Coraggio Consulting
Albemarle County Board of Supervisors Regular Second Meeting, Wednesday, April 16, 2025

Date: Wednesday, April 16, 2025
Place: Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 5h 36m (video)
Official meeting video (Granicus): https://albemarle.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=1&clip_id=1328
Official agenda: https://albemarle.granicus.com/AgendaViewer.php?view_id=1&clip_id=1328

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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[00:00:01] Good afternoon. I'm pleased to call to order this meeting of the Appalachian County Board of Supervisors on the 16th of April at 1 p.m. in Lane Auditorium. I'd like to know at the desk we have Supervisor Mike Prod of the Scottsville District, Supervisor B. Lepisto-Curtley of the Ravenna District, Supervisor Diantha McKeel of the Jack Jewett District, Supervisor Ned Galloway of the Ryo District, Supervisor Ann Malick of the Whitehall District, and myself, Jim Andrews, representing the Samuel Miller District. A quorum is present. We're also joined here by our County Executive, Mr. Jeff Richardson, our county attorney, Mr. Andy Herrick, our clerk, Ms. Claudette Borgeson, and our senior deputy clerk, Travis Morris.

[00:00:39] Also, let me please welcome Albemarle County police officers present, Master Police Officer Jerry Schenck and Officer Caden Pater. We thank you for your service today, here, and every day on behalf of the presidents and citizens of Albemarle County. Very much appreciate it.

[00:00:54] If all present could now stand as you are able and join us in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag. the United States, and the republic on which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. And if you could now join us in a moment of silence.

[00:01:35] Board, our first item, as always, is the adoption of the final agenda, and I've heard no suggestions of possible changes. If none, if someone could make a motion to approve the final agenda? So moved. We have a motion from Supervisor Malek, second from Supervisor McKeel. Without objection for kirk will call the roll ms malik yes ms mckeel yes mr pruitt aye mr andrews yes mr mr galloway yes miss lapisto currently hi thank you uh board this brings us to uh item five

[00:02:13] which is brief announcements by board members with our order for today starting with supervisor galloway i do not have any announcements today then we turn to supervisor pruitt nothing at this time. And Supervisor McKeel. Yes, I just want to recognize and thank staff for participating and doing such a great job with my budget town hall on Monday evening. We had about, I think about 25 or 26 citizens at Journey Middle School, and I believe about 30 staff members, Jeff, if my

[00:02:49] recollection is great. And it was a great event, good questions, and folks were very pleased to be able to come and that we had the event for them to find out more about the budget. So, and that's all I have. Thank you very much. Supervisor Malek? Thank you. I appreciate also all of the citizens and staff who attended the Western Admiral High School meeting. A few smaller than we'd had in the past but it was a great turnout lots of good questions my reminder for the community and for

[00:03:22] the building today is that this friday april 18th at 11 will be the 58 59th rededication of the dog memorial vietnam memorial down down the road here at the mcintyre park corner and parking will be available in the field one goes in through the skate park for that event and hope to see people there thank you very much thank you supervisor lapisto kirtley yes and i also wanted to uh thank all those that turned out for the budget um budget town hall at north fork that was really nice staff

[00:03:58] did an outstanding job we had a really a lot of good questions from the public and um we i mean we do understand what they're everyone's going through with our proposed um tax hike tax rate hike. However, I think the majority of residents, they understand why we're doing what we're doing and I do appreciate that. Our job is to educate everybody and that's what we continuously try to do. Thank you. Thank you. And I have several announcements just to mention them because

[00:04:37] they're on our calendar. This Saturday is the Ravenna's Solid Waste Authority's household waste unwanted electronic devices collection and now this one may be full already but uh they're encouraging people to sign up in case people cancel if you have signed up and don't intend to make it please do cancel it so that someone can take that spot but that's uh this uh on april 19th and there'll be additional collection days for hazardous household waste april 25th and 26th 8 30 to 4 may 3rd for mattresses and furniture may 10th for appliances may 17th for tire

[00:05:12] collection. So there's a lot going on at the Ivy Material, I should say, Recycling Center. Solid Waste and Recycling Center. Thank you. Thank you. Renamed, but it's important. No more. Also, I first noticed that April 26th is Safe Disposal for Med's National Drug Take Back Day. And that's a pretty important day for people. If you have old medications you're not going to be taking, don't throw them down the drain or otherwise dispose them in the trash. Please take them to. In this case, there are four locations, 10 to 2, 5th Street Police Station, Wegmans, Sentara, Martha Jefferson's Outpatient Care Center, and the Crozet Family Practice

[00:05:52] Medicine at Park Ridge. Any of those will take those drugs back. And also, I just want to highlight that even though, you know, we've had some difficulties in keeping all the grants together and things, but the Resilient Together Community Design Nights will be held starting April 28th at Carver Rec, then May 12th at Stony Point Elementary, May 20th at Yancey Community Center, and May 29th at Greenwood Community Center.

[00:06:22] I think those would be great opportunities for conversation about how we can make ourselves more climate resilient. Are there any further announcements? Yes. Thank you for bringing up about the recycling for medications. I was very interested in reading that because it didn't dawn on me, probably did everybody, the rest of the world but it didn't dot on me that it's also regular medications that you have so it's not just prescription but it's you know any old tylenol or advil or whatever medications you have so thank you thank you board i believe there are no proclamations or recognitions so

[00:07:01] that brings us to item seven which is public comment on matters previously considered or currently pending before the board other than scheduled public hearings and we have a couple people signed up, so I'll turn it over to Vice Chairman Kielsen. We do. We have two people signed up, and there's no one online signed up. Both of the folks are in person and are very familiar with our process. So with that, I'm going to shorten the rules for engagement at this point

[00:07:33] and just simply say that individuals are allowed one opportunity of up to three minutes to speak at each board meeting. 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.

[00:07:50] The yellow light indicates you have one minute to finish speaking and the red light indicates your time has expired and you'll be asked to end your comments. All comments are live streamed, recorded and published on the Elmar County website. And with that, our first speaker is Gary Grant.

[00:08:13] Welcome. Thank you. Wish we had an easel. And you are going to need to adjust the mic, Gary. My name is Gary Grant, Ryo District.

[00:08:29] Turn the mic a little bit to the side. Oh, I've got to pull this here. Thank you. I should know that having been in radio for too many years. Gary Grant, Ryo District. Before I start my comments, I do want to say thank you to all the staff who were calm and competent at all six of the budget town hall meetings that I attended.

[00:08:50] Albemarle Government held seven budget town halls this spring. I attended six. I asked two questions, but I have a few more. Why is it that euphemisms like contributions and investments are replacing budget terms like expenses and expenditures?

[00:09:10] Why is it that supervisors and the county executive have difficulty saying the word raise? Why is it that supervisors and the county executive don't talk about the hold harmless or lowered tax rate for FY26, which is 81.3 cents by state law?

[00:09:32] Why is it that the county executive didn't use any slides about assessment increases, which would show a more honest and transparent calculation of the tax burden on property owners? Why is it that we didn't hear supervisors nor the county executive express empathy or at least sympathy to taxpayers for the increased tax burden from assessment increases and tax rate increase in the same year? Why is it that we haven't heard supervisors nor the county executive

[00:10:10] thank taxpayers for the money already being taken and for the even more that will be taken in FY26 with the unanimously approved 89.4 cent increased tax rate for public hearing.

[00:10:28] One last why question. Why is it that the Scottsville supervisor at the March 20th town hall boasted, If I were to describe the thing that Albemarle County does best, we are deeply professional.

[00:10:46] Are taxpayers to assume that his elite we also includes he? Finally, two when questions from the April 10th Town Hall. When can less deep but still equitable and resilient taxpayers examine the public records for the Rivanna Supervisors' personal check for 1,000-plus snow cones?

[00:11:13] And the Rio Supervisors' promised snow cones budget move? Or will such a silly bit of engagement first require an FOIA question? Thank you. Thank you, Gary.

[00:11:32] Our next speaker is Neil Williamson. Welcome, Ms. Justin. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Neil Williamson, and I serve as president of the Free Enterprise Forum, a privately funded public policy organization focused on Central Virginia's local governments.

[00:11:55] It's hard to believe after nearly four years of work, There's a typo in the title of one of the AC44 comprehensive plan chapters that you'll be discussing later in your work session. Rather than a thriving chapter on economic development, the Free Enterprise Forum believes the proper title would be driving economy chapter.

[00:12:20] In yesterday's EDA meeting, Albemarle County Economic Development Director Emily Kilroy indicated that two days of intense focus groups with employer segments resulted in many consistent themes across industry sectors, including housing availability and housing affordability.

[00:12:38] And the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce State of Community event that many of you attended. Weldon Cooper's demographer, Hamilton Lombard, revealed that 40% of our region's workforce commute from outside the region. Just last meeting, Supervisor Diantha McKeel declared, we are Aspen.

[00:12:57] These are just three recent incidents pointing to the dire need for expansion of the Nixonian era development area boundaries. Continuing to restrict the majority of economic and residential activity to less than 5% of your landmass is short-sighted at best and planning malfeasance at worst.

[00:13:19] Albemarle County needs room to grow economically. Whether you realize it or not, attracting and retaining employers is a competitive effort. For years, other regional competitors have touted, but we're not Albemarle, as a slogan.

[00:13:35] Absent an increase in permitted supply, the projected demand will continue to drive all land prices up, pricing more workers, including teachers, firefighters, and police officers out of the region. The challenge with a comprehensive plan is just that, it is comprehensive.

[00:13:55] Everything relates to everything else, and by its very nature, it's political. The politics of change is hard, but the politics of no change is harder. If Albemarle County chooses to maintain its Nixonian era development boundaries, you will continue to need service workers, teachers, and public safety employees, and they will have to drive further to get to work.

[00:14:21] I am curious how this will impact absenteeism, employee retention, as well as the significant impacts of driving two hours every day. Like I said, everything relates to everything. It's your choice. Do you want a driving economy or a thriving economy?

[00:14:39] thanks for the opportunity to speak thank you thank you neil thank you uh board this brings us to item eight the consent agenda i have not heard any suggestions for anything to be pulled from it so i'm looking for a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved second we have a motion from supervisor mckeel second from supervisor malik without objection if the clerk will call the roll it's mallet yes miss mckeel yes mr pruitt hi mr andrews yes mr galloway yes miss lafista kirtley hi thank you uh board we have a couple of action items our first action item is a special

[00:15:16] exception 2025-5 3130 sugar hill lane homestay and this is being led by miss leah brumfeld senior planner two welcome miss brumfeld thank you chair andrews there we go all right so um as noted my name is leah brumfeld senior planner two in the zoning department and can you pull the mic a little

[00:15:53] bit closer yeah it may be my old ears and i'm having a hard time hearing it got scooted back a little bit there you go that's getting better thank you um and i am bringing to you today a special exception request for a homestay at 3130 sugar hill lane um this special exception is fairly straightforward it is a small space above the garage being used for use as a homestay the um

[00:16:19] Property is owned and occupied by the applicants, Stella and Albert Kim, and the special exception would be to County Code 18-5.1.48C22, which requires that homestays on large rural area properties be operated only within the primary dwelling or within an accessory structure built before 2019.

[00:16:41] The parcel in question is a 7.27-acre parcel. It is in the rural area. By right, an owner-occupied rural area parcel is permitted to have a homestay with up to five guest sleeping spaces. The guest sleeping spaces do need to be within a single-family dwelling or within an accessory structure built before August 7, 2019. Both the dwelling and the accessory structure, the garage, were built in 2023, so the applicants are requesting an exception to permit use of the accessory structure for their homestay. Looking at an aerial for the parcel, the parcel in its

[00:17:20] surrounding neighborhood, which is near Whitehall, North Crozet, parcels are very heavily forested and they're used primarily for residential uses. The Kim's parcel butts up against the Mormons River at the back and both the house and its accompanying garage and the parking and all the use on the parcel are not visible from any surrounding parcels. The property is accessed by a private driveway at the end of a private road. Here, looking at the parking and structures

[00:17:56] exhibit, the Kim's accessory structure, shown with the red star, is perpendicular to their home, and both the home and the garage create a surround around the large parking area, which does have ample parking. Kind of noting here a photo of the actual structure on the left and the dwelling on the right, the classification of the garage as an accessory structure is due to the lack of conditioned space between the primary dwelling and the garage. And that's just the way that we approach accessory structures. But the garage is attached to the dwelling through a

[00:18:35] breezeway. And summarizing this application, the applicants who own and occupy the parcel are requesting a use of an accessory structure for a homestay on a large rural area parcel.

[00:18:53] We received no negative feedback from neighbors regarding this application. One neighbor did call in asking about which property was the subject to the request. And when she was informed that applicants were the Kims, she said that they would be exemplary hosts and she had no concerns.

[00:19:13] Additionally, I want to note, if you look at the background of this photo, It does show that the space of the garage does not constitute a full dwelling. It has a sink and a mini fridge, and that is the extent of the kitchen spaces here.

[00:19:29] So I have no concerns about that as well. As such, staff does not believe that this homestay would create any adverse impacts to the surrounding neighborhood or general public health, self-safety, or welfare. The homestay use itself is by right in an accessory structure previously built to 2019.

[00:19:52] The use is considered consistent with the comprehensive plan as its accessory to the dwelling. The accessory structure being proposed for use is consistent with the size and type in the neighborhood.

[00:20:10] And as we've analyzed the use itself based on the property, the use in the greater context of the neighborhood, um staff does recommend approval for this application uh noted here is the recommended action and if there are any questions i will cede to the board thank you we'll go through our order beginning with supervisor galloway thank you i have no questions supervisor pruitt i have no questions supervisor mckeel no questions supervisor malik i don't have any questions either it's a

[00:20:42] good location nice and private uh and you're mentioning of the particular owners brought to my mind that because there's an annual as opposed to go the permission going more to them as opposed to going with the land because of the annual registration that has to happen so that do i have that correct um no so the the special exception does run with the land they need to re-register every year for safety inspections but we don't require a new owner to um to reapply for another

[00:21:18] special exception. They would need to get a new homestay clearance, and they would need to continue to get the safety inspections and the registry every year, which is just informing us of the contact information of whoever the primary contact is. If the application meets all of those requirements, then it is good to go. It is by right. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor LaPiesto-Kirtley?

[00:21:47] No questions. Thank you. And I have no questions, and I'm really supportive. I guess my understanding, of course, is that this could not be a dwelling. Could it be a rental, even though it isn't a dwelling, a long-term rental?

[00:22:03] I'm not sure on the building code requirements for a rental, but as far as zoning, we would not consider it a dwelling. I understand. Thank you. If there are any other comments, we're looking for a motion from the Whitehall District.

[00:22:20] Very good. i move that the board adopt the resolution for se 2025 5 31 30 sugar hill lane homestay attached to the staff report as attachment f second we have a motion from supervisor malik second from supervisor mikhiel without objection if the clerk will call the roll ms malik yes ms mikhiel yes mr pruitt hi mr andrews yes mr galloway yes miss lakista kirtley hi thank you thank you this brings us to item 10 old dominion village private central sewerage system it's an action

[00:22:55] item it's gregory mr gregory kristiniak civil engineer two welcome and mr oh excuse me good

[00:23:37] afternoon members of the board my name is greg kristiniak i'm a civil engineer two plan reviewer and engineering here today to present the old dominion development request for a central sewer system um the location is uh the east side of the cruz a master plan area on the north side of route 240 a good local landmark is the um old dominion um vet hospital out there so a little more detail on the location white hall uh district local address is 58 52 58 three notch um you could

[00:24:17] see on your screen in the corner there with park view and 240 is the um the vet building and then single-family home, which will be taken out. The property is zoned neighborhood model. Jurisdictional area is Almore County Service Authority, and it is in a water supply protection area. A little bit of history. Back in 2022, a couple of board actions set to stage. The first one was a zoning amendment, taking it from a rural area to neighborhood model, the max of 110 units and a

[00:24:54] non-residential unit for the vet. There was also an amendment to incorporate the two tax map parcels, 5667B and 5674A, into the jurisdictional area for Albuquerque County Service Authority. The existing conditions don't support anything except for what they have, the two drain fields for each business and residential, and the proposed system is a 111-unit connection components including gravity force main and two pump stations this as this is a central system county code

[00:25:34] chapter 16 calls to the definition of a central system is three or more connections so we do have that and requires public hearing and board action to approve the central system this is a little bit busy i'd like to the next couple of slides i'd just like to show you the system in the in the development. And this is a busy plan sheet, but I've colored in a couple of key colors. The dark green is the gravity. Light green is force main. And we have five branches of gravity that take out

[00:26:12] of the laterals and the connections of the individual homes. And they go up to the individual pump stations, pump station one and pump station two. And then from there, the lime green gets out through the development and then out off-site to the closest Albemarle County Authority sanitary sewers. The next slide is about 1,100 feet, just to show you that the off-site will require that forced main for about 1,100 feet to the closest manhole. Looking at some factors, favorable and unfavorable, it does support goal number three of the county strategic goals, infrastructure and

[00:26:52] placemaking. DEQ will be issuing the construction permit and be responsible for regulating the operation of the system. And then finally, it's not a smaller HOA. There is a maintenance cost burden that will get shared over 111 connections. Perhaps the one unfavorable is that the system would be privately maintained. I don't necessarily want to talk to any one of these, but these are

[00:27:23] The five proposed conditions staff recommends as part of the resolution to support the project and the central system. I don't know if there's any, we can go back over those if you have any questions. The last two highlight the commitments of the Property Owners Association to assume full responsibility for operating, maintaining, and doing annual documentation of the system.

[00:27:50] Before I conclude, I was or missed, we do have the engineer, Tim Miller, here, and I'm not sure if Couture made it. I don't know. But if you have any questions, and if not, I have a motion after this. Thank you. Thank you. We'll go through our order.

[00:28:06] Supervisor Galloway. Yes, thank you. Staff report and the review was pretty straightforward and clear. The only question I have, if you go back one slide, on the condition for that assume full responsibility, What's the actual, I guess, requirement on our end that they meet that?

[00:28:22] Are they just providing some sort of HOA covenant or bylaw that says that the community ownership must keep a certain reserve? I mean, they just say, yes, we are. What's the legal compliance here? My understanding, sir, and we can get that. Tim, I don't know if you could help answer that question, but when the HOA is developed and brought up and created, that should be part of that condition.

[00:28:45] And then item five is that there'll be a, like, like another prior approvals for central systems will mandate on an annual basis that they submit documentation. Okay. So I get that. I think I understand how the HOA will go about it. I guess what I'm asking is the requirement to us is just that annual, I mean, five sounds different than four.

[00:29:07] What says that the county, or what is our legal basis for saying they're required to assume full responsibility, and how do they legally commit that full responsibility to the county? What's the, is there a contract?

[00:29:23] Is there some sort of signed document that says they are responsible for it? Bart Swoboda, Bart Swoboda Deputy Director of Community Development, I think that statement's in there just to clarify that the county is not responsible, the permitting process through DEQ is how that will be handled. The permit will be issued to the HOA, to the entity that they create to do that. So that's how that's all covered. All right. I guess what I, at the end of the day, if, and I guess I'm thinking of examples where I don't remember clearly if they

[00:30:01] were full on HOAs or just community associations, but if they fail in their responsibility to maintain the system and then come knocking on other doors to handle the cost of repair or fix or whatever there should be something that is on our side that says no this is on you and you can't escape that way so you must do special assessment or whatever your bylaws or docs say um i mean i'd be satisfied with other things to get put in and we keep on file but that that just stating it

[00:30:36] doesn't sound like enough to prevent in 25 years them coming to the county and going whoops we didn't plan for proper i mean i'm not to the gentleman that's here i'm not trying to suggest they won't do it the right way i'm just trying to think of reducing the liability to us yeah mr herrick might be able help me out if i get this incorrect but i don't believe there's a mechanism or enabling legislation that allows us to bond the private utilities in a subdivision so so that that's correct and and um what condition four would do would require just up front that that agreement the county engineer could could certify to that but because this is not part of the zoning

[00:31:15] ordinance. Unfortunately, it could not be enforced as a zoning violation. It would not be something to which the county was a party. It would be something, again, that the county engineer could certify before it was approved of. But in terms of continuing enforcement, that would unfortunately not be available under the zoning ordinance. So the condition is simply us getting to check that box before it all gets started. Correct. All right. I understand. Thank you.

[00:31:39] Supervisor Pruitt. This might not be a question that staff has the ability to answer and might be better directed at the applicant but i'm curious if we uh know at this time how the deployment of this is going to be financed and delivered that defer to meridian civil survey could you we can't hear you and could you introduce yourself again please tim miller with meridian civil survey the design engineer um katura is on his way he's not quite here yet and i'm sorry i

[00:32:17] won't be able to answer the financing question uh he should be able to handle that when he gets here Okay. Thank you. I am familiar with the fact that there are basically specialized investment organizations that just do this. They deploy, they do outlays of capital for sewage infrastructure development for communities, and then they capture the loans for that, right? I would assume that the HOA probably doesn't have enough liquid capital to actually be able to deliver it. This is something I'm thinking about. I'm not sure this applies here because it looks like there is not an alternative

[00:32:55] to to a privately developed one but i i raise this to the board's attention just because i think it is it is prudent for us to always be thinking is there an extra party that doesn't need to be here who is making money because that is a a net loss on the public right um this is something i raise whenever we think about these kinds of additional costs that can arise in in hoa infrastructure. This is going to be a net loss to the public, whatever value that investment trust is capturing from their dividends. I don't know that there's an alternative, but I just want to

[00:33:32] point that out. That's all I have. Supervisor McKeel. I don't think I really have any questions. I'm glad Ned asked what he did because the reality is after 20 or 25, 30 years, we have all had, i imagine in our district at least i certainly have a breakdown of some of them bart's nodding his head yes so um just trying to figure out how it's not up to us i guess to create some

[00:34:09] notification for the people in this community so they are aware i mean i'm just asking bart what so normally that's done through um their covenants so they're required to give that document to them. It documents how they do maintenance, what the fees are, how that free structure is done. I imagine that to Supervisor Pruitt's point is that as part of the development, that will be built in probably to the cost of the lots to get it up and running. And then the maintenance will be done through that particular HOA or community. I think they actually have to

[00:34:46] create a business for that. Someone will own it. There was a discussion we had about a central well system not too long ago. I think it was either here or the PC, similar. And what the result of that was, this was to Supervisor McKeel's point, the system was 30 years old or so, but the neighborhood kind of bonded together and said, hey, we need water. We need this. We need to figure out how to do it. So they figured out how or who to get to hire, whether that's a contractor or do their own entity, to make that system meet requirements and stay viable for that

[00:35:24] community. And I understand why, but often they first come to us. Yeah, it is what it is, right? I get that. But you said something about, so it's in the contract, the covenant, and is that by law that they have to be, the people as they move in or as they buy the property? I believe so, not being a realtor. So I don't want to speak out of turn, but generally when you close on a house that has restrictive covenants, that is part of the package of the closing. Yeah. I was just

[00:35:56] curious. Oh, and I think perhaps the gentleman just arrived that we were waiting for. I'm through. That was all I had to ask. I'm going to turn back to Professor Pruitt. Do you want to ask your question again? You can ask your question again. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. I had had a question earlier if there were any details on how the project has actually got to be financed and capitalized. The project's going to be financed. I'm Kudora Rowell. Nice. Thank you. Move the mic a little bit. Thank you. Is that better? Yes. Yes. How's it going to be financed? Yep. It's a

[00:36:35] whole question. From a bank, the bank, First National Bank and down. Okay. So the HOA would be taking out the loan? Who's taking out the debt? No, the developer. The developer. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Malek. Thank you.

[00:36:50] Following up on that, I think the question was, who's going to finance the HOA covering all the maintenance costs of the private sewer? Yeah, I don't understand the question. I said, who would be financing the ongoing maintenance?

[00:37:12] The HOA will. And where are they supposed to get the money for hundreds of thousands of dollars of repair? From contributions from the 110 lots and the HOA fee. Okay. I'll wait for my turn. This is your turn. Oh, okay. Then I'll start. I'll come back to that in a second.

[00:37:30] When this came up for discussion for the rezoning, there was assurance that, oh, this would be fine, no risk, no problem. But now I see on slide five that there's gravity going north in that line that all these ones on the east side are going north, which means it's going downhill.

[00:37:55] So this is downhill slope to the stream for all these lots on the east side. Yes, ma'am. They all flow downhill to the main sewer. I'm not worried about the sewer. I'm worried about the fact that a major stream for Beaver Creek Reservoir is right there at the top of your map.

[00:38:15] And so this is all built in a drinking water watershed here. And this is a great concern to me and to the people who spoke at the public hearing, which was held during COVID and was really difficult to manage. What other alternatives are there to this privately maintained system?

[00:38:35] None. That's why we had to design this. We searched high and low for a gravity sewer line out. There isn't anything. Because we've dealt with this. Emerson Commons has a very few little lots, but they have a pump thing as well, but nowhere near the density or the output from 111 different units.

[00:38:57] So that's just a given concern for me. I guess, I don't know who would answer this. What sort of maintenance and inspection is going to be done on this on behalf of the HOA?

[00:39:13] How frequently? Because I consider this to be an extremely high risk location for failure. And if something fails, the whole drinking water system for the 12,000 people who already live in Crozet will be at risk. So I would like to know more details about how frequently this would happen.

[00:39:33] And if this is a county and DEQ question, then I'm glad to, I don't know who wants to answer that, but I would like to know. So as far as the systems maintenance, there are two pump station locations. They're designed by the engineer and constructed by a competent contractor.

[00:39:55] And then they have backup generators in case there's power failure just to keep them working. And then they get routine inspections that will be set up from the contractor that installed them. So the same contractor who puts them in will do the inspections? Yes, ma'am.

[00:40:11] Bart Sloboda, just so we know for the record that we switched speakers. DEQ, when they issue the permit, right, so that particular office will also monitor that permit to make sure that they are within those regulations. They'll come over from Harrisonburg on a regular basis to check on things.

[00:40:31] It's not as sophisticated or as cumbersome, let's put it that way instead, as cumbersome as, say, what we do for our own water and sewer treatment plants, right? But there are regulations that go with this type of facility.

[00:40:46] And I imagine our ACSA will also be interested in what's happening there because it is going into our system. So there'll be some coordination in what's going on. So some extra. Brandon Karakoff is the water guy in Harrisonburg, so I guess he would be involved with that.

[00:41:04] All right. So there's that question going down the list. Do we know what the annual maintenance cost is going to be for these inspections and things like that?

[00:41:20] I mean, we're talking about $10,000 a year. I wouldn't think not. They're due to operating for a long time. The development directly behind here is also on a pump station for that entire project. And it's been in operation for a number of years with no maintenance issues.

[00:41:42] What is the financial burden for the homeowners? That's what I'm trying to get at. The annual inspection burden that's going to be assigned, and then somehow they're also supposed to save a thousand dollars per unit per year to put into the, or something to put into their pot. The reason I'm being so determined about this is that whether it's private systems for water or maintenance of a neighborhood dam, when there was a dam that needed to be fixed and was told by the state to fix it in 2008, the community refused in 2018, it blew out and then had to be replaced for five times the cost it would have cost in 2008. It's a terrible situation in which to put people.

[00:42:21] And so I'm just trying to figure out where the documentation gets written down that a buyer into this should know ahead of time what their obligations are going to be. And so is that something that is put into the deed before the court documents, whatever the sale documents, just like you have to notify a buyer that there is an alternative ACSO, alternative offsite septic system.

[00:42:49] It took 10 years to get that required, but it is required to be notified now before a sale happens. So it seems like in this situation, the similar type of notification to a buyer would be reasonable and fair so that people have that knowledge before they go and get their mortgage and plunk themselves down.

[00:43:08] I agree 100%. They'll be notified about that condition. It'll be in the HOA documents. They'll review beforehand. If a pump has to be replaced, it's going to be $5,000 to $7,000 for removal of the pump.

[00:43:26] put a new one in. I know that from the cost of what's going in. The biggest cost is digging the hole, putting in the tank, setting up the generator, so on and so on. And we'll have hopefully gas there to run that on. Sorry, gas to run? Natural gas, hopefully. To run what? The generators as opposed to gasoline or diesel. Okay. And that would be coming out of the, there's no, is there piped gas there. Yes, ma'am. In the ground. Yeah, that's that large 50-foot wide easement on the

[00:44:02] left side of the screen. The dotted line. Okay. All right. Well, that's good because when the generators run out of fuel for every other utility, then after five hours, everybody's up a creek anyway. Exactly. That's a great solution. All right. I guess I will stop there.

[00:44:17] Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Lupita Kirtley. I'm basically familiar with this because we, where i live we have our own private um water and sewer and so it's everything is in the documents when you purchase the land it's all in the hoa documents any documents we buy that this is a private system that we are responsible for so we do pay monthly dues into the water and sewer

[00:44:49] is yours being is your water and sewer is that being treated and then pumped into um the our you know the county system or is it being treated on site the sewer yeah uh no it's goes to a grinder pump and it's pumped directly to the sewer up the road okay okay which is probably better hours we do ourselves so we have our own station you know cleaning up the water and everything like that so i am familiar with it pardon we have public water yeah okay public

[00:45:24] water got it okay and we have well water so um you know but that's something that it really is cleared up at least from my perspective uh before you purchase when you purchase the land you know it's all on the documents and everything but i have no other questions thank you thank you and most of my questions have been answered by excellent questions from the other supervisors on slide eight uh just to follow up on supervisor galloway's concerns if we could jump to that

[00:45:57] the conditions thank you uh and condition five must annually document compliance that's document compliance that goes to the county that's correct okay yeah uh but but then the operation and maintenance requirements maybe those of the state and and they'll have their documentation as well but we'll have some notice of yes anything that's not been done if there's anything starting to go wrong and the only other concern that i had after hearing the comments and i think it's okay is that i know in connection with private water there have been issues finding maintenance appropriate maintenance uh people who are willing to do it contractors who were willing to do it but this

[00:46:35] sounds like this sort of a system is a little more common and and available for for maintenance so yes sir uh thank you i have no other questions if there are no other questions and this is in the white hall district very good well i will count on the assurances of all of you greg and board thank you very much and um i move to adopt the resolution attached to the staff report as attachment d second we have a motion from supervisor malik second from supervisor limpisto currently without objection for her we'll call the roll is malik yes miss mckeel yes mr pruitt

[00:47:13] hi mr andrews yes mr galloway yes mr pisto currently hi thank you thank you thank you thank thank you board we're a little early here and we had scheduled a recess at 2 30 but it's not even not even 150 but i think we're not quite ready to go so we should take that recess now if that's

[00:47:39] all right whatever you say okay uh 15 minutes we'll be back to do our ac44 work session welcome back board most of our will be spent now in a work session combined ac44 discussion on draft chapters on thriving economy and community facilities and infrastructure, all led by Mr. David Benish, development process manager, assisted by Mr. Michael Barnes, director of

[00:48:17] planning. Welcome. I'll let you take it away and then we'll break it up into appropriate segments for discussion. Okay, great. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And yes, David Benish, development process manager with community development department. We do have two presentations for you in essentially two work sessions or two sections of this work session um we'll begin with going over the thriving economy chapter uh we'll be looking for your feedback the amount of time we have a lot it will allow us about up to 60 minutes per item area and then we will once we

[00:48:52] complete the thriving economy we'll go through the community facilities um chapter again having in about 45 to 16 minutes we hope to cover these items for the thriving economy the agenda for this is to go over the summary of the planning commission and board's previous feedback and the community themes that we heard early in the process do a real basic chapter overview summarize comments from the planning commission and this was also reviewed by the economic

[00:49:27] Development Authority so we have a few comments from them as well uh we'll quickly go over the update uh the upcoming schedule for you and uh finish up with our discussion of this section uh we do not have any specific questions for you here so as we go through it at the end and get your feedback we'll just be going through the objectives and actions in sequence the feedback that we heard from the planning commission the board of supervisors regarding

[00:50:01] a thriving economy is to address the readiness and availability of land for target industries and to retain the industrial designations and zoning that we have currently in our comp plan and related zoning to focus in on providing for more tier and tier four and tier five sites including infrastructure for those tier four and tier five sites or more of a short-term

[00:50:32] inventory of lands that are available to provide for business location opportunities to address cost barriers to small businesses and to support small businesses, and also address those cost barriers and support for employees, and to focus in on workforce development and training, excuse me, and economic opportunities, strategic economic opportunities in the rural area that

[00:51:08] are consistent with our growth management policy. Our community themes that we heard was a desire for having career ladder job opportunities focused in on some of those industries that we defined as our target industries and to attract new jobs in general and again to support business small businesses and entrepreneurs by providing startup startup spaces there was discussion and identification of artisan and craft businesses having an

[00:51:42] an important role, and to reduce restrictions for low-impact home occupations to allow those kind of businesses as small startups to better be located and started.

[00:52:00] Land and infrastructure needs was a common theme that we heard. Again, business locations and adequate infrastructure to try to focus in on infill and adaptive reuse to address that demand and need and to streamline the development review process to facilitate the use and redevelopment and development of lands and businesses in the area and to support local workforce development again jobs and technical training and doing that through partnerships with local colleges and

[00:52:33] vocational schools and providing or allowing for encouraging support services that can serve both employers and employees. Specifically noted, often noted, was child care, transportation, and as we all know, affordable housing. Chapter overview. In developing this chapter, I think we recognize that achieving a thriving economy is something that is supported through many of our chapters. And a lot of the recommendations and actions, not just in this

[00:53:09] chapter but other chapters serve to provide for and help to create a thriving economy that economic development efforts specifically by the county are have been guided by and are intended to support our comp plan that is our growth management policy rural area land uses and development area land use plans in updating this section we were mindful of our equity and climate action initiatives in addressing updates, and we did work very much with our Economic Development Office in developing

[00:53:47] this chapter. This chapter scope, and as it's drafted, recognizes that the in-progress update of our Economic Development Strategic Plan, and it recognizes in this draft plan, our intent was to recognize that the Economic Development Strategic Plan, the EDSP, is really intended to be one of the lead documents for economic development strategies that we wanted to ensure that this chapter doesn't conflict and that there is a good relationship between these two plans and it's

[00:54:26] understood where that guidance is coming from. And in recognizing that, that EDSP will contain further guidance and actions that augment and go into more specificity than this chapter is at this point in time. What is in the actions in this chapter is focused in on land use and infrastructure as it most relates to the things that we deal with in the comprehensive plan and the land use plan.

[00:54:56] So those actions that you see are mostly heavy into land use and infrastructure and those actions that we think will be consistent regardless of the end product of the EDSP. We also recognize that as the strategic plan is adopted that there may be a need to refine go back and clean up or amend this chapter there are other sections of our comprehensive plan that do address

[00:55:35] economic development obviously the development areas chapter and the rural areas specifically rural areas addressing tourism ag forestry industries outdoor historic and cultural activities as it relates to tourism and agricultural agribusiness development area supporting the quality of life supporting density mix of uses and our employment and activity centers are seen as a focal point for industrial activity and also the transportation and the

[00:56:11] upcoming community facilities plan provide for some of those services and infrastructures needed to support businesses i won't go through these but these some of these are actions and objectives that do come from the rural area land use plan and the development area land use plan that speak specifically to or relate to economic development efforts things that include encouraging agribusiness type activities in the rural area and zoning ordinance amendments that allow for those are consistent with our growth management policy. I have a number of them here. We can go back to

[00:56:50] them as needed if you have questions about what might be in other chapters. The challenges to address that we focused in on were gaps in the inventory of industrial land, the need for site ready locations, continuing efforts to support existing target industries, to address needs of existing businesses, and the need for employee support services, career training, barriers to employment, child care, transportation, and housing, and again, increasing career ladder jobs.

[00:57:23] We have a listing of the objectives. We will be getting into those later, but we believe that the five objectives at a high level do address those issues that we feel that we need to address. The feedback from the Planning Commission's work session, there was a desire for more information to clarify the build-out analysis, how it was created, and where those

[00:57:56] numbers came from. Just a little bit more detail to make it clear. To study and emphasize more dense development and redevelopment to support economic development activities and incentivize that work for economic development purposes. The board emphasized the importance of infrastructure and transportation and economic development to emphasize strategies for business retention and attracting and retaining employees noted was difficult due to housing affordability

[00:58:34] and the need for support services and those efforts should be emphasized and to continue to expand and support tourism and note more significantly in this chapter and also recognize recreational-related economy as its benefit to the economy in this chapter as well.

[00:59:02] The changes from the current plan, really the focus of the changes is a little bit higher level of detail that is not as much specificity about particular actions that is in part due to where we are with the development of the economic development strategic plan and that that strategic plan work and development may guide more specificity for actions um that uh the chapter

[00:59:38] this chapter recognizes that relationship um and otherwise the general overall themes are relatively consistent with the 2015 plan in terms of our overall objectives we did attend the meeting with eda to receive their comments several of the comments did relate to some suggestions for additions to the chapter one was to objective three there was a suggestion that the word

[01:00:18] attraction should be added to strengthening the objective that suggests strengthening business retention and expansion which is intended to imply that we're more willing to to attract outside businesses as opposed to just fostering internal growth of businesses um he they felt there should be a more prominent note of agriculture and agribusiness in the chapter there are as noted previously several recommendations that are in the rural area chapter that do relate to agribusiness

[01:00:56] and the existing project enable also has goals and objectives that specifically relate to agribusiness so as the edsp develops there may be some coordination needed into where that discussion of agribusinesses located here or in the edsp that pretty much concludes my overview of the chapter i think as tradition we give you a quick update about what's coming up in the future obviously we are doing this work session today with you on the 24th we'll have a virtual lunch

[01:01:35] and learn on housing and community facilities and housing will be presented to the planning commission for discussion on april 8th and the board may 7th transportation on may 6th to the commission and the board on the 28th and cultural resources and community resilience on to the pc on may 13th and the board june 4th um that's it for me for right now unless you have any questions and we can either do clarifying questions first or we can go right into the

[01:02:10] objectives okay uh what i suggest is that we'll want to do clarifying questions but with the expectation that we're going to first talk about the text of the chapter and then separately talk about any concerns with the specific objectives and actions for the chapter which we may take one of the one page at a time because they can be put up on the screen for all of us to see um unless there's some overriding questions that would be needed now they'll just expect that we'll

[01:02:45] start with the chapter text and go through questions and comments on it and we'll start with supervisor gallowin yep um so i mean basically the text in the where this current draft sits i'm generally pleased with where it's at i don't mind the painting in broad strokes As I started to react to this and write a lot of comments and notes, I was like, wait a minute, this is the type of work I should be doing when that strategic plan's in front of me, not here at the comp plan level.

[01:03:16] So I really think the devil's in the details of that project-enabled strategic plan update. So this, I think, referring back to it, capturing the flexibility of what could be in that strategic plan, I think is appropriate. I mean, remind me, when did the current comp plan actually get voted on and approved?

[01:03:36] was it 15 16 by the time so by the time we vote and approve this it'll be 2025 so it's been 10 years since the last comp plan update that strategic plan could go through and i'm not saying because there was some outlying circumstances it might not be 10 years for the next one but it probably will be um by the time it actually gets started it'll be five years but when it actually gets completed it might be closer to seven eight or nine we could go through a whole nother strategic or economic development strategic plan update in the meantime so i think it's appropriate to kind of paint in the broad strokes um for what i think is missing this idea popped up and as i was

[01:04:15] working through this i think this is the right chapter but if others think it should go somewhere else then i'd be open to suggestions but this came up in our town hall at the center mr richardson i'd even appreciate some comments by you on this today if you thought it was a good idea if you don't think it's a good idea then you can then you can lean back and not say anything um one of the speakers at we had two questions that day one of which i brought up earlier at another board meeting that was talking about do other counties or jurisdictions do creative things with how they do taxing to try to do things uh and this was speaking to our are out there pitching or selling

[01:04:52] the idea that we're trying to diversify our tax base so that's the umbrella i'm working under here and you know that's led me to do some stuff looking around I've asked questions of staff and things like that trying to get at that because I'd never pondered that question before the second comment from another resident was well if you're trying to reduce the burden which is going to move to 68 if we vote on the budget as proposed the burden on our housing on property is going to be 68 percent the resident said well if you're really wanting to move that number maybe you should set some goals and some things and state well this is what we're going to attempt to do and this is when we're going to attempt to do it by. And basically how we do everything, right?

[01:05:33] So we're out there pitching this idea that we want to diversify our tax base. We're using our economic development activity as the how we're going to accomplish it, but yet we don't really state it anywhere in our planning documents. So I think in this particular thriving economy section, this is a great place to state, look, part of the reason that we have an economic development plan And part of having a thriving economy means for the county that we should be bringing in more revenue from the commercial sector and then even start talking about targets potentially or timeline of how we're going to achieve that.

[01:06:10] And I think that's bigger than just, you know, Ravana Futures, because there's a lot of other economic development activity like Home Depot and other examples that I could give. One, another one on Ryle Road will be coming here to us in a month or so, and that's going to bring a property back onto our tax rolls that's currently not because it's housed by a utility.

[01:06:29] So I think if we're going to go out and state, rightfully so, as clearly as we have in our budget town halls, that we're trying to diversify our tax base and economic development is the answer or the approach to get there, that should be in our comprehensive plan.

[01:06:46] I think we should state that as philosophically, this is where we're at. This is a strategy of the county to accomplish it. And then it would give us time to go, well, if we had to come up with a couple of objectives or action steps to achieve that, it puts us on notice that we can't just go out and tout it and say we're going to do this, but then not lay out a game plan.

[01:07:07] I mean, I think we all agree on that. But this seems to be the appropriate place. And that's probably what I'm asking more for reaction from, Mr. Richardson, is if you think this is the right thriving economy might be the right place to attack this if you happen to agree yes sir and i was standing beside you when that discussion happened at the budget town hall and the citizen honed in on the fact that on commercial industry right now in terms of our revenue picture we're 11.3 percent on residential we're at 72 percent mr sumner our chief finance

[01:07:41] officer who's not in here at the moment has done some initial analysis to show that that 11.3 percent on commercial industrial used to be in the 15 percent range and that's not to suggest that there's been a mass exodus of commercial and industry in the community but what it does suggest is that the residential side in terms of assessment and new growth has grown much faster than commercial and industry and this board has seen that in just the time i've been here when you get the reports from mr lynch in the december time frame he'll break that out and he'll give

[01:08:17] you assessment growth on the residential side versus commercial side and usually the residential far is far outpacing the commercial industry side what i would suggest and i'm not sure i have all the right answers mr galloway is that is that it is discussed in the economic vitality chapter

[01:08:36] And that as the work comes back from the economic development strategic plan, that if there are performance benchmarks, that the performance benchmarks live in the economic development strategic plan and the broader reference is in the comprehensive plan that you're looking and recognizing that you need balance.

[01:08:57] I do want to say one more thing, because for people that are listening, they may say, I don't get that just commercial and industrial growth reduces the reliance on the residential taxpayer. And without this third piece, you don't.

[01:09:13] And that is the cost for services study. Weldon Cooper did that. They're going to be back in front of you on May the 21st to dive into that study. And just in broad strokes, I want us to remember that residential service from local government, the cost to serve residences are more than the cost to serve commercial and industry.

[01:09:35] And so from building that side of the tax base, we earn revenue that helps to seed some of the obligations and services that we provide through the county. So it's a proven strategy, and it is the board looking for balance, and you're talking about what that balance looks like, both on the housing side but also on the economic development side.

[01:10:02] Yeah, I think I agree or appreciate the point about performance metrics could be in the economic developments because that also gives us a chance to do the work on it and figure out what those benchmarks may be versus just guessing at it, I guess, in here. but you're so the other so i missed i'm just not remembering all my chapters apparently um so there's you're thinking that maybe the wording well i guess it could be in both or in the other chapter that you'd mentioned and in any case if it's in the comp plan is what i'm i'm hoping for is a something that folks could understand or appreciate and want to do and it sounds like that could be possible there um so i'll leave it leave it to the team to figure out and again this came

[01:10:41] up during the town hall meeting so i apologize didn't bring this up in an earlier time i just didn't think about it um i think from a text standpoint i think all my other all my other comments are probably in the under in the actions and the goals supervisor proof uh ditto i don't know that i have any major concerns about the body text supervisor mckeel um i don't have well let me let me just go through and say um a couple of things i have more comments about the body text

[01:11:19] for the next chapter than I did for this one, just to say that. But I will say that in looking at this document, I really would like to see the pictures identified as to what they are underneath. We identify some of them, but I'd like to see just a small identification under those pictures. Is that Sentara? Do you see where I'm going with that? Captions. Yeah, the caption. That's a better word. Thank you. But I'd like to know what I'm looking at.

[01:11:53] So there are a couple of typos, and I'm not going to bore you with typos, but you're nodding your head, so you're aware of that. Okay, because I circled a few and I thought this is, yeah. I do agree with a couple of people that I've heard mentioned on page four that we have the top 10 employers, which I think is interesting, right, for folks to know.

[01:12:21] But I'd like to also see what the sectors are. I think that would be a really good idea. That's a good place for that to go. And I must say, I was quite taken back.

[01:12:39] For example, on page six, I have no clue where that top picture came from. Again, identifier would be nice, but I'm a little taken back with a KTAC picture. KTAC is not an Elmar County school. Now, we have children that go to KTAC, Elmar County to KTAC.

[01:12:57] But if we're talking about a 21st century model, let's get away from showing a picture of K-TEC, please. Yeah, we've discussed that internally. Oh, thank you. It may be a... Well, it's not, yeah, but that's not the model that we need our children to be.

[01:13:17] Almar County Public Schools is in the center model, and some of those are much better. Yeah, anyway, okay. And I did note on page seven that we have retail, office, industrial, hotel, manufacturing is missing.

[01:13:34] Maybe it shouldn't go there. But we talk about manufacturing a lot. I'm sorry, I didn't hear. Oh, I'm sorry. On page seven, it says non-residential land uses within the bailout and analysis are divided into categories, but manufacturing is missing there.

[01:13:53] I'm just pointing out a couple of odd things here, David. Probably lumped under industrial, but we could. And that might be, maybe the industrial covers it, light industrial, I don't know. Anyway, I'll leave that up to you all. And then when we get to some of the other discussion, I will say that it does seem like to me that this is a good area to discuss.

[01:14:28] We don't have any documentation in here that I'm aware of. on how much of the 5% of the development area has been underutilized. In other words, what has been, we have 5% we talk about all the time, but we've taken, Biscuit Run has taken a lot of that land away.

[01:14:56] Some, maybe, we could argue about whether a lot of it, but some of it. And there are other things that we have made decisions about deliberately that have removed land from the development area. We have right now heightened sense of need for housing, And we have a lot of pushback from the community about density.

[01:15:15] So I'd like to have somewhere or some information in this document about what amount of land we've actually lost and what the picture is right now, as opposed to back in 2015 or even when we began with our 5% of the development area.

[01:15:40] Am I being clear enough in what I'm after here? we could cross-reference to other sections that have that data too so yeah maybe so yeah but but it does seem like to me that this is a good place to talk about that because there's no doubt that we have reduced the actual usable area that five percent of usable area and i think it's worth noting um and at what point or where in these documents are we going to talk about the we as

[01:16:19] We talked about, and you all presented to us, criteria for potential removal of land from the development area. Remember, we were talking about swapping out, and we talked about criteria. Where, in our world, with what we're doing right now, is that going to be listed and discussed?

[01:16:38] The larger picture for the comprehensive plan are three major sections. There's an introductory section. There's one that talks about growth management policy. And I think we talked about trying to put that kind of criteria. the build well analysis and how basically how best to manage what we have for inventory of land and reducing the size of the development area or adding to it okay so that's going to be discussed in another in the other chapter when we discussed it yeah we're hoping to wrap up the calendar that david put on there his last slide showed you getting through these 10 chapters which are

[01:17:16] really constitute part three of the of the conference and plans and we'll be finishing that with you all up in early june and then we'll be coming back for a work session really on those first two sections and that point we'll be back again with the growth management policy and getting some of those the dynamics that you're speaking to yeah so that's good because it also talks about alamaro property that's owned by alamaro county i'd like to get to that at some point too and see i don't know i mean i know the school property i'm not sure i know in the community facility

[01:17:53] section we are developing a draft that may have all county-owned lands on it as an inventory with potential listing of possible uses if those are known. Yeah these are just thoughts I had as I was reading through this and trying to figure out where they would be appropriate to go right and ideas that we have discussed and and the only other comment I would make right now on this is that I did note some of the data needs to be updated.

[01:18:26] We ought to have, there's a way of getting, I think, more current data than we have. And I understand their data can always be lagging and sometimes it's hard to capture. And I get that. But I really do think as best we can, we should make sure that we have updated data and not referencing what happened five years ago or whatever, yeah.

[01:18:51] And that's all I have for right now. thank you thank you and uh supervisor malik thank you um go back here for one second put please put on your um future list i was adding on to what um ned had said about the the build-out analysis or someone had presented i guess pc said about building so there was some discussion at some recent meeting about how frequently that was going to be done and i don't want that to get lost and this is not something that should be a five-year interval it should be

[01:19:27] more frequent than that so please put that on the someday list um i'm really grateful for the discussion about the diversification of revenue because i remember ken boyd saying that he was worried in 2010 about the high dependence upon residential value and we should be getting more money from commerce and business and it's only gotten worse since but i also appreciate what mr richardson said a few minutes ago about the fact that our residential has taken off so it

[01:20:05] isn't that we're losing on the business side it's just the residential side has completely obliterated the formula the the fraction and so that's going to be harder what we haven't talked about but it's lingering out there and it's not really appropriate for the comp plan either is in order to reduce the burden on our residents we have to somehow level off the or slow the growth of operational costs. And hopefully we're getting to that point, having had these big investments and things that are the perfect storm right now, because ever increasing is ever increasing, but

[01:20:43] having a fairly stable budget and then having more of the percentage coming from the business side will be very, very helpful. One clarification for Biscuit Run, 400 acres of it was in the growth area and 800 acres of it was already in the rural area when it was changed back in whenever that was, 2010. Now let me go to my pages here real quick because I have a couple of little things. On page two, objective four, it talks about access to jobs and job things, but it neglects to say anything

[01:21:19] about workforce training for the workers. So whether that should be a different objective or not, I think that participating workforce training efforts to strengthen skills of workers because that's something that businesses always mention. And I had in my notes proposed an extra objective that says encourage rural businesses to thrive consistent with quality of life of rural residents because we're leaving the rural area totally off the list and it is it may not be as per business as much as an Afton Scientific but there's still a lot of our residents who are

[01:21:53] making their living growing something in agriculture. So I'll just leave that for a future thing I on the top 10 sectors thing that's something already was mentioned. Page five the defense industry, this quotes a 2020 impact, which is more, I think, almost double what it should be from the 2024 report. So that's really important to get that updated with information, which we already have. And the total jobs was over 10,000 for all three of those categories

[01:22:30] several years ago. So I think it's only going up since then. The other pushback I will have in the last bullet on the right-hand column. I wrote a note that I've sent into staff already. Due to the efforts of our family vineyard and winery owners with the assistance of the CACVB, our community was recognized with that success. What is written there makes it sound like the CVB did all the work and I think that's a real affront to the people who did grow stuff and make the quality of the

[01:23:06] product that brings that about. Page six, I may be ignorant, but I've heard the term primary business, but I'd never heard the term traded sector business. So if that's what you mean, hopefully there'll be some better explanation about that. Or, I mean, there's things in here that are not in the language that I've heard discussed here locally, which makes me wonder where it came from. And page seven, third line, designation of adequate land needs to be adequate,

[01:23:43] in my opinion, adequate and appropriate for commercial industrial and office. And at the end of that first paragraph. I agree with what is written here, but it's because where higher population can support the businesses is where these businesses will succeed better. We have a lot of empty places throughout the rural area where multiple tenants have come and gone and there just aren't enough customers to go buy to do any good. And so we have to be thinking about that, where the buyers are and where they want to do things. I agree completely about putting

[01:24:19] manufacturing clearly in that second paragraph, because that was something that I had written down as well. And on the last bullet on the left column, we don't talk about all the land that we've removed from its prior designation as industrial and heavy industry. I mean, where Wegmans is now was the brass property and that was industrial and it was employment. And so for the convenience of owners, we have, the boards have for certainly the last 20 years until quite recently, been eager, in a way, to support transitioning that really expensive and highly

[01:24:56] desirable property for employment into residential. And I just think we should avoid doing that. So that's what that note is all about. The column on the top on page seven, what are today's numbers? Because 20 years from now, we don't know where we're starting. And I don't know what any of those numbers mean unless it says what we have now. And I think that certainly in Jeff Werner's old files is all sorts of great data that Rob can find for you that will tell us where we've been for the last 20 years. And the last thing on this page,

[01:25:32] in the three zones in the Schick razor there on the right-hand side, where does redevelopment fit? And it's not mentioned anywhere. We're talking about new properties, new properties, new properties, but we're totally ignoring hundreds of acres of parking lots and other places that need to be repurposed in a more effective way and on page eight on the right hand side only one property met the description of tier four shopping centers have all those utilities and things involved many of them have transit already but they're not being considered i don't think in the analysis which

[01:26:11] has happened so far and it also they were not considered in the build-out analysis that i think is going to be redone in the next period of time so that will change the numbers considerably so prioritizing redevelopment is important to me on that. And I will stop. Thank you very much.

[01:26:30] Thank you. I would just add to make sure that we are working on a development, we're working to a new build-out analysis. We just signed a contract this week, and we've talked to you all about this before. It's basically updating and providing some other figures. It's been talking about having a tool. We go to rezonings to see how well we're using the development area. So we're hard at work staff level to do that we'll be able to update those figures okay well that's that's wonderful and the criteria you've added in the criteria that the board suggested during that earlier discussion that weren't there before great thank you very much for that update thank

[01:27:07] you supervisor lapisto kirtley i'm sorry i didn't quite understand what you were referring to are you saying that we are you're updating all the the the data that we have here from 2022 etc okay Yeah, the build-out analysis is one of the first things that was done as part of the conference plan effort, and as an effort to go back and update those figures and actually create a tool that can be used more as a tracking tool going forward.

[01:27:33] Good, that'll be great. Thank you. So on page four, I noticed you said the top 10 employers in Abomar County by the total number of employees, which is important. It would also be, I would like to see, and maybe no one else, but I would like to see the top money-making employers in the county.

[01:27:58] So, for example, let's say you have a business that maybe only has three employees, but they bring in $5 million a year, something like that. I would like to see by businesses and even maybe types of businesses, like maybe you have different types of businesses that are all related but independently owned, but as a group, what do they bring in?

[01:28:25] I don't know if you have stats like that, but that would be something to maybe, if they do bring in a lot of revenue for us to be able to look at and maybe support that. That was my thinking. on page on page seven uh the lower right hand corner you say 22,900 total development area parcels okay so that's in the in the development area those there's um that many parcels that are

[01:29:01] developable sorry which which page pardon which page uh page seven i'm sorry see the little triangle on the lower right hand corner and it says underneath that it says 39 development area tier qualified parcels. It doesn't say how many of what tier. I'm assuming it's going to be tier one, two, and three since we only have one tier four. Yeah, there's 39 that fit that criteria for

[01:29:34] the tiers. I'm sorry, what? There's 39 different parcels that fit the criteria for the tiers. To be a tier one, two, three, four, five, or to start out as a one and then go up to a five possibly. Is that correct? I believe so, yes. So could you explain the triangle where it says minimum of three acres, then vacant, then appropriately zoned or designated? Those are the, what's in the triangle are the parameters by which that define those parcels. So they have to

[01:30:10] have a minimum of three acres, they have to be vacant, and they have to be appropriately zoned and designated. So this is an analysis of sort of short-term. You think of it as sort of short-term availability for a business that can come in and build either immediately, it's what we call a pad-ready site, or that they could build within the next 12 to 18 months. So it's not a total analysis of inventory. It's really an analysis of sort of what level of site readiness for someone to be able to to develop kind of risk-free without having to rezone so so that's the 39

[01:30:49] parcels that sort of fit that criteria 39 parcels fit that those qualifications out of 22 900 that's right okay that's interesting um on page eight we only have one property that is tier four do where is that located did i miss that somewhere i'm sorry i lost you again on page 8. It says only one property in the development area met the description of a tier 4. Where's that located? Good question.

[01:31:27] North Fork. Is that out at North Fork? Oh, thank you. EDO did most of that analysis. Welcome, Ms. Kilroy. Good afternoon, Emily Kilroy, Director of Economic Development. Thank you for having me here.

[01:31:43] That would be the North Fork Discovery Site property. And as was earlier referenced by the Board of Supervisors, some of that information has changed a little bit. For example, that analysis that was done a couple of years ago doesn't have Ravana Futures in it at all as even an opportunity parcel.

[01:32:00] And so, you know, it's a shifting landscape and something that I think based on the feedback that we've heard through the economic development strategic plan process, I expect that there'll be a focus coming forward in the draft plan framework around really managing our site inventory at a level that we have not done before so that we have a better working grasp of what some of those opportunities are.

[01:32:28] Okay, so everything will be updated in the next. Some of the reasons for the dated information is sort of waiting for what results we get and what analysis we get out of the economic development strategic plan. So, again, keep in mind, this chapter is sort of dynamic with that update and development, and we will be going back and cleaning this up.

[01:32:49] That makes sense. Thank you. And then underneath that, the third bullet, staff on page eight, staff estimated that nine additional properties could also be supported or could also support development in the 12 to 18 month timeframe, but may require some extension of infrastructure.

[01:33:11] I mean, to me, that's important, and that's something I think we want to bookmark and make sure that we do accomplish that, and that it's in an area that we can actually, the EDA can actually promote development.

[01:33:31] And those are all my questions right now. Thank you. Thank you. And I'm just going to maybe summarize, but also just add my comments to some of the comments already made. certainly agree with Supervisor Galloway's comment about the need to diversify the tax base being something that should be highlighted in here as part of our economic development chapter.

[01:33:56] And I agree, identifying the photos would be helpful, and fixing typos and things like that. I also agree that the top 10 employers is nice, but additional information, maybe top sectors, would be very helpful.

[01:34:15] I understand also maybe perhaps top revenues or thinking about other ways to parse this. In that juncture, I wonder whether we look at the current governor's Virginia research quadrangle efforts and whether how we fit in with that could be part of our aspirations as well.

[01:34:38] We haven't really brought that into bear here, And I think it may have legs for many years. Jimmy, I think he was talking about that was a Virginia Tech, UVA. No, it's a quadrangle. So it's Virginia Tech, Virginia, VCU, Old Dominion, and UVA.

[01:34:56] I was missing a little bit. I was looking at what the fourth one was. Yeah, that's right. And obviously, I agree that industrial includes manufacturing, maybe could just be put in as a reference. Um, there, there was a question, a comment about identifying lost land. And, and I think that a lot of this is part of the growth management policy. So I appreciate that. Um, but there's also a lot of updating that I think has been identified and I hope will happen. I recognize that this is, uh,

[01:35:32] tied heavily to the economic development strategic plan, but I wouldn't want to see old data go in, Even though the other is going to have more updated data, I'd rather pull it out than put in old data. And with respect to some of the comments about redevelopment, I guess I had a question there.

[01:35:55] When it comes to a spot like Home Depot, for example, that parcel empty as a mall, no longer being utilized, how is that categorized? It's vacant in one sense and not in another.

[01:36:15] It's obviously not just empty land. I'd have to go back and not being as closely involved with that, but with the build-out analysis, what is looked at is the relationship of what is developed in its value versus its total value of the land as a proxy to determine whether something is developed or not.

[01:36:41] Okay. So I think we'd have to go back and look, because while the mall was almost dead, it wasn't completely dead, so I don't know how we categorize that. So we're back to whether the building is worth less than the land underneath it. And that's one of the things that Emission was suggesting was a little bit more information about how that study, some of the background of that study would make it a little bit clearer what those numbers mean.

[01:37:07] I do think that some of that vacant land does show up in the inventory, but I can't answer specifically for that site. But if a site is underdeveloped, the value of the property is a certain percentage of the total value, the invested built value, then they're determined to be underdeveloped properties and available for redevelopment.

[01:37:34] That's sort of how that study does capture some underdeveloped land. Okay, I very much appreciate that. I just would wonder then when this supervisor called it the Schick-Razor graph, I think, or something like that. It took me a moment to understand the triangle and how that reference came about.

[01:37:52] But 22,900 total development area parcels is whittled down to 39 development area tier qualified parcels. I guess I don't know where parcels that are underdeveloped fit in this, whether they're not even included or whether they're included.

[01:38:09] And so I would want to make sure that that was clear before we start putting that in and start thinking we don't have things, but they are, in fact, lots of properties that are underdeveloped. I don't know. Just wasn't very clear to me. I also agree with Supervisor Malik's comment about not understanding traded versus primary.

[01:38:34] They used two paragraphs in a row, and one talks about traded versus non-traded, and the next referred to as primary, and I'm not sure what the difference is. Perhaps Emily Kilroy will tell us. Emily Kilroy is responsible for that. So primary was language that we've used traditionally here in Elmoral County.

[01:38:51] Traded sector is really more in line with how my peers in the Commonwealth sort of talk about the types of business attraction work that they are trying to do. And so it's really just, I can't speak to the full history of, you know, was there a shift in the sort of the parlance of economic developers, but traded sector is how other communities talk about those types of businesses where they're selling goods and services beyond just the specific community that you're in.

[01:39:20] And so it's referring to the same thing. I think it's just an attempt to align the language that we use here in Albemarle with the language that's used by the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, the regional Partnership for Economic Development and others. But it's, you know, Willowtree developed software here in Elmoral County at the Woolen Mills property, and they're selling that product, their services, all over the world.

[01:39:44] Thank you for that clarification. And again, I'm repeating a lot of the comments that were previously made because I agree with them and I'll just say ditto otherwise. The only other comment I guess I'll make is just to clarify for the other supervisors, you know, there's been a lot of discussion about identifying industrial loss to commercial then change to residential and so i did provide just as a background southern western neighborhoods parcel that's the i know we're not going to talk about individual parcels today but that is the parcel that was previously discussed about between 29 and 64 that met industrial light

[01:40:21] industrial possibilities in the old southern western neighborhoods and now is being transitioned and so it's one of those again might be lost might not be and we can discuss it at some point in the future and if you're before we go on sure the discussion has made me think of something and i just want to um diversification which ned talked about and and um highlighted as well i certainly agree with that um and i'm curious because we talk about now um we're we're at 11 with the

[01:40:56] commercial um and i can remember i don't know 10 years ago 11 years ago maybe 12 years ago we were, and I think somebody referenced it a little while ago, we were somewhere around 15 or 16%. My question really is, I was told by staff at that time, because I remember telling the community this, that a healthy economy, which is what we're talking about, should have a mix of

[01:41:28] about 30% commercial that high. And I guess I'm asking, I don't even know what is, what I'm trying to get at is what is best practice? If we're at 11 and we're trying to get to 16, where a community should really be at, just make it up right now, right? 25? Is there a best practice percent? I'm just i'm struggling here because i've heard different things over the years yeah unless

[01:42:04] mr richardson would like to stop me no sir the answer is a frustrating it depends um it depends on the on what your community's assets are um so if we were located on the chesapeake bay um we would put a lot of effort and and um and um attention on growing our tourism sector and and that might account for 60 percent of our of our revenues if you had a small town

[01:42:37] coastal town that was really a tourism driven economy um heavy industrial cities have a much higher percentage of revenues that are going to come from commercial um and so it's part of it is you know is that is that us does that feel right um there's not a magic percentage that that folks look at, but it's really, you know, do you, 11% is low, but, you know, is a target 20%, 30%, 40%.

[01:43:07] That really depends on how much industrial activity and commercial activity, larger commercial activity feels comfortable in the community. And that's where the land use conversation gets folded into the economy conversation. But, you know, I think we know that 11 is low. We certainly want see that number grow. And I think some of the work ahead is to articulate what feels like the right target to achieve all of the goals that the county has that are well articulated in your AC44 process. Yeah, that's helpful. Thank you. Did you want to add anything? Yeah, and that was really a good answer, Emily. I think what I would add, Board, and you did some two-on-two work with the

[01:43:46] economic development consultants. Remember when they came and they said, we've looked, we've tried to find peer communities that have attributes like here. And all of you are well-traveled and you have been to other communities where you would see similarities to this community, differences to this community. And I think the consultants did a good job of trying to find, you're not going to find communities that are identical to us, but you'll find communities that have what I would call attributes that are driving, helping to drive the economy of what the economy looks like. And so what I would basically say is through this work with the economic

[01:44:26] development consultants, we will learn about what other communities look like. And then we would be able to drill down and lean in a little harder on what we see and how that informs us with our community. And then there's just things about us that are just like no one else, like the fact that we have a 95-5 split in the rural area that's existed for decades that helps to drive the

[01:44:58] balance between the rural quality of life and the urban quality of life that we talked about at the community breakfast about how this is a unique community in terms of its wealth and how that affects things like local composite index.

[01:45:16] and it cost us $10 million last year with school funding from the state. And then what kind of pressure does that put on local government to diversify revenues and to look to, within the development area, develop density that can help to better balance the problems that we've got associated with rising residential costs.

[01:45:39] And so I think that strategic plan is going to come back and can maybe help plug that in. And what Mr. Sumner has done is he's also looked at other Virginia communities just to do simple benchmark analysis on looking maybe at 10 to 15 communities in Virginia to see what's that balance look like.

[01:45:58] Also, I think we need to pay attention to the city because, again, it's confined with 10 and a half square miles. But this board knows well that we are tied to the hip with the city if for no other reason the revenue sharing agreement, which is substantial. It's a substantial amount of money that moves back and forth between the city and the county.

[01:46:18] I think all of that helps to drive things that we need to consider. I think where Emily and I would land quickly is 11.3% is too low. And I believe the year-over-year assessments with residential has sort of bounced that.

[01:46:34] I sort of bubbled that to the top. It's a really long answer, but it's really important. This is so important for us at this time and this juncture with where we are with the comp plan, the economic development strategic plan, and then what we've experienced with recent reassessments at the residential level.

[01:46:51] And I really appreciate that, and I appreciate taking the time to have this discussion now, because I really do think it's critical. And Jeff, I would add to what you just said, we also have the University of Virginia and the University of Virginia Foundation who continue to take properties.

[01:47:09] And that's worthy of, at some point, talking about, too, and how much properties are they taking or are at risk. We've got to wrap our arms around that because it's critical for planning, if nothing else. I will say that I do hear often in our community, we're doing a great job.

[01:47:29] Everything is just fine. We don't want to change anything. Everything should just stay the same like it has been for the last 30 years. And I don't want people to run in circles, scream and shout. But I'm just saying that there are some things that we need to change, such as diversification, or we are really going to be pricing much of our community if we have not already priced some of our community out.

[01:47:56] And this is part of the discussion. And it's, we're not perfect. No one is perfect. But the decisions that we make certainly impact where we are right now and the problems we have right now. And to just keep on doing the same thing is not going to work.

[01:48:14] It's going to get only worse. I'm just saying. And that comes to diversification and looking at how some things need to change. Not throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but some things need to be changed. Anyway, thank you. Thank you, Board.

[01:48:31] I next propose that we go through the objectives. And at the risk of some page turning, perhaps we can do objectives one and two together. because two spills over to the next page, but has a lot of the same type of topics. And then we can try to do three, four, and fives together.

[01:48:49] So with that, I'll turn to Supervisor Galloway again to start us off with comments on the specific objectives and actions. I forgot to mention in the first round, the addition of and attraction is incredibly important. It's not just retention and creation because what ends up happening, if we don't focus on attraction, we have to remember that companies that start here, grow here are attracted by others, and then they may leave here because they need to for their own business viability. We will try to compete to keep them, but we're not going to be successful in that.

[01:49:23] If we're not doing the same thing, then we're undercutting our own efforts. Now, we get to control what those sectors are and what we want to attract, but if we're not trying to attract new stuff, outside stuff from coming in here, it's going to be incredibly difficult to move that percentage and that that uh share of percentage for commercial because there's only so much that can start up and and go and there's only so much growth that current companies can do um so i think that's an important addition to that and agree with that um i think this is probably

[01:50:01] more for the economic strategic plan um but tier four and tier five prep so i'm just going to call it out here but coming up with some sort of incentive game plan all of the above approach to take lands whether they're vacant or somewhat developed or underdeveloped and moving them to tier four and tier five especially i think with the emerging biotech sector that's happening biotech's not going to come in and build a building they're not going to come in and and put the pad down if they don't have a place that they can move into they're going to go to a

[01:50:36] community where it exists and we have so we have one tier four site and that does that tier four doesn't have a building on it it's just pad ready so those tier five sites we have to start thinking how do we get some of these places to that and as a as a locality how do we start to try to incentivize that and it's not just incentive by meaning dollars and coming out of our eda fund but it's also the little literal work that we do whether it's staff whether it's county executive department supervisors all of the above to network to build to talk about things that get those

[01:51:10] companies in here um the biotech i mean it's just it's just how businesses work if you if you hit your spreadsheet and have to build a building and a parking lot and put in infrastructure you and you got another community that's already got that why would you do that and you know sometimes we think well because it's albemarle special you get to pay extra and be an albemarle well come on i mean i get that there's some community i think our grow our our uh supervisor uh fairchild and talks about come here's and from here's well if we think of businesses that way our from here's

[01:51:47] appreciate that but the come here's are looking at a lot of other places um and so we have to figure that out but that's probably the detail level performance objective work that we're going to do in the strat plan but at least i'll call it out there um and under uh econ two uh i'm sorry you said you wanted just one and two at this point yes um i think twos for having 11 actions and then some sub actions down there it almost speaks that this there's probably an econ four or five that needs to be figured out i don't know maybe not i'm not going to get too worried about

[01:52:26] it but there's a lot under econ two and then we're throwing in the ravana futures and the defense sector stuff and that's where we start getting 11 and 11a and 11b we may need to either refer it to the strategic plan or or or we may want to rethink when anytime i see an objective get this bulky with action items that maybe maybe there's different categorization or or and maybe not i could be wrong um i will say under 2.4 let me read my note real fast 2.4 analyze use of county

[01:53:05] owned land to adjust priority land use needs food opportunities to develop initiate initiate county led so my note was need to take this further um speak the point was made about losing commercial to residential the okay yeah the pressure to convert to housing cannot take away our highest and best use for further tier four and five sites so we have to take this analysis further they might not be they might be a tier two but if that's a prime tier five location then we have to have a way to analyze that so we don't go with just the incredible need for housing

[01:53:44] and go there i mean i know there's a project coming out that'll be coming from rio in in the to convert some commercial over but it's a smaller location and it's probably a good use for it to convert to residential but um but but there are other sites in the in the county that i would not say that about because of where they're at and their location and how much space there could be there um so i'd like to see that two four um maybe thought out more but that's such a long action item that that probably is even a couple of there's probably a couple action items in there

[01:54:22] um so maybe just take a look at that one and uh see what our see what we can get at and again if it i'm uh this is the one chapter where i've been coming more and more comfortable with punting to the strategic plan because this this stuff you have to be flexible on this stuff there's just no way to um because you don't know what you're going to encounter two i don't know which one this is i didn't write my note this must be generally for econ two um but somewhere in these

[01:54:58] action items i think i saw some uh some some i forget what it was what it was called uh it wasn't called expedited review but it sounded like there was some sort of streamlining or some sort of language for that. I just want to make sure that we are in these action items, not just thinking about incentives that we give, like grants or other things, but capture on the work we're doing in CDD that's streamlining the process. Because just like in housing, how fast or how slow it takes, how long it takes to get it up and functioning is critical. And I would almost

[01:55:37] suggest even more so for businesses i mean a timeline how fast you can get to market if you are new factors in and you know my guess is there's just places that that and i'm not just going to blame it on albemarle i'm sure there's other counties that are like that take some time but the fastest ones may win um and that's just part of the analysis they do and we have to contend with that so i think that we need to call that out or state what we're trying to do to expedite process generally and not just calling out like favorites that we're going to expedite

[01:56:11] review for no we've got certain ones that we should have maybe streamlined to help but we also just need to make everything better for everybody yeah and and just interrupt just to clarify we we do actually have a priority review process with you when we get to uh objective four that's where you oh there it is three one i see one to update the priority there's actually a couple of places and it's really to articulate a more refined approach and articulate what our steps are in cdd too yeah that priority review process and that one speaks to the environmental stuff that was the language i was looking for that priority review process we but we if we

[01:56:49] never reset on improving our basic review process because the priority review process might be what our basic review process should be i then the priority review process becomes better i take your point it's it's for special projects we really need to move fast and for everything we need to do faster yeah um now there was a com uh and i just want to add on to supervisor malik's point about some some rural area type of businesses so he's talking about inappropriate locations we made this point somewhere earlier in one of these ac44 meetings about like crossroad

[01:57:26] communities or how these businesses function out in the rural area well historically they popped up my point then was that they popped up because somebody had the genius to do it and the wherewithal to do it. And then that became the crossroad community or the trigger. And now if we try to force that, it didn't create that way. So why would we think it would work if we tried to force it to create that way? But if we also try to say, well, we are only going to put rural area businesses where there are people, you lose what the rural area could provide and has provided in

[01:58:01] the past what we have done with our rural area is we've put regulation and other things that could inhibit or prohibit business practices for making those things profitable that didn't exist back when some of those rural area businesses came in to be and this was my point about restaurants if you if you limit or uh not restaurants the uh the 10 seats or whatever in some store it's like well okay that's a regulation that inhibits the ability of that business it's really quaint and nice for for those of it that like to visit a little spot like that out in the rural area, but for the

[01:58:34] business owner, it's a killer. So I just want to call out that in a thriving economy, again, restate that we can't just think of it as thriving development area economy and that the development area somehow has to subsidize a not or an average performing rural area economy. Thriving means something different in the development area than it does in the rural area and we should just in a similar fashion that we look at land use rules we should probably look at rural area target sectors that we think are good for our that would work with our rural area strategies and then really

[01:59:13] look at our zoning to say what are we inhibiting or prohibiting that that makes an existing business that started and is growing and trying to thrive in Albemarle hitting a uh hitting a wall and now they can no longer set to thrive. I think this is probably in our breweries and cideries and wineries. I think this is in some of those. These can't just be, you know, pet projects of people that have lots of wealth. They have to be able to perform in a way that produces success for the business owner, because then in turn, it will produce success in what we're trying to do in

[01:59:46] collecting revenue from those places as well. Thank you. Professor Pruitt. For the purpose of nose counting i want to just quickly note some things from the previous round that i would like to just co-sign co-stamp um text captions for images i mentioned this a previous uh chapter but i would apply it here i think that's probably prudent and helpful um i do believe it would be valuable to um in some way either in the narrative or maybe in an objective uh highlight

[02:00:21] our own stated goal, which feels like a fairly newly fully arrived at, but something we've been talking about of revenue diversification. And I am, like it sounds, both Supervisor Galway and Supervisor Malik, I'm fully in favor of an additional objective talking about rural economic development.

[02:00:42] I think that's going to also be quite a thorny thing as we kind of all try and agree on what we think rural economic development means and and looks like but uh i think the the ideas that have been thrown around here are probably appropriate uh for kind of scoping that discussion about what a econ six uh objective around uh how we're going to work with incentivizing encouraging enabling rural economic development that still is consistent with the expectations of uh of the rural community um and i'm not going to throw those ideas out right now because i don't

[02:01:19] have to um i want to talk about 2.2 right this is this is kind of a crux of a lot of what we are looking at when we are talking in the comprehensive plan which is kind of the intersection of land use and economic development um and i also do want to recognize like i am not entirely sure if we actually have separate parts of our comprehensive plan that expressly contradict this um i'm thinking we have discussed at some length right um in part thanks to some friends of ours in the audience the the conversion of existing commercial um to to residential and i

[02:01:58] wonder can we i know we have a slide of um that cross references the development area um things that are implicated in this is that touched on at all on that slide we we went by it very quickly a crosswalk of development area objectives and actions um that are implicated in this chapter that's a good because i do think we have a specific action right that is is about um commercial redevelopment or repurposement for residential and maybe maybe i'm telling tales out of school

[02:02:32] but like i mean we certainly have a these are some of the uh actions that we cited in the development area that we felt related to providing for inventory and providing for the employment districts and activity centers. This is not an inclusive list, all inclusive, but they were examples of some of those things that relate to industrial inventory that addresses economic development issues. I guess I just raised this to highlight. I think it's valuable for us to

[02:03:10] note when we have created a pinch point right like we can say the nice things all day long on the action statements but sometimes we're creating we're creating cost benefit uh decisions and and 2.2 is a cost benefit decision right it conflicts with some of our other goals um and we will maybe that does not need to be dealt with at this stage maybe it's something that we we deal with when we actually implement the um the tier below action of like metrics that we're observing but i just want to highlight to this board right like when we say we are going to protect high

[02:03:47] value sites from encroachment of incompatible land uses that means we are going to fight the conversion of commercial to residential we are going to fight the conversion of light industrial to residential because that is the most likely uh encroaching land use right that is the the highest economic deliverable that you can get from land right now in albemarle county So that is the thing that's going to encroach.

[02:04:10] So if we mean that, we need to knuckle down to what that means. And I'm not sure this board has fully grappled with that kind of conflict. And you also might notice I'm not specifically coming down on conflict because I don't know that we have the shaping language for that conversation right now.

[02:04:32] So help me out. This applies to 1.1 and also how I think about this. When we talk about economic development, we talk at some great length about target industries. And I don't believe we actually use, we identify them or even use that language much in here.

[02:04:48] Is that because that is intended to entirely live within the economic development strategic plan and only be here by incorporation? I think if the timing were different, I would envision that this comprehensive plan would cite what those target industries are, but there is the potential for those adjustments to those target industries.

[02:05:08] So in drafting this with the Economic Development Office, we felt it was maybe a safer approach at this time not to cite those until we know that they're going to continue to be the same. But I think you can go either way with that.

[02:05:25] And I think ideally it would be good for this document to sort of cite those higher level expectations. That's a pretty high level but clear expectation. So that's why it's not shown in there.

[02:05:40] It certainly could be, but it's more of a timing issue right now. I believe that's most of what I have. I would say something, I don't know how to articulate this into a change, but something that leaps off the page for me is when I see something that seems responsive to current circumstances rather than like generational outlook, right?

[02:06:03] I think of this as a 20-year plan. I know we review it every five years, but we don't change it every five years. We change it every 10 years at best, it looks like. And we notionally say it's a generation 20-year plan. I look at section 2.2 on, and I see something that is responsive to the planning and activity we are currently engaged in, in Rivana Futures.

[02:06:26] And I think those are all the right steps. They're all the things I would expect us to be doing. And it is also basically stating our current activities and our current intentions. It does not smack of the kind of, frankly, long-range planning I would want to see in this, right? What are we going to think about how we're going to energize and incentivize the second-order effects of Rivanna Station? What are we going to try and lobby for with state support for broader expansion of what even is possible, right?

[02:07:02] We are talking about defense because that is the opportunity that is presented to us by existing circumstances. What are the opportunities we want to develop? What are the ones that we want to partner with state agencies to create opportunity windows that don't currently exist? I'm not seeing that in there. And that seems like the kind of thing that, you know, I think we want our comprehensive plan to be aspirational and long range. And that is the kind of aspirational and long-range thinking that I would like to see captured there.

[02:07:32] I appreciate that it kind of gives me kind of a tutorial of what the next five years of Rivanna Station is going to look like, or Rivanna Futures is going to look like. But I want to see beyond that, and I want to have the confidence that the Comprehensive Plan is seeing beyond that.

[02:07:49] That is all I have. Thank you. Supervisor McKibben. I don't disagree, or I agree with much of what has been said already. I will say that when I look at, and I know we're limiting ourselves to one and two right now.

[02:08:09] Well, we seem to have gone beyond that, so maybe we should in light of time. And I'll give people a chance to come back to do the objectives, because you've already hit several of the other ones. Yeah, we have. I was just wondering about that thing on one and two. Anyway, when I look at two specifically, and when I see 11 and then A, B, and C, and I just think somehow or another, we need to tighten this up.

[02:08:36] I get worried because when we have that many, I don't know whether some of them can be collapsed together. Some of them can be put in another. I don't know. I'm going to leave that to you guys. But I think looking at that list is, it's too long.

[02:08:52] And they're all, I mean, I'm not saying they're not worthy, but I just think that there must be a way to not. Go ahead, David. You look like you were going to say something. No. No. Okay. Anyway, you get my point. I have already addressed a couple of my thoughts on some of this when I made some earlier comments.

[02:09:20] I will say that just in a general principle, we talk about CACVB and tourism, and that brings a lot of revenue into our community, and I'm all in favor of it.

[02:09:35] Having said that, we have to be very careful, and this is just a broad statement, of not putting our eggs all in one basket, because with a downturn in an economy, it's really easy sometimes for tourism to go away. And so I just am always looking at that balance of what tourism, how to balance our revenue sources, right?

[02:10:00] The, oh, and I'm, well, are we going on? Should I go to three and four, Jim? Go ahead. We'll come back to one. Okay. So I pretty much said for three. We talk about local workforce access to job training.

[02:10:17] We have got to figure out how to work better to get the county public school system and us and the Chamber of Commerce who hire our graduates or should want to hire our graduates, right, to keep them local.

[02:10:37] We need to figure out how to make that connection on career pathways and creating the jobs that our students, as they graduate, can take here so they can stay here and live here if they choose to. And I see the chamber over here and the public schools over here and us here, and somehow or another, we've got to figure out a better connection to all three.

[02:11:01] There was a time when the school division was very involved with the chamber. not anymore. And we were perhaps more involved with the chain. I'm just saying. But it's really important when we're talking about career pathways and job prospects and the kids.

[02:11:22] We talk about on five, action item five, essential transportation and infrastructure improvements to access employment opportunities. And I really want to stress that because that is so critical, especially perhaps in my district, so selfishly in my district. But we often spend a lot of time talking about bike paths and connections for recreation. And I think that's all fine and

[02:12:01] good. In my urban area, I'm trying to get sidewalks for people so they can walk to a grocery store, so they can walk to a pharmacy, so they can walk to their job safely, right? And I'm not sure how many of them are going to bike.

[02:12:18] I mean, I leave that up to, but most of them will walk. And I just feel like we don't have enough conversations around how to get people safely to critical needs like grocery stores, pharmacies, and jobs.

[02:12:35] And I'm not putting down recreational biking. and certainly it can be an economic driver, but we need to focus, I think, especially when we're having a downturn in the economy like we are now in some chaos. We need to figure out how we can help people get to this infrastructure. And I've already mentioned this, need to know how many acres of developed land we have lost to parks and other rezoning criteria for trading land.

[02:13:06] I've already mentioned that because I had notes about that. And, you know, I remember when Roger was here as our economic development director. And we asked that every rezoning, remember this, Ned, that every rezoning that came to us needed to go to economic development for them to make a comment on whether or not it was an appropriate rezoning to take commercial or industrial land away. And we have stopped doing

[02:13:42] that. Maybe we stopped because if I remember correctly, every time the staff went to him and asked, he said, oh, that'll be fine. Well, if it's a rubber stamp, then that's not going to help us any, right? It has to actually be meaningful. And we would have to be willing if they said no.

[02:14:03] Did you want to say something? No. You're pulling that mic down, and I'm looking at your body language. Do you remember Ann and Ned? Yeah. Yeah, I think, and I think, I'm sorry, I think the intent is with this kind of scorecard when developments come before us that would be included.

[02:14:21] Yes, and I was just remembering back in the day, and if we have that scorecard, we have to be willing to use it. Yeah, I remember that we used to do it. Yeah. And it was actually useful internally. From my recollection, they don't do a development review now.

[02:14:37] Much more useful for you all than before it gets to us. Yeah, do it internally. And I get that. Yeah, yeah. All right, and that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Malek. No, it's fine. Thank you. Let's see. A couple of notes that I just don't want to forget for your future work.

[02:14:57] Having dates for tables, things like that. You have some and some without, so that would be very, very helpful. We've talked about primary business already. with the, I wrote a couple of things down when we were discussing about the business and commercial and residential. If you are a community with a nuclear power plant, it's much easier for you to have a 60-40 split, which one of our neighbors does have. But they have a small population and very, very high value tax revenue source there. If you're a county with Reagan Airport, you're

[02:15:34] going to have, even though you have much greater population, you have huge assets. So we are in a difficult spot with and it's more challenging perhaps and we have to figure out I'm not diminishing the need to do it I just think boy these are things that that make it trickier for us but I certainly get it about the what the location appropriate measure the Chesapeake Bay for Matthews County that was just a fantastic example okay I guess I need to I know we're going

[02:16:12] to be discussing the cost of services at a future meeting, but for those same counties who have lots of business still, they did not go out and seek residential rapid development on purpose. They wrote it down to say, we know that residential is not going to pay for itself and therefore to protect our existing taxpayers, we're not going to go out there and become the bedroom for Richmond, for example. And there are lots of counties throughout the Commonwealth whom you read about who have are still very clear about that and they they understand that the give and take on that

[02:16:47] issue um i love the discussion that ned started about the rural businesses because it brought to mickey tavern which was in earliesville was on the stagecoach road between richmond and the valley that's where it went and so those that's just a perfect example murray electric box was out there and employed 1200 people for 20 years and it was put on the back side of the murray farm panorama and on Ray's Ford Road.

[02:17:17] So these are things where the transition happens in the modern globalization that it's gone to warehouse and small business now and has cabinet makers and other important small business craftspeople in there. So it's in very good use, but not quite the same as being one of the two largest manufacturers of electric switch boxes in the country, which is what it was for a long time.

[02:17:44] Rural economic health. Yes. That's going to be interesting. I would support having a separate objective for military facilities. I think that would be a way to quickly sever option two, objective two in half, and to be able to, or wherever that is, there it is, yes, to make it more manageable. And in response to another comment talking about protection of those

[02:18:23] for non-compatible sites, I think Mike was mentioning this, what came to my mind was a rezoning for high-density residential just directly south of Urbana Station, which would have been an incredible security risk for them. And now that is something with site control that the county has which will not happen but it's that's the kind of interference that i was thinking of rather than versus industry versus housing but there are as many different examples as we can

[02:18:55] can do but i have no idea what the next 10 years will bring in economic development or at ravana station only because in the last 18 years it seems like it's been a whole new ball game about every three years. And so my brain can't have any detail about that right now. I am very worried about tourism. As was mentioned on the radio yesterday, they talked about the Canadians are the Virginia's highest cohort in tourism. So we're going to be up against it real quick. I'm also completely

[02:19:31] supportive of prioritizing sidewalks in the 5.1, because in addition to Jewett, all the Crozet neighborhoods within a half mile of major shopping and employment, and the people are walking in the street and they're facing dump trucks and it's just awful okay now let me jump over here all right number 2.3 well well well um attraction is important to talk about and we'll have to that'll be a bigger discussion i think the previous discussion five years ago or more was let's

[02:20:08] strengthen what we have here now rather than be chasing our tails again to bring some new people in when we haven't done our homework job to keep our homegrown folks growing and happy and able to stay. So for 2.3, prioritize redevelopment of existing buildings, parking areas, and brownfields is a way that I would reorganize that and have sent this to staff for their consideration already. We definitely need more details about in 2.4 and dividing that into something more

[02:20:41] manageable, fewer sentences to be able to manage it and really establishing more detail. I'm looking forward to the enhanced detail on the other sites coming forward. I already talked about that. Okay. 4.3. I've said this about a hundred times in the last three months. We cannot ignore the major source of funding for job workforce training, which is the federal and state workforce WIOA money. And we've got to put it in there that we are partnering with federal and state workforce

[02:21:20] training systems. Public schools should partner with these agencies, not try to duplicate them. And the Pathways was a state program that was locally adopted. So I just really want to try to get this language so that it's, we don't have to do everything over again, just because we're Albemarle, just like Virginia seems to think it always has a better idea than everybody else in the country, the Virginia way, but I'm not sure that it's always right. So I just want to try to make the best use of any and all information that we can get, as well as the funding, which is available, that we should be using instead of duplicating it out of the county budget. And I

[02:21:58] will stop there. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Lupisto-Curtley. I won't be long, but I do agree with the majeure, actually almost everything that Supervisor Galloway said. I thought he brought up some really good, strong points for looking into the future, especially, I'm going to mention something, the permit process, and I know you've mentioned about how we have priorities and then regular ones, but I think the whole system, and I think you're working on that, if I'm correct, that you're working to improve that. That's what I hear from developers, businesses,

[02:22:35] is that the permit process takes way too long. But I think you are addressing that, which I'm thinking. Is that correct? I think we're moving on that. Yes, we are looking at that extensively. I mean, EPNL is going to certainly help us with the new software program to be able to track our capacity to deliver our comments on time as well as understand where we may be running too long in certain processes.

[02:23:02] Because, you know, that does mean money. That is money, the time that it takes to develop this. Another thing, I think, Supervisor Andrews, are you bringing this up? I brought it up earlier. Pardon? I brought it up. Oh, you're going to be discussing?

[02:23:19] We did briefly, but. Well, I know. Okay. Okay. Go ahead. Well, I mean, we're talking about not making office light industrial into residential, but I thought we had looked at that.

[02:23:36] I don't think it's the, you know, I'm changing my mind. I don't think it's the greatest area for, frankly, residential. But we're talking about having a scorecard with the EDA, which I think is a good idea, that if we're going to, if we want to switch something from light industrial, manufacturing, commercial, to residential, I mean, I think that's something that the EDA needs to be made aware of and then get their input.

[02:24:08] because maybe they know something that we don't know so we're just up here proving something and in reality there's actually a plan for um a piece of property so i think that's a very good suggestion if we do that i would like to revisit this we're going to what we're going to that's no okay then that's fantastic fantastic um i know retention of the youth was brought up but you know we lose the youth here 25 to 35. I think that's the basic age gap. They're here, they get educated,

[02:24:45] they go somewhere else. Why? There's a lot more to offer than what we have. I think employment-wise and things to do, although I do think, I do believe that tourism really plays an important part, because with tourism, that also gives activities for our youth to do. So maybe they may remain, you know, we have rafting, we have biking, we have wineries, we have good food, you know, there's a number of things. But what we found is that the youth, they come back once

[02:25:19] they start families, then this is the place they come back to. But it is interesting to be able to retain then. I'm not quite sure how we do that. I do believe in the rural areas that we encourage small businesses in the rural areas that are appropriate in a rural area. Not just open up the floodgates, of course not, but, you know, crafts and things like that. But there are places in the rural area where you can have businesses, and that does add to the economy. Now, is it

[02:25:55] everywhere? No, of course not. But it is appropriate in some places. We have that now, little markets, little venues for people. So those are my main considerations. And I will say regarding tourism, tourism brings in 1.3 billion. Tourism brings in more than Rivanna Station, as far as the tax base and such. So I think that's something that we can continue to really promote. Once again, I think we need to be flexible and not, I don't, as a government,

[02:26:34] I don't think we should be, this is what we've done. I think we do need to open up other venues. We do need to have other ideas. We need to bring in other types of businesses that will come here because if we don't, no businesses may come here. We have to be creative. I think that's what entrepreneurs are looking for, frankly. That's what happened with the biohub up in North Fork.

[02:26:58] I mean, that's now really on the verge of exploding. That was a really good investment. And I think that could be, and we're going to be a biotech center, then we have to expand that.

[02:27:15] So those are my comments. Thank you. Thank you. I agree with a lot of the comments that have been made i'll try to be very brief and just be specific to the objectives that are in here i guess i agree that two is just too big and unwieldy i also found there was places where things overlapped and i didn't understand why there were more than one so 2.4 talks about initiate county-led rezonings but then 2.8 talks about initiate county-led rezonings i'm missing something 2.67 and 9 i'll talk about site readiness in different ways so So again, there seems to be some, just could be some tightening that could happen.

[02:27:53] 2.7 talks about from startup to corporate, and I guess I know what that means, but I find the language a little odd because startups are often just corporations that are starting up. So certainly I agree with the comments about attracting businesses that belongs in Objective 3, where it talks about retention and expansion, and it could be considered there as a place to add additional actions related to how those might fit in with the plan.

[02:28:19] In addition, Supervisor Galloway had mentioned priority review and 3.1 and 4.2 both talk about that, but obviously I think the comment was that it should be broader than just those specific reasons.

[02:28:35] And 4.3, Supervisor Malek mentioned the workforce training, and I wondered whether some mentioned, It talks about the high school center model, some mention of working with PVCC, whether that belongs in this section as well, when we're talking about workforce development.

[02:28:53] And then I agree with the idea that an objective econ six on rural opportunities might be something worth fleshing out to see where it could lead us so we can discuss that. A comment I'll make is that there's a lot of comments about people being able to stay here and i feel very fortunate to have been able to come back here after having gone to school here but thousands and thousands of students come through charlottesville to go to school and it's just not always going to be possible that they'll they'll be able to stay

[02:29:29] but yeah i understand her families it's also but it's but it's part it's part of the same picture in that they're all ultimately competing for the same type of opportunities. And we'll have to see where that discussion could lead. Thank you. We are running short of time. If we have anything else on economic, very briefly, please say that now we'll go on to the next community facilities and infrastructure. Super quick. And that is a suggestion from a constituent. We didn't mention veterans. So in our military chunk, the contribution for the

[02:30:06] active duty and the veteran residents who returned to our area was the suggestion in addition to sort of doing some wordsmithing on the the military component there so thank you very much thank you and i and i want to recognize supervisor bruit was the one who got caught in the changeover from talking about all the objectives at once and he should get a chance to which is great because i really only have one objective i want to revisit um or not revisit visit for the first time because i only did one and two um and that's i want to talk about objective four real quick um i am so glad it's here and i recognize that this is in part in response to a lot of community feedback

[02:30:46] we got on this issue that it's kind of incorporated before us um it feels to me and i think i've kind of heard people responding to this but maybe in less pointed language it feels really underdeveloped to me currently um and to speak broadly before i speak specifically on this i want to recognize right like our economic development capacity as a county has developed so much very quickly and i think we see that a lot right like there's so much new learnings that are coming to us from our economic development staff and it's also heavily i mean it's heavily business partner focused learnings right that is what that new capacity is heavily focused on i don't think that's wrong

[02:31:23] but i don't see that level of formation and development and capacity in how we think of workforce development yet from staff. And maybe that's unfair, but I don't feel this does not reflect to me the level of comfort and proficiency with what workforce development looks like that I see from the rest of this chapter. It is just underdeveloped. It does not represent to me a level of expertise. And with that, I want to say the objectives, specifically the actions one and

[02:31:59] three um are are broad to the point that anything could take credit for them and they're not particularized enough to actually direct any kind of meaningful action to me um one right promoting the development of industries right that could be creating an evaluative criteria for economic development programs that are going to come to us it could be creating a guidance document for what we would want to see from an economic development partner from an industry partner related to workforce development right like here are the things we expect from partners we i don't

[02:32:33] think we have such a thing um it could be increasing resources or support to our career one-stop that was as i understand formed about four years ago and then like checked off as a box we have a career one-stop and i don't know that we have continual engagement or continual re-evaluations and assessments of that program um it could be re-investigating our partnership with the Local Workforce Development Board, which is a resource that I think Ann Malick knows about, and I'm not sure I hear it talked about other than from her. And that's kind of like a core piece of this. Similarly, providing resources to Albemarle County Schools, I don't think we're

[02:33:13] thinking through what that means. I'm not seeing on the page what that means. That could be we as an employer can sponsor apprenticeship programs. We can convene employer consortia to partner with the schools we could i mean pvcc isn't talked about at all but like a core thing we could do is we could be providing stipends to pvcc we could even identify specific trades or industries we want to stimulate by providing targeted stipends for specific industries right if we think oh there's a housing shortfall as part of the problem is labor we can say oh well then we should pay the

[02:33:49] tuitions of people in the building trades at pvcc we don't have any of that particularity here and some of that i'm sure will come from like the kpis we established with this but i think there needs to be a little bit more particularity in this plan because right now it seems like i mean do i just say oh i've completed 4.1 because we have a career one stop i think i could um and that to me reflects uh an issue with the plan and and i know it feels maybe unfair but it it does to me

[02:34:22] raise alarm bells with kind of our own proficiency and competency as an organization with this domain of economic development that that i feel like i've reflected similar concerns when we've talked about workforce development before and i'm just not necessarily sure i'm seeing that that comfort that that um that can uh it does not feel conversant in in what the current standards and trends in workforce development are and that concerns me thank you an additional comment

[02:34:59] on this chapter. Just to comment, thank you, Mike. I appreciate that. And I am certainly, just Jim, to be clear, when I'm talking about students staying here, I'm not talking about University of Virginia students staying here. We have plenty of that. I'm talking about families whose children are in Alamara County Public Schools and those children need to be able to have jobs that probably for in many cases don't even require a college education they can start as a an apprentice they can be a plumber they can be an electrician our businesses need us to

[02:35:37] be training those folks so please don't they assume that i meant that we needed all the university of virginia students to come back here and live because we have plenty of those that's not what i was talking about when i talked about students yeah i understand yeah okay

[02:35:53] discusses we're ready to move on yes thank you at the first order work okay we're going to move on to um community so sorry i'm just doing a quick check to see who some other agencies are in the

[02:36:23] gut few um okay again um i'm gonna try to be i'll jump through some of these slides a little bit uh quicker uh the agenda format is pretty much the same as we just went through uh again we have no focus topic questions for you we'll just go through this in this section in sequence just a highlight of what we heard from the PC and the board previously water and sewer service to properties and housing in the development area and adjacent to the rural areas that's

[02:37:01] lacking public utilities was identified as an important issue this slide actually notes some of the changes or ways that we've addressed it in the draft but i'm going to skip over those and just hit the highlights here need for third places for communities meeting spots was identified consider wireless service for public parks as a safety issue and then other comments that we heard from the commission of the board were actually addressed in other sections of the comprehensive

[02:37:32] plans, specifically resilient communities section address hazard mitigation for catastrophes and fire hazard overlay district was discussed, solar and support for food systems and sustainable resources. Those suggestions that we heard as part of community facilities were addressed in that chapter. The overall community themes we heard, more library services, we heard that in

[02:38:11] particular for some of our rural area concentrations, concern for school capacity and bus availability, after school programs, more recycling options and education and incentives for recycling, and improve access to facilities, walking, biking, transit, park and ride lots and such.

[02:38:34] Improved stormwater management to address more significant storm events, providing adequate water supply and dealing with potential drought concerns still.

[02:38:49] The issue with above-ground power lines and loss of power during storms and addressing failing septic systems, especially when there's an impact to public water supplies and when homeowners need financial assistance, some of that septic system was addressed in the rural area section of the comprehensive plan or draft chapter.

[02:39:22] Again, in developing this, as we all know, facilities and services are an important implementation tool for our growth management policy and for economic development, as we just suggested, as well as other sections, and that the implementation of facility recommendations, probably more than any other, is driven by budget issues and also management of other agencies, some of which are ours and some are shared or joint or partnership agencies.

[02:39:52] um just a table to sort of highlight that relationship and the importance of the budget process and the various agency or department work programs and their funding limitations um and as relates to this section and how it differs from uh the 2015 plan um the objectives and actions on 2015 focused on supporting implementing the growth management policies.

[02:40:26] That continues on. Continued flexibility for providing health and safety facilities to the whole county was happening to my presentation here.

[02:41:04] So what's changed, really just more greater clarity in the policies for allowance for health and safety facilities in our rural area where they had been permitted previously under more or less exceptions. We've recognized that health and safety facilities need to be provided based on health and safety access issues. So a little bit more clarity and when fire rescue and police services and such could be provided. Recognition that private central and water and

[02:41:41] sewer system maintenance is becoming an issue in our rural areas and that there are in this draft there are actually fewer actions and standards for service in the previous plan there were more service standards and things that related to operations of facilities and we're trying to step away from that recognizing that those agencies actually have a relationship with the board or the school board in establishing operational issues.

[02:42:14] So you won't see as many service standards provided in this draft plan as you would have seen in the prior plan. Feedback from the Planning Commission. Generally, the commission felt that some of the objectives could be combined because they were similar in nature.

[02:42:34] They also noted that technical demands and needs for electrical service are not identified or discussed with much... depth in this section of the plan do recognize we have some limitations on our ability to plan and control and impact utility planning but that was a note that they had they felt the green infrastructure should be noted in this section or at least cross-reference from where it's noted

[02:43:06] in other sections and add or improve the content to indicate that package treatment wastewater treatment systems are discouraged they felt the language was a little bit weak in that section those were the overviews from the planning commission um i already skim through that a little bit quick but i think we can maybe open it up for the clarifying questions or narrative

[02:43:40] portion okay over to you all uh board i propose again that we start with just the text of the chapter before we get to the specific actions and objectives um and i believe that we would be starting this time with supervisor pruitt uh again with the text i don't have critical issues other than perhaps we highlight some captions yeah and my apologies there's too many typos in this one, and my apologies for that, but we'll get those corrected. Great. Thank you. Supervisor

[02:44:18] McHugh? Okay, I was thinking I was third. You are. Well, the man's gone. This particular section, I think, really needs to be tightened up. There's a lot of duplication, and unlike many of the the other work that you all have been giving us, I just think this one really needs some tightening.

[02:44:51] And I was trying to see how I threw out document duplication. And, you know, it did occur to me when I was reading this, I would, and I'm not skilled enough to do it, but I would love to take this chapter and put it through AI, or I'm just saying, or as our Secretary of Education would say, a one. But anyway, if we put it through AI, it would be interesting to see. And we put in the

[02:45:25] criteria to tighten it up, because this is the one document I think that really needs skinning down. And for example, well, and I probably don't have to, but look at all of the objectives here, or which i guess maybe we do need 11 although i always question when we get up to numbers like that but um there is just a lot of duplication um of language and and ideas in this but you want to say something you look like it's a duly noted we can reduce it and i do think there's a lot of

[02:46:00] objectives because it covers a pretty wide array of understand of stuff so we may be a little bit long on that too we can shorten up on the other one yeah yeah um and the other thing i noticed and i'm not maybe not to spend so much time but the other thing i noticed was that there's some information in here that's actually not accurate when you're talking about the almar high school campus uh you're talking about some of the other i mean it's old information it's not it's no longer

[02:46:34] accurate and it needs some of this information in addition to tightening it up needs to be updated so that it's current um at least current for now i mean um um but under fire and rescue we talk about former fashion square mall and we talk about the county public safety operation center and then we go down two paragraphs and we talk about it again that's the kind of thing that's a type of yeah yeah um for the most part though i don't disagree with what i'm seeing in here

[02:47:07] um but it does i just think it needs to be i'd try running it through ai if i was skillful enough to do that to put the criteria anyway i'm going to let it go at that because um i'll just wait until we get to the objective objectives and talk about those supervisor mallet oh i have a couple things and you have the the copy with all the markups so i don't have to go over all those but i've done a lot of that ai work you know so you don't have nothing artificial about that's right

[02:47:41] the real mess uh so anyway there's one of those on the objectives too where i think copy paste just sort of got carried away um and that's but a more substantive one on page six we're talking about acsa uh we need to add construction constructing and distribution constructing the distribution and collection lines not just doing the work because they're the ones who building. Rivanna is not building in the county for the distribution lines. Diantha already

[02:48:14] mentioned the duplication on that. On page eight, second, the right-hand column, what is 3,000 initial calls, 500 outgoing? What does that mean? I mean, I get that there are 300, that they responded to 500 calls out of 3,000. I mean, someone can get back to me on that. It's just, if I don't know, maybe somebody. My recollection is there's total calls, but then there are There are actual deployments or emergency calls.

[02:48:46] So there's categories of calls. And hopefully I'll get a confirmation of that, but that's my understanding. So there are a number of calls that they get, assignments that they do, but there are emergency level calls, and that's what the 500 is.

[02:49:08] I don't think there's a number, because I know Berkmar is responding more than everybody else but wars already does 2200 a year themselves of actual responses so i don't know where i be careful i think anytime we use numbers we need to either very clearly say where it came from or don't use it these sections were actually drafted by the agencies all right well then i just don't understand what their terminology maybe we'll see it we'll maybe just add a definition for that great um hold on a second under wireless i the very first sentence i don't know what transfer of communications means, so just put cellular in there. And it does

[02:49:47] refer in that lower part of that paragraph about the hundreds of approvals which have happened, but it doesn't follow up with saying many of them have not been built by the companies who have the approval. So to make that complete and the correction of the name for the solid waste, it's Ivy Solid Waste and Recycling Center. It's no longer the MUC. That's my mistake.

[02:50:10] Nothing there. Okay, I'm done. Thank you. Thank you. For now. Supervisor LaPesa, certainly. Yes, I agree with Supervisor McKeel as far as shortening or this whole section.

[02:50:27] And I'm going back to page two as an example because, I mean, I do agree with everything that's in here. That's not the problem. But I think we're looking for, Mary, maybe a clarity and concise. And I'll give you an example. Page two, objective six.

[02:50:45] In partnership with service providers, achieve, maintain, and enhance the quality of universal, affordable, and adequate broadband access, when in reality, we just want everyone to have universal, affordable, and adequate broadband access, right? I mean, we're adding words, and I think it's just, at least for me, from my point of view, I just like to see it get to the point, make it concise. If it needs to be wordy or you need to add in a bunch of other things fine but uh to me that's a good example

[02:51:21] of you just adding in a bunch of words extra when the intent is to provide universal affordable adequate broadband service i will say that uh in reviewing with the agencies what the concern was with um that if we did if we left it at that plain language the implication would be that we fund the service and so that we that the county is responsible for providing the service so the partnership was a way to to indicate that it's really um our efforts to help incentivize but

[02:51:58] it's the responsibility of the agencies to provide no i understand that but it would be it could be in partnership with public providers you know what i'm objective well just me uh the achieve maintain and enhance you just that those words but no definitely it is our our the ones that we enter into a private agreement you know with the service providers that needs to be in there correct if that makes am i making uh sense or am i making no you're fine trying to help you out here

[02:52:32] better get a vote on that you're gonna change there you go that's it thank you uh yeah i i'm only going to push back here in the sense that boy there's a lot in this chapter and it seems to cry out for a lot of objectives because there are so many different topics and different ways in which we do that. So I don't know any real way to streamline because I look through here and I see difference in each of these. That said, of course, we've talked about a lot of the things that I look through, Supervisor Malik's comments and agree. So I'll try to keep these very tight.

[02:53:07] On page eight, I'm going to follow up on the initial calls versus outgoing. And then the initial statement on page eight that the county operates 14 stations response to over 19,000 incidents per year um one of the things we really haven't discussed in connection with all of this is false alarms and and how much of this is due to um calls that come in and then we aren't really dispatching anyone because it wasn't real and i would like us to look at that and eventually maybe take actions to again even make it um more streamlined more more correct in addition to

[02:53:46] the fines that are already put out there when you brought the numbers down dramatically right um in page nine it talks about the strategically located smaller offices for the police department is that is that like the yancey or is that something else that's contemplated it's similar to yancey crozet also has a small office space it's about 800 square feet um they have a sign out so people know that they're there but it's more for the officer's use okay in the field and and no other additional comments beyond what other supervisors have said um but we'll go now to

[02:54:25] the objectives uh specifically in pages 13 to the end that's a lot of pages but i'm gonna i'm gonna see if it works for us to just go through and give our comments um starting with supervisor approved um as a i think general comment um i think this section is maybe a little um a little more verbose than it needs to i think some of these actions i mean i think some of these actions could get away with not existing um a lot of them are we will continue providing the service we

[02:55:00] provide um in fact like one i highlighted for that exact critique is um the first one under broadband we will continue providing the service we provide um and i love the service they provide i hope they continue providing it but i do there's an element of me that's wondering do we need to call out in our comprehensive plan that the office continues to do its core function i'm not sure that we need to call that out in the comprehensive plan um or if we do want to call it out in the comprehensive plan we need to particularize it we need to say something that is is visionary that is changing right um and i'm not sure that all of these objectives are doing that that's the or

[02:55:39] sorry all of these actions are doing that that's the one i will call out by name but across all these pages i'm sure you can identify others um i do want to um call a little bit of special attention to our uh our solid waste objective this is uh under eight um i really like this one you know contrasting with what i was just saying this one feels very particular as very um change and objective focused um there are there's one that i do want to just highlight

[02:56:13] because i'm sure it will be something that will be more fraught than i think we're expecting it will be um when we actually get down to the meats and potatoes of it and that is 8.4 um i could see this being one of these additional objectives that becomes increasingly challenging as we try and lean into infill. I am picturing the kinds of developments that are going to, I have a narrow spat right between Scottsville and Avon that is going to be developed slowly but surely. And it's probably going to be developed into higher density multifamily. Well, not higher, it is going to be

[02:56:51] developed into higher density housing. If we start requiring that every single one of those like one acre parcels that has a housing units on it have a compost pen, we might have challenges. And I say this is someone who likes composting, but I could anticipate this being something that is challenging as written. I wonder if it would be prudent to say, perhaps create standards for composting and recycling on site. I realize that that cuts against my own statements that I

[02:57:28] think these should be particularized and actionable, but I do worry that we in this one tie our hands to something that we might find more complicated when we actually get to the implementation phase. As all of these, I think so, this could be better served by understanding what the KPIs are going to ultimately be.

[02:57:52] My eye is right here next to 8.3, which would also really not mean anything until we attach it with a performance indicator. And that would, I think, significantly change how the board views how palatable that's going to be, right? A great goal, one I think we should be leaning into, but if we're saying that they're all going to be entirely energy neutral or all entirely energy positive, right? Like maybe they're actually generating more energy than the amount that that's going to implicate is going to be significantly different. And so I think it will, how I feel about a lot of these is going to change when we know what and how much we're measuring

[02:58:29] them. I want to just call attention to 4.1. And I appreciate that this action is, I think I like how it's phrased right um and i i do want to just appreciate that we're we're doing something tricky here um part of the county's like broad strategic goals are to cite everything in the development area because we want to reduce travel time we want to reduce uh uh environmental inefficiency

[02:59:05] that comes with that um but i do want to flag i think things like having uh having walton where it or having um scoutsville elementary where it is that is critical and that starts to create potential like very serious equity issues if they are not there um i think this action as written mostly gets there um but it's more concerned with the constraints of impossibility than it is

[02:59:37] concerned with the constraints of um of desirability or equity if that makes sense right like the that second sentence there creates a guardrail um that second sentence creates a guardrail about mostly physical impossibility and correct me if you think i'm reading that wrong but i i see that as a guardrail saying like you can you can put it in the rural area you can put new school schools in the rural area when you literally can't accomplish that in the development area um and i would pose that there will be times over the generation of of schools aging there will be

[03:00:13] times where schools could be cited in the development area but we really ought to cite them in the rural area because that is where the student need is going to be and it would create a serious or that is where both the alignment of student need and economic feasibility would be even though there is a possibility in the development area and i i would be concerned if we're fully foreclosing that right and i i say this also thinking through i believe our some of our older schools um are the ones that are in the developed or the rural area in part

[03:00:48] because we have had i i would not be surprised a policy like this in the past and so this is going to be something that is sneaking up on us right this is going to be we are going to be confronted with schools that are aging schools that maybe are being ones that are highlighted for closure as new ones open ones that maybe we don't want to invest in in redevelopment and this is going to impact our rural communities um in ways that i'm not sure i'm comfortable with just the the equity implications of that mr pruitt um most of that like this language is in the existing

[03:01:24] comprehensive plan i i think we were trying i think we were trying to address your concern with the last phrase in that second sentence um where there's lack of current availability of land for development or existing service considerations may necessitate it. The intent of highlighting service circumstances was to imply that there may be rural populations that might need that service. I think you not picking up on that is probably indication that the language isn't adequate enough, but I think the intent for what you were trying to do was to actually

[03:02:02] broaden the opportunities for providing rural areas. So we'll take a closer look at making it more overt. Thank you. I think that's actually all I have. Thank you. Supervisor McHugh. Sure. Again, with this section, I'm going to say the same thing I said before. I think that some of these could be tightened up and I appreciate what other board members have said about the need to have some of, you know, lengthy, but I do think that tightening the language and reducing the

[03:02:40] number of actions in some places would be appropriate. Some of them are, in my opinion, repetitive. And let me just go to a couple of them to point out. I'm sorry, I'm having to find it.

[03:02:57] So 1.8, I think that is something we really have talked about before, and I am all in favor of collaborating with stakeholders and timing projects so that we're not putting down new pavement and then digging it up three weeks later to put in new water pipes or to put in electrical undergrounding or something.

[03:03:24] We've got to get the folks in this community, whether it's VDOT, Dominion Energy, the service authority, everybody at least meeting once or twice a year and talking about these projects so that we're not. I can't tell you how often in my district something's put in and then we dig it up or tear it up two months later to do something else that should have been done first.

[03:03:45] And that's the way I'm taking that 1.8. So I'm all in favor of that, yes. And I don't know whether that can happen through LUPIC. I just don't know. But I think some of it, there are some meetings that are happening through LUPIC that get at this, but it sure needs to be strengthened.

[03:04:07] coordinate on 2.1, coordinate RWSA and ACSA, a lot of alphabets here, but anyway, to provide public water and sewer service in the development area. And then, so we certainly have had a problem with, in my opinion, some failures right on the edge of the development area. I'm just kind of talking, brainstorming here. But then when you go back and look at page six, And we talk about what's happening in the rural area.

[03:04:41] That is absolutely scary. When we're talking about the private wells, that whole paragraph is terrifying. When we talk about our water system, our underground, our individual private wells and septic systems on each property, and it goes on and talks about, I don't know.

[03:05:02] I mean, I get the reality of this. The truth is, if we wanted to really protect our underground system, our underground water, and we would do away probably with all of our septic systems, and we'd have everybody on public sewer, which is not possible. I'm just saying, though, that's the way to protect our water for people to drink. But anyway, but I looked at that and thought, oh my goodness. And that, I guess, is the reality, David. It reflects the reality, and it's kind of scary. And I guess

[03:05:36] I'll just let that go and allow private central water and sewer systems only when existing public water. We're getting back to that same topic again. I wish I had a solution. That's the topic. The planning commission felt was too weak.

[03:05:54] And instead of saying only allow, just be more clear that prohibit. Yeah. It's just, I wish there was a way that we could solve this problem that we could afford throughout the County. Right. And let's see where else I had notes.

[03:06:14] Oh, 2.8, continue current policy that biosolids produced by will not be applied to land such as fertilizer. I absolutely agree with that. And I would say simply that if we could just adopt the Chesapeake Bay Water Protection Act, which doesn't allow biosolids at all.

[03:06:35] And I know Anne's going to push back because I'm using the word biosolids. It's sewage sludge. It's sewage sludge, exactly. But biosolids is in here, and maybe we should suggest that they stop using biosolids and use sewage sludge, which we do not want in Albemarle County. And the Chesapeake Bay Act would take us away, would not allow that, which would be another positive in my viewpoint for adopting it.

[03:07:00] If you look at 3.1 and 3.4, those are a couple of the things that it seemed like to me possibly could be collapsed uh and tightened up a little bit just as an example um and mike is um i won't belabor it but i do i looked at that and thought locate new schools in the development area or directly adjacent while i understand why you have that that's not practical and it's not reasonable i mean it's i mean i just don't think it is now if um certainly it's if you look at albemarle

[03:07:37] High School and Journey and Greer, they're in the rural area. So they are adjacent. But then you get down to Scottsville and you get to, so I understand the challenge there. And I'm not sure, maybe you can play with that language a little bit. Provide and maintain public school facilities in locations appropriate for projected enrollment to ensure educational parity for all students. Well, I think the school division is attempting to do that. I mean, but I guess it needs to be in our, I guess

[03:08:13] it needs to be here, but maintaining upgrades, existing schools to serve students for community gathering spaces. Certainly that, to use our schools as gathering spaces in the rural area, well, and even in the development area to some degree, but in the rural area is really great.

[03:08:32] And I will go back to what we talked about at one point not too long ago, that 29 North in that northern area where our population center is really does not have access to community space.

[03:08:49] That's a real need in that area. I'm just adding that. um 4.5 i made a note there's nothing around shared parks and playground areas um because it talks about school and the parks and seems like to me that language could be perhaps tightened up or maybe even expanded a little bit expand in a different way um trying to go fast jim

[03:09:24] i liked that i like putting in here the use of smaller emergency response vehicles which is down at 5.9 that's great even cat is purchasing smaller buses and so are his university transit system so it's all good these smaller sizes um and again i thought there was some redundancy in the 6.1 two, three, four. And I'm coming up on the end here. I wanted to just ask because when we talk

[03:10:04] about rooftop and solar and applications in Almar County for solar, I have been told over and over again that we don't allow solar on entrance corridors because of the way they look and that people would not like to see solar and i've not had an opportunity to really even talk about is that true yeah i think and we're gonna be bringing me with this a minute yeah we're gonna bring in the salt the new solar ordinance to you it's gone from the planning commission it's coming to you

[03:10:39] in june i believe and um no there's a lot is a we're permitting it by right i mean obviously there'll be some stuff that entrance corridor will be impacted on it but thank you yeah yeah Because what I was told was that they said that people don't like to look at solar.

[03:10:57] And I look at solar when I travel overseas. I look at all kinds of things that we don't sell towers. I mean, wind turbines. I mean, I look at all sorts of things, and they don't offend me at all. And the folks in Europe and many parts of the world don't find them offensive.

[03:11:15] I just, so that's good to know. That ordinance will change some of that with as far as the solar goes. That's good. All right. Excellent. And I can't, oh, wait a minute, I turned a page and there's more. Reduce the use of natural gas, and we're talking county facilities.

[03:11:36] So could you expand on that a little bit for me? Oh, I'm sorry, I'm at 9.3. Okay, thank you. Yeah, sure. That's an action that is consistent with our climate action plan, which discourages the use of natural gas because of its impacts to the environment.

[03:12:04] Right, right. So this is more of an effort to reflect that desire to reduce that usage, to be consistent with it. And I know we don't have any control over private property, but I know that there's at least one apartment complex in the urban area that has natural gas, and they've been told by the city that they have to upgrade those, and they're not doing it because of the expense.

[03:12:38] That really worries me, and I guess we don't have any control over it. Yeah, I don't think so. We don't, but that's really from the health and safety to have 50- and 60-year-old gas lines that are not being upgraded.

[03:12:57] I'm just saying. And the other piece is that we have a large apartment complex in the urban area that is metered in such a way that we can't, that they cannot physically put in because they, well, not physically.

[03:13:14] Well, they can't because of the expense put in low-flow toilets, and they have hundreds of them because of the way they're metered. And I'm just, it seems like to me that in a situation like that, it would, I mean, I have had discussions for five and six years about this issue.

[03:13:35] Seems like we ought to be able to help as a government agency, right, to help with that because we are just wasting water. and uh and i just throw that out there david and yeah i don't know we can have a talk maybe talk about it all offline but when you have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of apartments and the way they're metered because they're 50 and 60 years old you can't go in and put it i just yeah that's that's something we've got to figure this out and and with that i'll stop thank you thank

[03:14:08] thank you all right um i will disagree politely with someone who said we shouldn't be talking about what we're doing but this is a history of the county document and how we operate and so i would say that this is what comp plans are supposed to do is to say these are things that are important to us we have been doing them and we're going to continue so sort of in general before i start 1.3 when i read 1.3 and it says the county is providing essential services such as health care

[03:14:46] i don't know of any places other than for county employees only which is not for the general public right now so i just think this is another thing where we need to be careful about the words we use because i don't think health care should be there we're definitely providing emergency services and things like that but health care to me means doctors and dentist offices and things like that So just pointing that out, to figure that out.

[03:15:12] 1.8, in the ACSA report today, in our packet, it talks about how they are putting in piping early in order to get it done before the paving happens. So I found that to be very encouraging. 1.9, it's really important.

[03:15:30] In 2010, the board adopted a safer chemical policy, which has become basically a rubber stamp. And there isn't, I don't think, an adequate documentation of alternatives. etc before waivers are given so it's really important to me that that be an item that we should be working on and i think it's appropriate for the comp plan so that's what that note is all about there you'll be glad to know there's nothing on page 14 now um page 15 when i read 4.1 i thought

[03:16:05] of broadestwood school when it was built the kids rode horses to school there's no way you do that by riding an extra 10 miles to the growth area. So I just, I never considered this to be, we're going to get rid of rural schools because that would be a crisis of major proportions.

[03:16:25] In the rural area, volunteer firehouses and schools is all we've got for services. And so those are our gathering places, are what bring people together. So I will just say that I, and when I was a student at Amarillo High School, that was the only high school.

[03:16:41] And so it was a long one hour ride for the kids in Scottsville to come all the way there, which is why Monticello was thought to be a great step in progress because it was halfway, 30 minutes instead of 60 just to get to school. And that special activity bus, the sports bus in the end, I mean, they didn't get home until 7.30 at night.

[03:17:01] It was awful. So I think that keeping those, Coobert I think has done a good job to keep those things going. I agree, 5.9, transitioning to smaller fleet models for emergency services is incredibly important.

[03:17:19] It's something the volunteers have been asking for for years and have had to buy their own because the county policy would not allow anything except the certain standard giant fire engine. And so for those who had to do mountain topography and that kind of thing, they had to buy their own. And I'm very glad to see that that's just a huge, huge step forward.

[03:17:38] Page 17, 6.5, what does this mean? Are we gonna be pre-wiring neighborhoods, new neighborhoods? I mean, I think the new neighborhoods which are built in the Whitehall District at least have had that done.

[03:17:55] But is that what that means? Are we requiring in zoning that this is going to happen? That's really one that's intended to almost mirror the coordination with other utilities. It's just to ensure that there's consideration that the fiber optics are being put in and coordinated.

[03:18:13] In the ground ahead of time, just like everything else. It's more of a site planning effort to try to ensure some continuity and coordination. Probably if we're reducing, it's probably one that we would reduce in order to take out content here.

[03:18:33] That's probably one that we would leave out because it could be incorporated with that dig once action in the previous objective and still get at what was the intent. Okay. In your discussions, figure out also how to address the fact that telephone has to be continued. I had a little scary conversation with a contractor working along Advance Hills Road the other day, nowhere near my place, but he said, oh yeah, we're going to be taking all these poles out.

[03:19:08] And I went, well, how do people continue to get telephone? Well, Brightspeed doesn't want to do that anymore. There are numerous, and I couldn't even tell you how many thousands of residents who require copper connection telephone to their doctor's offices and things so we need to be very aware that when we're sweeping everything up into broadband that we not somehow get sucked in that everything's going to be bundled and you're going to get everything through your broadband provider because they will come and rip out the copper and then you will have nothing and this happened in

[03:19:42] Arlington where the company out there just didn't even notify people until they had ripped it all out of neighborhoods and then they had to each pay a hundred bucks to get it put back, which is grossly unfair. So I will be very concerned about that. And that's what I will ask you to figure out a way to deal with that. 6.6. Oh yes. Enhanced broadband. There are still thousands who have three down and one up on a good day. So I do not support, focus on people wanting to go from 25 to 100 until we get taken care of all those people who have three to one, because that's just talk

[03:20:21] about equal opportunity here. 8.3, I assume, I don't know how it can be increased because Ivy is our only solid waste facility, unless we're talking about convenience centers where we could do solar, but it's the only, I mean, that one is already open and up on the field there, and maybe it could be done in many more areas, but I don't, so anyway, I'll just pass that along.

[03:20:50] Yeah, the compost, I will agree with Mike that while it's nice, it does take a lot of space and attracts bears. And bears frequently come to my place for my compost pile, so I get it, but I don't mind the bears. Just to clarify that one, that's simply requiring the space.

[03:21:08] Like you require a dumpster pad, it doesn't require the service. It's just in the site planning process, making the space in case you want to apply it in the future. That's my understanding of that intent. So it isn't forcing or requiring the composting.

[03:21:24] It's in the site planning process, ensuring that there's space for it to be provided if it's desired. So a couple of parking spaces or bins for these. And a contractor would pick it up. They wouldn't be doing anything on site. It would just be picking it up and taking it away. It would just be like a business can decide to do private collection, do each contracted unit instead of a dumpster.

[03:21:47] That was the intent of that language is my understanding. It's really just to incorporate that into the space. It still requires more space than previously, which does have some impact, but that one wasn't intended to actually force the composting on site.

[03:22:04] Very good. And one last one, I forget, went over 9.3. People don't like to talk about where the electricity energy source is, but I would much rather have natural gas than electricity generated from coal. So this is one of these.

[03:22:19] That wasn't suggesting. No, no, no. You weren't. I know, but this, in this 9.3, that's one of the problems to me with demanding electrification of everything, is that we haven't solved the source problem yet, and so we need to do that first. I'm just talking about the safety issues.

[03:22:34] Yeah, no, that's great. That's great. Thank you. That's all I have. Thank you. I will try to go through these. If I keep around a little bit, I apologize, but I'll try not to. But I'm going to be pushing back a little bit here and there. On 1.3, there was a question about health care, and I know that, you know, for instance, example, at the NC Community Center, you have satellite offices for providers, and this does say in collaboration with community partners. So that's where I think healthcare comes into play in ways that's not the county providing the healthcare, but providing space to

[03:23:09] organizations that will help provide those services in the rural areas, for example. So I'm just going to push back on 1.3. Space for essential services, not providing services. Very good. So then there's nothing else in one and two, nothing significant except for you have 2.7.

[03:23:33] You were so kind as to provide a hyperlink for community water supply plan. And now I'm jealous. I want hyperlinks for all the plans. Yeah. And to waste a minute of your time, the reason those are listed is that it helps us in some of our review processes state codes require compliance with the comprehensive plan reviews if public facilities aren't identified in the comp plan these documents identify some of those improvements that are part of the water supply plan so it allows for a little bit of a expedited process for something that's already been agreed to so i know it's wordy but it's useful to have that language in

[03:24:13] to help us in some of those types of decision processes. And we can look and see if there's hyperlinks. They're all on one site at the RWSA. Yeah, that's true. Appreciate that.

[03:24:31] Other comments are minor typos, but I'll skip on to 3.4 and 3.1 seem to be a lot of the same things about libraries in two places. 4.1 then is There's been discussion, and I guess I'm pushing back maybe a little bit, but also saying we have a long-range planning committee that the school has, and they're not really part of this process, but they need to be.

[03:24:58] They're really going to be involved in how the schools need new buildings. And when it says new schools, does that include renovating existing schools as opposed to, you know, tearing them down and putting them in? And so I guess the biggest concern I had when I read this is that once we start into the section on schools, there's another board and other community organizations that are involved in that whole process.

[03:25:25] This objective says provide Albemarle County Public School facilities for a high-quality, equitable, inclusive educational system for students. But yet I see 4.3 is to serve our residents, provide safe community gatherings and meetings, and then 4.5 says multipurpose functions.

[03:25:42] So there's something that needs to be fixed here to make it so that we really include all the different pieces, actions relevant to that. The objective includes all the actions relevant to it. um i'm going to push back again on six in that i think broadband office will continue to work with residents to maintain access improve access that's the kind of thing that you know dictates whether we have a broadband office that's going to engage with the providers who sometimes fall

[03:26:18] down and and that's been an extremely valuable service that the county has provided as a liaison sort of coordinating communication with those providers and i and i want to see that continue I almost thought, well, if we took that out, then you could eliminate a position. But I wouldn't want to eliminate that.

[03:26:34] That's extremely important. So that's six, seven. Again, just a more technical point. It's reduced greenhouse gas emissions from government and school facilities.

[03:26:50] But then 7.2 talks about stormwater management practices, use of native plants. I just felt like it wasn't clear to me that this was all actions that were staying in line with the overall objective or maybe the objective needed to be broadened.

[03:27:08] And we have other actions like 1.9 that seem to relate to reducing greenhouse gases as well. So just a tightening up that might be beneficial there. And I'm going to push back again, pushing back, pushing back. 8.4 requires space for compost and recycling bins.

[03:27:27] And this is one of the things that came up, and I was going to report on this at the end of the meeting about the most recent Solid Waste Alternatives Advisory Committee meeting. And I think I raised a question with staff about, well, you know, if a new apartment is required to provide a place for people to put their trash, are they required to have a place for people to put their recycling?

[03:27:47] And the answer is no. And so this, I think, is getting at saying, well, you know, we have to pay attention to that as well. And composting, it doesn't mean that they will compost on site, but the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the organic waste are significant and something that this is intended to address.

[03:28:06] And so I think it's a good thing to have in here and appreciate that for requiring space and making sure that this is something we look at in the site review to enable. And I jump all the way to the end behind the 11.1 Maintain Native Landscape demonstration sites.

[03:28:30] I've said it before, and I'll probably end up repeating myself too much. But as part of my work with one of the national parks, there's been recognition that what's native is going to change. And the 20-year plan, we just want to be cognizant of the fact that there are going to be some things that just won't grow here as well as they used to.

[03:28:50] and some things that might do well here and not be considered invasive anymore. There are a lot of things that are on the invasive list that need not, we don't want here, but I just have cognizant that climate change is going to significantly affect grows.

[03:29:08] That's all I have. Red oaks are on the way out, unfortunately. Yeah. Really sad. Superbath, a piece of curve. Yeah, I didn't get my turn, so. Can I skip you? Yes. We started to stop you when we decided. I said, no, no, let the chair finish.

[03:29:27] That's okay. I mean, I realize you probably didn't see me, but, you know. That's embarrassing. I'm sorry. No, no, not a problem, not a problem. Okay, if we can go to 2.2, I'll make this pretty quick. I'm very, very concerned about the first line, the first bullet.

[03:29:48] Well, the line used the development area boundaries to guide ACSA jurisdictional area for the provision of public water and sewer. Okay, this is my concern. Changes to the ACSAJA boundaries outside the development areas should only be considered when, one, the area to be included is adjacent to and can be served by existing lines.

[03:30:17] What I'm afraid of, and I'm thinking of specifically, 250 and 64, the little area they're looking at, maybe in the Yancey area too. But in that area, is that going to open up the floodgates to, I know it's still rural area, but we're also looking at developing that.

[03:30:40] Will that open up the floodgates to then connect to public water and sewer on 20? Well, those one, two, and three are read as you have to meet all three criteria. So it's adjacency, there has to be a health or safety issue, and the private systems, there's no private alternative that's viable.

[03:31:06] So those together have, in the past, been pretty good to control that connection. Okay, because I know. uh and i do agree because um uh two and and three those have been always in existence and and helped us and then that goes back to one but i didn't know if this was a change so that's what i was concerned about this is very similar and uh 4.1 supervisor pruitt brought this up uh regarding

[03:31:44] the schools is that because there's a concern for water and sewer connection that we would you know know i mean ideally yeah that's part of it based on the policy just um public utilities are in our development area schools are large and have a high demand um but we also did want to recognize that there are other locations in other schools particularly elementary schools that have the capacity to be on uh package systems if necessary so okay and a package system is septic because i

[03:32:20] didn't understand what a package or septic it usually it's the septic uh package uh sewage plants are the ones that um is usually the driver okay so we currently have what elementary schools on uh septic and whale water yeah walton school stone stone robinson broadest woods a number of Okay, thank you, thank you.

[03:32:50] Oh, yes, 5.9, I thought it was brought up by several supervisors, and I think I just wanted everyone to know that I've spoken to Chief Eggleston about this because when I was in Tokyo, they had fully functional fire trucks that were a lot narrower, very narrow, and could do everything our fire trucks do.

[03:33:14] he said that they're actually looking into that you know narrow smaller narrow yes i just wanted to alert everyone of that um item 8.4 which brings up a lot i'm glad you clarified the the space for composting recycling we did i brought this up at a SWAC meeting um that and with a developer who says that they're now going to do it but it's changing how people do things if you have the space for composting you have the the bins for recycling more people will do that especially in

[03:33:52] our um our developments you know townhomes apartments and things like that so that's a real positive and i'm i'm glad you're you you do have that don't know who's going to pick it up because I understand, I don't know who recycles, I guess.

[03:34:09] There are a couple of companies recycling? There are companies doing it. Yeah, a couple. Not in the rural area, but in the urban area, I guess. That's good. 8.11, provide incentives to recycle, construction, and demolition material.

[03:34:26] Why wouldn't the responsibility be on the developers? And I guess I'm thinking of artificial turf, solar facilities that are defunct, things like that.

[03:34:44] And maybe you're talking about something else, but that's what I'm thinking of. My understanding is a lot of it is just being dumped and not recycled. So, there's still a lot of issues with filling up the landfill, filling up our transfer facility to move it all without recycling or reusing those materials.

[03:35:10] Totally agree, but it looks like we're providing some incentives to recycle. Why isn't it upon the person or the developer or the owner who has this material?

[03:35:26] I guess it's not happening now under that practice. So I think this probably was more general for whether it's the Solid Waste Authority and whether those incentives might be things other than a fee reduction, but other measures that might make it easier for those property owners to recycle the materials.

[03:35:55] Okay, maybe we're talking about small things or something. This is a broad recommendation to address that issue. It's high level and it doesn't go into a lot of specificity about what we're trying to do directly.

[03:36:13] We don't really have a plan for how to do this. We don't know if it's going to be monetary or tax incentive or whatever. Incentive sounds particular, but it's really to try to identify means by which to reduce disposal of these materials as opposed to recycling them.

[03:36:30] okay um and then i understand 9.3 your you did specify that it's for county facilities what am i the only why are we i like natural gas it's i mean i don't know why we're greenhouse gas pardon it's greenhouse gas okay pardon it's worse okay well bad okay i guess i won't use my I will admit I'm not the expert on this one, but the intent was to try to be reflective of the climate action plan recommendations.

[03:37:10] Correct. Okay. Understood. That's it. Thank you. Thank you. I apologize again for skipping it. No, not necessary. No. I know you didn't see me, so it's okay. And I do recognize that a lot of these in Objective 8, I think, are informed by SWAC because they look familiar.

[03:37:33] Anyway, are there additional comments or questions or concerns in the objective section on this facilities chapter? Are there any other comments or questions on the facilities chapter? Is there anything else that we need to get to you? One of the questions we were going to bring up was actually about broadband itself.

[03:37:57] Since you have a broadband office, one of the ways to pare down this section was really just to leave an objective, a broad objective about broadband and refer actions to the broadband office. So since, you know, I think time is short now, but with the general direction to bring this down, I think we've heard some of the things that were important to people for broadband.

[03:38:27] But that was one of the sections that we felt could have been pared down more very significantly. jump in here and then just just it does seem like in several places these uh specific actions under the objectives have probably been developed with the assistance of others and there may be a need to have an overarching sense of what level do we want to go to

[03:39:00] and to bring them in sort of uh better coherence with the other uh objectives so i don't know if That gets at your, but it does feel like, okay, you went to one group and they gave you a lot of really detailed lists and others gave you a more broad brush.

[03:39:18] Could you write a criteria for AI that way? I guess I just mentioned as a heads up, it might be one that might be cut down a little bit. I would just push back on that because of what Jim said about Jason is our link to get our renegade providers to behave.

[03:39:41] because we can call them until we're blue in the face and they will ignore us completely. And he gives one phone call and the work is done. So please don't chop that element out that you were referring to. Representing the community's service needs because we will be sunk without them.

[03:40:00] We wouldn't chop out the ones that you've identified as important. It could be pared down. Duplication is different. That's, you know, cleaning up the words, but. That's it. Thank you. This is why our current comp plan is so thick is because we've not duplicated, but we've had a lot of background and I like the background.

[03:40:17] So I'm a slightly different point of view than others, I guess. Well, with that board, we need to convene in closed session and I believe Supervisor Pruitt has a motion. Yes, I would like to move that the Board of Supervisors convene a closed meeting pursuant to section 2.2, tag 3711A of the Code of Virginia first under subsection one to discuss and consider the assignment of specific employees of the county second under subsection three to discussing consider the acquisition of an interest in real property in the white hall magisterial district where discussion and open meeting would adversely affect the bargaining position or negotiating strategy of the county and third

[03:40:55] under subsection seven to consult with legal counsel regarding specific legal matters requiring the provision of legal advice by such counsel including a contract payment issue second we have a motion from supervisor fruitt second from supervisor malik without objection if the clerk we'll call the roll. Ms. Malik? Yes. Ms. McKeel? Yes. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Mr. Andrews? Yes. Ms. Lapisto-Kirtley? Aye. Thank you.

[03:41:25] Okay. Good evening. I apologize for the brief delay in getting started again. Before we get started, we'll first come out of closed session. I believe Supervisor Pruitt has a motion. Yes, I would like to move the Board of Supervisors certified by a recorded vote. That to the best of each supervisor's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirement 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. We have a motion from Supervisor Pruitt, second from Supervisor Malik without objection if the clerk will call

[03:42:00] the roll. Ms. Malik? Yes. Ms. McKeel? Yes. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Mr. Andrews? Yes. Mr. Galloway? Yes. Ms. Lapista-Kirtley? Aye. Thank you. The board, and I'm not sure whether this will play to anybody who's not here but my understanding is that our zoom capabilities and are down and are down uh they're not down now not anymore uh the clerk will confirm on our zoom on our end we still um don't have capabilities okay uh so if you know of anyone who was intending then you can call them

[03:42:36] they can come for the public hearings uh which is paid in person um hopefully we'll get that back up soon um with that uh our next item is a report from the county executive uh mr richards yes sir mr chair thank you for the opportunity i do have a couple of minutes of topic matter that i would like to share with the board and this is our monthly progress albemarle report and the board will be reminded that we try to connect the meaningful work that's going on in the organization to our strategic plan and our strategic plan goals i would also mention to the board that

[03:43:14] As we do every month, we will pass this presentation to the board at the conclusion of this meeting because you have meetings in the community, your CACs and the work that you do, and you'll have this along with the talking notes to be able to share with community members as you determine is appropriate.

[03:43:32] Okay, board, I'll start and I'll talk about our continued work on our employee health care program. Almar County has opened a second employee health clinic. This one's located on Route 29, and this will expand access to care for local government, our public schools, and our partner agency employees and covered lives that are under our self-funded health care plan.

[03:43:54] With the addition of the 29 North location, more appointment times are now available, improving access to our employees and families and reinforcing our commitment to removing barriers to be healthy. The first clinic located in Pantops, this board attended the ribbon cutting.

[03:44:10] It was several months ago, and it has ran at an 85% booking rate in the first month. All weekend appointments have been filled, and that speaks to the need for Saturday service for our workers and for our families. By providing access to preventative care, chronic disease management, mental health support, with fostering a culture that supports healthier, more resilient employees that can better serve our community, and we can also help to control our rising health care costs. Finally, I have made a trip over, and the level of customer service has just been absolutely outstanding. We've had

[03:44:47] several employees post videos and have just been astounded by the level of customer service and care that they've received through this partnership. So thank you for all of the support from the board and for our management team's hard work. Board, I'm proud to announce that our Tyler Enterprise Resource Planning went live on April 1, replacing an outdated system with a modern integrated financial management system. So this has been under the leadership of Jacob Sumner and his team in finance, Christy Shiflett and her team with performance planning, and a number of

[03:45:26] support team members from information technology as well as other departments. The system has replaced older systems with a comprehensive and contemporary financial system with greater levels of integration between expenditures, reporting, general ledger, and budget. Training and support for staff both prior to the launch and ongoing has included labs, video tutorials, step-by-step instructions, one-on-one virtual help. This affects our school system, just like it affects our local government finance department and all the operating departments that are leaning in.

[03:46:04] I think what I'm most impressed with is the amount of training, the commitment to the training to hit the ground with this and go hard right out of the gate. It's an internal system, so it's something that our public would probably not take a lot of interest in, But it's going to allow us to be more efficient, more timely with our reporting.

[03:46:23] It will be able to allow us to do better data analytics. And we also can explore our processes as well to be able to enhance our efficiencies. In collaboration with the Office of Emergency Management, our IT department recently conducted a tabletop continuity of operations exercise, COOP, COOP exercise, to test its ability to maintain critical services during a disruption. This exercise focused on identifying gaps, strengthening response protocols, and ensuring key systems and data remain accessible

[03:47:00] during an emergency. The initiative is part of a countywide commitment to strengthening our continuity of operations management process so that we do not experience delays during emergencies, and that we are able to continue to ensure that essential functions will continue when we are involved in an emergency event.

[03:47:28] Board, I think the first thing we think about is weather-related emergencies, and we've seen more and more of those over the last several years. And this emergency planning, the key piece is cross-departmental and key connections to our partner agencies.

[03:47:43] So really appreciate the work of our emergency management folks, fire rescue, IT, all of the departments that have been involved. Okay. Almar County's family support team is coordinating a cleaning supplies and hygiene drive throughout the month of April to assist local families in need.

[03:48:03] Hygiene and cleaning products are often expensive and hard to access. They are essential for maintaining safe, healthy living environments. donated items will help families care for their homes, prevent illness, and build stability on their path forward towards self-sufficiency. Collection bins are located at County Buildings at McIntyre and 5th Street, the Food Line in Forest Lakes, the Kroger on Barracks. And again, this is us leaning in to, in this case, our family support team and trying to do more to help those families in our county that are in need. Albemarle County Police Department recently hosted a 2025

[03:48:41] Five Citizens Police Academy. I know that some of the board members on the desk tonight have been involved in those police academies in the past, or you may have had a chance to go to the one that we just completed. It's a free three-day program designed to give community members a behind-the-scenes look at law enforcement. Participants gained a hand-on experience through ride-alongs, crime scene investigations, K-9 demonstrations, virtual reality training. The program builds a better understanding of what it's really like at the police department with day-to-day operations and the breadth and depth of what they do on a day-to-day basis. It also

[03:49:19] strengthens relationships between our officers and the community that they serve. Through real-world scenarios and open dialogue, the academy supports safer, more connected community. 15 citizens from the community participated in this year's program, and board, we're going to take a best practices approach and step back at the conclusion of this and really look at our Citizen Police Academy, look at best practices across the United States, and see how we can make this better. Because that's just what we do. And this is a best practices. Community Citizen Police Academies are a best practice across the United States. And oftentimes, when community members leave the program, they're

[03:49:58] very disappointed that it's over. And they've made some really nice connections, in this case, with our police department, so I really appreciate this program. Our fire rescue department recently conducted a series of realistic field training exercises to strengthen emergency response and our rescue capabilities. Using space at Ravanna Futures, that's the property that we bought up on 29 North that is around the Ravanna station, crews practiced rapid intervention team drills, learning to remove a downed firefighter from a smoked out structure and evacuate victims from elevated areas using ladders.

[03:50:37] The current recruit school used the space to train in search techniques and rescue task force operations. And the technical rescue team held trench rescue sessions and trenches prepared by parks and recreation. And, Board, you will know, you learned this piece of performance data that in fire rescue at our budget town halls, we talked about this.

[03:51:00] From January 1 through March 8, our fire rescue department answered 3,488 calls. And there's never two calls that are alike. And the number that jumped off the page at me when I looked at that data was the number of motor vehicle accidents in our county, in some cases very serious, that require extradition from the vehicle and a real team type of process, okay? Jefferson Madison Regional Library recently completed its 2025 Same Page

[03:51:37] Community Reading Program, an annual event that brings readers together from around one featured title. This year's selection, Chesapeake Requiem by Earl Swift, was distributed to the community through more than 800 free copies and featured in over 25 related programs. Hundreds of readers participated in events across the library system, including author visits to the Crozet, Northside, and Scottsville branches, and featured an appearance at the Virginia Festival of the Book. Almar County, the City of Charlottesville, and the University of Virginia are hosting

[03:52:16] community design nights this spring and part of the Resilient Together initiative. These interactive workshops invite residents to help shape strategies for building a stronger, safer, and healthier community in the face of climate change. Events include hands-on activities with open discussions focused on climate resilience with light refreshments provided to create an informal, welcoming atmosphere. The Crozet Square Improvement Project is underway and we're working to ensure the community continues to support local businesses throughout the construction period.

[03:52:54] To encourage people to visit the businesses, we've launched Shop the Square. It's a campaign that It includes targeting advertising, public messaging, and a business toolkit with resources and marketing materials to help businesses stay visible and connected to customers during this project.

[03:53:11] These improvements will enhance safety, accessibility, stormwater management, while our outreach efforts will help maintain the vibrancy of Crozet's business during the work. Alamo County Police Department, in partnership with Sentara, Wegmans, Crozet Family Medicine, and Drug Enforcement Administration, DEA, will have four drop-off locations for the National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day on Saturday, April 26, 2025.

[03:53:44] This is a very popular program in our community. We will collect the tonnage and report back to the board what we're able to collect and take in to be safely disposed.

[03:54:00] So, board, that's my report. I'll be happy to answer questions. I also will say that we've wrapped up and several board members thanked our community and our staff for the seven budget town halls that we just finished earlier this week. One of our board members asked, how much in terms of time will we have been in session with budget work sessions and community town halls, and that will be 33 hours that we have spent devoted working with our community, pushing the budget message out, receiving questions, and then the budget work sessions as well that are held in this building.

[03:54:35] I want to personally thank the board for your energy and your commitment to these budget town halls. It also takes a lot from the board to work these evening events with the staff. I'd also really like to thank Abby Stump and her team. I thought they did an exceptional job of designing these in the community in a way to where we had the visit time with our community members coming in.

[03:54:57] And you saw all the departments that were represented. We averaged over 30 staff at every one of these town halls. And I believe one of the board members earlier tonight said we had on average between 20 to 35 citizens and community members. Also, our CACs were oftentimes present.

[03:55:14] We saw planning commissioners there. So it really, really was a nice dialogue with our community. Mr. Chair, that's the report for this month. I'll be happy to answer questions. Thank you very much. And we'll go through our orders. Supervisor Galloway. No questions. I always appreciate this report and look forward to having it so that we can share it out beyond this evening.

[03:55:33] Thank you. Supervisor Pruitt. I have no questions. Thank you. Supervisor McKeel. These reports are always part of my favorite agenda items. Would you send us the data from the fire and rescue and the call logs, those numbers?

[03:55:51] I wanted to quote them to someone the other day, and my brain didn't hold them, and I wasn't sure I was accurate. Would you mind just sending us that? That's not a problem at all. We can send that out to the entire board. And again, it was just shy of 3,500 calls, and they are broken down by category, which I think is very helpful for the board and the community to see not just the volume, but also the categories and the different things that we're involved in.

[03:56:16] Because I could share it with some of my community. I just need to make sure I get it right. Yes, ma'am. And the other thing is I just really appreciate, again, all the work that this takes and the work that it indicates is happening for our community. And I would add, for those in the audience, 33 hours of budget discussions all open to the public.

[03:56:39] You could listen. It's all podcasts. If you have any questions, it's up there for everybody to find and see. So thank you. Professor Malik. Thank you. And in addition to the 33 hours of discussions, two public hearings to come.

[03:56:57] So please continue to share your thoughts with your supervisors or the board as a whole. Thank you. Supervisor Lupisto-Kirtley. No questions. Thank you. And I have no questions, but I'm very appreciative of the presentation as always. And every time you hear new things, great things going on in this community.

[03:57:18] Thank you. Board, next up is item 15. From the public matters previously considered or currently pending before the board, other than scheduled for public hearings. Do we have anyone signed up to speak? Okay. Then that brings us to our first of two public hearings this evening.

[03:57:38] First is ZMA 2023-05, Berkmar Flats. And this is presented by Sid Schoff, Senior Planner 2. Welcome. Good evening. My name is Sid Schoff and I'm a Senior Planner with the Planning Division for Albemarle County's Community Development Department.

[03:58:03] Tonight I'll be giving staff's presentation on Zoning Map Amendment Application ZMA 2023-5 Berkmar Flats. This is a proposed rezoning for 3.62 acres from R6 residential to R15 residential. The subject property is located north of the city of Charlottesville between Woodburn Road and Berkmar Drive.

[03:58:23] Near it is the Victorian Heights Development with 88 units, the Berkmar Overlook Development with 52 units, and the Woodbrook Apartment Development with 244 units. There are three subject parcels which consist of TMP 45-81, 45-82, and 45-82A for a total of 3.62 acres.

[03:58:45] All three parcels are currently zoned R6 residential, and one parcel contains an existing structure with the address 2175 Woodburn Road. As mentioned in the previous slide, all three parcels are zoned R6 residential, which is shown as orange on the map.

[03:59:01] The parcels to the southwest are zoned R6 residential, which consists of the Berkmar Flats development. The adjacent parcel to the northeast is also zoned R6 residential and consists of a single-family residence. Further northeast is the Victorian Heights subdivision, which is R15 residential.

[03:59:17] To the north across Woodburn Road is the rural areas, and to the southwest across Berkmar Drive, the parcels are zoned Highway Commercial. The subject parcel contains a portion of steep slopes managed along the frontage with Berkmar Drive and are also within the Airport Impact Area Overlay District.

[03:59:35] The subject parcels are located within the PLACES 29 master plan. The future land use designates the three parcels for office, R&D, flex, and light industrial, which also allows residential as a secondary use. For this proposal, the applicant is proposing to rezone the 3.62 acres from R6 residential to R15 residential to construct 54 units.

[04:00:00] This is the conceptual plan that was presented to the PC on January 28th, and that is under consideration this evening. It is referenced as the non-vehicular connection proposal in the staff report because there was a prior conceptual plan that provided an internal travel way that connected the access points between Woodburn Road and Berkmar Drive.

[04:00:18] The applicant can go into further detail during their presentation. This conceptual plan includes two access points on Woodburn Road and Berkmar Drive with an internal pedestrian connection. There would be 14 units that would utilize the Woodburn Road entrance and 40 units that would utilize the Berkmar Drive entrance.

[04:00:36] The central feature of this plan is an enhanced recreation and amenity area that goes above the ordinance requirements which are proffered. Additionally, there is a proposed 50-foot inter-parcel connection to the parcel to the north. The applicants provided two proffers. The first is for the conceptual plan to be developed in general court, which pertains to the following essential elements.

[04:00:57] The first is the location of buildings. The second is the recreational area square footage. And lastly, the sidewalks constructed along Woodburn Road. The second proffers for 15% of the total residential units will be affordable housing units. Please note that this application was received prior to the change in the county's 20% housing policy.

[04:01:16] At the January 28th PC public hearing, the PC voted 7-0 to recommend approval of the updated concept plan that addresses previous PC concerns. Staff recommends that the board adopt the attached ordinance, attachment E, to approve ZMA 2023-5 Berkmar Flats.

[04:01:35] And I'm happy to answer any questions from the board. Thank you. Thank you. Before going to the public hearing, we'll go through for questions, starting with Supervisor Calloway. Is my memory just gone to hell? Wasn't this before us before? Or am I remembering that I set in on a PC committee meeting or the community meeting?

[04:01:53] I just remember having conversations and views of the Ford parking lot. Is that a whole nother, remember Kelsey being part of the conversation? This is the first time it's in front. This is the first time it's in front of the board, from my understanding. This application was submitted in 2023, so maybe some time has passed.

[04:02:11] It went to the PC for the first time in June 2024, and then it went back to the PC in January 2025. I must have set in at a planning commission, because this is where things start to run a little bit together. I mean, I remember it with the connection through, and I'll speak to that later.

[04:02:27] But the main change that's gone over the different iterations is that connection through from Berkmar to Woodburn. Yeah, that's correct. There is a connection between, I have it right here. This was the first proposal that came before the PC in June 2024. There's the internal travelway connection on the right side here where my cursor is.

[04:02:50] And there's just a greater impervious area and less green space. And the applicant requested a deferral from the PC to make revisions to the plan. And this is the new one that they've provided, which removed that internal travel away connection and then added enhanced green space areas to the plan.

[04:03:11] Got it. Well, my kid's got me as a joke at my last birthday, super memory boost. I guess I actually have to start taking it. It's not a joke. Would you share it with me? Can you help me understand? And so I normally like to make a point every time one of these comes before us of the fact that our zoning map is under-zoned based on what we're saying in our own comprehensive plan we want.

[04:03:36] But here, of course, we're saying in the comprehensive plan that this is an office and commercial area. And it also looks like none of the surrounding areas are zoned for office, light industrial, or commercial use. So is there something I'm missing as someone who's not as intimately familiar with this area of the Ryo neighborhood, why we have identified this as a commercial and light industrial region, even though none of the surrounding uses reflect that?

[04:04:04] I cannot speak on the specifics for that, but the comprehensive plan designates the majority of the area's office flex R&D industrial and residential is a secondary use that's allowed. And so if someone, staff would like to speak on that. I'm not sure what the next comprehensive plan shows for the area.

[04:04:23] I mean, it will for now say the same thing because it's going to be incorporating the master plans, which have not changed. Yeah, I just come up and say, you know, one of the things you've tried to do with the land use plan. Excuse me, Michael Barnes, Director of Planning.

[04:04:39] Thank you so much. Good to see you. You've been up here all day. I know. So, yeah, I mean, with land use plan, one of the major things we're trying to do is not change too much of the underlying planning that was done. with master plans over the years this area places 29 master plans quite a long time ago and i think we do recognize that the land use plan here uh was looking for commercial uses and that the stretch here the market's really taking us much more towards a residential

[04:05:12] um bent in this this area between woodburn and uh burkmar and so this started before i got here but i think that we've had multiple rezoning along this stretch which you're looking at having residential in this area and i think they are uh it's not aligning with the comp plan but it's been a conscious decision made to try you know pass decisions of the board and some recognition of the area here that this is appropriate for residential uses sure um i'm not trying to suggest this is going to affect any decision i make here today but i would point this out to

[04:05:50] the board right this is again i talked about earlier today the conflict of when we're talking about preventing encroaching uses um that that is exactly what's happened here there's been an encroaching use on something we have identified for commercial and economic purposes that we have not taken any actions to prevent and we have in fact enabled and encouraged it um and i'm not saying that's normatively wrong but if we want to do the things we say we're doing that is not doing that. So thank you. Thank you for the clarification. Thank you. Supervisor McHugh. Sure. I was going

[04:06:27] to just ask about the same issue, and I agree. I mean, I understand why we have this, but we just had a discussion this afternoon with AC44 about not having much light industrial in the commercial, and it seems like every time we turn around, we're losing more of it to residential. We need the residential i'm not pushing back on that but it is a concern um so my understanding is though this is from reading it and from what you said planning commission twice the reason that i believe it says that the planning commission um expressed reservation because of lack of a second access

[04:07:06] the interconnectivity isn't that correct um from my understanding and the first time it went to the Planning Commission. The Planning Commission had comments regarding the lack of green space and the amount of impervious area on the site. Staff supported the internal travelway connection to connect Woodburn Road and Birkmar Drive. Gotcha. So I was a little confused about that.

[04:07:31] Thank you very much. All right. So now, though, we do have the interconnectivity. With the proposal before you tonight, there is not that internal connection for vehicles between woodburn road and burkmar drive however um you can access it from the respective access points and there is a proposed inter-parcel connection to the future um development to the north right so we have two two uh two exits out of the property is what i was trying to say right that's right i missed sort of misspoke which is really good i would have assumed that well we say

[04:08:08] that all the time that we don't want just one access in and out of the development so that's good. And I don't think I have any other questions. I am appreciative of the green that we see now. It looks a lot nicer. And there's a place for a playground, perhaps. Just saying. Thank you very much. Supervisor Malek. Thank you. I get this being a smaller parcel and therefore perhaps isn't going to damage the light industrial index as much. But what are the negatives of giving up

[04:08:46] this extra connection vehicular between because i think the whole point of having two for this many units is that if a tree falls on the bottom one at least people could go out the other one but now they're stuck there will be no way for someone who is on the berkmar side to get out in an emergency on the woodburn side so yes there may be a little more grass but not much so yes i understand why that's a preferable trade-off i understand the staff wanted the interconnectivity in there

[04:09:17] Yeah, staff initially wanted the interconnectivity because this is a map that shows the Victorian Heights and Woodbrook Apartments developments, and these two are both in the process of being, Victorian Heights is approved and the Woodbrook Apartments is going through the process of the site plan.

[04:09:33] But both of these developments will have an internal connection that connects Woodburn Road and Berkmar Drive together, which would provide additional access for residents on either side. Regarding this proposal, though, the issue is that there's a grading issue on this site.

[04:09:53] And so where the green space is, and the applicant can speak more to this, where the green space is, that's where the connection would have been. And the applicant can provide specific engineering details, but it was one or the other for this site. To put it another way, the great transition between Burke-Marr and Woodburn is kind of significant.

[04:10:16] The previous plan that we looked at, they really worked to try and get an acceptable slope on the travel way, working their way between the lower street and the upper street. And as a result, the other plan, if you look at it, has a lot of asphalt.

[04:10:33] I think the planning commission was a bit worried about that. And that's when they sort of sent us in this other direction to try and look at something that had, You can see we couldn't hit both elements, and I think that when the applicant really came down to work at it, it was hard to meet both objectives, get more green space, and get a travel way to connect the lower and upper road.

[04:10:54] So, obviously, staff sort of pushed for the interconnections, and the Planning Commission's recommendation to use for more open space in the configuration that you see on the screen right now. The travel way that's being removed is like 10 feet wide and 50 feet long.

[04:11:09] I think it's more appropriate, it's not so much the width of the travelway as it is to get it in. I mean, you have to maintain a certain slope. No more than 14%. So what we ended up was, they had to zigzag back up the site to get up there, basically.

[04:11:29] You could see that on the previous site plan. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Lupita Curtin. Yeah, I like the second proposal that you have here. one question. You mentioned the number of cars that would be exiting Birkmar Drive as opposed to Woodburn. And it looks like, on the map anyway, it looks like there are more cars exiting Woodburn than Birkmar. And did I mishear you or misunderstand you when you gave out those

[04:12:03] numbers? Yes, I misspoke when I said that. I'm sorry. The applicant can provide greater detail for that but it looks like it would be more uh cars exiting out of the woodburn road exit but regardless um county transportation staff and vdot staff had no concerns about the amount of traffic going on either road okay and last question would the residents who are moving in or the developer would they be able to change let's say if they didn't want um i know a pollinator garden they wanted something else green space would they be able to do that later yeah this is a conceptual plan it's subject to a site plan and we can um hash out all those details at that time got it

[04:12:42] thank you no other questions thank you thank you uh just so i'm clear on this this went before the planning commission and the staff i believe it recommended denial uh but it was approved by the planning commission unanimously is there anything different yeah let me explain this a little bit better so this is the proposal that went before the planning commission this was the previous proposal that went in june 2024 and so we recommended denial on the one before you tonight because staff valued the inter the interconnection to connect woodburn road and burkmar drive but the

[04:13:22] pc valued the enhanced green space and less impervious space on site and so this is the one that we have before you this evening okay and this is the one being recommended correct yes so staff are recommending approval of this proposal that the PC recommended approval for.

[04:13:38] Okay, thank you. My questions from here will be for the applicant. So with that, then I will open the public hearing. First, I'll check to see. We have no public comment, but we have time now for the applicant to present. I'm Ms. Kelsey Schwein for SHMP Engineering and Vice Chairman McKeel will read the rules with which I think you are familiar.

[04:14:01] I was going to say, I think Kelsey is familiar, But applicants are limited to a 10-minute presentation of their proposal and are allowed a five-minute rebuttal at the close of the public hearing. Timekeeping is conducted through a timer and light system at the podium. The green light will go on when you begin speaking, which begins your allotted time.

[04:14:19] 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. All comments are live streamed, recorded, and published on the Almar County website. And that gave you time to pull up your presentation. It did. That worked out very well. Thank you.

[04:14:37] Good evening, Chair Andrews, members of the board. My name is Kelsey Schlein. I'm a planner with Schimp Engineering. I'm here tonight representing Third Mesa LLC, who's the property owner of this property. And here with me tonight is Justin Schimp, the engineer on the project, as well as Whit Graves with Evergreen Home Builders, who is going to build the, hopefully, build all 54, if we receive your support tonight, units on this property.

[04:15:08] I will note that the property is currently zoned R6, so there are up to 28 units permitted by right on the property. There's actually a by-right plan, site plan that's under review. We're calling it phase one for 14 of the units on the property so far.

[04:15:29] So that's nearing approval, and that covers these units that are front on Woodburn here. So connectivity has obviously been one of the biggest factors in designing this plan.

[04:15:47] And I'll say, kind of going back even further to the plans that Sid shared with you this evening, I believe at the community meeting, I don't think we had a connection to Woodburn Road at all. We originally approached this site thinking that Woodburn Road is the dividing line with the rural areas.

[04:16:05] So this side of Woodburn Road is the rural areas. We have Berkmar Drive being flex office, mixed use designation. And so initially we had no connection there. We then, through talking with staff in the community meeting, we didn't have any neighbors, I believe, who live specifically along Woodburn show up.

[04:16:28] We had a few from the new developments nearby, but nobody from Woodburn really had concerns. And so that was kind of a first transportation modification. But I just wanted to kind of take a step back even further just to kind of go over all the iterations that we've gone through to try to get this right.

[04:16:45] and i think that we're at a really good plan uh tonight and i will certainly go into more details about the grading on the site because that's the largest consideration and how the the connectivity lays out um so burkmar development patterns um back in 2015 when the or i think it even been 2011 for the places 29 master plan where these designations came about um the west side of Berkmar Flats was all designated as office flex, light industrial, but all of that property was

[04:17:20] by right zone for residential use. And, you know, I think that the market kind of shows that on the east side of Berkmar commercial was certainly the right designation. And that is, you know, what has developed and is continuing to develop with recent years with the hotel coming online, Currently under construction, better living, building their new facility on the west side of Berkmar Drive.

[04:17:46] But on the east side, Berkmar Overlook has come online. Victorian Heights is currently under construction. There's a two-acre piece with a residential home right here. And then Berkmar Flats is kind of nestled right in between those.

[04:18:01] So we kind of have this 3.6 acre plus a little two acre next door pocket of land that's designated currently in the comp plan as flex light industrial, but it really kind of makes sense to lay out as residential given development patterns in recent years.

[04:18:20] I will also note in, I can come back to these, but in the future, in the AC44 plan that is currently under review, this property is designated as urban density residential. And so that designation has been reviewed in this area throughout this kind of AC44 process.

[04:18:41] And so we are directly consistent with what it looks like where we're moving to for a designation on this property. I'm going to kind of hop through these and talk specifically about the connections because I think that's most of the questions that came up from the board. And so I definitely want to ensure that I have time to address those. So I'm going to start with Swede Street. The Swede Street connection is, I'll just pop back here a little bit so we have an overview. In the Birkmar Overlook, this is Swede Street. So it stubs out directly to our property. So that's a public road, stubs out

[04:19:18] directly to our property the ideal scenario is that we pull from that public road and uh you know continue interparcel connectivity um we take advantage of the public road system however that road how it was constructed and what i'm calling out here um is the profile of the road and the profile of an rwsa water main that runs along the shared property boundary so that's a that's a Rivena Water Sue Authority, Maine, large pipe coming directly from the reservoir.

[04:19:52] And that water pipe elevation, if we were to continue Swede Street, which is shown here in purple. So this is the existing Swede Street. The purple dots are showing how we would continue that profile to construct that public road would actually be below the waterline.

[04:20:11] So this blue dot is showing the waterline. So we looked at that. we had many conversations with VDOT, we had many conversations with the county, many conversations with RWSA. That wasn't going to work. So that was not an option for interconnectivity for us. A few other items that I wanted to bring up. With our prior concept, so that connected, that had a full interparcel connection from Woodburn to Berkmar. What I'm calling out here

[04:20:45] is our kind of required slopes in these areas to meet parking requirements. So when we're coming in off of either Woodburn or Barkmar, we have to establish a landing with less than 4% slopes to establish a commercial entrance that's compliant with VDOT regulations. So we can't immediately start ramping the road up. I will, from the lowest point to the highest point on the site, think we have a 42-foot grade drop. Yeah, so from entrance to entrance is 36. From the lowest point here to the highest point here, I think we're at 42. So we're dealing with quite a significant grade.

[04:21:23] To get from one road to the other and to establish the required parking, there was a significant amount of grading involved with this concept. And so we're basically having to flatten out all these areas to establish our parking lots less than 5% slope. So this, during our conversation with the Planning Commission back in June, you know, they really tasked us. We talked about the interparcel connectivity, but then they really tasked us with just coming up with a better design, respecting terrain, having more green space. And so that's what you see before you tonight. And this is

[04:22:00] another helpful cross-section that kind of shows the proposed design compared to the previous. And what we're looking at here with the orange hatch is the amount of cut that was required to establish each development.

[04:22:16] So you can see in the previous concept, we had a significant amount of earthwork that we were taking on, which in the Piedmont region, sometimes you have to take on a significant amount of earthwork on many sites. But this was exclusively so that we could establish a full interparcel connection.

[04:22:35] We were having to do that much earthwork. And so by just splitting up that connection, keeping the portion of the site that is accessed from Woodburn high and keeping the portion of the site that's accessed from Berkmar low, we were able to significantly reduce our amount of grading on the property and increase our green space.

[04:22:55] I will also note that in our proffer statement, we have committed to a 20% increase in recreational area over the requirement. And so that's a, that's a proffered condition of this development. You know, typically we'd be looking, um, at, you know, 5% of the area.

[04:23:14] So we increased that by 20%. I think it increases the requirement by about two to 3,000 square feet. Um, so which would be typically for, for, um, county zoning regulations and the size of an additional required top lot, something like that. So trying to demonstrate a commitment to, um, really kind of making this site, uh, much more livable.

[04:23:34] Um, that is still the minute left, but I think I covered honestly, mostly what I wanted, uh, was hoping to with the, with the inner connectivity. And so, um, if you have any questions, I'm available and thank you for the opportunity. Thank you. And we'll go through our order. So supervisor Galloway.

[04:23:50] So understood that the road or the street isn't connected any longer, but what is their pedestrian access from the neighboring like sweet street? All that was a by right, right? That was, they did that by right. Yep. That was our sex by right. Um, yeah, I have a slide here. That's a little helpful that I skipped through at the beginning.

[04:24:07] So this is, we have, I think one huge amenity that is coming online here is the addition, the construction of additional 1.1 mile of shared use path for Burkmar that is going to start construction next spring and should be completed, I believe, sometime in 2027.

[04:24:30] So as far as connectivities to properties next door, we have a sidewalk along the front. We're building a sidewalk along Woodburn. We have a bus stop nearby. And then this shared-use path is going to come online. And ultimately, I think I have a better image here, 2.7 miles of shared-use path.

[04:24:52] You can bike all the way up to Hollymead, which is amazing. But between the Swede Street, somebody who lives on Swede Street wants to go to somebody who lives in this one. Do they have to go down to Berkmar and walk over to the entrance? Yeah, I think ultimately that might end up becoming what I like to call a tactical urbanism path.

[04:25:13] And unfortunately, because of the grade change, we have to put stairs there. We had back and forth with VDOT several times asking if we could put stairs in the right-of-way and they will not permit stairs to go in the right-of-way there. So there will be, there's not a formal connection.

[04:25:31] But I am sure that human behavior will take over. Yes. Yeah, that's good. Those are my questions. Supervisor Pruitt. I actually have no questions. Thank you. Supervisor McKeel.

[04:25:46] I have no questions. And I thank you for the great explanation of the slopes and the grading. Supervisor Malek. Thank you. Thank you, Kelsey. So the green space that's coming in, if my math is any good at all, looks like about a 12-foot grade across that area, which is fairly steep, I guess. What is one supposed to do? I mean, it's not the play space because of the slope. I assume it's just a walk through or climb up the stairs. That's where the stairs are that you're indicating.

[04:26:17] You'll have to put it over there. I was talking about, so Ned, Supervisor Galloway was specific. I was talking about the stairs through Swede Street. That's over there. Sorry. Is there a, so to get from the, on the north side of the property, on the right-hand side, to get across through that woody, the green, new green space where the road used to go? Is there going to be a path or a sidewalk or is that too steep to walk up as well? And that's why the road couldn't go there anymore. No. I mean, I think there's, now that it's kind of becoming a green space, I think there's many like creative ways that we can establish, you know, gathering space

[04:26:57] by, you know, kind of terracing a few retaining walls, places for people to sit, nice plantings. We could also, so there is, you know, a connection, we kind of have this conceptually shown through here, but we could definitely incorporate, you know, in the areas where it's steeper, kind of have some kind of steps into the hillside.

[04:27:16] But yeah, I think we can establish more, I mean, usable space is different to different people, right? And so I think there's many creative ways that we can come up with a nice inviting space for residents to enjoy.

[04:27:37] Great, thank you. Thank you, Supervisor of the Pista Curtin. Yeah, I have no questions. Thank you very much for your presentation. Thank you. I have a couple of questions, just want to make sure I understand. So there is a walkway, though, between the Birkmar to the Woodburn sections, and it's ADA accessible between the two, or does it involve stairs?

[04:28:01] So through the site from Woodburn to Birkmar, we likely, I don't know if it'll be entirely ADA accessible with less than a 5% slope in every area. This, and, but, I mean, usable, yes, and maybe, I don't know, Justin, if you have anything to offer on that of, like, just the requirements, because we won't kick in ADA on this particular site, I should say.

[04:28:34] Sure. I'm Justin Schimp, I'm the engineer. I worked in the grading for this, so I can answer your question there. It won't be an ADA route. There's a couple paths. You'll see the sidewalk that wraps around the edge here that connects this sidewalk. You can come over and connect to the road. Well, there's a path in between the buildings.

[04:28:50] There's actually a grade step in there. So there would be steps in that direction. For ADA, we have accessible parking spaces on each level. So if you are disabled, you would use a parking space on your own level to get to your own unit with an accessible route, but not necessarily be an accessible route between the Berkmar side and the Woodburn side.

[04:29:12] And if someone wanted to use public transit, if they live on the Berkmar side, they just go down Berkmar Road and up and there's the transit stop if somebody lived on the woodburn side how would they get there you would come down to the site if i lived here i would walk to this sidewalk down and down and up the sidewalk here so either way they're accessing it from the burkmar side correct they can walk through the site on foot do a couple routes down to the burkmar side and just logistically how do you plan to manage the parking on this will they be assigned places or is a possibility

[04:29:46] that someone might live in one part but decide to park in the other part because of where they work where they need to be that's a good question i don't know if we've gotten quite that far we tend to the county parking ordinance tends to require enough parking there's always empty spaces so there's not necessarily like a parking restriction because of the availability space you could park either side it may be on this that you might say as you say you know assign them because it's more convenient for someone to park on one side or the other but that's what we work out you know during the final planning phases i mean and part of that reason why i ask also is that you you have

[04:30:26] the burkmar has the two lower sections of units and the parking is right in front of those and then there's parking on both sides of both sides of the upper units and then there's this parking lot that's extends over by the dog park area um i guess that's for the lower units as well Well, it's intended if obviously it doesn't reach the upper units.

[04:30:50] In grade, there's a basement walk down between this parking lot here and this area here. So somewhat, yes, these folks who live here might park over here and kind of walk around the park up to their unit, or they may park up here and come down the steps and around their unit.

[04:31:09] So there's some logistical things we need to tackle as to the logical place for folks to park. But generally speaking, yes, these units here plus some of these are thought to park from this parking lot, but there would be available parking from the upper parking lot to go down the stairs to these units on this side.

[04:31:29] I appreciate the challenges. And when you're through, I have one other question. Okay, good. Additional question. Yeah. And it's really not a question. It's just a comment. So I realize that this is not written in stone. It's a schematic.

[04:31:46] And as a retired nurse and a dog lover, I just do not like dog parks. I'm just saying that I would think about that because if I was renting, if I had that unit right there or then one next door to it, I would think twice.

[04:32:04] I think that space, in my opinion, and I know there are lots of people who love dog parks, but in my opinion, it could be better used than a dog park. Just saying. Fair enough. The beauty of this location is the county is investing heavily in the shared use path, for example. And if you owe a dog, you can stroll up the Hollymead Town Center on the shared use path safely.

[04:32:23] So I imagine people will use those sort of amenities more than they would the community amenities because the county has done such a good job of planning and executing those things. The McKeel theory is that there's a better use for that particular property than a dog park. All right, so noted. Terraced gardens, that sounds good.

[04:32:40] And the stormwater management facility is above ground. Correct, this is a traditional open stormwater management pond. But as I read the Planning Commission minutes, it's not necessarily a wet pond. Correct, there was a question about what the nature would be exactly, and essentially to have a true wet pond, you need a certain amount of area draining to it, so it holds water. And so this pond is probably, will look basically like a grass bowl most of the time. It may have some landscaping within it, but effectively as a grass bowl, it fills up, it drains down, and, but there's, it doesn't have standing water in it.

[04:33:16] Thank you. Yes. So speaking of the wet pond potential, I'm very fond of our bioswale out here, which drains everything beyond botos all through here and takes care of all of that. Something with attractive plantings might really be a great asset to the property as opposed to just a bowl with grass in it. So I don't know if that's something that's in your potential of further development or not, because that's a pretty big area to just... And would that be fenced off as

[04:33:52] well, that whole stormwater thing? Or is it just part of the walking area? It may have some sort of little fence to keep folks out of certain parts. Depends on that there's some technical details to how deep it's not a very large pond in the sense it's a large green area but to your point that was the planning commission sort of um also a pond that was better because it gave opportunity to landscape it and it can be you might not plant trees the very bottom of it but in the entire slope between the parking lot in that there could be ornamental landscaping of any type for folks to enjoy or just to be there for you know the birds and bees and other creatures that benefit from that thank you okay thank you um you have five minutes from rebuttal

[04:34:31] anything else further we have no further comment thank you very much for your time thank you um and if there are no other questions i will close the public hearing and the matter is back before the board when no one signed up um and uh unless there's additional comments supervisor galloway i'll turn to you if you want to make a comment or you want to make a motion i'd like to make just a couple comments that i didn't want to bring up in as questions but sure just based on some comments that i've heard i think this track along burkmar especially on that side

[04:35:08] to your point about losing commercial i think part of the reason it never turned to commercial is because of the slopes and the severe grading that would have to happen to build in bigger buildings there's plenty of office retail space along burkmar across burkmar through the whole district that's sitting on empty and could be utilized so i'm not worried about losing individual office space i think we have plenty of that kind of inventory and that's what's been a struggle to get to be filled countywide, let alone in one particular district. But the other thing that's kind of exciting about this track and this turning residential, it's one of the first places finally, I feel like in the Rio district that you can actually go home, walk to a grocery store without

[04:35:47] having to sprint across 10 lanes to get there. And we'd want to, and there's a school. Oh my goodness, a student could walk to school in the Rio district. That doesn't get to happen unless you live in the Woodbrook neighborhood, frankly. So this is finally becoming this tract of land where there are shops, there are places to go to eat. You could go to Chandler's Bakery.

[04:36:11] You could get to the library and you could all do it without your car. And it's always interesting to me when like we got rid of some car connections here. We just got rid of some car connections here and we should have celebrated that because now the folks that live up on that top section, If you know the area and you have to go out to Woodburn, turn left, fight turning left on Ryo, turning left on Birkmar, get down to Kroger and then do all that back, you might decide to just walk to Kroger.

[04:36:42] And that's doing what our bigger picture is trying to get rid of some of the usage of cars, right? So the connectivity, you know, I'm thrilled that the connection is not there for Birkmar to Woodburn because of human behavior that was talked about for the walking path. People would have figured out that there was a cut through there.

[04:36:59] They would go up to Woodburn and be able to take a right on Rio West. And that's just what humans do. They figure that stuff out. And I'd hate to be having that type of stuff cutting through this little apartment neighborhood because that's then the email that we start to get after this is up and that all starts to happen.

[04:37:18] Look, you've got all this big cut through there. So I know we like interconnectivity and we like connections, but in this particular tract, I think focusing on the pedestrian stuff, we've actually got walking infrastructure, we've got transit there, we've got all the shops. we're actually creating a neighborhood that we would like to function in the vision that we've said that we that we've wanted. And I'm happy about that for this whole stretch.

[04:37:39] You know, the only other, I guess, thing that I would say, I know some folks were concerned about the additional traffic, but I mean, it splits that traffic piece to two different areas. I thought it was interesting whoever said based was that you, Jim? So, well, I guess it depends on it. If I if I have to head north, maybe I want to park down in the Birkmar side if I live up there and if i work in town i might want to park on the woodburn side and get creative but it looks like it could support that kind of parking but um we need the units we need a couple of affordable units that are going to come out of this um so i'm happy to support it uh in my district supervisor

[04:38:19] any comments i'm supportive i think it's thoughtfully designed um and i appreciate the thought that's gone inside the compromises for the design and i i agree i'm quite jealous of the amount of uh pedestrian accessibility you've got over here i think supervisor mckeel yeah i'm supportive and i don't have any more comments i'm fine thank you i'm all set as well thank you very much i'm very supportive thank you thank you i am also supportive again i feel that this is an appropriate place for residential because of the walkability and that's a discussion for the future

[04:38:56] for where where there's walkability and where there isn't so look to supervisor and if i might just correct the the motion that's shown it would be to adopt the ordinance attached to the staff report rather than a resolution thank you and i withheld opening up the my dog park comments for we could talk about that dog parts i move that the board adopted the ordinance attached to the staff report as attachment e second we have a motion from supervisor galloway a second from supervisor mckeel without objection the clerk will call the roll ms mallet yes ms mckeel yes

[04:39:29] Mr. Pruitt. Aye. Mr. Andrews. Yes. Mr. Galloway. Yes. Ms. Lapisto. Kirtley. Aye. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Schoff, you are still on as we go to our second public hearing, SP 2024 for the Canine Hotel. And you'll also be presenting on a special exception 2024 for relating to the same facility. Yep. Thank you.

[04:39:59] Well, thank you for staying for my last presentation. I'm Sid Sheff. I'm a senior planner with the planning division for Albemarle County's Community Development Department. Tonight, I'll be giving staff's presentation for special use permit SP 2024-4 and special exception SE 2024-4, the Canine Hotel.

[04:40:17] This is a special use permit request to allow a commercial kennel on a rural area zone parcel, and the special exception is a request to vary the setback requirement for a commercial kennel. The subject property is approximately five acres and located at 3225 Gilbert Station Road, which is near Stony Point.

[04:40:36] It is zoned rural areas, and the comprehensive plan designates it as rural area. The site contains an existing single-family residence where the applicant lives. The site is accessed through a 30-foot access easement, which is a gravel driveway through two other properties.

[04:40:52] In areas where it's steep, the driveway is paved. There are also areas of critical slopes, which are shown as orange, and a portion of the water protection ordinance buffer, which is shown as purple on the map. The adjacent properties are all zoned rural areas and are all undeveloped according to the county's GIS map.

[04:41:10] Beyond the adjacent properties, there are properties with single-family residences, where the closest one is approximately 700 feet away. There are two applications before you this evening. The first is SB 2024-4. This is a request for a new commercial kennel with a capacity up to 12 dogs.

[04:41:27] and the special exception is a request to reduce the required setbacks from residential and rural properties under Section 18-5.111. I'm going to go ahead and discuss the special use permit first. This is the applicant's conceptual plan if the special use permit and special exception were to be approved by the board. The applicant's proposing for the kennel building to be approximately 75 feet away from the closest property line, with the proposed outdoor run area approximately 92 feet from the closest property line. The applicant indicated that the kennel will be soundproofed and a sound dampening fence will be provided around the proposed outdoor run area. The existing single family residence would remain on site where the

[04:42:05] applicant continues to reside. Further details of the proposal will be provided by the applicant. There's a lot of text on the screen. I'm going to go through it and give you the high level points of it. These are the supplementary regulations that the applicant must meet prior to a site plan, building permit, and zoning clearance being approved by the county.

[04:42:24] The first is for animals that are confined in soundproofed, air-conditioned buildings. no structure or area occupied by animals shall be closer than 500 feet to any agricultural or residential lot line, which doesn't apply to the proposal before you. The second part requires an external solid fence for non-soundproof confinements. This is proposed by the applicant.

[04:42:45] The second B is for soundproof confinements. No structure shall be closer than 200 feet to any property line. The applicant has provided a special exception to reduce the setback from 200 feet to 75 feet, which I'll discuss further later. Additionally, this requires for all confinements sound measured at the nearest property line shall not exceed 55 decibels. The applicant will need to meet this requirement. Third is that the animals must be in an enclosed building from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. The applicants indicated in their narrative that this will be met. Lastly, D, this requirement does not apply since this proposal is in the rural areas. These are the factors and findings that the

[04:43:24] special use permit application was reviewed under. Staff believes the proposal will not be detrimental to adjacent parcels, will not change the character of the nearby area, will continue to be in harmony with the rural area zoning district, and is consistent with the comprehensive plan. We've drafted six conditions for this application. The first is for the development to be in general accord with the conceptual plan. There are two essential elements, which includes the location of the proposed building and the location of the proposed parking area. The second condition is for the max height to be at one story. The third condition is the maximum number of dog kennels as requested by the applicant, so 12. The fourth and fifth conditions are to limit the size of the

[04:44:04] proposed kennel building and the outdoor run area. And lastly, the sixth condition is for a sound dampening fence, which is already required by the supplementary regulations. In sum, staff has found that this is consistent with the review criteria for special use permits contained in zoning ordinance. Staff has no concerns. Staff recommends approval with the conditions as recommended in the staff report and i'm going to transition and start discussing the special exception so the special exception was submitted by the applicant to reduce the setbacks from residential rural properties the section of the ordinance lists the supplementary regulations for specific uses which

[04:44:40] includes additional requirements for the commercial kennel that's that long powerpoint slide with all the text on it the applicants proposing to vary just the requirements of section 18-5.111b, which requires for soundproof confinements, no such structure shall be located closer than 200 feet to any agricultural or residential lot line. The applicant's requesting for the 200-foot requirement to be reduced to 75 feet from the closest property line. The closest residences are approximately 700 feet away from the proposed kennel. Staff recommends approval without conditions as recommended in the staff report, and I'm happy to answer any questions

[04:45:17] about both the special use permit and the special exception. Thank you. We'll go through our order. so just so the sound proofing that they're doing sounds like it goes beyond what is required but that's specifically because of the setback change or is it just the applicant is being a good neighbor yes so they're not required to provide soundproof structures if they if they provided a structure that isn't soundproof it would need to be 500 feet away from their closest lot line the applicant in this case um is um soundproofing the the building and so the the uh bullet b here

[04:45:55] applies and so it needs to be 200 feet away per our ordinance and so they have that special exception to reduce it to 75 feet but that's what's triggering them doing all the soundproofing yes all right um and i forget i remember doing the last time we did something with a kennel but what's the difference between the just the basic noise ordinance i mean these it sounds like there's a stricter requirement on kennels than if i just got a neighbor that lets their dog bark yeah i can have zoning staff come up and speak on that which is what i think it's an uninterrupted it's you have to if a dog barks for 30 minutes and it doesn't stop for five then you're in

[04:46:34] violation of the noise ordinance i believe is that the same in the rural areas the development area i think it is second round i think we may and this is more curiosity probably than anything but it just seems like we bring in kennels they got dogs dogs bark and then you got somebody that owns 12 dogs, dogs bark, but no requirement on them. Welcome, Mr. Savota. Bart Savota, Deputy Director of Community Development. So there's a couple noise regs. There's the nuisance noise regs, which are in the county code, which deal with the barking dogs and the 30 consecutive

[04:47:12] minutes, those kinds of things. There's the performance standards for these supplemental regs which is 55 decibels i believe daytime in the rural area 65 this matches evening and they would have to meet evening regs the whole time private dogs are subject to the 30 minute and so i did have a brief conversation with one of our officers that's here tonight and generally speaking and those of you that have been around for a while know that you know that by the time

[04:47:49] we get out there to investigate the dog barking it's usually you know our response time depending on what we have going on it's somewhere on 20 30 minutes by that time normally the dog has stopped barking so that's generally what we run into when it comes to those wrecks i don't know if that satisfies the curiosity or not got it i think it does okay i'm always wondering because my two dogs i can't have you have yeah i can't handle them barking more than two minutes and i get up and and then the noise ordinance is me yelling at the dogs um said so the the 12 kennels it sounds like

[04:48:26] the applicant requested that and i'll probably ask the same question to them but is there some magic number about 12 or that's just what they asked for um they can they can answer that question but i believe it's a spacing issue on their property got it all right that's all i have thank you supervisor prude i have no questions thank you professor mckeel i don't think i have any questions right now thank you supervisor malik thank you i will wait for the applicant supervisor lapisto kirkley no questions at this time thank you i have no questions as well she's

[04:49:00] going to look so we'll open the public hearing we have signups the applicant as well so i will turn to vice chair mckeel to read the rules all right and well dad i'm assuming no one online we may not even have an online at this point but okay all right during the public hearings the board will acknowledge speakers addressing the item listed for public hearing. Speakers are limited to one appearance of three minutes for a public hearing item. Applicants are limited to a

[04:49:38] 10-minute presentation of their proposal and are allowed a five-minute rebuttal at the close of the public hearing. Timekeeping is conducted through a timer and light system at the podium. The green light will go on when you begin speaking, which begins your allotted time. The yellow light indicates you have one minute to 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 alamara county your magisterial district address comments directly to the board as a whole any written statements or other supporting material may be

[04:50:16] given to the clerk if representing a group or organization you may ask others present to raise their hand in recognition speakers may not share any unused time with another speaker back and forth debate is not permitted do not speak from your seat or out of turn and all comments are live streamed recorded and published on the almar county website and uh first we will hear from the

[04:50:39] applicants cody and nikki markham welcome good evening everyone my name is nikki markham and this is my husband we just your voice is very thank you okay thank you my name is nikki markham and this is my husband, Cody Markham, and we live at 3225 Gilbert Station Road on our five acres.

[04:51:11] I was born and raised in Stony Point and have lived here for 35 years. Cody has been part of the community for 17. In 2008, we built our home here, and we were now fortunate enough to raise our three young children in our wonderful community. Right after high school, Cody and I worked for local Stony Point businesses. Later, we started and operated our own fencing and landscape company, Markham Services. Unfortunately, due to Cody's ongoing health issues, we've had to gradually shut that business down. It is no longer safe for him to operate and drive machinery.

[04:51:42] Starting the small scale dog boarding business would allow us to work from home on our own property and allow us to support our family. It would also provide a much needed service to Stony Point and surrounding areas as Emerald County continues to grow every day. Our proposed project is small in size and is similar to others that have already been approved and are successfully operating in the county. A concern that was raised that our business would negatively impact royal residents. However, many long-standing Stony Point residents, whether they are here tonight or have submitted letters of support, stand with us and support this business. Our closest neighbors

[04:52:18] and every surrounding property that touches us support the project as well. The properties directly adjacent to ours are undeveloped farmland and our building will be no larger than a standard garage, or workshop. If this business were to fail, it could easily be repurposed for storage, a barn, or a small-scale agricultural use. We've submitted a detailed narrative for you to review, but here's a quick overview. The Planning Commission recommended we enlarge the building to avoid space limitations. We followed that suggestion and increased the building size to 1,200 square feet. This will allow for a bigger, dedicated office and drop-off area and an indoor

[04:52:57] dog play area, which will be helpful during implicant weather conditions. The one-story building will house 12 dog kennels and be fully enclosed. Dogs will not have their own access to the outdoors. The kennels will have anti-flight partition panels on each side of them, which will help block view of neighboring dogs. They will only be outside in the dog run while under our supervision. The outdoor dog run will be surrounded by a seven-foot privacy fence with green giant evergreens and other shrubbery planted inside and outside the fence for visual looks and the noise

[04:53:30] buffers. One side of the proposed fence already has 18 foot tall green giants growing. Dogs will be kept indoors between 10 p.m and 6 a.m and the building's close proximity to our home allows us to respond quickly to any issues that may arise. There will be no grooming or doggy daycare services just overnight boarding. Construction will not require disturbing existing trees or vegetation and we are well outside of the Water Protection Ordinance.

[04:54:01] Additionally, all dog waste will be bagged and removed by a professional local dog waste removal company. Yes, those really do exist. Existing mature vegetation, including dense evergreens like pine, cedar, and green giants, and mature oak trees already buffer our property, rather reducing any potential sound from the outdoor area.

[04:54:24] The green giants, which are already planted along one side of the proposed privacy fence are fast-growing evergreens known for their screening abilities. They will grow to great heights and provide dark green foliage year-round, and we will continue to add more screening. I didn't bring some of this information up at the January meeting, but would now like to do so as I feel like I need to stand up for ourselves and family.

[04:54:47] I'd like to address some misinformation that has been circulated. The Blakenships, Ham, and King family, which are all part of the same family, have stated they hate to pit neighbor against neighbor, yet sent a letter containing false claims to hundreds of residents within a 10-mile radius of our property.

[04:55:05] I would like to clarify a few of those points tonight in case anyone here is in attendance because of the letter. We are concerned that some people may have based their opinions off of this false information. Claim number one, our site is surrounded by a residential community. We are zoned royal, and our property is surrounded by farmland.

[04:55:25] Claim two, our business would negatively impact property values. There is no evidence in this. In fact, property values in our area continue to rise every year. Claim three, this business belongs in a light industrial area. We are caring for animals, something very much aligned with royal living.

[04:55:44] Our building would not be constructed to look like a commercial building and could be repurposed for agricultural use. Noise will be an issue. The letter they sent out failed to mention any soundproofing efforts, privacy fence, and landscaping buffers that we spoke about in our proposal and narrative.

[04:56:04] The Blakenships went as far to hire a sound engineer to speculate about potential noise our kennel may generate and how our building needs to be constructed and operated. I would like to state again, we are only asking to board 12 dogs. Who's to say we will always be fully booked?

[04:56:21] Not all dogs will be outside all at once while out on their breaks. During our first public meeting at Stony Point Elementary and the January Planning Commission meeting, it was noted that there is no limit to how many dogs a person could personally have or hunting dogs a person can have on their property. Hypothetically, we could personally have far more dogs and hunting dogs on our property than the 12 we are proposing for our business. We're committed to running this responsibly and professionally. Our proposal has been thoroughly reviewed and

[04:56:58] researched and approved by the county staff and the planning commission. We've complied with all recommendations, and we respectfully ask that you allow us to exercise our property rights to build a small, meaningful business that will support our family, the community, and contribute to county tax revenues. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. Thank you. And if you remain, the board will go through their order for questions if they have any, starting with Supervisor Galloway. Well, I think you answered the question about the number, which I was going to ask. I think I'm good right now. Okay. Supervisor Pruitt. I don't believe I have any

[04:57:36] questions for the applicant. Thank you. Supervisor McKeel? Just a question about the fence. And I have a fence around my yard because I have had dogs in the past as well. But so you talk about a sound dampening fence. Is it just a fence or is there something special like buff or anything that you're putting on the fence or it's just the fence itself? It's just a wooden seven-football privacy fence. And then we'll be planting shrubbery on the inside and outside. Okay. I was just curious as to whether what it was um and i think that's all i have right now thank you thank you

[04:58:13] supervisor malik most of mine were answered by your very detailed presentation and i will have some more comments later thank you thank you supervisor lupista i just had one point of clarification you mentioned about the 12 dogs could they all be out there at the same time or are you limiting that on their breaks yeah i don't plan on if i'm fully booked with 12 dogs i don't plan on taking all 12 out at once for a break okay it'll just be a few at a time all right a few out at a time right you're not limiting it to one like i know i'm not taking out one at a time depending on what dogs are there or how many like around three or four dogs at a time how to get

[04:58:53] along and everything yeah okay good good all right those are all the questions that's all the questions that i have question and i have no questions either so we will now open up for public comment and Vice Chair McKeel will call the speakers up in their comments.

[04:59:10] You'll have a chance to rebut afterwards. All right. Our first speaker is Addison Barnhart. Welcome. Taking care of the podium there, yeah.

[04:59:30] And you will need to address the microphone. Very good. She's actually just lowered. Good evening. My name is Addison Barnhart. I'm the attorney for Belinda and Chip Blankenship of the Rivanna Magisterial District. My clients are out of town, so they asked me to come speak in their place.

[04:59:49] The Blankenships live 0.4 miles away from the applicants on Gilbert Station Road. Let me be clear here at the outset that my clients are not against the applicants themselves. They're not against the applicant's right to have a business on their property, and they're not against that business being a commercial kennel.

[05:00:07] What they are against and what I'm speaking about right now is being against the outdoor run that's going to be at the kennel to allow dogs outside, which will then have dog barking outside. That is what they're against. After the planning commission meeting, my clients hired sound engineers to model the noise impact of dogs barking outside of the applicant's property.

[05:00:30] The noise assessment is the first page is up there. It's also in your materials. And I hope that you'll give this serious consideration. It is unbiased and it's clear in its conclusions that one, no matter how perfectly run the kennel is, outdoor dog barking will violate the county noise ordinance at the boundaries of the property. Property appears just to be too small to allow an outdoor run. Number two, outdoor dog barking will increase the ambient noises above legal levels in the community. And number three, the noise assessment describes how the indoor space should be soundproofed to make it compliant with the noise ordinance. There used

[05:01:05] to be a condition seven that I didn't see here that said that the indoor space had to be sound soundproofed. And it's not there anymore. I think it should be there. We should also know how it's soundproofed, what materials will be used, and some sort of measurement or standard for assessing whether it is actually soundproofed or not. If you read the emails from the community, it's a divisive issue. We have 10 people wrote in emails, including the applicants, that are in favor of this project. But we also had seven people, including my clients, who wrote in against this project. This is about everybody in the area, not everyone, but close to all the owners in the area

[05:01:43] and everyone who's against approval are all consistent in being against dogs barking outside at the kennel. Kennel dog barking is not a familiar sound of the country. It is not natural. It's not agricultural. If you can just open the door for a groomer or a kennel and all of a sudden you'll hear the sound immediately and know what I mean. The noise assessment says that a fence will not be sufficient to mitigate outdoor dog barking. So the kennel has to be indoors on this property and indoor kennels are common in our area. The applicant's business can still work as an indoor

[05:02:20] kennel. My clients ask the board to send this issue back to the planning commission to give the applicants more time to work with the county and their neighbors on how to reduce the impact on others or they hope that you deny the the outdoor run portion of this application. Thank you thank you if the next speaker is donna mcdaniel welcome please adjust the microphone thank you good evening i'm donna mcdaniel a resident of stony point for 37 years i also have a home-based

[05:02:57] business for 35 stony point has at least 20 home-based business and this makes us a very strong community we rely on each other to make a solid living to care for ourselves and each other This is exactly what Cody and Nikki are trying to accomplish.

[05:03:15] They just want to provide a healthy, safe life for their children. I've known Nikki since she was born. She is a second generation to Stony Point, and her family has very strong ties and roots in our community. The business, Cody and Nikki, is needed in Stony Point and would be used by a lot of families.

[05:03:35] The majority of support their endeavor for the future. Having a local kennel would be a great addition to Stony Point. I'm confident our Elmore County Board will vote in the best that votes for a majority of our Stony Point families and our community.

[05:03:51] Please vote yes to support for Cody and Nikki Markham and the K-9 Motel. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker is Emily White. Welcome.

[05:04:07] Hi, my name is Emily White. I live at 1713 Prophet Road, so I'm in the Rivanna District, And it's my privilege to speak to you all tonight in support of the Canine Hotel. Supervisor Galloway asked early on, are these applicants proposing all this soundproofing because it's a regulation or because they're good neighbors?

[05:04:28] Not mutually exclusive. They're going to do everything that they can to make this business profitable for their family's success, but also so it's agreeable and have minimal impact on their neighbors. you know from their presentation that Cody and Nikki live on site. They're not asking their neighbors to endure any more than they themselves will live right next to and raise their children next to. They're established members of the community. They're Albemarle County School graduates. Their kids are in Albemarle County Schools. Cody's a volunteer firefighter or

[05:05:04] formerly was a volunteer firefighter. They're dedicated to their community. In addition, Albemarle County has rules, regulations, and processes as we're participating in right now to make sure everyone has the opportunity to speak about this proposed use and to learn and follow guidelines that make sure it is a thriving community that is respectful of everyone's needs.

[05:05:28] Should they open this kennel, make it rich, and move away, who's to say the next person is going to need to run the kennel? But if they do, the county staff has done a diligent job making sure there's checks and balances. So this business, a standalone permit and business are respectful, whether they're operating it or someone else is operating it. There is a great need for dog boarding. It would be a wonderful addition to this community. Folks would love not to go into Charlottesville or into other counties to have this support. And we hope that you also see the benefit to the community and approve this permitting. Thanks so much.

[05:06:08] thank you next speaker scott cunningham welcome mr cunningham adjust that microphone that's right good evening thank you very much for your time i'm scott cunningham i live at four four four eight stoning point road about a half mile away from the uh applicants um it's a great area i love listening to the miniature donkeys from our neighbors a half mile away about 14 or

[05:06:44] 18 making lots of noise you hear the cows and the mating and the weaning and you hear the foxes and you hear all the nature noises but you never hear them in the middle of the day when they did the test on this report most interesting most of the animals are active around the evening or dusk or dawn so i find that the report the sound study to be somewhat biased and i just want to make sure that i pass that along because it's important um they did the time of day was an interesting time to decide to do the study, the modeling using prior data from other dogs and other projects

[05:07:21] is interesting. I find some of the actual components of the study to be suspect in the use of their modeling. So I just hope that you guys had a chance to really read through that subjectively. And I'm sure you did. But I've spent a lot of time and a lot of gray hair going through reports and writing reports. And so I thought I'd share that with you. And I'm in full support of Cody and Nikki and the whole family. So thank you very much. Have a nice evening.

[05:07:50] Thank you. Thank you. The next speaker is Brianna Rae Hundley. Brianna Rae Hundley. Welcome. And you're going to need to vote. Hi, my name is Bri Hundley. I am in the Ravana District. I live at 3781 Ashley Way Road in Barbersville. It's approximately two miles from the Markhams residents. I'm coming before you today in support of the canine hotel that is proposed by Nikki and Cody Markham. I've come to know the Markham family over the past three years

[05:08:29] since our daughters were in the same kindergarten first and now second grade class together. I have also got to learn how deep their roots are to the community and how well they are respected by our other neighbors who also have very deep and multi-generational roots in the Stony Point district. Based on my personal experience, I feel confident that they would conduct their canine hotel business in a manner that befits the small rural community that we have. I know that there are some here tonight that have expressed concern over sound. I grew up in Spotsylvania

[05:09:07] County in a very small neighborhood in which one of our neighbors ran a dog kennel. I did not even know that until a few weeks ago. And I lived there for many years growing up when I, and my parents just told me that. So I can say from personal experience that dog kennels are negligible in the amount of sound that they produce for neighbors outside of a normal dog barking.

[05:09:31] I also say that having been a dog owner myself, not all dogs bark incessantly. Some dogs bark more than others and I also feel that Cody and Nikki would address if they were to house a dog that did incessantly bark that they would have respect for the neighbors and address that appropriately. I would also like to say that there is a great need for more canine boarding establishments that are rural based and community run. There's not many options in our area especially ones that provide great green outdoor spaces like the ones that in the city do not and as a dog

[05:10:09] one of that's important when I look for where I would like to put my furry daughter. So thank you for your time. And that's it. Thank you. And the last speaker is David Norford. Welcome.

[05:10:35] You're going to have to take that mic and move it up too. The mic is being the only speaker. I'll bend down. My name's Dave Norford. I live in Stony Point and I've lived in Stony Point, I won't say how long, but longer than Donna. So my wife and I own the property that borders the Markhams on one side, and we lease the Wilson property on the other side as part of our farm operation.

[05:11:00] I've known the Markhams since they were kids. I know them to be responsible, hardworking people. I know they've identified a need for the service they want to provide in the county, and my wife and I support it 100%. Thank you.

[05:11:16] Thank you. That's it. With that, the applicant is welcome to come back for five minutes to rebut anything that they may have heard that they need to rebut.

[05:11:43] I just want to touch a little bit on the sound testing. I know Scott Cunningham brought that up, but how accurate is their report about a small family-run business like ours, but any other royal property with animals passed their tests?

[05:12:00] It was stated that the test was based on measurements from a previous project through the company. And the terrain was just cut grass. Our terrain on the property that they did the testing on, which they did not ask us to come on our property to do this testing. Our terrain is woods. We are not just cut grass. So that's just something I would like to point out as well.

[05:12:27] Also, I think it was brought up that seven letters were sent in opposing our business. I think three or four of those are all from the same family.

[05:12:43] They have different last names that live on the Blakenship's farm. So I just want to point that out as well. Thank you. Thank you. Any additional questions before you go? You'll have to answer.

[05:12:59] Is there any questions? Supervisor Calloway? I didn't think to ask this the first time around, but it's based on, I'll give a little context. So I don't want to put you on the spot, but when we've approved daycare centers and a few other dog kennels we've often asked the number you're asking for is that enough especially if you wanted to think of maybe future expansion that's not in your mind because as a way it's written it comes right back to us if you go to a 13th dog now you might not be thinking to build the space bigger and accommodate and all of that but if you were to grow you'd have to come back and go through this whole process which is right probably learned is tedious and has some expense

[05:13:38] associated to it so um you know i am comfortable because we've done it before for both daycare and i think one other kennel that was out in the rural area where we would allow for a different number not that it's obligated to be there but if the business explodes and it does well all the requirements stay the same but you have the capacity to grow without having to go through a whole process again so i'm giving you that context that now i'm saying you arrived at 12 you're designing your run your building and everything for 12 right um are you comfortable

[05:14:13] to go that's it that's all we need no we could definitely fit more kennels especially being able to expand to the 1200 square foot of the building so we are definitely open to being able to house more than 12 dogs could double it with the size but i mean so so my next question would be as it stands though is the business plan just to work with 12 or if you if if you had up to whatever 14 18 some other number would you immediately go to that number i'm just trying to figure out what the magic number of 12 we picked 12 because we thought it was one not asking

[05:14:47] for too much um we were not trying to make neighbors upset with i mean we certainly don't want 100 dogs in our yard but we were trying not to make neighbors upset we're trying to be respectful if we are allowed more dogs we would certainly increase the number of dogs right away yeah i just i guess i raise it to the board because the sound requirements are the same it doesn't matter if you've got two dogs or 200 dogs you got to do the same thing relative to the noise mitigation um i just try to think of a business and that's not my it's not my place to tell you

[05:15:21] or to change your app but it is our place to say to folks that if you have plans to expand beyond the number you're asking for you got to go through this whole process again but i think that i think that's appropriate or responsible of us to tell folks that so i'll stop i don't have any other questions beyond that one i think supervisor galloway is saying give us a number 20 up to supervisor um are we just additional questions for the applicant at this time any additional questions no i appreciate the previous question thank you okay supervisor mckew i don't have any

[05:15:58] other questions thank you professor malik thank you and this is not i'm just asking for extra information not pertaining to the permit so much when wakefield came forward for their renovation within the last six months they talked about rooms inside as opposed to when my father had a boarding kennel back in the 50s there were little cubicles and each one had to run so how is how is the interior of your 1200 square foot barn garage building divided just with low partitions and sort of private spaces but everybody's in one area or i'm just curious yeah no um i think a

[05:16:37] picture should be attached with our oh i missed it okay um there should be one in there but they are four by six kennels um though all six on well for 12 dogs we had six on each side of the wall um we have our office space and then we're looking to have the indoor play dog area as well okay and each each kennel on the back side does have a window so they can see yes they have to be able to see the squirrels and from the outside that's very important the window in the in the application i'm teasing i know that would make them bark thank you that's all i have supervisor the pizza

[05:17:14] Yes. So I understand it. And I've seen this before near Culpeper where each kennel is separated by a wall so you don't see the other dog. Is that correct? Which really cuts down on the barking also because you don't see the other dog.

[05:17:29] Okay. And I appreciate the number you all get throughout there. And I do have one other question because I know it was Corey Claiborne, my planning commissioner, who suggested the 1,200 square feet. He also mentioned to me that there is outdoor plumbing, that your plumbing is on the outside of the building, and yet there's your on the inside. Am I making sense? Has that already been changed? I'm not exactly sure what you're referencing. Outside pipes, outside plumbing,

[05:18:05] he said the fixtures were... Pardon? We do have a septic system, so anything generated there will go into our septic system. Okay, but I mean, I'm talking about just maybe any kind of plumbing. We still have a bathroom in the dog boarding building. Okay, so do you have room for now for bathroom there if you yes that was in the original plan sent in to you okay but he said and i excuse me for saying this but he told me that there was the plumbing was on the outside of the building which would then be subject to freezing and such i'm not sure that was ever

[05:18:41] brought up okay well then spigot or something we all i don't well spigot you can put a sock over yeah yeah not the spigot but anyway so i don't know yeah i apologize i'm I'm really not sure what he would be speaking about on that.

[05:18:58] That's all right. Okay. Well, if you've, okay, thank you. If you have it, I would suggest that you can put it on the inside. If you find out, that's what it's been. Yeah, all plumbing would be on the inside. I mean, I'm talking about just pipes, you know, not septic or anything, but just regular, you know, actual pipes.

[05:19:19] Yeah. And we'll make sure we don't do that due to those issues. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. That's it. Thank you. And my only follow-up is I guess there's been some question about the 12 kennels, and is that 12 dogs? The application before us does say 12 kennels.

[05:19:37] Is it possible to put two dogs in a single kennel? I mean, our dogs used to do it together. Yeah, I would not be putting two dogs in a kennel. Even if they were from the same household? That's a possibility. If we know they get along well enough, then I don't see a need to separate.

[05:19:54] Okay, okay. But definitely dogs that are not from, like, the same, you know what I mean? That would not be happening. Yeah, I understand. But your intent is if we gave you permission for 20, then you would build additional runs within that 1,200 square foot space.

[05:20:13] Penals. Penals. Penals, yes. Not runs. There are no other questions. Thank you. Thank you. And at that, I will close the public hearing. Thank you. And the matter is back before the board for consideration.

[05:20:31] um and we'll go through our order starting with supervisor calloway yeah thank you i mean i i want to address a couple of you know often when you hear some of the concerns that are brought up on the not support side i heard something in there about you know dog kennels should be in light industrial and i have to state that that's not the highest and best use for light industrial ever no um that there should be other things there it seems to me based on other kennels that we have approved with all of the soundproofing that the kennels are the best damn dog neighbors you could have because of the soundproofing and the additional regs that are on there.

[05:21:08] So, and I'm, you know, I get it. I guess some more dogs, you think more sound. But I think that like our previous kennel person said, she did not like dogs barking either. So, you know, you tend to mitigate fast if you're the owner and you don't like dog barking.

[05:21:26] But at the end of the day, the noise ordinance does stand. So in addition to these regulations, there's a whole other ordinance or a whole other layer of regulation on top of here to keep the noise complaint in check. But I think this is an appropriate use in the rural area. It just seems to make sense to me, and I appreciate the fact that we have some folks doing a home business.

[05:21:44] And we speak a lot to why or how we want that to happen in the rural area, so I'll be happy to support the application. I would be in support if the motion's made of up to 20 kennels. And I see a question coming from... Yeah, I just want to ask a question to the county attorney.

[05:22:02] The ad that ran in the paper identified 12 dogs, 12 kennels. So just to clarify, there was reference made to a code section regarding the potential need to re-advertise.

[05:22:18] Again, my reading of that state law is that that applies to zoning map amendments rather than to special use permits. At the same time, as Mr. Barnes points out, it was advertised for 12 kennels. That was the way the ad ran in the paper. So it's just something to keep in mind as the board considers potential amendments to the special use permit.

[05:22:38] Well, as I broached the subject in the past, we've advertised up to certain numbers. Like I'm thinking specifically of daycares where then in the public hearing, we increased the amount of students allowed. So this isn't any different than that, right? That's correct. And again, my reading of the state code is that the need to re-advertise is only invoked in zoning map amendments rather than special use permits.

[05:23:02] I mean, you know, it might make some unhappy, but I'm comfortable with that. I just know how this goes, and I don't think if they were looking to do another 40 dogs, then that's a different animal. But up to eight, I didn't realize it until I said, but up to eight, to me, if you had to come back and do this process for eight more, this is an onerous process for that.

[05:23:26] I'd agree if it had to be up to 100 or 50 or some huge number, but I think for eight, it's, yeah, don't go through the whole process again, because all the mitigating factors for the complaints or the possible nuisance have to be the same.

[05:23:44] The mitigation factor doesn't change. Thank you. I've said kind of since I've joined this board over and over and over that I don't like us thinking of the rural area as a place crystallized in amber.

[05:24:02] The country is a real place where real folks live and real economic activity happens. And I think the applicants have done a really good job of identifying a use that is consistent with the rural area, that is consistent with what their neighbors like to see. and that meets an existing need out there.

[05:24:20] I would say personally, I live less than a quarter of a mile from all things possible, a doggy daycare, and I do not hear them whatsoever from my doorstep. These things are, of course, subjective and influenced by a variety of things, but the notion that they might be bothering an owner half a mile away I find a little silly.

[05:24:44] Additionally, again, this is a rural area. There is mooing by right, right? The applicant could easily, I mean, it's what, five, seven acres, something like that. That's about, that can accommodate three heads of cattle. It could accommodate a lot of goats. That, not saying three heads of cattle would be happy there, but all of those things make noise. All those things make noise. I mean, a cow is between 50 and 90 decibels. That's about the same as a dog.

[05:25:14] I find the suggestion generally kind of frustrating. And I sometimes like to give advocacy tips when people contact me as a supervisor. And this will even include people who I disagree with, right?

[05:25:30] I've once had someone contact me because they want to ban rodeos, which I didn't think was actually a good policy, but I told them how they might want to go about fighting for that at the local level. And so I offer some free advocacy advice. I don't know that it is particularly helpful in an individual resident dispute to commission a study and then hire a lawyer on behalf of yourself to come before this board.

[05:26:03] That, I cannot emphasize how weird the optics are with that. And so I would just offer that for the public. I don't know that that is an effective advocacy strategy. That's all. Supervisor McKeel.

[05:26:18] Yeah, this is the rural area, and having been a dog owner all my life, unfortunately my dog passed away, but I know that how much we need dog kennels in this area. I mean, there really is a need, and I am familiar with the kennel that I used to use that is literally right surrounded by a neighborhood. And we never hear any complaints in that area about dog barking. And we never, and I believe if they were bothered, we'd hear about it because we hear about a lot of complaints,

[05:26:56] hear a lot of complaints. Anyway, I am supportive of this and I would be supportive of language up to 20. I think that was, is the way we would say it would be up to 20 kennels. Yes. But up to, which would allow them the flexibility to determine how many they wanted within that number. But I am supportive. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Malek. Thank you very much.

[05:27:23] I took in all this information, comparing it to the 45-year-old kennel in Whitehall in Earliesville, where the closest house is 55 feet away. I mean, old, it was there at the same time the houses were all being built. And the owner is in one of the houses, but it has dozens of others around it and there are 200 in this neighborhood and everyone has benefited from its presence and it's had to go through several renovations over the years and come back as you thank you for saving that possibility because they've come back four times for additions over

[05:28:02] those 45 years and it's just really important to have this ability with a trustworthy operation where it's not just people advertising online and they throw your dog out in the yard and it gets lost because that is the worst case scenario for any family to ever go through. So having a carefully planned and designed structure and outdoor pen is really important. And to me, there's a tremendous, I mean, I live deeply in the rural area and yet have two rabbit packs of

[05:28:38] beagles, you know, within a half mile in either direction. But the really burdensome one was a neighbor over the fence line to the west who had 75 dogs just in a pen about the size of this room and they never saw a person and they barked all the time because they needed contact and wanted their leader to come and pay them some attention to me that's why dogs bark unless it's a large black bird going by my kitchen window in which case both of mine are very offended that there's a large black bird in the backyard so I am absolutely confident that with the rules that the county has adopted and the structures and the planning that's gone into this, that this will be

[05:29:17] a success and not hurt the neighbors. And when I was three in 1953, my father built a boarding kennel as part of his hospital right in your neighborhood. And they had little cubicles and outdoor runs. And somehow all those neighbors at Solomon Apartments never called. They're worried about it at all because they had lots of attention and good care. So I'm very much in support of this and would also support the up to 20.

[05:29:43] Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor LePistro-Curley? I personally have to say for the folks from the Rivanna District that showed up tonight, I must say that you brought me nearly to tears because I just really appreciate you, your comments, your heartfelt comments, and I appreciate the comments from the opposition because everyone should be heard, and that's what we're all in favor of.

[05:30:11] I am supportive of this proposal. I'm also glad that we asked for the number, and Supervisor Galloway brought that up, about how many would you need. And I'll tell you why, because we want to make sure that you're successful.

[05:30:27] God forbid that you have it limited to 12 and you're not successful because you need 13, 14, 15. So we want to make sure, and I think all your neighbors that are here tonight also want to make sure that you're successful. When my late husband and I first moved here with our four dogs, it was hard to find a place of real quality.

[05:30:50] And I think this is what you're going to be offering in the rural area, a place of real quality, because for a lot of people, their dogs are their children. I'm one of them. And I just am very supportive of this proposal for the Barkhams.

[05:31:08] And thank you all for coming out, and I'm supportive of going up to 20 also for the dog kennels. Thank you. And I will add, I guess, I have a neighbor who runs a dog shelter, or older dogs, and they have 20 dogs.

[05:31:31] And so that's a number that I'm more familiar with and I can be supportive of, so I have no problem with this application. But it is in the Ravenna District. Yes, it's in my area. Do we have, because we're adding to the motion?

[05:31:49] So if the consensus of the board would be to allow up to 12 dog kennels, the motion would be to move to adopt the resolution attached as attachment D with an amendment to condition 3 to allow the use not to exceed 20 dog kennels.

[05:32:12] okay i move i move that the board adopt the resolution attached to the staff report as attachment d as amended to increase the number to 20 dogs 20 kennels as part of condition as part of condition three second we have a motion from supervisor lapisto currently a second from supervisor malik without objection if the clerk will call the roll ms malik yes ms mikhiel yes Mr. Pruitt. Aye. Mr. Andrews. Yes. Mr. Galloway. Yes. Ms. LaPista. Kirtley. Aye. Thank you.

[05:32:49] There's one more motion for the special exception. Oh, yeah, we have a special exception. So now, board, we have to act on the special exception, which is just the 75-foot request, and that will require a separate motion. It doesn't have a public hearing associated with it, but if there's any, I'll look to right and left, or if there are no comments, then we'll look to Supervisor Lupista Kirtley for a motion.

[05:33:13] Okay, I move that the board adopt the resolution attached to the staff report as attachment E, involving special exception SC-2024-00004. Second.

[05:33:29] Motion from Supervisor Lupista Kirtley, second from Supervisor Malek, without objection if the court call the roll. Ms. Malek? Yes. Ms. McKeel? Yes. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Mr. Andrews? Yes. Mr. Galloway? Yes. Ms. Lupista Kirtley? Aye. Thank you. thank you board this brings us to from the board committee reports and matters not listed on the agenda if you could please exit quietly we still have more work to do but but not a lot i just want to say thank you to each one of you we really appreciate everything of course good

[05:34:05] so board uh we'll go through our order supervisor galloway any uh i do not have any other business this evening okay supervisor i have no additional business thanks supervisor mcqueen i have nothing else. I'm fine. To Professor Malik. Nothing for me. Thank you. To Professor Lapista. It's a home run. I have nothing. I have. Actually, no, I actually had some notes that I wanted to give about the SWAC meeting, but I'm going to save those and talk about them later. So I don't have

[05:34:39] anything otherwise. I look to our county executive to see if there's anything further. I did participate. I sent aboard the board an email to let you know that I was invited to participate in the tom tom festival this morning that's the first time that the county executive's office has ever been involved in that and that was a joint uh speaking engagement with the city manager the president of the university and and myself uh talking about the future economic development opportunities partnerships between the city and the county and the university

[05:35:15] it lasted about 45 minutes the city did tape the the session and they're going to send it over to to the county. And we will forward that into the board's inbox if you have time to look at that session. It was facilitated by L.F. Payne, and I thought it was very well done. And I appreciated the questions and the remarks. The audience also seemed very well informed on a lot of the economic development, the biotech, the innovation corridor, and that kind of stuff going on in the city and the county and and really good comments from the university so that's why i really wish

[05:35:54] that you guys would take a look at that i'm thrilled with the opportunity too thank you yeah thank you thank you yes sir thank you thank you anything further if not then i will announce that we are adjourned to april 23rd 2025 at 6 p.m in lane auditorium opportunities for the public to access and participate in this meeting are posted on the albama county website on the board Supervisors homepage and on the Albemarle County calendar. Participation will include the opportunity to comment on those matters for which comments from the public will be received. Thank you and good night. Thank you.

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