Board of Supervisors Regular First Meeting   9/6/2023

Board of Supervisors at 1pm.

on September 6, 2023 here in Lane Auditorium.

The supervisors who are present today are Supervisor Ned Galloway of the Rio District, Supervisor Ann Mallek of the White Hall District, Supervisor Jim Andrews of the Samuel Miller District, Supervisor Bea LaPisto-Kirtley of the Rivanna District, and myself, Supervisor Donna Price of the Scottsville District.

Supervisor McKeel is not present today.

A quorum is present.

I'd also like to mention and welcome our County Executive, Mr. Jeff Richardson, our County Attorney, Mr. Steve Rosenberg, our Clerk for the Board, Ms.

Claudette Borgerson, and our Deputy Senior Clerk, Mr. Travis Morris.

Let me also welcome Albemarle County Police Officers who are present today, Officer Jay Roman and Officer Matthew Riley.

We thank you for being here.

and for the service that you provide 24-7-365 to protect our community.

You will now join in a moment of silence.

We can now move to item number four, adoption of the final agenda.

I do want to mention for the public that attachment A

For Item 8.8 on the consent agenda, a three-page document was uploaded to the county's website yesterday, September 5th.

This is not an amendment for the agenda.

I'm simply mentioning that for transparency as that document had not previously been uploaded with the other materials.

I am not aware of any

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Mr. Andrews?

Yes.

Yes.

I'll now move to item number five, brief announcements by board members.

Supervisor Galloway?

I have no announcements today.

Thank you.

Yes, I just wanted to say we had a very successful grand opening for the Maple Pine Tie

restaurant, which serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

It's located on 20 right near Grit Coffee.

So if you're ever in the area, please go there.

The food is delicious.

Thank you.

Quick note that the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority is having some of their hazardous waste days coming up the 22nd, 23rd, 9 a.m.

to 2 p.m.

at the Ivey Convenience Center.

The e-waste day on 9-16 is already full, something that people need to sign up in advance and be alerted to when the sign-ups come open.

Bulk e-waste days are also coming

September 30th and then the following two weekends.

Furniture and mattresses on the 30th and appliances on the 7th of October and tires on the 14th.

Always good to do a little fall cleaning instead of just spring cleaning.

Other events coming up, Seize the Day, Veterans Outdoor Day on 9-17 at Walnut Creek Park, so I'm highlighting some that are down Samuel Miller Way.

And Batesville has the Apple Butter Weekend, October 7th and 8th.

and Esmond has the Simpson Park Community Day on Saturday, September 30th.

So, a lot of good events coming up.

Thank you very much.

The 22nd Annual Youth Film Festival at the Lighthouse Studio will be happening at the Paramount, September 15th and these will feature films made by many young filmmakers.

Younger daughter was in the first class when they did this way back when she was in middle school and she's now in her 40s.

So they've been at it for a long, long time.

And hope to see you there.

Tickets are available in the Paramount box office.

And there will be student films from present and also past years featured.

Also, Department of Environmental Quality is developing a cleanup plan to identify actions necessary to address water quality impairment in the North Fork Rivanna River watershed.

There is lots of information available on the DEQ website.

September 20th.

At 6 p.m.

in the library in Sandersville is where the DEQ meeting will be, same place as in past years, and they're looking for people to partner with them, provide input, and also learn more about the program.

In Luray, the news out of the Shenandoah Park is that streams and rivers are closed to fishing due to low stream flows and high water temperatures.

And most of the streams, as is the Mormon's River, are not moving at all.

And just the general caution to everyone, urban or rural, is we have serious water deficit.

We have not met the standards of the state measurements, which happen more than 50 miles away from here.

But there are streams all over the White Hall district that are completely dry, even streams which ran in 2001 and 2002.

which was our drought of records.

So something weird is going on.

And until we get some really significant rain, we all must be very careful, especially understanding there are no rules for rural well use.

If you're using a lot on your own well, you may be depleting your neighbor's aquifer as well.

Thank you, and I appreciate those comments.

Supervisor Mallek, I believe last time I checked, we are about 50% of normal precipitation to this point in the year.

So we want to be careful with our water usage and any fires.

The only thing I would add is that on Sunday, September 10th,

at 830 at Monticello High School.

The public is invited to pay a tribute alongside Albemarle County Fire and Rescue for the victims of September 11, 2001.

Anything else by any other supervisor?

Not seeing anything, thank you.

and Latino Heritage Month.

Thank you very much and yes I would.

This is very near and dear to my heart because where I was a principal before, I was 95% Hispanic and I loved every single day.

Whereas Hispanic and Latino Americans make up 18.5% of the nation's population, making them the largest ethnic minority and enriching every community through their vibrant and diverse cultures and heritage.

And whereas Hispanic and Latino Americans enrich every community, they are a part of through their vibrant and diverse cultures.

and whereas Hispanic and Latino community members make significant contributions through their leadership in government, protecting freedoms as part of the military, helping feed our community through agriculture, inspiring children as educators, helping heal our community as healthcare professionals, and advancing society through science and technology.

And whereas Hispanic and Latino-owned businesses

contribute to Albemarle County's economic growth and creation and whereas the stories of Hispanic and Latino community members are woven into the fabric of our community and Hispanic and Latino history is our collective history.

Now therefore be it resolved that we, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, do hereby recognize September 15th through October 15th

as the 55th National Hispanic and Latino Heritage Month and recommit to building an equitable and inclusive society that works for all members of our community.

Signed the sixth day of September, 2023, Donna Price, Chair, Albemarle County Board of Supervisors.

Thank you.

We have a motion from Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley, a second from Supervisor Malek.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Mr. Andrews?

Yes.

Yes.

All right.

Thank you.

And I believe we have a recipient to receive the proclamation today.

Ms.

Landa Verde.

Good afternoon and welcome.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me here representing the UVA Latino Health Initiative.

I just wanted to add that I arrived to the United States two years ago.

It's been a very fast life, and I'm here now working at UVA Health.

Never in my life I would have imagined that.

So I feel very honored to be here representing the UVA Latino Health Initiative and Dr. Max Luna, who's not here today.

He wrote some very nice words that go exactly in tune with Supervisor LaPisto.

I thought, oh, maybe she read my speech.

So it makes sense because then we're all in tune.

I don't know if I could read my words.

Thank you.

I'm a little bit nervous.

It is with great pleasure that we have the chance to celebrate the 2023 Hispanic Heritage Month with the Albemarle County leadership, representatives, and community.

Latinos and Latinas represent 7.5% of the county's population and a fourth of our school age population and are expected to increase significantly over the next decades.

We are so grateful that the Albemarle community continues to embrace our community and culture with open arms.

Our Latinx community are your neighbors, your kids, your classmates, hardworking people that grow and prepare food for your tables, build your homes, and lead many small businesses in the county.

The UVA Latino Health Initiative has had the honor and pleasure to serve the community over the past 60 years and many of us for more than a decade.

We thank

We thank the community for trusting us in your neighborhoods, places of faith, community centers, and events.

We hope to continue to serve you with the support of UVA Health and the collaboration of many Latinx and non-Latinx organizations in Charlottesville, Albemarle County, and surrounding counties.

We look forward to seeing the Albemarle County community celebrate the Hispanic Heritage Month in many events happening between September 15 to October 15, including our 2023 Latinx Health Fair on Saturday, October 14 at the Albemarle High School.

Thank you for being here.

We do want to give the proclamation to you, and I know that each of the supervisors may want to make some remarks as well.

If you'd like to come up, we open to your right the space for you to be able to come up and receive.

Oh, Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley is bringing it to you.

It doesn't get any better than that.

Let us not forget the excellent

When she said she was there five or six times, that was probably in the past week.

Thank you for being with us today and for sharing your words.

It was wonderful.

We've been doing different proclamations over the last series of months and it's funny to me when I reflect on these how I find what's the most direct influence right now at this time and a lot of it has been connected to reading for me these first, what, nine months now?

Eight months?

but I had started a book a few months ago and reflecting on this by Young Pueblo who is the pen name of Diego Perez who is I believe is

He's from Ecuador.

His heritage is from Ecuador.

But it's a book called Lighter.

And I just started this book.

It's got this opening chapter of reflections.

And it's stuff that you'd expect in a book that's asking you to reflect upon things, like where are you going to be in a year from now and all that.

But one of the questions, actually, the reflection is, what is your relationship to honesty these days?

and that's one that a politician should probably ask themselves fairly regularly but I just share that because right now from when I think of the most direct impact that I have that is coming via was something that you could categorize as Hispanic or Latino heritage that's it and that's right now in my day to day as I read through that book so just thought I would share.

Thank you.

Well, that's hard to top, but I will try.

I just appreciate very much everything that you bring to our community.

Such wealth, such culture, good food of course, but we just really appreciate

the diversity that we all share in our community.

This is a wonderful community of diverse cultures, people, thinking, everything.

And it's really quite exciting.

Not everyone is like Albemarle County.

So we have a lot to be proud of.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I just want to add my gratitude for your being here and representing a community that's a very important part of Albemarle County and deeply appreciative.

Thank you.

Thank you also and please pass to Dr. Max that my husband is doing great.

He was his cardiologist after Leo's heart attack so that was wonderful.

But it's just one example of so many people at all different levels of our life here and the contributions that you make.

Thank you.

I love these proclamations.

I really do because it reflects the world in which we live and it also reflects a little bit about each of us.

My lineage and heritage is Western European.

Irish, Welsh, French, German, and Spanish.

And so I really, it just warms my heart when we take time to recognize all the different parts of what make our society.

And we thank you for being here today and allowing us to share in this joy with you.

Thank you very much.

All right, board and for the public, the office of the clerk for the board of supervisors is a small office, a small but powerful office, and it's not often we get an opportunity to, if you will, recognize our own.

So at this point, I would like to ask the clerk for the board, Ms.

Borgerson, if she would step up to the podium, please.

As a point of privilege as the Chair, it is my privilege and honor to recognize Claudette Borgerson, CMC, the International Institute of Municipal Clerks, confers the title of Certified Municipal Clerk on Ms.

Borgerson.

And before I hand this plaque to you, I would just like to share a little bit with the public before asking Ms.

Borgerson to share a little bit.

But the International Institute of Municipal Clerks, the certified municipal clerk is one of two professional designations granted by the IIMC.

and is designed to enhance the job performance of the clerk in small and large municipalities.

During the CMC designation, a municipal clerk must attend extensive education programs totaling more than 120 educational hours.

It requires pertinent experience in a municipality and it prepares the applicants to meet the challenges of the complex role of the municipal clerk.

by providing them with quality education in partnership with institutions of higher learning and state, provincial, national associations.

So it is my pleasure to publicly recognize your attaining of this very prestigious certification.

Ms.

Thank you, Supervisor Price.

This is a different

View that I'm used to, but I would like to thank the board for acknowledging this accomplishment and I was asked to reflect on what it means to be a certified municipal clerk and make a few comments.

I'd just like to start out by saying that the municipal clerk is one of the oldest public servants in local government and it can be traced back to before Common Era.

Early keeper of archives were called remembrancers.

And when early colonists came to America, they set up forms of local government to which they had been accustomed.

And the office of the clerk was one of the first to be established.

So with that, I'd like to read an excerpt from a poem that encapsulate what it means to be a clerk.

And this has been shortened for time management for the meeting.

It's called The Worth of a Clerk.

Self-government is fragile.

It takes a special hand to create order and keep the peace.

Self-government is precious.

Its worth cannot be measured.

It needs a special talent to preserve what is so treasured.

Self-government is paramount.

Our freedom is based on it, and the eye that watches must be keen, for erosion keeps creeps so silent.

A record kept so carefully will preserve this precious right, and self-government will be kept safe, for the record is the light.

So is given to the clerk.

This precious obligation to keep the record as the light for that freedom's preservation.

I'd like to thank the board for entrusting me with this sacred responsibility.

I'd also like to thank Travis Morris for his support and guidance and to wish Grace well as she begins her journey.

Thank you.

If you will come up, I would like to hand you your plaque.

and the containers.

As Ms.

Borgerson returns to her duties, I would also like to acknowledge the other members of the clerk's office for their performance in public service.

Grace Tamblyn, who is the current Region 4 director and current newsletter co-chair.

Travis Morris, who I previously misidentified as the deputy senior clerk rather than the senior deputy clerk.

who is the VMCA, Virginia Municipal Clerks Association Past President, Webmaster and Parliamentarian.

He is on the IIMC Board of Directors, Region Two Director, International Relations Committee, Public Relations and Marketing Board Liaison, and with the Virginia Association of Government Archives and Records Administration's Executive Board as a member at large and on the nominating committee.

Ms.

Borgerson has also served as the past Region 6 director and the past newsletter co-chair.

Chair Price, I'll be brief, but I will always take an opportunity to talk about the organization's core values.

and it's especially important when you see the clerk's office is a foundational piece of this organization.

Everything that we do in county government matters.

Every job in this organization matters and that goes without saying but the clerk's office in its role to support this board and support our community and to support open government

and the things that they do, it aligns so well with our core values and living our core values.

And when I look at our core values, I'm specifically looking at our commitment to learning.

We encourage and support lifelong learning and professional and personal growth.

Ms.

Borgeson and what she's done, her staff, the support, but also the things that they do and are doing to stay current in their field is a small but very important example of what we mean when we say living our core values.

We are a learning organization.

As she was speaking, I was looking across the auditorium and I see so many of my colleagues that I work with who have recently gone to school and you've got your certification,

You are working on additional education.

We have an officer that is supporting this meeting today that is writing an academic paper this evening during the meeting as he keeps an eye to make sure we stay safe, but he's also achieving his four-year degree.

And so these examples are all around us with this organization.

And what Ms.

Borgeson has done is, again, living our core values.

She's committed to not just doing the job, but staying current in her field.

and staying, and that is a part of us earning and retaining the public's trust.

And I believe that as everything changes around us that we must also, as an organization, we must commit ourselves to lifelong learning so that we can stay relevant.

Local government must stay relevant.

And so in order to do that, we must keep pace with the community that we serve.

And so I'm very proud of her.

I'm very proud of her team.

I'm very proud of our organization and our commitment to

Thank you, Mr. Richardson.

You know, the public service goes beyond, as so evidenced by members of this organization, just their day jobs.

That officer you mentioned is a Marine, not a former Marine, because once a Marine, always a Marine.

but has previously served the country wearing the uniform of the United States Marine Corps and is now continuing to serve wearing the uniform of Albemarle County Police Department.

Thank you, Mr. Richardson.

Thank you, Ms.

Borgerson, Mr. Morris, and Ms.

Hamplin.

We'll now move to, I'm sorry, oh, yep, supervisors.

Claudette, congratulations.

It was interesting when you look at the IIMC's website and you look at the courses you took, such as how to wrangle cats and herd cats.

I think one was toddlers, teenagers, and electeds.

What's the difference?

Tips such as what to do with an elected when they don't respond to email, text, or phone call.

So all the things you have to contend with and deal with we're certainly appreciative of.

I had the distinct honor to be chair for three years.

Prior to Chair Price's tenure and I can say that if there's any of the items that could have been put into a success column was due in large part to the partnership and relationship I had with you as the clerk.

So I'm deeply appreciative of that time and the time during my service on the board.

Thank you.

I also thank you, Claudette, and also Travis and Grace, because bottom line, for those of you that are out there, we could not do this job if it wasn't for them.

It would not happen.

We are so grateful for your organizational ability, for your shoulder to cry on.

That was for Ned, actually.

but everything you do makes us look good and I myself am very, very appreciative for all you do.

You just keep us on the straight and narrow and make sure we don't mess up too much and greatly appreciative and congratulations on your higher ed.

Thank you.

Just to echo those same comments, congratulations on the recognition of both education and experience that it takes to become a certified municipal clerk.

This is the first year for me to be in a position of being a vice chair and before this I really didn't fully appreciate what goes into

putting together the materials for every meeting and working that agenda out and then making sure that everything runs smoothly.

It does so well because you're so good at it that people don't really appreciate it, I think, sometimes how smoothly it runs.

How much work goes into it, that is.

Thank you.

Thank you.

As one of the usual suspects back there where Ms.

Olivier is sitting for about 17 years, I was able to see the operations of both of Claudette's predecessors.

But the last one was here for 15.

And I think it's really important that people, civilians in the crowd here, understand how much stepping into that role was like drinking from three fire hoses, not just one.

Because there were so many moving parts and so many details.

Not all of them were written down, so I really appreciate all the work that all of you have done to carry forward and to be that forward face that the citizens, who the citizens will greet and who will greet the citizens calmly and cheerfully despite their whatever is going on with them to be able to get help from the county.

I appreciate all the work you do.

The only thing I'd add is that retired Navy, when I see the letter CMC, I think Command Master Chief.

That sounds right.

That is right, absolutely, Supervisor Mallek, because the clerk is sort of the Command Master Chief, the honest broker, the person who I can always turn to to make sure that we are doing things the way they are supposed to be done because the clerk has no interest other than ensuring

Matters on the agenda but not listed for public hearing or on matters previously considered by the board or matters pending before the board.

Yes, thank you.

We have, I believe, in-person only sign-ups.

During this time, set aside for matters on the agenda but not listed for public hearing, individuals may address the Board of Supervisors concerning matters previously considered by the Board or matters that are pending before the Board other than items listed on the agenda for public hearing.

individuals are allowed one opportunity for up to three minutes to speak at each board meeting.

The sign-up sheet is managed by the clerk's office.

Timekeeping is connected through a timer and light system at the podium.

The green light will go on when you begin speaking, which begins your allotted time.

The yellow light indicates that you have one minute to finish speaking.

The red light indicates your time has expired.

and you'll be asked to end your comments.

To give all speakers equal treatment and courtesy, the board requests that speakers adhere to the following guidelines.

When addressing the board, please state your name and if you live in Albemarle County or Magisterial District, please address comments directly to the board as a whole.

Any written statements or other supporting material may be given to the clerk.

If representing a group or organization, you may ask others present to raise their hands in recognition.

Speakers may not share any unused time with another speaker.

Back and forth debate is not permitted.

Please do not speak from your seat or out of turn as all comments are live streamed, recorded, and published on the Albemarle County website.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Marta Cain, CEO of Java and also a resident of the Rio district.

It's always a pleasure to come before you.

I wanted to come and thank you all for your support for the fiscal year 24.

We appreciated that you continued to see the value in assisting seniors in this community.

I also wanted to just

highlight the fact that we were one of the first to have the view of the sweeping beauty.

Our seniors at our Mary Williams Community Center had a great time going out to the sidewalk and cheering them along and that was a lot of fun.

So I appreciate whoever thought of us.

That was great.

So thank you.

You've got two handouts in front of you.

One, I believe, Supervisor McKeel had passed around, but now you have your own copy of the annual report so you can take

your time to peruse it.

I think it gives more of a picture of us as a whole.

It talks about our impact by numbers, some recognition highlights.

Probably the most important pages are the different outcomes, satisfaction by program, and then gives you some information on our expanding caregiver support, which we really see as a growing need in this community and everywhere as more and more caregivers are

being called on and trying to help them find ways for respite.

The second handout, the job of stories, is more the emotional side, the how to feel good about what we're doing.

It talks about individuals and gives you a sense of our different programs.

Not all of them are highlighted in the stories.

Each quarter we'll have different stories and different highlights, but it's a chance to just get a sense of

The programs and how the clients feel and what they get out of that program.

One page I do want to highlight because it's got a nice impact is the Mary Williams Community Center will be expanding.

We've had such interest in it that we're adding on another space and so right now we're at our max and so pretty soon we probably will be at about 50 members and that's very exciting.

and then of course we continue to grow southern Albemarle as well.

The only other two things I want to mention is that since it is the beginning or getting near National Hispanic and Latinx Month, our materials are now translated into Spanish as well and we do work with Dr. Luna and his group.

Good afternoon.

I'm Tom Olivier from the Samuel Miller district.

In 1972, the Club of Rome published a report titled The Limits to Growth.

It presented findings of a model of the world built by scientists using system dynamics and computer simulations.

The model explored interactions of population, natural resources, industrial and agricultural production, and pollution.

The modeling showed that, and guess what,

Growth cannot continue indefinitely, and if we do not change our ways, ecological crises and a collapse of societies is likely probably in the 21st century.

The report warned half a century ago, entirely new approaches are required to redirect society toward goals of equilibrium rather than growth.

Of course, over the past 50 years, we've not redirected our society from growth to equilibrium.

We've enjoyed expanding our numbers and our economies.

As projected by the Club of Rome, recent growth has disturbed planetary biophysical systems.

We now enjoy the resulting heat waves, wildfires everywhere, previously impossible hurricanes, a biodiversity collapse, destabilized ocean currents, and so much more.

IPCC reports state we have little time left to transform our societies and contain climate change.

So here we are apparently teetering on the brink of a global collapse projected half a century ago.

What do we do?

Late in the club's report, it warns a decision to do nothing is a decision to increase the risk of collapse Heeding this, I believe that our new comprehensive plan must, at the beginning, acknowledge the scale of current ecological crises It should acknowledge that our planning decisions must address requirements of environmental sustainability

Alas, AC44 draft documents do not acknowledge the dire state of the planet or the need to pursue sustainability.

The new plan structure drops the rural areas chapter despite public cherishing of our open spaces.

The planning toolkits prepared for today's work session are all about development.

We need a course correction in the comprehensive plan update.

The new plan must broadly recognize and resolutely address environmental threats to our community.

It should support the forthcoming PEC proposals.

As Board of Supervisors, you can require these things and make them happen.

Thanks.

Good afternoon.

My name is Rob McGinnis and I'm with the Piedmont Environmental Council.

I attended the planning commission work session on the four AC44 toolkits and there were many constructive discussions and recommendations offered by the commissioners that I believe have improved the toolkits.

Though the toolkits will, to some extent, address protection of rural area resources, the absence of any toolkit-type recommendations that directly address natural resources, biodiversity, cultural landscapes, water supply protection, and rural area character are on a level equal to the four toolkits is greatly concerning.

PEC is calling on the county to include a requirement in the AC 44 comprehensive plan for the preparation of a standalone rural areas plan.

Given that the AC44 rural areas policy element will be a section within the land use and transportation chapter and will be less comprehensive and detailed than the standalone rural area chapter in the 2015 comprehensive plan, a rural area plan that is comprehensive, includes mapping, and is informed by significant public engagement is necessary to implement AC44 rural area policies.

The Rural Area Plan should be adopted into the AC44 Comprehensive Plan.

PEC is also advocating for the establishment of a Development Areas Task Force that would be charged with addressing the impediments to accommodating projected growth in the development areas.

Such a task force would not be the first of its kind.

After the board adopted the 1996 Comprehensive Plan, a Development Area Initiative Steering Committee was established.

This new task force should identify impediments and develop a range of actions to address the impediments to accommodating projected growth in the current development areas.

The county should establish a development areas task force as soon as possible and should not wait for the completion of the AC44 comprehensive plan.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

My name is Amanda Bilchick and I live in Albemarle County.

I would like to echo what the past speakers have said.

I'm currently a junior at Western Albemarle High School and I urge the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors to make environmental protection a priority in the new comprehensive plan.

Arguably, the most significant problem facing society in Generation Z is climate change.

Soon, the effects will become reversible, so it is imperative that young people who are going to face the most disastrous effects get involved in the climate conversation.

My peers, teachers, family, and friends love Charlottesville, especially because of its natural environment.

We look forward to the weekends where we get to spend time together on the mountain trails or at a nearby lake.

It is crucial that the county preserves its open spaces.

Please put climate curriculum, natural resource preservation and climate disaster plans as top priorities in the county's comprehensive plan.

I speak on behalf of my school, my neighborhood and my family.

Please make the county part of the solution and set an example for the rest of the community.

Thank you.

Alright, thank you.

As I mentioned earlier, attachment A for item 8.8

was uploaded to the county website yesterday afternoon.

Again, that's not an amendment.

I'm not aware of any amendments to the consent agenda.

So moved.

All right.

We have a motion from Supervisor Andrews, a second from Supervisor Malek.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley.

Aye.

Ms.

Malek.

Yes.

Ms.

Price.

Aye.

Mr. Andrews.

Yes.

Yes.

All right.

We can now move to item number nine, resolutions authorizing the issue of bond anticipation note and bond issuances.

Thank you, Chair Price.

A momentary delay for some technical difficulties, so thank you for that.

Good afternoon, board supervisors.

My name is Jacob Sumner.

I'm the interim chief financial officer for the county.

And I'm joined today by Courtney Rogers of Davenport & Company.

He is our financial advisor and helps us with our investments and our debt issuances.

Today, we'll be presenting a resolution authorizing the issuance of bond anticipation notes and a bond issuance.

The financing plan that we have before the board today is a little unique, and unique in that it is one financing package, but within that package it contains two debt issuances and two distinctly different debt issuances.

The total financing plan totals $178 million.

Of that, $118 million is for our bonds that we use to fund our capital improvement projects.

These capital improvement projects include projects for schools for education, namely our school maintenance replacement program, the Crozet Elementary renovation expansion, Mountain View Elementary expansion, as well as some of our other projects including our courts project that is currently underway, and some of our other projects related to public safety, parks and recreation, and public works.

I will note of the $118 million, $40.2 million have already been expended, so that first $40 million of this issuance would be going towards reimbursing the county for these capital improvements.

The remaining $77.8 million would be used to future fund capital expenditures that are currently appropriated and are nearing the construction phase of the project.

So these would be some near-term expenditures that we'd have on our capital improvement plan.

The structure of this first financing or this first issuance, excuse me, is it'll be non-taxable issuance and would have a 20-year maturity.

So this is a long-term debt obligation that the county would undertake.

The second issuance is slightly different, namely in structure but also in what it would be utilized for.

The second issuance is a bond anticipation notes not to exceed 60 million dollars for the acquisition of the Rivanna Station Futures property.

I've been before the board a couple of times giving updates along the way as part of the Random Station Futures project and this is now the culmination of those updates where we are here today requesting the issuance of the bond anticipation notes.

The structure for the bands, the anticipation notes, are that they will be taxable and that they will have a five-year maturity.

As you can see, they'll be much shorter than the first issuance.

And that five-year maturity, as I've relayed earlier, will provide us some flexibility to engage with partners as we move through the Rivanna Station Futures opportunity.

With the debt issuance, the one thing that we need to take a look at as part of our financial policies is our debt ratios.

On the screen in front of us is our two main debt ratios.

The first one is our debt to assess value, and the second one is our debt service to revenues.

Our debt service to assess values states that we shall not exceed 2% of our estimated market value of our taxable property.

And the ratio for our debt service expenditures to our revenues say that we shall not exceed 10%.

The final statement there is an intention statement that is also listed in our financial policies that is focused on our payout ratio.

We intend to maintain a 10-year payout ratio at or above 60% of our adopted five-year CIP plan.

So a report out on these financial policies and the projection of what those look like over the next 10 years is currently on the screen and on the next two slides.

The financial policy that is before us right now is the debt as a percentage of assessed value.

Again, this is a forward perspective look and so there's some assumptions built in.

The assumptions that are built into these ratios include the debt issuance that is being requested for authorization today, as well as debt issuances every other year going forward, according to our current projected spend plans of our capital improvement plan.

This also includes the full $60 million of our Vanna Station Futures conversion of that band to long-term debt.

Now, I did just mention ago that the five-year maturity of the bank gives us flexibility to bring in partners.

But as we are looking to the future, we want to make sure that we take into account worst-case scenarios.

So that's what we're doing in this case.

We're taking an assumption that we would convert the long-term debt in its full amount, and we want to compare that to what our thresholds would look like.

And as you can see with this policy that's before us, we do maintain compliance with our financial policies in relation to our debt as a percentage of assessed value.

The second financial policy, debt service as a percentage of revenues, contains the same assumptions.

As you can see, our debt service as a percentage of revenues starts to increase and particularly takes a spike around fiscal year 28 and 29.

That is a direct reflection of that worst case scenario that I was talking about, where we would take on the full component and full long-term debt of the Rivanna Station Futures debt issuance.

The band is in interest only for the first five years, and the spike in debt service that you see in this projection would be when we convert it to long-term debt, which would include both interest and principal.

The final financial policy that I wanted to bring to the board today was our payout ratio.

Now, I mentioned in the two slides ago that this was an intention statement.

You will see the green line that is on the chart before you.

That is the intention of our policies to remain at a 60% payout ratio.

You'll notice that within the first five years, from 24 to 28, we're going to be just below, just below that policy.

But that's OK.

That's OK, because the reason that we dip below that is a direct reflection of how the bond anticipation note for organization futures

incorporates into this calculation.

As I mentioned, the band is in interest only for the first five years.

However, the full amount of the $60 million of debt would go into that payout ratio.

Once we would move into a long-term debt stance with that issuance, we would then start paying down parts of the principal.

After working with Mr. Rogers and the rest of the financial advisor team, there's not any concern with the rating agencies because they understand the structure of the bond anticipation note and how it has a short-term impact on this policy.

There are some next steps that are included with this debt issuance.

We'll be presenting here in just a few minutes a proposed resolution for the board to take action upon.

And later this evening, as part of our budget public hearing, we'll have the appropriation for the organization futures project.

That will be at the evening session.

Should the board go ahead and approve the resolution for them today, we would then take the bond issuance to the Economic Development Authority, in which they will be the conduit issuer for this financing.

At their September 19th EDA meeting, we would have a similar presentation and be requesting them to take action on a similar bond resolution.

Staff would then move into October and engage with the rating agencies and we would work through our presentation on our projects and then obtain our rating, credit ratings from the agencies at that time.

With a look into late October into November to move towards bond sale and eventually into bond closing.

That is all the formal presentation I have.

I'll be glad to take any questions.

Before I do, I just wanted to thank a few members of our team.

Obviously, we have Davenport and Company as our financial advisors, but the work that goes into the debt issuance is a team effort.

I particularly want to thank Daniel Green, who is our Chief of Treasury, Heather Taylor, who is our Deputy Chief of Treasury,

and Tia Mitchell, who is our senior budget analyst who works closely with our debt and capital.

They were an integral part of where we are today.

Alright, thank you Mr. Sumner and also thank you for recognizing your staff team that has helped work on this.

We will go through our order for questions.

The slide, the total with the 8 and the 10 with the red line at the 10.

And I'm sorry, Jacob, I can't remember if this question was answered in the prep meetings.

Prior to 24, the blue line getting to 8, did we have the history of that?

I would have to go back a little bit further.

I don't believe within the past two years, two, three years, we were close to the eight.

I seem to think there was a time, or maybe it was projected, that we could get between seven and eight.

Maybe it didn't come to be.

But the point is that eight is always kind of the, we're in the red zone before we hit the goal line, right?

We don't want to get to that red, and we want to leave that 2% there.

So the fact that we're staying below that eight number

in this particular instance with what you guys are planning is a good thing in my view.

So I don't know if we were going to do comments later.

I don't really have any questions.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Sumner.

Could you go to slide, I think it was three or four, where it showed

Regarding the $60 million for Rivanna Station Futures, I appreciate the fact that you've given us the worst case scenario in the lines.

Could you tell us what would be the best case scenario?

How would we be able to deal with this debt?

You know, we get other defense contractors in there, should we get other people in their building doing something.

Sure.

So the bond anticipation notes, they do have a five-year maturity.

So once we reach that time frame, we will need to address these bonds again.

So if we do have other partners that are able to invest with us at the same time, that final amount which we would turn into a long-term debt potentially could be lower.

I'm gonna have to defer to others at this moment that are more closely involved in that.

Sure.

And Jeff Richardson, County Executive, and Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley, you're exactly right that over the next five years, as Mr. Sumner has said, this is a five-year plan with an opportunity to extend, if necessary, beyond five years.

And our financial analysis has suggested that we should plan for no significant change in the next five years, and we can still afford this.

However, your point about other partners

These are partners to be named as we continue to go through our work with the state, asking the state to help us with this, with this perimeter.

Maybe as you would approach it almost like a master plan for what the Rivanna property could be over the next 5, 10, 15 years.

You're exactly right that it could end up being state or federal partners or it could be

academic institutions and it also could be private partners either closer to the work of a Rivanna station or a little further away depending on the nature of the work.

So these are all possibilities.

Mr. Henry is on point with the state on a regular basis and he calls this the art of the possibility and that is what can we do to maximize

I thank you.

I'm very hopeful and thank you for the forward thinking of the staff.

Now the work that goes into this and the deep thought about how best to manage our debt.

I know that I had previously sent an email with some questions and I don't know whether you're able to share, for example, the table that compared

The budget projections that we adopted for this year in the CIP with how those have been adjusted by this borrowing.

Sure, I don't have it with me as part of the presentation, but I can verbally speak to it and explain a little bit what that chart looks like.

So as part of our budget development process, we have assumptions that were built into the 24 budget and in the five-year plan.

That included future debt issuances that we had anticipated.

At that point in time, over a note in what we had anticipated in FY20, now you're testing my memory, Supervisor Andrews, FY25 was about $130 million debt issuance.

What we essentially are doing is shifting that time frame a little bit instead of being in FY25.

We're doing that a little bit more now so that we can take advantage of the market environment, the market rates.

And also we have some projects that are now really moving towards the construction phase.

And we're looking to have the cash support and the bond issuance needs help support those projects.

How that compares, the $118 million that you see on the screen, is that comparison, the $118 now versus $130 million that we had planned for in the budget, but that's just a shift.

Thank you.

That's exactly what was reflected in what I've seen, so I appreciate the clarification.

It showed looking at four years versus five years that were very comparable numbers going out.

Maybe I can address that question slightly differently.

In our capital improvement plans we have a project that's titled public-private partnerships that's within our economic development area.

Thank you.

The other chart I'll just mention is that we did look at five-year history, and while the trend had been

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

I so appreciate all the work that you and Courtney, I see you hiding.

I'm glad you've hung on this long to get us to this really exciting venture because it does require a whole lot more involvement, but the returns are going to be wonderful.

So thank you very much.

All right, thank you, and I have no questions.

I do find that the experience of this board is very helpful.

Supervisor Andrews' prior experience as a bond attorney has helped all of us learn a lot about this process, in addition, of course, to the professionalism of your staff, Mr. Sumner.

Ms.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and members of the board.

If I could add a little perspective.

I've been working with you all now 23 years, and so hearing some of your thoughts and questions, I thought this might be helpful to you.

A couple things.

Yes, our ratios have been going down.

One of the things that's helped us, of course, was the low borrowing rates that we had over the last several years.

It's definitely helped not only yours, but other entities who have been borrowing.

We project

at a more conservative rate and would come in a little better, which is what we've been fortunate to do at this point.

And I think what you're seeing is with getting back up to that 8 percent level, keep in mind that some of those long-term, the future bonds that we're talking about that we'll be bonding for for some time, we're using higher interest rates.

and what we've been seeing is those rates have come in better and so we've turned it back down.

So we hope we won't get up to 8%, but we're at least giving you sort of a what we think is a worst case scenario.

Could things get a lot worse?

Sure, but we hope not.

One of the things that I also mentioned about moving these bonds up,

Right now, we expect to be under 4% for 20-year money for the non-taxable piece.

So, not talking about the five-year maturity, that's taxable, so it's going to be higher.

But for the non, the $118 million piece, we expect that to be under 4% if we were to go to market today.

But we projected it higher.

So in these numbers you're seeing, we projected it higher than that, and we hope to come in, obviously, longer.

So hopefully the market will hang in there for us for another couple months.

What we've been seeing out in the bond market, we sold bonds last week for the City of Richmond for their utilities, a little over $100 million.

And on a normal week, we've been seeing about $8 billion in the marketplace.

Last week was only $3 billion.

And it wasn't because we were moving into a holiday week like we are this week.

There's just not a lot of folks selling bonds out there.

So it's not a bad time to go out and sell bonds.

We are seeing the calendar starting to fill up for the fall.

I think people are realizing a lot of local governments have had ARPA money that's being finally spent and working through that.

But they're realizing that rates may not get better.

We have projects to do.

Let's go get it done.

And so I think you all are starting to see and recognize some of that, too.

Because we did see a little bit of a slowdown in the early part of the year where folks were just like, hey, I've got to figure out where I am.

before I go out

Inflation is going to be a lot higher than that under 4% borrowing rate.

The other good thing I'll add is we haven't seen this in about 20 years, and that is we're going to go out and borrow again at, I'll just say, 4% or under, but we're going to be able to invest at least at that rate.

It wasn't that long ago our investment rates for money sitting idle until we have invoices to pay for these projects, we were earning 0.25%, way less than 0.5%.

Now we're able to borrow.

We can't earn arbitrage.

The US government makes us pay back what we don't earn or what we're not allowed to earn.

But we at least won't lose money on the money sitting in the bank until you've spent it.

So that's another good reason to go ahead and get in the market now.

because we don't know where rates are going.

They may end up lower next year, but if the Fed starts finally lowering the front end, the lower rates, the back end could go up.

We could go back to a normal yield curve where we have higher rates longer and shorter rates lower.

It is.

Sure.

The arbitrage aspect of it is, so we can't go out and borrow at 4% and invest at 5% and then basically earn that 1% difference unless we meet certain tests.

And those tests basically mean we have to spend them very quickly within either an 18 month or 24 month period.

We have to meet certain percentage spend down requirements.

And right now, it's very hard to do that because projects are taking a little bit longer than normal.

So we really are telling our clients, don't anticipate you're going to earn any arbitrage.

Assume that you're going to basically, if you borrow 4%, you can earn 4%.

If you earn 5%, you got to pay the US government the difference between that 4% and 5%.

So we're just not allowed to borrow and make money, essentially.

That was put in place back in 1986 because

To be too far in the weeds for just a quick second, the reason is they don't want too many taxes.

Thank you.

You have questions by supervisors?

Real quick follow-up on that.

You referenced the two different interest rates.

For the taxable piece, you're correct.

So the taxable piece, it's a harder number to figure out right now.

The 10-year Treasury, it's already up to like four and a quarter, maybe even higher than that today.

the taxable bonds are actually priced off of the taxable market and so there's a bigger there's a wider difference today than there was even a couple years ago between tax exempt and taxable bonds so we could see for a five-year maturity I think the five-year rate when I looked the other it was like enough I want to say it was like four

We could be at five and a half percent.

We could be even higher than that with that taxable rate.

But that money is going out the door immediately.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Not questions, just two comments.

Because, you know, prior to this and the approach, because this would be a little different approach, I mean, this is a way to open up capacity.

I mean, prior to this, we just accept a rate, and the lowest rate, we, you know, that's the cost.

So to get capacity, you have to go get more money.

How do we get more money in this county?

Well, a lot of times it's on the property tax.

So when we talk about during budget season and tax time of trying to alleviate the pressure on the tax rate, finding new ways to get capacity without just raising revenue, I mean, this is a cost avoidance in a lot of ways, but that opens up some capacity for us.

So that's important for people to know.

And the 8% and the 10%, I mean,

I mean, I would imagine there are folks in this community have said, well, we've got the capacity.

Let's run it up there because you can do more.

Let's go to nine, nine and a half, 9.8.

But if you do that and then you have a blip or an unexpected piece, you've just, the risk or the consequence of then you then you bump up over the 10 is going to really be problematic.

So the discipline that this county has had, and dare I say it's been not of

Supervisor Galloway, you're exactly right.

That was the other point I wanted to make, which was one of the reasons we're at that 8% in those guidelines is because you've added $60 million that was really not in your CIP.

It just popped up.

It's an opportunity.

It's an investment opportunity here.

And so you've put yourself in the position in the last several years of being able to add that $60 million investment and not get to a 10% number, still have capacity because you're right.

We could have a recession.

We could have a downturn in the values.

Or you could have another opportunity come up that all of a sudden you might need funds for.

And so with the good guidance that you all have given to your staff, you've put yourself in that position to be able to make this investment

and still not have yourself right up against the limit in case there is something else that comes down.

Because you are adding two things.

You've got the $60 million purchase, but you also have a very big investment in the courthouse.

And that's not something that comes around very often.

Thank you.

Any other comments?

No?

Thank you, Mr. Rogers.

All right.

I move that the board adopt the resolution as in attachment A. Or do I need to read this entire motion, Mr. Rosenberg?

I would suggest that you read the entire motion.

Facilities projects through the issuance of one or more series of revenue obligations by the Economic Development Authority of Albemarle County, Virginia, authorizing the issuance of up to $178 million in debt and the form and execution of documents proposed to be used in connection with the issuance of such debt.

Second.

All right, motion from Supervisor Galloway, second from Supervisor Mallek.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Mr. Andrews?

Yes.

Yes.

Thank you.

All right, Board, we're ready for item number 10, presentation, Metropolitan Planning Organization Smart Scale Changes in Review Process.

Ms.

Shackelford, good afternoon.

Good afternoon Chair Price, members of the board.

My name is Sandy Shackelford and I am the Director of Planning and Transportation for the Charlottesville Albemarle Olympia, which is administered by the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission.

It is my pleasure to be here this afternoon to speak to you all about the discussion that is occurring among the members of the Commonwealth Transportation Board related to a review of the SmartScale program.

This presentation is summarizing many hours of technical detailed discussions by the Commonwealth Transportation Board and I have about 15 minutes so I am going to give you a very high level summary of what the discussions are occurring right now and I am going to jump right in and move quickly through the main points that you should be aware of.

In our discussion today, my goal is to very briefly cover some background information that will be helpful to have fresh in your mind as you hear about the proposed changes.

And then I'm going to review the discussions that the CTB, the Commonwealth Transportation Board, has been having about the administration and the performance of the SmartScale program.

This will cover the issues that have been identified by the Office of Intermodal Planning and Investment staff in their review of the program, as well as their recommendations.

At the end of each section, I will briefly highlight the potential implications for the changes and review the process that the CTB is following to receive feedback and make final decisions about the changes to the SmartScale program.

I do want to caveat that all analysis presented here this afternoon is based on my understanding, but that the Office of Intermodal Planning and Investment staff has been requested to prepare the likely outcomes for each of the construction districts for consideration at the September Commonwealth Transportation Board meeting.

Ms.

Hirsch-Ballering has provided some good background information on the SmartScale program over the last several months.

So I'm going to provide a very brief refresher to give you some context for the rest of the discussion.

SmartScale really consists, if you recall, of two funding programs.

There's a district grant program and a high priority program.

The district grant program is intended to fund projects that are of local significance.

So localities are the only eligible applicants for the district grant program.

The high priority program is intended to fund projects that are of regional or statewide significance.

So in addition to localities, regional entities such as MPOs or PDCs are also eligible applicants.

Applications are scored based on the scoring factors that are listed here, safety, congestion, accessibility, et cetera.

and then their factor weighting is based on the defined area type.

The urbanized portions of Albemarle County that are included as part of the MPO boundary are reflected in area type B and then the rural portions of Albemarle County would be considered area type C.

In February, the Office of Intermittal Planning and Investment staff was charged with conducting a comprehensive review of the SmartScale program to assess how well the program is meeting its stated objectives.

The presentation I'm sharing with you all today is based on the program review and discussions that are being held.

This next slide shows a summary of the major issues that have been identified and discussed at the Commonwealth Transportation Board to date.

I will briefly review the first bullet, the application quality and administration burdens today, and then I will spend most of the time this afternoon talking about bullets 335.

I do not have a lot of information yet on the implications of bullet number two that will likely be discussed further at the Commonwealth Transportation Board meeting in September along with some other implications.

The first issue I'd like to discuss today is related to the administrative burden that has been identified associated with preparing a high number of applications and therefore supporting the delivery of a high number of projects and concerns regarding declining application quality.

As the SmartScale program has grown since its initial inception, the state's capacity to maintain the program has remained the same, which has led to some significant capacity constraints.

So to resolve this issue, the Commonwealth Transportation Board is considering reducing the maximum number of applications each entity is eligible to submit.

Currently, each entity in the region can submit four applications, and the recommendation is to reduce that number to two.

Moving forward to our discussion about process biases, the second issue is related to the amount of time that has been spent at the Commonwealth Transportation Board meetings discussing perceived process biases that lead to outcomes that favor small projects, which are defined in this context as projects with a cost of less than $10 million over large projects, and specifically small projects that favor small bicycle and pedestrian improvements.

A project is considering a bicycle or pedestrian project in this discussion if bicycle and pedestrian improvement is the largest component of the application.

Although they have stressed at the Commonwealth Transportation Board meetings that 50% of highway projects also include multimodal elements.

Discussions about the process bias have centered around the following concerns.

First, there is a perception that applicants are submitting smaller projects because they are likely to be more competitive, not necessarily because those are the highest priority projects for the locality or the region.

Second, there's a concern that applicants are breaking what should be one large project into several smaller projects in order to make them more competitive for funding.

And third, there are concerns that have been expressed that high-priority program funding is being allocated to small projects that aren't demonstrating significant impacts or improvements to corridors of statewide significance or regional networks.

You may recall that there were a significant number of projects that were funded in our region in round four.

That was largely due to the additional revenue that was generated by the statewide wholesale fuels tax, which increased the amount of funding that was added to the district grant program.

One of the concerns with the increased funding of small projects through the high priority program is that funding for the district grant programs, which are intended to fund smaller locally significant projects, increased as a result of that additional wholesale fuels tax, dedicating more money to that funding source, while the amount of funding for the high priority program has not increased since the program was originally implemented.

There are two main factors that have been discussed at the Commonwealth Transportation Board meetings that are contributing to the process biases that are being demonstrated.

The first is the influence of the land use scoring factor in determining project benefits, and the second is the types of projects that are eligible to receive funding through the High Priority Program.

So we will start with the land use scoring factor as part of this discussion.

As referenced in the smart scale technical guide, the land use scoring factor is intended, and this is a little bit of a mouthful, to improve the consistency of the connection between local comprehensive plan goals for transportation efficient land use and the transportation infrastructure design, multimodal accommodation, and system operations.

However, the land use coordination factor is not explicitly listed in the state code as a required consideration in the smart scale project prioritization.

Concerns with the land use coordination factor center around the amount of influence the single scoring factor is having over the selection of projects for funding.

Based on the program analysis, the Office of Intermodal Planning and Investment staff found that when considering the projects that were selected for funding between rounds one and five of SmartScale, the total percentage of benefits that those successful projects received from the land use score more than doubled, going from 23% to 49%.

Funded small projects received a higher percentage of their benefit points from land use than funded larger projects.

And then notably funded bicycle and pedestrian projects received 74% of their benefit points from the land use scored round five compared to the 37% that funded highway projects received.

Concerns raised about the current application of the land use scoring process include that it is capturing where projects are located, not necessarily what the expected outcomes of the projects are.

That projects are being selected for funding without demonstrating benefits and other scoring criteria that are included as mandatory considerations in the state code.

And that this single scoring factor is having a disproportionate influence over the types of projects that are being funded.

To address these concerns about the land use score, the Office of Intermodal Planning and Investment staff is recommending that projects continue to receive land use coordination benefits, but that the land use coordination factor be converted from a standalone score to a multiplier.

This multiplier would be used to enhance the benefits that projects receive and other scoring factors.

The rationale is that a land use multiplier would continue to provide a benefit for projects that will support coordination between land use and transportation, but ensure that land use is not driving the selection of projects for funding.

While the impact of this adjustment would lower smart scale scores overall, it would have the largest impact on small projects, which are defined as those with a cost of less than $10 million, and specifically on small bicycle and pedestrian projects.

Based on this adjustment, and not considering any of the other adjustments that are being discussed at this time,

The only project that would have likely been recommended for funding within the MPA region would have been the US 250 Peter Jefferson Parkway Intersection Improvements Project submitted by the TJPDC.

And as you probably recall, this project was actually recommended for funding and was then substituted out in order to fund the District Avenue Roundabout Project.

The Avon Street multi-modal project, which was submitted by the MPO and ended up having the second highest score in the district in round five, would rank number 32 out of the 38 projects that were submitted in the Culpeper construction district under the revised land use scoring methodology.

The second factor contributing to the small project bias that has been discussed in the Commonwealth Transportation Board meetings is the type of projects that are funded through the High Priority Program.

The stated purpose of the High Priority Program in the state code is to fund projects that have regional or statewide significance.

The current smart scale policy defines where projects must be located in order to be eligible for funding through the high priority program, which means they need to meet a state defined need on a corridor statewide significance or regional network.

But it does not currently define the types of projects that should be eligible for funding through the high priority program.

To address the concern about small projects without significant regional or statewide significance being funded through the high priority program, the Commonwealth Transportation Board is considering defining the types of projects that would be eligible for high priority program funding to those that are listed here.

New capacity highway, managed lanes, new or improved interchanges, new or improved passenger rail stations or service, freight rail improvements, fixed guideway transit.

Noting that regional entities like the MPO and the PDC are only eligible to submit projects for funding through the high priority program, this would limit the types of projects that the MPO, PDC, and transit agencies would be eligible to the types of projects that are listed here.

This slide shows the totality of the projects that were submitted within the MPO region during rounds one through five of smart scale that would meet that definition.

As a comparison, the TJPDC and the MPO have submitted a combined total of 28 project applications to date.

I am a little uncertain on whether or not these last two projects on the bottom would meet that revised definition, but it would be somewhere between six and eight of the 28 projects that would have been eligible based on the new definition.

The MPO was the submitting entity for all of the projects that are shown here, which indicates that our region is already relying on the MPO to submit high priority regional applications.

However, there are also projects identified as regional priorities that the MPO would no longer be eligible to submit, such as the hydraulic 29 project package that was successfully awarded funding when the full grade separated project failed to be competitive.

While the intention of the proposed changes to the SmartScale program is to increase the likelihood that some of these larger projects could be effectively funded, it would also mean that there would be more reliance on localities to act as the applicants for improvements that are less extensive.

even if they are identified by the region as high priorities.

The final discussion is related to a concern with the high priority program funding low scoring projects, which is a result of the way the high priority program funding is allocated.

Currently, all applications, regardless of which funding program they are eligible for, are sorted by construction district.

The first step in funding projects through SmartScale is to allocate the district grant program funding.

And then the second funding step allocates high-priority program funding on a district-wide basis.

It is now until we get to the third step that high-priority program funding is allocated on a statewide basis.

The second funding step currently provides a reasonable opportunity for each district to receive funding allocations for projects that are only eligible for high-priority program funding.

However, one of the concerns expressed is that this is also at times leading to projects that are demonstrating lower overall benefits being funded over projects in different districts that may have higher demonstrated benefits.

So I'll go through an example to explain.

This is a completely hypothetical construction district with a hypothetical set of projects.

So the way the current funding steps work, all projects are first sorted into construction districts and prioritized based on their score regardless of which grant program they are eligible for.

In the first step, funding is allocated for district grant program eligible projects only.

And then in the second funding step, any projects that are only eligible for the high priority program are reviewed.

The lowest scoring funded project in the district grant program, so in that example, this would be that West Lane shared use path, this sets the threshold for how well a high priority program eligible

So in this example, high priority program projects that score higher than a 6.4 would be eligible for funding in step 2, which would be the one interchange improvement project.

The concern is that if one district has overall lower scoring projects than another district, that also means that the high priority program funding that was intended to be used for projects of statewide and regional significance may also be going to projects that are demonstrating fewer benefits compared to projects in other districts that are demonstrating more benefits overall.

So the recommendation from the Office of Intermodal Planning and Investment is to eliminate the second funding step

and the allocation process and moved directly from prioritizing projects in the district grant program to prioritizing high priority program eligible projects statewide.

Looking at the likely round five impacts of this change was implemented and again without considering the other changes that have been recommended, this change would not appear to impact project outcomes for our region.

It does, however, remove some of the assurance that each district will receive funding through the high priority program and certainly will impact districts that see lower overall benefit scores comparatively.

Looking at the impact of all the recommendations discussed today, plus an adjustment to a forward-looking congestion benefits calculation that we did not discuss, this is a statewide change in outcomes for the types of projects that would have been funded through SmartScale.

The average total cost of projects would have increased by about $6.7 million, and 39 fewer projects would have been funded overall.

And as you can see here, that would mostly be a reduction in the number of bicycle and pedestrian projects that are funded through SmartScale.

To conclude, this is the schedule for what the rest of the process will look like as far as updates to the SmartScale program.

The Commonwealth Transportation Board has established an online portal to receive comments and respond to questions.

And your Albemarle County staff is prepared to coordinate any responses that you may wish to provide regarding the proposed changes.

Thank you, Ms.

Shackelford.

We will go through our order.

Well, Supervisor Mallek and I, this is our third pass.

I can't see why we wanted to get a head start on this because then we'll have more iterations of this as the CTB continues their conversations.

And if you get this in one spoonful two months from now,

And when Sandy says my understanding, as I'm sure it is the same with our transportation staff, their understanding of this stuff is pretty damn good.

So I'll take your understanding, Sandy.

I appreciate you coming to do this.

to get us ahead of it.

I don't have questions.

I think questions that I've had previously I've had an opportunity to ask at the NPO.

All right.

Questions?

I really don't have any questions.

I'm still trying to process everything.

Yeah, it's a lot to process, and it is the first time for me to really see this in depth.

So there are a number of different threads that are going through here in the way these changes work.

One is this issue, the first issue was dealing with the readiness of the proposals, if you will, I guess, and the fact that I guess 50 percent are really not ready when they're submitted.

How have we fared in that area?

There are different reasons why that can happen.

Thank you, Supervisor Andrews.

Kevin McDermott.

I'm the Acting Planning Director.

So as far as readiness of proposals, this is something that I think that we have been working to improve on in Albemarle County.

and we primarily have been doing that by putting money up front for design on projects and trying to get ahead of the application process with more detailed planning and design.

I would say that question probably comes more in play when you're looking at the smaller localities that don't have funding for that kind of thing.

Thank you.

And then sort of moving on from there, I guess I'm very concerned about the sense I'm getting that this is going to disadvantage multimodal projects, and that's been an important part of our planning, so it scares me a little bit.

Can I look at slide 12 briefly?

Again, just one thing there that jumped out at me.

I wanted to understand it better.

So this has, you mentioned in looking at the, I guess eight projects on this slide, that the last two you're less clear about, but I'm trying to understand the difference between the U.S.

29 Fontaine Interchange Improvement funded and then the Exit 118, which is just before that.

Yeah, so Exit 118 has obviously been a major problem for the county throughout time and we've done, we initially, there was a project initially, this is even prior to my time at the county, where we submitted an application to rebuild in the entire Exit 118

that failed mostly because the cost was so high and so after that we then started breaking this up into multiple projects so the one that she has the asterisk by that she's not sure if this would if it would have been eligible

was if you are getting off at exit if you're heading westbound on 64 and you get off at exit 118 to head north onto 29 there used to be a single lane that you then had to weave with the existing northbound traffic on 29 and because of Fontaine Avenue being right there it caused a lot of accidents so that project added another lane so that you didn't have to do that anymore so I think the one

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you and I so appreciate the third time through because I still have questions.

I'll just do a couple and thank you Kevin for the Goldilocks explanation because first it was too big and then it was too small and I'm sick and tired of that.

So you mentioned about all the various sorting pots, Magic Hat, but when the cost of construction in one district is so much higher than in another,

I don't believe so as far as the high priority program is considered.

However, that shouldn't affect the district grant program as significantly because that is prioritized within

Oh, that's right, because you'll take away that second business with the highest, lowest, all those things.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yes, after everything has settled down in my head, could you go to, because I wrote notes as we were going through, could you go to slide three, please?

I just had a couple of

Yes, so when you're talking about the scoring factors and you're saying environment, explain.

Yeah, the scoring factor in the SmartScale technical guide, one of these has to do with avoiding negative environmental impacts, so making sure that you're not accounting for if there's any disruption of

If there was an improved air quality, okay.

Now could you go to slide 11, last question?

The new or improved interchanges

Are you speaking about with the freeway interchanges, Interstate 64?

Yeah, any interchange that would be on a corridor of statewide significance should be qualifying.

But my understanding is that it would be on any corridor statewide significance, which would include 29, 250, and 64.

Okay, just those three.

So not the secondary rural.

No other questions.

All right.

Thank you.

Could you go to slide number five, please?

I kind of felt like I was in calculus class and you were throwing out equations at us.

So I think it was the last bullet.

So I mean, it was very clear what you said.

We would be going from four to two projects.

And as I look at overall a lot of the information you were providing, the resources have gone up money-wise, but it sounds like staffing personnel resources have not.

Am I correct that one avenue of approach we could take would be to work with our legislators to try to get more funding into VDOT for people so that we're not having a reduction in programs simply because they're not adequately staffed?

I might answer one part of that question or maybe add some clarification and maybe let Albemarle County staff provide some direction regarding the second part.

But to answer the first question, it's not just about the application process and preparing the applications, but it's also about the delivery of the projects itself.

The same staff that supports the development of the applications and reviewing the applications is also responsible for constructing the projects once they are awarded funding.

But that's their personnel capacity issue.

So the problem is they've given more money but not enough resources to be able to adequately process the additional funding.

I think you're spot on with that, Supervisor Price.

And what they have done is they've started utilizing consultant services a lot more heavily for not just the delivery of the projects but also for review of the applications and things like that.

But I agree that to your solution or your idea is that part of what we could do is put more money to staffing and personnel or to administration.

So my recollection is Charlottesville, TJPDC, Albemarle, we were all able to submit four

which was 12 total and now we'd be looking at six.

Could you go to slide eight please?

I don't know that I have a question so much as slide eight, even though it's a question period, but a comment.

Your discussion as you were going through some of these slides, I just want to say how much I appreciate the in-depth analysis that you have provided.

It was a lot of information and hard to follow, but it's very clear y'all did some really good looking work and analysis evaluation.

And then slide 9, we've already covered.

If you could go to slide 10, please.

My interpretation of slide 10 is it's where, not why is what they looked at.

And the solution on slide 11 is why and what, not where.

Is that a?

Yes, I think they're trying to get at both of those here.

Thank you.

And I realize some of that was commentary as posed as a question.

Okay, and the highways once again would be 29 and 64 and 250?

Well, those are the corridors of statewide significance.

It still applies to regional networks.

The regional networks are defined based on the MPO travel market.

There's a map of those on the statewide plan.

I'm glad you understand that.

So several.

This isn't done yet.

So what you're seeing is not finished.

The CTB will have their, what is it, the 20th?

You may have said that.

So that's when they'll get into some economic development and some of the other factors.

So this is like, well, let's get ahead of this, because this isn't necessarily something that we, in my opinion, argue with or try to combat.

We just need to understand it to recalibrate, because I suspect this is coming.

The transportation secretary back in Baco in the fall made a comment about bike lanes, and I forget the name of the session, but talking about monies that have been put into projects where there are no bikes in the lanes.

So one quick, in my own initial reaction, was like, oh, we're going to have fewer bike head projects.

but it actually could mean we're going to have better bike-ped projects because I think people were throwing bike-ped, multi-use path, multi-modal at projects to help the scoring even though the impact for those facilities was not existent.

so you know my first reaction to him was like oh the transportation sector doesn't like bike lanes but now I'm seeing this thread now through the CTB where it's trying to get an impact because money is limited right now I don't know that I've arrived there completely but that's at least me trying to be thoughtful in the consideration of it so we as a locality if we think we have high impact

don't use the same language as theirs.

If we have high impact multimodal, whether it's bike, ped, transit, all of the above, we would have to submit that as a locality.

We could still do that and make our case, then it has to be scored relatively.

So that's that recalibration.

I, for one, have faith in our staff and our team and the staff at TJPDC that we learned the rules under the prior game, and I suspect we will learn it moving forward.

But my hope is this board and this session, I'm sure we're going to get probably a second and a third touch on this as it progresses, is going to get us up to speed as well.

Rio Road would be, in my mind, I start thinking about how it works.

We have Hillsdale and Rio Road is an intersection issue.

Years ago, we submitted a rerouting of Hillsdale to go up to where Putt Putt is, two separate projects.

Well, if you start thinking of that as one larger project, if you rerouted Hillsdale, you don't have such an intersection problem anymore, right?

So maybe those projects get combined into one, and that could be a larger, higher priority project.

The impacts could be greater versus doing one here.

Then if it ever gets rerouted, well, maybe that intersection doesn't exist, and we wasted that money.

I think that covers my comments on this other than to just again express my appreciation that we're getting ahead of this.

I know the staff is, but I just again appreciate that the board's getting ahead of this so that we can be ready so when the CTB does make their final

decisions and a new technical manual comes out that by that time we're not going to be like, well, when the hell did this happen?

That we're all on the same page and moving forward.

Yeah, so we're going to have to do some quick work so that the next submission we're already knowing how it's going to work and be like, well, what happened to the, what was going on before?

Thank you.

Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley, any comments?

No other comments.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I appreciate the comments by Supervisor Galloway helped clarify a lot of this.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

I wanted to clarify one thing because I may have had it wrong all this time.

So to me, multimodal means all, not just one.

And what I think the complaint I heard about at the transportation at Baycote was there were projects that were just bike and ped.

I think that was a bigger distinction that I heard in Richmond that I had not heard in the presentation downtown.

So I just wanted to clarify that and make sure you're nodding, so I think that's okay.

The funding for VDOT, absolutely, in the 2009 and 10 recession, they lost hundreds, I think it was 700 employees were laid off.

And they were not all at the depot level.

They were all the way up the chain.

So the people carrying out the bridges and doing the inspections and all that sort of thing.

Previous governors had gotten rid of staff and tried to hire consultants thinking they were going to save money.

They ended up costing them three times as much.

So we're sort of still behind the curve on that.

One very good thing I wanted people to be aware of is that when we got snared with our original application for 118, it was something like 150 million.

A similar project at 17 and 29 in Prince William County, they priced that at $50 million less.

And it got built, of course.

And so I began to go ballistic about that.

They now have a very strict standard across the state.

supposedly.

Sean Nelson, this I think was the first year that it had been carried out, so it's still in beta version, but I think we have a better chance of getting treated fairly for our projects than this sort of, oh well we're going to make this one cheaper because the Secretary lives here, which is I think sort of what happened.

So that is a good thing and I agree,

what Chair Price said about why and what more important than where.

That is such a great solution.

I'm going to try to memorize that because I think it's important.

So, I'm looking forward to this.

I think that I'm very grateful and I support completely what Ned said about this is not a fight back situation.

This is a do the best job we can with the rules we're given and I was disappointed to hear

other communities who had not done as well as we did because they didn't work very hard on their preparation saying well they want to change the rules and that to me is absolutely the wrong thing because the state has invested in this project and spent six years getting it to where it is now and they just want to make every penny count and we all have to

live and learn and be nimble and all that stuff.

So thank you both for your help on that because it's going to be a challenge to jump through all those hoops again.

Thank you and again thank all of you for the work that you've done to help us better understand and supervisors Galloway and Mallek.

We're very appreciative of the work that you all have done to learn so much and be able to share with us.

All right, good afternoon.

Thank you everyone for coming back in a timely fashion.

We can now move to item number 11, AC44 Phase 2 Planning Toolkits.

Thank you, Chair Price and members of the Board of Supervisors.

Thank you.

So today we are here to talk about the planning toolkits.

I'd like to first introduce part of my team.

I'll be presenting with Tori Kanalopoulos, a principal planner in the long range planning team.

We also have Ben Holt and David Benish here, who are members of the long range planning team.

Vlad Gavrilovic, who is our consultant with EPR.

I'd also like to point out that we have Serena Gruya in the audience who has been an unofficial member of the long-range planning team working with CAPE and their team has helped us develop all of the public engagement that we'll talk about briefly here today and also I'd like to highlight that I know Jesse Brookings is in the audience today the Office of Equity and Inclusion as well as the climate action team

have been key members throughout this process.

We've worked with all the departments and agencies that you can imagine, but CAPE and OEI and the Climate Action Team have been the primary ones that we meet with regularly.

So I want to highlight their efforts along with everyone else's here.

So today's agenda we are going to be focused on the four planning toolkit topics.

We'll provide an overview of what we've done with phase two and then of course the board received a very detailed staff report.

So what we're going to be doing is providing a quick overview of each of these topic areas including activity centers, factors for future development area expansion, rural crossroad communities, and rural interstate interchanges.

will be given that brief overview and discuss the options and then we will turn it over to the Board of Supervisors for discussion after each one of those topics so you'll have about

15 minutes between each topic to ask questions of the staff and converse and try and provide us some direction.

So the purpose of this work session, as I said, is for the Board of Supervisors to give the staff specific recommendations on how to carry forward each of these toolkit topics.

We will be pausing, as I said, between each one for you all to provide that feedback.

I will point out that all of these topics are in the current comprehensive plan and so really what we're asking for is should we continue with the existing language that's in the comprehensive plan or do you all believe that updates are needed for this new comprehensive plan?

A little summary of where we are in AC44.

The slide up here shows the different project phases.

We are currently in phase two, which is in the gray area, where we are talking a lot about the topics that are included in the comprehensive plan, as well as the planning toolkits, which we'll go over today, and we'll be then moving into the goals and objectives.

As a reminder, phase one was about the plan for growth where we identified the framework of the comprehensive plan.

and which is for an equitable and resilient community.

And then we also discussed those four big ideas that Albemarle will be a welcoming and equitable, connected and accessible, thriving and prosperous, and green and resilient community.

And I have highlight those just to point out that those ideas are being carried through throughout phase two and on through the plan.

So that all we started a very high level with those

those broad topics and we are slowly trickling down.

Of course the next phase three will be looking at action steps, specific action steps and prioritizing those before we finalize and adopt the plan.

This focuses in a little bit more on AC44 Phase 2.

This began early in 2023 when we were looking at the challenges and opportunities.

We discussed the topics that we will be covering throughout the plan, things like transportation and land use, natural resources, and items like that.

We did have some feedback that we'll get into, some community engagement.

Step two which is where we are right now developing the planning toolkits has been going on since spring of this year and through the summer you can see the blue line we are here and as I said the next step is defining goals and objectives so in phase two step one the community engagement we went out to the community to ask what are your priorities

There was a lot of engagement with that.

We had topic area reports that we put out online and questionnaires on the challenges and opportunities.

We had 532 responses on that.

There were six pop-ups, one held in each magisterial district, and then we continued to meet with our working group.

There were 40 members of that working group for phase two that we have been continuously meeting with and talking to throughout this process.

One of the primary areas that they helped us with was getting out into the community with these chat kits or meeting in a box.

So we gave them materials to take out to their community and

and hold meetings with them and get feedback and bring that back to us.

There were 15 total meetings hosted with approximately 130 total participants.

The community input in step one, some of the themes, and these are by the topic areas that we covered, some of the themes we heard from the public regarding transportation.

While we heard a lot of talk about the need to keep infrastructure and development aligned, a lot of that was really focused on the need for improved bike-ped infrastructure as well as improved transit service.

Related to economic development, we heard a lot of talk about workforce development, housing to support the local workforce,

and providing enough land for businesses to locate in Albemarle County or grow in Albemarle County.

Related to housing, obviously the biggest thing we heard was the need for more affordable housing, affordable housing programs.

That included supporting repair and maintenance of current homes and offering a variety of housing types, including smaller and more affordable units.

Those could be accessory dwelling units, cottage courts, or missing middle.

And this was really primarily focused around the idea of allowing the community to age in place.

We heard a lot of talk about that.

Related to parks and recreation, we heard about the need for more greenways and trails and how those are connected with bike-ped facilities and how the neighborhoods can utilize those.

Related to land use, we heard a lot of feedback about how we should be coordinating our land use and transportation so that we have walkable communities and also looking at infill and adaptive reuse.

Related to community facilities,

As I said with transportation, infrastructure needs to keep up with growth.

This was really related to the school capacity question and also community resilience and emergency preparedness were important points.

Environmental Stewardship, as you can imagine.

We heard a lot about protecting and restoring our natural environments and increased resilience against the natural hazards.

I think that was a lot of relationship to our climate action program and how we're providing resilience against the changes in the climate.

Related to historic culture and scenic resources, we heard a lot about sharing more of our history

and preserving more of our history in Albemarle County.

And we heard a lot about incentives to ways that we could incentivize and regulate those protections, especially around historic and scenic resources.

So in phase two, step two, our community engagement included five open houses.

Four of those were in person and one was online.

We had a total of about 86 attendees at all those open houses.

We had online questionnaires for each one of the toolkit topics and we got responses ranging from about 19 on one of the topics up to 52 on another one.

We also continued to work with our working group and sent them out with community chat kits and they continued to host their own meetings.

We had about 40 total participants in all those working group meetings.

That number is a little bit lower than I think it was in the first phase, but I think we attribute that to the fact that this is really dense material and I think that's shown by the fact that we did have

So what are planning toolkits?

The toolkit topics are areas that are covered in the current comp plan primarily related to growth management.

And when I say growth management, what we're talking about is how are we addressing the needs of the community while protecting the environment and addressing climate change and retaining all those resources that make Albemarle special.

So these topics are all touched on in the current comp plan and we are looking at

how we can move those forward into the growth for the next 20 years.

The topics all support growth management policy by coordinating land use and transportation planning.

So we look to the AC44 framework and how they'll be applied to these recommendations and then we'll be carrying those through the goals and objectives and action steps in the future.

Thank you, Mr. McDermott.

Good afternoon, Ms.

Kounalopoulos.

Good afternoon, Supervisors.

Thank you, Kevin.

Tori Kounalopoulos, Principal Planner, and I'll be starting off with our first topic, and just a quick reminder that I will pause at the end of this topic for board questions and discussion.

Activity centers are locations in the development areas, either now or in the future, with a mix of residential, business, and recreational uses that have a higher intensity and concentration of uses than surrounding areas and underlying land use, and they should have a variety of destinations to walk to.

The draft activity centers were identified based on existing development patterns, known plan projects in the pipeline, recommendations in the master plans, and estimates for current and future jobs and people.

Activity centers are similar to the current plan recommendations for designated centers.

However, the activity centers use a more focused approach with fewer total centers and standardized center place types across the development areas.

Currently some master plans have text recommendations for centers while other plans have center land use designations and others use center place types.

The updated approach would also be paired with the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transit's multimodal planning guidelines which have been reviewed and supported by VDOT.

Activity centers support using development areas land efficiently and

providing services and infrastructure in a cost-effective manner and improving multimodal transportation options to provide more choice for community members to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and vehicle miles traveled.

They also support several actions in the county's climate action plan, including to incentivize denser and more mixed-use development patterns within the development areas.

This map shows the southern neighborhoods from the southern and western master plans, with draft activity center and district locations,

Draft activity centers are shown with dashed purple lines and are labeled as neighborhood, town, or destination centers.

Many of the currently identified centers shown in this master plan with the letter C on the map are proposed to be activity centers or districts.

Many of the current centers would be consolidated and a few would no longer be designated.

In the Places 29 and Southern and Western master plans, there are a significant number of centers.

The activity center approach would consolidate the total centers, especially in these areas.

Minimal changes would be expected in the other development areas.

During AC44 Phase 2 engagement, we heard overall support for the activity center concept, especially a mix of uses, housing choice, redevelopment, and safely being able to walk and bike, concern a mix of uses may not always be feasible, that centers should balance quality amenities with the higher intensity of uses, and more frequent and reliable transit is needed.

and there were some comments on specific centers but for the most part community members were commenting on the overall approach and I think the only center change between the community engagement and the PC materials was slightly decreasing the size of the town center shown in the Mill Creek area as some comments thought that was too large the way it was previously shown.

and just to note that with this approach there would be more opportunities for engagement on these specific center place types and locations and today's work session is really about if we should continue forward with this overall approach during AC44.

So at the Commission's August 8th work session, the following two options were shared for consideration.

Option one was no change to centers during AC44.

The currently identified 50 centers in the master plans would remain until they're updated.

And option two was to update the centers in the development areas during AC44 using the activity center place types.

At the work session, there was consensus from the Commission that the activity center approach should be used with AC44 as the concept encourages infill, redevelopment, walkability, and a mix of uses.

The Commission felt the current number of centers is too high and reduces their effectiveness and the ability to prioritize projects.

If the centers are updated with AC44, the Commission wanted to make sure that the Community Advisory Committee's CACs

have many opportunities for input on the center locations and place types, especially for master plans that have been updated less recently.

The commission also noted the balance needed between encouraging high quality amenities and services while considering the potential associated cost increases.

Since the commission's meeting, staff has not made any changes to option two.

and staff is recommending this option as this approach would give a consistent format for all centers, could provide more focused direction for future projects and redevelopment, and would encourage efficient use of land in the development areas.

With this option, the next steps during AC44 would be to continue revising activity center and district place types and locations

and to draft a multimodal plan that connects centers using the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transit multimodal guidelines and coordinating with VDOT.

So now we'll turn it over to the board for discussion and questions, noting we've allotted about 15 minutes per topic and that we're primarily looking for guidance on which approach should be used.

If the centers are updated during AC44 through master plan amendments, staff would expect minimal changes to the Crozet and Pantops master plans as those were most recently updated.

The activity centers would likely match one to one in those master plans and in the village of Rivanna as only the village center is expected in that development area.

And again, with this approach, there would be opportunities for additional engagement in phases two and three on center locations and place types.

Thank you, Ms.

Kanalopoulos.

I do want to point out it was a root beer that I drank before I was tongue-tied a little bit ago.

So thank you.

We'll go through questions, comments.

Just restate what you said about

will also be there in options two and three.

Oh, just making clear that if the board directs staff to move forward with this option two during phases two and three of AC44, so this fall and the next year, there would be more opportunities for community input and planning commission and board input on the actual center locations and place types.

I think that the first question I wrote down is related to that, I guess, and then expand that thought out.

How does what we decide or do today restrict or not restrict our action steps when we get to that work?

So I guess it's the same answer, just on a broader scale.

We're not really locking ourselves out.

Is that a fair?

Yes, that's correct.

Are we doing both discussions?

You can do questions and discussion.

I don't really have any questions about this particular toolkit.

You showed the southern centers.

Did you show a map of the... was I not looking up?

This came up in my...

relative to transportation, smart scale, other items came up in my CAC meeting about, you know, it's often discussed, especially along the Rio corridor, of not having places for people to go to within the development area.

So you think about the Riverside Park we have up just north of the bridge on 29, just past Hilton, you know, Umanski Autos and all of that below the dam.

and you think of people that live in Woodbrook or even Carsbrook and how do they get to that park?

Another example would be if you live in Woodbrook, it's exactly a mile to the library.

Now a mile is walkable for most people.

Not if you live in Woodbrook, Northside Library is located where it's at.

So when I think of this particular toolkit, a big part of that is figuring that out.

Now the small area plan attempts to do that,

but we can't have four corners of the same things duplicated so people just stay in their quadrant.

It has to be interconnected in some way.

But that walkability is tough given that 29 cuts right through the middle of all that.

But it is often, if you live in the development area, you live in the urban ring, what you have available to you from an open space, green space piece

is minimal.

We talked about putting a park back there behind the library, but then how does somebody who lives a mile away walk to it?

Floodable park, that's the word.

How we use the development area obviously needs to be

included.

I mean, the point of the development area, frankly, was to try to maximize the density and the functionality there to protect the other 95%.

But it can't all just be density, and there has to be some other types of things in there.

So to me, the action steps are where that really gets, or where I think I have, the action steps will define how we try to achieve that, I guess.

Whether or not there's too many centers or not, I don't know.

I think there are centers in places that don't exist yet, like I think of that small area plan.

And I think we've answered the question relative to that particular geography that says, yes, the county should invest in public spaces and provide that and maintain them, et cetera.

But until that redevelops, the county can't really do anything about it.

We can plan all day and put it anywhere we want, but until somebody actually constructs it and does it,

then we can't really go in there and do it.

We don't own the property.

If I'm rambling, you can stop me on that.

Influence on center.

Can you go back to page 15?

I made that comment already.

Oh, one thing I would say that you made

There was a point there where aging in place was tied to one of the, it was earlier I think, it was tied under a category.

I think maybe, I forget which category it fell under, but in the urban ring, age in place, that walkability function

and the ability to stop relying on car.

Like if you go from Woodbrook to Kroger, which is right across the street, you have to rely on a car.

But aging in place, as folks decide that either through choice or through functionality don't have or don't want access to the car, that aging in place becomes important just to get them maybe a quarter of a mile away.

So let's not lock age in place.

It is a category piece.

The age in place gets all of these, not just one.

And I forget where that was at.

So in terms of this toolkit and moving forward, it looks like with the exception of the number of centers, the planning commission was in agreement with staff.

All right, thank you.

Yes, thank you very much, and I also am in agreement, I guess it would be option two, right?

Regarding the activity centers, I know they listed profit, which is in my area, and evidently I've got 13 of them, which I don't know anything about.

I don't even know if they're there anymore.

I think it's maybe historical that it was just put in.

So I definitely think that we should look at the number of activity centers.

I agree with the Planning Commission regarding reducing the number of activity centers, but also agree as we build new communities to have something there that is appropriate and would bring people together and have the amenities for them.

So that was really my comment, but as we do

Regarding public spaces, we also need the developers to work with us, correct?

Because we don't really have the land that the county owns to put in appropriate activity centers.

I don't want to speak for Parks and Rec and what their plans might be but I think it could be a combination and you know it's a good point that recommendations from this topic don't just have to be in the land use section they could be in Parks and Rec as well and we do want to work with the Parks and Rec team to have general high-level kind of open green recreation space recommendations in the center place types

So could that possibly include something like Free Bridge Lane for the Greenway Promenade where they could have an art festival, a music festival, things like that?

Okay.

Alright.

Thank you.

Yes, I'm sticking to looking at the activity centers in the development areas at this point.

I appreciate the

I intend to give a consistent format and terminology, but I'll echo Planning Commissioner Firehawk's concern that each one is located in a different proximity to other things and therefore has to be considered as to what's in the neighborhood and what is available otherwise.

So there's a lot to go into that.

I also agree that 50 seems excessive, not just

on its face, but as I look through, I'm not convinced that some of these fit the criteria of what we call a destination center, what we call the different categories, neighborhood, town.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

As in the smart scale thing, the more times we go through this, it helps me a lot.

So, questions first.

Okay, here, I guess this is the first one.

So, in reading the Planning Commission notes and the Red Line chapter that you all said, I think that

One of the difficulties in the 2005 master plan in Crozet, the first one, was that activity centers were plunked in the middle of old neighborhoods, even our NOAA neighborhoods, the oldest nationally occurring affordable housing, all of a sudden became completely gentrified, and the population was projected to be 25,000 people.

So the whole five years, or three years between 2008 and 10, when the next one came around, the whole goal was to get that under control.

I think 70% of all those things were realized to be not a good idea and they were removed and the population came back down to about 16,000 which was still 6,000 more than people were told it was going to be.

So that's the kind of adjustment that needs lots of careful attention and I appreciate what you said about this is the beginning and we're going to have lots more iterations.

My experience has shown though that

unless we're careful to raise questions at the very beginning about things.

All of a sudden they grow roots.

So that's why I'm going to raise some things that I know may not be appropriate for right this minute, but I don't want them to grow roots and have everybody think that they're just fine.

in updating the centers match one to one in Crozet.

So looking at the current center place type table that Crozet has and then looking at the updated activity center place type table, they should be almost exactly the same.

Things like building height are the same and form and scale.

There might be some slight updates to maybe the recreation open space recommendations, things like that.

Okay, so that was excellent because when I looked at the maps, the circles were in the places that I was expecting and that was fine.

I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something.

Thank you very much.

Now, let me zoom down here.

In piling on to what others have said and trying,

I think we've seen in many different magisterial districts that people's concerns about some new project are most of the time grounded in the fact that they're already in crisis for lack of sidewalks, bridges, getting there.

And so that emphasis on providing the amenities and the infrastructure

Do you

where seniors are, walkability is not so important.

And I think that was probably a typo, so I will put that on your to-do list to look for and try to make sure that I'm not right about that.

What Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley said about new communities, I mean, Brookhill and Old Trail are perfect examples of where you're building from scratch, you build in all those things, those plazas, the things that now bring people together and those park spaces and that kind of thing.

I guess I'm trying to wrap my brain around this sort of one step at a time and just being careful when we paint things with broad brushes that we're really being focused so that people who read it have enough detail to be able to not panic because broad brushes, then anybody can interpret it any way they want and that uncertainty is going to breed a lot of concern.

I mean, just the fact that downtown Crozet is one, the whole downtown Crozet district, which is the foreign-based code area there, that's one activity center.

That makes huge sense.

And people from Star Hill can walk down there.

So the 50 centers that were on the map so far, even funding one amenity in each one is something we would never be able to do in a reasonable time frame, let's put it that way.

I love the fact that you're already thinking about bringing those back in.

And I will stop right there.

Thank you.

I support option two.

First off, let me say I really appreciate the work of the Planning Commissioner.

Their comments were just incredible.

Really, really appreciated the work that they did.

So I'm going to kind of work my way to a comment here.

29, 250, and 64 are our most important roadways for vehicular traffic.

Of course, we should never have pedestrians crossing 64.

It's an interstate.

You don't do that.

250 at Pantops, 29 North are extremely difficult for pedestrians crossing.

I mentioned that and just by happenstance as I was driving downhill McIntyre today heading towards Preston to turn to the county office building you've got two crosswalks before between the traffic lights one of which pushed the little button and the yellow lights flash and just south of that a young man was diagonally crossing through the opening between Commonwealth Building and McDonald's and I'm thinking you know

15 feet uphill you could have gone safely through a crosswalk with the flashing yellow lights but instead you're going to cut through traffic going in different directions.

I point that out because you can make it as safe as possible but that doesn't mean people will actually do that.

and 29 North, it's going to be very limited where pedestrians or bicyclists can cross over because of the traffic flow issues.

Every time you put a crosswalk, you're slowing down the traffic and they've done all of the work they can to make that a speedy pass.

So I think there are situations where we're going to have to replicate or duplicate on both the West and the East of 29 North and in the North and the South of 250 at Pantops because it's just not going to be that safe, although microtransit may really help in terms of that sort of connectivity.

So we may need to build another library on the east side of 29, somewhere up in that area, because north side is just going to be too difficult for too many people to get there, simply using that as one example.

And I'll also apply this a little bit later on the rural crossroads communities discussion.

We have too many activity centers.

Supervisor Andrews, I appreciate your comments on the different terminology that's used.

There are just too many of them.

In order to be successful, you have to have some sort of an economy of scale and critical mass.

Otherwise, it's going to be like what we see in the rural areas where there are these abandoned little buildings all on the roadways because there just wasn't enough business to attract people to go there.

So I totally support option two.

We need to reduce the numbers.

I appreciate Supervisor Andrews' comments on exactly how they're going to be defined and everything.

But yeah, we just need to reduce the numbers so it's more workable.

Thank you.

I'm really working off of your comment.

I'd like to just revisit something real quick.

If we look at slide 8, please.

So in here, I just note, coordinate land use and transportation to create walkable communities.

Now could we move forward to the southern neighborhoods?

As Chair Price alluded to, it's very difficult to walk across Interstate 64.

It's also very difficult on 29 with four lanes of highway.

We have a destination here that's

Should I respond to that?

Please.

So two of the reasons.

One would be not sure if the property owners would ever be interested, but there is potential from a space standpoint for additional buildings and possibly other uses in the future if there was ever interest in expanding or redeveloping.

And then I believe there's also plans for a trail hub that would connect to that area.

I think it's the one in the upper left corner that you're talking about.

Where the apartment buildings are now.

This here.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

Any other comments?

They're different than the crossroads communities in the rural area.

All right.

Thank you very much for that Explanation and once again, I do support option two and reducing the number of activity centers where they're not serving people

Thank you.

I think we can go on.

Let me, before I say, can we go on?

Mr. Richardson, Ms.

I believe so.

All right.

All right.

Thank you.

So factors for future development area expansion.

The factors would be guidance for evaluating how, where, and when development area expansion may occur.

This is discussed briefly in the current comprehensive plan.

It recommends monitoring the development area capacity for future residential and business demand with high-level guidance on when an expansion may need to be considered.

While an expansion may not be needed in the near future,

As we look at the long-range planning in the context of uncertain and changing conditions, the possibility that current development areas may at some point no longer have sufficient capacity to accommodate the future housing and employment needs, we should be considering that in the current comprehensive plan with AC44.

The 2015 plan doesn't have guidance on how to identify the locations for expansion,

if an expansion is found to be needed.

If we look at an updated plan that could include factors for how and where to expand, including the infrastructure considerations, the protection of natural resources and water supply watersheds and expectations for future development patterns,

These factors could be taken a step further in the next plan and applied to map possible locations for the future development.

We would coordinate with service providers on that long-term infrastructure planning and establish the expectations for those development patterns to avoid sprawl.

So when we look at the factors for development area expansion it's as much about where we don't want to grow as where we want to grow.

Some factor examples these were provided to you in your report They can help assess which possible locations will be most in line with comprehensive plan goals including avoiding conservation areas identified in the biodiversity action plan

and the potential timing and infrastructure feasibility considerations.

That means infrastructure upgrades for public water and sewer.

It's important to consider and balance the factors together.

So we may have two locations that avoid sensitive natural features, but one needs significant upgrades for public water.

So we would like to know that in advance before we move forward.

The community input themes were that there was overall support for using the development areas efficiently and only expanding when new redevelopment options within the development areas have become extremely limited.

The priorities for how and where to expand the development area included protecting natural environments, preserving rural area, protecting water resources and tree coverage, and looking at the transportation impacts of any expansion.

The priorities for when included is the infrastructure in place or planned before we start pushing additional growth outside of the current development areas and encouraging density and mix of uses within the development areas before we consider expanding.

That would consider the already high cost of housing and the significant need for affordable housing.

Multiple areas did say that the development area should not be considered to be expanded at all.

and several comments did suggest particular areas where they thought expansion could occur.

The options shared with the Planning Commission included keeping the recommendations that are currently in the 2015 Comprehensive Plan so no new factors or criteria would be developed.

The second option was to develop a set of factors for consideration in the

potential future development area expansion that would include both timing and location factors without identifying any potential timeframes or locations for those future expansions.

The third idea was to conduct an analysis that would apply those additional factors that we provided from option two to develop a mapping of potential locations for development area expansion and develop possible timeframes for future expansion

with this comprehensive plan update.

During the commission meeting, the consensus was that we should have a set of factors for future development area expansion that would guide identifying the locations and timing of that expansion.

Some commissioners were supportive of mapping those potential locations, while others were very concerned with that mapping, thinking that could cause land speculation and increase those land costs.

The commissioners recommended analyzing how the county is using its development areas and if that development is achieving the comp land goals of mixed use, walkable redevelopment, high density and quality open spaces.

If we weren't achieving that within the development areas, then we should not look to expand the development area.

And finally, they talked about planning for adequate infrastructure in both current development areas and within any potential future expansion areas.

Based on that input, staff has reconfigured the option three, which was supported by the commission.

And to do this, what we did was we added within this recommendation

that we should include an analysis of whether the development areas are achieving a mix of uses, including higher density, walkability, redevelopment, and quality open spaces prior to expansion.

We would conduct an analysis on the feasibility of those potential areas for future development area expansion by first looking at the factors related to the location to develop a generalized map

of broad potential locations for development area expansion.

This would primarily be looking at things like where it's possible to serve with infrastructure and also looking at natural resource and environmental constraints to make sure we're avoiding those areas.

And then second, by using those factors related to timing and the infrastructure feasibility to develop possible timeframes for future expansion within this comprehensive plan.

With this option, the next steps for AC44 could include continuing to refine the draft factors, those were the ones that were included in your packet, with more detailed descriptions and potential metrics, using those draft factors to evaluate areas adjacent to the current development area and develop a very generalized map of potential areas for expansion, and then developing broad timing considerations and future land use priorities.

Future steps after this comp plan update would include to continue to update the land use build out analysis and monitor development trends and also to develop small area plans that look at those future expansion areas that we have identified and the factors so that we can start to think about where we might develop in the future.

So now is your chance to discuss this.

And as I said, the commission did recommend that updated option three that included the additional metrics for looking at the current development area uses and to have a more generalized map of where

I love going first today.

One more.

The recommendation?

I think 26 is the one.

So if I get the gist of this and what option three would get at, and then I'll make a caveat to it.

You know, we discussed the potential of expanding the development area as a way to have a conversation about how the effective use of the current development area is being accomplished.

But you really can't think about future expansion until you do that analysis of the current development area.

Meaning, all right, well, if we want to theorize timing of when we may expand the development area, then we first must say, well, what do we have there now, and how long will that get us to, based on the infrastructure you're talking about, the transportation, the growth that's coming, potential build out of employment, potential redevelopment, capacity of redevelopment centers, et cetera.

So you really can't even, I guess, get at, I mean, if we started thinking about, well, we could expand the development area here without having that other part of conversation, I think that is kind of an uninformed conversation about expanding the development area.

Yes, correct.

That is what is in the recommendation from the commission is that we should, prior to looking at any expansion, we should be evaluating how we are using the current development area

to make sure that we're meeting our comp plan goals for density.

So are we having the density?

Do we have the walkable neighborhoods?

Are we addressing the needs?

I mean I've said publicly before that at some point this county is going to have to grapple with the idea of expanding the development area.

We just don't know when.

That could be 10 years down the road, it could be 50 years down the road, it's going to be down the road.

I mean the other alternative is we say no it's never going to do it.

I guess at which point you're just cutting off the growth faucet

Can we do that?

I mean, is that something that we just say you stop moving?

We just stop it?

And that's for probably a future board to determine.

But the analysis of the current development area

does need to happen.

So I believe I'm in agreement with option three, and I'm just going to kind of talk out loud a little bit to see if what I say matches up with that statement.

I mean, we've been warned.

Mr. Williamson, is he here still?

I'm surprised if he left for this conversation.

I better tweet that.

But he said, if this board doesn't max, when we have rezonings before us and we don't allow the density to go to the max, for whatever reasons, good, bad, or indifferent,

and then you're basically, we're bringing that discussion of the expansion closer to us.

It's gonna happen sooner.

So if we have 10 places left to develop and they rezone and we only rezone them at 50% of their capacity, then we've just upped the timeline of when we have to deal with what you're introducing here.

I would say in addition to just housing density that that also has to look at not infrastructure so much as the network of the infrastructure.

So it's just assumed that the development area has the infrastructure and the network to function as a development area.

It does not.

Now I use an example that will be coming to this board in, I don't know, sometime probably in the next six to twelve months.

Along Berkmar, you cross over Woodbrooke, take a left, go into Lowes and Kroger.

You go hit Berkmar, you cross over the road up to

Woodbrook, West Side of Berkmar.

A lot of that is developing into apartment units, town home units, etc.

This one is going to be a 300, 250, 300 unit piece that backs up to

Woodburn, Woodbrook, Woodburn, and whether or not the vehicles can get out there, we don't know.

But everybody just would assume, based on where I've just located that, that they said that's the perfect place for density.

Got transit.

It's close to us.

Kroger is two minutes away.

But when you go and you look at the intersection of Berkmar and Woodbrook, there are no crosswalks to get you from the west side of Berkmar to the east side of Berkmar.

It's the same issue we have on 29 on a much smaller scale.

So if that development comes to us, we're going to talk about the site, we're going to talk about their

whatever they bring, right?

The proffers, the parking, the accessibility, the amenities they have on the site but not even a quarter of a mile down if anybody they're going to say and Kroger's right there and Lowe's is right there, man they can walk over there and then they're going to get to the traffic light and there's no network to get them across.

So we would have to have that conversation before we could talk about

expanding out because if I can't get people from Woodbrooke to Kroger and now one that's even closer and Berkmar traffic is really not easier, there's a stoplight, but there's no painted crosswalks there right now.

So we would say the infrastructure's there, but it lacks the network to get them there.

We're going to build a multi-use path to go from Woodbrooke down to Sam's Club and out the Burke Bar North, all the way out there to connect all that up.

But where's the crossability for that?

So I'm not afraid to have a conversation about expanding the development area, but you can't have that conversation without first going, all right,

What's your capacity for the residential density?

Same you mentioned it, the economic development factor.

Where are the employment centers going to go?

And then are those employment centers, I guess you could say the same for destination centers.

We have destination centers that are really just vehicle destination centers.

Lowes, Kroger out in my district, those are vehicle destination centers.

Those are not walking destination centers.

So, you know, if we have walking destination centers in the development area, we have recreational destination centers in the development area, we have economic and employment centers in the development area, and multi-networks to get them there, places for people to live that are close and travel there, and stormwater networks to make all of that work at that higher density level, then you can theorize

Oh, well then we would need to talk about development area expansion in 20 years.

But we are so far from that in my mind because if we just continue as we have with gaps in the network of the infrastructure, decisions that I've been part of in making reduced density decisions,

the fight with the limited resources to get those networks in place in terms of transportation multi-modal the difficulty of getting hope to god microtransit helps us solve part of this problem but if we don't get at that conversation and figure that out then yeah we'll be talking about development area expansion a lot faster and sooner than we will if we don't if we do have that conversation so that's a long-winded way to say I'm in agreement with the option

and I think it's probably an incredibly important conversation to have, provided the analysis doesn't just look at density in terms of residential, but it's also board decisions of we allowed commercial to turn into residential in our development area, we didn't get anything back, so that's a loss of development area, frankly.

So we'd have to analyze that too.

So, you know, it's not that it's these six individuals, but over the last ten years, what were the deficits created by board decisions that now are leading you to maybe have a conversation about development area expansion before you wanted to, when you may just philosophically be opposed to development area expansion.

So that, as we analyze density, networks, infrastructure, all that what you had in here,

Board decisions and actions probably need to be part of the analysis.

I'll stop there.

Thank you.

Did that support my opening statement?

Thank you very much, Supervisor Galloway, for so eloquently stating everything, and I do agree with everything you've said.

I like option three also.

I do believe though that we need to, we have to go do as much as we can.

We as a board have to do as much as we can in the development areas because Supervisor Galloway was correct.

If we don't do that, then we're gonna have to expand sooner.

I don't think any of us want to do that.

I think we want to delay expanding for 20, 30, 40, 80 years.

I don't know.

but we want to delay that because we really do cherish our rural areas but in order to do that we're going to have to step up to the plate and really maximize our development areas.

If you could go to screen slide 22 please.

I think your priorities as far as protecting the natural environment, preserving the rural area, protecting water resources, all of those are extremely important before we go out, before we decide to expand the development areas.

I think there was

There was a suggestion of should we do an overlay, should we do a heat map of the development or potential development areas.

I'm not really in favor of that.

I'd be more in favor of perhaps doing that in five years or ten years.

This is a 20-year plan.

So I don't know if I'd be in favor of doing that because I think that would cause land speculation.

I know we're not going to say exactly where, but with the fact that

the criteria we would come up with, you would come up with would lead people for speculation.

I don't know if we really need to do that at this time.

Maybe that portion could be delayed as far as the mapping and such.

The rest of it, I mean I really do, I do agree with it.

I think it's something we need to consider.

We have to plan for it.

I think your priorities are generalized enough

that we can do that and maximize the development areas.

And I think, can you go to slide 20?

Let's see, 23 please.

Yes, so number two, you're defining everything but you're not, there's no potential time frame or location for future expansion at this time.

I think that's very important.

because we've gotten a number of emails and people are nervous.

They're thinking we're going out into the development area.

We're now planning.

We're going out into the rural areas.

We're now planning to do that, and I don't think that's necessarily what we want, but we are realistic, and we do have to plan for this at some point in the future, so

That's the only thing I would, I like option three, but I wouldn't want to do any kind of a mapping of potential locations or heat map.

I think the idea behind that was that we would map constraints and using those constraints, rasterize those so that you could see the areas where there's a lot of constraints to future development.

So if you have a lot of natural resources out there, we know that's an area that wouldn't

Which is actually, to me, would lead to land speculation.

So that's why I think something like that maybe put that off for five years or revisit that issue every five years or so.

Really, that's the only thing.

Otherwise, I do agree this is something that we do need to plan for.

It's coming.

And we also have to realize that future boards, depending on who's the board, they could change everything.

And there was an issue on page of our packet, but it's an issue that there was only one tier four site.

Where would that be?

I believe that Tier 4 site, that's from the economic development analysis saying that there was a, I think it was North Fork was the Tier 4 site.

So this is an area that has potential for future economic development that has reached a level where infrastructure, most of the infrastructure is in place already.

We don't have many places like that in the county.

It could or it couldn't.

And that's the only thing I would be wary of is doing that at this point but everything else maximizing the development our development area but not saying where we want to go regarding the rural areas but preparing for all of this.

That's all.

Thank you.

Yes, thank you.

This is the most difficult one for me.

And I really think it's an important discussion and I don't want to make light of that, but I'm very leery of

The idea of developing a set of factors because immediately people start to say, wow, okay, we can make this factor come into play.

We can make this factor come into play.

We'll be able to do some development.

And I think it's a dangerous way to go.

On the other hand, I do understand that without it, you open yourselves up to arbitrariness and challenge on any actions that you take otherwise expanding a development area.

I don't agree that expansion of the development areas is inevitable.

I understand that there are capacity issues and that we have a need to look at what we've done with development, but if this were an island or if this were Charlottesville,

there is a limit geographically and there isn't any question about developing beyond that limit.

So if we look at it from that perspective, it becomes a question of what do we want to do with development areas?

And I really do think that Mr. McGinnis had a great idea in trying to come up with a development area task force and to look really hard at that now as part of this process.

Rather than waiting until afterwards.

I just think that's a very valuable recommendation.

Philosophically, it's kind of convoluted to me.

We're talking about

a chapter here, a toolkit for expanding the development areas but we haven't really talked about the thriving rural areas and thriving in the sense of the biodiversity and the natural resources and the watersheds and things like that that I think should be part of our thinking at all times as part of this.

So I guess I'm looking at the existing plan where it says keep recommendations and the very intro page to the existing 2015 plan says

The order of the chapters is intentional and then goes on to say natural resource protection is the chapter before the chapter on economic development and the chapter on the rural areas is before the chapter on the development areas and I don't want to lose sight of that because I think that was a valuable approach, a way of thinking about this.

So that said,

I am still in favor of going ahead with at least looking at the factors because I think the factors will help us limit what we're able to consider.

So we don't say we're going to allow development of this, we're going to say these are things that are absolutely important.

so that development doesn't need to happen here and identifying areas that are critical natural resources is also helpful.

Thank you.

Thank you very much and thank you Supervisor Andrews for that opening salvo because I'm going to get there also.

It is the board's job and the leadership of each community to decide how they're going to use zoning to create the quality of life of the community they represent.

It is no given anything that we have to become Richmond or

Fairfax or anything else, these are the kinds of incremental decisions that have been made often without a whole lot of consequence understood over the last 40 years and it's how we have

When you look at the growth numbers of population, it was sort of like this, and then the 80s had jumped up here, and then since 2015 or 2010, it's been vertical.

And so, unfortunately, our area has become the got-to-go-to place to stay, but it's because there was a quality of life of the people who had created, our predecessors who had created that, and I am very committed

to being watchful of that.

There were people in 1985 who said, the growth area is too small, we have to expand it.

And it's been a constant drumbeat every year since.

So this is nothing new, it is just the interests of different groups and their own wanting to

sort of create a pathway and that's understandable.

We have, this is the marketplace of ideas and it's our job to welcome all these different views and try to find a way to move forward.

So let me jump back to the beginning of my thing.

I am, while I understand that there are some benefits of all the analysis which you have described,

Option three, in the way it was initially proposed, was a tremendous slippery slope because a changed board.

would just start, I mean, repeat what was done from 2004 to 2007, rubber stamping every single rezoning application which came in.

We ended up with five huge rezonings.

And because there were so many in a few years or a short period of time, there was no demand to fill them.

And so there are four of the five, with the exception of the fifth street station, which I think is pretty almost done.

The other four are not.

and so that's just history that I have in my brain that I would like to not repeat because we don't need to have more unfinished things.

The most important thing to me in the analysis that has been proposed is

and the hard stop at the end of it is when we get to the point where we actually have delivered on the infrastructure that was implied in all those master plans across all of our districts for the last, since 2005, which is the first one, the small area, yeah, neighborhood master plans.

that should be perhaps a time to consider other things because we will never have the funds to deliver what has been already laid out for our existing residents in every single district if we're now doing it for some other greenfield.

And even if it's in 10 years, we've been looking at the same list of infrastructure projects since the 2005 Crozet Master Plan.

I think two of the 20 have come off the list.

But the reason it was such a long list was because of the 8,000 residents who were there in 2004.

So it is very much a tug of war, really, to make sure that we, as I said earlier, if we focus on providing the amenities and the infrastructure to create this reality

that people can get from A to B safely and maybe a stretch of sidewalk which would allow people to walk their children to school instead of spending 45 minutes one way in the car to deliver their children to one of the three schools in the traffic jam every morning on 250.

a mile or so of sidewalk would make a huge difference.

And it's something that's been talked about literally for 15 years, but it isn't there yet.

So those kinds of things that may be small in their individual list when added together, it's a real effort that's going to be needed to accomplish and therefore create those community things that we are all really working for.

I'm happy to have more information about what the constraints are because I don't think there's as much appreciation as there used to be for our natural resources and the benefits that we're getting from them.

We cannot pretend that we are

doing anything for climate change.

The very first thing we're going to want to do is to put our rural area, which provides those ecosystem services for climate change constraint, to just put those all under pavement.

So one of the things that I think we plan to focus on in this iteration of the comp plan was making sure that we were incorporating climate change.

into all of these different levels, and it's very important for this as well.

Let me see.

Okay, I talked about that.

I talked about that.

Yes, as others have said, the walkability should not just be a term.

It has to become more reality in order for us to really be getting where we need to go.

Redevelopment is something which those areas that need to be redeveloped and could be redeveloped

Nobody talks about those.

They all want green dirt because it's very challenging to do.

The J.B.

Barnes Project in Crozet has had a real challenge on many different aspects.

Happily, we're creeping closer and closer to some big shovel time coming up here.

But it is much more difficult to use a previously used space and make it something new and restored.

So I understand that.

Those things will never happen if we're continually throwing new land in there for people to go to instead of really focusing on the more challenging redevelopment things.

So that's why I've been very much putting the brakes on on this whole thing.

Absolutely no mapping because that would repeat what happened when the Crozet was designated as the first gross area.

immediately and under cover of nobody knowing all the big farms around town were purchased in like three years.

And then everything sat quiet until all of a sudden in 2004 there was a huge plan for Old Trail and a huge plan for Western Ridge and all these, I mean it was originally came first.

this is what will happen everywhere if we are not incredibly careful and methodical and cautious about going forward.

And the last thing I will say is that the potential risk to lose all of the naturally occurring affordable units that we have now, when you gentrify or have the potential to have a change in designation of some place,

It's a real hazard and we are in imbalance now as far as the ability for people of moderate income to find a place to live here.

We do not have the option to say, okay, all you people in this rural area who have lived in your whole lives for all of these years and in your nice house you built in 1945, we're now putting you in the growth area.

They would have no chance.

to stay, and those houses would have no chance to stay unless we have some rules that I don't know about to do that.

Thank you.

Bottom line up front, I support option three updated.

I really again appreciate the comments from the planning commissioners and I'm going to come back to some of those.

But before that, excuse me, I'm going to impose on our county executive for a minute to share a little bit of a conversation that we had actually just yesterday about as we discussed several different communities in Virginia and North Carolina in terms of actions they took or did not take,

and the consequences of that.

Thank you, Chair Price.

I really appreciate the opportunity and certainly respect the hard work that our team has done

framed out where we are and where we are today.

And then the comments of the board are just amazing because of the care that each of you show in every comment you make about where we've been as a county and the past decades, how people before you have worked so hard to continue to make this county a special place to live and work.

and talking to Chair Price, I was talking about really the natural tension that exists any time a community talks about its future, the long range vision and the natural stress that exists between growth and no growth discussions.

And being in several communities prior to here, I saw, I can look back into the 90s,

and places I've been before where there was not the level of framing.

of the future of growth and what it meant for the community.

And then you look 30 years later and you have what you have.

And you have a tremendous amount of stress and you have growth that's occurred that it's very difficult to look for the infrastructure as this team has referenced several times today.

The multimodal transportation, the infrastructure that's necessary where you have the higher density.

You look at this community, and I did not fully appreciate it when I moved here almost six years ago, and I look back in the 1980s and the careful thought that was put in place to carve out, out of 726 square miles, 5% growth, 95% non-development.

it set really the stage for this community moving forward.

And I don't know, I wasn't here and I could not be a part of discussions with people in the 80s as to how hard that was or how easy that was.

But at that point in time for this community it set the stage for the future growth of this community.

And when you look back, I did, I looked back in the 1980s at the growth and it was in the 4% range.

And then in the 90s all the way over the past 20 years it's been about a percent to a percent and a half a year.

But there have been governors through these policies, they're growth governors really, and that has restricted population growth in this community because of the decisions that were made in the 80s and the 90s.

And when we look at the vision that was set for this community many years ago, it talks about the balance, and it says that in the vision, the balance between

The natural environment in protecting our wonderful, beautiful non-development areas, but it also speaks to economic vibrancy.

It speaks to a wonderful economy, a thriving economy.

It says that in your vision.

and therein lies the tension when we talk about trying to create and be a part of economic vitality but also protecting people's quality of life.

And I just said to the chair, I said that these discussions are hard and they're going to continue to be extremely hard.

They have tension.

I hear some of that today with the board and the comments that you make.

It naturally exists.

And then board, when you take on top of that, most communities don't have 5% growth areas and 95% non-development.

That's not normal.

And when you look at communities that have not had that, when they're destination communities, they've grown much quicker than we have.

And that's data that we can easily put our hands around and provide to you.

But when you add on top of that, too, that there's additional tension.

And it has to do really with the timing of looking at our strategic plan from last year and aligning the strategic plan with the comprehensive plan update and looking at some of the board's goals, which are very, very understandable, desirable, they're intentional, and the staff is fully on board, but when you look at housing affordability.

When you look at continuing to maintain economic vibrancy also when you take a hard look at the climate action plan that all adds expectation and it all adds to the tension that exists when having these discussions.

And finally, Chair and Board, what I would say is I think when I look at the staff's work to this point, I look at the staff trying to identify ways for the Board to consider a continued level of balance that will hopefully relieve some of the pressure, some of the tension that exists.

But I go back to what I said at the beginning of my conversation with the Chair yesterday, and that is

The forefathers of this county did a wonderful thing when they put a framework out 30 years ago, whatever the timing was on that, that clearly identified growth versus non-growth.

And it has to do with water and sewer, public water and sewer.

That's where growth goes.

That's where water and sewer goes.

And some of the past communities that I've been in,

you just didn't have that framework.

And if we went there today, you would see some very difficult incompatibility for trying to figure out how do we do multimodal, how do we put the infrastructure there, how do we create these activity centers.

And so we're in a much better place than a lot of folks, than a lot of our counterparts in local government who are so-called destination communities.

Certainly I don't have solutions, I just applaud

Thank you Mr. Richardson and what you talked about really is sort of an underpinning of what my comments will be.

I like the updated option three because it does not exactly set in stone but it's also not exactly speculative understanding that there will always be land speculation.

I think it's naive to think that there will not be regardless of what this board does because there are people who have the resources, the time, and the interest

to try and figure out where they think the development will go.

And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to look at a map with geography and topography and all those things and be able to identify certain areas where growth may be more likely than others if the growth area is expanded.

And in that regard, I've used him before, but Kevin Costner portraying Ray Kinsella in Field of Dreams heard, if you build it, he will come, which we now say if you build it, they will come, which for our board purposes, if we permit it, they will build.

And that's just what's going to happen.

If we expand the development area, it will be built.

And that means if we do it too soon, we will not get the density that we need within our existing development area.

and I don't believe that the existing development area has to be built to its maximum density.

It has to be a maximum sustainable, reasonable density that retains the quality of life that we want.