Coraggio Consulting
Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors Meeting - August 27, 2025, Wednesday, August 27, 2025

Date: Wednesday, August 27, 2025
Place: Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 6h 2m (video)
Official meeting video (CivicClerk): https://chesterfieldcova.portal.civicclerk.com/event/1234/media
Official agenda (CivicClerk): https://chesterfieldcova.api.civicclerk.com/v1/Meetings/GetMeetingFileStream(fileId=3631,plainText=false)
Official minutes (CivicClerk): https://chesterfieldcova.api.civicclerk.com/v1/Meetings/GetMeetingFileStream(fileId=3658,plainText=false)

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 2026-10-24. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:02:04] Good afternoon and welcome to the afternoon session of the August 27th Board of Supervisors meeting. I've received a request from Mr. Holland to participate in the meeting remotely from his home due to a medical condition. I'm going to grant this request and please connect Mr. Holland to the meeting, which I believe he is there.

[00:02:22] Mr. Holland, can you hear us? Yes, I can. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Great. Madam Clerk. Mr. Chair, the first item on the agenda is approval of minutes for the July 23rd Board of Supervisors meeting. and congresswoman mcclellan's july 30th town hall can i get a motion so moved all in favor all right item two request to postpone agenda items and additions deletions or changes in the order of presentation staff has no requests item three everyday excellence dr casey good evening

[00:02:59] members of the board and the public that's here in the public that is watching if jesse smith is here if he could come to the front um what we're going to be doing well today is the work session of ZOMOD, and as you know, the Planning Commission passed ZOMOD, and the public hearing is rightfully so in September 17th. We thought because of today's presentation, it'd be good to recognize some of the hidden talent that's been behind really the communication efforts of ZOMOD itself and the tools in which the citizens and communities have been engaged in it and have learned for themselves not only what is via the website, tools that are for the public to see, but actually at the individual level and the mapping system so that even

[00:03:37] myself, I actually understand the zoning case for my neighborhood better now because of what the planning staff before you has done. So, Mr. Smith. Thanks, Dr. Casey. I think the county administrator can understand that that's certainly part of the goal. So behind me, we have Karel Sundar, Brett Meadows, Catherine Herlig, Daniel Longus, Cherie Wyatt, and Jessica Baker. See, these are some of the planners that you guys rarely ever see. Usually it's a guy named Andy or a guy named Steve. So we have a different group that we wanted to bring before you and it's the team behind what we're calling the Zomod conversion mapping tool. So if you've been to some of the community meetings

[00:04:14] this is the tool that we've used to really show residents to be transparent about here's what your property's limitations are now and here's what they potentially will be should Zomod be passed. It's been a really excellent tool. I actually had somebody shoot me a text message this past weekend with a screenshot going hey you know how did you guys do this and the answer is the six folks behind me this was something that we had seen done in other localities to a much smaller degree so localities had 20 or 30,000 people have done this but not 400,000 people

[00:04:48] so we looked to see could we do it and how could we do it there were other solutions available but they would have been upwards of $40,000 in initial labor and then $20,000 annually in maintenance. We're able to do that just with internal staff within a, you know, a few month time frame. So a huge cost savings and also, you know, really just a big effort to improve the transparency and communication with some of the residents on, you know, a topic that you're going to talk about today that honestly is not the easiest to understand. So this has been a huge tool,

[00:05:26] in helping folks do that, and it's played a real key role in all the community meetings that we've had. So, you know, it's with great appreciation that I would ask that you just recognize the six folks here today, so thank you.

[00:05:42] - Any comment? - All right. - Everybody was waiting for E.F. Hutton to speak, apparently. And only the old people understand that reference.

[00:06:00] Thank you very much for the hard work that you put towards this. Just in looking at what we have to read in the book, I could only imagine what you had to do in the IT section to make all this work. You know, part of the challenge with the community is for them to have an opportunity to go online from their house and be able to actually look at this data.

[00:06:22] You know, years ago, before we had all these data farms and things, you actually had to come down to the courthouse and look it up manually if you wanted to find something out. And now people on their phones, literally sitting anywhere in the world, can click on GIS and pull up information or go to anywhere in our county website where this information is and pull it up.

[00:06:43] And that's just an amazing feature. And so I hope we didn't work you too hard considering that we were going to pay someone else $40,000 to do it. So we didn't try to do it on the cheap. We just knew you would do it better.

[00:06:59] So thank you. I know when I went out to GIS for the first time, newly elected, I went, oh, my God. Just the level that you guys have worked with that to the level of detail, it is so impressive what you all are able to do.

[00:07:17] I suspect you guys went through every single parcel throughout the entire county and did this. Multiple times. And just, what's that? Multiple times. Multiple times, yeah. Just to check and make sure all I's and T's are crossed. I mean, it is all I's are dotted. You guys did a great job.

[00:07:33] Thank you. Thank you again for all your hard work. Thank you for saving the taxpayers' money on doing that. And the product was really good, So thank you. You can stay or go back to work.

[00:07:56] Item four, work sessions, a zoning ordinance modernization project. Mr. Gillies. Mr. Chair, just as well, they're setting up, but just a reminder, we really have deliberately set this agenda item here for you and just have a nice slow work session for you to go through.

[00:08:30] I defer to you how you want to ask questions throughout. But, again, the intention is two parts, for the public, of course, but then also for where the Planning Commission left off and for what may be ideas and topics that are still possibly resonating for which additional guidance can only help perfect the product that's brought before the people and yourselves September 17.

[00:08:51] And, Mr. Holland, you're free to jump in at any time and ask a question you don't need to ask if you can speak. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it. I just want to thank them for all the hard work they've done. They've done a tremendous job, and I appreciate the work they've done with Zomar This is a significant undertaking. I can remember years ago when we did such an undertaking, and it was a lot more expensive, but this group, I think, has done a tremendous job, so congratulations. Thanks for the opportunity to speak.

[00:09:25] Well, thanks, Mr. Chair and members of the board and Dr. Casey for giving us an opportunity to kind of bring you all up to speed with the latest version of ZOMOD before you hold your formal public hearing on September 17th.

[00:09:44] Two weeks ago, we provided all of you with a digital copy of the latest version of ZOMOD. I know it's been kind of confusing keeping up with the different drafts that have been out, but that's kind of the process we have to go through to kind of keep everything up to date. And you also received, just in case you were more old school like I am, you wanted maybe a hard copy that you could kind of get your hands on and turn pages and flip back and forth on. So you all have those. I see some of you all have them today at the table there. So hopefully they've been helpful to have those hard copies too. On July 15th, we did have a public hearing

[00:10:23] before the Planning Commission, and we got a unanimous recommendation for approval of ZOMOD. They did make a few on-the-floor revisions. We'll go over those today just to let you all know what those last-minute items were that they did on the floor, but there weren't very many of them at that time. Today's presentation, we're basically going to give you a basic summary of ZOMOD. It's a long document. We're not going to bore you with, you know, page by page description of it by no

[00:10:59] means. But we do want to kind of give you an idea of the journey we've gone through to put this together over the last, you know, five or six years. And then with that overview of each general chapter, then we're also going to give you, inform you of the additional revisions that are being, that were recommended by the Planning Commission on July 15th. Then we'll go over some of the, some of the outstanding issues and comments that we've heard since July 15th and some of our discussions with you all and other groups as to what might need be able to be cleaned up before the final public hearing on September 17th.

[00:11:37] As always, feel free to ask questions at any time. I think this may be a long presentation, so while you still have it in your head and wanna ask a question, that's fine. And we'll try to, we have staff here today help look up specific references. If you'd like us to kind of pull that up on the screen, I think we can do that today too. So we can have a good working session here on ZOMOD. So you don't have to listen to me the whole time. I've got the main ZOMOD team up here today. We've got our fearless

[00:12:11] leader, Rachel Chieppa, who has been our leader throughout the whole ZOMOD process over the last five, six years. Her patience has been amazing and her ability to keep us all on track has been great. So she's here to give some of the presentations. Steve Hosh is one of the assistant directors and has been very involved in the day-to-day and development of ZOMOD.

[00:12:40] And also Thomas Jenkins, who is our zoning administrator and has done a yeoman's job of also editing and developing different sections of ZOMOD. So we're all going to kind of do a tag team effort to try to spread the wealth or pain and share all this with you today.

[00:13:02] With that, I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to Rachel and we'll get started with the presentation. Thanks, Andy. Before we dive into ZOMOD, I thought it would be really good for us to step back a little bit and chat about the differences between the comprehensive plan and the zoning ordinance.

[00:13:22] We heard quite a bit through the course of ZOMOD over these past six years concerns about density particularly and thinking that ZOMOD is what will increase density, and that's absolutely not true.

[00:13:37] Our comprehensive plan is the tool that determines land uses and densities across the county, so we wanted to set the picture of what each document does and how they work together. They are intertwined, and they are a marriage, and the comprehensive plan is required by state law, and it's a guidance document.

[00:13:58] We have to create a vision, and we should create a vision. We need to know where we're headed in the future, because if you don't know where you're going, you're never going to get there. And that document is created after much community input, much discussion with the planning commission, and then ultimately a recommendation to you all at the board and then you as the board adopt the comprehensive plan. It guides how staff, the planning commission, and you as the board evaluate proposals from property owners who want to change their zoning designations. But the zoning

[00:14:32] ordinance is the legal playbook that we use to implement the vision of the plan. So it includes recommended land uses and where those land uses can go on the property, what size the lot has to be to be developed, how tall the buildings can be, how close they can be built to the road or to another property line, items like parking and buffers. It's a very technical document. The zoning ordinance is almost 500 pages. We did try to make it easier to understand, but it is a very complex document and it is our playbook for how we actually make the vision come to life.

[00:15:10] The comprehensive plan was most recently updated in 2019 and by state code it is required to be reviewed every five years and in Chesterfield County we are always reviewing our comprehensive plan. When we do a special focus area plan, when we update a chapter, we did community facilities not long ago we have chapter 13 this evening we are looking at chapter 14 which is bikeways so we are always in the process of reviewing and updating the plan as needed but five years is

[00:15:42] the official state requirement once we finished our just as a clarification to that the state if we make a change to the comprehensive plan they look at it as being updated so it doesn't mean we have to wait five years and then start all over again that's right like you just said every time we make a change, it's considered to be an updated look at the comprehensive plan.

[00:16:05] Correct. So it restarts the clock, if you will. It's important for the community to understand that because some people believe that after five years, you have to start all over again and do the whole thing. And if no one touches their comprehensive plan, which I'm not sure there's any community in the country that has that luxury, maybe I won't call anybody out, but we're not one of them right right so our comprehensive plan in 2012 and again in 2019 did list as the first implementation item a update and a rewrite of the county's zoning ordinance

[00:16:40] we've known for quite some time that our zoning ordinance is out of sync and doesn't work as an effective tool to implement anything that's in our vision for the future and development trends as you know look a lot different than 40 years ago when our zoning ordinance the core of that ordinance was developed so roughly around my age and things have changed in my time frame so our zoning ordinance has not changed but our vision for the community has. Today we have an over-reliance on the conditional use plan development process which indicates to us well we call it CUPD for short.

[00:17:19] When something is continually worked around, that means something is broken and it needs a fix. And this is a complicated process to go through a CUPD. It's very cumbersome and it allows applicants and developers to seek exceptions to a variety of ordinance standards.

[00:17:39] So the ordinance doesn't allow for what is happening or what they would like to do. So they seek this tool that's available and there's no guarantee for any of the exceptions that they seek that there's any mitigation provided to the county. So it creates a lot of confusion for the community and the applicants and you all in the discussion process.

[00:18:00] Plus, it's extremely long and truly it is very applicant and developer friendly to have this negotiation process. I could ask a question, Mr. Chair, and I want to kind of slow it down a little bit.

[00:18:15] How are you defining overuse? And by that, I mean, are you suggesting that if we were to pass OMOD, we won't be doing any more conditional use permits? Or another way of saying that is that it'll be much less.

[00:18:31] However, how are we going to measure that? Certainly, sir. If you look at an agenda for a planning commission or board meeting, probably over half of the applications have CUPD in them. So when you just review the case docket, you can see that it's a very well-used tool. Conditional use, which is different than CUPD, does still exist, but conditional use plan development is in ZOMOD, and it's renamed, and we'll cover that later. It's called a zoning deviation, and it is meant in ZOMOD to be used on a very rare, if not ever,

[00:19:10] occasion when it doesn't fit somewhere else in the ordinance and there are specific criteria for when and how it can be used or to fix something from the past that um for instance if there was an overlay over a residential area with some commercial and that touched where their front porch would be and they couldn't fix their front porch now because that overlay that would allow us to be able to fix that in the past.

[00:19:38] But I would actually see the deviations more for past. Yes, sir. Something to fix the past than something to take care of a future zoning case. Yes, sir. Mr. Chair, along that line, as an example, we've had cases come before us where someone had to bring a case forward because they wanted to put a deck on the back of their house, but the deck actually extended into a setback, and they had to go through the whole process.

[00:20:08] Could some of this fix some of that? Yes, sir. That's good, because I really thought it was ridiculous that someone had to go through all that just to put a deck on their house. We hope that things will be a lot smoother for some of those things that come up.

[00:20:24] Another question, Mr. Chair. I want to go back to the comp plan for a second. We did a comprehensive comp plan. The last time was 2019, correct? And that we've made tweaks, changes, updates all along.

[00:20:39] Yes, sir. Is there anything in the code that says for the Commonwealth that even though we've made change, no matter how minor it is, that we have to go through a comprehensive change, the comp plan, every five years? I am not the attorney.

[00:20:55] However, I believe it just says review in the code. Thank you. It's very vague. Do you want to speak to that? Yeah, it says the ComPlan is to be reviewed, but that does not necessitate an overhaul of the ComPlan every five years.

[00:21:13] It's just that it is looked at, and there may be small portions that are dealt with or nothing may be needed. But the planners actually are constantly doing a review of the ComPlan. Do you have a sense of why the Commonwealth would every five years as opposed to every 10 years?

[00:21:32] What was kind of the thought? I know it's kind of hard to crawl inside. I don't know the genesis of five years. I mean, there was some sense that you should be looking at the way you are planning your jurisdiction on some regular basis.

[00:21:48] But why that was chosen over some other time period, I don't know. Maybe you do know. And the only thing I would say is while we do long-term planning through our five-year capital improvements program, you're familiar with the six-year secondary road programs and things of that nature.

[00:22:05] So I would say in the good old days, whenever a locality had a comp plan that has a rational and reasonableness to it, the state would actually also use that to determine its future potential infrastructure needs in advance of the demand. So I think there was some origins to that.

[00:22:21] That nexus may not necessarily be as absolute with the reliance on local government now for road infrastructure. Thank you for that. I mean, what strikes me is that 2019 to 2025, the housing market itself has fundamentally changed.

[00:22:39] I think we can all agree on that. We can also agree that because of COVID and all those reasons, that was all the precipitating factors. Do you think right now today that we're going to be, when we start the comp plan, do you think that's going to be an overall overhaul?

[00:22:54] Or do you think it's going to be just tweaks? We plan. We were planning on an overhaul of it just because the vision of the comp plan today was really founded on the 2012 massive overhaul we did where we finally had a single plan for the county, and it's time for us to get back out in the community and hear what the citizens here in 2025, 26, 27 are thinking with growth and direction, and the comp plan is the best chance for the citizens to affect the long-range vision and direction of the county.

[00:23:24] So we need to go back out and take all of it, all the land-use policies with us. So I kind of want to push on that for a moment. If we have to do an overhaul, you've said that an overhaul, what is said in the community over and over again is that, well, if we need to do an overhaul of what is the comp plan that was 2019, shouldn't we put the brakes on ZOMOD altogether?

[00:23:48] Because we know that we're going to do an overhaul anyway of the comp plan. In my opinion, no, because the tools that are in the comprehensive plan, the land use categories aren't really going to change. You have densities of 1, 2, 4, 8, 12. You're not going to really tweak those numbers.

[00:24:05] Those numbers are numbers of density. Now, where you apply them will change, and that is part of that visioning exercise. But the tools of the comprehensive plan and the land use categories are being updated to match ZOMOD. And, you know, we can keep making plans just like we have been.

[00:24:21] We've talked about this. We can keep doing comprehensive plan amendments, but it does us no good because they have to be tied to our current zoning ordinance. So we can come up with new land use categories, but they have to be implemented by the zoning ordinance we have. Now we have an updated tool. We have the plan that can actually run them together.

[00:24:39] Okay, so I want to make sure that I'm mirroring back exactly what you just said to me and make sure I understand. We have a tool chest. That tool chest are the ordinances in ZOMOD. Now what will happen is even though we have the tool chest, we may be working with those tools on a completely different machine.

[00:24:56] but we're going to need to know which tools to use depending upon the completely different machine. Would that be an accurate way of looking at it? Yes. Okay, thank you. So just to kind of finish that thought now that I think about it, application of ZOMOD is going to change with an overhaul of the comprehensive plan.

[00:25:16] Would that be an accurate characterization? I would probably reverse that. The zoning ordinance is always going to be the toolbox. Whether you use any of the tools or all the tools doesn't matter. The plan tells you which tool to pick up versus a hammer versus a screwdriver. That's the density. The toolbox is always going to be the toolbox, but the plan could change where we want to see higher densities or lower densities, but it's not going to change the tools.

[00:25:38] It's just going to say use this tool instead of that tool here now when we do that update. Got it. Thank you. And right now we don't have tools that we need to do a mixed-use district. We don't have that tool in our toolbox. So they would have to do CUPD and write their own ordinance.

[00:25:55] So ZOMOD would give you a mixed-use zoning district to zone to, for instance. So right now it would be like a surgeon doing surgery with 1978 tools. Right, right, right. I mean, I think the simplest way to say it is you can't pick out what you're going to put in any particular part of the county if you don't know what your choices are.

[00:26:20] You can basically say, this is the density, well, I don't know if I want you to put townhomes there, or if I want you to put single family there, or if I want you to put condos there, or if I want you to put tiny houses there, unless you know what the product is and what the densities could be as far as the type that you can put on there, how do you assign to the comp plan what you want to put there if you don't know what it is?

[00:26:42] You absolutely have to know what you want to put there by the toolbox or the choices that you have. Then you can look at the comp plan and say, do I think it's appropriate, or does the community think it's appropriate to have this here or that here? But you can't do that if you don't know what this and that is.

[00:26:58] Is that the simplest term? Yeah, and to stick with our analogy, ZOMOT is a much bigger toolbox than the toolbox you have today. So you have a very limited set of tools to play with, and that's why you're seeing the CUPD, because that hammer ain't working anymore. It's got to be, we're inventing a new tool with every zoning case just to make something work.

[00:27:15] We have a much bigger tool chest now with ZOMOD that gives us a fuller range of options that the community can choose from and applicants can choose from in developing this county in line with the vision of the plan. So, Mr. Chair, just on that point, as an example to that, we've had a zoning case that went through in one district, and the supervisor working that case, not on the board anymore, They approved, or they thought it was a great idea to have certain setbacks and things.

[00:27:42] And then the same product comes to Matoka, and they want the same setbacks. And I'm like, I don't like that. Well, you already did it here, so you've got to let me do it here. By having a standard, they're already going to know before they even file a zoning case.

[00:27:58] This is what you can and can't do. Don't come knocking on my door to do an exemption. This is what it is, whether it's in Clover Hill, Bermuda, Matoka, whatever district it is. This is the product that you can use. These are the setbacks. This is what you have to do. And if you want to deviate from this, what are you guys calling it?

[00:28:15] Zoning deviation. Yeah, that's a bad word right there, right? So I love it. Anybody who sees that, yeah, this is deviant. We don't want to do that anyway, right? We worked hard on that name. I love it. I absolutely love it because it's going to get people's attention to go, oh, they're deviating again, right? So setting a standard that can be held everywhere instead of having someone come to me and say, well, you let them do it there.

[00:28:35] You got to let me do it here. I don't like that. It should provide more predictability, too, so that you know what that mixed-use project would include with the ingredients that have been outlined within ZOMOD for that zoning district.

[00:28:52] Well, the people will know. Right. Yes. The people will know. The citizens will know what to expect. The people will know what can and cannot happen because they can look it up. And a developer or someone who's proposing a development, when they go to someone and knock on their door and say, I want to buy your property and I want to turn it into this, They can already know what they can and cannot do.

[00:29:10] Don't come knocking on our door going, well, no, I need this because I paid too much money for the property, so therefore I have to ask for a higher density. Sorry, dude. This is what you can and cannot do. You should have negotiated that deal ahead of time. I want to stick with that for a moment.

[00:29:27] So I think what I heard you say, Mr. Carroll, was that what was okay in one district was not okay in another district. Would that be accurate? Essentially, yeah. You could have two CUPDs asked and totally different. Okay. So under CUPD. But if we create one size fits all, then what is happening in one might then be applicable in another, but yet would still not work.

[00:29:50] Or it could. So what happens if it is a situation... Then they pick a different tool. Pick a different tool. Do you think that the shadow side of this might be because they have a choice of tools that they can buy right to choose any one of those tools?

[00:30:08] They still have to go through a zone in case it has to go. It's not... There's no right. There's just a choice. They have the ability of picking from the 14 or 15 different zoning districts that we have, which fits best for their particular land use and project that they want to do.

[00:30:27] Still on your table as to if that is the appropriate location and use for that particular piece of property, regardless of what magisterial district it's in. Based on the comprehensive plan. If they pick the wrong tool, they're not likely to get their case passed.

[00:30:43] So them picking a tool that will fit they could get their case passed is going to be important if they want to be successful. Okay, just to finish off this slide, it's important for us to mention that we did have a consultant team that shared with us some national best practices.

[00:31:04] But Zomod is ultimately a Chesterfield product, and it is unique to Chesterfield in the needs of what we have here. Just to take us back a little bit so we understand when we say how old our ordinance is.

[00:31:21] in 1974 this is when our residential districts were created so the just for everyone watching R is residential and then the number behind that is 40 which means 40,000 square foot lot or 25 25,000 square foot lot so those were the residential zoning districts and when they originated and we we've had those up until this point in 1978 that's when we created the multifamily and the CUPD process. Many people will use CUPD associated with Brandermill subdivision

[00:31:53] because that was kind of the keystone of that purpose of that project. In 1989, which is what also people refer to as maybe the major overhaul that we've had, that was really only for the non-residential zoning districts. So we adjusted the office, commercial, and industrial zoning districts at that time, just to clear up where we are today. Looking at our process, we've talked a lot about 2019 and the comprehensive plan adoption. And right on the heels of the adoption of the

[00:32:27] comprehensive plan in 2019, we went out for requests for proposals and found a consultant team to work with us and begin this process. And unfortunately, because of COVID, we were delayed and it took a little bit longer than we planned because no one knew where we were going to be at that time. So we took a slight pause, but we did work with our consultant team to do a variety of listening sessions with interest groups in the community. So we didn't sit still and wait. We did start the work for ZOMOD. And then officially in 2021 was when we kicked off the drafting of draft

[00:33:04] one and in 2022 draft one was released and 2023 was when we began the review of the draft one with the planning commission month by month we went through this draft and then we had public comment opened at that time as well in 23 and 24 we had draft two and again we had a round of planning Commission review and public comment. And then in March of this year, we released draft three,

[00:33:36] which is where we will pick up on the next slide to bring us to where we are. Each time that we went out for public comment on the drafts, we received comments via a portal, via online, via email. We've had multiple opportunities to accept comments and feedback. In March of this year, draft three was really the community meeting draft that's where we felt we were ready to take this product out on the road to each of your districts we did

[00:34:12] six community meetings in April we had library office hours and five different libraries and we incorporated all the feedback that we gained during that time on draft three and we rolled that into draft four which was published in early june on june the 17th we spent time with the planning commission reviewing all of those changes and edits and discussion about what we heard at the community meetings and and the feedback that we received online and then july 15th as andy mentioned earlier was the public hearing at the

[00:34:47] planning commission on that draft four and that is what they recommended to you all which you have before you today with their recommended changes and that was published on July 30th online and so we are sharing our information with you today and our suggested changes from the planning commission meeting. Community engagement was very important from the beginning of ZOMOD. I mentioned early on we did listening sessions. We spent a significant amount of time trying to get people

[00:35:21] to engage with us on this project. As I mentioned before, it's a very intense document to read. It's hard to get your head around. It's a lot easier now than our current ordinance because the draft of ZOMOD is digital. It has links that you can click and navigate between the sections.

[00:35:40] You can hover over terms and see all the definitions that are available. So it's a lot easier to provide comment and understand where you are in the document. We did outreach to various groups in the community. Whenever we were asked, we went to visit and speak with those groups from various homeowners associations to different civic groups. I know I've been to the Brander Mill Men's Club three or four times. I always offer up for us to come out and visit whenever anyone wants us to. We spent about six months with the committee on the future going article by article with them.

[00:36:15] That is an appointed committee by you all, two members from each of your magisterial districts. And we got lots of feedback and interest from that group. And we really used that as we went into the next phase of draft three in the community meetings.

[00:36:32] We had an email distribution list that we maintained. So anyone that wanted to know about ZOMOD or the community meetings, we sent out emails across the board. Hundreds upon hundreds of people on that list. And then I've mentioned the community meetings that we had attendance at.

[00:36:48] And then we got a lot of calls and follow-ups after those community meetings with people, which was very valuable because that was the time when we released our draft conversion mapping tool and people could ask questions. During this entire time, we did have an advisory committee that worked with us on drafting the various components of ZOMOD and testing those with us.

[00:37:09] And then I did mention the comments. We received over 350 public comments into our portal over the course of the time, which we responded to each and every single one of those comments. Okay, jump in again. Can you go back to the previous slide? You said at the top there, it says that updating zoning ordinance. Can you define for me what a zoning ordinance is?

[00:37:38] it's your toolbox i know but i want to understand my point sure is anybody who's going to read that understand what a zoning ordinance is toolboxes are going to help right right so give me what the layman definition of a zoning ordinance is well what i often say is it the zoning ordinance tells you what you can do where you can do it and how it can be done so if you want to do a particular like a home occupation, park your RV, do an addition on your house, put a shed in your backyard.

[00:38:12] Those are what the zoning ordinance, for the everyday person, right? That's what that means. And it is super hard to convey that, I understand. And our communications and media department, I don't want to forget to mention them, but they have helped us significantly on this project.

[00:38:29] And they helped us with these wonderful billboards and getting the word out. And it was a challenge. I can tell you how many times we sat around the table trying to figure out how to convey the message best. And I guess that's kind of where I'm going, is that I fear that there has been a disconnect.

[00:38:46] Because if you say to someone, we're going to name the hippos over at the Metro Zoo, that they can connect in just like that. But you say zoning ordinance for someone who is trained as a psychologist, you know, just to be able to pick the lift of learning what zoning is, it's not easy to do.

[00:39:04] And so when you have something like a zoning ordinance, it's not until it becomes a real world practical situation where I have someone in my community who went ahead and built a shed and they didn't pay attention to the setback and the shed is already built. They're the kind of things like, oh, well, how did that, what's the problem?

[00:39:23] Well, the problem is that your next door neighbor was upset because you put it where you shouldn't have put it. And now we're talking about the zoning ordinance. So it's one of those things where I fear that what has happened is there has been this kind of a disconnect in communication.

[00:39:38] We have put on our webpage quite a bit of information as to what the ingredients and elements of the zoning ordinance are. We have videos that basically explain some of the basics of the zoning ordinance to the general public.

[00:39:56] So, and I think our staff has done a yeoman's job of trying to answer all the calls that might come in and ask some of those questions, if they're seeing the billboard or having a question as to what is a zoning ordinance.

[00:40:11] I think we've really gone beyond trying to make sure we try to answer their questions on what it all includes. Dr. Miller, you know, one of the simple answers I've given many times to people is when you drive around the county do you ever see those little signs sometimes that are on a piece of property and all of a sudden a couple months later looks like something's happening to it and I said that that is zoning and and so and that that triggers them because that's the visual and again for the ones that paying the most attention to quote unquote the zoning ordinance are the ones in the areas where there's the most signs being put up and actions then ensue uh the ones who may

[00:40:50] not be paying as much attention is where there's no signs ever put up so rightfully so so that that I don't want to oversimplify, but many, many people are familiar with those signs. To be fair, I think that's part of the problem.

[00:41:05] We had how many people respond, comments, 350 out of almost 400,000 people in our county. And again, I just feel sometimes that, you know, some people are engaged only because there's something in their backyard.

[00:41:25] The rest of the time, they don't really, you know, take the time to think about it. And so that is how I think that we need to make it very explicit when we see these signs, you know, and let people know. And I've been talking about that newsletter with all the links for all the active cases being sent out to people that are signed up.

[00:41:45] I just think that that's community engagement is of the utmost importance. So that's just my. The 350 were basically things that came into the portal or official kind of questions that were asked. So our counter nine answers 2,000 questions a year, then most of them are zoning related.

[00:42:08] And I guarantee most of those conversations start with a primer on what zoning is and what it can do and why your setback is what it is or the height of your shed can only be so high, so on and so forth. So, you know, we sent out 127,000 postcards to every property owner in Chesterfield County trying to make sure they're at least aware of the process that was going in.

[00:42:34] We put a short blurb on that postcard as to what zoning is, and there's only so much you can fit on a postcard. So we tried our best to get the message started. Please know I wasn't criticizing your process. I was just simply bringing it to the attention.

[00:42:52] Mr. Chair, since we're on the topic of ordinance, so I have a question for legal counsel, which I think they won't be able to explain it better. So localities, like Chesterfield, are authorized by state law to adopt these type of ordinances.

[00:43:10] Is that correct? And this type of ordinance is designed to be the rules, so to speak, for what you can and cannot do when it comes to building something on your property or on commercial property or residential property, essentially, and it's a civil rule, more so, not a criminal rule.

[00:43:30] Right, right. I mean, there's an enforcement process, but it's a civil rule. It's civil. So many people think of an ordinance or a statute, and they say, for example, which we have those as well for criminal. For example, running at large for a dog running at large, we have an ordinance for that.

[00:43:45] We don't call it a statute, we call it an ordinance, but it essentially is, in that case, could be a criminal violation, and for many things under 14.1, I think, is what we use for our motor vehicle ordinance, right, to use to adopt all of the state.

[00:44:03] And my point about this is that what localities can and cannot do, because we're a dill and rule state, we're controlled by what the General Assembly authorizes. Now, there's more latitude with this type of ordinance than there is with others. But as an example, if you look at a dog running at large ordinance, there is no guidance from the state other than to say that you can adopt an ordinance.

[00:44:25] There's no restrictions. But in zoning, there are some restrictions that you can't adopt. For example, we can't adopt an ordinance something that says we can't allow for a subdivision to be built if we don't have capacity in our schools or if we don't have other issues related to infrastructure.

[00:44:45] Is that right? Yeah, for those reasons alone, yes. For those reasons alone, right? So there are things we can and cannot do, but this is the basic rule book, and I'm trying to help people understand what you're trying to say, of what you can and cannot do, as you stated, Whether you're going to put a carport, an accessory dwelling unit, a shed, or build a house from scratch.

[00:45:07] Whether it's on agricultural land, residential land, or if a developer is going to come in and wants to do a full-blown development, what they can and cannot do. It's the rule book for that. And we interpret that rule book and we apply it to the comprehensive plan based on what the community wants. Is that the simplest way to say this?

[00:45:23] Yes, sir. Well said. And along with that, what I want to really get into playing devil's advocate is the disconnect. in that a lot of folks unfortunately hear this over and over again are paying attention to what's happening on the federal level and it takes all the air out of the room and then you would but really what we do on the local level has in many ways the most impact on folks and on a day-to-day living of being in our county and so my fear again is saying when you see zoning ordinance there's a disconnect and they don't understand what that is and they don't understand how it

[00:46:03] applies to me until it applies to them, and then all of a sudden there is this moment of fear, anxiety, whatever you want to call it, that's like, well, I didn't know. I'm too busy raising my kids and making sure that they get to soccer on time. I'm not thinking about the fact that there's a possibility that now my zoning is going to completely 100% change in the name.

[00:46:24] It doesn't necessarily mean it's changing as far as what's there, but just the name changes, and now there's this freak out moment. Well, okay, now I'm confused. What am I going to, how is this going to impact me? I think that's one reason we invented the conversion map tool to try to explain that, you know, what was a zoning district name that was in 19.1, the current zoning ordinance, and what it was changing to in ZOMOD really didn't change what their setbacks were,

[00:47:04] what their height requirements were, how they could particularly use their piece of property. And we went through, at the beginning of this meeting, kind of meticulously looking at each parcel of land, make sure we were trying to put it in the right category for that conversion map.

[00:47:22] And then on that conversion map, they could pull that up and see what the old ordinance would allow them to do and what the new ordinance would allow them to do for the new district and see that there really wasn't, from a residential perspective, not much change in what that was happening.

[00:47:38] If anything, we were having the envelope of what can be developed within that site slightly expanded so that we didn't run into non-conforming issues with residents in the future. So I understand everybody's busy and have other things on their minds, but we thought that was one of the cleanest ways of being able to tell 400,000 people what they could do with their property and that it merely was kind of a change a name change in most instances from a residential perspective so just we're helping folks out i remember when i

[00:48:15] showed up my first time at uh chesterfield in chesterfield mental health and i said in the first off like my first meeting i know that they were speaking english but i did not know what they were saying and by that i mean when you start falling into just how we talk with each other you may not realize so you just said chapter 19 chapter 19 of what what is that of so can you give a sense of what that whole book is chapter 19 is is basically kind of the land use portion of the code of

[00:48:51] ordinance for the county and 19.1 unfortunately is is the current zoning ordinance that we use 19.2 is the new ZOMOD ordinance that we're proposing be put in place here.

[00:49:10] And each various activity or element within the government has a different chapter. And so 19 is loosely the one that, you know, planning and land use falls within.

[00:49:26] I yield to the attorney to give a better description of it, but that's basically what it is. Yeah, that's the entire code of the county. So all of the ordinances that have ever been passed by the board are sitting in that one place. The ones that are specific to zoning sit in that 19, currently 19-1.

[00:49:43] So it's just a chapter number, so it makes it easier to find. Do you see where I'm kind of getting? I want to kind of break it down to the elemental levels that folks are going to better understand. Because I know that there's other chapters of what subdivisions should look like.

[00:50:00] And it goes on and on. And they're all interrelated, and they're all impacting each other. And that is really what we're talking about if we're talking about the comp plan or we're talking about ZOMAD or even if we're talking about what a particular subdivision should look like. So I want to kind of make that clear to our citizens, the broad view of this.

[00:50:21] So thank you for that. I did want to hit a couple things that Ms. Snyder touched on, And I do think that she's accurate in that many people are somewhat disconnected. But we sent a postcard to every property in Chesterfield County, correct?

[00:50:39] Yes, sir. How many times do we do that? Twice. 126,000. How many other items in Chesterfield County do we send a postcard to twice to inform them of something we're doing in the county? Yeah.

[00:50:56] Yeah, but their assessment is a bill. I mean, well, it's telling them what the bill is going to be, and then it's the bill. But as far as what's going on, I don't think we've been more informative on anything in the five years I've been on the board than we have with this process.

[00:51:14] Again, not everybody's going to pay attention. I agree with you, Ms. Snyder, and I do think we need to do everything we can to get the word out, and I agree that some form of a newsletter would be a good idea. And I just also wanted to make sure that people know that there are links right now that you can go to and sign up to get as much or as little information from the county as you'd like to include all the planning, all of the cases, all of the planning commission that's by district.

[00:51:46] So you can sign up for all five districts for the planning commission. You can sign up for just your district for the planning commission. And you can also do that for the board of supervisors. So those links exist today, but Mrs. Snyder is absolutely correct that we need to do everything we can and every way we can to reach our citizens.

[00:52:05] But sending out two postcards to every home or to every property in Chesterfield County is a step that shows that we have done absolutely everything we can to make sure that people are aware of this process. I've shared with some of my fellow planning directors across the country that I know that we use billboards for advertising the noticing of the zoning ordinance, and they've never been able to convince their jurisdictions to go to that level.

[00:52:40] And so, you know, thankfully, we had a good agreement with a billboard company to provide public notices, and we took advantage of that with SOMOD. So everybody driving around Chesterfield did have an opportunity to see it that way, too, which was an amazing tool.

[00:52:58] And I can't think of another community I've ever heard of that was able to do that. I think, Mr. Engel, you're right on in that, look, we sent it out there twice. The challenge here is that we're all bombarded by so much information in so many different directions on so many things.

[00:53:16] It's really hard to tell, well, go, folks, this one's important. This one you really got to look at. And it's hard to be able to discern that. So I want to make the point that when you're receiving something from Chesterfield County, it's important to take a moment and look at it because it's going to impact you in some way.

[00:53:36] And I'm not sure folks are understanding that and being able to discern that. When you're receiving a bill for your taxes, people are able to know immediately, I've got to pay for this because if I don't know, there's going to be other problems. But this is a postcard, and sometimes it's hard to tell that, which just came in the mail pay attention to it and I go into too much minutiae but when we were looking at how to design the postcard you know we we had some discussion about how big the co postcard should be what if there should be some coloring on it so that it would stand out that it would be a little larger postcard size than your typical postcard that you got and so we

[00:54:13] were able to kind of negotiate with the printing company to have a rat a little larger size postcard that we hoped would get people's attention as to wow this is a little different and it did have some color on it and it did mention the county many times so we tried and that is exactly my point in that we've made the efforts that we could to be able to make it look different from all the other stuff that was coming into the mailbox so it would get your attention we were afraid if it looked like a bill they might be avoiding it

[00:54:48] you have a question on the data set okay good I've identified two particular parcels in my district I haven't looked at everybody else's so I don't have enough time for that that I know for a fact are conservation easements and I know one of them was rezoned from residential after it was created as a conservation easement back to agriculture I know that because we heard the case and we passed it. Yet in Zomod, it's still showing as residential. So where did you get the data that you pulled into the conversion map? Because there's two conservation

[00:55:27] easements in Matoka that are not being shown. One parcel, which was purchased by the state, 400 acres off of Cattail Road. And then the other parcel I know is a company out of Georgia that owns the other land as a conservation easement. And then the other piece was once known as Hickory Estates, and I'm having a conversion to open right now, and both of those are still showing as the old zoning, not what they actually are.

[00:55:52] So where did we pull the data set for this? Well, the zoning is still there. If it's zoned residential, even with a conservation easement, they can't develop it, but it's still zoned that way. So a conservation easement is not a zoning classification. Yeah, but I just told you that we changed the zoning on Hickory Estates back to agricultural.

[00:56:10] We'll have to double check. And it's not showing agricultural, which is what my problem is. I understand that it may show that because it was once zoned that way, but in this case, the zoning was actually changed. Now, the one on Cattail, that's possible.

[00:56:28] Even though the state owns it, it may still be zoned that way. We can't build on it. The state owns it, but we don't own it. So we need to fix that. And we are researching those properties, yes, sir. Thank you. And just so you know, we're human, And there may be some things that we have missed.

[00:56:47] We do anticipate an opportunity between now and January to try to catch some of those things we might have missed. We're still looking at making some of those changes. Even after the zoning ZOMOD might be approved and go into enactment, there still will be a process for being able to get that corrected.

[00:57:07] So it's not, if there was an error, then it won't be etched in stone necessarily. I don't expect it to be perfect, but that's why I asked where the data set came from, because if you get bad data and that's what you're using, that's what you're going to get. So it just depends where it's coming from.

[00:57:24] It's internally from L. Yeah, we keep a GIS zoning layer. We'll just have to double-check that and see what happens. We spend a lot of time on process, but we probably need to get into the meat of it so we don't run out of time.

[00:57:39] Sure. I think we talked plenty about the map, and we went line by line, parcel by parcel with the map. So we'll move into the structure of ZOMI. There are 10 articles in ZOMI. Today we are not going to cover all 10.

[00:57:55] Don't panic. But we are going to cover some of the high points of the various articles and the items that you have outstanding questions on or we have outstanding questions on. We will stop and pause for those. With that, I'm going to turn it over to Steve Hosh, who's going to review the zoning districts with you.

[00:58:12] Thank you, Rachel. So I'll try to keep this moving because I think you all are familiar. But for the community's benefit, we'll touch on the new zoning districts found in ZOMOD. There are several new ones over today's ordinance. But I want to start with we have an agricultural district.

[00:58:28] It's the same as the agricultural district today. The lot sizes in that district are determined by the lot creation date, and those have all carried forward from the current ordinance to the new ordinance because legal reasons we don't want to mess anybody's agricultural property up.

[00:58:44] We have a new category, though, called RC, which is our rural community zoning classification. This will allow five-acre lots in subdivisions in the rural area if someone were to zone into that. So those are not being converted on the ground.

[00:59:00] That's a classification that you would have to zone into and come through the process to get approval for. The SR district is our semi-rural district. It basically replaces R40, R25, and R88. It's basically like a large lot neighborhood kind of setup where you have utility issues.

[00:59:18] Usually you have water present but not waste water. The SC district is your more traditional suburbs, think R15, R12, and R9. Those are the bread and butter subdivisions across the county for the most part. SU is our new small lot subdivision district, and that allows subdivision lots from 7,500 square feet down to 4,500 square feet.

[00:59:41] This is something that we've noticed over the time as zoning cases have come forward. They usually come to you all as CUPDs to get under that 12,000-square-foot minimum lot size that's allowed today. So anybody wanting to do less than that has to automatically ask for a CUPD, which means now the entire ordinance is on the table to be rewritten.

[01:00:00] So we've seen that consistently approved by the Board and Planning Commission, and we've heard from citizens in the community that a smaller lot residential district is a necessary tool to have in the toolbox. and so that is a new thing for us, so that will allow us to do that new kind of development.

[01:00:17] TR is our transition residential, which is basically townhouse and multifamily in a suburban-style kind of development. It replaces RMF and RTH today. UR is a new district urban residential. It's basically a residential component of our mixed-use centers.

[01:00:32] It's supposed to be a higher-density, more urban form of residential. It's not to be strung out along corridors or tucked here and there, but it's supposed to be a part of a mixed-use center. So if somebody coming forward with an application for UR should be within one of those areas in the comp plan called for mixed-use.

[01:00:49] And if they're not, they're probably going to face a recommendation of denial from us unless there's some other compelling reason to support it. AR is a new residential district for us. It basically replaces MH1, MH2, and MH3, but don't let it fool you. It's not a mobile home park district.

[01:01:04] It is an alternative residential district. It's meant to be a flexible allowance for a variety of different housing types. One of the things we know is that, you know, I think, too, Dr. Miller, that was your point. There isn't one-size-fits-all in this county. There's different lifestyle choices that people have.

[01:01:21] There's different stages of life that they're in. There's different housing needs that our generations have. And this AR district basically lets you combine all sorts of different kind of residential components into one kind of district. So it could be in a lot kind of development form where you could have a mix of single family on various size lots or arrangement on a common lot where you could do cottages or condos and some kind of arrangement there.

[01:01:47] So it's meant to be a flexible arrangement of residential uses that doesn't fit the other district. So if somebody wanted to mix and match different residential types, the AR district is your best bet. On the commercial side, go ahead.

[01:02:02] Before we get to commercial, there's always theory and then there's practice. I'm curious to know, did you go back over the last or choose six months and look at, okay, if we had had ZOMOT in place at this time, how it would have worked?

[01:02:20] Have you done like a test set and be able to say, okay, we're going to go back through these 25 cases and we're going to figure out how it would work? So you did that. Can you tell me a little bit about that process? So draft two, I think, is where Thomas was kind of the big leader on that. Draft two, we started taking the current cases running through the commission and board and running them against ZOMOD and see how would ZOMOD have handled these cases as they're asking exceptions for this, that, and everything else.

[01:02:48] How would ZOMOD accommodate that or if it wouldn't accommodate that? And out of that exercise, I can't remember how many cases we tested, but out of that exercise, it helped us edit draft two into draft three to help make it more matching what was coming through the board and commission and accommodating those things that we're seeing on the ground in reality so that we weren't going to pass an ordinance that automatically needed more exceptions being done to it automatically again.

[01:03:15] And so we spent a good, even today we're still running cases through ZOMOD as our zoning team processes applications. Even right now, we are running them against ZOMOD to see how would ZOMOD handle these. Have you brought that to us just to show us like test cases?

[01:03:33] Well, we were doing it this way with our whatever, and now look what we could be doing now, or this is where it ended up. We did a pretty detailed discussion with the planning commission on those test cases. We'd be happy to share them with you.

[01:03:48] I mean, I don't know if we can't probably get into it today. It's probably a whole other session on that. I suspect, yeah. But I just wanted to get a feel for, even when we're in version 4, that you guys are running these test cases just for application, right? We typically do, you know, 100 cases a year.

[01:04:06] And so we've been doing it for two years. So we at least have, you know, examples of 200 times we've kind of looked at cases that are coming through and what they would have been in that particular version of ZOMOD at that point. It's helped us beta test and create maybe some revisions to Draft 3 or Draft 4 as we've gone through.

[01:04:33] We can provide you, I think, a general list of here's what they were proposed and went through the process over the last two years and here's where those particular cases probably would have fit within ZOMOD.

[01:04:49] If that would be helpful to you, I think we could put a chart together. But I also think it would be helpful just for the community, not necessarily for me. But what you got right at the question I wanted to ask, which is as you were going through that beta testing, it's a perfect way of putting it, when you're doing the beta testing, it was driving then what changes needed to happen in version 3 and version 4.

[01:05:13] Right, yes, sir. Okay, that's what I wanted to check out. I guess the example, you see a lot of R12 CUPD cases come through where someone's trying to come in with a smaller lot configuration than a 12,000 square foot lot, a 6,000 square foot lot.

[01:05:29] You see pretty often within the cases that come before you, the idea that in SU, our semi-urban district, that option one within that district is a 6,000 square foot lot. So we've already kind of canned and put that into a new district that could come forward because we saw so many 6,000-square-foot R-12 CUPD cases that have been proposed in the last, you know, two or three years.

[01:06:01] I hope that helps. before you go to commercial also RC we've had people that have said RC now allows us to densify the Matoka district which has the majority of the agricultural lots but RC yes so in the past if somebody wanted to put a subdivision there based on the rules that were in place they would have had to go with an R88 which they could do and there's people that are saying well you could never do it

[01:06:39] before now you can well that's not correct because you could have done it before with the R88 but already eight would have allowed two acre lots instead of five acre lots so not only are we not adding an opportunity to intensify the Matoka district we are we are adding an opportunity to less densify cases in the Matoka district and I just think that's an important point because we've had a lot of discussion in the community and there seems to be a strong misunderstanding around that point. Mr. Chair to your point I just pointed out two particular parcels that are in the Matoka

[01:07:15] district that years ago were zoned for R88 for much higher density that have now been converted to conservation easements where they can put at least one house per 100 acres, depending on the conditions of the conservation easement.

[01:07:31] So yes, it has been done in the past, and I've got a spattering of others I could show you where it's been done in the past. All this does is give an opportunity for less density, less calls for service, less cars on the road, less kids in the school, and an opportunity for people who are buying maybe larger lots in other communities.

[01:07:51] IF SOMEONE CHOOSES TO EVEN DO IT, IF THEY CAN MAKE IT FINANCIALLY WORK HERE IN OUR COMMUNITY. LET ME KIND OF STICK WITH THAT CONCEPT BECAUSE I'M WITH YOU. I'M CURIOUS TO KNOW, THOUGH, WOULD RC THEN LEAD TO SPRAW AND WHY NOT? WE DON'T BELIEVE SPRAW ON A FIVE-ACRE LOT IS REALLY SPRAW.

[01:08:09] IT'S REALLY, YOU KNOW, FOR THE FIRST TIME, WE HAVE A ZONING DISTRICT THAT COULD AT LEAST SOMEWHAT HELP US PROTECT THE RURAL AREA. RIGHT NOW YOU HAVE A, AND THAT'S IT. You can go to R88, but that's a more suburban-ish style of development.

[01:08:25] So right now your choices, if you're a landowner out there, are limited. You can keep your A, but we've heard a lot of pressure that, you know, this is my kid's inheritance. They don't want to farm anymore and sell it off. And, you know, there's been cases coming through to erode that rural area.

[01:08:44] I think having an RC district in here will actually let us, for the first time, meet the comprehensive plans vision out here, which is to protect this rural area at a density of five-acre lots. So can you define for me what you see as sprawl? I see sprawl as suburban-style development that is going beyond the infrastructure that we have today to serve it.

[01:09:08] So my concern is that when we have homes that are way out there, they may or may not have water and sewer, and so questions with regard to, heaven forbid, the house were to catch on fire, and we are going to need to put out that fire, or something, heaven forbid, is happening domestic, and we're going to be sending police out on these rural roads, and yeah, it would be five acres, but it's going to be much more spread out.

[01:09:39] So then we're going to be on the hook to have to make sure that there are firehouses out there and police stations and all those things because people are spread out. Before, it was all land or agricultural, and it was being farmed, and there wasn't any folks that were out there as much.

[01:09:55] Stay with me. My point is that as folks are going out all that direction in the middle of the night, deer jumps in the front, and all of a sudden we've got a problem. So we can come up with every kind of hypothetical. My point is now that there are people out there on these five-acre lots that are on well and they're on septic, and we need to make sure we have the water for fire or whatever, the necessary infrastructure to help these folks, heaven forbid, something were to happen.

[01:10:21] Do you see where I'm kind of going with that? Again, I always point back to the comprehensive plan because it's based on the community vision that we've engaged with the public on. And the comprehensive plan is calling for a range of choices for our community.

[01:10:38] And we're calling for urban choices in mixed-use centers at key locations. We're calling for suburban choices in all the many thousand neighborhoods that we have across the county. And we're calling for rural choices for people that don't want to live in a subdivision or don't want to live in the suburban area.

[01:10:54] They are choosing to live in these areas that are flung away from normal services like libraries and schools and fire stations and things like that, and that is their choice to do that. And it's kind of always been that southern and western part of the county.

[01:11:11] It's kind of the social contract with the people that make that choice that the fire truck's probably not going to get to you within six minutes like it would in a more urban core, and that's just kind of what we've always planned out there. It came right at where I am at, which is that, you know, folks don't recognize they went, because, I mean, if I hear one more time where folks went and purchased a home because they wanted it to be in the country and all that kind of stuff, now they're upset because there are roosters out there. And they just didn't think about the fact that, oh yeah, this is one of the implications of making this kind of decision. I wanted to get away from it all. And so now they're out there and now we're on the hook. Let me tell you something. When we were dealing, Jessica and I

[01:11:49] been dealing with everything going on in stonehenge at the time there wasn't anything with regard to septic and we're now septic but for sewer and we the lens that was being looked at in the 1970s now well yes they made the choice but now they're coming back to the county and saying we want this and we deserve it and we're taxpayers and all the rest and so that's what's going to happen for those folks that are sprawled out there and we use that word that that is what that yeah that's what keeps me up at night. As one of the people who live out in the country on acreage that

[01:12:28] I bought years ago I made a choice to live in Matoka I made a choice to live on five acres of land I made a choice to build the house I made a choice to have a well made a choice to have a septic and if you look at most of that pink map up there that's Matoka the majority of the people who live south in that southern tier are all unwell and septic, all of them, and they all made a choice to do that. And there are a lot of people living down there. You can't see it because it doesn't show the density, but almost every road in Matoka, when you go south, are all agricultural roads. Hickory Road, Bundle Road, Winter Park Road, River

[01:13:05] Road, you pick one. And it's a choice. It's a choice if you want to live in Mag Green or Harper's Mill or Stonehenge or somewhere else, you can live there. Or if you want to live in the country, you can live in the country. And this is really just giving another tool.

[01:13:22] There's no guarantee that, number one, people are going to knock on a door to come put a subdivision in. None. But I guarantee you that some of the developers are going to hate me when I say this, but if a developer had this way, he'd pay for one end to the other because that's how you make the most money, truthfully.

[01:13:39] And I don't blame them. That's capitalism. That's how you make money. But if people want to have a choice of living in the country, Right now, I'm going to give you an example. You can go to Hanover and you can buy a five-acre lot, and you can go to Dinwiddie, you can go to Powhatan, you can go to Malia, you can go to Prince George.

[01:13:57] You can go wherever else but Chesterfield County and find a five-acre subdivision because we don't build them. Because we put an ordinance in place years ago that said you can't put a road into agricultural land. But if you want to do R88 and you want to put a road in to build a high-density subdivision, you can do it all day long.

[01:14:14] I've got plenty of them I'll show you on the map. So it's really about having a choice, and it's really about trying to keep country part of Chesterfield country. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The only thing I would add to that is, you know, RC is one of those districts. We're not transitioning anybody's property to RC.

[01:14:33] They're all stay in ag. So if anyone was to try to provide a new agricultural type of subdivision, they would have to go through the full zoning process. You all know the staff reports we put together, the fire department, police department, all the departments get their opportunity to voice their opinion in those staff reports.

[01:14:56] And if there was a particular issue in reference to service, you know, I would think that would be included in that staff report. And eventually it's up to you all as to if that meets your definition of sprawl or not.

[01:15:12] It's not really what needs to be included in the zoning ordinance. It's a decision on y'all's part. Last point, Mr. Chairman. Mark breaks a good point, though, and that is that when you do have the high density, well, we're actually dealing with that issue right now with the Highlands, right?

[01:15:28] So we're working with the Fire Department now, and part of the proposal will be to put a station somewhere around the Highlands because in between the three districts of Bermuda, Matoka, and Dale, which is what the Highlands compromises, we've seen a lot of houses being built there, and now that density is getting there because of high-density growth.

[01:15:47] That's going to require us to provide probably a fire station there to handle those calls for service because coming from Company 13 is too far away or coming from 15, and having been one who had to call Company 13 and 15, it's quite a ride for them to get there. Mr. Chair, I'm sticking with this in that I just want to make the point.

[01:16:07] It's really tough for us to go to our citizens and say, well, you made the choice. You know, caveat emptor. You made the choice, buyer beware, and here we are. So it's tough to say that over for the folks at Stonehenge that are in this situation.

[01:16:23] They've got to kick out $100,000 so that they could get all connected to sewer. So I'm going to make the point, yes, they made the choice. You made the choice to be out there, but to come back and say there are folks, not necessarily you, but there are folks that will come back and say to us, well, I know I made the decision.

[01:16:41] However, I just want to let you all know that it's still on you. You should have done it. We pay taxpayers, and we should do it. So I just kind of went, it's a very hard thing for, I don't know how I could say to them, well, tough luck. You made the choice. And that, yeah, it makes me feel uncomfortable to do that.

[01:17:01] Sorry to keep jumping in, but the only thing I would say to that is that the county did not connect any home in Chesterfield County to county water or county sewer. The person that developed the property did, and the person that lives there paid for it, not the rest of the citizens.

[01:17:20] The person that lives there paid for it. If the people that bought a home that are not connected to county water or county sewer don't have that, they didn't pay for it. But their neighbor did. That's why we tell people that it's not the county that needs to connect you.

[01:17:38] It's you that would need to connect you because your neighbors already paid for that service. So now you would have to do the same thing your neighbor did. and I know it's hard for people to understand because they think that the county makes all these connections, but they don't. All of the infrastructure in every subdivision is done by the developer, sold to the builder. The builder sells that lot. All that infrastructure cost goes to that purchaser of that property, and they paid for it, not Chesterfield County. So that is my answer, unfortunately, because I've had friends that are not happy with me because I gave them

[01:18:17] that answer, but that is the fair answer for everybody in Chesterfield County. If you paid for it, you received it. If you didn't, you didn't. Before I leave the residential, there was one thing I needed to discuss with you all as board members. In the TR district right now, we have a 40% limitation on garage doors for townhomes fronting a street. There was some desire or some discussion around increasing that to 60% of the building being made up of garage doors, so we wanted to check with the board and see if there's any feelings one way or the other

[01:18:51] on making that change before I move on. Garage doors, front-loaded garages facing a street of a building of townhomes, so not one unit, but multiple units in a building. Forty percent of the facade of that building can consist of garage doors. There was a desire to maybe increase that to 60 to be more realistic with what's being built. If you have a bunch of single-car garages, they're going to definitely be in that 40 or less.

[01:19:26] But if you have some number of them that have two car garages, they're not going to be able to meet that 40% standard. So that's, I think, why it was prepared. I definitely, the 60 would probably be better.

[01:19:42] Since, Andy, you brought it up, it may be one of the things that came by very, very quickly, and people may not have caught it. Can you talk a little bit with the different districts, the differences between basic option one and option two?

[01:19:57] Okay. Well, basically, in a lot of our residential districts, we have three options. The basic would be the larger lot configuration within that kind of parameter of lot sizes. In most cases, that would require the least amount of amenity space or open space within that group.

[01:20:19] As they went to a smaller lot configuration within that zoning district, then they would have a higher percentage of amenity space that would be required for that community and have other requirements. For example, at some point, depending on what zoning district we have, we would be requiring sidewalks on one side.

[01:20:41] The denser ones that get developed would require sidewalks on both sides and so on and so forth. So it just gives them what we thought were some parameters of breadth into the size of lots that could fit within a certain group.

[01:21:02] For example, the SR is, you know, the two-acre lot to the half-acre lot. Those kind of fit together to some extent. So that was the standard for the SC district.

[01:21:19] That was the 14,500-square-foot lot configuration is the base. And then the option one is 11,000-square-foot, and then we've got the 8,000-square-foot for option two. As you move farther to the right on the chart there, the denser, the more requirements that are kind of placed on that particular use.

[01:21:42] That theory was used, but what we felt where we kind of set those parameters within each of those residential districts were kind of natural borders. The idea of a 14,500-square-foot lot and an 8,000-square-foot lot are generally in the same kind of ilk of a residential district.

[01:22:04] The next one, the SU, was the 7,500-square-foot lot to the 6,000 and then to the 4,500. But that was our newest district, the SU, that allows for the smaller lot configurations. And so we didn't want to put, group those in with some of the larger lot configurations that we had.

[01:22:24] So we created a separate SU district for that. And then the SU option two has the highest, you know, percentage of amenity space and sidewalks on both sides and all the good stuff basically within it because it is a much denser type of development within that project so that kind of logic was used throughout the whole chart right so i want to kind of look at it from two angles um one angle is what do you say to citizens that are saying

[01:22:55] well you're going to change my options all around me all in in my subdivision uh that someone is going to sell a property and now they're going to change the option from basic one basic to option one or option two. Can someone just do that by right? And then the other side of it is if they want to do that and they can't do it by right, then what would be their process to change it?

[01:23:26] Now, I want to kind of make the point really clear in that when folks sell their home, so I'm really talking about redevelopment. When someone sells their home, then they want to sell it at the highest price they could possibly get it. But we don't necessarily know who they're selling it to. So I'm curious to know whoever the purchaser of that home is, what process would they, what are they allowed to do by right, if anything? And then if they aren't, could they then, what process would they use to change the nature of the subdivision? That's where I'm going

[01:23:58] with it. Okay. That's a lot of questions. I believe in probably the best answer is within our non-conformity section, we have, it's 19.2-72, I believe, and basically what we have said is, you know, if you are a, we're an R40 zone, you know, 40,000 square foot lot configuration in 19.1, the current zoning ordinance, and you've now gone to the new SR district within,

[01:24:29] or SC district, S.R. district, sorry, then you have to follow the bulk standards and dimensional standards that are spelled out in the base option for that particular zoning district.

[01:24:44] So you don't have the choice of, say, splitting your lot and making two half acre lots as opposed to the one 40,000 square foot lot. So if you wanted to do that, it's America, you can do that, but you're going to have to go through the full zoning process to do that. and you're probably not going to have any friendly neighbors when you get through.

[01:25:04] What? Excuse me? Right. Exactly. And they could do that today. Yes. This is not new. That's a good point. It's totally unlikely that it's going to get approved, but they have that opportunity today, so nothing changes.

[01:25:22] I think that is one of the fears that's out there, that somehow my neighbor could just say, hey, with this new Zomod, I can now split my one-acre lot into two half-acre lots, and sell off part of that. That is not possible to do. We have specific language in ZOMOD that says, nope, you've got to go through the whole zoning process.

[01:25:42] We've made that very clear, I think, and we've vetted that through Mr. Mink's group many times. If you haven't noticed already, what I'm attempting to do is go through my laundry list of what we've heard, email after email after email.

[01:25:57] And I want to continue to be talking where we're not necessarily the audience. The audience is the citizens. So we can point to these things. Now, I want to kind of flip it. Option one, I'm sorry, basic option one, option two. When a, just to kind of mirror back what you just said, each one of those options will change the playing field, so to speak, as to what you can and what you cannot do.

[01:26:21] Now, I'm curious to know, what do you think the driving force will be when a developer coming to a new property is zoned a particular way? What do you think the driving force will be as far as how they're going to decide what they're going to do as far as option. Where I'm going with that is, do you think that the driving force is going to be how much money they can make, going to Mr. Carroll's point, which is, hey, you know, they want to make the money.

[01:26:49] But at the same time, do you think that, is it the money that they're going to choose? I mean, it's hard to recall inside their head. But do you think that in many ways it's kind of a level playing field, meaning that if you went with basic option one or option two, It's really going to be about what they think more readily will sell as opposed to how much money they will make, meaning what the community needs as opposed to what the developer wants to make as far as dollars.

[01:27:18] Yeah, that's probably it. But then also it kind of falls into the comprehensive plan. If the comprehensive plan says they can only have four units to the acre and they're trying to create smaller lots and exceed that four-unit-to-the-acre vision within the comprehensive plan, They're going to have a problem with staff and probably you all as to, you know, that wasn't our vision for that particular area of the county.

[01:27:41] You can do this smaller lot possibly, but you're not going to get any more lots than that. You're going to have more open space or more, you know, amenities that you could provide, which may be their market. But the idea that that density is kind of out of the comprehensive plan and will be helping level that playing field, maybe to some extent, to what you're describing.

[01:28:05] So I want to get right to the point, which is that not necessarily will the developer be allowed to use that particular tool in the toolbox if the comprehensive plan doesn't call for it. I mean, they can always ask for zoning out of alignment with the plan.

[01:28:25] and we just usually recommend denial. It would be a deviation. It would be a deviation. Right. Correct. And that's the point I want to make, is that it would be a deviation at that point. So what you're going to see when we bring Chapter 10 to you in October, following on the heels of the ZOMOD being adopted, hopefully, we'll guess, is that we are realigning those.

[01:28:49] We're putting more policies into the comprehensive plan to better guide some of these tools. So the SU district, for example, the small lot district, we know a lot of people are going to go right after that because it should yield more units out of the property. But in conjunction with the comprehensive plan's density limitations, what we're going to say is like in the Upper Swift Creek area, for example, where you've got topography issues, you've got a lot of wetland issues in there because of the terrain, that you can protect a lot more of those environmental features, get them out of people's lots and backyards where people are clearing the RPA and stuff like that, and cluster your units maybe on one end of the property and leaving the rest of the acreage,

[01:29:29] because you've hit your density, leaving the rest of the acreage to natural areas and to conservation easements and to the enjoyment of that community or the larger public. So explain to folks what Chapter 10 is. The land use chapter of the comprehensive plan. Thank you.

[01:29:48] Okay. All right. We'll keep trying. You want to go to? I'm going to try to go quickly. So the commercial districts, we have neighborhood business, which really replaces today's C1, O1, and some of the O2 districts.

[01:30:03] It's really a light commercial district meant to be, you know, between a neighborhood and the major corridors. CC is your typical suburban corridor uses. That's where you're going to find fast food, shopping centers, auto repair, those kinds of things. Mixed use, of course, is our new mixed use district.

[01:30:21] it comes in three flavors, a small, medium, and large, if you will, in direct alignment with the comprehensive plan, which also has three different kinds of mixed use. So that'll determine, you know, the scale of the mixed use we're looking for. ECR is our employment district replaces basically I1 and some O2 today. It's basically light industry that happens indoors, not a lot of exterior impacts or heavy impacts to it. It should be appropriate as a transition from, again, major roads to neighborhoods e.g. is your general employment or your heavier industrial that's where you get into the more intense manufacturing and assembly kind of uses things with a lot of outside storage that

[01:31:00] you want to keep away from your residential areas and then wd is also a new district that's our warehousing and distribution district that's specifically for warehousing and that was at the urging of our economic development department because we didn't want to see all of our good industrial lands taken up by warehouses. We wanted to reserve some of those for employment generating uses for the future of our citizens to make things and not just store things. So we have a separate warehousing district from a manufacturing district in our ordinance for the first time.

[01:31:31] Any questions there? I think what we'd like to do for the sake of time is to jump to the development standards section and kind of skip over the uses a little bit. And that way we can hit some of the, we have some important things to talk about with you in the development standards part. The use has a very, I think, user-friendly matrix that you can figure out what uses are allowed within particular uses. We have definitions for all the uses within that chapter in ZOMA,

[01:32:03] so it's much more clear. In the past, we've had discussions on what certain uses should be called and had go through written determinations and lots of extra steps. So that, I think, It's all been cleaned up. To get into kind of where we've had the most conversations or outstanding issues since July 15th have been in the development standards chat article four.

[01:32:30] There are 14 basic elements within development standards. Interest of time, I'm just going to kind of go to the standards that we've had the most recent comments or discussions or suggestions come out of so we can hit those things and get your your two cents on that. Jump in again. I apologize. Mr.

[01:32:53] Chair, I have a question for you. I've heard now a couple of times in the interest of time and and all these kind of things. We have the reason for this work session is so that we're able to understand and not us really as much as our citizens understand. So I don't want to necessarily rush through this. So I'm curious to know, Mr. Chair, if it turns out that we were going through this, But if we have additional questions, those kind of things, are you open to, or what would the process be if we wanted to do multiple work sessions around ZOMOD?

[01:33:27] I know that we're thinking about the possibility of making a decision in September. But I'm curious to know if -- I don't want to rush through the process. So I'm curious to know, Mr. Chair, how would that work if we said, hey, we -- I don't want to rush through it. I want to go through it so that everyone's clear and understands, our citizens understand and that all the questions or many of the questions have at least been asked.

[01:33:51] I'm happy to go back to go through uses. It saves us having to come back in two weeks or a month and continue this conversation. We can go back to uses, but the uses themselves are a chart that already exists today. It's been updated with the new development opportunities that you can pick for the districts to pick from.

[01:34:16] And to be honest with you, if you really want to go through that, we can. But I'm not sure that that's going to be conducive to really helping the citizens. But what I would say is that any citizen that has a question should reach out to the planning department.

[01:34:33] And if they don't feel like they've gotten their question answered satisfactorily, at this point it's passed the planning commission. so they need to reach out to their board member or any board member with a question if they don't feel like staff has addressed it adequately so that we can have more discussion between us.

[01:34:54] And if at some point in time we think we need to change our calendar, we can, but I'm not sure that that was a section that needed a lot of time anyways. But go ahead. Regarding the uses, is there anything that's been done, And I know it's a lot of times it's by right, changing or putting parameters around the number of gas stations, car washes, those types of things.

[01:35:24] I'm just asking simple questions because, again, we all know those are the things that we see a lot of and that people ask about. So just asking. On that particular topic, a bleed gas station is permitted in all C districts today, C1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. The new commercial districts in Zomod, we have three of them, neighborhood business, commercial corridor, and mixed use.

[01:35:45] Gas station, I believe, is a conditional use in neighborhood business and mixed use and only by right in corridor commercial. So, yes, we're tightening the reins a bit on gas stations as part of this process. But in general, it would be illegal if there's something that's designated in an area for us to decide.

[01:36:06] We can't say, people will say, well, why do you have so many chicken places in Chester? I guess we're the Chester Chickens. It's because people buy a lot of chicken in Chester. If you don't want chicken restaurants in Chester, don't buy chicken, and they'll close.

[01:36:25] I mean, that's really, honestly, I'm not trying to close a business down. I'm saying, though, that the businesses react to what people want. And people say, why do you need so many? Well, the only reason that many happen is because that many people are going to them.

[01:36:41] If they don't go to them, they're not going to build any more, and they'll probably close some of them down, hopefully with something else better. Chair, in reference to Dr. Miller's question, what I would say is this. I'm always open that if it's necessary to have an additional work session with additional information for the community, I'm always open to that.

[01:37:03] We knew when we set this work session that it was going to be long, and because of the fact that we're looking at an ordinance that's so thick, I think that what could happen from this work session is we may get emails and inquiries from constituents that may want us to hold an additional work session to kind of spell things out a little bit.

[01:37:22] And I'm not opposed to that if we need to do it again. We'll have time. We set the agenda. So I'm open to that if it comes to that. Okay. Well, going on to development standards, one of the keynote elements within ZOMOT is the introduction of the added requirement for amenity space within most of the zoning districts.

[01:37:43] And the objective of amenity spaces is basically to provide future neighborhoods and retail centers with more quality common open space and amenities within the project. So in the past, in the COPD process or whatever we were going through, none of that was required within the existing zoning ordinance.

[01:38:06] So it was debate, discussion, negotiation, whatever word you want to use to try to get some sort of open space or amenities within the project. Now that's part of the requirement that you have within the zoning ordinance.

[01:38:22] So we think that's a big step forward to be able to just say, no, you've got to do 5% amenity space or 10% amenity space, whatever it is that we have coded in that particular zoning district. And I think it's a very good, healthy addition to our zoning ordinance and how we do land use development.

[01:38:44] So I think it's a big thing for us to have in ZOMOD. In ZOMOD, we do allow within the amenity space a wide range of options that they can pick from. They can pick from a residential development, a pool or a clubhouse, something rather extravagant or expensive, to passive parks or trails or a community garden or something of that sort.

[01:39:12] We've got about 15 to 17 different choices they can pick from. And so we've given them, I think, enough opportunity to find the right elements for their particular projects. Within amenity space, one of the discussions that we've had since July 15th was within the description of pathways within amenity space, we left it rather open for what type of material could be used for that pathway.

[01:39:45] And so one of the suggestions that came out of the meetings with you all and others was let's specifically state that if they want their pathway within their project to count as amenity space, it has to be either asphalt that's at least four feet wide or it has to be crushed stone or gravel of at least four feet in width.

[01:40:09] So no mulch. At some point there had been some discussion as would mulch be an acceptable trail. I think the majority of everybody's thought was no, that's just not a good long-range solution to creating a walking path within a community.

[01:40:26] So we're clarifying that it just has to be either asphalt or crushed stone or gravel of at least four feet in width to be able to count towards accountable pathway for amenity space.

[01:40:43] And that was just one of the things we wanted to make sure you guys were comfortable with. Mr. Chairman, this is Jim. Yeah, I'm very comfortable with that because we've had to build into a number of cases of managed space for some of our neighborhoods in Dale.

[01:41:00] So thank you for that. So I'm just asking, as far as in some of the developments where we've had wetlands or RPAs that you can't put something permanent, is crushed stone or gravel acceptable in there then?

[01:41:19] Because you can't put anything permanent. Yes, we've met with environmental engineering and we have some language in ZOMOD that basically says, you know, environmental engineering and the planning department. I have to agree that that's the appropriate material that we use for that particular part of the trail or pathway.

[01:41:41] And are boardwalks included somewhere in there for RPA areas and wetlands or no? I think that would be an acceptable type. I just want to make sure that we have everything. boardwalk was built you know appropriately and met all the criteria that environmental engineering would have for being in a wetland area i would i think there's some language in there giving us some latitude to pick those type of changes in material okay moving on we had one of the other

[01:42:14] topics that we had some discussions on were buffers and treescapes or tree canopies and landscaping and so these aren't really really any modifications to this but we wanted to kind of clarify what what's in ZOMOT in reference to some of these things within buffers language in ZOMOT that in residential projects the buffers should not be in private property they should be in some sort of commonly held property like an HOA controlled piece of property and that reason for that is the weekend warrior who might buy you know a new chainsaw

[01:42:52] on Saturday and by Monday all their trees are gone and it was within a buffer. So we've had that situation before with some of the cases that we've had. So the idea of it staying within an HOA or some other group that had more control over that property is the method that's worked the best for us.

[01:43:10] So we've codified that in ZOMOD. Secondly, we've increased some of the buffer widths in some of our ZOMOD districts, for example, in neighborhood business, we require, you know, 50 feet buffer between where a neighborhood business would be next to a residential district. So there's a little more separation between those.

[01:43:35] Also in our future unused urban residential district, the UR district, we've increased the width of those buffers to 75 feet. So we're, and then for all our industrial uses that, And districts that would be near a residential product or something or project, they would have a 100-foot buffer requirement.

[01:44:00] So I think we have suitable and reasonable size buffers included in ZOMOD. Moving on to one of the utility in ZOMOD, there was some kind of vague language in reference to how you could encroach within a buffer.

[01:44:20] We tried to clarify that, and especially for the upper Swift Creek watershed area to make it that there's a maximum of 25 feet that you could encroach parallel within the buffer for a utility easement or easement, leaving 75 feet untouched for the remaining portion of the buffer.

[01:44:40] So sometimes there is a need for utilities to run parallel to a buffer, and then, of course, we have some language in ZOMA that allows them to perpendicularly cut through and continue through the other side of the buffer. So we've clarified some of that language just to help preserve buffers in the future so they aren't just wiped out for purposes of providing the easement.

[01:45:07] There was some conversations in reference to an option being added to SU district. This is our smallest lot configuration. This is the 7,500 square foot lots to the 4,500 square lots. Where those particular projects would come forward, the idea that if they were adjacent to a larger lot residential development, half acre, quarter acre lot configuration, basically the SC, the SR, the RC district, that they would be required to put a 20 to a 25% buffer requirement on their property for that project.

[01:45:47] Foot, not percent. Excuse me? Foot, not percent. Did I say percent? Yes. I'm sorry. 25 feet, yeah. So that was one of the suggestions that was brought up, and so we put that before you if that's something you'd like to see included in the final draft of ZOMOD before we take it forward on the 17th, that this would only be where that SU proposed zoning project would be adjacent to a larger lot configuration, not against a farm or to a similarly zoned piece of property.

[01:46:22] And then in ZOMOD, one of the benefits that we have now is we're requiring street trees to be required in our SC, our SU, our TR, and our UR and AR districts, those are all our single-family detached, our smaller lot configuration of single-family detached lots, as well as our townhouses and our apartment complexes, and then the alternative residential, which Steve Haas described a bit.

[01:46:52] The idea that street trees would be required within those, currently in the zoning ordinance We have now only RTH, the townhouse development, and RMF, the multifamily required street trees. So we're trying to promote that.

[01:47:07] And then in our commercial parking lots, we've required better spacing of tree and landscaping within the overall layout of the shopping center or parking lot of the shopping center so that we get more tree canopy throughout the entire parking area. So those are some changes that we've made.

[01:47:24] We want to at least point those out to you. The only one change that would be happening from what was in July 15th to September 17th would be this addition to maybe adding the 20 to 25 foot buffer within SU to adjacent larger lock configurations.

[01:47:43] So give some thought to that. Okay, moving on, townhouse parkings was definitely one of the elements we spent the most time on talking about since July 15th with trying to get the right balance of parking within a townhouse project.

[01:48:06] To help us with some of that, the planning commission did make two revisions on July 15th on the floor of the meeting. THAT THOSE DEALT PRIMARILY WITH HIGHER DENSITY RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT, THEY ADDED THAT 32-FOOT MINIMUM PAVEMENT STREET WIDTH WOULD BE REQUIRED FOR THE SU DISTRICT, AGAIN THAT'S THE 7500 TO 4500 SQUARE FOOT SMALL LOT CONFIGURATIONS, THE TOWNHOUSES AND THEN THE MULTIFAMILY, THE TR AND UR, THOSE WOULD HAVE TO REQUIRE A 32-FOOT STREET CONFIGURATION.

[01:48:40] And then they did also add that to get for any of those districts, the developers with trying to develop those particular districts want to count the parking, on-street parking, they had to provide at least a 32-foot street configuration.

[01:48:59] So the idea is, you know, the 29-foot is not working well here. I think we've all had that experience as to what works and what doesn't work. We're learning from that. The 32-foot seems like the right width to require for that to allow on-street parking to occur.

[01:49:20] It's still going to need CDOT and VDOT approval for where that parking can go, but the idea that it's at least allowable to be done within those particular projects was something that the Planning Commission felt strongly about and added on the July 15th to their recommendation.

[01:49:39] And not to get too deep in the weeds, but that would still require 2.2 parking spaces per unit. Oh, no, I'm sorry. We're not in townhouses. I'll apologize. I got ahead of myself. It's this slide. Well, we're next.

[01:49:54] Basically, there's still, after, even with the Planning Commission's recommendations and revision, there were still some additional edits had been suggested since that time that had been kind of talked about. And one of them, I'm just going to quickly go through those.

[01:50:11] The idea of an eight-foot-wide garage door, currently within ZOMOD, we're requiring a nine-foot door. It came to our attention by the builders as well as others that the eight-foot garage door is the standard width and the most available for a project and should accommodate 99% of the cars to get in with an 8-foot door.

[01:50:41] So that was one of the revisions that we've heard to make to the final draft of ZOMOD. Another item was to go to a 10 by 19 garage floor area, clear of all obstructions. This would be stairs or doorways, swing doors, and so forth.

[01:51:00] The idea that Zomad currently requires a 10 by 20 area for that, some of the argument that was made was most cars are less than 16 feet in length, and SUVs are 17 feet or less in length, and trucks are even, some of them are 18 plus.

[01:51:22] But the idea that a 10 by 19 would suffice for a majority of vehicles to be parked inside. And as long as there was no obstruction within that 10 by 19 area, that that should be satisfied, workable.

[01:51:38] That was a suggestion that was made out. The next bullet, the no combination of garage and driveway shall exceed the required parking for a unit. But that's basically what that's trying to do is ensure that a developer can't bank a lot of their parking requirements within a particular lot and not provide some common or public visitor parking within their community.

[01:52:07] And so they can reach that maximum number for that particular lot, but they can't exceed that. There was some discussion or fear that they could somehow build up the reserve and then not have to put any additional parking anywhere in their development because they put it all on the private lot, and that doesn't help the visitor coming to visit somebody and not being able to park.

[01:52:34] The only place they could park is in your neighbor's driveway, which doesn't make any sense. Then the next thing was the option of a 32-foot street with a ratio going down to 2.2 for the townhouse ratio currently within ZOMA we have a 2.5 ratio for parking that was when we first picked that number it was comparable to a lot of what the other jurisdictions were using for townhouses

[01:53:05] however as we continued to craft draft for we also added into our count for parking ratio that only half of a garage parking space could count as the required parking. So that was a pretty big hit in reference to where we used to would have been counting you know a two-car garage for two cars all of a sudden only counted for one car or if it was a one-car bay garage you only got a

[01:53:42] half a count and how that affects an overall subdivision of townhouses was pretty significant. So the combination of 2.5 and the half count for the garage parking and the tandem parking really kind of made it so that there was quite a bit of possibility of overbuilding parking within townhouse developments. And we did some beta testing to see if that was truly true. And I

[01:54:15] I think staff felt that 2.5 is too heavy, probably, and that coming down from that would be acceptable. And I think 2.2 was the number that we kind of landed on as to being an acceptable spot for that. But the street would have to be a 32-foot street configuration so that we could get plenty of on-street parking configuration within the subdivision.

[01:54:42] In the current ordinance, not the proposed OMOD, but the current ordinance right now, that still means that developers would have to put in another half of parking space into the neighborhood somewhere other than on the lot than they currently do today.

[01:54:58] So we are still imposing a stricter parking proposal even with this than we do in today's 1978 CUPD. The stick we're using is more of the half count of a garage than it is the upping of the ratio to 2.5, if that makes any sense to you.

[01:55:20] As a kind of a sidebar to that, there was a suggestion that to help incentivize maybe even wider streets and going to a 34-foot street configuration,

[01:55:30] The idea of giving incentivizing to the developer to be able to go down to 2.0 for townhouse parking per per unit would provide the opportunity for better movement within the 34 foot street configuration that extra two feet and would help the developer not have to build as many off street kind of common gang parking kind of configurations within their project.

[01:56:00] And the better look was to have a 34-foot street with more parking on it than it was to have an off-street parking configuration where they have, you know, another 20 cars parked there. And for clarification, the 34 would allow for people to back up with cars parked across from their driveway, correct?

[01:56:21] That would be the theory there. Well, I think there's some language. I tested it, and it worked. You do have to go back and forth once or twice in a very large vehicle, but in the average car, yes.

[01:56:37] In a larger vehicle, yes, you can still do it, but you may have to move forward and backward once or twice. But nobody will be trapped in their driveway with the 34-foot wide street. The other final item there is the parallel parking between residential driveways shall be a minimum of 7 by 18 feet in size.

[01:57:01] Our typical on-street parking space is 7 by 22. The theory behind this is if you have kind of driveways bookending where the parking spot would be, at least 10 feet on either side, and then you've got an area that's 18 feet wide in between those parking lots, there's enough room to kind of maneuver your car and park within that 18 feet and to pull out.

[01:57:29] the extra four feet within the 22 is for kind of ingress and egress from the parking spot. So the theory behind that was, you know, provide a little shorter acceptable space for residential on-street parking between driveways. That was an option. So those were the items that were kind of suggested to be included in the final draft of, or this next draft of ZOMOT. I was just kind of curious where you all stand on some of that could um i know i've talked with jesse a

[01:58:06] little bit about this but um possibly utilizing tree preservation as an amenity um option for builders um if they are willing to preserve existing um growth trees um as a green space um adding that into a um an option for an amenity that's we we have that in zoma that is one of the options as a natural area left alone that does count. It doesn't count towards strategic amenity space, but it counts as your overall amenity space, yes. And it's got to be pedestrian accessible

[01:58:41] so you can get to the pond or the forest or the field or whatever. Actually, I want to pick up on what Jessica is asking. I want to be really clear about this. As far as the, yes, existing green space, and I heard that part, but what I think Jessica may be getting at, and you can tell me, Jessica, if I'm not accurate, is we're looking at more of the old growth trees and keeping them Is there additional incentives, as opposed to it being just grass, as opposed to trees that are more old growth?

[01:59:20] I'm not sure we could codify that in this version of ZOMOD, but I think, you know, working with environmental engineering and how we can maybe get into preserving. You're talking about more scattered site, mature trees within the development. Is that your question?

[01:59:36] What we're going to hear, and it's just consistent, is that whenever a development moves forward and trees get taken down, then the emails start flying. And so what I've noticed in other jurisdictions is that they've been able to figure out a way so it's not as obvious that all those trees got taken down.

[02:00:00] Another way of saying that is that the developers have some sort of an incentive to maintain the appearance of green space in a smarter way than just clear-cutting everything. I think, you know, if they're within, with, say, the wooded area within the central part of a subdivision, if that could be saved and used as part of, that can be counted as part of their amenity space, and that's not going to be, have the appearance of the clear cutting that you're describing as much.

[02:00:36] That's the level of, that we could go to, I think, within Zomont at this point. But to count the tree buffer as amenity space, it has to be the original tree buffer. It's not a replaced tree buffer with a new small tree.

[02:00:51] It's the original trees, which is what he was asking. Yeah, I was going to say, again, our buffer standards have changed a little bit in ZOMOD. We are trying to restrict what you can do to that buffer. Right now, people are clearing them and doing things that they shouldn't be. So in ZOMOD, we've tightened that up a little bit.

[02:01:08] Only under certain circumstances can you, you know, mess around with that buffer and remove things and strip it out. Mr. Chair, I think the other restriction that we run into, and we all know this, is that the Chesapeake Bay Act, you know, when you talk about, especially in the townhomes or those type of developments, you know, they have to move so much dirt in order to be able to retain the water.

[02:01:31] It, unfortunately, necessitates them, and that's not something we have control over. Am I right about that? That's correct. But the idea of larger portions within the subdivision that could be salvaged and stay as a mature wooded area would definitely be an incentive that we could provide the developer to do.

[02:01:52] And that's how we've kind of worded it within our amenity straight space section. That's more of like a comprehensive plan kind of policy that I think we should keep in mind as we head that direction. Okay. Just one more.

[02:02:08] Sorry. With the 2 or the 2.2 parking ratio, how much of the parking counts on the lot or on your lot versus in a parked lot, off lot, excuse me? You know, the way we've worded the third bullet, you could have up to that 2.2 on your property.

[02:02:29] There really isn't mathematically a way to do that for any of the smaller lot configurations, though. So I would, you know, most of the calculations that we've come up with, there's still between 0.2 and 0.4 a space that's being provided throughout the subdivision for visitor and off-site parking.

[02:02:52] So it can work. The easy answer is the combination cannot be more than the required parking, which means if you do 34-feet streets, you only get 2.0 max on your lot, and if you do 32-foot-wide streets, you only get 2.2 max on your lot.

[02:03:13] True, too. All right, so I think we're up to the procedures and fees, and I'm going to pass that on to Thomas. All right, so this section outlines the various procedures that an applicant has to go through and the roles and responsibilities of county government in those procedures.

[02:03:35] So starting off here, the notice section establishes the requirements for notifying the public of various applications that come through the planning department, including legislative decisions such as rezonings, BZA decisions such as appeals, and administrative actions such as site plans and subdivision review.

[02:03:52] So in the existing ordinance, this section received a major update in 2024 due to state law changes. And Zomont incorporates all those changes and one more recent change to newspaper notice date that came out of the 2025 General Assembly session. The fee schedule has minimal changes compared to the existing ordinance.

[02:04:09] The biggest change is that applications for accessory dwelling units that meet all the recommended conditions in the ordinance may be eligible for a discounted application fee. The subsequent sections in this article lay out the timelines, review criteria, roles and responsibilities in executing the various legislative and administrative processes.

[02:04:31] There are specific sections covering rezonings, text amendments, conditional use, special exceptions, substantial accord, site plans, historic preservation, variances and appeals. I want to make it clear that other than an improved upon process for evaluating exceptions, there are no substantial changes to the way rezonings, conditional uses, appeals, variances, and substantial accord cases are conducted.

[02:04:53] Public hearings are still required for all of these processes. Site plan procedures did have a somewhat significant change that is state mandated. The Planning Commission is no longer able to review a site plan or subdivision plat, which is a change that's made in accordance with recent legislation that became effective on July 1st.

[02:05:15] All right, so a new feature of ZOMOT is the adjustments to ordinance requirements process, which may occur as part of a rezoning. It enables an applicant to request, as part of their proffer statement, the ability to modify ordinance requirements. As part of that modification, the ordinance requires staff, the commission, and the board to consider the adjustments against the overall development proposal and ensure that sufficient mitigation has been provided for those adjustments and that the adjustment enhances the proposal above and beyond the ordinance requirements.

[02:05:45] There are some parts of the ordinance for which there are specific criteria to be considered as part of an adjustment, which include amenity space, parking, utility connections, and building design. There are also parts of the ordinance that are off-limits for adjustment, which include conducting a use in a district that doesn't allow it and reducing lot size below the district requirements.

[02:06:06] In short, the overall intent of this section is to raise the bar on what's expected of an applicant if they ask for an exception to ordinance requirements. It's already been mentioned today, but another new process in ZOMOD is the zoning deviation. It replaces the existing CUPD process, and it has a new name.

[02:06:23] Reasons for the name are twofold. First, it reduces confusion with the separate conditional use process. And second, it also establishes CUPDs as a pre-ZOMOD type of approval, making it clear that any subsequent zoning deviations, if they get approved, are a different animal than the existing CUPDs.

[02:06:41] Aside from the name change, zoning deviation still retains the ability to seek use exceptions and development standards exceptions. ZOMOD has created two variants or basically two levels to the zoning deviation. One is for existing development such as an individual lot or modification of an existing CUPD and the second is for new development which is basically a backstop that would allow a unique application to be submitted that doesn't fit into one of the ZOMOD districts or processes. The criteria are similar to the existing CUPD with a few additions such as a minimum of 10% amenity space in any project for the residential dwellings.

[02:07:18] And like any other process, a zoning deviation can be initiated by the board, the commission, or an applicant. All right, Article 6, Nonconformities. This article has all the expected language that controls nonconforming uses, all of which is the same as the existing ordinance.

[02:07:36] A nonconforming use is a land use that is active but no longer meets the zoning ordinance. Such uses may be continued perpetually but not expanded. And if the use discontinues for a period of more than two years, it cannot be resumed. That two-year period is the minimum allowed by state law.

[02:07:52] We can't go any lower than that. This article also has some new content that addresses how existing development fits into the new ZOMOD landscape. So I'll spend a bit of time covering that. 19.2.72 has important regulations that applies to both existing subdivided neighborhoods and residential land that has not been subdivided.

[02:08:11] So first, the conversion of the existing residential districts to the proposed ZOMOD districts might raise some questions about the ability to subdivide a residential lot into two lots using the smaller lot sizes afforded by the range of options in the districts. Consider a 16,000 square foot lot that's currently in R15 and that that property converts to the SC district and you see SC option two allows an 8,000 square foot lot and so suddenly someone's licking their chop to divide it in two and sell it. We have a clause in ZOMOD that specifically requires that process to go before the board.

[02:08:44] So that's not something that's by right in ZOMOD. In this section, there's also language that addresses how unsubdivided properties are to be developed. Again, with the conversion of the existing residential districts to the proposed ZOMOD districts, it might appear that there's a substantial increase in density that would occur by using the smaller lot sizes afforded by the range of options in the districts.

[02:09:09] Consider a vacant track today that's zoned R-12 in those conditions. That property could be developed with 12,000-square-foot lots, but when it converts to SC, you might see that there's a 50% density bonus because they can develop with 8,000-square-foot lots. However, we insert a specific clause in that section that requires the unsubdivided residential property to be developed according to the district option that is the nearest match for the existing zoning. So in the case of that R-12 example, that would be option one within the suburban community district, which

[02:09:41] allows 11,000 square foot lots with 7.5% amenity space. So in 19.1, the existing ordinance or 19.2 ZOMOD, you're getting about the same lot yield. Any questions on the residential? So also in this section, we made some changes to continuity of existing permitted uses in the heavier commercial and industrial districts. So for any property today, zone C5, I1, I2, or I3, there's a five-year period commencing at the effective date of the ordinance in which currently permitted and restricted land uses may be conducted. So a hypothetical example, consider an I-1 property

[02:10:20] that may have a use today that changes to a conditional use when it converts to the EC district in ZOMOT. Despite that conversion, the property could still file a site plan and establish that use without going through the zoning process within a five-year period. There's a few exceptions to that. Data centers are not eligible for this grace period, and neither are existing conditional uses in the C-5, I-1, I-2, and I-3 districts.

[02:10:50] All right, lastly in the Non-Conformities Article, there's a section that specifies how existing proffered conditions, conditional uses, conditional use plan developments and variances are to be handled upon conversion of the ordinance to ZOMOD. The language is similar to language that's in the ordinance today that was used to transition the last time we did an ordinance update in the late 80s.

[02:11:11] And so this is the section that specifies that someone's existing CUPD will override any ZOMOD requirement. So for all the CUPD neighborhoods out there, they will more than likely continue to be more governed by their CUPD than by what's in ZOMOD. The only instance where that wouldn't be true is if the CUPD is silent or in a requirement that ZOMOD has.

[02:11:33] And that's also the same way that CUPDs interact with the existing ordinance today. So if there's a CUPD silent or something, our ordinance does apply. And lastly, after hearing feedback at the Planning Commission in July, we've recommended some additional language in this section clarifying that use permits, which were a type of zoning approval used by the BZA in the 60s and 70s, Those also have the same validity as conditional uses in COPDs, which became more popular in the 80s and 90s and thereafter.

[02:12:03] So that wraps up nonconformities. Any questions there?

[02:12:15] So with that, we have done an overview of ZOMOD Draft 4. And we wanted to remind everyone that we will be looking ahead, and this is our vision map from the land use plan in Chapter 10 of the Comprehensive Plan.

[02:12:34] So it's just to let everyone know that we will be beginning an update and an overhaul of the comprehensive plan in the very near future, following hopefully our adoption of ZOMOD, if that does happen in September. Dr. Case.

[02:12:50] Mr. Chair, going back to a good conversation earlier, just, and again, we're staff, so we're here at the discretion with the board wishes and desires, but a suggestion could possibly be we have put out the notices, as was mentioned at the beginning, for everyone to be aware of the September 17th public hearing, so that's quite an endeavor into itself, as you mentioned, Mr. Engel, in regards to the notification processes. What we can do is whatever other FAQs and questions that the Board of Supervisors has or additional, hopefully, from citizens listening in and the messaging we're going to be doing now, try and, you know, refresh what are some new questions

[02:13:26] and, you know, topics that we may not have answered yet to disseminate to the public as best we can between now and the 17th. We can also meet with you individually for what you were hearing on the street as well to get that feedback as well to then hopefully devote some time if need be in the afternoon on the 17th to what is a remaining work session on it prior to the public hearing. As you well know, you are welcome at the end of any public hearing based upon the comments that are heard or some questions that you feel need some more PERFECTION, WHETHER IT'S LEGAL OR PLANNER'S PERSPECTIVES, WE CAN JUST SIMPLY DEFER THE

[02:14:02] ACTION ON THE 17TH TO A FUTURE MEETING AND/OR TO FUTURE WORK SESSIONS, BUT I'M ONLY SAYING THAT BECAUSE THE PUBLIC RIGHT NOW IS AWARE THROUGH ALL THESE POST CARDS OF THE 17TH ITSELF. MR. CHAIR, THERE'S ALWAYS ONE MORE OPTION WHICH WE DIDN'T DISCUSSED, WHICH IS WE COULD ALSO CALL FOR A SPECIAL MEETING IF WE NEEDED TO FOR A WORK SESSION AND BETWEEN NOW AND THE NEXT BOARD OF SUPERVISOR'S MEETING IF NECESSARY. WE HAVE THAT OPTION BECAUSE WE HAVE THE BILITY to call for those meetings if we choose to. It may not be on the calendar, but we could set it if we

[02:14:34] deemed it necessary as a board. Thank you, Mr. Carroll. Any other questions? Well, appreciate your quick and precise presentation and thank you. The draft 2026 legislative program, Ms. Spillman.

[02:15:12] Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the board, Dr. Casey, Mr. Minks. Nice to be with you

[02:15:48] all this afternoon. So we're going to run through just an overview on the outlook of what we expect to see going into the 2026 General Assembly session, as well as a review of the draft legislative program. On the ballot this fall, so we've got some candidates from Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, and expect that with that election and the outcomes there could potentially see some new agency leadership as well across the state offices. All 100 seats in the House of Delegates are up for re-election. Within Chesterfield, six of the seven House seats are running

[02:16:22] contested races. The 81st District, Delegate McQuinn's district, she's running unopposed. Statewide, 85 of the 100 seats are running contested races. So with that, it's potential to see some also changes among committee leadership. We're going to start a new two-year budget cycle that begins on July 1 of 2026. So that biennium budget will first be presented in December with the outgoing governor and so with that new governor taking position on January 1 expect that there will likely be a lot of budget amendments regardless of the outcome coming into

[02:16:59] the next general assembly session so earlier this summer there was discussion regarding bill limits that topic is still under consideration we don't know where that's going to land yet but paying attention to that topic in addition special session has also been a topic that the legislators have been told to hold the week of April, sorry, September 8th as a possible week to pull everybody back into special session. So as we know more, we'll keep you all updated on that front. Throughout the years, Chesterfield has demonstrated much success with adopting guiding principles that really provide the headline for our legislative program. It gives us the ability to be most

[02:17:37] adaptable and react as quickly and be honestly most productive during session. So we recommend that we continue to adopt these guiding principles that set really the backbone for the legislative program. It provides us one of the many lenses that we look through when reviewing legislation and budget amendments to ensure that we're in alignment with these principles, but also in alignment with the County Strategic Framework Blueprint Chesterfield. All right, diving into the legislative program priorities and some of the position statements, and just want to note that a couple of these items we'll review in a little more depth with you towards the end of this

[02:18:16] presentation. And so if you have questions, we may be able to get to those answers later on, but certainly we'll take questions along the way too. Our first priority continues to be K-12 education and continuing to seek resolution for implementing the JLARC recommendations. While significant strides were made last session to lift the support cap, there still remains really important work to look at the funding methodology across the Commonwealth.

[02:18:39] Also, last session, there were big strides in a largely bipartisan support to expand the local option sales tax that would be dedicated to schools' construction and maintenance funding, helping to address some critical school needs across the Commonwealth. That language exists for a handful of localities across the state.

[02:19:00] It would just be an expansion for all localities. It was not signed by the governor. In the public safety space, technology advancements in public safety have really proven to be especially beneficial, and we're recommending continuing to support those technology improvements that work to enhance the safety and security of our community, recognizing that deploying those technologies strategically offers us the ability to prioritize officers in other service areas.

[02:19:26] We're proposing a slight modification to the next priority statement for supporting options to enhance jail operations, specifically to include support for a basic jailer position. In consultation with the sheriff's office, this would be an innovative idea to create the opportunity for a sheriff's cadet type program similar to police service aids, giving them the ability to attract and retain individuals at 18. And so those positions would be limited to jail duties only and help to build out the bench for future public safety talent. Further, magistrate issues remain unresolved and continue to create serious public safety issues not only within our community but

[02:20:05] learning of other events within other states as well. The topic was heavily discussed during the 2024 General Assembly session, and many jurisdictions share similar concerns, but ultimately the topic was tabled. So despite all that, it remains a top priority for our public safety leaders, and we're continuing to ask for support for legislation that would overturn the oversight, excuse me, put the oversight back to the circuit court's chief judge.

[02:20:31] We're recommending to keep support in for fully funding 599 state aid to localities for those with police departments. In a local authority space, we recommend support to continue defending our local authority, including our ability to collect local revenues, recommending continued support for the option to offer enhanced VRS benefits for other critical public safety workers.

[02:20:52] That includes the 911 dispatchers, juvenile detention officers, animal service officers. This topic was studied by JLARC. recommendations were, again, largely bipartisan support, seeing bills come in from folks on both sides of the aisle, yet it could not pass out of the General Assembly. Bringing a new topic to you this year, and appreciate the Registrar and our Electoral Board members being here for this, and we'll get into a more detailed description in just a little bit, but asking for support as we work towards a local option to authorize the use of vote centers, and again, a little more details to come. In the infrastructure space, this continues to be a high need, high priority for the county

[02:21:32] as we are growing and changing. Recommend continued support for state funding for secondary road maintenance across all VDOT maintained rights of way, funding for the fall line trail with a prioritization on the southern section here in Chesterfield, and funding and project prioritization for major road projects in the county. During session, we spent a majority of our time playing defense, which includes safeguarding against cost shifts and opposing unfunded mandates.

[02:21:59] So I recommend your support to include advocating on behalf of our state responsible local positions that are here in the county, focusing on modernizing staffing standards and fair compensation. And again, this topic too, we'll look at it in a little bit more detail. Economic development, witnessing some of the significance of that space this morning as, you know, welcome a new business.

[02:22:26] I think that, you know, there's a lot going on and we're doing a lot in that space, but continue to recommend support for business site readiness initiatives, support for our programs and funding that provide for business growth and new business development and continued investment. And then also support for programs and funding that invest and promote tourism in the county.

[02:22:44] In the technology space, it's ever evolving and ever changing and just as rapidly as risk and potential exposure. So recommending support for policy and funding to advance cybersecurity protections and risk mitigation measures across the Commonwealth. Housing continues to be a complex topic for communities all throughout the state.

[02:23:04] And Chesterfield, that complexity is uniquely magnified as we're a high-growth leader. And so we've added language in the program this year to support enhanced local authority for analyzing and determining land use requests that could result in a possible legislative request to regulate the terms of development and create more predictability at future build-out.

[02:23:21] We're also recommending continued support for additional state funding and resources to bolster local housing options, which could address affordable housing. And then finally, recommending support for additional funding and programmatic resources for addressing health, well-being, and recovery services to include mental health, behavioral health system resources, and therapies for veterans.

[02:23:42] Before we dive into some of these topics in a little more detail, does anybody have any questions? going. So earlier this summer, our registrar and electoral board reached out to discuss a possible legislative request with us. And with that request in its most basic form and concept is really being able to take advantage of what we do for 45 days during early voting on an extension of one day. That's election day. And so opening up the ability to activate and implement vote centers.

[02:24:12] A little bit of history. So as a result of the state code change in 2020, the county began offering early voting to our community, utilizing a central voting location and eventually adding five satellite locations. Over the last five years, we've seen great success in early voting and even a significant shift in the number of ballots that are cast early versus on election day. And now seeing almost 50% of the ballots in Chesterfield voting early in this last general election. This legislative topic is not new to the General Assembly. There have been several attempts. However, all of that was prior to the pandemic and prior to early voting code changes.

[02:24:49] So reflecting on really strong turnout during early voting, it suggests there's high confidence in the process and confidence in the integrity of the ballots that have been cast. Our recommendation would be to pursue a legislative request that would, by local option, allow localities to implement vote centers utilizing the same practices, again, like I mentioned, that are in place for early voting. This could be done by establishing strategically located vote centers and would allow voters to cast their ballots at any authorized vote center location on election day, utilizing the same ballot on demand practices that we have in place today. This change would ultimately create

[02:25:25] a more convenient, more accessible voting environment on election day, and there would be efficiencies being able to recognize administratively as well, particularly as poll workers are very difficult to find and fulfill the needs for that service. So with this proposal, the legislative request would focus on enabling electronic poll books to sync across all vote center locations on election day and very clearly defining voting machine versus electronic poll books and continue the connectivity for those electronic poll books on election day, utilizing vote centers on vote center locations on election day, and then utilizing the ballot on demand

[02:25:59] practices at those vote centers. This legislative request would not recommend changes to the current statute regarding the process for vote centers or for identifying those voting locations and how they get approved, nor would it change any of the mandated reporting requirements by precincts.

[02:26:16] So I'd really like to thank our registrar and all the members of the electoral board for bringing this topic to us and really helping us to better understand all the nuances for what happens on election day. Any questions on this topic? Thank you. Is this utilized in other parts of the country already? Yes. We had a very productive conversation with the electoral director in Rutherford County, Tennessee just recently. Tennessee started early voting back in 1994 and they've been utilizing the vote center practices across their county which is a suburb of Nashville

[02:26:52] for the last five or six years and seen great success in this and so have a great website. I mean they've been a great contact and could serve as a model too for how we could implement something like this. A constituent can go in put their address and identify which is the closest vote center to wherever you are making it very easy and accessible to find that information. Any other questions well we've had missy and the electoral board sit here for much longer than they expected to um do you all have any comments anybody want to say

[02:27:27] anything we've received more compliments on those satellites and those ballot on demand machines than really any anything that we've implemented so we do have an excellent registrar and we have very confidence in her that she'll see you what obstacles there are and we also I know she didn't mention it there but our

[02:28:02] idea is to use high schools because they have the parking and everybody knows where a high school is and you would possibly have to you know maybe use Manchester Middle to make sure that you have a school that was along the city line there and that those details would have to be ironed out but I just think that when you think about the voting centers being in high schools you know Somebody told me they thought we were going to do it at the libraries.

[02:28:27] I'm like, no, there's way too many voters, and the parking doesn't accommodate it. So I just think since we've already been doing it, we're not afraid to step forward and try it, at least as a pilot. Mr. Chairman? Just as a point, we currently use two of the high schools already for voting precincts, Patoka High School.

[02:28:47] Yes, but not as satellites. But we utilize them on Election Day now, several of our schools, actually. Correct. Multiple high schools, yes. That's the point. But I think the big difference, Kevin, though, is the fact that it'll be a voting center where it's not a particular precinct.

[02:29:06] That's really the change. And that'll be more like a satellite where you can go to the location most convenient for you and vote at any one of them. And we won't have to be operating 76 precincts, which is very difficult to manage.

[02:29:24] I just want to add that I really think it would be kind to a lot of voters. It is amazingly popular. And I also will tell you that we're getting huge support from our peers in other large localities. And I think the thing to remember, because, you know, the way we have the law set up now, there's certain responsibilities for the board and certain part responsibilities for the board, the electoral board.

[02:29:50] And we're trying to keep all that the same. So when we come to pick locations, that will be up to the board of supervisors. But I do want you to know that we're considered leading edge, and that's a very nice position to feel like. Thank you.

[02:30:06] Ms. Snyder? As someone who was an officer of election, when we did all the changes, I don't know how many times people would come in and say, are you looking up, and they were in the wrong place. And a lot of it was because they thought they could go on day of voting to any of the places like they had.

[02:30:25] Well, I voted at LeBron Library last time. I said, well, that might have been outside. So I just think that it removes some of that confusion for people. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Thank you. All right.

[02:30:41] Moving on to the next topic, infrastructure funding. As mentioned, it's critically important to planning what we have going on in our growing community. I've identified a handful of specific projects that are called out in this legislative program. The Poet Parkway Extension, Phase 1 is moving along.

[02:30:57] Phase 2 is currently still in the NEPA process. And once NEPA is complete, it really opens up our ability to activate state or federal dollars. And so we are working closely with Ms. Walker and her team in transportation determining what a funding request could look like with the General Assembly and the timing of that request.

[02:31:13] I just also want to make mention that we've filed community project funding through Congressman Whitman's office for Poe White, and that has been included in the currently pending federal FY2026 budget. Similarly, with 95 Willis Road, those interchange improvements are a high priority.

[02:31:29] That area serves as really the primary gateway for the James River Industrial Park and is already home to many businesses, but will be the site of the future Commonwealth fusion systems. And so constructed in 1950s, that interchange cannot safely or efficiently accommodate the volume of traffic that's moving through that area.

[02:31:46] And so the proposed construction reconstruction would offer a really innovative design to support those businesses both now and into the future. And so like Poe White, there is a pending community project funding in the FY26 federal budget that could help support some of the work to move that project forward.

[02:32:04] I'm also calling attention to the 295 Meadowville interchange. And so when that bridge was originally constructed, it was intended to only be temporary with a commitment from VDOT that the interchange would be improvements completed by 2021. So asking for support to be considered strong advocacy work on VDOT to fulfill that commitment.

[02:32:23] particularly as we're nearing the build-out of Meadowville and in light of today's recent announcement as well. So recognizing that Chesterfield has the most miles of the Fall Line Trail in comparison to the other Fall Line Trail localities, there's five and a half remaining that are unfunded, and so we're asking for support to prioritize funding in this remaining section.

[02:32:44] I had a conversation today with the Governor about Poway, and he's making it a priority. He sees it as one of the things that just needs to happen, and it was very comforting to me that it was something that he brought up to me to say specifically that's one of the things we're working on, and he makes it a priority.

[02:33:09] All right, so coming back to this topic, and this topic's been on repeat for a couple of years, just a couple, regarding state responsible local services. And so really the central issue is that the state has allowed funding to lag leaving localities to shoulder more of the financial responsibility. This is not only about our locally housed state offices like courts and the clerk positions that support them, but also public defenders. It's also funding for programs like car tax relief and 599 funding, like we mentioned earlier. So we're advocating for a rebalanced

[02:33:44] fair model to support its workforce and relieve it to local taxpayer of this burden, which otherwise would be a state responsibility. Oh, I apologize. So we're going to jump here to the compensation board. So just an example that we wanted to put in front of you that we're talking to legislators about already is that, you know, emphasizing what, again, should be a shared responsibility is increasingly becoming more local. And so this is really the theme of the next couple of slides. This topic, again, we review it every year. The cost burden continues to shift in our localities direction, particularly in Chesterfield, as we're growing and workload

[02:34:22] demands continue to increase. For the constitutional offices that you see here, local funding makes up 54% in the circuit court clerk's office, 40% in the commonwealth attorney's office, and 69% in the sheriff's office. And the compensation board funding year over year remains relatively static.

[02:34:39] And so through this lens, we're continuing to ask for the state to fully fund their obligations. As another example, building on that ask for them to fund those obligations is one of the underlying problems that the funding model and those mechanics are just inherently flawed.

[02:34:54] So while we're appreciative of the work that's been done to identify some of these longstanding issues, such as staffing and the Commonwealth Attorney's Office, there's no ability to claw back positions or funding, leaving localities like us unfulfilled. So using data from the compensation board's website, this is what's the source of this data that's on the chart behind me, the Commonwealth attorney staffing analysis and metrics for the proposed number of attorneys that are needed, there's offices losing and there's offices gaining across the state.

[02:35:25] And so based on this report, there's an additional 113 net new positions that were identified statewide with 30 localities owed at least one of those positions. Chesterfield is the green bar towards the end, second from the end, and flagged for 13 positions.

[02:35:43] I think one of the major takeaways in this analysis and then some of the other ones we've done as well is that, you know, when they're performed, we're usually pretty big winners. And so that's, but it's the state's not fulfilling their commitment to the studies that have been done. And so we, you know, recognizing that this report does not reflect the additional positions that were added, there's still a gap, though, to fulfill.

[02:36:05] This chart also is demonstrating that not only where, you know, for the offices that are not experiencing the workload pressures, they're not reallocating those positions. Across all of those red bars, there's a net position gain of 30 positions. And so if you looked at reallocating and rebalancing, you would take care of a portion of the number of new positions that need to be taken care of.

[02:36:28] So again, even when they are identifying what the need is, the resource allocation models and the mechanisms behind them remain flawed. The next area in this same theme is really just that pay is continuing to be a very pronounced issue.

[02:36:46] Just this month, Mr. Engel and Dr. Miller, along with county staff, met with the juvenile and domestic relations court judges to review the significant turnover and compensation issues that they're facing. Drawing your attention to the highlights at the bottom, I know it's kind of hard to see, it says since 2009, 25.6 positions have been held by approximately 100 different people, resulting in a turnover rate of 400%.

[02:37:10] For 90% of these separations, the reason was low salary. This is the reality our judges are facing every day, so adding to increased wait time for court services, dealing with very sensitive topics, leaving families stressed in an already stressful situation, but ultimately rooted in turnover and vacancy challenges that result from inadequate pay.

[02:37:30] So further, the pay disparity among the court clerks varies significantly when comparing JDR, our general district, to the circuit court clerks. And so unfortunately, it appears the state remains unresponsive on these issues and therefore with limited options, those requests are shifting to us locally to help address.

[02:37:51] So with that previous information as the backdrop for this next topic, we bring this to you as awareness as both gubernatorial candidates have this on their platforms about eliminating the car tax. In 2007, the car tax relief program was frozen at $950 million, at which time it was designed to offer 70% relief.

[02:38:09] The state has never adjusted the funding allocation after locking in that $950 million, never investing additional monies. Today, the $950 million is only providing, on average, about 30% of relief for car owners in the Commonwealth, therefore significantly diminishing that benefit.

[02:38:27] If the state takes away this revenue source, they don't have a proven track record of keeping localities whole, and they most certainly don't have a proven track record of keeping up with growth. So in Chesterfield alone, if the state were to take it back up to the 70% relief, they'd owe us an additional $50 million.

[02:38:44] And to make that happen for all localities across the state, they're looking at $1.2 billion, and that's just to get it to 70% relief. Personal property tax plays a crucial role in local government tax revenue base, and it's the second highest revenue source for the county. If we did not have the car tax in place, the value of that lost revenue would equal about 15 cents on the real estate rate to make up the difference.

[02:39:07] All this to say, the state continues to dismiss their commitments. We are continuously pushed to step into a space where the state is falling short. And at the same time, having to combat these topics, such as car tax, that would significantly impair our ability to offer our services locally. So the models for allocation are broken and in some instances unworkable to offer some customized adjustments that they could be using from existing resources to reflect changes in local environments.

[02:39:35] With all of these topics, we continue to advocate among our position and share this information with all of the members of our delegation. In closing, I just want to leave you with a calendar on key dates as we head into the next session. So the next step for this legislative program is adoption on September 17th, election day on November the 5th.

[02:39:55] Pre-filing for legislation opens on November 17th with a deadline on December 1st. We'll host the joint county and schools legislative breakfast on December 2nd. We're expecting to see the governor's proposed budget on December 17th. And the long 2026 General Assembly session starts on January 14th.

[02:40:13] I'm happy to take any questions or comments. Thank you. C, consent agenda highlights. Mr. Harris.

[02:40:36] Mr. Chair, I've got just a handful of items that I wanted to walk through.

[02:40:59] Highlights for your evening consent agenda. Starting off, you've got two separate resolutions on the evening agenda authorizing the county to participate in two additional opioid settlements. We brought these two over the course of time, and two more opportunities have come forth, and so the county attorney's office has put those together.

[02:41:21] The second bucket of items, a very active month for the county pursuing grant dollars. We do this with great success all across the county and helps to defray the cost of things we're doing, particularly in the capital space. So tonight you have $320,000 state grant for mental health services in the jail, about a $3 million FAA grant for utility relocation to allow for the runway extension at the airport.

[02:41:51] And finally, a million dollars in DEQ funding for some nutrient credit projects across the county. So those are all accept and appropriate those grants on the consent agenda. You've got a resolution approving your FY29 and 30 revenue sharing projects.

[02:42:07] And that sounds crazy to kind of say, but you get ahead of future budget cycles. So the Transportation Department is submitting that. It would maximize the $10 million a year over those two budget cycles and really continue some existing projects more so than anything else.

[02:42:25] The Alversa roundabout and some intersection improvements at 360 and courthouse, some of the highlights from that resolution that's up for your consideration. I also got two important construction projects on the evening agenda. First and foremost, you've got the Dutch Gap Parkway, which is related to the Dominion matter down there, going in and putting in some of the road network that wraps around, ultimately back to the Dutch Gap site and up to Henrikus.

[02:42:53] This is one of the comprehensive transportation items that really covers all of the, or vests all of the authority to the transportation department to execute that project. And then you have a construction contract for the Swift Creek drainage project in Otterdale.

[02:43:09] This is a $37.8 million project. Some very important drainage and safety improvements out there. That is a CVTA bond project that is going to the street there. Next up for your consideration, you have your healthcare renewal item.

[02:43:25] This is an annual exercise. We have a joint program with the school division. So this is renewal of those premiums. We worked closely with school staff, took this item through Audient Finance. We're able to get the renewal back down to right around the budgeted amount.

[02:43:40] And we do so by adding a fourth option for employees that is a lower cost for them. but if they do utilize health services over the course of the year, it does have a little bit more cost, but it's sort of a middle ground option that we haven't had, and by folks signing up for that, we believe that that will get us to the budgeted number without really impacting the benefit structure that we've had in place for many years. And then lastly, I think we've got a slide to this effect for the first time in a board prodding an increase in retirements over

[02:44:18] the course of the last several meetings and thought it would be good for those folks who don't show up in the evenings with their families to at least recognize them here you know momentarily in the afternoon I added this up there's actually couldn't even fit on one slide where there's eight individuals for a total service time of 206 years for these folks. So, you know, a lot of experience walking out of the door and just wanted to read their names out here, if you just allow a second or two. Ted Barclay out of Community Enhancement, Jeffrey Barthrow from the Police

[02:44:53] Department, Captain Anthony Batten in fire, Melanie Callahan, Emergency Communications, Steve Grohowski from the police department as well. In the second slide, got Timothy Anders from the fleet division, firefighter Stephen White and fire and Terry Kenyon and general services building grounds division, 18 years.

[02:45:14] So just wanted a quick nod to those individuals that have served the county very well over some proud careers. So with that, I'm happy to take any questions you might have on the consent highlights. Yes, ma'am. Thank you.

[02:45:37] Item five, reports. Are there any questions regarding the reports? Seeing none, they're approved. Item 6, 15-minute citizen comment period on unscheduled matters.

[02:45:53] We have no speakers. Item 7, closed session pursuant to Section 2.2-3711A5, Code of Virginia 1950 is amended. 1, to discuss or consider prospective businesses or industries or the expansion of existing businesses or industries where no previous announcement has been made of the businesses or industries' interest in locating or expanding their facilities in the county.

[02:46:19] 2. Pursuant to Section 2.2-3711A3, Code of Virginia 1950 is amended to discuss the acquisition by the county of real estate for a public purpose or the disposition of publicly held real property where discussion in an open meeting would adversely affect the bargaining position and negotiating strategy of the public body.

[02:46:42] And three, pursuant to Section 2.2-3711A1, Code of Virginia 1950, as amended, relating to the performance of the county administrator. We need a motion to go into closed session. Can I get a second?

[02:46:59] Second. Ms. Snyder, all in favor? Aye. Can we get a in favor, Mr. Holland? He's on mute. Yep, I'm here, Mr. Chairman.

[02:47:15] I got you. Thank you.

[02:49:26] In session of the August 27th Board of Supervisors meeting, I received a request from Mr. Holland,

[02:50:28] participate in the meeting remotely from his home due to a medical condition and I'm granting this request. Please connect Mr. Holland to the meeting. Mr. Holland can you hear us? I think you're on mute

[02:50:47] Mr. Holland. Are you there? Mr. Holland can you hear us? I think he came off of me. I'm there. I can hear you well. Thank you all. I verified that all board members have received copies of the comments posted on the online comment portal for consideration on the matters before us tonight.

[02:51:21] These comments are part of the public record and will be attached to the meeting minutes. In addition, for those citizens who are here for the zoning portion of the meeting, we have one update. The applicant for case 23SN0129, Genitoe Crossings, Rezoning, and Exceptions, has withdrawn their case from the Board of Supervisors' consideration.

[02:51:43] At this time, I'd like to ask Mr. Carroll to give the invocation. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Bow our heads. Heavenly Father, we ask you for your guidance tonight as we try and do the best that we can to serve our community.

[02:52:00] I ask that you keep my friend, Mr. Holland, and understand our prayers for him for a speedy recovery and for him to be well. I know that in our community each day we have different tragedies that happen where different people may pass from different things.

[02:52:22] I'd ask that you would keep a special consideration for the family of Doreen Dorey Hall, who's a former county employee from Chesterfield Fire and EMS who passed away on August 10th after 35 years of service with us.

[02:52:39] Another retired county employee, Howard Johnson, who passed away on August 16th. And one of our Pratt commissioners, Frank Zwemer, who passed away unexpectedly on August 1st. I ask for these special considerations because of their tremendous service they did to their community.

[02:52:58] We ask this in your name. Amen. We would like to call forward Eagle Scout Beckett Thorpe to lead the Pledge of Allegiance.

[02:53:17] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic on which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Item 11, County Administration Update, Dr. Casey.

[02:53:39] Good evening, members of the board and the public that is here and the public that is watching. I first and foremost would like to invite Amber Tillman to the podium. She is head of Google Data Center for Public Affairs of North America, and we are very pleased to have her with us representing what was the large project announcement that the Board of Supervisors has only known by, or the public has only known by, for five-plus years, the Board of Supervisors, in their nondisclosure agreements, has had to keep that entity and prospect a secret for all the disclosures and requirements of the prospect process.

[02:54:18] But this morning, Project Peanut became Google. And Amber Tillman from Google themselves are here to represent the company and also to speak a little bit more about their presence in Chesterfield County. Ms. Tillman is one of my new best friends, by the way.

[02:54:36] Hi, everybody. Thank you, Dr. Casey. Thank you, Dr. Casey. no she's got her hair done she's good thank you Dr. Casey thank you to the board thank you to all of the other folks across the county and the Chesterfield EDA and the VEDP and everybody who has been a part of this project for the last at least five years peanut has become Google and we are so thrilled to be here today nobody's more excited than me because I actually live here as a Googler and I am so thrilled to be able to have this new investment into our state and into this county where we're going to be building a state-of-the-art data center that's

[02:55:15] going to advance American innovation, create jobs, and really enhance the community through this investment. Google is a top-tier operator. I know not all data centers are created equal. We believe we are building some of the most efficient and advanced technology in the world, and we're going to do that right here in Chesterfield. We have commitments from an energy standpoint to be operating on 24 by 7 carbon free energy, which means every hour of the day we are offsetting our use with carbon free resources across the grids where we operate. So

[02:55:51] we do that through investments into across PJM where Google or where Virginia, Virginia is part of the PJM interconnect system and we've invested heavily into resources to not only enhance existing energy capabilities, but also bring new technologies online. We're partnering with Commonwealth Fusion Systems here in Chesterfield as well to advance that initiative. But most importantly, we are very committed to being a community partner and to support the communities that we call home. And we'll do that through partnerships locally and across the region to support the issues that matter most here. So one of those things that we've already done is

[02:56:30] support of the school district. So I know Laura Hite and Dr. High are here if you guys want to stand up and just give a quick wave. They're with the school district and education foundation and we're thrilled to support some critical initiatives and vital services that they're working on to support the students here across the county. We've partnered with the YMCA and we'll continue to look for opportunities to contribute to the vitality of this wonderful region um the data center is currently in pre-positioning for construction um so we've you know technically broken ground it'll be about 18 to 24 months before it comes online and then we'll be working with organizations like breakpoint um and other educational institutions

[02:57:10] to hire as locally as we can and build the pipeline for talent that we need here so i'm excited to be here thank you and more to come and hopefully we'll have some more updates along the way oh yes I'm also excited to be able to confirm that Google is the entity behind two other properties that have closed recently in the county there are no potential plans for development at this time but we're always looking for great resources should the business demands need it so more more to come on that too and more information about that is available on the county EDA website

[02:57:48] project lock and project sky are also Google but let's just remember just to be very very clear those are future developments right now we're focused on project peanut we so we'll be working on that site we don't have plans to develop locker sky right now thank you we just needed to have that so we could release the NDA so we can actually talk about it yes I know this is probably the longest-standing corporate NDA you've ever had so we appreciate it and it's been their entire political career for some of them. Well, you passed the test and we appreciate

[02:58:26] all the board did to support these projects, you know, especially under the NDA. The transparency, I know, can be tough and we appreciate it and hopefully that can, knowing that we're a solid brand with true values can help put some of that at ease. Any comments? Mr. Chair. First of all, I want to say thank you for coming tonight and actually speaking about those other projects before the community and we do understand and actually i think probably some people who live around those projects are happy that they're not going to come on the ground right away

[02:58:59] but we are very happy i think that if we had to get a data center group and i think i said this earlier today to come to chesterfield county we get the best one by far because you have an excellent track record not just on the product that you put together but also being very good to the community which you come to, and also being a very environmentally friendly company, which I think is important to everybody, quite frankly. I also appreciate your partnership with Commonwealth Fusion. I think that Commonwealth Fusion in the future is going to be a technology

[02:59:34] that's going to change the world. And partnering with you, showing the commitment that you have for them, I think it's extremely important for the confidence of the community to understand that a company like yourself wouldn't be making that type of commitment to a new startup company like that if you didn't have all the confidence in the world that they were going to deliver on what they're saying they can deliver. And I believe they are. We look forward to going up to Massachusetts when they flip the switch on Spark. So again, thank you. We look forward to the wonderful partnership for the community. And if you ever decide to do another one of those

[03:00:10] Google movies please film it here in Chesfield County. Well you and I talked earlier today and again I'm the tree hugger of the of the board I think or one of I and I just okay okay yeah yeah I had done my research again data centers are not exactly you know what most and and they're always you know about what about the water what about the and I know that you guys are on top of that and that's one of the only reasons that I was excited to have you all and to

[03:00:48] vote for you to be here because I know that you are very involved in the community on invest in education are concerned about the environment as well and investing in infrastructure to help with that I actually am on a NACO board steering committee and we were talking about this with some of the Loudoun County folks and they're just like well Google is like the the my box of data centers and some people are just like what

[03:01:21] are my box I'm just like okay okay let's not go there how about a Cadillac but Eddie so um so yes I I've done my due diligence and I really really appreciate that you guys were willing to come here and make your home in Chesterfield.

[03:01:36] So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Amber, thank you for being here this evening. We talked up in Loudon when we were visiting the center up there, the data center up there, and we talked about how uncomfortable it was for us to be under an NDA and how difficult it was for the community.

[03:02:03] The community is used to us being very much transparent. So I think it was a very unusual thing for Chesterfield, especially the BOS, to say we can't speak to that. And I know you all wanted to put this off a lot longer than you did.

[03:02:20] And on behalf of the board, I suspect we all agree that thank you for just moving up the timeline to be able to kind of take us out from under that NDA and that there is this, I hope, this sigh of relief around all of Chesterfield County.

[03:02:37] one of the things we were very clear on was that we wanted to know who the end user was going to be. We knew we wanted someone, and as you've said, and my colleagues have said, not all data centers are created equally, and to work with the Rolls-Royce of data centers, it means a lot.

[03:02:57] You're the one who is gonna be caring the most about how we are gonna take care of our water, take care of our environment, take care of our trees, and take care of everything that we need to do to make it work, just the partnership. So thank you for all that you're doing.

[03:03:17] I'm looking forward to a long and just wonderful relationship. Thank you. Mr. Holland, would you like to make any comments? Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I certainly want to congratulate Google.

[03:03:33] We've been greatly anticipating their announcement, and I want to thank them for being the Rolls Royce of their industry. We know that name resonates worldwide, so thank you for all you do. We look forward to working with you as Chesterfield County is a first-choice community that works with first-choice businesses, so thank you.

[03:04:01] Thank you, Mr. Allen. Well, I definitely appreciate this day. As you know, I've been very much asking for not just the announcement earlier today, but the Sky and Lock announcement to come out from under that NDA, because it's As Dr. Miller said, that's been something that's been very hard, especially Peanut.

[03:04:23] I think one of the very first questions I was asked when I was elected, it was, who is Peanut? And we haven't been able to share that, and that has been very difficult for me, personally. I appreciate the fact that some of it's been touched on, but I appreciate the fact that you are being very conscious of how you look to receive power, especially with the Commonwealth Fusion Partnership, which Commonwealth Fusion is not directly associated with Dominion

[03:04:58] and that Dominion's rates aren't going to have anything to do with what Commonwealth Fusion is able to produce and put onto the grid. So I appreciate that relationship and appreciate the relationship even more with the proffers that have been agreed upon to help increase our utility system here in Chesterfield County and to be a great steward of the water resources that you will need to use, but most importantly to work with us to make sure that we're able to, as we've learned in this region, water is very important,

[03:05:35] and we wanted to make sure that nothing that we would even begin to agree with was going to affect the water for our citizens. And so the help with the infrastructure that y'all are working on right now, the innovation in the infrastructure to hopefully take us to a place that doesn't even exist right now to produce water on the backside after it's already been treated, gone through the whole system, come out of that system, and then to be able to be reused is a pretty big deal.

[03:06:07] So, we appreciate the efficiency that you operate under, and again, most of the concerns that we hear associated with a data center are things that you guys have done a fantastic job to address, and I hope, as Dr. Miller said, that that brings some comfort to the community, that all of those things were looked at, and we had had those discussions before we moved forward on all of those projects.

[03:06:36] So thank you very much. Welcome to Chesterfield County, and we look forward to a great relationship with Google. Thank you very much. Thank you. And I could just end on Team Chesterfield was referenced by Governor Yunkin, I believe, today. And just to recognize that Team Chesterfield is, you know, the Economic Development Office under Garrett Hart, Matt McLaren, and Jake Elder, who you've gotten to know very well over these past five-plus years.

[03:06:59] But then the team is also on Jesse Smith's Deputy County Administrator and the whole community development leadership, which what it took of George Hayes, Andy Gillies, Chessa Walker, and Scott Smedley and all of those entities that are respectful professionals in their line of business to ensure what you are doing is bits hand in glove with what we need to get done.

[03:07:20] So thank you on behalf of Chesterfield County. Thank you and everybody in the county too. Not to be anticlimactic with our registrar, Miss Ivera, if she could come to the podium.

[03:07:39] I think it's important every August for us to let the public know how the registrar and the Electoral Board together are trying to position, as we always try and do, for a productive and safe and accessible election process.

[03:07:55] Ms. Farah is a leader in the profession, and we're fortunate to have her working with Chesterfield County. Ms. Farah. How can I go after peanuts? But thank you, Dr. Casey. I'm Chairman Engel, members of the board, and listening audience.

[03:08:12] I appreciate your time. My report this evening is brief. On behalf of the Registrar's Office, the Electoral Board, and our dedicated election workers, thank you for approving the funding for the additional knowing poll pads. Since 2019, we've successfully used these poll pads to process by-mail absentee ballots and in-person early voters.

[03:08:33] With your support, we've now expanded their use to Election Day operations. This enhancement streamlines the election builds for the poll pads, simplifies supply preparation and logistics, ensures continuity in training and user experience, and to mention a key feature, it allows the officers of election to scan a driver's license and a voter card, allowing for a faster check-in process.

[03:08:58] We were also able to purchase handheld poll pads for use by the officers assisting curbside voters during early voting. Previously, these officers had to make multiple trips inside and out of the precinct, checking in voters, verifying tickets, retrieving ballots, and inserting those ballots into the ballot scanners, leaving the workers exhausted.

[03:09:18] The handheld poll pad allows the officer to complete the check-in process curbside, improving efficiency and reducing that physical strain, hence the smiles on the faces you see on the screens there. They were very excited to have those out there. Though I have to say, even with the exhaustion, our officers are always joyful, no matter the curveballs we throw at them.

[03:09:41] Bottom line, this investment streamlines our process and enhances the voter experience. Now, on to a few call-outs for the upcoming election. As you know, we no longer plan for election day. We plan for election season, and it's fast approaching.

[03:09:59] Early voting begins in just 23 days, on Friday, September 19, at Central Library, which is our primary early voting site. The additional five locations will open for early voting beginning Monday, October 20. One of these sites is Le Proud Library, which has been undergoing remodeling this year.

[03:10:20] While the full facility continues to be remodeled, the library's meeting room will be open to serve early voters only. Sample ballots and specific information on early voting hours at each site can be found by visiting our webpage or scanning the QR code on the screen.

[03:10:37] Election Day is Tuesday, November 4. Voting on Election Day means knowing your assigned polling location and voting there, not at an early voting site. And I'll close with these three action items for all listening. Be informed. Know what is on the mallet. Know when and where to vote. Be prepared. Ensure your registration is current and bring an acceptable ID to vote.

[03:11:05] and be engaged. Participate in the process by serving as an officer of election and encouraging others to do the same. Well, I wish they would. Well, maybe I don't. I always like working the curbside because I got a lot of steps in when I was an officer of election. But that's an awesome, wow, that's got to speed things up a lot. So that's great. And I just did a tour at LaPrade yesterday and they assured me that they were just getting the floor ready to lay. So yes,

[03:11:41] I'm very optimistic they will be done by October, what is it? October 20th. 20th, yeah, yeah, so very excited. Thank you. Any other comments? Thank you again for being brief, but covering everything you needed to.

[03:12:00] Thank you so much. Thank you, Ms. Barra. I only have three other quick matters. One, we did release a news release in relation to VACA, the Virginia Association of Counties, and the six achievement awards that they have bestowed upon us, including the Best Large County Achievement Award in the State of Virginia for our Court Navigator Program.

[03:12:23] We have accumulated 60 awards since the inception of this program about 20 years ago. We will be having VACO's Executive Director, Dean Lynch, out here next month to do a more formal presentation and recognition of those award recipients. But I just wanted to distinguish that versus what may be before you shortly in the NACO recognition program which is separate and apart. Marilyn Brown, who is our leader in juvenile justice services, is in the audience and she could stand to be recognized. Every three years the state comes out and does an audit of our juvenile detention center with

[03:13:01] over 350 regulations. Each of them, if you saw them, are actually pretty thorough and important attributes in keeping for us safe and secure. And actually for a juvenile detention learning environment. Marilyn, out of the 350, my note says she got 350 check pluses there. So I want to congratulate her. And it's also my opportunity for those that sometimes may get confused that the Bonaire Correctional Center is not run by Chesterfield County. We are the

[03:13:37] Chesterfield Juvenile Detention Center for those that actually read the news often. The last thing have to report on is our second annual participation and co-hosting of regional recovery day again it's a nationwide crisis and then our participation in so many facets is shown but with September national recur recovery month this free event open to the public is going to be at the Henrico Sports and Events Center September 3rd from 4:30 until 8:30 p.m. this year in addition to all the vendors and other breakout sessions and then people sharing and speaking.

[03:14:14] The keynote speaker is actually a person named Steven Lloyd, a doctor, and who is a person in long-term recovery who serves as the Vice President of the Tennessee Board of Medical Examiners and was the inspiration for the character portrayed by Michael Keaton in the mini-series Dope Sick.

[03:14:31] So again, a free public event, 4:30 to 8:30 p.m. September 3rd, as part of our role of many in National Recovery Month. That is the conclusion of my remarks, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Item 12, board member reports.

[03:14:48] Ms. Snyder. Sorry, I was spacing out there. So let's see. Commonwealth Dentistry opened a new location in Midlothian. Over the past 25 years, Commonwealth Dentistry has opened several practices across the county, and we're grateful and exceptionally, this exceptional service will be offered.

[03:15:14] they have not just regular dental services there, but also a special orthodontics and pediatric orthodontics site there. So excited, and there's a lot more to come in that little development also.

[03:15:31] A winery. Next. So we welcomed Congresswoman McClellan to Chesterfield for an important conversation with senior residents. Chesterfield is proud to be a wonderful place for all ages.

[03:15:49] Many of our residents are lifelong residents of the county and bring a unique perspective on transportation, development, government, transparency, and more. And so we had some really great conversations and questions and answers. So thank you so much for the Congresswoman for taking the time to visit on her break and speaking with us about these important topics.

[03:16:17] So Dr. Worsley and I went to SOAR 365 Summer Camp Talent Show last month. They have that over at Camp Baker. And they have an amazing talent show every week during camp.

[03:16:35] And these folks are, so we're here making signs. So there was also some VCU basketball players there that were making signs also. And we just come to support them and hold up signs and encourage them. their great performances and karaoke kind of performances. It was awesome. So it's a great way of celebrating these special needs folks that get to go and have camp and engage with others and

[03:17:04] enjoy the outdoors as well as entertainment. So I attended the Chesterfield Food Bank Outreach Center's 15th anniversary celebration and volunteer appreciation event. Dr. Miller was there also. The food bank fulfills its mission through generous financial and food donations and more to more than 62,000 annual volunteer hours. What started as a small effort has grown

[03:17:38] into thriving organization of dedicated team of 21 staff members and hundreds of passionate volunteers. Through the diverse range of programs, they are able to address food insecurity, provide critical support for individuals and families. They have a hotel outreach for some folks that are living in hotels and motels. They do senior outreach, new moms, children's outreach. So we're just so grateful to have them here in our community, and thank you so much for everything

[03:18:15] that they do. And finally, earlier this week, as I just said, I checked out the progress with being made at the LaProd Library. Once completed, the new LaProd Library will include expanded meeting places, relocation of the building entrance to improve the flow of the building, upgraded technology, new furnishings, enhanced natural lighting. They have the tube lights in all of or the solar tube lights in the ceiling that they were just finishing up yesterday, a maker's space, and an outdoor learning space,

[03:18:52] and hopefully with a pollinator garden maybe in the background also from the extension office. So very excited. It's going to be completed in November. Renovations are on track to complete by November.

[03:19:08] So yes, that concludes my report. Thank you, Ms. Snyder. Next up is Mr. Holland. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm very pleased that we celebrated 14 years to host the Bronco XI World Series.

[03:19:25] These are teams from the United States, Mexico, Asia, and the Caribbean face off in an incredible matchup. These are very talented young players. We will see their majors in years to come, sometimes stopped right here in Chesterfield County.

[03:19:47] Next, I'm pleased to also mention that I want to announce that we did a ribbon cutting for the first splash pad this summer for the hot days for our youth and others at the Beulah Recreation Center.

[03:20:06] This features equipment, playground equipment. It features water. It features other accessible structures for all children who experience this splash pad.

[03:20:30] In addition, Chesterfield County was pleased to participate in the 42nd National Night Out, as you can see here. Throughout the country, residents host block parties, along with their neighbors, to get to know their police officers, their community members, and their family and friends.

[03:20:56] It heightens crime and drug prevention awareness. Our fellow board members and I enjoyed attending parties throughout our districts. This year was a huge success. I want to thank you all who made this event possible.

[03:21:13] In addition, the structural beam is placed at the new rest area elementary school, which holds 1,000 students and relief to neighborhood other schools as well.

[03:21:37] Now, let me back up because I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm excited about Mr. Carroll's new school. Mr. Carroll, I yield back to you. Thank you, Mr. Holland.

[03:21:52] Mr. Carroll. Well, Mr. Holland, I'll give you a shot if you want to talk about the county fair. In fact, I certainly will. Thank you so much. I want to let you know that the county fair will run through August 30th of this week.

[03:22:11] It opened last Friday. I would urge all our citizens to participate in our fair, which has been run for the past 107 or more years. So please take your family out. Enjoy evening at the Chesterfield County Fair Association.

[03:22:31] Thank you, Mr. Carroll and Mr. Chairman. Mr. Holland, I believe that's in the Dale District, is it not? It most certainly is. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Holland. Thank you for teeing that up for me, Mr. Holland.

[03:22:48] Yes, we had the opportunity to place the final structural beam atop the new Western Area Elementary School. The school is going to hold about 1,000 students and will provide really needed relief, quite frankly, to some of the other schools in the area.

[03:23:06] a great opportunity for kids in the neighborhood to be able to walk to elementary school uh when that school opens up next year walk to middle school and maybe walk a little further to high school in 27 or ride a bike uh again the western area is you know part of the county where we had to fast track three schools um very excited for that part of the county and i will say you know in talking with schools you know with the new middle school opening up uh tomahawk creek was was well over capacity last year now it's at about a thousand students it's an 1800 student school

[03:23:37] And so what we said would happen when we open these new schools, we are going to open up capacity and have much more room in these schools for the learning environment for the kids. So we're excited about that, and we look forward to the school opening up next year.

[03:23:54] Next slide. I want to thank my Planning Commissioner, Tommy Owens, for attending this event in my stead. I was out of town, but the Richmond Aesthetic Surgery in Chesterfield had a groundbreaking. But again, my planning commissioner, Tommy Owens, who's featured in the picture in the far right with their very dapper blue suit on, was able to attend, and we look forward to when they actually do the ribbon cutting.

[03:24:22] Next slide. And this is an event, I will tell you, that we probably need to push out more to the community. It's an absolutely fantastic event that's held at the Great Richmond Coptic Festival, St. Maine and Pope Kyrillus Coptic Orthodox Church, which is located on Winnipeg Road in Chesterfield County.

[03:24:44] They host a tremendous event with food. The tour of the church is amazing and they really had a very powerful presentation this year about the 21 martyrs who were murdered years ago by ISIS.

[03:25:07] To see that in the presentation that they did in the church, It was very boobing to understand the faith that those 21 people had. And the fact that this is an Egyptian, essentially, Christ church.

[03:25:25] And these people who fled persecution overseas are here in our community. And they're just wonderful people. And if you get an opportunity next year to go to this, you really should. And get to know them or even get a chance to go to the church and see them. It's really a real pleasure, quite frankly, and an eye-opening experience for me, to be able to get to meet with them and talk with them and learn about their experiences in life.

[03:25:54] And, of course, it's been an unbelievable year at Virginia State University. Every, I don't know, what, three? We had three in one day a couple of months ago, two groundbreakings and a ribbon-cutting, and now the athletic club groundbreaking.

[03:26:12] We had that the other day at Virginia State University, and then we've worked very closely with the college for years. This newest building will support the athletics program through alumni engagement and will serve as a hub for fundraising events to support the students. Again, Dr. Casey and I have been very involved in the planning process for the new facility.

[03:26:30] We can't wait to see all the opportunities that we're bringing to Virginia State University. What a gem that we have to have Virginia State University in Chesterfield County. And what a great partner they are. And Mr. Chair, I believe that concludes my report. Thank you, Mr. Carroll.

[03:26:46] Next up, Dr. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good evening, everyone. Ms. Snyder and I had the opportunity on the next slide, if it's there, here we are. Ms. Snyder and I had the opportunity to attend the NAACP's annual scholarship presentation reception where several outstanding Chesterfield County high school students were recognized.

[03:27:08] It was really powerful for the folks that were there. The students truly want to just honor the work that they're doing. These students represent some of the best that Chesterfield has to offer, and they're just very proud of their hard work. Talking about another school.

[03:27:27] um we cut the ribbon just in time to welcome our students uh to the new am davis elementary school this year this ribbon cutting marked the completion of the first project from the 2022 bond referendum so here we are you can see with the excitement if you look at the picture it just was really difficult to or impossible to contain we were just so excited this is a two-story state of the art facility it'll provide our students the educational environment that they

[03:27:59] absolutely deserve so we're just so excited about am davis and the ribbon cutting mr schneider and i also had the opportunity to celebrate the culture and truly the cuisine of over 8 000 korean americans living in greater richmond area at this year's korean independence day event it was hosted by the korean american society of greater richmond i just want to thank so much just the hospitality of the Korean American Society of Greater Richmond, and the many other Korean American churches and small businesses that work together to put together such an amazing and outstanding program.

[03:28:39] Just incredibly powerful, and talking about just their culture and just how they have survived. What I find is really interesting is that this is one of those events that both North and South Korea both represent and celebrate, so something for them to come together on.

[03:29:00] And then finally, the intern conclusion ceremony this summer, we hosted 23 impressive interns. Over the course of 10 weeks, these young people make a big difference in the county. And county departments bringing new ideas, endless enthusiasm, and a caring attitude for work.

[03:29:18] They just do a wonderful job. We were thrilled to have them part of our professional team and experience. And we wish them all the best as they wander on to their future endeavors. And Chair, that concludes my report. Thank you, Dr. Miller. All right. This summer marked the seventh year of the annual sheriff's office summer camp, a free week of summer day camp for middle schoolers in the county.

[03:29:45] The sheriff's office summer camp hosted 60 students this summer and gave participants the opportunity to build positive relationships with law enforcement and with each other. The sheriff's office provided free meals for participants as well as tours of the county buildings, outdoor experiences, which I think they went to the Splash Park as well at Beulah, and team building experiences and more. I want to thank our dedicated team of Sheriff's Office deputies who planned this amazing summer camp, and I also want to thank all of the businesses

[03:30:21] that made donations that made this summer camp possible. Next slide. I had the pleasure of attending this year's Virginia Association of Counties County Official Summit. I don't know if I can say that twice. I'm grateful for the opportunity to connect with the other leaders across the Commonwealth. And during the summit, we heard from VACO staff, from a panel of county officials who spoke on civility, which I thought was a good topic. And then we heard several candidates for statewide office. This experience was incredibly insightful, and I'm excited to use

[03:31:00] the information I've learned to better Chesterfield in the future. We celebrated the opening of Atlantic Constructions, Inc.'s second headquarters. I appreciate Mr. Carroll coming over for that celebration. We're glad to have ACI choose and call Chesterfield home, and we're excited to see the continued growth thanks to the new building. They are building components inside the building that will be used in all kinds of facilities for production and otherwise that allows the building

[03:31:37] to go up while they're making the electrical components and they put them together in such a way that they're able to be transferred in and directly connected. So they save about four months of time in getting somebody from start of their project to being able to be open and doing business. So I think that that process is wonderful and it definitely has changed the way that people can get started on the next business. Next, if you drive along Route 1, you may be familiar with

[03:32:10] the rusting green Colbrook Motel sign about a mile south of the Route 10 intersection. The Colbrook Motel has a history of racial inclusion during the 1950s, which it was listed in the Green Book, a collection of traveling establishments for minorities where they could stay at in a safe place. We had the pleasure of honoring that history with the Better Housing Coalition at the groundbreaking for the new Colebrook community, an affordable and accessible

[03:32:42] neighborhood that will include 166 rental units, pocket parks, a community garden, playground space, historic walking trail, and a community building. And finally, yesterday, an interesting invitation, Dr. Miller and I were able to attend, we were welcomed to an announcement that Henrico made that they had been brought into the ranks of America's quadruple, triple-A municipal governments,

[03:33:18] which as we referred to and they took and ran with very well in the news, what our budget department came up with, Quadzilla. So if you see that term, it was started right here in Chesterfield, but we were there to support them, and we were happy to see that out of 3,000 counties in the country, there's only three counties in the country that have achieved a quadruple, triple-A bond rating.

[03:33:50] We were the second several months ago, and Henrico just achieved that as well. So for years, Chesterfield and Henrico have been part of the 1% of localities nationwide to have a triple AAA bond rating.

[03:34:08] But now we're one of three in 3,000. It was stated yesterday that it's easier for a general to get their fourth star than it is for a jurisdiction to earn their quadruple AAA bond rating.

[03:34:25] I think that's amazing. We definitely appreciate the fact that we have two localities that we compete together, but we also work together. We brought in regional tournaments that we couldn't have done alone, so we're happy for that.

[03:34:42] And it's a great thing when, in the region, two of three counties in the country can stand up together and say that we have a quadruple, triple-A bond rating, or, again, quadzilla. Thank you. Mr. Chair.

[03:35:00] If I could speak to that for a second. You know, probably now more than ever, we have what I believe is an unbelievable spirit of regional cooperation in Central Virginia.

[03:35:18] And the fact that our partners across the river invited us to come over for this celebration for them, I think, speaks to that. We all serve on multiple committees that we often don't even talk about them in our board reports. Capital Region Airport Commission, Planned Arbor EA, Richmond TPO, Central Virginia Transportation Authority, Crater PDC, Tri-Cities TPO, and many others.

[03:35:44] Richmond Regional Tourism. I'm probably forgetting more. But sports backers, these are all different committees that we represent the interest of our community on and we work well with these other jurisdictions to try and bring things forward. You know, GRTC, for example. You know, some of the things now that GRTC is providing for regional transportation really probably because of bringing in RICO in with us on that and the CVTA funding it the way it is, the microtransit, all these different things.

[03:36:16] And so the reason I'm saying this, when we bring these board reports forward, I don't want anybody to think we just want to tell you all these little fun events that we go to. I'm there representing you. We all are. And in any small way that we can, especially regionally, to let people know the value that we hold for our people in our community, and to let your voice be heard, and that's what you elected us to do.

[03:36:42] And I know sometimes these reports look like we're just having a bunch of fun, and some of it's really fun, or some of it's unbelievable. If you had told me one day that, you know, we'd be able to do the things that we did or have Google stand before us tonight and say what they did, I wouldn't have believed it. And so, rest assured, we're all committed to our community, and I just wanted to make that point, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

[03:37:05] Thank you, Mr. Carroll. Madam Clerk? Item 13, resolutions and special recognitions. A, resolution recognizing Boy Scout upon attaining rank of Eagle Scout. Mr. Goode. Good evening, Mr. Chair, Mr. Vice Chair, fellow board members.

[03:37:23] As Dr. Miller comes down, I'd like to ask that Mr. Beckett Thorpe and his family members who are here with him tonight, please come forward and join you on the stage. As you know, Chesterfield takes great pride in recognizing young people who are making strides not only to make improvements in their lives, but doing it in ways that benefit the community.

[03:37:42] Beckett is a Midlothian District resident, and he's also a member of Boy Scout Troop 400, and we are congratulating and recognizing him for attaining the prestigious rank of Eagle Scout. Thank you. Madam Chair.

[03:37:57] Whereas the Boy Scouts of America was incorporated by Mr. William D. Boyce on February 8, 1910, and was chartered by Congress in 1916, and whereas the Boy Scouts of America was founded to build character, provide citizenship training, and promote physical fitness.

[03:38:17] And whereas after earning at least 21 merit badges and a wide variety of skills, including leadership, service, and outdoor life, serving in a leadership position in a troop, carrying out a service project beneficial to their community, being active in the troop, demonstrating scout spirit, and living up to the scout oath and law, Mr. Beckett Alexander Pemberton Thorpe of Troop 400, sponsored by St. James Episcopal Church, has accomplished those high standards of commitment and has reached the long-sought goal of Eagle Scout, which is received by only 4% of those individuals entering the scouting movement.

[03:38:55] And whereas, growing through his experiences in scouting, learning the lessons of responsible citizenship, and endeavoring to prepare himself for a role as a leader in society, Beckett has distinguished himself as a member of a new generation of prepared young citizens of whom we can all be very proud.

[03:39:14] Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors, this 27th day of August, 2025, publicly recognizes Mr. Beckett Alexander Pemberton Thorpe, extends congratulations on his attainment of Eagle Scout, and acknowledges the good fortune of the county to have such an outstanding young man as its citizen.

[03:39:36] Can I get a motion? Yeah, so moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. So, Becca, congratulations. Do you want to introduce the folks that are up here with you? This is my mom, my dad, and Mr. Jones.

[03:39:52] He's a member of Troop 400, and he helped me throughout this whole process. One of the things it says in the resolution is that 4%, 4% of those individuals that go through scouting actually become an Eagle Scout.

[03:40:08] And that says a lot about you. It says a lot about commitment, and it says how much you put into doing the work. I see you're a little having difficulty getting around. Was that the result of becoming an Eagle Scout? I hope not. So congratulations.

[03:40:25] Not an easy thing to attain and a lot to be proud of. Did you want to add anything about your experience? Yes, sir. So when it came down to choosing my project, it was pretty simple for me because AGPR, Appalachian Great Pyrenees Rescue Society, we've actually adopted two of our dogs from there.

[03:40:44] So when thinking about how I can help my community, I figured I might as well help the people who gave us our two dogs that we care a lot about. So it was a good experience, and I'm happy that I was able to help care for those dogs who are still there. Thank you for all the work, and congratulations to all of you.

[03:41:04] Yeah, thanks. It appears I'm staying up here.

[03:41:25] Item B, recognition of 2025 NACO Achievement Award winners, Mr. Harris.

[03:41:44] Mr. Chair, I have the distinct honor tonight to introduce you to our 40, that's 4-0, 40 NACO winners.

[03:42:07] You all had an opportunity before this meeting to take a picture with them outside. Given the volume of folks and all the awards that you had before you tonight, we're just going to call them up by department, and they'll have a chance to shake hands and get their awards and walk across the stage. It's going to give a very, very brief profile of the programs that won the awards, but as is our customary practice, we will weave these stories into future work sessions, everyday excellences over the course of the next 12 months.

[03:42:36] So, no further ado, we will get started calling the award winners forward. Representing the Department of Constituent and Media Services, they won three awards. Ashley Gibson for Community Conversations, Jay O'Neill for Chesterfield Cafe, Brad Franklin for the Chesterfield State of the County. Next up is the Fire Department, also with three awards.

[03:43:09] For the Whole Blood Program, we have Dr. Yee and Lieutenant Greg Jones. For the Medication Exchange Program, we have Lieutenant Waylon Hudgens, and for Drug Box Inventory Firefighter Berkeley Gannon. In Human Resources, one award for the Employee Wellness Program, we have Caleb Kelleher and IST receiving. We have Chris Coleman receiving all three awards today. First for digital

[03:43:49] access for all and second one for transforming public search with AI powered information access and finally the IST career development plan. Three also in juvenile justice services. First up, Deborah Duggar and Ms. Wilson to receive the award for juvenile justice services court navigator.

[03:44:13] Ms. Duggar also here with Sophia West Bay for the Substance Use Prevention Program, Vision. And finally, in juvenile justice, Marilyn Brown and Justin Crostic for expanding electronic monitoring.

[03:44:42] In libraries, we have five award winners. First up, Building Readers, James Hudson and Barbara Ferrer are here to accept. Followed by Dana Bamba and Kelly Coker for Data-Informed, Community-Driven, Library Access for a Mobile Home Community.

[03:45:01] Colin Fitzsimmons and Stephen Hudson, receiving an award for Designing With, Not For, Reimagining Public Library Design. Leslie Johnson, receiving an award for Keeping Brains Sharp, Summer Learning, Reimagined.

[03:45:19] And finally in libraries, Ann Epperson for Contact the Library. Two awards in the mental health space, Melissa Ackley is here for Community Education About Mental Health Emergency Response Services.

[03:45:38] and receiving an award with Leslie Pekula and Mary Park-Holland Infant and Toddler Connection of Chesterfield Toddler Playgroup Program. In Parks and Rec, Sophia Balcom is here for the After School Adventure Program.

[03:46:07] In Police, we have two awards. First up, the Analytical and Strategic Operations Center Award for Captain Scott Abranovich. And an award for the sprint team, receiving that award, Lieutenant Colonel David Shan, Lieutenant Eddie Pierpoint, and Julie Cox.

[03:46:35] The next group of awards all is a partnership with the school division. We wouldn't be at 40 awards, but schools have been working with us more and more every single year. This year, there are up to eight awards. So first up for the annual budget process, Peyton Anderson is here to accept.

[03:46:54] Followed by CCPS in the know, Jenny O'Quinn. Coffee and Conversations, Catherine Tompkins and Amy Barlodin. Dual language program at Scott Elementary, Elizabeth Stefanko and Julie Buntage.

[03:47:13] For Farm to Market to Student program, Casey Dickinson and Ronnie LaPelle. And for the HVAC slash R Advisory Committee, Chad Macklin and Katie Stokes.

[03:47:39] Next up, Substitute Teacher Hiring and Engagement Initiative, Colleen Lee and Kimberly Huff. And lastly, in the school space, again, Katie Stokes and Chad Macklin for Work-Based Learning Employer Recognition Events. Next up, we have an award for the Sheriff's Office.

[03:48:12] Ian Rober and Kerry Rose are here for the HAARP AccuWellness Program. In social services, one award for developing a kinship collaborative, reimagining support services, Amy Smith and Bernadette Gilmore.

[03:48:29] Four awards for our sports visitation and entertainment area. J.C. Poman here to receive those. First up for MIRV, the Mobile Information Resource Vehicle.

[03:48:48] Second for Cold of the Raccoon, our county mascot. The third award for Chesterfield Restaurant Week. And finally, the fourth award for our inaugural Sports Hall of Fame. And lastly, our last group to get us to 40, Utilities Division.

[03:49:10] Melissa Rice here accepting Utilities, Billing, and Customer Service, Tenant Move-In Process Improvements. Also receiving Melissa for informing our community of Eye on Water Monitoring Portal. And lastly, one more, Utilities Operation and Maintenance Emergent Response Team, Matt Rimbold.

[03:49:34] Mr. Chair, that concludes all of our award winners for tonight. We always stand up here and take pictures, but that would have been a big picture.

[03:49:55] So we took it before the meeting out in front of the old historic courthouse. So we said it earlier, thank you all for the work that you do. Thank you for submitting such great projects to be in consideration, and congratulations on being selected.

[03:50:12] Thank you.

[03:51:18] Item 14, new business, A, appointments. Mr. Chair, we have one appointment to the Health Center Commission. Can I get a motion?

[03:51:34] Second. All in favor? Aye. Next, we have three appointments to the Towing Advisory Board. I think I heard Mr. Holland make that motion. Yes. Okay. Yes.

[03:51:50] All in favor? Aye. Next, we have several appointments to the Youth Advisory Board. So moved. All in favor? Aye. Last, we have two appointments to the Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission.

[03:52:12] Second. All in favor? Aye. B, consent items. Mr. Chair, there have been no requests from board members to remove items from the consent agenda for public comment. Do any board members have any items they wish to remove?

[03:52:31] If not, I need a motion to approve the consent agenda. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. 15, 15-minute citizen common period on unscheduled matters.

[03:52:52] This time is designated for citizens to talk to the board of supervisors. It is not a time for dialogue with board members, and it is not a question-answer period. Those conversations can easily occur with individual board members outside of the board meeting. As a reminder, the board's procedures state no citizen shall speak on any matter of business that is a subject on the board's agenda for that day, and each speaker shall have three minutes to address the board.

[03:53:17] We have two speakers, if they'll please come forward and speak in this order, Mike Karabinos and Jerry Turner. Over the past few months, the federal government has revoked legal status from legal residents, removed individuals despite court order, seized and removed people over minor offenses.

[03:53:55] even in our own courthouse. These actions make it clear that these moves are not about safety or law. ICE, at the behest of the administration, is conducting ethnic cleansing, a practice abhorrent to all true patriots who honor the promise and values of these United States.

[03:54:17] Regretfully, this county's government has assisted in these abhorrent acts. This must stop. Against the protests of the treasurer, ICE has been permitted to stalk the court cashier's counter.

[03:54:37] This must stop. ICE vehicles have been given privileged access to fenced-in areas not accessible to the public at the court. This must stop. The county may have even shared flock camera data with ICE.

[03:54:59] This must stop. Do not comply, do not assist, and do not give ICE access to any area closed to the public. History is watching. I'm now going to borrow a technique from my good friend on the school board, Dominique Chatters, and close with a poem.

[03:55:21] Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, with conquering limbs astride from land to land, here at our sea-washed sunset gates shall stand, a mighty woman with a torch whose flame is imprisoned lightning, and her name, Mother of Exiles.

[03:55:41] From her beacon hand glows wide welcome, Her mild eyes command the air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp, cries she with silent lips.

[03:56:00] Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless tempest-tossed to me.

[03:56:16] I lift my lamp beside the golden door. God bless America. God bless the spirit of welcoming the foreigner, and thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Good evening.

[03:56:40] I'm Jerry Turner. I had the privilege of participating in a virtual meeting with Nate Mathis on the Otterdale update that's going to happen over there. It was very good.

[03:56:56] I really appreciated the way Nate presented it. I don't like virtual meetings, but that was very good. He did an excellent job. I would much rather see him in person. I would much rather see the people that are there to see what their questions are.

[03:57:16] I really want to see their faces on when they start asking a question. But he made a comment about this project was going to be paid by the $300 million bond that had passed. Now, that can't be right.

[03:57:34] The $300 million was supposed to be for the power height extension. That's what I voted on. But then I went back and looked to see what the fine print said. And basically it said $300 million revenue bond to fund several transportation projects, including phase one of the Power Heights Parkway.

[03:58:00] I'm thinking $300 million is not going to go very far if y'all don't give it to everybody else. Because you've got Otterdale now, you're going to cut out of it, probably Woolrich Extension. I don't know what else you're going to take out of that $300 million.

[03:58:17] That's probably the reason Ms. Walker said that they can't afford to put bridges on Power Heights Parkway. You've got to put stoplights. And I bet you a lot of people that knew that y'all were going to put stoplights or VDOT was going to put stoplights on power height, they wouldn't have voted for this bond.

[03:58:37] I definitely would not have voted for that part of it anyway. The schools, yeah, they need to be done. But y'all are making a very big mistake by putting stoplights on power height extension. You're just creating another Hull Street.

[03:58:53] You've already got so many houses out there now they can't hardly move. There's just going to be another Hull Street that's going to be backing up at these stoplights. Thank you very much. All. Y'all pray for the people in Minnesota. Thank you.

[03:59:14] Item 16, deferred items from previous meetings. We have nine. Item 17, zoning requests. Mr. Chair, you have one withdrawal. Case 23, SN0129 in Clover Hill Magisterial District, Genitoe Crossing rezoning and exceptions is a request to rezone from Community Business C3 and Corporate Office O2 to Residential Townhouse RTH District plus conditional use plan development to permit exceptions to ordinance requirements on 14.16 acres known as 11000 Hull Street Road.

[03:59:50] The applicant has withdrawn this request. No action will be taken by this board tonight.

[04:00:09] Okay, Mr. Chair, you have three items on your consent agenda this evening. For the benefit of the public, consent items are those cases where the applicant accepts staff's recommendation and there is no previous opposition. With all the consent cases tonight, staff has received written confirmation from the applicants that they agree with the conditions being imposed and that all proffers are offered in compliance with state law.

[04:00:31] First is 23SN-0118 in Cloverhill Magisterial District. Kingsley Village on Walmsley rezoning and exceptions is a request to rezone from Agricultural A to Residential R-12, plus conditional use plan development to permit exceptions to ordinance requirements on property fronting the south side of Walmsley Boulevard for approximately 500 feet beginning at the southwest intersection with Hull Street Road.

[04:00:58] A residential development containing a maximum of 62 single-family cluster-style dwellings is proposed on 16.89 acres. The community would include single-family detached residences with neighborhood-serving amenities connected by a trail system.

[04:01:13] Planning Commission and staff recommend approvals subject to the conditions in your staff report. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing on case 23SN0118, Kingsley Village on Walmsley, rezoning and exceptions.

[04:01:31] Is there anyone here who would like to speak to this case? If so, please come forward and state your name. Sherry Turner, try to convey to planning the problem you're going to have when you exit this property on the Wambly.

[04:02:04] Because you're taking a right-hand turn off Hull Street on the Wambly, and you're turning right into that traffic that's going to be coming out of this development. There's only one way in, one way out. Planning said, yeah, there's a paper road in the back part of it, but the people wouldn't sell the property.

[04:02:26] And I don't blame them. You're cutting their property in half. They didn't want that. They just wanted it right away so they could build that road. So they got all the property on the west side of that road that they can't do anything with. They're going to pay taxes on it.

[04:02:43] I told the planning of this is a bad design because you only got one way in, one way out. They're saving the corner down there for commercial, hoping that somebody will come along and build something that they can make their money off that part of it.

[04:02:59] But like I said, this is a bad design. The county never should approve this. Thank you. Any other speakers? Seeing none, I'll close this public hearing.

[04:03:16] It's back before the board. This case is in the Clover Hill District. Thank you. Jerry, I hear you, and I can tell you that this is a loud amount by the 62 is the cutoff, and I get it.

[04:03:40] And I'm hoping that this neighborhood will offer, because it was in an opportunity zone, affordable units and smaller units that will be great for first-time homeowners.

[04:03:58] You can see that the lots are smaller. This is something that people have been asking for, is for smaller first-time homeowner houses. And the property on the outside was meant for commercial, and they can't do anything with it right now because it's too close to the intersection.

[04:04:16] And so they're holding on to it until maybe they can purchase the other property. I think these people were very responsive to what I had asked them to do by keeping a lot of the green space around the edges for buffers. Would it be better if that road came all the way through?

[04:04:35] Yes. And maybe eventually that person will be interested in selling. He's got a shed back there where he does car work. And so he's not right now. But I think that this is going to be an opportunity for people to have a place for a new home for new small families and teachers and firefighters and police officers.

[04:05:01] And so I recommend case number 23SN0118 for approval subject to the conditions of the staff report.

[04:05:22] I'll second it. Sure. And I don't know if the applicant is here.

[04:05:41] Coming out of that subdivision, is there going to be a light at that, at coming out that light there at the end? Mr. Chair, Jeff Geiger here on behalf of the applicant.

[04:05:58] Dr. Miller, thank you for the question. I believe you're referring to the intersection here? Yes, sir. There will not. As you all know, VDOT has access management standards, and they control where the signals go in. have worked closely with VDOT. The distance here to here meets their access management standards for safe movement. And then, as you also know, they want us to line up our roads with an existing entrance because if you have offsetting alignment, it creates more conflict points than when you

[04:06:33] line them up. So, all of this has been reviewed and approved by VDOT for this alignment as part of the normal process that we go through i i understand mr turner's concern but you know we do work with the traffic engineers to make sure it is set up correctly so just so i understand it's going to be within vdot's approval i don't know if that's the right word to be how about making a left out of that property we would make the left out as well you can make a print left

[04:07:09] It looks like it's divided on the other side, so I'm not a traffic person, I want to kind of understand. This is a boulevard entrance, if that's what you're referring to. Do you see where I'm looking across the street? It looks like it's divided there.

[04:07:25] Right here? Yes. That's a boulevard entrance. Okay. Is that hall that I'm looking at there? Hall's at the top. Hall's here. It's a shopping center, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. There's a shopping center here. The community college was here. I believe they're relocating.

[04:07:42] tenant is coming in, and so one of the things we're also going to put a crosswalk across, one of the things that CDON asked us to do was that crosswalk. And can you give us a sense of what the homes are going to be selling for?

[04:08:02] I need my client to come on down and answer that. I don't know it off the top of my head. Mr. Chair, I have a question. Good evening, Board. John Costello, the applicant for this project.

[04:08:20] The homes will be, there's two different lot sizes in this project. We'll probably be starting in the mid to upper 400s and going from there will be the house prices. So we're defining affordable housing in the 400s? There's been a lot of things added to this project with underground retention and certain other things, but yes, probably in the, we're not the builder, but yes, probably in the mid 400s is where they will be.

[04:08:47] I mean, that's the closing price. That's with options included and everything. A lot of times you see advertisement that'll say from the mid 300s and then there's $100,000 in options. I was giving you the. With the options. Yeah, with the options. Nonetheless, between 350 and 400,000 is what you're thinking.

[04:09:05] Yes, sir. Yes. Okay, thank you. Mr. Chair. A lot of people don't know this and so I think it's important to ask the question. You know, VDOT will require a signal warrant study to determine whether or not there should be any type of traffic control at the intersection that Dr. Miller is referring to.

[04:09:31] Was there a signal warrant study done for this case? Because we know that there's a shopping center and other things on the other side of the street, and so this contributes to not just the traffic coming out of the shopping center, but now we have it come from the other side. Was that study conducted?

[04:09:48] And it did not trigger a signal warrant at that time? Correct, sir. Okay, thank you. Any other questions? Yeah, Mr. Chairman, if I may, with a little liberty, I think the industry would love to do housing at a lower cost.

[04:10:11] We can't. Government regulation sets that price. Land value sets the price. We can't build a single-family detached home for less than $400,000 in Chesterfield. Now, in Henrico we can.

[04:10:28] Henrico will put money to lower the cost. We've worked on a project where we've tried to have that conversation, tried to find a way to bring housing in at a lower price point, but that wasn't successful.

[04:10:51] We're doing what we can with the parameters that we're given, and one of the ways we can lower price is to get that lot smaller. I'd like to give you a little flavor for what the industry's trying to do, and I hope to be bringing you cases showing you this. We've heard from you, we've heard from homebuyers that townhouses, we've gotten a lot of those because that's what we can build at a lower

[04:11:20] price point. We are now developing cottages, smaller size houses on smaller lots. We're very thankful for the foresight of your planning department in creating that AR district. It's really going to give us the tool that we need to say, how can we provide a lower cost house that's not a townhouse? That's a single family detached house. This project started before we got to the point where that tool was going to be available. This was a developer who was willing

[04:11:58] to say, I can find a way to do a smaller lot with a smaller home as a first step towards that. I hope, like I said, we will be able to do more in the future. Thank you. Anything else?

[04:12:18] Any other questions? So, John, and I know I'm the one that asked you to do them. The underground, if you didn't do them and you did regular, is that going to cut down on some of the costs as far as and make the houses? It would slightly cut them down, but not to the significant impact that you're probably hoping that it would see with it it's it's something that we've it's been very sensitive to this and and if we were going with larger lots these would as unfortunate like mr. Geiger mentioned it's it's about the land price and the regulation the cost to build the home they would not even had a chance to

[04:12:57] be in the force at all without that we currently have well and one of the reasons I asked you to do the underground is to try to maximize the amount of trees that we could save and to have those the amenity spaces above the underground. So that was, I was trying to be as space conscious as possible. And that does help with that, because otherwise we would have to do more clearing into those buffers, into some of those other areas in this way. It's unique. And I think you're going to see a lot more of it in residential for some of that tree save. That's a constant con. Well, and that's a huge thing for me. And I think that you can see with all the temperatures that have been so high, you can see

[04:13:36] that there's been a lot of heat areas in the county where trees have been cleared, and I just really feel very strongly about it, so thank you. Any other questions? All in favor? Aye.

[04:13:57] Next is 23SN0135. In Midlothian Magisterial District, felt buffer reduction is a request for conditional use plan development to permit exceptions to ordinance requirements in general business C5 district on 4.65 acres, known as 7929 Midlothian Turnpike.

[04:14:23] The applicant is requesting a reduction in the required rear yard buffer to construct a three-sided metal building to be used to store company equipment. Although the site is currently a developed non-residential property, there is no existing buffer. The proposal will supplement the existing landscaping in the rear of the site and establish a 25-foot buffer.

[04:14:46] Planning Commission and staff recommend approval subject to the conditions in your staff report. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing on case 23SN0135, Feltz Buffer Reduction. Is there anyone who'd like to speak to this case?

[04:15:02] If so, please come forward and state your name.

[04:15:14] Jerry Turner. Looks like I'm going to be it tonight. I don't know if y'all have been down the middle of the year where you see this. I have no problem with him doing what he's doing. That's not my problem. If you look at the turn-in where the trucks are turning in, Most of them can't make that turn.

[04:15:37] There's a curb there that so many trucks has run over, it has just dug it out. He needs to widen his driveway, and he needs to put a sidewalk in. It'd be a sidewalk to nowhere, but at least the county won't pay for it.

[04:15:53] And he can do it a whole lot cheaper than the county can. Thank you. Any other speakers? Seeing none, I'm going to close this public hearing.

[04:16:09] It's back before the board, and this case is in the Midlothian District. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Turner, I've gone out there and I've taken a look at it. I just wouldn't let you know. I don't do anything, make any choices, make any decisions until I've gone out there and seen it myself. I did go out there over the weekend.

[04:16:26] I see what you're talking about. I'm not sure if the cases or what you're suggesting is something that they're connected. But I did go around to the back, took a look. One of the things I was concerned about is, did they already start doing it? And the answer is no, they didn't. So I like the fact that they've waited and that they, for the process to unfold, It hasn't always occurred.

[04:16:49] But even with the 25 foot, that makes me a little uncomfortable until I was able to go out there and see there's already a fence there. There are already heavy trees there. You can barely see through it. I spoke with some of the neighbors. They didn't see it even as a problem.

[04:17:06] As far as the sidewalk, yeah, we can talk about that for sure. I don't know. Maybe this is a question for the attorney in that I just want to make sure I'm clear I don't get a feel that I could somehow hold off on approving this and then put it in the proffer for sidewalks or making it wider.

[04:17:28] Are my thoughts on that correct? I think you're certainly in the area of correct. I haven't really analyzed it, but I'm not sure that I could establish a nexus between what is being proposed here and the need for a sidewalk on the property. And there has to be a connection before it's required.

[04:17:44] Right. I mean, it's a gated, I mean, you can't just drive in there, it's gated, so, okay, so thank you, Ms. Minks, for that, yeah, so with that idea in mind, I'm going to go ahead and approve or move to approve case number 23SN0135, subject to the conditions in the staff report.

[04:18:08] I will second it, but then I have a comment. That there's definitely what Jerry's talking about, I'm wondering if they can put in a turn lane there, Ms. Chessa, is that something that they can get or no?

[04:18:25] I'm just asking. No? Yes, I think. Okay. Yeah, I think. That would have to be a separate case. I think so. All we're talking about is just this ability to construct this particular building on it and then deal with the buffer requirement as opposed to a brand new case that might justify.

[04:18:53] So, you know, it's a great question. But I think really given the fairly limited approval that you are dealing with here, and I don't know that you could justify a turn lane based just on what we're talking about.

[04:19:09] Yeah, I would say that the traffic is already there. The nexus issue of what they're doing is increasing traffic from how they're already operating there. And then I don't know that what they have would even warrant a turn lane based on the traffic impacts.

[04:19:29] I haven't really analyzed it, but I think that we're talking about really is there a marginal difference here that generates the need for all of these, and I think it's a little hard to come up with that. Any other questions? I have a motion and a second. All in favor?

[04:19:49] Aye. Next is 25SN1124 in Clover Hill Magisterial District. Barrow two-family dwelling is a request for conditional use to permit a two-family dwelling in a residential R-15 district known as 2401 Stutes Lane.

[04:20:07] The 0.44-acre property is developed with one single-family dwelling, and this request proposes an addition to the existing dwelling, which will create a two-family dwelling. The main dwelling unit will be occupied by the applicant, and the proposed addition containing a second dwelling unit will be occupied by the applicant's son.

[04:20:26] Planning Commission and staff recommend approval subject to the conditions in your staff report. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing on case 25 SN1124, Borrowed to Family Dwelling. Is there anyone who'd like to speak to this case?

[04:20:43] If so, please come forward and state your name. Seeing no one, I'm going to close this public hearing. It's back before the board. This case is in the Clover Hill District. I think given the fact that this is basically an addition onto the house, and I get it, there's going to be a second kitchen, but it's not impeding.

[04:21:11] got all the setbacks, I move to approve case number 25 SN 1124, subject to conditions of the staff report. No second. All in favor? Aye. Last on your consent agenda is 25 SN 1149 in Bermuda Magisterial District. Chalkley Road Parcel Subdivision Exceptions is a request for conditional use plan development to permit exceptions to ordinance requirements in an

[04:21:46] Agricultural Aid District on 17.3 acres known as 10801 Chalkley Road. The applicant is requesting conditional use plan development to permit exceptions to road frontage, lot width, and front yard requirements for the Agricultural Aid District. A subdivision to create two parcels is proposed. Planning Commission and staff recommend approval subject to the conditions in your staff report. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing on case 25 SN 1149, Chalkley Road Parcel Subdivision Exceptions. Is there anyone who would like to come to speak to this case? If so, please

[04:22:26] come forward and state your name. Seeing no one, I'm going to close this public hearing. It's back before the board. This case is in the Bermuda District, and I make the motion to approve case 25 SN 1149, subject to the conditions in the staff report.

[04:22:43] Second. All in favor? Aye. Mr. Chair, that concludes your consent items for this evening. You have one discussion item, which is Case 22 SN 0117, Old Bermuda 100 Road Rezoning Exceptions and Utility Waiver.

[04:23:01] Mr. Ramsey. Good evening, Mr. Chair, members of the board, and Dr. Casey, Case 22 SN 0117 in the Bermuda Magisterial District, Bermuda 100 Road rezoning. Exceptions and utility waiver is a two-part request. Request one is a rezoning from agricultural to general industrial I-2 with a conditional use plan development to permanent exceptions to ordinance requirements. The second request is an exception to section 18-60 of the utility ordinance for connection to the public wastewater system. Industrial uses to include a potential contractor's office, shop, and storage

[04:23:35] yard are planned for the property. The property contains 4.79 acres and is zoned agricultural. Adjoining properties are zoned industrial I-2 to the north, south, and west and agricultural zoning also to the east. The first image on the left shows the property as being partially wooded and undeveloped. The second image on the right shows the comprehensive plans, land use designation map.

[04:23:58] The plan designates the property for corporate office research and development and light industrial uses, which suggests the property is appropriate for corporate office research, laboratories, and light manufacturing and assembly uses. Request 1 is a proposal to rezone the property from agricultural to light industrial I-2. The owner is rezoning the property to increase the marketability of the property for a future industrial user. The conceptual plan, shown in the current slide, is developed for the property and depicts a contractor's office with the storage yard. Uses for the property would be limited to specified uses in the light industrial I-1

[04:24:36] and general industrial I-2 districts that will have limited wastewater generation and could be served by a private septic system and drain field. Development of the contractor's office shop and storage yard would need to conform to the conceptual plan. Any other uses developed on the property that are permitted would be developed in accordance with the emerging growth design district standards. Additional site and building design requirements have been proffered. Minimum lighting requirements for sidewalks and parking areas have been provided as well as placement restrictions for light poles. Enhanced building design elements have been proffered to require

[04:25:12] fenestrated facades with a combination of colors and building materials and orienting overhead garage doors to the rear of the building for our contractor's office shop and storage yard. Lastly, preservation of the side yard setback along the western property line will be provided outside of the existing 50-foot access easement that crosses into this property. The 10-foot setback with permanent landscaping will be provided just to the west of this access easement.

[04:25:40] The ordinance requires screening for outside storage uses, which would include a contractor's storage yard that is part of the contractor's office and shop. To mitigate the potential view of the contractor's storage yard to Old Bermuda 100 Road, the applicant is proffered a six-foot tall, durable, opaque fence with a design to be approved prior to site plan approval.

[04:25:59] This would be installed in the location shown on Exhibit A and also highlighted in the current slide. A portion of the project boundary south of the site entrance from Permilla Springs Drive will not require screening for a contractor's office shop and storage yard use. This area is highlighted in the orange dashed outline within the slide. The second request is an exception to not connect to the county's wastewater system. Public wastewater is not immediately available, but would require a public wastewater line extension of approximately 5,700 feet with a

[04:26:34] cost of approximately $2.28 million. Connection is presently required by county code. The applicant is requesting the exception to the code requirement to connect to the public wastewater system. The utilities department does not support the exception request, knowing that there are no topographic conditions, conflicts with underground utilities, or system capacity limitations which would prohibit connection to the public wastewater system. If the exception to the wastewater connection is granted, the utilities department recommends that four conditions be approved with this request. The first being that the county water shall be required for any proposed use.

[04:27:11] The second condition being that this utility exception shall only be for those specific I-1 and I-2 uses outlined in the request, which includes the contractor's office, shop, and storage yard. The third condition will require a connection to the public wastewater system if that system is extended within 200 feet of the property. Fourth and finally, there's going to be the need for a dedication of public wastewater easements across the property to facilitate future extension of public wastewater service when and if it becomes available. The planning commission unanimously recommended approval request one. Staff also continues to recommend approval request one for

[04:27:49] the proposed rezoning and exceptions request. The comprehensive plan's land use designation for corporate office research and development light industrial uses supports the development of I-1 and limited i2 land uses on the property the applicant's proposal includes a conceptual site design that will mitigate the visual impact of the contractor's office shop and storage yard use and effectively screen the proposed development from old bermuda 100 road the planning commission unanimously recommended approval request 2 based on the distance and cost to connect this property to the existing wastewater system utilities continues to recommend denial of request 2.

[04:28:28] no topographic conditions conflicts with other underground utilities or sewer capacity limitations exist that would prevent connection to the public wastewater system and i'll briefly note that staff did not receive any comments for this request in the citizen comment portal and at this time be happy to answer any questions from the board board members any questions for staff ladies and gentlemen this is a public hearing on case 22 sn 0117 old bermuda 100 road rezoning exceptions and utility waiver. Is there anybody here who would like to speak to this case?

[04:29:08] Good evening. My name is Dr. Korsak. I'm concerned in this project, and I have a comment coming up later, too, in different projects, of preventing pollution. We're all part of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, so my question, and this goes for other industrial areas in Chesterfield County, is there or has there been a pollution prevention plan done for

[04:29:44] this project and the adjacent industrial area, because you have the James River, the Appomattox close by in this area. It all goes into the James River, into the Chesapeake Bay. Thank you. If you can consider that. Any other speakers? Seeing none, I'm going to, oh, I'm sorry, the applicant. No

[04:30:21] problem. I'm Dean Hawkins, landscape architect for the project. I'm Mr. Chairman, members of the board. Can I go ahead and close the public hearing and then I'll let you speak? Seeing no others, I'm going to go ahead and close this public hearing. It's back for the board, and I'm going to give the applicant an opportunity to respond.

[04:30:44] First off, Mr. Ramsey always does such a good job. I don't even know why I come up here after he does his presentations, because all the information that I probably would tell you, he's already told you. I will say that our site is kind of an orphan left over in the area. If you look at the zoning map, ours is probably the only agricultural piece left for a half a mile around us.

[04:31:06] Everything else is already I-2, so we're kind of mopping up here with the zoning case in the first part of the request. We've worked with Mr. Ramsey on the staff report and all of the zoning conditions that we have outlined of limiting some more intense I-2 uses, and so we feel like we're in good stead there with what we're proposing.

[04:31:29] The second part of the request is about the utilities waiver, and we would wish we would have sewer within a reasonable distance, but as you can see, it's very far away, and this is standard. We have a drain field site on our site, and so we feel like we can accommodate everything and would agree to it if sewer ever became available.

[04:31:55] We will dedicate off-site easements or on-site easements that we can control for this project. Now, I will comment quickly on the speaker who just preceded me about the environmental issues. I don't think any developer can express how much we have to do to mitigate pollution potential.

[04:32:20] With the Bay Act, and we're probably at least a mile away from the Appomattox, But all of our site has to be mitigated on-site for water volume and quantity, or quantity and quality.

[04:32:36] So all of that will be taken care of at the site plan review, and like any other development. So with that, I would ask for you to approve both requests tonight. Just to be clear, there's no smokestacks, nothing being produced.

[04:32:52] This is an office and storage area, that's it, correct? It's potentially a 12,000 square foot office warehouse, and behind it, out of sight from the road, because Permilla Springs that I designed many years ago where the ice house is, and now the county rents that as a food storage locker behind us, all of the storage area that we're describing is out of sight, over the hill, away from the road.

[04:33:20] So considering the neighborhood we live in, we'll be a much cleaner neighbor than what's already there. And it would probably cost as much, it would probably double the cost of this project to have to connect to public wastewater. Two and a half million dollars to bring the sewer up to where we are.

[04:33:41] Would make it prohibitive for anybody to ever do anything on this project. This is typical in this area. Jeff Davis, I've had several requests like this. I wish it were closer. And we do abide by the rule that if it ever became within 200 feet of us, we would connect.

[04:33:57] So that's the way the ordinance used to read at least. Thank you. Any other questions from the board? This case is in the Bermuda District, and I make the motion to approve case 22SN-0017, subject to the conditions in the staff report for both parts of it.

[04:34:17] Mr. Chair, may I clarify the case number 22SN-0117? Oh, I apologize. Thank you. You're welcome. Make the motion to approve case 22SN0117, subject to the conditions in a staff report for both parts.

[04:34:41] Yes. Both rezoning and the utility waiver. That's correct. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Mr. Holland, I didn't hear your vote.

[04:35:01] Aye. Thank you. Item 18, public hearings. A, to consider comprehensive plan amendment to Chapter 13, transportation regarding the thoroughfare plan, East-West Freeway. Ms. Walker. Thank you.

[04:35:17] good evening mr chair members of the board this is a public hearing for consideration of a comprehensive plan amendment relative to the thoroughfare plan specific to the east-west freeway we have been working since december we were tasked by the planning commission to evaluate the elimination and or modification to the east-west freeway from the thoroughfare plan based on our travel demand modeling the modeling does not support

[04:35:49] the need for a freeway facility as it's currently shown in the thoroughfare plan so here's a map of our our existing thoroughfare plan we currently have what we refer to as the east west freeway on our plan it's been on our plan since 1989 it's about 25 miles long it's the red plus the green highlighted on the map here the corridor is designated on our plan as a limited access facility which reserves a 200 foot right away you have the notes that show the interchange locations

[04:36:23] Again, this is meant to be a regional facility in the south portion of the county that would connect up from Hull Street to I-95. So as I stated, we've been working with our county's travel demand model to assess the impact of removing the east-west freeway and how that would impact our future transportation network.

[04:36:46] Our model projects population and employment in the county in the year 2050, so it's a build-out condition and simulates that traffic onto the network and so we looked at with and without the freeway and the impacts to the network and what our staff recommendation was or is what is to eliminate a portion of the east-west freeway from whole street to brandersbridge which is the red line red highlighted portion it's about 21 miles this section is through low residential

[04:37:20] agricultural land use, and the model did not support the need for a high-speed, high-volume facility. So we were recommending to remove this section. Our second recommendation was to downgrade the portion from Brandersbridge Road to I-95. That's the green section. That's a four-mile section.

[04:37:42] This section benefited from an east-west connection in that area based on the land uses in the area. So we recommended the downgrading from a 200-foot right-of-way to a major arterial with a 90-foot right-of-way. This just really quickly references the chapters that would require updating and the references to the freeway that would need to be followed through should you propose to amend the third fret plan.

[04:38:12] And then in summary, again, you see the two bullets there as staff recommendation. We did take this item before the Planning Commission last week. We had a public hearing for their consideration. they chose to make to approve unanimously to remove the east-west freeway in its entirety prior to that meeting we had had a opportunity to delve further and with that recommendation the existing network that we have out there now plus the remaining thoroughfare plan roads in in our thoroughfare plan if you take the freeway out in entirety could accommodate the redistributed

[04:38:50] traffic but we would likely have to improve maybe some segments in the area with that redistributed traffic and I also want to note that this is a specific revision specific to only to the east-west freeway there will be an opportunity in the upcoming comp plan with comprehensive plan revision to also take a look at land use in the area and the thoroughfare plan and take another shot at cleaning it up more comprehensively and that's what I have for you and I'll take some

[04:39:23] questions um mr. chair I'm going to have comments later but just who asked you to do this planning commission tasked us with doing it and you told them who asked them to do it you I did I want to make it perfectly clear okay thank you right that the majority of this road goes through the motoka district yes and there have been many land use changes since this was originally put on the map which I will talk about in a little bit, which is why I ask this to be brought forward to be

[04:40:01] considered by the Planning Commission and come before the board. And I'll have a lot more to say after that. Thank you. I would also ask a question outside of about three days where I was considering a proposal that you made. Where has my position been on this? You have from the beginning also wanted to remove the alignment. Thank you. And I do appreciate your comments on the uses in the area that are currently in the comp plan, because what did we tell you we needed to do after we take

[04:40:39] this off the map? Right-size that land use. And if we do that, you feel very confident that we are doing, we're okay at that point, right? Yes. Thank you. Mr. Chair, would you entertain a comment period before we do the public meeting, or what would you like to do? Well, let's let the citizens speak, and then we'll finish up. Okay. That's fine. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing to consider the comprehensive plan amendment to chapter 13 transportation regarding the thoroughfare plan east-west freeway is there anyone who'd like to speak to this issue if so please come forward

[04:41:17] and state your name good evening members of the board mr chairman i'm mike uzell and i live right off of harrogate road first i want to thank mr carroll and mr engel for bringing forward this proposal from my understanding to remove the east-west freeway from the thoroughfare plan Removing it is long overdue.

[04:41:50] The only problem I've had since I heard about the proposal was the plan to keep the portion of the road from Route 1 to Branders Bridge Road on the plan as a major arterial. The only justification we heard for this was to provide, quote, a pressure relief valve for traffic in Chester.

[04:42:12] As evidenced by the transportation studies, Mr. Lorefoyed, a two-lane road, which is what was discussed in planning work sessions, would not do this. This section, if built, would only add traffic to the already substandard and unsafe Branders Bridge Road.

[04:42:36] As you should all know by now, this section of the East-West Freeway has been hanging over the heads of residents in the area for 36 years. If built, over 100 properties would be affected, and thousands of citizens would be directly and indirectly affected.

[04:42:54] It has almost come to fruition twice. Once was in 2007 with Brander Station, okayed by the Board of Supervisors, which none of you were there at that time, but it was approved by a two-to-one vote with two abstentions over citizens' loud protests.

[04:43:16] The second was in 2018 with the county's EDA's Matoaka Megasite. The first proposal was stopped by the recession. The second proposal was stopped by a concerted effort of citizens who live in that area fighting their county.

[04:43:38] We can conjecture as to why the four-mile section of the road was left on the original proposal while removing the rest. Some give the traffic pressure relief theory. Others believe it was a last-ditch effort to keep that gateway to development open to Metauka.

[04:43:55] Regardless of the reason, your planning commissioners have recommended removal of all the roads. And I sincerely hope that what I've been told is true, that you will vote to remove all this road from the thoroughfare plan tonight.

[04:44:15] Frankly, I and the citizens of this area are tired of fighting our county every few years to keep our community the way we want it, with no highway running through it.

[04:44:33] Remove all the road. We will cheer you for it. Thank you. Thank you. any other speakers uh dr korsak again i used to live uh not far off of harrogate road near branders bridge and in fact i had an accident in my corvette going down branders bridge on a curve before they straightened it all out when they built stony gun west and the other

[04:45:10] stony glen it's like stony glen is like mushroom down so my points here is talking about the pressure relief valve my question is has vdot concurred with the plan to eliminate the east west highway it seems like this would be a state route i don't know what the designation is when you go from major arterial those are normally not state routes but if you go with the east west freeway i would assume that it would be a state route and possibly have federal

[04:45:42] implications so if you can take that into consideration thank you i want to mention also about the data center and all the future plans i think a lot of corporations are thinking about Matooka and in this area. Thank you. Next speaker. Jerry Turner. Can y'all imagine what would happen if 288 wasn't around? Somebody would look into the future when they did plan 288.

[04:46:23] You're not looking for the future in this part of the county. Whether you build this road or not, you keep it on the drawings or not, somebody needs to be looking to the future of Chesterfield County. And all you're doing right now is just eliminating avenues that I'm sure the citizens down there really don't want this road, but neither did the people that were on 288.

[04:46:48] They didn't want that road either, but look at the traffic on 288. Now, right or wrong, you've got to look to the future, and I don't think the county is doing a very good job of that.

[04:47:05] Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Renee Eldred here. I'm a realist.

[04:47:25] This thing has been on the books since 89. It's never been funded. There's never been any inkling of any money to fund it. And everybody's screaming to keep Matoical rule.

[04:47:44] This is what it's going to do. Now, granted, as Mr. Turner said, everybody uses 288s. Somebody might actually use this. But right now, that's not what the citizens want. And I think it's time.

[04:48:01] It's never going to be any money to fund 24 miles of this freeway. It just isn't. the poet extension could actually use that week that would be used now right now and i don't even know if we're ever going to really get that funded all the way like it really should be but the one thing that i want to comment on most is that when this all started it started a firestorm on facebook

[04:48:35] with people bashing everybody and it just needs to stop it's no point in bashing if you have useful ideas that can actually get something done bring them forward nobody ever wants to say can we do x y and z to get this done they just want to say nobody's doing anything the board of supervisors are crapping and i even saw one post today that said evidently you're elected

[04:49:09] and you're not a point so i just i really wish that the post on facebook would just lighten up a little bit. There is so much out there that could be done if you just take the time to literally think about what we're doing, get some ideas out of the box, and get them done that way instead of just bashing everybody one way or the other or bringing it to Facebook and say, this isn't going

[04:49:40] to be done. It's not done yet. This was only fought twice since 89. I fought one parcel in my neighborhood four different times within, what, a 10-year period, you got to start thinking out of the box, getting done what needs to be done, and stop the bashing, please.

[04:50:04] It just, it needs to stop. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Good evening. My name is Jerriann Munson, and I live on Brandisbridge Road, and I live within a mile of the proposed their East-West Highway.

[04:50:30] And as Mr. Uzell spoke, I've been attending meetings, the Comprehensive Plan, since probably this 1989, and when we fought at that time to have all of this empty acreage that is currently now Chester Solar Farm and was currently up for the track company data center development,

[04:50:59] The citizens on Branders Bridge Road did not want, even back then, did not want the comprehensive plan to be multi-use for any of that acreage. We wanted our community to be just like it's over in the Matoka District.

[04:51:20] We wanted it to remain agricultural residential with large, none of us live in a, we don't live in a development. We all have acreage, not lots, and that's what we wanted to see for all of this property, not acreage, not lots.

[04:51:38] For some reason in the Bermuda District, we did not ever get that with the comprehensive plan. And so I understood the need for the East-West Highway because if you're doing multi-use in your comprehensive plan, the need for that highway is there.

[04:51:57] but if you don't have that in your comprehensive plan you don't have need for that highway so i would like to encourage you to go with the planning commission recommendation to go ahead and vote to not have the highway and to agree to look at the comprehensive plan with citizen input of the people that live there as to what we would like to see because we've already got the solar farm we don't need 700 and some more acres of industrial in the middle of residential

[04:52:37] and agricultural areas and that's what i would like to encourage this board of supervisors to consider thank you thank you any other speakers you only get one shot so sorry anybody else seeing no one else i'm going to close this public hearing at this time this is back before the board Do you want to speak to it first?

[04:53:05] Oh, most definitely. All right. Good. I don't think anybody expects me not to. Thank you, Mr. Chair. A couple of things, and this may take me a little bit. Since this road was proposed, back then I would say a previous Board of Supervisors had a different vision for the county, and that vision was to look at what the county could be if you were to build the entire county out in the future, including the entire southern tier.

[04:53:39] We've seen development in the western part of Hull Street. We've seen development in Melothian District, in Clover Hill District, in Bermuda District, and the Dale District. The East-West Freeway, when I first moved here in 1986, 288 was being built. And as they say, if you build it, they will come.

[04:53:57] And they absolutely did. Since 288 was built, we've had subdivisions called Ashbrook, Dogwood Villas, Greenwood Walk, Cosby Village, Hampton Park, Harbor Point, Mad Green, Foxcroft, Fox Creek, Foxfire, Crown Point, Cambria Grove, the landing at Swift Creek, Wood Lake, Summit at Magnolia, Tuckmar, Summer Lake, Westerly, Madison Crossing, Dogwood Creek, just to name a few that have been approved throughout the years in the western part of, and I'm talking about just Matoka, I'm not even talking about what's

[04:54:35] been approved in Clover Hill. Looking west of 288, and you have the population greater between the Clover Hill District and the Matoka District greater than the population of the Clover Hill District, greater than the population of what would be individually the Melothian District, greater than the population of what would be any other district in Cheshire County. Between those two districts living west, you have a greater population. If you look at the path of the road coming down where we build the Poet Parkway to Hull Street, and we need to do it because of all

[04:55:10] the aforementioned residential developments I just spoke to, the road would go south to Hull Street right through the Richmond Metro Zoo. Sorry, I am not going to destroy the Richmond Metro Zoo. So if someone wants to hate me later for getting rid of the road, they can.

[04:55:28] But in the 50-year projections, the road's not needed, number one. Number two, I would much rather spend money in the future, and this board agrees with this, on fixing our secondary roads. We have the second largest road network in the Commonwealth of Virginia behind Fairfax County, over 4,400 miles of roads.

[04:55:47] Second largest. And the ones in my district, they have this funny word attached to it. It's called ditch. And if you run off the road to Matoka, you're in a ditch and your car is going to probably flip over and you're going to get hurt or at least be trashed pretty bad, your car. So, number one, we also have it blocked in the western part by a solar facility that goes south of the zoo for 40 years under a conditional use permit, which means that property use is blocking the road.

[04:56:15] But there's another piece of property which would run right through the middle of where this would go through that used to be approved for a zoning case for 735 residences. it's now a federally protected conservation easement the road would have to go right through that I'm not putting the road through conservation easement some of the idiot wants to get do that in the future fine this idiot's not going to do it we've also changed land use for Hickory estates which was a residential subdivision in the southern part of Matoka which was changed to a

[04:56:51] conservation easement and then changed back to an agricultural property which means that 800 acres can only have now eight houses on it, one house per 100 acres. So we've removed, through the southern tier of Chesterfield, a lot of the subdivisions, quite frankly, that people were looking at in the future saying, we're going to need this high-speed road.

[04:57:16] And as someone mentioned, it's going to cost us about $800 million to build the Poet Parkway to Hull Street. About $800 million. That's a lot of money. That's only 11 miles. If you go with the 24-mile road, this is a couple-billion-dollar road, A couple billion dollar road, and we do not own one inch of the property to build this, not one inch.

[04:57:44] I have traversed all up and down the 207 miles of Matoka District, and a lot of the people that I have spoken to when I knocked on their doors and when I see them in the stores, they don't see the need for the road, but they want the secondary roads fixed, and I agree with them.

[04:58:00] There are a lot of windy roads that we can straighten out and many other things we can do to make transportation better. But we get complaints every month about zoning cases that come before the Board of Cyber Advisors.

[04:58:17] And I tell people that if someone brings a proper case and it meets the comprehensive plan and we don't have a legal justification to deny the case, we've got to pass it. If we have a legal justification, which there are some that do qualify, we can deny a case.

[04:58:37] I have more cases coming up in the western part of Whole Street right now. I have a whole list that they sent to me, residential cases that are coming up that will add to all of those residential cases I just spoke about, which is why, for those who don't think that the Poway Parkway needs to be extended the road to Hull Street, you're absolutely wrong.

[04:59:00] That road has to be built as a traffic reliever to handle all of the zoning cases. I didn't prove those cases. I didn't prove Matt Green. I was undercover cop then in 91. I was working in homicide in 2000 when Harper's Mill was approved. That's a 2,300-unit subdivision.

[04:59:18] Now, these are great subdivisions. As a matter of fact, if you read Richmond Magazine, Matt Green is the number one subdivision in the metro Richmond area right now. This month's edition. I read it the other day. So we have some great things in the western part of Hull Street, but because of that, we have to build the Poet Parkway.

[04:59:36] I have someone who I know doesn't like me very much, and I'm okay with that. There's some of the people that bashed me on Facebook, and I'm okay with that. It's freedom of speech. You're okay to have your own opinion, and it is what it is.

[04:59:53] But they sold their land after complaining for development for $3.7 million to a developer. Now, I actually think they have a right to do that.

[05:00:09] They have a right to take care of their family. They have a right to sell their land. I don't begrudge them one bit. They hate me, but I don't begrudge them one bit for it. They have a right to do it. But when you keep bringing zoning cases forward on land like this, as people have a right to do, It creates more traffic, and so the Polar Parkway on the north side is absolutely needed.

[05:00:31] But if you look at the maps that I've been looking at and look at the numbers I've been looking at, there are no numbers to support the East-West Freeway going through the southern tier of the county. If someone wants to run and get elected in the future and put the road back on, they can do that, but I'm not doing it.

[05:00:48] So Mr. Chair, I make a motion to approve the removal of the East-West Freeway from the Comprehensive Plan. I'd like to second the motion, and I have some comments as well. First off, I'd like to thank Tommy Owens and Gibbs Sloan for all of their work on this issue.

[05:01:11] They've done a great job of taking what the citizens said, what we've said, and what just needs to be done, and building consensus. I want to thank this board for listening to board members that have shared, Mr. Carroll and myself, who've shared why we believe this needs to be eliminated completely all the way through.

[05:01:43] I know there's been some spirited discussion, but I want to thank this board for listening to our opinions and hopefully for what I believe the outcome will be. Although until it's over, it's not over.

[05:02:02] We will get 360 funded to the Poite extension funded to 360. That will happen. When it is complete, there will not be stoplights on it.

[05:02:18] Stoplights would be something that is a temporary measure at the end of wherever it ends to help direct traffic. It's not a permanent measure. So that is not going to stay there if there's a stoplight that goes up on there. There will be a three-fair road with no tolls on it.

[05:02:39] So I think that's important. The conjecture on that portion, the new portion, we'll have no toll on it. Well, Mr. Chair, the other toll, if we're right, should come off on January 1 of 2027 if we can get other people to agree.

[05:02:56] The 75-cent toll is going away. If we can get other people to agree, the 75-cent toll is going away. If we can get other people to agree, that was weird. The goal is to have the road all the way through and to have no tolls on it.

[05:03:19] I did hear the citizen that lives in the area that said we need to update the comp plan to change Branders Bridge area back to agricultural. And I have been working with my planning commissioner to ensure that when the comprehensive plan is redone starting next year, not sure how long it will take to get input from all the citizens, but it will be a process that will include the citizens and even CDOT has agreed that

[05:03:55] with the plan that we have that that would be make them feel more comfortable as well and would have had that already been done it would have eliminated their belief that even a part of it should stay intact. So that is something that I will continue to work to do for that area. With that, the conjecture that has been truly made up out of thin air that I was

[05:04:26] ever thinking about supporting track by putting this road through is insulting. I've given my answer multiple times as to my thoughts. Again, I've wanted this road removed for all but about three days of the last five years when I sat down with CDOT, and Mr. Carroll was in the meeting as well. I did think that there was a possibility that we could get some relief in the Chester

[05:05:00] area at Chester Road, Route 10, and Harrogate. That was the reason that I stated in that meeting, was it not, Mr. Carroll? Chessa? After further looking into things, I realized that it probably was not going to accomplish what I was hoping it would do, but that with that, we needed to take it out, and I've had some very spirited conversations with Chesa, and I appreciate them. I appreciate all the advice that you give

[05:05:40] us based on the current comprehensive plan, and I understand where you're coming from, and I'm glad that you understood where I was coming from when I told you thank you for your advice, but we need to go in a different direction. So thank you for that spirited, truthful, and honest conversation that we've had. I think I've probably gone on long enough, but it really is infuriating when people just make up reasons of their own choosing to say that we're supporting something

[05:06:19] that our planning commission has already voted five to zero to deny, and then they make one stupid comment in a, uh, to this sense that they're going to find a way to come back.

[05:06:34] Well, I don't believe that they are, but, um, they aren't going to get, uh, they will not be able to overcome the issues that the planning commission denied them for. In my opinion, um, we'll see if they try to come back, but, um, the, the plan is to change that area back to agricultural in the relatively near future.

[05:06:58] With that, is there any other questions or comments? Yes, sir. Well, thank you, Mr. Chair. As this whole thing was unfolding, I, just to be completely candid, had no idea about East-West Freeway.

[05:07:15] And so I sat down and I asked Jesse Smith, our Deputy County Administrator for Community development and to learn about East-West. And there was a part of me that was very much kind of stepping back and watching both your process. And one of the things I kind of want to communicate to all of you is that how difficult the process is. Even for a moment, you were thinking, well, maybe we should do it this way and trying to catch up with you as you were going through that process. But where I was with this was just stepping back at

[05:07:54] process, watching you both kind of wrestle, but also recognizing a truth, which is that Mr. Turner moved to the sense of looking to the future. I think it's exactly what they're doing. They're looking exactly to the future, and the future is that that part of the county is going to remain rural. That was what is the vision for that area. There's no rule book, no thought where we have to somehow completely develop the entire county.

[05:08:28] I mean, even Midlothian in the areas that we are, we don't have to necessarily develop any more than what would make sense as far as the infrastructure is concerned, utilities, all of that. What I'll be paying attention to is as these different zoning cases come to us, and we'll have to make a decision about whether it's going to remain rural down in that district, in Matoaca, And we'll have to wrestle with that.

[05:09:00] And the decision we'll come back to, are we overloading our roads? And is it going to be too much? But I'll tell you that one of the things I hear from the folks at Midlothian, you know, it's really nice to drive into, we don't have to go very far to drive into rural areas and for our county to remain that way in the south.

[05:09:22] So, for that, I feel comfortable with the elimination of the entire East-West. I think that is the way to go. And if somewhere in the future, it may not even be when we're here, and someone were to say, okay, now it's time to develop that, at least we've set the intention that it's going to remain rural for now.

[05:09:49] Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. I've talked with both of them about this and I feel that it's when you look at the map of the county you can definitely see a delineation of where the changes are in the populations now do

[05:10:25] I think we need some improvements and I've mentioned that to them I grew up in Wisconsin on very rural roads so I'm used to them but again there are some times when you're driving with a big truck coming at you on some of those roads and there's no shoulder and it's scary and so I think that yes there needs to be some straightening of some of the curvy roads or widening with some shoulders or something like that so you don't fall off the end of the world if you go off road but I think that you know preserving forests as we discussed earlier is very important to me and I

[05:11:02] think there's a lot of those down there and a lot of natural area and I am all for keeping it that way if that's what people would like so. Mr. Chair one last comment please. Yes sir. Mr. Holland would you like to add anything before I comment? We'll get back to Mr. Holland. I should have said this earlier but there is a shift in and I have to tell you this is a big step. This is not a small thing what we're doing tonight, regardless of what anybody thinks, this is a monumental shift

[05:11:41] in what the future of Chesterfield County could be. Many people say to me, don't Fairfax Chesterfield County. Don't turn us into Fairfax. If you put the Polite Parkway extension, East West Freeway through Southern Matoka, you're essentially creating the Prince William County Parkway or the Fairfax County Parkway, and you're Fairfaxing Chesterfield County. Because when you do that, you open it up for tremendous development to the southern part of the county. The other part of what we've had a problem with struggling in the northern part with the development with all those subdivisions I talked about is the improvement of secondary roads. We've had to fix Otterdale Road.

[05:12:18] We had major flooding. Now we're fixing the last section of that. You can't approve major subdivisions in the southern tier of the county without fixing the secondary roads. And if you put a road like this through, where do you get the money to fix the secondary roads? You think the developers in there, developers will help with some, with everything touches theirs. You've got to fix the secondary roads for safety before you can even think about doing high-density development through the southern part of the county.

[05:12:49] Thank you, Mr. Chair. We'll see what Mr. Holland has to say. Mr. Chair, we called into Mr. Holland, so he may be using his phone, and we'll put it to a microphone as plan B. Is it right now, Susan?

[05:13:10] Yes, sir. Yes, we can hear you. Okay, very good. I remember many years ago when this came into fruition, 1989, it was contemplated that there would be over 5,000 houses built in that area.

[05:13:27] And that's why those roads were contemplated at that time for traffic purposes. But I don't want to go beyond that. Let's simply add that that was the thinking back then with that board, prior to a board I served on, that was the thinking that I heard from prior supervisors.

[05:13:47] Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Holland. And I would add, I was going to add one more point because I had gone through my list and realized that I didn't say that there are still some secondary roads.

[05:14:04] And I was going to specifically speak to Branders Bridge. They do need upgrades to them. I think CDOT is very aware of multiple roads in the areas that need to be upgraded for safe travel for the current volume of vehicles, but the roads themselves can accommodate what we need them to as long as we upgrade them and we update the comp plan back to ag.

[05:14:33] With that, you have one more? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just one thing that's kind of calling to me in that, you know, it's very easy to fall into the trap of wanting to develop, develop, and develop. And by keeping things rural, what we're saying in so many ways is that we want to keep nature.

[05:14:54] And I know Jessica was saying it kind of tongue-in-cheek about tree hugger, but, you know, to say it kind of with a positive way is that we want to keep nature here. And we often get these folks that say to us that we somehow just want to build, baby, build.

[05:15:11] And that just isn't the case with everything. That there are some things that will fit and we can make it work, but others not necessarily. And I'm just appreciating the direction we're going right now. Mr. Chair, last thing is that we have a very diverse housing stock in Chetseville County. That's right.

[05:15:27] And keeping the opportunity for people to have, for example, five acres of land, 10 acres of land, 15 acres of land, whatever they want in the southern part of Matoka, they can do it in Dinwiddie, they can do it in Amelia, they can do it in Powhatan, they can do it in Goochland or Hanover, anywhere else around us, but they can't do it here. And if you go through the southern tier of Matoka, without a road you go up and down, whether it's River Road, Beach Road, Woodpecker Road, Bundle Road, Sandy Ford Road, Graves Road, you pick one.

[05:15:53] They are agricultural roads that people live on, on agricultural property. So, I think we're now going to vote, so let's vote on this thing, get her done. All in favor, remove the roof. Aye. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Board. B, to consider comprehensive plan amendment,

[05:16:17] Northern Route 10 Corridor Plan, Ms. Oakley. Good evening, members of the board, Mr. Chairman.

[05:16:33] My name is Dagny, and I've been working closely with Brett Meadows on the Northern Route 10 Corridor Plan for the past year now. And so this presentation should give you an overview of the process of the plan and hit some of the highlights that we do in our plan. So starting off with where we are this is this plan is located in the dale district and the plan boundary is situated between chippenham parkway and 288 we have 835 parcels 485 property owners and the area is approximately

[05:17:07] 840 acres so to get into the plan process of where we began and where we are now back in february of 2024 the northern rot 10 plan was added to the planning work program and then in August of last year, the formal plan process was initiated, and so our initial community outreach began in November of 2024, where we had our first community meeting and a survey as well to gather some insight onto what the community was thinking, and then our initial recommendations were developed in winter of 2025. We had our draft plan developed and had our second community

[05:17:46] meeting which is photo on the right of this presentation is of that meeting we had 61 people sign in attendance and 39 comments on the draft and then as of recently we had the june 2025 cbc public hearing for the plan and the overview or the elements of the corridor plan include an overview future land use plan infrastructure plan design guidance and a strategic development and scenarios, and then finally an implementation section. But before we get into those components, I just wanted to give you a little background as to why we chose Northern Route 10.

[05:18:23] There was initially a request from the commission to guide development in the area because citizens were expressing concern over the oversaturation of auto-oriented uses in the corridor plan. If you've driven the corridor, you probably have seen plenty of gas stations, car washes, and things of that nature so that was kind of the initial motivation to look into this area and see how it could develop in a different way another interesting fact about this plan area is that it's 40% vacant so the map on the right all the highlighted parcels show either vacant or unclassified parcels so that's just how it looks spatially with 40% of the plan area being vacant

[05:19:01] another reason why we chose this was that the existing land use plan isn't really reflecting the ongoing development, so we wanted to refine the land use plan and make sure that it is reflecting that. We have an opportunity to maintain a unique corridor as, again, it is relatively vacant, which means we have more trees, and that's kind of one of the elements of our plan is to preserve some of those existing trees. We have the airport expansion plans. They recently put out an RFP for a development that would cater to people coming from the airport and also eventually planning to build the second runway. So we wanted to think of that as well. And then just overall growth in the county

[05:19:41] was another motivation. So getting into one of the major components of our plan is the land use plan. So on the left, you'll see a map of the former land use plans, as you can see in the comprehensive plan today. And then on the right is the proposed land uses that we've made. And some overview of the general changes we made is removal of cordly and corporate office uses, as we're seeing less of a desire for those uses both locally and regionally and then another change we made was putting a mixed-use center in the plan area if you're familiar with the vacant Walmart site that is

[05:20:18] the target for that mixed-use center as it's been underutilized for over 10 years I believe and then finally replacement of the office uses with uses that we think would better serve this area, including community and neighborhood business. And just to quickly go into individual sections of the plan, in the southern section, we wanted to focus land uses on businesses to support the airport, as I mentioned before, with the RFP that went out. So a development that could not only support the airport, but also Harry G. Daniel Park, and takes into account the ultimate airport

[05:20:53] development plan. Moving into the next section of the plan, as you can see on the left, there's that big chunk of Cordley. Again, we wanted to replace that with a use that we would see as more desirable for the corridor, providing a residential transition to commercial corridor by putting community business and medium-high density residential to kind of buffer between this SR2. Moving into the middle section of our plan is where we have that mixed-use center that we're proposing at the vacant Walmart site, and it concentrates density in a node rather than being

[05:21:27] stripped throughout the corridor and then finally the northern section of the plan this area is pretty much already built out so we just wanted to alter the land use to reflect what's there today and then the final section of the land use plan includes a note so it's that highlighted section right there note 35 so that area currently lacks public wastewater access or connectivity

[05:21:54] And so that note is stating that in the case that it is connected to public wastewater and adequate land is assembled, that we would support development that has transitions to protect the adjacent single-family land uses that you see. Moving into the next section of the plan, we have an infrastructure plan, and the bike and pedestrian infrastructure plan is a part of that.

[05:22:18] And this plan was developed based off of feedback from the community. We worked with CDOT and VDOT as well to see what would be possible in the area. And so this plan recommends a mix of different things, such as shared use paths, which are highlighted in green, sidewalks, which are highlighted in purple, and crosswalks as well.

[05:22:38] And the intention behind this was to create a more pedestrian-oriented network. We had complaints from citizens saying that there was the sidewalks to nowhere, and so we wanted to see what could happen if we look at this a little bit differently and implement a plan that could help connect people to some of the community facilities, such as Harry G. Daniel Park, Cogbo Park that's being constructed, and other public facilities.

[05:23:05] Moving into the design guidance, our design guidance focused on three major components, starting with landscaping. as mentioned before the corridor is unique in the fact that it has a decent amount of trees left since they haven't been developed in those areas so in our plan we recommend denser landscaping recommendations for cleared areas and also the preservation of trees for areas that they already exist the next section of the design guidance is site design so we're just encouraging increased connectivity between sites. In residential areas, we would recommend street and alley parking.

[05:23:42] And then for commercial, we would support parking lots behind or to the side of commercial areas. And then finally, for amenity space, similarly for commercial and residential, we would recommend open green space and recreational opportunities, things like walking paths, outdoor seating areas, and anything like that. And then moving into another section of design guidance is our strategic development scenarios. So we targeted two areas. I touched on this before. We focused on the vacant Walmart site, which is Ironbridge Road and Kingsland Glen Drive. And then the other

[05:24:17] section we focused on is the airport and Harry G. Daniel Park area. So starting with the Ironbridge Road and Kingsland Glen Drive, this is a conceptual outline as to how a mixed-use center could look. It's not supposed to be prescriptive, but we would be supportive of elements in the mixed-use center consisting of higher density residential, such as townhomes and apartments. We would support and recommend amenity space and also restaurants and other things that people living in that community could utilize. And then moving on into the second strategic development scenario,

[05:24:53] this is the airport area where they recently put out an RFP. And so we kind of took the concept plan that they have available on their website and expanded it to include the Harry G. Daniel Park area and try to make it a mutually beneficial concept plan for both the airport and Harry G. Daniel Park. And some uses that could be supported here would include a hotel for sports tourism and also people coming in from the airport, restaurants, or really anything that could be

[05:25:26] used by those people. And then finally, moving into our implementation steps, we would want to seek and secure funding for all of those pedestrian improvements that were touched on a little bit earlier, the signals, shared use paths, and sidewalks. We know that if density increases in the area, bus services may be possible, and that's something that we would support as well and would want to figure out with VDOT and CDOT. And then finally, we include resources for small businesses to look if they want to site into our plan area. Again, as we heard from the public,

[05:26:01] really wanting somewhere to be able to stop. So those are our implementation steps. And that is everything we have. So we can move on to any questions and comments that you all have. Board members, any questions for staff? That seems kind of odd that there's that one area.

[05:26:24] Why is that area not have utilities? That seems kind of odd that it would be right in the middle of iron bridge and not have um it's really just geography topography in between two two other nodes that come in from different directions that's just bizarre is my lay person's explanation i think there might be some rpa as well in that area so i think that might be well that makes sense you can't see that from here okay that makes sense any other questions ladies and gentlemen this is a public hearing to consider the Comprehensive Plan Amendment, Northern Route 10

[05:27:03] Corridor Plan. Is there anyone who'd like to speak to this issue? If so, please come forward and state your name. Dr. Corswick. I'm a resident that directly is going to be impacted by the Northern Route 10 from Meadowbrook Farms subdivision. So I have like four points to talk

[05:27:36] about. One, I'm really glad to hear about the secondary road interest that all of you have expressed, particularly in Matoka. That has to apply to Dale District. Cogbill Road is horrible. You go from Ironbrainer Road to Belmont, there's been tons of accidents. People running off the road, going into ditches. And now you put in Cogbill Park, which is going to be, from what I can see, a major park. There's going to be more traffic. Kingsland, if you look at the map, from

[05:28:12] that stoplight on Ironbridge goes all the way to Cogbill Road. That's the pressure relief valve for Route 10. I came to the planning meeting in June, and I had not even heard of the northern Route 10 corridor plan that was being proposed.

[05:28:32] But anyway, it took me half an hour to get from Chippenham to here, down Route 10. And you know what it's like going the other way. It's bad. So pushing the secondary roads and trying to get them improved from the 1935 standards, which they were built with, is a major issue.

[05:28:54] The other main road that does, this is kind of interesting, there was a Turner Road, I mean, Old Cyan Hill Road that connected Cogbill to Jessup Road. That disappeared around 1960.

[05:29:09] It was overgrown, people dumped trash, all that stuff. That road is still in the books in 21CP-0018. And there's lots of concern from the Jessup Meadows subdivision, Meadowbrook Farm subdivision, of the development of Turner Road Extension.

[05:29:32] So this being a comprehensive plan, like 1989 was for the East-West Freeway. That was 41 years ago. You've got to look way past 2050. You need to look to 2075 and relieving the congestion on Route 10.

[05:29:49] More and more people are going to use Route 10 as Northern Route 10 Corridor gets developed. And there won't be anywhere else for them to go. There's no arterial to the west of Ironbridge. Belmont Road has got portions of it that need development, too.

[05:30:10] Jessup Road is very poorly developed right now, too. There are a lot of ditches. So I really would like to see the development of the secondary roads. That would be a very, very good direction that I've heard from you and other districts, Dr. Miller and Mr. Carroll.

[05:30:36] that that would be applied here today. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Yeah, Dave Stritzinger. Uh, just point of clarification. What's an RPA? I mean, I, I used to work in IT. We had all kind of letters, so I, we should throw them around and people had that look in their face that I had. So what's an RPA? Thank you. A resource protected area. What is it? A resource protected area.

[05:31:11] Sorry, I hate anagrams also. Thank you. Thank you for that clarification. That's a good question. You're right. A lot of people may not know what it is. That was one of my questions. I'm Jerry Turner.

[05:31:31] The good thing I see about this, sidewalks. The only thing is, y'all got to make sure they do it. Don't just put it on a piece of paper and say, we're going to be on sidewalks, and then somebody come along and say, oh, okay, we'll let you off the hook this time. You need to make sure they build what they say they're going to do. Thank you.

[05:31:51] Thank you. Next speaker.

[05:32:01] Hello, Renee Eldred. I agree with Mr. Turner. If it's said it's going to be there, make it be there. One thing I get frustrated with the most, especially on Route 1, is development coming in and going, I don't want to put that there.

[05:32:19] I want to put this here. So your plan is pretty good. I was really surprised how many people came to the public meeting. That really shocked me. But make them do what the plan says.

[05:32:35] And that kind of goes with everything that y'all look at. There's numerous places that, yes, this goes here, but is it really what the comp plan says it should be? I know not too long back the planning commission sat and listened to people talk about connecting the fall line trail to Pocahontas, and the very first thing they did that night was eliminate two sidewalks that would have helped get it there because of the cost that was involved.

[05:33:15] And I'm like, you just sit here and listen to them say how well it would be to connect. And one of them was from the trailhead on Route 10. So, if you're going to start doing comp plans, make them adhere to what the comp plan says.

[05:33:32] Thank you. Thank you. Any other speakers? Seeing none, I'm going to close this public hearing. It's back before the board. Mr. Holland, I know this is in your district and it's been closed to you.

[05:33:47] Would you like to make a motion? After he makes his motion. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to say that I agree 100% with some of our speakers. Secondary roads are equipped and important. I've been saying so for years and months, and so it's our continued challenge.

[05:34:06] The Route 10 corridor is to improve. We know we can do better wherever you are today, and that's without a quote. But I want to thank you for this opportunity to present this before the board and to vote affirmatively on the right Route 10 quarter plan as we attempt at the area.

[05:34:26] And as stated earlier about utilities in here, well aware of that. But thank you so much for all the approval of Route 10 quarter. Second. I have some comments.

[05:34:45] Any other discussion? Go ahead, Mr. Carroll. I do have a question for staff. Jessa, one of the gentlemen brought this up, and it's right. It's there. I'm looking at it right now. So there is a, it looks like at least a provision right away for Old Zion Hill Road to go from Cogbill Road all the way up to, I believe, Jessup Road.

[05:35:10] Have you guys looked at that? I need to chase down the answer to that. What's that? I need to chase that down. I don't have that answer to that right now. I mean, I don't know if we own the right away for it or not. That may be the issue, but it looks like, at least in GIS, that there is a section that's been partitioned off wide enough for a road to go through there, and it could be a traffic reliever, you know, looking at it geographically just west of, or I don't know if it's running west or north or south in that particular part of the county, but it is a traffic reliever to Ironbridge Road between Cogbill going north.

[05:35:50] So instead of having to go all the way down Cogba and then take a left on Jessup, you literally could cut off and go through Old Zion Hill or Canasta Drive from Route 10 and up Old Zion Hill all the way over to Jessup. Yeah, and I don't have the full story on that. That one predates me, but I do know that there are some homes, you know, existing neighborhoods in that area.

[05:36:10] I don't know that they were supportive of it. But what I'm looking at now, it looks like somebody might have their shed on that property based on what we're looking at in GIS. Yes, it looks like that has been preserved right away all the way through. Yes. So we'll see.

[05:36:25] I'll look into it. Thank you. Sorry, I don't have the answer for that one. That's okay. You didn't expect me to ask it. It's okay. I didn't expect to ask it until he brought it up. Any other questions for staff? Any other questions at all? All in favor?

[05:36:41] Aye. D, to consider the exercise of eminent domain for the acquisition of permanent water and temporary construction easements for the Stillbrook, Poplar Ridge, and Old Carrollton Road Waterline Improvements Project. Ms. Snow. Good evening. Mr. Chairman, members of the board, Dr. Casey, this is a public hearing to consider the exercise of imminent domain for the acquisition of a water easement and temporary construction easement for the Steelbrook, Poplar Ridge,

[05:37:18] and Old Carlton Road Waterline Improvements Project. Staff has been successful in negotiating with the landowner for the easement. However, after more than six months, staff has been unsuccessful in obtaining the bank's consent. A public hearing is required to condemn for the The request has been reviewed by staff, and approval is recommended after the public hearing.

[05:37:39] Board members, any questions for staff? I think just to clarify for the community, when you say the bank's consent, right? Yes, sir. So these properties actually have probably a lien on them, and the bank doesn't want to consent for us to have or… It's a deed of trust.

[05:37:58] Deed of trust, right? Yes. And the bank has not given their consent yet. Okay. But the landowner has consented. We have an agreement with everybody but the bank, correct?

[05:38:13] That's correct. Thank you. Any other questions? Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing to consider the exercise of imminent domain for the acquisition of permanent water and temporary construction easements for the Stillbrook, Popular Ridge, and Old Carrollton Road waterline improvement project in the Clover Hill District.

[05:38:39] Is there anyone who would like to speak to this issue? If so, please come forward and state your name. Jerry Turner, this is probably going to be the only time y'all are going to get me a seat. Y'all need to move forward. Go ahead.

[05:38:57] Thank you. I think I'm going to have a heart attack. Can you call 911? Oh, my speaker's on. Seeing no others, I'm going to close this public hearing.

[05:39:15] It's back before the board. Do I have a motion? So moved. Motion and second. Any other discussion? All in favor? Aye. Mr. Holland? Mr. Holland, I missed your vote on that.

[05:39:35] Aye. Thank you. vote thank you d to consider the quit claim of a portion of county right-of-way known as spencer creek place adjacent to property owned by courthouse landing llc and the request to vacate a portion of a drainage easement within courthouse road extended and dedication of variable width drainage easement miss snow mr chairman members of the board dr casey this is a public hearing to consider the quick claim of a portion of spencer creek place and the vacation of a portion of a 60-foot drainage easement.

[05:40:13] The quick claim of the portion of right-of-way and the vacation of the easement are needed to facilitate the courthouse lending development. A public hearing is required to quick claim the portion of right-of-way and to vacate the portion of easement. The request has been reviewed by staff and approval is recommended after the public hearing.

[05:40:32] Are there any questions for staff? Ladies and gentlemen, it's a public hearing to consider a quick claim of a portion of county right-of-way known as Spencer Creek Place adjacent to the property owned by courthouse Landing LLC and the request to vacate a portion of a drainage easement within Courthouse Road extended and dedicated in the dedication of variable width drainage easements all in the Dale District. Is there anyone who would like to speak to this issue? If so, please come forward and state your name. Seeing none, I'm going to close this public hearing. It's back before the

[05:41:12] board. Any discussion or can I get a motion? So moved. This is Chair Holland. Thank you, Mr. Holland. Mr. Holland moved and seconded by Dr. Miller. All in favor? Aye. E to consider the lease. Sorry, Mr. Holland. E to consider the lease of space on the county's cellular tower at 4,000 Cougar Trail. Ms. Snow. Mr. Chairman, members of the board, Dr. Casey, this is a public hearing

[05:41:47] to consider the lease of space on the county cellular tower at 4000 cougar trail known as harrogate athletic complex to selco partnership who does business as verizon wireless staff has negotiated a new five-year lease for thirty thousand dollars annually with three five-year renewal terms with a 15 increase each term a public hearing is required to lease county property the request has been reviewed by staff and approval is recommended after the public hearing

[05:42:17] Any questions for staff? Ladies and gentlemen, it's a public hearing to consider the lease of space on the county's cellular tower at 4000 Hoover Trail in the Bermuda District. Is there anyone who'd like to speak to this case or this issue? If so, please come forward and state your name.

[05:42:42] Seeing no one. Oh, I'm sorry. I was looking the other way. You're going to call me Jerry Jr. I'm sorry. I taught networking and communications, and I did that in the Army for many, many years.

[05:42:58] Cell towers pose a direct health hazard. If you hold this cell phone and the cell tower is over here, and you're like this, you're okay. But if you put the cell phone over here, the signal from the cell tower goes right through your head.

[05:43:21] Literally. Physically, it does. It's a radio wave. So by approving the cell tower and you're concerned about the safety of the citizens and all this growth going on around Cougar Trail, that's near where I used to live, Stony Glen, you're looking at an environmental hazard, a health hazard that directly affects people's health.

[05:43:47] There's been study after study that is now, they're called longevity studies, because we've had cell phones long enough to see the impact of cell signals going through your body. And in fact, I'll tell you a quick one, don't put it on your left side because you'll end up messing up your ileocecal valve, okay?

[05:44:09] It's the same frequency as cell phones use. And your brain uses it and it turns it off and then you get constipated. You're welcome. Any other speakers? Seeing none, I'm going to close this public hearing.

[05:44:28] It's back before the board. Is there any discussion, or can I get a motion? I do have one question. This is a cell tower that already exists, correct? Yeah. It's just an extension of a lease? So moved.

[05:44:46] Second. All in favor? Aye. Mr. Holland there? Mr. Holland? Yes, aye. F, to consider the abandonment of State Route 741.

[05:45:02] Ms. Snow. Mr. Chairman, members of the board, Dr. Casey, this is a public hearing to consider the abandonment of State Route 741. VDOT has requested this abandonment as part of their ongoing effort to eliminate non-maintained roads from their state road system.

[05:45:22] A public hearing is required to abandon State Route 741. The request has been reviewed by staff and approval is recommended after the public hearing. Is there any questions for staff? Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing to consider the abandonment of State Route 741 in the Matoka District.

[05:45:42] Is there anyone who'd like to speak to this issue? If so, please come forward and state your name.

[05:45:55] Jerry Turner, I have no problem with the abandonment of what you're doing here. But the problem I can foresee is somebody comes down later down the road to decide, well, I want to put a road there.

[05:46:13] That happened in our neighborhood. We had had enough right away that there could have been a road. It just wasn't quite wide enough with today's standards. I don't know how wide this is. They had to incorporate that into another lot.

[05:46:31] So there was no way it ever could be even generated another road through there. Are the people that are going to be next to this property, are they going to take ownership of it? Who pays taxes on it?

[05:46:46] Or they're just, nobody pays taxes. Thank you. Thank you. Any other speakers? I'm going to let her hand them in. Seeing none, I'm going to close this public hearing. And it's back, this case, or this issue is back before the board.

[05:47:03] Is there, actually, I'm going to go ahead and let you speak to it. This road is not built, and there is currently an ingress and egress easement to the properties in the back. So this is not a dedicated road that will be split and given to the people on either side in a situation like that.

[05:47:23] Who maintains it? It's not maintained at all. So the people that have the easement to get to their homes will have to maintain it or they won't be able to get in out of their home? There is a private easement already. But, I mean, they maintain it under their private easement. Yes, sir. Okay. VDOT is not maintaining it at this time.

[05:47:39] So you said the road is not built at all? No, sir. There is a road back there, but it's not a state-maintained road. So who uses it now? Just the people that live back there. And they're okay with this? Yes, sir. Any other questions? Can I get a motion? Can I get a second?

[05:48:12] Second. All in favor? Aye. Uh-oh. I've had no opportunity to speak with these people. This is, and agenda review is the first time I've heard of it. So I'd really like to actually have an opportunity to talk to them, but that would be my preference.

[05:48:37] Have you had conversations with the landowners? Has the county had conversations with the people that live in the back? But the state was doing this because they don't maintain the road out there now.

[05:48:57] Okay. Do you want to withdraw your motion? Whose motion was it? Who made the request?

[05:49:18] VDOT? Yes, sir. They're trying to get some of these areas off of their books where they're not maintaining. It's in Chesterfield, but it's closest to Petersburg from Hale.

[05:50:03] there's not a dedicated road back there. Are you talking about the two pieces in the back?

[05:50:19] Yes. It looks like Hickory Branch Drive runs all the way back. Okay. I'm sorry. It looks like Hickory Road. It looks like this other road, Hickory Branch Drive, runs all the way back to that property and splits. So it doesn't look like the other property is being used at all, the other road.

[05:50:47] I'm not showing a road back there across this area. Would you like to see our I can see. I'm looking at GIS. I'm looking at Google Maps. I can tell you there's a road that goes back there. It just comes in. There is a road that goes back there, but it's an ingress and egress easement to access those two pieces in the back.

[05:51:05] That was established when they bought the property. I withdraw. Can I get a new motion? I would say we defer this to next month. We have an opportunity to talk with people. I'll second that. So the motion was withdrawn as well?

[05:51:23] The motion and the second was withdrawn. Both withdrawn. And now we have a new motion and a new second to defer the decision for one month to the next board meeting. Any other discussion? Is that Mr. Carroll's motion? Yep, it is. And who made the second? Dr. Miller made the second.

[05:51:39] Thank you. All in favor? Aye. G, to consider the abandonment of State Route 1406, Ms. Snow. Mr. Chairman, members of the board, Dr. Casey, this is a public hearing to consider the abandonment of State Route 1406.

[05:52:00] VDOT has requested this abandonment as there is no longer any need to serve the adjacent properties by this route. All adjacent properties have access to other public rights-of-way. A public hearing is required to abandon State Route 1406. The request has been reviewed by staff and approval is recommended after the public hearing.

[05:52:18] Are there any questions for staff? Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing to consider the abandonment of State Route 1406 in Bermuda District. Is there anyone here who would like to speak to this issue?

[05:52:33] If so, please come forward and state your name.

[05:52:55] Good evening, Mr. Chairman, board members, and county residents. I am the owner of D.G. Bowen Properties, LLC, 36.5 acres. My name is Bonnie Bowen Harrison, and I oppose VDOT wanting to abandon State Route 1406.

[05:53:14] It is the entranceway to welcome everyone into Chesterfield County. It is a sign that is there where our fine county officers set there to slow down traffic and to make the county and our roadways safe.

[05:53:32] This benefits the safety of all Chesterfield County residents. Part of this is history. There's historical signs that are out there as well when people are entering Chesterfield County. The state took on this obligation many years ago.

[05:53:53] They took it on to maintain before I purchased the property. I purchased it knowing it was a state-maintained road. They implied dedication and acceptance by doing this before I purchased the property.

[05:54:11] This is evidence that they were accepting to maintain it. Our fine county officers are representing us, and the sign represents everyone that rides down Route 1. The road includes ditches, right-of-ways that handle drainage, like Proctor's Creek.

[05:54:32] The state has a duty to maintain them to prevent erosion, flooding, and water damage that might back up into Route 1, 288 exit ramp, and 95. The roadway that they have given me is not correct.

[05:54:52] The map is not correct. It starts at Route 1 and goes all the way from Route 1 over 295 and the 288 exit ramp. By not maintaining it and allowing it to grow up, being by the creek, it could cause major erosion problems.

[05:55:14] It could damage the roads, causing floodways, causing everyone to back up. It also includes the RVA and Chesapeake Bay Act. It would be a great loss to my property value if they didn't continue to maintain it.

[05:55:30] It needs to remain the same in the same condition so we don't have flood and erosion problems that come out into Route 1, into 95, and on the 288 ramp. It would cost way more to repave, repair, and redo all the roads and cause a major traffic issue and problem if it backs up.

[05:55:59] Thank you. Any other speakers? jerry turner looks to me like vdot trying to get out of doing doing their job so y'all might want to think about this one also before y'all start giving this property up vdot needs to be held

[05:56:33] accountable they give us enough trouble getting them to do something maybe y'all need to do the same thing thank you any other speakers seeing none this i'm going to close this public hearing This issue is back before the board, and I mean, I'm waiting for the same motion as the last one.

[05:57:01] Can I get one? Second. All in favor of deferring this decision until we've had an opportunity to check on it, until the next meeting? Yeah, to some day certain. To the, is it the 17th?

[05:57:19] To the 17th. All in favor? Oh, aye. We already got one. Can we get the rest of us? Aye. Aye. H, to consider the abandonment of a portion of Walthall Center Drive, State Route 962.

[05:57:37] Ms. Snow. Can I stop you for just a second? This is requested by VDOT? Yes, sir. No? This one was actually requested by the adjacent landowner. Okay. Proceed, please.

[05:57:54] Mr. Chairman, members of the board, Dr. Casey, this is a public hearing to consider the abandonment of State Route 962. VDOT has requested this abandonment as there is no longer any need to serve the adjacent property by this route. The adjacent landowner has requested the abandonment to facilitate future commercial development of the property.

[05:58:14] A public hearing is required to abandon State Route 962. The request has been reviewed by staff and approval is recommended after the public hearing. Any questions for staff? Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing to consider the abandonment of a portion of Walthall Center Drive State Route 962 in the Bermuda District.

[05:58:36] Is there anyone here who would like to speak to this issue? If so, please come forward and state your name. Seeing none, I'm going to close this public hearing. It's back before the board. Is there any discussion or can I get a motion?

[05:58:55] Sure. Dr. Miller. I'm sorry, I'm looking at the, on Walthall, and I'm noticing it's closed to Marguerite Christian. I want to make sure I'm clear on exactly where they're asking for the abandonment.

[05:59:24] Off of Walthall Center Drive. It's not near the school. It's just a portion.

[06:00:18] Can I get a motion? He's interested in developing it as a hotel and gas station. He's interested in developing a hotel and gas station potentially in that area. He owns multiple parcels in that area.

[06:00:54] Motion to approve. Second. All in favor? Aye.

[06:01:11] 19, 15-minute citizen comment period on unscheduled matters. We have no speakers. Mr. Chair, we need a motion to adjourn to the regularly scheduled Board of Supervisors meeting on September 17th at 2 p.m.

[06:01:27] in room 502 of the county administration building. Before we do that. Before we make a motion to adjourn, is there any other? Two things. One, Mr. Chair, I want to reiterate what you said earlier tonight, thanking our planning commissioners for the hard work and staff, all that they've done on many of these cases, but especially on the East-West Freeway, the hard work they did there.

[06:01:54] And two, I would hope that people watching this meeting, especially after these last couple of cases or public hearings, would understand that there are some people who believe that these decisions have already been made before these meetings start. They have not.

[06:02:10] And I think that's proof of it tonight. Motion to adjourn, Mr. Chair. I'll second. All in favor? Aye. Mr. Hawley? Yes.

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