Coraggio Consulting
Albemarle County Board of Supervisors Regular First Meeting, Wednesday, October 7, 2026

Date: Wednesday, October 7, 2026
Place: Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 5h 27m (video)
Official meeting video (Granicus): https://albemarle.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=1&clip_id=1539
Official agenda: https://albemarle.granicus.com/AgendaViewer.php?view_id=1&clip_id=1539

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 2026-10-14. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:07] We're live. All right. Good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to call to order the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors for our October 7th, 2026, 1 p.m. meeting here in Lane Auditorium. With us at the dais, we have Supervisor Mike Pruitt of the Scottsville District, Supervisor Ann Malick of the Whitehall District, Supervisor Fred Missel of the Samuel Miller District, Supervisor B. Lepisto-Kirtley of the Ravana District, Supervisor Sally Duncan of the Jack Jewett District, and myself, Supervisor Ned Galloway of the Rio District.

[00:00:37] Also with us, our county executive, Mr. Jeff Richardson, and our county attorney, Mr. Andy Herrick. With us also, our board clerk, Ms. Claudette Borgeson, and our senior deputy clerk, Mr. Travis Morris. We would like to introduce and express our appreciation for our Albemarle County Police Department officers present with us today, Officer Daniel Bonney and Master Police Officer Ronald Vanderveer.

[00:01:03] So thank you very much, gentlemen. Vanderveer, thank you for being here with us today. And now, if everyone would please rise as you're able for the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you.

[00:01:31] And if everyone would please pause for a brief moment of silence. Thank you very much.

[00:01:54] Board, we do have our final agenda. Any changes or alterations, edits? If not, is there a motion to adopt the final agenda? So moved. Second. All right. The motion has been made and seconded.

[00:02:09] Without objection, if the clerk will please call the roll. Ms. Mallick? Yes. Mr. Missal? Yes. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Ms. Duncan? Yes. Mr. Galloway? Yes. Ms. Lapisto-Kirtley? Aye. Great. Thank you, board. And now we'll move to item number five, brief announcements by board members. Supervisor Lapisto-Kirtley? No announcements at this time, thank you. Other than to vote, but I know Supervisor Pruitt will bring that up. So to save time, I'm letting him do it. Supervisor Pruitt?

[00:02:39] Yes, early voting is ongoing. As a reminder, we have offices at all levels. It is an unusually busy ballot. Early voting continues until the end of the month, and then there will be the in-person election at your respective precincts on the first Tuesday of November the 4th.

[00:02:59] There are four ballot measures, in addition to candidates, that people have the opportunity to vote on. Three of those are amending the Virginia Constitution, and one is a vote on whether or not to give this board the authority to levy a one-cent sales tax specifically for school capital improvements.

[00:03:17] I would like to recognize that you will now no longer hear me talking about the Fridays on the Canal summer concert series down in Scottsville. with summer reaching a close it has ended but there's still a lot of excellent recreational opportunities to pursue in the town of scottsville as the weather is a little bit more amenable in my eyes uh so be sure to make it down there uh find yourself a nice time to spend a saturday and maybe go uh ride on the james river um additionally on the um 28th we will be having our joint meeting with the town of Scottsville. So that will be the fourth Friday. And I look forward to that

[00:03:56] opportunity as we just had our joint meeting with the city of Charlottesville. I also would like, I think it is important to pause for a brief moment and recognize what the nature of responsibility for an elected official is. It is a high level of responsibility. We say sometimes, the buck stops with us. And that is true. And I don't think we grapple with what that means. It means when something is not executed, it is a position of public trust. And when

[00:04:35] something goes wrong, it is your fault. It does not matter if it went wrong because you did the wrong thing intentionally or from malicious intent. It does not matter if it is because you were too weak, because you liked the competence, or because you tried honestly and gave it your all and your all was not adequate. It is your fault. That is something that rests with me and sometimes haunts me in the work I do on this board. And I think it is important that it rests with us and it haunts

[00:05:09] us because it is a public responsibility and you cannot shirk that and good intentions do not overcome that. The continued response of our school board and the issues in our school has been catastrophic and has gotten worse over time. And this morning's news announcement related to events in our schools was devastating. I heard about this briefly last night before the news

[00:05:45] broke and I was filled with an intense amount of grief followed by an intense amount of anger and also a compassion for the leaders who are trying to do the right thing and failing. And that anger and that compassion weigh against each other and cancel out, and all I have found that I can feel in this moment is grief and pain, and I think that is where a lot of our fellow members of the school system and community and Albemarle County as a whole are, and I have felt that it is

[00:06:23] inappropriate that you do not hear from me as a supervisor as this issue has continued unfurling, And so I wanted to take this opportunity to say that I don't normally like to speak on things when I don't know what I can do on them. I'm continuing to think about what we can do on this issue, but we are left with few options.

[00:06:44] But I just want to say very clearly that I join the community in frustration and grief over this disastrous scenario that is unfurling. Thank you. Thank you.

[00:06:59] Supervisor Duncan. I don't have any personal announcements, but in doing kind of research, reading through the packet, I did notice that for the Albemarle Charlottesville 4-H, club enrollment opened on October 1st, and so if people are interested in getting their kids in 4-H, they can enroll.

[00:07:19] Supervisor Malik. Thank you very much. A couple of things. Oopsie, sorry. So the first one, Saturday, October 24th, 10 to 2, is the University of Virginia Prescription Drug Take-Back Day at the pharmacy.

[00:07:37] You can drive right up to the door and hand over your unwanted or unused prescription medications. And there may be other sites around town. This is just the only one that I've seen so far. On the same day, Saturday, October 24th, the Apple Butter Festival at the Whitehall Virgins, From midnight to late afternoon, stirring the kettle all the way to boiling and bottling and buying things is what takes up the whole day.

[00:08:03] It's at the Whitehall Community Building, which is the corner of Whitehall Road and Browns Gap Turnpike in the village. Across the road from Wyant Store, which is the oldest continuously operating same family owned country store in the United States. Pretty cool stuff. Second opportunity for arts and crafts is the 32nd annual artisan tour, artisan studio tour, featuring 45 artisans and 22 studios in Albemarle Green, Nelson, and the city.

[00:08:29] That is November 14th and 15th, and I left out that the Crozet Arts and Crafts Festival is this Saturday and Sunday at Crozet Park, so don't miss that. Now, last, but certainly not least, if anyone has a friend or neighbor, family member who might benefit from learning about the Real Estate Tax Relief Program, now is the time to help them get that information.

[00:08:56] The deadline for first-time Real Estate Tax Relief members is November 2nd, so you have several weeks to do it, but it takes a while to get yourself organized. Amarillo County offers Real Estate Tax Relief to elderly and or permanently disabled persons, and welcome your participation.

[00:09:11] The deadline of set, November 2nd, and you need to be the owner of record as of January 1st, 2026, and either be 65 years of age and or certified as totally and permanently disabled and with a combined income from all sources for 2025 of no more than $100,650, and the total net worth would not exceed $321,000.

[00:09:38] This program is made for folks who have worked their lives and given their all for our community and it is time for the rest of us to help them out. So I hope that people who could benefit will participate. Thank you very much. Thank you. Supervisor Missal. Great. Thank you.

[00:09:53] A couple of quick announcements on two really fun, cool activities. One is the Batesville Apple Butter Festival is happening this weekend. I had a chance to peel apples last year and get involved in it. It's pretty amazing. It is one of Batesville's signature events.

[00:10:09] If you haven't been there, there's a lot of things that go on. there's a pancake breakfast to kick it off um excuse me i think that pancake breakfast is on sunday on saturday morning there's peeling there's chopping of the of the apples there's a lot of really good camaraderie there and then from 6 p.m saturday night to 10 a.m sunday morning overnight there is stirring that goes on so um it's a really it's a really great uh event and i highly recommend people attend if they can. And then the second thing I will announce is that the

[00:10:44] Sentara Annual No-Cost Food Stand, it concludes this season, this coming Thursday, October 8th, that's tomorrow, from 5 to 6.30. It's an opportunity to, well, it's been very popular.

[00:11:02] It's an opportunity to come and pick up basically no-cost food, fruits, vegetables, eggs, and other things and that's it thank you thank you all right i do not have any announcements today we will move to item number six proclamations and recognitions and we do have a proclamation recognizing national 4-h week and with us today we have sam leach the extension agent of 4-h youth development of the albemarle charlottesville virginia cooperative extension and how this will work today is we will have supervisor malik is going to read the proclamation in the form of a motion the board will take action we'll vote officially on the proclamation and then we'll

[00:11:42] invite if you if if there's more than one that i didn't announce you're welcome to come up and introduce yourselves and make some comments and then the board will likely have some questions or comments after that very good thank you very much proclamation recognizing national 4-h week whereas october 4th through 10th 2026 is national 4-h week in the united states and more than 1800 students aged 5 to 19 are involved in 4-H in Albemarle County and the City of Charlottesville.

[00:12:12] Whereas Virginia Cooperative Extension System conducts 4-H programs through the state land-grant universities, Virginia Tech and Virginia State, with a mission to help young people acquire knowledge, develop skills, and form attitudes which will help them become self-directed, productive members of society. And whereas 4-H addresses issues facing youth wherever they live, in inner cities, suburbs, and rural communities, and helps break barriers by focusing on learning by doing, building self-esteem, leadership, and citizenship skills, and focuses on critical issues such as protecting the environment, and provide programs on food and nutrition, science and technology,

[00:12:50] natural resources, substance abuse prevention, animal and plant sciences, career education, community pride, citizenship, and leadership. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that we, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, do hereby recognize Sunday, October 4th through Saturday, October 10th as National 4-H Week and encourage community youth and families to participate fully in the wide range of available programs and activities Albemarle slash Charlottesville 4-H provides. Signed this 7th day of October, 2026, Nandale Galloway Chair. Is there a second? Second. All right, without objection,

[00:13:30] if the clerk will please call the roll. Ms. Malik? Yes. Mr. Missal? Yes. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Ms. Duncan? Yes. Mr. Galloway? Yes. Ms. Lapista-Kirtley? Aye. Very good. Motion carries. And we please ask, is it Sam and others to come up and join us here at the podium?

[00:13:46] And we invite you to make some remarks, comments as you wish. Yes. And on behalf of Admiral 4-H and also our Virginia Cooperative Extension Office as a whole, we appreciate your support. With me today is Sarah Brown, our 4-H educator, and one of our members, Layla.

[00:14:04] So we'll let them speak. Awesome. Welcome. Good afternoon, Chair and members of the Almar County Board of Supervisors. We thank you for your continued support of the young people in our community and the work that we do. Your commitment makes it possible for our youth to learn, lead, and grow in meaningful ways.

[00:14:23] Today, it is my pleasure to introduce to you our 4-H youth speaker, Layla Howard. Layla is a 14-year-old active 4-H member of three of our clubs. She represents the curiosity, leadership, and commitment that define 4-H, and we are so proud to have her share her 4-H story with you today.

[00:14:44] Awesome. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Chair and members of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors. My name is Layla Howard, and I am a member of the Huff and Wolf 4-H Club, the Rivanna Community 4-H Club, and the Teen 4-H Club.

[00:15:03] I want to personally thank you for your support of the 4-H program and briefly explain why 4-H is meaningfully impactful to me. For the past three years of my involvement with 4-H, I have learned important life skills and values that allow me to offer my best as I navigate life and pursue a profession.

[00:15:25] Three areas 4-H has impacted me the most are public speaking, responsible record keeping, and community service. Through 4-H, I have gained confidence in public speaking by giving visual presentations. By preparing and giving a presentation, I have learned how to thoroughly research a topic and how to use my voice to convey my thoughts clearly and passionately to others.

[00:15:51] Achieving public speaking skills has enabled me to better explain the 4-H program to others. 4-H has also taught me responsibility and organization by keeping accurate financial, timekeeping, training, and progression records of my miniature horse animal project. The non-animal record book categories have allowed me to similarly record other project endeavors.

[00:16:16] Community service is the heartbeat of 4-H and the reason I joined. 4-H has allowed me to be a positive part of my community through helping others in a compassionate practical way while having fun learning with my friends. I learned this by making lasagnas for the haven and delivering supplies to a local food pantry, just to name a few. Another of the many aspects I appreciate about 4-H is the multifaceted interest groups. Whether someone is interested in agriculture, animals, science, the great outdoors, community service, leadership, cooking, or home arts,

[00:16:53] there's a club that will suit any individual's passion. Finally, 4-H has taught me important virtues through every educational opportunity. These include character, compassion, leadership, trying your best, learning and persevering after failure, and challenging yourself to make the best even better for others. Thank you for your support of the 4-H program and for listening.

[00:17:18] Thank you very much. And before I go through the supervisors, who else do you have here with you today? We have several of our club members and volunteers with us today. They kind of represent some of our different clubs and without those volunteers we could not do the work that we do um they really help spread 4-h and all the great things that we do so well welcome to you all as well and uh stay there in case we have some questions for you then supervisor malik will bring the proclamation down supervisor lapisto kirtley i'm extremely impressed leila by your

[00:17:51] public speaking skills we could all learn from that so kudos to you and whoever taught you um 4-H is something extremely important for our community. We have a development area, but we also have a rural area.

[00:18:06] We have an agricultural area, and we really focus on that because that is something important. That's something that feeds our community. So raising the animals and helping and teaching our young people how important that is, I think, is so vital for our county.

[00:18:27] And just to let you know, they already know, so they've already laughed at me, but I was able to actually feed a little baby cow, a calf, and they saved it. They weren't going to sell it, and I have the honor of being named after that cow.

[00:18:45] No, the cow was named after me. That's even better. So thank you very much for all you do. Thank you. That was awesome. All right, Supervisor Pruitt. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for your presentation, I agree.

[00:19:02] I think the skills that you developed are clearly on display here. And thank you all for building such a really incredible program here. I think the goal that we hold in our mind should always be how are we making a better community and a better future.

[00:19:20] And for me, an easy baseline is always how is this better than our own experience at this point in time. I grew up country, but I didn't grow up on a farm. And my parents moved where they did to have a home big enough to raise a kid and didn't have community.

[00:19:37] I see the experiences and opportunities that y'all do when I see y'all constantly out in the community, whether it's judging one of your competition days or going to a farm day over at Grace Church and seeing all of y'all there presenting.

[00:19:56] You're out there, you're developing new skills, you're getting exposure to skills that you would not have otherwise had, right? We can be in a rural community and we can never learn how to raise rabbits or show cows but for this opportunity.

[00:20:14] And you also, you take young people and you stitch them into the rest of the fabric of this community. You introduce them to the leaders in their community. you bring them into the organizations that they might not otherwise have that web for and that i think is like a truly awesome role that this does that is how you build a thing that is more than just a bunch of people living in the same area and is a community where people know each other where they work together where the institutions are knitted together and thank you all for doing that knitting thank you supervisor duncan yeah you guys picked a good

[00:20:52] data come do this because we're talking about farming later um i did 4-h for a couple years when i was a kid my kids did it but we did like the arts and crafts aspect of it not the animals um but it's really great and especially now i think it's really hard to find like third spaces for kids to hang out and do stuff um and so having these opportunities is really great i actually did have a question um how much does it cost to join 4-h so joining is zero dollars um we do luckily have a lot of support through county national fundraising um now there might be some other

[00:21:28] associated costs with your actual project but coming to a meeting joining our family and network as mr pruitt was saying it's totally free and we welcome it to everyone so that's also you know super unusual and excellent to have and also i was looking up your summer camp options and compared to other summer camps incredibly affordable um so yeah i hope more people join 4-h because it's so great thank you supervisor malik thank you and thank you all for all the work you do every day whether it's shoveling out the stall or doing any of the other

[00:22:03] projects that you do 1800 members today that is astonishing because i know it's been sort of up and down but that is a great attribute to your leadership and the adults bringing this all together. Price Smith was the leader of the Woof and Woof in early spill back in the 1980s when my elder daughter joined and had the Pony Project but also took her heifer, pulled her foot heifer to State Fair in the Gettyshire class so it was a different experience than we ever would have had on our own and really terrific for her.

[00:22:36] The record books that Layla mentioned of keeping track, you know from when the heifer was born all the way up to when she was a yearling to go it's that sort of detail oriented helps people no matter what their task is. So that's important. And I think the engagement with the community, as others have said, and was talked about at the State Civics and Education Commission just last week, that help finding ways for young people of different interests, different perspectives to find a place to be engaged is so important to build our communities going forward. So thank you all again. Thank you. Supervisor Missal. Great. Yeah, thanks. I echo all

[00:23:14] of the comments that have been said it's kind of cool to hear how each one of us somehow has been impacted by this program and i have two daughters who were peripherally involved in it and close friends whose daughters were very involved in it and on the livestock side down in north garden and what i realized is how you know important foundational learning is and leadership and not to sound preachy but especially seeing that reflected in my friends and in my kids how that has played out to be, this is really legacy work, right?

[00:23:49] This is long-term work. Also, I'd like to sign up for speaking lessons from Layla, if I could. It would be great. I don't know if you have any openings, but that would be very helpful. You're fantastic, and congratulations. Thank you all. Thank you. I join with all the remarks that have been said, and kudos, and definitely the public speaking ability.

[00:24:09] There's a lot of folks that come up in front of that podium, and you didn't even show a nerve, so that was awesome. My earliest experience with 4-H, my children have participated in 4-H at varying levels. But when I was little, and I don't know that they allowed me to be there, because what happened was when I was very little, my sister, who was older than me, would participate, and then I would just run around while they were doing 4-H stuff.

[00:24:32] And I just remember one of my earliest memories is getting so excited for 4-H night because I knew I got to go run around. So I think that element of it meant, no, no, no. You just keep that energy somewhere. But that's my earliest memory of 4-H.

[00:24:50] But I just think it's wonderful all the work that you all do because I know how it is a community concept and community-based rationale behind then all of the various activities that you offer. So wonderful for that. And Supervisor Malik will bring the proclamation down for you all.

[00:25:08] Thank you all again. We've also prepared a little. Awesome. Under $20. and thank you all again for being with us here today and if you want to stick around for the later conversation by all means you don't have to but you're welcome to um all right board we're going to move to item number seven public comment on matters previously considered or currently pending before the board other than scheduled for public hearings and we do have some signups so

[00:25:47] supervisor uh the vice chair will walk us through the rules great thank you chair um yeah so during this portion of the meeting individuals may address the board regarding matters previously considered by the board or currently pending before the board other than items scheduled for public hearing speakers are limited to one opportunity of up to three minutes per meeting in-person speakers will be heard first followed by online participants coordinated by the clerk to ensure equal treatment and courtesy for all speakers the board requests that the following guidelines be observed please state your name and if you live in albemarle county or magisterial district comments should be directed to the board as a whole written statements or supporting

[00:26:23] materials may be provided to the clerk. If representing a group or organization, you may ask others present to raise their hands in recognition. Speakers may not share unused time with another speaker. Back and forth debate is not permitted and speakers should not speak from their seat or out of turn. For in-person speakers, the podium timer will guide your time. Green indicates your time has begun. Yellow means one minute remains and red indicates your time has expired. I don't believe we have any online and we have one in attendance who would like to speak.

[00:26:54] That is Adelaide O'Brien. Good afternoon. I'm Adelaide O'Brien, and I live on Hatton Ferry Road in Scottsville.

[00:27:10] Many in our community have come before you to advocate for a countywide ordinance for CAFOs. We've highlighted known health and environmental risk, and more specifically, water quality and extreme water use issues.

[00:27:26] Thank you for listening, taking the next step, and commissioning this study to provide a better understanding of AFOs and CAFOs. We've reviewed the Berkeley Group Report and think it will be a helpful framework for the work ahead. It addresses what county government is allowed to do under the Right to Farm Act, and important insights also come from the interviews with other counties.

[00:27:53] For example, Rockingham County staff indicated, quote, water withdrawal and truck traffic also continue to be a concern for the county, especially as the agricultural county is evolving towards larger, consolidated operations instead of smaller family farms. And the study indicates, quote, county staff noted that a single modern poultry operation can consist of up to 15 to 20 poultry houses compared to the much smaller number of houses that have historically characterized

[00:28:29] poetry operations. Ongoing consideration is being given toward completing a county-wide groundwater resource study, end quote. And the Virginia Cooperative Extension interview includes, quote, the electrical and water needs of the operation are also worth consideration, similar to how these are considered for other large-scale industries. The CAFO industry is expanding in Virginia. Note the recent $113 million expansion of the Virginia Poultry Growers

[00:29:06] Cooperative Plant in Rockingham County. It'll allow an additional 4.6 million turkeys a year to be processed. Where will these birds be raised? Albemarle County is a prime location. We need to plan ahead for what's coming. As you review the history of other county ordinances, some several years old. Please anticipate our county's future water usage. Unlike each of I-95, we don't know the level of the water table that sustains us. As residents that just witnessed a

[00:29:43] summer of severe drought, we're concerned with any unregulated industrialized usage of groundwater, including data centers, AFOS, and CAFOs, that may threaten our livelihood, family farms, our homes and ability to live and thrive in this county thank you for taking this next step thank you thank you and i apologize to both the clerk and to a caller um we do have somebody who is on the phone and i would just ask that you press star nine to let us know that you would like to speak

[00:30:18] and press star six from a landline to unmute okay no no request to speak so i think that concludes our list chair all right we will close uh public comment and we will move to item number eight the consent agenda i'm not aware of any requests to remove any items from consent are there any at this time is there a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved second all right the motion has been made and seconded without objection if the clerk will please call

[00:30:53] the roll miss mallet yes mr missel aye mr pruitt aye miss duncan yes mr galloway yes Ms. LaPiesto-Kirtley. Aye. Very good. Thank you, board. That will take us to item number nine. And that is our Virginia Department of Transportation quarterly report. We have with us today Mr. Greg Cooley, the acting resident engineer. And we welcome you, sir, as this is your first official visit in that role with our board. So welcome. Thank you. I appreciate it. And move those mics up. And there's also, you're a little taller, the podium can adjust upward as well. There's buttons on your left. Okay. If you want to raise the podium. You guys are fancy.

[00:31:33] So, Greg Cooley, resident of Keswick, Virginia, so one of you all. I used to work in Albemarle County Community Development as a road engineer for about four years early on in my career. And most recently, I've been in the construction world, delivering construction projects throughout Culpeper District.

[00:31:52] So just a little bit of background from me. Let's see. Do I have a presentation up, or do you all have my? The clerk here will assist in bringing that. um okay all right there we go all right again greg cooley and okay i'm going to go through this the the early stuff kind of quick and get to what i think we all want to talk about at the end so

[00:32:29] bear with me a little bit um fifth street trail and hubs our our ad date slipped a little bit we're look we're uh we've got a pretty strong date october 13th to put that one out to add the rest of them are pretty far out in the future the only other one though we'll note is the 29 shared use path is under contract with sl williamson so that's in that's in construction phase so on these projects these are our bundles our design build bundles we've got uh we're moving right along the 240 250 roundabout is complete our uh the bridge that we added on for the 680

[00:33:08] is complete and we are steady steady going on the rest of it. Fontaine we are steadily working on that one too. We're mostly working on right-of-way and getting plans approved and hoping you guys will see some construction going in the next year or so. Real rustics 707, 856, 711 are all complete and the rest of

[00:33:37] them we're we're still working out funding issues all right 601 bridge is complete the uh the 702 bridge over fontaine we are putting asphalt down tomorrow and we will go into the next phase of that here in the next week or two force lakes intersection i asked to put this on the on the list uh we've had some complaints about motors speeding through this intersection we did a little

[00:34:15] of research on this one and found out it's it's not an approved school zone so we've we've contacted the school board and just ask for you all support and help and get shuffle this through the process i'll be learning this process because i've never done this before but i i'm sure we can we can help in any way we can we noticed that there were some signs missing some markings that weren't correct out there and that's what that's what caused us to do a little research and we found out that it was in fact there was a reason some of these things were not right so first step in trying to

[00:34:51] help with this situation is to get it approved school zone and to get these markings and signage correct then we'll see if there's still an issue out there or not any questions on that one why don't you go ahead through and we'll hit you with questions on everything at the end fair enough all right the fun one i'm going to give you a little bit of background on on profit road in this bridge is that we've learned we've learned quite a bit and you guys tell me if i'm saying too much and giving you too much information this this project this bridge is completely within railroad

[00:35:26] right-of-way and uh this was owned by the railroad up until uh up until recently uh up until two in 2006 norfolk southern owned it they replaced the bridge in 2007 with a with a rebuilt it and then we assumed ownership in 2014. This was part of a big swap. We swapped out bridges to start maintaining the bridges with vehicular traffic. We gave them some of the bridges that we owned that had train traffic. It made sense at the time. What we didn't, well, we knew, but VDOT

[00:36:04] would never build a bridge this way. The bridge is built with black steel, so that's untreated steel uh the the bridge is uh it's a timber frame i mean timber decking over top of steel and and timber uh adjustment timber um superstructure decking yeah so anyway we we did an assessment last year we've done we do assessments every year on this bridge and when we most recently assessed it there was there was what we determined to be rapid deterioration in a number

[00:36:41] of areas to the point that we were not comfortable and it was unsafe to continue traffic moving across it what we think is that because the steel is untreated but and because this is such a hot what we consider a higher volume route for about 4 000 vehicles a day we put a lot of salt on the bridges we do that on just about all bridges because the the wind and the and the temperatures go underneath of them and really it's the only way that we have to get this get the ice snow

[00:37:16] whatnot off of the bridge so we put a lot of salt on it we think that the salt exacerbated and helped to to deteriorate this steel much quicker and we determined we saw in a couple of space and a couple of spots in this most recent inspection actually four to be exact that uh had rapid deterioration to the point we needed to close it we don't take this lightly this is not something we enjoy by any means i just be very clear with that uh now complicating factors like i said before this

[00:37:50] bridge is 100 within railroad right-of-way that sounds great but it's as a department of transportation it makes working there a challenge just for us to be able to go and into the railroad right-of-way to assess the structure we had to we had to create and get a permit approved by the railroad it takes time luckily we were able to push this permit process up to the state's top priority and which basically means we pushed a bunch a bunch of the other ones down below which

[00:38:25] and we were able to access that bridge on monday of this week in addition we have to schedule and and acquire specialized railroad flaggers anytime that we put personnel out on onto railroad right of way my my folks were out in the right of way away from the tracks nowhere near the tracks but we have to those flaggers have to be in place and they have to monitor everything that we do out there i'm just giving you a little bit of a background of why i don't have as much information as i would like to have for you at this point we assess the bridge on monday we've got a number of

[00:39:02] we're running through a number of scenarios on what we think that we can do assessing a bridge that has damage is way is substantially harder than assessing a bridge that is new and has solid continuous members if you can imagine a piece of steel that has corrosion in one area that's solid in another. You have to run a calculation in the area that's got the corrosion, and then you have to have another calculation in the other area that maybe has a little bit less corrosion. And so a beam that would normally have one or two calculations has a tremendous amount. I'm only

[00:39:38] telling you this because it's a very complicated, not a very quick solution to what we need to do to fix this bridge. So our bridge team is working on this around the clock. They've brought in consultants to help with these calculations and help with the assessments we did the analysis we did a site visit on Monday we have another one scheduled for Thursday we're coming up with a plan right now to to fix it our best case scenario is in the months of to fix it so in in our best

[00:40:15] case scenario is multiple months I don't have an exact exact number yet but when once we get a plan in place and we get the railroad permit i'll be able to give you a little bit better window once it becomes ours once we know that we've got the work approved by the railroad we'll be able to give you a little bit better window one of the complicating factors will be the work that we've identified now is really outside of the tracks so it makes it a little bit easier then if we determine with this next inspection that appears that are closer to the tracks have to be worked

[00:40:53] on to it will make the getting the permit for doing that work a little more complicated the railroad will have a little bit more of a little more scrutiny on the permit now again selling the complicating factors for for inspecting the bridge those same factors apply during construction once we get the plan for what we can do out there we have to get the permit that plan approved by the the railroad then we have to schedule the inspectors and then every time a train comes depending on the railroad's window 30 minutes an hour we have to pull all this all the construction

[00:41:29] equipment all the personnel get them out of the railroad right-of-way wait for that train to come by and then wait a period of time then they can commence to working again i'm just letting you know it is not a quick what i want to i want to be in there and just fix this thing and be done It's not that simple with this bridge, unfortunately.

[00:41:50] Now, do you all have any questions on this at this point? There may be a supervisor that will, so we'll go through our rounds, and they'll pick them all back up. Page of notes. I didn't talk. One other thing I did talk, wanted to talk about. I'm sorry.

[00:42:05] I'm looking back at my notes. I went off cue here. I know that some of the headache is with polo grounds, and we looked, And I pushed really hard to try to figure out a solution to a signal there, understanding that that would really help alleviate some of the traffic concerns underneath another railroad.

[00:42:28] It's just not feasible at this time. We ran into a number of roadblocks, a number of hurdles that I don't think we can overcome in the short time to be able to implement it before we get the bridge open, what I'm hoping the bridge will be reopened.

[00:42:52] Most namely, getting power to the site, getting the easements from landowners required, and then also the procurement of the specialized materials for the mast arm, the mast, all of that, all lead times longer than what I'm hoping this bridge will be closed.

[00:43:12] So, yes, ma'am. let's finish the presentation and show through it all okay trust me this is going to save us both a lot of time understood all right that's all i've got for now go ahead with hit me with your questions be easy though this is my first meeting and she's first so that's wonderful supervisor lefisto kirlik thank you very much for a very complete um presentation yes regarding i'm just going to go to the underpass first on polar grounds road i know before when there was construction on bridge that there was a signal there and i think it was solar operated okay solar power operated so

[00:43:51] i don't know if that could be if that goes into the mix or if you still need time for permits before you can even have something like that when when was this do you know oh it's a few years ago within the last six years was this the railroad doing this i i'm not sure if it was a railroad road or the county but i'm sure they had to get approval from the railroad but i'm not exactly sure who did it but i do know that it was for time yeah it was there for a number of months until uh the bridge could be worked on okay okay so that's one thing so if that could be looked

[00:44:29] into that would be great um this is going to be a complicated fix you're absolutely right I know what my constituents have asked, because this is, you are planning to replace the bridge in another, I think, two or three years?

[00:44:48] The bridge replacement is scheduled to go to at somewhere around 2030. Let me make sure I've got that. I think it was 2030 or 2031. Hold on. We're beginning preliminary engineering in 28 with the intent of it going to advertisement in 2030.

[00:45:05] Now, we are looking into pulling that back. So the first hurdle is always the money. So we're working to see if we can get money advanced for this project. And if we can, then we will start preliminary engineering and try to rock and roll as quick as we can.

[00:45:22] Okay. Because the concern was, depending on how long this takes, if it's two months, three months, four months, six months, I don't know. Hopefully not that long. But if it takes that long, and then we're going to be closing the bridge again in 2030, that bridge closure, I believe, is going to be scheduled for a year, maybe two years?

[00:45:47] Yes, ma'am. About a year. About a year. I believe. And again, it really hasn't been designed, so I'm not sure, but I would anticipate about a year. Okay. Anticipation is about a year. it it would be nice if that could all be combined um that way that helps the the residents in the area they know there's this is going to be done once one and done so to speak um yes ma'am i looked into that one of the issues that we ran into is it's the right of way that's going to be required for the bridge replacement will probably extend far enough that we're going to want to open the

[00:46:25] bridge for the after the repairs before we would be able to to start work on the replacement if that makes sense okay and that and that's because you don't have the the right-of-way or we haven't even started preliminary engineering we don't know what right-of-way we need and that right-of-way is going to be on the east and west side of the bridge i don't know the answer to that yet okay i know i'm pretty sure the east side for sure okay so so to answer your question on that on that the anticipation would be that we would be able to i hope we'll be able to open this bridge up much sooner than than um then we will be able to start construction on the final structure okay okay and

[00:47:03] then the anticipation to be able if everything went well that's a great big if i realize that but if everything went well uh do you think it could be open in another two months if everything goes well i would say three months at this point three months okay well that gives me okay thank you and that's if everything goes well that stars aligned oh well i'm gonna be praying to the stars anyway uh the other thing is uh constituent had mentioned um going and by the way i do need to

[00:47:37] mention that the police department is now patrolling that area in the morning and the afternoon two hours in the morning two hours in the afternoon and i just heard from officer james marston who may want to give a quick update it's probably just for me though but uh saying that they are there and they see maybe three cars backed up because there was a problem i'm hearing from constituents there was a problem with cars being backed up and the problem is there's a blind curve on both ends and so if you're coming not expecting to come to full stop and you come around

[00:48:15] that blind curve you're going to be bumping and you know rear-ending someone so um i think i've asked um i spoke with carrie shepherd yesterday but i think it would be good to have even if it's temporary a couple signs on the east and west on both sides of the underpass that say slow stopping ahead something like that in a 500 feet a thousand feet whatever it is but to really warn people that hey around that corner you could have a line of cars that are stopped and i do want to uh thank

[00:48:49] the police department for going out there i had asked if that could be done and i really really appreciate them monitoring that uh in the morning in the afternoon during traffic hours so i think people are getting the word i do understand that um truck traffic is is slowed down they're not as many going through but the other problem is oversized trucks and i know there's a sign on 29 saying you know bridges closed and everything but maybe i'm not quite sure where to put a sign

[00:49:23] because we have people going through that underground um railroad tunnel under the underpass and they're too tall but once you get on that road there's no place to turn around right and i'm wondering uh perhaps there's a new church being built the portico church perhaps there's land there where a car a truck could turn around because once they go past a certain point they're stuck right so okay if you're are you asking if i can look into signage

[00:50:00] for oversized trucks yes okay i can look into that and i can look in for signage for make it clearer because i saw the sign on 29 and it was before the rivana river and a lot of people basically they're not looking they're not paying attention so maybe closer you know on polar grounds road but where there is maybe even lights around it i don't know but where there's a place for them to actually be able to then turn around pull out and turn around okay and i think those are all my questions. Thank you very much. Supervisor Pruitt. I have nothing to add. Thank

[00:50:39] you for the presentation. Supervisor Duncan. I do have a few questions. One of them was related to the sign. Is there a reason that you guys use the route numbers instead of like the road names, which people are more familiar with? Because I had somebody be like, I have no idea where Route 649 is, but I know.

[00:51:02] The route system is ours, and the numbers, the names are yours. So we usually go by the routes because of that, but we can look into potentially adding the names on them if there's room on the sign. And then I had a couple questions more on the report in the packet, not the presentation that you gave.

[00:51:24] The 29-star study with the bypass and going up to, like, Woodbrook, It mentioned that you guys are working on surveys and preparing public surveys. I was wondering if you had a timeline on when you think that those will be available?

[00:51:40] I don't, but I can find out for you. And then also the roadway reconfiguration talks about possibly adding bike lanes when you re-stripe. Are those planning on being protected bike lanes, or are those just striped bike lanes?

[00:51:56] I'll find out for you. Okay, thank you. That's all I have. Supervisor Malek. Thank you very much, and thank you for the attention you've given to the district already in your short time in the seat. So I would just, thinking back to the several other times over the last 40 years when Polar Grants has been, or the bridge has had work, or the bridge has been, the underpass has been the problem.

[00:52:20] The, having taken a livestock trailer on that road, 16-foot trailer is as big as you can possibly get through that, I guess. So I've seen the sign at profit, I mean, at 29, to prevent people from going.

[00:52:36] There's got to be a really big way to stop them from getting on Polo Grounds Road, period, both at Route 20, at the roundabout, and at 29, because there is no way for these drivers to turn something, even a 40-foot box around somewhere. So it has happened in the past, and it took literally days to get that tractor-trailer out of the railroad bridge.

[00:52:59] So that was probably 15 or so years ago. So I really encourage you to, whether there are surrounds that you can put up so that they can't drive through, like you get in parking garages or something. I mean, there are all sorts of structures that I hope you have in your back lot that you can put up to prevent something like this from happening because it will really impact public safety and fire engines and everybody else getting to people if that only access point to Bentivar, for example, is closed down.

[00:53:32] So you mentioned about the arms for the light. If there's a post instead that's on wheels, can you just use a post instead of having to do the whole arm business and set it way back at the bridge on the west side and the curve on the east side? Potentially.

[00:53:47] The challenge is getting, because they're going to be so far apart, getting them to speak to each other and figuring out how they run in a cable. Because of all the foliage, there's no real way to use the radio like we would normally do.

[00:54:05] So it would have to be a cable, and then do we put that on the ground? Do we get that permitted by the railroad to attach it to the railroad there? It gets complicated, too. I'm sure it's very complicated, thinking back to the days when teenagers ran the Cat 5 and the trees to their grandmother's house in order to get her in and out.

[00:54:23] I mean, that's the sort of solution I'm looking for, is just hang it up and run. So anyway, I appreciate all of those things, and I know how important the road, the access is. But thinking back to when there was a consideration of replacing the bridge in Advanced Mills, which was a 100-year-old bridge.

[00:54:41] It was 50 years old when it came here. And it was a concrete. It had been secured by steel cables in many of its piers, in many of its superstructure. And a concrete truck went across it, even though it set a three-ton limit. And the cables just went bing, bing.

[00:54:57] Somebody I know actually was behind the concrete truck and said, oh, no, I'm not going over that, and turned around and went back. But it was out for two or three years, and it was. But the important thing was that the bridge was replaced in its regular size and scope as opposed to the high ground to the high ground 50-mile-an-hour bridge because the roadway constraint on both sides in this location is so it's a 25-mile-an-hour road.

[00:55:27] And so hopefully your bridge thoughts will be about the same as well. and i'm way over my skill set here so i'll stop talking thank you very much yes ma'am thank you supervisor missal thank you and i need to start with an apology i think when i got back from being out of town i had about a dozen emails from constituents and i they were all about road related i'm like i'm just going to ask greg so great i probably sent you a dozen emails over the last week or so i'll get back to you apologize for that um second thing is just related to the bridge closure one question obviously the detour is a huge detour how are we managing emergency

[00:56:06] response and school transportation is has there been any coordination with that is there is it working okay as is or on day one we started the coordination with ems and with schools i think it's working okay now the bridge was posted at 16 tons before so even with the even before the closure, EMS should not have been using that bridge. Good to know. Got it. So that shouldn't have been a change for EMS. It would have been a change for the school though. That's okay. That's really helpful. But we did coordinate with both entities. Awesome. That's great to know. The other question I have is sort of a broader question about rural roads, because I see a lot of this

[00:56:42] where people live on dirt roads and they're concerned because the culvert at the end of their driveway is filled up. Can you just speak just briefly, or even maybe we can take this offline what is your process of looking at rural roads specifically gravel roads for example and assessing or scheduling maintenance to ensure that it's being kept up with i believe it's a case-by-case but i'll need to dig before i give you a firm answer on that one if that's all right yeah that'd be great to know i've what i've heard is no pun intended it's a squeaky wheel you know like the the neighbor will call vdot repeatedly to try to get it and then eventually

[00:57:18] it happens. That's not a criticism. It's just that I don't know if that's the case where I can tell them you're going to be on a schedule. Hold on. If there's a particular problem, I would encourage somebody to contact either the website or to make the call to 1-800-4-ROADS. That starts the work order process and it gets them officially in the system. So if there are particular areas that need to be fixed, those are the two best ways to start that process. Great. That's very helpful. And then just two other real quick questions one is exit 118 my favorite project because it's my commute

[00:57:54] every day i know that the initial study produced no alternative what what is the i what is the plan moving forward and maybe you can get back to me on this as well but on 118 i'd like to really understand that process okay maybe it's you're waiting for the fontaine improvements to be done to see what impacts that has on on 118 but there are you know just continued accidents um that are happening out there understood and then the last thing what are you seeing in terms of the construction market relative to costs continued escalation it's a hard time that's a hard question we've i've been looking at the bids coming in across the state trying to see if i could figure

[00:58:32] out any rhyme or reason and it is so dependent on the area and contractor availability at the time of this going to bid i don't know that i can really say yeah that there's i know that on the once it gets to construction we're still having problems acquiring materials the sum of the same problems we were having during covet acquiring steel and whatnot um but i don't i haven't i haven't seen a correlation nor have i nor have central office our district they um has we haven't been able to find a correlation there with interesting and prices are going up certainly

[00:59:07] But I can't make sense of which projects get eight bedders on it and which projects we have one. Interesting. Okay. Well, when you figure it out, let me know. Yes, sir. Thank you. That's all. Go ahead.

[00:59:24] I just wanted to mention that part of the problem with the current bridge is that the fire department could not go over it with certain vehicles. So the replacement bridge will allow emergency responses with all types of vehicles to be able to go over that.

[00:59:44] That's one thing. The other thing is... Not the repairs, but the new bridge. The new bridge. I'm talking about the new bridge. Yes, yes, not the repairs, right. I'm pleading now. When the new bridge is built, now that we have some lead time, Could you please look at a solution for the railroad underpass to help the people that live there be able to go through there, whether it's signage, signals, whatever it takes.

[01:00:20] But put that into your consideration when you are building the new bridge. The railroad underpass on Polar Grounds Road should be a part of it as far as consideration how to move traffic in and out.

[01:00:37] Well, we're banking on your help for that. My understanding is that that is a developer proffer and that you all called that proffer about three months ago. So we're hoping by the time we're ready to build that bridge, that that light will be in place at that point.

[01:00:53] I have spoken with a developer, and the developer has told me that they're waiting for the railroad and VDOT in the county, I guess, but mainly VDOT and the railroad, to come together with what they want. And then they hope.

[01:01:11] Matthew Machadi here, he handles our permits. have you seen a permit or anything for the light okay we have not seen anything for that seen anything for for the with the developer we haven't had any correspondence with the developer for the light i can get the developer to respond to you that's not a problem okay thank you i'd like to understand the school zone thing i'm not clear on that when you say it's not an official school zone is this just okay we wanted it to be and we didn't check all the boxes or we just called it a school zone slapped up some signs and we were like hold on we didn't check some boxes like what it's the

[01:01:47] second one uh there's a there's officially a process for applying for in the school zone then it's designated a school zone then it's enforceable with the police department and we have a set of requirements with uh for striping signage all that needs to be done accordingly as well so the school division just got ahead of all that i don't know how it happened but i mean that's the indication that sounds like to me that's yes that's what it sounds like all right thank you very much um i appreciate that yes sir real quick mr chair let me take an

[01:02:23] opportunity to make sure that captain martin jason martin from almar county police department and mr cooley that they know each other and i'm going to make a suggestion you're you're nodding your head that we've got a traffic officer that's out there through the end of this week if you gather data that would be helpful to vdot can the two of you talk to make sure that we're sharing the relevant information to help our our good partners at ddot please sir we we know each other very well and we we talked right before the meeting about just that perfect that you're two steps ahead of me like i'm not surprised thank you very much awesome thank you very much thank you all i appreciate you taking it easy on me thanks greg we won't don't hold us to that every

[01:03:02] time um all right uh wrong side all right board we will move now to our transportation planner quarterly report and we have alberic with us today good afternoon good afternoon i'm going to

[01:03:18] lower this okay good evening chair andrews and board my name is albert carino plund and i'm a transportation planner and planning within community development this is a presentation for the transportation planning activities from june to september of this year the list here is

[01:03:55] the list of projects that were submitted for smart scale back in august the initial vdot recommendations for funded projects are expected early next year oh there was a few of those sorry about that um these two these two vdot pipeline studies wrapped up earlier this year the first one studied fifth street across i-64 with the goal of value engineering a previous smart scale application to be more competitive recommendations from this study were submitted as part of the smart scale submittals this year the second studied exit 118 at us 29 and i-64 with the goal of resolving

[01:04:33] backups and addressing safety concerns. There were no preferred alternatives from this study, but VDOT will continue the study with an expanded scope and a longer-term view, and I'll get more details into a later slide. VDOT is conducting two-star studies in the county concurrently, one along the U.S. 29 corridor from Hydraulic Road to Woodbrook Road and a study in the Emmett-Hydraulic 250 interchange pictured. The purpose of the U.S. 29 corridor study is to address safety concerns for both drivers and bicyclists slash pedestrians, identify good crossing locations for US-29, and improve the operations of the corridor for side streets.

[01:05:13] The Emmett study, which is pictured here again, is looking at improving operations of the interchange and providing more and better pedestrian access in the area. The public survey presenting the proposed alternatives will be live on October 13th. Upcoming VDOT and OIP studies. There are two more studies slated to kick off later this year. One mentioned previously is the expanded scope of the exit 118 study. This start study will take the existing data from the pipeline study and include all adjacent interchanges. Exit 120 at 5th Street, the rebuilt Fontaine

[01:05:50] interchange, and the Ivy Road interchange. This study will continue to focus on interchange capacity and safety improvements for exit 118 that are more comprehensive and have a longer term implementation. The other proposed pipeline study is of Airport Road and US-29, shown to the right.

[01:06:07] This study is focused on improving safety, proactively improving capacity, and identifying opportunities for multimodal improvements, including a pedestrian crossing of US-29 in the near vicinity. Roadway reconfiguration study. Staff has kicked off two studies with VDOT's Traffic and Mobility Planning Division and a consultant team from Michael Baker focused on redesigning two sections of roadway to have bike lanes.

[01:06:32] The first study is of Greenbrier Drive from Whitewood Road to US-29, which is on the left image, and the other study goes from Riverbend Drive up to State Farm Boulevard and Pantops. Preliminary alternatives were delivered in September. A design charrette will be conducted later this week, and final alternatives will be decided upon in December.

[01:06:52] Restriping will be done next year in conjunction with paving. This summer, staff began the process design and the goal setting for development of the Multimodal Transportation Plan. This document will be a comprehensive, forward-thinking look at all modes of transportation across the county.

[01:07:09] This plan will examine the current transportation systems, needs, and deficiencies, how the system could best serve its purpose in the future, and what the system would look like. It will tie together future development patterns with transit, walking, biking, and roadway networks. Staff has been compiling available data, creating a community engagement plan, defining goals, and developing a project website.

[01:07:32] As part of this first step of process design, we are identifying milestones at which point we will share with and get input from the public. Final completion is slated for the end of fiscal year 29. The Park Bridge Traffic Calming Study. County staff, VDOT staff, and consultants from the firm EPR kicked off this traffic calming study in March with the scope between Hilltop Street and Lake Tree Lane in Crozet.

[01:07:59] Speed and traffic data were collected in April with an engineering field review conducted in June. Right now, staff is working with VDOT to confirm the appropriateness of Park Bridge Drive traffic calming per VDOT requirements. The speed data collected in April 2026 is slightly under VDOT's threshold for eligibility.

[01:08:17] Other transportation efforts, three-notch trail process continues with an estimated completion early next year. An open house will be held on October 26 at Henley Middle School, with outreach potentially affected landowners is also ongoing.

[01:08:34] Additional community feedback will be solicited both online and in person about the preferred trail route. A resolution formally discontinuing Freebridge Lane was adopted by the board on September 2nd. Staff is considering kicking off a study of Freebridge Lane with the goals of improving the parking and turnarounds at both ends of the road and improving the underpass at Freebridge or under Freebridge.

[01:08:58] This project has the potential to be a future TAP or revenue sharing grant. Lastly, the secondary six-year plan was adopted last spring and staff returned in September to clarify some of the steps. We'll continue to receive paving requests from residents around the county and will return in the spring with a draft secondary six-year plan, including a list of roads to be considered as rural recreational roads.

[01:09:23] Transit updates. Staff continues to meet with the city and the TJPDC on the planning and implementation of CARDO, a regional authority that would give the power to tax for improved transit services. TAT is planning to expand the 2 line into the 2A and 2B, with the 2A continuing down Avalon Street and serving the jail, Monticello High School, and the Mill Creek Shopping Center.

[01:09:45] Bus stops at these locations are currently moving through the VEDA approval process. Thank you, and do you have any questions? Oh, I can't imagine. Supervisor Lepisto Kirtley? Yes, you kind of glossed over, you mentioned, if I heard you correctly, crossing on 29 somewhere.

[01:10:08] I believe you mean an upcoming study? Yes, upcoming. Yes, so the U.S. 29 Pipeline Road Study will look at improved pedestrian crossings across 29. Okay. Are they talking about a bridge, or are they talking about, like they do in Europe, where you cross halfway, there's a median with bollards, and then you cross the other half?

[01:10:32] You know, it's that great. Are they talking about that? That will be determined in the study. Right now we're in the scoping phase of it, so it hasn't kicked off yet. Okay. And then you also mentioned about traffic calming. Yes. And where you're in certain areas, but is there such a thing as traffic calming in certain rural areas, on rural roads?

[01:11:00] Not in the middle of the road, not in the middle of anything, but, you know, where it's appropriate maybe to have some kind of a traffic calming. Do we do that? I would have to consult the VDOT traffic calming guidelines off the top of my head. I believe not. Do you want to know anything?

[01:11:18] Even if it's associated like a perpendicular intersection with a market and everything. Do you have a specific intersection in mind that you would like to start?

[01:11:35] Of course I do. 22 and 231 where Sysmont Market is because there are large oversized trucks that continue to come down in spite of the signs on either end saying you can't go down there. So some kind of traffic calming or bazooka would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. All right, Supervisor Pruitt. I don't believe I have any questions. Great presentation. I will actually just echo what Supervisor Lepisto

[01:12:10] So currently said, so long as we have our VDOT representatives here with us, this is a problem that we encounter, I think, really frequently, is that our toolkit for concerns about rural traffic safety are really limited just because the volume and therefore the incidents in those scenarios are low, and so they don't trigger protocols for VDOT to intervene.

[01:12:36] I think all of us who represent rural regions have specific intersections or specific roads where there are known and observed just deficiencies in how traffic is managed, fundamentally dangerous intersections, and maybe even intersections that have incidents, but their incident number is low enough that it does not reach V.O.T. threshold because it is just a practicality of the number of people who live there.

[01:13:02] And it is frustrating to have to depend on the, I think, not unprudently developed state mechanism for that. And it would be nice to have a wider toolkit through which we could engage these problems locally because we're closer to them. That's all.

[01:13:21] Supervisor Duncan? My bad. I thought these were all one presentation. So my questions are really for you. Is there a timeline for the surveys for the STAR study on 29 and the bike lanes? Are those going to be protected, or are those just striped? For the survey for the STAR studies, that goes out, I believe, on October 13th.

[01:13:42] Oh, great. October 13th, just double-checking. And for the roadway configuration, the bike lanes, that is something we're going to work on in the design charrette this Friday with VDOT and our consultant team, and then we will have a final answer December when we have the final alternatives.

[01:13:57] So I'm not too sure yet. Okay, that's all I have. Very good. Supervisor Malek? Thank you very much. I do even though it's not the district I represent I have heard from constituents trying to walk on the sidewalk next to 29 for example and they feel no sense of safety because they're walking south on the west side of the road and they can hear things coming down and they're always sort of turning around and jumping to see if there's somebody actually coming on the sidewalk so I understand about the protected nature of a bunch of trees or something like that to to help people feel a little better going from where you're getting your car worked on down to the library

[01:14:35] or something to work while that's happening. It's everywhere. My question, I guess, in general is the multimodal transportation plan sounds nice, but it sounds like it's going to be massive amounts of staff for massive numbers of years, and why are we really doing this? What is it going to give us other than maybe a priority five years from now? So I just, I'm sorry to ask a crabby question, But I just, we have been waiting for the comp plan to be done and all these other things, and now here we go again.

[01:15:06] So just bail me out here. Sure. I'll take a stab at answering this. Supervisor Malik, Jessica Dimmick, principal transportation planner. So my understanding is that when AC44 was under development, there was an effort to develop a multimodal transportation plan, which is a geographically specific map of all of the routes for all of the modes throughout the county and that the planning for especially bicycle and pedestrian modes has been done

[01:15:45] not in a comprehensive manner but there have been examinations of small areas or segments as part of safety studies, but never really a comprehensive look at what are the facilities now, how are they lacking in connectivity to the places people need to go, and where are the best connections and most important connections that need to be made. So this multimodal plan is just that. It is a

[01:16:18] comprehensive look at all of the modes, all of the deficiencies. It will include a route network map for each mode, and then go through a process of looking at where are the highest deficiencies and what is needed to bridge the most important gaps. So we hear a lot at the Crozet Community Advisory Council about the sidewalk gaps throughout the growth area, and there's been great expense

[01:16:51] putting in X number of 100 feet of sidewalk, and then you have a sharp curve and 500 feet of nowhere to go. So people still have to drive to the place where they're going to use their feet. So is the sidewalk inventory that was part of the 2015 and 2021 master plan part of this effort to identify where those gaps are in the Crozet growth area?

[01:17:14] We are looking at the existing facilities that we have and looking to update that inventory to understand where the gaps are and where the most pressing gaps need to be filled.

[01:17:32] Okay, so Chrissy Avenue is probably on your list. Because, I mean, getting just anything around where kids have to walk to school because the school board has decided this distance is walkable, but there's nowhere to walk except in Route 250. That's really hard when the weather's bad, particularly. So, I'm looking for information, and if this is part of it, then that will be great.

[01:17:51] Regarding the rural traffic safety, I concur about that. And unfortunately, for 20 years, and not any of the current VDOT staff, because they weren't working there then, it's not their fault. But the philosophy of wait until somebody gets killed has been the history.

[01:18:07] Two days after two people were killed at the corner of Hydraulic Road and Raceford Road, the four-way stop, which we have been asking for for 25 years, was put up. And there hasn't been an accident there since. so this is why people keep asking for traffic calming and the park bridge if i understood you correctly because you went very fast albert was it was determined again because nobody's been killed that it doesn't qualify because it's one mile an hour off of what it's supposed to be to get something is that right i can give it up i'll give an update on that we heard back from vdot last week that the speed data that was collected does not meet the threshold for

[01:18:47] the traffic calming their traffic calming process because it was less than the 85th percentile speed was less than 10 miles per hour over the posted speed limit however there are some multimodal improvements that we had identified that staff and our engineering consultant had identified in the field visit such as curb extensions or a splitter island that may be able to be

[01:19:20] implemented through other means. So while it is not eligible for the formal traffic calming process there are still improvements that could be made and we as staff are working to see how we can advance those. So that would be county budget process to get that done? There is there are no funds identified for implementing those improvements at this time. But we're not talking about money here, we're talking about county money.

[01:19:47] That's correct. So we have to dial it back to we started this 10 years ago, just remember that. 10 years ago I started asking for roundabouts in those major intersections where there's a rise, Ravenscroft and several others, where people go 50 at school bus time, which is when the cat was killed and the child was almost killed last year.

[01:20:08] So I'm very appreciative of the delineator roundabout that was put in after 25 years at Hillsdale, and it's very successful. That's probably a couple hundred thousand dollars, not five million dollars to put in. Is that a possibility for WARS while we wait another, instead of waiting for another five years for the Old Trail Drive WARS 250 intersection and also for these most severe intersections on Park Ridge where we have rush hour traffic, horrendous rush hour traffic. I mean, I drive 25 through there and pack up six people behind me in

[01:20:45] 100 yards because they're all in such a hurry to get somewhere so please help me understand if any of those things are possible and if i who i need to talk to we can look into that oh so no feedback right now in other words okay very good thank you uh supervisor missal thank you um and thanks for the presentation so uh it's also good to have vita here at the same time i also just echo the concerns I guess about traffic calming on rural roads and you know I've got one as an example North Garden Lane which was paved several years ago and maybe a couple years ago three I don't

[01:21:25] know could have been a decade now time flies but people fly along that road and it was paved but it wasn't widened so what ended up happening is you had a gravel road that was people were going relatively slowly because it was gravel. And so that was the traffic calming and that allowed people to realize it was a blind curve and they weren't going too fast. And if somebody was coming the other direction, they could adjust. When it gets paved, people just hammer down. And what I found is along what were previously blind curves, people are having near misses or getting pushed

[01:22:01] off the side of the road. There are marks on rocks on the side of the road, like big rocks where people has just dented their cars so i guess it's maybe i don't know if it's a question as much as i'd love to at some point understand when rural roads go from gravel to paved what kinds of additional traffic calming and or traffic safety assessments are done in that transition other couple quick questions one we talked a little bit about the exit 118 my favorite project And you're now talking about the scope expanding, right, to I think now include, was it Ivy?

[01:22:41] Yes, it'll include Fifth Street, Ivy, and Fontaine. So I guess whenever I see an expanded study, I always think time also expands with that. It takes longer to get that done. And I guess I'm just wondering, are there any ideas or is there any traction for any interim safety reviews?

[01:23:03] Because I don't know if you have a timeline for that study. I do not right now. I mean, it could be a year, two, who knows, right? So I'd just love for us to continue to focus on potential interim ways to provide a safer intersection on a project that I think just wasn't ever fully implemented, right?

[01:23:22] It was kind of done to solve one issue, but we still have westbound truck traffic at rush hour stopping cars and getting in accidents. So that'd be great. Yeah, multimodal plan. I had a similar question. I mean, it's essential to get that.

[01:23:38] I think it's a great idea to have that holistic plan so that we can then come up with measured ways to improve it or to fill in gaps, as Supervisor Malik said. You clarified the Park Ridge question I had, and I think that was it.

[01:23:57] Thank you. All right. I don't have any questions. Thank you for the presentation today. And, yeah, until the next time, right? Thank you. All right. Board, we are at a recess, running a little ahead of schedule, so we could do the full 15 minutes.

[01:24:16] So if we'll start, that puts us kind of a weird time. What does that mean? 39, so call it 20 till we'll come back, or just before quarter till. Good. Thank you.

[01:24:40] All right, board, we are back from our recess, and we are ready to move to item number 11, Economic Development Strategic Plan Year One Update. Good afternoon, Emily. Good afternoon. Thank you all for having me.

[01:24:56] I'm really excited to be here. Chair Galloway, I think you specifically, when we adopted the Economic Development Strategic Plan, said that you would like to see us faster than five years from adoption to hear about what we've been working on and to see if there's any need for any adjustments.

[01:25:12] So it's really a pleasure to be here with you all this afternoon. Supervisor LePissel currently, with her service as the board liaison for the EDA, knows a lot of this already, but excited to share all of this together in one place. We often talk about progress in individual areas individually, so it's fun to have a minute to put it all together.

[01:25:34] I want to recognize the Economic Development Office team is in the audience today. So we have Ashley Perry-Hernando Reina, our Business Development Manager, Avery Thompson, our Management Analyst, and Connor McAlevey is the newest person on our team. He's the Senior Manager for Economic Development, does a lot of our building sites and requests for information from the state work.

[01:25:57] Literally working on something right now while he's here with us. So just really excited about all the energy that the team brings to the work and all the great service that we're able to provide for existing businesses as well as prospective businesses. So Albemarle County, Rooted in Innovation, Open for Investment, that is the tagline for the Economic Development Strategic Plan.

[01:26:19] Something that I say when I present to different groups is that our office is only 11 years old. I think we kind of missed marking the 10-year anniversary of economic development last year, and that's okay, because we are just getting started. But 11 years old is young for economic development offices at a local government in the Commonwealth.

[01:26:41] And so it is significant, the work that we're doing. Our tenure is still relatively short. Most offices were founded sometime in the 90s by comparison, and so we're learning a lot as we're doing things and excited to dig in a little bit deeper.

[01:26:57] This was our second plan that the county has for economic development specifically, and it was adopted in August of 2025, so we're a little bit – I feel very loud. Do you feel like I'm too loud? I feel good. Okay. The process for the plan kicked off in August of 2024 when you all had a joint meeting with the Economic Development Authority. And so we're just about on target for sort of a one-year follow-up conversation. And one of the things that I also like to point out to folks when I

[01:27:31] talk about our plan is how, in contrast with the first plan, it's very focused. And we feel like that's enabled us to think hard about how we're aligning resources both people and financial resources with the things that the plan articulates as being the most important to us. So I'll walk through sort of what we've been up to and what we hope to do in the year ahead. Just take a minute to talk a couple more of my behind the curtain slides things that I like to tell other people about our community and how it relates to the work that we do. This slide is our accolade slide

[01:28:06] So this is a number of ways in which the county has been recognized in a lot of living and a lot of play accolades. The work accolades are the ones that our office is trying to grow. So Indeed.com recently recognized the Charlottesville MSA, which includes all of Albemarle County as the top 10 MSA in the country for work, which is a really significant accolade because it talks about the county not only for our wonderful live and play attributes but for our work attributes as well and so it's a meaningful

[01:28:44] recognition and one that we continue to hope to grow this is a slide that it's not budget season yet i promise this is a slide that you all see a lot in the february march april time frame but this is one of the ways that i help talk folks through why do local governments get involved with economic development and with how businesses operate. And you all know more than most that the predominant local government revenue source is the property taxes. We get a relatively small share of funds from state revenue and federal revenue. And a lot of those

[01:29:23] revenues are for a specific purpose. And so they're often passing through the county. And so where we actually get to fund local services is really out of general property taxes. And so for us, we look hard at how can we grow some of those other revenue sources in a way that we're not so reliant on property taxes, and particularly residential property taxes, so that we're not balancing the cost of services on the backs of the residential taxpayers.

[01:29:53] Several years ago, this board received a report on the cost for community services study. This looked at by three different classes of land use, residential, commercial, slash industrial, and agricultural, slash forestal. What is the cost to serve that type of property relative to every dollar of tax revenue generated?

[01:30:15] And so this is not new information for you all. Really just a reminder that commercial and industrial is an area that is very, we get a large return on investment when you look at the cost to serve a piece of property. and then relative to the revenue that it generates.

[01:30:32] And so our office is really focused on how can we continue to grow that commercial and industrial tax base because it helps, again, us to fund services not relying on residential. Okay, into the plan. So this is the mission and the vision as articulated in the plan that was adopted in August of 2025.

[01:30:55] We had a really big year one. Really excited about the photo there in the middle, but also really, really proud of some of the homegrown businesses that are having a real great success here in Elmorrow County.

[01:31:15] Afton Scientific with the groundbreaking for their facility that they're building just off Avon Street. And then Agrospheres, which is located in Seminole Place. Many folks call that the old Comdial building on 29, and the work that they're doing to bring organic chemistry into the pesticide space. It's been a real delight to support the growth of those businesses here, as well as we look at to the future, what is having a large anchor institution, large anchor employer in our community due to our life sciences sector, as well as other sectors, as the business community looks at Albemarle differently than

[01:31:52] it has in the past. One of the things that we worked on this year that is a little bit more behind the scenes, but I think really critical for the future, is the Central Virginia Innovation Corridor study that was done through the Central Virginia Partnership for Economic Development.

[01:32:08] That's the Regional Economic Development Agency. And that was all the localities in the Central Virginia region putting some sweat equity into looking at how do we sort of leverage recent investments in our collective communities to tell a deeper and broader story for our areas of strength, which are national security intelligence, as well as biosciences. And so there'll be a lot of work in the next 12 months related to sort of implementing that plan and bringing that vision to fruition, but a lot of sort of quiet study work over the past year to get ready for that.

[01:32:48] A lot of what we celebrated last year is not exactly in our plan, and so I wanted to walk through the five goals, some of those more specifics of what we've been working on. This plan I mentioned earlier is a little bit more focused than the last plan. The first three in the light blue goals are really related to our target sectors, intelligence, national security, life sciences, and agribusiness and food processing. Goal four is sort of an external entrepreneurship, small business support, and workforce development with external partnerships.

[01:33:23] And then goal five is really more internal to the county as a whole, looking at the policy environment that we have set up and how that supports the types of businesses that we hope to grow and attract. In intelligence and national security, another quiet work effort for us.

[01:33:43] We've done a lot of work recently with Ravana Station Leadership, working on exploring partnership opportunities to enhance the campus and the connection with the proximity of the Ravana Futures property to their property. to sort of continue to build that relationship and to show some true partnership for the federal government and their presence there as we look at ways to support a future expansion as they look at how their missions are continuing to grow.

[01:34:12] The Central Virginia National Security Alliance, that formerly was the Defense Affairs Committee that was associated with the Chamber of Commerce. That was moved this year to Central Virginia Partnership, And the rationale behind that was to really grow the ecosystem economic development focus of that sector in the community.

[01:34:33] And so with that, there's been sort of a transition in the types of things that that group does. There was a critical infrastructure forum in August as a first event under sort of the new banner. It was incredibly well attended, had a really star-studded panel of folks from different agencies, from local regional government, but a lot of federal government participants coming down from the D.C. area to talk about cybersecurity, physical security around water systems and other really critical infrastructure from a local government standpoint.

[01:35:08] It brought folks from the university with the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority, for example, talking about ways that they can support each other and really inspire some really strong conversations about taking knowledge and turning it into some action. And that's the type of events that CBNSA hopes to continue to hold in the future.

[01:35:28] There's also been a stronger working relationship because of the work of CBNSA with state government and federal government, and so continuing to sort of raise the profile of Albemarle County and the broader Central Virginia region in that space, which is helpful as, again, we talk to businesses about opportunities here. The board knows and has attended the Common Thread Charlottesville event that is held at Boarshead each year. They're planning their third event this year in December.

[01:35:58] We've made it officially to their annual roster, which is really exciting because INSA is a professional organization, really with a very large footprint of members in the D.C. area. It's a combination of private sector as well as federal agency participation. It's where a lot of really important conversations happen, and we're just so glad to be on their radar.

[01:36:20] One of the numbers I'll highlight here, 18 non-local media mentions. In one of my old jobs, I cared a whole lot about our local media mentions. One of the goals for this, or one of the activities under this goal in the plan is to raise the profile of Albemarle County and on more of a national scale. And so the non-local media mentions is significant when you have coverage talking about Rivanna Futures, Rivanna Station, and the opportunities and partnerships available here. Goal two, life sciences. Obviously, this was the sector that had probably the

[01:36:59] strongest performance this year. We're really excited about all the things that are happening with AstraZeneca as well as some of our other partners and companies that are in our region. The Commonwealth BioAccelerator is a wet lab accelerator that launched just over a year ago up at North Fork Discovery Park. They've already been awarded $7.5 million in state funding for their permanent home, which is really exciting.

[01:37:28] They're on a sort of a three-year pilot right now, and that is supporting the growth of companies with typically with some connection to the University of Virginia, but keeping those companies from going to Research Triangle Park in North Carolina, up to Boston, other areas that have a stronger biotech startup ecosystem.

[01:37:49] So that was a long-anticipated and contemplated move, and it's already paying really strong dividends for our region. With all of the statewide announcements in life sciences last year, there was a $120 million fund created in partnership with the state, funded by those companies, to create the Virginia Advanced Pharmaceutical Training Network.

[01:38:14] That is to ensure that the workforce needs of those companies hiring in Virginia are hiring folks from Virginia. Let's make sure that our community members are provided a lot of opportunities and skills to be able to be successful candidates for those jobs.

[01:38:32] So that's something that they're sort of working behind the scenes right now. And in the coming months, I think there'll be a lot more public information to share about how that's coming together. Albemarle being the geographic center of the three major announcements obviously we feel really great about our ability to serve some of those workforce training needs for our community but also for be part of sort of a system of a workforce development serving the commonwealth we also have had some national recognition in the sector which is really exciting and the I just wanted to note the jobs the job growth on this slide the data that we can access for this is two years

[01:39:10] behind. So we'll see that number continue to grow as we continue to track this data moving forward. The last sector of focus is agribusiness and food processing. There's been some exciting support here. This one is a lot more focused on growing existing, supporting existing businesses in the agribusiness food processing world. So we've been able to leverage using some local dollars for match, leverage state funding for investments in companies and infrastructure that serves that sector that helps support broader business needs. One concrete example, the mobile

[01:39:50] honey processing unit that Siller Pollinator was able to purchase through a state grant, allows small beekeepers to have access to honey processing facilities that are accredited so that they can sell their products at farmers markets and elsewhere. If they're not able to access that type of equipment, they have to basically just consume what they produce. And so this opens access in a way that would have been out of reach without that investment. There's also been a lot

[01:40:23] of really positive energy in the wine industry. In fiscal year 26, there was support for a scale-up initiative to help increase market opportunities for area wineries to be able to get more into wholesaling. And that's a project that the EDA has been proud to help support. Goal four, empower talent. A lot of really great work with a lot of partners. This is where a lot of our partnership connections really shine. You can see some of the numbers up there. I wanted to highlight specifically

[01:40:58] well before AstraZeneca was announced or even thought of in this community, there was a project that Seville Biohub led called the BioBridge Talent Pathways Implementation Project. That was really trying to map out how to best support the life science job needs of the employers in that sector in the community.

[01:41:21] And it got the University of Virginia and Piedmont, Virginia Community College and the public school systems to the table to look at how they could start building early in public school micro-credentials, credentialing programs, stacked credentials so that you could start in high school, give you a leg up as you get into PBCC, if you then wanted to transfer into a four-year institution, really ensuring that folks had a good ability to transfer along the way, and also exit education and enter a workforce at different points that were going to be meaningful for them. And so that's been a

[01:41:58] really exciting project as they've been in for several years of planning, and now they are very much in the doing phase. And there's some exciting programs that PBCC has introduced in just the past couple of months that are being received really well. And we hear, when we talk to employers in that sector, the value that they're already seeing from that work, which is really exciting.

[01:42:25] Wanted to do one highlight on the Albemarle County Economic Development Authority as a really critical partner for, um, the work that we do in the office. Um, uh, and I worked with, uh, chair, uh, long on this slide and he, he, he specifically asked me to add continued partnership and support for the board of supervisors priorities. So, um, when you've all met with the EDA in the past, there's been a strong emphasis on ensuring that the work that they do is supportive of your all's vision for, um, what the work that they ought to be doing. Um, and so I wanted to make sure that that was underscored in here. Um, but some of the things that they've done since

[01:42:59] the plan development finished last summer was they actually the EDA actually funded some implementation planning work that supported a work plan for my office as well as an investment framework for the EDA for them to have a stronger decision making sort of laid out for how they might direct their funds they did contribute from their funds five hundred thousand dollars for the boulders road extension project um they were they always serve as the conduit issuer for the county's bonds um that are issued for capital projects um they've also um you know with that

[01:43:37] investment framework in mind have been talking about catalytic projects um how they can activate that investment framework to really try to focus some um cash that they have into some projects that would support again things that are important for the plan and they might be better positioned to support than our office might be.

[01:44:01] The last goal is compete for investment. I already talked a little bit about the innovation corridor. As we roll into implementation, we're trying on some new names for that. And one that we've been focused on recently is Central Virginia Futures. This is, again, how we're working as a region to try to elevate our profile and really understand together how Albemarle County has different assets and opportunities than maybe Greene County has or Fluvanna County has, but they have different assets and amenities than we have, and that is a supportive statement.

[01:44:39] So there are things that are going to work really well in those communities that might not fit as well in our community, and that's okay and that's actually great because we're not always a great fit for some of the opportunities that come up, but being able to work together to find a good, solid home for opportunities in the right sectors really moves us all forward.

[01:45:01] Cho wanted to highlight Cho's work on trying to build their commercial air service. We get questions a lot when folks are considering Albemarle. Where can you get to and from here, from your airport? Many of them don't expect that we even have a commercial airport and are so excited that we do.

[01:45:17] And as they continue their work to attract new and different destinations, that is just so supportive of the work that we're doing. Community development is working very hard on their zoning modernization project. That's something that we heard a lot about as we were talking to the business community as part of the planned development process on ways that the county can create a stronger environment for businesses to operate in.

[01:45:42] Obviously, some of the numbers on the screen we're really proud of. When the board invested in the Rivanna Futures property in 2023, There was a lot of conversation in those early days that staff was going to work really hard to try to attract federal and state investments in the property to be able to advance site readiness.

[01:46:05] And we sure hoped that that was our plan, and we're really proud to report that we've been very successful in that regard and in a relatively short amount of time. So I think it is a testament to the vision that the board had in taking that risk, in purchasing that property, and we're able to see a lot of excitement, again, from the state predominantly to see a lot of really great infrastructure work happening out there.

[01:46:33] This is an aerial photo of Ravanna Futures. I'll spend a couple minutes talking about Ravanna Futures. This is about a month ago. We actually had a new set of images taken this morning. So we don't have them back yet from our videographer and photographer.

[01:46:50] But this is what the property is looking like now. A combination of tree clearing, what that was completed last year, and grading and utility extension work that's happening right now. A lot of this work is possible, all of this work is possible, because of the great work that Blake Alpenalp, our Rivanna Futures project manager, as well as Steve Hoffman from the Facilities and Environmental Services team, And others, a ton of permitting and review work from community development and their great team to be able to have this grant executed so quickly.

[01:47:28] Some of the other stuff that we've been working on behind the scenes on Riviana Futures, the top left is actually sort of a diagram showing the site work that's happening out there right now. So there's some cut coming off of where AstraZeneca will be located in the blue.

[01:47:47] And then in the green, some of that is being used as fill to do some pad work on the part of the property that the county will continue to own. And we'll get to work on sort of marketing that area more proactively as they're wrapping up that site work towards the end of the calendar year.

[01:48:09] The bottom right is a clip of the rural area portion of the property. So there's been a lot of focus and attention on the development area side of the property, which fronts Route 29. Off Watts Passage is more of that natural area.

[01:48:27] And we've been working to look at how access into that rural portion of the property might work and what a thoughtful trail system might look like back there. in the hopes that we can provide public access to that property in the future.

[01:48:46] So the year ahead, we are tired from year one, but we are rolling forward. And so we've got a couple of things that we think are important for us to focus on as we look at fiscal year 27, which we're currently in. So some of this is stuff that we're currently doing.

[01:49:03] Many of you have heard us talk about the site identification study, which is helping the county understand after the large sites that we know about right now that are in the county, what are those next sites, the longer-range properties that might be attractive for economic development in private investment down the road.

[01:49:29] That study will help us sort of build a roadmap and a strategy. It'll help us answer where and how large are those sites and what type of work would be needed for them to be more attractive. And then there's some grant opportunities coming out of that study being delivered where we could do a little bit of next-level due diligence on some properties.

[01:49:51] And so we'll be excited to receive that report in early 2027 and then look at how we might take some of those sites forward. with some grant opportunities from the state biotech builds we are really excited to see some of the projects that we've been talking about come out of the ground that image up there is a site visit that we held with astrazeneca representatives last week to look at their property as they get extremely extremely excited about all the activity that they will

[01:50:27] sort of take the reins on as we turn the calendar into 2027. But work is underway already at Afton Scientific, and Seville Biohub is planning for its permanent home next year as well. Talked a little bit about that Central Virginia Futures Innovation Corridor Project already.

[01:50:47] There is a big focus on building the biosciences workforce. Again, we talked about how public schools pvcc and uva are working together to understand how they can serve each other's needs we'll continue to work on business attraction and again i talked a little bit about revana futures as well that is the end of my slides but again just wanted to emphasize how much of a pleasure it is to work on this part of the county with you all and for you all and just appreciate your time this afternoon thank you emily let's see what questions comments we have supervisor lapisto

[01:51:25] currently great presentation again and i'm just so glad the eda is doing such an outstanding job and really have them there thank you supervisor pruitt yeah um i i do want to actually have a little bit of time to ask some questions and give some comments on some of these um so i feel as we look at our progress on each of our goals it it is clear to see where i think we're exceeding meeting and exceeding the mark on some and others we are in still kind of a holding

[01:52:02] pattern um right so like life sciences we have blown past the mark extraordinary um in the write up on uh intel and natsec we kind of take credit for some of the life sciences work because it was part of the prep work we did for intel and life science but i don't think it's fair to say that we're building a lot of the infrastructure to support that growth but it feels like nothing has actually hit yet and part of i think this is a slight repeat of what i've said in previous things i know that the nat sec industry is kind of undergoing a kind of generational shift where

[01:52:41] you have an explosion of startups and you're seeing contractors trying to lead the government because there's money looking for safe harbor there's new technology and there's a collapse in federal capacity. So you have startups trying to develop ahead of government requisition and then pitch projects. I worry that we are positioning ourselves perhaps for a previous paradigm of NASSEC economic development, and we're not necessarily positioned for the next anduril or something. These kind of companies that are going to need small lots that are going to

[01:53:19] have thinner budgets and are going to be undergoing rapid growth and i think that's the more desirable thing because then you have a homegrown company um and so i i will be interested to see how this kind of line of effort continues to develop because it we've obviously got a great stake in it i think we're well positioned for it but i it i mean it's one year i shouldn't be panicking yet that we're not seeing results but i i have some concern that we haven't seen more activity in this sector um life sciences we're doing great on on the fourth one this is kind of a

[01:53:54] back in our comprehensive plan kind of discussion i i worry that if we have an evaluative metric and if when we're looking at our performance on something if there's not a way to fail on it then we don't know whether or not we're actually succeeding on it so i i when we're talking about talent development i guess i'm not getting a clear sense of are we exceeding or meeting a mark or are we listing accomplishments um because we can list accomplishments all day but if there's not clear criteria that we're trying to strive toward i worry i don't get a sense of whether or not we're

[01:54:32] actually succeeding on our goals on on talent development um and lastly i think when we look at our kind of three industry focuses for the first three it is pretty clear to me that we are committing a tremendous amount of resources to two of them and the third less so and we've seen less success on when i'm looking at agribusiness this is a i think that's because there's a fundamental tension there that we haven't fully even in adopting it reconciled ourselves with

[01:55:08] when we look at life sciences when we look at miltech you know we we know what we want i think we know what it takes and i think there's an agreed upon consensus that we are comfortable with what it takes um i remember when this came up when we were first developing this this is something i know that myself and supervisor andrews had raised i'm not sure we're as a community comfortable with the steps that we're saying we need to take on agribusiness and i still think that might be true and i think that's hurting our own ability to execute our own plan

[01:55:43] and i worry that as a community as a board we are living with attention in our own goal setting that we have not worked out um and of course this is going to be discussed later today but like a key element of this for example is what are we doing with intermediary processes but i also don't know that this board would vote to allow canneries or uh abattoirs or poultry processing facilities or even maybe certain amounts of uh like machinery and engine

[01:56:21] repair in the rural area, which is what that would call for. And I can think of some of those I would be more in favor of, and some of them I'd be less in favor of. But I think our economic development plan expects us to be all in favor of them. And this is just a tension that I think we need to work through if we're going to succeed on this, because currently I think we're engaging in half measures, which disserves the agribusiness community, because I think there's still a lack of shared understanding on what we want to accomplish on agribusiness and that worries

[01:57:00] me and I feel like we're doing you a disservice because of this tension that we are still sitting with and I didn't ask a single damn question I'm sorry it was mostly just the Mike Pruitt pontificating hour if you want to respond to any of that please like maybe that is not how you view our relationship with agribusiness right now but it's something i feel i'm sitting with i think i would offer um the uh on the on the bigger policy question side um there's a number of recommendations uh that were in the ac44 comp plan process that get to

[01:57:37] some of those land use type um opportunities and uh you know our office is meeting with community development as they're working through that implementation plan um but there a lot of that lives in sort of the policy world.

[01:57:54] And so our action there is really helping to help convey to community development as they're going through their work, what was the intent of that chapter and that goal in the Economic Development Strategic Plan, what were those conversations that led to that ending up in the plan.

[01:58:16] And then, you know, as they go through their process, I think some of those questions will be worked through, you know, at the planning commission on the board level and then you know we'll our commitment is always to implement and and work in concert with the comp plan and the zoning ordinance and so we're sort of working sort of more behind the scenes right now and in a lot of those areas but you know for the producers that we do have I would say our business retention and expansion work which is our business visitation meeting with existing businesses that it's actually our strongest sector

[01:58:54] We're doing the most work in that sector because some of the other sectors have organizing bodies that meet with an economic development lens. How can we help support each other in business development? In the ag business, it's a lot more disaggregated.

[01:59:12] And so this year we had a roundtable in partnership with the city of Charlottesville on their food businesses to have some of those conversations that are happening, you know, by Siebel Biohub in the life sciences sector. some of the programming that CBNSA is doing in the national security sector to try to create some venue for that type of discussion in the ag sector.

[01:59:34] And that's generating some interesting opportunities that I don't think we knew were there and I don't think the operators knew were there because of not knowing each other's – we may produce different products, but some of our core challenges are the same.

[01:59:53] And how can we help each other? I want to characterize, I think, kind of what I heard and tell me if you think this is mischaracterizing it. It sounds like economic development and the agribusiness community are playing robustly in the pool that they have built for them, but there are still questions of how to build a bigger pool that sit with the board, and your only role in that capacity is to advise CDD and the planning team and ultimately the board on how that intersects with your goals.

[02:00:29] And try to have conversations with that sector to help sort of illuminate what some of those, what some of their perspective in that would be. Understood. Thank you. I hope to build you a bigger pool. All right. Supervisor Duncan. Well, I just want to be clear that Supervisor Pruitt and I have not talked about this at all.

[02:00:49] And to be embarrassingly honest, I did not actually read this part of the agenda until 6 a.m. this morning. But he teed me up very nicely for what I want to say. um sometimes i wonder like when the county says things you know do people know that we're saying this you know for example an important part of the report um that the county you know works to create a business environment where entrepreneurs can launch new ventures where small businesses can scale and where established businesses can find their next strategic location i think that's a good reminder to us and the community that albemarle county's attitude towards creating an

[02:01:28] environment that provides jobs salaries for people along with you know diversifying and increasing our tax base and not to mention these are industries that improve people's lives the quality of life that like our official attitude is to invest support encourage and allow these and so we shouldn't be surprised when we get requests from people looking to start or expand their businesses because the county is explicitly saying this is a good thing and we want it and you know you talked about raising our national profile we can't do that and then when people requests to, you know, have businesses, even in the rural areas, say, no, actually, we don't want

[02:02:03] you. And so this was, you know, a great presentation. The report is really great, but what I was really thinking, especially in light of what we're discussing next, is the agribusiness part of it. The agribusiness section only mentions food and beverage, Beacon Kitchen, wine, the honey, but there's nothing in there about farms. And under kind of the empowering talent section, you know there's a lot of like all of what's here is like great this isn't really a critique but there's information about the business ecosystem created to help these other businesses start and

[02:02:41] grow but you know i'm thinking about like what's not there are we concentrating all of our efforts in sort of the narrow geographic location of the development area or are we thinking about talent development expansively what would it look like if we had a really robust rural economy and thinking about workforce development for small businesses.

[02:03:00] Are we thinking about small farms? I mean, we had the 4-H kids here. Like, what would entrepreneurship for that look like? And, yeah, you just sort of spoke about the needs for agribusiness economy that was in the strategic plan, the zoning infrastructure, all that sort of things.

[02:03:21] And all of these are things that I've heard from farmers over the past couple of months. And so I'm thinking, like, what would it look like if we had the infrastructure support for our farming community? Like, what if they didn't have to drive over to Harrisonburg to get their tractors serviced or get their fences?

[02:03:37] There's apparently a huge need for small animal vets. And I actually went down after I was reading this and thinking about this this morning. I get my beef from a local farmer. And I was like, I wonder, like, how do the cows get from the farm and crozet to my freezer? And so I went down and looked it up, and they get packaged in Harrisonburg.

[02:03:56] What if some of this stuff was able to happen in Albemarle County? What if they could package their meat here and didn't have to drive to the valley to process their corn? So I personally would like to see a more robust agribusiness economy that also centers the needs of farms that we currently have.

[02:04:16] And, you know, the end of the report that you have says the county will support economic growth while preserving what makes Albemarle County special, its rural character, natural resources, etc. in rural character and natural resources is more than just land it's also rural activity and so you know making sure that we're supporting farms i think is really important great thank you supervisor malik thank you that was a beautiful tee up i appreciate that very much um let me just run through a couple of questions here first the let me go back to the top oh where are you

[02:04:51] So, I've always been confused about the cost of services study. 52 cents for ag versus 32 cents for commercial. What are the corn and the cows getting for services that a retail business in the growth area is not?

[02:05:14] So, I just don't understand the math and somebody can explain that some other time. But I've been worried about wondering about that for quite a long time because I think it should be more like 25 cents for the farming and the forestry. because the trees aren't going anywhere either right now. So that's just a question to put on the list.

[02:05:32] Going down to your discussion about the changes for the DAC, who has picked up the military service connection that Letty worked so hard to develop to help the non-coms and people at Ravana Station because they have no base? And I raised that when it was first discussed and never got an answer, so I would like to raise it again.

[02:05:54] I don't think we should be having 1,000 in-uniform people and no base and nobody welcoming them and helping them to get to services. So I'm just putting that back on the table. The trouble that I raised with the first round of the strategic plan regarding agriculture is that the words in the plan are words that are suitable for the Midwest.

[02:06:27] This giant scale-up and this giant packaging and all this stuff. It's not, and I raised this with the consultants as well when they were planning it, things that are going to succeed here are going to have to be organically done here, not expecting.

[02:06:43] It's like, anyway, so several times I've forwarded to various people, but maybe I need to forward to different people, information about Fauquier County. They have an ag person and have for 100 years. They have multiple programs all the time. They send out e-mails, which any of you can sign up for, And talk about the programs they have, the farm links that they're running now.

[02:07:06] And I don't know if our local organizations still do the farm link that was done 10 or 15 years ago to connect aging out farmers to younger people who would like to find some land to purchase before it hits the market, really and truly. And I mentioned yesterday, we have a huge demand for locally grown food.

[02:07:27] It shot up again during COVID because there was nothing in the grocery stores. and people were calling me and saying, do you have any beef? Do you have any beef? Do you have any beef? And I said, no, I'm sorry, I've been sold out for seven months. But we need that resiliency that can be provided locally. And 10 years ago, in 2010, Java started a study about building that bridge between local growers and consumers and spent a whole lot of time and money, developed the food hub, got it going.

[02:07:56] And that aggregated produce from 150-some farms because the UVA food person during the study said, at a meeting, we can't have 150 pickup trucks coming to our loading dock. We can have one or two for the daily deliveries. So fortunately, Kate Collier took off on that and started the food hub, and it was wildly successful for a long time. So having things that are based upon the works, the skills that are being used, the work that's being done here, I think is really, really important. And thinking again, more carefully about what we want to accomplish,

[02:08:34] what and this has to be a conversation that appreciative inquiry that habitat used for talking about how southwood would develop with the people who live there we need to be having that conversation with our growers of whatever their crops are to understand what their obstacles are and things that they may have obstacles that the county has no possibility of solving but there um there may be things that that come up over and over again that are obstacles that we can deal with. The Buy Fresh Buy Local is a wonderful connection that I get a lot of referrals

[02:09:09] to. I'm not so sure we want to build a bigger pool. I'm just not sure, just because we don't know where those gaps are yet. But the farm tour, we used to have a farm tour. It was wildly successful. I've been trying to get that going again for a number of years, and so that's something that perhaps your office could take the lead on as far as publicizing. I'd be glad to be a peasant, but I don't know how to take it from there.

[02:09:38] Rural area, the challenges like meat processing. So Tim can help me. Probably 20 years ago, Big's Farm Bureau study about a processing plant and all the beef producers, I could contribute maybe five when they needed 10 a day or 20 a day to be able to stay in.

[02:09:57] And there are all different sizes of producers around here, and some of them have sort of conglomerated themselves into bigger units and fewer individual farms. But the meat processing has to have public water.

[02:10:16] So I take mine to Fauquier's Finest in Bealton. It is on a water line in Fauquier County, and it's federally inspected so you can sell the meat by piece or by the side, as I usually do, or quarter. So it's not as simple as just putting up a building in the country.

[02:10:33] And so that's why the constraints, we have to recognize the constraints of the activity. the business people understand this completely. It's no surprise to them. They have tremendous ag education programs in Fauquier, in Madison, in Flavana. Nothing in Albemarle, despite best efforts. We thought the Environmental Sciences Academy was going to be a great way to start this happening, but it did not. So we're working on our workforce in a lot of different avenues, but not for the people who would really like to work outdoors. And there are a lot of people who

[02:11:10] don't want to be in an office and would really benefit emotionally and physically and financially from having a good business where they can enjoy working outside at six degrees which is what i was doing during the cold last winter because it's wonderful mentality to know that your animals need you no matter what and you're a big girl you can get out there and do it so the wonderful thing about your process is that you have so many different choices different avenues for people of different interests and skills and that's what I really appreciate about it but I think some number of years ago there was a big yelling in the business community about how we there was

[02:11:50] this bleed of all the the storage facilities and things like that going to to Flovanna because the land was and they were trying to blame Albemarle for that and I said well Flovanna needs business too why do we have to hog everything so I appreciate the fact that you said some things are suited in one place and not so much in others and so we all need to be part of that process but Thank you.

[02:12:12] Thank you. Supervisor Missal. Great. Thanks, Emily. I know you said that this has been sort of an 11-year process for economic development in Albemarle County, but I think we can agree that the line has kind of spiked over the last couple of years, and that's largely in part to your good work, so thank you.

[02:12:32] Thank you. I am going to keep my comments and questions short because a lot of them have been covered. I had a whole bunch on this agritourism piece, but I think that's been covered. One is, I'll just mention, you know, as we think about the announcements on the investments that we're making in jobs, and as we move through the process of actually completing some of that work and seeing the fulfillment of those efforts and those goals, I know you'll do this, but I would just encourage us as a community, as a, I guess, as leadership of the county to continue to tie that directly back

[02:13:10] to what the county residents are seeing in terms of, I'll say, benefits or involvement. Because I think, depending on who you talk to, you know, you may mention this word biotech to somebody or bioboom or whatever you want to call it, and it will resonate with many, but many it won't, right? And so what is all this hype about? What does it really mean? So I think continuing to focus on what that really means for me is an important thing for us to do. It struck me, and this may be just that I didn't understand fully how this slideshow, which was great,

[02:13:49] was organized, but the Virginia Advanced Pharma Training Network, that piece felt like it was under the Empower Talent goal. And it didn't go there in the slide, but it just seems like it's very connected to that, right? I mean, that's what it's kind of all about. And so assuming that there's continued and you mentioned this in the slide some of these questions i put in before the slide came up but pbcc involvement critically important and thinking about building workforce the other thing you know as we as we think about what's coming and i know again you're focused on

[02:14:24] this thinking about infrastructure thinking about housing thinking about transportation all of those things you know it's easy i don't know somebody used to work with was like you know everybody likes to build things. Nobody likes to maintain them, right? So it's like thinking about how we're aspirational, we're getting this traction, economic development's showing great success. Are we prepared on those other kind of less shiny areas and making sure that we're tracking that in a metric that sort of aligns with the progress we're making in economic development?

[02:15:04] So we're kind of holding ourselves accountable to ensure that we have those. I know RWSA is doing some work on that um and i'm assuming vdot and others are as well um and i will leave it at that because we talked a lot about agribusiness thank you um excellent report thrilled to be seeing the progress as everyone else has i think i do concur with the comment about being a tension relative to agra business and that's something that this board is going to have to work through frankly And that has ramifications beyond the strategic plan.

[02:15:43] So, you know, we'll probably start diving into some of that today. And then we'll see where it leads us because it's one topic of many, probably. So I'll just leave that statement where it is. The question I have relative, very specific, and you and I have had conversations about the Techonomy report before, but you said in the presentation that things were being done to check off the boxes in that report.

[02:16:09] Did I hear it correctly? Yeah, so the report was delivered to us, I'm trying to remember, what's the date? June, July, May. June, July, over the summer, and I have a printout copy here, and I brought it because it's very thick, and so we are working right now, I would say we're still in an organizing posture right now. So there were some funds from the original project budget that did not go into

[02:16:44] the report that we're able to now put into sort of a light implementation work. One of the things that we're just launching I think next week with a consultant to turn this into a four-pager so that we can take it around and talk to people about it in a way that's a little bit more easy to digest um there's also work um happening at um the central virginia partnership for economic development to look at what is a sort of a one-year um initiative um budget and sort of

[02:17:19] resource to take some of the things that are in the plan and drive them forward um with some folk with some key sort of focus areas again around where the regional economic development organization can really lead well. A lot of that's around the storytelling and sort of the positioning of the assets in our region.

[02:17:40] While that's happening up at the regional level, my team is already working on the things that are in here that are really more germane for a local government to be doing and the things that really align well with our strategic plan we're already kind of running with. And so I think what does implementation look like writ large?

[02:17:57] It's a little hard to get your arms around right now. I think by the end of Q1 next year, so Q1 2027 calendar year, I think we'll have some more visible things to share out, but we're working on some of the things that are in here right now.

[02:18:14] There's some grant applications that different organizations have set out to try to address some of the gaps that are in here with a real focus, I think, initially on the national security sector because I think there's some real low-hanging fruit opportunities that the report helped us see um and has been sort of a nice organizing document to get people talking around and excited about um thank you i think that has this board ever and i don't know has the board ever received um well i guess not because it's really taken on a different form in

[02:18:51] the last three to five years than it has before but where i'm getting at is the the only reason i know about that report is because i serve on the region nine go virginia committee representing the planning district commission that's where i was appointed by so but for that i don't know if i know that report inside and out and that report has a lot of things that impacts your world and the strategic plan that you gave so i wonder if it's at some point in time um and it doesn't necessarily have to be a at the podium report but i wonder if it makes sense for for this board to

[02:19:30] be read in and updated on just how all of these regional pieces are working beyond what we usually think about in our policy under our policy caps of charlottesville albemore uva because this then goes even beyond the tjpdc footprint in a way that i don't know that that you know to no fault of anybody here i just don't know that this board is aware of that i wouldn't be if i weren't on that body so it may just be that i should be making sure i update but that techonomy report has a lot

[02:20:04] of things in it and it's not clear who's calling the shots and who's defining the shots and that as a public official makes not doesn't concern me because there's lots of good things in there that i personally think yeah let's go right let's roll just like any like your strategic plan you bring it to us and we're like well don't sit on it now go get it done but that doesn't have a body it's answering to from what i can tell so it's got lovely things it's got wonderful ideas and i think there's energy based on you know throughout the whole corridor so you go biohub a bunch of those

[02:20:41] type of things but at the end of the day you nobody who reads that report can go here's who's here's who's responsible for making it happen and that as you know that's a sticky point with me for that report um that i don't need to to go into today um but in similar fashion to at the mpo when we had vdot come in and explain transportation funding to the committee so we understand how it works i think it's time we're getting to the point where we're having success and we're doing enough of this day-to-day work in this department that it's time for the board to complete in a in a

[02:21:16] reasonable way understand that when we talk about regional biohubs and corridors and and who's doing this that and the other that we put it we go from the big scale connect all the dots and then bring it down to Albemarle because even being in some areas where I'm in the room where some of this is being discussed I don't know that I could pull that off myself and explaining all of that to somebody and i'm not saying that i you know that you know that i should be able to do that but i think it's to the point where we it's hit a tip it's past a tipping point where we this board i

[02:21:52] think needs to understand that fully and whether it's a white paper a memo and and just even the explanation of that report and some of the takeaways on it because enough of it seems to appear in different conversations and i don't know if we're always putting the thread back together to what that regional effort is and i think it does impact not just our economic development strategic plan um but the the point where when was maybe it was you that mentioned it like uh somewhere about beyond just what astrazeneca means to us there's been other transformational projects in the central

[02:22:29] virginia region um and we have to we have to understand how those things connect to us relative to where these other places are setting up um so that i think is my biggest request coming out of today um you know so i'll leave it at that so that's a future maybe request down the road to maybe give some thought about yep of what would be the best way to deliver that to the board thank you for that go ahead we have an extra question so comment first when people in the

[02:23:05] past year or so have complained about those 600 new people coming to work at astrogenica my response has been that's 600 jobs that our young people and people wanting to change careers who live here and have lived here forever can get and so i hope that that will become more of the conversation because it doesn't necessarily mean we're importing a thousand new boundaries we certainly have houses for them because there are new houses everywhere but that i'm not sure that that follows the other you had mentioned cvp cvped being hired to do a initiative budget and resource isn't that what they're supposed to be doing for the 60 cents per population that

[02:23:43] we're getting it is working for us in this kind of thing yes as an organization i think there's a there's been the conversations that are happening right now um are that this is this is a this is a large and worthy initiative um and it with the two staff that they have presently it's that at the effort needed for this to be successful would exceed what they currently have resource wise so they can hire a consultant you don't have to hire the consultant they can hire the consultant correct that's what the cd ped is a board is working on right now of just sort of framing that out a little bit okay yeah i want to make sure everybody's doing pulling their oar

[02:24:20] properly yes thank you very much all right very good thank you emily thank you good update all right board we will move to the next item where's my agenda which uh is the item number 12 report on animal feeding operations and concentrated animal feeding operations research.

[02:24:41] Bart will introduce, and I know we have different players today. Thank you all. I always like to see a bow tie into the staff's fashion, so well done, sir. Bart's a bow tie, Director of Community Development.

[02:25:06] I'd like to introduce Caroline. She's a principal planner with the Berkeley Group. She helps lead many of the firm's long-range planning initiatives, specializing in land use policy evaluation and zoning ordinance development. Before joining the Berkeley group, she served as a county planner in Augusta County.

[02:25:26] Carolyn is a certified planner through the APA and an honors graduate of the University of Virginia. One reminder on the report that you're about to receive is this is about establishing kind of a baseline of information, and there's no recommendations as we move through the report.

[02:25:46] one way or the other again just to establish a baseline here thank you thank you good afternoon welcome and you can adjust the podium microphones as you need perfect can you all hear me okay oh yeah that was a little loud all right good afternoon um mr chair members of the board um caroline van terve i'm a principal planner with berkeley group and i appreciate you all having me here this afternoon to share the findings of our research and report on animal feeding operations and concentrated animal feeding operations. Sounds like this is a very

[02:26:25] timely conversation for the county, so looking forward to getting into this more over the next few minutes. So you all have a quite lengthy report that you all received, and so my presentation today is going to follow the order of the report. I'll have some time at the end. I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have as well, and then I will be turning it back over to community development staff to wrap things up on this topic before we close out this afternoon so the purpose

[02:26:59] of this report was because you all adopted a resolution of intent to study animal feeding operations and concentrated animal feeding operations and develop a report with the findings of the research for your consideration and so community development staff approached Berkeley Group in August to assist with the report development, and the report accomplished the four purposes that you see on your screen. Number one, identifying a consistent shared definition of AFOS and CAFOs based on the applicable state and federal regulations. Number

[02:27:36] two, analyzing Virginia's Right to Farm Act along with the other relevant requirements of the Code of Virginia and take a look at their impact on local zoning authority, taking a look at some of the other zoning ordinances that Virginia counties elsewhere have adopted as related to AFOs and CAFOs, and then interviewing comparison locality staff and state agency representatives. Staff just mentioned this, but I do just want to reiterate this report is not providing a recommendation or proposing zoning ordinance amendments. I also don't have a recommendation here for you all today.

[02:28:13] I really just wanted to provide you all with this information, give you all an informed baseline for evaluating whether and how to address this further through your zoning ordinance. So we'll start off with AFOs, your animal feeding operations. According to the U.S. EPA, an AFO is an agricultural operations where animals are kept and raised in confined situations. And so in order for a facility to be classified as an AFO, there are two criteria that have to be met. Number one, the animals either

[02:28:49] have been, are, or will be confined and fed or maintained for at least 45 days within any 12-month period. And then number two, crops, vegetation, forage growth, or post-harvest residues are not sustained in the normal growing season over any portion of the lot or facility. So it does not necessarily matter what types of animals are being confined in the facility. Once those two conditions are met, then the facility is considered an AFO under state and federal law. AFOs therefore can have a variety of animals, cattle, swine, poultry. Those are the types of animals that you hear the

[02:29:28] about. But AFOS can also have horses, sheep, even fish confined in the facility. AFOS don't have the same level of regulation and oversight that CAFOs do, but it is worth noting that there are several known environmental risks associated with AFOS. These facilities are known generators of environmental pollutants, such as sediments, hormones, and other organic matter. So that brings us to CAFOs, concentrated animal feeding operations. Sometimes you will hear these

[02:30:04] referred to as a confined animal feeding operation. Generally speaking, confined and concentrated are interchangeable. The reason for that nuance in terminology is because of the type of permit that may be required at the state or federal level. So the different permits may use confined, they may use concentrated, but for purposes of this report, Berkeley Group chose to use concentrated, as this is the term that is used most consistently in the state and federal regulations. So a CAFO is simply an AFO that has met certain size and or waste discharge criteria

[02:30:40] that's been established under federal and state law. CAFOs are then classified as either a small CAFO, a medium CAFO, or a large CAFO. Large CAFOs are facilities where the number of confined animals is at or exceeding a certain threshold, and that's regardless of the waste discharge conditions that are present at the facility. Medium CAFOs are facilities that have a certain number of confined animals that's falling within a prescribed range, and it's been determined that there are certain waste discharge conditions into surface waters of the state that are present at

[02:31:16] the facility. And then you've got your small CAFOs. These facilities have a number of confined animals that is below that established threshold. However, based on an inspection by the applicable agency, it's determined that the facility is a contributor of pollutants and their substantial contamination potential. The EPA's Clean Water Act does generally consider CAFOs to be point sources of pollution. CAFOs also use quite a bit of water, and so that is why they are regulated under the Clean Water Act. Because they're regulated federally under that Clean Water Act,

[02:31:52] they are subject to permitting through DEQ. The system for administering that permit system is the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, NPDES, that's referred to in Virginia as VPDES, and DEQ is reporting that permit data to the EPA on an annual basis. Just to give you all a little bit of a Virginia snapshot. As of 2024, there were 206 medium or large CAFOs in Virginia.

[02:32:24] Unfortunately, that EPA permit database did not include further specificity on the actual location of those facilities, but there are just over 200 medium and large in the whole state. So the table you see on your screen gives a little bit more detail about those animal thresholds.

[02:32:45] So you can see on that left-hand column the types of animals that may be included in a confined facility, and then the minimum number of confined animals that a facility must have to be considered a medium or large CAFO.

[02:33:01] So you can see that these facilities that are large CAFOs are quite large, having as many as 1,000 cattle, 2,500 swine, up to 10,000 swine at least, depending on the size. a minimum of 500 horses, 55,000 turkeys, 125,000 chickens, depending on the waste management system. And again, those are the minimum thresholds for large CAFOs. If a facility is at or above this threshold, it's considered a large CAFO regardless of the waste management system. Then you've got

[02:33:37] your medium CAFOs. The numbers there are in ranges. You can see that there's not one overall range. The range is based on the type of animal, again, that's being confined in the facility. And those ranges vary quite a bit based on that animal. Some are much larger than others.

[02:33:53] Again, for medium CAFOs, the number of confined animals has to be falling within that threshold. And the facility has to exhibit certain waste discharge conditions into surface waters of the state. And then you've got your small CAFOs, again, AFOs that have a number of confined animals falling under that threshold.

[02:34:11] and that have been designated as a CAFO based on the waterway contamination potential. Again, to make that determination, the state director has to conduct an on-site inspection of the operation and then make that determination accordingly. So it's also important to understand the terminology as related to waste management.

[02:34:34] Sewage sludge, biosolids, and manure are three terms that are often getting used interchangeably, But in the eyes of Virginia law, they are treated as three different types of waste, and they're regulated in three different ways. So the definitions in the report and the summaries of the definitions that you see on your screen are pulled from the Virginia Administrative Code.

[02:34:54] That's addressing all of this in more detail. Sewage sludge is any solid, semi-solid, or liquid residues containing materials removed from municipal or domestic wastewater treatment. This is human waste. You can apply it in Virginia. However, this is very heavily regulated, and the application and storage of sewage sludge is not exempt under the Right to Farm Act like it is for biosolids.

[02:35:21] Biosolids are sewage sludge that has undergone additional treatment to reduce pathogens and pollutants. Biosolids can be applied to land in Virginia, and that process is regulated under two different types of DEQ permits. And then you've got manure or poultry litter. Again, this is animal waste. It's not human waste, and so it is not considered to be a biosolid under Virginia law.

[02:35:47] Of course, manure and poultry litter can be applied to land, so as long as there is an approved nutrient management plan through DEQ and or a Virginia pollution abatement permit, depending on the site. And I'll talk a little bit more about a nutrient management plan in a few minutes, because that piece is very important for these types of uses.

[02:36:07] Getting a little bit into the Virginia Right to Farm Act, and this discussion is very relevant given the discussion that you all were just having on agribusiness and the types of uses that may or may not be included. And so Virginia's Right to Farm Act is what establishes the definition of agriculture, provides parameters for local regulation.

[02:36:31] And so in Virginia, localities, of course, can control the general location of agriculture through their zoning ordinances, while DEQ and other state agencies are monitoring the pollution outputs of such facilities. They're also enforcing other standards related to animal welfare and food safety.

[02:36:50] So, of course, local regulation of agriculture activities on agriculturally zoned land is limited by the Right to Farm Act. All 50 states have some version of a Right to Farm Act to protect legitimate agricultural uses. And so in Virginia, the Right to Farm Act has three main purposes.

[02:37:09] This first purpose I'll probably camp out on here for a second. This is really important. It is setting the baseline definition for agriculture. And the Right to Farm Act says, and I quote, this is any operation devoted to the bona fide production of crops, animals, or fowl.

[02:37:26] So bona fide production of crops, you know, that's cropland. That's also uses such as vineyards, orchards, other farms. AFOs and CAFOs would fall under this definition of agriculture because those facilities are devoted to the production of livestock and fowl.

[02:37:44] However, this definition does not include processing. So your slaughterhouses, your meat processing plants, food and beverage manufacturing, those would all be accessory or adjacent uses to agricultural production.

[02:38:02] They would not be exempt under the Right to Farm Act, and so Albemarle County could ban them. They could require a special use permit for them. They could levy robust use performance standards for those uses. they are not considered bona fide agriculture. The same can be said of some of those other uses that are agricultural related or falling under that agribusiness umbrella, but are not explicitly production uses. So livestock auctions, feed sales, commercial feedlots, tractor repair, all of that kind of falls under the agriculture industry umbrella, but that would not be considered

[02:38:39] bona fide agriculture under the Right to Farm Act. The second purpose of the Right to Farm Act is limiting localities from banning or conditionally approving agriculture in an agriculturally zoned district. So, of course, agricultural uses, farms, again, including AFOs and CAFOs, cannot be banned in the agriculture or RA zoning district. You cannot require them to come through the public hearing process. However, localities are allowed to adopt extra zoning standards if they are reasonably connected to public health, safety, and welfare. There are

[02:39:15] some examples of those provided in state code. The ones that have generally been found to be the most acceptable are additional setback requirements and minimum acreage requirements for facilities. And then the third main purpose is projecting legitimate agricultural operations from nuisance claims. I will emphasize that word, legitimate. This is not a blanket protection from nuisance claims. An agricultural operation has to be legally operating, compliant with all the applicable state and federal regulations as well as any applicable best management practices. Assuming that agricultural

[02:39:51] operation is legitimate, a locality could not allege the operation as a nuisance through an ordinance, and the same can be said of a private property owner as well. There are a few other provisions of the Code of Virginia that include additional requirements for what localities either have to include in their zoning ordinance or cannot reference at all. 15.2-2288, this is the big law that is directly complementing the Right to Farm Act. It is reinforcing that protection for legitimate agricultural operations and local zoning requirements. Again, making sure

[02:40:30] those are permitted by right on property zoned for agricultural use. Those protections do not extend to those processing uses like slaughterhouses or meat processing plants. Those protections also do not extend to the storage of excavation waste or the above-ground storage or application of sewage sludge. Other ones that aren't directly related to AFOs and CAFOs but do just want to point out, other provisions requiring small-scale biomass conversions to be permitted by right, standards that limit the extent to which localities can regulate licensed farm breweries,

[02:41:05] wineries, and distilleries, and limits on local regulation of agritourism. So just in short, localities in Virginia can establish agricultural zoning districts and determine dimensional standards that are applied consistently for uses in the district. So standards like minimum lot size, minimum public road frontage, maximum structure height, you know, those are all considerations that have already been made in the RA district in the zoning ordinance. And of course, those standards have to be applied objectively and consistently for similar uses in that

[02:41:42] agricultural district. Localities, again, can apply reasonable supplemental requirements for certain agricultural operations and act tourism. And then, again, you can separately regulate activities that are not protected agricultural operations, again, commercial processing, above-ground sewage sludge application, and the storage or disposal of excavation material. On the flip side, localities cannot require special approval for a legitimate agricultural or forestry operation as long as that is in an agricultural zoning district. Counties and

[02:42:19] localities also cannot ban or unreasonably restrict agricultural and forestry practices or adopt standards if they're not directly related to public health, safety, and general welfare. Counties also cannot treat the same or similar agricultural operations differently within the zoning district or classification. So if it's the same use and the same zoning district, it does not matter where in a locality it is. They have to be treated the same. And localities also cannot use an ordinance to declare or stop a legitimate operation as a nuisance. So this just provides

[02:42:56] a quick snapshot of some of the state agencies and their role in the industry. The two agencies that are the most relevant here are, of course, DEQ and the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Services, or VDACs. DEQ administers and enforces the permits for AFOs and CAFOs. When there's an alleged violation at a facility, DEQ staff are the folks who are going out to inspect for those alleged violations. And DEQ also requires and reviews nutrient management plans.

[02:43:27] VDACs is responsible for administering the Agricultural Stewardship Act, or the ASA. I'll talk a little bit more about that in a few slides. The Soil and Water Conservation District is mostly non-regulatory in nature. These districts are set up at the regional level here in Virginia, and so of course you all are part of the Thomas Jefferson Soil and Water Conservation District with the city, and then Nelson, Louisa, and Fluvanna counties. Again, they're mostly non-regulatory. They're providing education and technical assistance to farmers.

[02:43:58] However, the Soil and Water Conservation District may take on a regulatory role to assist with enforcement of erosion and sediment control if a locality were to approach them and ask them to take on that responsibility. And then you've got the Virginia Cooperative Extension. This is an arm of Virginia Tech. They are non-regulatory. However, they play a very important role in advising farmers and citizens on industry best practices. So if a farmer were to want to begin growing crops or establish an AFO where they were not previously, they could go to the folks at the extension. The folks there could help them walk through the process, point them to the DEQ and federal

[02:44:37] requirements, and advise them on other industry best practices. So again, localities can kind of control the location of agriculture generally through their zoning ordinances under the parameters set by the Right to Farm Act. But DEQ is monitoring the pollution levels and regulates animal waste that is generated or used by AFOS and CAFOs. And so there are two types of permits that in general are required by DEQ. You've got general permits and you've got individual permits.

[02:45:11] General permit coverage is generally required for facilities for livestock operations with at least 300 animal units that handle liquid manure and poultry operations that have at least 20,000 chickens or 11,000 turkeys. Those individual permits are site-specific permits that are issued just based on the conditions that may be present at that specific operation.

[02:45:35] The primary purpose of those DEQ permits, again, is to protect water quality, but they can address a number of other associated issues that are related to pollution output and protecting waterways, including waste storage and use. They can require soil and groundwater monitoring for a facility, and they can also address livestock and poultry litter tracking.

[02:45:58] Again, these permits primarily protect water quality, They do not quality, they do not explicitly regulate dust, odor, or noise that may be generated by a facility. That said, the EPA does have a slew of its own regulations that address air pollution from agricultural activities.

[02:46:16] And it could be said that regulating dust or odor could be secondary effects of those permit regulations, but that is not their primary purpose. I've mentioned a nutrient management plan a couple of times now and want to give a little bit more detail about that.

[02:46:33] This is a really important piece of the permit process for AFOS and CAFOs. And so general permits and individual permits that are issued by DEQ both require an approved nutrient management plan to be submitted.

[02:46:50] And so nutrient management plans are mandatory and site-specific documents that detail how the amount, placement, timing, and application of fertilizers, manure, and biosolids will be managed. AFOs and CAFOs are not the only land uses that are required by DEQ to obtain nutrient management plans. All golf courses in Virginia must have an approved nutrient management plan, as well as publicly owned parks and land in certain urban areas of the state.

[02:47:19] That's because the primary purpose of these plans is to improve and protect water quality, which is why there are a number of uses that DEQ requires to have an approved nutrient management plan on file. Nutrient management plans can't be prepared just by anyone. They do have to be prepared by a certified industry professional, a nutrient management planner, and the plans must demonstrate how minimum standards will be achieved at the operation. And the DEQ permit is the primary mechanism of actually enforcing compliance with that nutrient management plan. So if a nutrient management plan expires or was never submitted to begin with, if a farmer is operating

[02:47:58] in a way that was not established in that nutrient management plan, all of those can be grounds for DEQ to issue a violation. There's often the question that arises of if you have facilities or poultry houses on different parcels of land, if they are considered separate facilities or the same facility? The answer to that question is that they are often treated as one singular facility for permitting purposes if there are three criteria that may be met. So if facilities are sited on different parcels, but those parcels are under common ownership, if those parcels are

[02:48:36] adjoining one another, or if the facilities share a waste disposal area or system, then DEQ will treat those different structures and different facilities as one singular one for permitting purposes. DEQ does require existing permits to be modified in the event that additional poultry houses are constructed or if the number of confined animals is increased over 10 percent.

[02:49:01] DEQ also has their own setback and buffer criteria. This is a little bit different from a zoning setback or a zoning buffer where it's establishing a certain distance between a structure and a property line or structure in a right-of-way. DEQ setbacks and buffers are for waste management and application specifically. So they're just kind of saying within a certain prescribed area, this is where you cannot apply your waste. So that is a little bit different from the zoning side of things. And while DEQ staff did not provide us with specific information on violations

[02:49:38] or with any specific numbers, they did mention that the most common violations they see associated with AFOs and CAFOs are informal corrective actions. So, for example, a document that was required as part of a permit was not submitted. There may be a signature that is missing. A nutrient management plan may have expired. Those tend to be the most common violations associated with the facility. They also mentioned that another common violation is uncovered manure or

[02:50:08] poultry litter piles. So that generally covers DEQ's oversight of AFOs and CAFOs. I'll also quickly note the VDAC's Agricultural Stewardship Act. This act is intended to identify water quality problems such as bacteria, toxins, and other pollutants and help farmers correct them practically. There are also programs through the ASA that offer public education about best practices and agricultural stewardship. ASA applies to agricultural operations that are not

[02:50:43] already subject to DEQ permits and kind of falling under the umbrella of that oversight. And ASA is also enforced primarily on a complaint basis. So those folks are not going out and inspecting facilities unless a complaint has been filed. According to the agency's 2025 annual report on the ASA. There were 30 complaints that were filed under the ASA throughout the state, most of which were associated with bacteria, nutrients, or sediment. And just around 40% of those complaints were determined to be founded. The complaint data in that annual report does have

[02:51:21] location data. So out of those 30 complaints in 2025, there were two filed related to agricultural operations in Albemarle County. One of those complaints was dismissed. The other complaint was determined to be unfounded. So the third major component of the report and the final aspect of it that I'll talk a little bit about today is an analysis of other zoning ordinances from other counties that have decided to adopt those supplemental regulations for AFOs and KFOs.

[02:51:55] So in total, there are 13 localities that Berkeley Group included in our analysis. I will note this is not intended to be an exhaustive list of every county in the state that has regulations for intensive agriculture. We picked localities based on whether or not their zoning ordinances had standards, whether they were clearly applied.

[02:52:16] Knowing the agricultural economy in some of these counties, we wanted to give you all some good examples for a baseline comparison. And then we interviewed staff from four of those localities for additional context and information. According to both DEQ and Cooperative Extension staff, there's no formal database or list of locality ordinances that are regulating intensive agriculture.

[02:52:42] DEQ also does not recognize any one county as having a model ordinance, and the agency itself does not have its own model ordinance or recommendations for regulating intensive agriculture through zoning. So the table on your screen is included in the report.

[02:53:01] You can see the 13 counties that were analyzed on the left-hand side of your screen. You will notice that some of your neighbors are not included in that column. That is intentional. So Augusta and Greene counties do not have standards in their zoning ordinances for intensive agriculture.

[02:53:19] The same is true of Nelson County, however, as part of their zoning ordinance rewrite that they are working on right now. Nielsen does have draft standards for CAFOs, meat processing plants, and biosolid application. But again, that is in draft format. The board and planning commission are still working through it.

[02:53:36] And so that is why we did not include it in the comparison. So again, just including localities that have zoning ordinance standards for intensive agriculture, which is how AFOs and CAFOs are generally referred to in zoning ordinances.

[02:53:52] At the headers of each of the columns, we went through, and those identify all of the different performance standards that we found throughout these locality ordinances. So site plan requirements, facility density and limit requirements, enhanced setbacks, some sort of landscape screening or buffer around a facility, a minimum lot area or acreage.

[02:54:15] Some localities you'll see choose to reiterate the requirement for a nutrient management plan through DEQ. And then some localities also have standards related to waste storage and disposal. That could be waste that's generated by the actual animals at the facility or the disposal of dead animals themselves.

[02:54:35] So I've circled the four standards that appear the most commonly in these zoning ordinances. The first is requiring a site plan or facility plan to be submitted. This one is particularly notable because a lot of localities do exempt agricultural uses from site plan requirements. And so it is worth noting that a lot of these localities, everyone we analyzed except for Page County, are requiring intensive agricultural facilities to submit a site plan or other facility plan in accordance with the zoning ordinance.

[02:55:08] Every single locality we analyzed has some sort of enhanced setback for intensive agricultural facilities. However, I will say, and there's more detail in the report about this, but there is considerable variability in those setback distances. So for example, you've got Orange County. They've only got one blanket 50-foot minimum setback for the intensive agricultural structure. But then you've got other counties like Brunswick and Dinwiddie counties that are requiring as much as a mile between an intensive facility and other specified uses. Some provide

[02:55:44] specific setback distances from roads or wells or waterways. Buckingham County has a good ordinance that has a prescribed distance that must be met between any well in the vicinity and a facility. So there's a lot to look into related to setbacks in how these different counties are choosing to address them. Minimum lot area or acreage requirements for facilities were also very common.

[02:56:10] Again, going above and beyond the minimum that might be required in that underlying agricultural zoning district. And then a lot of localities also chose to reiterate the requirement that facilities must have an approved nutrient management plan through DEQ. So we reached out to staff from those several different localities, and were able to secure interviews with staff from Acomac, Amelia, New Kent, and Rockingham within the time frame of report development. There's some more detail about each of those staff interviews in the report, but this kind of summarizes

[02:56:45] the key themes and takeaways that we heard from staff in all four counties. So staff in all four counties generally felt that their current ordinance standards for AFOs and KFOs are working well. There's general community satisfaction for the time being. They haven't received too many complaints. A lot of localities, or a few of these localities, there were only four, noted that the landscape in the agricultural industry has fluctuated over time. Amelia County is a good example. There is a Tyson food plant in the area that shut down in 2023, and so they no longer have

[02:57:22] as many poultry CAFOs as they used to have, since that Tyson food processing plant is no longer in the area. But again, still a general sentiment that their ordinance standards are working well. Some staff did note that they do receive public complaints, and the most common public complaints when received are associated with smell and the truck traffic that's coming from these facilities.

[02:57:45] Again, based on the Right to Farm Act, locality staff did not feel that these were zoning complaints and could be addressed for these uses through a zoning ordinance. Some staff noted that they will occasionally receive complaints about water quality, but again, DEQ is in charge of regulating pollution outputs and monitoring water quality, and so DEQ staff are handling all of the complaints in that realm.

[02:58:10] Acomac and Rockingham counties both recently updated their ordinance standards for AFOs and CAFOs. As you all are aware, the poultry industry is very prominent in both counties. And so these two are definitely worth noting, especially because of those recent amendments.

[02:58:26] And in both cases, the county developed those amendments in tandem with industry stakeholders. The most recent set of ordinance amendments in Acomat County were for landscaping and buffering requirements around facilities. They actually had draft language provided to them by the Delmarva Chicken Association, which is a trade association of growers on the eastern shore and in Delaware and Virginia.

[02:58:50] So that group actually provided draft language to the county and it's my understanding that the county adopted that language as provided. Rockingham County also recently amended their performance standards to address setback requirements. Rockingham County had assistance from hydrologists from James Madison University and Virginia Tech to help them develop those setback standards. The county also formed an ordinance committee that was comprised with staff and farmers and other representatives from the poultry industry. So between those hydrologists from JMU in Virginia Tech and then the poultry growers, Rockingham County had some different

[02:59:28] perspectives at the table and they were able to land on an ordinance. And then this last point, this last question that you see on the screen is an interesting question that staff in multiple localities posed. That is recognizing that there have been changes in the agricultural industry over time and what some staff refer to as the industrialization of agriculture. Rockingham County staff noted in particular that, you know, you may have only seen two or three poultry houses under one operation. Now you're seeing as many as 10 to 15. You know, that's a significant change in scale. However, under the Right to Farm Act and the eyes of state law, you know, agriculture

[03:00:08] is agriculture. There's not acknowledgement of those nuances and some of the evolution that's happened in the industry. And so where this was brought up by staff, they generally felt under the right to farm act, keep regulating agriculture as we have been, unless and until there are amendments that are made to the varying provisions of state code. So just to wrap up here quickly and summarize the main points, AFOs and CAFOs are consistently defined under state and federal law. There are some nuances for permitting purposes. State law does restrict the extent to

[03:00:44] which localities can regulate agricultural uses. Again, that's bona fide agricultural production. Localities can adopt additional regulations if proven to have a direct relationship with public health, safety, and welfare. And then in general, where localities have adopted standards in their zoning ordinances, they're generally requiring increased setbacks. You have those site plan requirements. They're reiterating nutrient management plan requirements, and in some cases providing specific guidelines for waste disposal. Again, this report is not prescribing any recommendations for zoning language or even recommended next steps for the county, but if

[03:01:23] the county were to decide to explore zoning ordinance amendments, zoning standards for these and any agricultural use should be directly connected to clear local impacts, complement rather than duplicating the oversight from the state and federal levels, apply consistently to similarly situated agricultural operations and remain within the enabling authority established in Virginia law. So that concludes my presentation of the report. Happy to answer any questions should you all have them. Thank you very much. I think this presentation lined up pretty well

[03:02:01] with the reading of the report as well. If you could just go back one slide, I think that's more useful slide for us than the question slide. All right, Supervisor Lapisto-Kirtley, questions at this time? Yes. Can you go to, you said you haven't determined whether or not we have any CAFOs or AFOs. That's correct. I think staff has. Are we allowed to have staff to come up?

[03:02:33] I mean, yeah. I mean, what's the? The question is, do we currently have any CAFOs or AFOs or CAFOs? While staff comes up, I will say that I did find a map from 2016, so a decade ago.

[03:02:49] That 2016 map does identify one CAFO in the county, in the northern area of the county. However, given that that map is a decade old at this point, I don't have a way to verify that information. I did take a look at the VPDES permits under DEQ.

[03:03:05] However, not all CAFOs are required to obtain a VPDES permit, and there are other uses that are required to obtain them, and so the waters are a little bit muddied. I was not able to verify that that one CAFO is still in operation or determine a number.

[03:03:22] I'm not sure if staff has. Okay, and I noticed that in your report you talked about waste management, and let's face it, this whole thing is about chickens. So, I mean, we're not, hopefully we're not regulating or want to regulate anything else, but it's talking about chickens.

[03:03:43] Chickens produce litter. And I understand that that litter is used in organic farming, right? Yes, ma'am. Okay. So that wouldn't come under the, I think you said liquid waste?

[03:04:00] It could. So for litter from poultry houses, it is more common to take the dry litter and keep it in a litter shed until it is processed and then transported either to that specific farm or somewhere else for application. A liquid manure handling system could be used for poultry.

[03:04:19] The state and federal law do acknowledge that, but it is more common for other uses. For the dry litter. Okay, which is used for organic. So if you want your organic eggs and everything, then you use chicken litter, not chemical fertilizer, correct?

[03:04:40] I believe so, yes. That wasn't covered specifically in the report, the types of land application and whether it's used for organic farming or not, but my understanding is yes. Because I don't think any of us are really in favor of chemical pesticides.

[03:04:59] I think we'd rather see things natural. So that's good to know that the chicken litter is natural and that that is organic for use for organic farming. We are in our rural area, we are designated an agricultural district, right?

[03:05:21] I believe so, yes. So the rural area zoning district in the zoning ordinance is your agricultural zoning district in Albemarle County. I'm not entirely sure how that would line up with your future land use designation in the comprehensive plan. But the RA district in the zoning ordinance is your agricultural zoning district.

[03:05:41] I'm not sure if that answered your question. Mr. Spoda? So that's correct. I'll try and use maybe some different words, right? We have areas. So what we refer to as the rural area in the comp plan is different than rural area zoning, right?

[03:06:02] They mean different things. There can be land that is zoned rural area, and most of our rural area zoned land, that zoning district, is located in the rural area designation within the comp plan. There are a few parcels that are within the growth area that could have a rural area designation, just like business or commercial.

[03:06:25] So those would be rezoning things based on the recommendations from the comp plan. But the majority of what we have in the rural areas or in the rural area as defined in the comp plan is rural area zoning.

[03:06:42] There are some legacy spots, as we know, where we have Village Residential is outside of the growth area. And there are some other commercial pieces here and there from legacy zoning that exist outside of the growth area.

[03:06:58] But predominantly, it's zoned rural areas. When we talk about this stuff, we are talking about the rural area zoning district, not the rural area as defined in the comp plan. Okay, so our majority of our rural area is agricultural.

[03:07:15] Yes, the rural area zoning district has one of the primary uses in that zoning district is agriculture. right so if we didn't want um agriculture let's say in the rural areas then we would have the ability to turn it into a development area correct um under the and so i want to be careful but under under um state legislation right under some mandates we have to permit agriculture somewhere as long as it's in a rural area yeah okay yeah that's okay good good i mean you have to permit

[03:07:54] it somewhere as in we can't not have rural area in the county is what i think bird is saying well we could we could permit and this is going to be a little we'll call it nonsensical right you could permit agriculture in the business district right so the uses don't jive so you want to make sure that those districts are compatible right with the uses land that areas things like that okay Thank you.

[03:08:20] Thank you. So that all comes under the Right to Farm Act in our agricultural, rural agricultural area. It comes under that. And do we have any processing slaughterhouses or meat processing plants currently?

[03:08:39] I don't believe they're permitted in the ordinance as a use. I'm not sure if there are any in the county in operation. Staff would be there to answer that. Just wondering. yeah um there are probably some small ones so we wouldn't go to the the um kind of industrial scale but there are what what we call you know hunters farmers call the meat shop right that there is the occasional meat shop on a farm that will process their own their own beef or deer um

[03:09:12] not aware of some in albumar i know there's a few and and i'm sure there are i'm just not aware of them they're they're more prevalent in in madison i believe is really where the primary look after the green in madison oh okay and people in their own homes if they hunt or something they can process them yeah they got a garage for that got it got it okay so um and we cannot ban kfos or ephos is that correct was that the slide yes ma'am so the definition of agriculture that's provided

[03:09:48] under the Right to Farm Act says that it's the bona fide production of livestock, crops, and fowl. And so since AFOs and CAFOs, you know, their purpose is to produce livestock and fowl, they fall under that definition of agriculture, and so they have to be permitted by right in an agricultural zoning district. Yes, ma'am.

[03:10:08] So regarding going back to the slaughterhouses and meat processing, that's really an industrial level thing, right? Correct. And we don't permit that. Generally speaking, we do not permit industrial, commercial, anything in the rural area. We would look at what the size of that is. So similar to canning, if I go there, right? I'm not a cannery if I'm kind of canning what's on site. So we would have to determine whether or not that's accessory to what's happening or incidental versus the majority

[03:10:43] of it is um processing so if i'm bringing someone else's cattle or chickens or fish or tomatoes then we would look at that as more of a processing plant versus if you're processing your own under the accessory for that right or the winery kind of operates similarly right similar right and since you're up here um what where does currently the buffer let's say along a stream bed or a well do we have a buffer requirement in the ag districts the buildings would not be allowed to be located

[03:11:22] closer than the 100 foot stream buffer okay setbacks from the setbacks from the road would be whatever the setbacks are that for the main structures okay okay building so if you're you're spreading litter to grow you know for chickens small you know going around the picking and hunting and everything does that have a is there a buffer there we don't have a regulation um for the distance of the field from the stream if it's if it's permitted um i would want to look at our current adopted stream regulations to see if we've modified that in any way right but basically the

[03:12:01] application of fertilizer manure for bona fide agriculture there's not restrictions within the zoning ordinance for that right and i think there would be a difference between liquid manure and maybe manure from cows or horses or something then chicken litter which is dry so i would say no okay there's not there's not it's a different form but it is still um it is still still the

[03:12:31] application of fertilizer what we would consider okay and um so and we cannot regulate noise odor and what was the third one dust dust and yet that seems to be the thing that we hear people don't like the smell they're in an agricultural area they're in a rural area agriculture and they don't like the smell i mean that's what we're hearing so uh but that's something we can't

[03:13:04] regulate it would be difficult depending on what the environment is where the animals are kept right on whether or not deq would for lack of a better way to put it would require air scrubbers as part of their permits like they would in an industrial site i i don't know that part of the regulation um dust would be difficult if i'm tilling soil a lot most of our farmers are no-till now If there's a WPO plan, so when we talked about the plan part of what the locality requires,

[03:13:41] we're in the other plan category, which is a WPO plan for these types of uses or structures, the ones that we have. What was the last noise? So specifically, we have exempted noise from agriculture.

[03:13:58] An example would be frost that might be coming up in the spring, And I hire a helicopter, which is rare anymore, but to keep the grapes from freezing or the wind turbine that's out there that keeps the air moving, keep things from freezing.

[03:14:14] I see, but nothing to do with the actual animals. Correct. Right, right. Yeah, yeah. It is not akin to barking dogs. Chickens, cows, they make noises. Correct.

[03:14:31] Okay. And I think you referred to air scrubbers, but usually that's for smokestacks, no? Yes. I don't know what the technology would be. It would be very difficult to regulate that. My own experience down in the northern neck near Reedville in the fish plant.

[03:14:48] The wind is either blown the right way or the wrong way. Exactly, yes. And the DEQ enforces the nutrient management plan and the water quality and everything. So they do all that.

[03:15:03] Yes, ma'am. Okay, so that's already in existence. The one thing I know is on slide 14, you don't need to go there, but you're talking about common ownership or adjoining one another. So if you have, let's say I have plot A, B, C that are one, two, three.

[03:15:23] So if A and B are together, okay, that's adjoining. Or if they do the same thing. But if A and C are doing something with B in between, that would not be considered adjoining. Yes? No? So my understanding is that it's any of the three criteria that can be met. So in that example, if B is doing its own thing, you know, if it's adjacent, it can still be considered one facility under the permit. If A, B, and C all have the same waste management system, even if there

[03:16:03] are different property owners or operators, they can be considered one permit. So it's the adjacent, It's a little confusing. It's the adjacent, parcels, common ownership, or the waste, common waste management facility. You use the term of joining in your slide, which, you know, adjoining, that's what you use.

[03:16:23] Yeah. On slide 14. The language there, and I can pull up the report as well, is from the state law. And I believe that's what I pulled, as the state requires it. If when you talk about adjacent adjoining, if A was separated from C by 100 acres, would that be considered adjacent or adjoining?

[03:16:47] I think if it's under common ownership. If it's not under common ownership. If it's not under common ownership, then if I'm seeing this visual the same way, then no. I'm not quite sure that I'm following.

[03:17:03] If you're saying that A and C are separate parcels and there's a separate 100-acre parcel between them, are they considered adjoining? Right. All three ownerships are different. A, B, and C. Ownerships are different. And in between A and C, which are doing the same type of operation, B is 100 acres separating A and C.

[03:17:25] My understanding is that they wouldn't be adjoining, but if they could still be considered one facility. Interesting. All right. Thank you. Those are all my questions.

[03:17:41] Supervisor Pruitt? Three quick clarifying things. Yes, sir. On the immediate proceeding point, I want to make it clear. I'm looking at the code right now. I don't think it is correct to say it's three different mutually sufficient criteria.

[03:17:57] It is one necessary criteria followed by two separate or criteria. They need to be under common ownership, and then they may be adjacent or they may so so they are only aggregated if there is common ownership common ownership is always necessary and then it is adjoining or mutually okay and I'm looking at the code right that is how it is written so point of clarification if it's separate ownership then the other two don't apply if it is separate ownership it does not matter if they're next to each other they do not get aggregated thank you and I don't know if that is consistent or inconsistent with what you've read

[03:18:37] i'm just looking at the code and that is how i read it sure i appreciate it i will say that language is um in the there's an appendix in the report um and that language should be in the appendix um i'm happy to pull it up and verify but i i trust that we're looking at the same thing so thank you for bringing that up um and then to just to uh respond and clarify like what we are and are not discussing right one i don't think i have and this county certainly doesn't have a normative position on whether or not organic versus inorganic farming is preferable. Non-organic

[03:19:12] farming is cheaper and is often more productive, and I like cheap groceries. I don't give a damn if farms are organic or inorganic or non-organic. So I don't think it's correct to say that we have a normative position on that. And second, while in the previous discussion we talked about intermediary and secondary uses that are important for catalyzing agribusiness.

[03:19:39] That is not what we're talking about here. We're not talking about canneries. We're not talking about meat processing. We're not talking about the deer boiler who lives down the road. That is a completely separate discussion that happened to align based on the agenda.

[03:19:55] We are in no way talking about poultry slaughterhouses, Tyson chicken packing plants right now, Other than that they, as you mentioned, their presence or non-presence can potentially catalyze further farming and intensive operations.

[03:20:13] That is the only way that's relevant. Thank you for that clarification. I just brought that up because it has been brought up by residents that the word slaughterhouse was used. That term was used.

[03:20:28] So I was bringing up as a point of clarification. Sure. Thank you. I think the way it could potentially roll in if we were catastrophizing would be that, oh, if suddenly we had a huge amount of new AFOs in the community, we would suddenly have, there would be an appetite in the industry for meat packing plants that is not currently economically viable.

[03:20:54] And there are other reasons that people separately wouldn't want a meat processing plant. I don't think that's at bar and not something that we're really considering. So the questions, sorry, a lot of throat clearing there. Can you help me understand both for farmer operators and also for regulators how the consideration of soil quality goes into AFO siting for the farmer operator, like where they might choose to operate in AFO, and if any regulators are considering soil quality?

[03:21:32] Because I think it is important context that in Albemarle County, especially in the south side of Alamo County. We have uncommonly good agricultural soil. And at first blush, it's not clear to me that this demands quality agricultural soil, but I might be mistaken. Yeah, so I will answer the latter portion of your question first. Virginia does not require soil testing before an AFO and CAFO can be cited. This is actually something that came up in one of the staff interviews, is that other states do require soil testing in a soil study for AFOs and CAFOs, but Virginia does not. And so in areas, you know, kind of along the border of the state,

[03:22:11] you'll maybe see more operators want to jump in in Virginia rather than Maryland or another state. Maryland is one of the states that does require soil testing. Virginia does not require that. That said, that's, you know, that's not to say that that's being considered. It's just not a prerequisite to get a permit for a facility. This is helpful, but I think is actually a different question than what i was thinking and so i'll give a little bit more context i'm sorry i'm talking so much that's okay um in our because we have a large amount of quality agricultural soil

[03:22:45] that we want to protect for uses that require it in our solar ordinance it is a criteria for streamlining siding solar that um that process is easier if you have poor quality soil if that makes sense. Is a similar kind of criteria or gate ever used in AFO local requirements? Because I could see the logic there, but maybe I'm misunderstanding the issue. Based on what I have seen in my experience in taking a look at other ordinances, that soil consideration is not built

[03:23:25] in for agriculture. Something to keep in mind as well is that a property owner may have a CAFO on one site and then have cropland that they're operating next to it and so you know that would be one consideration and a pretty common example for why you might not want to have that soil requirement in a zoning ordinance but again it's not required at the state level that may be a consideration but it's not something that's common to include and because there's some diversity in what farmers may be doing or may not be doing that's not a common and may not be appropriate

[03:24:01] to include in zoning that is helpful and i'll probably follow up with tim more about what the farmer operator considers on soil quality yeah and oh i'm sorry um i'll add to that too um soil and water um conservation district may have a little bit more to say about that um unfortunately we weren't able to um schedule an interview with their staff within the time frame of the report but they may have some more um information if you'd like to follow up with them sure thank you Um, especially when we're looking at the places where there's a confluence of, let's call them

[03:24:38] robust ordinances and also robust industries. I'm thinking Acomac. Um, is there a history of litigation that your interviews uncovered? My understanding is no. Um, that said in Acomac County, um, the administration and community development staff who are there now were not there when the initial ordinance was developed. And so there was only so much history that, they could give me. They didn't mention anything about litigation. Same with Rockingham County.

[03:25:08] I believe their ordinance for intensive agriculture, I think, has been in place since the 90s. And so none of the staff that are there presently were there when that ordinance was adopted. So again, they could give me some background on, you know, some of the recent amendments, current situations, but not the full history. And staff in neither locality mentioned litigation or anything legal that was ongoing or a concern for them with their standards.

[03:25:34] And looking past the instant ones that we're talking about, are you aware of any? I have seen an ordinance, and it's not one of the counties that you listed in the study, that I looked at once and was like, oh, that is not legal, I don't think. But they might not have a robust industry that was looking into that. Are you aware of any legal challenges to these?

[03:25:54] To my knowledge, no. Not in Virginia. Something that came up during our research was from another state, but there was nothing in Virginia that was coming up as we were researching. Thank you.

[03:26:10] I think I understand something intuitively, but I haven't heard someone actually articulate it, and the report didn't go into much detail on it, which is, I would assume intuitively, based on the existence of the framework and the fact that the industry tries to not be categorized as a CAFO, as in you try and have either you develop systems that have it so that your animal unit is below the limit and you don't discharge directly into water for medium.

[03:26:44] There is an incentive to not be categorized as a CAFO, which makes me assume that there's stricter regulatory requirements if and when a CAFO becomes categorized federally as a CAFO. I don't have a strong sense of what those additional regulatory requirements that farmers want to not be burdened by.

[03:27:06] I don't know that I know what that looks like. Can you help me? And I'm sure it's also complicated. But can you help me kind of understand the things that aren't applying for non-covered AFOs? Yes. So the first example that comes to mind is the VPDES permit, which is the Virginia arm of the EPA's federal permitting system, that is not necessarily even required for all CAFOs.

[03:27:34] It is really just your very, very large ones. So that's something that... When you say very, very large, is that the same as large, or is that a subcategory within large CAFOs? That's me generalizing. That's not a specific category. So you've got that minimum threshold of the animals that have to be confined in a CAFO, facilities that have well above that or that, again, have certain waste discharge conditions.

[03:28:01] And I know that I keep saying certain waste discharge conditions without providing a lot of detail. That's dependent on the facility, dependent on the site, how much pollution may be generated, how much is maybe going into the water. So that's kind of the reason beyond that generalization. But VPDES permits, nutrient management plans, I also do not believe are required for all AFOs. I can verify that if needed, but I don't believe that is a requirement if a DEQ permit is not being requirement for a facility. I don't know that it's accurate to say

[03:28:38] that farmers are trying to avoid being a CAFO so they can skirt out of permitting and plan requirements. You know, there are certainly economic considerations as well, and like you mentioned earlier, maybe an integrated industry, but... And to be clear, I'm not saying that would be a normatively bad thing for them to do. They're trying to be economically efficient. They're trying to, if there's a burdensome requirement, they're trying to not be burdened by that requirement. Right. So nutrient management plans, VPDES permits. When you mentioned the burden, I will say that there is financial and technical assistance available for nutrient management plans

[03:29:14] in particular. That can be a very complicated and costly process for an operator. So there are grant programs available through the Soil and Water Conservation District and others that can help farmers make sure that their boxes are checked and help that be a little bit less burdensome. AFOs are also not regulated under the Clean Water Act. It would only be the KFOs, so the AFOs are also, you know, not falling under that Clean Water Act umbrella. Thank you. I think what I'm, part of what I'm trying to get greater clarity on with the question of what the regulations

[03:29:52] for a CAFO, which I think, generally speaking, is not what we're talking about. We're talking about a thing that is less than a CAFO. Because if it's a CAFO, there are enough federal regulations that they're probably not going to emerge. The thing that I continue to think about is that there are regulations that apply to one unit of 55,000 or 56,000 turkeys. That one is triggering of additional regulatory oversight by the feds and a dozen that are at 50 in the same

[03:30:31] region maybe within a few square miles of each other don't trigger that level of oversight and i i don't understand enough what that level of oversight looks like to know if that's a gap that i should be concerned about and so i guess kind of as a follow-on with these deq nutrient management plans or other uh processes that a owner operator goes into a deq is there accounting that you know for for regional massing uh the only thing i can think of is just the the like

[03:31:03] something the equivalent of the state credit for oh like um uh uh rockinham county is designated as a place that has a high nutrient load and so there is an incentive for taking litter from them But is there any kind of additional oversight that DEQ or an additional consideration that DEQ has when there is a high regional massing of AFOs that are not otherwise covered?

[03:31:31] That may be factored in. To the nutrient management plan specifically, I would need to look into that more and verify that. There are other DEQ programs that are accounting for regional scale impacts and pollution into waterways, total maximum daily load being an example of one of them.

[03:31:57] However, that's not agriculture-specific, and that's separate from a nutrient management plan. If you'd like, I'd be happy to look into that more and can follow up if needed. Both for you and for this board, kind of the context I'm thinking is we have always had stormwater expectations for individual developments, and there are stormwater requirements for individual developments.

[03:32:19] This is a bit by analogy here. But we did not have a, let's call it an enterprise-level control on how much development we could have in the county. And we had a brief water crisis where we over-neutrified our watershed because we were analyzing individual development impacts, but we weren't analyzing the aggregate systemic effect, which is why we have a development area, full stop.

[03:32:45] Like, that is why. And with this, I see the potential for analogy here. But, again, I'm not an expert on this, and that's why I'm kind of trying to get a better sense of what existing water quality assessments and regulations are accounting for so i can know is there is there a role for something like albemarle did with its development area um that we need to try and implement in this area which also brings in the next question i have which is i i didn't see any kind of acomac has the density requirement

[03:33:21] i in my day job i know that some counties have requirements either based on proximity or in the total county of how many recovery residences are authorized in a county um are there counties that have tried to cap the total number raw number um of of a foes and is there any like anything comparable to that beyond i guess acamac's one every five square miles uh requirement if i caught

[03:33:54] that is that really the only thing even approaching that in our um research yes um i was a little surprised that ACMAC had that even. Under the right to Farm Act, I would say that it would not be appropriate to cap the number of facilities because, again, not to continue repeating it.

[03:34:12] That goes back to my first question. I looked at that one, and I'm like, ah. Right. Again, not to say that I'm endorsing any one of these zoning ordinances as being the best example. But again, going back to that definition of bona fide agriculture under the Right to Farm Act, where you may put a cap on things like solar facilities, levy a special use permit for industrial uses, data centers, meat processing, other facilities. That same sort of cap or special use permit process can't be required for something that is a bona fide agriculture use. The facility density and limit in Acomac, again, I'm not entirely sure the context

[03:34:52] on that. That's the only locality that I've seen that has a standard like that. But as far as a facility cap goes or an acreage cap goes, that would not be appropriate under the Right to Farm Act. That was what I, and you're right, solar is a much more appropriate, I think, analogy than the one I used, and I should have gone back first. One of our neighbors has one of those caps, which I also think is inappropriate but not illegal um i had one more question i'm forgetting i'm sorry

[03:35:23] yeah i'll remember the question later sorry all done all right board at this point we're averaging about 22 23 minutes per supervisor and there's four supervisors remaining and it's five to five so what i would say is let's make sure you're maximizing your questions on the consultant report and questions about understanding the report and clarifying comments in the report we have staff available to us on a non well I guess we're paying staff but we're also paying

[03:35:58] this consultant to be in front of us so let's make sure we're maximizing that person's usage if you don't mind not that I'm making commentary on any comments that have come before us just we got to get through this tonight and we will sacrifice the closed session to get through this conversation. So, Supervisor Duncan. I just have one, I guess, clarifying question.

[03:36:19] The definition of an AFO, if they are growing crops and also having animals, are they considered an AFO? That is something that is not abundantly clear in the state definition. My understanding is that if it's on the same property, then no. But a lot of times, again, farmers will have multiple parcels and they've got multiple operations. So, they might have a poultry house they might be growing corn they might be doing something else over here so they might be having different facilities um but if that's occurring on one property based on how it

[03:36:56] reads i would say no um even if they're adjoining parcels here we go that's the do you mind if i well if i go back to the beginning that will take a while um even if it's on the adjoining parcel my understanding is no um that language i will say was did come directly from the virginia administrative code i believe that section is cited um i can pull it up if time allows or if you'd like to take another look that that was my understanding i just wanted clarity um so that's all i have thank you well that just paid up you just killed the average there

[03:37:34] supervisor malik well i will i will help the average along because the report was very well done and thank you very much the conversations i've had with john king and others have really helped to sort of complete a little fill some of the gaps that i had um and just to make sure that i haven't fallen down the rabbit hole on the afo it seemed like one of the requirements to be categorized as an animal feeding operation is that it's a feedlot not a pasture cattle combined or a

[03:38:07] cornfield crop pasture combined correct so if i have a few cows that are out in the field roaming maybe they come into the barn at night maybe they don't that's not an afo correct but if i have a a hayland and corn land and i'm raising the food to feed to the animals that are not in either of those but they're in the feedlot it still sounds like it wouldn't really qualify just because it's a combined use so yes ma'am the animals are required to be confined for a minimum amount of time and then the other part of it which is so weird is that there can't be any provision of

[03:38:41] growing that's where i was thinking that that came along okay so i think i have that straight i'll just leave that alone the um i have lots of things that you've already answered which is really great i will say that the i'm not surprised that soil and water didn't respond because they're up to their eyeballs doing federal compliance right now and i just got my signature done the other day so i know the farm service agency people in louisa orange have also had a 30 cut in their staff

[03:39:16] 18 months ago so they're all working very hard as as everybody is um nutrient management plans okay so many of these communities it sounds like we there is reliance on the requirement for the nutrient management plan which for landowners is essential even if you're not one of these operations because you don't want money on lime or nutrients if it's not needed and if you do too much of something that's bad too so having that information from a qualified nutrient management

[03:39:50] plan person. It's really great, and I just got mine updated. I'm very happy. So coming back to the ag zoning, I know that in the early 80s, Albemarle had agriculture like Augusta, and in Augusta, if I understand correctly, residential is frowned upon and requires more process in these ag zones because they're trying to protect the agriculture. So when this change was made, there was a lot of concern about from the farming community that oh we're just handing everything over to the residential which i think was the goal unfortunately 30 40 years ago and why we've

[03:40:29] had all of these rural subdivisions that are out there now running around and you know nobody ever dreamed that anybody would have a 21 acre front yard either as those were all supposed to be residual ag lands in addition to the two acre house site and so that was another failure we had that's gotten us into some of this mess, but just a couple of clarifications to make sure I'm on the right track. We had talked about how there's no air quality thing, but there was a thing in here about fan direction, so if you're having air out of your turkey house or your chicken house or whatever, or even your poultry shed, then it has to be aimed away from your

[03:41:09] neighbors. That seems to me that was where I put that air quality and wind speed for spreading. The understanding that I have, and please correct me on this, is litter is bedding that the chickens run around in and poop in.

[03:41:24] It's not just the poop. So there is a texture to that in addition that tends to get dry and why there are also rules for wind speed when you're spreading it. You don't want to spread it at a high wind speed because then it blows away. So I just want to clarify that. Organic is required.

[03:41:42] You can't, it's what you feed them and what is put on the property where their feed is grown is what allows something to be called organic. It has nothing to do with whether it's poultry litter or not. There'll be plenty of organic possible poultry litters, but if they're fed a whole lot of chemical fertilizer or chemical food that has extra constituents, then it would not qualify. So that's sort of a different category that we need to not allow ourselves to conflate as we go along. Let me run down here. I did that already. It would make good sense to me

[03:42:17] looking at all of your work that the counties where they've had a very high intensity of these uses have better have more thorough rules because they've had to deal with the consequences longer times akamak and amelia for example so the fact that their rules have been standing and the attorney general has not gotten after them is comforting to know that we could have some intermediate rules for the needs that we have and um and go along from there as far as the local need for regulation. And I will save my wrap-up comments until later. Thank you.

[03:42:54] Supervisor Missal. Thank you. Great presentation. This is super thorough. And, you know, and I was thinking about this issue, and as we've been learning, also appreciate the questions of my colleagues up here. It's been really helpful in helping me understand it. My goals were understand current agricultural rights and oversight and the gaps that would exist in our ordinances under that heading. Second, understand the roles others have taken engaging the industry in the discussions to create these ordinances. And then the third was considering obviously

[03:43:33] environmental impacts and the appropriate level of regulation. I think the study provided a framework within which we can work. I think it seems that it outlines how there is a need to be fair and equitable to the agricultural community, of course, and that respects and protects our environmental systems, which is absolutely not mutually exclusive, right? They are woven together.

[03:44:01] I think this is all about balance. I'm trying to skim through here because I don't have a lot of questions I'm supposed to ask. I guess a couple of my questions here, I'll just skip to them in the interest of time. I'll get that one. So this is somewhat of a meaningless statistic, but I'm just curious. You looked at 13 counties. Do you have any idea how many total counties or communities in Virginia? No, sir. I've heard 50 thrown around as a number. I did ask DEQ and extension staff to

[03:44:36] verify that, but they said that they don't keep any sort of record or database, and so they were unable to confirm whether that was correct or not or provide an estimation of how many. That's okay. That's good to know. One of your slides talked about one of your red circles included lot acreage can you say a little bit more about that how counties regulated lot acreage yes sir so it varies from county to county um but some counties require as many as you know 10 to 15 acres minimum

[03:45:11] for a facility okay um i believe the current minimum acreage in your ra zoning district i believe is two acres um in other counties you know their agricultural zoning district minimums vary as well. Really though, all of them were above and beyond the minimum that is set for the zoning district as a whole. I know Nelson's draft ordinance is prescribing a 15 acre minimum and then more acres are required depending on how many facilities there are. Again, there are, again, that's a draft. Other localities, again, have, you know, enhanced setbacks to complement

[03:45:49] that minimum acreage requirement. So the numbers vary, but the thing to know is that they're all above and beyond what's established for that underlying agricultural district. Yes, sir. Got it. Okay, that's helpful. I think the one thing, instead of just sort of skipping through, I've been thinking about sort of next steps for us and what that looks like.

[03:46:09] I don't know if we want to talk about that now or if I could throw out some ideas. I mean, it's fine. I think I'm going to have to go back around for next steps because the others ahead of you have not addressed them. So you'll get another chance to do that. Okay, then I'll just pause there. That's good.

[03:46:24] Thank you. and that's a good segue to what i was going to start with i as i make my remarks that'll give you all a chance to be able to say at the end of it we're not taking any action today that was not the plan so we're receiving a report but we staff is going to be looking to us for some sort of direction and that's the part that we're going to need you to speak to after i'm done making asking some questions. I'm going to lead with where I'm at on that, just so the board has it and we can be tidy with time. But it seems the essential question, even back when we had our

[03:47:02] conversation in July, was to regulate or not regulate. And at that time, I don't think I didn't have the information needed to even ponder that decision. I have now have a lot more information at my disposal, but my questions are going to help me figure out how to give the direction, because I can tell you after reading this report, I do not have enough information to decide whether we should regulate or not. I have a lot better understanding of baseline, so I appreciate the report for that purpose. So I'm going to go through my questions now about the

[03:47:38] report itself to understand it better, but that's something I'd ask you all to speak to when when i go back around bart did you stand up for something just stretching your legs so i do want to start there because it's interesting to me that back in july i i did not understand a lot of the differences between different words that are being thrown out and by thrown out i mean legitimate words that have got very well defined things that you've created a baseline for and then there's advocacy language okay and advocacy language can be both positive

[03:48:14] and negative. And it's important to define and separate so that we understand from a policy perspective what can be defined and what the state calls it, et cetera, so that we can work in that. So I'll start with that question. And we did this too, but, and I'm not asking you to explain this to me, but I am going to ask you to explain what you mean by it from your perspective.

[03:48:38] Going through the report, both reading it and then in your presentation, you talk animal feed operations, concentrated animal feed operations, then you start using intensive. Tell me what that means to you when you switch to intensive. Yes, sir. And thank you for asking because I had meant to clarify that in the presentation. Intensive agriculture is the umbrella term that we see most often used to refer to an AFO or a CAFO in an ordinance. Sometimes locality zoning ordinances will specifically say animal feeding operation or concentrated or confined animal feeding operation

[03:49:16] but the most typical term we see is intensive livestock or intensive agriculture so that's what is meant that's kind of you know that's why i referenced it in the zoning portion is because that's how other localities are referring to it does it have a legal definition to my knowledge know. That said, and the report does go into more detail about this, when localities are defining intensive livestock and agriculture, they are pointing back to that Code of Virginia reference

[03:49:49] either in the Right to Farm Act or 15.2 2288. So they may be using a different term, which is confusing, but they are still pointing back to that state code requirement. Why localities are doing that i don't know if i have a good answer for but there is no legal definition of intensive livestock or intensive agriculture in state code as i understand your question so just in how you move from afo to kfo there are numbers involved and it changes per animal even animal unit and

[03:50:24] animal apparently aren't the same thing which i've come to understand but you can't tell me that there's a number threshold that moves to intensive because there's no definition in in locality zoning ordinances if they're pointing back to state code and the applicable regulations then it would point back to those animal saying that by intensive we need medium for turkeys correct some localities do cite those thresholds in their ordinances others do not so they use intensive they define it themselves what they mean by it and then point back to the state code to say

[03:51:03] this is what we mean by intensive yes sir that's correct great thank you um but from from all of these regulatory elements beyond those localities that do that the state doesn't get into intensive they just they have kfo they have afo and all their permitting and regulations are based on those definitions correct there's afo kfo and then of course you've got that overarching definition of agriculture okay now the rest of these I'm going to go through in no particular order but I tend to take notes as I read so I'm going through the

[03:51:42] report from from start to finish and I'm going to try not to ask a lot of things that are not you use the phrase somewhere in the report legitimate agriculture operations you've used that in your presentation can you remind me again what that means versus an illegitimate agricultural operation so a A legitimate agricultural operation would be one that meets the definition of agriculture.

[03:52:09] Again, that is provided by the Right to Farm Act, and it is one that is complying with all applicable state and federal regulations. And then you also, and we do this too, and it's what I like to call squishy, but we have public health, safety, and welfare.

[03:52:26] Is that defined from a legal standpoint, what that is? I believe that's addressed to some extent in the Code of Virginia. I don't know that there is a clear one-by-one definition of this is what is meant by public health, this is what is meant by public safety, this is what is meant by public welfare.

[03:52:46] But public health, safety, and general welfare is all lumped together when used to talk about the purpose of zoning regulations throughout state code. Did the 13 that you looked at use public health, safety, and welfare to justify their additional regulations? I believe so. That can be accomplished elsewhere in the zoning ordinance by specifically stating the purpose of X locality zoning ordinance is to protect health, safety, and welfare.

[03:53:17] That's how a lot of localities will choose to do. They'll cite that section of state code. They'll say the purpose of this ordinance in accordance with X is to protect the public health, safety, and welfare, and then that would apply to the entirety of the zoning ordinance. But then do they define what they mean? Typically, no.

[03:53:34] So this is like that intensive thing? It doesn't point back to a state-regulated code or legal definition? Public health, safety, and welfare, no. I am not aware of anything in state code that defines what that is. If the county were to want to describe that, that might be a better question to work through with the county attorney.

[03:53:53] So is it reasonable to think then that public health, safety, and welfare is the subjective determination of the six of us sitting up here? I would say in consultation with your county attorney, I am not a lawyer.

[03:54:09] I don't mean to joke or make light of that, but that would be a discussion that would need to be held with staff and with your county attorney to determine what a reasonable regulation is that is in the public interest versus what is not.

[03:54:25] Okay, thank you. So that you covered. You made a point in the report. I don't recall you saying it during the presentation, But it was in the report, and you made a couple times made points that DEQ has a regulatory structure that is strict enough that they were saying that they feel from a public health and safety standpoint that what they regulate is enough.

[03:54:57] And I just wanted to validate, was that what you were saying, that DEQ says that our regulations are enough to satisfy public health, safety, and welfare? Yes, so that portion of DEQ's comments was provided to us in writing. So I included that as the appendix, and I believe that was their verbatim comments to us, is that they have their standards, and in DEQ's perspective, DEQ staff feels like they are sufficient at protecting public health and safety.

[03:55:30] So realistically, it's our decision. We have to decide if that's true or not, or if we feel like there's a higher standard for public health, safety, and welfare, beyond what they say. That's correct, yes. Given the context and conditions of Albemarle County, do you all feel that additional standards above and beyond the state and regulatory framework are necessary for these uses to protect public health, safety, and welfare? Beyond what Supervisor Pruitt was alluding to with some standards he felt might be questionable, but did you check any minimum standards that are

[03:56:05] in place by the 13 you looked at that were in violation of state code? Did you do that as a check we we did not do that as an assessment no sir um okay i asked that already so is it so talk to me about um i've got a couple of different notes on this at different points the 13 localities and the selection criteria for those 13 i mean you state what you picked and why but as it seems

[03:56:43] fair that these were ones that decided that they wanted to go beyond what the deq required So in the academic world, that would be called purposive sampling. But when you said it wasn't exhaustive, did you mean that the 13 wasn't exhaustive of what you targeted?

[03:57:02] Or could there be other localities that meet the criteria of the 13 and you just didn't get to those? So that's what you meant by exhaustive list? Yes, sir. We did not go through all of the zoning ordinances in the state to determine which ones regulated and which ones did not.

[03:57:21] We started with localities in central Virginia, and then those localities that we knew had a very prominent agricultural industry. So that's why you'll see Accombe County included, even though it's on the eastern shore. So Green and Augusta, Nelson, we looked at those, but since none of them have those additional standards in their ordinance presently, That's why they were not included in that list.

[03:57:44] And the point about the known database, but okay, understood. You don't need to re-explain that as a point. But we do have 95 counties in Virginia, and they all have ordinances on the books. So it's all a matter of public record to understand if they regulate more or not.

[03:58:03] Is that a fair statement? Ordinances for agriculture or ordinances for zoning? For both. There are some counties that are only partially zoned or do not have zoning. right franklin county is an example they only have a zoning ordinance that applies to a small portion of their county um so the rest of the county that doesn't apply to zoning you know there's no zoning standards but the fact that there's no database doesn't mean there's no information that's correct so the information is available to us for all 95 counties and for those that don't have any ag zoning we could probably disregard them correct but scrutinizing all the

[03:58:42] others for reasons beyond that they didn't go beyond the state, there's a value to that. And when I say I don't have enough here to make a regulatory call yet, and I'm going to now give a rationale, when we do compensation studies, we have a set of peer communities that we look at, and it's rationalized for that reason. When we do salary, the salary scales for public safety, that sometimes will change. When we do it for health benefits, when we look for best practices, It's quite common practice for us to look at peer community groups to make decisions.

[03:59:19] So, and part of it is which do and which don't. So the question is, should we regulate? Well, we've got 13 examples of communities that said yes and go further. But that, okay, and we see what they did and how they decided to do it.

[03:59:35] But that doesn't get at the should question. So how many counties don't do that that would necessarily fall into our peer community just like maybe these do? And I got questions about the eastern shore when you've got an ocean on one side and a bay on another.

[03:59:55] All right. I just do. Okay. So I'm bringing this up not as a criticism, but for staff to understand that when I say I need more information to decide, I've got a pretty good, and you don't need to react to this yet.

[04:00:11] I've got plenty more. So the point I'm making is that it's not just, okay, if we choose to regulate, how might we do that? Because that's what these 13 basically give us. But it presumes that the decision is we should regulate. And, you know, me saying that out loud probably would freak some people out to think that maybe I've already come to some sort of conclusion. I haven't. Because I don't know more about the communities when they decided to do that or communities that decided not

[04:00:45] to do that, what their purposes, reasonings, and rationales were behind that. And that to me is part of the consideration. So if there are a lot of communities out there, counties that have very similar development areas and ag economies and population sizes and even values like Albemarle County, those aren't in here because that wasn't considered. And I think that should be considered.

[04:01:12] And it might even come out that they've had this conversation in the past, and I'd love to hear what they did about it. Because every time we make a decision about something in Albemarle, we tend to be thorough with that kind of look. Now, there was nothing in our July conversation that would have directed you to deliver that in this report. And in some ways, I'm almost concerned that the speed by which this report got back to us meant that some things couldn't be considered, even if you wanted them to be.

[04:01:43] So that is also something where, you know, emergency or urgent can sometimes lead to decisions that aren't informed enough. So I'm saying, as one of my direction points coming out of this, that the approach to peer communities for a major policy decision seems to diverge from how we've done that in other areas of local government.

[04:02:06] And one of the requirements I'm looking for is for it to do that with this so that I can make a better, well-reasoned choice about whether or not we should regulate more or not. Now, you're ahead of the game on if we decide that that is the question.

[04:02:22] I think we've got some reasonable ways to go about that. And I'm pleased for that. And I understand now AFO. I understand CAFO. I understood when we left in July what intensive meant to Albemarle, but I didn't know what it meant to everybody else. And I understand that now.

[04:02:37] So I really appreciate that. Now, if I can, if I can just get through the rest of my some questions that are here. Methodology. And I would say that 95 counties minus those who have no ag zones is important to understand what they're doing.

[04:03:01] It just is because it's information that's there. They all live under Virginia and DEQ, and I think that that's information that's important for us to understand, database in existence or not. that was asked and answered that's been asked and answered oh okay that'll use a comment as sorry

[04:03:37] okay i think i'm good on the report that was clear all right i'm good on the report so i'm going to um come back around if you've got any follow-up questions based on another supervisor i'd offer you get those out of the way first and then we're going to start talking about some what you direction things like that for staff did you have a list of that okay there you go We've got some guiding questions.

[04:04:13] Supervisor Lepisto-Kirtley. Well, based upon what Chair Galloway said, I think we need a lot of additional information because we didn't receive complete information regarding all the counties, and especially ones that are similar to ours.

[04:04:31] Key areas of focus. I just question why we need. I cannot, well, I'm going to let it go with that. I will just go away. We'll get back to the regulation of whether or not we want to do it, right?

[04:04:50] Or do you want that now? I think that you have to say, do you need more information to be able to make a decision? And then what are those key areas that you would need? That's what you're asking. So we have to tell staff, do we have what we need to make decisions or not? And then if we don't, we have to give guidance on what we think we need in order to make the decision.

[04:05:10] Well, I think you summed it up quite well. and saying that we only heard about those 13 entities that have regulations. And yet, we have, what, 95 counties? And so what are they doing? What are they not doing?

[04:05:25] Why are they doing it? Why are they not doing it? That's what I would be interested in. I don't like to pass ordinances or regulations unless we need to. And I don't think we have the complete information as to why we even need this.

[04:05:43] So that would be my question. Supervisor Pruitt. I think I'm going to disagree with the previous two, maybe unsurprisingly. I think a lot of us have counted noses already. And the main thing I would just say in response is I think our nature as elected decision makers, there's always a balance of information versus public responsiveness.

[04:06:10] And it is impossible to do all of either. And those sit in tension with each other, right? There are different sides on the scale. And I think it is incumbent on us sometimes to take action that is publicly responsive based on the information that is available, knowing that we do not have complete information.

[04:06:35] I can see why it would be valuable, but I also don't know that I need to know why, if or why Halifax did or did not adopt an ordinance, if I have a sense of what Prince Edward County's ordinance looks like. So I feel like I have sufficient information that I would be comfortable, based on what we have, directing staff to begin exploring an ordinance.

[04:07:01] I think several of these ordinances, I would say, are much more restrictive than what I would be comfortable in Albemarle County. But I think that is a second-tier question about what we would be comfortable and what areas of oversight we would want to see.

[04:07:18] And that would be something we do a lot in very deep consultation with industry stakeholders. And again, that's a second order conversation. I feel like I have seen enough that I, and I've heard enough from my community and my constituency that I would feel comfortable with staff moving ahead on development of an ordinance.

[04:07:40] And I think this shows me that other localities have, in agricultural communities, have thoughtfully been confronted with similar issues and made a similar decision. Supervisor Duncan? I don't need any more information.

[04:07:57] I'm not opposed to getting more of my similar to where I was in July. I think this discussion really is about are we going to be a farming community or are we just going to be an aesthetic farming community? And so I would be very opposed to an ordinance.

[04:08:16] Supervisor Malik? Thank you. I think our county charter probably talks about health, safety, and welfare, and we can get to that at some other time. It's sort of the basis of our whole operations, but that's not really for today so much.

[04:08:35] I hope that James Hutzler and the VACO Ag Committee can quickly help to assemble some information to help our county staff put some other extra information together. But the question really is, should we prioritize in some way drafting of supplemental regulations for this?

[04:08:58] And I think while I've learned a tremendous amount today and appreciate that we definitely need more information, I think that having a framework and further discussion and an ordinance might be incredibly helpful for many reasons.

[04:09:15] I do appreciate the availability of more local food, and I don't think an ordinance that is developed with the growers would be an obstacle to that. I appreciate that supplemental regulations, which clearly define what staff is already doing, which I was not clear on until I read this report, and that was a really big deal, but it's not written down anywhere where citizens can actually easily read it, and so they get alarmed.

[04:09:41] So what the staff's already doing and adding buffers, if that's perceived to be needed, that has been done in so many other jurisdictions. The other side that no one's talked about is that having rules that you're compliant with is a protection for the growers. So if you are meeting all the regulations and someone has a fuss, you can say, talk to DEQ.

[04:10:03] They will tell you, I'm meeting all the regulations. And that's the end of it. So I think that it's not a punishment. It's actually part of the ladder of support that we should be doing for our agricultural growers. so the truth and the protection for the growers who can demonstrate they're complying with county rules as they do in these other counties and for the residents who will know what to expect if they move next to a farm operation quite a few of these drafts talked about if you moved in since the operation was there live with it i mean they were very direct with that when the organization when

[04:10:39] the operation itself was compliant so i do support moving forward for the discussion i support uh hearing about it again when there's more news to to discuss and i think in looking back the discussion in july at the board level was the best any board has had about agriculture in about 40 years and that was very invigorating for me because we got rid of a whole lot of terrible misinformation and i think that there will be a lot more progress to be made that will help our growers as well as our residents thank you uh supervisor missal thank you um a couple things

[04:11:18] First of all, I do believe that maybe one more round at reviewing additional counties would be useful. I don't see the need to be exhaustive because we're talking about real estate, and there are probably a fair amount of those counties that for some reason maybe don't physically align with Albemarle County and maybe therefore would not be that useful.

[04:11:40] I trust staff and the consultants to make that determination. Personally, I felt like the test cases that were presented were well thought out and fairly comprehensive, but I get the benefit of looking at one more round. I agree publicly responsive.

[04:11:56] Also acknowledge that I've heard recommendations and concerns on both sides of that public, if you were to look at two sides. You know, I agree with, I think, Supervisor Malik, who said, with good work, these are not your words, these are mine, but we can develop an ordinance that is publicly responsive, maybe not fully satisfactory to both sides, but a meaningful, collaborative, and helpful endgame.

[04:12:20] I think that's the goal. There are a question I would have in terms of next steps. Are there counties with agricultural areas that have reviewed and considered and rejected additional regulations? And if so, for what reasons? I think understanding the process of developing an ordinance and aligning it with our zoning modernization plan and what that looks like would be helpful.

[04:12:43] So a little bit of the combining these two together. I would like to understand and ask industry stakeholders how they feel they should be included and what the timeline looks like for that inclusion. I think we, let's see, we talked about the health, safety, and welfare.

[04:13:01] I had a note that said focus on issues and elements that have a direct impact to health, safety, and welfare and be clear on what that means. I think what we come up with, I'm almost done here, It needs to be scalable, right, because we're talking about a variety of scales of these operations.

[04:13:19] Obviously, it needs to be in keeping with the Right to Farm Act, leverage DEQ current practices, and should reference for clarity both of those where needed in the discussion. Really appreciate the conclusion slide here. I think that was excellent, and we need to keep those guidelines in front of us.

[04:13:39] I, you know, I would want to think about biosolids, PFAS testing, et cetera, as we think through this process. And then I think that was essentially it just to echo the comment that was already made by, I believe, two other supervisors about existing ordinance and the legalities of each and if there are any holes in any of that.

[04:14:01] That's it. All right. So to wrap up, I don't feel I need an exhaustive all 95 counties. But I think I'm more than a rationale of just identifying some that have done regulation. It needs to be with a little bit more of a rationale behind it than that. So that's one thing that I would need.

[04:14:22] I think that we need to come up with, so it's very clear to everybody, if it's squishy and we have to determine public health, welfare, and safety, that there is a line that the DEQ has put out there from a regulation standpoint and that we need to be ready to say that if we're going to regulate beyond that, Here's the specific reasons why so that it's clear.

[04:14:45] And then that should probably drive anything because other things are going to come up beyond this particular issue, which is to back to my point that I'm going to echo from July, the question of what is acceptable farming in Albemarle is probably a discussion this board is going to have to have because right now we're doing it based on issues that fall under that umbrella versus having the larger umbrella conversation.

[04:15:09] But if we're going to come back with additional information and proceed with the conversation, then we have to do that. If it's going to be up to the six of us to define general health, welfare, and public safety, then we better make sure we're all on the same page of what we mean by that and what we're trying to solve when we decide that we're going to go beyond what DEQ is saying, if that's the decision.

[04:15:35] So I need some stuff to help me with that. Not necessarily to consider it, but I'm going to have to start hearing from others, too, what they mean by that. And then I need that fact-checked against because I want legal standing that's going to come behind this and make sure that it complies, that we're not in violation of the Farm Act.

[04:15:54] And I also want to understand what these regulations do to the economic burden of farmers, which is part and parcel to what we have to consider. So none of that came up in here, nor was I expecting it to. So I'm not criticizing this report. This report, I think, given what we said in July, the time that you've had to complete it, delivered wonderfully.

[04:16:17] But now these are the other components of it. And I think that's an important question for us. What specifically are we attempting to solve? Define them clearly in measurable ways. So how do they stack up against that? But there's another reason.

[04:16:35] Regardless of what we do from a regulation, whether it's over DEQ or if it matches DEQ or whatever, the situations that have played out in this county can be that then we start getting, because I saw that the Farm Act is supposed to help against nuisance claims, but it sounds like that's almost a protection against local governments.

[04:17:02] But any regulation we put in place, there are legal acts that you can take to continually say somebody's not complying with that that have negative consequences on who you're pointing the finger at. And that, I think, is not a tactic that I smile upon. And I want it to be crystal clear so that if you're in defense of yourself to say that I am complying with DEQ or with these extra regs you put in place, that it's delineated in a way that somebody cannot just keep making complaints that you're not in compliance. Because that's improper, in my

[04:17:37] opinion. So that's what I need and I think I've lumped them together. Specifics about what I would need and the key areas of focus would be the legality of it. I am concerned about farming and what that means in Albemarle because I don't think we're on the same page based on what we hear and it goes beyond this CAFO conversation. It came up in comp plan. It came up earlier today when we were talking about the economic development strategic plan. It's certainly come up when we have had housing conversations between rural area and development area. So we may just have to go have that conversation at some point as well. But that's where I currently stand. I've got two no

[04:18:16] on needing an ordinance. I seem, myself included, to have four that say that there's more of this to be had. Now, if there's other things you can be doing parallel, I mean, okay, that just saves time, right? But those would be my reactions from reading the report. You ask us now questions of what we left unclear for you in terms of how to proceed forward.

[04:18:40] So I'm understanding we need more information. This is a lot larger lift than what we had talked about in July. So we'll need to stack that up against the work program, how that's going to land. We have some file solid report out to give you all.

[04:18:58] So we'll work with the county exec's office on kind of a schedule and coming back to you for at least a final report on what that looks like time-wise and time-frame. We are actually, a little preview, we are actually trying to push some of the state code changes into zoning mod already, so we don't have to do that after the first of the year, but what that does is now limit resources in the first half of the year.

[04:19:30] So I'll need to take a look at kind of what that lift is and what that means. So it won't be as fast a turnaround, but we'll come back to you with a schedule and let you know what that looks like, and we'll try and match that up. So what I'm also hearing is biosolids came up a little bit here and how that might play together in putting those two together.

[04:19:53] Does that sound all right with the board? It sounds fine, and in the interest of time, we've got to handle another business item. So I think everyone was clear. We've got the minutes. We can go back and refer to them as needed to make sure we're clear. but thank you again for the report. Thank you, Bart. Board, we're 22. I'm almost at the point where I feel like any closed session should happen at the end if needed. Well, I see Ms.

[04:20:22] Kilroy is here. She is the lead presenter and at the risk of putting her on the spot, I know that she indicated to me that her item at least could wait until the October 21st meeting. So at this point, the board has boards and commissions in closed meeting and then Ms. Kilroy's item that I'm seeing across the room she's saying it's okay to defer it October 21st. Board, I think given some other information too that it would be wise for us to recess until 6 and do the boards and commissions at the end of the meeting. It won't take us long and not expecting a real hopefully I don't regret saying this out loud but we're not going to be here for three hours on the public hearings tonight.

[04:20:59] I think there's only four or five people. So we'll handle it afterwards and then that way we'll have 20 minutes before 6 to get out of this conversation and ready for two public hearings. Okay, board, we're going to come out of recess.

[04:21:23] For those following along at home, we did move the closed meeting to the end of the night, so we won't be doing a certification right at the moment. So we will move right to item number 16 from the county executive, report on matters not listed on the agenda. Any report this evening?

[04:21:41] No, sir, not at this time. Then we will move to item 17, public comment on matters previously considered or currently pending before the board other than scheduled for public hearings and the vice chair will walk i think we do have a couple people signed up got it thank you chair during this portion of the meeting individuals may address the board regarding matters previously considered by the board or currently pending before the board other than items scheduled for public hearing speakers are limited to one opportunity of up to three minutes per meeting in-person speakers will be heard first followed by online participants coordinated by the clerk To ensure equal treatment and courtesy for all speakers, the Board requests that the following guidelines be observed.

[04:22:20] Please state your name, and if you live in Albemarle County or Magisterial District, comments should be directed to the Board as a whole. Written statements or supporting materials may be provided to the Clerk. If representing a group or organization, you may ask others present to raise their hands in recognition. Speakers may not share unused time with another speaker.

[04:22:39] Back and forth debate is not permitted, and speakers should not speak from their seat or out of turn. For in-person speakers, the podium timer will guide your time. Green indicates your time has begun. Yellow means one minute remains. And red indicates your time has expired. And I don't think we have anybody online, so I will call the first person.

[04:23:01] Tom Dayo. Good evening. I am Tom Dayo of the Rio District of Albemarle County. I'm here to ask the Board of Supervisors to go on record with the State Corporate Commission opposing the merger of NextEra and Dominion Energy, sending both a comment to the SEC as well as becoming a participant to give your viewpoint on how this merger would be damaging to the families of Albemarle County.

[04:23:31] I worked much of my career in affordable housing. I am here to tell you that the next year deal is a bad deal for families. Lower-income families are stretched thin to cover everyday costs. Small increases in basic costs like utilities can require making choices between food, medicine, and health.

[04:23:47] The next era merger will exacerbate this tradeoff for families. Based on news reports, next year's Florida power and light increased the residential electric bill by 45% from 2020 to 2026, a historic rate increase in 2025 of 23%, largely driven by a higher return of equity, several points higher than the industry standard, which resulted in one-third of the rate increase going to profits.

[04:24:12] That resulted in 27% profit in 2025 compared to a utility average of about 14%. Aside from the rate increases, FPL's Florida settlement included major discounts for data centers. When FPL filed its rate plan, it planned to create a new tariff and charge data centers much more, but FPL kept the existing tariff for data centers, which cut 50% off their base bills. So what about families? According to the reports, the rate increases in Florida can amount to $600 per year more in cost for consumers, or $50 a month. That is four hours of wages a month

[04:24:50] at the minimum wage to cover this increase. Next year is proposing a $10 a month bill credit. Clearly, that would be marginal for consumers with such an increase. Can it happen here? Sure. The data center explosion is what is fueling this interest, as next year it can make loads of profit on the growth here in Virginia, and given its history, place much burden on consumers over data centers and see results like that of Florida. What can that mean for families? Making choices on basic needs, or face a disconnect for not keeping up with the increase, and the latter

[04:25:24] is clearly a result in Florida. Based on reports, FPL shut off nearly 1.3 million homes in 2024, or 20 percent of its residential customers, as those customers could not afford to pay their bills. Next era is number two, disconnection rates in the country. So what does next era bring to the table but greed. The families that are going to be impacted have no capacity to deal with escalating costs, and next era has shown a propensity for significant increases to utility rates. They are here only to capture the profits from the data centers with higher rates falling to families.

[04:26:00] Please voice your opposition to this merger to help families that are making difficult choices and who face increasing costs from a utility with no local interest and driven to produce private sector profits and not public interests. Thank you. Thank you. Sage Bradburn. Thank you.

[04:26:17] Hi. Short person. Can you hear me? Yes. My name is Sage Bradburn, and I live in the Jack Jewett District, and I want to begin by thanking Supervisor Malik and Supervisor Missal for accepting our invitation to meet one-on-one.

[04:26:35] I hope that those of you who have not accepted yet will do so. In addition to the concerns that Tom raised, I want to point out that of all U.S. utility companies, NextEra ranks first in contributions to 527 organizations that allow unlimited political spending.

[04:26:52] They contribute 50% more than the next two utility companies, which include Dominion. They have, by channeling donations strategically to the lawmakers that appoint regulators to the utility commission, they've effectively bought the commission, which has not denied any of their rate-breaking increases since 2010.

[04:27:14] Because 16 years ago, when they did so, NextEra complained vociferously about the commission creating a negative business environment, and four of the five commissioners who rejected the rate increase lost their positions.

[04:27:32] You may not know this, but NextEra is a defendant in a federal securities lawsuit for violating campaign finance laws with allegations that include bribery, off-the-hooks record-keeping, surveilling journalists, and supporting ghost candidates with dark money to defeat legislators who opposed NextEra's preferred policies. One of those ghost candidates defeated the real candidate by 38 points, so we're talking real world impacts. NextEra has also spent millions of these profits that Tom referenced, engaged in deceptive dark money campaigns to block

[04:28:09] renewable energy legislation and projects. They ghost-wrote and spent millions on deceptive campaigns that often targeted seniors, trying to convince viewers that they would subsidize the cost of solar panels that other customers bought. That was a lie, but it gave Ron DeSantis cover to kill that bill. They spent another $8 million on a campaign to add fees and decrease energy payments to customers who had installed rooftop solar panels, and another $20 million on a secret campaign to prevent a transmission line that would have delivered carbon-free

[04:28:43] hydropower electricity from Quebec to New England, where NextEra has several nuclear plants. These efforts are decreasing customer choice, increasing residential energy costs, and keeping Florida locked in a fossil fuel economy that helps to drive the climate crisis and is expensive and volatile. We ask you in the strongest possible terms to oppose this merger, in the strongest possible terms directly to the SEC ideally by a letter signed by all board members if that is not feasible then we would love to see each of your names in the docket with your comments stating your opposition thank you for your time

[04:29:21] and Bruce I think it's Glasgow I can't I'm probably reading the last part of your name sorry hi I'm Bruce Glasgow I'm in the Rio district and I'm also here to speak on the Next Hill Dominion merger and when I studied civics in school I learned about the value of capitalism and competition but when I moved to Albemarle County and bought my home 18 years ago I wasn't able to shop around to decide where I wanted to buy my electricity from I only had one choice

[04:29:59] Dominion it's a monopoly and most utilities are they don't really have very much choice but as a monopoly and as a state-run monopoly it is last year and over the last 10 years it has been spending 20 million dollars a year on lobbying not for the benefit of better power production or better services to the people of Virginia but for the benefit of the Dominion stockholders as

[04:30:29] As Sage just said, NextEra is going to be even more focused on its stockholders, bigger, more powerful, more lobbying, and more removal of power from the people of Virginia.

[04:30:48] And so with the last two speakers, I would ask that you write to oppose this merger and seek better power and more power for the people of Albemarle and the people of Virginia, not for the stockholders of Dominion and NextEra.

[04:31:06] Thank you. And that concludes our list. All right. Thank you for those who gave public comment this evening. We will move to item number 18. This is our first of two public hearings. We have SP-2026-2, Camp Watermark Special Use Permit Amendment.

[04:31:27] And I see Mr. Newberry with us. Michael Barnes, good evening. Thank you, Mr. Chair. We'll get the presentation pulled up on the screen and I'll get started. My name is J.T. Newberry and I'm a senior planner with the Department of Community Development.

[04:31:48] I'll be providing staff's presentation on the Special Use Permit Amendment request for Camp Watermarks. filed under SP 2026 number two. As shown on this area map and included as attachment one to the staff report, this proposal is located at the southern boundary of the county along the James River. It's approximately four miles west of the town of Scottsville and located between the communities of Warren and Hatton. This amendment is seeking to expand an existing family-owned and operated boarding camp that was founded back in 2004. The proposal is comprised of seven separate

[04:32:27] parcels totaling just over 190 acres. These parcels are located in the Rural Area Zoning District and the Rural Area Section of the Comprehensive Plan. The majority of these parcels contribute to the Hatton Agricultural and Forestal District. The first special use permit was approved in 2006 and allowed camp for up to four weeks per year. This application is the third amendment to that original special use permit and the last amendment was approved in 2008 and its action letter sp conditions and the existing conceptual plan are included as attachment to to the staff

[04:33:05] report broadly the amendment is seeking to increase the number of camp sessions increase the maximum number of people allowed on site and reduce the overall acreage approved for camp purposes this is a side-by-side comparison of the existing approval to the proposal tonight where the image on the left is the approved area and the image on the right is the proposed area. The parcels outlined in red represent the area of camp use. I'm going to use my laser pointer here.

[04:33:37] Parcels 9G, 9F, and 9H1 are hatched in blue and those are proposed to be removed. And then parcel 9A1 down close to the river is hatched in bright yellow and proposed to be added. The overall result of this is a net reduction of about 12 acres. In the image on the right, the mustard color shows those parcels that are contributing to the Hatton Agricultural and Forestal District.

[04:34:06] And you'll notice there are only two parcels that are not a part of that district, parcels 9D and then parcel 9A1. Here's a table comparing the existing approval to the proposal. And there's some minor changes in the wording of how these characteristics were reviewed and evaluated and it reflects our ongoing effort to update and modernize the way we approach our review and recommended conditions for special use permits so for example under capacity the existing approval has separate conditions for the number of children and the

[04:34:42] number of staff but under the proposal we're looking at just the overall number of people regardless of their role at the camp and so the proposal is seeking to increase from approximately 100 people to a maximum of 250 people. The maximum number of sessions is proposed to increase from 16 week-long sessions to also include 35 weekend sessions. That would bring the total number to 51 which essentially would make the camp able to operate year-round. Transportation is another

[04:35:18] category where previously we looked at vehicle trips associated with both campers and food deliveries. The proposed conditions combines all of that into an overall limit of 15 round trips per session. And then finally, camp facilities and parking area. This is essentially like the campus area of the camp. We're going to look at it more closely in a minute. Currently, it's concentrated on two separate parcels 9D and 9D1 and it's just under four acres. Under the

[04:35:51] proposal it would be consolidated onto 9D1 and expanded to just over four acres. Here's a look at the applicant's updated concept plan. This is attachment four to the staff report. It's a very large area so I'm going to use some color to try to highlight the most important elements. The first thing we'll look at is that cabin facilities and parking area. This is the area where sleeping, sanitation, areas assembly are focused. In this image, the structures that were previously

[04:36:28] approved are shown in green, and the ones that are proposed to be added are shown in blue. Importantly, there's no new disturbance associated with the addition of the structures that are shown they are existing and located within an area of the site that's previously been disturbed so next i'll highlight riparian buffers and floodplain as you can see there are water resources that surround the site there are streams on the eastern property line as well as the western property line and then the james river is on the southern side the riparian buffers are shown in

[04:37:08] purple and the floodplain is shown in this hatched blue area. There's no disturbance proposed with these areas either. And then next I'd like to highlight an exhibit from attachment three to the staff report that shows the wooded areas to remain. This is intended to show those areas that are outside of riparian buffers and floodplain that are currently wooded and would remain wooded unless used for some agricultural purpose.

[04:37:37] So there's currently about 100 acres of agricultural use across the property for hay, corn, and tree farming. And the last thing I'll highlight on the concept plan are these activity areas. This is where camp activities occur, and they're identified as an essential element of the concept plan to protect that remaining area of the site for agricultural uses.

[04:38:03] And so it's an essential element under condition number one of the proposed SP conditions. The major takeaway is that the proposed expansion is focused within areas of the site that are already disturbed and thereby reserving the remainder of the site for agricultural purposes.

[04:38:22] Back in April, the Agricultural and Forestal District Committee found the proposal would not significantly reduce land available for ag and forestry uses and recommended it as consistent with Chapter 3 of County Code. And then shortly after that was the community meeting that was held on site, generally a very positive discussion.

[04:38:44] There was some focus on noise and hours of operation as well as impacts from activity on the James River nearby. All special use permits are evaluated for the four factors shown on the screen and pages five through nine of the staff report contain staff's analysis on each of these individual factors.

[04:39:05] We determined that with the recommended conditions, including the updated concept plan, a positive finding could be made for each of the factors required by ordinance. I'll briefly touch on each of the recommended conditions. Again, these were drafted to be consistent with our modern best practices, and some that are on the existing SP have been removed if they were determined to be unnecessary.

[04:39:32] For example, there's one that talks about compliance with building code. That's something that otherwise applies, so we don't include it in today's conditions. So we begin with, as typical, the general accord statement, which identifies those essential elements, including the entrance, the cabin facilities and parking area, and the activity areas.

[04:39:58] Condition number two covers tree clearing, and then number three caps the overall number of people at 250. Number four caps the number of camp sessions to 51 per calendar year.

[04:40:15] We have a condition limiting vehicle trips, 15 round trips per camp session. Outdoor amplified music is regulated in the same way that farm wineries, breweries, distilleries, and religious assembly uses in the RA are regulated.

[04:40:31] And although the proposal does not require a site plan, we are limiting lighting to the same standard as if a site plan did apply. So I'd like to acknowledge, before moving on to the summary slide, some of the other processes that the applicant has been engaged in, concurrent with this SP process, they all relate to various aspects of compliance.

[04:40:58] At the time of application, there were open violations to county code, and those are currently being handled primarily by code compliance and building staff. As noted in the staff report, the applicant has been responsive and active in addressing compliance issues, and they've applied for all the necessary permits that have been identified to date.

[04:41:20] Some of those permits cannot be closed out until action on the requested special use permit is taken. And so in a way, tonight is a step on that path to compliance. And then once compliance is established, there's the question of long-term compliance.

[04:41:37] And the fire marshal's office has notified the applicant that they'll be doing annual inspections. The health department issues two different permits annually, one for the camp, one for the dining facility. And they'll also be reviewing the septic system every five years.

[04:41:52] And so in addition to that, we also have our code compliance team that's prepared to investigate any concerns that are raised. And I just thought it was important to try to put tonight's application into the context of these broader overall applications, more than 20 that have been submitted to date and are either under review or have been approved.

[04:42:18] So in summary, staff has found that the existing three positive aspects, the existing ag and timber uses could continue alongside the expanded camp. The majority of the property would remain available for ag and forestry uses.

[04:42:35] Additional structures are located within already disturbed areas of the site. And then, as I just mentioned, the one concern is that the applicant is still working to resolve all of the outstanding code violations, but is making steady progress towards it.

[04:42:53] The Planning Commission voted 6-0 to recommend approval with the conditions that we just reviewed. And with that, I can take any questions that the board may have. All right. Thank you, JT. Questions? Supervisor Lepisto-Curtley?

[04:43:10] No questions. Thank you. Supervisor Pruitt? I have none. Thank you. Supervisor Duncan? I have no questions. Supervisor Malick? Sorry to break the pattern. Please explain how 250 people get there every day with only 15 buses.

[04:43:26] I mean, is it three trips per day times five days is the way that the 15 trips per session, or is it per day? No, the applicant may be able to speak to this as it happens regularly.

[04:43:43] But overall, charter buses are picking up attendees from their home location, let's say their home church, and then arriving on camp for drop-off. Okay. Overnight, they're staying at the camp.

[04:44:01] It's not a good day camp. So they might come on Monday morning and go home on Friday night. That's right. I get it. Okay. I was thinking it was a day camp. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Great. Supervisor Missile. Just a question on, so moving to 250 people, and I'll ask the applicant, too, if they understand.

[04:44:18] I know that we're grouping different factions together, right, staff and campers, et cetera. If and assuming that there is an increase in noise volumes, for example, after hours, I assume that the county ordinances kick in for noise control?

[04:44:35] Yes, yes. That's all. I think one other thing was in the conditions, I think it talks about bona fide agricultural purposes. So clearing can occur as long as it's in support of bona fide.

[04:44:54] Is that defined? Bona fide agricultural services? I'm sorry. purposes could you repeat the last part of your question sure i'm just uncertain as to how bonafide agricultural purposes is defined yes that's a part of um the definitions in the zoning ordinance so it isn't specifically defined as okay got it thank you yeah we only used legitimate i think earlier was that the word we used in the last conversation versus bonafide i'm bonafide uh i don't have any questions we will open the public hearing um we do have some folks signed up for

[04:45:33] this one this evening do we and we have an applicant presentation so how this will work is the applicant will come forward uh and then uh those who hear who have signed up will come after great thank you um so here are the rules sound familiar speakers are limited to one appearance of up to three minutes applicants are allowed 10 minutes for their presentation and five minutes for rebuttal at the close of the hearing.

[04:45:58] To ensure equal treatment and courtesy for all speakers, the board requests that the following guidelines be observed. Please state your name and if you live in Albemarle County or Magisterial District, comments should be directed to the board as a whole. Written comments or supporting materials may be provided to the clerk. Online participants may also submit comments through the e-comment portal or by email to the clerk.

[04:46:19] If representing a group or organization, you may ask others present to raise their hands in recognition. Speakers may not share unused time with another speaker back-and-forth debate is not permitted, and speakers should not speak from their seat or out of turn. The podium timer will guide you. Green indicates your time has begun, yellow means one minute remains, and red indicates your time has expired. All comments are recorded, live-streamed, and published on the county website. The sign-up period does not close once public comment begins.

[04:46:46] Speakers may sign up to speak during the duration of the public comment period. The podium is adjustable. Speakers are encouraged to raise it or lower it so they are able to speak directly into the microphone. The applicant, Mr. Kreitzer. Is that right? Indeed. Good evening.

[04:47:12] My name is Josh Kreitzer, and I'm with Watermarks Camp in Scottsville, Virginia. Acting up. You've never been getting feedback. Is that better? Sounds good. I was born here, raised in Scottsville on this property. I'm raising my children in Scottsville on this property, and I'd like to retire in Scottsville on this property. I've been on my family land my entire life and truly want to preserve it for generations to come after me. This land has been in my family for generations, and it is truly a special place. I feel called and compelled to spend my life

[04:47:48] preserving and honoring what I've been blessed to manage. We are and have been a working tree, hay, and corn production farm on the majority of our property while also running a summer camp. I'm the second generation to work at Watermarks. My parents started camp to be able to share this wonderful land and nature with young people who can come to get away from the busyness and chaos that they experience. They can quiet their mind, experience Jesus, friends, and community, and leave a changed person with new friends, new memories, and new confidence. We believe by sharing what we have with others through the summer camp experience, we are building the next generation of leaders

[04:48:25] who can continue to make an impact in our communities, our cities, our state, and nation. We're a small part of turning around fear, anxiety, depression, and loneliness in young people. We show them what living a rural life looks like and giving them an experience of fun, hope, joy, community, and peace that they can bring home and hold on to years to come.

[04:48:46] My goal is stepping into leadership of Watermarks and running the properties to get things right. I am now the president and director of Watermarks, and my parents have stepped down into lower roles. We've been diligent in getting everything required, getting compliant and up-to-date to be able to continue to offer a safe place for young people to come to.

[04:49:03] A little bit about what Watermarks is. We are a Christian summer camp that hosts church youth groups, middle school and high school students, for a multi-day overnight experience that includes food, lodging, activities and worship times like a church service.

[04:49:21] Our staff cook the food, run the activities, lifeguard and hang out with students and keep areas clean. Their church provides chaperones to stay in the cabins with the students, teach their students, help supervise and pour into the students throughout their time at camp. The students are brought in from their church on a charter bus and dropped off.

[04:49:40] They stay on site the entire time during their session and are picked up by a charter bus on the last day of their session. We get our food delivered via delivery truck per session and truly try to limit our amount of traffic and noise to be able to enjoy the land and rural area as much as possible. Our activities that we provide include team building activities that focus on conquering fears, communication, and working together, fun activities in our lake to cool off during the hot days, competitive games that encourage teamwork, fun, and activities to bond students together.

[04:50:10] We've been able to experience many lives change through the summer camp experience, but it is a growing trend we've noticed for school systems to start to shorten summer breaks, which puts watermarks in summer camps in general at risk of not being able to operate long-term if this trend continues to evolve and summers get shorter or schools go year-round and we're unable to pivot into year-round operations.

[04:50:33] what we're looking to update. We're looking to be able to operate year-round. Our summer camps would go over our normal camp sessions that we currently have, and retreats would extend into year-round on weekends from Friday night through Sunday mornings with the same offerings other than water activities for the rest of the year. We would go through Monday on Martin Luther King Jr. weekend and President's Day weekend. We're looking to increase our capacity to 250 total on site year-round and over the summer. This number came from our septic system that was designed and installed a few years back and what is rated to handle. So we wanted the option to continue to

[04:51:11] grow towards that number. We're just going for the max number that we can without having to update our septic. That 250 includes every one total on site. We've had her well tested and it will be able to handle that demand with a lot of margin. We're looking to use existing farm buildings on site to be used as cabins, meeting spaces, and bathrooms to accommodate the additional growth with your permission and after going through building and zoning inspections and permits. These buildings would be, as on the concept plan, worship center, boathouse, bathhouse one and two, leader cabins one through three, cabins 19 and 20. We're asking for you all's permission to use these buildings as

[04:51:49] in our concept plan. We've submitted all the necessary permits and will continue to get those completed and compliant. Again, there are no new buildings being constructed. We are just using existing buildings on site for camp now instead of farming. We're not looking to add any additional buildings to disrupt any nature, to make new roads or paths, or to grow any above this plan.

[04:52:10] We just want to be able to hold on to the family land for generations to come and make a difference while doing it. With inflation and hardships during COVID, farming in camp has been incredibly difficult to thrive even just survive and this would provide us the opportunity to hold on to the land that we love for generations to come while maintaining the existing rule setting that we have on property thank you for your time and consideration and letting us continue to operate and be able to hold on to our family land and make a difference at the same time thank you thank you we're going to do a round of cbf questions specifically for you uh supervisor

[04:52:44] i'm glad you answered the question about the number of units that applies to sewer and septic so i appreciated that but no good presentation thank you uh supervisor pruitt am i remembering correctly that the beginning of this application your your father was still running the company or am i misremembering oh yeah they're still here tonight um they're uh grass cutters uh they're really good at it too so yeah we we have pivoted since then and i spoke to this president yeah Congratulations.

[04:53:15] Thank you. That's my only question. Supervisor Malek. No questions. Great job. Thank you. Supervisor Missal. Thanks. Yeah, a great presentation. Just a couple questions based on some feedback that I'd heard through email. Going from 95, let's say, up to 250, how are you?

[04:53:34] I know you talked about activity areas. You talked about gathering spaces in the presentation. How are you going to handle noise control? Sure. A lot of the noise happens during the worship time, which is inside.

[04:53:50] So that's where you would hear any sort of music behind closed doors and stuff. Outside noise, we're not going to go to 250 instantly. It's going to be a slow growth. I don't know if we'll ever get there. As much as I love seeing you guys, I just don't want to go through this process again.

[04:54:07] So getting to 250 was just for the septic and just shooting for the max that we could, just so we wouldn't have to start this process again but what we do and how we operate we have multiple meeting spaces and assembly spaces so we have multiple church groups all at one time so it's not all 250 all going to one place they are all doing different things at scheduled times and rotating around so it wouldn't be a massive amount of people all at one spot it would be 50 people at certain places and I imagine that you would have to grow staff as you grew campers so the ratio would continue to probably track and you're not talking about 250

[04:54:45] campers you're talking about yeah so every cabin is going to have a chaperone from their church so you're talking for the 250 total you would have at least 50 chaperones got it so you'd have 200 kids plus we'd have at least 15 to 20 of our staff as well so our number of staff maybe would go from 10 to 20 but the number of chaperones that come would increase significantly with the ratio of kids. That's helpful. Great. Thank you. A lot more adult eyes. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's great.

[04:55:12] Thanks. No other questions. Great. What has been your max so far? What has been, we've been doing 75. So that's where you've been. Indeed. All right. Very good. Thank you. Hey, thank you. We're ready for our public speakers. Yes, sir. Start with Paul Bryant. Paul Bryant. I live in the Scottsville district at 1151 James River Road. That puts me right beside the camp. I've lived on that property all my life. I've known Travis, Josh, and Angie, all their lives. Good people, great people, and

[04:55:51] the right ones to be running this camp. As far as the traffic, we've had buses on the road for years from James River Runners, a lot of farm machinery, so the buses shouldn't be an issue. And as far as noise, I can stand in my yard and see part of the camp. I hear kids playing. That's a good thing.

[04:56:12] but if i'm in my home i don't hear anything and uh i think this is a great thing for the kids to get them out in nature to get them outside away from cell phones um video games and computers and uh for the camp itself it's a lot of forest big hay field i don't want to see this changed i don't want to see something developed there and all other than the camp and i think it's a good thing and i'd like for y'all to to approve this request they'll make thank you thank you thank

[04:56:50] you connie knight my name is connie knight i live on haddon ferry which is about a mile from where travis and then we're at it's um the area that we're at is more generational so i've been there all my life family before me we've known the task gods and the prizes all of our life um as far as like noise control the only thing i hear when i come in at night is laughter i mean i don't consider

[04:57:25] that to be something of a problem. I'd rather hear the laughter than to hear people fighting or cussing or carrying on. So when I hear the laughter, it's really a joy. Some of these kids that come here, that might be the only church or Bible that they see. I think that would be great for them because you don't know what the home life is. And this is like a great opportunity for them to have that place where they can go and grow and find help that they may need from other kids their age or other adults that can guide them and lead them so i am in total support of the growth

[04:58:04] and i hope that you guys will approve it thank you sarah eck jesse gibson's on deck i am sarah eck i'm in the scottsville district and i am also the adjacent neighbor to watermarks camp and wholeheartedly endorse what they are doing and for their special use amendment it's a great service, a beautiful place. I encourage you to go if you haven't been. And I've had no

[04:58:36] problems at all for me, my farm, my horses. We're great with it. So I encourage you to pass their amendment. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Jesse Gibson and Tommy Tapscott's on day. Good evening.

[04:58:55] Evening. I'm Jesse Gibson. I've lived across the street from the camp for 30 years before camp was there. My wife and I own a little farm beside them and also on the property adjacent to them in the floodplain on the river bottom. We support the camp. Travis and Josh have always been transparent and let us know what's going on in there. The noise is pretty much like everybody said. When you hear some noise, you hear a bunch of kids having a good time. I've never heard it

[04:59:29] any later than 10 o'clock. We've got no issue with it. The farm that we have at one point was all part of the big farm that they have. And I honestly commend them in a time where Albemarle County is losing more and more rural land to find a way to keep it rural. And we really appreciate the fact that they're doing that. So my family supports it wholeheartedly. Thank you. Thank you.

[04:59:57] thank you. Tommy Tapscott and Mitch Carr is on deck. My name is Tommy Tapscott. I live in the Scottsville district. My property borders the camp. In fact, one of the maps that showed the activity areas that you could almost see my house from there. I'm just a few hundred feet away.

[05:00:17] I've lived there my whole life. I've known Travis and Josh and their family my whole life, and I strongly support and encourage you to approve this change. Just like you've heard from everybody else i mean we do hear children playing sometimes we hear traffic on the street we hear people on the river uh we've never had any issues or problems and over the years that the camp has been active when we've had questions or concern they have been very open very accommodating and um and i think you would hear that from anybody in the area in the neighborhood and um

[05:00:51] we just uh i just want to you know encourage you to allow this to keep going i think it's a good thing for the kids. You know, kids need a good, wholesome environment to come into. And so that's what I got to say. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. And last name, I believe, is Mitch Carr. Good evening. I'm Mitch Carr. I own the farm west upstream of Watermark's 240 acres there. And I

[05:01:28] think they've made their case about it's great for everything so far with that. But there's two issues I want to bring perspective to. The first one is the noise. We live along the railroad tracks. and there's five railroad crossings between warren and hatton at eight trains minimum sometimes 15 trains a day each one of those is five train horns so it's 40 train horns minimum every day the trains rumble they're so loud when they were when they're going by which you know lasts about eight to 12 minutes sometimes you couldn't hear the camp if you wanted to so there's the noise there if i'm standing on my deck and i want to listen for the camp at their height when people

[05:02:05] are cheering because somebody hit a home run or whatever they did, or I hear people down on the river, the river drowns them out all summer long. So I really don't think the noise is an issue. It certainly is less. I probably make more noise with the cattle grates and the trailers and everything else. So there's that. The second one I want to talk about is the riparian buffer, which wasn't even heard about 20 years ago when Travis and I got 30 dump truck loads of boulders from up at hollymead when they were building target and we reinforced the riverbank in the floodplain and uh i have four ponds he has two we have all his creeks that go in there we go into

[05:02:44] the old cannawalk canal where it goes back into the river when the river flooded last summer came over the banks for the first time in 20 years to this height we gained sediment we didn't lose anything so between him and me and him and i and the the tap scott family and everybody we all work together the floodplain between warren and hatton needs nothing the james river association came out they said you you've done it you just you have we don't have any more advice for you you're just fine and they were a big part of that and i don't want to lose that uh i like that neighbor and i want to give them and i think josh really summed up when he said right now i'm sorry

[05:03:22] they can survive or we can make them thrive i'd like to see them thrive thank you very much thank you that concludes our list all right thank you for those who came out to speak do we have more questions for the applicant all right we will then close the public hearing and the matter is back before the board for additional questions or comments supervisor lefisto currently the only comment i have and i'm fully supportive but the only comment i have is the neighbors showing up and knowing that if there's ever a problem at the camp,

[05:04:02] which hopefully there never will be, but if there ever is a problem at the camp, that you are surrounded by wonderful people, wonderful neighbors, who I have no doubt whatsoever will be there in two seconds to help the kids, to help you all. So I think it's wonderful.

[05:04:19] It almost brings me to tears, frankly. So thank you. Supervisor Pruitt? Yeah, just a few real quick things. First off, there's a beautiful part of the district. If y'all haven't been down there, y'all haven't had the opportunity to see this property, I was trying to convince my dad to buy that place that was going for sale on Hatton Ferry because he's trying to move here.

[05:04:38] There's a nice little place, and I didn't convince him in time. He didn't make an offer in time. Damn. Second thing, y'all probably had this in the badge 6-0 before all your friends and neighbors came, So I hope everyone in the audience is going to ask Travis to buy him a pizza at the end, because that's a trek for y'all.

[05:04:59] And third, I just want to state this is so emblematic of the exact kind of, it is hitting every vector of, I think, the kind of activity and use that we aspire to having in the rural area.

[05:05:14] You have generational ownership and preservation of housing. You have agricultural use. You have other economic activity, and you have a place for belonging and for, I mean, frankly, a place for child care in a very practical sense.

[05:05:34] That's not what you're providing, but it's a practical need that we know we have in this county. And that's before we even get to the really important spiritual development that I talked about. So I think this is a really extraordinary thing you'll have built there out in the southern end of the county.

[05:05:50] and I am really happy to have the small part in saying yes, continue to thrive. Very good. Supervisor Malek? Thank you all very much, and thank you for coming and for your support of the operation and also of each other because in a very small way I did farm tours for elementary children for years and years and years, and it's great fun, and the cows pooping was the highlight of their day, as was riding in the back seat, back of the pickup truck, which they would never get to do anywhere on a road.

[05:06:22] But the experience that people have when they get a chance to live in an area like that, even for a week, is life-changing. So thank you very much for providing that. Supervisor Missal? Thank you. I don't want to restate everything my eloquent colleagues just said because I agree with everything they said.

[05:06:38] I would love to come tour this place, too. I'd be really interested to see it. So I'm fully supportive. Thank you all. Yeah, likewise, and happy to support. Do we have a motion to do so? Yes, I would like to move to adopt the resolution attached to the staff report as attachment D.

[05:06:54] Second. All right, the motion has been made and seconded. Without objection, if the clerk will please call the roll. Ms. Malik? Yes. Mr. Missal? Yes. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Mr. Galloway? Yes. Mr. Huston-Kirtley? Aye. All right, motion carries. Congratulations, and good luck with it.

[05:07:14] All right, board, we will move to... Thank you, Michael and JT. Thank you. We will move to item number 19, Shanks Branch Sewer Line Project Easement Provisions Agreement. Good evening, Mr. Chair and members of the board.

[05:07:36] Ann Wall, Deputy County Executive. I'm here to ask the board tonight to receive public comment on the proposed conveyance of utility easements to the City of Charlottesville and the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority and to consider approval of the agreement. Just a little background about the Shanks Branch Sewer Line Replacement.

[05:07:58] This project would replace about a 1950-ish 21-inch clay and concrete pipe. It would provide for current capacity needs and would also allow for future capacity needs in this area.

[05:08:14] There are two sections of this project, one which would go from the entrance to the McIntyre Recycling Center to the second entrance in the county office building in lower parking lot, Then the next would go from that entrance up to connect with the city sewer line about the location at the corner.

[05:08:37] This project is estimated to cost between $10 and $15 million, and it will be co-managed by the city of Charlottesville as well as RWSA. This is generally the layout for both the temporary construction easement as well as the permanent easement.

[05:08:57] The section in red is the section that will be essentially the responsibility of RWSA. The section in that neon green will be the section that is the future city, the city responsibility. I'd like to share with the board some terms of the agreement.

[05:09:19] The county will be compensated for both the temporary construction easement and the permanent easement for the utilities, as well as for a shared-use path in the amount shown, $1,134,744.48.

[05:09:36] The agreement also provides that the city and the county will look at joint exploration for the future relocation of the box culvert to ensure and improve site viability of this county office building.

[05:09:55] This project will also ensure that the city and RWSA will fully mitigate all the impacts of constructions of this project. And just a word about that.

[05:10:12] The city and RWSA will be responsible to implement all measures to avoid impact in the biofilter, in our stormwater biofilter. They will make sure that it is restored to pre-construction condition based on our approval.

[05:10:29] They will ensure that we maintain access to the county property, maintaining at least two of the existing vehicular accesses on McIntyre Road, and that they will ensure that there's temporary access along McIntyre, and they'll put the appropriate wayfinding signs up to support the county.

[05:10:50] Additionally, the city will waive and release, there was a provision in the 1978 deed that required the county to dedicate a 50-foot strip of land across McIntyre to VDOT. That requirement will be waived. Finally, the agreements provide that the city will restore the commercial zoning to the site or the county will be compensated for the resulting loss in the property value.

[05:11:19] The agreement will provide, will offer the city a right of first refusal of this property if the county ever elects to sell the property. And finally, as part of this project, the city will construct a shared use path which will connect the existing greenway all the way up to the corner.

[05:11:40] Our staff has reviewed the location of these easements, and we have no objections. With that, we would ask the board to open the public hearing, and I'm happy to answer any questions. All right. Questions first. Supervisor Lofisto currently? No questions. Supervisor Pruitt?

[05:11:56] I have nothing. Thank you. Supervisor Malek? Would it be possible for the county staff at FES to mark the drip edge of the tree on the ground so that it's very clear to anybody digging that that's the limit of their exposure?

[05:12:12] We can certainly do that and work with the arborists to do that. Thank you. All right. Supervisor Missal. Thanks. Only question I have and just curious, the zoning value differential piece. It's calculated at the 10-year anniversary? The city would have 10 years to restore the commercial zoning. If at the end of that 10-year period, the commercial zoning has not been returned, we would employ an appraiser who would determine the value between the commercially zoned piece of property and that is not. So that's, I guess, by default, fixing that value differential at that timeline?

[05:12:50] At 10 years. So 20 years from now, it might have been a bigger differential, but the choice is to fix it at that time. At 10 years, yes, sir. That's all. Thank you. All right. I don't have any questions. Thank you.

[05:13:05] So we will open the public hearing. Do we have anyone? No one has signed up for the public hearing. So we will now close the public hearing, and the matter is back before the board for any final questions or comments. Supervisor Lepisto Kirtley? No, but will we be adhering to our new penny policy by that 48 cents?

[05:13:26] Could that be up to 50 cents according to our new policy? Just wondering. Okay. I was waiting for something related to that item. Supervisor Pruitt. Supervisor Malik. No questions.

[05:13:42] Thank you. And I'm glad. Thank you to staff for bringing this to a close. Supervisor Missal. No comments. Thank you. Yeah, I just would echo that, that I know that it's been a long time coming to get this to fruition. Mr. Richardson, do you want to make any remarks or any comments?

[05:13:59] You don't have to. It's perfectly... I appreciate Ms. Wall's very concise presentation on this. When I came in 2017, this work needed to be done.

[05:14:16] There's some history, and it was mired down into some other discussions that were going on, And so we pulled this apart and set it aside. And then there was some staff turnover at the city. We had COVID.

[05:14:32] And then after that, we, I think, got on a stable track and started working and recognized there's a way to do this. And everybody, I think, come out in a good spot. And I'm proud of the work our staff did to take a look at it and make sure do we have what we need because we may not be on this site forever.

[05:14:54] There's no plans to leave, but we may not be here forever, and we tried to look at it from the county's perspective as well as the city's perspective. It's a gorgeous 14-acre track that's in a key entrance corridor, and if I were the city in 10 to 15 years, I'd be very interested in understanding if we were to leave, what might that leave as opportunities for highest and best use. So I think we tried to look ahead. Again, the staff did a really good job, and the city staff, I thought, did a really good job, and I appreciate the two boards' questions and being so open to putting together, I think, a very collaborative agreement.

[05:15:32] So thank you. Well, thank you, and thank you, Ann, and to all your staff and Mr. Herrick and your staff. So wonderful work on that. Do we have a supervisor that would like to make the motion? Yes. I recommend that the board adopt the resolution attached to the staff report as attachment B.

[05:15:50] Second. All right. The motion has been made and seconded. Any further discussion? All right, if the clerk will please call the roll. Ms. Malik? Yes. Mr. Missel? Yes. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Mr. Galloway? Yes. Ms. Lepisto-Kirtley? Aye. All right, very good. The motion carries.

[05:16:07] So that will move us to item number 20 from the board, committee reports of matters not listed on the agenda. Supervisor Lepisto-Kirtley, any reports this evening? Yes, just the attendance that seized the day at the Walnut Creek Park.

[05:16:23] This all took place in September. honoring our veterans who were there which I thought was a great event I even got to fly a drone they wouldn't let me buy one though then there was another event at NJIG there was a ribbon cutting and I believe a supervisor Malik was there also and that was for a new building at NJIG top security super secret we got a tour of it of course it was empty but it's going to be

[05:16:57] great um really nice so that adds to ribana station then there was the sin barreros um with food drink well food and and dancing uh supervisor uh pruitt and duncan both attended along with uh county executive jeff richardson and that was at the ting pavilion and it was celebrating latino culture and heritage so really enjoyed that that's all supervisor pruitt um i

[05:17:35] think two things that uh i would just raise for this board um it well a few things sorry i was uh pleased to attend a celebration for uh a kind of announcement party for the extension of the old mills trail this was put on by some mobility advocates including our friends over at pec and walking the first section of the planned new extension that is going to be developed as part of that grant that we just received. Really exciting. The work that's going to do to really energizing the whole Rivanna River Basin area and connecting that into Freebridge. It's really

[05:18:14] extraordinary work. You and I, Chair, attended the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission one week ago. And I think the thing that stood out to me from our roundtable conversation there is this is the second or third time that this has come up, but it's the first time I feel like I've heard really tangible strategies that Louisa is exploring as they are trying to decelerate their growth trends. And a thing that they're exploring are several different strategies related to the transfer of development rights, which is interesting. This board has also entertained

[05:18:51] conversation around the transfer of development rights, but not explicitly in the context of deceleration of growth, rather ways to strategically funnel growth and the way that we think about growth patterns in the rural area. It is interesting to hear how they were exploring that and confronted quite a lot of legal issues that they were concerned about that. And I will be interested to continue learning from them as they explore that issue more um and finally uh a somewhat uh i think timely and important development that's shared with some of our

[05:19:28] senior leadership already um i joined remotely the last the tail end of a scottsville town council meeting uh last monday um which concluded with the announcement of the resignation of the town manager. The town manager has not been there for very long. And the previous town manager is Javier, who currently works at Simbareros, who had also not been there very long. And I think he felt a calling to his work at Simbareros in this moment that we're at. This is, I think,

[05:20:05] relevant because I would say there is a degree of instability just in their staff because their town manager is most of their full-time staff other than public safety and police and it will be i see there being an opportunity for us to forge a closer relationship and provide some support during an important transitional time it is also i think important that this board be familiar with that situation and i'm happy to talk about a little bit more of what went into that as we prepare for our upcoming joint meeting with the town of Scottsville.

[05:20:43] And that is all I have. Very good. Thank you. Supervisor, where am I going? Malik. Oh, okay. Let's see. The second meeting of the Commonwealth of Virginia Commission on Civic Education, Monday. This is an interesting group of legislators and others.

[05:21:02] And Dave Morrison came up with the idea a number of years ago to have a required course in civic education that they've been working on very diligently and are very proud of themselves that starting this spring, for second, third, and fourth years in the college level, there'll be this course available, being taught out of George Mason.

[05:21:21] My immediate comment for the two meetings I've been at was when do we get to bring this to middle school and high school, which is where I think it's even more important than the college kids who can choose for themselves. So that's coming. But I think that there'll be more to see about this. There's a conference for teachers on the 10th of November in Richmond, and they're focusing on all the different levels of the judiciary system. So I think there'll be a lot of good learning there, and I don't know if there'll be a recording that I can get for people or not. So anyway, that was cool. The Natural Heritage Committee had a wonderful presentation

[05:21:56] by Susanna, whatever her name is, from meeting the Virginia Grassland Birds Program and all about the changes in management for buffers, for example, that NRCS, the Natural Resource Conservation Service of the federal government, has made to encourage nesting. And you don't mow as early as you used to. We were told September through December, and now they're saying January through March, or to March, is when buffers should be mowed in order to encourage the success of the ground nesting birds, which is very cool. The River Mason Commission, let me go to that agenda

[05:22:32] to hear, was on the 30th of September. It was a fantastic day. Crystal McKelvey talked about the Virginia Outdoors Plan and all the different ways which local people can apply for grants to carry out any number of different outdoor recreational experience support. I was very inspired and took lots of notes about that. Then J.D. Brown and Mana Alkafif talked about the biophilic region framework which was also pretty fascinating and i think there's a lot to be gained and in helping

[05:23:09] us to get support for carrying out what we've already adopted in our comprehensive plan by bringing this mou forward to talk about at the board and i think it's coming soon uh gabe and sonia silver talked about enterprise and the rubana river and their stewardship of the river and what they've brought to bringing people to it to learn about it to appreciate it etc and then penelope gorman talked about community stewardship and a whole project in richmond on a particular island in the middle of the river so it just was very we had a really good group of almost 100 people i think were there and so i enjoyed it a lot and hopefully more of you will be able to come

[05:23:48] next year and i guess that's probably all i have swag is tomorrow so i'll get more thank you very good supervisor missal great thanks just one thing i had the opportunity to join the centera leadership breakfast last week, and it included a representative from Senator Deed's office and also delegates Lauffer and Coulson were there. It was really kind of a great reminder of the strength of the health care that we have in this area. Santerra has been here, I'm sorry, Martha Jefferson's been here for 123 years. Santerra is obviously now ownership, and they

[05:24:26] have 12 facilities 11 of them are in virginia they emphasized a couple things one was their commitment to local service a small hospital personal with top tier care and one of the most significant things they shared is that they're working through the impacts of the medicaid cuts and that's all thank you all right i do not have any updates for the record i was absent from the commission meeting last thursday i was unable to be there oh yeah that's right i'm sorry but i should have taken the pass. I got credit for my absence. But I do not have any, I did not attend any other committees since the last

[05:25:05] time we've met. So that will, we do have to go into our closed meeting for just the single item. So very good. Got it. Okay. I move that the Board of Supervisors convene a closed meeting pursuant to Section 2.2-3711A of the Code of Virginia.

[05:25:24] Under Subsection 1, to discuss and consider appointments to various boards and commissions including without limitation the jefferson area board for aging java the natural heritage committee and the places 29 hydraulic community advisory committee second all right if the clerk will please call the roll miss mallet yes mr mr missel yes mr pruitt yes mr galloway

[05:25:48] yes miss lapisto kirtley aye all right board we'll go meet in room 240 presents from the chapel Okay. All right. We are live, so please with the motion to certify the closed meeting.

[05:26:16] I move that the Board of Supervisors reconvene in an open meeting and certify by a recorded vote that to the best of each supervisor's knowledge, only public business matters, lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirements of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, and identified in the motion authorized in the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered in the closed meeting.

[05:26:37] Second. All right. Without objection, if the clerk will please call the roll. Ms. Malik yes Mr. Missal yes Mr. Pruitt I'm sorry yes Mr. Galloway yes Ms. Lapista Kirtley aye very good and motions coming out of closed meeting yes chair I'd like to move that we appoint the following to various boards and commissions to the Jefferson Area Board for Aging also known as Java Jen Downs to the Natural Heritage Committee Caleb Notari and to the Places 29 Hydraulic community advisory committee emily berger second all right the motion has been made and seconded

[05:27:15] without objection if the clerk will please call the roll ms malik yes mr missel yes mr pruitt yes mr galloway yes mr pisto-kirtley aye all right motion carries and thank you for those for stepping up to serve and without objection the board of supervisors will adjourn to october 21st 2026, 1 p.m. here in Lane Auditorium.

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