Coraggio Consulting
Prince William Board of County Supervisors Meeting — Work Session (Audio Only), Tuesday, October 17, 2023

Date: Tuesday, October 17, 2023
Place: Prince William County Board of County Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 2h 5m (video)
Official meeting video (Prince William County, Granicus): https://pwcgov.granicus.com/player/clip/3387
Official Board of County Supervisors page (Prince William County): https://www.pwcva.gov/department/board-county-supervisors

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 2026-11-03. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:05] Good afternoon. I feel like I should have a mic, sorry. Good afternoon. It is 2 p.m. on Tuesday, October 17th. For those who wish, please join me in a moment of silence. Thank you.

[00:00:26] If we could all rise for the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge 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.

[00:00:44] Thank you. A little bit of a different format. We've got a work session around the table, I can see, I can kind of see the supervisor over there, and we're going to begin today, we don't have any minutes to approve or anything else, but we do have public comment time at the beginning of our meeting.

[00:01:03] We have four people sign up for public comment time, and there will be no other commenting by the public later on, so if you want to make a comment, do it now, just for those who don't know, just sign up, let us know. The four speakers, and the podium is over there.

[00:01:22] Ms. Madden is going to use a timer on her phone. We are back to old school. And our four speakers are Carl Greeton, Charlie Grimes, Patricia Kuntz, and Lilia Bartram.

[00:01:48] I'm Carl Greeton of the Gainesville District, and we are against the Digital Gateway Bankruptcy Plan. The reason for this synopsis is due to the $400 million income over 20 years and a $16.7 billion expense for Dominion Power Towers. For this meeting, I'm here to talk about fungible money in Prince William County related to affordable housing.

[00:02:09] Since 28 February 23, the Prince William County Board of Supervisors had resolutions to spend $4,864,635 on Neabsco Holiday Lakes, an emergency operations center renovation, purchase of one bookmobile, construction of a segment of the Potomac Carriage National Seated Trail, a judicial center HVAC project, purchase of a piece of equipment for the community accessible vivarium, which is animal observation, and municipal utility relief.

[00:02:40] Prince William County funds have been reallocated from the remaining balance of the American Rescue Plan Act. Why do we not see any money allocated to the school system or affordable housing, which was directly affected by COVID and mental issues? Does the Board of Supervisors opt to the school board for a foreign housing initiative?

[00:02:58] If we need affordable housing, why is there a proposal to eliminate up to 70 homes for the 28 bypass improvement process? On page 15 of your presentation, you mentioned the Housing Trust Fund. This is the very last statement of the entire presentation today.

[00:03:14] That is an interesting blip, yet why is it more information not given to the public regarding this? Perhaps this would cover the cost of allowing everyone in the county to have affordable housing. Why are there no programs to have the housing paid to homeowners that can afford their house?

[00:03:30] Even though most Prince William County citizens are against the digital gateway, there should be proffers set up from other data centers that have been approved. In Fairfax County, the Amazon Housing Equity Fund has invested $118 billion into affordable housing.

[00:03:49] In total costs, over $1 billion in loans and grants have been committed to affordable housing initiatives in the Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C. areas through their Housing Equity Fund. We have heard that grants are given for residents. It is unfortunate these grants probably come from the government.

[00:04:05] The issue is where does that money come from? It appears that this is not just one more tax increase for regular citizens to make affordable housing possible for those that do not have the opportunity to buy houses. As we see from our Democrat government, the home interest rate has skyrocketed due to Bidenomics.

[00:04:22] Previously, you could have said that owners with more expensive houses would get the answer, oh, they can afford it. That is not the situation now with Joe's inflation rates and costs for everything. Funds should be available to all homeowners, not just lower income. On page 15, you see additional planned mixed residential housing types.

[00:04:42] Have you ever worked on an HOA board? Do you know how difficult it is to get homeowners to comply with updating their house for aesthetic purposes? If mixed types of housing are intertwined, then the problem of upkeep becomes a major issue. Thanks for listening. I'm Charlie Grimes from the Gainesville Magisterial District.

[00:05:10] You're going to deal with affordable housing, and that's a wonderful thing because we have a housing problem. You don't have any easy housing solutions. All of them are hard. All of the choices are tough. And none of them are free. So you as elected officials are in the trap of having to do something that will make somebody unhappy.

[00:05:30] And that's the job you took. Thank you for taking this job. But it's not going to be an easy one to deal with this challenge. So Mr. Shorter, Mr. Johnson, others who've worked with us on the voice team to try to identify what is the solution to this challenge, have become aware that you're going to have to deal with multiple solutions, multiple strategies, multiple actions to deal with the whole range of affordable housing. So you may hear a lot of conversation about the 80 to 120% area median

[00:06:06] income solution. And we need a solution for the 80% to 120% income levels. We also need a solution for those making less than 80%. Let me encourage you to come at this as a full package, not as just a slice and then declare success and come back four years later and say, oh, we've got something.

[00:06:26] There's a whole range of people that need affordable housing. If you believe the JLARC numbers, for those making 50% and less of area median income, we're short 8,800 housing units. Now, if you can somehow magically create a housing unit for $250,000. That's $2.2 billion that we need to mobilize private money and public money to solve this challenge, just for those making 50% any less. So let me encourage you to be creative in your solutions, but also be comprehensive in your solutions. Don't solve just a piece

[00:07:03] of this puzzle and quit there. Go after the entire puzzle. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Patty Coons, and I'm from the Gainesville District also.

[00:07:22] I'm here today to express my opinion about the importance of affordable housing. Prince William County and most of NOVA are in a real housing crisis. In an affordable housing town hall hosted by Delegate Michelle Maldonado last month, I learned that rent has gone up 21% in the past two years, and there is an extreme lack of rental units for families.

[00:07:44] They are currently 8,800 units short in Prince William County. According to the Northern Virginia Affordable Housing Alliance, Prince William County is also leading to the number of evictions in Northern Virginia. One reason is that apartment complexes are no longer offering yearly leases.

[00:08:04] This allows them to raise the rent whenever they want. Income-constrained tenants need to budget yearly to know exactly what they need to pay each month to survive. They can't easily just pay more whenever the landlord decides it's time. Besides being number one in Northern Virginia in addictions, according to the Capillary and Food Bank, Prince William County is also number one in food insecurity as well.

[00:08:28] 36% of our population is food insecure. As a board member of the Haymarket Regional Food Pantry, we have seen dramatic clients coming in for help. Last year, we serviced 9,500 families. We surpassed that number in August this year.

[00:08:47] We are on track to serve over 34,000 people this year, with over 12,000 of them being children. And this is happening in countries across our county. We are truly in a crisis, and bold actions need to be taken.

[00:09:04] We need affordable dwelling units in every part of this county, because these people live and work everywhere, too. They are actually the ones who are making this county work, educating our children, paving our roads, stocking our grocery stores, tending our medical needs as nurses or technicians, driving our ambulances or protecting us.

[00:09:25] None of these people should have to commute from neighboring counties because they can't afford to live here. And yet, while I hear people acknowledging that we are in a crisis, in the same breath, I also hear that we can't have ADUs here or there. Too much traffic, no public transit, they'll overrun our schools or crime will go up. Why are none of these issues brought up when developments of over $600,000 are being approved? For example, the Haymarket area recently improved through three separate townhouse communities and now has at least 300 new homes with two cars. Plus there will be a new retirement community going

[00:10:02] in behind Heathcote and a $900,000 housing development is being built right now. Where was the outrage with all that attic traffic and stress in schools? Our hard-working public servants deserve the right to live in the county where they serve. We are great because of the work they do from us. Please create an ordinance that allows all incomes to limit dignity in our county. Good afternoon, supervisors. I'm Leela Bartra from the Gainesville District. I was at

[00:10:39] the Planning Commission meeting last week where they began to debate over how the digital gateway proposal should be scheduled, and I know you will be facing the same dilemma after the Planning Commission. Some commissioners wanted to schedule the meeting so that they take place over three separate days, arguing that was the most democratic way to do it. But democracy has nothing to do with how long this takes. This is democratic because we voted for you, and you will represent us with your votes. Your staff has requested that these agenda items be heard together, and I support them on this. These three projects are not only linked, but they also require a huge number of

[00:11:17] staff and consultants to be present. The cost to the county and the logistics of running these meetings is enough reason to make sure we accomplish this in one meeting per board. To keep these meetings from turning into overnight marathon events, I ask you to limit comment time.

[00:11:35] We have many different ways of communicating our opinions to you. We can call you, meet you in person, send an email, leave a comment on the agenda, speak virtually, show up in person, either on the day of the public hearing or another day during public commentary.

[00:11:50] We have a multitude of ways to be heard. Limiting one to keep a meeting from running for hours and incurring additional costs to the county is not undemocratic. Smart move. This insistence on allowing everyone to be heard in person seems to suggest that you value in-person commentary more than you value other methods of communication.

[00:12:13] At the Planning Commission meeting last week, they said if it's important enough to people, they will show up. But the truth of the matter is you have no way of knowing how hard someone works to get here. Did they have a job they had to take time off from, or are they retired?

[00:12:28] Do they live a short drive away, or are they far? Do they even have a car or a way to get here? Do they have kids? Do they have health issues or handicaps? Are they unable to drive home safely after being awake for 24 hours to speak at a marathon board meeting?

[00:12:46] For so many different reasons, some people cannot make it before this board in person. and their voice should be given just as much weight as those of us who have the privilege to make it look for you. Not everyone who cares has the ability to show up to one meeting, let alone three long meetings.

[00:13:06] Please listen to your staff. Encourage everyone to use whatever contact method works best for them. Set reasonable limits on meetings, and please hear the digital gateway cases together. Thank you. Thank you. That will conclude our public comment time for today, which was agenda item number three, which brings us on to agenda number item four.

[00:13:31] Mr. Shorter, the floor is yours. Thank you, Madam Chair, and members of the board. Just one quick update. I'll be sure to repeat this next week at our board meeting in Chambers, but in terms of the community partners program, we are, as you know, I think the team, the Office of Management and Budget team got around to each of you to talk about the community partner program and the future of the program.

[00:13:58] We plan to hold information session virtual for partners on October 26th at 7 p.m. to just talk again about the program. We are moving for those essential services, many to contracts and MOUs, which will result in a smaller community partners program, one that is competitive and accountable so we will continue to provide progress in the program and I'll continue to provide updates I'll remind the public

[00:14:33] about this in next week when we leave in chambers so that's a public meeting on October 26 for people who are interested in being community partners just to clarify or our current community partners for current community partners but it will be advertised for anyone interested, maybe those who, I would say, haven't become community partners, but might be interested in programming and engaging community.

[00:15:02] And will there be a flyer for that pretty soon? There will be a flyer, and we'll be doing a sort of online advertisement as well, and it will be, again, virtual. Okay, did you want to say something? Yeah, well, thank you. So is there some type of distribution list that your office has compiled for those that are interested but have not received any past partnership funding?

[00:15:32] So certainly with all the current community partners, they'll be notified. But any organization that I would say in the last few years who have applied but not been successful will be notified as well.

[00:15:47] Thank you. Any other questions for Mr. Forer, Supervisor Bailey? Not a question, but just a comment. I appreciate the county exec going forward with this. It feeds into what we were talking about last year during budget cycle as well.

[00:16:05] And the interest, as Supervisor Lawson would say it, for additional potential community partners. So I see this as continuity. So I appreciate that. I appreciate it being virtual also because that might garner a lot more participation.

[00:16:21] I appreciate that. It's important to note that part of what we said to the board in the past is that we didn't want to create a situation where we were jeopardizing essential services, where we know that an organization is providing the kinds of services to community that we don't want to go away.

[00:16:43] So I really appreciate the team and all the work they've done to be creative here and create a situation where those partners that are providing the kind of services that we would otherwise have to provide directly, that we're creating an environment where they can be engaged with us via contract in a competitive way and that we can hold accountable some of the services that are being provided.

[00:17:09] And that the community partners program could be what it's meant to be, and that is it's also competitive, smaller, more agile projects, and that every year there's no guarantee that the organization will be funded without any jeopardizing essential service.

[00:17:30] Very important step forward and appreciate the board's leadership and direction during the last quarter of the season. And just a second part also, in this meeting, not that you'll have enough time in the first meeting, but will you be going over the process of what that looks like and, you know, how to apply and all of that, or will there be another opportunity?

[00:17:54] That is one of the objectives of this session, to talk about the process. It's also to talk about the sort of evolution and what will happen in terms of some of the will use the contracts but yes for those who are interested in becoming community partners this will be for them as well so we'll be covering the steps to engage us in the partners program in the future okay thank you mr shorter anyone else okay so thank you uh that will conclude county executive time county attorney time ms roble thank you madam chair members of the board

[00:18:34] we have one item for discussion closed session this afternoon it will be a personnel discussion relating to the appointment for the delegate and voting credentials for the 2023 Virginia Association of Counties annual business meeting and this item is appropriate pursuant to 2.2 dash 3711 a1 of the Virginia code second motion made by supervisor bailey seconded by vice chair bode any discussion seeing none how are we going to do this one perfect voice okay one at a time or okay supervisor bailey aye supervisor bode aye aye

[00:19:12] - Supervisor Angry? - Aye. - Supervisor Franklin? - Aye. - Supervisor Lawson? - Aye. - Supervisor Vega? - Yes. - Supervisor Weaver? - Aye. - Chair Wheeler? - Aye. - Go ahead and miss. - Okay, thank you. So this is a work session today.

[00:19:27] We're in a different room, different place. We have two work sessions today. I'll note, and I know it's been already advertised that the presentation on Possum Point Colash was deferred to a later date.

[00:19:43] was determined that there was no new information and there have been a lot of town halls that it was given to all the offices individually so we will be doing that um at a later date when we have more information to share so with that we're going to go on to 6a which is developmental services a presentation on residential solar and i believe ms spina is here who is the acting director of developmental services to talk to us about lovely residential solar good afternoon adam chair members of the board masona acting director of development services so today i'm here to give

[00:20:20] you an update on residential solar we're going to talk a little bit about our residential solar landing page i'll give you some information on data that we've compiled we'll talk a little bit about the residential solar process action team and then the upcoming deliverables some that have already happened and one that's upcoming um so as most of you are aware we talked to residential solar we've seen a significant increase in residential solar over the past few years and so our residential solar landing page was really created as a place to put information for homeowners and contractors the link that's provided above has online training pdfs and videos

[00:20:56] it has videos for how-to things that are related to our electronic process how do i bookmark my submission. How do I do layering? How do I put tabs? Things like that that we're working through on electronic submissions. It will list out the steps for our permitting process. You'll also be able to find a completed residential solar projects report that we do by Porter, where it shows the companies that have had successful projects that have moved through a residential solar. And it also has helpful links for customers, not just the homeowners, but the contractors on our solar energy systems plan e-checklist, which is really valuable. Really check off the items as we

[00:21:33] go through that submission process. And then also a link to our submission and our inspections guidelines. So it has been very helpful. I feel that when talking to contractors and homeowners as well, pointing them to this page really gives them the whole landscape of what residential solar is in the county. So in terms of data, residential solar, since we've been tracking in 2016 and talking calendar year, we see a significant increase from year 2021 to 2022, a 297% increase going from 274 to 1,087. This industry has seen growth that we have

[00:22:11] not seen in any other industry. And with that comes a lot of the hurdles that we face in terms of how fast the industry moves. To date for 2023, we are looking to be a little bit under the 2022 number, projecting out to be around 900 or 950 applications. We were interested in looking at the substantial growth from 21 to 22, how long can the industry sustain that type of growth?

[00:22:35] So we are anticipating a little bit lower than 22, but still significantly higher than what we saw from 2019 all the way through 21. And with that as well, I will say we are seeing an increase in the number of contractors as well. Just in the first quarter in the calendar year, we had 26 contractors.

[00:22:54] In the second quarter, we were looking at 29. So we are still seeing an increase in the number of contractors doing business for residential solar. This next slide talks to building plan approvals. When we talk through approvals, any time you're going through a plan review process, time is money.

[00:23:11] And so when we look at 38% of our customers for residential solar, and this is the first half of calendar year 23, receive their approval within the first submission. And then 76% of our customers are within the two submissions. We do see that 24% or three submissions are greater.

[00:23:28] So one thing we've started doing recently is running what's called the third review report. And that's where we're identifying projects in totality, not just residential solar, but those projects that are in their third round of reviews so we can identify trends, start proactive outreach to see what needs to happen for some of those projects.

[00:23:53] Okay. Okay. All right. So next up is our residential solar working group. So this group has been instrumental in bringing forward industry trends, industry issues. We have industry members from large companies, regional companies, national companies, as well as staff members. So you can see the members of the working group. We formalized in 2019, but then ended in August of 23. The working group is going to continue to be quarterly, though, so we can identify more

[00:24:32] industry trends and issues because the industry continues to grow at such a rapid pace. Our next meeting is slated for early December, so we can talk through some of the deliverables that we've gone through since September and really see how are those working and what are additional things we can do to move forward. And so now moving into the deliverables, one piece that we heard from the residential solar industry was the amount of cost to do business in Prince William County because we do a full plan review. And so on July 25th, 40 county supervisors approved a residential solar fee reduction program to the $1.2 million. And in essence, with all new applications starting

[00:25:09] on September 1st. It weighs all permitting fees for residential solar projects. As of the beginning of October, we have used $40,000 of that fund. What we are seeing, the way the projects work through a plan submission and a permit will get pulled, so we are seeing this project get started. We're continuing to see the increase where we're almost about $2,000 a day. So we are continuing to monitor that fund. It has been successful. A lot of fanfare from the homeowner's side. We have been implemented on receipts for invoices so that homeowners are aware that they're part of this program, it has VOCS waived, so that they're aware that there aren't fees being charged in the event that a contractor still

[00:25:47] tries to charge that fee, so we've implemented that process, but it seems to be going very well when we are using those funds. Also on September 1st, and I think this is the one we were the most excited about with our working group, is the Residential Solar County Typical Plan.

[00:26:04] So this was designed by the industry and staff members, and it was really focusing on the cost and time savings for contractors and homeowners. It removed a requirement for a plan to be produced, which is both time and cost. And it removed the requirement for an engineer to sign and seal the documents. It also offers an expedited time frame of five days from submission to approval. To date, we have had five submissions under County Typical. Two of those, three of those were this week. Last week, we had two of those come through in a total time of seven days. So I reached out to the contractors who had submitted to ask about the ease of the process.

[00:26:40] Is it working? How you thought it would? And the comments back were, the last time I submitted it, it took 45 days. This time around, it's been seven. It's working fantastic. So we've seen great movement here. We're also seeing companies coming to us and wanting to say, I'd love to make my design fit the county difficult so I can get that time savings came and help us.

[00:27:01] So we've met with two companies over the past two weeks to work through their designs and how those changes can really factor into the county difficult. And then last, I think what the industry is most excited about, is the upcoming implementation of Solar App Plus. Solar App Plus is a system where a contractor can go in and enter their information for the project and it will give them a permit the same day.

[00:27:25] Now, of course, there are workarounds that any jurisdiction working with Solar App Plus, because it's a national system, we have to put some pieces in place that match the needs of our jurisdiction. In Virginia, there are only three localities, Caldhepper, Harrisonburg, and the city of Richmond, for piloting Solar App Plus.

[00:27:41] Montgomery County in Maryland is also doing this as well. And they all have their own unique requirements based on their jurisdictional and how they're important to do this. So in June of 23, Development Services completed testing of Solar App Plus. And then on September 20th, we kicked off our pilot program, Infirmed.

[00:28:01] And this is really where we're focusing on identifying the criteria for the pilot program and then identifying the companies that will be invited to pilot Solar App Plus. We are going to open it up to the working group first, as they have the most experience working with us throughout the past few years. And then our implementation date is set for January of 24. We are scheduled to meet with Solar App Plus live for a demo on October 25th, so we are moving the ball. I'm very excited about the upcoming implementation to go over at once. So with that, I'll take any questions. Do you have any?

[00:28:40] And also, by the way, people in the back are having trouble hearing so we need to speak loudly. Project. I'll talk louder. Mandy, thank you for this presentation. It's right on time. I wanted to ask some of the information and data that you got to set us up for success.

[00:29:01] Some of that information coming from NBRC and COD, those entities, I know they've got a lot of data as well. Are you utilizing any of that? We are going to continue working with additional partners. Right now we're really focused on the industry members, but now we're working on the upcoming deliverables.

[00:29:18] How do we broaden that outreach? Okay. I say that because I know just being on the board, especially with COD, there's some new new information and data that might be, I mean, would be advantageous to you as you go forward. So that's the reason why I ask. But thanks for the Center for Success.

[00:29:38] Supervisor Brody. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mandy, for the presentation. Thank you for all the work. I know you guys have been rolling a lot of punches with this, especially over the last year. I know Wade has as well. My question is, as it pertains to this, is you mentioned there's been some fanfare surrounding the homeowners associations. And sort of how are we going to collaborate with them more? Because, you know, we can't force them to do anything. We can't force them to change their covenants around this. I have an HOA where they allow solar technically, but that has to be on the rear of the roof. There's some limitations there on some types of homes. So how are we going to collaborate with the HOAs to really broaden this out? Because

[00:30:16] frankly, folks shouldn't be constrained by being able to utilize this based on where they live just because their HOA has concerns. We know it isn't just being restricted. They have concerns around these projects. So how are we working with them?

[00:30:31] So we are working with some HOAs that will reach out to us and they want the link just to the residential solar landing page. And they're putting it in their newsletters to get the word out about what is allowed in the counties and the upcoming deliverables. So we have seen success in that area, but then continuing our outreach.

[00:30:47] We are starting what's going to be an outreach and marketing campaign 365 to talk about building safety, but including residential solar as part of that. So that when we're in the libraries and we're going out to meet with HOAs, that's part of our presentation. There's a follow-up.

[00:31:03] One of the barriers that I've heard and also frankly encountered sort of talking through with some of the installers is financing. because we know that certain companies and certain members of the industry have different financing options and configurations to allow the project to pay for itself over time, other ones require an upfront cost, and then over time, it's not paid down against your utility bills and what have you.

[00:31:30] Has that been part of the discussion with the industry and the HOAs that we continue to move forward with this? Because I would hate for there to be financial barriers to entry on this, when frankly, some of the folks that would be printed the most are the low-income folks, which frankly aren't able to easily access them.

[00:31:48] Right now, it's not a part of that. We're focused more on the codes and the regulations to approval, but it's something we can definitely look into adding to our presentations, just if it's linked to resources. They can have versus, well, we may not be the approval piece or the subject matter expert on that side, we can provide the information.

[00:32:06] Going back to something that Supervisor Bailey said, part of MDRC is Solarize NOVA. And they have access to certain low-income programs for folks. So as much as we can't help get the word out about those resources, I think it will help them.

[00:32:23] It's awesome. We can also work with our sustainability office as well. Yes. Supervisor Angry. Thank you, sir. Thanks, Annie. I think this ties in well with the fact that we're going to be discussing housing so many of these affordabilities. Because these are, like, to me, two different buckets, right?

[00:32:42] I mean, when we start talking about affordable housing, many of those folks, to supervise the voltage point, aren't able to really focus on solar and they get the solar option. So my question really is one of planting a seed, because I feel like we're being reactive now to something to allow folks, as we talk about power generations and costs going down on homes and just ways to save money.

[00:33:04] In our development world of developers that build homes, I think there's a discussion to be had about building homes and where we're going in the future with building homes. homes and solar, or whatever that next wave may be, because I know there's grain options up and down. All these things are power saving. So I'm just curious if there's, has anyone floated that around, or can I throw that seed out there? So I think there's some discussion on the next level we're talking about. How do we actually incorporate this into building the homes out the box? And I know we're talking about getting prices lower so people can actually afford to live in them, but that's going to come, I believe, in the end of the discussion

[00:33:42] anyway. So I just want to put that out there. I don't know if it's not for you to answer, but I just want to put that out for the discussion, because as we're talking about solar, I know this is not going to bother everybody at the current time, because many people have the means to pay the lease, this option, because at some point, because we were saying this is an option, we should probably look at adding this to the development of how we build. So I've got just a couple questions. You had said that, you know, with our fees, it was good that we sort of got rid of our fees because one of the things people complained about was the cost because we asked for full plan reviews, right?

[00:34:22] Right. Were other jurisdictions not asking for full plan reviews? So we're different. Each jurisdiction is different. Some do no plan review. Some are doing things like Solar App Plus. Some do a partial review. So we were different in that aspect, and I think we were pretty open with the fact that that was where we were very different, just the time that it took to review because we were doing that full review from the scene.

[00:34:45] So are we still doing that full plan review? We are doing, so we have multiple options now. You can choose to go the county typical option where you are submitting the county typical plan. And that is, if you're in conformance with the documents we've done, you don't have to submit your plan.

[00:35:02] We'll have the upcoming sole plan, which won't require the plan. Or you can set the traditional way. So you do have multiple options at this point. But if the contractor decides to submit the traditional route with their own design, then they would go through that plan review process.

[00:35:18] So how can we be different across jurisdictions? How does that work, that we require a full plan and other people don't? So for each jurisdiction, the building official is authorized how we enforce the code and whether they will require that full plan review. That's really up to the building official for each jurisdiction.

[00:35:35] Is that one person here? That is one person here, yes. Who is that? Eric Bates is our building official. So he's the one saying we have to have full plan reviews? He's the one who decides that, yes. I have a couple of, but Supervisor Lawson. Well, I'd like to piggyback, because this might, I don't know exactly what you mean by full plan review, so maybe we need clarification on that, but I have an email, I think it went to the whole board, and one thing I've learned is there's two sides to every story.

[00:36:11] I've learned that sometimes the hard way, that just because the contractor says something about account of staff doesn't mean that it's legit. So I'll let you answer, Mandy. But this constituent came to us about the arduous process of getting solar panels in this home and that the contractor said that by far Prince William County is the most difficult process and that we have a 55-page floor and other surrounding jurisdictions tend to be around five pages. So back to

[00:36:48] the chair's question if that's indeed true is that because a you know full plan versus partial can you shed some light on that yes so i think some of what we see is twofold one is our electronic requirements um so we have seen just some hurdles around the understanding of electronic requirements um before you should bring your plan in we would intake that person we review it with you we make any changes needed and then it's submitted to the plan. Now there's an electronic process where there's layering involved because over 10 pages you have to bookmark it.

[00:37:23] There may be signed or signatures that are needed on certain pages that are missing. So we have a key plan checklist that we noticed there were some issues there with. So that process is a little bit different. We're working through some of those requirements right now. What is still needed? What's not? But then we'll look at the actual plan review. It's some of the code issues that are coming out. What we see with the residential solar industry is because of how fast they move, the quickness of their industry doesn't match the speed in which cones are moving. So sometimes the industry may be using products that the state of Virginia has not adopted in the code. And so we have to come together and do something like a county-wide

[00:38:01] code modification to say, we can all use this because that part of the code won't be adopted But wouldn't our neighbors be reacting to the same advancements in the solar industry, but they obviously need to modify their changes or their work in place like we would, right?

[00:38:21] Well, if they're not doing a full plan review, they wouldn't catch that piece of it. So that is some of the hurdles that we do work through because we do the full plan review. So that is the full submission. We're looking at electrical. We're looking at structural. Okay, so let's go back to that. Yes. So is the answer to this, yes, we have a 55-page form?

[00:38:41] I don't know which form they're talking about. I'm not going to do two. Right. You know, 55 pages. Right. What? Our submission document is about five pages. I'm unsure which document they're referencing on the submission form. So we have an electronic submissions guide, and we also have an e-planned checklist.

[00:38:59] Neither of those that I'm aware of are 55 pages, so I'm unsure what document that is. So he's probably just repeating what his contractors are talking about. which, again, you know, I'm here to verify. Are we known to have a lot more forms, a lot more red tape?

[00:39:20] I'd say that we go through a more thorough review, especially related to solar, compared to other organizations. Okay, and that's the decision that Eric... That is the decision you could go to an individual. Okay, is he here? He is not here today, though. Does anyone want to speak for him?

[00:39:38] Who does he work for? He's in development services, so he's under my review. Okay. So he's got a lot of authority on his own. Yeah. A lot. But his insight would be helpful here. We're certainly happy to follow up if there are specific questions that we can take back and then send them to the collective board. We're happy that it happened to you soon.

[00:40:01] There's that idea that we require a full plan and other people don't. And why are we different? I'll say, I don't want to speak to the agency, but as a locality is adopting solar early in the process, making sure that we're thoughtful and thorough is important.

[00:40:24] Certainly, as we become more mature in this industry, there might be an opportunity to make some changes, whether it's partial or overdue or some other changes. I don't think I'm going to speak for ability to understand ourselves, so we'll be sure to ask that question, why that decision was made and when he would recommend that.

[00:40:49] And if Supervisor Franklin wants to say something, I'll jump in after that. Can you say that one more time? I said, Supervisor Franklin wants to say something. I'll jump in after that with remark on that. Yeah, this is just a general statement about our permitting process, and I've said this before.

[00:41:08] I don't know if I've said it publicly, but I've definitely expressed concerns about how tedious it tends to be here in Prince William County. I've heard a lot of complaints from both bigger entities as well as smaller entities, both on solar and on other projects. And I think we should just kind of continue to work to figure out a way to be more efficient, even while being thorough. Because quite frankly, Prince William County can't continue to have the reputation of

[00:41:42] being um of being tough when it comes to getting certain types of permits if not most types of permits um especially if at this point i think reputationally we rival loudon and fairfax and that's a good thing but we won't continue to kind of be um rivaling those counties if we have processes that are preventing businesses and homeowners from getting the types of permits that they need. If it's easier to go to a different county and cheaper, then why wouldn't anyone or

[00:42:21] any entity do that? So I think we just need to continue to think about our processes and procedures. We want to make sure that when we give permits, who we're giving permits to are safe. They're working in a safe manner and they're producing a project that will be sustainable. But I think there's a way to do that without costing everyone a ton of money in the process and then several rounds of that same process when they can just go to Fairfax and do

[00:42:52] it more efficiently. And you mentioned maturity of the industry, right? And maybe it's the maturity of us dealing with the industry, right, like if we, you know, obviously we're doing more and more as time goes on, right, you were at 1,000 last year, 1,027 and 900 some this year, and so maybe it's that we as accounting need to get more mature with dealing with it where we know that these are the things that are standard so we don't require a full review as we get more comfortable with it.

[00:43:26] Does that ever happen? We do look at our processes and that's something that we'll have continued discussions on specifically as we see industries like this. So I want to make it very clear to the press and everybody that I'm not questioning your name. He's the expert. But his input would have been really helpful. I'm sure that he has explanations why we look at the full plan versus what our neighbors are doing.

[00:44:01] But to Supervisor Franklin's point, we hear the complaints, and I'm sure that we find contractors in Fairfax that would say, well, Fairfax is better in Prince William County.

[00:44:18] So a lot of it's just, you know, echo chambers, if you will. But one thing's for sure, the eight of us want to make sure that Prince William County is being efficient and thorough and great customer service while also being safe.

[00:44:37] So we look forward to Mr. Sherwood giving us an update after we talk to Eric. I do appreciate you diving into this. Yeah, well, I mean, it comes up and it ends up on all our desks or our emails and things like that.

[00:44:54] How are we going to pick the people who are doing the pilots for Solaref? How are you going to choose them? So we have reached out to industry. We're going to give a first look at the company that we're working with that's on the working group. Some have shown interest, and then we will reach out to the rest of industry. We thought if you had reached out to us separately, just say they've heard we're doing it.

[00:45:12] So we do have that. My second comment is piggybacking on Vice Chair Gordy. You know, Solarize Virginia is, you know, NBRC has a whole program, and it's geared to a lot sort of different than this.

[00:45:29] And I know we did. Has anyone ever investigated Solarize Virginia? I know Supervisor Gordy and I have talked about it like years ago. Have we ever investigated joining Solarize Virginia, or whatever it's called?

[00:45:44] Yeah. Yeah. So, we have, and I know for a long time, we were, I hate to use this word, but it's our anger use it all the time, the donut, where the rest of Northern Virginia was participating in it, and it's only been the last two years, I want to say, that we've started to have success with it.

[00:46:03] I know that we've had a couple dozen homes now that are part of the program, and yeah, Dumperies as well. So we are beginning to move the right direction. So do you have to formally participate in it? Is that how it works? I'm disagreeing with that. So it's not like, say, the Clean Water Partners where we formally joined, but it's about the county helping to, to Randy's point, advertise that it exists, that the resources are there, and it's only been the last few years that we've really been doing conservative effort to do.

[00:46:35] Because Bob Lazaro sends these large emails all the time about Solarize NOVA, so I think I'll just pass it along. So any other questions for Ms. Spina? I know that it's a big topic and it probably will keep on going, you know, as the years go on.

[00:46:54] Any other questions? I'll just say that you are just coming into this role. You've been in the office for a while. I do have faith that we can get these things under control, but it is something of great importance. Well, thank you. Thank you. Mr. Shorter.

[00:47:10] I also want to just express thank you to our director and just to make sure I did not mean that the industry wasn't mature. I should say that the partners and the vendors associated with this work wasn't mature.

[00:47:28] But it's the process of keeping, working with, understanding some of the challenges with installation that we'll get better at all the time. We being us. The government. The government, yes. All right, so I just wanted to make sure that's okay.

[00:47:44] Okay, thank you. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you. So next up, our second presentation will be Wade Hugh. He's going to, he's our Deputy County Executive for Community Development, and he's going to talk about an affordable housing zoning update.

[00:48:07] So welcome, Mr. Duke. Good afternoon, Chair and members of the Board. I'm Wade Hugh with the Office of Executive Management. And this afternoon, I'd like to provide you an update on our efforts to develop an affordable housing unit. I'll just say as I start talking about this.

[00:48:25] You're going to need to speak up. This is a collaborative effort. So it wasn't just housing, planning office, development services. We had a number of folks around the table that have been working on this as a steering committee. So I'll jump right in.

[00:48:41] And I have some folks here that will help me with certain questions. So let's start the discussion, which I think is very important, because when we talk about affordable housing, what is affordable housing? And so we defined it as housing that's affordable to households. Households can be one individual, two, three, four, five.

[00:48:59] There's a whole chart that we can look at when we're talking about affordability. But it's housing that's affordable to households with income at or below area median income. And defined as those households are not paying more than 30% of their gross income on housing.

[00:49:16] And that would mean rent, utilities, and mortgages. When we talk about area median income, this is one of the things when we're putting an ordinance together, this is one of our first things that we're going to have to kind of wrestle with in terms of, there are a number of organizations out there that will come with an AMI, area median income.

[00:49:35] HUD is probably the most popular, U.S. Census Bureau, Virginia Department of Housing, and all their numbers will vary slightly. So one of the things, because when you develop an ordinance, you're going to be linking it to that affordability of 30%, 50%, 80% AMI, what document are you going to be referencing?

[00:49:54] Obviously, the bottom piece there, housing costs that exceed 30%, that starts tapping into a household's ability to food, clothing, medical expenses. Now, this slide's a little busy, but I think it does really depict why affordable housing's important.

[00:50:13] I think we see our community up there. We can see friends, neighbors, relatives. We might see ourselves in those pictures there. So I'll kind of start in the upper left quadrant. And these are very generalities in terms of positions, but let's say bartenders, cooks and restaurants, salary somewhere near $40,000.

[00:50:32] This would show you, in terms of ownership, you'd be looking to purchase condo, townhouse, single family, up to about $170,000. Rental, your rent is upwards close to about $1,000 a month. So right away, you can see in Prince William County, where are you going to find a home, a home, a house, whatever, for $170,000.

[00:50:55] We'll talk about that a little bit more. If you go over to the upper right, motor vehicle operator, legal secretary, salary ranges between $40,000 and about $68,000. You see the ownership range there for housing, upwards of $286,000.

[00:51:13] Rental ranges between $1,000 and about $1,700 a month. Lower left corner there, construction, building inspectors, social workers, 68,000, about 85,000. Again, ownership range 286 to about 362, right on between 1,700 and about 2150.

[00:51:33] And finally, on the lower right side there, salary ranges for mechanics, installers, supervisors, electrical engineers, between about 85,000 and 70,000 so we talked ownership range between 362,452 and relative to 2100 about 126, 2700 so these next couple this will really kind of get to kind of the supply and demand I will point out if you notice at the top this is based on 2019 area median income levels this gets updated the document that we have here gets updated every five years so we'll be working on

[00:52:13] one for 2024. But the picture that we're showing here is the same today. The dollar amount's all just a little bit, just because, again, you're dealing with AMI 15. What this shows is that housing that's in that 30% AMI and below for affordability, the blue bars in each of those areas, that's availability. That's the supply. The demand is in the orange, And you can see about 8,000 gap there, so substantially in an official supplier, or lack of supplier.

[00:52:47] Next bar between 31% and 50%, we match pretty closely there, supply and demand, 51% to 80% AMI. That's where we start seeing more on the supply side than what we have in the demand. Same with 81% to 100%.

[00:53:02] It's almost like a bell curve that we get to the other side. You go to 100 to 120 AMI, we start getting larger demand in supply, and above 120, pretty significant demand below supply. And what that causes is what's termed as buy-down, because folks over 120 can't find housing, so they're moving to the houses in that range between 100 and 120.

[00:53:25] Well, between the two, they're pushing down into, so essentially everyone kind of gets pushed into that 80 to 100 percent. That's what's happening. And as for rental, pretty much the same picture when we start talking ownership. You can see the 30% AMI, we have a lack of product that's out there, 31 to 50, again, pretty balanced.

[00:53:47] And when you get 51 to 80, and you do 100, you can see we have a little bit of excess product, about matched with 100 to 120. And then again, it's significant shortfall when you go over 120. And we'll talk about that a little bit more in terms of why that is, because you can use the market to drive that when you get to that product 120.

[00:54:07] Can I ask you a question? Because I should have asked this before, just so as a basic thing. I mean, the fact that the blue bars with ownership units, that basically says we have a lot more units than we need. Am I reading that wrong? And so I'm just trying to understand what that means.

[00:54:28] Well, that would just show you in that range of what's available out there. For example, let's take 80 to 100. You have the 47,000. But that doesn't mean those are just sitting there. Again, what's happening is the folks above 120, they're pushing and filling those jobs.

[00:54:44] But it's being filled by those at the upper income level. Okay. I guess, yeah. I mean, it's okay. I'll keep on going. I sort of looked at that. I was like, it looks like that the people in the 80 to 100% AMI should be fine with finding housing.

[00:55:06] But that's not true. Well, there's enough problem. would be enough product in that then but again what would happen is if the ones in the above 120 if they're not finding products so essentially those folks above 120 that's a gap of 30 000 people then they're pushing into the 100 to 120. well you can already see there's not enough supply there so people that are pushing into so they're all kind of competing for that excess between the

[00:55:30] hundred okay okay thanks yeah sorry to interrupt so now we talked about what affordability is now let's kind of talk about why affordability is important why we're very interested in this because we start with retirees aging in place those that maybe born and raised here raise your family here and you want to be with your kids your grandkids stay here versus folks that are

[00:56:05] retirement moving southern virginia north carolina wherever the case may be quality of life again we want housing to be affordable people are spending more than that 30 percent of their income then you're starting to tap into kind of basic needs and life live where you work i'm not saying attracting employers companies are located here where's their workforce going to live and in education public sector workforce teachers and other public employees are able to find affordable housing so we look at our comprehensive plan a comprehensive plan

[00:56:42] has housing goals near what's in the region what this table here shows is total housing units so this would be rental units units for sale our goals and you can see five-year increments so what this is saying in 2025 affordable dwellings so less than 80% AMI we wanted 33% of the stock that's out there to be in that 80% AMI. So that would be 58,000 plus units. Workforce housing that even to 120,

[00:57:13] we want 42% of the supply. And then market, 25%, that's over the 120 AMI. So what we can do, because these are the goals for 2025, essentially we can go back and we can grab the units in those different brackets there and we can kind of fill in where we would right now from 2019 and so I did that quickly just to give you a sense so for example in the 33% in that first column we're about 54,000 units in 2019 available stock 2019 so you can tell from 2019 to 25 we had six years to gain

[00:57:52] around 4,000 units. Chair Willer at your point when you get to that middle section available 80 to 120 we had 80,000 already on the books in 2019 so we've already kind of met the mark, if you will, in that range, plus additional 6,000.

[00:58:10] And when you look at the market, we had about 22,000 units. So that's at over 120, so we need to pick up 22,000 units again over a six-year span of time. So we keep coming back to on the two ends that's where the problem is. On the lower end of the 30% AMI and on the upper end in terms of the housing side. Now when we talk about regional, and this is from COG, so we're kind of talking to each of here, So if you go to 2020, you can see the blue bar is showing what's available.

[00:58:44] The orange bar is the demand. Now we're kind of stepping back and we're looking larger in the region. So snapshot in time of 2020, regionally, we have 50,000 units short. And then just based on where they feel projection is going to go with the blue line, demand will go.

[00:59:00] We jump to 2030, we're 75,000 units short. If you just take the difference between the 2375 for total units in 2030 and 21 and 2,133 in 2020, we've got to, in the region, gain 245,000 units, just to keep what's projected for work, and then pick up that 75,000 for sure.

[00:59:24] So basically, we need 320,000 units in the region for that 10% of your state. Madam Chair. Wait, do they define specifically which jurisdictions when you talk about region?

[00:59:41] I know there's a debate about Stafford. Stafford is not Cog Ridge, correct? All I can say is from the table, everybody wants more from Oregon. Yeah, so no, this is just Cog Region, it doesn't include Stafford, it's a little small part of Fauquier, I'm not most of all here.

[01:00:02] Oh, it does? Loudon, New Baltimore, New Baltimore area. But, yeah, proportionally, that $75,000 shortfall divided on, based on the growth, projected growth of the different jurisdictions, Prince William's share of that $75,000 by 10% based on our projected growth relative to the region, so about $7,500 million shortfall in our plans.

[01:00:30] i did not realize it went out until a little bit of like the eastern side of here um what about the maryland side how far so it's uh yeah charles county montgomery prince george's county and friday okay thank you so the regional housing targets for cog again target number one would be 320 000 units for the region target number two in terms of accessibility for these homes

[01:01:07] 75% of the homes should be near activity centers or high transit areas. And then finally, from an affordability, 75% of new housing should be affordable to low development. Now we'll kind of come back to Prince William County.

[01:01:29] So for us to hit those targets that we saw in the earlier slide from the comprehensive plan, we need to average about 3,000 new units in the county. And as you can see, we did that up through about 2007, 2008, kind of the Great Recession.

[01:01:46] And as you can see, we've been below that since then, for a number of reasons. And obviously, we're so kind of out of it now for the recession. We had our planning officer to tell you that our comprehensive planability can match up with what our housing needs were. We also had the proper legislation.

[01:02:03] So we went up here in there without really residential zonings. And now, kind of at the tail line, if you look at 2023, we have the interest rates. People on the side of it are not jumping in handy. So, back in the building, because it's also the cost of their capital.

[01:02:21] So, we talked affordable housing tools. Number of tools, this kind of shows you the spectrum. The far left is below 30% AMI. Far right would be over 120 AMI, which the market kind of handles that. But we're talking about affordable dwelling unit ordinance that we're talking about here.

[01:02:40] You're kind of in that between that 50-80% AMI. There are other tools, there's tools out there. We start moving in the low 50% AMI. It's shown up there. There's vouchers, there's federal, state, local grants, faith-based charities, things of that nature.

[01:02:58] Again, we're kind of being zeroing in on it as we build this ordinance. It's kind of at 50%. So we talk about establishing the ordinance. I mean, there's a number of policy issues that we need to look at. I mean, one, what's the inflictability, what projects are linking, we talk incentives, we have density bonuses, we talk that we're going to have a housing trust, affordability share, so when a project comes in, what percent of the affordability will be the income levels, that kind of goes back to the AMI, where we're trying to target what the affordable housing

[01:03:32] is being constructed, and what's that term, how long do those units need to stay in the affordability program, which is 30 years, those are all things that have to be decided Now, this slide, and I like the first piece up here, because, I mean, it has been, as I said before, there's a lot of agencies involved, we have a consultant helping us, a lot of people review on this as well, but the point of this first goal is, it's not as simple as a cup of paper, it's, you know, Fairfax, Harlington, Loudoun, they all have an orange, why don't we describe it as a cookie cutter, a cup of paper is changing these things.

[01:04:07] Well, it's because of code sections. They have specific sections of code that are referenced. They'll be in reference of jurisdictions or forms of government. So we cannot use, for example, 15.2-2304. Arlington has special provisions under 15.2-735-1.

[01:04:25] So what the county is looking at is there's two options for us, 15.2, 2305, 2305.1. And what we will do, we come back with the ordinance, and we're actually presenting it before you, giving you specifics.

[01:04:41] We'll have a table, we'll kind of walk through what were some of the pros and cons, and why are we leaning towards 2305.1. We'll walk you through that. So did we ever, I mean, I know this is the two different code sections that apply to us, and we've sort of chosen to go with the second one that's less prescriptive and things like that.

[01:05:00] Did we ever go back and try to change that legislatively? Does anybody remember, did we ever talk to our delegation and have it amended? I mean, it's just a matter of having us put in. Supervisor voting? Yeah, I think that when we went to Richmond, actually this year, we had talked to some of our delegates and say senators about it, There wasn't a lot of movement in Richmond for it, but I know that there were conversations about it.

[01:05:28] I think we should make a bigger push for it because, quite frankly, as someone who's paid a lot of attention to this, I don't recall this being a big item that we focused on for our legislative agenda. I think we probably mentioned it in a whole host of other issues that we care about, but I don't remember us singling this out and being like, we want this to be a huge push.

[01:05:52] Well, I know it's on a priority list. I'm just saying I don't recall us making a huge push for it. Ms. Brown, can you address whether we've ever asked for this in our legislative agenda list? I know we did for public health when we got put in. Did we ever ask for this specifically?

[01:06:08] We did not. No. We had a discussion with staff. We were waiting to determine what the ordinance would be and what it would look like. So we never ask the summer delegation to make new changes to that statement that we can.

[01:06:24] I don't know if it's some of our ordinances, but certainly something we've had a conversation about is that, but we have never... Because someone needs to correct me if I'm wrong. I mean, these are two different ways to approach affordable housing.

[01:06:42] The first one's very prescriptive, and we could sort of take existing ordinances and things like that. And the second is we're kind of creating our own and starting from ground zero and don't have the same kind of things. Does anybody speak to this intelligently? So 2304 is very flexible.

[01:07:02] It doesn't have much in the way. It's probably a short paragraph. And so those jurisdictions can do all kinds of things. Maybe more specific. Yeah. So it just says that they are allowed to create an Affordable Dwelling Unit Ordinance and doesn't provide any specifics.

[01:07:22] So it's the next one that's specific. The next one is very specific. So 2305, for instance, has all the list of things that you can put in your Affordable Dwelling Unit Ordinance and what they prescribe, what the percentage of Affordable Units can The maximum is 17% and the maximum density bonus is 30% bonus density in 20305.

[01:07:48] 20305.1 has a little broader range. We can go up to 35% of affordable units and up to 95% bonus density. And it also provides for more flexibility and development standards that 20305 doesn't.

[01:08:04] So both 2305 and 2305.1 are much more defined and required, and that nobody has implemented anything like 2305.1 yet, we're going to be the first ones. And 2304 is the hardest to do.

[01:08:24] I think there was, from my, I'm on the Legislative Committee of the American Planning Constitution Association of Virginia Chapter and we discussed this and there just wasn't an appetite for modifying 2304 to add other jurisdictions like Prince William County because we haven't adopted an affordable dwelling unit to take advantage of the tool that they did provide us which was 2305 or 2305. So but what you just said means that other people adopted ordinance under 2305 and then went to 2304?

[01:09:01] No, there's different jurisdictions that have implemented a few jurisdictions have implemented under 2305, but most of them, anything that's our size is under 2304, like Loudon, like Fairfax County, like ROT County, like the City College.

[01:09:22] Well, okay, Supervisor Bailey, then Supervisor Franklin. So, David, does that mean that 2305 and 01, are they more restricted in terms of the product that we can provide? Yes. Okay. Sorry, can you just be specific on what's in 2304?

[01:09:42] Yes, it says that those jurisdictions that have that, or specifically that jurisdiction or that type of government, can create an affordable adoption. It just says that you can. Yeah, basically it's a light check. We really don't need to be included in 2304, we just, I guess to the point that the road that we're already down, we just need to choose between 2305 and 23.1 or .5, and we've already chosen.

[01:10:08] That's all that we're allowed to choose to do. Right. Because we're not in 2304. Because we're not under 2304. But we really don't need to be in 2304. No, we can opt one under 2305.1, but we're, it's very prescriptive. If we were in 2304, we could have cookie-cuttered other people, taken the best and just proceeded But to that point, Madam Chair, so, you know, last year we had that analysis completed on the different code sections.

[01:10:34] There's a great chart in it that, I know people can't see it, but it basically says the restrictions of each, and 2304 said, like, almost all of them say local discretion, so we can do whatever we want, but all the other ones say the box we have to fit in.

[01:10:49] So from that perspective, it would have granted us the most flexibility under 23 or 4. And frankly, just looking at regionally, what other jurisdictions are in that. So Albemarle, Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, Sillia's of Alexander, Fairfax, and Charlottesville.

[01:11:06] Those were a lot more like them than everyone else that's been sort of lumped in the other code section. So it would have been nice. I don't want us to stall us going down this road anymore. But at some point, we do need to talk about that fact that we're losing out on some of the flexibility that other jurisdictions here in this region are able to partake.

[01:11:27] I will say, though, that in the essence of time, if the General Assembly is not even looking at going down that road to 2304, I would rather if we have the authority under one of the 2305s, then we should take whatever we can do to get us there as quickly as possible.

[01:11:46] I don't think it hurts to ask about 2304. Depending. I'm just saying, in the back of our minds, I mean, it can always proceed at the same time, but if we could just get lumped into 2304, it makes it a heck of a lot easier. And somewhere along the line, we've apparently made a decision not to do that, and we've been busy with other things, and we'll just leave it at that.

[01:12:07] So that's the way it goes. So, okay. So let's talk kind of where we are against STEPS. In our work plan, what we were trying to accomplish, So, for example, work session today, we need to still finalize the ordinance, get it drafts, a good draft form, that we can go out and start getting public comment.

[01:12:38] Part of that public comment, we definitely want to partner with residential builders. I've had discussions with MPPA. A lot of those folks have experience in other jurisdictions, and so it will be helpful in their input as well. Obviously, the public input, town halls, whatever we can get set up.

[01:12:54] We do need to go back to the DORAC DCSM zoning ordinance committee, housing board for a work session, back to the planning commission for a work session, planning commission, public hearing, and board public hearing. Those would be the steps needed to get the ordinance about, but that's kind of what we're going to call phase one.

[01:13:12] Phase two, we'll have this slide here instead of zones. We'll also have a piece on accessory dwelling units. We need to look at additional plan-mixed residential types.

[01:13:28] We talked about housing trust fund. This is more kind of the incentive side of the house, and that will probably start in January. We've got to work through that process with our consultants. So a lot of the legwork has been done in front of what we talked about. We're fairly far down the road on the 2305.1, so we think we have some good information pulled together.

[01:13:50] or on a grant board and still has some things to flush out details, but that's our plan to be able to move forward. Can someone tell me, how long does it take to get a ZTA through? Like, doesn't it take like a year? Depends. Depends on which ZTA.

[01:14:08] Depends, yes. And how simple it is, but usually for a complex like one, like the affordable one unit ordinance, would take there's so many policy decisions that need to be made it takes some more working with stakeholders working with the industry team to get those adopted and also very dependent on the resources I have in the planning office to or the county attorney's office has to review these things that

[01:14:42] we have to do them so it can take a long time and we do have a lot of of initiated zoning tax amendments that we have on our plate that we have to work on and we're trying to prioritize them and work through them.

[01:15:05] Is there any approach where we put together a housing trust fund before we have an ordinance or before we do the CTAs? Because the housing trust fund can be used to incentivize people who want to develop affordable housing, right?

[01:15:22] As opposed to donating land and giving them subsidies. How does that interface with the-- that doesn't necessarily need a zoning text amendment. In connection with this particular part of the code, you need to have the zoning order set and then establish the trust fund based on all the criteria that's laid out there.

[01:15:42] For this? Yes. If you as the board want to invest in a project, then that's a different discussion. That is outside of the housing trust fund process, because that's different.

[01:15:57] You would have a trust fund set up, where you have specific guidelines, specific criteria for somebody to apply for funding in it, a different type of, whether it's going to be a forgivable loan, whether it's going to be a grant, all those things have to be worked out on how they can do that. So if you're saying if you've got a project coming through right now, today, we would have to discuss if the board wanted to invest in that project in some way.

[01:16:21] Supervisor Barney. Yeah, to piggyback off of that question, I appreciate that, Madam Chair. There is precedent in the past of the board setting aside money in the budget FOIA program that's yet to be constructed in terms of parameters. The CESMP is a perfect example of that where, I want to say two if not three budget cycles ago, we allocated a million dollars towards sustainability even though the CESMP wasn't even started back then and now we're on the cusp of hopefully adopting it to avail ourselves of that funding.

[01:16:51] Couldn't there also be a same structure where we begin to allocate money towards a trust fund to eventually have it? So when that is adopted, we at least have some seed money to begin immediately deploying those resources as opposed to waiting until we adopt a policy when we know it's a priority at the board to have a trust fund.

[01:17:10] As for a directive that, Professor Franklin gave, what, three years, almost four years ago at this point? So that, to me, there's precedent there of establishing a fund or something when those parameters aren't yet even established yet. Yeah, so I appreciate the presentation, and I acknowledge that some work has been done on it.

[01:17:35] I don't think nearly as much, or we are nearly as close to where we should be after three years of talking about this. I think this was probably my first or second directive when I came into office. I think the CAC was like number two.

[01:17:54] And a lot of time has passed. We've talked about it each year. I've tried to get the housing trust fund in the budget. They haven't been able to do it for various reasons, other priorities. But I do think that we can be a lot further. I mean, looking at phase one, I feel like phase one, you know, we could have been doing some of this over the years.

[01:18:19] And I know that we've started having some of these discussions and then even thinking about phase two. I mean, I don't know how long that's going to take. And I'm supportive of looking at what our options are for moving some type of affordability measure forward, whether that's the housing trust fund or something else.

[01:18:37] But I do want to go on record and say that I expected to have an ordinance done this term because we've been talking about it for three years. And so I think the other thing I'll say is, you know, we've had a working group in place for like two years.

[01:18:54] I'm curious to know where we are with the working group. Have we gotten ideas from the working group on what the ordinance should look like? Have we really talked about what the housing trust fund would look like? Because I have ideas on what the money should be used for. I think it should be used for, or at least a portion of it, should be used for housing assistance for those that need it.

[01:19:14] I know that there's other talk about using the money for incentives for developers. So we haven't even parsed out. I just think that we should be a lot closer than where we are. Madam Chair.

[01:19:31] Oh, a supervisor. Go ahead. Go ahead. Okay. Supervisor Vega. I just want to hear from the county attorney in regards to the proposal that Supervisor Bodie raised. I mean, is there a legal concern? How would that play out if we're allocating funds for something and we don't really have anything in place in terms of an ordinance?

[01:19:51] Madam Chair, members of the board, if the board is going forward with an affordable dwelling ordinance for land use applications whereby applicants would like to voluntarily proper funds for affordable dwelling, you would need your affordable dwelling unit ordinance in place first to receive that voluntary proper of money. And you need parameters and regulations. How much are they going to be offering, et cetera. And then you can put that money in a fund. If you want a separate fund that is funded not from land use applications, voluntary proffers, the board

[01:20:29] can do that, you still need regulations and policies in place of once you put money in the fund, how are you using the money? Who are you giving it to? And those are the parameters that Mr. Shorter and Mr. Johnson can discuss. People are using the word fund. It could be one over global fund, but money coming in in different ways. If the money is coming in through voluntary proffers on a land use matter, you need your ADU ordinance first.

[01:20:58] And just to be clear, I don't even know that I'm suggesting that that's how we set up the fund. I think I'm suggesting that we use general funds towards that effort. But I know that there are other people that have talked about people putting into, or entities, I should say, via proffer or whatever else putting into the fund.

[01:21:19] I have not committed to that idea. Just before I go to Supervisor Lawson, we actually do have a fund with money in it from people proffering affordable housing, don't we, somewhere? We have a small fund that was established many years ago prior to the proper code changes.

[01:21:39] And I think that we need to relook at the policies and procedures of how that money goes out and to what use. And it's not that much money that it's going to be able to accomplish that much. So how much is it? Two and a half million or two and a half million.

[01:22:01] Two and a half million. Okay, so I'm just going to say that's not chunk change. $2.5 million isn't chunk change. I don't think, I thought you were going to say $238,000. $2.5 million is $2.5 million and, you know, maybe decide. Depending on how you use it.

[01:22:17] And I know, does that sit in the Office of Housing with... No, that money is in your housing proffera account. Okay, does that sit over in community... That sits over in the planning office. There's a planning office. So we have $2.5 million in a fund.

[01:22:34] I just want to say that out loud. Okay. Supervisor Lawson. I just want to go on record as saying, and Supervisor Franklin and Bojan, I understand you have some frustration on the timeline, but I think it's also important to defend the planning department because we all know they've been understaffed.

[01:22:58] There's been a lot of people. So I don't think that we should necessarily, and I'm not saying that you're blaming them. I just want to make it very public that this department has been incredibly stretched.

[01:23:15] And a lot of them that are still there are working a lot of overtime hours. And I just want to make it clear that I just needed to defend that department because there's been a lot of personnel challenges.

[01:23:32] And I'm sure they're doing the best they can. The board is pulling them in so many different directions. And they're reacting to what the priorities of this board has said, just like the legislative priorities. And we learned that, no, it turned out it wasn't, hasn't been a priority in our past agendas.

[01:23:52] So I think it's important that we make sure that we realize that, you know, staff is going to do what we ask them to do and what we prioritize. This is a department that has been very stretched, and I would say, by and large, because a lot of what we as a board have done.

[01:24:14] Supervisor Franklin. Yeah, I mean, I agree. I mean, we, you know, it's very clear what the state of the planning office is, and I know that, you know, personnel-wise, you know, working on that. I will say, though, that this was something set forth before we had all those challenges.

[01:24:33] And I was being told, I feel, things that were happening before Mr. Shorter, let me just be clear about that, before Mr. Shorter got here, I feel like I was led to believe that things were happening that perhaps were not. Understood. Thank you.

[01:24:50] Well, I would say we also have a consultant's report. Where does that fit in with all this? Didn't we pay a consultant for an affordable housing report? Awesome. Yes, we did. And we used that in part of developing the housing chapter to the comprehensive plan, which had an affordable housing addendum, and that is providing guidance for rezoning and social use permits that have an opportunity to look at that word guidance on affordable housing.

[01:25:23] And that was an important step to take first as getting that comprehensive plan done. consultant work is carrying over into the affordable dwelling wardens but there was also a key to developing policies that were developed during the conference. Okay. Any other questions at the moment or discussions? Supervisor Bailey, Supervisor Ingram and then Supervisor Bailey.

[01:25:55] Well I just wanted to chime in because this is the last slide and I have been saying this since 2019 I'm happy we're here, I think we've been in before to some further break this point and kind of getting further along, but I will say this, what we have here, the Housing Trust Fund has always been a significant issue because everything we do now and we're talking about, there is a lower population of income, families, that aren't going to fall into this, so we're going to need to create a fund to help offset that cost to get people into first-time homes.

[01:26:27] The last thing is not a fear that I'm just going to recommend is that our housing office, and God bless our new housing director, but it hasn't really truly been a housing office. So we need to look at some form of an affordable housing department committee or something inside of that that literally takes this and runs with it.

[01:26:49] So I just want to, I don't see it there, but I want to, I think next steps is really, since we're here and we're serious about this, put it out in place so we can actually get some folks involved to really move this meeting up. Yes, sir. Oh, he's okay.

[01:27:07] Appreciate the feedback and comment. I will say we are, this is the point of the work session, that we are taking your feedback And to Michelle Robles' point, in terms of a housing trust fund, we do plan to bring back to the board, as part of the 526 budget process, some recommendations to the board to set aside funds for a housing trust.

[01:27:34] And so we will be limited by making sure that we have the rules, regulations, and appropriate sort of procedure in place to distribute those funds.

[01:27:51] But it doesn't, there's nothing that stops us from setting funds aside. We've also talked about the Housing Preservation Fund and the, obviously, the funds where we have proffers set aside. All of that will be taken into consideration as we bring this back to the board.

[01:28:10] In terms of us building out internal capacity, we have certainly talked through that internally and what that might look like, and we will certainly work with each of you on how we move that part of this forward, either as part of the FY26 budget process and establishing a larger internal program or prior.

[01:28:33] In fact, this is the last thing. Just to answer that. But just to say, I'm saying, you know, there's this thing of what right looks like. And I don't know if we necessarily know what questions to ask because this is new for the county. So one thing I don't want to see if we can just get a lookout for is everything we've done here, that we missed something.

[01:28:54] I'm happy that you put the zoning text and look at how we all of our policies and procedures in place don't bump heads with what we're trying to do. So you look at all of these processes to make sure as we're going down this road, I'm pretty sure there's some unforeseen out there that, I mean, I clearly don't know what questions to ask as it relates to this.

[01:29:13] I will say this, I know that Loudoun County has a very successful affordable housing process in their housing office, and, you know, I know we want to do our own thing, but sometimes you can learn real quickly from lessons learned from another, you know, establishment, you know, county, and use those cookie-cutter pieces out of it.

[01:29:33] So I just, you know, I hope we're doing that. I just, I don't know what questions to ask to continue how we get this right, but I don't want next year we run into a bump in the road because we didn't do something with our comp plan. It was the only thing. Now we're trying to figure that out. And so Supervisor Bailey has some comments, and also I want Mr. Johnson to sort of talk about some things that we do.

[01:29:56] Is it Supervisor Weird? Do you have your hand up over there? Yeah. There's a real simple question. You can get back to this partner man. She. Can I get the support part? The question is, what is the source of the command?

[01:30:14] Where did this come from? So this is our consultant prepared this analysis for us, and they did a market analysis, RPG, and they provided this chart for us.

[01:30:34] Do we know what the base of something was? It was based on American Community Survey's information and other data sources that we provided to them from our real estate records. From 2019?

[01:30:49] Yes, we used 2019 because the ACS for 2000 was impacted by COVID and the quality of that survey, and there wasn't, the census, 2020 census information was not available at that time.

[01:31:08] time. So that's why they use home. Supervisor Bailey. Thank you, Madam Chair. So thank you for the presentation. It is quite familiar. I think we're at a good point though in moving forward where some things need to be defined. One of the things you've done already and just the definition of what affordable housing is, I think that's very key as we educate the community. So that's very key. The one thing that I need to clarify because Elijah said that the housing trust fund is

[01:31:42] currently in planning but that does not mean that we it's not active right am I correct to assume that or that we cannot utilize it the plan office collects as you do your zones yeah this thing is coming in the money is held into that account okay and then once action is taken then we have to decide how we move forward as Michelle mentioned we need to take a look has changed over the years at the state level on what that funding can be used for, how it can be used before we utilize it.

[01:32:15] So a process needs to be put in place? No. Okay. But it doesn't mean we cannot actively use it? Correct. No. We don't have a housing trust fund to be clear. You have a housing profit account that holds those funds. Right. But it's not a housing trust fund? No, it's not a housing trust fund. Okay.

[01:32:30] Okay. Thank you, Supervisor Franklin. So I think that's very, very key. Just tongue in cheek and a little laughter when County Exec first came on board. on board, one of the things on my planning thing was I wanted $35 million in the house of trust.

[01:32:45] You said today? No, not today. But we do want that eventually. So I'm just putting a little plug out there because that's very key, I think, as we move forward and that it is robust and it is active. The other thing that I wanted to say, going back to what Supervisor Lawson said about this department being stretched and all that, I think that there is an opportunity and because I'm not the subject matter expert on housing, but is there potentially an opportunity that we have a subject matter expert slash coordinator, now that we've had a consultant come in,

[01:33:22] work with Joni and her department to kind of define what those particular processes and pockets are that we need as we go forward. Is that potentially something that we can look at in the future in our budget cycle?

[01:33:38] So, that sort of segues into, I wanted to ask either Mr. Johnson or Ms. Duckett to, like, if I ask a simple question, how much do we give out in affordable housing vouchers each year from the federal program, how much is it?

[01:33:54] It's like, did he ask the question? Well, he was, I thought he was, I wanted to say, was he, okay, I thought he looked, no, no, you go. Okay, so, supervisor, vaguely to your question, yes, COG actually has a program, we are talking internally.

[01:34:10] have been approached about providing some technical assistance here locally and working very closely with us in terms of how we design design a program and so deputy cxo johnson will be working with cod to identify whether grant funds can be used to pay for that technical And so the answer to your question is yes, we can and do plan to if we are fortunate to get those grant funds to use technical assistance to help us design the program.

[01:34:47] Okay. Do you mean proper funds that we already have that we could use for that or grant funds? No, grant funds. Like brand new grant funds? Yeah. So these would be funds that we would be applying for through COD. Okay. Yeah. And the second little piece of that, and I don't mean to prolong it, but would that be an opportunity for us to get from this part of where we are in expediting the next steps?

[01:35:13] Would that be helpful? I mean, is that something that will help us to get to the next steps as we look at? It certainly will. I will say that the planning office, legal, really the staff that are working on making sure that we bring this forward is also a real big part of this sort of conversation and process.

[01:35:33] And once given the ability, once we get past some of these other very time consuming, the time consuming work that we are doing now, yes, we will be able to do it. The technical assistance will provide a real sort of benchmark of what others are doing and can help us in designing our local program.

[01:35:57] And so, I don't know if Mr. Johnson is going to stand. He'll be able to talk a bit more about what we'll be applying for and how it will help us. I hope that answers the question. It does. Thank you.

[01:36:13] No, no, thank you, because we do do some housing, and it's all federal dollars for the most part. Right now it resides in Ms. Duckett's area. Could you just speak briefly to some of the programs? Because I know there's vouchers, there's first-time home ownership, helping people buy into first-time homes, and there's probably a third one, too.

[01:36:35] I will do my best, but I have the expert in the back here so she don't have to talk right now. So the biggest program, the federal program that we have is a housing trust voucher program. That's probably because most money that comes out of that goes with that program. We put in about, let's say, $35 million a year in housing subsidies, supportable to over 2,000 families in that program.

[01:36:58] So that goes to those families who are at those income levels that we have mostly primarily 50% of the ordinary median income based on HUD standards. So that's the biggest program. We have our first-time homebuyers. Okay, stop there. So according to that graph, don't we have trouble finding places for them to live?

[01:37:19] Not with the subsidy that we have. Okay. Like would they be in the first three? They're going to be in the zero to 30, 31 to 50 categories. Okay. And they can find places to live pretty easily? With the subsidy. With the subsidy. Without the subsidy, yeah.

[01:37:34] Okay. And our average subsidy that we pay is a little less than 2,000. - $2,000 a month per family? - Per family. - Okay, $35 million. - Yes. - Okay, just want everybody to sort of be on that page.

[01:37:50] Okay, thank you. - Okay, so the other major program that we have is our first-time homebuyers program, and that program provides first-time debt by down, putting in the closer cost assistance for those families. The average, I would say, is anywhere depending on where the family falls in our income bracket without the addition of weeds.

[01:38:08] It could be as much as $60,000 to $100,000, depending on the family and what income bracket. support that we provide that family we also work with our partners at the state of virginia housing to provide um below market on first trust funding we received i think about four million dollars this year to assist people adopting closer cost assistance and we've already used about half of that money for that particular program we also work with our state partners to provide state rental assistance vouchers who are partnering with our community service office and those

[01:38:43] vouchers go to folks who are coming out, folks with disabilities coming out of the facilities, what do you call it Michelle, I don't know, that's the problem here, the treatment facilities that the state called it a few years ago. The other big program that we have for our CDPG office, we do rental rehab where we provide assistance to folks who fit into the lower 80% of revenue income that needs repaired to their home they can't afford, and we provide approximately $60,000 to $70,000 in assistance to rehab those homes to stay in those units.

[01:39:17] We are about to launch a program for single-family owners who will rent to low-income families, and those homes need some rental rehab. We're going to be launching a program for those owners to get rental assistance to rehab those homes and then rent to another home family. Well, we don't give people money to develop low income housing directly, do we?

[01:39:40] Not with those. Not with those at all. So that's sort of one area that we're missing in terms of affordable developers are going to come in and giving them subsidies or land or whatever. Okay, just to be clear. Any questions on that, Supervisor Voting? Thank you, Madam Chair.

[01:39:55] A question on that specifically, because that's a whole wide variety of things that we're offering. How do we do outreach and make sure that folks know, especially constituents know, they can even avail themselves of these programs?

[01:40:12] Well, for the first time homebuyers run a rehab program, the office has done everything from direct mailing to households to social media to using video contact to get the word out. For the voucher program, it's a waiting list process.

[01:40:28] That waiting list is currently closed. So unless we get, like, for example, we just got Mr. Shorter announced that we received 25 new veteran vouchers. Those referrals will come directly from the VA that's outside of our normal waiting list process. But everybody else with that program, we opened a few years ago for, I think it was a few days, and we received several thousand applications.

[01:40:53] You might have heard, Malone County, we said openly they had people waiting outside the door. Is that what they were waiting outside for? Yes, yes. So that is a bigger demand. We may, I know Ms. Duck and her staff are looking at how many people have on our waiting list now. We may open again next year and have a lot of reprocessed like we have last time.

[01:41:13] Anything that we have on the waiting list? Yes, about 300. Okay, Supervisor Brody and then... I'll have a comment on this and then I'll wait until after we get done with this portion. But what I just wanted to say is I know that there will always be people, no matter how we advertise or how much we knock on doors and literally hand people things, all these people that say, hey, I didn't know about this.

[01:41:37] So whatever we can do to make sure that we're paying all channels, whether that's also our reach to our community associations, our civic associations, our nonprofits, our community partners. We talk about giving direct assistance to community partners, but how can we also leverage them?

[01:41:53] our faith communities, all these folks, to make sure that we're getting the word out as much as possible because, you know, we have all these great programs that you just said, but I still know there are people that need these things out there that still have no idea that they exist. So, I'm looking around for Ms. Charity because, oh, she's not that high.

[01:42:11] So, to that end, the housing office is a great partner with our homeless services, because the other piece of affordable housing that we do is through our homeless service offices, through the rapidly housing money we get and the permanent support housing money we get from the other side of that.

[01:42:27] So, and every time we have a program, we work with him, and in fact, we have the emergency voucher program over COVID. We partnered with the Continuum of Care and Courtney's Shop, the Home Services, to create a program so that we can get that money out of real, immediately. We are in the process now of implementing two new programs with them from home money that money we got from HUD to establish 25 pilot, up to 50 vouchers that we're going to give out called tent-based rental assistance vouchers working with our homeless farmers.

[01:42:57] We work with, I dare to say, without our partnership with them and the partners of about 35 members of the continuum of care, we would not have been successful on getting those units leased so fast as they did. And that's why we have one. Sure, I do want to point out that all the programs mentioned are either federal or state, mostly federal.

[01:43:19] So none of those are local. So I just want to point that out. I also just like to say, and I'll stop talking after this, that I think we need an affordable housing ordinance sooner rather than later. and if we are having a conversation about not being able to do that by the end of the year then I would love for staff to come back with some recommendations on what we can do towards the affordability goals that we can do by the end of the year and I don't know if that means I need to come back with some specifics and a directive or a resolution or something but I

[01:43:56] think that's something I would love for staff to consider and for us to be able to kind of know what that looks like at the very least at our next meeting. I work with county attorney and supervisor Bailey and supervisor Amber. The other thing too, just to circle back to supervisor Franklin's questions earlier about the legislative priorities, I think it's definitely a legislative priority.

[01:44:27] And I agree with her that, and I know we're in those discussions now with Gwen and Nikki, but I think it's definitely a legislative priority because I do know that a certain faction of our delegation is working on this in terms of the General Assembly.

[01:44:42] So it would be a great partnership as we go forward to make sure that it is a priority because no matter what we do and how we move forward, and I'm sure we're going to move forward in a very deliberate and positive way, the need is still there. And so I certainly would like to see it as a legislative priority. As for my 180, just putting it out there.

[01:45:08] Supervisor Brody? Oh, I'm sorry. Supervisor Andrew. Just a slide for you. Can you put that slide for me real quick? And I just, just a clarification. So when you see the ownership range, that's like what a home would cost? Okay, so the problem I have with this slide is even at the salary range of $107,000, which is $85,000. That $452,000 truly is a starting house, a starting cost of a house right now, which literally could go back up to a person who we are in this county is living off of $40,000 a year.

[01:45:42] In other words, a home being built today without any of these programs, you aren't getting built at $170,000. You're never going to find that house in a year. So I feel like this slide if we're going to be like real about okay i see i got some home developers here in the room with us that's really something now this may have been true 10 years ago or whatever but the fact of the matter is people on 40 000 a year are expected to move into a home and unless we're building apartments which clearly is what they're going to live into so we're talking more rentals than anything a home is starting somewhere in that 400 000 range anyway and that's just for

[01:46:20] a simple home. So I feel like these numbers are somewhere, that conversation that we've been talking about this whole time, it goes to the price of a house, even a old home. All right, I got an old Hilton home that I paid $232,000, been paid for $495,000, which clearly it's not worth $495,000, but that's what it is because of the inventory we have and thus the price and going up a home. So there was a whole thing going on here that We really, this to me is what we should be trying to tackle.

[01:46:51] And the only thing that's going to solve that is quantity and inventory. For homes again, maybe we're going to start dropping those prices if it makes sense. So I just want to pull that out. Thank you. Can I just add, when something's built, you need a mix of housing at all the different levels so you have the less expensive homes for people.

[01:47:12] But they'll never be at the $171,000 range. By the way, Supervisor Brody. Thank you, Madam Chair. First, I just want to piggyback and reinforce some of the subgressive Franklin centers. We know there's a lot of tools that are being worked on. We know that folks are stretched thin when it comes to their workloads. But to her point, this affordability crisis of housing has been around for a while.

[01:47:33] And I understand that there still needs to be work done on a lot of these tools. But whatever we can do to start addressing this as soon as possible, because frankly, there are people being priced at their homes every other week in this county. We need to do something about it. So I wanted to highlight that. But two, as Mr. Grimes said during public comment time, there's not a one-size-fits-all way to approach this.

[01:47:57] So in terms of on top of everything we discussed here, I'm still going to continue to talk about the fact that we need to talk about land acquisition in this county. Because part of what drives housing costs up, the cost development, which includes not only acquiring land to begin with, but also assembling land, especially on the eastern side, that already exists.

[01:48:17] We know that when it comes to folks that want to do these mixed-use areas, redevelopment, revitalization, a lot of their bottom line is impacted by how much it takes to acquire the land, but also work with unit owners and homeowners and business owners of the surrounding area to assemble enough land to make some of these deals possible.

[01:48:39] So whatever we can do to continue talking about how we incentivize and empower folks to do that, I think is key, because I know one of the very first deals that we made, and I won't talk about too much, just high level as a board, is we helped, through the IDA, get a deal together tool, a lot of help and assemblage in the ethernet of the county, which we, you know, capstone earlier this year, we literally herald another land use case to help them with their propers literally last week on that.

[01:49:10] And those are the things we need to continue talking about, because, again, as Mr. Grimes said, We need to have that whole toolbox in place. This is a big part of it, but also that land value, that land cost, that assemblage piece has to be part of that conversation, how we can help partner with industry and with landowners to get that done.

[01:49:29] Thank you, Madam Chair. Sure. I'll make my last, last comment and just say that I get phone calls, and my office gets phone calls probably once a week from someone needing some type of housing option, and many of you probably get similar phone calls. And Elijah knows it, Courtney knows it, because I forwarded all to them to figure out how can we help these individuals. I'm not exaggerating when I say probably once a week I get those type of phone calls. So this is a real issue. I'm not trying to make it seem like this is my priority that I want to move forward. I get those phone

[01:50:06] calls almost once a week. And so this is something that we have to figure out. I do not think that they can wait. We've been talking about it for years. Let's figure out legitimately what our options are for the end of the year. And I'll piggybacking on Vice Chair Bodie's comment about land acquisition. You know, the county has parcels that it owns, right? We have rights of ways that we own and different parcels and things that we might have for firehouses, but we also have bacon parcels, you know, throughout the county that we could use as a basis for someone to help subsidize.

[01:50:46] It doesn't necessarily have to be money. You give someone two or three acres, and they can do it easily, more easily, do an affordable housing project, you know, and I mean, I have that list, and it's something to consider about, is that another tool we use to help people put in affordable housing?

[01:51:03] So, just a thought. Supervisor Bailey. Yeah, I want to circle back to something you just said about land assemblage. And I know that that is an opportunity on the Eastern Corridor, particularly in my district. And so another tool, another opportunity, as we partner with different aspects, NVBIA, our realtors, our developers.

[01:51:31] But that land assemblage piece is critical. And so we need to have a subject matter expert when we talk about land usage in that regard, too. And that may be someone that we're not currently working with.

[01:51:47] There may be opportunities outside of Prince William County that we need to look at and partner with. And so I guess one of the things that I don't want us to do, going back to something that Victor said, is, you know, we don't have to be cookie cutter, but we can get some ideas from our sister and brother counties as we go forward.

[01:52:11] And land assemblage is an opportunity for us. So I just want to put that out there so that it's not ignored as we go forward. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Any other questions, comments? I know everybody put a lot of work in this, and it really seems to span across a lot of different areas.

[01:52:31] You know, we recognize that it's hard to pull it all together, that it's so many different people touching this in so many different ways. Anything else you'd like to say Mr. Shorter on next steps or expectations? No, I certainly appreciate the conversation. I know that the board has been waiting a considerable amount of time.

[01:52:49] I do plan to work with staff, including our county attorney, to bring some recommendations back for the end of the year. Unfortunately, those recommendations will likely not be in ordinance. we will do the very best we can to bring some options to the board for consideration.

[01:53:08] And I'll add in one last point. Dedicated funding stream, you could put it on as a half penny or a quarter penny on the tax rate. I mean, I know we've talked about that in prior years, just as one more funding mechanism for subsidization.

[01:53:26] We'll certainly, is that something you want to respond to? Yeah, sure. As we normally do with the budget process, we will do our rounds with the board and come with a proposed budget that represents the entire board's sort of collective desire. I do think there are opportunities for set aside and will come with my recommendation on what that looks like, certainly as part of the 26th budget.

[01:54:02] Well, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hugh. That brings us just on to item number seven, supervisor's time. I don't know which way to start. You can start with me. I have nothing.

[01:54:18] Okay, let's start with Superbega. She's got nothing. Supervisor Franklin, we'll just zoom around. Just a couple of things. On Saturday, September 30th, at Ripon Mill from 10 to 2, I hosted Dumpster Day. We collected 4,560 pounds or 2.28 tons of discarded household items.

[01:54:39] So thank you to everyone who came out. On October 11th, Potomac Shore Social Barn, I hosted a meet and greet. so thank you to residents that came out to that. Upcoming events this Saturday from 1 to 4 at Veterans Park will have our second annual Family Fun Day, so feel free to come on out. We'll have a food truck, a video game truck, moon bounce, face painting, and other family-friendly activities.

[01:55:02] Website has more info. On October 26 at 10 a.m., we will have a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Completion of the Route 1 widening from Featherstone to Mary's Way. So please come and join us for that as well.

[01:55:18] And then lastly, I want to point out that many of you know BJ, Bertha Johnson on my staff. She has celebrated 19 years with the county. Now, I haven't been here for 19 years, but she has. And I just want to thank her for her service publicly. And hopefully, I don't know if she'll be here another 19 with me.

[01:55:36] And hopefully I won't be here for 19 years either. but I just want to thank her publicly for her service. That's it. Thank you. Supervisor Bailey. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. October 11th, I just want something really special happen to one of our stakeholders.

[01:55:53] Congratulations to Ms. Pat Victorson for receiving the Voice of Recovery Award. She's one of our staunch stakeholders that really is integrally with NAMI involved with mental health, and we really appreciate Pat and all that she does. And so we also thank you for her participating in our third annual mental health awareness walk on Sunday, which was beautiful.

[01:56:21] But Pat is a mainstay in mental health here in the community, so we really appreciate her. On the 12th of October, I attended the policymaker series that the chamber presented. And our own county exec, Mr. Shorter, was there and just wowed the crowd and brought everybody together.

[01:56:39] and the future and the vision for Prince William County. I also participated in the Prince William Soil and Water Conservation District Farm Field Day with 500 fourth graders, and oh boy, energy alive, and animals. So we had a great time, and the students just look forward to that day and just integrating with nature, and I think it's a great example as to what Prince William County has to offer for our communities and for our children to make sure that their mental health is whole.

[01:57:14] And I want to thank Mr. Jeff Joyner, our new CEO with Centara and Michelle Eckhart, for their meeting on the 12th as well. And they are constantly, Centara is constantly a partner with the county as we go forward.

[01:57:31] And they were a supporter for the District Farm Field Day as well. So we appreciate them. On the 13th, I attended the evening with PRS, Changing Lives and Saving Lives. It was their 60th anniversary theme, and they changed their name to Hopelings, and it was a wonderful event to behold as we, again, see another partner that's come forth supporting mental health.

[01:57:59] On October 14th, I participated in the Winter's Church Breast Cancer Awareness Walk, And it was in conjunction with our own police department and our fire departments and the Dunford's police department. It was absolutely a blessing, but it was raining and people still were out there walking in Potomac District.

[01:58:20] On the 15th, we had our annual, our third annual 5K mental health walk. And I want to thank everyone that participated. It was a beautiful day. No rain. Thank you to County Exec Christopher Shorter, Deputy Exec Quentin Haynes, and Elijah Johnson, and to our own Executive Director, Lisa Madron, and Chair Wheeler for coming out.

[01:58:44] We had a great time. Walked the woods. We were breathing great air, and it was great. Thanks to Caprice Piper and Divine Inspiration Dancers for coming out as entertainment. And also thanks to our guest speaker, Benita Fitzgerald Mosley, our Olympiad that lives right here in the district. Derrick Davis, Vice Commander for Combat Veterans, and Rear Admiral Matthew Kleiman, Assistant U.S. Surgeon General and Senior for Behavioral Health.

[01:59:14] He was wonderful. And Gigi McMillan, who is the Executive Director for a domestic violence organization called Purple Runway. On the 16th, I want to thank the Ashland Conservancy, HOA, for inviting myself and my staff, Jacob Geovia, for coming and doing a presentation on our new project, the Ashland Project in Ashland.

[01:59:39] I'm very excited about that. It gave us an opportunity to update them on that and just to let them know what's going on in their neighborhood. events on the 23rd of October. I'm looking forward to a podcast that I'm going to have with our new but not so new Director of Prince William County Chamber of Commerce, Bob Sweeney, and I'm looking forward to that. Well, all that said and done, I want to thank you and have a great evening. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. A few quick things for me. Last week,

[02:00:12] I was, of course, actually, last week during our board meeting, wanted to highlight and celebrate my kindergarten on the school board, Lily Jesse. We're hosting at Occoquan Elementary a presentation on the work that's going to be done at that school. Occoquan Elementary is one of the oldest elementary schools in the region.

[02:00:30] And it is going to be raised and rebuilt as the county's first net zero school. And so I wanted to highlight that and the fact that we are going in the right direction, both from a sustainability standpoint, but also looking at our older schools throughout the county and really looking at different ways to bring them up to snuff with other areas where they have newer schools.

[02:00:54] So I wanted to first highlight that. On Friday, I was able to once again participate in the Woodbridge Senior High School Homecoming Parade. I didn't have a giant float, didn't have a car, didn't have anyone but myself and my 60-month-old daughter, Jemison.

[02:01:11] And I can say that she was the life of the parade. Was able to really have a good time talking with different folks in the Viking Village, folks that live off of Antietam, as well as those outlying neighborhoods to parts.

[02:01:27] Also really want to appreciate the fact that my six-month-old was perfectly behaved the entire time. She always is. She always is. She had a really good time, her very first parade, so really happy to participate in that. Was also able to participate on the 14th in the Occoquan Woodbridge-Lorton Volunteer Fire Department open house over at Hedges Run.

[02:01:49] It was a great time to support them and had a really family fun event. My two-year-old Miles did not want to get out of the fire truck when he got into it. I think that might have a future in being a volunteer fire department, looking at you surprised or angry. That's it for past events, but in terms of the future, this coming Saturday the 21st is the day. In partnership with the Chin Park Rock Ball Festival, we'll be holding our Barktoberfest. It's the last time you'll hear from me during a public board meeting about it. Come out between 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m., rain or shine.

[02:02:28] Wanted to highlight that rain or shine. We will be there if you're looking for a new dog, new cat, bunny, tortoise, whatever it is, and have some family fun with some of our various friends in the community, please come out again to Chin Park 11-2 this coming Saturday the 21st. That's all I have, Madam Chair.

[02:02:44] Thank you, Vice Chair Bodie. Supervisor Lawson. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to say that I appreciate the Human Rights Commission for issuing the statement condemning the Terrorist Acts Moss on the people of it's real and I just simply want to show my support for our Jewish friends, community members that are hurting. And I just learned last night that the commission released that statement and I really appreciate that they did so. That's all I have to say.

[02:03:23] Thank you, Supervisor Lawson. Supervisor Rear? I got nothing. I got nothing. Got nothing. I'll just end with, you know, it wasn't sort of a mental health weekend and going to the activity on Friday night for PRS, which has been around for mental health and psychiatric rehabilitation for 60 years in Northern Virginia.

[02:03:47] They operate four out of five contracts for the 988 number in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It was just one of the things they do. And then they parcel out the resources, and that was wonderful. And your walk on Sunday is always great, your mental health walk.

[02:04:04] You know, a lot of people, it was fun, beautiful day. And, you know, it's obvious that there are just so many around us who struggle with mental health. It's just so obvious. And so it's great to bring awareness to that. So thank you. Thank you so much for that supervisor. We're only spearheading that every year.

[02:04:20] With that, we're basically through. We're going to go into closed session and come out and talk about VACO appointments. That's the only thing we're going to announce probably out of closed session. I think I can say that. So no one's going to stick around for exciting VACO appointments. then we're going to adjourn. So thank you for everybody for coming out and listening to our work session today. Yeah, we'll start our closed session and we'll let it be clear about five minutes.

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