Planning Commission Meeting   2/2/2021

Steve, how you doing?

I am doing well.

How are you doing?

Not bad, thank you.

Welcome back to ABC.

This meeting is being held pursuant to and in compliance with Ordinance No.

20-A, 16, an ordinance to ensure the continuity of government during the COVID-19 disaster.

Opportunities for the public to access, assess and participate in the electronic meeting will be posted on the www.albemarle.org website or in our county, on the county calendar when available.

And so with that, if you would call to order our February 2nd, 2021 meeting because Pansatani feels so his shadow.

All right, roll call here.

Mr. Bailey?

Present.

Mr. Keller?

Present.

Ms.

Firehock?

Mr. Randolph?

Present.

Mr. Bivins?

Here.

Ms.

Moore?

Mr. Clayborne?

Present.

And Mr. Carrazano?

I believe we have a quorum.

All right.

So our first piece of business this week, folks, is SP 2020-07, the Rappahannock Electric cooperative.

This is our only public hearing.

But before we do that, I have to do the consent agenda.

Does anyone want to pull anything from the consent agenda?

Will somebody move then to please accept the aye.

This is moved by Mr. Keller.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, Daniel.

Seconded by Daniel.

Is there any further discussion?

Mr. Clayborne?

Aye.

Mr. Bivins?

Aye.

Mr. Randolph?

Aye.

Mr. Keller?

Aye.

Mr. Bailey?

There we go.

Mr. Clark, welcome.

Oh, I see you have a nice sunset behind.

I just saw that sunset tonight, or at least this part of the county.

Thank you.

I'm spoiled.

Y'all are spoiling us.

Please go ahead.

Thank you.

Good evening.

I'm Scott Clark.

I'm a planner with the Community Development Department.

This item is a public hearing for a special use permit request for a power line upgrade.

The applicants are here if you have any questions once we get through the presentation.

Give me just a moment to share my screen and get started.

All right, everybody see that title slide okay?

Great, okay.

Proposal is a special use permit request to upgrade an existing distribution line, which is a by right level of electrical line, the sort that typically carries power between neighborhoods and local areas.

To upgrade that corridor and those poles to a transmission line, which requires special use permit,

So in specific, this would install pole topper extensions on existing power line poles to increase the height of the poles from an average of 46 feet to a new height averaging about 82 feet.

On those new extensions, they would install a 115 kilovolt power line within the existing corridor that is about 1.6 miles long on the west side of US 29.

Among the parcels that you can see in red here.

Gray is the

County's development areas, the white is in the rural areas.

The north end is the Green County line.

The overall width of the easement for the corridor would increase from 40 feet to 75 feet in order to accommodate the larger safety zones needed for the higher and higher voltage lines.

So I'll just show you a few pictures of the corridor as it exists at the moment.

This is by Advance Mills Road, looking south.

You can see portions of the corridor are open to the highway, Route 29, which is an entrance corridor.

And you can also see here how these poles have been built out of metal with a flat space on top where the extensions can be added on.

I'll show you a graphic in a moment.

This is another area a little farther south, a grassy area with some

A narrow band of trees between the highway, which is on the right here.

We're looking north.

This is the view from the road.

And you can see there's a thin band of trees along the edge of the road.

There's the open area behind that for the existing power line corridor.

And then behind that, in some cases, there are more open areas.

In some cases like this, there are wooded areas.

This is just another view of the existing corridor and the poles from the highway itself.

To give you a quick explanation, here is Dickerson Road, where it meets Route 29 at the Rivanna substation.

This new corridor would run from the Rivanna substation north to the Greene County line.

You can see here in blue, these blue dashes, the existing 40-foot utility easement.

and then bracketing that in the lighter green is the proposed 75-foot easement.

So the difference you can see there is 17 and a half feet on each side.

On the east side, which is down in this view, the extension is into the VDOT right-of-way.

So it's already clear area.

It doesn't really make any difference except for places along the very edge where there are some of those individual trees like I showed you.

on the west side of the corridor, there's another 17 and a half feet of extension of the easement.

And this covers a whole variety of land cover types from residences and yards to woods as you go along the corridor.

Later, if you need to see it, I can show you the remainder of the pages of this plan.

This is just the first page.

Just to give a sense of scale here,

This west side increase, which is the one that would mainly impact on your vegetation.

Again, it's 17 and a half feet wide, about 1.6 miles long.

That gives you a rough area of about 3.4 acres in that expanded easement for the entire length of this proposed transmission facility.

Here's a graphic from the applicants on what they proposed to add.

This lower half here where you see existing structure height is what the poles look like now.

And then there's the additional

increase in height on top of that that should be bolted on for the higher voltage poles.

And at the bottom, you can see the poles are currently centered in the 40-foot easement.

They would remain centered in the 75-foot easement as it was expanded.

And the applicants also provided a photo simulation of the change.

Some of you will recognize this driveway and market here is the entrance,

or the property, excuse me, that abuts the Greene County line.

And so you can see the before view at the top there with the existing poles and after what it looked like with the addition of the extensions that would carry the higher voltage transmission lines.

So an analysis of the special use permit request, the main factor that we focused on with this review was consistency with the comprehensive plan.

Of course, this is in a heavily traveled, very important entrance corridor.

And so we wanted to look at scenic resources now that would impact it.

The comp plan has several goals that talk about impact, about protecting scenic resources, not only in the county in general, but especially in these entrance corridors and using design guidelines to help maintain the integrity of those corridors in the county.

This project has been to the Architectural Review Board twice, in May and in November.

And I wanted to briefly explain how we approached the review here.

As stated in the staff report to the ARB, there are clear limitations associated with screening utility lines.

Just to explain that, I'll back up here and

Imagine how ineffectual it would be to apply typical ground level screening standards to a pole like this.

It's not an effective approach.

Typical building design and infrastructure screening techniques cannot be effectively applied to utility poles 80 to 85 feet in height.

So over the course of the review with the applicants and the ERB, our focus really was

rather than trying to hide these poll extensions or screen them from view was to try to find a way to offset their visual impacts.

They certainly have impacts on the corridor.

We acknowledge that, but a simple attempt to block the view of them wasn't going to work, so we tried to find a way to offset that.

After several rounds of discussion, we began to talk with the applicants in their proposal in the ways that they could use their

integrated vegetation management technique to offset the visual impacts of the poles.

So you can see here that the existing corridor where it's open to the road is essentially mode clear at the moment.

That's a typical management technique for utility corridors like this, but it is kind of expensive for the utilities and obviously not very scenic for the communities.

So the idea here is to improve the visual character of the utilities

by having taller, more varied vegetation in those currently fairly featureless corridor areas by allowing a select suite of species, not any invasive, not just weeds, but a select suite of native species of shrubs and low trees that could grow there without causing a hazard to the overhead lines.

Just to give you a couple of examples of what that looks like.

These are examples pulled from other parts of the country.

So no, this is not the site or even Albemarle, but a couple of examples of what integrated vegetation management looks like on the ground.

This one is aimed at more pollinator habitat and some perennial but short-lived plants rather than trees.

that would come up every year.

And you can see how that's got some benefits to habitat of the insects and other animals that use that kind of territory.

It also is a bit more visually pleasing than there's mode flat to dirt.

This is another example from the Eversource Energy Company up in New England.

And this, I don't know what those flowering trees are to be honest, but the idea this gives you of having

an array of shrubs and smaller trees under the corridor.

Even the poles here are very different, but the vegetation is similar to what would be proposed under an integrated vegetation management approach.

There are a couple of caveats to this I just wanted to mention in order to be accurate.

Utility easement allows them to manage vegetation under these lines.

They can

control what comes up and what doesn't.

They can use the management techniques to affect the array of vegetation you have on there, but they don't control the right of the underlying landowners to remove what they want.

So as I mentioned earlier, there are some places along this corridor where the line is going over residential yards.

Those residential yards would probably stay that way or could stay that way because the underlying landowners always have the right to also manage that vegetation.

Another thing I should point out, some of those individual trees that stand between the utility lines of US 29 are likely to be removed, depending on the exact clearances.

Once the poles are up, the wires are in place.

It's hard to say exactly right now which ones can stay and which would go.

Of course, it'll change over time as they grow, but we should acknowledge that there will be changes on the edge of the highway itself.

However, staff believes that the gradual change from bare soil and grass to shrubs and small trees will significantly improve the appearance of the utilities.

So when this went to the ARB in November, the board voted three to one to forward a recommendation of no objection proposal with the condition of the integrated vegetation management plan be included as a requirement for the special use permit and that that plan include proactive management to promote

native species such as meadows, shrub landscapes, and pollinator species and also lower growing trees and other native vegetation that is compatible with safety needs and is visually pleasing when viewed from the entrance corridor.

So we've adopted this direction into the conditions that I'll present to you in a moment.

Still on the comprehensive plan topic, the rural areas

are generally focused on protecting natural resources and protecting viability of rural land for agriculture and forestry.

The good thing about this project is because it's reusing an existing corridor rather than carving a new one through the landscape, it's not creating any additional footprint and it's not blocking any access to any agroforestry land.

So in summary, we've identified two favorable factors and I

should have mentioned this in more detail in the beginning, but the proposed upgrade would increase the reliability of electric service to area residents.

What I should have mentioned in the beginning is the rationale for this particular project is the final step in a loop of transmission line connections that would allow the electric cooperative to significantly shorten power outages by having multiple transmission routes to their customers.

If one line goes down, they've got another route to get there.

And again, using the existing corridor is an improvement over creating a new corridor that would impact natural resources and agricultural lands.

In fact, unfavorable, of course, are the pole height increase along the entrance corridor.

And the recommended condition that I'll cover in just a moment that requires the integrated vegetation management would help to offset that visual impact by creating more visually pleasing vegetation in the corridor.

So our recommendation is that the planning commission recommend approval of the special needs permit with the following conditions.

The first one is general accord with that plan that I showed you with the poles remaining within that existing 40 foot right away that's there currently and making sure that we've got a color match on the pole extensions.

And second, requiring exactly that vegetation management plan that the ARB called for.

for those being the conditions recommended.

I will be happy to answer any questions you all have.

And if there are details about the operation of the lines or the electric cooperative overall, there are a few people here from the applicants who can answer those such questions for you.

Thank you very much.

If you'll share your screen just for a second so I can see, ah, there we go.

Are there questions for Scott?

Thanks, Scott, for the presentation.

As you were showing the image of the, I guess, the right-of-way and non-VDOT side, so on the property owner side, is there an instance along the 1.6 mile corridor where an individual property owner is negatively impacted, outside of the visual impact that you've already stated?

The neighboring landowners, underlying landowners, of course, would have to agree to this expanded easement.

That's a following step.

If the county approves the special use permit that includes the widened corridor, then the utility would have to work one-on-one with all of those landowners to acquire that expanded right-of-way.

It's possible that there would be some impacts, but generally what that's going to mean is that

the utility would have the ability to cut or trim vegetation that protrudes into that 75 foot easement.

Essentially, the work that's being done on the ground is only to pull the equipment in, I assume shut down the lower lines, add the pole toppers, add the new lines on, and they're done.

There's not a lot of new entrance roads.

There's no grading or landscape changes going on.

It's literally just

adding poles and adding wires.

That's great.

And then I think I read the materials that the existing poles are already designed to accommodate this proposal here, which it looks like it started back in 2009.

And so this has been a long process.

Yeah, I don't know if we in community development have been aware of the full proposal for that long, but certainly the utility was looking ahead to the upgrade potential and they do have bolt plates right on top of those poles where they can go ahead and do that.

Thanks.

That's all for me.

Others?

Other questions?

Luis.

Yeah, thank you for the presentation.

It's very thorough.

I just wanted to make sure that in the images that you shared, are there added lines along with this?

So there's the lower lines that exist today and then with the added top

with the high power lines and those will be added.

As far as I know, there will be more lines, the transmission, sorry, the distribution lines at the lower side would stay and the transmission lines would be an additional function added on top.

If when we're done with the questions, if you'd like, I can pull back up the graphics to show you how that's set up.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Scott, if you could just go to that quickly before we move to the applicant or maybe someone will have a question, additional question.

Sorry about that.

Here we are.

OK, so this is the graphic showing the existing and extended poles.

So here's that connector plate.

Down below, you've got the existing distribution lines.

And then, yeah, there's these three mounts for the phases of the high voltage lines for the transmission facility that go on top of that.

So all of that would be there.

And then, again, here's the before and after.

wines on both.

All right, thank you.

Are there other questions for Scott?

Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the commission.

I'm Valerie Long, representing the applicant this evening, Rappahannock Electric Cooperative.

Joining me are a number of representatives of Rappahannock Electric from our project team.

I'll run through their names quickly just so you know who they are and what their roles are.

and they will all be available to help answer any questions that I can't address.

First we have Lee Brock, who is the Manager of Engineering and Power Supply, Sam Wilson, the Director of Substation and Transmission Engineering, Cindy Musick, who is the Director of Vegetation Management Services and a Certified Utility Corridor Arborist,

also Jeff Powell, the executive who manages their key commercial accounts and Gary Durdock, who is the director of system planning and engineering design.

So first I wanna thank Scott for his excellent presentation.

He covered the vast majority of the issues and in a way that's very, was clear to me and seemed to be clear to most of you all as well.

So thank you, Scott, for all the time you took to understand this proposal and some of the unique aspects of it.

I do have a few additional slides to show.

Many of them you all have already seen, but I will have them available and share my screen.

Okay.

All right, let me just get my monitors here back in the right place.

First, let me speak briefly about sort of, again, a little bit more about the purpose of this proposal.

Rappahannock Electric obviously is a rural electric cooperative.

Its territory covers portions of 22 counties within Virginia.

Only a very small portion of their territory is in northern Albemarle.

Again, it's this 1.6 mile span of their distribution line along the Route 29 south.

Roadbed, but they do have over 2,000 customers in Albemarle County and that's a mixture of residences, commercial businesses, institutional entities including Rivanna Station and a number of other businesses and agricultural enterprises in the community.

Again, this would add a 115 kilovolt transmission line on top of the existing distribution lines.

And to answer your question, Mr. Sorenza, Scott was exactly correct that the existing poles will stay exactly as they are, or the existing lines will remain, the additional pole topper will just be added on top.

And I have a few additional photo simulations that I can show you.

So this is really an energy infrastructure project.

It will enhance the resiliency and viability of Rappahannock's system in this area and enable them to much more quickly restore outages to any of their member customers in the area.

Let me go to the next one here.

This is a map of the project corridor, just showing that essentially the starting point is right about Dickerson Road, which is here.

Rappahannock Electric has a substation right here, just at the literally the outer edges of the development area.

There's a small sliver of the parcel of the GE intelligent platforms systems property that also fronts on 29.

but really the substation is the start of the project and then it extends all the way up the 29 corridor up to the Greene County line.

This is a map that was in our application package if you had an opportunity to look at it but I'll provide a brief overview just to help orient you.

This is the Rivanna substation that I just referenced.

Dickerson Road is here.

This is Route 29 North.

This is the Greene County line.

This is the Madison County line.

So this is the project span, approximately 1.6 to 1.7 miles.

This is not the southern boundary of Rappahannock Electric's service territory.

It's just the southern boundary of the project.

They do have additional member customers whose parcels are to the south.

And then of course they have a number of member customers whose parcels are on the east and west of Route 29.

They have an existing substation off of Prophet Road that already has a 115 kV transmission line.

That was put in about 10 years ago.

Once this line, if it's approved and constructed, it will enable, again, Rappahannock to improve the resiliency of their system and provide the ability for them to more quickly restore outages if there is, for instance, an issue on the line between the Rivanna and Prophet substations

They can then back feed power back from Freddie Creek and Prath substations and vice versa.

If there's outages, they can back feed back and forth.

So it's an upgrade to their infrastructure.

It does not increase the amount of the load, the power loads, it merely supports them.

And one thing I should point out, which I imagine you all know, but just in case, Rappahannock Electric does not generate any electricity.

It merely distributes it to its member customers.

So they buy it wholesale from other generators and then distribute it along its network.

So this line will not increase their generation, excuse me, doesn't increase any generation in power because they don't generate power.

All it does is enable them to transmit and distribute it to their members in a more efficient and expedious fashion.

So again, it's a critical infrastructure upgrade, reduces the time of power outages when they occur due to

severe weather or other circumstances.

And with the unfortunate increase in climate change, as I'm sure you all have experienced, there have been increasing numbers of severe storms all over, but particularly in our area as well, increased number of outages.

They're seeing more and more examples of that.

So obviously this project is as important as ever.

Mr. Clayborne, to address your question, you're correct that this project has been in the works essentially since 2009.

They first approached the county at that time with this project, but unfortunately there was a procedural issue with the zoning ordinance because Rappahannock Electric is not an owner of any of these parcels.

it did not have the ability under the county zoning ordinance to submit a special use permit application that's needed for the project.

They couldn't find a solution to that problem in 2009 but they did go ahead and replace the poles that were wood poles at the time with metal poles they needed to be upgraded anyway so they were planning ahead knowing that they would come back at some point in the near future with a request for the transmission line so they went ahead and upgraded them the foundations are ready

they don't need any further work.

Essentially they continued working on the plans and approached us in I believe 2017-2018.

We then started working with them trying to find a solution to the procedural problem.

Ultimately with the assistance of the community development department staff, the commission and the board, we did work with the county on a zoning text amendment that authorized a rural electric cooperative to submit an application.

That was approved in December of 2019 and we submitted the special use permit application in February of last year, so just over a year ago.

So I hope that helps and happy to explain that further.

Just to hit a few high points, let me go to the next slide.

You saw this image already, but I think what maybe is most helpful is showing that the

40 feet of the existing easement would be increased again by 17 and a half feet on either side.

One half is mostly on the VDOT side and the rest is on the landowner side.

And again, Mr. Clayborne, in response to your question, Mr. Clark is exactly correct.

There's no other impacts that would be

imposed on any of those landowners aside from the widening of the easement area.

There's no grading, there's no additional roads, no additional infrastructure of any kind other than needing to keep a wider easement area due to the taller poles and the higher voltage involved.

You saw some of these exhibits as well.

I had these just to show the variety of types of frontage along the corridor.

You have Rivanna substation here.

You have some residences here, some with some open areas, others with more wooded areas.

You have a church here in this location.

You have a number of parcels that are almost entirely wooded.

And then this is the last segment.

This is the Greene County line.

You have a variety of

conditions in this area from fairly wide open residential parcels to, this is that commercial store here, and then a few residential parcels with some vegetation here and here.

So just to show the variety of conditions involved.

This is the same photo that you already saw.

And again, just to reiterate, nothing below, nothing that exists there now will go away or change.

Everything new is up above vertically.

and this is a second photo simulation looking to the north.

For point of reference, this is taken from the intersection of Dickerson Road.

And again, just the pole toppers on top, no additional grading, no additional construction, very, I was gonna say even a minimal impact.

I don't think there's really any impact on the ground, no grading, no clearing of any earth disturbance or installing the pole toppers.

There was some information in our application package about integrated vegetation management, which is what the applicant is proposing to use along the corridor to manage the vegetation.

I've learned a lot about it over the last year.

It is the industry standard for how to manage vegetation in utility corridors.

Of course, the main most important thing is avoiding conflicts between vegetation and the power lines.

It's particularly important when you're dealing with higher voltage lines like this transmission line.

It's a method to manage the vegetation and promote pollinator areas and meadows and compatible low growing species and working to avoid and eliminate tall growing species that will

be in conflict with the lines, the fast growing things, invasive species, things like that.

But Rappahannock Electric, and again Cindy Musick, who is the

vegetation management specialist and arborist for Rappahannock is here with me and she can answer questions if you have any about this process much better than I can but it is again kind of the industry standard for how to manage and balance the goals of safety of the lines but also an attractive utility corridor that promotes animal habitat, meadows, low growing plants.

And here's some photographs that we took from the corridor, I believe back in September.

I think these were taken right along the same time as the photos that Scott showed earlier.

There was maintenance that took place on the corridor over the summer.

I believe it was July and August.

And these photos were taken about mid-September showing how the vegetation grows back fairly quickly.

And also these photos show the variety of conditions that exist along the corridor.

So you can see in some areas where lower growing trees that are not a risk to injuring the lines are allowed to stay and how the vegetation grows fairly quickly.

This is another example, obviously looking south.

This is a dead tree covered in vines because, and it's a little distorted, it kind of looks like it's up in the lines, but it's actually not due to the angle it's taken from.

It's a dead tree covered with vines.

It's obviously not growing any taller, so Rappahannock allows it, you know, it stays there.

It doesn't cause any safety problems.

Their crew still has plenty of room to work around it, and it provides a nice habitat for birds and other species.

and obviously just helps add vegetation to the right of way.

These are some other photos taken fairly soon after the maintenance showing some other vegetation that was left in place and some smaller trees that are not going to be in conflict with the lines.

This is an example that Cindy flagged to me.

I didn't realize it had any significance.

I just took a picture of it.

But it's a dead tree that they intentionally left there because it provides habitat for birds and obviously is not growing and getting taller.

A few other photos.

This was one taken prior to maintenance and shows again how this was probably at the three or four year mark, how some of these low growing trees

were able to continue growing and add a little bit of interest to the corridor, but not compete with the lines at all or be a danger.

This was post maintenance, where you see the vegetation already growing back fairly significantly.

And you saw these photos again showing how you saw this picture earlier, but I wanted to include this because

It demonstrates the point that Mr. Clark made that obviously these landowners retain the right to manage their property as they wish so long as it does not conflict with Rappahannock Electric's needs in the corridor.

And so some landowners choose to mow their lawn, you know, have a lawn and keep it mowed and open.

Others want it wooded or some variety thereof.

This one obviously demonstrates pre and post maintenance, not any difference.

Others, it will be more significant.

This is another one that I thought was perhaps a good, this is the same spot taken from a little bit different angle.

This is from Google Earth Street View, so that's why it's at a different angle.

This was just before maintenance took place at about the five, five and a half year mark.

This was very soon thereafter showing how

It grows back fairly quickly, particularly in the first year.

And a similar photo here showing, this is actually just a couple of weeks later.

And I just thought this showed a little bit how it continues to grow in pretty quickly.

And then this was fairly soon after maintenance as well, just about a month after.

And this is another example of this property owner has obviously a lease with the billboard company and chooses to keep that area open and mowed so that the billboard's visible.

And so it's already clear.

Some of these, the easement would go back a little bit further, but it shows how the many portions of the corridor, the views will not be substantially different.

And one more here, landowner's property showing that open area.

There's been some discussion and questions from some members of the public and others about why do you have to do this along 29?

Why can't you put this transmission line in a different location so it's not along an entrance corridor?

We wanted to show Rappahannock Electric did consider that issue, but ultimately decided that utilizing the existing poles along an existing corridor was by far the lowest impact of the alternatives.

Obviously, the slide on the right here shows the approximate location of the alternate route that is workable for them.

As you can see, it would require easements and clearing along a very long span, disrupting a number of other landowners along the existing corridor.

they can add this line with relatively minimal impact on those landowners other than the widening of the easement areas.

So we think for many reasons that's the best solution for this issue.

Counselor.

Your time is up.

You have an innate ability to know that your time is up.

Actually timed it well.

I was finished.

Questions for the applicant.

I have a question for Ms.

Long and a question for Ms.

Musick.

Ms.

Long, you know a great deal about what we can do with both high tension lines and cell towers.

I don't know if the foundation is designed for that.

Well, I can say I know it wasn't designed for that.

It was designed for the addition of these pole toppers.

I guess if there were a wireless provider that was interested and the Rappahannock folks were willing and they could do a study and look at whether the foundations were strong enough to support

It looks like Ms.

Brock

Okay, I don't, can you unmute yourself Lee?

Yes, my boss always says I couldn't play poker.

Yes, no, they would have had to have been designed specifically for that.

They'd have to pay for the whole thing and sure we would look at it, but

I would think that we'd have to replace the whole thing.

And Mr. Fritz is still on just to continue this so that we can sum this up once and for all.

So there are two options there.

One would be to do a tier one facility, which is an attachment to an existing structure, and it could not be any taller than the existing structure.

They could propose to expand the structure, and that would be a special use permit, tier three, and it'd be whatever it was, the application was.

Does that answer your question?

Yes, thanks.

Chair, I'll bring that back when we have our discussions later.

I just wanted this information for the public and for the commissioners.

My second question is about tree pruning.

I think that what we find, those of us that travel to other parts of the country, we're constantly amazed that a commonwealth to the north, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, seems to have such more sympathetic pruning of trees along a power line right of ways than what we see

in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

And I wonder if the vegetative management person could speak to that because that is another component.

I believe in Massachusetts there are different statues that apply to state road right-of-ways and that there may or may not be larger easements.

So, I mean, if you have a larger easement, obviously you don't need to have as much of a pruning cut because the trees don't simply exist, meaning they're further back and so, you know, it's not as obvious that they've been pruned.

I think in Virginia we kind of stick to our smaller easements in this case that you know the trees may be closer so they have to be pruned as it sounds like you have done some are interested in this and of course you know certain species grow faster than others so you know if you have a maple you can have anywhere between six and seven feet of growth per year

If you have something like an Ailanthus, you can have that in the early season.

So, you know, it's a prescriptive approach.

It's very specific to species.

And as Ms.

Long mentioned, REC and most utilities take an integrated vegetation management approach.

So pruning is part of that, of course.

And then also allowing certain species to grow larger

Questions for the applicant.

Thank you for the presentation.

Quick question on the overall project and the future of it.

I saw a slide where it showed the line going through our neighboring counties of Green and Madison.

Is the intention that this upgrade will go to those counties?

This is part of an overall infrastructure upgrade that RAC is working on.

So it's just the Albemarle County segment of the upgrade.

Portions, as you may have seen on the slide, there's portions that exist in green.

There's a segment where it doesn't exist and it's not yet existing in Madison.

So in those counties, there will also be upgrades.

But in those counties, the transmission line is allowed by right.

as compared to an Albemarle which requires a special use permit.

So REC wanted to be sure that it could get the special use permit approved in Albemarle in order to then move forward with the rest of the project.

in terms of timetable, assuming that the SUP is approved sometime in the next year after or in the next few months, it will take approximately a year, they think, to work with each of the landowners who own property within the project area to negotiate easements and terms with each of them.

And then after that, it's about a four to six month project process to get the new pole choppers installed in the line.

So roughly about a year and a half from the date of approval.

to finish the Albemarle County section.

And I'm going to look to Lee and Sam Wilson at REC to weigh in if there's anything additional to add.

I don't know if the green and Madison portions that aren't already built will come after that.

Where's Sam?

Sam, I'm going to let you do the timing.

But yes, we'll continue on up.

Yeah, timing wise, we'll be going, actually, I'm assuming we'd start from both sides.

Started working with lanterns on both sides, because we have to go with easements on the rest of the line.

So we'll continue the process.

It will be several years before it's all done, because it is, I don't remember the total mileage, but it's going to take a little while, but we will be going in parallel.

while we're working with Albemarle, we'll be working on the others once we get a final approval.

If we get a final approval, I should say.

Valerie, isn't it safe to say that actually what you're looking at here in terms of a project is the extension of a spur that goes from the main transmission line down into Albemarle County.

So it's equivalent to a railroad that we have a unidirectional line, and it terminates right there at Dickerson Road.

And when you conceive of it, I think, in that way, then you get a better understanding that it isn't that any energy being generated is going from Albemarle North.

It's quite the opposite.

where the energy is generated by Dominion Power is in fact going down this spur coming into the critical infrastructure that exists in the business park which our strategic growth

industries for Albemarle County.

The other thing that I do feel would have been helpful in looking at your application, especially for new members of the Planning Commission that may not have had exposure to this before, is to have cited the fact that the major reason for this project is because you're upping the overall kilowatts of energy that is going to be distributed on these power lines.

and the reason for why therefore there's a need for the power lines to be higher is from a safety factor that the increased power therefore with the electromagnetic currents that are generated thereby is at a safer distance from human beings and any animals that would be below.

We certainly saw that on the Cunningham to Dunes project

with Dominion Power when I was on the board in 17 and 18, where they up the overall power generation of 500 kV.

on that line and so the towers had to get much taller and the lines had to be separated.

So just, it's not a criticism, but I'm just pointing out that I didn't think the narrative emphasized enough the public safety aspect as to why this project is being initiated in Albemarle County to protect human life along this improved corridor with increased power.

Thank you, Mr. Randolph.

I appreciate you pointing that out.

You're correct.

It will certainly utilize the portions of the infrastructure that are in other jurisdictions for the great benefit of Albemarle County and its institutions and businesses.

So thank you for clarifying.

And yes, it's about safety for everyone as well.

Sorry on mute.

I think it was covered, you know, the height for safety.

This is clearly, you know, putting a transmission line versus a distribution line to create a network of substations.

I'd like to see, and it didn't necessarily, I don't think it was called out, but when Governor Northam signed the Virginia Clean Economy Act that was really to promote the adoption of renewable energies,

One of the key part of that is a modernization of the infrastructure and the transmission and distribution of infrastructure to allow utility scale solar or commercial solar to connect into distribution lines.

That means the substation has to have enough capacity to handle those interconnection fee requests, and then it has to be able to be distributed to other parts or wherever it's gonna be serviced.

And I'd like to understand the fault tolerance

multiple paths.

Thank you, Mr. Bailey.

I may need to draw on the resources of our team here to address that specifically.

I can speak to one issue.

Obviously, for the benefit of others, you're exactly right about the Virginia Clean Economy Act and the incentives and other provisions it includes to upgrade and modernize and promote renewable energy.

is I'll ask Lee or Sam or others on the team to address his specific questions about those details because I'm not sure those are in my wheelhouse.

As far as generation goes, we are a distribution electric cooperative, which means we don't generate power.

I always say we're kind of like the BJ's Wholesale Club.

We buy it at wholesale and sell it and distribute it to our members.

This project is not going to increase generation or really increase load.

What it's going to do is make it available, a back feed, a second source to this area.

So the load will all stay the same just during a time of outage

you won't be out as long.

Does that make sense?

I think Mr. Bailey had an additional point he was making there.

Daniel, why don't you try and expand that?

Cause I don't think it's about that.

Exactly.

Yeah.

It's more just trying to understand, does this enable and this increased ability to

not just to distribute power, but to transmit power through these transmission lines.

And here I have a substation.

I know I'm not a solar producer, but I've worked with a lot.

And one of the things I look for is, you know, whether it's parcels near substations and distribution lines to get it to there to, you know, push it up to do transmission lines and other lines.

And I was just trying to understand that I understand that you don't

We don't purchase from them.

We'll interconnect them for purchase.

That's what I meant.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That could be possible.

Given the area, though, right along Route 29,

would surprise me if anyone wanted to connect right on 29.

But, you know, we are bound by state law to at least entertain their application.

So this particular segment in Almonte County won't help or produce any knock on clean energy opportunities based on what you just said.

That doesn't necessarily mean the full

If I understand what you're saying, correct.

I mean, that's one of the questions and we have, we were trying to understand, like, you know,

How is this modernization?

Is there opportunities for clean energy to comply with some of our comprehensive plan?

And does this permit opportunities?

It could.

It just depends.

What developers of solar are looking for is a very large area of flat land.

that is right near a transmission line.

Thanks.

Does that answer your question?

Anyone else?

I have one, just one sort of clarifying question for Ms.

Musick.

Correct, yeah.

So for all lines and so that they don't interfere with the distribution, with the transmission lines.

Yeah, but along those lines, pun intended, there would also be, you know, natural regeneration that goes on immediately afterwards, like Miss Long's pictures were showing.

Sorry, my dog decided to join me.

you know, regeneration occurs rather rapidly.

And so, you know, there will be low growing shrubs and trees, small trees allowed to remain, you know, after they re-sprout.

The question I have for your follow-up, Mike, before we go to the public hearing is that one of the things we're talking about is a native Virginia meadow.

Well, some of that doesn't happen all by itself.

It has to be encouraged.

It has to be managed.

In those places where we do have pollinators, there's some places in the county that have pollinator fields,

They're actually intentional.

They've been planted and they've been looked after and things like that.

So integrated vegetation management actually is an intentional way of managing property.

And if you look at powerline corridors that are managed in this way, what it does is basically suppress forest accession.

So, you know, after clearing, you would naturally have just a plethora of trees, the seed sources existing in the soil.

And, you know, they're going to regenerate along with forbs and ferns and pollinator species and what have you.

So in order to have that pollinator habitat, what you have to do is suppress the trees, which suppresses forest succession, which maintains that meadow look.

It can be done through planting.

It is usually done almost as efficiently simply by using what's existing seed sources in the soil.

And that's something that's been done forever, right?

Just naturally.

But yes, we do that through IBM.

Are there other questions for the applicant?

Yes, I have Robert Ray Messick.

Mr. Messick, please unmute yourself.

You will have, please set your name and address.

Hi, my name is Robert Ray Messick.

My family has owned this property for many years, probably 120 or so.

My grandmother originally granted the, gave the right away to Rappahannock Power Company in 1950, early 50s.

This was a distribution line and

that was fine and then my mother in the early 70s gave them more right away for more distribution lines with the understanding that it wasn't going to be a transmission line and

So now we are getting a transmission line supposedly without arm extensions.

These lines are gonna be very close to the pole, but nobody will guarantee me that they won't put either on these poles or some other poles, arm extensions.

This is the beginning of Albemarle County.

We've left it green.

My sister and I loved growing up there when we were kids.

And it hasn't changed much since we were young.

But I feel that this power line now has become an industrial eyesore at the entrance of Albemarle County.

And I guess the other thing is, you know, local generation of electricity.

I mean, there's been a revolution in the last four or five years since this whole thing was planned for solar energy and wind energy.

we are going to have to get off of burning fossil fuels.

And Lake Anna is a power plant is now 75.

Well, I guess it's about 50 years old and they might extend it for another 25, but at some point North Anna is not going to be in service.

Thank you, Mr. That is the only one I had with a hand up.

I have Eric and Amber Myers, please.

Hold on once.

Okay.

Your name and address.

If you're with a group and organization, please state that and your time starts now.

You have three minutes.

You're muted.

There we are.

There we are.

Yeah, we can't hear.

You got it now.

OK.

I'm sorry.

Sorry about that, thank you very much.

My name is Eric Meyers and I'm representing Marie M. Meyers.

She's a property owner on 29 North there at the Frays Mill Road, 29 South intersection.

And there, my uncle is Robert Messick who just spoke.

And we have a great appreciation for this property.

I was driving home today, looked over and saw the mature oaks that would, a lot of them would have to be taken down.

They are as tall or taller than the current transmission line and in my opinion helped blend the current transmission line.

I just want to give a few facts.

You know, they're talking about the

regrowth under there and things like that.

But in looking at the climate action plan and the biodiversity plan for the county, I'd just like to quote a few facts, scientific facts about mature oak trees.

One oak tree, a mature oak tree can produce 10,000 acres per year, which helps support wildlife forage.

During growing season, a mature oak can transpire up to 40,000 gallons of water, which helps cool the atmosphere, including their canopies.

It takes 35 years for an oak tree to produce its first small crop of acorns, and a 100 year old oak, which some of these are, has sequestered 5,000 pounds of carbon during its life.

and if you just multiply that by the number of trees there.

So I don't quite agree with the saying there's little environmental impact that I have a degree in environmental science and I just yes there would be grasses and things like that but the loss of transpiration

and Canopy doesn't seem to go along with the Climate Action Plan, the October 2020 plan that Albemarle County is committed to.

So I have a great appreciation for the property.

I walk it many times a year.

I've seen lots of wildlife.

Our family intends to keep it wild if we can.

Ms.

That is it.

Close the public hearing part of it.

And if the applicant has a few moments that they'd like to respond, please do.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'll make just a few brief comments in response to those.

Mr. Messick is correct that the solar market and renewable energy market is continuing to increase.

As Mr. Bailey indicated, it's a key component of the Virginia Clean Economy Act that was just enacted last year.

Certainly that is likely to continue to increase.

Some of the power that REC purchases now from wholesalers is generated from renewable sources.

So while they don't generate the power, as they've said, they purchase it wholesale, some of it is renewable and it's very likely that that will continue or only increase in the future.

Regardless, that does not diminish the need for this transmission line going forward.

This is about enhancing the infrastructure, being able to restore power to REC's member customers in a very timely fashion to reduce outages whenever possible.

It would not have an impact on that issue.

Mr. Messick also made a comment, which he shared with us previously about concerns for, I believe what he's concerned about is that these

with much, much taller poles, the reference to kind of those having arms.

I believe that's the concern.

The type of structures you see with a 230 kilovolt line that Dominion Power might run, that is not at all what's planned here.

The images that we showed you of the pole toppers are exactly what's proposed.

That's what the foundations for these poles are designed to hold.

They don't have any plans to increase the size of the structure, and I don't think they would be able to anyway.

And then with regard to Mr. Meyer's comments, we don't dispute the value of vegetation and trees to the economy and climate in general.

It is unfortunate that the larger transmission lines do require a larger easement area.

One thing I did not mention is that typically REC's standard easement width for a transmission line

is actually 100 feet wide.

That's the width of the easement for, some of y'all were on the commission when Central Virginia Electric Cooperative obtained a special use permit for their project they called Cassius Corner in, I believe in the Keswick area.

That had an existing 100 foot easement already.

And again, that's REC standard, but because they're able to utilize this existing line,

and for a variety of other reasons the ability and the recognition of the goal of trying to minimize the impact on these property owners absolutely as much as possible they were able to secure permission to reduce the easement width to the full 75 feet so it is just 17 and a half feet

additional land for all the parcels which certainly to those individual landowners absolutely is significant and we certainly appreciate that.

That is why they worked hard to minimize the impact and are using this existing corridor instead of resorting to a brand new corridor

that would impact a whole other group of landowners.

We think this has the least impact.

And I know Mrs. Myers is fortunate.

She and her family, they own

I think over 100 acres of what looks like is mostly wooded land, maybe even more just in the project areas, 100 acres.

So there will be substantial wooded areas remaining as a result of their good stewardship of their property for all of these decades and likewise with Mr. Messick's property.

So we wish that we didn't have to expand the easements and do any more tree clearing, but unfortunately that's part of the requirements of this infrastructure

Thank you.

Thank you.

So it's back to us kind folks.

It's not even late.

Everyone's thinking.

Do I need to ask someone to speak?

I'll move approval SP 2020-00007, Rappahannock Electric Cooperative, the recommendation in the staff report.

Would someone like to second it?

Second.

Corey, second it.

How about some discussion, folks?

Tim, please.

Tim.

I need you.

There you go.

Well,

I think that I'll start off by saying that I'm going to support this, but I find the vegetation management plan almost disingenuous because I don't know that it's particularly different from what's done along many of these corridors where we bush hog and then sprouts come up and then we bush hog later.

Maybe we're going to allow it to be there a bit longer, but I would need to know more

about, I think in response to your question, Chair, we didn't get a real response as to whether there's then going to be selective elimination of invasives and allowing natives to grow up and mature in whatever fashion they elect to be, ferns in a shaded area, rhododendrons in a different kind of shaded area.

And the photographs shown by Mr. Clark of rhododendrons, the rolling hillside that we could find in some of the corridors

West Virginia are certainly appealing if we can see that.

So I think we need to understand that it's still going to be pretty wrong, pretty rugged, and that what has historically been a beautiful entry quarter on 29 North, which is being degraded from many different land use manners, is going to continue.

And each time something like this happens, we lose a bit.

of that scenic quality that makes us special.

But I think the fact that it is next to the corridor and that it's not going through a number of parcels is beneficial.

And while I don't believe that I'm going to live long enough to see an alternative to the cell towers and the high tension lines, I do believe we're going to see energy fixes.

And just as the telegraph poles and the telephone poles

have gone away from much of the American landscape over the last hundred years.

We will see these disappear in the next hundred years.

We have a second by Corey.

We're in the discussion period right now.

Are there any other comments or discussion before we go to a vote?

Daniel?

Yes, it was.

It was.

And then it was seconded by Corey.

Corey, is that what you see?

Corey, is that what you thought?

Yes.

Come on.

It was moved and it was seconded.

Yeah, I just

Also, to our support, given some of the other things, power is a need.

I just would like to say that in addition to the IVM plan, as Mr. Keller has pointed out, there is a visual impact.

I mean, that's a pretty significant visual impact.

It's doubling the size.

And so I think it will have somewhat of a, especially in the insurance corridor, an impact on the character of the corridor a bit.

So anything that can be done with IBM and more specificity to bring back some of that to soften the man-made structures I think would be very impactful to trying to keep that character that Mr. Keller alluded to that makes it special.

I would also state that, you know, I know that's a, getting, I know,

I know I looked at the website for Rappahannock and seen some of the things around the clean energy and understanding the substation and transmission and all that, having a better understanding as you maybe go before the board of, you know, I'm not an electric expert by any means, I'm not pretending to be, but, you know, I know you're a consumer of electricity, but if you also have an existing infrastructure and substations that need to be able to handle load that is produced by

Solar and wind farms and other things have to be able to receive it somewhere and then transmit it to where it's actually consumed at.

Anyone else have a comment that they'd like to have before we vote?

Sir.

Thank you for these comments have been very helpful.

Mr. Clayborne.

Aye.

Mr. Bivins.

Aye.

Mr. Randolph.

Aye.

Mr. Keller.

Aye.

Mr. Bailey.

Aye.

Ms.

Thank you very much.

So the applicants, you've gotten some good advice, I think on perhaps how to fine tune your presentation before going before our supervisors.

So hopefully you will inwardly digest that as you go forward.

Thank you for your time this evening, kind people.

Thank you very much.

It's 19, it's 720.

Are we ready?

Can we continue to roll folks?

I see no one shaking their head.

Okay.

Then in that note.

We're having a presentation this evening on proposed fee schedule changes.

And remember with the presentation, we were asking for a comment one or two or one and a half from us, and we will not be having a public hearing or any public comment.

So with that, remember,

engage.

And thank you, Mr. Allshouse, Steve Allshouse, please.

Oh, I need to say a presentation on the proposed fee schedule changes.

Thank you, Chair Bivins, members of the Planning Commission, Steve Allshouse, Department of Community Development.

Please bear with me for a minute while I bring up my presentation.

Second.

OK, are we good?

Yes, it's good.

Thank you.

OK, very good.

So what I want to accomplish this evening was to give you some general background information regarding CDD's works to update its fees.

I want to talk a little bit about staff work that we've done as of the end of January.

I wanted also to update you about tasks that still need to be completed, our remaining timeline, and then I thought I would field your questions.

So specifically what I'm going to talk about tonight is chapter 18 of the county's code.

This is the portion that deals with zoning.

I'll be limiting my comments to that chapter.

And just as background, the county's CDD fees were established in a fee study that was conducted by PFM Group, which is based in Arlington, Virginia, back in 2007.

The county contracted with PFM to do a study.

It was exhaustive.

And in 2008, the board adopted the fees.

and also adopted a policy whereby existing fees were supposed to be adjusted every two years based on board adopted staff salaries.

So for example, if staff salaries were approved by the board increase between the two years by 4%, CDD fees were supposed to go up commensurately also done by 4%.

Unfortunately, this policy has not always been applied.

It's not been applied routinely.

Most CDD fees were last updated in November of 2015.

So it's been about five years, a little bit more than five years now, since the fees were last updated.

The issue that we're facing in CDD is that due to this lack of an increase since that time,

we're seeing an increasing disparity between our revenues and our costs.

In other words, CDD is providing services in 2021 and charging the 2015 price.

Also, another issue that's come to light recently is that there are services that CDD provides the public that are not covered in the current county code.

but we have identifiable costs that we're incurring by providing services and we've proposed some new fees to try and address those issues.

I'm also going to talk briefly about a technology fee that we're proposing.

So as of January, staff has developed a tentative set of calculations for updates to existing fees using the 2008 board adopted policy.

These increases for the existing fees, if adopted, would increase the fees by about 10%, which is commensurate with the level of salaries, the increase in the level of salaries since 2015.

Also, staff has identified services related to architectural review and has proposed new fees based on those services.

And the calculation that's gone into those fees is this.

We've looked at

the relative amount of time it takes to do certain architectural review projects and have related those to other fees that the department does.

So we have a relative understanding of how the time is or how much time it takes to do something that we're proposing and how much time it would be related to for another type of activity.

And that's where we're coming up with our fees.

We're basing a commensurate on the amount of time relative to other tasks.

One other fee that we're proposing, as I mentioned earlier, is a technology fee.

This fee is envisioned to be applied toward replacing the county's County View software system.

Now, I know some of you are new to the

Planning Commission and members of the audience who might be listening in might not know what CountyView is.

CountyView is our system that tracks development.

Everyone in CDD uses it.

Members of the public can use it.

When it was initiated 16 years ago, it was cutting edge and was very useful to the Department of Community Development.

However, the system is 16 years old.

And if you're familiar with software, you know that 16 years is a very long time for a system to be in use.

Specifically, we have seen a number of add-ons put into the system and it's become very cumbersome for us to use it.

We feel that our end users in the public also likely are finding it to be cumbersome to use.

So what we're hoping is if the technology fee is adopted,

that this would help fund a new system for CDD.

And it's possible that the system would be integrated across the county as an enterprise reporting system and also could help streamline the development review process.

We're hoping also that a newer system would be much more user-friendly than the current system.

Some of the other work that's gone on

with regard to the fees updates is we've been looking at other jurisdictions and their development related fees and finding out if what we're proposing is consistent, is reasonable based on what we're seeing in other jurisdictions.

This effort is ongoing.

The initial look that I did several weeks ago had a focus, first of all, on the technology fees.

So I looked at Fairfax County and Montgomery County because both of those jurisdictions have a technology fee.

They're the only two, as far as I know, in the Commonwealth of Virginia that do have a technology fee, by the way.

I also looked up a sea of Alexandria because, as you might be aware, Alexandria does a lot of historic preservation work.

And they have fees that pertain to that.

And the thinking was that those fees that are charged in Alexandria would be similar to the fees that we're proposing here in Albemarle.

So I wanted to get an idea of how reasonable our proposals were.

in connection or compared with those that exist in Alexandria.

Also took a look at the city of Charlottesville because that is our neighboring jurisdiction.

We are all part of the same region.

But I would like to point out that we're going to be looking at some additional jurisdictions for comparability purposes.

We feel that Hanover, Henrico, James City County, and Roanoke County are all comparable to varying degrees without morale.

and to look at their fee structure and fee level would be instructive for us.

Also, in the last several weeks, we've been engaged in some outreach.

We initially sent out an email blast to everyone who was on the county's email system and also to anyone who has done business either building or planning with the Department of Community Development in the last two years.

What these emails have done is alert people of the proposed changes.

It gives them a link to the underlying documents and also provides a feedback box that they can use.

So if they have any comments or questions, they're able to send those to us.

And when that happens, those comments and questions are sent to myself and the department leadership.

Now, as of the end of January, we've had on that page approximately 650 visits.

And unfortunately, only one comment, and that was a comment that dealt with Chapter 7, not Chapter 18.

And in any case, it was this one out of 650 visits.

Now, that being said, the deadline for comments

is not until February 26th of this year.

So it might be that we see a rush toward the end.

I just don't know, but so far we've had very little feedback from the website.

The second part of our outreach that we've undertaken took place a few weeks ago on January 19th and January 21st.

On January 19th, we staff met with Blue Ridge Home Builders Association, Jenny Tapscott in particular, Free Enterprise Forum, Neil Williamson,

Southern Development, Charlie Armstrong, and Great Eastern, David Mitchell.

I met with them for about an hour and a half and got their feedback and commentary.

Also on January 21st, we met with representatives from the Southern Environmental Law Center and the PEC.

From the SELC, we met with Travis Piotella,

and from the Piedmont Environmental Council, we met with Christopher Hawke.

Again, it was about an hour long meeting in both cases.

Got a lot of very good feedback from these meetings.

What we gleaned from these meetings were three issues, two of which were pretty common and a third one which came up that we're looking into.

The first one, as I mentioned, or alluded to earlier, was that the group desires fee comparisons with additional jurisdictions.

That's very reasonable.

If we're about to ask for a fee increase, we want to know how we're looking in comparison with other localities.

Another very, very important item that came up was wondering, participants were wondering about the impact of fees on affordable housing.

Anytime you increase a fee, you necessarily have an impact on the market for housing, and of course that would include affordable units.

And finally, there was a question about the cost recovery percentage.

What's meant here, as I interpret it, is this.

For every service for which the department charges a fee, what percentage of our costs related to that service are we recovering?

That's the question.

So we're looking at these issues.

We're currently doing a comparison of the other jurisdictions I mentioned.

Also, I'm going to be engaged in case studies where we're looking at other

actual projects that have been done over the years that we're going to take a look at and say well okay if these fees had been in place at the time these projects were done how much would that have meant in terms of total fees for each project and then compare that with the history and these are projects that will be they have been completed relatively recently for example 999 East Rio is one of them

The building that houses the Starbucks down at the street station is another one.

I have three other single-family detached residents, one of which is considered an affordable housing unit.

So we're going to be looking at all of those to get an idea of what the impact would be.

Again, as a tangible benchmark, something that people can look at and say, oh yes, we know that project, we know it was completed, we know a lot about the specifics, and here's how this

These proposed changes would have impacted those projects.

So the remaining work right now for staff is that we need to complete the case studies, examine the impact on housing costs.

By the way, I should point out one of those projects is commercial projects.

We're also looking at the impact on the commercial side of the real estate market.

As I mentioned previously, surveying fees in Hanover County, Henrico, James City County, Roanoke County for purposes of comparison.

documenting the cost recovery percentage for proposed fees.

Now, I just wanted to say something of a sidebar for existing fees.

I don't believe the recovery percentage will change.

I won't get into all the math behind that, but from the time being, my thinking is that it would not change for existing fees.

We want to make sure that our proposed fees are consistent with the cost recovery that exists in existing fees.

Additionally, after we've done all the study, after we've taken our comments in and any other information that's relevant, there might very well be potential revisions to the recommended fee updates.

Nothing is carved in stone.

This is, as I've been telling people earlier, we've started the process, but we are by no means finished with it.

And on that note, I wanted to talk a little bit about the remaining timelines.

So on March 3 of this year, I'm going to be giving a presentation to the Board of Supervisors.

On March 23, we're coming back for a public hearing with your group, the Planning Commission.

And on April 21, the board will have a public hearing on the updates.

And again, for anyone listening in or

would like any more information that I have provided here who might be in the listening public.

They're able to visit this URL site.

They can go down on our page where it says community development fees, click that link, and they'll have access to all the documents that have been provided to your group and also can access the comment box where they're more than welcome to leave their comments about our efforts.

I should point out that the deadline is February 26 of this year for getting the comments to us.

Thank you very much.

Could you unshare your screen?

OK, let me see if I can.

On the last page?

Yeah.

Well, you know, I have to be honest with you.

I don't.

Okay, we'll just let you and Charles have that little conversation, that sidebar conversation.

Okay, thank you.

Questions for the presentation we had this evening?

So I'm going to start off before we get to Corey.

So I understand why we're hearing this this evening because it's in the zoning ordinance.

But I frankly have to say I'm surprised that this is something that comes before the Planning Commission.

And so as you're doing your sort of survey around the communities, I'd like to ask that you sort of look to see a number of other jurisdictions that just sort of deal with this as a matter of you doing your business.

as opposed to bringing it to us.

I don't know if I'm speaking out of term, Mr. Rapp, but it just seems like this is an odd thing.

Oh, I see the council has his hand up.

So Mr. Bivins, you can blame me for this.

Because it's an amendment to the zoning ordinance, the fee structure exists in the zoning ordinance.

Come through us.

Okay.

All right.

Well, perhaps we can think about that in the future.

and pass the motion to amend and take it out.

So I'll be quiet for a second.

I've got some other things, but I'll defer to my colleagues.

Who else?

I said, Corey, you had your hand up.

And I know that I could tell by Rick's posture that he has a question too.

So Corey, then Rick, and then whoever else wants to speak at this moment, please.

But Corey and Rick.

And Karen.

So Corey, Rick, and Karen, and Tim, I'll thank you.

You can't stay out of it, Daniel and Luis.

I might have a full house here.

I totally understand that we have to run a sustainable organization.

So it seems like the reason for this hike is because it hadn't been done in quite some time, which came up to that 10%, I think I saw in your presentation.

That's correct.

I believe it would, yes.

Good?

Excuse me, Rick.

Rick.

Noting that remark, I would just point out that when the original fees were agreed to in 2008, there was a little economic event going on in the US economy that began with Lehman Brothers that August called the near depression.

And the board

essentially since then, because I know we talked about this as a board.

The board subsequently did not feel that it was appropriate to increase any fees.

Not that the fees were untouchable, but it was just not a politically appropriate time to increase those levies.

And I would just note that past board practice

to not increase the fees on a two-year cycle does not equate with the board policy.

The board reserves the right not to follow the policy at a two-year interval.

So to state that a policy is that it will be changed every two years is not an accurate remark.

Now, the second thing that I would note here is

that there is an assumption made in one letter criticizing this proposal about money being dedicated to a software upgrade and asserting that any software upgrade will automatically result in increased efficiency.

and that's not necessarily the case as all of us having lived through Microsoft Windows upgrades in the past recognize that efficiency did not follow with those upgrades.

But I'm not casting aspersions on the proposed software upgrade here.

I think the aim is probably to have better communication and coordination across

Apartments by having the software, thereby may create some efficiencies, but that doesn't mean in an economically laissez-faire definition of efficiency, that it's automatically going to be saving the county on an annual basis, any amount of money.

And then coming to Steve's defense here, I just want to talk about the reason why he was utilizing Fairfax or Alexandria.

Well,

Albemarle County is a high growth community.

We're part of a high growth coalition in the General Assembly.

And as a high growth community, we look to our peers that are also seeing significant annual growth rates for what they're doing as best management practices.

But other counties have not gone down this direction.

doesn't mean we shouldn't.

In fact, it's a really sound management that we're proposing to do this now and keeping good company.

And I would assert if we do that, then our normal peers that we look at as comparable communities, such as James City, Roanoke, and Hanover,

and Spotsylvania, which was not on one list I saw, that those communities may well follow Albemarle in looking at this kind of an overall scheme to generate revenue.

The other thing I'll point out, the more of these kinds of revenues can come into the county to counterbalance

The cost of dealing with applications, the less the burden is on where the majority of the taxes are paid in this county, which is by homeowners, not by businesses, but by homeowners.

And so this proposal is just asking people applying for applications to pay their fair share.

And when you look at the minor adjustments here,

you cannot fathom how there could be any impact here on affordable housing.

With a thousand dollars a year, you're going to additional thousand dollars in all the applications that one might have to make for a special use permit that that's going to jeopardize a commitment to affordable housing.

The affordable housing card is being played in many games currently, not always with high stakes.

I was just curious as to whether

I was wondering if Steve could talk a little bit more about efficiencies to be realized by the new software.

I'm not questioning whether we need new software.

I'm just wondering, is there any kind of cost savings during increased efficiency that it would provide that would offset the need to increase fees?

I can't speak specifically about any efficiencies at this point because I don't know what software system we would eventually end up with so I'd be speculating at this point, but I do know in conversations I've had with members of the department

on their current system is somewhat clunky.

And I'm seeing right now we are beginning to process to replace the software but again I don't, I can't speak specifically but I do know that if we

do go to a new system that very likely would streamline the process.

If you think about the way that IT technology has increased, notwithstanding Snafus with upgrades in Microsoft, there have been productivity increases.

I think the private sector has realized those over the last 16 years.

I think our thinking is that we would benefit from that.

One other little piece that I might say is that if we do streamline our process and get development review times shortened to some extent, look, you know, time is money in the world of building and development, so this might also benefit

for people paying the fees.

It might benefit the builders, it might benefit the developers.

My colleagues have hit my point.

Steve, well conceptualized and well presented.

Thank you.

The one piece that I look forward to are the comparables so that we can see what a minor part

of the cost of a unit really will be.

I'm sure it's going to be less than a percent that we're talking about.

And I think that builds on what Rick said.

I just want to echo, no one could say it better than Rick to summarize the issues that we're seeing of affordable housing being thrown up all the time as an excuse for things that aren't happening.

I think this body and the board of supervisors are really endeavoring

to deal with affordable housing.

And some of these points just do not hold water that's coming out of certain communities.

So we are dedicated to that.

We all know that.

Thank you.

I'm joined this evening, by the way, by Amelia McCauley.

I'm not sure if she wants to

Why don't I give Amelia the opportunity to come in and be the cleanup batter once all of us have said what we need to say, if you're okay with that.

Corey, did you go?

I think you were in front of me.

Yeah, I didn't want to jump anybody in line.

Yeah, I'll keep a brief, you know, brief look and read through.

Thank you for putting this together.

I think it was very informative.

And I understand there's still work to be done and appreciate that.

You know, on the surface, it's a 10% increase if you use the US Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index inflation calculator.

inflation has risen since 2015 by 11%.

So it's actually not even tracking with inflation and to cover salary adjustments.

So I don't, I don't see, you know, on the surface, some of the, you know, it's not like we're going for 30%, you know, and outpacing just the cost of a dollar.

Presumably I bring that up that

That same inflation goes through the selling price of developers and others that are paying some of these fees on what they can demand for their housing.

So they're able to demand more than what they were in 2015 based on that cost of $1.

So I'll keep that.

That's just an observation there that it's not even tracking current inflation per the US Bureau of Labor statistics.

And then as a software engineer and owner of a software company, I will wholeheartedly agree with you that on lots of things, I've used County View, I've applied for permits myself to do things at my house.

And it is a horrible user experience on the outside.

It's a 1990 system and software certainly has a life cycle.

And so I appreciate that productivity gains.

There's more, you know, we also have measures in the software industry called usability index.

And that's not just productivity gains by someone using it, but it's the ability to use it and not just for the staff, but for the other stakeholders that county services.

And so I think there's a lot to be said there as well.

So with that, I'll conclude my feedback.

I actually don't have the desire to go, believe it or not.

I think you guys have covered it and it was a very well done presentation.

I certainly appreciate the expansion of other counties.

All right.

So before we give it to Amelia, I just have a couple of things here.

So

One of my things is that when you're looking for what to tie this to, I would also ask you to give some sense to looking at the construction escalators, because that's the package of goods, that's the package of activities that developers are actually dealing with when they go to put projects together.

And so while I appreciate that we're doing it as a function of salaries, of county salaries, that that really is not

tied into the business that's coming before us for these fees.

It's not really aligned effectively with the fees.

I think there's a different kind of argument that one can look at if you looked at the construction industry and looked at the whole host of escalators that they had before them that would tie in nicely to what Daniel said.

So as you're looking at this, I would just suggest that you give a look over to those indicators to see how they might tie in with this.

And also, you know, to counter my colleagues, these costs are de minimis.

I think it was Amelia said, or maybe it was Amelia and Jody said that during the pandemic, we've done something like $100 million worth of projects.

$100 million worth of projects.

The typical project that comes before this body is well over $20 million when you're talking about the big developments.

And so if we're talking about a $2,000 fee for a $20 million project,

I'm having a hard time, and I'm pro-business, I'm like a business guy, but I'm having a hard time sort of figuring out how that's a really hard thing, particularly if, and those of you who have not seen it, Sean Tubbs did this piece on the housing stock in Charlottesville this weekend, for those of you who are on his, I don't know what you call those things, you all, you guys, but on one of his newsletters, any newsletter?

The prices in the city for existing property is off the chart.

off the chart, it's off the chart.

And this is existing housing.

So if we are talking about big, magnificent, planned communities that are going to give lots of good places for our people to live, paying $2,000 for a rezoning, it seems like a reasonable cost to business, particularly when you do a kitchen in one of these houses, and the kitchen's probably gonna cost you $4,000.

And that's just for one kitchen.

So I'm having, oh, I see a, oh, a hire?

Oh, go ahead.

I'm not even gonna leave it there.

So I just got thumbs up.

So maybe we're talking about $10,000 for a kitchen, $6,000 for a kitchen.

So I'm having a hard time understanding why this is a, why this would be something that would cause angst given that for labor and finishing and I'm hearing that people can't even get.

They can't even get Pine to do structures today.

That's a hard resource to come into.

The price on Pine and Board has gone up greatly.

That's my rant on that.

My other piece on this is that for the technology fee, I have to share with you, and this is where I probably go sideways with my colleagues,

I don't think you should charge a technology fee, and let me tell you why.

We don't charge a new technology fee when we enhance the HR system.

We don't charge a technology fee when we enhance the 911 system.

We don't charge a technology fee when we do a whole bunch of things to provide services to the community.

And so I don't want community development to have to fall into, I've got to be able to sing for my new technology.

If the institution, if the county is saying that this is an important enhancement for us to do what we do, then I think this is what I would like you to sort of try and look at the argument when you look at some of our colleagues.

If we're committed as a community to do this, then we should say, we're going to invest in technology.

And that's just part of what we do.

That's part of how we have, we invest in our people so our people can do their jobs.

And then I think the rest of this, then I'll just shut up and be quiet and say, thank you very much.

And now let's hear from a million.

Show me the money, Julian.

Hey, you know my whole thing.

You talk about we,

because I know there are people who are looking at us, but the model of being residential in tax income focused is part of our problem.

It's part of our problem.

I get it.

I understand where we're living, but we cannot do the kinds of things that we claim we want to be as an incredible community and depend uniquely

on residential taxes.

And I'm sure that'll be all over the various things tomorrow, but you know, I'm so sorry, but that's just how I feel.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Amelia McCulley, Deputy Director of Community Development.

I appreciate your insight into to have or not to have a technology fee.

You make a good point.

Of course, this is a major startup cost and this is one way to begin to

accumulate some money to offset that cost.

One week, $19 million value of construction and building permits.

So I'm not talking about development applications.

I'm purely talking about building permits.

I'll vote for the team for doing that because we know some of our communities that surround us and who are in the Commonwealth have basically been forced to close down because of the COVID-19 situation, but I think that's a story that needs to be shared across our community.

Yes, a couple of quick words.

We were talking a little bit about the technology and what that's going to bring us in terms of process improvement and customer service

improvement.

And I am not surprised to hear what Mr. Bailey has said about the interface because one of the significant needs for improvement is a customer interface.

Whether you're a common, frequent customer who's coming again and again, doing business with the county as a builder, developer, you name it, it's not an easy interface.

It's very hard to navigate.

It's even more difficult if you're a member of the public who's trying to figure out what's going on in your neighborhood and you hardly ever interact with it.

So along with our technology investigation, we're going to be working on process improvements, working on an improved customer interface.

One of the process improvements, I'll give you an example.

We're looking at a front-end software that will help us process applications as they come in to make sure that they are complete before we take them.

Changes like that can allow you to go from review in series or sequentially to parallel review.

That alone, where you have all your reviewers looking at the same plans at the same time, can save time.

So do you have what you need?

Oh, Daniel.

Just one quick question to take it back.

Is County View mobile friendly?

Not really.

Okay.

I'm just curious.

Then it works really well.

You know, it's largely servicing a deskless workforce, so.

Exactly.

So, thank you.

Anything else?

Do you get what you needed from us?

You did?

Thank you very much.

And we'll look forward to seeing you in March again.

How's that?

Is that good?

Thanks, Chief.

Good night.

Thank you very much.

Committee reports.

No committee report.

Oh, here's a committee report.

Yeah, Mr. Chairman, I attended the CAC for Pan Tops recently.

And the essential idea, the gist of that meeting was a proposal for a new hotel that would be coming up just beyond, if you know, where the Bojangles is at the SunTrust.

I think it's a lot directly besides that.

So it was a kind of an introductory meeting to that concept, if you will.

If you remember from Kevin McDermott's presentation, that whole corridor is part of Smart Funding.

Supervisor has shared that that project had been approved, which would eliminate what was called the suicide lane that runs down, you know, beyond tip top to the bottom of the hill.

So all of that would start working together.

But that was a proposal that was talked about that will be coming before this body at some time in the future.

Thank you.

MPO Tech.

organizing meeting for the beginning of the year.

And as we were meeting, we were having the smart skill scoring results passed to us project by project from our VDOT representative.

And after each one, there was a big hoo-hah and some applause as we were, they were really shocked.

And we were shocked as well that Charlottesville Albemarle did as well as it did

Of course, we all have to realize that this is the internal staff recommendations for the scoring.

I'm sure that you've all seen them in the paper.

If not, you can go to the Thomas Jefferson soon to be renamed Planning District Commission for the results.

Any other community reports?

So I will just share briefly, we have the CAC, the hydraulic 29 CAC here, and the only piece that I would suggest if you haven't done it for your own CAC is having Michaela come and do sort of the primer on what a CAC is and what are the FOIA and all the various pieces because it was actually, A, she does an excellent job, and B, the people who are new to CAC, there probably isn't an easy way for them to have heard that information.

so it was helpful for a number of people who were brand new since a significant number of ours had just sort of timed out and so if you need that she's an excellent resource for that.

All right on January 20th the board met to discuss Breezy Hill once more.

There was a motion that did not pass with a 3-3 vote from the board supervisors.

Therefore, that application did not pass and was denied.

So I believe that will be all of Breezy Hill for a while.

There was also the board move to adopt the zoning text amendments for outdoor storage and outdoor activities and recycling uses and industrial

zoning districts that came before this commission four months ago, I believe.

That was the board activity since our last meeting.

I will also share just a bit of scheduling for us.

Our work session, we no longer have an item for our February 9th work session.

We were going to talk about some of the next step of the Crozet Master Plan.

But I will say we got a lot of very helpful constructive feedback from this commission, from members of the public, from the CAC will continue to do so.

We wanted to have a little more time to make sure we address some of those concerns and give it a throw job before we bring it back to the Commission.

So we will be revisiting that in March at our work session.

So our next actual meeting date will be February 16th when we have a public hearing for the form-based code for the RIO 29 small area plan area.

And we'll also provide an update on the RIO corridor study that we are working on.

Anything else for Charles?

Questions for Charles?

Thank you for that on behalf of the personnel, unless somebody wants to say they don't, but I'm going to say on behalf of the commission to thank your staff for the work that they're doing in Crozet and the work particularly I look forward to hearing what's happening on the Rio

I know there's a number of pieces over there that will have an impact on some of the projects that we're looking for over there or looking to go forward over there or looking not to go forward over there depending on what they are.

So thank you for the work on that.

Folks we have another week off.

Don't get used to this.

That's all I'm going to say.

Don't get used to this.

Is there any other business or new business that needs to come up or items for follow up?

Really what this is all about is so that all of anyone who's going to be watching the Super Bowl, you have now a week to recover.

So while you can't go there and you can't get tickets, oh, stop looking like that, Rick.

So you can't get tickets to the Super Bowl.

You can at least stay home and imbibe and enjoy all the chicken wings that you can possibly do for 24 hours.

So on that note, since no one has anything else, we are adjourning at 804, right?

We're okay?

I'm going to have to get new glasses because you're almost all fuzzy.

Okay, thank you.

Please be safe.

Remember, in spite of what it says in the New York Times about Albemarle County being low on the COVID list, no matter what it says on that, it's still here and it still needs you to wear your mask and keep social distance.

But have a good time and we'll see everybody the next two Tuesdays from now.