Coraggio Consulting
Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors Meeting - September 17, 2025, Wednesday, September 17, 2025

Date: Wednesday, September 17, 2025
Place: Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 7h 50m (video)
Official meeting video (CivicClerk): https://chesterfieldcova.portal.civicclerk.com/event/1235/media
Official agenda (CivicClerk): https://chesterfieldcova.api.civicclerk.com/v1/Meetings/GetMeetingFileStream(fileId=3659,plainText=false)
Official minutes (CivicClerk): https://chesterfieldcova.api.civicclerk.com/v1/Meetings/GetMeetingFileStream(fileId=3728,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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[00:02:42] Good afternoon, and welcome to the afternoon session of the September 17th Board of Supervisors meeting. Madam Clerk. Mr. Chair, the first item on the agenda is approval of minutes for the August 27th Board of Supervisors meeting. Any questions? We get a motion.

[00:02:59] So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Item 2, request to postpone agenda items and additions, deletions, or changes in the order of presentation. Staff has one request. Staff would like to remove item 14C3F.

[00:03:15] That item is a request to set a public hearing to consider conveyance of an overhead and underground easement to Virginia Electric and Power Company at CTC Hull and Chesterfield County Fire Station 7. That is all we have. Board members, can I get a motion to approve the agenda as amended?

[00:03:33] So, both. Second. All in favor? Aye. Item three, everyday excellence, Dr. Casey. Thank you, and welcome members of the public and staff and those that are watching at home. We start every meeting in Chesterfield with Everyday Excellence, which recognizes our frontline workers and the contributions they've made.

[00:03:55] And if I could have Chief Center and Captain, it says Gerald Pruden, but I only know him as Jerry, come on up here. And I know Chief Center has a little presentation, but I'll just personally say the person before you has been here for 44 years. And I think when he joined us, we may not have had any specialty teams, but he's been a part of nearly everything that has been specially trained and tasked for this department to do.

[00:04:19] And I know you're going to hear many of those types of items referenced in today's annual update by the chief. And he has chosen mission over self. He could have said goodbye a few more times over the last couple of years, but we've always given him something more to do. And whatever we gave him last to do, he said, no, thank you.

[00:04:35] So I'm not sure what that is. But I also say personally, I heard, and I'm sure there's a great picture somewhere, he got to ride with his son, who was also a Chesterfield firefighter. So that is the Alpha and Omega of a great career and great father, great leader.

[00:04:52] So Chief Senator. Thank you, Dr. Casey. Mr. Chairman, members of the board, it's my honor to introduce to you Captain Jerry Pruden. And I first want to start by saying, you know, the most impactful and lasting legacy of any leader is the influence and inspiration imparted upon others.

[00:05:07] In his long-term role in the training and education division with Chesterfield Fire and EMS, Jerry had the opportunity to impact every single member currently in our department, from the newest firefighter recruit to our deputy chief. And although I didn't come up through the ranks here in Chesterfield, Jerry has certainly influenced me and quickly became a trusted advisor early in my tenure that now almost lasts 17 years with the department.

[00:05:34] Jerry could have easily pursued a chief officer rank with the department, but he chose to lead from the front and in his book 360 degree leader john maxwell asserts that one can lead from any level in an organization by practicing lead up lead across and lead down to influence superiors peers and subordinates ultimately increasing their impact and value to the organization and jerry has embodied those principles and that's why he's here today in my annual update this afternoon as dr casey mentioned i'll be talking about some of the activities of two of our specialized teams, our urban section rescue program and our helicopter

[00:06:12] aquatics rescue team or heart program. Without Jerry's vision, these teams may have never been formed and without a strong leadership over the years, they certainly would not have solid regional, state, and national reputation they enjoy today. Jerry's retirement resolution is on the consent agenda for the October board meeting and when you read his resolution, you will quickly get a sense of his commitment over decades serving the Fire and EMS Department and the residents of Chesterfield County.

[00:06:39] You'll also learn a lot more about his passion in supporting other causes during his off-duty time, the Firefighters Charitable Foundation, the Central Virginia Burn Camp, and the Old Dominion Firefighters Burn Foundation, as well as the Evans-Haines Burn Center at VCU.

[00:06:55] But for today, we're here to thank Jerry for his efforts to ensure that the residents of Chesterfield County and the Commonwealth of Virginia have access to some of the most highly trained and equipped personnel for disaster and other specialized emergency responses. More importantly, I want to say thanks to Jerry for the leadership and training he has provided to the members of these specialized teams so that they may execute extremely high-risk operations in the safest, most efficient manner possible. We wish Jerry well in his retirement, but he will surely be missed.

[00:07:25] There is one comforting thought, as Dr. Casey mentioned, in that the prudent name will live on in Chesterfield Fire and EMS. Jerry's son, Joss, has followed in his footprints, serving on the scuba rescue team and the HART program, and was among our members who received the highest awards from our department and the National Guard recently for rescues at extreme risk last year during Hurricane Helene. Jerry, thank you for your service and all you've done for our department and the residents of Chesterfield County. Mr. Chairman, I'll turn the floor back over to you. Thank you. I think First off, that warrants a standing ovation.

[00:08:03] Would you like to say anything?

[00:08:24] He's not going anywhere. Thank you so much for all the commitment. That's a long time. I mean, no one nowadays gives that much time to one place, and it just speaks to the type of person you are, I think.

[00:08:46] So I'm glad that I've gotten to know you in this little time that I've been here, and I'm sure that you're going to be missed, but I'm sure that you'll be still around somewhere, and your son will be in the forces, too, just to carry forward your traditions as well, I'm sure.

[00:09:05] So thank you so much. We'll be losing your institutional knowledge, so hopefully someone wrote it down somewhere and is holding on to it. I would. Thank you so much for everything you've done.

[00:09:22] We appreciate you being part of an excellent, excellent department. I thank all of you who are here today for such a great job and all the best on your retirement. Congratulations. Mr. Chair, a lot of people don't know that at 42 years of service, you actually max out on your VRS retirement benefits.

[00:09:44] So you're overdue. You're already not getting what you should be getting, truthfully. You have a lot to be proud of, and you should look back on your career here with great satisfaction, knowing that you made a big difference, especially in training all those who've come behind you now, who essentially when you're a teacher or a trainer, you give them part of you.

[00:10:11] So thank you for your years of service. We will certainly miss you. Maybe the Chief can convince you to come back in a part-time capacity to do something. I don't know. If not, then go have a lot of fun. You earned it. Thank you.

[00:10:27] Thank you, Mr. Chair. Jerry, congratulations on everything. Thank you for all of the love and commitment and compromises you made over the years, because we know that when you are serving in this role, you had to make some choices and sometimes some difficult ones, how to serve, all those kind of things.

[00:10:52] So I didn't want you to think that it got lost or missed along the way. So as far as the county is concerned, just intensely, incredibly grateful. I guess you thought since it was on the consent agenda, you're going to just slide on out of here.

[00:11:10] But it's the first time we've done this in the afternoon. But 44 years, and to have a statement made by the chief that you've touched every single person in the department is remarkable. It probably takes 44 years to be able to get to a statement like that.

[00:11:30] But not only have you done all of that, but you've left your legacy behind you. And we thank you for your service to this county. And we thank your family for their service to this county.

[00:11:40] Item four, work sessions.

[00:12:14] A, fire and emergency medical services annual update, Chief Center. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the board, Dr. Casey. Thank you for the opportunity to come before you today and present the annual update for the fire and EMS department. In the time that I have this afternoon, I'll be highlighting the activities, accomplishments, and challenges of the Emergency Operations Branch, which is the largest and most visible segment of our department.

[00:12:37] However, I'd be remiss if I didn't recognize the uniformed and civilian members of the Community Risk Reduction and Management Services Branches. These individuals work hard every day, often behind the scenes, to prevent fires and enforce the fire code, to help residents prepare for and recover from disasters and ensure that our firefighters serving on the front line have the resources they need to be successful.

[00:12:59] I must begin on a somber note yet again this year in paying tribute to Captain Robert Talbot, who passed away on December 20th after a short but valiant battle with an aggressive form of occupational cancer.

[00:13:15] Lieutenant Talbot was a beloved member of our department, and his passing marked the loss of the fourth active-duty firefighter and third line-of-duty death in just three years' time. I couldn't be prouder of how our members came together and leaned on one another and supported the Talbot family in their time of need while continuing to support the Eldridge, Monaghan, and Ware families, who will also forever be part of the Chesterfield Fire and EMS family.

[00:13:39] As our members know all too well, despite their collective grief upon losing a colleague, the show must go on. Throughout the last fiscal year, our members reported for duty and handled over 55,000 incidents, another record for the department.

[00:13:55] While approximately 3% of these incidents can be explained by improved documentation of patient contacts by our Mobile Integrated Health, or MIH, team, fire and EMS incident growth directly attributed to the 911 system has increased at over two times the rate of population growth in the county over the past five years.

[00:14:15] While there were steady increases in all three categories of incidents, 76% were EMS-related and over 33,500 patients were transported by our career and volunteer members to area hospitals. Among those statistics, there are several observations worth noting.

[00:14:33] First, over 67% of patients transported last year were 65 years of age or older. This fastest-growing demographic will place persistent pressures on our EMS system for years to come and will be a common theme throughout my presentation today.

[00:14:50] Second, a larger percentage of our services involve basic-level medical care, which suggests further refinement in our system to provide a more appropriate level of care for many of our patients. A few years ago, Matt Harris worked with us to apply ARPA funding in support of 12 firefighter positions to activate a new Peak Demand Ambulance Program and shore up our long-standing MIH program.

[00:15:15] The Peak Demand Ambulance Program is focused on meeting the needs of low-acuity patients during times when service demands are highest. This successful program has helped reduce the workload on our busiest 24-hour career ambulances with many of those that are staffed with firefighter paramedics and keeps those units available for more serious cases.

[00:15:35] Our MIH program also continues to be highly successful in addressing the needs of patients who are chronically ill or suffering from mental illness or substance abuse and who would otherwise be high-end users of our 911 system. This fiscal year, the 12 previously grant-funded positions have been transferred into the general fund, and both innovative programs are positioned well for future growth to better address unique patient needs.

[00:15:58] In partnership with the NOVA Blood Services, we continue to experience success with our whole blood program in providing life-saving treatment to our most severely injured patients. We are moving forward with plans to add whole blood to the battalion chief unit that serves the west side of the county to shorten deployment times there.

[00:16:18] We are also actively working with other localities in the region who are interested in standing up their own programs. Last fiscal year, the fire and EMS department responded to 311 structure fire-related incidents, an average trend over recent years.

[00:16:34] Twenty-four of those incidents resulted in $100,000 or more in losses, representing a collective property loss of nearly $10 million. The leading cause of structure fires continued to be cooking-related, and as expected, the most likely area of origin was in the kitchen.

[00:16:49] Sadly, two civilians lost their lives from fire-related causes, one involving a space heater and another one due to smoking while on home oxygen. Another 33 citizens were injured. FY 2025 represented a below-average year for fire deaths and a slightly below-average year for fire-related injuries as compared to previous years.

[00:17:11] Last fiscal year, all fire and EMS response districts experienced increases in incident volume, averaging 7.8 percent per district. This is much higher than the previous year's average of 2.5 percent per district. The top three busiest response districts in the county remain consistent among the Buford, Chester, and Dale Fire and EMS stations.

[00:17:32] The top three 911 calls last year included nonspecific illnesses, falls, and fire alarm activations. Further indicative of pressures from an aging population, 1,681 lift assists were among the top 10 911 calls for service last year.

[00:17:49] For the first time in decades, we have adjusted the borders of the urban zone by better defining the parameters of the service area where population density and service demands are generally higher and are therefore more in need of responsive and comprehensive services.

[00:18:05] The urban zone is now defined as those areas of the county where there are 250 or more address points per square mile to include contiguous areas. And it's important to note that our definition of the urban zone certainly does not match the federal definition. Nonetheless, it serves as an effective way of defining different levels of service areas within the county.

[00:18:26] The urban zone in Chesterfield has been expanded to incorporate areas on the west side of the county from Westchester Commons to the south through the Halsley, Round Tray, Summer Lake, Westerly, Magnolia Green, and Harper's Mill neighborhoods.

[00:18:42] The expansion of the urban zone also includes the Highlands, Woodland Pond, First Branch, and Lake Margaret. Again, this is a definition just for the Fire and EMS Department and helps us organize and deliver our services to the community. The majority of the top 10 locations for incidents last fiscal year included nursing homes.

[00:19:04] In fact, among the top 50 locations generating 911 calls last year, 28 were nursing homes, assisted living, or independent living facilities. A closer look at our top 10 locations shows that nursing homes on that list generated two calls per bid on average last year.

[00:19:20] While it's true that nursing homes can be expected to generate higher call volume individually, collectively they help reduce EMS calls countywide through the direct care and assistance provided to chronically ill or disabled seniors. If you think about it, just one of those nursing home patients could easily generate 10 times or more the number of EMS calls if they were trying to age in place in their home.

[00:19:44] And in fact, a common intervention by our MIH team is to work with the families of senior residents who are high-end 911 users to place their loved ones in a long-term care facility that can better manage their needs and provide an improved quality of life. The challenge, however, we as an EMS agency often face is that many of these facilities are concentrated in areas of the county where incident volume is already high.

[00:20:10] And I'll draw your attention to the top of the map where you see, for example, the highest concentration of nursing homes and memory care facilities in the county or along the Midlothian Turnpike Corridor, where 15 facilities collectively generated over 2,600 calls for service last year.

[00:20:26] As our population ages, more nursing homes, assisted living, and independent living facilities will indeed be needed. I simply ask that we keep in mind this need and plan for additional EMS resources to serve these facilities in the future. A critical element in a higher-performing EMS system is prompt access to hospitals with an array of services needed by the community it serves.

[00:20:51] Unfortunately, as you know, there are only two full-service hospitals currently in Chesterfield County. The Fire and EMS Department believes strongly in honoring patient choice, and because of limited options within the county, approximately 46% of our patients were transported to facilities outside Chesterfield County last year.

[00:21:09] Now, the effectively placed freestanding emergency departments do help fill the gap in the continuum of care, as demonstrated by the Chester Freestanding Emergency Center, which continues to be the busiest freestanding ED in the entire Bon Secours Mercy Health System.

[00:21:25] And we're very excited that the construction has started just across the street on HCA's new freestanding ED near the county government center, which is expected to open sometime late next summer. I know Mr. Carroll, Dr. Casey, and I will be speaking tomorrow at a Virginia Department of Health public hearing to support three more exciting proposals for the county.

[00:21:44] One by VCU Health System to build a new 60-plus bid hospital along the new Nash Road extension. One by HCA to build a new 60-plus bid hospital along Route 360 at Otterdale Road. And one by Bon Secours to expand the number of bids at St. Francis Medical Center.

[00:22:01] If approved, these facilities will greatly improve Chesterfield residents' access to health care and help increase the efficiency and effectiveness of our EMS system. Our highly trained members, as we've discussed earlier, stand ready to help other localities at a moment's notice in their time of need.

[00:22:19] Chesterfield County is a signatory on both the central Virginia and the statewide mutual aid agreements. And the Fire and EMS Department regularly participates in automatic aid with our bordering localities. Under MOUs that we've established with the Virginia Department of Emergency Management, the Department's Urban Search and Rescue Team and the HART Team and the Region's Incident Management Team, which is also sponsored by Chesterfield Fire and EMS, are assets that can be deployed across the Commonwealth and throughout the continental U.S. when requested. It was a very busy season for these teams last year, with 11 individual natural disaster deployments that at times

[00:22:55] resulted in all three teams being deployed on the same event. The most significant event was in late September, with severe flooding in southwest Virginia caused by the remnants of Hurricane Helene. During the deployment, the HART team utilized helicopter hoists under difficult flying conditions to rescue six different victims trapped in fast-moving floodwaters.

[00:23:17] Similarly, the USAR team rescued eight individuals and assisted in the safe evacuation of eight others, performed welfare checks on 90 residents who were cut off by flooding, and performed searches and damage assessments on 167 different structures. With significant uncertainty about the future of FEMA, there is a growing concern that the burden of providing specialized expertise and equipment and coordination assistance during disasters will inevitably be shifted to the states. Statewide deployments and even state-to-state mutual aid requests for our specialty teams are expected to increase in the future. One of the most successful state

[00:23:57] and local partnerships is the MedFlight program. Over 40 years ago, the Virginia State Police and the then Chesterfield Fire Department joined forces in forming the MedFlight Program. Today, the helicopter is staffed around the clock by a Virginia State Police pilot and two Chesterfield Firefighter paramedics.

[00:24:14] The program handles over 600 missions annually, mostly for air medical services in many of the rural communities to our south and west. This year, the program experienced an increase in mission requests along the Blue Ridge Mountains for hoist rescues of injured hikers.

[00:24:31] You may recall the costs for Chesterfield staff assigned to the program are now covered entirely by the Commonwealth of Virginia. Despite the increased incident activity last year, we found time to recognize the accomplishments of those who assume new duties and responsibilities as leaders in the department.

[00:24:50] In total, 13 uniformed members were promoted after years of experience in preparation and success in highly competitive processes. We also took time to bestow 113 awards to multiple individuals from public safety agencies and the community at large for going above and beyond in service to others.

[00:25:09] This included 19 individual Lifesave Awards and 55 unit Lifesave Awards. Worthy of special recognition were the actions of eight Virginia National Guard pilots and flight crew and six Chesterfield firefighters and fire officers during Hurricane Helene. These members were awarded the Department's Medal of Valor, which accounted for the highest number of such awards in a single year.

[00:25:33] The Virginia National Guard also bestowed one of their highest awards on these same team members, and Brigadier General Todd Hubbard and Lieutenant Colonel Matt Lewis were on hand in March to present each member with the Virginia National Guard's Bronze Star, another history-making event.

[00:25:50] At the regional level, Captain Bryce Ford and firefighter Greg Potter were among those honored at Valor RVA's annual awards ceremony in December, and I know many of you were present. Each were recognized for their efforts in saving the lives of multiple victims at a two-alarm fire at the Waterford Apartments.

[00:26:07] Amanda Danahay, EMS Continuing Education Coordinator, received the Outstanding Pre-Hospital Educator Award from the Old Dominion EMS Alliance. She will automatically be considered for the same award this year under the Governor's EMS Awards program. And Captain Jerry Pruden received the Fred Parker Award from VCU's Center for Trauma and Critical Care Education.

[00:26:30] Members of the Fire and EMS Department were also among those recognized under the Governor's Fire Service Awards program last year. Battalion Chief Rick Grassl was recognized alongside other members of a workgroup that developed the Commonwealth's Electric Vehicle Firefighting Program. And this firefighting program is now mandatory for all firefighters in Virginia, both career and volunteer.

[00:26:52] Members of our MedFlight team were recognized for rescuing an injured hiker in Augusta County. In a separate action, Colonel Hanley of the Virginia State Police bestowed a superintendent's award upon the MedFlight team for other horse rescues last year. Another achievement worth celebrating is the improvement over recent years in the department's relief factor for covering daily minimum staffing needs and emergency operations.

[00:27:17] With this board's strong support, we've been able to add 48 new positions and allocate 164 positions to each of the three emergency operation shifts, which equates to a 1.32 positions per minimum staff position per shift.

[00:27:32] It gives us enough overhead to be able to cover those daily needs. As you can see from the charts on this slide, this investment has significantly reduced both the number of mandatory overtime occurrences and actual overtime costs. Improvements have even continued into the current fiscal year with less than one mandatory overtime occurrence per day on average.

[00:27:54] This effort has enhanced the work-life balance for our firefighters and greatly improved morale, and thank you for the support for that. Achieving a 1.32 relief factor was nearly a 10-year journey, and the formula was based on data that in some cases is now 9 years old. As Dr. Casey has mentioned previously, a 1.32 relief factor may not be sufficient for the future, considering parental bonding leave and other flexible leave benefits that are now available to our members.

[00:28:20] We're also experiencing increased pressures in covering service gaps among our volunteer rescue squads and meeting EMS standby expectations at special events. And I'll talk a little bit more about those later in our presentation. But collectively, these things risk some of the gains that we've made in reducing overtime and also reducing the number of mandatories.

[00:28:43] Various facility improvements were accomplished last fiscal year, including the installation of diesel exhaust distraction systems in most fire stations that was funded largely by a Federal Assistance to Firefighters grant. The new Matoika Fire and EMS Station completed its first full year of operation, and the new Chester Fire and EMS Station was designed and is currently out for bid.

[00:29:02] Other initiatives included the design of the new Ettrick Fire and EMS Station, which is in final review, and the stand-up of a new in-house state-mandated pharmaceutical supply chain for our EMS system in partnership with Buford Road Pharmacy. Finally, there were numerous security enhancements at multiple fire stations, which ended up being a timely investment following a rash of larcenies involving firefighters' vehicles at fire stations throughout Central Virginia last year.

[00:29:28] Last September, we formed a team that began leading the fire department's efforts to achieve agency accreditation by the Center for Public Safety Excellence, also known as SEPSEE. Through the hard work of our accreditation team and involvement of all of our divisions, the department achieved applicant status in July and will be considered for accredited status during hearings in August by the Commission on Fire Accreditation International.

[00:29:55] If we are successful, as I believe we will be, the board will then be able to proudly say that all four public safety agencies in the county are accredited. We're looking forward to that day. SIPC accreditation is then valid for five years with annual compliance reports required each year.

[00:30:12] The benefits of accreditation are wide-ranging. First, it promotes a culture of continuous improvement, focusing on identifying strengths and weaknesses and establishing plans for improvement. Second, accreditation better facilitates data-supported decision-making and benchmarking with like agencies.

[00:30:31] Finally, an outside third party will regularly review and validate our department's programs and performance in congruence with best practices. While there was much accomplished, there were indeed challenges during FY 2025. As you know, Chesterfield County has a long, proud history of volunteerism.

[00:30:51] In the late 1960s, 12 volunteer fire companies and four volunteer rescue squads provided all firefighting and medical services in the county, many of which were very rudimentary at the time. Over a period of decades, the combined effects of ever-increasing service demands, advanced training requirements, and risk to safety and health have prompted a decline in the number of volunteer first responders in the county, and that's not unlike other experiences in other communities our size.

[00:31:18] Today, only five volunteer organizations remain capable of providing emergency services, including four rescue squads with a combined 128 certified EMS responders and one fire company with only 12 certified firefighters. Of particular concern over the past five years is the sharp decline in coverage by three of our volunteer rescue squads and a marginal decline by a fourth.

[00:31:44] In many cases, shortages among our EMS crews occurred at varied times and days, often with little to no advance notice, leaving key response districts void of amulets crews. This was most impactful on weekends and holidays when there were 66 days when two key EMS districts were unstaffed and 35 days where three key EMS districts were unstaffed last year.

[00:32:09] At the same time, there were up to five fewer career ambulances on duty, and on some days there were thousands of visitors attending the county. Similarly, because our rescue squads are transporting fewer patients, they are also, in many cases, experiencing unsustainable reductions in EMS billing revenue, increasing the risk for insolvency in future years.

[00:32:32] There are two frequent coverage gaps in the county's EMS system that are of most concern. The first is the EMS district assigned to the Manchester Volunteer Rescue Squad on weeknights and weekends, the center of which is at the intersection of Courthouse and Hull Street Roads in the Clover Hill District.

[00:32:48] This district is covered during weekdays by firefighters frequently working overtime. Despite an increase in the fire and EMS department's practice of assigning available staff to cover this area when Manchester Volunteer Rescue Squad was unable, the EMS district was void or left without immediate ambulance coverage 20% of the time last year.

[00:33:07] And when this district is voided, it directly affects the reliability of surrounding ambulances as the next closest unit moves in to cover calls in that district. It also increases the number of EMS calls where heavy, very costly fire apparatus are dispatched as the closest available resource.

[00:33:24] The most significant impact was on the ambulance at the Swift Creek Fire Station on Genitore Road, which was the seventh busiest ambulance in the county last year. Similarly, the ambulances at the Manchester and North Courthouse Fire Stations, Among the busiest ambulances in the system were also heavily impacted by calls in Manchester primary service area.

[00:33:43] The map on this slide shows the impact on ambulances in adjacent areas, some of which also cover areas in the Midlothian, Dale, and Matoica districts. What this map doesn't capture are the indirect cascading impacts that often occur in the EMS system that can at times reach deep into the Bermuda district.

[00:34:01] The second area that is of concern is the EMS district on the eastern end of Midlothian Turnpike in the Midlothian District. This area is covered weeknights and weekends by the Forest View Volunteer Rescue Squad and during weekdays by firefighters frequently working overtime. While Forest View remains our strongest Volunteer Rescue Squad and has been successful in improving their staffing coverage in the current fiscal year, they continue to be pressured by high call volume in serving the busiest EMS district in the county.

[00:34:30] Over 3,700 EMS incidents occurred last year in this district, representing a nearly 30% increase over the past five years. Over the long term, we cannot expect volunteers, many of whom have career and family obligations, to carry the brunt of this workload that will only increase with more high-density development and senior care facilities coming online in this area of the county in future years.

[00:34:52] Even when there is a staffed volunteer or career ambulance covering this area of the county, there are often concurrent calls that occur and must be handled by the next closest ambulance. Two of the adjacent career units that are impacted the most include the ambulances at the Manchester and North Courthouse road fire stations.

[00:35:09] Essentially, two adjacent EMS districts last year added a combined 1,440 calls to the volume handled by two of the busiest ambulances in the system. Looking ahead, we know that most of the volunteer rescue squads are seeking lower yet more achievable staffing goals in our MOU updates this year.

[00:35:30] Unfortunately, this change is expected to leave some coverage gaps in the short term that may be filled by firefighters working overtime and even mandatory overtime if necessary. But simply put, we cannot let the system fail. Chesterfield is fast becoming a signature destination for sporting and other special events, bringing in thousands of new visitors each year.

[00:35:52] And this is very exciting and good for the county. As crowd sizes increase, so does the need for EMS standby coverage. For decades, we've relied on our volunteer rescue squads to provide that coverage. But coupled with increases in these types of events and size and complexity, coupled with the decline in volunteer participation overall, many of the volunteer rescue squads are no longer able to meet this demand.

[00:36:17] Those squads that do regularly cover special events are then unable to cover their commitment to the 911 system most of the time. The fire and EMS department has also struggled in providing consistent EMS standby coverage without degrading 911 service to the residents. As a stopgap measure, EMS standbys at large county-sponsored events are covered with firefighters on unplanned overtime.

[00:36:38] Other large sporting events at River City, for example, have been referred to private EMS agencies for standby services when needed. To be clear, not all special events require EMS services, and many organizers who request such standbys are just simply trying to assure a risk-averse event.

[00:36:56] Our research suggests that except for extreme sporting events or in cases where participants or spectators are at increased risk of medical emergencies, such as large groups of elderly or those with special needs, EMS services are a reasonable consideration only when an incident or an event exceeds 2,500 spectators.

[00:37:17] Recently, we've begun working with Matt Harris to consider a proposal to employ part-time EMS-only positions to expand our peak ambulance coverage and to provide more consistent EMS standbys at sporting and special events. And it's my understanding that that proposal will be working its way to you very soon.

[00:37:36] To that end, I welcome the opportunity to discuss the proposal in detail and answer any questions that you may have and look forward to some important policy discussions with the board in the future on the topic of EMS standbys for sporting and special events. Over the past five years, a crisis has emerged that is impacting fire departments nationwide, resulting from significant price increases in fire apparatus and extended delays in the production and delivery processes.

[00:38:03] Fire apparatus manufacturing is a highly specialized industry. Fire apparatus is often custom-built to protect the risks present in the community to be served and to accommodate anticipated changes in service demands over the service life of the vehicle. Throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, there was contraction in an already small apparatus industry, and in some cases, equity firms acquired and consolidated multiple small manufacturers.

[00:38:29] The Great Recession prompted deferrals in municipal apparatus purchases, and then came COVID with associated supply chain and labor shortages. With the influx of federal ARPA funds, many municipalities were able to catch up on purchases, and record numbers of orders were placed in a very short period of time. Since that time, the industry has struggled to increase manufacturing capacity quickly and is beset by ongoing labor shortages, rising material costs, and expensive impacts of regulatory changes. Despite many changes in our apparatus specifications to keep price increases as low as possible, we no longer have sufficient

[00:39:06] funds in our apparatus replacement program to consistently purchase enough units per year to turn over the fleet at recommended intervals. And I know this problem exists throughout the county and other fleets. This issue is further compounded by the fact that we have multiple new apparatus on backorder, as you see on the screen, which causes us to keep older apparatus in service longer and experience more downtime and repairs.

[00:39:29] We appreciate Matt Harris and the Budget Department working with us last year to provide a one-time funding increase, but we know a long-term strategy for more sustainable funding in the future is needed. And I know the fleet manager is working on an entire wholesale assessment county-wide.

[00:39:47] Chesterfield County continues to experience robust growth, adding more population over the past five years than any other single locality in Virginia. With that growth comes thousands of units of single and multifamily dwellings, high-density mixed-use developments, and very large, complex commercial buildings that present new and unique challenges for our firefighters.

[00:40:06] In recent years, we conducted training. We implemented new strategies and introduced new equipment to better meet these challenges. As we gained experience fighting actual fires in this new environment, we have quickly recognized that our fire company staffing levels that may have been suitable for a traditional suburban area are no longer adequate for our new normal.

[00:40:25] As you know, last year we tried unsuccessfully to pursue a Federal Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response, or SAFER grant, to increase minimum staffing to four firefighters on four key engine companies. We chose not to apply again in the most recent cycle because the reasonable ask that we would have, somewhere between 16 to 20 firefighters, is insufficient to achieve the necessary service improvement scores to be given final consideration for the grant in accordance with the notice of funding opportunity.

[00:40:55] There have also been some major structural changes in the grant program that would increase the local match early on in the grant period. While I'm not ruling out future grant opportunities, the reality is that we may need the Board's support in the future to consider other options to begin making incremental improvements in our company staffing levels over the long term.

[00:41:17] Last year, we continued to make progress in addressing the 57 recommendations included in the ESCI report. We're close to 50% completed and another quarter in progress. It's important to note that much of the analysis included in the ESCI report has been updated and absorbed into the department's new community risk assessment and standards of cover document that you've been presented with previously, and this document is required for accreditation and will function as a living document going forward that is updated annually.

[00:41:47] Some recommendations within the staffing and deployment section of the ESCI report, such as the relief factor and support staffing needs, will remain to stand-alone items, the basis for which will also be reviewed and updated annually. And then, Dr. Miller, I know last year after I gave the update on the ESCI report, I know you asked a good question of, you know, what are some of the other end of the spectrum ideas or issues that need to be addressed to provide support for the department that the board needs to be aware of.

[00:42:17] And this year, I can certainly point to a comprehensive document in the department's five-year strategic plan that will serve as a roadmap for continuous improvement and will influence our additional funding requests in future years. Accordingly, the board may be interested in knowing some of our priorities that are located in this document.

[00:42:36] First, under service improvements that will be necessary, we will be asking the board to consider programming into the five-year financial plan for an additional three 24-hour career ambulances to counter the effects of declining volunteerism while at the same time keeping up with anticipated increases in EMS volume.

[00:42:55] In the short term, we'll be asking for your support in kicking off EMS-only positions on a part-time basis to increase our peak demand, aimless coverage, and better meet EMS standby needs. If this program is successful, we may then seek approval at some point to convert some of these positions to full-time staff and serve in a similar role to the police service aid program that's been very successful from a recruitment perspective.

[00:43:19] For a longer-term perspective, we will continue to pursue options to incrementally increase the minimum staffing levels on our engine companies to four firefighters each to better protect emerging risks in our community. Second, under Capital Needs, we'll be asking the Board to consider increasing the funding level in our apparatus replacement program and to consider adding the new Highlands Fire and EMS Station to a future CIP budget.

[00:43:41] We estimate that the Highland Station would bring in over 2,000 address points from a current ISO public protection classification rating of a Class 10W to a Class 2, which could mean real savings for many residents' insurance premiums.

[00:43:58] In terms of recruiting and maintaining a high-performing workforce, we appreciate the Board's efforts to—there we go—in terms of recruiting and maintaining a high-performance workforce, we appreciate the Board's efforts to maintain market competitiveness in our pay plans and other compensation and benefits.

[00:44:19] Finally, at the end of the current fiscal year, we will work with the Human Resources and Budget Departments to reevaluate our relief factor and consider improvements to relieve staffing pressures when necessary. Mr. Chairman, that concludes my presentation, and I'll be happy to answer any questions that you or the board may have.

[00:44:36] Board members, any questions or comments?

[00:44:46] I didn't see the 8 per 24 in here. Is that included in that large number of 20 or 3rd that you were asking for? There are. So there will be three units. So the one at the Manchester Volunteer Rescue Squad, that would be our top priority, and we could stagger these over the five-year period.

[00:45:04] I really think we need to start planning for these. The activity is going to continue. at the Buford station, and then eventually when we replace the Ettrick fire station, we may be in a position where we'll need to add an ambulance there. Yeah. When I went out the other day on the ride-along, it's just when you think about how large of a station or a district they have at 9 and how much they have right there and how far. I mean, they go to the city line, basically, and out towards Tarrington.

[00:45:35] I mean, that's just a huge kind of... Geographically, it's not a very large district, but it's very densely populated, and it generates a lot of calls. And then we have, you know, with the spring line at 60 development that's going up, we'll have eventually a 12-story hotel and convention center there that will generate some calls.

[00:45:55] But that is a very rapidly growing area for sure. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Chair. Thank you for a great presentation, Chief. I think it's important for the community to understand how, as we grow as a community, how we have to provide the resources for it.

[00:46:17] And I don't see it stopping anytime soon, based on some of the projections of residential development that's already available, that's been approved years ago, and some by this board that come out of the ground.

[00:46:32] So I appreciate your department. You do a great job in staying on top of all this. And I enjoyed the ride-along that I did the other day with the crews. It's great to get out and talk with the firefighters and hear things from their perspective. Thank you all for coming out when you can.

[00:46:50] We know you have a busy schedule, but the firefighters really enjoy seeing you and showing you the good work that they do. Thank you. Thank you, Chief. And you anticipated my question. I already had it written down. So well done. The volunteers.

[00:47:06] Yes. My wife and I have attended the last three evenings, dinners they have at the end of the year. Yes. What I have found, what we have found, we end up talking about it for hours afterward, is just the community. Yes.

[00:47:21] And how much they love each other, how long they've been doing it together. And so I just want to put out to the community, if you're looking for a way to volunteer and a way to get back and a way to just be part of something incredibly special with some very good people, this is a way to do it.

[00:47:41] I think with Forest View specifically, I see the strength in the room every year. Absolutely. I just want to put out some appreciation and kudos to that direction. And the citizens should know you don't have to be expected to run calls. There are administrative volunteers and things that they do to help the community as well.

[00:48:00] And just as appreciated and just as honored. And to be clear, we love our volunteers and we want to make them successful. We understand that they are less likely to be able to cover the duties that we have asked them to cover in the past. And so we're going to situate them so that they can be successful whatever time they can commit.

[00:48:19] And we've got some ways to do that to make sure that they get access to calls and certainly can help the community in the way that they have. Chief, thanks for a great presentation.

[00:48:35] Thanks for referencing the Highland Station. I know they will really appreciate the relief that you will provide for them in the coming years. So thank you for keeping that on the radar. Thank you. A lot has been said already, but one thing I don't think we've focused on a lot yet is the EMS-only positions and how you can use that like the police department has with the PSA program.

[00:49:03] And I know I had asked you to look in to figure out how you could make a program like that work. And with 76% of our calls being EMS calls, that's absolutely a good way to go. So I applaud you for working on that program and putting it together.

[00:49:20] And it gets, especially some of our younger adults that may not have the work experience or they may not have college and don't gain the points in the hiring process that others would. This gives them an opportunity to develop that work experience so we get a good look at them and, you know, can offer them a spot in an upcoming recruit school.

[00:49:39] Good job. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all. Yes, it'll be a good day tomorrow. B, Proctor's Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant Update. Mr. Hayes.

[00:49:56] Mr. Chairman, Members of the Board, Dr. Casey, it's my pleasure today to provide you a very brief update on a project you have on your consent items tonight.

[00:50:17] It's the award of the Proctor's Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant Floatization Basin Screening and Grit Facility Project. The Proctus Creek Wastewater Treatment Plan was first opened in 1975, and through the years it has been expanded to its current capacity of 27 million gallons a day.

[00:50:36] The project before you tonight is the first phase of a multi-layered master plan to expand that facility from 27 million gallons a day to 54 million gallons a day, doubling the size of the facility and providing our residents over 90 years of future wastewater capacity.

[00:50:54] The project consists of basically four components. The first component you can see on the upper left portion of your screen is hydraulic improvements to our existing fine screen building. That will include replacing and increasing the size of the effluent piping from that facility and also having a bypass pipe to the flow equalization basin, and that will be designed for the ultimate capacity of that plant at 54 MGD.

[00:51:25] The second component is on the lower left portion of the screen. It will be the complete rehabilitation of our existing influent pump station. That pump station will be completely rehabilitated, including rehabilitating the existing eight wastewater pumps. We'll be inserting new impellers in those pumps, larger impellers, so that we can pump more wastewater.

[00:51:45] Also, the effluent pipe will be relocated and increased in size, again, for the design of the ultimate master plan for that facility. The third component you can see in the middle of the screen, we will be installing a new robust coarse screen and state-of-the-art grit removal facility.

[00:52:04] That facility will be replacing the existing coarse screen and grit removal facilities we have that have reached their useful life and need to be replaced. And again, that facility will be sized for the ultimate master plan of that plant. And the last component, and the largest component you can see on the lower portion of your screen, will be a massive 12 million gallon flow equalization basin.

[00:52:29] This will be a very large, reinforced concrete basin, the size of a football field, 40 feet deep. This basin consists of actually three basins side by side, but the footprint will be so large, you could lay down the Statue of Liberty from the base to the torch in the footprint of that basin.

[00:52:50] Basically, just trying to give you a conceptual idea of how large these facilities are. These are just massive facilities. A flow utilization basin basically provides a hydraulic shock absorber for the system that allows us to treat the waste more efficiently and more cost-effectively.

[00:53:12] To give you an example from a CIP point, this project supports just-in-time spending. it allows us to defer very costly capital projects like the addition of additional treatment trains because by shaving off that peak, it allows us to fully utilize the existing capacity of the existing treatment equipment. From an operational standpoint, not only does it help us deal with the peak hydraulic flows, these large basins act as mixing pools, so the quality or the strength of wastewater is more consistent, fed into the treatment process. And what this allows our

[00:53:48] operators to do is to truly dial in the treatment on these systems so that they're more efficient, they use less chemicals, they use electricity, and is able to reduce the overall operating cost of that facility. We were able to pass on these savings both in capital and our operating cost to our customers in the form of affordable rates. This project has been in the making for a long time. It's been over a decade. In 2012, the need for the project was first identified. We entered the cost of the project in our rate model in 2016. We did a detailed design in 2021. We started that

[00:54:26] design. And then before you tonight is the award of the project. So on your consent agenda, we're going to be requesting award of this project to MEB general contractors, which was the lowest responsible bidder. The project is just a little bit above 168 million dollars. One of the largest construction projects we have awarded in Chesterfield Utilities history. Along with this request, we're also asking a request for an additional appropriation of 21 million dollars from our rate stabilization reserve that will fully fund the project and also fund inspection during the construction and also any engineering services we need

[00:55:05] during the construction. And this project is anticipated to take five years with completion around 2031 so very big project we're excited to have this project start and I will be more than happy to answer any questions this project is going to provide reliable and safe wastewater service for our customers for many years to come mr. chairman board members any questions yes mr. chair the what's the capacity today again 27 million gallons a day so 27 million ounce a day gets

[00:55:43] processed through, is that right? On average we do about 18 million gallons a day. Peak flows we sometimes go above 27 million gallons a day. And that flow goes where when it's clean? So it's treated at the Procter's Creek plant and ultimately ends up in the James River and the discharge from this plant is of a higher quality, a more consistent quality, than the James River water currently. Potentially in the future that water could be used for or recycled for something else, correct? Yes, it could. And to that point right now, the Department of Utilities are looking at a potential reuse project where we'd actually

[00:56:21] further treat this wastewater where it could be utilized in industries in the area around the Procter's Creek plant. Thank you. You did say 90-year capacity, right?

[00:56:39] Yes. On average, we use about 0.3 million gallons a day increase every year. So it's about a 90-year future wastewater capacity, and that's our master plan. It will be phased. This is just the first project of a multi-phased approach to expand that facility. And you said that one of the higher costs that go into the treatment is the chemicals that need to go in, and this will allow us to equalize and put them in at a flow that's consistent so that we don't have to overtreat in a really high volume to make sure that we're not polluting the river

[00:57:14] that would otherwise cost us significantly more. Is that correct? That's correct. This flow utilization basin not only shaves off the peak hydraulic capacity, but provides the plant a more consistent strength of waste, allowing us to dial in the treatment to operate it more efficiently. Do you have, I know I should have asked you this before you came, but do you have any idea how many years it will take for the projected savings to equal the cost of the project?

[00:57:43] The capital cost is a large, probably one of the largest components. Operating cost, you know, we spend a significant amount of money on chemicals and electricity. Round numbers, I think in the neighborhood of we spend about $2 million a year just on electricity. Chemicals, I don't know off the top of my head what we spend on chemicals. I don't know if you have a full return on investment on the total capital cost, but it will definitely reduce the overall cost to treat a gallon of wastewater, and those savings will be passed on to our customers. And again, it could, as Mr. Carroll said, produce as much as, I believe, 15 million gallons a day in additional purple line

[00:58:22] capabilities. Is that correct? So right now, the treatment plan treats on average about 18 million gallons a day. So you could safely assume you could create a water reuse system of 15 million gallons a day in the future as the flow to the plant increases you could increase that water reuse and that's something we're looking into very strongly right now is the creation of a water reuse system and the other thing that a reuse system does it it it it preserves your potable water capacity for other uses so if you could get industries on a purple pipe or reuse system it preserved the capacity that they would have used on a potable system for other future uses.

[00:59:03] Thank you. Dr. Case? And Mr. Hayes may further clarify, too, but the return investment is a good conversation, too, but just as a reminder, some of the monies that have been accumulated for this and or will be accumulating in the future are of the capacity connection fees of the shop, not the utility rates. So you have to moderate the cost, but the operational costs are the customers, and that, as Mr. Hayes mentioned, that return investment is much sooner.

[00:59:27] That's true, and as Mr. Holland points out, we have a very sophisticated rate stabilization model. And our connection fees, so future customers pay connection fees, go into the expansion component of our rate model. The expansion of any facility, including wastewater, would be paid by expansion money, which is generally connection fees.

[00:59:49] Thank you. Go ahead, Mark. It's a fairly simplistic question, but I'm going to ask it anyway. So if it's going into a purple line and the companies are going to be using it that way, are they going to be charged for that? Yes. So if we develop a reuse system, right now we have a water utility and a sewer utility.

[01:00:09] You'd have to develop a third utility with its own rate model to support that utility. But just like a wastewater utility and just like a water utility, you're going to have to invest significantly in the capital infrastructure. And then you're also going to have to, if you want to run the system correctly, put away reserves to make sure when those assets come to the end of the use of life, you have funding to replace those assets.

[01:00:30] So, yes, there would be a charge for the reuse of wastewater and similar to the model we have on the water side, the rates would include funding for a rate stabilization reserve that would be used for the future replacement of that infrastructure as it comes to the end of its useful life.

[01:00:49] Thank you. It's also a negotiating tool for us in the future with some of these companies to help get them to pay for this infrastructure since some of them are going to need the water, right? That is exactly right. So it's positioning us to have another negotiation tool in the future with these big companies that have said they're going to come here in order to get them to help pay so we don't have to pass this cost back on to our customers, correct?

[01:01:19] That is correct. Thank you. C, Zoning Ordinance Modernization Alignment Projects Update. Mr. Hosh, Mr. Donahoe, and Mr. Nannery.

[01:01:41] All right. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, members of the board. Dr. Casey, thank you for having us today.

[01:01:58] We'll go over some of the projects that are tangential to the ZOMOD project that you are having a public hearing on tonight. So we just wanted to go over some of those things that we're asking you to set a public hearing for for next month. So assuming that ZOMOD gets approved tonight, these other projects would then align other sections of the county code to that ordinance to make sure that all of our development processes can still continue on forward as ZOMOD comes online and is enacted.

[01:02:26] So high level, we'll start with Chapter 10 of the Land Use Plan, of the Comprehensive Plan, some alignment initiatives there to align the land use categories to these new tools that will be brought forward by ZOMOD. Mr. Donahoe will take care of explaining to you the updates to Chapter 17 of the County Code, which is the subdivision ordinance and how we develop plats and some of the alignment issues there. And then Mr. Nannery is going to go over chapter 18 of the county code, which is the watered sewer code of the county and some alignment there with the changes to ZOMOT as well, mostly around

[01:03:01] the mandatory connection areas of the current ordinance. And then I'll just explain here because it's really minor change to chapter eight of the county code, which is the stormwater management code section. We are moving the BMP maintenance section from the zoning ordinance to that chapter eight. So that's the only action we're doing there. Nothing's changing that. It's just moving out of the zoning ordinance and into chapter eight of the county code where it kind of belongs.

[01:03:28] That's the stormwater code section. So the BMP fees should belong in that section of the code. All right. So starting off chapter 10 of the land use plan. So last month we had a work session. We had a great discussion about the comprehensive plan and the zoning ordinance here's the reverse side of that so now we're talking about the comprehensive plan of course that is the vision for the future it is a policy document created by staff and adopted by you all as the board and that is the county's land use policies for how we are going to grow and develop and what levels of intensity or density what areas should be residential what areas should be commercial what areas should be for employment all those kinds of things so

[01:04:07] So what we're bringing forward to you today is just how we are going to align Chapter 10, not change anything. We're not looking to change density or change the overall vision of the land use plan, but simply how the new zoning tools should be used in alignment with the comprehensive plan.

[01:04:24] So that's what we're bringing for you tonight. But just as a reminder, the plan is the vision. The ordinance is how you get it done. And because we've now got a new set of tools, how those tools are guided is how the comprehensive plan functions. And so we're bringing forward some tweaks there to help guide how those tools are used.

[01:04:41] So, again, the comprehensive plan, just a real high-level view. Last updated in 2025 with the Northern Route 10 corridor plan, which you just approved last month. So that was our technical last revision to our comprehensive plan. The plan is based on our current ordinance.

[01:04:57] So that is why we are bringing forward to you today the request to set that public hearing on these amendments. The current Chapter 10 of the comprehensive plan is based on the current 19.1 ordinance. So it has things like office because there's office zoning categories and so on because you can't have land use categories that cannot be implemented.

[01:05:16] So the land use plan, the zoning ordinance are always tied together. And so, again, this effort is to realign the land use plan to the new ZOMOD tools. The plan has called for a zoning ordinance revision since 2012. I'm sorry. Just a clarification.

[01:05:32] When you say realign, really we're talking about this language, right? Yes. Yes, sir. And I'll get into that. For the layman's term, what are they talking about? They're talking about language, about making sure that the language of one document matches the same phraseology we have in another document.

[01:05:47] That is correct. Yes, sir. I'd like to talk in simple terms so I can understand it. Yes, sir. So we have been looking forward to the new zoning ordinance, of course, for a long time. And now, of course, we have ZOMOD on the precipice here tonight.

[01:06:03] And so, again, making sure the land use plan can make use of those tools is an important thing. And, again, the vision is not changing, and we'll go over that. So what's not changing and what is changing in this Chapter 10 alignment? We are not changing densities. So, again, the land use plan densities that are on the books today are not going to change with this alignment project.

[01:06:22] The boundaries of those land use categories are not changing as well. An area that's residential is not all of a sudden going to be changed to commercial with this update to Chapter 10 or vice versa. and the vision map. The vision map is also not changing. That vision has been held strong. That's what we've been operating under. We're not looking to change that at this point in time.

[01:06:41] What is changing is how we are aligning the land use categories to the new zoning district. So again, right now, some of the land use categories identify what zoning districts should be used. Well, because we have new zoning districts, we need to identify which of those new ZOMOD categories each land use category is recommending in that area, and we'll go over that.

[01:07:00] We added consistent design section to each land use category. So you have a good idea of what the land use plan is intending happen here. So in the rural area, we're looking for rural kinds of designs in the mixed use centers. We're looking for more urban form of design. So the land use plan spells that out so that it's when someone comes forward to develop property, they understand what the plan is intending here and they can find a zoning district that matches how to use that.

[01:07:29] And then other chapters, there's various other references to the old land use categories throughout our 250-page comprehensive plan. So by adopting this Chapter 10 amendment after the public hearing, that will fix all of those older references and bring all the whole plan up to the modern terms that I'll go over in a second here.

[01:07:47] So again, here is the land use map vision for the county. This is not changing with Chapter 10. You can see we have a variety of features here. We have a large green area, which is our rural area in the comprehensive plan. We have the tan areas, which are suburban neighborhood areas.

[01:08:03] We have lots of those. You can see kind of the pink lines that go through there. Those are our major corridors. Those are where most of our business and service activities occur in Chesterfield County. And then we have a lot of those little circles. And those circles are kind of the key feature of the comprehensive plan. Those are areas at usually major intersections where we are looking to develop another choice living arrangement, mostly in a mixed-use kind of setting. So we have, if you think about the county, we have a large rural area, and that's great for people that want a rural lifestyle. We have a large suburban area that's great for people that want a suburban lifestyle. What we are, what we've heard from the community and what we've been planning for for a long time is that third option, which is

[01:08:42] I want to live in an area where I don't need the car. I can walk from my home to a store or a park or something else, a tight, compact, walkable, mixed-use community. And those are things that we've only recently started seeing come online, such as the spring line at District 60 development.

[01:08:58] That is a good example. Or Chester Village. Chester Village is also a good example of a walkable, mixed-use environment where you have a lot of activities and things to do that you don't need to drive within the development to get to. And then you see the kind of purplish areas. Those are our employment centers.

[01:09:14] We want to keep those for job opportunities for our residents and citizens to have for now and the future. So we added some new guidelines to the Chapter 10, again, because of ZOMOD. So we talk about amenity space because amenity space is now in the zoning ordinance. So we talk about in the plan how amenity space should be used and kind of the overall general terms for that amenity space and what it means.

[01:09:37] We talk about ADUs, that there should be encouraged in appropriate locations. We talk about the village overlays. Again, these are all things that are features of ZOMOD and how village overlays preserve our village areas. We talk about maximum residential density for projects in non-residential land use categories.

[01:09:54] So we've had a couple zoning cases come up where someone is requesting to do a residential development in an area where the comprehensive plan says there should be commercial development. And when something like that happens, the comp plan no longer has any guidance to its land use recommendation. So seeing some of those past zoning cases come on board, We have added a guideline in there that puts a density recommendation in there for those kinds of projects should they come forward.

[01:10:20] We're not saying they should, that's a good idea, but if they do, at least you have something, some guardrails in there from the comprehensive plan, which is the point of having the plan. And then we also talk about data centers in here now. We know we've had a shift in how we view data centers since we last did the overall comprehensive plan in 2019.

[01:10:39] So making sure we're analyzing the impacts from such heavy land uses such as that on our infrastructure and what that means. Undergrounding utility lines, generally a good idea where we can make that done. It cleans up our corridors and makes things look a little nicer and more inviting for investment.

[01:10:56] And then residential quality. Because we don't want to codify, you know, that everybody should build a house of brick or something like that because, you know, we're too varied for that. we put in residential quality standards in the comprehensive plan as a starting point for anyone that wishes to come forward and develop residential in the county.

[01:11:14] So it's kind of like a guiding document. It's not a requirement because it's in the plan, but it gives you an idea of where to start these negotiations from. Here's a list of general things, and we'll hit some of those, that when you're doing business in the county, this is kind of the things that we're looking for, and maybe you do all of them, maybe you do some of them, but it's a good guideline for starting negotiations on the, with those applicants. Mr. Chair, just a real quick question. When you say negotiations, who are we negotiating with? Usually with the applicants. So they come forward with a development application and rather than, you know, there's no guidance for them and they kind of

[01:11:52] make things up, the plan kind of says, here's some things that we're looking for with new residential development so that when an application is made, they can address some or all of those. So as far as transmission lines and utility lines, you're suggesting that we would be able to negotiate with the applicant to put utility lines underground yes sir and in fact in most of our commercial developments it's already a requirement today and what we want to do is extend that wherever we can now again the plan's not forcing that because it's not a law but it's encouraging that where we can and of course the ordinance says under what conditions you have to bury them

[01:12:27] but we would love to bury them wherever we can so would that be placed then in the zoning modernization in ZOMOT? ZOMOT carries what we have today, which is in the non-residential developments. That's already a requirement of today's ordinance, and ZOMOT just carries that forward. Okay, so I'm going to kind of, because you brought up Springline, and so I hear what you're saying loud and clear in that there are folks that are out there and they want to walk to where they're going and stuff like that, but Springline specifically has a problem in that they can't walk across the street. They can't get over them. How does that get paid for? Is that something that the applicant would then be expected to pay for that bridge um that could be a part of

[01:13:06] the negotiation on a zoning case i don't know it's not through the comprehensive plan i'll tell you that much but um that might be negotiations with c dot v dot the applicant you know depending on the scale of development or what their impacts are going to be okay thank you yes sir certainly if someone offered to proffered to build a pedestrian bridge over a road i don't think we would we would say no to that but uh that's usually a pretty expensive item agreed but then And that would be contingent upon the whole idea in the first place, right?

[01:13:36] Right. Okay. All right. So here is a list of kind of the meat and potatoes of what we're talking about here with the Chapter 10 alignment process. On the left side, you can see these are the current land use plan categories and their names in the middle column there, the proposed plan.

[01:13:52] This is what we're proposing to rename these categories to. And then the right side column is the appropriate ZOMOD district that each of those land use categories is saying is an appropriate zoning district to ask for in each of those categories. Not that to say that if you ask for it, you're automatically going to get it, but if somebody comes forward and says, you know, my land use plan says I'm rural, residential, agricultural, what kind of zoning should I ask for?

[01:14:18] The plan guides you to say these are the three districts, the A, the RC, and the NB rural would be the appropriate ZOMOD districts you could do. And, of course, all the rest would depend on what exactly they're doing and where and how and that kind of thing through the zoning process. So you can see the first two categories are staying the same, the residential, agricultural, and the rural residential, agricultural.

[01:14:38] We're leaving those names alone. That's basically the whole southern and western part of the county. The density is not changing or anything there, of course, because, again, density is not changing. But, again, you can see how the land use plan with this alignment is saying, again, how it's tied to ZOMOD. These are the categories you would use in those land use categories, those zoning districts.

[01:14:58] Low density residential. So when we get into the residential districts, we have a little bit of a naming change. What we're trying to do is because there's some overlapping naming conventions in ZOMOD, we're trying to straighten out in the comprehensive plan, be more straightforward to your point, Mr. Carroll, about what exactly the plan's calling for.

[01:15:14] So our former low-density residential, which is basically one-acre lots, is now going to be known as residential neighborhood one. So one-acre lots. And appropriate zoning in ZOMOD is SRNB. And you're going to see a theme through here. So suburban residential right now, one, which is two units an acre.

[01:15:32] we're going to change to residential neighborhood 2. So the number after each of the districts tells you the density cap. So suburban residential 2 has a 2 to 4 range. It's now going to be known as residential neighborhood 4, max of 4 units per acre. You can go less, but max of 4.

[01:15:48] And again, you can see the ZOMOD district that corresponds to that land use category. What would you ask for in there? And so on through the categories, medium high density residential 4 to 8 becomes residential neighborhood 8. High-density residential, which is 12 units an acre or less, becomes residential neighborhood 12.

[01:16:05] And again, you can see the ZOMOT districts that that aligns with. In the mixed-use side, we didn't really make any changes there. We are renaming residential mixed-use in the current plan to neighborhood mixed-use because it just makes better sense. It's more in line with the naming conventions on that scale.

[01:16:23] That's all it is. And actually, this is the only time we are changing density in the plan. We're dropping the density from 12 units an acre in the current plan to 8-plus. units and acre in the proposed alignment of chapter 10. So that is the only density change. It's going down, not up. The community mixed use is staying the same. The regional mixed use is staying the same. Those are those dots you saw on the vision map of those various scales. And then we get to the office categories because ZOMOD has no office only district because office has changed since, you know, the early 2000s. Those have been folded into our arterial business and light

[01:17:01] business and employment categories. So today's comprehensive plan categories of neighborhood office, corporate office, convenience business are all being deleted and being shuffled into other land use categories. So for example, someone at neighborhood office today would be folded into light business in the comprehensive plans new land use category, which covers the appropriate zoning categories that we'll get to in a second. Neighborhood business goes to light business and arterial business, so split between the C2 and C3 of today, and then community business, which is normally C3 today, goes to arterial business is its new name, and that aligns with the CC,

[01:17:40] ZOMOD category, and then general business C5, we are going away with C5, and C5, as we talked about with ZOMOD, is being split between commercial, corridor commercial, and the WD district, basically and industrial districts. So in the comp plan world, it goes from general business to arterial business and office light production and assembly, which is our light industrial category, which is here. So Cordley, which was our corporate office research development. Yes, sir. Sorry to stop you.

[01:18:13] I know you're trying to get through it. One of the questions someone's going to ask is, so what happens if I'm currently zoned C5? What happens to that zoning? So C5 in the ZOMOD conversion map depending on the use goes to either commercial corridor if you're commercial use or to a wd or an ec district depending on if you're an industrial use so it depends on how you're using the property that's how your conversion happened currently using currently

[01:18:40] using all right so it's my understanding that um one of the people of the south side speedway came to Rachel and spoke about the C5 that's existing there and it's been kind of protected that it's going to continue to be the C5 of the racetrack, correct? With the racetrack as a use.

[01:19:12] Yeah. So the caveat is if you have a CUPD or a CU, a conditional use or a conditional use plan development case on your C5 that identifies C5 uses, that stands no matter what. Okay. We're just getting clarification. You knew exactly what I was going to ask.

[01:19:33] But it's not just that. There are a lot of businesses that are currently C-5 in Chesterfield County or even properties that are currently zoned C-5 in Chesterfield County. And we're talking about changing all that, right? Yes, sir.

[01:19:50] How does that affect, I guess it's depending on what their current use is, right? Yes, sir. What about a property that's not in use? So there we looked at the surrounding context of the area. You know, if it was on a major corridor, fronting, those kinds of things, we made a call on the conversion based on that.

[01:20:08] And that's what's been available to the public, and we have had some conversations with property owners that are, you know, interested in doing things of one nature or another, and we have worked with them to change that based on those conversations with them. Is this part of the phasing that we talked about on those things, phasing over time, not immediately?

[01:20:27] Yes, sir. So in ZOMOD, should you adopt it tonight, there is a five-year clause in there that continues the C5, I1, I2, and I3 uses as they are permitted today for the next five years, despite whatever ZOMOD category they got rezoned to.

[01:20:42] So that five-year window will allow them to continue. So somebody owns C5 today. We converted them to CC, but they wanted to do a warehouse. They had a plan to do that at one point in time. They may want to do that. they have five years to file a site plan and get that warehouse use going or come through zoning and rezone to a land use category that or a zoning category that allows warehouse so they have a window of time to get that moving so this could have one or two effects one it could promote people who are sitting on c5 zoning right now to do something with it which could produce more things for the community yes sir or it would bring them forward to say i want to change to this

[01:21:20] now yes sir so it's a possibility of both yes sir thank you in that five years they uh as long as they use that use within the five years they get to keep it as long as they continually use it and don't quit using it for two years or more but if they did quit using it for two or more years then it would just revert to um what the zomod i mean uh the comp plan calls for that area what the underlying zoning was yes sir in the industrial side again cordley is our corporate office

[01:21:56] research and development light industrial category in today's comp plan that's being changed to office light production and assembly in zoma in the new arranged comp plan to match zomod's industrial categories our employment categories there of ec and wd and then our industrial land use category in the comp plan today is being changed to manufacturing and processing again to reflect what's in ZOMOD. ZOMOD makes a distinction, as a reminder, between manufacturing and warehousing because we don't want all of our industrial land to go just to warehouses. So our comp plan reflects that intent from ZOMOD. Then, of course, the institutional and conservation land use

[01:22:35] categories are not changing. Those reflect uses on the ground or easements that have been placed on property. And we had a discussion with you, Mr. Carroll, about some that we'll be adding when we update the comprehensive plan some more of those conservation areas to the map so then looking ahead again I think this came up in our ZOMOD meeting last month this is just a stopgap measure that we're asking you all to set a public hearing for just to align our land use categories to ZOMOD so that when applicants come forward with the new ZOMOD tools the comprehensive plan helps guide

[01:23:11] which tool they should be using we hope and have heard from you all at the board level that there's an interest in doing an overhaul to our more comprehensive overhaul to our comprehensive plan we look forward to starting on that and that is where we will get into setting maybe a new vision for the county with the help of the public and you all and the Planning Commission going forward and that could be a whole new land use categories and where they apply where we want density where we don't want density but those will all be discussions with that comprehensive plan update process that will again will involve a lot of citizen as you can imagine. So I just wanted to point that out. I appreciate you saying that. That was

[01:23:50] my second point that I was going to make if you didn't. The first one, you did start off earlier and you said that the comprehensive plan is created by staff and that could give a false impression. Staff works on a comprehensive plan with the citizens, with the planning commission, with the board of supervisors. They don't create it and then take it to people. They work in conjunction to create the plan, but they don't by themselves create.

[01:24:18] I just wanted to make sure that that was clear. I appreciate that clarification. It's going to be a lot of people involved in this in the county as we go forward. Yep. Thank you. Any other questions on the comprehensive plan before I turn it over to Mr. Donahoe? All right.

[01:24:35] Thank you. All right. Good afternoon, board members, chair, board members, Dr. Casey. Very pleased to be bringing forward a topic that we don't get a chance to discuss with the board too often. the subdivision ordinance we're going to be doing or we've been working on an update to the subdivision ordinance for the better part a few years now we just recently went to the Planning Commission and had a positive recommendation from them and now we're here before the board to tell you what what's what we're proposing as far as changes are concerned now the goal here is we're of course we're looking to align subdivision ordinance to what we're doing in ZOMOT overall we want to make sure that we have a tool at the end of

[01:25:15] day that will ultimately correspond with what we're doing in ZOMOD and be a tool that helps implement ZOMOD with projects that come in moving forward. But what is the subdivision ordinance? As I mentioned, comparatively speaking, the board and the planning commission and citizens really don't have a lot of interaction with the subdivision ordinance when you compare it to how often folks might touch the zoning ordinance and familiarity there. And so what it is though, So it provides the requirements and processes for the subdivision of land in the county.

[01:25:49] We like to think of it as a rule book, really, for the way to go about subdividing land in the county. So it is essentially a document that contains the processes for how to go about subdividing land. So why are we updating the subdivision ordinance?

[01:26:05] As we mentioned, we need to be consistent with what we're doing with the zoning ordinance. We wanted to implement current county development and land use policies and procedures that we've evolved to over time. We've added some existing policies that don't really have a home, but we've been implementing them for a number of years now, and I'll go into some of those policies shortly.

[01:26:26] We're updating procedures, as I mentioned. We want to ensure that the subdivision ordinance is in conformance with state code. So there's a number of changes there that we needed to kind of catch up our subdivision ordinance because of changes that have come to light or come into effect recently at the state level.

[01:26:44] And just like with ZOMOD, we want to make sure that we have a more user-friendly, web-friendly document at the end of the day that's more enforceable and more consistently enforced by staff. And so I did want to point out the difference between the zoning ordinance in the subdivision ordinances relates to the overall work effort that was involved in the development. The subdivision ordinance is a relatively slim document, being roughly 70 pages, whereas OMOD is substantially more than that, 300 plus. So the work effort there is substantially different. Also, we didn't set out to completely change our subdivision ordinance either. What we

[01:27:24] have today really does work pretty well, or does work well, and will continue to work well into the future so we just needed to again address those key elements that I mentioned before in our update of the subdivision ordinance 80 to 85 percent is what I've been saying that we are keeping in today's ordinance as we go forward with these changes but we have quick format yes sir um I know there's been some concern that if you live in a subdivision either ZOMOD or this subdivision ordinance would allow somebody to go back and cherry pick a portion of the subdivision off

[01:27:59] and make it denser or make it something different than the rest of the neighborhood is? And I know the answer, but I just want to hear your response to the people that would ask if that's happening. So we have kind of two protections there.

[01:28:14] One would be in ZOMOD that says if you're going to re-subdivide an existing subdivision, you'd have to come before the board and request that. So that's one thing that the board and planning commission would be able to weigh in. The other is that vacating a subdivision requires board action as well, and we push it to the board for action there.

[01:28:31] So it really is a two-part protection, so it's a very unlikely scenario that would play out. How does that differ from the way we do it now? It actually doesn't. No, it doesn't differ. You have to go through the same process if you want to do it, right?

[01:28:49] So for the vacation of a subdivision, you'd have to come back for the board. So that is not changing, yeah. Right, because some people believe that ZOMOD is changing something and making it different than what it already is. But if someone brought a conditional use permit, if they vacated a subdivision and then came forward to the board right now with a conditional use proposal to change the product that's in there, they could do that, right?

[01:29:12] That's correct, yes. Right, so we're doing the same thing here. It involves board approval. Yes. Yes, sir. Exactly. So what we are doing, though, is we've reformatted the entire document into these kind of articles here that kind of organize the standards that we have and the procedures that we have.

[01:29:36] And what I'm going to do is I'm going to go through these individually and talk about the things that are changing and the things that are not changing. So feel free to stop me if you'd like to talk about any of the things I've mentioned. Introduction, the first article, we don't have any changes there, nothing substantive.

[01:29:52] It's the same, again, intention of this document as it is today versus where we're going with it. We do have a fair number of changes in the procedure section, though. So getting right into those, for starters, I mentioned state code changes that have come into effect recently.

[01:30:10] As of July 1st, 2025, the Planning Commission, no. Sorry, I've got to ask this question before I'm getting old and before it gets out of my head. I haven't seen it. But if we had anybody in the recent history do what I just said, go into a neighborhood, buy all the houses up, knock them all down, and then come back before the board, get it vacated, and then ask to put higher density in.

[01:30:34] I'm not aware of a single instance of that. Not since I've been on the board. Okay. Jim's been around a lot longer than us. So no one's done that. And I would say even if they did, we probably wouldn't support it. Yes, sir.

[01:30:58] So with the state code changes that have recently come into effect, the Planning Commission no longer has the potential to the purview of reviewing preliminary plats and construction plans. So there are a number of processes in today's subdivision ordinance that we needed to amend and essentially, again, catch up to what the limitations are that have been provided to us by the state.

[01:31:19] In particular, a transfer request. What that is in today's ordinance that is going to be removed with the update is if you submit a preliminary plat today and a adjacent property owner and a grieved person may have an issue after reviewing the preliminary plat, let's just say a location of a BMP or something like that is not what they envisioned it to be.

[01:31:43] They could have essentially contacted the county planning staff and requested that the review be transferred to the planning commission. That is no longer an option as a result of the state code changes. So that remains an administrative process. However, what we're going to continue to do is to post the properties for preliminary plats when they come in.

[01:32:04] So that will still remain a public process. People will be aware that there is a preliminary plat that's been submitted and they can provide comments to staff. And that will be incorporated in our review with the applicant as that proceeds through the process. Yes, sir. That was a state code change.

[01:32:19] That's correct. just went through in the last General Assembly, became law on July 1st? That's correct. So we really had no input on that. Like I said, we just need to catch our document up, and that's essentially what we're doing with some of these state code changes. What we do have available still is the use of a schematic plan.

[01:32:41] A schematic plan is something that the Planning Commission and Board can include in the approval of a zoning case as a requirement post-approval to then require an applicant to provide a schematic plan that then comes back to the Planning Commission for review to make sure that some of the details have been ironed out.

[01:33:00] And so the purpose of a transfer request, to some extent, is still going to be upheld with what we're doing or carrying forward with the schematic plan. The schematic plan is something, again, it's a proffered requirement, and it also can be required if they're doing a multi-phase development.

[01:33:21] We would also require the submission of a schematic plan there. The preliminary platen construction plan, I have it there as a change. But what that really is, is today, under today's ordinance, the preliminary platen needs to be submitted and fully reviewed and approved prior to the submission of a construction plan.

[01:33:41] And what that does is that it does have the effect of lengthening the overall review time. And we have heard from time to time from applicants that, you know, can we work with them to some extent of concurrent review? And so we have, you know, worked with some of our stakeholders to develop a process that maintains the integrity of our process overall and the review that we have, as well as allowing for some level of concurrent review.

[01:34:07] So right now, as we're proposing in the language in the new subdivision ordinance would be that a preliminary plat would be submitted, the first review, staff would review it, provide comment to the applicant, and upon that time, the applicant could submit for the first construction plan phase.

[01:34:26] So not a second phase or a third, it would be the first phase that we would allow for the concurrent review of. Of course, the preliminary plat would have to be approved prior to the construction plan. That's the catch, so that you're not putting things out of order in the process.

[01:34:42] So that's one thing we're making a change in this document. We have major and minor subdivision plots. These have been formally known as the lot subdivision or the parcel plot process, but this is the major subdivision.

[01:34:59] It's not a new process. It's just renamed essentially, and this is the most common type of subdivision. This is your large scale. So there's any kind of subdivision that you might have, Cullingtons, Round Trays, those types of neighborhoods go through this major subdivision review. This would include infrastructure as well as lots.

[01:35:15] Now, the minor subdivision plat, this would be for qualifying properties of five acres, minimum five acres and 250 feet of road frontage. And so that's a less complicated review, tends to be less time in that review.

[01:35:31] It doesn't, and it's usually for one or two lots. It's not for an entire neighborhood. That's the major subdivision review. We also have included a few different PLAT types that kind of get at some of the business needs of our applicants that we work with.

[01:35:49] And what we, aside from the major and the minor PLAT review, or PLATs, we have the, what we refer to nowadays as the NFRU, which is a not-for-resident-to-use PLAT. And that's kind of a PLAT that's somewhat of a catch-all for any of our plats that don't fit into the major or minor process.

[01:36:09] So if somebody's breaking out a piece of property for the purpose of ultimately submitting a site plan and developing a multifamily development down the road, the process right now in that subdivision to create that property would be that NFRU, not-for-residential-use plat. That terminology has proven difficult for developers when you have a not-for-residential-use plat label and you're intending on building multifamily.

[01:36:35] So what we've done is we've developed a few different plat types that speak to kind of the end result of what we're intending to have that property develop as. And that would be a non-residential subdivision plat. That's a new plat, along with multifamily subdivision, residential phasing plat, and a mixed-use phasing plat.

[01:36:53] This all kind of helps to get at improving business practices, really, for not just us but on the applicant side as well. So continuing on, okay, Article 3, we simply just referenced that we are going to be implementing 19.2s, the ZOMOD buffers and setbacks through the subdivision regulations.

[01:37:20] So when a preliminary plat comes in, we're going to be, of course, utilizing and implementing what's in 19.2, the new zoning ordinance, if it were to go forward. One of the key elements of ZOMOD, of course, is amenity space.

[01:37:36] And so this is kind of at this stage in the process, post-zoning approval would be kind of where the rubber meets the road and making sure we're getting the amount of amenity space and the various types of amenity space that we had envisioned in the zoning case that was approved and came before the board.

[01:37:52] And so at this stage in the process, we will be at the preliminary plan submission, plot submission you'll see the various types of amenity space listed on the preliminary plat and as we go forward as that gets approved and goes for gets further refined at the construction plan phase you'll actually have the specific acreage of any various type of amenity spaces you see listed there that's just a clip of some of the options that developers will have to fulfill that amenity space requirement and then of course at the final plat stage you'll have a amenity space shown and so combination of the final plat and showing the the actual amenity space along with the construction

[01:38:32] plan you'll know looking at those two things the exact plan for what that amount of amenity space that was required and what type of amenity space will actually be developed so that's how that will play out at the next stage in the process uh article three continued we have a sub subdivision standards continued um installation improvements building permits we don't have any significant changes to this section however we are maintaining the time for construction of neighborhood streets so right now in the ordinance we have a requirement that no more than 60 percent of the building

[01:39:07] permits can be issued until the first layer of asphalt has been completed and then no more than 90 percent of the building permits can be issued until streets are constructed and accepted into the state system what we are adding though is that perhaps the scenario down the line if vdot were to be acceptable to this scenario is that pedestrian accommodations, in this case sidewalks, could be constructed at a time post acceptance of the streets. And what this is born out of is very often we are hearing from builders that they're having to build sidewalks for the purposes

[01:39:43] of state acceptance, and then they get damaged, and then they have to go back in at a later time and rebuild, in fact, completely rebuild in a lot of instances, sidewalks. And so from a staff perspective this would allows for the option if VDOT were to be agreeable to this scenario to have the sidewalks constructed at a later time of course they would be provided in full before we release any bonds of anything of that nature. Isn't there the same potential to damage the asphalt road that's been put in depending on the equipment you have to bring in to do the sidewalks?

[01:40:16] You know I actually wanted to I just ask that question to a builder what we have heard is that just the coming off the road in multiple places going over traversing with heavy equipment and on the sidewalk that causes the damage it can also cause damage to the curb yeah correct so it may it may have the same I think we should probably consult with some people who do this for a living and find out what's the best process is because depending on the type of equipment it might not be an issue but to come back after it's been approved you know who's going to be responsible to fix the road if they damage it once it's in the v-dot system

[01:40:55] it can't go in the v-dot system until all of the sidewalks are in no no what he's saying is that it could post come back later and do the sidewalks after it's accepted in the v-dot and that would be before I think bonds would be released so we'd be holding that so they would be on the hook to to finish and complete that project they are already right now bringing and putting the sidewalks in after the fact because they've already put it in once they have to tear it out put it back in after the fact anyway so they're already doing

[01:41:30] that it could happen both ways and they would excuse me but doesn't that just add to the cost of the houses because they're just gonna add that on it actually theoretically right now lowers the cost of the house because right now a lot of times they're building the sidewalk twice and now they only have to build it once that's what I'm talking okay yeah yes when you have to build it

[01:42:01] twice, it could add to the cost of that. That's a good point. Excuse me. So the next section is arrangement design, stub roads. So this is where the existing county policies that we've had around for quite some time that we implement with every plan that comes in, but it doesn't reside in any code. We've looked to add that to the subdivision ordinance because that's the appropriate location for it. That's where it is implemented. So our stub road policy that we've had on the book since

[01:42:37] 1989 really speaks to the classification of street within a community and so that is something we've looked we've reiterated that reiterated that into the code same with our connectivity policy that's the policy that speaks to the creation of stub streets and connection of stub streets and us wanting that to be something that we are continuing to pursue and making sure our communities are connected so these are the things that we've now added to the code that are standing policies. Nothing new. It's just being added to the code. Continuing with subdivision

[01:43:13] standards, geometric design. One point here is that our public street designs shall comply with VDOT Road Design Manual. That's nothing new. What we are building into this code would be for the future potential, really, for alternative street design to be approved in accordance with VDOT's traditional neighborhood design section of their manual, of the VDOT Road Design Manual. And that be if the county wants to pursue that so if the county for some of our more urbanizing areas we want to have a public street section that might be better suited for that style of design we would

[01:43:49] work with the board of course the planning commission to to develop that and ultimately submit that for vita for potential use in the future we just have allowed for that opportunity in the code of moving forward to that if we were to it's basically a conversation at a later time Private streets and alleys, similarly with our private streets as it stands today, we don't have standards for private streets other than what VDOT tells us we need to do.

[01:44:18] So we are, you know, keeping open the door for, you know, there's interest in designing our own Chesterfield private street standards, which we can then establish, of course, with the input of the planning commission and certainly the board and having a preset set of private street standards that suit our community.

[01:44:41] So, yeah, we've also, moving to the next section, which would be mailboxes. So what we've done here is we've just added the, you know, CBUs are needed in any community where we have four lots or more. And so what we've done is just added some language that we want to make sure that at the time of subdivision review, we're looking at the location, making sure it's accessible, the installation, the timing in particular, the installation.

[01:45:06] we want our residents to be able to start receiving mail upon moving into their their home that's kind of a no-brainer but we wanted to make sure that that was included into the case or excuse me into all right well i'm just simply saying that i've had lots of people come or contact me because they've lived in the neighborhood for i don't know how long and they haven't been able to get their mail because the builder didn't turn the keys over to the post office or the post office doesn't have the keys, supposedly.

[01:45:38] Is there any policies as to when they have to do those things? I mean, it just seems ridiculous that this... I know the post office is a mess right now. I just... There's got to be a process. So that's what we're trying to address with this. The timing aspect in particular is we can't control necessarily the post service and their approval, but what we need to make sure that is happening is that the developer is creating at least a temporary scenario where mail can be delivered upon the time in which a CO is issued for those units.

[01:46:12] Whether or not Postal Service does it, that might be a different scenario. There's also some subdivisions that are still putting a mailbox at the end of people's driveways, despite the fact that they also have the CBUs, like in Roundtree.

[01:46:29] My question was a little different, which is, What guidance are we getting from the U.S. Postal Service on what type of mailboxes will be available in the neighborhood? For example, in Harper's Mill, when some sections were built, they were allowed to have mailboxes.

[01:46:49] And then another section was built, and they said, no mailbox for you. We're going to give you a cluster box. But what guidance are we getting from the Postal Service for these subdivisions as they come out of the ground to say this is what you're going to be allowed to do and not allowed to do?

[01:47:06] I'd say there's a fair amount of work to be done in that regard, I'd say, at this point in time. You know, where we have four or more lots is really what we're, you know, in our communications with the Postal Service, that's kind of where we are with establishing CBUs, clustered areas for these mail receptacles.

[01:47:28] Yeah, as far as where, you know, is it always going to be that way going forward? So the reason I ask this, especially in our over 55 communities, where we have a lot of elderly people moving in, to get the surprise that you're not going to get your mail anymore at the box, that you have to drive out and get it somewhere else, I think is unacceptable.

[01:47:46] I think that's something that they should know going in when they buy a place. And they shouldn't have the mailbox ripped out later and then have a cluster box put in, which is what happened in sections of Harper's Mill to some of the people there. And so I want to make sure moving forward that we make sure the developers know that you have to be crystal clear on what it's going to be.

[01:48:10] And they need to get that direction in the best way they can, we do, from the Postal Service. Mr. Carroll, if I could just add to that, you're absolutely right. And I think it might have been about six years ago or so, the U.S. Postal Service issued almost a 100-page document on the transition to cluster boxes.

[01:48:31] And while if you read it, you would think they would be doing all of that the next day, they have not necessarily been consistent even in the implementation of that, which has created greater confusion not just for citizens but even developers or planning department officials because we advocated even to our federal delegation at the time that, you know, for subdivisions that were least in process bring closure to that process, to your point, because in fairness, the developers and builders were advertising what they knew to be true when they started the process.

[01:49:01] Plus, even our road networks and where you were to locate a cluster box were not necessarily defined early in that process as they can be now. But it has been very frustrating, and we have been, unfortunately, the middleman on behalf of the federal government on that regard.

[01:49:20] Yeah, and we've simply just allowed for basically us to have a seat at the table in determining where these cluster boxes end up going. Because from a planning standpoint, it makes sense for us to weigh in on safe locations. Is it accessible to the majority of folks in the community instead of just kind of taking what is given to us and not being able to relocate based on any particular policy.

[01:49:45] So I'll move on. So articles four and five, that's enforcement in our administration section, really no significant changes there. We've carried forth kind of the same, again, intention for enforcement and administration in the code.

[01:50:01] Article 7, definitions and rules of interpretation, again, for enforced or alignment with ZOMOD, the key thing there, any time we have terms that are more used in ZOMOD, and there's a fair amount of those that are also utilized in Chapter 17, the subdivision ordinance, we include a reference to 19.2.

[01:50:20] It just makes sense, so as we update definitions down the line, it's done one time. The big thing for us is making sure that we don't have two different definitions for any one term, and that may have happened in the past. Who knows? But we are making sure that's not something that we have as an issue moving forward.

[01:50:39] Also, we've added a number of definitions that should be really helpful to our ultimate enforcement and implementation of the subdivision ordinance. Let's see. legal provisions we we we've included this as a essentially change but it really is just that we're repealing the entirety of chapter 17 as we know it today because we completely reformatted the document and asking the board to approve 17.1 which is the draft that we have today and then lastly article 8 is the submittal requirements we are in a digital age where our review of documents

[01:51:17] or plans, plats, it's all done online, and so submissions are made that way. If someone needs help with that, we always help them, so no worries there. But that is how, that's the review kind of format or venue. These submittal requirements, we've included some tables, so it's very easy for folks to understand what plat type, what plan type they're submitting, what things they need to include on their plan.

[01:51:40] So all that stuff speaks to the user-friendliness goal that we had, and then lastly, our fees have generally stayed the same. We have included a few different new fees that are modest in nature just to cover some of those new plats that I mentioned that don't exist under today's code.

[01:51:56] But overall, our fees remain constant. So with that, that's the overview we have this evening. It's the subdivision ordinances on the agenda this evening to be set for public hearing for October. And I'll be happy to answer any questions.

[01:52:14] Board members, any questions on that portion? Well, thank you. All right, good afternoon, Mr. Chair, honorable members of the board, Dr. Casey.

[01:52:34] You're probably wondering why utilities are sitting at the table when we're talking about ZOMOD and the zoning ordinance. So principally, the requirement to tie to the public water and wastewater system currently resides in Chapter 18, Water and Sewers, of the County Code.

[01:52:51] Back in 2013, when we updated the comprehensive plan, the mandatory connection areas came out of that comprehensive plan update. We developed maps of the county for both residential and non-residential areas and assigned requirements.

[01:53:10] The entire county is required to connect to water if you're a residential lot subdivision. So we are changing and aligning up our code to align with ZOMOD. We're reassigning the connection requirements to be directly tied to the zoning.

[01:53:29] And then the exception process will also be part of the ZOMOD. The board will certainly allow those opportunities to provide exceptions through the ZOMOD process. So on residential development, we have a section 1860 that talks about your lot subdivisions.

[01:53:55] and we call it fondly the mandatory connection area. We have both water and wastewater. We need to take these sections and reassign them to the ZOMOD. This is codified in the code, so we need to remove these so there's no conflict, both on the water and wastewater for residential.

[01:54:17] The southwestern portion of the county is excluded from residential connections. Two of our more common known subdivisions would be Chesden Landing and the Highlands where they have septic systems. On the non-residential side of the house, every new non-residential structure has to connect to the water and wastewater system when they're in these areas.

[01:54:41] It's not tied to the zoning. You can be I, you can be C. You still have to connect if you're in those areas. So principally, again, the southwestern portion is excluded from the water and the wastewater connection area.

[01:54:57] As a geography point, the CVS at the corner of Hall Street and Baldwin Creek is the northeast corner of the non-residential not-required-to-connect area. So they're on a septic system sitting right across the street from Matt Green.

[01:55:16] So we're going to reassign those principally to the zoning classifications. You can imagine that your more dense classifications, your suburban, your semi-urban, your high-density, non-residential developments, you can see this early aerial photographer of Stonebridge here would be required to connect.

[01:55:42] That said, we're a relatively simple part of this process. I'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Just to clarify what Mike said here is that the zoning districts now carry the connection requirement.

[01:55:59] So each zoning district will tell you whether or not you have to connect depending on the options. So that's why we're removing that redundancy. So you see zoning cases now that have a two-part request. One is for the rezoning. One might be for an exception to Chapter 18 for the mandatory connection.

[01:56:15] And then we have two different sets of recommendations. All that's going to just be in the zoning process now, not two separate chapters with two separate recommendations. Utilities will always be reviewing those exceptions if they were to come in, but it'll be one process under zoning now, so it'll make things a little easier.

[01:56:33] We'll still be asking the questions, what's your plan? Are you planning to connect? So that we know if they're going to be asking the board for an exception, so when it gets to you, that's been fully vetted. And we did probably four to half a dozen work sessions with planning to flesh out a lot of the nuances of this.

[01:56:52] Thank you, Mr. Chair. I brought this up before, and I guess we'll bring it up again in that for the southern part of the county, and they're not connected to water, and heaven forbid there was a fire, then how is that handled?

[01:57:09] Are we on the hook to purchase tanker trucks to put out that fire, those kind of things? already have them. And, you know, a tanker truck empties very quickly. How is that working?

[01:57:25] I could interject somewhat. If you drive along a lot of the rural roads, you'll see some drafting sites to nearby ponds. A lot of irrigation ponds are out there. Dry hydrants. It's a little blue sign. That's one source for them. To the degree that how large the fire is, you know, multiple units would be deployed to it. So, you know, Again, anyone in this house catches on fire is a tragedy, and they're trying to get there as quick as possible to save life first and then property.

[01:57:56] I think George could probably speak to this, too. We actually, when they put the water line in from the Appomattox up to Swift Creek, that also added a lot of fire hydrants all along River Road and Riverway Road.

[01:58:11] I know because I've had to call the fire department and utilities to come out and dig them out because stuff has grown around them. So we do have a lot of fire hydrants actually through the southern tier of Matoka, right? Mr. Chairman, members of the board, yes, that is true. Chesterfield County is very fortunate to have three interconnected water supplies.

[01:58:30] Our largest supply is the Appomattox River Water Authority. They have a 96 million gallon day plant down there. We have large diameter transmission mains. One of the lines can move 40 million gallons a day through that line. And that line would come from the southern portion of the county to the northern portion.

[01:58:46] And actually the transmission line ties all the way from Lake Chesden basically up to Hull Street. So there are corridors in there that the fire department could refill tanker trucks to be closer to the areas that don't have a public water system or fire protection.

[01:59:03] And we also have a proposed line that would be extended from Beach Road all the way up to Beaver Bridge and all the way up Beaver Bridge to Hull Street as well, possibly in the future, right? That is correct. And a lot of our system is expanded as areas in the county develop.

[01:59:25] So could we proffer that whenever we're putting in a new subdivision, that there has to be a certain distance where a fire hydrant has to be? So, Dr. Miller, I can help you with that question.

[01:59:42] Our current standards require fire hydrants at certain intervals, and then the fire code actually does too. The fire department plays more of an integral part with that than we do in utilities. I do know that the Rural Fire Code, if there's a water line running along, say, Beach Road or River Road, that every thousand foot they want to see a fire hydrant.

[02:00:02] Thank you. I think if there's no other questions, I think Mr. Gillies has some closing remarks he wants to give about tonight. Well, I have a question for him, too. Sorry. As Mr. Hodge mentioned earlier in this presentation, we had a very comprehensive and thorough review of ZOMOD at the last work session in August, and what I was going to touch on is a few of the additional discussions that have gone on since that meeting in August that have

[02:00:41] been either incorporated in the draft that you have before you tonight for ZOMOD or have been suggested very recently as to some additional changes. So, if you'll let me, I'll just kind of quickly go over those. There are three that I think I would be very important for you all to know and try to touch on.

[02:01:01] The first one is changes to what I call 19.247D, which is in the procedure section. This is basically in common language. Unfortunately, a few of you were concerned, especially Mr. Engel, that an existing ZOMOD applicant or not ZOMOD applicant, but an existing 19.1 zoning application that is on the books

[02:01:30] today would have the right to at least have the option to be heard with 19.1 and not have to be converted immediately to ZOMOT as of January 1 of 2026.

[02:01:49] So the suggestion was to give an additional 180 days from January of 2026, if you all would approve ZOMOT as it's written today, for those cases that have been filed currently under 19.1 to have the choice of either being heard and reviewed under 19.1 and those land uses, or they could obviously be converted to 19.2 and be heard with the new ordinance.

[02:02:22] And there are some advantages for some of these cases to go to 19.2, so they would probably voluntarily do that. But the idea that for six months, there would be an opportunity for these existing cases to be heard with the ordinance that they originally filed with.

[02:02:37] AND WE HAVE PUT THAT LANGUAGE INTO THE PROCEDURE SECTION. IT'S ON PAGE 350 OF YOUR DRAFT, AND I THINK THAT LANGUAGE WOULD COVER THE CONCERNS THAT MR. ENGLE AND A FEW OF YOU OTHERS HAVE BROUGHT UP TO, YOU KNOW, WHAT'S FAIR IS FAIR.

[02:02:54] THEY FILED UNDER THIS ORDINANCE. THEY SHOULD BE HEARD UNDER THAT ORDINANCE. AND THEN AFTER JULY OF 26, THE 180 DAYS, THAT OPTION NO LONGER EXISTS. It goes away, and either the case can be withdrawn or they can convert it to ZOMOD, but they don't have that grace period again for the 180 days.

[02:03:19] So that's the first thing. So that's 19.247D. The second was suggested consideration that would allow for smaller single-family detached lots to be included with our townhouse or TR zoning district.

[02:03:41] We currently in ZOMOD allow for single-family detached lots to be included in TR, but they have to be done with the SU zoning classification, which goes from the 7,500 square foot to the 4,500 square foot lot configuration, basically a 45 by 100 you know square foot a lot configuration there's been some concern that or at least suggested that maybe a smaller single-family detached a lot configuration should go into the TR district I think respectfully

[02:04:19] from a staff standpoint we we kind of like to wait on that for six months or so to see how the trends work with some of the cases that we have coming forward if it's really necessary to go to that small lot within TR and if you are insistent on trying to move forward with a smaller lot configuration combined with a townhouse our suggestion would be to put that in with the AR district which is our alternative residential district and have that as a combined townhouse and small lot configuration the reason for that is because we when we were first laying out the various zoning districts we were trying to keep

[02:04:58] the parameters of each of these districts fairly similar and the idea of a you know 75 to 4500 square foot lots a small lot but it's still pretty much a traditional lot configuration when you start getting smaller than 4500 square feet you're getting into a really narrow situation starts to become kind of a patio home or a zero lot line kind of configuration it would really fit more in our alternative uh residential district than it would the uh the townhouse district the but Townhouse is a more, I guess, a more traditional residential district, and we'd wanna try to stay as transparent as we can with the general public that, you know,

[02:05:38] this is a really smaller type of lot configuration, and so that would be the better place to put it from a staff's perspective, if that's what you wanted to do, but it might be worthwhile to just kinda sit on that for a little longer, seeing how the first six months works with some of the zoning cases we have, and then we could make such a change, but, totally up to you all for that well i think that was kind of what i had or talked about was adding ar into or adding making cottages and smaller alternatives available in ar as well as the su

[02:06:16] i think right now it's just an su well what we were what we were doing in the tr district the the townhouse district which is what i understood you wanted to see if we could add a smaller single family lot configuration. Right, which would be us to include basically some language that says single family detached could be both SU standards or it could be AR standards. From our perspective of staff, we felt kind of flip that on its head a bit and allow the townhouses into the AR district rather than to allow the AR district into the TR district. Does that make any sense?

[02:06:56] And the reason for that is because alternative residential has always been kind of our most flexible kind of catch-all residential district. So if that really was applicants' perspective, they could do it with AR. There are ways with existing split zoning that we have within ZOMOD that, you know, with the schematic plans that Mr. Donahoe mentioned earlier, that we could still get around some of the issues that I think some of the developers or builders have brought forward to you.

[02:07:30] But I really think kind of a sit and wait and see how we do for the first six months would be preferable for us. But if you want to see something done and made that change immediately, just have it put into the AR district that you could do townhouses using the option, the base option, which we have in that, which allows for, you know, lock configurations of, you know, like 1,300 square feet.

[02:08:00] So totally up to you all if you want to zig or zag on that particular item. Just to be clear, though, if you pick one of those options, it doesn't give you more units on the property. You still get the same amount of units.

[02:08:15] You're just able to build them on a smaller lot, which would allow for a lower-cost product to be able to be built, but it doesn't allow for more units to be built because I think some people will hear what we're saying, and they're like, oh, my gosh, they're just going to cram them in there like sardines.

[02:08:32] And that's not what we're saying. What we're saying is we're trying to give an opportunity for people that need the opportunity. On a smaller lot, the lot's going to cost less. The house can cost less so that we have more opportunities for ownership in the county, but not that we're going to put them in there like sardines and get as many of them in as we can.

[02:08:54] I just wanted to make sure we made that point clear. Mr. Chair, it also adds more green space. It does, but I think staff's position going into this was, you know, currently the smallest legal lot you can do in Chesterfield now is 12,000 square feet.

[02:09:12] The idea of allowing townhouses and lots of 4,500 square feet to be in the same zoning district was a big enough leap at first. The idea of trying to narrow that down to 3,000 or 2,500 square foot lots, that starts to get a little tight.

[02:09:31] And until we can get our kind of sea legs under Zomod and have a few of these mixed projects kind of come forward and see how they lay out, the idea of doing a more traditional small lot residential configuration with the 4,500 would be a smarter way to go with the rope out slower than too fast.

[02:09:54] And that's our position. But, again, it's not something we can't make a quick change to to basically allow townhouses into AR. That would be a change that could happen tonight, and I think we could make that adjustment pretty quickly within the staff.

[02:10:15] I guess my thought process behind it is that it gives you, so we've had opportunities to do affordable, but we couldn't figure out a way of putting mixed things together because the builder would have to get some. And so this gives us an opportunity to have, If someone wants to dedicate some land for Maggie Walker or for affordable units, we could put something smaller and make it look more and spread them out and make them look like they're more intentional as opposed to just, you know, we're just going to put these affordable people over here in the corner.

[02:10:48] And so this is what I just really feel that it's a mixed, a true mixed use community and gives builders more of an opportunity if they want to, to dedicate affordable units. That's just my thought process. If you all would like to go that direction and make, put it basically the townhouses as a use within AR, I think accomplishes that.

[02:11:12] And we can get that kind of typed up tonight for the meet, for the public hearing. I just want to kind of pick up on a thread, Andy, that you're saying I just want to follow you in that no document is perfect and that there'll be changes we'll have to make along the way. Most definitely.

[02:11:28] But my question is this. A builder comes or a developer comes to us and says, I want to do A, and we're looking at it and go, wow, that was one of the things we didn't catch when we were going through this process. can they build a, even though we didn't catch it, or are we caught in a situation where, well, we'll do it on the next time, but we can't do it this time? How does that work?

[02:11:53] I personally think with as much thought as we put in it, we can find a way to kind of allow things to move forward in the interim period and maybe make a more permanent fix six months or a year down the line whenever necessary. The idea of using what we call the zoning adjustments within a particular case is one of the tools we have to be able to make some of those adjustments that might work for the developer. And then we do have the zoning deviation clause that if it's a really

[02:12:29] good project with some real community advantages and the applicant can really spell that out, we don't want to pull that card out very often for sure and you know but I don't think we'll have to do that I think through the zoning adjustments we can get pretty good close pretty close and I think one of the concerns I've heard from builders and developers is you know they just don't want to have to put an exact line as to where this zoning district is a beats and bounds description versus another district side by side and then in the you know the design of the streets

[02:13:05] and the topography grading needs that they have, that that meets and bounds description no longer works for the way they're laying it out. And I think that's where the schematic plan might be the way if we had a case come forward and we didn't know exactly from a specific zoning district description from a meets and bounds description as to where it was going to hit, we could possibly include the zoning adjustment requirement that they had to come back at a later date with a schematic plan that did show exactly where those lines are.

[02:13:45] And we would, in that zoning process, be basically making sure that the developer at the zoning level would be saying, you know, this is going to be 30 acres of townhouses with, you know, 200 maximum number of units.

[02:14:00] And the other portion might be the single-family detached lots, and it would be 10 acres and would basically be 100 units, whatever. We would keep them to those density levels and that general area that was described in the zoning case.

[02:14:19] The line modification might occur a little differently when it gets to the schematic plan, but it would be a way for us to kind of work the case through without having to put it on pause for an indefinite period of time. Does that make sense? Yeah, I want to boil it down.

[02:14:36] A developer comes forward with a project. We're looking at ZoneMod and going, well, that's creative. We hadn't considered that before, and this is the way it's going to impact. However, it's not a way that we would like it to impact.

[02:14:52] But it's in ZoneMod. It's written that way. Are they allowed to do it? And I guess the question I'm asking is by right, if it's put in that way on ZoneMod. I want to be really clear. As Mr. Carroll brought out earlier, the whole zoning process is not really changing. It's still going to be, you know, has to, you know, get through staff with being a recommendation, hopefully.

[02:15:14] They sometimes don't wait for that and go forward to the Planning Commission. But the idea that it would then have to go to the Planning Commission and get their recommendation. And then you guys are the ultimate judges. If it is a bad plan and you don't like it, then turn it down. Okay. Thank you.

[02:15:32] Okay. The last thing, the third one that I'll mention, I'll hurry up here. We've had some discussion recently about religious institutions and our description of religious institution that there had been some in the general public, I thought, I think that misread what we had in ZOMOD.

[02:15:57] It came to our attention recently. Tonight, I provided you all a quick kind of over revision of that. The point, I think, that got misunderstood was that we had in that original language that child daycare centers and schools were not necessarily allowed within the religious institution boundaries.

[02:16:26] And that was not the case. Basically, all that we're saying is that we have a fairly broad definition of a religious institution. It includes churches, temples, so on and so forth, and it allows for the places of worship and that type of activity.

[02:16:45] We've even had a fairly long list of other types of activities that can go on a religious institution site. But the only two things that really you had to get extra permission for through a conditional use process was a child daycare center or a private school.

[02:17:03] And that's the policy we've had for decades here as to everybody, secular or religious, would have to go through the same process for either a child daycare center or for a private school. And we didn't word it great, so the idea of us trying to go back and get some better language that could explain that to the general public, I think is what we've attempted to do.

[02:17:28] And Mr. Carroll and I have had a couple conversations today to try to get there. And hopefully we got close. You got a question first? I actually have a question for a county attorney. Have you looked at everything that's been proposed and looked at concerns that have been presented to us?

[02:17:48] And can you confirm to us whether or not what we're doing complies with federal, state, and local law? It does, yeah. We have looked at it. We've actually studied this question over the years. It's not the first time that it's come up. So, no, this is, RELUPA is in the particular federal act that was raised, and there is not an inconsistency with RELUPA.

[02:18:09] So this will satisfy the federal law, yeah. Thank you. Mr. Chair, two things. One, if you look on the screen, one of the phrases that's been stricken from it is located in a permanent building. And the issue is brought forward on that because you may have – and this is only for new.

[02:18:30] This is not for existing religious institutions. Everybody who's already zoned already has a right to do all this or go through the process, for example, under conditional use to get to schools. So all that's staying in place.

[02:18:46] But I think the question that came up from the community was, what if a new church is created? They buy land. They're going to build. They're going through the building process. They want to put a tent up because they want to have ceremonies on a Sunday or on a weekend.

[02:19:02] Or they want to have a marriage, a wedding ceremony, whatever it might be. And so we're striking the language of permanent building to make sure that they understand that you can do this. It's not going to restrict it. The other thing that I think people forget about all of this, this is a deal in a little state, which means whatever the state says, whatever the federal government says in relating to regulations, especially we'll talk about specifically religious institutions, we have to follow what the law is.

[02:19:32] We can't change or supersede what the law is from the state. We can't change or supersede what the federal law is. We have to follow those guidelines, which is what our attorney just said, meaning that we've got the right language here. But that applies for all of our zoning ordinance.

[02:19:48] And if the state, wait a minute, we just talked about this. If they actually change something like they did a little while ago on July 1st of this year, We have to change our ordinance to match it because we cannot be outside of what the minimum expectations are of what the state or the federal government is.

[02:20:08] And so all of what we're doing here is still held to those same standards, the same standards that 19-1 was held to. It will be held in the 19-2. Nothing's changing from that perspective, but I appreciate the change in language here because I really think that when someone from the community looks at this, They need to understand clearly that, okay, yes, we can do this.

[02:20:32] And I think this really puts that in a better perspective. So I appreciate the change. I'm sorry, did you want to speak? I was just going to point out that, you know, we also tried to clean up. You had some concern that somehow we were clandestinely trying to eliminate Sunday school or, you know, those type of educational.

[02:20:58] We put some language in there that says, you know, during the services, fine, you can have the Sunday schools and so forth. That's not considered part of a private school or a daycare. It's part of the services that they're having at the church. So we included that. I think it's an excellent ad to really make it so that people understand it.

[02:21:17] They're not trying to curb what they can do on a Sunday or a Saturday evening when they have a church service or Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, because church could be held any day of the week. So I appreciate you making the changes. Okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you.

[02:21:33] That's pretty much it. Those three things are really the only big items that have kind of come up since that August 27th workshop that you all had. Mr. Minks, well, with their transition, and one more question for you. There was other concerns that somehow ZOMOD was going to change tax status for churches, and that's absolutely false, correct?

[02:21:55] No, it does not. Thank you. Just flat out does not, yeah. And I think that the plan, then, is to take all of these ideas, which are post that fairly lengthy memo that you all have seen that had all the red line changes, that these then will be added to that into a motion that will be easy to deal with.

[02:22:20] We're going to all try to put that in some language so that you all can have that tonight. All right. Thank you. And thank you for your patience. I know we're a little behind where we thought we would be. Sorry, Kelly. D, Mental Health Support Services Annual Update, Ms. Krajewski and Ms. Breed.

[02:22:38] Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, Vice Chair, members of the board, Dr. Casey. I am Jen Krajewski, and I have the privilege of serving as the chair of the Community Services Board for this year. I'm going to keep my remarks really short so I can, for the sake of time, so that Kelly has time to go over everything.

[02:22:57] But I did want to take a minute just to recognize our other board members who are here today. Our board members wanted to come to show our thanks and appreciation for your continued support for everything that the Community Services Board and mental health support services does.

[02:23:15] So with that, I'm going to go ahead and turn it right over to Kelly. All right. Thanks so much, Jen. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the board, Dr. Casey. It is my privilege to present our afternoon annual report. I will try to just hit the highlights in the sake of time and just keep us moving.

[02:23:34] So as you know, the mission of our department is to promote good health recovery outcomes for those with mental health, substance use, and intellectual disabilities. The picture references a recent graduate of our Families First program, and it's always great to see kids being successful as they move on to kindergarten.

[02:23:53] Just briefly talking about numbers served, last year we served about 8,100 folks. Of course, we touched another, about 15,000 through our prevention programs. There's one piece of data that we entered this time or included this time, which I think is very important to point out, and that's the number of intakes that we received just over the last year.

[02:24:12] There were over 2,061 intakes. Doesn't mean that individuals didn't previously receive our services and decide to come back, but that's a lot of new intakes within the past year. Going over our budget quickly, our budget right now, the budgeted revenue is about $64.9 million.

[02:24:31] Of that, $30.1 million represents Medicaid, followed by the county's contribution of $16.8 million, and then we have additional state and federal funds. One item to note is that we have seen a reduction in funding of about $150,000 in this FY26 budget over FY25, mainly because of some ARPA funding that we know was terminating in early 25, and then had some funding award decreases of about $50,000 in some of our other programs.

[02:25:01] It is important to note that of the $64.9 million budget, over half of the expenditures or the majority of the expenditures or for individuals with developmental and intellectual disabilities, followed by mental health, and then substance abuse or substance use comes in after that.

[02:25:20] About 11% of our budget goes towards administrative expenses, which is consistent, administrative support, which is consistent with what we have seen for prior years. But what's really important to note is of all of our FY26 additional funding requests, we were able to cover those by outside revenue with no charge to the general fund.

[02:25:46] Employee engagement is always important to us, and so these are some of our events over the past year. April was Autism Awareness Month, and of course, not only did our department support that by wearing blue, but a lot of county departments joined in, and county administration did that as well.

[02:26:03] So we really do appreciate their support and our efforts. And then, of course, we always have a very popular multicultural food festival in the spring, and we have staff that do cultural demonstrations. Everybody brings in food representing their cultures or something that's very important to their family, and it's always a big hit throughout the year.

[02:26:23] We did receive two NACO awards. One was for our infant and toddler play group. The team recognized early on after COVID that some of the delays that were happening with children, especially around socialization due to being kept in the home for long periods of time.

[02:26:40] And so they developed a group in English and Spanish that's been very popular. It's a six-week group that's held at the Children's Museum, and it's been very instrumental for families in trying to increase socialization. Also, our second NACO award was around promoting emergency behavioral response.

[02:26:58] There was a huge 988 campaign statewide that we were part of. We had lots of events over a period of about three months. And as you'll see later in the presentation, I think this is really what's helped the promotion of the number of responses that we've seen in Chesterfield through the use of 988 over the past year.

[02:27:19] Another key highlight that we're very proud of, I don't know if individuals have seen the Department of Behavioral Health dental bus. It will come to our county complex a couple of times a year. It actually provides free dental services to a lot of our individuals.

[02:27:35] I think we've served 90 over the past, or they've served 90 over the past couple of years. The bus actually parks in MIMS Loop, and so I'd like to thank John Neal and General Services for always providing the space for the bus to come. It stays there. There's ample parking for our individuals or our staff to bring our individuals in to be able to receive these services.

[02:27:57] A lot of individuals with intellectual disabilities really have a challenging time going to a dentist. They just, you know, often have to be sedated and so forth. And so this provides a different level of care than they might receive on a regular basis.

[02:28:13] Is this on top of what dental services they have at LucyCore that they offer? Because when I took the tour there, they had the dental area there that they were doing free dental also. This is totally separate. This is specifically for the individuals that we serve.

[02:28:30] Okay. And they provide a full array of dental services, x-rays, you know, the whole thing. And now these individuals are on a six-month rotation as well. So it's just been a tremendous program. I'd like to recognize David Meadows. He's here, our assistant director for community services, for spearheading this program for us.

[02:28:51] Housing partnerships, you all have been tremendous over the last few years to support our partnerships that we currently have been engaged in and they're now coming to fruition. Back in April, Horner Run had their ribbon-cutting ceremony and I'm pleased to report that we have now placed 11 individuals into apartments.

[02:29:11] Through our original partnership, we were working with them for eight units, which are all filled now, but we had additional three individuals who could qualify on their own, which was really a success. So that's why we have 11 units that are occupied by the residents that we serve.

[02:29:28] We're currently qualifying and housing the individuals for Lambert's Landing. So we're going to have up to six individuals that can occupy three apartments. Right now we're working with three. And then with the recent groundbreaking with Colebrook that occurred in August, we have the potential for 14 more units coming up.

[02:29:47] That's part of our housing services. We have a strong permanent supportive housing program that we've talked about. This program is fully funded by the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services. We receive ongoing funding to support these services. And when we first started out, they allotted us 30, I guess, slots for individuals.

[02:30:08] And that has now increased to 45 slots. Looking at the outcomes here, since 22, we have housed 42 individuals within this program. Some of the things I'd like to point out here, though, that's really amazing, is out of these 42 placements, we have only had one eviction.

[02:30:25] We've had zero discharges due to behavioral health issues. 100% have health insurance, which is huge. 89% now have a primary care physician. These are really big health outcomes.

[02:30:41] And then, of course, Chesterfield has been deemed as number one statewide in housing stability for this program, so we're very proud of that accomplishment. The young lady that you see here, She actually was having a real issue of being in and out of hospitals, chronic homelessness.

[02:30:57] Her family, you know, had some challenges and didn't want her staying with them. And she has been housed through this program since 2023, you know, stably housed. She's now paying her rent. She's attending Chester House and no hospitalization.

[02:31:13] So she's been a huge success story as well. September is recovery month. so we always want to talk a little bit about some of the substance use statistics that we're seeing. In 2024, 53 people lost their lives in Chesterfield from a drug poisoning event, which does represent a decrease in 2023, so that is positive.

[02:31:35] Of course, there's a combination for what we attribute to the decreases, and that is the availability of naloxone that we have well throughout the county, easy access to treatment, increased access to medication-assisted treatment that we have in many of our county departments and then, of course, community tolerance levels.

[02:31:54] Opioid-related deaths accounted for 73% of the total overdose deaths within the county. We do continue to see the drug supply being contaminated. Xylazine continues to be an issue, and this is the first year that Xylazine was a regular part of testing for the medical examiner.

[02:32:14] But just to quickly talk about how we have tried to impact these efforts, over 4,000 boxes of Narcan were distributed by the CSB this past year. That does not include the distribution efforts that are occurring in the libraries, community corrections, Department of Social Services, and the jail.

[02:32:30] So there's many more boxes being delivered. We also have tried some things. We have what we call Narcan vending machines or Naluxone distribution boxes. these are placed throughout the county in four different locations we have one at mental health support services there's one at the department of social services the jail and also the courthouse and approximately 600 naloxone kits have been distributed through these boxes i think we're averaging um can't remember how many a month but but it's quite a bit and these are located

[02:33:06] outside of the facility so folks don't have to walk in in order to obtain it they just need to drive in the parking lot, and they'll see where they're located. In addition to this, you'll see our van. It's a mobile outreach van that goes out into the community, and through these efforts, they've distributed over 300 first aid wound kits, which is also very much needed for individuals affected by the xylozine, you know, ingestion. Over 4,000 fentanyl testing strips have been distributed 10,000 condoms we've had peer services to over a hundred individuals in the

[02:33:43] community and they've helped over 30 people either obtain or maintain recovery housing so this van is becoming well known people see it coming especially out in the community they trust you know the services that they're receiving because it's not just receiving items it's also being steered towards services as well so again all of these we think are really helping to contribute to reducing some of our overdoses. Chesterfield Recovery Academy, today was a really special day. The first lady actually came and did a tour at Chesterfield Recovery Academy

[02:34:19] and listened to some individuals tell some very powerful stories of the success of this program. We completed our third year of operation and had 31 students served during the year. seven graduated um over 2 000 clinical sessions were provided to these individuals and 159 clinical recovery groups so there's a lot of supports that are provided in the school system um in addition to that we started this year there's tons of partners that are now um working with the program ramps for recovery comes every friday and provides some peer services and there's lots

[02:34:54] others who are providing support but the school year this year started back with 18 students that are representing seven localities so it really has expanded when we first started it was primarily Chesterfield students who are who were attending the school and now they're coming from New Kent and Charles City and Richmond and Henrico and Powhatan so it's really taken off to be the regional school that it was envisioned to be really quick question And what's the capacity at Chesterfield Recovery Academy?

[02:35:25] They asked that today as part of that. And it was mentioned 40 to 50 students, given the complement of staff that we have right now. Seems a little bit high, because I think we originally were thinking around 25 students with the current staff that we have.

[02:35:40] But the model may be such that they can have a few more students now. Is it a limiting factor of the staff or a limiting factor of the actual building? Might be a little combination of both. Moving on, September is also Suicide Awareness Month.

[02:35:58] So staff have been busy participating in lots of community events. And I know Melissa Ackley, our prevention manager, recently participated in the Behind the Mic podcast. This slide actually shows the number of, you know, suicide-related police calls. And then, of course, that's broken down by attempted and completed suicides.

[02:36:18] The orange bar represents juveniles as part of this. Overall, the numbers are looking better than they have before all the way through 2024. We have seen a little bit of a trend this month upwards, and so we're continuing to monitor that.

[02:36:35] But all of the services that our department provides to the schools as far as doing the signs of suicide classes and really providing a lot of supports in the community has remained. And so we're hoping that that is aiding in helping these numbers in some way.

[02:36:50] In the past, we've seen the, say, 65 or 70-plus also be a high percentage. I don't see that in here. Do we know how that's trending? Because that was concerning the last time we heard the stuff. I do not know, but definitely can follow up on that.

[02:37:08] If you could let us know. Absolutely. I'd just be curious. With all the interventions we're doing now through the fire department and mobile services, if that's helped with some of the elderly that we're also becoming, you know, into these situations.

[02:37:28] Okay, I'll definitely follow up. And it'll also be interesting with regard to the implementation of telehealth at the schools and to see what kind of impact they have, too. Moving on to co-response, as we know, Marcus Lurt legislation went into effect several years ago.

[02:37:46] We just completed our second year of following the protocols and implementing our co-response teams. Continues to be truly a success. As I mentioned before, with the 988 calls and the campaign that occurred last year, when I presented last year, the 988 calls for Chesterford were around 2,500.

[02:38:09] And if you look, there's 11,795 calls this past year. I actually just received the numbers for last month, and there were over 2,000 calls last month for Chesterfield for 988. So it really is a success here in the number of calls that they're able to take on our behalf.

[02:38:31] Also, when you look at co-response, so to remind you, co-response is when our crisis team will go out with the police and try to stabilize somebody in the community that is having an acute behavioral response in the moment. There were 486 calls over the past year.

[02:38:46] We're averaging 40 a month. But when you look at the success, over 62% of these calls are being able to be stabilized or to receive services in the community without needing to be hospitalized. So, again, this is what we want to see.

[02:39:01] An even better number is only 7 out of the 486 resulted in arrests, so that's less than 0.1%. Juveniles, we see it's a little bit higher than last year, so we're monitoring that. But when you look at the patrol hours saved, over 1,060 hours is a halftime position.

[02:39:19] That's one FTE, half of an FTE for the police. So thrilled about this. We now have three co-response teams. Now we started with two. We have three, and we're quickly looking at whether we need to add a fourth team.

[02:39:36] So Chesterfield is the first to have more than two mobile response teams. So we have been given a lot of accolades about that. But I want to point out, because I'm going to quickly go over a success story in a minute, co-response is for those acute behavioral emergencies.

[02:39:53] You know, we want to be able to protect those police and mental health resources. But we get calls, not we, but the county gets calls all the time for individuals that we know are not doing well in the community. It may not be an acute crisis needing something right there in the moment that's from an emergency standpoint, but we know they're not functioning well.

[02:40:13] They may call county departments over and over again and express some needs. And so with that, the SPRINT team was developed. This is a, it's called strategic planning regarding individuals in need or transition, so they just call it SPRINT. But this is a multi-disciplinary and multi-county department team.

[02:40:34] they meet every single tuesday it's dss it's the mobile integrated health care team it is mental health it is police it is you know fire and ems it's so many departments that meet and what they do is they stab cases for any calls either that have been received that week where somebody might need to go out and check on somebody or it might be following along individuals just to make sure that they're still doing well they may not keep calling but they may not keep calling because they're getting this ongoing support from the Sprint team.

[02:41:06] This is not a real picture, but this is just a representation of a success story. This success story is going to be the everyday excellence for next month for the board. So I'm not going to go into a lot about it, but I will say that many of you have probably heard this was a grandmother and her autistic son living in a library parking lot in their van.

[02:41:29] They had been in this van for, I think, two and a half months. you know, hadn't had showers, hot showers in, well, I think the grandmother hadn't had a hot shower in a year, had it been several months since they had had just a shower at all. They had three cats living with them. It was just a lot that they were trying to deal with individually.

[02:41:51] When the team became aware of this, one particular day, the whole team kind of rallied around and met out at the library to try to support this family. At the time, there were just so many things that needed to be taken care of. Not only did, you know, just trying to get them to talk to staff and providers and crisis workers was a big deal. That took a little bit to make that happen. I think it was eventually the son, the grandson, that felt comfortable enough to start talking with

[02:42:25] all of our providers and then eventually kind of encouraged the grandma to be receptive to having conversations. But when it came action time, it was things like, you know, the cat's head urinated all over so many things in the van that the grandmother wasn't even wearing clothes. So there were staff that went out and bought clothes like within 10, 15 minutes to try to support her in that way so that she could be removed from the van. They were very concerned about the van. They were concerned about their cats because that was like family to them. So animal control came and assured them that the cats would be taken care of if they would receive the help. There was a

[02:43:04] neighbor next door who actually had been looking out for them. They were very concerned about losing their vehicle because that was all the possessions that they had. So he agreed to let them park the van at his home. He also agreed to wash all of their clothes and to provide that support. And then we had a grandmother who had a lot of medical needs. She had a lot of skin issues that had cracked open, a lot of bleeding. Well, there was fire EMS and the mobile integrated health care team that were right there attending to her needs. And again, I could go on and on, but this gives the flavor of all of the folks that were involved. Kiva Rogers was here earlier,

[02:43:41] but DSS played a tremendous role in this situation. They worked to get the individuals housed um in an apartment temporarily until longer um term plans could be developed and so um people were getting food for them in the moment i mean it just it this is all of our all of our county departments working together and this is not just one case they do this all the time but i'm very pleased to say i'll fast forward i know that um the son was able to obtain a group home placement which he is thrilled about and i know she um last i heard was in a nursing facility and and doing

[02:44:21] very well there as well so it just shows the power of collaboration between all of our departments and everybody truly came together which is why we want to do the recognition next month it's my understanding that miss mike mabe and the library folks and and chelsea from uh perkinson that they all had been helping also it was amazing yes yes yeah so yes one thing i would say on that though is that um they have been there for a little while and it came to my attention through

[02:44:54] social media if people in the community um recognize this and they're trying to help somebody let us help too and reach out to us sooner nobody ever reached out to me directly i saw it through social media and called kiva and that's how we started this process but we could have intervened a lot sooner had it not just been shared on social media but it would have been shared with social services or mental health services or fire department and so i just encourage citizens if

[02:45:31] they come across somebody in need to reach out to us sooner to get help for the people that are in need absolutely and we've done a lot of education too with our county departments to to let them know sprint is available so if they're getting calls there they've been a great referral source to us as well just fast forward um in the future this is something that is coming down the pike we are really paying attention to this but it is the goal of the virginia csb system to move all community service boards to certify behavioral health clinics by 2028 this is the national best

[02:46:05] practice standard for community based behavioral health. It does require a coordinated approach to physical primary and behavioral health care. We do all of that now. The primary physical piece that we would have to work out through either some contracts or determining how we can provide more primary care within our service delivery system. But the CCBHC model demands system standardization accountability and evidence-based practices i am on the county not the county the state's review team looking at these standards and i can say that all of the evidence-based

[02:46:43] practices that they require we already do within our department also a big point of contention across the csv system is that folks are kind of pushing back on the requirement to have to be accredited because they feel like that's an expense and a lot of demand on their resources as well we've been fully accredited since 1997 and so again I feel like we're very well positioned if this is the direction the system moves in we're accredited by CARF the Commission on Accreditation of Rehab Facilities our next survey is in 2027 and it's our understanding

[02:47:21] they just came out with CCBHC standards that boards can be reviewed by so we'll be pursuing that if this continues in that direction. So can't do it without our partners. I have them listed here, but we also can't do it without our senior team.

[02:47:38] So I would like to please ask our senior team to stand. Some couldn't be here today, but we have Danielle Sayre, who's our finance director. We have Doug Bilsky, who's our assistant director for clinical services. David Meadows, who is our assistant director for community services.

[02:47:55] And we have Nicole Carter, our human resources director, who is all here today. We also have Tim Adams, our Director for Planning and Quality, Dr. Angelo Catalica, our Medical Director, and Brooke Cook is our Administrative Assistant. They're not present, but everybody has a key role in what we've presented on today.

[02:48:14] And I'd also like to ask our board members to stand as well. So, I'll entertain any questions at this point. I think if we have any, we can catch you at dinner.

[02:48:33] Sounds good. Thank you. E, consent agenda highlights, Mr. Bowles. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the board and Dr. Casey.

[02:48:54] In addition to the item that Mr. Hayes reviewed earlier, I have a few other consent agenda highlights. And the first is related to a contract award for the Fallen Creek Police Precinct, which is the first of four stations authorized in the 2022 bond referendum.

[02:49:12] This station will front Midlothian Turnpike right next to the Springline Development and near Chippenham Parkway. This particular item authorizes a construction contract to Rikon Construction for $10.24 million for construction of the station, which will be a two-story, 17,200-square-foot building.

[02:49:38] Includes roll call room, staff and supervisor offices. It has exercise and locker room space for the officers to use, as well as a vehicle sally port. Just as a reminder on this, the police station currently leases its precinct buildings, and those stations have long since become not adequate for the department's operational needs.

[02:50:03] So this begins to the first of, as I said, four to transition. This item also authorizes the creation of a full-time position to serve as a facilities coordinator for the police department. With this transition to own facilities versus leased position with this type of expertise is going to be needed because once we're all said and done, police will operate out of seven facilities throughout the county.

[02:50:33] Next item is another construction contract, $2.46 million to centennial contractors for the stadium field at the Diamonds at Iron Bridge. So this creates the covered stadium seating, a pedestrian plaza, 272 individual seats, as I said, with the cover and a press box, outdoor gathering spaces, landscaped areas, and dedicated parking for food trucks.

[02:51:05] This work or this project, I should say, complements all the previously completed fields and the restroom building, which is nearing completion. Funding for this was previously approved from tourism improvement proceeds.

[02:51:21] Cosby High School Access Project. This project addresses a long-standing access challenge to this school and creates separate bus traffic from the drop-off areas and those that are driving themselves to school. This is a $3.8 million project that, as I said, creates that third means of ingress and egress from Village Square Parkway. Two public hearings,

[02:51:58] that we're requesting to set for October both related to the Stratton Park area the first is to accept a conveyance of just over 167 acres from again from Stratton Park from the Commonwealth of Virginia and to grant an open space easement over that property the county has leased this same area since 2006 and both parties have worked to to convey the county for the county the property and maintain the open space characteristics as required by the

[02:52:34] will of Mary Stratton, who originally donated the property to Ferrum College many years ago. The second public hearing is to lease two of the fields at Stratton Park to Richmond United Soccer Group. These fields have been used for youth soccer for many years and under this proposed agreement, Richmond United It would have access to these fields, but they would also assume all the maintenance responsibility as well as the responsibility to replace the turf during the term of the lease.

[02:53:12] This also is, in conjunction with this, we're wrapping up the project at the Lowe's Athletic Complex where we'll have the complementary youth soccer uses there doing a project to rehab all of those fields at a fifth field as well as parking and restroom facility.

[02:53:33] And this month, which we started last time around, two consent retirements, Chip Pulley in the Utilities Department retiring with 30 years of service and Patricia Mullen Mental Health Support Services for 27 years.

[02:53:51] That's all we have for today. I'm happy to take any questions if you have any. I just want to say that's 57 years between two people. That's worth celebrating even if they're not going to be on the podium tonight. So we thank them and their families for their service to the county.

[02:54:15] Item 5, reports. Are there any questions regarding the reports? Seeing none, the reports are approved. Item 6, 15-minute citizen comment period on unscheduled matters. This time is designated for citizens to talk to the Board of Supervisors.

[02:54:33] 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.

[02:54:54] We have one speaker, Jerry Cowan. Thank you.

[02:55:10] Thank you. All right. She helped me get all my papers and everything in order to come.

[02:55:26] I appreciate the help. Thank you.

[02:55:44] That I believe that the board would want to consider if you do reconsider implementing vote centers for Chesterfield County. In the August 27th meeting, I provided a letter to each of you noting some concerns that I had.

[02:56:00] I'm going to restate those, and more concerns have come to my attention since then. Crowding and long lines at reduced number of precincts, additional equipment would be needed, such as pole pads, ballot scanners, ballot-on-demand equipment, and there are no ballot-on-demand machines now in use on Election Day, only at early voting.

[02:56:22] We would need more election workers both inside the precinct to man the additional equipment needed and for curbside to handle the crowds, to reduce long lines and wait times. Using ballot-on-demand gives the voter the correct ballot for the precinct, but it takes a lot longer.

[02:56:40] A simple paper ballot is only 16 minutes from start to finish. The ballot-on-demand process requires many more steps. I also expressed concerns in that letter about discouraged voters who could feel disenfranchised due to the long lines and distant location of their precinct, especially for minority and elderly voters.

[02:56:59] There could be communication issues, the requirement for notification of Chesterfield's voters of changes due to the lack of reliable communication of voting changes for Chesterfield, resulting from the loss of the Chesterfield Observer, unreliability of the Postal Service in Richmond, and the expense of purchasing any TV or radio time.

[02:57:20] The impact on Election Day crowds from potential statewide voting changes that are being discussed, perhaps combining Virginia's elections into the presidential year instead of holding off-year elections, or the possibility of reducing the number of early voting days from 45 could also increase the number of voters on Election Day, which would exacerbate the crowding situation.

[02:57:42] Voter turnout is always unpredictable, no matter what anybody says, possibly requiring vote tracking, which would be a terrible privacy issue if vote centers were elected. Fewer locations to absorb any excess, unpredicted voters could result in more overcrowding and more confusion. No predictability either for staffing or for voting supplies, such as running out of ballots, could be also a problem. Additional potential for election integrity problems could arise, more voters coming from anywhere in Chesterfield with current no-ID

[02:58:19] requirements, and more same-day registration potential issues, such as those we experienced last year at Virginia State University with 1,000 SDRs that we had to do. Resolution of vote center ballots and voting irregularities could crop up. Vote centers cannot really be audited because all of the ballots from all of the precincts drop from the scanner into the ballot box underneath the scanner, and they're all commingled. All the precincts are commingled together. So it would be very difficult to audit. Who decides where the vote centers should go? The location of the vote

[02:58:59] centers could... Your three minutes are up. Can you wrap it up quickly? Oh, I'm sorry. Excuse me. Yeah, it was really quick. The location of the vote centers could decide an election because many times election results could be based upon which precincts are closed and where they're relocated. Tennessee voters are unhappy. According to a recent poll that was taken, their candidates are unhappy because they have to visit every precinct. I spoke to, I called Tennessee and a Tennessee voting official in a county that had implemented vote centers said, quote, some savings, but not a significant amount of savings. Lastly, there was a national

[02:59:37] Rasmussen poll, where 68% of those surveyed support requiring voters to vote in their very specific voting center rather than voting in the vote center model. Finally, once they were implemented, how do you rescind or remove the county from the vote center model? Thank you for your time. I appreciate your attention. And again, happy Constitution Day. Mr. Chair, we need a motion to recess for dinner in room 502 with the community services board second all in favor aye

[03:00:17] good evening and welcome to the evening session of the september 17th board of supervisors meeting

[03:02:54] i verified that all board members have received copies of the comments posted on the online comment portal for consideration on matters before us tonight these comments are part of the public record and will be attached to the meeting minutes at this time i'll ask dr miller to give the invocation.

[03:03:12] Thank you, Mr. Chair. In this moment, we pause. We breathe in deeply, gathering strength. We breathe out slowly, releasing fear. May clarity rise where there is confusion.

[03:03:31] May courage steady us where uncertainty reigns. May compassion guide our words, our choices, our hearts. In the face of challenge, may we not harden but open.

[03:03:49] In the midst of struggle, may we remember that we are not alone. Together, let us walk with hope, speak with kindness, and act with wisdom. May peace begin with us here and now. Amen.

[03:04:11] We would like to call forward Deputy County Administrator Matt Harris to lead the Pledge of Allegiance. Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[03:04:36] Item 11, County Administration Update, Dr. Casey. Good evening, members of the board and the public that is here and the public that is watching at home. If I could call up Aging and Disability Services Manager Kim Graves to make our presentation to our centenarians.

[03:04:59] Each year we look forward to this truly remarkable group of individuals that are 100 years or older that live in our county. Their wisdom, resilience, and stories deserve to be recognized, remembered, and celebrated. And I just have one slight thing to share. Ethel Cartham from England is the oldest living person per the Guinness Book of World Records today, born in 1909. And she was once asked to reveal her secret to long life. And she said, pretty simple, you just say yes to every opportunity because you never know what it will lead to, have a positive mental attitude, and have everything in moderation. With that, Ms. Graves.

[03:05:37] Chairman, honorable members of the board, and Dr. Casey, thank you for your continued support as we honor and celebrate some of the most remarkable individuals in Chesterfield County, our centenarians, residents who are 100 years or older.

[03:05:53] According to the global data from 2024, there are approximately 101,000 centenarians living in the United States today. Right here in Chesterfield County, we are proud to have 104 centenarians, a number that speaks volumes about the strength and vitality of our community. This evening, we are privileged to recognize 11 new centenarians and 11 alumni for a total of 22 extraordinary individuals, several of whom who are with us in the audience. Each of them was born in the year 1925 or before,

[03:06:31] and today we celebrate not only their age, but also the wisdom, resilience, and legacy they represent at this at this time i'd like to begin introducing our new centenarians as i call your name please raise your hand so we can acknowledge and celebrate you i think oh do you okay okay

[03:06:58] sorry first we have dorothy bell 101 years of age credits her long life to putting god first loving her family and treating others with kindness a proud mother of four she's cherished family game nights and has spent her life lifting others, especially children in need. Her greatest

[03:07:32] joy today is chatting with her beloved grandson, Tony. She is not present. Next, we have Dorothy Brodicks. 101 years of age, attributes her long life to loving and serving Jesus and trusting in the power of prayer. A self-taught steamstress and devoted matriarch of five generations, She has inspired many through her faith, music, and service.

[03:08:08] From the Richmond Food Bank to King's Dominion's kitchen, she still sings, prays, and colors with grace and joy every day. Dorothy is not here with us today. Is there a representative? Next, we have Sarah Carlton, who is here with us today.

[03:08:32] She's 100 years of age, is a lifelong giver and gardener who spent decades in service through her church, women's club, and garden club. From crafting award-winning flower arrangements to knitting scarves and shawls for those in need, she shares warmth, often a box of chocolate kisses, and a kind heart.

[03:08:56] Next, we have Jack Ford. His family is attending today. Jack is 99 years of age, a World War II veteran, and a lifelong public servant.

[03:09:15] attributes his longevity to staying active, working hard, and not sweating the small stuff, plus a healthy dose of fruit. Known as Papa Jack to his large, loving family, he has lived a remarkable life of service. Rosa Ford, she is in the audience today. She's 100 years of age, proudly raised three children as a single working mother, and spent her career supporting schools

[03:09:49] and students across Richmond. A Bon Air resident of 471 years, she stays sharp with word searches and solitaire and credits her longevity to staying active, laughing often, and a strong faith in God. Next, we have Sancho Leonardo. He is not here with us today. He's 100 years of age, proudly served in the U.S. Navy from the end of World War II through the Vietnam War, supporting his

[03:10:26] family after the hardships of war in the Philippines. He credits his long life to rare steaks, fresh ahi tuna, and a positive attitude and a great sense of humor. Next, we have Mildred Parham. She is here with us today. She is 99 years of age, lovingly known as Grandma Parham, cherished her time as a foster grandparent to elementary students, a retired Central State hospital worker and lifelong woman of faith. She now enjoys reading her Bible and doing word search

[03:11:04] puzzles, crediting her longevity to her deep trust in God. Next, we have Dick Reed. He is not here with us today. He is 99 years of age. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and spent 35 years in civilian service with the Air Force and Army, specializing in aircraft and missile calibration a mississippi farm boy metrology expert he credits his long life to eating right

[03:11:38] and staying active i don't believe next next we have maddie stansbury um she is with us today in the audience she is 100 years of age she's a proud mother of five grandmother of 12 and great grandmother of 16 who raised her family with love and faith after losing her husband a retired nurse and lifelong church members. She lives by Philippians 4.13 and says the secret to her

[03:12:13] long life is water, prayer, joy, and minding her own business. Next, we have Maxine Warner.

[03:12:29] She is 100 years of age, and she is here with us today in the audience. She is a trailblazer as one of the first female firefighters as a longtime active member of her community. A devoted mother and great-grandmother, she credits her longevity to staying productive, healthy, and living with a generous heart, always by God's grace. Next, we have Margaret Whiteman, or Whiteman, excuse me. She is not with us today. I'm not sure if her family is here. She's 100 years

[03:13:07] of age, dedicated her career to teaching at Virginia State University and positively impacting hundreds of students. A proud member of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, she credits her longevity to good nutrition exercise and a strong faith rooted in her church community. Now for our alumni. We are also celebrating the alumni of our centenarian program, some of which are here with us tonight.

[03:13:41] Please raise your hand when you hear your name. Lee Beal, Anita De Giacomo. She is not with us. She's a hundred years of age. Mary Elizabeth Gaskell. She is not with us. She's 101. Oh,

[03:14:04] I'm sorry. Okay. Um, we have Julia Mayfield. She's 101. We have Eva Moen. She is 102. We have Francis Rogers, 100. Norma Schott, 103. Anna Marie Snelling. She is with us in attendance today.

[03:14:35] She is 102. We have Arlene Stanton. She is with us today. She is 102. We have Mr. Philip White with us today in attendance, and he was telling me all kinds of jokes as I was sitting next to him.

[03:15:02] And we have our oldest centenarian, who's 105, Maria Thomas. So Ms. Thomas, her grandson has wrote something that I'm going to read. It says, today we celebrate more than just the passing of time, we celebrate a life that has shaped our family in ways words can scarcely capture. To my

[03:15:37] beloved grandma, whose kindness, strength, and unwavering love has been the foundation upon our family stands. At 105 years of age, you are living proof that love is timeless, that strength knows no age, and that the best things in life are those that come from the heart. Through every twist and turn, you've shown us what resilience truly means. Your grace and wisdom have been a guiding light, leading us through challenges and reminding us to always be kind, always be loving, and always cherish one another. Grandma, you are more than a mother, grandmother, and great

[03:16:14] grandmother. You are the heart of our family, the one who holds us all together, who fills our lives with laughter, warmth, and immeasurable love. I am beyond grateful for every moment spent with you, for every story you've shared and for every lesson you've imparted.

[03:16:31] You are my favorite person, my role model, and my source of inspiration. Your strength, spirit, and grace continue to inspire me every day. May this special day be filled with love and joy you've so selfishly given to all of us over the years.

[03:16:47] Here's to many more years of health, happiness, and family with you at the center of it all. Happy 105 years of life, Grandma. who are cherished beyond words. With all my love, Andrew. Next slide is in memory of those we have

[03:17:24] lost. Let's take a moment to recognize these centenarians that have recently passed, many whom who have joined us in previous centenarian celebrations. Robert Brown, 102 years of age, Sarah Harrison, 104 years of age, Gladys Kelly, 103 years of age, and William May, 100 years of age.

[03:17:47] So I want to thank the centenarians and their families for sharing these remarkable life stories and advice. I'd also like to give a special thank you to Jackie Weiss-Gerber, public fare specialist with the Social Security Administration. Thank you. Wow, this is a definitely a crowd that we are happy to see each year and some of you coming back over and over and we hope to see you for

[03:18:27] many more years to come and you know a lot of it I hear a couple things one keep your mind healthy and strong and keep your face strong and a little bit of good eating in there the one thing I'm not I'm surprised of is in the past we've seen a lot more ice cream in there and y'all must not eat a lot of ice cream anymore but um if you do that's fine I just I'm used to seeing that up there as one of the top things at the end but um what you're doing keep it up um you're an inspiration

[03:19:02] to generations here in the county thank you for as long as you've been with the county um in living in the county representing the county as citizens and um wow i'm just in awe any other board members want to share anything all right well thank you all for being here you're welcome to stay the whole night, but you might want to get on out of here, too.

[03:23:24] Mr. Chair, if I could proceed with the rest of the county administration update, sir.

[03:23:48] Dr. Casey. So as we're, I appreciate everybody's patience. Thank you, sir. I appreciate everyone's patience as we've done this transition in a very important moment for those centenarians and their families each year. I only had four more quick updates for you, but if I could invite the Perkinson Center's Chelsea Buehl's director and Swift Creek Mill Theater's managing director, Stephen Kohler, to come forward.

[03:24:14] Each year at the beginning of the fall season, I think it's just appropriate to recognize the theater and arts programs that are done here within Chesterfield County, in addition to our high schools and Bright Point also. And we're gonna work further and further to promote out all those types of activities that are before the people.

[03:24:31] And on the screen here, you just see the variety and ways through which the people can stay engaged. and seeing all of these performances, I try and put on my bucket list personally each year to visit as many places as possible and use all these places as gift ideas, quite frankly, for family and friends to also enjoy live entertainment and theater and arts.

[03:24:52] So with that said, if I could have the leaders of the Perkinson Arts Center and Swift Creek Mill Theater, they were gonna do sort of a brief update of each of their seasons, so please come forward.

[03:25:13] - Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the board, Dr. Casey, thank you so much for the opportunity to speak to you all this evening and including the Perkinson Center on this evening's agenda. We are excited to share a few of the highlights from our 24-25 season, a year marked by meaningful milestones, creative growth, and continued progress towards our vision of building a more vibrant community that is connected through the arts.

[03:25:38] Before I dive in, I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge several important members of our extended team who are with us this evening. Seated behind me are representatives from our collaborative community, members of the CCAF board, dedicated staff members, community volunteers, and key partners, all of which are responsible for the success of the Perkinson Center's mission. And if it's okay, I'd like to acknowledge them with a round of applause,

[03:26:06] please. Please stand. As you always hear me say, it takes a village. Now, before I get into everything. I thought it would be appropriate, as we are getting ready to celebrate the Chesterfield Sports Hall of Fame, I thought it would be fitting to share our 24-25 Perkinson Center scorecard, an annual snapshot of the impact, momentum, and milestones that are centered on the

[03:26:44] Perkinson Center's mission. First up, we have honors and recognition. We are incredibly proud to have been named the 2024 Nonprofit of the Year by the Chesterfield Chamber of Commerce, a testament to the dedication of our team, volunteers, and partners. We were also honored to be recognized for the third year in a row as a top three finalist for the Best Performing Arts Theater in the Best 2025, presented by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, placing us, the Perkinson Center, alongside some of the region's most respected arts institutions.

[03:27:21] Now, the announcement hasn't been made, so I don't know how it will come out in the wash, but it is a privilege and an honor to be among some of the top venues. I tell you, the small team, we are very privileged and honored. When it comes to community engagement, this year we were present and active at a wide variety of community events, expanding our reach and reinforcing our role as a trusted cultural hub.

[03:27:47] These events connect us with residents of all backgrounds, ensuring that the arts are visible, accessible, and relevant to our community's needs. Now from the visual art side of the house, this year, our Baxter and Elaine Perkinson Jr. Art Gallery allowed storytelling to come to life and had an opportunity for community expression.

[03:28:11] This space continues to serve as a vessel, seeking new perspectives and providing a hub and a home for emerging artists, as well as established artists alike. Now, from the performing arts side and the arts education side of the house.

[03:28:28] In 2024, 2025, we produced and presented a remarkable 189 events, including 37 Perkinson Center signature events, 22 artful gatherings where we continued to foster community, creativity, and art making, 34 arts education and gallery events, and a six-week summer theater camp where mines were opened and exploration in the theater arts happened.

[03:28:57] Additionally, we also were able to have 10 Creative Hearts box distributions, which produced 478 boxes of art activities that got into the hands of community members who need it most, individuals who are receiving long-term medical care and are also receiving trauma-informed care as well.

[03:29:18] In addition to these highlighted events, The center was also utilized for unique space uses, 86 to be exact. These offered an opportunity for fellow nonprofits, corporations, and production companies to utilize the facility in all its glory.

[03:29:36] On the screen, you'll see some of our upcoming events that we have for our 25-26 season. And let me tell you, we've got plenty of things waiting in the wings. These milestones remind us why we do what we do. but more importantly, they fuel our drive to seek growth, to reach more people, to tell more stories, and to continue building the Perkinson Center that reflects and uplifts the full diversity of our community.

[03:30:07] As I close out this evening, I want to extend a sincere thank you to each and every one of you for your time and your continued support of our mission. In a world that often feels uncertain, the arts are not just a luxury, they are a necessity.

[03:30:23] They bring us together, reflect our shared humanity, and help build stronger, more connected communities. And this is something we desperately need right now. At the Perkinson Center, we remain committed to maintaining that arts are accessible for all.

[03:30:42] We invite you and members of our community to explore, create, and experience everything that the arts have to offer in the year to come. Our 2025-2026 season has just begun, and we can't wait to share what we have in store for you all.

[03:30:58] Thank you. Good evening. Thank you so much for inviting us all here tonight.

[03:31:15] Swift Creek Mill Theater is very excited to participate in this as a long-term resident of Chesterfield County. We are days away from opening our 2025-2026 season with a British thriller from the 1930s called Night Must Fall. And we are very excited about it.

[03:31:31] It's a wonderful cast, a wonderful show, and we hope that all of you will be able to join us at some point. Many of you have been to the theater recently, have been to our gala and other events, and we are grateful for that. In addition to our five-show main stage season, which includes "Night Must Fall," It's a Wonderful Life, a live radio play, excuse me, "The Miracle Worker," Pump Boys and Dinettes, and "Over the River and Through the Woods," we also have a very robust education system.

[03:31:57] We have classes throughout the year, including a new program where we will help high school students prepare for their college auditions, and also middle school students prepare their auditions for schools like Thomas Dale and ARGS and other performing arts centers. We are excited to launch that. We also have very robust summer camps where hundreds of kids come through our theater every summer, learn the basics of theater, and perform a full-length musical at the end of the summer. Speaking of youth, our youth program is probably our largest program that nobody knows about. Anywhere between 10,000 and 15,000 young people will come through our doors every year. This year is no exception. Our drifty performance this year is already almost sold out

[03:32:36] for our public performances, and the school shows are about two-thirds full. We are very grateful to many organizations, including Chesterfield County, for generous support to help underwrite tickets so that of those 15,000, about 5,000 of them are able to come for free at no charge. And we are very grateful for all the support we get from the county and from other organizations. And all this This year, we will be working on celebrating a milestone.

[03:33:02] On December 2nd, 1965, Swift Creek Mill opened their doors for the first time. That 60-year anniversary is something we're going to celebrate throughout the year, looking back on 60 years of accomplishment, and also looking forward at the next 60. Part of that will be our gala, which is November 1st, and we hope that many of you will join us for that.

[03:33:21] We'll have a celebration throughout the year that will include a video that we will be sure to interview. people who we have touched, including Sam Perkinson, who came to Swift Creek Mill as a child with his grandmother, came to camps, and just won his first of probably many Tony Awards for direction just this past June.

[03:33:42] We'll also be looking for interviews from Blair Underwood, who got his start at Swift Creek Mill Theater, Emily Skinner, and several other people. We are excited about where we've been, we're excited about where we're going, and we're very proud to be a live professional theater in South Chesterfield. Thank you again so much for allowing us to join you tonight, and I hope to see you at the theater.

[03:34:10] Sorry, I just wanted to say I was supposed to be coming with my neighbors to Night Must Fall this weekend, but we have to make an unexpected trip to Germany to take care of my mother-in-law, but I messaged Jennifer. Hopefully, I can switch my tickets, but I'm looking forward to coming and seeing it and being at the gala as well.

[03:34:32] And Chelsea, thank you so much for everything that you guys do. You're such the heart of the community down there. Thank you. I just have three other items just as announcements. First, I want to congratulate Falling Creek Elementary School for being recognized as one of America's healthiest schools across Virginia.

[03:34:53] Only 11 schools were recognized this year, Falling Creek being one of them, and the first school in central Virginia to ever be recognized as one of America's healthiest schools. This achievement reflects the school's commitment to creating a healthy, supportive environment for every student, staff member, and family.

[03:35:09] Next, I want to proudly announce for the fifth year in a row, and it's only been a program for five years, called the Triple Crown of the Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada, or GFOA. Our Triple Crown winner reflects three different reports that we issue for the public's benefit.

[03:35:26] For the 44th consecutive year, the county has been awarded the GFOA Certificate of Excellence in Financial Reporting. It's the highest form of recognition in governmental accounting and financial reporting. For the 40th year, we have received the GFOA Distinguished Budget presentation, and then complementing them is the annual Popular Financial Reporting Award.

[03:35:46] All three are hence called the Triple Crown, a rarity in the governmental profession. And finally, our Fleet Services, which provides the fleet support to our public safety, our schools, buses, and all the other schools, as well as all of the county operations involving vehicles, has been named the number 32 best green fleet by the National Association of Fleet Administrators. There are 38,000 fleet operations within the country, in North America that is, private and public. So again, it's for fleets that have enhanced practices, make a positive

[03:36:22] impact on the environment, and recognizes organizations that execute innovative programs for their green initiatives. I want to congratulate the entire leadership of fleet and general services for that honor. That concludes my report, Mr. Chair. Item 12, board member reports.

[03:36:42] Up first, Ms. Snyder. Thank you. So somehow I had the pleasure of going to two chamber nights out within the last month. They must have been close together.

[03:36:59] We had the chamber at Bryant and Stratton College together with the chamber RVA co-hosting in August. And then just last night, we were at Burke and Herbert Bank, who hosted there last night as well. These events are a great way for our businesses and the community and government to connect with one another and relax and just network.

[03:37:23] So it's a great opportunity for us. Last weekend, we had the Manchester YMCA Welcome Week. So I am on the board at the Manchester Y, and we are the welcome center of the area.

[03:37:45] And so we had an appropriate cultural celebration, had the opportunity to share some words with the attendees. We had various booths there with information for community programs that are available.

[03:38:00] It was just a nice, it was a beautiful day outside also. And we had some performances by cultural people as well. So I'm thrilled to be part of the Leadership Quest class of 2026.

[03:38:16] Leadership Quest is the program of Leadership Metro Richmond that brings together community leaders for monthly classes and events that focus on leadership, community engagement, and regional issues. This month, we had our kickoff retreat, and I couldn't be more excited for the next 10 months of incredible group work together and getting to know my cohort members.

[03:38:43] And so finally, we have the Senator Mark Warner hosted a Keys for Housing Affordability Summit, and we talked about the future of affordable housing in the Commonwealth. We learned about local initiatives, tackling housing costs, heard from non-profit leaders, and ended with a fireside chat with Mr. Mark Warner and Tammy Neal, the CEO of Virginia Housing.

[03:39:13] And this concludes my report. Thank you, Ms. Snipe. Next up, Mr. Howard. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chesterfield Farm Bureau has supported farmers in our community for many, many years. It was a pleasure to attend their annual dinner just a few nights ago, along with Mr. Carroll, who was in attendance, Ms. Snyder, and myself, and of course, the president of the Chesterfield Farm Bureau, Howard Nestor.

[03:39:46] Chesterfield Farm Bill had a great evening working to improve the lives of all Virginians through agriculture as well as you. Next up and coming conversations on next Thursday, the county will be co-hosting a series of career conversations with Virginia Career Works.

[03:40:22] Each session will include opportunity to network, to experience career professionals, to ask questions, engage in one-on-one time with different counselors. More information about the date, time, and location, please visit the county website, okay?

[03:40:43] Also, let me skip back. Oh, you're in the right spot. Thank you. Earlier this morning, I hosted a community conversation that spoke with Medvedale District residents. about upcoming transportation projects, development, community service, and more and more.

[03:41:05] The community discussed a lot of issues, and so I look forward to having another one tomorrow afternoon here at around 2 p.m. Okay, and of course, early vote.

[03:41:24] Don't forget, early vote starts this month, and you may vote at our early vote site, the Chesterfield Library. And, of course, it starts September 19th from 9 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the Central Library.

[03:41:48] Folks can also drop off their absentee ballots by mail ballots as well at the Central Library at the time mentioned from 8.30 again, 8.30 to 5 p.m. Please visit the Registrar's website for additional information.

[03:42:06] That concludes my report. Thank you, Mr. Holland. Next up, Mr. Carroll. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Some of you may know that a few years ago, there was some talk about moving the Ettrick train station, which is in the Matoka District, not Petersburg, to Colonial Heights.

[03:42:29] And citizens from the Conservancy of Ettrick really got behind keeping the train station there, and it's been kept there. And part of the rehabilitation project for the train station is also realigning Bessie Lane and putting some sidewalks and pedestrian crossings and lining it up with 2nd Avenue.

[03:42:53] So we held a community meeting the other night at Ettrick Elementary School. Quite a few people from the community came out. We had two different options that were presented to the community for feedback and opportunities online for residents to give feedback as well.

[03:43:12] And they have up until October 10th at 5 p.m. to provide public comment. I think we've got a good plan. I know we have it funded. It was kind of held up because of an issue where we, you know, God rest his soul, Congressman McEachin had donated, had appropriated.

[03:43:33] He didn't donate. He appropriated it through federal dollars. And there were some issues with that, and we couldn't use the money for that. But we've got it straight now. So we look forward to getting that process off the ground. Next slide. Dr. Miller and myself attended the St. Francis Medical Center Gala for the past 20 years.

[03:43:54] They've provided the latest digital technology and full spectrum of services ranging from multiple types of surgery to nuclear medicine. We're grateful for the amazing work they've done and looking forward to the next 20 years. And just as a matter of note, tomorrow, myself, Dr. Casey, and Chief Senator will be speaking at a public meeting on behalf of three medical facilities in Chesterfield, one which is St.

[03:44:17] Francis to try and get medical services expanded for the people in Chesterfield County if you didn't know tomorrow night at a public safety appreciation night is being held to support the brave men and women who protect you every day here in Chesterfield County it's going to be held at the hidden wet brewing company tomorrow evening from 5 to 7 30 it's a great opportunity to engage with local law enforcement and your firefighters I will be stopping by there myself there's no reason to come you should come and see them these are the people who work hard

[03:44:52] for you every day to keep you safe and so you get a chance and if you hadn't been the hidden hidden what brewery it's a western part of Hull Street past skin quarter on the right-hand side next as you saw mr. Holland just held is going to hold another community meeting community conversations I've scheduled to community conversations coming up in the next month with Matoka district residents registration is required it can be found on the county website the The first conversation will be held October 8th, 6 to 8 p.m. at the Bailey Bridge Middle

[03:45:24] School, and the second one will be at the Ettrick Recreation Center on October 15th from 6 to 8. You'll see that both of these are on evening times. I want to give an opportunity for people from different parts of Matoka District to come out, and so if you're interested, we'll have an opportunity to submit questions ahead of time of things you would like to discuss, and I look forward to having the opportunity to meet with the community.

[03:45:53] We've done these in the past before, and it's a great opportunity to hear about things perhaps that I don't know about. So thank you, Mr. Chair. That concludes my report. Thank you, Mr. Carroll. Next up, Dr. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good evening, everyone. I had the pleasure of welcoming parents and teachers and staff at Robius Middle School back to school night.

[03:46:14] I was there representing SAFE. If you're not familiar with SAFE, SAFE is an organization that helps and educate folks on how to avoid drug use and at the same time what to do with medication and safety with making sure that it stays in the right hands with medications. So is there that evening with safe staff? I just want to take a moment also really to thank our educators, our administrators, our bus drivers, and other school staff for their commitment to our community's children. May it be a safe school

[03:46:48] year. Mr. Carroll and I this month had the pleasure to celebrate Pastor Sean Franco's 30 years of service, 15 as the lead pastor over at Cornerstone Church. Pastor Sean has faithfully led the congregation, has touched many lives in our community. Congratulations on an incredible 30 years, and thank you. Organization that I've become very interested in and been working with is Boys to Men. It's an incredibly impactful organization that provides mentors and mentoring

[03:47:26] and community for teenage boys in our community. This year's Impact Reception was a powerful reminder of how Boys to Men changes the lives of participants and their mentors. Last night I was hanging out. You'll see there it says Electric Lounge. I attended the Drive Electric RVA's September Electric Lounge meeting at Midlothian Library. Again, that was last evening. I gave an update on Chesterfield's approach to transportation, electrification, and learned from EV owners and

[03:47:59] supporters in the county. And very excited. Midlothian Day is coming up. Finally, I want to invite everyone to Midlothian Mines Day, Midlothian Day, on October 18th from 11 a.m. until 3 p.m. to celebrate Chesterfield's contribution to coal mining. This event is free to attend and features living history demonstrations, musical performances, trolley tours, and then more throughout the Midlothian Mines Park.

[03:48:26] I hope to see everyone there, and Mr. Chair, that concludes my report. Thank you, Dr. Miller. All right, recently I had the chance to go to the Veteran Treatment Docket graduation. Two Chesterfield residents and United States veterans graduated from the Veteran Treatment docket. The graduation was a testament to their strength and their bravery. The Veterans Treatment Docket is a 14-month program, provides life-changing support for the participants, and allows us to

[03:49:01] help our nation's heroes get back on track. It's great to see all the hard work they've done to get their lives in a place where they are ready to move forward again in society. Regional Recovery day. Chestfield, Henrico, Hanover, and the city of Richmond all collaborate each year to host a regional recovery day. It's an event recognizing individuals in recovery and link individuals and family members to county resources that can help support their recovery. We heard from Dr. Stephen

[03:49:38] Lloyd who shared his moving story about experiences in long-term recovery and his role as the vice president of the Tennessee board of medical examiners next slide miss Snyder and I were able to attend or to join Richmond Metro Habitat for Humanity to celebrate a new Chesterfield homeowner in the Dale district in Habitat for Humanity recipients complete financial homeownership and budget education and dedicate 350 hours to building their homes and the homes of others

[03:50:17] that participate in the program. We wish Tayanyu and her family many happy memories in this new space that they now get to call home. And I think it's an amazing program when people help other people build their homes and then they get a chance to have other people help them build theirs.

[03:50:39] So it's a wonderful program. All right, YMCA in Chester is really moving. They got some renovations going on, But recently, we were able to celebrate Kaboom. It was a new playground that went in at the Chester Y.

[03:50:59] There's a lot of partnerships that went on there. But Capital One and Dominion, Capital One really sent some people there. And they were there all day. And it was a hot day, too. But also Dominion, between the two of them, I don't think that work could have been done without them.

[03:51:20] They started off with a bunch of parts and pieces to a playground in the very early morning. And by 2 o'clock in the afternoon, there was a brand new playground ready to have a ribbon cutting. And it was amazing all the work that came together.

[03:51:37] And it's estimated that 6,000 children a year will play on that playground. Next. Kitty Academy opened a new location in the Bermuda District this month. They have a lot of openings as they just opened.

[03:51:54] So if you need a good, safe place to take your kids for child care, I recommend you go over and talk to them. If you're looking, it was a wonderful opportunity to get to know the new owners and to cut another ribbon in a facility that was much needed here in the Bermuda District as well as in the county.

[03:52:18] So we're always happy to see our preschools open. Next, please. Upcoming Trunk or Treat. Who's that? I think I saw that guy on a movie one time.

[03:52:35] May the force be with you. Lastly, well, I got one more thing after this, but I encourage everyone to attend this year's Trunk or Treat. It's a lot of fun. There's a lot of candy, a lot of food vendors, music, bounce houses, and other surprises for the whole family.

[03:52:56] Some of the departments in the county have a pretty good contest on and other booths outside of the departments. But they put on a pretty good show and they really do compete well to try to get the best booth.

[03:53:13] So if you have ability to be able to come out to a new location this year, a new location in Ms. Snyder's district at River City Sportsplex from 6 to 8 on Tuesday, October 28th, we'd love to see you there.

[03:53:29] And I have one more that doesn't have a slide, but my wife's birthday is coming up this Saturday. And honestly, we spend a lot of time away from our families, not as much as our public safety but a lot more than um people would ever know and it's great to be able to spend some time with my wife this weekend so thank you that concludes my report item 13 resolutions and special recognitions a recognition of 2025 virginia association of counties achievement

[03:54:08] award winners mr lynch mr chairman board members dr casey it's great to be here this evening in my

[03:55:00] home county to present the VACO Achievement Awards. For the benefit of your constituents who may not be familiar with the Virginia Association of Counties, let me quickly say that VACO has existed since 1934 to serve and support county officials. We support county officials in many ways. First is through our advocacy programs. Second is through our education programs. Third through our communication programs and through our business development opportunities.

[03:55:30] In 2003, we established our Achievement Award program to recognize counties that have adopted innovative programs that other counties can emulate throughout the state. And today, I'm proud to present Chesterfield County with six Achievement Awards.

[03:55:48] Six Achievement Awards, including the Best Large County Achievement Award. A little bit about our Achievement Award program. This is the 23rd Annual Achievement Award Program, our 23rd Annual Achievement Award Session, and this year we had a record of 155 entries.

[03:56:13] This is truly, truly a competitive program. Chesterfield County continues to be the leader in the Achievement Awards Program. Chesterfield County has won every year of the Achievement Awards Program, which started in 2003.

[03:56:29] No other county holds that distinction. With six Achievement Awards this year, Chesterfield County has won 60 times, which is the most of all time. Henrico County is second with 46, and Loudoun County is third with 31.

[03:56:45] I thought I would add that in here because I'm sure that somebody would have asked. They asked in Henrico when I was over there where they were there at. Chesterfield County has won the Best Achievement Award twice, 2022-2019, And Chesterfield County has won the best large county achievement award six times, 2017, 18, 20, 21, 23, and 25.

[03:57:14] We had judges that reviewed all the criteria for winners. And number one, the judges looked at are these programs innovative, are they an innovative solution to a problem? And does the program promote intergovernmental cooperation?

[03:57:30] Is the program a model for other localities to be able to emulate? And does the program provide an innovative approach or customization for local government? And if I can, I'll read the large county, the best large county award program.

[03:57:49] It is the Court Navigator Program. In November of 2020, Chesterfield County Juvenile Justice Services developed a service for youth and their families before the Juvenile Domestic Relations Court called the Court Navigator. The program came to being after many meetings with community partners such as law enforcement, juvenile probation, schools, and others, which concluded that families do not always understand the court process or expectations and are often overwhelmed by what is being asked of them.

[03:58:20] This lack of understanding often leads to families returning to court with only part of the court order completed. And failure to meet the court orders leads to additional court dates, tying up court's time, costing families more in attorney's fees, and missed work. The court navigator reaches out to families who are referred to the program by court service unit, usually because they have multiple tasks to complete before the court.

[03:58:45] The court navigator assists families in finding the services, completing letters, submitting documents, and payments to the clerk of court. This assistance has reduced court return cases and improved compliance with court requirements, allowing the juvenile court to become more efficient.

[03:59:02] So congratulations on winning that. We'll bring all the winners up in just a minute. The second award goes to the Chesterfield Cafe Can La Comunidad. This Chesterfield's Spanish-speaking population growing rapidly, the Communications and Media Division of Chesterfield's Constituent and Media Services Department, in partnership with Community Engagement and Resources, developed the CAFE, an engaging multicultural discussion between county leaders and the Hispanic community members.

[03:59:42] The event was designed to engage and educate Chesterfield's rapidly growing, monolingual Spanish-speaking population by providing immediate access to elected officials, key administrators, agencies, and other resources available to them.

[03:59:58] To show our commitment to informing this segment of the population, presentations and introductions were spoken in Spanish with non-speaking, with non-Spanish-speaking staff using translation headsets in order to hear questions and responses in English. Additionally, all departmental material was translated into Spanish, and most staff presented were bilingual, allowing Spanish-speaking residents to comfortably interact and engage in their native language. The results were a highly publicized, well-attended event that served as a first for Chesterfield and Metro Richmond, so congratulations on that program.

[04:00:36] The third winning program is named Expanding Electronic Monitoring. Chesterfield Takes Justice by Geography. Secure detention should be used as a last resort to protect the safety of a community.

[04:00:55] Thus, it is important localities have alternatives to secure detention to ensure juveniles going through the court process are not necessarily placed in secure detention. One such alternative is electronic monitoring, where a juvenile is placed on house arrest and supervised using a GPS device such as an ankle monitor.

[04:01:19] Historically, Chesterfield County's home incarceration program supervised only juveniles who were residents of Chesterfield County or the city of Colonial Heights due to both jurisdictions falling under the purview of the 12th District Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court. This practice created disparities among juveniles based on their physical residence because those who lived over the county line could not participate, even when their cases were still under the purview of the 12th District Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court. To address this disparity, Chesterfield County's home incarceration program expanded its supervision to juveniles

[04:01:56] who physically reside in the city of Richmond. In the first year of the pilot, 24 juveniles were supervised in the community in lieu of being detained in a local detention home. The successful completion rate for juveniles was 96%, meaning they were successfully supervised in the community and did not need to return to secure detention. So congratulations on that program. The next winner is the HARP, AccuWellness Program. The HARP, which is the Heroin Addiction Recovery Program at the

[04:02:35] Chesterfield County Jail, has implemented a groundbreaking intervention known as AccuWellness, an innovative non-pharmaceutical addition to substance use recovery in a correctional setting. This trauma-competent practice utilizes five-needle NADA, which is the National Acupuncture Detoxification Association, protocol to support participants' mental, emotional, physical recovery in a safe and sustainable evidence-based way.

[04:03:07] AccuWellness offers a holistic alternative to traditional treatment approaches that often rely on medication and talk therapy. Instead, this technique promotes deep relaxation, improves sleep, reduces anxiety, and helps regulate emotions, all without the use of drugs.

[04:03:26] This program is cost-effective and accessible, and it can be conducted in group settings by trained staff. Once implemented, the ongoing financial burden is minimal, making it a sustainable option for correctional institutions. Importantly, research supports the use of NADA protocol for reducing cravings and withdrawal symptoms, enhancing participants' ability to remain emotionally stable throughout their recovery journey.

[04:03:53] Inmates report significant improvements in managing anxiety, depression, and agitation, contributing to a calmer and more cooperative correctional environment. By integrating the AccuWellness into HARP, the Chesterfield County Jail is leading the way in correctional innovation, emphasizing healing over punishment and offering a compassionate, science-based solution to substance use and trauma recovery.

[04:04:17] So congratulations on that program. The next winning program is the Pending Application Interface. It's an innovative, user-centric approach to data interaction and visualization and presents planning, active development, and zoning cases by extracting and displaying data direct from the Enterprise Land Management Community Development Portal.

[04:04:50] With more than 500 current pending cases and approximately 100 recently completed cases available application case data is refreshed every 24 hours and is filterable by name type status sign number district and meeting dates and is presented both as textual listings and on an interactive map the pending cases application was developed in response to a previously burdensome user experience due to duplicative multi-platform data hosting since launching in march 2024 the the application has seen steadily increasing engagement, generating over 26,000 page views

[04:05:29] and 63,000 unique interactions, averaging over 270 interactions each day. So seamless integration into Chesterfield.gov's omnichannel search experience, enhanced by generative AI, provides an at-a-glance case summaries and streamlined discoverability.

[04:05:49] So congratulations on that program. Finally, the last one. This is the targeted outreach, a data-informed library strategy. Chesterfield County Public Library used innovative data sources to identify and prioritize delivery of public services to a community not previously reached through traditional outreach efforts.

[04:06:15] The library's analytics team worked with county technology and planning departments to leverage U.S. Census and satellite mapping data alongside the internal library data. The goal was to better understand communities with low library engagement and tailor outreach accordingly.

[04:06:31] The data revealed significant transportation and language barriers that prevented access to the library. Based on these findings, the library designed and launched a tailored outreach program featuring a regular pop-up library within the community, bilingual story times, and other services and events delivered directly within the community.

[04:06:53] This initiative resulted in a 47% increase in library card signups and 41% increase in checkouts, indicators that the library successfully engaged in a previously disconnected population. This data-driven, community-centered approach offers a replicable model to extend to reach public services.

[04:07:13] So congratulations on that program. And Mr. Chairman, I can't tell you how proud I am as a resident of Chesterfield County to find all these great programs that it's offered in our community. I'll turn it over to you. Can we get everybody that's actually put these programs together and implemented them to come up here?

[04:08:01] Just fill in for us. Get you some awards. Well, they're passing out the awards.

[04:08:17] Just wanted to share again that these employees actually put together these programs and implemented these programs, and then they were submitted and won these awards. So all of the accolades for all of the things that you just heard go to them.

[04:08:35] So thank you all for all the work that you do on behalf of our citizens in Chesterfield County. And just taking a moment, Dean, thank you for all the work that you do every day with VACO.

[04:08:57] One of the things as a former county employee working for Chesterfield Mental Health is it starts with just someone saying, I have an idea, and going to a supervisor and saying, what do you think I have an idea? and the supervisor says run with it and that i think is truly the chesterfield secret sauce is that we work in a way at least that's what we find over and over again because you know dean if we're winning every year you know it says a lot about um who we are and how we work together collaboratively and it starts always with i have an idea so thank you

[04:09:36] Thank you all again.

[04:10:31] Item 14, new business. A, claim of Branscombe operating LLC regarding Route 10 widening, Bermuda Triangle Road to Rivers Bend Boulevard. Mr. Minks. Mr. Chairman, members of the board, this is the third claim that has been brought to the board by Branscombe operating LLC.

[04:10:55] This is the largest of the claims that has been brought. This is for the largest project. This is the Super Street. Route 10 project, the widening project, the county paid Branscombe $40 million in excess of $40 million on this project, and Branscombe is now claiming an additional $13.7 million.

[04:11:20] Like the other two claims that were previously submitted to the board, each of the individual claims that are raised by Branscombe in this claim have been discussed with Branscombe during the project. They're aware of the county's position. We just don't see eye-to-eye on the claim.

[04:11:41] In addition to the additional money, they're seeking an extension of time. This project was 757 days late, and they're seeking an extension of time for 721 days, which we do not think that they are entitled to. And they're asking for this extension, even though they were given a 92-day extension during the project.

[04:12:06] We've analyzed the claim. We do not believe that the board should approve this claim, and we would ask the board to deny it. Counsel for Branscombe is here and may want to address you.

[04:12:27] Good evening again, board. My name is Jim Harvey. I'm from Woods Rogers, and with me is the president of Branscombe, Brian Birdsall. This is the third time in five months I've been before you on a succession of three projects.

[04:12:48] Mr. Meeks is correct that we believe we followed the contract requirements. We're directed to perform extra work, encountered conditions for which we are not responsible, and we're entitled to extensions of time, each of which were outlined in our claims and presented to the board, including an extension of contract time as requested for 721 calendar days in compensation in the amount of $13,721,678.

[04:13:20] And as presented in those boards, I would take issue the county attorney. We did not receive a response to any of those substantive claims. In fact, we thought we had contract agreements for amounts that for no explanation has not been executed or paid by the county.

[04:13:40] So we do take issue with part of that presentation. We do believe the amounts are due and appropriate, and I'm available to answer any further questions. Do any board members have any questions, any further discussion?

[04:13:58] If not, can I have a motion? Second. All in favor? Aye. Thank you. Thank you. B, appointments.

[04:14:15] Mr. Chair, we have one appointment to the Board of Building and Fire Code Appeals. Just approve. Second. All in favor? Aye. Next, we have three appointments to the GRTC Transit System Board of Directors. Motion approved.

[04:14:32] Second. All in favor? Aye. Next, we have four appointments to the Citizens Budget Advisory Committee. Motion approved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Last, we have one appointment to the Committee on the Future.

[04:14:50] So moved. Motion approved. Second. All in favor? Aye. C, 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?

[04:15:07] Move. If not, I need a motion. Motion to approve the consent agenda. Second. All in favor? Aye.

[04:15:24] Item 15, 15-minute citizen comment period on unscheduled matters. 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.

[04:15:43] 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. We have two speakers, if they'll please come forward and speak in this order, John Caslow and Will Shoemake.

[04:16:00] Good evening. I'm John Caslow. I live on Hopkins Road in the Dale District, which is represented by Mr. Holland.

[04:16:17] It's tax and budget season that's coming up here, and I've been watching the assessments in our neighboring areas go up. So I'm expecting that you're going to have to deal with either lowering the rate again this year or you're going to have to give us more of the surplus back. I don't know what it is. Or you can find another source of revenue.

[04:16:34] Give you an example. A year ago, y'all were crowing to me about the $8 million that the Lego permitting fees brought into the county. Where'd that go? I think it went to Henrico Parkway, which is a thinly disguised EDA project. Speaking of the EDA, in the last couple of weeks, It's generated a lot of consternation with their emails.

[04:16:56] Let me read one to you. It says, it's clear to me you did not wish to understand the business of government or its goals and will use and manipulate whatever information we provide to further your beliefs. That's pretty serious, isn't it? So I suggest you continue to move forward with the information you have, and I will continue to bring capital investment and jobs to the county and report the value of that directly to the Board of Supervisors and citizens of the county.

[04:17:22] Where's the value? those numbers exist do you guys get to see them are they top secret i mean this is disgraceful you're telling us kulak keep paying your taxes we'll take your money we'll decide where it goes and you got no business knowing where it goes i read this report that doug braden wrote it's not manipulative it's not mean-spirited the man's curious the three the excuse me woodworking accident the three meadowville technology projects i looked at they're generating less

[04:17:57] than a half a half a cent off the tax rate every year and then you got to track down the money they're spending on roads and everything to get the things open you know i spent 32 years working with defense contractors cost and pricing data and i got to tell you you know crawling through this data you got nothing they got nothing on you okay i'm mad i'm not happy you know i watch my taxes go up every year i'd love to be an economic engine you know i'd love you i'd love you to cut my taxes and measure what I spend every year running through the metric you use for the sportsplex.

[04:18:36] I bet I'd be an economic engine, too. Can we please meet with Mr. Bradom? The man's not mean. He's not manipulative. He's an elderly gentleman. He's asked for answers, and he's been given the finger.

[04:18:53] And that's not to mention the first email that maybe we could save some money in the county and let Mr. Hart start giving legal advice to people when he starts talking about people being borderline slanderous. I'm going to leave these here with you tonight. I know I can't hand out stuff to you at these meetings, but I'm going to leave them here.

[04:19:12] Hopefully somebody will pick them up and take a look at them. That behavior was unacceptable in my humble opinion, and it does need to be corrected, and Doug Bradom deserves answers. Mr. Kaslow, you're three minutes around. Thank you. Thank you.

[04:19:29] Next speaker. Good evening. My name is Will Shumank. I'm a resident of the Bonaire District. I'm here in a purely personal capacity. I want to take a moment to thank each of you.

[04:19:45] I have a little knowledge of the time and energy and commitment you all have to give to this county. We may not always agree with some of the decisions, that's part of how life works, but you're very committed and very responsive. So I just want to take a moment to thank you for that.

[04:20:03] I'm here because one of the things, I'm proud of our community. I'm excited about its opportunities and what the future holds. And I think one of the things that sets us apart, and I think you saw it when Dean Lynch came up, is that we have an ethos that is, we're proactive, not reactive.

[04:20:23] We understand the importance of planning and strategic thought going forward. And that's why I'm here today. And what I'm about to suggest doesn't have any impact on this board or the next election, but as we're growing and expanding, I think at some point it's pretty clear, We're going to want to start thinking about what is the size of the Board of Supervisors that we want, what we need, and what is the structure of that board.

[04:20:49] And it's not any time maybe in the near future, but I think it's incumbent on us, and I encourage you to set up a committee to study and look at that and look at best practices, not only what happens in the Commonwealth, but the country.

[04:21:05] I mean, just to give you some ideas, I'll confess I'm old enough to remember when this county was under 100,000 people, and we're knocking on 400,000 people now. And there is no other county in the Commonwealth that comes close to us in population that has five supervisors.

[04:21:27] The closest is Henrico, and I think we've blown by them by about 50,000. And in addition, we're twice the physical size of Henrico County. And that's a great strategic asset for us. And that gives us a great diversity.

[04:21:44] But the issues that we have in Bonaire are not the same as west of Westchester or in Ettrick versus what's happening on Hull Street Road. And so I would, and if you look at publicly traded companies that are large and complex, I think their average board is at least nine to 12.

[04:22:01] Now, you don't want to get too big, and I don't know what the right composition is or whether you want to have just added districts or you add a countywide position to have a broader perspective, but I think we want to start looking at it, and so I would encourage you to set up a committee to study it and say, so we know ahead of time, okay, at what point should we start looking at that and recommending that and bringing choices to the people. Is it $500,000? Is it $450,000? What is it? But we want to start studying it. So I would ask you to do that. We have a proud history of the Futures Committee set up the committee,

[04:22:41] I would urge you. But thank you for all that you do for the council. Thank you. Madam Clerk. Item 16, deferred items from previous meetings. A, to consider the abandonment of State Route 741 in the Matulka District. Mr. Chair, staff recommends the board take no action on this item.

[04:23:06] Thank you. Next item. B, to consider the abandonment of State Route 1406 in the Bermuda District. Mr. Chair, staff recommends the board take no action on this item. Thank you. Next item.

[04:23:23] Item 17, zoning requests. Mr. Chair, you have six 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.

[04:23:47] The first case is 23SN0013 in Midlothian Magisterial District. Lakeview Estates rezoning is a request to rezone from residential R40 with conditions to residential R40 on 25.1 acres located approximately 400 feet off the western terminus of Gamecock Road.

[04:24:10] A single family development with up to 21 dwellings is proposed. No exceptions to the zoning ordinance are requested. Planning Commission and staff recommend approval subject to the conditions in your staff report. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing on case 23, SN0013, Lakeview Estates Rezoning.

[04:24:31] Is there anyone here who would like to speak to this case? 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, and this case is in Midlothian.

[04:24:47] Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm going to go ahead and move approval of case number 23, SN0013, subject to the conditions in the staff report. Second. All in favor? Aye. Next is 23 SN0128 in Midlothian Magisterial District.

[04:25:07] Mount Hermon West Solar Facility is a request for conditional use to permit a large-scale solar energy facility with conditional use plan development to permit exceptions to ordinance requirements in an agricultural aid district on 75.6 acres known as 2300 Mount Hermon Road.

[04:25:26] The applicant proposes to construct and operate a solar facility with a capacity of up to 5 megawatts. Planning Commission and staff recommend approval subject to the conditions in your staff report. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing on case 23 SN0128, Mount Hermann West Solar Facility.

[04:25:47] Is there anyone who would like to speak to this case? If so, please come forward and state your name. Steve Meadows, just a common citizen.

[04:26:06] Quick question on this. Are these the low-value, low solar panels, or the ones that are high up the animals can graze underneath them? They're very low.

[04:26:17] Okay. The second thing that, that's one other thing that concerns me. How many homes does 5,000 megawatts supply? 1,200 homes, 5 megawatts equal 1,200 homes. 1,253. Next. Anyway, that's my questions. Thank you.

[04:26:48] Good evening. Jerry Turner. I've come to y'all before about these solar panels and when they decommission them. There's a clause in this deal talking about the owner is going to have to decommission it. That's going to be the county because they're not going to be around. They'll

[04:27:22] either have gone out of business or they've left the country. They say, well, we've got 25 years life based on these. I won't be around in 25 years, but the county will be around in 25 years. And it's going to cost a whole lot to decommission one of these things in 25 years from now.

[04:27:41] They say they put up a bond. I don't see any money being put up or somehow they're going to put something in savings. So when they do decommission it, it won't be on the county's back to do it. The way this looks right now, the county is going to have to put the bill.

[04:28:00] And in 25 years, that's going to be real expensive for the county. So y'all need to start looking at what's going to happen 25 years from now when these facilities are no longer used. And even with the technology that's changing, these panels may not be any good in 10 years, especially with this stuff that they're trying to come in with the county with these fusion units.

[04:28:27] These may be obsolete. So what they're going to do then? They're going to say, well, we're just going to shut down and leave the country. Then the county's going to have to deal with it. So, y'all need to start looking at what are y'all going to do when they're not around to decommission these things.

[04:28:44] Thank you. Thank you. Seeing no other speakers, I'm going to close this public hearing. It's back before the board. This case is in the Midlothian District.

[04:29:00] Thank you, Mr. Chair. Is the applicant here? Do you want to speak to the decommissioning, please? Mr. Chair, just to speak to that, it is in the zoning case that it requires a landowner, applicant, or facility owner shall provide the county with the surety acceptable to the director of planning equal to the estimated cost of decommissioning and site restoration or redevelopment as applicable.

[04:29:24] Any such surety should be provided prior to site plan approval for the facility and shall include the ability for automatic adjustments for inflation as necessary based upon decommissioning and restoration plan as part of our zoning, part of our ordinance for the solar facilities.

[04:29:41] That's correct. Took the words right out of your mouth, right? He did. He did. Gave my presentation for me. That is all correct. Yeah, that's all correct, right? Yes. We also know who the owners are of this, right? The owner of the property or the project?

[04:29:56] The owner of the property. Yes, we do. It is the Mosley family. The Mosley family. Yes. Right? So we're talking deep roots in Chesterfield County, aren't we? Yes. We really are. So I don't think they're picking up and moving anytime soon. No. So they've been here since the beginning.

[04:30:12] Yes. Oh, well. The actual beginning. My point is this, I've gone out there, I've seen the property, I toured it with them, I understand what they're doing, why they're doing it, why it makes sense. Do you want to add anything else to that? No, I'll just add that we have...

[04:30:29] Can you introduce yourself for a second? Oh, yes, sorry, excuse me. So my name is Greg Werner, I'm a business development manager with Nexamp. We are the solar company developing the project. And I should also mention that we have previously developed and now constructed the solar project across the street, which we call the Mosley-Hermann Project.

[04:30:50] Same size as this project, we had to go through the decommissioning plan process. There was an extensive review with county staff on that decommissioning plan. We have posted a decommissioning bond to support that decommissioning plan.

[04:31:06] Again, it was extensively scrutinized by county staff. I believe that decommissioning bond can be re-evaluated every five years, I think is what Mr. Carroll read there. So it would get re-evaluated every five years. If the amount is insufficient, it would need to be increased every five years.

[04:31:27] Thank you. Great. Thank you. Do you have a question on the panels, since the applicant's up? What type of solar panels are these? These are monocrystalline PV panels. They are manufactured by Helene, which is a Minnesota-based company.

[04:31:44] So they are manufactured in the United States. But they are essentially monocrystalline. They're the standard variety of solar panels that are put up throughout Virginia. They are not the thin film variety, which I don't think there are any in Virginia of that variety, which have a different chemistry, cadmium, telluride.

[04:32:06] It's a completely different chemistry. These are the standard monosilicon panels. These are the new ones that are not harmful to the environment if they break. Correct. They cannot leach. They've been in use for decades in the United States. No leaching, no chemical contamination.

[04:32:26] Okay. Thank you. Thank you. With that idea in mind, I'm going to go ahead and move approval of case 23SN0128, subject to the conditions of the staff report. Second.

[04:32:43] All in favor? Next case is 25 SN1052 in the Bermuda Magisterial District. Chestnut Hill multifamily use and exceptions is a request for conditional use to permit the multifamily use plus a conditional use plan development to permit exceptions to ordinance requirements in the general business C5 district located at the northern terminus of Chestnut Hill Road.

[04:33:10] The applicant proposes to develop the property with 200 multifamily units and seeks exceptions for project size, number of units per floor, amenity space, setbacks, and access drive width. Planning Commission and staff recommend approval subject to the conditions in your staff report.

[04:33:30] Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing on case 25SN1052, Chestnut Hill Multifamily Use and Exceptions. Is there anyone here who would like to speak to this case? If so, please come forward and state your name. Seeing no one, I'm going to close this public hearing.

[04:33:50] It's back before the board. This case is in the Bermuda District, and I make the motion to approve case 25SN1052, subject to the conditions in the staff report. Second. All in favor? Aye.

[04:34:08] Next is 25SN1079 in the Bermuda Magisterial District. Chesterfield Meadows Indoor Trampoline Park is a request for conditional use to permit a commercial indoor recreational establishment with conditional use plan development to permit an exception to the existing parking setback in the neighborhood business C2 district on a 4.17 acre property known as 6401 Centralia Road.

[04:34:36] The applicant is proposing an interior build-out of an existing storefront, formerly a U-crop store, into the proposed trampoline park. Planning Commission and staff recommend approval subject to the conditions in your staff report. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing on case 25SN 1079, Chesterfield Meadows Indoor Trampoline Park.

[04:35:00] Is there anyone here who would like to speak to this case? If so, please come forward and state your name. Seeing no one, I'm going to close this public hearing. This case is back before the board. It's in the Bermuda District. And before I make a motion, I'd just like to say that we've had an empty U-Crop store just up the street since the Martins closed.

[04:35:25] And people have been wondering and waiting for a long time as to what was going to come in there. I think this would be a great use to support the community, give them a place to bring kids. And even a few of us adults may go jump on a trampoline or two.

[04:35:42] We'll see. But with that, I make the motion to approve case 25 SN 1079, subject to the conditions in the staff report. Second. All in favor? Aye. Next is 25 SN 1104 in the Bermuda Magisterial District.

[04:36:00] Crew's concrete storage renewal is a request for a conditional use to permit a business from the home, concrete equipment, parking and storage in a residential R7 district on one acre known as 12234 Parker Lane. The applicants are seeking to renew conditional use approval of their concrete equipment parking and storage business, which was approved with a 10-year time limit that expired in January of 2025.

[04:36:26] Planning Commission and staff recommend approval subject to the conditions in your staff report. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing on case 25SN1104, Cruz Concrete Storage Renewal. Is there anyone here who would like to speak to this case?

[04:36:43] 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. Again, this case is in the Bermuda District. And with no complaints for the last 10 years, I think a renewal is in order.

[04:37:00] So I'm going to make the motion to approve case 25SN1104, subject to the conditions in the staff report. Second. All in favor? Aye. Last on your consent agenda is 25SN1137 in the Matulka Magisterial District.

[04:37:20] Dial second dwelling is a request for a conditional use to permit a second dwelling in a residential R7 district on a .49 acre property known as 21214. Halloway Avenue. The applicants propose to construct a separate second dwelling on the property to be occupied by a family member. 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 1137. Dial second dwelling. Is there anyone here who would like to speak to this case?

[04:37:55] 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, and this case is in the Matoka District. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The second dwelling is for the daughter of the person who owns the primary dwelling to live in. I think this is an appropriate use. I make a motion to approve case number 25, SN1137, subject to the conditions in the staff report.

[04:38:25] Second. All in favor? Aye. Mr. Chair, that concludes your consent items for this evening. You have two discussion items, the first of which is case 24 SN 1157, Crossroads at Roseland, Rezoning and Exceptions.

[04:38:40] Mr. Ramsey. Good evening, Mr. Chair, members of the board, and Dr. Casey. Case 24 SN 1157, Crossroads at Roseland, Rezoning and Exceptions, is a request for rezoning from residential townhouse to residential townhouse plus conditional use plan development to permit exceptions to ordinance requirements. A residential development containing a maximum of 405 dwellings as proposed. The The property contains 106.99 acres and a zoned residential townhouse.

[04:39:10] Area properties to the west and south are zoned in a mix of residential and commercial zoning districts. Properties to the east and north are zoned for residential townhouse uses as part of the original Roseland zoning approval. Subject properties outlined in white in the two images on this slide.

[04:39:25] The aerial image on the left shows the property as being primarily vacant and wooded. The second image on the right shows the land use plan designation for the property. The primary land-use plan designation for the property is high-density residential, and this suggests the property is appropriate for residential development and a maximum density of 8 to 12 dwelling units per acre.

[04:39:45] The property was originally rezoned for residential use in August of 2008 as part of the Roseland zoning request. However, development of this property has not yet occurred. To help facilitate new development opportunities for properties within the original Roseland zoning case, the county and stakeholders developed a new zoning overlay for these properties.

[04:40:06] The property is now located within the Roseland Zoning Overlay District, and the tract and use maps shown in the current slide were developed with that overlay. The property is within the medium-density residential and nodal mixed-use district, one of several use districts outlined in the overlay.

[04:40:22] The purpose of the medium-density residential and nodal mixed-use district is to provide for detached single-family dwelling development with varying lot sizes, townhomes, and similar attached dwelling styles, as well as medium-density multifamily development. Development standards apply to each of the development tracts in the district.

[04:40:41] The property is designated as part of tract E and is limited to a maximum of 405 dwelling units. The applicant's conceptual plan is shown in the current slide. A maximum of 237 townhouse dwellings located on lots shaded in blue would be permitted.

[04:40:57] The remaining 168 units will be developed in the form of stacked dwelling units, with these being shaded in the tan color. The conceptual plan shows a layout for the townhouse tract on the property supports up to 53 rear-loaded townhouse units and 100-foot buffers along Old Hundred Road and Woolridge Road Extended. The first set of conceptual elevations for the front-loaded townhouse units proffered with this request are shown in this slide. The next set of conceptual elevations for the front-loaded townhouse units proffered, again, with this request are shown here.

[04:41:31] And then again, these conceptual elevations are for the rear-loaded townhouse units in the project. The first set of conceptual elevations for the stack-dwelling units proffered with this case are shown here. And then the next set of and final set of conceptual elevations for the proposed stack dwellings are shown here. The applicants proffered additional design requirements as part of this request. These architecture and design elements are in addition to those elements already required by the Roseland Zoning Overlay District. Design standards for dwellings include defined styles

[04:42:06] and forms are compatible to those found in the conceptual elevations, front elevation variation, high visibility side elevations, and specified building and roof materials. In addition, payment of a utility cash proffer payment has also been proffered for each equivalent residential unit in this development.

[04:42:24] This payment will go towards public water storage and supply improvements needed for the public water system to address the demands of the overall Roseland development. This slide shows the development's conceptual amenity plan. A clubhouse with a community pool and bathrooms is proposed.

[04:42:40] The clubhouse, pool, and bathroom facilities will be provided prior to the issuance of the 250th building permit. Other required amenities include a 1,000 square feet of hardscape space for gatherings, a dog park, the Woodland Fern Park amenity area, and a 10-foot-wide shared-use path inside of a 30-foot-wide easement between Otterdale and Woolridge Red Extended.

[04:43:01] Other types of neighborhood recreational amenities may also be provided in a determinate time of plans review. The applicants have also agreed to work with the county staff during the plans review process to convey the land around the shared use path to the county, being the area generally from the southern line of the easement for the shared use path all the way to the northern property line.

[04:43:23] One exception to the Roseland Overlay District that's proposed is to is proposed to accommodate this development. The Roseland Overlay District requires a minimum of 50 percent of townhomes to be rear loaded units. The applicant proposes to have at least 50 percent of all dwelling units in the development being rear-loaded.

[04:43:41] This would require at least 35 townhouse dwellings and all of the 2 over 2 condominiums, and that's 168 dwelling units, to be rear-loaded. Fifty-three townhomes are shown as rear-loaded on the conceptual plan and are shown in the blue area highlighted in this slide.

[04:43:56] The applicant has proffered to limit the number of building permits being issued for development until Woolridge Road Extended is completed and access is subsequently provided to this development. Proffered Condition 12 requires that access to Woolridge Road Extended would be required for the 101st dwelling unit that is issued a building permit.

[04:44:17] And that access point is highlighted here at the red circle. The applicant has provided staff with an illustrative parking exhibit with approximately 209 on-street parking spaces. In addition, the applicants proffer to provide 34 additional parking spaces to serve guests' parking needs for the stacked dwelling unit section of the development.

[04:44:37] These private parking lot locations are shown on Exhibit A, also known as the Conceptual Plan. Nearby parking to serve the linear park, which is a neighborhood recreational menu, will also be convenient and utilized for guest parking after daytime operations have ceased.

[04:44:52] The overall parking ratio for this development would be a minimum of 2.6 parking spaces per unit, once the unit parking spaces, which would include a one-space driveway and at least a single-car garage for each dwelling, plus the permitted on-street parking, and that's 209 spaces, and the two guest parking lots, which is 34 additional spaces, are included in the development's overall parking space count.

[04:45:19] Staff finds that the proposed on- and off-street parking options will provide sufficient parking for residents and guests that is conveniently located within the overall development. The Planning Commission, with a unanimous vote, recommended approval of the request. Staff also continues to recommend approval.

[04:45:36] The applicant's request to construct a mix of townhouse and stacked dwellings complies with the comprehensive plan's primary land use designation that supports high-density residential uses. The overall development concept provides an amenitized residential community with vehicular access to Woolridge Road extended and Old Hundred Road. Development of townhouses and stacked dwellings will provide a mix of housing types in this project where detached single-family residential dwellings are the predominant housing type in the area. This development will provide the housing variety offered and this will provide a variety of housing options for the immediate area. Staff finds that development's proposed site layout will support

[04:46:15] the plan's guidelines relative to land use transition, compatibility of uses, and integration of roadway and pedestrian facilities with existing area development. The development's traffic impact will be addressed by proffered cash payments and transportation contribution, as well as road improvements.

[04:46:33] And then lastly here, we did not receive any citizen comments within the citizen comment portal for this case for the hearing this evening. And at this point, I'd be happy to take any questions from the board. Board members, are there any questions for staff? Is the applicant present?

[04:46:58] Would you like to make a presentation? No. Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, it's a public hearing on case 24SN 1157, crossroads at Roseland rezoning and exceptions. Is there anyone here who would like to speak to this case? If so,

[04:47:18] please come forward and state your name. Jerry Turner, somebody needs to get up. We got a lot of people that are watching y'all tonight, which is very unusual. But let's talk about this case.

[04:47:54] When it was in the planning stage of it or in the planning commission, and I may be wrong, somebody i'm sure somebody's gonna correct me i don't think it got a second when it was brought forward so i'm not i'll have to go back and look at some of the past planning commission deal but i'm almost i'm i may be wrong but anyway getting back to all the parking places i had to privilege

[04:48:27] well i shouldn't say privilege i had to drive through richmond the other day and on the own street parking if anybody opened the door somebody's gonna take it out and nobody drives 25 i don't care what the speed limit says. Y'all got to do something about this on-street parking. That is totally unacceptable for a county facility or community. I know when I moved here 30-something

[04:49:03] years ago, there was no such thing as parking on the street. You had to park, your tires had to be off the street. Now you're letting the park, well, you just barely can't get through there. Y'all say there's enough room for fire trucks to get through there, but hope they're not meeting each other because they sure couldn't get through there.

[04:49:27] It's as narrow as y'all are making these roads and then you allow on street parking. But bottom line is, and I've told y'all this before, I moved to the county to live in the county.

[04:49:43] I did move to the city so y'all can turn it into the city by letting all this construction going on. Thank you. Seeing no other speakers, I'm going to close this public hearing.

[04:50:02] It's back before the board. Actually, I'm going to give the applicant an opportunity to come up and say something if he'd like to respond. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Jeff Geiger here on behalf of the applicant. I appreciate Mr. Turner's advocacy.

[04:50:21] I know that we work hard to take his input as we look at these communities and try to improve the parking. I think we've done a very good job in building upon what we've done, And we continue to work with your planning staff and VDOT to make sure we design these in a safe way so that we can enjoy on-street parking on the same time that we are parking on our lots as well.

[04:50:50] At the end of the day, we want convenience for our home, the people who are going to be buying the homes and their guests who are going to be visiting them. So with that, we'd ask that the board approve the rezoning request before them. We have a few questions for you.

[04:51:07] I think Dr. Miller would like to go first. Thank you, Mr. Chair. When we are figuring out parking for a community like this, how do we go about it? First, your roads, as you know, are owned by VDOT.

[04:51:23] So we start with VDOT and we figure out what are the road sections that we can use. Second, we then try and figure out what is the best way to position the homes along the road sections that we're going to use. And we try and park our parking in a way that's convenient so that people can access the home.

[04:51:45] and at the same time have guest parking in close proximity. We have learned that what VDOT tells us is an appropriate size road at 29 feet, face the curve, face the curve, which they say provides parking on both sides, doesn't work.

[04:52:04] And so for here, we have increased it to what your staff has said in terms of how you look at parking and representing the community is what is the appropriate way to structure these. and we have committed to following your guidance, not the VDOT guidance.

[04:52:22] Which is what? 32 feet face a curve, face a curve, instead of 29 feet face a curve, face a curve. Thank you. That was actually going to be my question, but I knew the answer. I just wanted to make sure that other people knew that VDOT standards, that is where people start, and that has been where the city and most other places go.

[04:52:47] We actually, if ZOMOD's approved, then when it is, we'll actually see some roads from some developers at 34 feet, which would actually be enough room for somebody to back out of their driveway with a car parked directly behind it and still be able to get in and out.

[04:53:08] So 32 is our minimum, and that is because we have seen neighborhoods in the past that But Mr. Turner's right, getting a firetruck through there is not easy, and so we have gone to a much higher standard in Chesterfield, so I appreciate that, and I believe this is in your district.

[04:53:30] Mr. Chair, I have a question. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Which slide shows the on-street parking? Where's that slide? That was just shown a few minutes ago. It's this one, and which, where is it highlighted on the slide?

[04:53:46] If you're looking along the road, it's not, I don't know if we can zoom in, but there are blue dots along the side that illustrate where the parking is on the street. Okay. And the reason I bring it up, Mr. Chair, is that we also passed an ordinance probably about two years ago, which requires, or makes it illegal, actually, to park across the street from someone's driveway so that if you are, and I see in this layout, there are quite a few places where someone's not going to be able to park on the street because of that.

[04:54:19] Now, they will, even in the other neighborhoods that we have, they're doing it. And it's up to our law enforcement to go out there and enforce that. But there's, so I'm glad that it's designated, but we know that people are going to park where they want to park anyway.

[04:54:38] And if I could just real quick add two comments. One, we try and guess human behavior as best we can. We work with you to try and fight the right balance between government regulation and what our homebuyers are going to behave.

[04:54:53] And we're continuing to learn and we'll continue to learn with you. I would like to point out, again, listening to Mr. Turner and others in the community, your planning department, through conversations I've had with VDOT, we look forward to convening a group to kind of talk about how do we do this better.

[04:55:13] So that not only is it, you know, Chesterfield doing it, it's on its own, it's, we get the VDOT folks in the room and say, how do we get through both the VDOT process and the Chesterfield process in a unified way? Any other questions?

[04:55:31] Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I suspect Jessica's going to get to this, so I don't want to take away from, because this is your case. How is this different than the case that was brought before that didn't get a second?

[04:55:47] How is the case different? Oh, I believe you're talking about Mr. Turner's comment. This case had a little bit of an evolution while we were at Planning Commission.

[04:56:04] We went to Planning Commission once, and we were proposing houses on the east side of Woolridge, this area over here, with a very specific idea of how those houses would be used.

[04:56:23] Planning Commission didn't support that. But to Mr. Turner's point, there was not a second. And so, we went back to the drawing board. As you can see from the layout in front of you, there is no housing over there. We completely removed it, listening to the Planning Commission. We then came back at the second time we were at the Planning Commission, which was two months later.

[04:56:45] That did get the recommendation of the Planning Commission with a second. Mr. Turner just may be thinking about the two different Planning Commission hearings.

[04:57:01] Mr. Chair, when was, and you may know this, it's probably in the history of the case, when was the original Roseland case passed? My memory is 2008. And the Overlay District was done in, I think… 18?

[04:57:17] 19? No. It was a couple years ago. Oh, Mr. Miller's first couple months. That's correct. This is a case that was originally Roseland was passed as a zoning case years ago, and now what's happening is it's been brought back after the overlay was done, which was designed to, I guess, come up with a better product.

[04:57:47] And so really this is a modernization or a change, so to speak, based on what the overlay required, which will also help get that Woolwich Road extension built that's desperately needed as a traffic reliever, which is part of one of the transportation projects we have planned.

[04:58:07] Is that correct? That's correct. Thank you. Any other questions? It's a case in the Clover Hill District. Thank you. I hope everybody's gotten everything all right.

[04:58:23] I have one more. Oh, gosh. Okay. If it wasn't to pass, right, it's still already zoned. It is. with an allocation for certain types of houses to actually be put on it yes so even if we voted no it's already approved yep this is just a change correct that's correct thank you or it's a refinement that to what was originally proposed no change in density from what was originally proposed and looking at that original case mr chair sorry um exceptions what exceptions are you

[04:58:56] asking for here we are asking for one exception related to uh the use of rear-loaded townhouses and the reason is we're we want to be sensitive to the environment we as you can see from this layout we do have some fingers of some environmental areas that we need to protect it doesn't make sense to run alleys between the back of a home and an environmentally sensitive area that just creates more runoff and you know eliminates a backyard so we're just asking for an understanding that this is our situation and we're trading off better stewardship of the environment with with the

[04:59:35] the house design. So when I approved the first, which was currently is now being called North Halsley, there were zero exceptions. It was consistent with the Roseland overlay, period. This one is two. Okay. Okay. So yes, this has been through some iterations. I greatly appreciate the cooperation of the guys in the back there, Heidi. I asked for, they had some exceptions and

[05:00:13] I asked them to go back and redo the planning. I wanted to maintain all the buffers around the area. They accommodated me, rearranged some housing. They're conveying the wetlands above the mixed-use trail that's part of the county paths and trails. They're conveying that to the county, the land above it, so that we can maintain it in case we need to widen it, etc.

[05:00:44] So I think this is a win-win, and it maintains a lot of the natural greenery in the wetlands on both sides of Woolridge there, so I'm happy with that. And so subject to the conditions of the staff report, I move to approve case 2-4-N-SN, sorry, 1-1-5-7.

[05:01:15] I said that ahead. I just said it backwards. She started with that. It's the same thing. No one's going to second it, huh? Mr. Chair, I will second this with a statement that I think this is an example of an improvement that is a result of the overlay, and I think it would be better than the product that would be put on it if it wasn't changed.

[05:01:41] Aye, good call. All in favor? Aye. Mr. Chair, your last discussion item is Case 25 SN1150, Commonwealth Fusion Systems Power Plant. Mr. Ramsey. Good evening again. Case 25 SN 1150 Commonwealth Fusion Systems power plant is a request for conditional use to permit an electric power plant producing powers for others. In a heavy industrial I-3 district, a 400 megawatt electric power plant that will use fusion technology to produce electricity for local consumers is proposed. The property contains 94.22 acres

[05:02:19] and is zoned heavy industrial I-3. Adjoining properties are zoned heavy industrial I-3 to the north, south, east, and west. The subject property is outlined in white and the two images shown on the slide. The aerial image on the left illustrates the site as being primarily undeveloped except for some acreage that has been cleared for agricultural purposes. Surrounding properties are developed with industrial uses or remain vacant. Dominion's Dutch Gap Power Station is located to the south and east of the property. The second image on the right shows the Landy's Plain designation for the property. The property is designated for industrial use. Commonwealth Fusion Systems, also known as

[05:02:57] CFS is proposing to develop a commercial fusion power plant on the property. The current slide shows the proposed conceptual plan for the power generation facility. Recent innovations in fusion technology have made a grid-scale fusion power plant viable. The CFS facility will generate up to 400 megawatts of electricity for distribution into the local electrical grid. The facility will include multiple connected buildings, including a power block, and that's noted with the red rectangle in the current slide that contains the fusion machine, stored power building, utility building, radio frequency building, operation support, and the power conversion and generation

[05:03:36] buildings. The applicant's conceptual plan shows the general layout of these uses, setbacks, access, environmental features on the property. This slide shows a conceptual rendering of what the facility may look like. Staff knows that the applicants provided an overview of the technology to generate electricity from the fusion machine. This overview is provided in the applicant's narrative and exhibit B within our staff report, as well as additional details about the applicant, the fusion process, the fusion machine itself, and safety differences between fusion and fission processes.

[05:04:12] Conditions relative to the use, connections to the public water and wastewater systems, control panel for emergency access, and tree protection and supplemental landscaping requirements for portions of the property have been developed with the applicant and included with this request in addition to the already permitted i3 district uses on the property condition one will limit the electric power plant to use to a fusion facility only and permit accessory uses that are used to generate store and distribute electric power staff is supportive of these conditions to minimize the potential for adverse impacts resulting from this use these

[05:04:47] conditions are further outlined in our staff report the planning commission with the unanimous vote recommended approval of the request staff continues to also recommend approval the comprehensive plan designates the property for industrial uses and this supports the development of moderate to intense manufacturing uses on the property the proposal to develop an electric power plan is consistent and compatible with other area industrial developments including the adjacent dutch gap power station the conceptual plan shows the fusion facility will meet the design district standards for the property and not require any exceptions for setback or landscaping requirements

[05:05:23] Enhanced tree protection and landscaping for portions of the property have also been conditioned with the request. Federal and state regulations will provide the necessary on-site permitting, licensing, and oversight to ensure that the fusion facility is operated in a safe and efficient manner.

[05:05:39] We did receive six comments in the citizen comment portal for tonight's hearing, and they were all supportive of the request. At this point, I'll be having to take any questions from the board. Board members, any questions for staff? Is the applicant present?

[05:05:59] Would you like to make a presentation at this time? Okay. Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the Board, Dr. Casey.

[05:06:16] My name is Anne Neal Cosby, and I have the great pleasure of serving as Land Use Council for Commonwealth Fusion Systems for this conditional use permit application. We appreciate the opportunity to be here tonight. Also with me in the back are members of the CFS development team, many of whom are well known I think by now to the board to county personnel and to a host of community members who've taken an interest a real interest in this project and participated in the many community meetings and outreach opportunities that

[05:06:51] CFS has held we're glad to continue this effort of education and information sharing tonight during this public hearing a few months ago few people knew what fusion was including myself and now chesterfield county virginia is poised to become a leader in the commercial advancement of this new energy technology i would like to thank mr ramsey and planning director andy gillis and the rest of planning and county staff from all of the departments who have touched this application provided comments and guidance the county has

[05:07:31] just been tremendous to work with and we so appreciate everybody's help and that being said Mr. Ramsey did such a thorough presentation and I don't want to be duplicative I know you have a lot on your agenda and I don't want to reiterate what he said everything was perfect I do have just a few slides because we just wanted to reiterate those things that are most important we think for the board's consideration of a cup application from a land use perspective so I'm going to be

[05:08:00] very brief and focus only on those criteria and so again you know the one i think key issue here to look at is the nature of the surrounding area and as mr ramsey indicated um the you know this property is located south of battery brook parkway in the james river industrial center it is zoned i3 and all of the surroundings in the area have similar zoning and have been used for heavy industrial uses there's the Bissell facility right across the street there's Hill Phoenix and ACI to the west as Mr. Gramsley mentioned Dominions to the

[05:08:39] south and even sort of further in the greater area it's it's multiple industrial uses so the land use is really perfect for this type of use there's just another slide again showing just the nature of the area in the I-3 district, again, an electric power plant producing electricity for others is permitted by conditional use permit.

[05:09:06] It was very clear to CFS early on that if we were to seek the conditional use permit under this classification, it had to be limited to a fusion power plant. So that was the first condition, you know, that was discussed and that we, you know, agreed to put in the application was that it's only for a fusion power plant.

[05:09:26] that's the only thing that this can be used for because we knew there was a sensitivity you know to the county and to the residents again I I won't go through in great detail the concept plan I think Mr. Ramsey did a excellent job you know just showing the power block that would be centrally located and then the surrounding external uses such as the parking above ground tanks cooling towers the power lines that would lead into the Dominion facilities to the south

[05:10:04] given that the project is really the first of its kind the final building design and site layout is is ongoing and so the final final site plan will be submitted to the county for review so you know, this is really just, you know, our anticipated use of the site, and we wanted to share that to the greatest extent that we could with the board and the public. Again, there, the rendering, so again, that's pretty much what, you know, this site will look like in the future.

[05:10:44] As Mr. Ramsey mentioned, you know, because this is a CUP, we worked with the various county departments to it to understand and address any concerns that they did have going in because of course you know the conditions run with the land so we wanted to make sure if there are concerns we have addressed those through appropriate conditions and as I said you know the first condition that we have is that limitation that this can only be for a fusion plant the second condition about public water and wastewater public systems being used you know was a comment from public utilities certainly we agreed to that the police department

[05:11:22] had some language that they wanted us to include about emergency access and having some type of protocols in place so that we would coordinate with public safety and so we certainly agreed to that condition and then finally planning suggested we had a discussion about having some additional landscaping and buffering on this site. It is I3, but, you know, there was a discussion about having more, a higher

[05:11:56] buffer on the western side, which we've added, and then also supplementing the landscaping along the front of Battery Brook. So we've agreed to that. So, you know, this site, we think it will look nice on the site and around the site. So we were happy to agree with those conditions. I wouldn't be a land use attorney worth my salt if I didn't have a slide about the site being consistent with the comprehensive plan as mr. Ramsey said we comply with the land use plan with the districts it's also in conformance with the post development design district that's in the zoning ordinance so as far as those

[05:12:35] criteria you know we satisfy all of the county's ordinance and guide and comprehensive plan guidelines and so with that I will summarize also you know the cup guidelines for the board to consider are in the zoning ordinance they're here on this slide I think through the application the staff report mr. Ramsey's report and you know just this discussion here you know we we believe we've satisfied all this the cup guidelines and so we respectfully

[05:13:09] request approval of this application and we're here CFS is here we are happy to answer any questions and we truly again appreciate every everybody from the county's assistance and interest in this project so thank you. Thank you any questions for the applicant at this time? All right ladies and gentlemen this is a This is a public hearing on case 25 SN1150, Commonwealth Fusion Systems Power Plant.

[05:13:44] Is there anyone here who would like to speak to this case? If so, please come forward and state your name.

[05:14:07] Steve Meadows, common citizen with a little bit of knowledge. I'll just go straight to the point. There is not another fusion plant on the planet Earth. I've done search. I've looked at the information provided.

[05:14:26] There is no fusion plants anywhere. And yet we are having presented to us that a fusion plant can happen and will happen. And I just don't believe the technology.

[05:14:43] And I'm looking at all the dumbbell magnetic systems, the other voice of how you're going to suspend a black hole in the middle of a nuclear system. That's over the head. I understand that.

[05:14:58] I just don't buy it. And if you're not buying, then what are you building? Now, I'm not a person who's afraid of nuclear power. There's a system of a four-foot-by-four-foot-by-eight-foot nuclear power plant that you can put into your yard and get 10,000 homes out of it.

[05:15:18] I have a utility pole in my yard. I'm welcome to put one of those in my yard, but it's a fission plant. That's the same thing that our United States Navy uses. So the captain will be standing here, and the other side of third row behind me is where the nuclear power plant is to move that submarine through the water.

[05:15:43] the United States government doesn't have fusion. That is my basic problem with this project. You're promising a future technology that currently does not exist anywhere. Russia doesn't have it.

[05:16:03] Canada doesn't have it. England doesn't have it. We hope China doesn't have it. But it just simply doesn't exist. And if you build a building that's going to not exist and not do as you say, what do you do with it then? This is where it's over to become a regular fission part of.

[05:16:20] I know it's prevented by your rules, but then you would have a experimental plant as opposed to one that is actually going to produce electrical energy. Thank you for your time. Thank you.

[05:16:35] Next speaker. Jerry Turner, I kind of agree with the previous speaker. This is experimental. Even though they say they've got one that's operational, it's still experimental.

[05:16:55] Hopefully it does work. Then we won't have to have all these solar panels. They'll quit cutting down trees. I don't think it's going to work. Not in my lifetime. It will probably eventually work, but there's a lot of ifs in there.

[05:17:13] There's a lot of what ifs. Let's make this happen. They're investing a lot of money in Chesterfield County, no doubt about it. I just hope it works, because if it doesn't, then there again, the county's going to be footing the bill probably with a super fund site.

[05:17:35] If it does work, then probably you're not going to have enough water to cool it. So then George is going to have to figure out how you're going to get some more water to the citizens. So hopefully this works.

[05:17:50] But y'all are taking a big chance with this, so just remember, you're the ones going to allow this to happen, so it's on your clerk when it doesn't happen. Thank you.

[05:18:06] Thank you. Next speaker. Good evening, Mr. Chairman and all supervisors, and Dr. Casey, good to see you all again. In my remarks, I have everything that has been said tonight by the lawyer and everybody else, so I'm just going to give you, as president and CEO of the Chamber of Commerce here, I'm going to give you the opinion of all of the businesses within the chamber we are very definitely for this and would like to see this approved we've had as you all are aware

[05:18:45] CFS come and talk to at one of our monthly luncheons come and talk to all of our businesses and I in addition to that I have been in attendance at four other different presentations they've given since they've been coming into the county here.

[05:19:02] They very much are part of the community already. Within the first two weeks, once they did their first presentation, they became high-end Chamber of Commerce members, have been part of everything. They're involved in what we're doing. The businesses are thrilled to be learning very in-depth from this involvement with us as to how they are going to benefit from having the fusion plant here and how they're going to be a part of it and how even more so CFS is going to be part of the business community and the general community of Chesterfield County here.

[05:19:39] I'm also excited for the other side of it, which will be the high-paying and high-quality job creation in our region in areas that we do not currently have and will give an opportunity for workforce development for not only our normal workforce development, young people coming through, but also our veterans and our mid-career changers that will come through as well.

[05:20:02] So the chamber supports CFS and their decision to develop the ARC Fusion Power Plant in Chesterfield County. This project reflects innovation, community partnerships, business partnerships, and a cleaner future for us all. So we do say yes, we support it. Thank you.

[05:20:18] Thank you. Next speaker. Good evening, Mr. Chairman. Board of Supervisors, Dr. Casey. My name is Jessica Van Leeuwen. I am a resident of Chesterfield County for about nine years now.

[05:20:37] I am also a small business owner here in the county. I have submitted some written comments. I would like you to know that I fully support this. I support it from a lot of different angles, and I've spoken at large with a large number of people who are residents of the county, and with no exceptions, everyone that I have spoken with has supported it. It provides innovation. It provides... I knew nothing about this type of

[05:21:13] energy before I went to a chamber event where they were doing a presentation. I've now sat through three or four presentations. I read all of the documents that have been submitted in support of this application. This is an opportunity for employment.

[05:21:32] This is an opportunity for education. This is an opportunity for them to partner with our educational institutions, with our small businesses. And based on what I see from this, it's a win for the county.

[05:21:48] So I respectfully request that you grant their application. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. My name is Dave Stritzinger. You know my opinion means very little to you folks, but I'm asking you to approve this.

[05:22:13] You guys won't be down there on site with your shovels in your hand doing the first dig this year or next year. They're building one of these up in Massachusetts, back up in MA. They're not going to do any construction unless they know this thing is going to work. I've been following this company. I've been following the topic since I first heard about them coming here.

[05:22:35] And there's been a lot of advances in the last six months to a year in this field. And I really, truly believe those dudes back there from CFS are pretty smart people, all right, and smarter than most of us.

[05:22:51] That's for damn sure. So, again, my opinion means very little, but I'm just saying go for it. Thank you. Thank you. Any other speakers? Seeing none, I'm going to close this public hearing.

[05:23:09] This case is back before the board. Question for the applicant. Go ahead. Is the applicant available?

[05:23:27] Thank you. Good evening.

[05:23:47] How is this cooled? Yes, sir. It's a steam cycle that produces heat through steam. That steam will then be cooled by what's called an air-cooled condenser, which is cooled to the atmosphere and does not require it to close loop water system. And so that cooling system then basically uses large fans to remove that heat and push it to the atmosphere.

[05:24:08] So how much water would it require from Chesterfield County? 400,000 gallons per day. 400,000 gallons per day. Okay. That was my only question, Mr. Chair. I have comments on the discussion. Any other questions? I've got a question for you, for you, Lee.

[05:24:30] Yes. A couple. Who's funding this? Yeah, so CFS is a private company backed by a lot of large investors. And CFS will privately own, operate, and finance the project and deliver that. It'll be a CFS-owned project.

[05:24:46] So all the money going into this site is the money of CFS or its investors? Yes. And I heard one person say something about a super site, which may pertain possibly to fission, but not to fusion.

[05:25:08] Can you speak to what you use on site and why that could not happen? Yeah, specifically, I think the question was around the Superfund site. That's something to be left behind. I think specifically speaking to the decommissioning was the question. So we'll get our license from the Virginia Department of Health.

[05:25:26] The fusion is fundamentally regulated very similar to particle accelerators or cancer research facilities, something we've been regulating here in Virginia for quite a while. And that, through that regulations, we'll establish the requirements for a decommissioning plan and then the remediation requirements inside of that, as well as the financial assurances to ensure that can happen through that licensing.

[05:25:45] And that will ensure the remediation of any of the radiological conditions on the site, and then not the entire site, so some of the mechanical components which will still have residual value, could be then repurposed for other commercial operations. Just really to think about the reaction in the process, and so the fusion fuel is fundamentally parts of hydrogen, so isotopes of hydrogen, different types of hydrogen you put together to make helium, and in that process, creating enormous amount of energy, same process that powers the stars.

[05:26:13] That is the opposite process that's used in fission, and in fission, you have to deal with uraniums and plutoniums. We don't know uraniums or plutoniums we use as fuel that would be a part of those systems that would have any other additional risk. I actually have a follow-up question when you're done. Okay, so up in Massachusetts, David and I actually agree on a couple things tonight, so he doesn't think I listen to him, but I do.

[05:26:40] Up in Dedham, which Mr. Engler and I visited, you're building Spark right now, which is the proof of concept. Is that a simplistic way of saying it? And once it's up and running, you'll see you can make it work. And if you do, you're obviously going to do extensive testing to make sure it's going to work the way you want it to work before you would even consider coming down construction here. Does that make sense? That's right. Yes. Is there, and I know the answer to the question, but recently I read an article where I think the most, the longest fusion operation was 22 minutes in China. Is that the most recent one or France? France just set the record. France

[05:27:19] just set the record, right? But theirs is a different type of machine, right? It's not exactly a tokamak like this. No, similar machine. It's a tokamak as well. Okay. All right. So there are advances being made in this across the country is and your design is different than theirs in this sense yeah we have a breakthrough in new magnet technology that enables us to operate a little bit differently okay so I think mr. Joe make my my statements now where we're at it we have everything to gain from this and nothing to lose literally if this technology when you get it working and I

[05:27:57] believe you are as mr. Turner said it'll make solar obsolete it'll make everything else obsolete this technology works it will be the cleanest greenest energy generation known to man and so taking a chance and if I you know I don't believe I'm gonna have egg on my face later I think people are gonna look at us and go they made the right decision what's that brilliant I don't I don't think they'd say about me but but I think it's it's worth absolutely worth

[05:28:34] uh the opportunity here we're honored i i'm thrilled that this company is coming here and that we will be helping to be the first of its kind in the world that will be successful and this and i think the first one that here is 400 megawatts is potentially what it would generate um as i understand the skepticism there's always skepticism about new technology um no one thought that cell phones would be what they are today, but everybody has one. No one thought that computers would be what they are today, considering years ago they took up the size of a large

[05:29:12] room. Now everybody has one in their cell phone. So I think it's an incredible leap forward in technology for the world, and I look forward to when you flip the switch in Massachusetts on the prototype. I'd like to come up and see it. Mr. Chair, I'm going to leave, if you want to make the motion, all that you make is in your district. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Would you mind just going ahead and introducing yourself and the folks you're with and your background and

[05:29:49] just kind of give a little bit of background? Yeah, so my name is Ben Bybeth. I'm a Director of Business Development and Strategy for Commonwealth Fusion Systems. I'm joined by right here with Jennifer Gannon, who's our Head of Global Affairs and the Chief Executive for that group. My background, I spent eight years in the United States Navy as an electrician and nuclear plant operator on submarines, and then spent the next eight years operating commercial nuclear plants, large ones very similar to North Ann and Surrey here, during operations, maintenance, engineering, and plant management.

[05:30:18] And then the last eight years, I was working in large utilities in both the South and the Northeast, leading innovation and grid modernization efforts before coming to CFS, where I've been here for the last four years. I've got a bachelor's degree in nuclear engineering technologies, and a master's of business administration from Tulane University. And the folks you're joined by, they could go ahead and just introduce yourselves.

[05:30:38] Thank you very much. I'm Jennifer Yanton. I'm the Chief Global Affairs Officer at Commonwealth Fusion Systems. So I said I'm the executive leadership team. I recently moved here to the area in Richmond to be part of the first boots on the ground as we try to progress the project here.

[05:30:54] So excited to be a Virginia resident as of three months ago. My role in the company is to oversee our government affairs activities globally. That goes from international governments to our federal government in Washington, D.C., to state government to county local citizens and we also have a community relations team I would say my background is in energy writ large I worked mainly in oil and gas in the earlier part of my careers but I made a switch to come to Commonwealth fusion systems to advance what I think is going to be game-changing technology for the world it's a very exciting place to work we also have a

[05:31:30] very strong strong view that it is important that we engage deeply with our legislators our regulators our administrators and also the community so I think you've heard here we've been doing an awful lot of outreach we have one of my colleagues is here as well Jessica Strunton and she has been doing a lot of leading that effort to do as many community meetings as we can so I do welcome those who provided comment on wanting to understand the technology better and we we can get them on a mailing list and we do these on a regular basis and we're always happy to meet with people and provide further

[05:32:02] their information. So we look forward to continuing to engage. Thank you. I may make my comments now, but I may make them later. I want to make a point in that, you know, and I think it was December 17th. I looked up December 17th, 1903. A couple of brothers got together and said, you know, if birds can fly and we know it's possible, now can we just make it happen? And every day we work, you know, and see the sun and we're looking at the sun and we're saying, you know what,

[05:32:38] we can figure this out we can make it happen and that's what's happening in the room right now that's what's happening in Chesterfield County there's a truth which is that you all had choices as to where you were going to put this and when we had the conversation as to why you should come to Chesterfield County for me it was a powerful symbolic thing in that the first in the world commercial coal mine was in Chesterfield County and now we're going to have the first commercial

[05:33:14] fusion plant in Chesterfield County. We've made a very symbolic, we've gone in a full circle and what a sweet way for this to happen. I'm with Mr. Carroll and is that this is a win-win all around and I am so excited that y'all are here and that we're going to make this work and And you're going to make this work, I believe you.

[05:33:39] The folks at MIT and the $2 billion worth of investments. Those folks that put $2 billion in aren't silly or gullible or come on. They know what's going on and this is what's happening right in front of us.

[05:33:55] We're making history, right in front of us we're making history. So thank you all for being here. I know you all had to fly down for this and we're looking forward to you all coming here and in getting started thank you miss Snyder well I'm very excited about this because lord knows we need something exciting to keep us uh uh moving lately so um I am all about green energy and if we can make this happen I'm going to be a very very happy happy person um and I I have talked

[05:34:34] with you all so much and I found out this weekend at my my my uh neighborhood picnic that Leanne from VDH lives in my neighborhood. I know her, and she's just like, hey, I've been assigned to VDH for the fusion specialist, so we're planning a road trip to come and visit the site up at some point, so I'm very excited about that, and I can't wait. If we could make it happen faster, that'd be awesome. That's all I have to say, so thank you so much.

[05:35:06] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to say I want to thank you for being here. This is a, you stole my words, this is a win-win for Chesterfield. All right, I guess I get to, since it's in my district, I'll get to make a motion, which I'm excited about.

[05:35:27] But again, the fact that there's really, the only downside is we went out and told the world we're going to do it first. If it doesn't happen here first, we get a little egg on our face.

[05:35:43] But when it's done and it works, it doesn't matter if we're first or second or third. It matters that we have an energy source that brings the source of the energy of the stars to the earth. That's pretty powerful.

[05:36:00] As one of my colleagues said, we have very little to lose and a whole lot to gain. This is one of the few things that outside of some skeptics on whether or not it will work, I haven't heard anybody that said, if it does work, there's a problem with this.

[05:36:20] Every single person that I've heard said, if this works, this will be awesome. And we do awesome things like Lego and others in Chesterfield County. So bringing one more awesome to Chesterfield County is my privilege to be able to make the motion to approve case 25 SN1150, subject to the conditions in the staff report.

[05:36:45] Second. Second. that's a four-way second they we need to put that in the notes that's the first time I've ever had four simultaneous seconds on anything all in favor

[05:37:01] madam clerk item 18 public hearings a to consider zoning ordinance modernization chapter

[05:38:37] 19.2. Ms. Chieffa. Thank you. Good evening, Mr. Chair, members of the board, Dr. Casey. Thank you for the opportunity to present to you this evening. We are providing an overview of ZOMOD, Zoning Ordinance Modernization, which is a multi-year comprehensive rewrite of the county's zoning ordinance. Today, we have Steve Hosh, Assistant Director of Planning, Thomas Jenkins, Zoning Administrator, and Andy Gillies, Director of Planning, speaking to various components of the draft ordinance before you for consideration this evening.

[05:39:14] Before diving into the ZOMOD project, I'd like to take a moment to talk about the two tools that we have and how they differ from one another, the zoning ordinance and the comprehensive plan. Each one of these tools is different, but they work together to guide and regulate development of our community.

[05:39:35] The comprehensive plan is a document that guides the county. It does not have the force of law. Again, it's a guide. You, as the board, acting on a recommendation from the Planning Commission with public input, adopts a long-term vision for the county.

[05:39:52] This document recommends land uses and densities for all areas of Chesterfield County. Ultimately, the plan guides how staff, the Planning Commission, and you, as the board, evaluate requests from property owners to change their zoning designation.

[05:40:09] The zoning ordinance does have the force of law. Using the vision set forth in the comprehensive plan, which includes the recommended land uses and densities, again, the zoning ordinance sets forth specific development regulations, such as what specific uses can occur in a property, what size lots can be developed, how tall the buildings can be, how close they can be built to a road or property line, how much parking has to be provided, and on and on.

[05:40:39] The plan is a long-term document designed to set that vision for many decades. Zoning changes are requested based upon market factors and other demands for the use of the land. The Commonwealth of Virginia requires localities to review and update their comprehensive plan.

[05:40:59] Chesterfield's comprehensive plan receives frequent updates through smaller special area plans and special focus area plans, such as the recently approved Northern Route 10 quarter plan. the plan last received a substantial update in 2019. Thus, the comprehensive plan is a fairly modern document, while the zoning ordinance, on the other hand, dates from the late 80s.

[05:41:24] Which brings us to why we are here today. So why do we need a new zoning ordinance? Our current zoning ordinance has been modified and tweaked since the 80s, but here we are. It's 2025, and development looks a whole lot different than it did 40 years ago.

[05:41:41] Our ordinance has just not kept up. Land uses that didn't exist back then dominate our landscape today. In addition to the new uses, there are many that are out of date or undefined in today's ordinance. And as a result of various amendments and patches, some items are just not located where they are expected to be, which makes it very difficult for us and the public to use and understand our ordinance.

[05:42:09] The current ordinance is disconnected from the comprehensive plan, which is our long-range vision. I mentioned it on the previous slide. For example, the comprehensive plan has outlined various places that are appropriate for a mix of uses. So where living, working, and playing are intertwined, the buzzword of mixed use.

[05:42:30] The current zoning ordinance doesn't have that true mixed-use zoning district for an applicant to zone to. So this misalignment forces applicants into a complex conditional use plan development, or CUPD, process. This complicated CUPD process creates a scenario where applicants are consistently seeking exceptions to a variety of ordinance standards with no guarantee of mitigation for those.

[05:43:00] Utilizing the exception process creates more confusion for both the community and applicants as to what is expected from that project. So right now, the only tool in the county's toolbox to manage development projects is antiquated.

[05:43:15] It leaves the county in a very vulnerable position as we seek to handle new and innovative projects. During the development of ZOMOD, the county took into account national best practices, but in the end, developed a document that is truly unique to Chesterfield County and its needs.

[05:43:34] ZOMOD offers predictability for neighborhoods by more clearly outlining those expectations, And this also creates a certainty for applicants because everyone knows those expectations. So this common sense flexibility is improved with the exceptions and the way that they are considered as part of the zoning process, leading to more balanced negotiation between county officials and developers.

[05:44:01] So this assures that county priorities of amenity space, good design, different housing types and standards are achieved. The county does need a new document, one that's designed to be viewed online with links, calculators, and other features to enable use.

[05:44:18] So I'd like to take a look quickly at our process timeline just to give everyone some idea of how long we've been working on this project and how we got to where we are today. So the comprehensive plan identified the need for a rewrite of the zoning ordinance in both the 2012 and the 2019 comprehensive plan.

[05:44:39] This implementation item was executed in late 2019, just on the heels of that comp plan update. The public hearing tonight is a culmination of six years of effort. Although the pandemic delayed the official start, the planning department conducted listening sessions with community stakeholders in 2020.

[05:45:01] In 2021, an official analysis of the existing ordinance was conducted. That analysis took into account where the existing ordinance fell short, particularly in implementing the comprehensive plan, along with the feedback that was received at the listening sessions that were conducted in 2020.

[05:45:19] A first draft of ZOMOD was developed in 2022, and after some staff edits, we began introducing that draft to the Planning Commission throughout the spring and summer of 2023. The public was invited to comment on that draft and based upon feedback heard from the commission and those public comments, staff developed draft two in late 2023 and early 24.

[05:45:46] That draft was presented to the planning commission throughout 2024, again with open public comment windows. Draft three was released in early March of this year for review and comment ahead of the community meetings. And draft four, which is before you today, is a result of citizen input received at the community meetings back in April, comments received through the online portal, comments received at the Planning Commission public hearing in July, and staff recommended edits.

[05:46:18] Throughout our multi-year journey to rewrite the zoning ordinance, community engagement has been a key element of our process. The document we present tonight is not just a product of our efforts, but a reflection of the voices, concerns, and ideas of our community.

[05:46:37] And I know a zoning ordinance is not very exciting to get involved with, but we did have engagement and we appreciate that engagement. We made every effort to reach out through a variety of means, from community meetings and online surveys to social media campaigns, billboards, and conversations with various individuals.

[05:46:57] Our goal was not only to inform, but to truly listen. Planning staff sought the input of Chesterfield's Committee on the Future, a ten-member citizen committee appointed by the board, and spent six months in 2024 reviewing ZOMOD with them.

[05:47:14] In addition to the Committee on the Future, staff has made presentations over the years to various community groups and homeowners associations to include the Chester Rotary, Brander Mill Men's Club, the Lions Club, and Chesterfield Farm Bureau, just to name a few.

[05:47:31] If they asked, we came and spoke. An advisory committee, which includes development professionals and interested citizens, consistently met over the course of the project with planning staff to offer feedback on the various drafts. The county continued to utilize email distribution lists and partnerships with organizations to get the word out, and a series of community meetings were held in April of this year.

[05:47:55] Six open house-style meetings were held across the county to share the details of ZOMOD, and a series of library office hours were also held. Anyone could come to talk about the impacts to the county, to their neighborhood, or to their property. During the six-year time period, staff has received over 350 direct comments into the online portal on the various drafts of ZOMOD.

[05:48:19] We want to thank everyone who took time to provide comments, to read the draft, and staff has replied to each and every comment that was submitted through that portal over the course of the project. And documentation of our replies is available. Many news organizations, such as the Times Dispatch, Richmond Business, 8 News, and others have run stories over the years, and notifications were mailed to all property owners in Chesterfield County.

[05:48:45] Per state law, it was required, and the first notification was ahead of the Planning Commission public hearing, and the second was for today's Board of Supervisors public hearing. Each mailing was made up of approximately 126,000 postcards.

[05:49:00] As part of the ZOMOD project, there will be a comprehensive rezoning of the entire county. Every property in Chesterfield County has a zoning district assigned to it. A zoning district is an area where specific land use regulations apply.

[05:49:20] So the types of uses, such as agriculture, residential, commercial, or industrial, buildings and activities that are permitted on that property, and details like building height and setbacks, which I mentioned earlier. Recommended land uses and proposed densities are generally based on the county's comprehensive plan.

[05:49:39] They are not in the zoning ordinance. In ZOMOD, all current zoning districts will be converted to their most comparable new zoning district. So ZOMOD converts residential districts found in our existing zoning ordinance to their most comparable residential district described in ZOMOD.

[05:50:00] And the same for current non-residential zoning districts described in our current ordinance. They are converted to their most comparable non-residential district in ZOMOD. And agriculture will remain agriculture. Despite the fact that every property zoning district will change, all of the prior standards and conditions that were negotiated and approved in the past will continue to apply after the adoption of ZOMOD, ensuring that existing neighborhoods and businesses will remain the same as they are today.

[05:50:36] As I mentioned on the previous slide, every property owner received a postcard notifying them of this public hearing this evening, and that notice did direct them to the online draft conversion map, which is shown on the screen, and property owners can view the map application to see their proposed new ZOMOD district.

[05:50:56] Before I turn it over to the next speaker, I just want to say thank you. Thank you from the planning department to you, Mr. Chair, the board members, and Dr. Casey, for the opportunity to work on such an important project for Chesterfield.

[05:51:14] Thank you to the community stakeholders, residents, and anyone that has taken time to review and provide comment. Thank you to the many county staff for their expertise and time. I can't tell you the hours that were spent to work on this project. Thank you to the Planning Commission, who spent many, many months with us reviewing various drafts.

[05:51:37] The dedication and countless hours invested by everyone involved here culminated in the document before you this evening, reflecting a collective effort and commitment over the years. At this time, I will turn it over to Steve Hosch to continue the presentation.

[05:51:56] Good evening, Mr. Chair, members of the board, Dr. Casey, Steve Hosch, Assistant Director with the Planning Department. I will pick up with going over the ZOMOD structure and then talk a little bit about the districts and uses, and then we'll have another speaker go on from there.

[05:52:15] So before you on this slide and for the public's benefit, you can see the structure of the zoning ordinance before you tonight. It is pretty common. It concludes all the necessary pieces and articles that a normal, typical zoning ordinance contains. The big thing here is that compared to our current ordinance, this ordinance is much, much better organized.

[05:52:34] It's easier to find things. Things flow in a certain way. Right now, our current ordinance, you know, I've been here 25 years. It's very difficult even today to find things in our current ordinance. They are in areas where they shouldn't be and kind of jumbled together.

[05:52:49] This ordinance is going to flow much better. Also be available electronically in an electronic format that's searchable. And we'll also have links in it. So it should be much, much more user-friendly. So one of the articles that we're going to focus on is the zoning districts, but I'll just go over quickly some of the basic articles.

[05:53:08] The article one is the introduction. It basically just outlines the purpose and intent of a zoning ordinance. It's a basic kind of provision in the zoning districts. Article two is the zoning districts found in ZOMOD, and we'll spend a little bit of time going over those, especially for the public's benefit.

[05:53:25] We'll start with agricultural. Agricultural is a zoning district today in our current ordinance. and it is in our zoning district in the ZOMOD ordinance as well and it's the same as it is today it's that's why it's got the same name we are not proposing any changes to the agricultural district so the five acre lot minimum that's in today's ordinance is still the five acre lot minimum under ZOMOD development options here are based on lot recordation dates those are legal reasons for that and that's in our current ordinance and those are carried forward under ZOMOD typical uses in the A District are homes on large lots, of course, farming and forestry kinds of uses,

[05:54:05] and new for ZOMOD, which is actually a great thing for us to have, is agritourism uses in our A District. So the A District is not a place for just houses on large lots or for someone to have a farm, but actually to have viable rural businesses like the Chesterfield Berry Farm and things like that where you can go and experience, you know, if you're in an urban or suburban area, what some of those venues are out there, wedding venues, things like that, but taking, you know, commercial advantage of some of our rural areas as not just like a reserved place, but a place that's active and thriving and has a thriving business community. And then, of course, we have

[05:54:43] our comprehensive plan connection. Our comprehensive plan tries to protect and preserve that rural part of the county in the southern and western areas, especially for the future enjoyment of residents and future businesses. Our next zoning district in Zomot is Rural Community, RC. That does not exist today in our current ordinance. It's a five-acre lot subdivision zone, basically, and this would be what we would allow, and again, in the rural parts of the county, if someone were to develop lots in the rural area, we want them to be large, five-acre lot minimums in there, just the same as the A district, so the same lot sizes, and the typical use there, of course,

[05:55:22] is single-family residential detached units. And again, the comprehensive plan guides the density here, depending on where you are, either a five-acre lot or, you know, if you're in a different area, it might be a little bit smaller. But RC is a five-acre lot minimum. Could be a larger lot.

[05:55:40] Semi-rural is the next zoning district category that we have. This really contains three different development options. This is getting more towards typical subdivision development. We have a two-acre lot subdivision option in here, a one-acre lot subdivision option in here, and a half-acre lot subdivision option in this district. So which of these options you would choose from is really mostly driven by the availability of utility connections. So if you do not have access to water and sewer, the two-acre lot layout is encouraged there. In the one-acre lot subdivision, you are required to connect to water, and in the half-acre lot subdivision option, you are required

[05:56:20] to connect both water and waste water services so depending on the availability of those services depends on how low how a lot size you can get again this has nothing to do with density this is just the lot size that you can do the comprehensive plan tells you how many of these lots you can actually put on the ground again the typical use here is single family residential detached and again the comprehensive plan connection here is in our rural areas of the county where maybe we have water available but no waste water in the southern part of the county.

[05:56:52] Suburban Community SC is our more bread and butter typical subdivision development in the county. There's a 14,500 square foot lot subdivision option, an 11,000 square foot lot subdivision, and an 8,000 square foot lot subdivision. This category is what the majority of the neighborhoods in the county will be converted to because most of the neighborhoods in Chesterfield are either r15 r12 or r9 today or something close to that and r15 and r12 are the basic subdivisions we we do today and those are the equivalents there with the 14 5 and the 11 000 square foot lot sizes

[05:57:27] again the the uses here are single-family residential we're not talking multi-family we're not talking townhouse these are our single-family detached uses in this area plus neighborhood amenities so here you start kicking in uh neighborhood things like maybe a pool or clubhouse or, you know, some kind of green or something for the use enjoyment of residents. So the basic theory with ZOMOD is, is that the smaller the lot sizes that you get, the more intense open space and amenity space that you have to provide in return for the enjoyment of residences.

[05:58:01] And then again, the comprehensive plan connection here, as we discussed a little bit earlier today, is in those areas of the, of the county where suburban style residential is, is put forward as a recommendation. The SU district is more of a new district for our ordinance. In the previous ordinance, the one we have today, there is an R-9 and an R-7 district, a 9,000 lot and a 7,000 square foot lot option. That was removed from our current ordinance back in the 90s.

[05:58:30] And what we have seen over time with modern development trends is that there is a demand for these smaller lot neighborhood configurations. So ZOMOD brings back a small lot single family neighborhood option to zone into. And those development options would be a 7,500 square foot lot, a 6,000 square foot lot, or a 4,500 square foot lot. Again, the density doesn't change there.

[05:58:54] It just depends on the lot size that you are putting in. So for example, you may have a piece of property with a lot of wetlands and you can't, you know, put large lots on there with, you know, you can't get to the comp plan's density. This would allow you to protect those sensitive of environmental areas and put small lots out of the way of those, or if you want to save a forested area, it'll allow you to cluster your density on one end of the property and leave the rest of the property alone for natural areas or the enjoyment of nature. Again, typical uses here are single family residential. There is no multifamily or townhouse allowed in the SU district. So I know

[05:59:30] there's been a lot of misinformation out there in the public that, you know, this SU district is going to be used to cram density into neighborhoods. That is not true. The comprehensive plan has and will continue to guide density here. So if the comp plan says you're a max of four units an acre, it doesn't matter what your lot size is, you get four units per acre. So you can do that in small lots or you can do that in larger lots, but you're only getting a certain number of units on that property. Transition residential is where we start getting into other types of residential uses besides single family. So here's the first district that allows townhouses and allows

[06:00:05] multifamily apartment or condo style development. That transition residential is basically the equivalent of our residential townhouse district or residential multifamily district today it's suburban style higher density developments and again the comprehensive plan guides where these uses are appropriate in that medium high density 4 to 8 units per acre category urban residential is a brand new district in ZOMOD it's meant to complement our mixed-use centers so if you think of a mixed-use center like maybe Chesterfield Town Center if that were to redevelop. The core there would be mixed use, but not every single building in a development

[06:00:45] has to have a mix of commercial and residential. That's just not sustainable. You'll have a core of commercial residential mix, and then around that, you'll need residential to support that, and that UR district is meant to be the complementary piece of straight-up mixed use.

[06:01:00] So this does not exist on the ground today. Someone would need to zone into that in those appropriate locations driven by the comprehensive plan. But here you have a more urban-style townhouse, a more urban-style multifamily building, and mixed-use buildings. So these would be kind of your street grid systems, your walkable areas with good streetscaping.

[06:01:20] You're hiding the parking. The parking is not prominent here. It's meant to be more walkable in a more urban design kind of context. And then we have the alternative residential district. This is meant to be kind of an innovative residential district. It's kind of meant to, if there's an innovative residential product that the rest of those districts can't, doesn't really fit into, the AR district allows you to do either a fee simple lot, so somebody building a unit on a lot, or a common lot scenario where there's single ownership of the lot and you're just arranging the units on there, like a condo kind of system, could be cottage homes or any number of different flexible housing options.

[06:01:59] This is meant to be a flexible residential district, allows lots of different kinds of housing units. This does not exist on the ground today outside of where we are putting our mobile home parks. That would fall into an AR district, but that is not the only use of the AR district. That's just where those uses on the ground are going.

[06:02:16] So someone would have to zone in to the AR district in order to take advantage of this. Typical uses here, again, could be single family, could be multifamily, could be townhouse. The zoning case that would come forward and ask for AR would drive the types of units that would go there and how those uses would be laid out.

[06:02:33] And again, the comprehensive plan provides some general guidance, but this is meant to be an innovative district that could pretty much go anywhere. The comp plan density would drive how dense the development would be. And then we start talking about our commercial districts. We have Neighborhood Business, which is our lightest commercial district.

[06:02:50] It basically replaces our neighborhood office and our convenience commercial districts of today's ordinance. It's really meant to be places where the commercial and the residential can coincide together. So think of like a daycare outside of a neighborhood.

[06:03:05] Those two uses kind of go well together or a little coffee shop at the entrance to a neighborhood like the kind of like the Lucky's in Woodlake, for example. You know, something that is small in scale, has a residential feel, blends well into a neighborhood. It's not meant to be, you know, a giant gas station or, you know, giant fast food things.

[06:03:24] It's meant to be, you know, medical offices, things that would not disrupt a neighborhood too badly. So these are those kinds of uses. it's meant to protect the neighborhood from those corridors. So think of like 360 and 60. You've got the major road, then you've got like a band usually of commercial between that and a neighborhood. And so where that is a real tight fit, neighborhood business probably fits because you don't want large commercial up against those neighborhoods. You want smaller scale commercial development there and NB is your right district for that. The commercial corridor is our more general kind of what you think of as suburban style commercial development. This is where you're going to find

[06:04:02] your shopping centers, your fast food, your auto repair, your gas stations, that's for the commercial corridor. Those are our general parts of 360, 60, 10, and 1. These are meant for larger pieces of property where you can protect neighborhoods that are behind there. Think of like Hancock Village or, you know, Bermuda Square Shopping Center. You know, these are kind of varied places with mix of activities. And again, these are, this is where you'll find those auto-dependent uses so that in our mixed-use centers, we can have people-friendly development where you need places for the cars and for car-centric development to go because we are a suburban county.

[06:04:42] But what we're trying to introduce in alignment with a comprehensive plan is this concept that not everywhere has to be the generic suburban-style development that we get in the county. We can have nodes of mixed-use at specific locations, usually at major intersections where you can actually get some density in there and some development where you can walk around and do a variety of things. You can live, shop, play without having to drive from one use to another. Not everywhere. These would only be in places that it makes sense, but we do now have a zoning district that you can zone into. As Rachel said,

[06:05:17] right now we're kind of using the CUPD process to get around our current ordinance because our current ordinance cannot handle mixed-use development very well. So this will be the first time our zoning ordinance has a true mixed-use development. And the scale of that mixed-use is driven by the comprehensive plan. There's a neighborhood scale of development, which is pretty low-scale, community-scale development, and then regional-scale development. So depending on the location, the comprehensive plan would drive the intensity of this mixed-use development that is desired. Of course, anyone would have to zone into this, so through that zoning process with the input of the community and you all in the planning commission staff, that's how you would

[06:05:56] fine-tune that case. Employment center is our first kind of industrial category. It's meant to replace our light industrial and our current ordinance. It's a mix of office and light manufacturing uses that, again, are complementary to neighborhoods. They're not meant to be loud or have a lot of odor or a lot of truck traffic. These are uses that, you know, can be a buffer between a large corridor, a large commercial center, and a neighborhood setting behind. So thinking offices, office parks, medical, again, light manufacturing, entertainment uses, hotels, things like that would be in the EC district. And again, that's guided by the comprehensive plan as to where those locations

[06:06:34] are most appropriate. Employment general is our heavier industrial that replaces the I-2 and the I-3 in our current ordinance today. And this is where you're going to find those uses that you should have separated from residential, things that make a lot of noise or have a lot of impacts around surrounding properties. The EG district should be well buffered from residential especially.

[06:06:56] It really shouldn't be located near residential. And the typical uses here are manufacturing, power generation, as we saw in the case earlier, and then processing these heavy things that are necessary to our economy. But again, we don't really want them near our neighborhoods. And then we have, for the first time again, our ordinance, a warehouse and distribution district. So One of the things we tried to do in ZOMOD was separate out the warehousing uses from our industrial uses because we don't want all of our good job-creating lands to just go to warehousing.

[06:07:27] We want to preserve some of our land for innovative technologies and business uses, but we do also need places where warehouses can go. That's just the nature of the economy we're in now. Everybody wants to shop on Amazon, but those warehouses have got to be close by to get you your gadget on time or within 24 hours that we require.

[06:07:46] We've got to have places for warehousing. Those warehouses generally should be located near our limited access highways because they're truck heavy. They need to get in and out and back on the road with the goods that we're buying. So these places are typically driven locationally. So where those intersections are and basically where they're on the ground today.

[06:08:06] And then we have some overlay districts. So right now our current ordinance has around 15 overlay districts. And that was a confusing jumble of things. So what ZOMOD does is try to refine some of those into their basic components.

[06:08:22] We have village overlays for our historic villages like Chester, Midlothian, Bonaire, Ettrick, and Matoaka. We have an urban corridor overlay, which is meant for our older parts of our county where we don't have the room for setbacks that we do in growing areas or greener areas of the county.

[06:08:38] So that would be our eastern parts of 60, our eastern parts of 360, and northern parts of Route 1. We have the Roseland overlay district, which was done in 2023. We're not changing anything there. That's just brought forward from our current ordinance, along with the Chesapeake Bay preservation areas and the floodplain management district.

[06:08:57] So those are all in our current zoning ordinance. We are not doing anything different to those. Some of them have been modernized. For example, the Chesapeake Bay preservation overlay was reviewed with Department of Environmental Quality at the state level for some modernizing things that we needed to put in here.

[06:09:14] in conjunction with our environmental engineering department that reviewed those changes as well. So Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act is modernized in this ordinance and is out of date in the current ordinance. Then we'll talk really quickly about uses. So uses is Article 3, and the definitions of those uses is found in Article 9.

[06:09:32] So unlike today's ordinance, every use in ZOMOD is defined. So there's no more ambiguity about am I this or am I that. We don't know because the ordinance doesn't define it. every use is defined and those definitions are linked in the use matrix so you can click on the table and go right to the definition and see you know is this is this really fit what I'm doing as we lay out the charts there's different kind of terminologies in those charts we have permitted uses those are uses that you can just do because they're allowed in the district you have district uses that are restricted that means you can do them by right as long as you stay within

[06:10:08] these parameters. And then you have conditional uses. These are uses that you might be able to do them, but you need to go through a zoning process to make sure that these are, you know, these are uses that we want to condition or think about a little bit more and not just allow them to occur. And then new for ZOMOD, we have this C-STAR that you see here, which is a conditional use that the ordinance also provides guidance to. So an example of that would be our family daycare homes. Those are typically conditional uses in the neighborhood. If somebody wants to watch children um you know other people's children they have to come through a conditional use process we have put some standard guidelines in there because over the years you know our cases that

[06:10:47] we see for those all have had certain typical things and so rather than we ask the typical things over and over again we just put them in the ordinance so now everybody knows the rules when they go and try to apply for that conditional use they know what there is expected of them as they go forward are we still going to call it conditional use or something else It's still conditional use with guidance, is what we call it, yeah.

[06:11:11] Yes, sir. And then I'll turn it over to Thomas Jenkins, our zoning administrator, for the continuation of development standards and other parts of ZOMOD. All right.

[06:11:27] Thank you, Steve. I'll get through the rest of the ordinance here, starting with Article IV Development Standards, which includes a variety of sections that are covering all aspects of site development. So I'll run through these pretty quickly. The building design section includes architecture requirements that are applicable to multifamily and commercial buildings.

[06:11:45] The Dimensional Standards section clarifies how setbacks are to be measured, what sort of things may encroach into setbacks, and there are also separate residential and commercial setbacks from limited access highways like Route 288. There are also height limitations for a variety of specific structures such as church spires, water towers, etc.

[06:12:05] The Exterior Lighting section is the same as the existing lighting requirements with the addition of regulations that address residential light spillover across property lines. and retaining walls has requirements for fence height and construction material that are applicable to residential districts, excluding the agricultural and rural community districts.

[06:12:25] Improvement guarantees has requirements for bonding or otherwise providing surety for constructing certain improvements, including sidewalks and landscaping. There's also requirements for the establishment of a homeowners association to maintain open space and amenity space. Landscaping and screening establishes the basic perimeter landscaping types that are applicable to setbacks of commercial and multifamily project. It basically tells you what the mix of trees you have to have along the road is. This section has new requirements above today's ordinance to provide street trees within subdivisions, shopping centers, and mixed-use developments, and there's also

[06:13:00] requirements for increased parking lot landscaping. The parking section establishes minimum required parking spaces for various land uses, as well as dimensions for parking spaces and ability for adjacent uses to share parking. Changes from the existing ordinance include an increase in the townhouse and multifamily parking requirements and a minimum street width of 32 feet if a project wishes to count on-street parking in their project. Lastly, ZOMOT exempts agricultural and agritourism uses from providing an improved asphalt surface for their parking areas so that we don't disturb the rural setting of those uses. The sign section regulates sign height,

[06:13:39] number, and appearance of freestanding and building mounted signs. The section is largely similar to what we have in the ordinance today. However, ZOMOT has consolidated and simplified the temporary sign regulations stormwater management includes requirements for safety criteria and visual aesthetics for stormwater retention basins the main stormwater requirements are housed in a separate section of the county code chapter eight the streets transportation and connectivity section includes the following traffic impact analysis requirements for certain projects vehicular access to arterial and collector roads and road network and connectivity

[06:14:15] requirements in mixed-use projects. There are also sidewalk requirements of specific zoning districts and bikeway construction requirements in accordance with our bikeways and trails plan. Wrapping up this article is the upper Swift Creek watershed section which has increased stormwater runoff controls, tree planting, replacement and preservation requirements, and a requirement to include a natural resource inventory for any zoning applicable to this area. Amanity space is one of the central features of ZOMOD where it is required in smaller lot single-family districts, townhome, and multifamily districts, and commercial and mixed-use districts.

[06:14:54] This section has an extensive list of qualifying types of amenity space, ranging from pedestrian-accessible natural forested areas that might be found in a subdivision to active plazas and town squares that might be part of a denser mixed-use district. In most districts, a subset of required amenity space must be strategic amenity space, which is more developed and centrally located amenities that provide thriving public gathering places.

[06:15:17] And generally the requirement to provide more strategic amenity space increases with project density. On to buffers. Buffers are strips of vegetation that separate residential areas from incompatible land uses and heavily trafficked roads. Generally the width of a buffer increases depending on the intensity of the adjacent land use or the road.

[06:15:38] Buffers are largely the same as the existing ordinance with a slight increase in buffer width between the residential and the neighborhood business district. Permitted encroachments in the buffer areas in the Swift Creek watershed have also been reduced in an effort to retain more vegetation in those areas. And ZOMOD also removes new buffers from individual lots in order to prevent inadvertent clearing of those areas by homeowners.

[06:16:02] So now I'll move on to Article 5, Procedures and Fees, which outlines the various roles and responsibilities of the county government and the various procedures that an applicant might go through. So first up is the notice section, which establishes requirements for notifying the public of the various applications that come through the planning department, including legislative decisions by the board, BZA decisions such as appeals, and administrative actions that are reviewed by the planning department like site plans.

[06:16:31] The fee schedule has minimal changes compared to the existing ordinance. The biggest change is if there is a reduced fee for proposed accessory dwelling that might meet the recommending conditions in the ordinance. The other sections in this article lay out the timelines, review criteria, roles and responsibilities in executing the various processes.

[06:16:50] Specific sections cover rezonings, text amendment, conditional use, special exceptions, substantial accord, site plans, historic preservation, variances, and appeals. A new feature of ZOMOD is the adjustments to ordinance requirements process, which may occur as part of a rezoning.

[06:17:07] It enables an applicant to request, as part of their proffer statement, the ability to modify certain ordinance requirements. As a part of that modification, staff, the commission, and the board are required to consider the adjustments against the overall development proposal and ensure that sufficient mitigation has been provided with the application and that the adjustment enhances the proposal above and beyond what's in the ordinance.

[06:17:29] There are parts of the ordinance that are ineligible for adjustment, including conducting a use in a district that doesn't allow it and reducing lot size below the minimum district requirements. Another new process in ZOMOT is the zoning deviation. It replaces the existing CUPD, or conditional use plan development process, but it has a new name.

[06:17:52] Aside from the name change, zoning deviation still retains the unique ability to seek a use exception, which is conducting a use in a zoning district where it's not otherwise approved. Also, this process also allows development standards exceptions. The criteria are similar to the existing CUPD criteria with a few additions, such as a minimum of 10% amenity space in any residential project, and limiting use exceptions to 30% of net developable area, not gross area.

[06:18:17] And like any other process, this process can be initiated by a property owner, the board, or the commission. Article 6, Nonconformities, has two sections covering nonconforming uses, all of which is the same as the existing ordinance. A nonconforming use is a land use that is active but no longer meets the zoning ordinance.

[06:18:37] 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. The two-year period is the minimum allowed by state law. The article also has some new content that addresses how existing developments did into the ZOMOD landscape, so I'll cover that in the next slides.

[06:18:56] So, 19.272 has some important regulations that apply to both existing neighborhoods and unbuilt land that is yet to be subdivided. First, the conversion of the existing residential districts to the new ZOMOD districts might raise some questions about the ability to subdivide an existing residential lot into two or more lots.

[06:19:14] This section of ZOMOD has a specific clause that requires that sort of project to go before the board through a typical rezoning process you retain full control over. In this section, there is also language that addresses how unsubdivided residential parcels are to be developed. Again, with the conversion to the new ZOMOD districts, it might appear that there's a substantial increase in density that could occur by using the new smaller lot sizes. However, there's a specific clause in this section that requires an unsubdivided residential property to be developed according to the district option that's the nearest match for today. So if it's

[06:19:50] R15 today, a 15,000 square foot lot, ZOMOD would require it to develop with a very similar lot size assuming there were no prior zoning conditions on the property. Also in this same section we made some changes to the continuity of existing permitted uses in the heavy commercial and industrial districts. So for any property that's today, zone C5, I1, I2, or I3, there's a five-year period commencing at the effective date of the ordinance in which current permitted and restricted land uses may still be conducted and started. There's a few exceptions to this. Data centers

[06:20:26] are not eligible for this five-year grace period and neither are conditional uses in those districts. Any use that was started within that five-year period with a site plan and a building permit would become a non-conforming use upon the conclusion of that five-year period. And lastly, in the non-conformities article, there's a section that specifies how existing proffered conditions, conditional uses, CUPDs, variances, special exceptions are to be handled upon the conversion of the ordinance to ZOMOD.

[06:20:54] This is the section that specifies that if you have a CUP today, it will continue to override any zoning ordinance requirement unless the CUP is specifically silent on a requirement that exists in the zoning ordinance. All right, last four articles. The enforcement article, Article 7, lays out the legal foundation for the county to enforce the provisions of this chapter.

[06:21:17] The sections in this article clearly explain various timelines for enforcement, fines, court action, and remedies. The Planning Department worked closely with the Community Enhancement Department and the County Attorney's Office in the development of this article, substantially similar to the existing ordinance, albeit with some updates required by the Code of Virginia.

[06:21:34] Article 8, Administration, outlines the roles played by the various parts of county government, including the Board of Supervisors, Board of Zoning Appeals, Planning Commission, and the Planning Department. Article 9, Definitions, lists definitions for all the uses in the use matrix and many other critical words used in the ordinance.

[06:21:51] It's much expanded compared to today's definition section, so it's going to be very useful going forward. And then lastly, Article 10 has important legal provisions, including the repeal of the existing ordinance, Chapter 19.1, and the proposed effective date of the new zoning ordinance that is proposed to be January 1, 2026.

[06:22:09] So that covers our tour through the zoning ordinance. I'll turn it over to Director Gillies now to finish things up. Thank you, Thomas, and I'll try to wrap this up.

[06:22:29] I think all three of them have given you a good overview of ZOMOD and what's in it. What I'm going to try to cover are the remaining items that we are looking at making changes to tonight.

[06:22:48] On July 15th, the Planning Commission had a comparable public hearing on ZOMOD and made its recommendations and had a unanimous recommendation to approve ZOMOD with a few minor changes to that on the floor that night.

[06:23:09] Since that date, we've had a few more suggestions of changes come before you all, and I provided a memo dated September 9th that basically outlined all those changes from the July 15th Planning Commission public hearing and recommendation forward.

[06:23:29] And I'm just going to quickly go through the basic items that have changed, or at least been suggested to be changed. Most of those were in the draft of the ordinance that you have in your packet tonight, and also that memo that I mentioned earlier is in that for your reference as to what those changes are.

[06:23:50] So the first one being within the DEQ compliance, there was some, state did have some last minute requested wordsmithing they asked for us to put in to the floodplain and Chesbay requirements. Nothing that I would put in the category of substantial changes.

[06:24:09] It was more just getting the wording the way they like it at DEQ. Fairly minor types of changes there. We had, within the family subdivision provisions, we added some language to clarify, specifically in the agricultural zoning district, which is where most of our family subdivisions are formed uh clarifying that the the minimum size is a one acre lot and that 15 feet of frontage for

[06:24:43] those those special lot configurations for families only uh could be used um so that did not change from what we currently have in 19.1 the current zoning ordinance the family um the size for a family subdivision uh agricultural lot is is the one acre still but that is just limited to blood family members um i think you all know we spent a good amount of time uh in august going through the townhouse parking and trying to get it right we had some conversations earlier

[06:25:19] today uh on you know how to how to get parking uh correct uh where we landed at the uh work session at the last uh in august with you all was uh getting townhouse parking to 2.2 spaces per unit when using a 32-foot street configuration and then in those situations where the the developer would agree to do a 34-foot street configuration it could go down to a 2.0 and that's because there could be additional parking on the street that could be picked up basically by using a little

[06:25:55] wider street and Mr. Engle you went into that a little bit earlier tonight also one of the changes we made is requiring that garage spaces would only count as a half a space, and that might sound a little odd, but the reason for that is because today so many people don't use their garage for parking in their car.

[06:26:16] They use it for storage or workout room or what have you, and so using that, especially in the townhouse category, can be a bit misleading, and so we wanted to make sure that we discounted the garage parking to just a half a space.

[06:26:31] And that really did make a big difference in how we do the counting of the 2.2 or the 2.0 with the street configurations I mentioned earlier. And then we also did adjust the actual size of a parallel parking space that could be on one of these wider street configurations between two driveways.

[06:26:54] You think of the driveway being at least 10 feet wide. The idea that a parking space could go in between that, typically with VDOT standards, that's a requirement of a 7 by 22 foot parallel parking configuration.

[06:27:11] We think we'll have to work with VDOT on some of this with the site plan review, but the idea that a 7 by 18 parallel parking space could work for that because you'd have, say, those 10 foot driveways on either side, which allows you the opportunity to pull into the space and to pull out without having to have that extra four feet of stall space or length.

[06:27:38] We also made some changes to the townhouse garage sizes after much discussion. The idea that a 10 by 19 kind of envelope unobstructed by stairs and doors and other items that could be used.

[06:27:57] If there is that parking envelope within the garage, that could count for that half parking space for a garage. We had it at, I think, 10 by 20, and with some of the discussion we had, 10 by 19 seemed still a passable size for the current size of vehicles that we have in the community now.

[06:28:20] And then we also went from a nine-foot door for a single-made garage door to an eight-foot garage door. All those things we covered at the August work session with you all. We also made a few minor changes to the principal use matrix.

[06:28:41] We made event centers, a conditional use in neighborhood business and mixed use and corridor commercial, the CC. just the variables that go into an event center just seem to be necessary to still keep that as a conditional use process for those type of non-residential uses.

[06:29:03] And then in the accessory matrix, we did do limited outside storage within the WD zoning district, limited to a 10% maximum of a floor area, gross floor area.

[06:29:21] We also clarified that an amenity space, the types of material that could be the pathway, could be either a paved asphalt or a crushed stone or a gravel material, and that the asphalt project type of pathway should be at least 48 inches wide.

[06:29:52] and the crust stone could be a little narrower to the 42 because it does kind of spread out a bit more, and so we wanted to keep that a little different. We also clarified in the special use district that our special use tool that's been used in the past that they are conforming and would remain valid. In the old days, they used special use permits fairly regularly. I believe One of the attorneys here tonight had asked us to look into that and make sure that we

[06:30:28] made sure that those correct that language so that they would remain conforming and remain valid within ZOMOT, and we've done that in that appropriate section. And then we also did, at your request, add a 25-foot buffer requirement to the SU district, which is one of our smaller lot configuration districts, the 7,500 to 4,500 square foot lot configurations, where they're adjacent to larger lot subdivisions, they require that they have a 25-foot buffer within the SU district. It was something you guys asked us for, and we've included

[06:31:03] that in the document. I guess, and then finally, within the document that you have before you, We did make the revision to 19.247D, which talks about adding a provision for a six-month option for existing zoning applications filed prior to the adoption of ZOMOD to be reviewed and heard using the current zoning ordinance 19.1.

[06:31:37] What I'm saying is basically there was some concern by some of you that having someone that might have filed a case back in 24 or earlier 25 using 19.1, and now that we were getting close to January of 26 and having to make that conversion automatically to ZOMOD might be to their disadvantage.

[06:32:04] We, and some discussion that we had at the last meeting, we thought the idea of giving a six-month or 180-day kind of period of time where you had the option to still stay with the 19.1 application, we'd hear that through from January to July at the Planning Commission and to bring it to you all on the board.

[06:32:26] After that 180-day period, we feel we'll be through the queuing list of cases that we have that are 19.1 by that time. And if the applicant still hasn't really moved on those cases, they would either have to convert to ZOMOD at that time in July of 26, or they would have to withdraw their case. And then finally, just in the last couple of days, we've had a few additional items kind of pop up that we wanted to make sure we included

[06:33:01] tonight. One was, and we talked about it this afternoon at the work session, was to add a note to the alternative residential district that reads townhouses or townhouse development is allowed within this district subject to the TR-based standards, which would be basically allow them to do both townhouses and small lot configurations within the AR district. We did not have that in there before. And we felt that that was, you know, the AR district is the alternative residential

[06:33:35] district that we're trying to try to try more unique types of housing stock combinations. And so that seemed the most appropriate location for that. And Ms. Snyder, you were wanting to see some of that added to that. So we've put that in and we've made that specific change to the use matrix that would reflect that townhouses are permitted use within the AR district.

[06:33:59] That's one of the other changes we made. And then finally, that was not in the memo and that was not in the ZOMOD draft that you have. And neither is this last thing. It came up recently that the definition of religious institution was a bit misleading and not very clear as to what the intention was for guiding religious institutions.

[06:34:29] So we've created a new definition. We worked on it a little bit at the work session earlier today, and I'll just read it real quick. The religious institution, this is the new definition that we have crafted since then. A religious institution means a use-provided, regular organized religious worship and related incidental activities including child care conducted by the religious institution where children are cared for during short periods of time during the site religious services the

[06:35:02] on-site religious services or activities accessory uses include convents the residence for clergy or other staff seasonal sales garage sales columbariums and cemeteries private schools and child daycare centers are defined and listed separately in the principal use matrix and may require additional zoning approval depending upon the zoning district. What that last sentence is getting at is you can still have a school or a private school or a child care center on a religious

[06:35:41] institution site, but it might require a conditional use to get in place before you could operate that. We have a fairly wide range of uses or districts that we allow, religious institutions. I think the only ones we don't allow them in are the industrial ones. And so because of that wide breadth of districts that we're allowing religious institutions, all those other types of religious activities can happen. But if you still want to go forward with a child care facility or a private school,

[06:36:21] you would have to go through the conditional use process for a residential district or such, just like any other secular opportunity that might come forward. So we're not making the rules any different for churches or religious institutions, for daycares or for private schools.

[06:36:38] It is still a possibility. And hopefully this new language has kind of corrected some of that. - Chair, I had a question. - Sure. - Mr. Kerr. - Under 19.1, there is no definition for church, is there?

[06:36:53] - We have it listed in the matrix. - It's in the matrix, but it's not in, this is part now of ZOMOD where there's actual definitions. - Yes, sir. - And it was never defined before, which is why this was kind of added, right?

[06:37:09] But in 19.1, and I know this because I voted for several of them to be approved, if there was a religious institution that decided, and a lot of this started during COVID, actually, where they said we want to actually run private schools now.

[06:37:24] Correct. They brought cases forward and we approved them. But they were required then under our county code to do that. Yes, sir. And they're still required now. Yes, sir. We're required to follow state and federal law when it comes to religious institutions.

[06:37:42] And we do that, correct? Yes, sir. We don't deviate from that. No, sir. And we can't because essentially we could get sued. I'll ask Mr. Minx that. people can't sue you for that yes yes yes so so we make we're very careful to make sure that we we're not discriminating against religious institutions and I don't think anybody up here wants to do that in any way shape or form which is why several of the cases that came forward since I've been on the board where they have asked to have schools we said yes great idea

[06:38:17] let's do it and we approved them they just went through the process and so So nothing's changing in relation to that, nor does ZOMAD affect the tax status of any religious institution. It has nothing to do with it, right? Correct. That's correct.

[06:38:33] From my knowledge, that's true. Because there is some information provided, and I think that I'm glad the people that sent it in sent it in, thinking that ZOMAD was going to do this, and it's not. Because if it was, we wouldn't pass it.

[06:38:49] I don't know. So I'm glad that we were able to clean this language up. For example, what it said before, it said it had to be a permanent structure. We talked about this and I said, "Well, what if a new church," and this only applies to new churches, by the way, "Nothing changes for existing churches with Zomag," right?

[06:39:10] Correct. But if a new church came and they said, "I bought this land and we want to build a church on it. It's going to take us some time. I want to put a tent up so I can hold church service on the weekend," they can do that. That's why we took that permanent structure language out because I think they should be able to do that.

[06:39:29] If that's what they can do to get their services, you know, a lot of times churches actually, new churches actually use some of our schools for their worship centers until they can actually get a building built. So I appreciate the fact that someone from the community sent the information out for us to take a look at.

[06:39:45] I don't want to have anything especially as important as a definition of a religious institution that's misleading. So I appreciate the work that you all put into it today. That was never our intent is to try to make it more difficult for religious institutions to locate in Chesterfield County.

[06:40:05] We were looking at it from a different perspective and correcting, taking the permanent building portion out was an easy fix for us and trying to make sure that the language was correct on childcare during services is fine.

[06:40:21] The idea that any type of long-term or type of childcare facility having to go through the conditional use process like any other product that's like that, or in a private school. That's the same process for either a church or a religious institution or a private business.

[06:40:43] Any other questions for staff at this time? All right. Let's see here. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing to consider zoning ordinance modernization, Chapter 19.2.

[06:41:02] Is there anyone here who would like to speak to this issue? If so, please come forward and state your name. Chairman, members of the board, my name is Pastor Nathan Cooper from Crosspoint Church. I'm sure, Mr. Carroll, that you were probably referring to some of my information that I had provided.

[06:41:22] Unfortunately, the new definition is still wholly inefficient and derelict. On July 11th, the Chesterfield County Planning and Zoning Commission voted 5-0 to advance sweeping changes that would directly restrict the ability of churches, religious institutions, and schools, religious preschools, and ministries to freely serve our communities. These ministries and religious institutions are protected by the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000. Unfortunately, the county has not updated

[06:41:56] since then, and what the county, unfortunately, has done so far, in my findings, has been completely insufficient in answering those challenges. First, I'll say this. There have been no compliance studies, analyses, or otherwise any study of the new zoning ordinance as it intersects with, impacts, and complies with any and or all of the following. Virginia law. The

[06:42:27] code of Virginia. Federal law. Arlupa. Current jurisprudence or case law on Arlupa. Department of justice guidance and or communications on our lupa virginia attorney general guidance on religious liberty dylan's rule the supremacy clause of the united states constitution which mr carroll you did refer to whether or not zomad meets surpasses or violates any and or all tests of our lupa or the religious freedom restoration act including tests of compelling government interest least

[06:43:04] restrictive means or a substantial burden on religious freedoms and free exercise how do i know this? Because I did a request for those studies, and the request, the FOIA request came back, no responses. Next, I requested final or adopted records from the past four years addressing Arlupa or religious land use that were circulated or used as final guidance or training for county staff. Does the county staff have training for planning, zoning, administration, or the board of supervisors? Examples include written guidance memoranda, staff training materials, finalized

[06:43:41] talking points or slide decks. The response was, there are no records that are responsive to your request. That's shocking to me. Next, I requested all zoning compliance processes, notes, checklists, guidance documents, policies, procedures, memoranda, training materials, and any analogous or related documents that have been created or utilized from 2000 to present for the purpose of ensuring that zoning decisions and related actions comply with the U.S. Bill of Rights, Code of Virginia,

[06:44:17] legislation enacted by the Virginia Assembly, federal laws, and especially our Lupa and Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Mr. Cooper, your three minutes are up. The response was, by the way, I represent an organization. I had three people here earlier. One had to leave.

[06:44:34] So that would be five minutes according to 9B. Mr. Chair, would you rule please? I will allow it. Thank you. The response was no, no training at all. That's shocking. Wouldn't you say? That's shocking. We need training. We need protections for religious liberties. As it stands now, religious institutions could be narrowly understood to not allow for Bible studies, prayer meetings, or the like from occurring in homes because there could be too much traffic.

[06:45:10] There could be too much noise, those type of things. We do have resolutions that we have proposed. I have a packet here for each of you. These are paper packets. I give one to the clerk. The deputy only needs to review it if it's not paper, according to your rules, but there it is, and I have packets for each of you, Board of Supervisors.

[06:45:31] I will be in the lobby. If anyone would like to discuss these matters with me, I'm happy to discuss them with you and come to a resolution. I think that we value the religious freedoms that we have, I hope, in Chesterfield County, but to this point, I haven't seen it.

[06:45:46] There's been no impact studies. There's been no analysis. Is there a religious freedom or religious liberty commission? I propose there should be, with all the stakeholders present in those meetings, I'm happy to be one. I'm happy to provide guidance in those ways.

[06:46:02] I have provided alternative ordinances that could possibly be used for this purpose in the new ZOMOD. And I do respectfully ask that you take this very seriously, because while the county now may not limit freedoms in this way, you might think it's ridiculous.

[06:46:24] It's possible in the future with the current zoning ordinance. It's absolutely possible, okay? The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals also has continuously ruled time and time again that religious institutions include religious schools like elementary schools, secondary schools, colleges, religious institutions, our schools.

[06:46:50] According to the Virginia Administrative Code, you'll see. Mr. Cooper, your additional time is up. they are also considered schools by Virginia. If we believe in Virginia's laws and that we are subject to them according to Dylan's rule, then we should obey them.

[06:47:09] - Thank you. - Next speaker. - Thank you. Speaking on behalf of RBA YIMBY, the regional affiliate of the National YIMBY Action Network. That's yes, in my backyard.

[06:47:25] We advocate for more housing choice through liberal reforms to zoning and building codes. Chesterfield zoning code today is defined by exclusion. It inhibits diverse housing types by right keeps people disconnected from where jobs are cited as chesterfield pushes into the future with new industries and energy facilities the county must do the same in embracing modern market oriented land use policies to truly allow for broader housing attainability zomod is a step in this direction and we enthusiastically ask for your unanimous decision in supporting this ordinance this evening thank you can you please state your name for the record thank you thank Thank you.

[06:48:03] Next speaker. Mr. Chairman, members of the board, Mr. Casey, Steve Meadows, I just have a few questions.

[06:48:23] In the semi-rural area, could someone fit an apartment complex in there? Is this when we're going over the things that you take a big apartment complex? Where do you put golf courses on your list of, is that an amenity or does you need a code for golf courses?

[06:48:46] Building heights. I think traditionally, Chesterfield County has been stepped at four stories. So think about higher stories. If you're going to be more dense, especially in the urban areas, maybe six stories, maybe eight.

[06:49:09] When we were doing the Stonebridge Ray many, many, 15-some years ago, we threw out a proposal for 10-story apartment complexes just for that section. And, of course, that didn't go through. But we wanted to use that as an opportunity to show height.

[06:49:30] And from the top of a 10-story building, you could see the James River in the downtown Richmond and various areas. Trees that are used inside your communities, are they all going to be the same species of trees?

[06:49:47] Or are you going to mix up the species of trees? One of the concerns is, yeah, it's nice to plant a tree, but it's just like you plant corn all the way through your county. You plant willow oaks all through your county. If you walk through a regular forest, there are oak trees, there are maple trees, there are pine trees, there are holly trees.

[06:50:10] They're not just one species of tree. So that is something you may want to consider. Another thing that I have not heard or defined as those what some people consider evil, I consider affordable-drawn housing, trailer homes, anything from single to double, even triple ride.

[06:50:32] And where do you put modular homes? You know, it comes in from the factory on the back of a semi truck, and you put them on a pre-done foundations, and you just put the pots on and bolt them in, put in the plumbing, bolt them in, put the roof on.

[06:50:49] When the roof comes with it, you just bolt those in, and within two days, you have a house. Where do you put those? Those are simple things that I didn't hear with that. Otherwise, and I'm saying this for Rachel's sake, otherwise, it's a pretty good project.

[06:51:05] Thank you. Next speaker. Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. My name is Will Schumach. One, I want to say that Rachel and Thomas and Steve and the rest of the staff have put in countless hours on this, countless hours in service to this community, regardless of how you vote or the tweaks.

[06:51:34] We're going to have changes they're going to need. You can't have this massive project and not come back and tweak, but I just want to commend them for all the work they did on behalf of the community. In looking at it, I had a client ask me to just take a look at it.

[06:51:50] It was a complicated document, and in reviewing it, Jane Harrell and I noticed that while it was preserving the conditional uses, we have a little bit of an institutional knowledge, way back in the day, some of these zonings were done through special use permits and use permits, and so we brought that up to the attention at the Planning Commission.

[06:52:10] I think it's fair to say a consensus of the Planning Commission was that needed to be addressed. That wasn't the intent to wipe out existing zoning. And that's the change that Mr. Gillies had mentioned. That addressed our concern. We worked diligently with staff and with Rob Robinson, the county attorney's office.

[06:52:28] But I will tell you, the current zoning, I mean, I use it a lot. It is incredibly complicated. It is not very accessible. And when you're trying to put a case together of a quality project, a lot of times at this point, it's like putting a square peg in a round hole.

[06:52:50] And so there may be some changes or however, but something does need to be modified and changed. And I commend the effort. I do think there will be some tweaks coming back if you pass this. That's to be expected. But like I said, I don't think we want to let the perfect be the enemy of the very, very good.

[06:53:06] So thank you for your time. Thank you. Next speaker. Hello. my name is finn pollard and i work for the partnership for smarter growth partnership for smarter growth is a non-partisan non-profit that advocates for richmond region that plans sustainably grows inclusively and connects communities psg has been following the zoning ordinance modernization process zomod um reviewing and providing comments on drafts two three and four

[06:53:42] through this psg has come to the position that zoma is vitally important um i don't have this this written in my comment but I also um I would like to take a moment to acknowledge what one of the previous speakers had mentioned around religious liberties um I my college degree is in religious studies um where I focus specifically on the place of religion in the public sphere um and I am not here any means to like challenge what um the gentleman had said or any of that um

[06:54:18] religious liberties are incredibly important so it's religious freedom i do want to articulate though that the current zoning code is not helping religious freedoms it is so old it is you can't like it's in 12 different documents or something sort of like they're not linked it's no one is able to understand it and so what it's still confusing i've read the past three drafts they're confusing i don't have a degree in zoning or planning i was able to figure it out and it is a

[06:54:54] lot easier to understand than the current one um and I think for the sake of fairness um in land use planning that benefits everyone um all institutions whether they be religious or non-religious um being able to have a zoning code that people can understand and that is fair is vitally important um I see ZOMOD as doing this um and I sincerely hope that this board is able to support ZOMOD and vote in favor of it.

[06:55:28] Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next speaker. Hi, my name is Mike Burnett, and I have been a Midlothian District resident and homeowner for over 29 years.

[06:55:46] My wife has taught in Chesterfield for over 30 years and grew up and went to school here. I attended every one of the ZOMOD community meetings that was held, and I learned a lot, and I also saw how well the planning team worked with community groups and the community to make this right. And that's why we're here tonight, to make sure that ZOMOD goes into action.

[06:56:04] It will create more kinds of homes and more places like mixed use. It will help our teachers, our young people, our seniors, and all the workers that want to live here where they work and find a decent place to call home. Many of us here tonight may not be able to afford the homes we currently have because of today's values, but we have been fortunate to live here and buy here before the escalating housing cost.

[06:56:31] Many don't have that option, and they have to commute from far away just to teach here or work here. My family is vested in our community and look forward to our son being able to live in Chesterfield on his own and by his own choice as a third generation member of Chesterfield.

[06:56:47] Let's do the right thing and move on from the 70s and 80s by adopting these plans tonight for the next generation and beyond. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker.

[06:57:08] Mallory McNamara. This was not planned, so I'm just kind of going to ask a couple questions that are probably available to me that I'm just kind of catching up on the whole ZOMOD information. I was curious if there's studies available where I could find them on such things as the road development timing associated, the infrastructure, fire departments, that kind of thing to support the growth, forecasts like that,

[06:57:41] forecasts for say for instance the water usage plan forecasts when you have a fusion plant that might take 40,000 gallons a day and we've got communities developing if there's forecasts available out there for you know emergency response and in water and and you know if we cut down some of the wetlands there'll be impact so you know maybe some of that dries up water supply So I'm just looking for maybe that information is available.

[06:58:18] Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Good evening. Sorry to interrupt. Did you get her contact information and get those questions answered? Yeah.

[06:58:34] Okay. Thank you. Good evening. Charlene Small. I'm a Chesterfield homeowner. I lived in Chesterfield 20 years ago. I moved away and now I'm back. I have more questions and a few comments.

[06:58:56] I'm a little bit concerned about the data center and so forth. I wonder about affordable housing for middle and lower income residents.

[06:59:13] And I wonder about the plans for green spaces and, you know, the environmental impact once the zoning goes into place. And if the data center is built, I wonder about the strain on public resources, the power grid capacities.

[06:59:38] I wonder about noise pollution and traffic noise and the impact to the infrastructures. And I wonder about workforce development.

[06:59:58] I've read so much about, you know, if there is going to be a data center, it's going to be an opportunity for jobs and so forth. But I'm wondering whether it's such a high tech venture, if people will be bringing their own staff persons, you know, in case that, you know, there may not be that many people who are trained to do the jobs that are going to come with such a data center.

[07:00:38] Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next speaker. Chair Turner, y'all are not going to please everybody.

[07:01:14] You've been working on this thing five, six years. Enough's enough. You just need to go on and just pass it. You're going to have to make some changes, no doubt about it. As complicated as this document's going to be, there's going to have to be some changes.

[07:01:32] Probably won't be major changes, but there's probably going to have to be some tweaking to it. So I got that in the planning. Y'all are going to beat this thing long enough. It's time to move on. So let's pass this thing and move on. Thank you. Thank you.

[07:01:48] Next speaker. Hi there, my name's Rebecca Hoffpower. I wasn't planning on speaking, but I'm very interested in this. The first notice that I got about any of this was on a postcard, and I tend to pay attention to my mail, so I pay attention to information from Mike Cherry that comes to my house, you know.

[07:02:16] So going forward, if there were a way to have open sessions where, because everybody I talk to doesn't like all the condos, doesn't like the traffic, doesn't like the crime, doesn't like the panhandling. I've been here since 1986, and I built a house on a raw piece of land with my hands, and I'm still doing it. So I'm on a well, I'm on a septic, and I came from New Orleans. I wanted to get the hell out of the city. I didn't want to live in Richmond. I love it here, and the growth that has occurred has been high quality, nice rural bucolic kind of setting. When they

[07:02:54] talk about alternative use, it's cool. It's really cool. There's a lady that I know that lives in an area right over by the new Panera down 360. The streets are tight. You can only park on one side and only a car coming on the other way. So that's going to be a problem. And they're new. So they're nice. But over time, you get decay, you get rotting of a house, you get a fire. I mean, all that real high density it's going to be a problem it's not right now because like I said they're brand new and the thing about the lights spill over one of the things I like about Chesterfield is you can go

[07:03:31] out I can go out my house and if my lights aren't on I can see all the stars but there's so many lights everywhere now they had those massive that they literally blind me when I'm you're on a dark road and somebody's got one of those those lights you see that are Amazon or whatever you know you're anyway it's like geez like you know anyway so he said something about lights spill over and 25 feet buffer is from me to you that's not a buffer I mean it's a buffer but and they don't follow it so when somebody said well the police are going to have to enforce and police are busy and they

[07:04:09] need to be busy doing things like helping and stopping if we if we had it just continue to make Chesterfield the nice bucolic place if you're going to have more development people like it here Hopefully it'll be people who want to keep it this way and not turn it into Northern Virginia or New Orleans, Louisiana or Baton Rouge, Louisiana or whatever.

[07:04:32] So, you know, I appreciate all what you do. If just we had more maybe library opportunities, maybe once a month or every couple of months to get together and talk about the growth. I just haven't ever seen anything about, you know, we're having a meeting to talk, you know, neighbor.

[07:04:49] I don't live in a neighborhood. I live on Bailey Bridge. they put deer run right across my empty deer run that road wasn't even there when I built the house so again I just wanted to please oh and the thing about the shared space I'm sorry your three minutes are up can you wrap it up quickly shared space a gravel for 48 inch please make it the same as foundation requirements like if you're going to make a path make it out of something that you would be willing to make a foundation for a house out of not because a gravel is just like a washout

[07:05:24] but anyway, thank you. Susan, thank you. Susan, can you get her information and give her the information on my community meetings? Thank you. Next speaker. I think she might be.

[07:05:47] Good evening. Renee Eldred here. I'm actually going to speak for the Rat One Association.

[07:06:04] We've been discussing this over the years, and I sat on the committee, the steering committee, as a member of the Rat One Association. And when I first started there, I was like, i don't want the developers steering the bus that was really the main reason i wanted to get on the board on it so after a little bit i realized that the ordinances words on a piece of paper the developers literally have to go build the building so they needed their input because

[07:06:42] the the main reason i think this is being done aside from it being ancient is that there are so many CUPDs and conditional uses? That's all y'all do. How many cases did we have on the docket tonight? It needs to be updated to get that away. This plan actually gives you a format for all those conditional uses that have come before you to say, okay, you can do this with this Sony. You

[07:07:18] can do it with this zoning and it actually will will keep green space you'll when you go smaller you don't get to go more density you just go smaller and the surrounding area goes greener which is what we need and I've heard a lot of complaints through through the years that you're putting townhouses and all this stuff in before you can actually your infrastructure well

[07:07:52] Well, the developing community, well, the owners, the land owners, they have a right to build. They want to sell, and quite frankly, I think you might see more of it coming down the road because the people who own all the bulk land are getting up to an age where they don't want to deal with it anymore.

[07:08:14] Kids don't want to deal with it. They sell it to a developer. The owner of the properties have the right to develop, and you need to be able to say you need to do it this way, not come with CUPDs to ask for exceptions, which this will help take that out. A lot of people complain about the townhouses and the density. Well, that's not in ZOMOD. That's not in your ordinance right now. Density is in the comp plan, and that will need

[07:08:48] to be redone too, and people need to understand that that's where it's supposed to be. Your Your ordinances tell you what you can build and how it's going to look simplified. Ms. Eldred, your three minutes are up.

[07:09:06] Okay. Say yes. Thank you. Next speaker. Good evening, everyone. My name is John Carlos. I represent an organization. It's called Hispanos Unidos, which basically what I do is just help Hispanics in general to solve problems.

[07:09:25] In this case, with planning cases, usually with co-compliance and NOBs, they usually get whenever they get a business shut down or they're trying to do something so i literally get thousands of cases across the state i work with a lot of counties and jesse is one of the counties where i get my it's like literally my biggest headache uh whenever we do uh any case it is really hard um to the point that sometimes they have even when we appeal cases we have to come here uh with the planning commission or anything and then they literally have to bring out an

[07:09:59] attorney you know the for displaying even the legalities so my point here is that please approve this so much so we can avoid this issues in the future where it just made the cases so complicated for the citizens you know where they get to the point that sometimes even people they're trying to open businesses you know and then three five months down the road they they literally planning just come and they're like oh but that use is not allowed here now you have to go to a conditional use permit and the whole process is just really complicated for a lot of citizens and they don't

[07:10:37] have the money even to afford uh architects or whoever they need to hire to make the you know the project possible so that's my only request is like if possible just please uh tonight let's get the team, the SOMAP moving and approve, please. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker.

[07:11:07] I would like to speak because I've seen my church struggle to start up a preschool, and I've seen it asked to pay $150,000 on a traffic study to start a preschool. I'm concerned for the future of the churches and the preschools and the ministries. I'm kind of young, so I would

[07:11:38] be part of that future. And religious education is a primary use of a church building. It's not an accessory use. The building is there to teach people about Christ and to educate people. And if we can't do that, what does that look like? We were told our preschool ministry was a business which would make it subject to taxation, which would make it very hard on smaller churches and

[07:12:17] the ones that are trying to grow and reach people, which would make it very hard for them to continue in their ministries and helping others and reaching out, helping with organizations and getting people in with things so will you please state your name for the record Evangeline Cooper

[07:12:39] thank you next speaker my name is Lynn O'Neill and I think y'all know how passionate I am about Chesterfield County um my I just had some grandkids born and you know it's the fourth generation of my family to be to live here um there's some things that kind of worry me about

[07:13:14] about this all this stuff the word urban density um and the cost of this whole thing um I know There's no zoning thing. It's all 100% proof that's perfect.

[07:13:30] But I just kind of worry about, you know, are we creating blighted areas in our county? I know there's been some experiments going on with the micro city concepts. My business was in one for 32 years in Chester.

[07:13:49] And I had a gun pulled on me in the last few years after my business was there. And I had graffiti put on my building when I was, you know, from that whole situation there. So it's not, you know, we're in a county, so let's protect what we have, you know what I mean, to a certain degree.

[07:14:09] I don't know what avenues are presented for developers to create these urban areas. I'm just not a big thing on that urban stuff. But I also want to ask, is my racetrack safe?

[07:14:29] I mean, I know we talked, Thomas and Rachel helped me out a little bit, but I want to make sure it's still the same way, you know, because that's a big part of this county and the community wants it. So, but anyway, that's kind of where I'm at. You know, I just, I just don't want to, I hope y'all all look like Walt Disney with, you know, with Epcot instead of Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse.

[07:14:50] You know what I mean? So, so I hope it all works out good. All right. Thank y'all. Thank you. Next speaker. Seeing none, I'm going to go ahead and close this public hearing.

[07:15:11] Mr. You've already spoken, sir. Your time is up. Mr. There is no point of work from the… Mr. This public hearing is closed. It's back before the board.

[07:15:29] Do any board members have any questions? Mr. I have some questions for staff. Andy, one of the points that were brought up was about golf courses.

[07:15:45] I looked under the matrix, and it's not only just covered under agriculture, but it's also covered in several other areas. Is that correct? Yes, sir. It's an allowable use in most of our residential districts. It would count also as amenity space within the calculation that we would have for amenity space. So we're, you know, promoting that type of common recreational space within ZOMOD.

[07:16:17] There was a question about modular homes or mobile homes. And under the definition that says manufactured home park, would that be considered a mobile home park? I'm not an attorney, but yes, it would fall under that same category, manufactured home.

[07:16:39] The AR district, the alternative residential district is where we're putting all the existing manufactured home communities. zoning-wise, and if someone came in with a project to do a new community of manufactured homes or modular homes, I think our recommendation from a staff would be to use the AR district.

[07:17:03] Okay. I have a couple other questions, Mr. Chair. It's been argued by some that ZOMOD increases density. I think we've answered that question tonight, that the density is actually controlled by the comprehensive plan, not by ZOMOD, correct? Yes, sir.

[07:17:22] It's been argued by some that a developer can ignore their zoning case and start over under ZOMOD by right. In other words, they have a case that's approved, it's sitting out there, we turn around and redesignate, and by right they can now start under the new regulations.

[07:17:39] And that's just absolutely not true, correct? No, sir, you cannot do that. Can't do it. You'd have to, if you don't like what you're zoned, and you already have it zoned, you can go through the zoning process again to get it changed. but it's not by right.

[07:17:55] Yes, sir. It's been argued by some that a person can buy up a neighborhood and then level all the houses and redevelop it by right if we change the designation of the neighborhood with ZOMOD. They can't do that, can they? No, sir.

[07:18:11] We have some language in various spots within ZOMOD that basically makes that type of activity required to come forward with a new application for zoning and go through the typical process of going through staff and going to the planning commission, having that recommendation come to you all.

[07:18:31] And going through public hearings, all that. And under 19.1, under today's standards, pre-Zone Mod, they can still do that, right? Correct. So nothing's changed. If some person decides to go in and buy everything up and then decide they want to level it and do something else with it, they can, but they have to go through the whole process all over again to get it changed.

[07:18:53] Right. If they weren't using the same lot configuration that was already existing and just building new houses, they would most likely have to go through the rezoning process, yes. There's some that argue that this cuts open space requirements in half. I would argue that in residential commercial districts where in today's ordinance it's only required with lots less than 12,000 square feet.

[07:19:19] ZoneWOD actually recognizes the importance of both protecting natural areas and providing recreational areas for the enjoyment of the community. So it actually increases, in many cases, green space. I believe so. Basically, with ZOMOT, it will be the first time within Chesterfield where we will have a requirement for all the residential districts and most of the non-residential districts to have some sort of common open space or amenity space or that type of area within the project.

[07:19:53] That's always been a point of negotiation with current cases. CUPDs, where we basically have some language as to how much open space or common area we would be asking for, but it's still, let's make a deal. With ZOMOD, we have specific percentages in each of the zoning districts, except some of the industrial ones that didn't really make sense to have that type of language in it, where you have to provide a certain amount of amenity space and strategic amenity space within each of those projects.

[07:20:27] So I believe we're going to see more open space and preserved areas, natural areas within the county. Thank you. Mr. Chair, one last question for legal counsel. So if we pass this and we find that, which I think we probably will, that there are things that need to be amended, what would be the process that we would go through to do an amendment?

[07:20:55] You could suggest the amendment. You could initiate that yourself for consideration. It would go to the Planning Commission, or the Planning Commission could do it themselves. But it would go to the Planning Commission. There would be public meetings on it. There would be a public hearing on it before the Planning Commission.

[07:21:11] They would make a recommendation back to you. You all would hold a public hearing on that before you would consider it. But there is a process. It would go through just like any other zoning amendment. So there would be plenty of input in both levels. And we've done many of those throughout the years, haven't we?

[07:21:27] Yes. And they can go quick if it's something that is absolutely necessary to fix in immediacy. And this doesn't actually take place. What's the timeline for this? Well, the effective date is proposed that what you would make the effective date would be January 1.

[07:21:49] So there is a gap here. So if it was to pass tonight and we say, wait a minute, there's something we need another fix. For example, oh, I don't know, religious institution. Perhaps we're not happy with what we put or it doesn't actually solve the entire problem. There is a process that we can move forward on to fix it.

[07:22:04] Sure. In a short period of time. Yes. Between the adoption and the effective date, we have three months to maybe fix some of those things. But I can tell you from a staff perspective, we're anticipating every six months probably having to come back and make some amendments during the first year or two.

[07:22:23] I think we all, from the planning department standpoint, feel it's a really quality document, but it's not perfect, and we're going to have to make changes to it. It's 450-plus pages, so somewhere in there, we didn't get it right, and we'll have to go back and make some adjustments.

[07:22:42] Any other questions? Thank you, Mr. Chair. A couple of questions as far as another question that got brought up was building height. How is that handled in so much? In each of the districts, we do have a column, basically, that lists what, or a row, basically, that designates what the maximum height is for that particular land use category, residential, non-residential, and so forth.

[07:23:12] Mr. Meadows was right in the past, it's, you know, for most of the multifamily, it's been four stories. We've now gone to more of a foot height requirement rather than a story. CLASSIFICATION, AND MOST OF THIS WILL BE IN THE FOUR-STORY OR LESS CATEGORY FOR RESIDENTIAL.

[07:23:34] WITHIN SOME OF THE URBAN AND THE MIXED-USE CATEGORIES, WE DO ALLOW FOR A HIGHER LEVEL OF ELEVATION FOR A BUILDING, AND I THINK WOULD BE COMPARABLE WITH A MORE URBAN SETTING. BUT IT VARIES WITHIN EACH OF THE DISTRICTS, AND I'M HAPPY TO GO THROUGH EACH OF THOSE WITH YOU AT SOME POINT, IF THAT WOULD BE HELPFUL.

[07:23:55] It's handled in ZOMOD. Yes, sir. Okay. We have a series of new districts that are going to be coming in. Can we even move forward in those new districts without the comp plan? I believe so, yes.

[07:24:11] In the comp plan, you have currently, for example, we have areas that we feel are good for regional mixed use or community mixed use, and using the new ZOMOD mixed use category would be totally appropriate for that. In the work session earlier today, Mr. Hosh went through how we're relabeling some of the comprehensive plan in Chapter 10 that you'll be seeing in the public hearing in October to make those align better language-wise.

[07:24:44] So I think with that amendment happening before January 1, 2026, the proposed effective date of ZOMOD, That will be the first step, aligning those up. And then as you all have future discussions, we all have future discussions on the longer range vision of Chesterfield County in the future.

[07:25:07] Some of that may be adjusted, but I think we're in good condition to move forward with that. What you're referring to is just the land use issue at that point. I just want to make sure I'm following in that for any of these new districts, None of them have been designated yet for those particular districts.

[07:25:27] That would be a land use issue. Am I following that correctly? In a comprehensive plan, just using mixed use as an example again, we have areas that we feel are appropriate for a higher intensity mixed use, which is the regional mixed use districts.

[07:25:43] And then we have a community mixed use, which is a little less intense. With our new ZOMOD designation of mixed use, The idea of using that zoning district with the density and the language that's in the comprehensive plan should fit well together.

[07:26:03] Great. Thank you. I don't know. A lot of people in here may not have heard, but last month we removed the East-West Freeway from the comprehensive plan. And that removed a road which would probably never be built anyway because it's blocked on both ends by solar facilities, a zoo, and in the middle by, I believe, at least one federally protected conservation easement.

[07:26:33] And because of that, when we look at the comprehensive plan, which we'll be starting on next, we'll be looking at those residential, those parcels of land all through the county, not just in Motoka, but everywhere, to determine if the current comprehensive plan matches what we want it to.

[07:26:53] Or perhaps we may have to change it and say, we thought this was going to be appropriate here, but it's no longer appropriate here. And the reason I supported removing the road is because we had several big subdivisions that were planned in Matoka that are no longer planned.

[07:27:09] Both of them had actually been turned into conservation easements and removed at least, I think, 1,700 homes from there, including we removed 911 homes from the Swift Creek Preserve. So part of the next step will be us looking at all the parcels and determining, and I think it goes towards what Mark's question is, you know, there are some parcels that have, we saw earlier today in the work session, where they showed the specific work centers and districts that would be appropriate, and I think would match up with what ZOMAD is proposing.

[07:27:45] Purple dots and red dots. The purple dots, red dots, orange dots that we had earlier today that could match up with that. But we may also look at it and say, well, that's what we thought we were going to do, but maybe now we want to do this. I mean, that could happen too, right?

[07:28:00] Yes, sir. You know, the change that we're proposing with Chapter 10 next month is merely just getting the language to match up with ZOMOD. The idea of where future density or development should occur, that kind of bigger vision, and change in the vision of Chesterfield County is the next round of comprehensive plan review and discussion we'll have to have whenever you all deem it appropriate to get started on that.

[07:28:31] Thank you, Mr. Chair. Sorry, folks, it's kind of late, so I'm going to be quiet now. I just had a question about something that we talked about, I think, last month as far as amenitizing existing trees in sites.

[07:28:50] And I know that you said that sometimes that's not able. I mean, like allowing people to keep tree existing growth trees in the backs of a subdivision or in a center and using it as an amenity type. Did we figure out a way of making that happen or no?

[07:29:08] I mean, as far as we are trying to move forward with, you know, within amenity space, It is an eligible use of the amenity space just to have a wooded area with maybe a trail running around the perimeter of it.

[07:29:25] That would count as amenity space. I think the issue of more mass grading of the site and how we handle that is a discussion we need to keep working on. It really isn't addressed that well in ZOMOD, nor would it really be the appropriate place to do that.

[07:29:45] but I think coming up with some better policies as to how we handle grading of a site is something we'll continue to work on with environmental engineering and the other departments. Okay. I just want to keep that on our minds because preserving trees is, you know, one of my things.

[07:30:02] Sorry. You know, we have the RPAs, and those are fairly well protected, and I think the buffers that we have required within ZOMOD, you know, some of them are 100 to 75 feet in width, not just the 25 that was mentioned earlier. Those will be opportunities for keeping some of those mature, natural trees in place and not wiping them out.

[07:30:29] All right. A few other questions. One question was, can you put apartments in SR? And the answer is absolutely no. Correct. It's easy. Modular homes, if they're put on a foundation, they can actually be considered a home.

[07:30:50] Isn't that correct? A mobile home cannot, but a modular home on a permanent foundation is a home, correct? That is correct. And so on a rural area, that could be a place that somebody could put a modular home.

[07:31:05] Most definitely in an agricultural district could happen easily. Our preference would be the alternative residential would be another option. As long as they meet the full building code requirements, the difference between a kind of a standard built house and a modular house becomes pretty gray, and so there are opportunities for probably modular homes to go into some of the other districts too, but from a staff perspective, we would recommend an alternative residential be the right spot for that, as well as agriculture.

[07:31:39] Make another person happy. The racetrack absolutely covered under a CUP that is in place, and it's totally safe, correct? Yes, sir. All right. Is it under a CUP?

[07:32:02] Am I wrong on it? Go ahead. She must know more than I do. Sorry. We specifically spoke with Mr. O'Neill, and just to make it very clear, we added to the definition of stadium or arena the word racing, so it was very clear that that is where the racetrack would fall, and then in the use restrictions section of ZOMOD, we specifically state that the use would be located north of Genito Road, east of Route 288, south of Oak Lake Court, and west of Oak Lake Boulevard, to be sure that that is exactly where that permitted use with restrictions would be allowed.

[07:32:42] So, I don't think we can get any more specific than that. Does that cover the racetrack? Okay. Fire and police and schools all have an opportunity to weigh in on every zoning case, correct?

[07:33:03] In our staff reports, we ask for all the departments to kind of weigh in and add their advice or comments in the staff reports. I think you all have seen that in the past. We don't plan to deviate from that.

[07:33:19] We may get some more reformatting of the staff report as we go into ZOMA just to make it a little easier to read, but they'll continue to have a lot of input into our staff reports.

[07:33:36] I know this isn't your specialty, but CDOT has road plans in place for a number of years out to looking at what we have and what we believe is coming. I know that's not your forte, but you would agree with that?

[07:33:52] I don't think anybody from CDOT is here. Jesse would probably kill me if I answer that. Oh, Steve's here. Good evening.

[07:34:09] Steve Adams with County Transportation. Did you hear the question? No, I did not. CDOT looks at what we have in place and what is coming based on the comprehensive plan and looks at what we need to plan for for roads ahead of time, correct?

[07:34:28] Yes, sir. Thank you. Absolutely. All right. Andy, you're back up. Data centers are the only thing that lose the grandfather clause in the C5, I1, I2, and I3, which makes them all have to come before the Board of Supervisors, no matter what their current zoning is. And at this time, Data centers are by right in C-Vive, I-1, I-2, and I-3, correct?

[07:35:07] In 9.1, currently, they are allowed or permitted use. With ZOMA, they will be a conditional use. So we are taking steps to make sure that we don't overpopulate Chesterfield County with uses that could drain our resources.

[07:35:27] That was the instructions you all gave me. I'm going to go to our county attorney now. I know we've asked this question a couple times, but I want to ask a couple again.

[07:35:46] Does anything in ZOMOD or anything else that we've talked about tonight have any effect on the tax-exempt status of any religious organization? No. Correct.

[07:36:04] Is there anything that we can do that if we find out that we violated state or federal law in any way that we would not have to change? If we violated state or federal law in any way, would we be mandated to change those rules?

[07:36:23] Sure. Yeah. Absolutely. Needless to say, that's part of what my office does, so should we discover that. Needless to say, we've analyzed ZOMOD in relation to state and federal law. And we made some modifications very recently to it based on new state law in a, not being able to send a site plan back to the Planning Commission.

[07:36:50] Right, so we analyzed legislation. Because that was a new state law, so we had to update our ordinances to meet state and or federal law. Right. So anything, if we pass this tonight and we find anything in violation, we will have to fix it.

[07:37:06] Correct. Mr. Chair, I think you also brought up a good point, and that is that our attorney's office has been involved in this from the get-go, both on the planning level with the planning attorneys and your other attorneys have been involved in reviewing what's being proposed in ZOMOD all the way along.

[07:37:24] Is that correct? That's correct. We've had multiple lawyers look at this from a variety of different angles. But I'd actually like to just give a shout out to Rob Robinson and Andrew Fullwider, who have been on this pretty much from the beginning.

[07:37:42] And I'll ask my colleague this one. Do we have workforce development in Chesterfield County for jobs that need to have people train for them? Since you're the expert here for that.

[07:38:00] Absolutely. Yes. He works for BrightPoint with the college system. And we have that in place. Any new employer coming to town that has a specific skill set, if they can define that skill set and what that needs to be, then BrightPoint can put that program together.

[07:38:24] And pretty much we've got employers in a lot of times that will say, if they go through the program, they get certified, I'll pay for their classes and I'll hire them. So we do have that. Now, do we have as many people taking advantage of that as we'd like to see?

[07:38:41] No. But if you know anybody that's looking to upgrade their skills, we do have workforce opportunities that you can go through BrightPoint to get a higher paying job if you're looking for that. And the last thing I got, I guess I got to bring Andy or someone back up.

[07:39:01] Is there anywhere in Zomod where we don't define a species of street tree or any trees in the neighborhood, correct? That is something that could be looked at.

[07:39:16] We might define a size or something along those lines. We do have some vegetation suggestions and requirements within the landscape and buffer section of the Zomod. But it doesn't require all of the trees to be one type of tree.

[07:39:32] They can be trees that are within a guideline on that list. Typically, we have it where there has to be a certain amount of deciduous trees and evergreen trees and shrubs and so forth. But it does allow for a mix of trees to be in the neighborhood so that they're not all homogenous in the neighborhood.

[07:39:51] You and I may be asking the same question. Is there anything stating that we are highly encouraging indigenous species of trees, please? Yes. - Okay, thank you. - All right, if I missed anybody's question that one of the other board members didn't ask, I apologize 'cause I tried to take pretty good notes to make sure that we addressed all the questions that were asked of us.

[07:40:20] So I hope everybody feels like that we have done a thorough job in that. We do, again, know that we can't be stuck in paralysis by analysis. We need to move forward on this. It's been a five-year process, and we will – Henrico did theirs.

[07:40:42] They've probably made three updates, not something that's completely rewriting the ordinance, but changes that have come to light, and we expect that, correct? Yes. You have my promise and the staff's commitment to keep it up to date and make any changes necessary.

[07:41:05] We want it to succeed more than anybody else. All right, I think that's all my questions. Mr. Chairman, just as a point of order, we're coming up on 11 o'clock. You have a provision in your rules about not considering matters past 11 o'clock, so there may be an appropriate time to vote on that, just in case you think this might go beyond that.

[07:41:28] Or you may be ready. I think that, okay. Well, if we get closer to 11, then we'll vote so I can take my tile. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair, I have a couple of comments in that I've been in this position for three years and I've learned more in zoning in the past three years that I thought I would live in a whole or learn in a whole lifetime.

[07:42:02] I want to appreciate the planning staff because I know that I have been kicking and screaming every step of the way and you all have been patient as I've learned and gone through the process. Whenever I am working with any of my citizens, the first question that I ask is, are they right? So I don't want to discount what anyone is saying. I want to just ask the question, are they right? And then I can go do the investigation to identify, are they

[07:42:35] right? And so as folks have come to me and asked questions about ZOMAD, I've gone through and tried to ask that question. I went as far as actually paying for my own, engaging my own attorney to go through and see and make sure kind of to renee's point is that is this developers that are kind of hijacking the process and making sure that i had an outside person who could help me through the process um and it has not been an easy process i think for any of

[07:43:12] us it is a very complicated document people have mentioned that this evening it is a very complicated document. It takes time to wrap our head around it and be able to work with it. One of the things I was looking forward to, I've been receiving emails all week, primarily for ZOMAD. I would say in the last two weeks, I'm not even sure I can remember anybody who came to me and said, I'm completely against it, which shocked me, is that, you know, this has gone out. We've had postcards that have gone out. We've done all these things. And I just kept saying, I'm looking

[07:43:47] forward to the public hearing and we're looking forward to the public hearing to see and pretty much take a temperature in the room is this something that folks are for or is this something what I'm finding in this room if I could be taking the temperature correctly is there are questions that have gotten answered throughout the evening and we've asked the questions but the temperature in the room is this is something that we want to move forward with that's kind of my take and so

[07:44:14] But I do want to emphasize, and it's probably true for all of us, that we've gone through this in a very thoughtful manner, really, really all the way down to only a half of a parking space for a garage.

[07:44:31] I mean, we get on that cellular level. So I just wanted to mention, Mr. Chair, thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak. It's not been an easy process, but for me personally, I have to tell you that it has been quite a learning experience and just grateful to planning for, because I have gone kicking and screaming every step of the way.

[07:44:51] Thank you. Any other statements, questions? I'm going to ask one question. It came from a community meeting. That question is, with the approval of Zobar, would it change the current zoning of her house that's located on Belmont Road?

[07:45:17] I know the answer, but I just want to ask that for this one last citizen. Who can speak to that? Do you understand this question? No, I'm sorry. Yeah, from residential to commercial.

[07:45:36] Her house zoning changed from residential to commercial with the approval of Zobar. It should not. If you want to give us a specific address, we can double-check that. We took a lot of time in going through the whole map conversion process to make sure that is located it's located on bells road uh belmont road belmont road near the airport airport

[07:46:11] yes sir yeah we we have found that petition that change.org petition the the we have talked to miss stone who is the petition author correct um her her property is zoned agricultural today it will be agricultural under zomod the land use plan designation for her property is industrial as a a lot of property around the airport is, but ZOMOD will not change her zoning.

[07:46:32] She will retain her agricultural zoning now and after ZOMOD as well. It's not good to change. That was my understanding as well. Thank you. Yes, sir. All right. We got to the granular level on the questions as well.

[07:46:48] So can I get a motion? That'd be great. Okay.

[07:47:01] I move that the board adopt the proposed Chapter 19.2 of County Code and the accompanying zoning map, commonly referred to as ZOMOD, as presented by staff, including the recommendations, staff, and planning commission exchanges, as set forth in Mr. Gilley's memoranda dated September 9, 2025, with the effective date of Chapter 19.2 being January 1, 2026.

[07:47:34] On the following three changes, add a note to the alternative residential district table 19.2-15.1 that reads, townhouse development is allowed within this district subject to the TR-based standards.

[07:47:51] Two, revise the principal use matrix table 19.2-29.1 to reflect that dwelling household is permitted use in AR district.

[07:48:09] And number three, revise the definition of religious institutions to read the following. Religious institution means a use providing regular organization or organized religious worship and related incidental activities, including child care conducted by the religious institution where children are cared for during short periods of time during on-site religious services or activities.

[07:48:35] Accessory uses include convents, a residence for clergy or other staff, seasonal sales, garage sales, columbriums, and cemeteries. Private school and child care, child day care centers are defined and listed separately in principal use matrix section 19.2-29 and may require additional zoning approvals depending upon the zoning district.

[07:49:05] Can I get a second? And I would ask, since that was read by Ms. Schneider, if what she read from can actually be the motion that is given to the clerk. Yes.

[07:49:21] We'd be glad to turn that motion into the clerk. Yes. I think that would be an easier way for them, for the clerk, to deal with that. That's fine. Thank you. And you second it? I second it. We have a motion and a proper second. Any other discussion? All in favor? Aye.

[07:49:36] Wow. Mr. Chairman. All right. Mr. Chair, we need a motion to adjourn. Mr. Chair, I just want to say thank you to the community that came out tonight.

[07:49:57] I know it's been a long night, but we appreciate your time and your input and your interest. So thank you. Mr. Chair, I just need to mention that we don't have any citizen speakers for our last comment period this evening. Yes, ma'am. And now we can have a motion to adjourn to October 22nd at 2:00 p.m.

[07:50:14] So moved. And before I call the vote, I just want to say we beat the 11 o'clock time. All in favor? Aye.

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