Board of Supervisors Regular Second Meeting   2/21/2024

Good afternoon.

I'm pleased to call to order this regular meeting of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors on this 21st of February at 1 p.m.

in Lane Auditorium.

I'd like to note at the dais we have Supervisor Ann Mallek of the White Hall District, Supervisor Ned Gallaway of the Rio District, Supervisor Diantha McKeel of the Jack Jouett District, Supervisor Bea LaPisto-Kirtley of the Rivanna District, Supervisor Mike Pruitt of the Scottsville District, myself, Jim Andrews, representing the Samuel Miller District, a quorum is present.

We're also joined here by our county executive, Mr. Jeff Richardson and our county attorney, Mr. Steve Rosenberg and our clerk, Ms.

Claudette Borgerson and our senior deputy clerk, Mr. Travis Morris.

Also at this time, let me please welcome Albemarle County police officers present, Master Police Officer Dana Reeves and Officer Raven Lilly.

We thank you for your service.

Thank you, Board.

I believe our next item is the motion to adopt the final agenda.

Do we have any amendments to the final agenda?

Is there a motion to approve the final agenda?

Second.

Motion by Supervisor McKeel, second by Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley.

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek.

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel.

Yes.

Mr. Pruitt.

Aye.

Yes.

Board at this time, it's for brief announcements by board members.

Yes, sir, thank you.

Just one item, as we all know today, our county executive, Jeff Richardson is presenting his 24-25 recommended budget, and I just wanted to remind everyone that Superintendent Matt Haas tomorrow evening

is presenting the 2425 funding request from the school system to the school board.

And that would start in this room laying auditorium at 6.30.

So I'm hoping to make it in.

I would love to have company.

Thank you.

I have no announcements today.

Thank you, just a couple.

USDA began designated Virginia counties as primary natural disaster areas in October of 2023.

Before June of 2024 is the time for producers to apply.

Should they need coverage, producers should contact their county's FSA service center in Louisa.

That is the closest agency to us and to ask Mayor Scott Fisher for help getting your applications done.

also announced at the CCAC last week is the upcoming Citizen Police Academy.

I was hoping that I didn't want to get in front of Ms.

McKeel, but I will go ahead and do it here.

The March 3rd, March 16th, and March 23rd, sorry, March 9th, 16th, and 23rd are the three dates at the Police Department is pleased to offer again the Citizens Police Academy.

It comes very well recommended to all

by residents in the White Hall District who have participated over the years.

The purpose is to give members of the community insight into daily operations of the police department and better understand the role law enforcement plays in developing our safe communities.

Lots of wonderful activities planned.

Registration is available.

I'm sure the details will also be on the county website.

But please apply by contacting Master Police Officer Joe George at georgejadamall.org.

The next and last actually is the

Alliance to Advance Climate Smart Agriculture.

This is a funding pilot from the federal USDA through Virginia Tech.

Amar County is one of the counties whose farmers can participate in this and learning all about how to sign up for participating in the program.

Many different conservation practices and climate practices are involved in the list and there are stipends for participation.

Alliance for CSA

at bt.edu is the way to get more.

Thank you.

Yes, just one thing.

I'm going to hit on the same thing as last session, which is early voting for the presidential primary is still ongoing.

You can vote in person at the Fifth Street, sorry, county office building.

It's easy.

I did it in all of three minutes yesterday, so I encourage folks to go out and vote.

Early voting closes on Saturday.

March the 2nd.

That is the end of in-person early voting.

And then we will have the actual day of election on Super Tuesday, which is going to be the 5th of March.

So it's always easier to vote ahead of time, but frankly, you will have an easy time regardless.

And I encourage our citizens to get out there and vote.

Thank you.

Yes, thank you very much.

I just wanted to piggyback on what Supervisor McKeel said regarding the Police Academy.

If you cannot go in March, my understanding from Police Chief Sean Reeves is that there will be other academies offered in the future.

And so just keep that in mind.

The other thing I wanted to mention is that our, at our Places 29 North CAC, we had a nice presentation regarding

Native Plants and Pollinators gardens.

And the suggestion was the CAC liked the suggestion of having developers where they can put in pollinator gardens in small areas.

So in other words, we're not going to take over a taut park.

We're going to put maybe pollinator gardens near the sidewalks or in other areas where people wouldn't be walking through.

which is helpful.

They said any amount of

Native plants and pollinated plants that really does help the environment, insects, birds, et cetera.

So that's all I have.

Thank you.

And that was a perfect segue to just wanting to mention since obviously spring is coming.

Piedmont Master Gardeners has their once again offering grants for youth education related to horticulture and door gardening.

Any public or private K-12 educator or schoolyard garden coordinator in Charlottesville or Albemarle County can apply for these grants.

But applications are due on the 26th of February, so you've got to get going if you haven't done so already.

All of this can be found at PiedmontMasterGardner.org.

Spring's on its way, I hope.

Anything further?

Yes, I'm sorry, I forgot to mention at our SWAC meeting that there is a program, we're trying to implement a program through SWAC, whereby the recycling of pickle balls

because evidently, pickleballs break and then they're put in the landfill.

This is not good.

And so we already have one 55-gallon drum at Darden-Tow.

We're looking at getting another 55-gallon drum at Ivy, Convenience Center.

And so therefore, there will be someone from North Carolina who comes up twice a year and picks up the pickleballs for recycling, the broken pickleballs for recycling.

so this is just a little bit forward thinking and how we can help protect

to the environment and have things not go into the landfill.

Thank you.

And I believe we have some signups.

We do.

We have two signups today, and we have no one online.

So with that, I will read the instructions.

During the 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 I am listed on the agenda for public hearing.

Individuals allowed one opportunity of up to three minutes to speak at each Board meeting during matters from the public.

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

Timekeeping is conducted 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 you have one minute to finish speaking.

The red light indicates your time has expired and you will be asked to end your comments.

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

When addressing the board, state your name and if you live in Albemarle County, your magisterial district.

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 to present to raise their hands in recognition.

Speakers may not share any unused time with another speaker.

Back and forth debate is not permitted.

Do not speak from your seat or out of turn.

And all comments are live streamed, recorded, and published on the Almar County website.

Yeah, a little higher up.

My roll later fits underneath it.

It's perfect.

That's great.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

I'm Marta Cain, CEO of Java.

I also am a resident of the Rio district.

I want to thank you for your time today and

just share with you the handout that you have in front of you with some stories that give you an idea of what we've been doing.

I would point you to the last three, the eight, nine, and ten are particularly, I think, impactful, and they help the numbers that you'll see come alive when you see what this all means.

I'm not going to read them to you because I know you all can read just fine, but

It does give you a sense of what our aging service coordinators can do to make a difference.

And the one story about the insurance counseling, a quick update, since that's always so much fun.

Our Part D counseling went for eight weeks.

We saw almost 2400 people at Fashion Square Mall, and half of them left with peace of mind.

Nothing needed to change.

The other half, we saved them $1.9 million by switching plans, so that's huge.

Aside from that, what I wanted to share was that we're going to be starting a new program.

through a grant with TJPDC.

They have the program mobility manager and they're subcontracted with us, so there's no cost.

It's all under the grant and will be the mobility specialist, the hotline that they'll call, which is a perfect adjunct to our senior helpline, and we'll be able to help direct them to transportation options.

check their satisfaction and then be able to measure and track the gaps in service that exist today.

We all know there are gaps, but it's pretty anecdotal when I'm asked how seniors are doing with transportation.

I have to say not great, but that's not really very useful for a grant application, so we'll finally get our arms around where we could do more.

The only other thing I really wanted to share, which you may have begun to see,

is that Weldon Cooper has the new census data out.

And once again, we're in a region that continues to grow.

We're now up to 24 percent of the population is over the age of 60.

That's significant.

Basically, let's round it to a quarter of the population

and so that's a sign of how much people like to age in place but also move here and I would just point out one of the things we learned during COVID, isolation is a huge problem and it's a problem every day for seniors not just with isolation.

It leads to a decrease in cognitive

Physical and Emotional Health, and we saw that in so many people.

So the services we provided, Jabba, helped to address all of that by helping people stay in the community successfully.

Good afternoon, Supervisor Andrews and members of the Board.

I'm Lori Schweller, attorney with Williams Mullen, and I'm here to make just a few brief comments about the proposed affordable housing program.

We have been following the program for quite a long time and are excited about the program.

But as you all know, moving from 80% AMI to 60% AMI and from 10 to 30 years in particular, these

Factor, Changes, will have a significant financial impact on projects that are brought by developers, maybe more so even than the percentage of units.

And so we're somewhat concerned that the program as proposed

We understand it's not intended to make developers whole, but we're concerned it may not have the effect that we want it to have.

You might recall in our rezoning matter for Willow Glen part phase two, we talked about some numbers at that time for that particular developer.

and at that time, which was over a year ago, they explained to us that they could do the 60%, they were already offering 20% of the units, but they could do the 60% AMI if they had a one-third tax abatement.

And we were talking about the real estate taxes for the project, not an increment real estate.

You can see that's quite different from what we're looking at today.

And we have not had any developer roundtables or opportunities for feedback since the program was put in writing.

And so I'd like to ask you, let's have at least one

Opportunity for Feedback to talk about the actual program as proposed.

We need some clarity on three fundamental aspects in particular.

What is the increment?

What is the baseline and what is that final figure, the difference of which is what we're calculating the 10% on?

How is that determined?

Number two, timing.

How can a developer move forward with a land use application when the affordable housing commitment of 20% at 60% AMI for 30 years?

It's uncertain whether the grant will be approved.

It is a discretionary grant.

What's the timing for that and how does that work?

And number three, what is the cash in lieu option?

I heard at the Planning Commission work session that there's actually a cash in lieu option for

Special Use Permits and Resonings for Rentals.

I was completely unaware of that, and it would be nice to have more information about that in the Affordable Housing Program.

So, in summary, I just hope we can have a little bit more discussion before action.

If you have any additional comments that you can get to, please provide them in writing to the clerk.

Board, that brings us to the Consent Agenda.

Does anyone have anything to pull from the consent agenda?

Comments?

I guess I would just like to remind the public that when we have a resolution of intent relating to county code, it does not change the code.

It simply is the first step.

If the code changes warranted, it would require further notice and a public hearing prior to any official action.

So moved.

Motion from Supervisor McKeel, second from Supervisor Mallek.

Mr. Gallaway?

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Mr. Pruitt?

Aye.

Yes.

Thank you.

the County Executive's fiscal year 2024-2025 recommended budget kicked off by our County Executive, Mr. Jeff Richardson.

Thank you, Chair Andrews and thank you members of the board.

As always, board, this is a true honor to be here today.

to represent our organization and our work to present the county executive's recommended budget for fiscal year 25.

This slide is an overview of what I'll be covering today.

Section one is how we approach budget development with an eye on our strategic plan.

Section two are trends in drivers that we see in our local economy

Section 3 is where we'll spend the most

part of our time today, and that is looking at recommended budget for fiscal year 25, recognizing, Board, that today is high-level overview, and that before we wrap up today, I'll look to our staff to tie this up with what we have after today.

Where will we be spending our time, our budget work sessions, as we work toward budget adoption, okay?

So before I begin, I'd like to introduce two folks that are with me today, Jacob Sumner, our Chief Finance Officer, Ryan Davidson, who's our Deputy Chief of Budget.

Both of these folks are at the podium today to assist me before we wrap up in case there are questions from the board today that I might not be able to answer or they may be able to answer more fully.

So with that, thank you both for being here, and let's begin.

So Board, thank you just for a second back to August of 2022.

That's where we were at the North Fork Research Park, and we were talking about our fiscal year 24 to 28 strategic plan.

This Board, along with our staff, worked diligently to identify six

Golds, moving over the next five years where we saw our biggest opportunities and also we saw areas where we had concerns and where there are problems where we need to consider capacity investment.

So today we are moving into year two of that fiscal year 24 to 28 adopted budget.

I want to talk for a second about our balancing considerations.

Today's budget recommendation is built upon the discussion and guidance received by the Board starting with the strategic plan development process and working through five-year financial planning as well as other topics throughout the fall, the winter, and getting us to where we are today.

Not every strategic plan goal will move forward at the same pace or with the same financial resources.

The current year that we're in, fiscal year 24, we sought to put new revenues where it counted most, where the needs were the greatest, and where process improvements alone cannot drive different outcomes.

This slide is representative of examples from this current year.

So Board, what we're doing and what we've tried to call out with clarity is how we use the strategic plan where we devote new revenues to advance the strategic plan areas with the greatest need and the greatest opportunity.

The examples up here are not all inclusive, but just are representative

of the work that we have done throughout this year.

Board, I'm proud to say that this recommended budget that's before you today is balanced on the same tax rates as the current year and that's shown in front of you on this slide.

Board, it took more work this year to balance this budget than in past years.

I'd like to take a second and I'd like to ask our budget and finance team who are in the auditorium today, would you please stand.

These folks here, now I'd like to ask our department leadership that is in the auditorium.

The people who from the department side had a significant role in helping us to balance the budget.

Please stand.

This is just a part of our team board that have been working through the winter to today to get the budget balanced.

I cannot express my thanks enough to our team of employees at the department level across all departments back to budget and finance as well as our wonderful team in the county executive's office.

It took a lot of folks to get us to where we are today.

Board, I want to take a second before I move on to also recognize several key partner agencies.

First, I'm going to start with the City of Charlottesville and Sam Sanders and his team.

This Board knows that we devoted about a half a day in mid-December with Key City staff.

to work to prepare for this year's coming budget.

There's a lot of overlap between city and county government with the things that we work on together.

And that day gave us clarity on some things we needed to prepare for operationally as well as capital.

And that was under the Board's guidance and leadership.

So thank you very much.

I'd also like to take a moment to thank Dr. Matt Haas and his team because we work closely throughout the year

with our Albemarle County Public School System.

Dr. Haas and his team devote a significant amount of time with our finance team led by Jacob Sumner as well as other key staff to work through the year with an eye on our budget as well as other related topics that we need to work together on to be the best that we can be.

We have a number of key partner agencies that I cannot thank because we don't have time, but I did want to call those out because we have worked very, very closely in recent months to get to where we are today.

And so thank you very much.

This budget is grounded in the revenues that are available, so I want to spend some time walking through the financial drivers that lead us into fiscal year 25.

Board, you'll remember that in the fall, we get a visit from Virginia Tech University.

Dr. Cheryl Bailey has been coming to see us to talk about economic indicators looking at about 12 months out.

This past fall, this slide represents a snapshot of that work that we do.

Dr. Bailey and her team, working with our finance team, said we are seeing indicators of economic cooling and we should take steps to prepare for that.

Furthermore, as you are well aware, here are two drivers, interest rates, as well as inflation.

And on the left is current interest rates.

They are higher than they have been in recent history.

And that affects our borrowing capacity, as well as looking at U.S.

inflation.

It is stabilized from where we were a year to two years ago, but it is still higher than it was pre-COVID.

Okay?

Now I'll take a second, and this is a familiar slide.

The next two slides will be bored because we want to ground ourselves locally in looking at the economic data where we can compare year over year to see where we are.

These stats represent some of the largest industry sectors.

Health Care costs are continuing to go up as demands continue to go up.

Military intelligence spending is up.

The development market, that mid block, with a 37.5% increase.

The development market is stronger than it was a year ago, which is a positive side.

Fourth quarter activity was really strong, but our caveat

that by saying that some of this is driven by new apartment units that are coming online across the county, a shift maybe to some degree from prior years from single family homes.

Elements of our tourism sector, the last two pieces of the slide with passenger boardings at Chobe, up 17% from a year ago as they edged closer to where they were pre-pandemic in 2019.

You see a vibrancy at our local airport

that suggests a strong regional economy.

And then finally, tourism revenues, they're up 17.5% year over year, which suggests that our community continues to be a weekend, seven day a week, destination community.

Okay?

Now we'll take a look at a few more economic indicators and the red number represents the change from the prior year.

I've talked about inflation, unemployment.

Unemployment is about two and a half.

Our population growth is pretty consistent and stable with where it's been.

But when you go across to the right side of the slide,

This is where we see a slowing of our economy to some degree for this region.

It's still strong.

Real estate assessments, for example, are up 4.1%.

But that's over a record year of over 13% a year ago.

Consumer-driven revenues, they're strong at 4.7%.

But again, they've cooled from a record year last year.

And then finally, the same with business-driven revenue, which is gross receipts from businesses.

This is another way of indicating the record assessment years that we had in 22 and 23.

Again, 2024 assessments, real estate assessments went up 4.1%, but when you look pre-2022, that's really solid growth.

It's just that we had the two years in 22 and 23 where we saw the spike.

The preview for fiscal year 25 is really to continue to build on the momentum with what we began with year one of your five-year strategic plan.

So, Board, it is building momentum.

You're two of this five-year strategic plan.

If you look inside this budget, you will see a lot of things that we are doing, a lot of things that we're going to finish this year, a lot of things that we're going to open this year, and this is momentum as we go into year two.

We approach the annual budgeting in the context of the five-year plan, as well as connecting to the outlook of the economy.

I hope you will hear a couple of themes as we go through fiscal year 2025.

First, I want you to listen for organizational adaptability.

That is our looking to do service delivery different because the problems are different than they used to be in some of the areas that we serve.

I want you to listen for the cross-departmental work.

You've heard that for several years, and we are continuing to emphasize

Cross-departmental work in our organization because our problems in our community are more complex and they require multi-department help and assistance.

I want you to listen for our key agency partnerships.

They are alive and well.

We reach to our key agencies to help us do things that we cannot do by ourselves.

And board, finally,

I want you to think about this because this is a journey and for several of you, you've been on this journey with us for a while.

I want you to think about all of what we're talking about today being grounded in data-driven analytics.

I got up today, I came to work and on my desk and timing is always an interesting thing.

But this month's public management magazine, Procedian County Management says, using data to drive success.

Board, that's where we are.

This Board encouraged us to begin to invest in big organizational cross-departmental systems that drive IT-related analytics that will help inform not just how we're doing, but where we need to continue to invest for the future.

and we're beginning to see a return on that investment.

We'll talk about a couple of those today, but it's not just about our IT department, it's about all of our departments and they've embraced this and it's been alive and well and we're really beginning to see the fruits of our labor.

Okay?

Board, I like this slide.

I like this slide because it shows discipline and it shows responsibility.

This is the physical year 25 recommended budget, but we must do multi-year budgeting.

We budget annually, but the decisions from one year affect what happens the next year.

Decisions from last year are part of the budget story for this year, and the decisions that the Board makes in this coming recommended budget could affect us in years to come.

In fiscal year 24, the Board directed nearly $5 million in ongoing revenues be placed in the capital fund.

You did that because you were paying attention to the economic cooling that was being suggested by Virginia Tech University.

Or I want to say it again, we took $5 million of operational growth last year and we pulled that back and you can see down in the bottom of FY24 the $4.9 million one-time transfer to capital.

This year we pulled that out and that helped to jumpstart our budget process for both local government and schools, moving into the budget process because our team was looking ahead into fiscal year 25, fiscal year 26, and also paying attention to economic drivers and anticipating an economic cooling because, board, we have to balance.

I have to bring you a balanced budget.

So in FY25, we're beginning to pick up some costs that previous policy and funding decisions require.

The new courts were a capital expense, but now require revenue for staffing and operating the new building and the expanded square footage.

Grant-funded initiatives are scheduled in FY25 to require some additional local funding.

We knew that several years ago when we pulled those federal dollars down.

And we will keep an eye on FY26.

as we begin to plan for expenses, our obligations that will require local funding beyond next year.

Board, I'll take one second to talk about federal ARPA money.

It feels like that was a long time ago.

Federal Lee funds have been a significant part of county budgets since fiscal year 21.

Funding through CARES and ARPA were designed to support people and communities during incredibly challenging

Times, brought on by COVID-19.

We use these funds to do exactly what we thought we could do, one-time money that we quickly spun into programs that would make meaningful impact in our community.

Without supplies, we gave grants for business adaptation to support outside service, support rent, utility payments for household that we're experiencing income loss.

I'm proud of the fact that we have spent this money judiciously.

We've spent it according to the federal guidelines that were sent to us when we received this money and now these funds are almost exhausted.

We did what we intended to do.

Now we're back to local funding, driving local programs and services.

It's important for this board to know we spent this one-time money on one-time programs that we could back out of and scale down if we chose to do so.

There's a number of examples of how our past decisions drive future budgets.

We launched a number of pilots over the past several years.

Pilots are a good word in local government board.

They give us an opportunity to try something, and we're choreographing to the community we serve that we're going to try this with no obligation to continue it.

And that's what we've done.

some pilots are over and done with, others gain momentum.

We want to keep them moving forward.

Examples include active threat field training exercises and also the emergency financial assistance program.

Also, if you look in the middle part of the slide, we talk about new facilities.

We focus on, first, the capital improvement plan, the cost of borrowing, the cost of debt service.

We have two facilities that will have operational impacts in 25 as they open, and they will require staff to function.

One is the courts, the new modern court system, which will open in late 2025, and then also our Public Safety Operations Center at JCPenney.

Finally, we also accept grants.

We acknowledge that if we want to keep the program or service going as the grant funding goes away, we need to pick up the ongoing expense.

We've been very successful in receiving FEMA safer grants.

to support hiring of firefighters, and now the grants are beginning to expire, and we have planned ahead and are moving to local funding.

Finally, we will also be slowly coming off of federal and state funding for transit services, both with CAT and MicroCAT, and we're planning to make local investment to continue those services.

Our total budget board for fiscal year 25 is $629 million.

It's an increase from our current year of $74.3 million.

This board understands that some of that is due to annual fluctuation in the capital program.

We have a five-year capital program and that there is timing on capital outlay, timing of debt issuance,

and timing of the build out before it is open.

In addition to that, we have local growth in tax revenue and that's also reflected in the growth of the budget.

So as I mentioned, all funds budget at $629.

We tend to focus more board on general fund during our budget season because we know that's where all tax revenue is received.

It's the primary funding source for both our local schools, capital

and Debt as well as local government services, and it's where this board has the maximum amount of policy discretion.

And as you see on the slide, the general fund revenues for fiscal year 25 are estimated at $432.2 million.

I'll take a second and talk about the formula and the split with Albemarle County Schools.

This is a formula that the Board of Supervisors adopted a number of years ago, and this is the allocation of shared revenues between local government, our joint debt and capital, and county government operations.

And as you see from that donut, 54% goes to schools.

10% comes off the top for our joint debt and capital and finally 36% goes to county government operations.

Switching back to general fund expenditures just for a moment, the recommended expenditures are balanced as you see with the same number, $432.2 million.

and I'll point to, again, our largest and most noted partner and that is public schools with the overall transfer to public schools out of the general fund budget at 44%.

I like this slide board because it's straightforward.

This is the new revenue, the new growth that's coming in the FY25 budget.

You may say, bottom line, where is it going?

10.1 million new dollars going to public schools, operating funds, and this is by formula, $9.3 million in workforce and customer service investments.

That includes compensation, healthcare,

consideration of a mid-year increase for FY25, as well as investments in software system, community development system delivery.

In the middle row, you're talking about a 2.2 increase in partner agencies.

to the right, a 2.1 additional investment in micro-cat and cat, public transportation services.

And then the bottom line is 2.8 million in obligations, as well as the bottom right, just over $1 million increase in safety and well-being.

And that is plowing additional operating dollars into the opening of the general district court.

increased funding for our costs for the additional firefighters that we've added over the last three budgets as well as some other related investments.

We'll switch to capital just for a minute and first let's look at schools capital.

For this next year, we're looking at a total capital for schools of $206.8 million.

Board again, I like this slide.

It's clean.

It gives you a snapshot of where the investments are going.

I'd highlight

that High School Center 2 and Elementary 1, which is the Southern Feeder Pattern School, both have check marks for physical year 25.

I believe that the schools has indicated that they are also struggling with increased construction cost.

I want to think that that's about $11 million of additional cost.

for both of those schools together.

And I'm pleased to say that in the FY25 recommended budget, we have those costs that are included through the work of our finance and budget team working closely with the school staff.

You can look below those two schools at the alignment to the capital budget for the other items that are noted.

So this slide is local government, $128.9 million.

It's the same concept.

What I would point to the board for your consideration is look at the broad array of projects and investments that this organization is involved in.

And this is tied back to your strategic plan.

I'll talk a little later about transportation leveraging, parks and fields.

We're planning to open Biscuit Run in fiscal year 2025.

Board, it's been a while, but I remember being in Lane Auditorium when the governor came and signed the documents, turning the 1200 acres over to Albemarle County Government.

And again, I'm proud to say, fiscal year 25 is when we will open Biscuit Run Park.

We have plans for a Northern Convenience Center.

We have county office renovations, investments, as I've spoke about, with our courts opening in fiscal year 25 and on down the list.

Board, I want to take a minute to highlight in each of the six strategic goals, investment, moving into 2025 with FY25 recommended budget, please.

Gold number one is safety and well-being and board you're so familiar with the design of these slides because each month

You give me the opportunity to come under the County Executive's report to talk about our advancement in our strategic plan with alignment with our people, our partnerships, our programs, the things that we're working on every day to move the needle forward.

Here's a good example.

Our Human Services Alternative Response Team.

Remember, I asked you earlier to keep in mind adaptability.

So here we are with a group of people from human services, police and fire.

In the first six months that this team has been together, they've provided support for 149 911 calls in our community.

They go to the field on these calls and they connect individuals with resources and following up to try to prevent additional moments of crises.

So over the time that they have been online running these almost 150 calls, we see our time by our police department cut in half.

over this timeframe with calls for service in the field for mental health related calls.

So they're making an immediate impact in the field with their expertise and their ability to take these calls and to get the person who is in crisis and in need of services to get that done while in the field.

And it's having an effect of freeing up capacity for our other 911 call responses by our emergency responders.

Also in the first goal of safety and well-being, I want to talk about emergency management.

Several years ago, this Board approved a local emergency management position that would allow us to provide a more focused effort on the county during an event.

The function provided substantial support during its start-up and during the pandemic.

This past year, emergency management led active threat field training exercises which brought our police, our fire, our regional public safety partners in leadership within county government as well as our public schools together to do learning, training, simulations, and finally a full-skill exercise.

at one of our schools this past summer.

This effort highlights our strengths and identified areas of improvement, and now the departments are working through the list on how we can improve and be better.

This effort is a pilot, and now it's deemed essential, so we will look to conduct another exercise, focusing on a cross-jurisdictional event in FY25.

That's coming in this coming year.

We're also board planning for the safety and security of this fall's presidential election.

As you know, every four years we have a presidential election.

This board has talked about our need to focus on public safety and we're doing just that with our key partners.

Also in safety and well-being, I'd like to highlight continuous improvement.

Our Police Department is focusing hard on how technology can continue to enhance how our officers work.

This budget supports Photospeed Camera Pilot on Hydraulic Road.

It's going to be installed this summer before the start of the fall semester for our public schools.

Beside Lambs Lane Campus,

a drone program to support critical incidents in search and rescue efforts and continued work on cybercrimes lab to continue to leverage technology to aid in investigations.

in D.S.S., our child welfare team.

It's experienced high turnover.

They're fully staffed.

They are stable.

And with this stability, it allows them to focus more on standards, but beyond that, the full child and enhancing their well-being.

Our fire department participated in a five-year

Planned Work Session with the Board this fall shared their system challenges.

There is a decline nationally in volunteer availability.

There is an increase in calls for service, particularly in the development area.

There is a 24-month lead time in deploying a newly recruited firefighter.

This means long-term planning is critical for the sustainability and success of our fire system across the board.

Over the past three budgets board, we have hired 50

professional paid firefighters in Albemarle County.

We've done that using federal grant money and we've planned ahead as this as this grant money is retired to be able to take this obligation on locally.

We're prepared to do that.

All of our departments are focusing more on data collection and analytics to identify trends and focus areas for improvement.

Goal number two, resiliency, equitable and engaged community.

Physical year 25 will see advancements in our climate action program.

This team that you see before you, and that's a happy group.

That group right there enjoys their work.

There's absolutely no question about it.

This team has steadily built momentum since the 2020 adoption of the Climate Action Plan.

This plan drives how we operate our buildings and how we support our community in reducing carbon impacts in two large areas, and that is buildings and transportation.

This year, Albemarle County cut our own greenhouse gas emissions by more than 10%.

The work ahead is focused on resilience and how we prepare for and navigate through the challenges such as drought, severe weather, and other related items.

This team will develop a countywide greenhouse gas inventory dashboard, develop a climate resilience plan, and work with the community-based organizations to advance resiliency, projects and programs in the community, two of our key partners, the University of Virginia and the City of Charlottesville.

Our third goal, infrastructure and placemaking, universal broadband.

Board, we will achieve universal broadband in 2025.

At the moment, we are 84% complete.

Of the 38,000 total passings required to fully serve Albemarle County, we need to complete 6,100.

That's what's remaining in Albemarle County.

How have we done that?

We've done that with great staff.

We've done that with a tremendous effort.

We have also done that with success with federal money pull down as well as public-private partnerships.

We never could have imagined going into COVID-19 how important this is, and now we really know, and we appreciate the leadership in this area.

Born in December, we celebrated the acquisition of 462 acres of land adjacent to Rivanna Station.

which is the home to three defense intelligence agencies on 29 North.

The station is currently wrapping up a nearly $100 million expansion.

That project will build out basically the land holdings of the Army at Rivanna Station.

This was a project identified in a 2017 study of the station's future planning.

The study also envisioned an expansion of the mission there.

Getting the land acquired site control was the biggest obstacle to bringing this full plan to reality.

Albemarle County, with the support of this board, you did just that.

Now we're working on launching phase two and that's site readiness.

We'll be working in fiscal year 25 to do master planning, rezoning, to bring durable partners,

to the table to support the funding of the site's future.

And Board, let me take a second to remind our community that Rivanna Station in its current state today supports 3,000 employees in our community.

So when you bought that property, that was a defensive move right out of the gate because you were sending a message to the Department of Defense that we value that work in our community and that we want those jobs to stay in our community.

and I believe they will.

And then we pivot to the offensive side of the equation, which is how do we grow the footprint over time in order to fully maximize the opportunity we've got two hours away from Washington, D.C.

Number four is quality of life, and I want to focus on transportation.

And I've got a lot of information on this slide board.

Transportation is an area that our Board of Supervisors hears a lot about.

You hear a lot about that in this community.

This budget provides $5.1 million to transportation funding that supports state-funded and federally-funded road and bike-ped projects.

That's our transportation leveraging money.

This budget provides $1.85 million for public bus service through CAT.

Mr. Williams over at the city has done a really good job through COVID using federal money to hold down the cost of CAT services.

As that money is retired, we expected our costs to go up.

We have $500,000 allocated in the recommended fiscal year 25 budget to support CAT.

Board, this budget provides 1.74 million funding for MicroCAP.

That's our pilot on demand transit service, which in year one was primarily state funded, and in fiscal year 25 it will be primarily local funded.

Since its launch at the end of October, more than 8,500 rides have been requested through this service.

Since October in Pantops and in Rio 29, 8,500 requests for service.

Board, in fiscal year 25, you will see construction in our community through our partnership with VDOT,

that transportation investment in 2025 will be about $65 million in our community.

As we get into our budget work sessions, we'll talk more specifically about what those projects include.

Board, goal number four, quality of life.

Affordable Housing continues to be top of mind as we are continuing to focus on implementing Housing Albemarle.

The Board has adopted Affordable Housing policy.

Later today, this Board will consider action on developer incentives which would then activate the new requirements for projects to provide more units at a deeper level of affordability for a longer period of time.

This budget that I've recommended to you today supports an additional $2 million to be added to the housing fund, which is the one tool we use to move the needle on affordable housing by supporting worthy projects that leverage other public and private sector funds to help meet our housing needs.

again in quality of life, Biscuit Run.

Board, we are planning to open Biscuit Run in fiscal year 25.

Approximately 4.5 miles of signed trails await the completion of the public access needed to open the park.

We are very excited that this is about to happen.

also in quality of life, roadway litter pickup.

Board, remember last year when you approved a plastic bag tax that placed a five cent fee per disposable plastic bag at grocery stores, pharmacies, and other retailers to reduce the reliance?

on disposable plastic bags, which we oftentimes find in our waterways.

With the first year now complete, our ability to forecast revenues is improving and we're shifting to develop a long-term strategy for the use of those funds.

It's required by state law that that funding be used for environmental-related programs.

In fiscal year 25, we will direct those funds, estimated at maybe as much as $100,000, to contract services for Keep Albemarle Beautiful Roadway litter cleanup and campaign.

I think, and this is because staff told me, I think that we can clean more than 60 roadway miles on a regular basis beginning next year with the money that we're receiving off the plastic bag tax.

And Board, I don't need to remind you that this is February and February is where you see the most complaints from citizens on trash and litter.

Goal 5 is Education and Learning.

Our school staff and board will be coming to our board of supervisors with one of our dedicated budget work sessions to talk about their operational and capital needs.

They will get a dedicated amount of time.

We support our exceptional educational opportunities.

The single largest expenditure in our budget every year is to transfer to our school system.

As I said earlier, this recommended budget adds $10.1 million to the school's budget, and that is an increase of 5.6% from our current year.

I'd also add that we are tracking the state's budget process very closely.

I'm sure our board is as well.

And I'll mention that there are budget amendments that have been introduced for the two items that you see in front of you.

That's the loss of over $3 million in grocery tax and the loss of $4.4 million in the standards of quality.

Sales Tax and the Rebenchmarking.

And so we're closely watching our state budget, and our hope is that the state budget will help to replenish some of this funding that has been lost.

Board, I'm wrapping up.

And as I do, I want to talk about workforce and customer service.

First, our customer service enhancements.

For several years, we've spoken with the board about the need not to just update software,

in our organization, but to substantially overhaul them.

We call this our core systems modernization program.

There's been a lot of work to prepare for two major systems that will go live in 2025.

Let me take a moment to talk about both of them.

The financial system upgrade which has been developed and configured

As we move into fiscal year 25, we'll put near real-time information at staff's fingertips on budget, procurement, and purchasing.

It will substantially streamline our audit process, which now currently requires a significant amount of staff time over an extended period of time.

In community development, we have a system that will launch

in fiscal year 25, after months of process mapping and re-engineering to ensure that we're leveraging the new systems capabilities.

This builds on the success of the digital application system that was launched last year.

It will allow application tracking in real time and on demand for applicants.

We expect this to reduce our calls to the permit office, emails to the front desk, and create a smoother handoff as plans are reviewed by external partners.

These two systems are about providing customer service with modern interfaces, more transparency and better status of where items are, streamlined processes, but it's also about having data that we can use to drive system processes, decision making, and resource management.

Board, you took a pretty big leap of faith when you allowed Albemarle County government to undertake

a county-wide classification and compensation study.

That final report was delivered to Albemarle County on April 27th of last year.

Board, shortly before that what led to that we were we were seeing in 2022 the organization go system-wide over 11% with vacancy rates for every nine people there was an empty chair from that point until today we have added 138 people to the organization

That's capacity.

That's resource capacity.

We can be more effective, more proactive than we were two years ago because of our ability to more quickly feel vacant positions.

We did that by working through a number of areas.

First, with your support, we fully implemented the classification and pay study.

You implemented almost all of it last July and then this board considered this past fall doing the rest of it and you did it effective January the 1st.

We are prepared for full-year cost implications in next year to fully pay for that in a full year.

Thank you for doing that.

Every position in county general government is now at market rate, midpoint or above.

We are being more successful with our recruitment.

We're building stronger applicant pools and we're hiring people faster than we did two years ago.

In addition to that,

We looked at revenues last fall, we looked at our market, and we identified a stronger than expected performance of our local economy.

So in addition to allowing us to finish this study within nine months of receiving the report, we got the final piece of that implemented, and we also were able, this past January 1, to do 2% across the board

for all county government.

We will take that into fiscal year 25, recognizing that we are at market across the board.

I've set aside money in late 2025, the fall of 2025, to look at mid-year consideration next year.

We'll be coming to the board in the fall in order to be able to do that.

will come back to you.

We'll have market information.

We'll have local economic information.

We'll also have some performance on how we're doing in our budget.

The budget we have today is built.

The momentum that we see has a lot to do with our vacancy rate being much lower than it was two years ago.

And our turnaround time and the work we have to do to fill vacancies much stronger than it was one to two years ago.

Board, thank you for that.

I've talked a little bit about this but I just want to say that as we get positions filled more quickly, as we are able to hire people, build applicant pools, bring people on, we see a reduction in overtime and holdovers, we see more advancement in training and development.

It stands to reason, Board, that when we offer training and development and we're more fully staffed across our departments, people are able to free up and come to the training and development that they need in order to grow their skills.

Board, we're able to do what we call more Q2 work, and that is expanded outreach, communications,

We're able to form strategic partnerships.

We're able to have meetings to talk about how we can get better because we're not just holding the finger in the dyke trying to manage day-to-day operations.

And finally, board, better strategic planning, better re-engineering, and better long-range visioning.

So Board, I'm wrapping up, and we are in year two of the five-year strategic plan.

In FY23, ahead of the new plan, and in FY24, the first year, we were engaging in visioning, scoping, and planning work necessary to build the foundation for what I think is a very ambitious strategic plan.

When I look at fiscal year 25, I see evidence all through our departments that we're building momentum where it counts.

We are transforming how we deliver our programs and services as the community we serve grows and changes.

We're looking at problems that we face.

We're developing more refined, more targeted ways to solve these problems, leverage expertise.

work more hard with our key partner agencies, take advantage of technology as well as our durable partnerships.

So, Board, I've talked so much about the connection to the strategic plan with our capacity.

This final slide I have, though, it reminds all of us with this snapshot that we still are required to keep on our shoulders day to day operations in our county government.

And look at how this, look at how these numbers

Connect to the community that we serve every single day.

Social services, $216 million to support benefits and services for families in our county.

17,000 swimmers in our lakes, 1,000 fire alarms installed, 2 million visitors to our county parks.

We swept 419 miles of roads and collected 170 tons of debris, and on and on and on.

I'm so proud of our staff.

I've recognized the staff that we're here today.

We have a lot of our leaders that are in their office that are doing double time.

They're working and they're listening and then we have our staff in the field.

Tomorrow we'll have our town hall.

We will talk about what's in the recommended budget.

We typically have about 200 people on these calls and we'll take a minute to thank our people for the work that they do every day for Albemarle County.

I'm very happy about our workforce.

I'm going to turn it over

Thank you, Mr. Richardson.

Before the Board today, you have hard copies of the recommended budget.

And for the public to be able to review the recommended budget, that document will be available online later this afternoon.

So we'll be posting the recommended 25 budget online very shortly.

This slide is for you is the remainder of the FY25 budget calendar.

Today is the first step in that process with the recommended budget.

We will come back next week to have a public hearing on the recommended budget, and then we'll transition into March where we'll have a series of work sessions to really dive deep into the details of the recommended budget.

Some of those already have topics where we'll start with the operating fund, the general fund, where we look at revenues and start looking at the different departments.

And then on March 11th, we'll have a joint work session with the school board.

We'll talk with the schools and we'll also review our capital improvement plan.

You'll see we'll transition into April, where we have the public hearing on the budget on April 17th, and we'll come back on April 24th to set the tax rate.

Chair Andrews, I'll be happy to answer questions that the board has today.

I know you're on a tight timeframe.

I want to be respectful of that, but we do have a number of staff.

Thank you.

We have a little bit of time.

Jeff, I don't really have any questions.

It's early in the process, and we're going to have lots of opportunities and lots of work sessions to formulate our questions and get the answers.

And a big book to review.

I really do appreciate, though, your presentation and what you've highlighted, which is really important.

I fear if I pick out certain things to chat about, it diminishes the others.

So I'm going to try and refrain from that.

Only to say thank you very much.

Our staff has worked so hard.

This presentation really shows the importance of the work plan and staff having the time to work the work plan and what we can get done

limited amount of time to be perfect clowns with you.

I'm just really impressed.

So I'm going to wait until I have a chance to really review all this in more detail.

Thank you, Mr. Richardson.

I think this is a good budget relative to what we were expecting last year when we knew that the revenues would probably not keep pace with what we've seen the last couple of years.

So I appreciate the planning and the effort by you and your team to be mindful of that and continue to be mindful of that moving forward.

Well, we have time for it, but you know, it's anytime we can get the questions out there of what's coming and what we can expect.

I'm not looking for answers today, of course, but these would be some things that I would just, I had reactions to while listening to the budget.

It occurs to me that having served on the school board, the school board does a needs-based budget.

and when Supervisor McKeel and I were on the board, at least when we had our shared time together, there were a lot of years where there were some pretty big gaps there and I don't need to go any further, it's just the way that the budgeting process works.

But as I look at this budget, you know, Jeff, you bring forward a balanced budget, which you're required to do and there's a lot in this budget that we're doing and continuing to do, but there are some things that we're not doing because of the revenue dip.

and those are things that I'm not going to start bringing up right now or today.

but I think it's important for our community to know because they are used to seeing a school budget, a school presentation come forward that says it's needs-based.

Well, if we did a needs-based budget, what would our gap be on the things that we couldn't or don't do based on our strategic planning?

I'm interested in having that conversation this year, particularly because there are some priorities there that I think are important that while we're continuing to work on, maybe we're not able to do it as robustly as we would

if the revenue situation was a little different.

So I'm not going to highlight any of the areas because I'm already aware of them or some of them.

So as we go through, then we can talk about it.

I will say like one is the housing fund is a good example.

We're not able to put the money into it this year that we have been putting into the last couple of years.

So that's an example of what I'm talking about.

and I don't think that's a negative conversation.

I don't think that's in any way anything but positive.

It just shows that while you have to make choices, the budget is probably the biggest thing that we do year in and year out that reflects our choices.

And I think it's important for the public to see us have that conversation.

and again, I'm not looking for answers today.

I was thrilled to hear that in the CIP that some of the cost increases for the elementary schools in particular were being covered.

I guess my question there is, covered after the school board did some slicing and dicing?

or before, because I do not want to see capacity going down just like we did in past issues.

I'm going to be kind of on that this year, not wanting to revisit some things in the past.

I'm thinking of Greer, of course.

So that's just a question that I had out there.

The microcat piece, I'm assuming that we'll hear, well, I'm not, I should, no, scratch that.

does microcat in the analysis of the pilot going to give us information on whether or not all the fixed routes that are currently in place are still needed or if microcat could replace some of those because there's potential cost savings

If you have a fixed route along Ryle Road that Microcat could serve and you don't need the fixed route any longer, that could be a way to finagle some dollars around.

When the Microcat folks were here and gave us their presentation, they had stated that a lot of times when you put this sort of program in place,

It tells you which routes are strong, where you might need new routes, so it might not mean that just because we get rid of one, we don't need one somewhere else.

I'm just assuming that some of that information will be included whenever we talk about transit, now that you're starting to program dollars to MicroCat.

I'm thrilled to hear 8,000 some.

The feedback I've been hearing on this has been phenomenal, so I'm real excited that that's in there.

Station.

Thank you.

Thank you, and thank you very much.

This effort that the staff has already done and now the Board will do is the homework that keeps us in good stead with our AAAA.

And that makes all sorts of other things possible that we could never achieve if we haven't done the hard work first.

And I will agree that the list of what we're not doing will be very helpful for our public to know so that

They have a chance, without having to completely understand, go through the 400 pages, to know where their attention could be especially helpful.

Because I remember 30 years ago coming in to advocate for things that didn't quite make it in the first draft, and that's an important role for our public to be able to do.

And I look forward to more work sessions and advocating for those different elements that we've mentioned going forward.

Thank you so much.

I want to just begin by saying that this is an excellent budget and I'm incredibly impressed by what you and staff have put together here.

As you pointed out, this is a year of really

Constricting Financial Capacity, and at the same time, we have just in that presentation stacked what it's like a movie trailer, right?

In any other moment, these would be stand-up and sheer kind of things like Biscuit Run opening 2025.

Yeah.

Oh, God, I forgot some of the ones I was going to hit on, but ending

eliminating rural broadband gaps in the county by 2025.

These are all stand-up and cheer moments that we're achieving even with reduced capacity.

So I realize that did not happen overnight or magically.

That was through a lot of hard work.

So I want to begin by just really applauding the work that went into this budget.

Like my peers, I am very interested.

My ears perked up when you mentioned that you had already accounted for some increase in

in construction costs in the capital outlays for the schools.

I'm curious if that is pre or post hoc of when the schools started identifying what they expect to be capital shortfalls.

I know, I have experienced, I'm sure, some of my peers on the board, some words in passing, some conversations in passing with my colleagues on the school board anticipating an additional request on that line.

So I'm curious if that is already baked into their request or if that is

and so on.

This budget is extraordinary.

It's following through on a lot of our commitments, and it is building a lot of internal capacity.

I actually see that as maybe the main thing it's doing.

It's building our ability to work well as government.

We're keeping pay competitive.

We are investing in internal systems.

We're making it so that members of our government can do their jobs better.

and his titled Building Momentum, right, which implies that there is continued acceleration and in fact perhaps even greater acceleration what we're already doing.

And I think that lines up when we're looking at AC44 and also when we go out to our communities.

I certainly experience significantly like increased community expectations of government and I think that is a trend that is uninterrupted.

I have

as I'm sure everyone else here on the dais has received significant communications about something we're going to be considering today.

And one of the most dominant talking points is the lack of investment into pieces of infrastructure in that community.

and we of course have to build 500 new affordable homes in Albemarle every year to keep abreast of the minimum goal that we are tasked with meeting.

These are all very, very significant goals and while I think we have built the capacity to start tackling that, I do not believe

at this rate and especially with the forecasted additional obligations that we will be able to hit that ramp in the coming years and I just want to say that out loud to the community and also to my colleagues on the board that we are going to have to

to maintain that momentum, and that is going to be a much harder conversation than what we're having this year.

There's going to be significant additional commitments that we're going to make to be able to fully execute on what we are telling our community we plan to execute on, which is going to be hard, as we also saw, you know, a thousand of the homes that are in extremely low-income households.

are owner-occupied, so we're going to have to be very innovative with how we deal with this in coming years.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I love the budget presentation.

I could actually listen to it again.

That's how much I loved it.

and so on.

if the date that we have is firm or if that is something that will, could be pushed back in the future depending on cost supply chain and things like that because I'm getting calls of people being very anxious about the overcrowding but I know the school board is also working on that and redistricting in an effort to help solve that problem in the meantime.

I will say I'm very impressed with the IT modernization

because I think that will definitely has helped us and will continue to help us serve the public in a better way because everything is more modernized and the applications will be easier and such.

It's more efficient.

And anything we can do regarding efficiency, that also helps budget-wise.

also interested in the parks.

I want to make sure that that is a real big interest of the people that live in Albemarle County, parks, nature, that we make sure that we hold to those commitments.

Once again, I think that was an impressive budget.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

And I share my colleagues' enthusiasm for diving into this.

I'm impressed with the work and looking forward to going through it in great detail.

I agree.

What we're not doing is important to understand and how that impacts many aspects of the budget, including the school, CIP.

You mentioned early on that we should look for organizational adaptability, keep partner agencies, and that it was grounded in data-driven analytics.

I love that.

I am going to be looking for that as we go through it.

And it would also be nice to see as we look at things that we're doing, where the savings have been realized.

where we have perhaps less overtime, where we have better outcomes, timing of response, process implications for the public that we serve.

I know these are all coming and we have a lot of time to spend on this.

Yeah, that's great.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Yeah, a similar type of process question.

Yes, sir, we talked about that this week.

Emily Kilroy will be communicating probably in the next few days to the entire board about a predicted timeframe for budget-related town halls.

We'll also have the opportunity to consider other adjacent topics.

A good example would be transportation or other related operational issues to where it would be driven by budget, but it could also be driven by topics of the day.

from that particular district.

And so Emily's going to be with the board shortly in email and we'll begin to schedule those with the appropriate staff.

Thank you.

Lord, any other questions at this time?

Thank you for the presentation.

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

Excellent.

The board that brings us to our first action item of the afternoon, Housing Albemarle Developer Incentives, presented by Dr. Stacey Pethia, Assistant Director of Housing.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon, board.

All right, I'm going to try to get closer somehow.

I am Stacy Pethia, Assistant Director of Housing for Albemarle County.

And I can't get what I need.

I can't find it.

Thank you.

Like that one.

I apologize for that.

I lost the mouse.

I'm Stacey Pethias, Assistant Director of Housing.

And I am joined today by Jacob Subner, Chief Financial Officer, and I don't know where he went.

There you are.

He will be joining me in the presentation this afternoon.

And we are here to talk about the proposed Affordable Rental Housing Incentive Program.

We will start the presentation today with a little bit of background on affordable housing needs and then move into the proposed program itself.

I will start the conversation off and then when it comes to discussion about the actual form and amount of the proposed incentive, Jacob Subner will join the conversation.

after that we will give a brief overview of next steps not specifically with this program but with housing activities in general and then open it up to the board for questions.

and so everyone is familiar with the spectrum of housing need that is in front of you.

This is just to show that for approximately the last 20 years, the county has been looking at affordable housing at the 80% AMI mark and that was for both affordable rental housing and affordable home ownership opportunities.

In 2019, the

Thomas Jefferson Planning District and the Regional Housing Partnership, commissioned a study, the Comprehensive Regional Housing Study and Needs Assessment, that really looked at housing needs affordability-wise across the county between 2018 and projected out what those needs would be to 2040.

What the table in front of you shows is that in 2018, a little more than 7,700 current residents who live in housing are paying too much for their housing costs.

And that housing cost burden households are expected to increase by approximately 2,300 additional households by 2040.

It's important to note the difference there.

So that 10,070 unit mark, number that we always talk about, is not necessarily that we need to build 10,000 affordable housing units.

We would need 2,300 additional housing units to satisfy affordable housing needs by 2040.

The rest of the housing need that exists today to address affordability really could be done some through new construction but a lot of it is really addressing energy efficiency upgrades with homes that will help bring down if you're living in a rental unit that costs $900 a month but your building is really old, your windows are drafting, you have an old furnace

You could be paying an additional $200 to rent a tiny apartment.

So that right there could potentially knock your housing costs to an affordable level.

So really working to address the affordability issue, not just with new housing, but with our existing units that are here is really what we're looking for.

Because the numbers in the housing study were from 2018 and 2019, staff went and did an estimate of current affordable housing needs based on current census data and data from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The table that you are looking at now shows that as of 2021, those are the most recent data numbers available, 10,331 households with incomes at or below 80% of area median income were paying too much for their housing.

So that's a slight increase from what we were seeing before.

and these are very estimate numbers to be honest.

So estimating the number of households with incomes at 60% AMI or below, you can see that the majority of the cost burden households in 2021 are really have incomes that are at or below 60% AMI.

So we are looking at that what we currently do, our current practice of building housing, affordable housing at 80% AMI mark,

We pretty much have that covered with what is in the affordable housing construction pipeline now.

Looking at households, the estimate of households with incomes between more than 60% of area median income or at an up to 80% AMI, there's about 1,165 households that fall into that category in 2021.

and in the construction pipeline we have about 1,185 units that are proffered as affordable housing at 80% AMI.

So we really have that need filled.

Which is why when staff worked on Housing Albemarle we changed the recommendation for rental housing to adjust 60% AMI households.

Those housing units marketed at 60% AMI can really fill a gap

that we are currently missing.

And that brings us to the affordable rental housing incentive program that staff has proposed.

This incentive program was really designed to help developers fill the gap that has been created between the current

accepted proffers of 15% affordable housing and taking that up to 20% of the total units is being affordable at 60% AMI as opposed to 80% AMI.

It really only focuses on rental housing as that is what we are unable to do through state code.

And so the proposed program really

satisfies four overarching goals.

First is to support the creation of affordable rental housing, but also to support the preservation of existing units of affordable rental housing through rehabilitation of those units.

Also looking to leverage market activities to advance the goals of Housing Albemarle and to provide transparent and accountable stewardship of public investments.

To be eligible for this program,

The project would be new construction.

It could be the expansion of existing properties.

So you could have a small 20-unit apartment building and the property owner wants to add an additional 10 units to that.

It could be the conversion of residential rental, conversion of an existing property that could be office space to residential rental properties or the substantial rehabilitation of existing rental units.

The projects

The incentive would apply to projects with 11 or more units.

They should be primarily located within the development area to ensure that we have the infrastructure available to support the new construction or rehabilitation that's there now.

The applicant, if it's new construction, should have control of the project site.

Also, there should be an approved rezoning if that is applicable.

If it's a substantial rehab, obviously you will not be rezoning the site.

And really looking at the order of the way

that we would like to have this work is that the developer would ask for the incentive first, that board would approve that incentive, then we would go through the rezoning process.

But no incentive payments would be released until the rezoning was approved.

And the project must provide a minimum of 20% affordable housing.

Thank you, Stacy.

Appreciate it.

Jacob Sumner, Chief Financial Officer for the county.

The program requirements for this incentive program would be that there have to be a demonstrated financial need with the project.

The number of units that would be reserved for households at, there would be, excuse me, the requirements also include the number of units reserved for households at or below that 60% of AMI.

And that the maximum affordable gross rents would be set by housing Albemarle.

Another requirement is that the affordable units will be dispersed throughout the building, throughout the development complex, and that the affordable units should be comparable in size to those that are at market rate.

The affordability period under this program would be for 30 years.

Back on December 4th, the county hosted a joint work session on developer incentives between the board, the planning commission, and the development community.

In listening to the discussion, we took note of items to discuss in drafting the Affordable Rental Housing Incentive Program.

And these are the considerations that we heard in that discussion.

First, we heard that there should be consistency in the application of the incentive.

Second, we heard that there should be clarity and eased calculation of the incentive amount.

We also heard that the incentives should be tied to real estate taxes.

And finally, there should be consideration on the impact of the market rate rental revenue by changing the number of affordable units from the 15% requirement to 20% requirement.

So let's dive a little bit deeper into the incentive.

And I'm going to spend a little bit of time on this slide.

So I'm going to keep this slide up as I go through my next set of comments.

So today, staff is recommending that projects that qualify for this program and maintain adherence to the program requirements were received in incentive equal to 15% of development's real estate tax bill.

The maximum term would be for 30 years, which would coincide with the term of affordability.

and a call for continual adherence throughout the affordability period to the program requirements and also required a board approved performance agreement with the developer.

The incentive payment will also be made after all real estate taxes are paid on an annual basis.

Please note that this incentive program is a template.

This is a starting point, and this is intended to start the conversation with the developers on including forebought housing in their projects.

And this template is a minimum.

So for instance, if a project provides a forebought housing outside of these base requirements, such as a deeper discount in the rents, or additional units beyond the 20%, we will handle those on a case-by-case basis.

I do want to take a moment to address the 15% number.

I do have that highlighted on the screen.

In the packet that you received, that was listed at 10%.

After the planning commission meeting and up through the agenda of preparation, staff continued to refine the model that was used to develop this policy or to develop this incentive program.

The final results led us to this 15% recommendation today.

So the recommendation from staff would be the 15% that we have on the screen as opposed to the 10% that was included in your packet.

Should the Board desire to move forward with the 15% incentive amount, the Motion for Approval would need to include a corresponding amendment to that amount.

I also want to take a second to draw the Board's attention to the note that I have at the bottom of the slide.

We recommend, staff recommends, that the incentive amounts, including the incentive amounts and the adjustments in adjustments that we make before we do our shared revenue calculation.

So Mr. Richardson mentioned in one of his slides on the budget presentation the allocation of our shared revenues between joint capital and debt.

School Operations and County Operations.

Before we actually do that split of shared revenues, we take off the top certain things that would not qualify for that.

Currently, on one of those examples of performance agreements that are ran through the EDA, staff would recommend that we would include these incentives, these

Program incentives off the top as well.

So it would be rebated or incentivized back to the developers before those revenues were split between capital and debt, school operations, and county government operations.

So staff met with the Planning Commission in January to present the developer and send a package for their feedback.

As you know, they were at the joint work session with the developers in December, so we took the program to them to get their feedback.

They had really six concerns or considerations that they put forward.

First was structuring the program as an incentive, as an loan instead of a grant.

That has not been considered at this time.

We can do that in the future.

A few of their other kind of comments were utilizing the program to incentivize rental housing

outside of the development areas, providing incremental increases in the incentive amount for a higher percent of affordable units that may be provided, using the program for projects with fewer than 11 units and offering a renewal option at the end of each compliance period.

Really for the second, third and fourth items that they highlighted, that was covered in the clause within the program description itself that really

Any projects that fall outside of the parameters of that program will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

That leaves the flexibility for other types of projects to come forward.

Offering a renewal option at the end of each compliance period.

That is always open for discussion.

That would be, again, falling outside of the parameters of the program and considered case by case.

And ensuring, finally, ensuring incentivized projects are consistent with the comprehensive plan.

as hopefully these incentive projects, incentive requests come prior to any rezoning and would be dependent upon a rezoning being approved for that project through that process that would ensure that these projects that are funded for new construction are in line with the comprehensive plan.

Finally, we just wanted to provide some next steps about the housing program overall.

Community Development Department is working on an affordable housing facilitated review pilot that would be working with specific projects that come forward and have a team that facilitates communication and cooperation throughout the entire approval process.

in 2022, the board adopted a resolution of intent for an affordable dwelling unit program ordinance.

Staff has drafted such an ordinance.

We bring that back to the board later this year.

And there is also under review some county owned properties to see which may be appropriate for affordable housing.

So that is going on at the moment.

Thank you.

We'll go through our order.

Thank you, Stacy and Jacob.

I appreciate it a lot.

This really represents a lot of work and we thank you.

We've been talking about this now for a long time.

And I think we are getting to a good place.

I just have a couple of questions or comments.

We heard some concerns by email and from someone, a speaker this morning.

Could you just address, if in a way, their concerns?

Because you were here and you heard those concerns and you've seen them.

I believe every project is different, so it will be difficult to set on one particular number.

I know the speaker this afternoon had mentioned one particular developer saying that they needed 33% of a rebate in order to meet this.

Another project may need 9%.

So picking a number that we can start with and set that as the baseline I think is really appropriate.

Tried this out for a while, staff will track progress and success through this and see how it works.

It can always be amended.

It was always going to be difficult to create a program that was perfect for everyone.

And so staff feels pretty strongly and with the help of Jake and his team,

that we've hit on a number that, one, provides an incentive.

Sure.

Sure.

Thank you.

And I think that's great.

I think it is important for folks to realize that, like our capital improvement program, this is not written into stone.

and we can always go back and revisit it, which is what we do often with programs.

And if we find they're not really working or we need to make an adjustment, we could do that.

I think that's what I hear you saying.

I just have a comment around when we talk about affordable housing and it might be because I see it a lot in my district, but when we talk about the numbers of people needing housing, I don't hear it often mentioned that right now we have apartments and homes where too many people are living.

That creates another need, to be honest with you.

We have apartments where so many people are jammed, adults and children are jammed into one apartment because they couldn't find what they could afford.

And it's creating situations that are not healthy, that are not safe, often for children.

So the slides at the beginning of the presentation that really laid out the numbers, particularly those that came from the housing study.

Those are based on the U.S.

Department of Urban and Housing and Urban Development numbers.

And we really specifically tracked those households that are housing cost burdens, so that are paying more than 30% of their income or more than 50% of their income for housing.

Great.

That's helpful.

I appreciate it.

I see it as I am in my community, but I also hear it reported to me often from teachers or principals or school folks, so I really appreciate that in helping me understand that better.

I guess for right now, I'm okay.

Oh, I do have one more question, and I'm sorry, but just let me ask one more question.

And again, probably because my district experiences a lot, we have a lot of very old apartment complexes.

that are privately owned under property management companies.

When I look at preservation of affordable rental housing units, not just the creation of new ones, but the preservation of old ones, I don't think

I have, in the last six weeks, I've had at least four complaints from different unit apartment complexes, and I don't want to take us down into a different swirl here.

But do you have any thoughts about that at all?

It is a huge problem with quality of life, and yet it seems like

I don't know much about our inspections, so that's really a question for community development.

So I've been told that by the health department, they can only inspect one particular unit if it's someone who has

and, um, qualified for, um, what we used to think about as the old Section A door, right?

And only can, they can't look at the entire building, they can only go to one unit, and a unit that has been, has had a complaint registered.

And I guess, at some point I'd love to come back to this with the board and to have a more, a broader discussion about it, because it's a real,

Inspect all units that are in our program on a regular basis, just to make sure that they meet housing quality standards.

And that's what I've been recommending.

at the same time I think that a broader discussion may be needed, but that's outside of this right now.

I just really appreciate your comments and help with that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So I do have a lot, so I'll try to go through them quickly.

So can we start with compliance?

So there's a lot of things in here about adhering to the program and hearing to the guidelines.

They must stay within that.

in other areas of the county.

We have compliance where compliance creates staff or additional costs or issues in time frame.

Yes.

Excuse me.

It will follow a very similar structure to the way we monitor compliance with performance agreements for housing now.

looking specifically at one that we have for a low-income housing tax credit property.

Twice a year, they will send us the record of the rents for all units that are covered under the Reformers Agreement.

That shows us that over the year, the 12-month period, that the units have remained affordable, they're being rented an affordable rent, and that the tenants are qualified to live in them.

So there is some income associated with those rent rolls.

that allows us to track year over year and every six month period to make sure that all of the units are affordable, that they say will be affordable, and we will be able to do the same thing.

So it will be making sure that as we receive those rent rolls twice a year that 20% of the units are affordable.

There will be some fluctuation.

They might not always meet the 20% mark because people move in and out.

So there may be one reporting period where they have 15% of the units as affordable.

They have some vacant ones, but they are filled by the next six month period that comes along.

So it doesn't create a whole lot of extra work in addition to what we're already doing with some current compliance.

So you mentioned the performance agreements.

You know, we've had some practice at this.

Southwood has a performance agreement.

That's a pretty complex one.

The performance agreements for these, can you speak a little bit to the complexity of them?

Are we going to have some simple performance agreements in place that we're all going to be like,

It is, I think, three pages tops.

Not the book that we have for Southwood.

I mean, Southwood is obviously a very different project.

It was going to be a more complicated performance agreement anyway, just due to the nature of the work and everything that's gone into that.

These performance agreements will really be very simple.

I'm one of the things that I'm liking and it's been reinforced every time I ask a question is the flexibility of the program that nothing in here is locked in but I do get concerned sometimes when I see the word must on some of the sentences so I hope

that just as, I mean, clearly developers right now don't understand the program.

You know, we're learning the program.

That's not a dispersion to them.

But as we work with them to understand it, I want to make sure we're emphasizing that, look, if we come through somewhere where must is a problem for us in achieving what we need to do,

that we have the flexibility that must is not must.

We just, we need that flexibility.

It may be down the road, it turns into a must, but I don't think we know enough to be able to define some of those things.

And I'm not gonna go through each one of them.

So order of process, this came up in the speaking amount.

I think, you know, I don't agree.

I think we're ready to go.

I think we're go time.

We're going to make a decision.

We're going to, it was time to test drive, test drive this.

And I've still got a lot of things to comment on.

But I think when we hear the developers say, can we still have another iteration or another round of conversations?

I think after we get this going, that it would make sense that we have some workshops or work sessions with developers to go, here's

you know, here's some sit-downs to do it more than what they're seeing in a packet like even the 10% to the 15% got them you know the order of do the incentives come first or the rezoning I think all of that needs to be put out there now that would create some additional staff time but if they have projects that are in the works those would be the good examples to come forward and go well let's start discussing how this works for your project and I think that could alleviate some concerns or some anxiety that exists out there

relative to whether or not this incentive package will actually help us achieve what we want it to achieve.

So the order of process, just to restate it so it's clear, we have a conversation about the incentives.

The developer gets approval for the incentives or the performance agreement ahead of a rezoning.

Then they come forward and get the rezoning.

They have to be separate.

No way, shape or form, does the agreement of a performance incentive or a performance agreement for incentives does not guarantee that they get the rezoning approval.

because the rezoning is still tied into impacts and everything else, but if they do go through it, they can count on it.

I don't know, it obviously exists out there that they're thinking they need to go through the rezoning process first, then get incentives, which I'd understand the concern about that, because the money that's tied up into getting the rezoning, and then if you don't get the incentive package, your project can't move forward.

So that's, I'm just saying all that again to restate what we know, but to emphasize that that is the proper

and so on.

So our current policy is 15% at 80% AMI.

That has a certain cost involvement, but the bonus density that they get to get to the 15% helps offset those costs.

We're trying to move the needle to 20% at 60% AMI at a minimum.

So how you arrived at the 15%, the dollars are to go to hopefully fill as much of that gap in that movement as possible.

So to figure out the amount, you took the rental income at 15% at 80% AMI, there's a certain rental income collected.

Then when you move to 20% at 60, that rental income drops.

So now a new gap, that gap is what this incentive is targeted to fill.

Some of it is the actual rebate of the taxes collected, but then some of it is also the decline in the value because now you've changed those apartment values or apartment rents.

So there's already a reduced tax being collected because of that change, and then the rest of the 15% was like, all right, well, this is trying to fill those dollars that the developers would see shortfall in because they've dropped the rents in the units.

The logic right of it?

Yes, sir, that's correct.

The target and the goal was to address the change in going from the 15% number of units and the 80% AMI to the 60% AMI at 20% of the units.

So that is the target that we were trying to reach.

And you are absolutely correct when the rental revenues on those properties are decreased because these are commercial properties.

They are assessed on a different basis that they are based on an income approach.

And so that would impact those real estate assessments and by reducing those revenues that they'd receive, that reduces their assessed value, which in turn

Thank you.

Now, the fact that it doesn't completely close the gap and that we're not talking about other incentives explicitly in here, but I think Stacey you've even mentioned it in your presentation.

So let's say there are still some costs somewhere

that is becoming difficult for the project to move forward at the 20% at 60% AMI.

Yes, and that's great.

thing to point out.

We do have the housing fund that is always available to not only nonprofits but for-profit developers.

So if it came to a situation which has been, we've seen happen a lot recently, particularly with affordable rental housing projects that construction costs have escalated and they're having difficulty filling those final gaps.

That's why we came to the Board earlier this month and asked for an additional $700,000 to be given to Virginia Supportive Housing.

They had a $1.5 million or $1.4 million gap left that they had a trouble filling so that is always an option.

Depending on the number or percentage of affordable units in the project or the surrounding neighborhood that an infrastructure project could touch on,

There is always the opportunity to use community development block grant funding that is perfect for infrastructure projects.

It has to serve.

51% of the households served must be low or moderate incomes, so have incomes at or below 80% AMI.

But that could be a surrounding neighborhood.

So it could be an apartment building being built in an older neighborhood where moderate income families live around that.

The infrastructure would be able to serve more than just that apartment building.

So there are other options available.

and even internal, like parking requirements, materials, things like that can still be discussed.

I mean, there were some other incentives.

The tax rebate was kind of the big one that got everybody kind of endorsed along with predictability at the December conversation.

But these other items that were out there could be really critical to one particular project.

And just because it's not named here, it's going to be important that we communicate out the folks that these are still on the table.

Much in the way that an economic development project is.

You don't take any of the tools off.

You don't lock yourself out of any option.

It would be in similar fashion of how I see these play out.

Like, well, can we change the parking requirement?

That might help offset a cost.

So I'm just getting that endorsed by the team that that exists in this program as it moves forward.

I guess I'll make the comment because it was mentioned that Willow Glenn was talking about the 33%, but that is was kind of a unique project because of some of the per unit proffers that were in place, but then that road project went away.

That was a huge cost that came out.

I can't remember if that was still with the road costs in there that they needed the 33% or not, but it just reinforces the idea that there could be things within the site

that you can forego because affordable housing is more important than, like in that instance, connectivity.

So we have to make those decisions as a board, but it could help in addition to the incentive to get the projects to go through.

Certainly.

I mean, the cash in lieu option is always available with rezonings, and so they would either proffer the affordable units or proffer a cash in lieu payment.

That has not gone away.

It's not called out specifically in here, because it's really part of the proffer system and not necessarily an incentive program.

I think that would be a good idea.

Now, anytime there's a new step, and I don't, I really don't mean this to sound snarky, but I mean, the time it takes to get an application and a project through the whole process is not incredibly expeditious.

So, this may be better for Mr. Richardson or for someone else to speak to.

I know we are doing things that we're working on to get that process more efficient, to streamline that process.

but expedited review was thrown out there in the incentive conversation as well.

But now we're saying that we're adding a step in where we're going to have a conversation around whether or not an incentive can be approved and then what that performance agreement is.

These performance agreements hopefully are just simple enough that we have to just plug in the names and the numbers and we move on.

I don't want folks to hear extra steps equating to a lot of extra time.

So between the review process improvements that we're doing and the timeframe that we're thinking it takes to get the incentive approval done, can we speak to that some so the developers have an idea?

I'm thinking of their interest of predictability from the December conversation, that we might as well start getting that out there what we think

Timeline takes place to get the incentive program done.

So there will be an application packet that needs to be completed.

It provides information about the project and things that we can use to determine whether or not this is something we want to provide an incentive to because the board needs that information to make that decision.

Once that's in, we will have one staff person at least that will review these pretty quickly.

So I'm training one of our staff in housing to be able to review these types of applications.

They are working on reviewing site plans and rezoning applications now, so they have that background.

and then getting to the board.

I think I haven't actually even had this conversation, so I apologize.

I'm saying this out loud for the first time.

But the board is going to have to probably work to make these things expeditious, getting to us.

And I don't know how that's going to play out.

I don't know if that's closed meetings.

We talk about performance agreements.

I don't know if that's just a public meeting in this case because it's pretty simple information.

but that's something that I think would be worthwhile, but this board needs to take on the responsibility to say, if a performance agreement's in there, we got one.

It shouldn't take two to three months to get to the board to make a decision.

But that's the more in the board's hands than staff's hands.

So we just have to be thinking out loud on that one, throwing it out there.

And briefly, it doesn't have to be a... I think that... Yes, sir.

I think that in our community development department, the affordable housing facilitated review pilot

would be basically the creation of a project team of staff experts that would work with the applicant representatives.

It would be county staff in community development that you would see subject matter expertise in all of the fields that are necessary to give that one-stop-shop feel when that applicant comes in.

The project team would meet regularly and they would be working hard to make decisions, identifying the obstacles and speedy resolutions to the problems.

So this would be something that Ms.

Florida and her team would want to pilot.

I think what your question is, is that plus you're also looking at your overall departmental

and so on.

with what Dr. Pethie had talked about, that Jody and her team would get up and going with the help of the county executive's office, particularly Ann Wall, she's supportive of trying to help and run this in alignment with this, sir, to where we hopefully would be able to, I'm hesitant to put a time frame on it.

Honestly, sir, because so many times the holdup is with the quality of work that we get in the door rather than us trying to figure out what the problems are.

And so what we hope for is that having all the people at the table at the right time in the room at the same time, we can identify those obstacles and more quickly move through those.

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Projects that have already received rezoning that we've done in the past under the 15 and the 80.

I've never asked this question before.

I presume they can come back and say we're interested in this.

They've already got the rezoning done.

Maybe they want to take it further, especially if it's a project where they're located in a spot that could make a significant, you know, it's a good spot to provide affordable housing because of the services or the infrastructure that's already existing.

So we've done a lot of rezonings in the past since we've been talking about this, whether it's them reaching out or us even, maybe encouraging them to reach out.

Not specifically, but yes, as long as they came forward with a change in their project that would meet these parameters, at least give us 20% of the units as affordable at 60% AMI.

Absolutely, we could talk about this incentive.

Completely agree that the revenue being delayed should be off the top.

So you've got my endorsement on that.

I think that that's smart.

I think it's wise and I think that this is going to impact everybody in the community.

So it's in similar ways that other things that come off the top, it falls for me in the same category or rationale for why it would be handled that way.

So definitely agree with that.

I don't, I mean, I don't

sometimes we'll do questions and then some comments, but I'll just, you know, I'll make some comments real quick.

The, you know, I think it's time to take, I think we're ready to take action on this and get this out and put on the road and test drive it.

And then if, you know, things light start going off or, we can always, because the flex, and that's why the flexibility must be there.

because then it can come back, the board can be involved in the conversation, staff, the developers, and then we, because at the end of the day we're just trying to figure out how to get the units online.

And I don't want anything that is, whether it's language or people thinking that 15 percent's like caked or cooked in, that it can't change to prevent that from happening.

So whatever we need to do to help put that message out, you know, the developers might be anxious about this.

Well, I think the board's pretty anxious about this.

We don't want to put a program in place that doesn't achieve what we're hoping for it to achieve, but it's going to take some folks coming forward and going, I'm interested, let's talk through it to work out the wrinkles and see if we can make this happen.

I think it's also important to note that just like economic development,

when those projects come in where tax incentives are included it's not just an endless

You can't just do every one.

If you do six, the seventh one might not be able to be completed.

And it's going to be similar in this regard, depending on how many applications come in, whether or not we can do them or not.

The community needs to hear that.

This isn't just an automatic, oh, they all can be done.

We have to look at the project, we have to look and see if we get ten of these, what that means delaying the revenue coming in down the road.

We have practiced at this.

We're good at this, and we're getting even better in the economic development project.

So to me, this is the same type of process in conversation as it exists there.

And I want the community to realize that since we do have expertise in that area, we can apply it here.

And hopefully, between the flexibility and what we've learned through economic development projects, we can make this happen to get the affordable units online.

I'm sure when I go back through and see all my check marks that I probably missed something, but I've taken up a lot of time, so thank you, Board, for giving me that time.

Thank you for the work and the effort.

Oh, the re-up period that the Planning Commission, after the 30 years, agree with that.

That's something that I think makes sense, and I think, like you said, it falls into your statement about outsider program parameters can be considered by case-by-case basis, but I thought that was a good one that the Planning Commission discussed.

Thank you so much for all your efforts.

I want to thank the TJPDC and the Regional Housing Partnership for letting us do the incentive conversations in the workshop and this board's faith in them to be able to do the workshop in July and then to have the conversation and then time to talk to everybody in December.

But I'm looking forward to hearing everybody else's conversations and take an action on this today.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Supervisor Gallaway, for helping me to organize my notes so much better than they were before, because this will help get on to the next person much more expeditiously.

I've learned a lot and agreed with many things.

I first gasped when you said that Cash and Low is still very much alive and well, because to me personally, over the last 30 years, that's where we failed.

We took $16,000 and didn't get the $200,000 unit.

and so I'm just going to put that out there that I hope that the guidance full speed ahead will be get the unit somehow and I understand if you have to have something else to balance it but

that was a hole that I'd rather not fall back into if we can.

Excuse me, I agree with the renewal at the end.

I think that sounds great as long as there's the right appropriate reinvestment as one would do for HUD.

I mean, you don't just get to go again without digging the deep, reaching deep in your pocket.

Another thing that struck me in the presentation was, well, if costs go up, then we'll give you more.

The big challenge for both of you, and I have no idea how to do it,

is the monitoring of the management of the process because I don't want anybody feeling like they can be sloppy in their product development and then decide the county is going to come and bail them out.

So as I said, that's a burden for the management and monitoring of the program that I think is very, very important.

I'm so grateful that there's money available for the rehabs of the NOAAs because

all in every single district.

There are many, many people who are invisible, whether they're urban neighborhoods or at the end of the country road, completely invisible.

I mean, there are people who have no interpumming in the White Hall district.

And so if there are other programs outside things to be able to scoop up those occasional properties to keep

the ability of our seniors, especially in their homes at the end of their lives.

And I know that finance has worked a lot of other programs to help that be possible.

That's just really important to me and the people in whom I represent.

The doubling up is absolutely a feature in the rural area as well.

as the, and I remember way back many years ago when the school department was describing the homeless children in the schools.

And one of the categories was are they doubled up with somebody else in their family, which was a federal homelessness category.

So I hope that there are ways to help get at that statistic still.

As well, I've been a long time supporter of

The Maintenance Code, which I know we're not talking about today, but I will just pile on with Ms.

McKeel to say, yes, please, let's figure out a way to talk about that some more, because it is everywhere.

I mean, there are trees growing through the roofs in buildings all over the countryside.

And so, anyway, the voucher unit inspection, my note written on that, was

People living there feel very vulnerable that if they complain, they're going to get tossed, and there's nowhere else for them to go.

So if we get to the maintenance code, then that removes the necessity of that vulnerable person who has nowhere else to go, who is afraid to speak up about their circumstance.

So more problems and answers, but I'm very supportive, and thank you for getting us here today.

As it evolves, it's really important.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

And also thank you Supervisor Gallaway for asking like half the questions.

That was excellent.

And I just want to begin by saying this is a really exciting document.

I'm very excited to be voting on it today.

Thank you for bringing it to us.

I know this has been a very long work in process.

It is something I've been following, but I know this is the first time I think on the record my voice has any role in it.

So I just want to recognize that I am a late comer to this conversation.

I want to begin with just two quick comments and observations that I want to share about this and then go into a few more specific questions.

First, like there's a very

Central part of this program that I feel like we miss out on just because of what has become duergar like standard business in Albemarle County, which is this is always going hand in hand with a zoning map amendment.

When you compare inclusionary zoning policies and other localities, that up zoning is the benefit.

That is the benefit that they're getting in exchange for their for their admittedly more modest inclusionary zoning requirements.

and that is already just par for the course and I want to point out like we are

There's maybe from the developer community a little bit of alarmism about that because it does seem to touch all projects and it seems to touch all projects because of what I think is increasingly maybe going to be the thing I bang the drum on every single meeting, which is our mismatch of our zoning map.

It is inconsistent with our own stated priorities and our own stated comprehensive plan goals.

It does not line up.

You can do a one-to-one comparison and it will not line up, which requires a zoning map amendment.

which is why this is introduced in every single conversation that we are going to have to have.

So I just want to flag that for everyone's attention as something that gives me just concern.

It influences the way we do business and this program is kind of built around that fundamental assumption that that is an unusual way we do business here.

And the other thing, I'm excited about this program, but I do want to point out one weakness that kind of leaps off the page for me.

We were recently looking at, for example, Avon Park and my own southern neighborhood.

This is a place where we have very limited options for infill and our continued development depends on what I would call creative infill.

to satisfy a 20% at 60 goal that is going to be much easier with significant scalability of the project, right?

Large developers are going to satisfy this more easily than small developments, but as we have increasingly constrained geographies,

that's going to be hard to do.

There's only so many plots left in Albemarle County that are in the development area that we can even do the kind of project that needs to be successful under this.

So we will need to be as a board, as a housing office, as staff, as a community.

We are going to need to be very creative about how we deliver infill because it's probably not going to be through this.

This is going to be challenging to do smaller scale creative infill and maybe

there are other solutions that we can look at to be able to leverage this as well.

But those are two, like, I think overarching things that I don't want to go unaddressed as we talk about this.

So I really appreciate you and Supervisor Gallaway digging in more on the timeline question, but something still kind of pesters me.

I think you hit it on the head when you said, like, these are not things that we are going to

Scrutinize very hard.

We're not going to sit here and have a long drawn out public hearing over an approval of one of our performance agreements.

We want to get that on the agenda and through the agenda as fast as possible.

does it have to be on the agenda?

Can this be a ministerial approval?

Because I care a lot about math and math related to housing, and I am not going to be sitting there with my calculator.

I can assure you.

So I'm wondering why I even need to see it.

So I guess that's a technical question.

Does it need to come before us, or can it be a ministerial decision?

and maybe no one has the answer.

I would think it would, just speaking to the same way that economic development projects come forward.

If we get to the point where we have a housing advisory committee, they could function in a similar way like the EDA.

But at the end of the day, this is a budget question, so it would have to come here for us to say,

Yeah, the offsetting revenue here over 30 years is 18 million bucks.

I don't think I want the staff having to feel that question.

Well, as we go through this and we actually have cases and we get more comfortable with it, it's just a thought.

And I don't know, but it might be that they could go on the consent agenda in some way.

And if we have concerns, then we could pull it because that's what we've done with several of our, you know, our Airbnb's or our changes and so.

But I don't think you want to start off with that right away.

Yeah, I don't disagree.

I think once we've gone through some and we have a comfort level with it to have it on the consent agenda, perhaps, and then if someone had a concern, we call staff or we pull it, or, you know, just saying.

I also might flag to one of the points I heard that the broader Housing Albemarle plan, if I'm remembering from when I last read the whole document,

and so on and so forth.

We have talked about how this could be used additionally to reauthorize continued terms.

Would that need any editing of the ordinance, or can we actually continue to execute that with it as drafted?

Like, would we need to go back and create a thing?

Sure.

And just for my own situational awareness.

There's a suite of tools that we have at our disposal that we can use, and it's really picking and choosing the right ones for the right projects.

So nothing is off the board when it comes to that.

Something that I'm embarrassed that this popped into my head so late, but my understanding is that this applies to all of the county.

which would include the part of the county that we don't have zoning authority over, which is the town of Scottsville.

Is that accurate?

Because the town of Scottsville is a town not a development area?

Okay, thank you.

Just wanted to get clarity on that, because I could see town leadership being very frustrated by this, basically their own zoning authority kind of being hamstrung by the side.

I want to actually join the planning commission.

I would very much prefer to see this as a structure of a forgivable loan rather than a grant.

And I know I've discussed with you why I feel that way, but I just want to say it again for the public record, which is one of the main ways that we deliver significant amounts of affordable units.

And a major tool both private and non-profit developers use is the low-income housing tax credit, LI-TEC.

this structured as a grant lowers their eligible basis and therefore reduces the amount of federal dollars they can get.

I would expect they're still going to apply for it, though, because it's money on the table, which basically means so long as it is a grant, by my own reckoning, we are saying we will pay for this amount instead of the federal government, which is never a position I want to be in as a local government.

I'm not trying to the federal government pay for something.

We don't have any structures in place to do a forgivable loan program at this point.

That's, I think, the biggest hurdle.

But I also would say we specifically removed the word grant from this draft to address those concerns.

So to use low income housing tax credits, the state of Virginia is okay with the tax abatement.

We're not allowed to call it that.

But it sounds like we have found the tedious middle ground of language that satisfies all the interested parties.

So if that is how y'all are reading this program and we think that is how Virginia Housing will read it, then I rescind my discussion.

I know Ms.

Schweller.

I think most of her issues have been touched on cash in lieu, timeline and sequencing.

The one other thing I did want to just make sure she had asked about baselines.

We talked about this beforehand, but I just, I don't know that's actually been explicitly said.

There has been, in addition to the 10 to 15, it is, we're no longer looking at the incremental change in tax revenue.

We're now looking at the gross tax basis, right?

So that is answering her question on what the baseline of what's being looked at, which is a

That's correct.

It's not the increment from what the current tax would be to the tax afterwards.

It is on the full amount.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

So I also do appreciate like

I think earlier stages in this conversation, certainly talking with people from Williams Mullen and from other light representatives of the developers lobby, there was this idea that was mentioned today of they expected to be made whole, which I think is the wrong assumption going in.

This is a regulation that is necessary for the health of our community.

We do not expect to pay people a benefit every time we say, actually, you need to conform with design and construction requirements.

It is not a making a hole.

That is not what we're doing.

We're imposing regulation that is necessary for our community's ongoing safety.

But we are doing something which is making them competitive.

And I know that being competitive in a market is a moving target.

And we are also even starting from what is frankly a best estimate of what is necessary to make them competitive.

So I just want to say that out loud is my understanding of what we're doing here.

but also just to chime in with everyone else and say, this does need to be an iterative process.

I self-style myself as a housing nerd.

read a bunch of reports about what did Montgomery County do right and how do we do that.

And the main thing that was consistent across all the different evaluations, there's a lot of things we can't do because the assembly has hamstrung significantly.

But the one thing that they did do that we can do is iterate on it constantly.

And specifically these main metrics, right, what our term of affordability is, what our

what our incentive value is and also what the AMI target is.

And those have been in the most successful program in the country.

Those have been changed significantly over the course of its lifespan in order to ensure it's a successful program.

So I would very much want to know

and so on.

one or two years, I would very much value if we could plan on your office coming with a, this is the next iterative step, because there are significant uncertainties, and I agree.

I think we are ready to pull the trigger as it is, but I would like to know, I would like to be prepared, not just with the idea that we're going to iterate, but this is the day that we will examine very specific iterative changes based on market performance of the credit so far.

That is where I'm very excited by this.

Okay, I'll take my 30 seconds allocated to me.

But I do agree that Supervisor Gallaway asked many of the same questions.

But I did want to piggyback on what Supervisor McKeel was her interest regarding

some of the units that are in fail or actually just currently being rented where they're not habitable, frankly.

And what I'm wondering is do we, I realize we can't go into that building, okay?

It's complaint driven.

But do we also have someone going into the buildings where we're giving vouchers for an apartment?

So I give you a voucher.

You have an apartment rental.

Yes, so before we approve any lease for a voucher holder, our inspector goes and performs an inspection of not just the inside of the unit, but the outside of the property as well to make sure that it complies with housing quality standards that had issues.

there's about to change and we're going to do a new sort of inspection process with new rules and regulations starting in July and they're huge and I haven't memorized them yet so I can't see what that will be but we do an initial inspection and then we do an inspection

and so on.

the changes, then we stop payment.

We stop paying rent on behalf of the tenant until those changes are made.

And has that proven, the inspections we have done, has that proven successful?

Yes.

Okay.

So that makes me happy.

Because I have a real thing against slum lords, frankly.

But I'm sure we all do.

I really like the expedited review.

I like the whole process.

I look forward to voting for this today.

I did want to ask, there was a

on distribution of affordable units.

You mentioned that the mix of affordable unit styles, square footage and number of bedrooms, et cetera, must be equal to or greater than the mix of the market rates.

And I'm asking regarding the square footage, does that increase the cost for the developers or is the cost, for the developers is the cost the same if it's the same square footage or not?

I mean, it just seems like that that's maybe someplace where they could, if it's a little smaller, maybe depending on the unit size, you know, if it's one bedroom, two bedroom, three bedroom, that maybe that's a way for developers to save money.

Is that important?

Is it not important?

So we're trying to keep those requirements consistent with the rezoning process.

And I may need to tweak the language in there.

I'll take a look and make sure that it says exactly what our codes, our zoning ordinances, and what we require in a rezoning application.

I'll make that language match, but that's the reason those are in there.

So making sure that this style and

The other word that you used are the same and consistent with the market rate units.

And I agree with the style.

I was just the square footage that kind of stuck out at me.

I know that our previous affordable housing program did not do well because we did not have a list.

of Affordable, of people who could purchase or rent.

So we are working on creating a waiting list, not just for rental units, but also affordable for sale units.

We are hoping to have at least a pilot up and running by July 1st.

We are getting some final things together.

And then that way they will be marketed directly to people on the waiting list.

That is to say, usually the rental units that have been proffered have no problems being filled.

We've had more difficulties filling the units that are for sale.

And for the purchase of a home,

The developer has to keep that affordable.

Is it 90 days or 180?

Developers have proffered both timeframes.

So they can offer 90 days affordability or 180 days.

So I believe it is a minimum of 90 days.

Some developers have upped that and they will profit 120 days or 180 days to give extra time.

But that is strictly marketing.

That's a time period.

They need to market it as affordable.

So question, if I'm a developer, why would I opt to go 180 days when I could go 90 days and then

I don't know.

But there's no penalty if they don't.

Correct.

That's the way the system has worked so far.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I've really appreciated the discussion.

I think there have been a lot of really great points raised, and I'm really excited about this.

Really quickly, though, if I may.

I appreciate the idea of expedited review on our, getting it on our agenda quickly.

I don't know if there's any queue jumping planned, but I really do appreciate that it's also on the developer to bring applications that don't need to be reworked over and over again because they're already well flushed out.

Could we go to slide 12 quickly?

Apologize.

So I was comparing the two documents and trying to understand what we've changed from the Planning Commission.

And I noticed in there the mention of two things here.

In two, you've got utilizing program to incentivize rental housing development outside the development areas.

And then six, ensure incentivized projects are consistent with the comprehensive plan.

That's a good question.

I don't think we discussed that slight challenge with the Planning Commission.

And I think

really if it's a project that if it's a by-right project in an outside of the development area or if it is a rehabilitation project for an existing property outside of the development areas then the consistency of the comprehensive plan does not matter.

So it would only really be looking at

Projects that are coming forward for rezoning and those larger rental housing projects tend to be located in the development area.

Thank you.

We'll come back eventually.

I just want to comment that I agree with the comment made about the possibility that we'll be concerned about smaller projects and infill projects and whether or not we can find a way to extend these incentives in some way that would

applied to them.

From there, my questions are pretty straightforward, I think, because what I see, what I hear is a board that's ready to do something, and I really appreciate that.

We have an existing ordinance, if I'm right, and this is filling in the gap by giving us a program to go with that ordinance.

Thank you.

The ordinance, of course, I believe, says Affordable Housing Grant and Loan Program, and I appreciate the decision to change this from grant to incentives.

I understand that, based on attachment A, we have at least the amendment that we're taking it from 10% to 15%.

I've heard a comment about revising it to talk about cash and lieu, but I would suggest that we not do that now.

because I'm sure there's some concern about how that would work and that we not take the time to try to rewrite this to do that, but that that become to us maybe the next iteration if there is a time for that.

Okay, and so I just wanted to clarify that what you're looking for from us is not just the comments that you've received but also at this point is it still appropriate to ask about

Correct.

And unless you wanted to add a sentence about the cash-in-lay payment, it sounds like you don't support that.

I actually, I don't want to say I don't support it.

I was not proposing a modification in any way.

I thought Supervisor Gallaway might have been proposing a modification at this time with the cash-in-lay.

Okay, great.

I misunderstood.

I just want to add a little bit of clarification too, so we're consistent in the language.

Right, not that.

Okay, so real tax bill and not increment.

Yeah, thank you.

So those both would appear in the first paragraph under section three.

And simple two changes, increment to bill and 10% to 15%.

I do.

I just have one.

I just want to clarify and I really appreciated these comments.

When I'm talking about the property management and the apartment complexes, we're doing a good job on one-offs where folks have vouchers.

What I'm talking about is the other people that live in those apartment complexes that are experiencing the same problems but are living there because it's an affordable complex but they don't have a voucher.

And wouldn't that be perhaps a state issue?

Yes, that's why I said we need to come back.

Because I totally agree with that.

Right.

And I did want to ask regarding the cash-in-loop.

Is that just a small portion of what an affordable unit would cost?

Because if they want to pay the entire cost of an entire unit, that doesn't bother me.

I don't know that the county has a specific amount for the cash and loo.

for Units, I will have to check on that.

Thank you.

Correct.

I just wanted to echo several other supervisors of saying like I have I think a a significant just blind spot in my own understanding of county housing policy on our our cash and loot program and I find it very striking actually that it is not really relied on.

we don't see people offering cash in lieu of offering 15% affordable, which is interesting because in other localities it is ubiquitous.

It is the main way that certain housing funds are funded is the main way that certain, that developers will meet certain goals.

So I guess I'd be curious how it's calibrated and if it does warrant like,

Revisiting both by staff and the board in order to make it actually something, especially as we look at how we are going to grow and scale the housing fund, I would expect that cash in lieu is going to be a part of that conversation.

There were just a few things that I did find here that I want to make comments on.

They're not really questions.

Specific to the rural area, comp plan, development area, that was Commissioner Firehawk, if I remember right from the planning commission meeting, bringing that up.

and it was kind of the idea, I think she was speaking specifically about perhaps Esmond and if there were additional units.

So the rezoning would have to take place, but it's not that this, that would be precluded if something like that came out.

We still have the flexibility to consider it.

A rezoning in the Royal area to get to that density would probably be a different hurdle, fertile than the incentive conversation.

But I'll leave that there.

I think the board should be ready, especially with the flexibility of the amount of the incentive, like right now with interest rate environment, the costs just are higher.

So to get them in line with that knowing that that's going to be on the spreadsheet, but even one basis point, if the Fed starts bringing that down over the next couple of years, I mean they're not going to drop drastically,

but that's a lot of money on the table that has made it more difficult to get this stuff to balance and to get to the profit margin that the developer is seeking.

So we just have to be ready for that.

I think we also need to be ready to, I don't know if this, I don't know underwriting enough in the development world to know the changing property valuation

from market rate to then when you do deeper and deeper affordability how that impacts their underwriting.

So I think we just need to be ready and open-minded to hear that and learn if that is something that impacts what they have to deal with to get their loans in place.

I want to make a comment about getting the right, the rental people in the units.

if I thought in December we were hearing and you just thought reiterated that we're doing a good job of getting the people in the rental units.

But there seems to be this notion that we're not for the rentals.

And that was coming from our planning commission.

I've brought it up at the regional housing partnership where I'm like we've got some information sharing to do here.

Because there are a lot of tools now to help get people into the rental units that's happening regionally, not just in our own jurisdiction.

So I think it's contingent on all of us to be pushing that message out.

The home ownership is just a different animal because of the costs, but the rentals we're succeeding in, and people need to know that.

They can't be thinking that if we approve a development that is 20% units that, oh, well, the people aren't getting in those units.

Well, yeah, they are.

And I don't know exactly what to do about that other than to just keep reminding people that we are getting the renters in the rental units.

and it's a different problem for the home ownership stuff.

The only thing I would throw out there too, I've said this in the past, is that, I mean, you've got your immediate next steps that you put there, but now that the incentive question is there and we get this out there and driving it around a little bit, the conversation about a trust fund is gonna be on my radar of when is that coming forward?

Because we don't have a trust fund, we have a housing fund, a reserve,

but trust fund was the next biggie in our housing Albemarle policy that we were going to tackle after the incentive conversation was done.

So I'm just putting out there that I'm interested in knowing starting some timeline conversations and when we can expect to start kind of, you know, dipping our toe in that water.

But that's all I had.

No other questions or comments.

I'm looking for a motion.

I'd like to offer the Board some guidance on the form of the motion but before I do so I just want to make sure I've heard discussion about two changes to the policy or consensus concerning two changes to the policy or program and I want to make sure I understand the change from 10 to 15 percent

but I want to make sure and I apologize if I didn't hear clearly the prior discussion about the basis for the computation of that 15%.

So is the consensus that that 15% is based on the entire tax bill annually for a specific property and not only

That's what I heard Jacob say.

So I think there's, you know, if I understand that if you all change the second sentence to refer to the 15% of the property's real property tax bill,

So in any case, if the first sentence is left as is, my suggestion rather than using the phrase in that Dr. Pethia has presented on the slide would be for a member of the board to make a very specific motion about the two changes, to change the, you know, to move to

approved the program as presented with the following two changes to Section 3 to change 10% to 15% and to change the word increment to the word bill.

so that it's very clear in the motion.

I transcribed the.

You ready to do it?

Yes.

Thank you.

I move that the Board approve the proposed affordable housing incentive program as presented with the following two changes to Section 3.

First, change 10% to 15%.

Second.

We have a motion from Supervisor Pruitt, second from Supervisor Mallek.

Yes.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Mr. Pruitt?

Aye.

Board, that brings us to a 15-minute recess, so we can get back here at 10 after 4.

We're a little behind, but I think we'll be okay.

And we are on to item number 11, which is Fontaine Interchange Improvements.

And we're going to hear from Mr. McDermott, Deputy Director of Planning.

Thank you, Chair Andrews and members of the Board.

Good afternoon.

Thanks for having me today to talk about the Fontaine Interchange Improvements Project.

My name is Kevin McDermott, Deputy Director of Planning.

presentation here, second screening.

Okay, wonderful, thank you.

So a little bit of background with this project.

Back in 2020, the Charlottesville Albemarle MPO submitted a smart-scale application for improvements to the US-29 and Fontaine interchange.

Stakeholder concerns since then as the project has moved forward have led VEDAW to reevaluate the proposed project.

They have hired a consultant to do some additional analysis and to look at other options they might have

for solving the problems that we saw out there.

VDOT has requested that the MPO policy board make a decision on this project at the February 28th meeting.

That's next week.

We have a few members of the board that are on the MPO policy board, and so we're presenting this information so that the full board is aware of this upcoming decision and give everyone an opportunity to share thoughts on the project with those members of the policy board as they go into that.

So the location of the project, just to orient you all, is this is the primary area where the improvements would occur at the Fontaine-US 29 intersection.

You can see US 29 here and I-64 just to the south, and the Fontaine Research Park is located right here.

The primary concerns that we're trying to address with this project

are at the ramp term and I currently where the 29 bypass and Fontaine meet on both sides of that we see significant congestion in a lot of the peak hours it actually backs up almost into the main line.

We've got a lot of additional development that I'll point out in a minute.

and so we're concerned that's going to continue to cause problems out there.

Additionally, down here at 29 and I-64, where northbound 29 makes a left turn to get onto 64 westbound, the current storage for that left turn lane

is not sufficient and it doesn't have enough room to extend that storage because of the bridge piers.

As a result we see traffic backing up into the main line at 29 and also we've had some significant crashes from people making that left turn getting hit by southbound traffic on 29.

Just a little reminder of some of the development that we have going on in the area.

Down here on the southwest quadrant of the interchange, the Seek property is currently in review for a very large mixed use development, residential and commercial property.

The Regent School is currently under construction, a large private school on Reservoir Road.

The Fontaine Research Park, UVA has quite a bit of plans for expansion of services out there at Fontaine Research Park, including a new biomedical building that they're really getting close to starting construction on.

And then Piedmont Housing is an affordable housing project that is currently in review here on the north side of Fontaine, just across from Fontaine Research Park.

So the project that was submitted, this is a picture of the project that was submitted and I understand it's a little confusing, part of our problem with it actually, but I'm going to quickly run through some of the major elements of this.

So the idea is that one, we can close that 64 or 29 northbound to 64 westbound

Movement and send all of that traffic up to Fontaine where they would be able to stay in the left lane and make an immediate left and then an immediate another left to get back on the highway or get back on 29 to go down to 64 and get back on there.

This is a fairly easy movement with very little restrictions, no signals,

or anything that you would have to go through.

Additionally, the northbound exiting ramp would continue to be able to make that right onto Fontaine and either go into the Fontaine Research Park or into the city.

Some of the big changes are that if you are coming from west of the interchange and you want to go on northbound 29,

You would have to go through this interchange up to a U-turn movement here where there's a loon located and make that turn and come back and make a right.

Additionally, if you were coming off the interchange and you wanted to go to the west of the interchange,

you would have to also go up and through the loon and go back.

Although other movements still operate fairly similarly, except for the left, this is what's called a displaced left turn that you see right here.

What happens there is that traffic heading westbound on Fontaine that wants to go southbound on 29,

actually crosses over the traffic right here at a signalized intersection and then that's the displaced left.

So they're displaced to this spot so that they make that movement easier.

That allows this movement to clear out much quicker.

Additionally, you can see there is a shared use path shown on this that would connect from existing or propose shared use paths on Fontaine that continue into the city and connect you over to west of the interchange.

So, some of the concerns that we've had with that funded design.

Number one, that is somewhat confusing.

And when we brought this to the Board when it was being suggested, the Board shared that concern.

Staff had that concern.

The issue was that this project came to us with a lot of changes, fairly late in the application period for SmartScale.

and so on.

Additionally, further analysis has shown that the design may not handle the future expected traffic volumes from all of that additional traffic, so over the next 20 years we might see some failure of that.

It's difficult for pedestrians to navigate, and that loon I pointed out in front of the racy hunt drive is not desirable.

So as I mentioned, VDOT has gone back and they've looked at a lot of different alternatives for ways that we could change this.

It has gone through a lot of iterations.

I know that the policy board was presented on some of those iterations at a couple recent meetings.

But at this point, we are really honing in on this base plus, I think is what they referred to it, option.

So what this does is there are new signals at the ramp terminal.

It's no longer a displaced left turn.

They just add signals to these ramp termini.

They've analyzed this and the preliminary analysis that they've shown, and they're still working on that analysis, but the preliminary analysis does show that it's expected to operate sufficiently into the future, even better than that displaced left turn.

and so on.

This also adds a second southbound lane to reduce the queuing and allow that to come out faster when they get the green light.

It would still include the shared use path on the south side of the roadway, but you don't have to cross as many lanes.

It would all be on the south side.

And it still does close the

existing left turn from 29 northbound I-64.

What happens now is that that traffic comes up, does have to wait at the signals, but it still makes the two lefts and comes back.

So that is still included in this proposed alternative that VDOT has put forward.

So as I mentioned, VDOT is coming to the policy board next week and asking them to make a decision on this.

Essentially they have three options.

They can move forward with the funded design, the displaced left turn.

They can support the alternative design that I just walked you through.

or we could cancel the project and evaluate other options that may address the problem better than any of these but of course we'd have to go back for funding for anything like that through SmartScale.

It would be delayed significantly and there's never any guarantee of funding because it is a SmartScale competitive grant.

So they are still working on the full analysis of that alternative design.

I'm hoping that they will have a little bit more information on it to share with the policy board.

But as I said, this is an opportunity for the board members to share thoughts on the project or if you have any questions for me, I'm happy to answer them.

Thank you.

We'll go through our order.

Yeah, sure.

So realistically, this doesn't make a lot of changes from the existing conditions, but it signalizes these two ramp intersections.

It does add, right now, this is one lane

I mentioned backs up quite a bit.

They would add a second lane so you'd have a left a left turn lane dedicated and then a through right left turn.

So when that was green all of those vehicles could flush even the left turn vehicles.

It does still have two dedicated right turn lanes to head into the city and towards the Fontaine Research Park.

but it has this additional through right left turn where the vehicles that were going to make the left from northbound 29 to westbound 64 could come up and then make that left turn when they got the green light come up and make another left turn to go back and make a right to get onto the ramp.

aside from the addition of the shared use path which has been preliminarily shown just to go along the south side right along here with a small barrier to separate them from this traffic because it is a narrow bridge and they come across here and join up with the other proposed shared use path.

Thank you, I appreciate the redundancy of going back over that for me.

And I guess you're wanting just our impressions and our thoughts on this.

I would deep six the current project, the design, right?

I just think that's way too confusing.

But I do have a question about this one.

So VDOT seems to think at this point that this new alternative design would actually handle what we're going to see in the future along this road, because there are some construction projects that are going to happen, you know, between Piedmont Housing and what the university.

That is what I said, but I will reiterate that they've told us that they've only got a preliminary analysis at this point.

So I'm hoping they're going to have a little more detail when they come to the policy board.

So I would say that, accepting that, I would certainly rather go with support this option

then not having an option at all based on the changes that are going to be happening fairly quickly.

You know, I don't know if everybody will agree with me, but there's no guarantee if we go back to the drawing board and come back to SmartScale again that we'll get any funding at all.

That's what I would be concerned about.

But my one question is, if they did decide between now and what is it, the 28th or whatever the meeting date was,

that there were concerns.

They would be able to step up to the play and say, wait a minute, we found this out and we don't want to go forward.

Yes, I believe so.

We don't have a hard deadline necessarily from VDOT.

I know they really want to move forward with a project out there because this has been funded for a while.

So it would probably be up to our representatives on the policy board to ask VDOT for maybe additional time if that were necessary.