Board of Supervisors Regular First Meeting   5/1/2024

Good afternoon.

I am pleased to call to order this regular meeting of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors on the first day of May, 1 p.m.

in Lane Auditorium.

Like to note at the dais, we have Supervisor Mike Pruitt of Scottsville District, Supervisor Bea LaPisto-Kirtley of the Rivanna District, Supervisor Diantha McKeel of the Jack Jouett District, Supervisor Ned Gallaway of the Rio District, Supervisor Ann Mallek of the White Hall District, and 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, our Clerk, Ms.

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

Also, let me please welcome Police Officer's Present, Senior Police Officer Ronnie Mandevere and Lieutenant Angela Jamerson.

Board, our first item of business course is to adopt the final agenda.

I have not heard of any suggested amendments to the final agenda.

In this case, we're looking for a motion to adopt the final agenda.

McKeel.

Yes.

Mr. Pruitt.

Aye.

Mr. Andrews.

Yes.

Mr. Gallaway.

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley.

Aye.

Ms.

Yes.

Great.

Now it's time for us to do announcements and we'll go through our order for today.

I actually have nothing at this time.

Yes, I just have one, it's not an announcement, I just wanted to note that on April the 24th the American Red Cross had a celebration of heroes and I think some of us were at that meeting and it was really fun to see some of our own recognized and I just wanted to point out that the 2024 first responder

Hero, was Grace Foster from the Western Albemarle Rescue Squad, which was really special.

And the 2024 Christopher E. Lee serving leader hero was Marta Keane from Java.

And we're all smiling at Marta right now.

It was a really wonderful ceremony and there were other folks that were recognized for their service as well.

It is of note, the Red Cross last year provided 167 units of blood for this community and 138 families in Central Virginia were served, which are some pretty impressive numbers.

So with that, that's all I had.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I will take all the time relinquished by others, but some of them are quick.

Several quick things.

Road safety.

This is a time when water and sewer agencies and highway departments are doing lots of road construction and road work.

And as you may have noticed, they have had to put down rubble strips all over the place because drivers are not paying attention and putting the workers at risk.

So please,

take a chill pill and slow down in these work zones and protect our neighbors who are doing work for us.

It is incredibly dry out there.

If you don't live in the country and haven't seen all the earth go to concrete over the last month, please be careful with your water use in every way because all of the urban water systems is coming from the countryside and we all need to work together to conserve as much as we can.

I am thrilled to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Solarize Virginia, which is done in partnership with the local Energy Alliance program, where LEAP was founded in 2010 and has worked for our citizens ever since.

The Solarize program started in 2014 and has helped over 1,400 households.

and so on.

Climate Gales for everyone.

Solarize streamlines the process by connecting participants with vetted installers, discounted pricing, and educational resources.

The program to sign up is now open until June 30th.

Folks can sign up at solarizeva.org.

Congratulations in May on 45 years of the Green Olive Tree, which was founded in 1979 by seven ladies in Crozet, some of whom are still living.

God bless them.

The shop has provided new life and use for household goods and clothing for use by local families with growing children or those needing to start again after a fire or other calamity.

It has outgrown many succeeding locations supported by large groups of loyal volunteers and is now actually seeking a larger location.

From its modest beginning, the Green Olive Tree came to share the proceeds with over 100 organizations around the world and giving away over a million dollars in cash receipts in that 45 years.

Not only have tons of clothing been exchanged, but the Green Olive Tree has become a community center where people can share love and support, ideas and worries, and come away refreshed and uplifted.

It is a true gathering place for our community.

Over on the sign-in table are some information sheets from Veterans Services.

Ben Shaw, Regional Director of the Department of Veterans Services of Virginia, has supplied those to me.

Despite what you may hear on TV ads, a veteran does not need to retain an attorney to get services from the VA.

Under the PACT Act or any of the other services that are now being advertised.

Ben Shaw's team with Virginia Veteran and Family Support is also co-located with the VA claims office and they work for care coordination and providing better services for the entire family.

So please pass that information along.

I will share copies of the brochure with each of you all so you can carry it in your car and distribute it wherever you go.

I'll put it up in grocery stores, et cetera.

Board members and the public are invited to join VFW Post 2044

which is in its 75th year for the Memorial Day ceremony in Earleysville.

It is 10 a.m.

Monday, May 27th at Earleysville Green.

The second windband from the center will perform.

The keynote speaker will be Colonel Gary Nelson.

Colonel Nelson served in the U.S.

Air Force for 29 years primarily as a fighter pilot and then commanded the 63rd Tactical Fighter Squadron.

He has taught aerospace studies at MIT and Boston University and was head of Joint Forces Staff College in

Norfolk, Virginia.

And he now lives in Earleysville, and we're glad to capture him for that event.

And I hope to see you there.

Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley.

Yes, thank you very much.

I just wanted to reiterate what I did last at our last meeting, but

very few were attending here.

So our Pantop CAC had a really good presentation by the RWSA regarding all of our reservoirs, our water supply, what they're doing, what the county is doing to make sure we have good water in the years to come.

They're really doing a good job.

and I will tell you, if you think it's boring, it's not.

Two people presented to us, they were so enthusiastic, we did not want it to stop.

If you can believe that, and that's true, that is true.

It was that riveting their presentation.

So I suggest to our board members, any of your CACs that want that to of course check with Mr. Richardson and maybe have that set up.

The other thing I just wanted to say with great pride

May 18th will be the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Stony Point Volunteer Fire Department.

Chief Eggleston and myself will be there.

We're really excited about this.

And so I just want to give a shout out to our Stony Point Volunteer Fire Department.

So that's all I have.

Thank you.

Yes, thank you.

I'm going to look to Mr. Richardson for a second, and Colonel Reeves is here.

I know we got the email about the follow-up to Trespass this past Monday to the board.

Is it okay to go ahead and review some of that information?

Yes, sir.

So I know all the supervisors received this, so I hope you'll be pushing that out.

I'm not going to read through all of this, but I wanted to clarify that the last time that we talked about this, we had encouraged people to call 911 if they had Trespass.

in this piece, if it's an emergency and identified as such, that is the appropriate place to call.

But if trespass is observed or encountered or some semblance of it in an emergency doesn't exist, then they should call the non-emergency line at 434-977-9041.

I really appreciate having this piece out so that we can inform folks on how to handle this.

It was not, it did not go unnoticed in the annual report from the police department

how high a percentage of trespass calls were being dealt with.

So clearly this is a county-wide issue.

So I'll be sending this out to the HOAs in my district and just clarifying with information I've passed along so that the appropriate place is reported to the appropriate place per Colonel Reeves.

Thank you.

I just have a few announcements of things coming up for people.

The VDOT has asking for input on the US 250 Ivy Road Improvement Study, and it's open until May 10th.

You can go to the VDOT website to do their survey.

We had a busy weekend last weekend at the Ivy Materials Utilization Center with the Hazardous, Household Hazardous Waste Collection.

It's been suggested we need photos and video to do it justice to show how efficiently run and important this event is to

Residence Spring Cleaning, but coming this Saturday, May 4th, is furniture and mattresses, and then the following Saturday's appliances on May 11th and tires on May 18th, so IVMUC, your one stop to unshop, as they say.

and just another shout out, last announcement is that Batesville Day is coming up this Saturday as well, complete with a 10K, a parade, plant exchange and much, much more.

So I hope people will attend.

Anyone have anything further to add?

Then thank you.

All right, and I'm going to read this as a motion.

Proclamation recognizing May as Older Americans Month.

Whereas May is Older Americans Month, a time for us to recognize and honor older adults in Albemarle County, Virginia, and their immense influence on every facet of American society.

And whereas Albemarle County recognizes how, through their wealth of life experience and wisdom, older adults guide our younger generations

and carry forward abundant cultural and historical knowledge.

And whereas, Albemarle County recognizes that older Americans improve our community through intergenerational relationships, community service, civic engagement and many other activities.

And whereas, Albemarle County benefits when people of all ages, abilities and backgrounds, have the opportunity to participate and live independently.

And whereas, Albemarle County must ensure

that older Americans have the resources and support needed to stay involved in their communities, reflecting our commitment to inclusivity and correctness.

And now, therefore, be it proclaimed that we, the Elmar County Board of Supervisors, do hereby recognize May 2024 to be older American month and call upon all residents to recognize the profound impact of meaningful interactions and social connections on the well-being and health of older adults in our community.

signed this first day of May, 2024, Jim H. Andrews, Chair.

From Supervisor Mellon, thank you.

Ms.

Mr. Pruitt.

I. Mr. Andrews.

Yes.

Mr. Gallaway.

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley.

I. Ms.

Mallek.

Thank you.

And I believe we have Ms.

Marta Keane here, a Chief Executive Officer of the Jefferson Area Board for Aging to accept the proclamation.

Welcome.

I just want to thank all of Albemarle County supervisors and staff.

It's not just May that you honor our older Americans.

I appreciate the support you show throughout the year.

This comes at a particularly important time as you're at 21% of the population being over 60.

and by 2030 it could be 25% if the projections are correct.

So we, and I'm using we, are an important part of the population.

And I think that the theme for this year, powered by connections, is so very appropriate.

Albemarle really facilitates a lot of connections between

agencies that work to help seniors and creating situations and activities that support seniors.

Thank you.

We'll go through our order to add additional comments.

I'm going to start, put them on the spot.

Supervisor Prillett, I see.

Thank you so much.

Everyone's laughing because I'm obviously the youngest person.

So thank you so much for being here.

I know when I was first running for this position, something I talked about a lot is my concern over

The fact that trends in our economy and our community make it incredibly challenging for us to maintain a diverse community, an economically diverse community, an age diverse community.

A lot of people assume when I say that, that I'm talking about it's hard to be a young person in Albemarle County, which is true.

It is costly.

But the truth is like, you know, we pinch at both ends of that spectrum.

It is becoming

It can become, when we let these macroeconomic forces take hold, it can become incredibly challenging to be an older American in our county.

It can be easy to be priced out, it can be easy to be pushed away from the essential services that older Americans need.

So I'm very excited for the work that we're doing in the county, for the work the job is doing to make this a community where you can live successfully at all stages of life, so long as this is the place where you want to be.

Yes.

Thank you, Marta, for being here and bringing forward this proclamation, and congratulations again on your recognition as one of our heroes, our Red Cross heroes.

Not to be outdone by Ann, I just turned 74 as well, so.

But it is certainly true that

Many of the people that are moving into our community, I think, are designated as over 55, but we are an aging community.

And we have to remember that both ends of the spectrum benefit from the same, often the same facilities, and, for example,

Sidewalks are great for women with baby strollers, as well as pedestrians walking in older people.

I mean, the universal design idea is really true, so it's important that we address both ends of the age spectrum, and we thank Java for working so hard to make the connections for everybody.

So, thank you again.

Thank you.

I think there's so many different facets of what Java does for our community as a whole, but what I have seen the most joy from personally is the connection of the very young

with everybody older at the preschools and the centers and that keeping that socialization and especially for the very elderly, being with really littles is almost better, it's more fun for them than somebody who's only 20 or 30 years younger.

So I think that their lives light up in the same way that they're

that the seniors slide up when they're working together.

So thank you so much for making that happen and helping it to continue as it takes an awful lot of effort.

I know.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley.

Not that I would know, but I will tell you that growing older is not for the faint of heart.

What really struck me on this proclamation is the intergenerational relationships and community service.

I think that's what older Americans in this county have a lot to offer.

and they do in many, many numbers.

And for that I'm very appreciative.

I'm also appreciative of all the work that Java does because you help people age in place.

You help people stay here.

We have a number of wonderful facilities that also help people of a certain age bracket along with independent living.

So I commend you for that.

and this is really an honor to recognize Older Americans Month.

Thank you.

I've also learned to understand whose backhand I'm in with comments, Supervisor Pruitt.

It is always a pleasure to see you, and I concur with all the remarks that have been said.

Like I said, I'm just being mindful of who's back in.

But I would love to share a poem by Maya Angelou called On Aging.

When you see me sitting quietly like a sack left on the shelf, don't think I need your chattering.

and so on.

When you see me walking, stumbling, don't study and get it wrong, because tired don't mean lazy, and every goodbye ain't gone.

I'm the same person I was back then, a little less hair, a little less chin, a lot less lungs, and much less wind.

But ain't I lucky I can still breathe in.

Thank you.

Fabulous.

I won't begin to try to top that, but express my appreciation for all the job it does, and that this community is afforded for aging in place, which I think is a really important thing.

I have the pleasure of actually going running a couple times a week with a much younger crowd, and while they let me keep up, it keeps me young just to be with them, so it's intergenerational.

Well, that's what I found being in the classroom with children.

Every day is a new day for children, whether yesterday was terrible, but today is not going to be.

All right.

Thank you, I will read this as a motion as well.

Public service recognition week.

Whereas Americans are served daily by public servants at the federal, state, county, and city levels.

These unsung heroes do the work that keeps our nation working.

Whereas public service is among the most demanding and noble of professions.

Whereas public service recognition week is observed annually to celebrate and recognize the valuable service that public servants provide to the nation.

and whereas over 900 Albemarle County local government employees work tirelessly to serve our residents, businesses and visitors, providing them with outstanding customer service while maintaining careful stewardship of the resources with which they have been entrusted.

and whereas we appreciate the many accomplishments and contributions made daily by these public servants.

Now therefore be it proclaimed that we, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, do hereby recognize May 5th through May 11th, 2024 as Public Service Recognition Week and call upon Albemarle County Community to recognize the significant and important contribution that public employees make to our community.

Second.

Ms.

McKeel.

Yes.

Mr. Pruitt.

Aye.

Mr. Andrews.

Yes.

Mr. Gallaway.

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley.

Aye.

Ms.

Thank you.

And I believe we have, Elizabeth, a lot of brothers is here to kick this off, but I think we have several people in the audience who we'd like to help recognize our public servants.

Thank you all very much for this proclamation.

I'd like to take a minute to thank you all for your service as public servants in the time and effort that you give to this community.

On behalf of the committee and our employees, we appreciate very much indeed the support of the board for the work that we do every day.

Employees who are here, will you stand, please?

Look at all those awesome people!

We're excited about having the opportunity to recognize the hard work of our employees through a range of activities next week.

We have an employee picnic on Friday.

We're having to go with our newbie theme, we're having popcorn bars in each building.

And then we have some ongoing items throughout the week, peer-to-peer recognition through fan mail and banners.

You'll see at both of the county office buildings throughout the week.

We also wanted y'all to hear from a few of our employees about why they serve.

So we're going to take a few minutes to watch a video created by, there she is, our very own, Kee Parker from Communications and Public Engagement.

And while the video's playing, I'll be handing each of you a piece of fan mail because that's one of the ways that we recognize each other and the work that we do.

Employees have already ordered over a thousand of these and we just wanted to share the love with y'all also.

I serve Albemarle County because I find this workplace to be a place where I can learn, remain active, and make a difference.

And you know, when I had the opportunity to become a compliance officer, I knew I found the place for me.

Housing is such a foundation for our lives.

One of my favorite things about working here at the county is my colleagues.

Really, if I'm working just internal to DF&B and when I'm working across the organization, there are some really fantastic people here who are smart and kind and have really wonderful ideas.

I'm also constantly inspired by my coworkers, especially those in community development and DSS who face insurmountable issues every single day that they are being asked to conquer with far fewer resources that are really needed.

And they find creative and kind

Thank you, Claudette.

Thanks, y'all.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

So I think something we learned from that presentation, at least, is that everyone has their own different specific motivations that are very specific to the role that they serve in county government that draws them to public service.

And, you know, like for myself, a big part of that is a desire to see change.

So there are certainly things about our community that I might want to see change.

But one thing I would never say anything negative about

and that I have never had to suggest any changes are the quality of our workforce, which is truly next level.

The depth of passion and of talent and commitment that you see really across the chain of command throughout the county is truly extraordinary.

It is not something I've seen in other local governments.

It's an extraordinary thing.

It's a great team that we built here at the county.

Thank you.

To just piggyback on what Mike just said, I don't think a week goes by that someone doesn't come up to me and say, I had a deal with the county, could be any department, make up the department, and they said that, sometimes they say, while I didn't get what I want,

But the employees were respectful, they went out with everybody to help me, they just did an absolutely wonderful job.

And I've heard that about almost every department in the county.

And so we're thrilled to have so many of you here today.

And if you'll indulge me just a minute, I think it's sometimes for our citizens, it's easy to think, well,

I haven't used the fire department.

I've used the police department.

Certainly everybody rides on the roads at some point, but I'd just like to point out one of the greatest slides that we get every year during our budget cycle.

And so I won't go through all of these, but just to point out the numbers, the folks in our career center

serviced 945 visitors this year for career counseling in help with getting started on a career or a job.

There were $718 million dollars worth of building permits issued.

That's work.

That's a lot of building permits by our employees.

$345 million in valuation for certificates of occupancy so people could live in the buildings in this community, whether they are apartment buildings or single family dwellings or businesses.

371 families served by the Housing Choice voucher program.

There were 887,000 visits to Albemarle.org, our website.

Let's see, 1,493 volunteer hours served in Albemarle parks.

that were supported.

I'm just trying to pick and choose a few of these.

$216 million in social service funds utilized to support and benefit the service, the families in Albemarle County.

73,588 police calls for service.

The police in this building, thank you very much.

You have had a very busy year.

17,542 fire rescue calls for service by our residents and even visitors to this community that needed help.

and we have lots of visitors that are making calls to 911 as they're coming into this community and needing help.

17,432 swimmers were served and used our county lakes and

2,027,465 visitors to our county parks.

And those parks had to be cleaned up and maintained and monitored and served for our community.

And 999 smoke alarms were installed.

for folks who needed smoke alarms for the safety and protection of their families, just to give some statistics.

And these represent services to our community and hard work by our staff to make this happen.

So thank you to everybody in the room and those people who are just listening.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm looking now at Jody, where Jody Falardo is sitting because for 17 years that was my seat in the audience.

watching and learning.

And so during those years and also in my time on the board, I've been privileged to know and work shoulder in shoulder with generations of staff members in Albemarle.

We've worked hard to facilitate positive interactions with residents all across the county and on many, many different issues, different groups form around the issues of their concern and

The county has been exemplary in its response and evolution of caring on all these different issues, and I'm very privileged to be here with you all.

Thank you.

I want to say thank you.

I think we all want to say thank you.

What you all have done, as is the resolution, you're the unsung heroes that do the work that keeps our, I'm changing nation to county, to county working.

I will tell you,

because of you all, you make our lives easier.

I'm able to do my job in serving people because of you all.

You make everything, you're the oil that makes everything run smoothly, efficiently.

You do it with a lot of pride.

You do it in keeping your eye on the ball, making us efficient and making us serving the public.

That is so much appreciated.

I've spent almost 29 years as a public servant here and where I used to live before.

I've never seen such a well-run organization.

I'm extremely proud to be part of this because of you all.

Yeah, to build on what Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley says, I often get asked by, you know, close other family members and close friends, why do you, why do you, why did you run?

Why do you want to be an elected official?

And if, you know, if you'd asked all these people to stand, there's the answer.

It's because you want to be part of a team.

I enjoy policymaking.

I enjoy the work of government.

That's why I ran to be a supervisor.

But if this was an organization where the team was not strong and the execution could not play out, I don't know that I would feel that way.

So it's over $600 million is our total budget.

$600 million that people gave us.

and we've had to work together on figuring out the strategy of how to use those funds to provide services to the people that live here and they've entrusted each and every one of us to do that.

So I just hope that as a board member and I'm sure my fellow board members agree that we're doing right by you so that we can look our citizens in the face and go we're doing our very best as a team

to deliver what we need to deliver that you expect with your hard-earned dollars that you've passed along to us.

Thank you.

And just adding on to that, Supervisor Gallaway is saying that you make us look good.

And we appreciate that very much.

And as people get an opportunity to volunteer to work with the county, you really get a chance to appreciate how hard the county works for you.

And that's something that all of you should, we want to express our gratitude to you for that.

So thank you.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you for all you do every day.

We'll now turn to item seven, which is matters from the public, matters on the agenda, but not listed for public hearing or on matters previously considered by the board or matters that are pending before the board.

And Vice Chair McKeel will read the rules and introduce the speakers.

Yes, thank you.

We have seven people signed up today in person, and we have no one online signed up.

So with that, let me 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 items listed on the agenda for public hearing.

Individuals are 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 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 present to raise their hand in recognition.

Speakers may not share any unused time with another speaker.

Back and forth debate is not permitted and do not speak from your seat or out of turn.

All comments are live streamed, recorded and published on the Albemarle County website.

Welcome.

Please adjust the microphone up a little bit so that we can hear you.

Thank you.

Is that work?

Yep.

Okay.

Excuse me.

My name is David Hannah.

I live in the city of Charlottesville and thank you for the opportunity to talk to you today about the Ragged Mountain Natural Area.

Since retiring as

The Natural Resources Manager for Albemarle County in 2019, I've had minimal contact with county staff or engagement with ongoing natural resources issues, but I feel compelled to share my thoughts with you on this topic this afternoon.

I do not believe that mountain biking is an appropriate activity at Reagan Mountain.

I ask that you not allow it to go forward in the future.

I have no argument against biking as an activity in and of itself.

On the contrary,

I am very happy that many citizens are partaking that activity and enjoy it.

Anything that gets people outside to exercise and have fun in the great outdoors is a very positive thing, especially when children and entire families are involved.

But not every natural area or part should be suitable or is suitable for every activity.

I believe mountain biking at Ragon Mountain is inappropriate for two main reasons.

One, it will be harmful to the wildlife and natural communities found there.

And two, it removes an outdoor opportunity that is uncommon here locally.

The quiet, peaceful enjoyment and study of nature in the outdoors.

And after all, that was the original intent of the Ragon Mountain Natural Area.

Sir Ragged Mountain has long been recognized as a local hotspot for biological diversity.

Reports by the county's biodiversity work group in 2004 identified it as an important site in the county.

The value of Ragged Mountains lies in its mostly mature, wooded, and undisturbed nature.

In 2016, the Center for Urban Habitat completed a survey of Ragged Mountain to identify and describe the ecosystems found there.

The survey was commissioned by the City of Charlottesville and includes a list of the flora, fauna, and fungi known to occur there.

Biodiversity hotspots were also identified.

From this date, it's clear that Ragged Mountain is home to a diversity of high quality and unusual plant communities and wildlife species.

The habitat and ecosystems are sensitive to fragmentation and disturbance and are negatively impacted by human activity.

All forms of human intrusion into wild landscapes have certain negative effects.

What is important is the scale of that activity.

Permitting mountain biking into the future will result in a perpetual level of high human activity and disturbance.

I want to give one quote from the Ecosystem Survey report.

Asserting more than one path through any portion of the narrow landscape that wraps the reservoir at Ragged Mountain is not conducive to ecosystem conservation.

So in other words, the number of trails as well as the level activity on them are critical to control if we want to maintain the ecological integrity of Ragged Mountain.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm sorry.

Please refer to the meeting.

Thank you.

Thank you, David.

Dan Beaker.

Maybe, oh, there he comes.

I was afraid I mispronounced your name.

No, you said it wrong.

Thank you.

My name is Dan Beaker.

I live in Samuel Miller District.

And I will be unable to attend your meeting in two weeks when you discuss Reagan Mountain.

And so I appreciate the opportunity to address it now.

I will state unclivically that I am a mountain biking enthusiast.

I love it.

It's fun.

I'm also a wildlife biologist.

I've been employed at Piedmont College for the last 40 years, teaching wildlife and ecology courses.

And I was also president of the Ivy Creek Foundation 25 years ago when we established Reagan Mountain Natural Area.

I won't repeat the points that Mr. Hanna just made, although I concur with them.

I would especially refer you to the Center for Urban Habitats Report, 140 pages that details the unique biological richness of Reagan Mountain.

I can speak, though, to what happened 25 years ago when the Ivy Creek Foundation decided to make this a natural area.

We went through public hearings,

meetings with every manner of official neighbors, staff to get this approved.

It took two years.

It was all predicated on this area being a natural area or a nature preserve with minimal disturbance.

But being a public area, you have to have access.

So how do you do that fairly?

You do it fairly by having a limited trail system.

We made one trail that went around the reservoir foot travel only.

And to emphasize Mr. Hannah's point, the goal is to limit the scale of activity.

We don't want to discriminate against bikers or any other intense activities, but to put everybody on equal footing, so to speak, foot travel only.

We don't exclude anyone.

The bikers are welcome just on foot.

I will just read some excerpts from the county's own website that states

Local government plays an important role in protecting natural resources and biodiversity.

Each component of biodiversity, every plant, animal, and microbe has an intrinsic value or inherent worth independent of its value to people.

and so on.

Recommendations in the COMP plan about diversity action plan.

All have statements like this.

The start out develop strategies, take appropriate action, incorporate knowledge, educate and inform.

Well, here's an opportunity to put those words into action.

By respecting the original intent of Reagan

to welcome all, but with minimal disturbance.

Thank you.

Happy May Day, everyone.

Also, I appreciate your older American proclamation being one myself.

So, good afternoon.

And I asked for five minutes because I represent the Sierra Club.

Sorry, our rules are the three minutes.

They changed.

Okay.

I'm Kirk Bowers, 36-year resident of the Rudvanted District.

Today I speak as conservation chair, Piedmont Group, Sierra Club.

We, the Piedmont Group, pose use of bicycles at Ragged Mountain Natural Area for many reasons.

as Dan stated earlier in 1997, Reagan Mountain was proposed by the Ivy Creek Foundation.

The primary goal was to preserve a providing public natural area reserve for quiet hiking, fishing, and wildlife observation.

Ivy Creek managed the property until 2014

when City Parks assumed management of the natural area.

Then in 2016 a lawsuit was filed to resolve competing ordinances for uses in public parks.

in March, it was announced, and that was just a month and a half ago, that it was announced the two jurisdictions resolved the issue, and that biking horseback riding will be removed from activities at RM&A.

However, at your April 3rd meeting, you instructed staff to come back with a directive and information on the

using bikes at Reagan Mountain Natural Area.

So what happened was we asked, why?

Why is this lawsuit, which was completed in March, yet this is still an issue eight years later?

It's really a sensitive issue.

It's been going on for many years.

We'd like to see this ended.

We wrote a letter to you all yesterday, and it shows there are 30 miles of biking trails within five miles of Ragged Mountain Natural Area.

It's part of our national commitment.

The Sierra Club has a national commitment to maintaining natural ecosystems.

We strongly support preservation.

of the RMA from further intrusion.

Within natural ecosystems, natural diversity and abundance of wildlife and plants should best be preserved by means of an involved minimum human interference.

And then finally, hikers and bikers move at different speeds.

The motivation, desire, experiences, norms, setting preferences, and other needs are not the same for hikers and bikers.

Revealing Concern About Allowing Bicycles on Hiking Trails is a question of safety, and I have experienced that personally since I've been hiking for over 70 years.

Good afternoon.

My name is Neil Williamson, and I'm not going to talk about Ragged Mountain.

I serve as the president of the Free Enterprise Forum, a private public policy organization focused on local government here in Central Virginia.

At this lectern, applicants have long highlighted the high cost of producing housing in Central Virginia.

Such concerns have often been met with disdain from some who believe developer profit is the root of the affordability issue.

buried deep in the details of the Piedmont Housing Alliance Affordable Housing Fund request going before you today is a project pro forma demonstrating the high cost of producing housing.

For the 60-unit Premier Circle Phase II apartments, total project costs are estimated at over $20 million.

That works out to $334,166 per unit.

Please note the Free Enterprise Forum has no position on the funding of the PHA proposal and sincerely appreciates the candor of the pro forma provided.

In addition, we note the significant leverage, the financial leverage Albemarle County's buy-in provides to this particular project.

PHA is not alone.

On February 1, 2024, the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development published the cost of a federally supported 6th Street Apartments Phase 1 project in Charlottesville.

This $29 million plus project will produce 47 affordable units at a cost of greater than $621,000 a unit.

Conclusion one, producing housing is affordable, is expensive to produce.

In a blog post yesterday, we highlighted a recent research paper by Shane Phillips of UCLA on the detrimental impacts of inclusionary zoning on housing production.

The paper's conclusion offers a roadmap.

and I quote, Different tools have different strengths and land use policy may be best suited to improving affordability in the wider housing market.

While public subsidies are best for producing below market homes, IZ seeks to produce affordable homes by substituting land use policy in the place of broadly shared taxes and public subsidies.

This analysis suggests that the public may be paying either way and that the costs of IZ are both higher

and more regressive than the alternative, close quote.

In this highly expensive housing market, the Free Enterprise Forum calls on Albemarle to continue to tweak the housing Albemarle program requirements, percentage of units, level of affordability term, to the benefit of the entire community and produce much needed housing for all.

Once again, we call for more housing everywhere for everyone.

Good afternoon, everyone.

I'm Peter Krebs from the Piedmont Environmental Council.

I'm actually here to talk about bikes, but not bikes of Ragged Mountain.

May is National Bike Month, and Albemarle County, Charlottesville, and the University of Virginia are all putting on many events to celebrate.

Cycling promotes health, reduces stress, it prevents greenhouse gas emission, it builds social cohesion and brings joy in communities.

This year, around half of the events that are being hosted are in Albemarle County, either at Albemarle County schools, parks, or on the roads of Albemarle County.

There are many group rides.

Some of the highlights that I want to mention, and they'll be detailed in next time's consent agenda, is this evening there's actually an opportunity to trial an e-bike at Darden-Tale Park.

There's a whole series of e-bike demonstrations.

So tonight at Darden-Tale Park at 5.30, there'll be another e-bike demo at Lakeside Middle School on Monday the 6th, and then one at Crozet Elementary School on the 20th.

All the Fridays after five during the month of May are going to have a bike valet parking service so you can drop off your bike, get a ticket, and you don't have to worry about it.

And there'll be a hangout tent and then also groups that work on bike and pedestrian safety will be pouring drinks and getting some of the proceeds.

So for example, the three-notch trail will benefit from the Fridays after five on the 24th.

Some of my other favorite events that are coming up is on Sunday there's a family bike fest at IX Wednesday the 8th is national bike roll and walk to school day and then on the 17th is national bike to work day

and that brings me to the Bike Month Business Challenge which is sponsored by our friends at Rideshare.

You can sign up your business for, you know, log your miles and get potential bragging rights and even possibly win an e-bike.

So I've got a bunch of flyers and Bike Month stickers I'll give to the clerk for you all.

Hi, I'm Peggy Gilgis.

I live in the Jack Jouett district.

I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak to you all today about Ragged Mountain.

I wanted to do it a month ago, but I was out of town.

I'm strongly in favor of continuing the agreement between the city and county that was announced in March to protect the Ragged Mountain natural area from overuse.

As you've already heard from our other speakers today,

It's a biodiversity hotspot and is worthy of ongoing preservation.

The established purpose of the Ragged Mountain Natural Area was not as a park for many types of recreation, but for nature appreciation and quiet, pedestrian-only usage of the trails, which, as an older American myself, I am very grateful for.

The Ragged Mountain Natural Area is one of only two natural areas in the county

and together with Ivy Creek, the Ragged Mountain Natural Area provide only about 13 miles of trail specifically for pedestrian only use.

I would like to see the Board of Supervisors defend the Ragged Mountain Natural Area and honor the effort behind its original establishment.

It may be a popular idea to build more trails there and to accommodate mountain biking.

But as the Center for Urban Habitats wrote in its excellent Ecosystem Survey of Ragged Mountain in 2016, new trails will contribute to the degradation and fragmentation of habitats for plant communities and wildlife that should be respected as they are and protected.

Albemarle County has pledged to protect our natural heritage, including our biodiversity.

It's sad but true that humanity is crowding out species, not just with needs but also with our wants.

And I hope there is community support from everyone to protect our natural areas with this in mind.

and I'm hoping that I'm pronouncing this name right because I'm struggling to read the name.

Is it Helmut?

I may be mispronouncing this.

And he's from Rivanna and he's speaking about taxes on vehicles.

Kenneth Powell.

I am really sorry.

Oh, it says Rivanna, okay.

Okay, I'm sorry.

All right.

Yeah, my concern is I've been a native here my whole life, and my wife has too.

My wife became disabled about 10 years ago, and

Unfortunately, in 2022, I had to give my job up because I became disabled with heart and vascular issues.

I've been in and out with surgeries and stuff.

But I had one of your representatives figure up what my taxes are going to run me on my personal property on my vehicles.

And I've got an old trailer that I've been paying like $45 a year on.

She said that's going up to $121.50 a year that I just use for storage now.

It just sits in the yard.

and my vehicles are going, she said, from $1,042 a year to $3,466 a year, which is an increase of $2,424 a year.

My wife and I are both disabled now and are fixed incomes.

I know there's a lot of other people in the community that are in my situation also.

I just was hoping y'all would reconsider the rate before you raise it that high because it's going to really hurt us because I'm not able to go back to work in my condition.

And I just hope y'all could reconsider the amount that you're asking for.

And that's all I have.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

One thing, Mr. Gallaway, I don't know if I could leave my number with you.

You wanted a copy of this.

We did get the copy we spoke before the meeting, so I'll make sure I share that with you.

You said Scottsville was Supervisor Pruitt, and then with staff, I'll be making some comments when we get to that item.

We've got to leave.

He's got to get back.

Okay, so is there any place I can leave my phone number with you?

I could write it down over here somewhere.

Actually, we have your phone number because you wrote it down.

Thank you for letting me comment on that.

Okay.

We have no other speakers signed up.

So thank you.

And we'll move on to item eight, which is the consent agenda.

I'm not aware of any amendments or things requested to be removed from the consent agenda.

So I'm looking for a motion to approve the consent agenda.

So moved.

Second.

I have a motion from Supervisor Mallek and a second from Supervisor McKeel.

McKeel, Mr. Pruitt, Mr. Andrews, Mr. Gallaway, Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley, Ms.

Board first item on our regular now parts of the meeting here is to go through a number of motions related to the budget and tax rates adoption of the calendar year 2024 tax rates fiscal year 2025 budget pay scales for 2025 borrowing resolution

Capital Improvement Plan for the next five years and appropriations for the fiscal year 25 budget.

This will be led by Mr. Ryan Davidson, the Deputy Chief Office of Management and Budget.

Welcome, Mr. Davidson.

Good afternoon, Ryan Davidson, Deputy Chief of Budget.

Today we're going to be going through the various items and motions for the adoption of the tax rates, FY25 budget, and the FY25-29 CIP.

and so on.

however I would leave it to the pleasure of the Board Chair that if you would like for me to go through each of these items or to go through all these items in totality and then come back and take actions after the entire presentation we can do that or we can address them one by one.

Okay I will handle it in that manner.

For most of my comments on these items, we'll be brief and at the summary level.

For the most part, there's no new information being provided today as staff and the board have discussed each of these items at length over the 15 plus hours of budget work sessions, public hearings, as well as the various town hall meetings throughout the budget process.

As said, for the most part, no new information because as we get to item number three, there will be two slides with some additional information since the last time we met with the board.

The first item will start with the tax rate resolutions and ordinances.

On the screen are the four main tax rates that are set by the Board and the proposed budget is balanced on each of these rates presented here.

This afternoon, the Board will adopt the rates on three of the four taxes, real property, personal property, and transient occupancy.

We will start with real estate taxes.

The real estate taxes included in the budget are at the current rate of 85.4 cents per $100 of assessed value.

Each penny on this rate would be worth approximately $2.9 million.

So if the board were to adopt a rate lower, then there would need to be a corresponding reduction or offset in the budget of that amount for each penny to accommodate that change.

Because the board advertised a rate of 85.4 cents per 100,

of Assessed Value, they're unable to adopt a rate higher than that, but they could go lower should they desire.

Reassessments for FY24 were 4.07% increase over FY23.

We discussed this previously at our public hearings.

The lowered or effective rate, as a reminder to the board and to the public, what this represents is what the tax rate would have to be adjusted to in order to bring the exact same amount of revenue in for calendar year 24, as for calendar year 25, just based on the increases in reassessments.

And that would be at 82.1 cents per $100 of assessed value.

Moving on, next is personal property taxes.

This rate applies to individual personal properties such as individual vehicles, motorcycles, and boats, but it also applies to business tangible personal property as well as machinery and tools.

The FL-25 budget is based upon a 54% per $100 valuation increase in the rate to $3.96 per $100.

This increase would generate approximately $4.5 million in shared revenue that would then go through our revenue split formula with the schools, capital debt, and local government.

The proposed rate increase would bring the overall revenues from the source back to where it was in fiscal year 2022, which is when the board decreased this rate in order to mitigate the effect of the rapid rise in vehicle values over the pandemic.

due to continued valuation changes.

In general, even with this increased rate, the average vehicle bills would remain steady, although there are always exceptions and individual situations would vary as we have seen in certain cases.

So we will move past this slide and come back to it when we get to the actions, but this is the deceptive calendar year tax rates.

Moving on, the next item is an ordinance to change, an ordinance change related to increasing the rate of the transient occupancy tax for FY25 from 8% to 9%.

This rate applies to all rooms or spaces in hotels, motels, travel campgrounds, other facilities, offering rooms for fewer than 30 consecutive days.

Each 1% increase equates to approximately $872,000 in shared, again, shared revenue that would go through the shared revenue split with schools, capital and debt, and local government.

Next will be the resolutions to adopt the FY25 budget.

This is the total all funds budget of $642.2 million, and these charts highlight at a high level the sources and uses of those funds.

As I mentioned previously, there have been a couple of changes since the proposed all funds budget was advertised, and I will go over those in the next two slides.

First, there are a couple of county executive recommended adjustments.

We are recommending that we allocate 114,560

dollars from the Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail to the Reserve for Contingencies.

As is common with many of our regional partners, we were provided an initial county contribution estimate from the Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail.

As they continued to work and refine their budget, they provided us with a reduced contribution amount by approximately $114,000, to which we are recommending it be added to the ongoing Reserve for Contingencies amount.

The next two adjustments are really just technical and nature and our budget neutral.

First would be to allocate $100,380 from the Department of Facilities and Environmental Services to the Department of Information Technology as part of a reorganization which was the move of a systems analyst position from FES to IT.

Next would be to allocate 164,355 from social services to the police department and 57,969 to the fire department for their portions of the human services alternative response team.

When we initially budgeted this and put these into the budget, they were all placed into the social services and this is just moving those to the cost where those positions would actually, those positions and those, that equipment would actually live.

So again, all of these were captured in the original attachments provided to the board and that were posted online.

The next slide is public schools adjustments.

This past Thursday, April 25th, the school board adopted their final budget.

What was adopted resulted in a net increase of approximately $7 million to the all funds budget amount that was advertised for the purposes of the public hearing that was held on April 17th.

The changes were primarily due to expected increases in state funding and the use of fund balance in both their school fund and the school's special revenue funds.

These changes were not captured in Attachment C or Attachment E that were included in the initial published agenda item, but the revised attachments were sent to the board prior to this meeting and will be published online as well.

And we will come back to this slide.

as we will with this slide as well.

Okay, moving on to the what will be our fifth item, the budget is just a plan and legally under Virginia Code, the resolution of appropriations is what actually grants authority to the county to spend money.

This is where the plan starts to move into action and allows us the authority to do what we have planned.

Two additional things to highlight in this actual resolution.

The second bullet,

Each year the Board grants a county executive authority to transfer funding for very specific purposes.

And for transparency we will provide to the Board with a report as part of our quarterly reports that shows the purpose and amount when this authority is utilized by the county executive.

These items are more administrative in nature than policies and decisions that would be more appropriate to be brought before the Board at a regular meeting.

Finally, also part of this resolution is an expectation related to our establishing expectations for our external county partners who are recipients of the county funds.

It sets up expectations in reporting and separation of funding among other things for our external partners.

Pass this as well.

Finally, we'll move into the adoption of the capital improvement plan.

Shown here is the total five-year FY25 to FY25 CIP with amounts totaling $335 million for that five-year period.

These amounts mirror what we have brought to the board and what we have began with our discussions with the school board and with the board throughout the budget process.

This resolution includes the adopted FY25 capital budget, which is the only year that the Board officially appropriates and also includes the plan for fiscal years 26 through 29.

Adoption of the out-year plan really helps staff and the Board with future long-range planning and will be reviewed annually during the budget development process.

Again, these out years help us to inform future long-range financial planning but are not being requested for appropriation at this time.

First, I believe we'll go through our order for questions and comments.

My hope is that we can address as much as we can in this segment.

And then once we start doing the resolutions, of course, look to see if anyone has a comment after a motion has been made and seconded for discussion.

But otherwise, we'll go through the seven in order from there.

if we're just making comments

I've said this before.

I am broadly in favor of the tax mechanisms that we've used here and identified here.

I think staff has done some really great work in kind of articulating what we thought was the appropriate way to raise the funds for the priorities that we set.

And also, just if this is going to be the last word on the tax rates and the budget for this year, I would be remiss if I didn't reiterate the strongly held position I've had throughout this, which is that I think we're missing a very important opportunity to increase our funding for evictions.

and so on.

I'm going to hold up this budget over, but I do just want to reiterate as we continue to think about what we do with any additional monies that we have over this that this is something that was included in staff's unfunded lists.

It is something that has had more members of the public and more vocal members of the public, literally hundreds of people

Sine petitions for, come speak to us for, in favor of additional funding.

It is something that we know we have strong, unquestioned, demonstrated, and quantifiable need for, which is a rare set of things that we can have, this amount of certainty that the need exists, and also it is something that has potential for significant cost savings through other lines of county work.

I think this is a

really easy decision to increase funding for emergency eviction reduction.

And I am disappointed that we were not able to include it this year or at this stage at this year.

Thank you.

Supervisor McKeel.

I don't have any questions.

Just a comment for staff and for all the folks since last fall that began working on this budget.

It's been a challenging budget season.

I think we always feel like every budget season to some degree is challenging.

But I do think coming out of the pandemic and losing some of the sources of money that the community and we had access to has made it extremely challenging for folks.

We certainly appreciate everybody's hard work.

We appreciate the community being involved in chatting with us, talking to us, reaching out to us.

and I don't have any other comments other than 15 hours, I believe, of budget discussions that we've made and we still have a lot we need to do and we'll have opportunities, I think, as we go through the year to see how we might address some of those opportunities, I think six pages, eight pages of unfunded

presentation of the facts and helping us to understand the details, the minutiae in a prompt and clear way that so then we can also explain it to others has been even higher than last year.

So congratulations on that.

So I was, I guess, is there some broad level of data on the personal property tax expected impacts?

and so on.

Staff brought forward and the Board approved the reduction originally was because of the very broad spread of those savings amongst the populace.

But now that the increases are happening, the opposite is also happening.

I'll take that question.

Jacob Sumner, Chief Financial Officer for the county.

I think about Supervisor Mallek for that question.

We have looked at our data as far as the personal property vehicles that we have in our system and it's hard to create such a large data set and boil it down to just one or two

County,

The reduction in those assessments coupled with the proposed tax increase for the most part would have an almost even tax bill from the previous year.

Now that's going to vary for a couple reasons.

So not every single person will see that, but the majority of the folks would see a similar tax bill as they saw the previous year.

Our Personal Private Tax Relief goes into that calculation as well.

And that will vary from vehicle to vehicle based on the value, because the Personal Private Tax Relief only goes up to the first 20,000 of assessed value.

There's also different changes on the individual vehicles.

So, for instance, one vehicle may have assessed much lower percentage than another vehicle, but on average across the board,

Thank you very much and that is all the questions I have.

Thank you.

Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley.

Thank you very much for a very thoughtful presentation.

I just have a couple of comments actually.

I know that

in the future, and I do respect what Supervisor Pruitt said, and I'm hoping that at the midpoint additional funds could be found and perhaps that could go for additional funding, that's something we'll have to see whether or not there's anything that comes about.

But we also have to realize that our safer grants are coming due.

and as our safer grants come due within the next several years, the county, we're going to have to make up that balance.

Do I know the exact amount?

No, but I do know it's a lot of money because we're paying for all those firefighters, fire rescue firefighters.

and so on.

Tweek some things, but as Supervisor McKeel said, we have what is the eight or nine pages of unfunded things that we would have liked to have seen in the budget.

We couldn't see.

We're like everybody else.

We have to actually balance our budgets according to state law.

And I thought

County Executive Richardson did a great job along with his team to balance everything.

And I think we have a really good budget.

Do we have everything we want?

No.

But we didn't raise our real estate tax rate.

That's been stable for, is it six years now?

And I know the personal property tax has fluctuated.

And there are reasons for that also.

Barring any relief from the state.

I'm supportive of this budget.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I do have some questions.

So first, like Supervisor Pruitt, there are items not funded in this budget that are concerning to me.

And if I were to find room for them, I would go to, like he suggested for his item, the reserve for contingencies to pay for it.

not going to make that request because I think over the years I've understood how the Reserve for Contingencies Fund has worked for us.

So I'd just like to be kind of explicit with some of the things that are missing or I feel are missing from the budget.

So whether it's emergency assistance fund, whether it's a DSS position, perhaps it's a community development position that is needed to help expedite processing of applications.

When we have voted on budget and it's approved,

and somebody, let's say in quarter two, comes to the county executive or perhaps they go to the CFO and say, the emergency assistance fund is depleted and we still have eight months to go.

We've got requests coming in and this staff position, even though it's not funded, I don't know what we're gonna do if we don't fill this position.

Can you just speak to the process whoever would appropriate, whether it's Mr. Richardson or Mr. Sumner, how in the operations, year in, year out,

Thank you, Professor Gallaway.

I'll take that question.

Yes, so we will start with the reserve contingencies that we have.

And we break those down into two categories, whether they're funded through ongoing revenues or one-time revenues.

and that helps give us some direction on what the need is and where to fund that from.

And when we're looking at one-time needs and one-time sources, make sure we try to line those up in particular so we're not funding ongoing costs with one-time funding.

So we'll start there.

What we typically do is, as we go throughout the fiscal year, we'll have additional information, whether that's our tax collection rates, how the local economy is doing, so a lot of our consumer-driven taxes.

We'll evaluate our revenues.

We'll also evaluate our spending and make sure that we're able to stay within the currently appropriated budget.

and so on.

And taking all that into context, we then assess the need that's before us.

So if it's a need for additional emergency assistance or if there's additional need for a different position to help services, that's something that we'll look at in that context.

We do have some ability within the county executive's authority that's

Part of one of the resolutions that you'll vote on today that gives the authority for the county executive to use some of those reserve for contingency funds.

We report those back to the board quarterly as part of our quarterly reports as one of our attachments.

and that is the high level of the process we look at.

It starts with gathering as much information as we can.

Obviously earlier in the fiscal year we have less information as we would later in the fiscal year.

We also have more budget availability at the beginning because we've just started a new budget cycle.

And then we'll take all the information into account and look at the need and try to take a holistic approach

I appreciate the response.

I think it's important for members of the community to understand that.

I presume that our department heads know that that is something that they can do if the need is pressing and something's been expended, and they would come to the appropriate individual to make that request even if it's mid-fiscal year.

I want to talk about the car.

I've struggled with this car, with this personal property tax for the cars.

I'm going to, I can't make sense of the individual who spoke today in terms of there should not be 200, 300% increases in values of cars.

So I'm going to make the presumption that whatever, you know, this wasn't an individual doing this on the back of an envelope.

He's talked to county staff and got these answers.

So I'm just going to presume that the information that was communicated was indifferent or was wrong.

Because, you know, if values hold year over year, if they hold, then their tax bill should go up.

But if 54 cents an increase to the tax rate is increasing values

and so on.

There's opportunities.

We see the data move quite a bit throughout the calendar year with people buying vehicles, selling vehicles, and those adjustments happen all the time.

Well, I'm not going to hold up anything today relative to the vote.

I'll provide you with the gentleman who spoke did, but this happens to be an area that I'm a little dangerous in.

and so on.

You'll probably be coming to a snatched budget cycle, even though we've increased the rate, saying we maybe didn't collect the revenue that we were targeting, maybe in the second part of the year, because the values continue to drop.

But if the reverse happens, whether values spike or something goes haywire that we don't know about, and we collect more revenue than we were targeting, so we've got extra money from this particular source.

I know it turns into one-time monies, that what's end up in the end of year surplus,

What, you know, if that were to occur, I will be asking the board to consider what to do with those extra funds specific on this one.

And I think I'm clear on what the options may be.

We keep it, but we don't keep it.

And there's different ways to go about it within that basic statement.

You know, I'm supporting the increase.

I understand the rationale behind to get to the revenue.

You're basically equalizing back to a certain time.

So I understand that rationale.

And the items that we are using the additional revenue to pay for, I think, are critical and important.

Otherwise, I was not ready to support this particular tax increase.

But the public safety positions in just the last 30 days

You know, Colonel Reeves and the Fire Chief have left, but I mean, we've had to have hit capacity just in the last 30 days, more than probably three or four times.

And I'm not even sure, you know, and it's probably happened on events that I'm not aware of.

So those positions have to be filled.

And, you know, even to the gentleman that spoke today, I'd be saying, well, this is the reason it's important to do this.

And I do believe that for all of those public safety positions.

So I hope that you will give a good response to the gentleman, just because if we've miscommunicated information, that's creating some stress.

And that's a training item, in my opinion, that could help with other people that maybe call in and ask questions about their tax bills.

It may be left a car out.

I don't know.

There's some fact checking that have to be there.

relative to the school amount.

If the schools don't get what they're projecting they're going to get from this, I mean, the state hasn't finalized.

I mean, are they eight out of ten confident?

Nine out?

I mean, if they don't get that seven million bucks, we're voting on this.

That's a fantastic question.

At the school board meeting when they approved their budget, one of the things that I noted that was in the details is they have $700,000 of state revenue contingency.

and what that means is if the budget that comes back from the state is $700,000 less than what they have anticipated and included in this budget, they could make that reduction in their budget without impacting any additional expenditures.

And so the basis of their state revenue is what was in the

the conference budget that was sent to the governor.

So that was their starting point.

So any difference from that amount would first go towards that contingency that they have set up.

And then after that, then they'd have to look at additional expenditure reserves.

I mean, their hit was $8 million.

Now they're projecting they're going to get $7 million.

I don't expect they're not going to get $7 million.

They'll get some portion of $7 million.

But the variance could be more than $700

And I do want to clarify one item with regards to the state amount that was increased in the school's budget.

It was not the entire 7 million.

Some of that was use of fund balance for them.

It was closer to the 4.7 million, 4.8 million dollar increase amount, which is still a large number, but not quite the full 7 million.

I mean, if they get down to like a 2 million, 3 million dollar gap, that just

I mean, I'm not saying that that's unimportant, but that's doable.

That's more reasonable than doing stark cuts and reductions, but they know that they're going to have to go to expenditures and make some decisions.

It's not revenues not coming back to backfill if the state doesn't come through.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

I've actually addressed several questions I had, particularly relating to the state budget and the schools and how that is impacted by what we're doing now at this point ahead of any clarity from the state on this issue.

I now respect, after having been here just a couple years, that we see budget amendments throughout the year and that's an important part of the process and I recognize that during this entire process we have been weighing revenues against expenditures and needs that need to be met through those expenditures and so the compromises that we've reached at this point are the ones that I'm certainly willing to live with but would love to, you know,

to revisit as opportunities present themselves for us to revisit them, which I hope will happen.

So I'm very supportive.

At this point, Board, I would like to start to suggest motions and have us move forward.

The first, of course, oh, I also wanted to comment that I am very concerned about the vehicle values discrepancy because just the calculation, quick calculation is that the

Hill.

Increase should be about 15%, not the percentages that we were seeing, but of course those are averages and not based on any one particular property, whether it's real property or personal property.

So with that, do we have a motion to adopt the resolution to set calendar year 2024 tax rates in the form of attachment A?

We have a motion from Supervisor McKeel, second from Supervisor Mallek.

Ms.

McKeel.

Yes.

Mr. Pruitt.

Aye.

Mr. Andrews.

Yes.

Mr. Gallaway.

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley.

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek.

Thank you.

We have a motion from Supervisor Mallek, second from Supervisor McKeel.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Mr. Pruitt?

Aye.

Mr. Andrews?

Yes.

Mr. Gallaway?

Yes.

Ms.

Bisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Next up, we have a revised budget resolution.

So I'm asking for a motion to adopt the fiscal year operating and capital budget in the revised form distributed by Mr. Davidson as updated attachment C. So moved.

Second.

We have a motion from Supervisor McKeel, second from Supervisor Mallek, without objection.

Ms.

McKeel.

Yes.

Mr. Pruitt.

Aye.

Mr. Andrews.

Yes.

Mr. Gallaway.

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley.

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek.

Thank you.

Fourth, we need a motion to adopt the resolution to set the fiscal year 2025 salary scales in the form of attachment D. Aye.

Some moved.

Second.

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

Ms.

McKeel.

Yes.

Mr. Pruitt.

Aye.

Mr. Andrews.

Yes.

Mr. Gallaway.

Yes.

Ms.

Lepisto-Kirtley.

Hi.

Ms.

Mallek.

Next, if we could please have a motion to adopt the annual resolution of appropriation in the revised form distributed by Mr. Davidson as updated Attachment E. So moved.

Second.

We have a motion from Supervisor McKeel, second from Supervisor Mallek.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Mr. Pruitt?

Aye.

Mr. Andrews?

Yes.

Mr. Gallaway?

Yes.

Ms.

Pisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek?

Thank you.

We're almost there.

The next matter requires a motion to adopt the resolution of official intent to reimburse expenditures with proceeds of a borrowing in the form of attachment F. So moved.

Second.

Motion from Supervisor Mallek, second from Supervisor McKeel.

Ms.

McKeel.

Yes.

Mr. Pruitt.

Aye.

Mr. Andrews.

Yes.

Mr. Gallaway.

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley.

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek.

And finally, board, is there a motion to adopt the fiscal year 25 through 29 capital improvement plan in the form of attachment G?

So moved.

Second.

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

McKeel, Mr. Pruitt, Mr. Andrews, Mr. Gallaway, Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley, Ms.

I was to say, while I have the microphone, before I go, I wanted to take a minute to really recognize several people related to their work on this budget.

As you know, it really takes a village to bring this budget across the finish line.

and so I wanted to start by thanking the board for their leadership and their guidance through this.

I wanted to continue with our county executive, Mr. Richardson and our CFO, Mr. Sumner for their guidance, leadership and partnership, as well as the entire executive leadership team, all the department heads, budget and finance.

And I especially wanted to thank the OMB staff, they're hating me right now for doing this, but Laura Vanzant, Tia Mitchell and Thomas Unsworth for all their

Hard Work, Dedication, and High Quality Work throughout the process.

I'd like to ask them to stand just to be recognized.

Now they really hate me.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That's all.

Oh, I very much appreciate that.

I'm glad we took the time to do that.

But board, we now have a 15-minute recess before us.

So we will come back in 15 minutes.

Great.

Welcome back everyone.

I apologize for the slight delay in getting back started again.

The next three items are special exception homestays and these will be led up by Lea Brunfeld, the senior planner too.

Welcome and I guess we'll take each one in turn.

Absolutely.

Thank you very much.

And good afternoon, everybody.

This presentation is for special exception 2023-37 at 6712 Jarman's Gap Road.

This is a 22-acre parcel in Crozet containing two dwellings.

The first dwelling, a four-bedroom farmhouse built around 1910-ish.

is proposed for use as the homestay.

The second dwelling, a two bedroom cottage built before 1900, is the full-time dwelling of a renter who will be serving as resident agent for the homestay.

The parcel is owned by the Blair Brook Farm, LLC, which is in turn owned by Ms.

Lori Ballinger, who lives out of state.

She has the intention to retire the property eventually and hopes to rent out the house as a homestay in the meantime, thus our special exception request today.

So by right, the 22-acre parcel is permitted to rent up to five guest sleeping spaces within a single family dwelling or an accessory structure built before August 7, 2019, as long as the property is occupied by the owner.

As this proper parcel is occupied by a renter and owned by an LLC, the owner has requested a special exception to permit her resident agent to fulfill residency requirements for the homestay.

and so on.

and the owners would send a notice to their neighbors providing them with contact information for their responsible agent who can be contacted in case of any emergencies or disturbances related to the homestay.

Homestays are also required to provide guest parking on site with a rate of one parking space per guest bedroom.

These two aerials, which were included in the staff report,

show the location of the two dwellings in the parcel in the image in the left, and a close-up of the structure proposed for use as a homestay in the image on the right.

As you can see in the left, the parcel proposed for the homestay use is located in the center of parcel, and the resident agent's dwelling is located near the front entrance of the parcel off of Jarman's Gap Road.

This aerial shows the sighting of the proposed homestay structure with vegetation on all sides, which was also visible on the previous parcel in the GIS aerial as well.

As such, staff would like to note the factors to be considered for a special exception.

and due to the nature of our special exceptions which do run with the land, we have analyzed the use based on the property itself and the use in the greater context of the neighborhood.

The use is not permission for an individual resident agent but rather a land use decision that is for a resident agent in general.

and the confirmation of a resident agent living on the parcel full-time is confirmed during the zoning clearance process and then during the short-term rental registry updates every year.

So as such, staff does not believe that the general use of a home stay with a resident agent on this parcel proposes any adverse impacts to the surrounding neighborhood, public health safety or welfare and that the proposed special exception is consistent with the comprehensive plan

and is consistent in size and scale with the surrounding neighborhood.

Thank you.

Board will go through order for questions.

Yes, in the application, I was actually not able to find a clear image of where the resident manager is staying.

I don't have any in this presentation, but if you look on Redfin, they are available there.

And have we seen Homestay requests before that involve someone simultaneously being a client and an employee, right?

Because that is the case we have here, right?

so we have I we don't inquire as to the details of the legal transactions between them but we do have a similar situation over near well the only one that I know off the exact top of my head

near the fried chicken spot, Mishie's Tavern, right across the street from there.

Sure.

I guess this one kind of just gets at one of my concerns with this specific kind of special exception.

It seems like we don't really have a meaningful way of validating whether or not this is

really just a short-term rental and a long-term rental masquerading is on the same property if this is an actual resident manager scenario, right?

Is this actually getting around the purpose of having a resident manager?

Is this person actually filling that role?

We don't even have a letter from the proposed resident managers.

We have documentation from the applicant.

also supervisor Pruitt.

I don't know how familiar you are with the after the special exception process because that's in our office, doesn't come before you guys, but part of that process for the home state clearance is sending contact information for the responsible agent

to all of the abutting property owners.

And that includes contact information where they can be reached at any point during a home stay stay.

So the resident agent may in fact not be the responsible agent.

They may be somebody who is contracted out of a, for example, a State Charlottesville type of organization where they're managing the property

We have worked out a way to get around the desire to have a home stay be owner-occupied in a way that is not even resembling owner-occupation.

It's just there is another tenant also on the property and we recognize that they're not filling the role of responsible agent.

There are also a number of owner-occupied home stays that use these services.

Okay.

Thank you.

So help me understand, we actually confirm, you said yearly.

Sure, so with the exemptions that are written into the state code, so if it's a registered bed and breakfast with the health department, or if it was a homestay that is under a different set of legislation under the health department, they're exempt from this, but all of the ones we're talking about today would not be exempt.

So these go under the short-term rental registry,

and so on and so forth.

The windows aren't painted shut, there's no electrical wires anywhere that they shouldn't be, that the fire extinguisher is not expired.

Okay, and that's by appointment.

Yes.

Yes, we do that for all of our inspections, our appointment base.

That's the only question I had.

I think you, as the clarification of the short term registry was what I was seeking.

If there were a complaint from one of the neighbors, that would be a different situation, probably, as far as inspection was concerned.

But maybe not.

So I believe that inspectors, if there is a violation, can go knock on the door.

They cannot trespass anymore.

But Lisa's coming.

Lisa's coming.

Good afternoon, Board.

Lisa Green, Manager of Code Compliance.

Excuse me.

If we have a complaint, we would follow the process that we do, that we have for any other complaint in all complaints.

And yes, we would contact the property owner and make arrangements to do an onsite inspect thoroughly.

McKeel.

Great.

Thank you.

I just wanted to make sure.

And I guess always in our minds from when this process began, we were talking about preserving residential components and where it seems like this has evolved is because of what the legals demand for they'll see not being a person, that kind of thing.

So I'm, well,

I think this is a great location for this and they do, I mean, I hope that the true owner is going to be coming back to live in the house in a few years.

I guess I'll just have to see.

Thank you.

Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley.

Point of clarification, the reason we have a resident manager, either the person who owns the home or someone who's living there looking after the property is so that if there are problems on the

property, the neighbors can call in and say, too much noise or this is happening or that's happening.

But the requirement is that there has to be someone able to respond to a complaint so that we're not responding to the complaint, saving us time.

but that the owner or resident manager is responding to the complaint.

So the resident agent may or may not be the responsible agent and this is particularly comes into play when we have unhosted stays because if you have an unhosted stay on a large rural area parcel, there is no one in residence.

But we have required that there be someone

who is available regardless of whether the owner is on vacation for the Christmas holidays or not, someone has to be available within an hour to respond to complaints and to try and solve the problem.

Right, and that's because maybe the owner of the parcel owns another parcel.

This was given to them through inheritance and they don't live there, but they want to be able to, you know, contribute money.

You know, they want to pay taxes or they want to be able to earn some income from that to be able to keep up the property.

So the requirement that we have someone living on the property who is the resident of the property, that goes back to the concerns about this not being a residential property.

So it has to be first a residential property.

Secondly, there has to be someone available to address problems.

So that's kind of two separate problems and two separate solutions.

And sometimes they are the same person, but they are not always.

Thank you very much.

Supervisor Gallaway.

I have no questions.

Thank you.

I don't know if I have so much questions as I guess I've got concerns if I understand this correctly that this is a an owner who does not live not just next door but doesn't live in the county at all but has acquired this property and they've stated that their intent is to maybe come here and live someday but at this point they just start owning property and using it

to produce an income through a tenant who's staying in the small house and then a home stay use for the main house, which feels a lot like what we were trying to avoid, if I'm correct.

So they're a direct family member.

Again, I feel that's a different situation than when you really just, it feels like an investor.

I would be cautious about, I would advise caution about applying the regulations based on where the owner lives.

Are we familiar with whether this owner has any other properties elsewhere that they're operating as home states?

I'm not aware of any.

I don't think I'm going to vote in favor of this, so I feel like I need to explain that thoroughly right now.

If I were to intuit an intent from the requirement for an onsite resident manager, I would intuit that when this law was created, there was a desire to not disable housing stock.

right?

You want it to either be housing stock that is already effectively disabled because it is a vacation home or you want it housing stock that is still being used for full residential capacity and they also want to have this additional use.

This I see as disabling housing stock necessarily because the the home that is going to be proposed for tenant use for for Airbnb use for verb of use is vacant.

There are two dwelling units on there.

One of them is currently inhabited by a long-term tenant, and one of them is completely uninhabited.

In the alternative, if this was not approved, what you then have is likely a long-term rental property available on the market, an additional five-bedroom long-term rental property available on the market.

And if it is approved, what you have is

Bed and Breakfast, which is not what is owned not before and it's also not what I would into it is the intent of the regulation as it's put forth to us.

Hall.

I think that that could be a concern that the Board could definitely address that was not written into the regulations themselves.

And we have not applied that to previous approvals.

We have approved homestays for residences

and so on.

We have multiple times and that is a by right thing if the owner actually lived on the property.

We have parcels that have more than two dwellings on them and the owner lives in one and then rents out the other and those are dwellings, those are dwellings that could be in housing stock.

But we do not currently have a way to deny that if they live on the parcel.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around where we're drawing the line.

If this I understand that I can't be concerned about where the owner actually lives.

We have talked about the LLC structure as not something that we were hoping would enable a, you know,

Company to go and buy up properties throughout the county and put a tenant on who served as resident manager and then start using them as homestays.

I didn't mean for it to be new legislation.

I meant simply as far as our authority to to draw this distinction between

I'm not going to stay quiet on this.

Some of us, when we voted on the Homestay Regulation, disagree with a lot of the things being said here.

and the special exception process was a way forward to get us the ability to allow property owners to use their property in a way they desired.

So there is some level of that, that is the property owner's right and their right to use the property as they wish and a lot of the restrictions that were put in place and there were a lot more restrictions that were not put in place that the board wanted

but the final agreement was special use permits was a way to at least contemplate it so it came back before the board.

It just seems like every time one of these home stay things come to us, we're wanting to rehash the ordinance.

If we need to do that, then we need to get back into the ordinance door where we cannot put these applicants through this process every single time.

I would think come July 1, Mr. Herrick's review of the change in state code would allow, would probably alleviate some of the concerns, because then at least you can tie it to the property owner and not the property.

But, you know, I'm not, I'm in the minority.

I was in the minority then, I'll be in the minority now.

But the fact is, is that this is a person who's purchased property.

They can use it as a long-term rental.

They can use it by right for whatever purpose they have the ability to do.

If we deny it, then they can't use it as an Airbnb, I suppose, but it's still their property and they'll have to find another way to use it as Supervisor Pruitt said.

But I think that goes against what

Somebody bought this property for a reason.

The homestay use is restricted even on them for different things.

The responsible agent is to handle the impacts if they're addressed.

I mean, some of us were in favor of just a responsible agent because the impacts were that everybody was yelling about the impacts.

Oh, well, what if there's a party or what if there's noise violations or what if there's this or that?

If you have a responsible agent,

and if you remember, Supervisor Randolph was the one using, I think it was Aspen's homestay regulation about that they only require a responsible agent to deal with impacts, not the use.

Go ahead.

I agree with what Supervisor Gallaway said, and I think they have come before us as LLCs.

I think none of us want to have a company that comes in and does purchase a lot of properties, but a lot of people, there are a number of people that do have LLCs for their protection.

and

there is a rural area, we have a rural area, urban area and we have all kinds of exceptions to the rural and I think that's why we have the people come before us so we can judge it on an individual basis but this is something we have approved before unless there's something that I'm not aware of and we're not always assured of

someone putting it for sale.

We don't know the circumstances of why they own this home.

Was it inherited?

Did they purchase it?

Or they meaning to come back?

We don't know that.

I appreciate the distinction and I do want to say that you know I'm actually not I don't think I'm against this particular case in part because you said that this is something you've looked into the whether they're doing this elsewhere in the county I'm simply asking the question with the ordinance that we have if they were doing this if we hadn't if I hadn't asked that question or if we found out that oh this is one of

12 that they do throughout the county.

Have we addressed this in our ordinance?

If we haven't addressed this in ordinance, then I agree with Professor Gallaway.

We can't address it now.

We're not asking that question.

But I wanted to hear the answer to understand whether we're asking the question.

Are we looking at an owner who has just got this one property or we're looking at an owner that's doing this throughout?

And I've heard that question asked many times in connection with these home stays in the past.

It would definitely, oh, sorry.

Go ahead.

It would definitely require some in-depth study.

And that LLC may own five different properties that they have homestays on that each individual family member lives on and then they have another guest house or a basement they rent out.

Thank you.

That's okay, and I appreciate everything that everybody said.

I just don't, I was just going to ask Steve as our, or Andy, do you all have any comments on any of this discussion?

Good afternoon, supervisors, Andy Herrick, deputy county attorney.

I would

encourage the supervisors to take a look at our draft resolution.

The staff recommendation was for approval, and therefore our draft resolution is for approval.

However, it lists out what the considerations are, and I believe Ms.

Brumfield in her presentation also had, there were four specific considerations.

So regardless of whether the board chooses to approve or deny this, I would encourage the board to articulate its reasons for that using the considerations that are in the ordinance.

So for example, if the board wishes to deny this, it should find that it's inconsistent with the comprehensive plan or that it's adverse to neighboring parcels.

Again, those are the considerations that are on the ordinance.

Resolution that staff is prepared as a resolution for approval.

If the Board wishes to deny it, we may want some additional time to draft up a resolution to deny that would include those findings.

Appreciate it.

And I would say just, thank you, Andy.

I appreciate it.

Just to sort of, Mike, understand your concerns that you expressed about taking away properties out of the

taking them away from this hour of stock.

And this really is not, I'm not going to be critical of this particular one.

I would just simply say that my experience and my thoughts are this is a rural area.

I am much more concerned about the Airbnb's or the short-term rentals in the development area where we've been losing affordable housing stock as they roll over to short-term rentals.

and so, and that's not the case here at all.

So with that, I'm comfortable.

I don't have any more questions.

Thank you.

So I guess that the grounding of my thought on this, that we have to address this application based on the rules today.

And I definitely have concerns and lots of memories about other debates going forward.

I remember Amelia talking about how

and so on.

Mesh as well, except for those family things and the house here and the house there that have, I guess, means that then that creates the trap for the other ones that don't really meet those characteristics.

So in the solutions category, I would just ask our attorney staff to think about going forward and respond whenever they could.

Do we have authority to say that this is only for only occupied going forward?

That we have to make it more restrictive than we used to have?

Is that a solution that prevents what I think I read about nationally as an overwhelmingly used way to just

and so on.

get better information to begin with.

And I guess the main attorney question is, do we have the authority to require an affidavit that says you must list all of your other residential LLC things in Albemarle County?

because that would be at least a way to know.

I think people, many of the applications which we've had, the one on the back of over there behind Cloverfields in Rivanna, there are others, though we did in Crozet last time, they were very upfront about the fact that this is our family LLC and one child lives here and a grandchild lives there and that's the way we're doing it.

This one is not quite as clear.

and I'm concerned about that, but I also think that when looking at the four criteria in Attachment F, it meets every single one of them, so there's no way I can vote no on that because it's not fair to change the rules in the middle of the stream.

But anyway, I really look forward to trying to think about it going forward and there'll be more questions raised in some of the others where there's a much more recent

Building that has been all of a sudden proposed to build a brand new structure for something that is sort of bringing back earlier discussions of no, no, no, it had to be standing before 2019.

So we'll talk about that in the next one.

Thank you.

Any further comments being, Supervisor Gallaway?

I'm good as well.

Very good.

We have a motion from Supervisor Mallek with a second from Supervisor Gallaway without objection.

McKeel, Mr. Pruitt, Mr. Andrews, Mr. Gallaway, Ms.

Mallek.

So moving on, we are looking at special exception 2023-14 at 2020 Wingfield Road.

It is a 2.65 acre rural area parcel in the Ivy Creek area in the Jack Jouett District.

The parcel contains a single-family dwelling and a guest cottage.

The guest cottage was previously outfitted with a kitchen and served as a long-term rental, but this was a conversion that was not in line with the development rights of the rural area.

The parcel is occupied by the owners, and they are requesting a special exception to use the guest cottage, which is an accessory structure on a rural area parcel less than five acres.

as a location for a two bedroom home stay.

So by right, the 2.65 acre parcel is permitted to rent up to two guest sleeping spaces within the single family dwelling.

The applicants are requesting to use the existing structure as the homestay location for the two bedroom homestay.

Parking would be located off street and the property owners would be required to be on site during all rentals as no unhosted stays are permitted on parcels of less than five acres.

If the special exception was approved, the owners would then apply for a homestay zoning clearance and during that process the structure would be inspected for building and fire safety and the owners would send notice to their neighbors providing them contact information with their responsible agent.

and as we have discussed with the applicant and they have confirmed they are aware the structure would need to be returned to an accessory structure before the home state clearance could be approved as the full kitchen that was added for the long-term long-term renter makes the cottage into a full dwelling

and a 2.65 acre parcel may only legally contain one dwelling.

The cottage was built as an accessory structure.

That was the permitting in the building process that it received.

It did not receive approval as a full dwelling, a single family dwelling.

there is currently a zoning violation on the parcel for the structure as a dwelling as it is in violation of the development rights allowance on the rural area parcel.

So this aerial shows a location of the pros and pros homestay at the yellow star in relation to the owner's dwelling which is marked by the red star and you can also see the internal

Circular driveway that would be directly in front of the homestay.

Zooming out a little bit, we see the location of the proposed homestay, again marked with the yellow star in relation to neighboring dwellings.

The parcel directly to the left of the homestay location is

and so on.

Not occupied.

It contains only equipment sheds.

We did after the staff report was submitted to the board during on on the grant against we did receive comments from neighbors who were concerned about homestay uses.

They noted that they preferred the structure be used as a full-time

they were very clear that they did not have specific complaints or concerns about the individual property owner or the overall use of the individual cottage just in general not in favor of home stays in the neighborhood.

and as such, we would again like to note the factors to be considered for a special exception, whether there are adverse impacts to the surrounding neighborhood, adverse impacts to the public health safety and welfare, whether the special exception is consistent with the comprehensive plan and whether the exception is consistent in size and scale with the surrounding neighborhood.

So as we are reviewing this application as a land use decision with permission for use as an accessory structure

It is already existing.

The proposed use of a two-bedroom rental is permitted by right on the parcel.

And as such, we do not believe that it does pose the adverse impacts, which are to be of concern for special exceptions.

Thank you.

We'll go through our order.

I don't think I have any questions on this one other than to just observe the distinction from the previous parcel and how that kind of inverts my concerns here right here we're actually creating like additive capacity as opposed to a negative capacity right this is something that's currently unusable

for human occupancy in any sense.

It cannot be used currently as a home stay.

It cannot currently be used as a long-term rental.

And this is proposing, because I think they're currently using it as a home stay and got the zoning violation.

That was how we reached out to them.

So this is creating a new capacity.

It's not taking anything from any stock that exists.

And I will say that, oh, sorry.

I was surprised when I read the packet because I'm very familiar with this property.

Matter of fact, I will tell you that I've been knocking on this door for years and years and years and of course these people just purchased in 19.

I can tell you that in one of those trees for many years there was a fake bird that was motion censored to chirp when you walked up to it because I can remember walking up to that tree multiple times over my life of the last 27 years and looking to see if that bird was going to chirp at me again and he often did.

I mean it's just a little funny story.

That's how I remember that house.

Often though the people were not home so it was me and the bird

having said that, having said that.

I have no problem with this in theory.

I guess my concern is, so when they purchased in 19, it was a band.

I'm just trying to figure out the zoning violation and help me a little bit with that.

So this is going to rectify, bring them into compliance.

Were they the ones that

I'm trying to... So, the zoning violation was logged very recently because when we looked at the homestay listing on Airbnb, which was just part of the homestay work, we saw there was a kitchen.

And at that point, we checked to see whether the parcel had development rights, which it did not.

And the history of the building and the cottage was built as an accessory structure

The current owners have said that previously there was a full-time tenant there before they bought the house, and that when they bought it, it had a kitchen.

So the zoning violation is new because we weren't made aware of it, but the situation, it seems, has been in place for a long time.

One of the neighbors who did call in talked about one of the renters who was there full time and how she lived there for years and years and years with her offspring as well.

and I will say this is a good example of how our process is working to some degree because you caught it.

So that's really good.

I do remember vaguely that particular, but I never paid the attention.

I was just more attracted to the fake bird and the tree rather than trying to figure out what was going on in that accessory building.

But having said that, so it's good that they're coming into compliance, right?

and the property to the left that you talked about has a shed on it.

There are occasionally horses in that field.

I've seen horses there very often.

I may not, you know, I mean, but actually within the last year I've seen horses there, but it doesn't really matter.

Okay, thank you very much.

Those are all my questions.

So what I understand is that they're going to be required to remove the kitchen.

Yes, they will.

And then that way, then you can't have it as long term.

Vrento, which is kind of sad, frankly, but I understand.

I understand that, I mean, because we, you know, we can't allow that.

So the only thing that they really could do then is a home stay.

Situations.

I think I heard you say it.

I might have misunderstood you.

Yes.

I misunderstood you, so thank you very much for that clarification.

No other questions.

this might be again a Ms.

Green question, but we have following our process for a violation and the violation was logged after we received the application.

And just to be clear, it says in the writing, removal of the kitchen stove.

But I mean, I would think if there's a property in violation, it's not like our approval fixes it.

They have to do something to fix it.

Okay, so Lisa Green, Manager of Code Compliance, in the process of this application is when it was found that this dwelling, it's a definition of dwelling, existed instead of just an accessory structure.

And so that's where the violation came forth.

And we are in the process and they do know that they

have violated the ordinance and so it is a simple fixed based off of the definition of dwelling in our ordinance which says that to be a dwelling it has to have permanent provisions for cooking, eating, sleeping, and sanitation and so one of the

the fix for something like this generally is removing the permanent provisions for cooking.

So it has been until we reached the understanding with the property owner about the removal of the kitchen.

This was actually submitted quite some time ago in 2023.

I mean, in the past, when some of these have been declined, it was because of compliance issues.

And this one sounds like it's not the fault or at least unknowingly or unwittingly not the fault of the current applicant.

And that's when I was getting out.

Thank you.

I have no questions.

I share the recognition that, well, we had housing that was not in compliance and now we're taking away the permanent housing for temporary, but that's the way it works.

So thank you.

This is in the Jack Jouett district.

I'm happy to make the motion.

Diantha, your voice is very small.

I was away from, I'm sorry.

I move that the board adopt the resolution attached to the staff report as attachment F. Second.

And I probably should say, and I'm sorry, let me just say, I move that we approve S

E-2023-14-2020 Wingfield Road, Homestay, Recommended Action as an Attachment F. Second.

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

Ms.

McKeel.

Yes.

Mr. Pruitt.

Aye.

Mr. Andrews.

Yes.

Mr. Gallaway.

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley.

Aye.

Ms.

This is exciting because I have so little development in my district and I have two coming before us.

Alright, so lastly we have Special Exception 2020-402, located at 1030 Woodlands Road.

As noted, this proposal is also for an accessory structure.

This is on a 5.35 acre rural area parcel in the Jack Jouett District.

This parcel currently contains a single family dwelling and a garage built around or shortly after 2019.

And it previously contained a shed to the rear of the property which was recently removed.

The applicants who reside in the property in this single-family dwelling are proposing to build a three-bedroom structure for use for their family members and also as a homestay.

By right, the 5.35-acre parcel is permitted to rent up to five guest sleeping spaces within a single-family dwelling or a previously existing accessory structure as of August 7, 2019.

The applicants are requesting to build a two-story structure that they have noted in their application materials is the same footprint as their existing garage and which they have also noted will be built on the site where a shed previously stood.

As the owners do reside on the parcel and it will meet setbacks, the use itself is by right and the only exception required is for the new structure.

If the special exception is approved,

and so on.

and as we have discussed with the applicant and they have confirmed they are also aware this structure would also not be able to be constructed as a full dwelling as the property may only legally contain one dwelling as it only has one development right which is in use for the single family dwelling.

So this aerial shows the location of the proposed homestay structure in relation to the existing property owner's dwelling.

The property owner recently underwent driveway construction projects, so you can see the driveway now comes from the actual street on Woodlands versus from the neighbor's driveway.

You can see where the neighbor's driveway previously went directly to the property owner's property border.

This aerial shows the proposed homestay location in relation to neighboring dwellings, zooming out a little bit.

This is an older aerial from before the shed was removed, but you can see that's location very clearly here.

And as noted in conversations with the property owner, the proposed homestay structure would be located slightly further away from the property boundary than the shed was in order to meet setback requirements for the homestay use.

so as such again staff would like to note the factors to be considered for a special exception and due to the nature of the special exceptions which from the land we have analyzed this use based on the property itself and the use in greater context of the neighborhood

Revealing this application as a land use decision with permission for use of an accessory structure built after August 7, 2019 on a borrower parcel of greater than five acres.

The accessory structure is comparable in size to existing accessory structures on this parcel and additionally on neighboring parcels.

And the proposed homestay use of the three-bedroom rental is permitted by right on the parcel within the primary dwelling or an existing structure.

County.

The applicant has also noted that they may, regardless of homestay approval, build the structure for their personal use as it is something that they intend to use heavily.

with the permission of a by-right accessory structure for any use other than a homestay in mind.

Staff does not believe that this general use of a homestay would propose any adverse impacts to the surrounding neighborhood, public health, safety, or welfare, and that they propose special exception is consistent with the comprehensive plan and consistent in size and scale with the surrounding neighborhood.

and we recommend the final motion for approval.

I don't have any issues with this one.

I will say, as all of these have, it kind of makes me think about what we are more broadly accomplishing with our home state ordinance and how we're altering what is economically the highest and best use of property.

We already know that like a rural area,

Hall,

Accessory Use as an Airbnb for that additional unit.

You are further altering what the highest and best use economically is in that now, and this one would expect is going to be reflected in home prices.

I would expect that if this becomes something that we approve more frequently, if this becomes a much more normal pattern of business, what you're going to see are much more

Kossley, home prices that would be eligible for an easy and effective Airbnb as an accessory development to the point where maybe we're functionally compelling people to, if they have a four acre or more plot, that they are going to basically be economically compelled into being a petty landlord because the home prices are going to start reflecting that as a likely use.

This was

and so on.

Thank you.

If I may address one thing, Supervisor Pruitt, you described a four acre parcel as having two development rights.

In many cases, parcels over two acres still only retain one development right based on the division of the parcel in history.

This parcel is five over five acres in size, but it can still only have one dwelling because when the larger parcel was divided

I appreciate that clarification.

I'm still getting much more comfortable with how development rights in the rural area work.

That is absolutely true.

Yes, just a couple of questions.

Yes.

If the building permit approval process will look at that, and then we will just, as a note on there, make sure that they are building it to meet the primary structure setbacks.

Gotcha.

So that's, yeah.

But I assumed that that was a location when I was out there of where the

and they are living in this house?

Yes.

Okay.

Yes.

But they said this is going to be their primary structure, their primary home.

This is their mailing address on the application.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The only question I have is, can you give a little sort of amplification of the time of construction issue?

Because this is the one that was, everything was basically built after the ordinance went in, which specifically said existing structures prior to blah, blah, blah.

So the ordinance permits a homestay to be in a single-family dwelling or an accessory structure built before August 7, 2019.

So if they were doing a homestay in a room in the basement, for example, in their single-family home, that would be permitted by right.

So even if the home were built after 2019, that's where I was making my mistake.

Yes.

Then it would be allowed to do it in the home building with people there.

OK.

So then the former shed, former garage now becomes rebuilt.

OK.

Yeah, I have no questions.

Supervisor Gallaway.

Yeah, I'll make a motion.

Ms.

McKeel.

Yes.

Mr. Pruitt.

Aye.

Mr. Andrews.

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley.

Hi.

Ms.

Yes.

Thank you, Board.

Our next item is our 13 recommendations for affordable housing fund presented by Dr. Stacy Pethia, Assistant Director of Housing.

Welcome, Dr. Pethia.

Good afternoon, Stacy Pethia, Assistant Director for Housing.

And this is a request for support through the Housing Fund for two projects.

The first is a project by Piedmont Housing Alliance, a premier circle, and that is in phase three.

So if you remember, there were three phases to premier circle.

The first is the Virginia Supportive Housing Project to create 80 units of permanent supportive housing.

The second phase would be some commercial space that fronts along Route 29.

The third phase is additional affordable housing built by Piedmont Housing Alliance that will be targeted towards families and seniors that have incomes at or below 60% of AMI.

The second funding request comes from the City of Charlottesville and from Chief Dimmick.

and Ned is looking at a joint study to look at homeless services assessment in the city and county.

So looking at Piedmont Housing Alliance's Premier Circle project, again this is targeted affordable rental housing for households with incomes at 60% AMI or less.

Just a reminder, on April 1st of this year the median income increased to $124,200 per household.

So this 60% AMI level really opens things up to more families than it used to.

The project itself is looking to build approximate between 40 and 60 units of affordable rental housing, again targeted to families and senior households with incomes between 30 and 60% of area median income.

That will be an average across those, so units can go to just about anybody in that.

Income Range.

The units will remain affordable for 30 years in compliance with the low-income housing tax credit regulations.

Again, it is part of a larger affordable housing project comprising 140 affordable units, and it is done in partnership with Virginia's supportive housing and the Blue Ridge Area Coalition for the Homeless.

Their total project cost is $22.05 million approximately and Piedmont Housing Alliance is requesting $2,025,000 towards the project.

The staff is recommending that we provide the full amount for the project that would give the total funding commitment to this project of $2.025 million or 10% of the total project cost.

It is an alignment with county policies.

It aligns directly with strategic plan goal for quality of life and also objective two in housing Albemarle, which is to increase the supply of long-term affordable and workforce rental housing in Albemarle County.

and the City of Charlottesville.

Moving on to the second request from the City of Charlottesville, again this is to perform a homeless services assessment, looking not just at the number of shelter beds that are appropriate for our area in the city and the county, but also looking at the total, how effective the current system is in general.

The assessment goals would really evaluate the operational effectiveness of the current continuum of care system, so that would include Blue Ridge Area Coalition of the homeless, or BRAC, along with the other homeless services, supportive services along that, including Pacham and the Haven.

And again, identify the number of shelter beds needed to effectively serve our area.

The consultant for the project would be done through a joint procurement process, and the City of Charlottesville will match the county's contribution to the project of $100,000.

Again, these are in alignment with county policies, so strategic plan goal for quality of life, and specifically implementing Housing Albemarle, and objective 10 in Housing Albemarle, which is work to end and prevent homelessness.

Thank you.

I have a few.

We don't often have the opportunity to look so closely at the capital stack, which I really enjoyed and appreciated here.

So I have actually a few questions on this, which I realize this is coming from PHA, not from us, but I'm hoping you can help us understand kind of what's typical and what might be unusual for this project type.

So something that really leapt out at me is only about half of the capital stack is actually like

Loaned Capital to the developer.

It's heavily grant-driven.

I'm under the impression that that is not normal.

Is that normal?

Yes, so most affordable housing developers use a variety of funding sources.

A really good example is looking at the crossings of 4th and Preston across the street.