um i think uh i think it's uh kind of paternalistic to say well you're not building equity here you can't you shouldn't we shouldn't approve this because the reality is the only place any of the people you're talking about could build equity is going to be in another county or perhaps farther away than that they have

[10:24:44] to weigh it against their interests and where their job is and everything else um i would say i thought that i didn't really understand the proverbs but i thought that maybe the developer could provide some greater assurance that the park isn't going to be if it's sold out from under them that they're that is there a way to stop it from jacking up the the land rate is there a way to provide some some kind of guarantee of stability on that and that's that's an open question in my head and i'd urge the developer to address it thank you now you have justin i think we're there

[10:25:16] yeah i just i'm just not gonna repeat my statement again this is you know i've been on this land i you've seen many many projects i've done many many site plans we most certainly can build this project on this property i don't know how anyone would say you could not if you if you if you challenge my experience in this we do it all the time my land i own it i've been on it it's billable so i know that's not a decision that's not it's not affecting your decision but i feel like i need to correct the record on that so i appreciate the time to do that and

[10:25:54] i would just leave out there i think the board could reconsider this within a period of time and if anyone wanted to contact me and say well if this could be done differently we could reconsider it i'm happy to i'm happy to try to work with folks to do that i am not this is not my way of the highway there has to be to do this successfully if there's some other ideas to make that happen i'm certainly up for it thank you uh that i will close the public hearing and uh i i'm just going to go ahead and at this point move to recommend the board adopt the resolution found an

[10:26:32] attachment e of the transmittal summary to deny sp 2023 20 chestnut grove manufactured home park for the reasons stated in the staff report second and there's a second but now open for any further comment by the board? I do. So, I mean, I was obviously in favor of the prior, but I don't understand how I could vote yes for this. So I think I just wanted to say that out loud because I think a consistent vote here just makes sense because you can't vote. That's correct. It would be inconsistent to grant a special use permit for a zoning classification that does not exist on

[10:27:10] this property. So I think everybody here would be, it would seem to me that you'd have to be a yes here regardless of what you felt about the prior vote. You mean I can't even make a no. A protest? You can do whatever you want. It's your vote. It seems like to me I'd like to make a protest vote.

[10:27:26] All right. If I could just make a closing comment on this because it's on my mind. It's been brought up several times. I meant to mention this earlier but if we are concerned as I think several members of the board are on both sides of this aisle and several people from the audience on both sides of the aisle brought this up. If we're concerned about the intrinsically predatory nature of mobile home parks and land lease ownership in this context, I would say then we should be pushing every year for strengthened TOPA laws, because the current

[10:27:58] one is weak, and rent stabilization, right? Rent stabilization is demanded acutely in this context because it is able to prevent the displacement of elderly people who cannot afford to move their homes it was something i worked on in southern california where it's a severe problem so i mean if this is a concern that this board sincerely believes in and is concerned about then we should be pushing our delegation for rent stabilization especially in this context which we didn't so i would just raise that to the board also just as a final when i'm sitting in this capacity i'm

[10:28:35] sitting in a legislative capacity at all times and we've had we've gone through this right we've had people challenge us on this uh suggesting we sit in quasi-judicial capacity and we don't right um i recognize that we are supposed to be guided by the the comprehensive plan and that is supposed to shape our thinking and i do appreciate chair that you raise some serious like procedural concerns with this but i view these things as original issues of first impression every time right and maybe we need to have a serious like conversation collectively at our next annual uh

[10:29:13] board work retreat thank you it's late um about really how we do approach this when we do potentially conflict with our own past guidance because i don't want to feel like i'm beholden to dead hand guidance of what board 10 years ago decided which is the position i felt today yeah thank you for giving me the floor for a second i understand um i think that we have a motion and a Second from Supervisor Malek, and without objection, the clerk will call the roll.

[10:29:47] Ms. Lepisto-Kirtley? Aye. Ms. Malek? Yes. Ms. McKeel? No. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Mr. Andrews? Yes. Mr. Galloway? Yes. Thank you. And that brings us to the special exception, and I would propose to make a similar motion if that's appropriate.

[10:30:09] And just by way of procedure, the special exception would be an action item. Special exception does not require a public hearing, but it would be an action item. For brief presentation by staff and any discussion of the board. Thank you Yes, these are related to a mobile home park that we have not approved so We really can't move forward with this. So if there's any questions, I'm happy to take them But we did recommend denial of of these because we did not recommend approval of the others. So Like I said, I'm time to take questions, but we can't really approve these at this point.

[10:30:47] So no motion is necessary at this point? There would be a motion to adopt attachment F. Okay, so I move to recommend the board adopt a resolution found on attachment F of the transmittal summary to deny special exception 2023-41 Chestnut Grove Manufactured Home Park for the reasons stated in the staff report.

[10:31:06] Second. And a second from 2 Provisor Malek. Without objection, if the clerk will call the roll. Ms. LaPee-Stoker, aye. Ms. Malek? Yes. Ms. McKeel?

[10:31:26] That was an aye. That was an aye. Mr. Krewett? starting thinking about abstaining. Mr. Andrews? Aye. Mr. Galloway? Yes. Thank you. Thank you all for your patience with us in this process. It's been a long evening. Board, this brings us to from the board committee reports and matters not listed on the agenda. We'll go through our order. Supervisor

[10:32:00] malik i will send an email around to everybody to what i was going to say tonight about do not pay lists and um communication yeah two issues and we can talk about them next time good thank you supervisor prove i'm nothing supervisor lupista currently supervisor mccue nothing thank you supervisor callaway yeah i need to call one thing out well i guess kevin jody and and i've already mentioned this to Mr. Richardson. We did not get good news at the MPO relative to SmartScale

[10:32:37] and what could be our future was SmartScale. This is an asteroid heading for RCIP, if I ever saw one. To the tune of, you know, 20, 50 million dollar projects, this is my takeaway, might be all that gets approved. And we probably had, what, I think four, three or four of our projects were north of 100 million and vdot suggesting that localities will have to start to buy down those projects oh okay 50 million dollars 60 million dollars how much is our elementary schools that we're building

[10:33:09] so if we don't if the two things i'd bring up for staff to ask because jessica did sit through the whole mpo meeting you know i'm just doing i'm reacting to it to what we heard so one i need to make sure my reaction based on some snide comments i made in that meeting vdot wasn't correcting my understanding like i had gotten it wrong but if i did staff is going to have to help me help us under understand that based on what was said and what was delivered that day but um two we can't start funding 30 20 10 million dollar projects you know we've got a transportation

[10:33:48] leveraging project um if if that's really going to be the way of the future then we've got some planning to do for that um but two relative to our legislative agenda we need to start hitting our delegation at the state level to figure out how the hell to fund road projects in this state because what we're currently doing is not working and if they i mean we have a huge list of transportation priorities um you know the fifth street station ddi will never get done your green Breyer or Barracks Road won't get done. So that's something that I have to call out as a huge

[10:34:26] concern that this board needs to start thinking about and game planning on because if it's it's not just going to be all figure out how to put a smart scale application in in a better way so it scores out. These projects scored fine. It's just they're starting to suggest they're not going to start funding things unless they're in a 30 to 50 million dollar kind of range. So they want the localities to pick it up.

[10:34:47] Are they saying why? Well, this was the choice of the CTB members who have changed the focus of the way things were scored because they didn't like who got the bill, got the approvals, and so now we have a whole new regime. And my snarky comment to Sean Nelson from VDOT was, first we were told that the 118 project at $100 million was too big, so we made it small in sections. And then we were told it was too small and was going to have And so we're recombining things.

[10:35:15] They just can't make up their mind, and it was incredibly frustrating. So who's in the statehouse, who's in the legislature, all that matters. But at the end of the day, even previous smart scale, they need to figure out how to fund this stuff. There's too many communities in this commonwealth that need and have dire need for transportation projects that the localities cannot pay for.

[10:35:36] And it's contingent on or it's behooving for the state to figure out how to get it done. And I don't, you know, they can figure out what they want to call an attack. a fee i don't care but they've got the responsibility here and uh vaco and everybody needs to start reminding them of that as we go through this next cycle especially with the governor's race coming up i'm wondering annette i'm wondering why are they saying they don't have the money is that the reasoning or are they just they don't know they're confused as far as what they want to do yeah they don't have the money both and they're they're um you know they're

[10:36:14] They're saying that with all the other, you know, this reduced the amount of applications that came in, and they were suggesting that this saved them the money because they didn't have to process all these other applications. But at the end of the day, like I said, previous SmartScale, we didn't have, there wasn't a, I mean, the state has to figure out a better funding mechanism and raise the revenue to support road projects in the Commonwealth, period.

[10:36:36] Well, if you realize it, we haven't raised, in Virginia, we haven't raised a gas tax for 30 years. And it made it worse because they went to wholesale instead of what each of us pays at the pump, which was a huge reduction in revenue. Well, I mean, we have certain priorities that we talk about on the legislative agenda, but this is a big one that needs to be discussed and well-planned and well-thought, and people need to be aware of it.

[10:37:01] So, sorry to drop that on you at 11.40. We're getting a $200 refund. Yeah, we're getting a $200 refund. Keep that and put it in the VDOT. Well, do you have anything further from the county executive? Yes, sir. We're set with this. Thank you for sticking.

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