Board of Supervisors Regular Second Meeting   5/21/2025

Good afternoon.

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

in Lane Auditorium, McIntyre Office Building.

I'd like to note at the dais we have Supervisor Mike Pruitt of the Scottsville District, Supervisor Bea LaPisto-Kirtley of the Rivanna District,

Supervisor Diantha McKeel of the Jack Jouett District, Supervisor Ann Mallek of the White Hall District, myself, Jim Andrews, representing the Samuel Miller District.

A quorum is present.

Supervisor Galloway is not able to be here today, but I have thoughts with him and his family.

We are also joined by our County Executive, Mr. Jeff Richardson.

our County Attorney, Mr. Andy Herrick, our Clerk, Ms.

Claudette Borkerson.

Also, let me please welcome Albemarle County Police Officers present, Master Police Officer Dana Reeves and Sergeant Matthew O'Reilly.

And if you could, I'm now asked to join us in a moment of silence.

Thank you, Board.

Of course, our first item is to adopt the final agenda, noting that item 18A, we have an additional item which is authorizing the Chair to sign letters of support for the Congressional Directed Spending Program, a dam repair application.

Other than that, I don't know of any other changes.

So moved.

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

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek?

And board, we'll look to the first item, brief announcements by board members.

I have no announcements today, thank you.

Oh, wait.

Other than don't forget to vote.

It's very important.

I think the deadline is May 27 for early voting.

So that's extremely important.

May 27 is the last day to register.

The early voting goes until the Saturday before.

OK, the Saturday before.

And the actual voting day is June 17.

So don't forget to vote.

Thank you.

I hope you will forgive me.

I normally have the election information up at this time, and I don't today to give that exact information, but I think that was all generally correct.

re-emphasize that point, there's going to be a lot of issues that are up for primary.

And that's going to be important.

It's going to be potentially decisive as to who some of our key leaders are.

Additionally, I would like to just thank this board's attendance at the Scottsville joint meeting with the Albemarle Board of Supervisors down in Scottsville.

For the members of the public in attendance today, I thought it was a really excellent opportunity

That's all I have.

Just a shout out of thanks.

We've had several events in our community lately and I want to thank the Fire and Rescue folks, Albemarle County Fire and Rescue and Albemarle County Police Department for great service to our community.

A shout out to both of those organizations, well those departments I guess I should say.

So thank you Fire and Rescue and Albemarle County Police.

Thank you.

Thank you very much and I will echo that

Tragedies all around us and it's almost hard to process.

There's so many things coming all at once, but we have many more days of possible rain, so we all need to be

respecting the power of water as well as fire.

Another memorial today, Jerry Connolly, who was a friend of local government for decades and longtime at-large chair of Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, and then congressman after following Glenn Davis in Northern Virginia, passed away this morning.

So he will be long missed.

was very ill, but really fighting the good fight right up until the end.

So he was very helpful to me on a lot of advice, and I really appreciated all of his guidance over many years.

Secondly, on a strange count for warning for others, my daughter received a text scam yesterday, which really got her attention, because it said, Mom,

and anybody who gets something that says mom and you have children scattered all over the place.

My phone's managed to break.

Can you text me back my new number when you see this please and then a number.

Beware, beware, beware.

This is the first time I've seen anything like this, but it is

Other than phones being spelled, the grammar being wrong, it was not obvious.

And then she looked at it and looked at it and looked at it and said, I'm just going to contact my kids instead.

And of course, if you can control your emotions long enough to contact your children before responding to something like this, it may save you a whole lot of pain.

So I did want to announce that.

On a very good note, Memorial Day in Earliesville is Monday at 10 AM at Earliesville Green.

Everyone is welcome and invited to come.

Colonel James O'Kelly, retired US Marine Corps, will be the keynote speaker.

It is always a wonderful event, lots of music, and lots of fellowship, and lots of old soldiers who come out of their far-flung homes to this event.

So everyone is invited.

Thank you.

Just a couple of quick notes.

Obviously, congratulations to all the graduates near and far.

We have many coming up, but we also, of course, got through a big weekend at UVA, which is always a big day for the community.

I also want to mention that there have been a series of meetings, community design nights, associated with Resilient Together, and the last one will be coming up May 29th at the Greenwood Community Center, 6 to 8 p.m.

A chance to participate in that process.

Yes, thank you Jim.

As the liaison to Java Jefferson Area Board for the Aging, I am thrilled to read this proclamation and I read it in the form of 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.

Now therefore, be it proclaimed that we, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, urge every resident to flip the script on aging, this year's theme, and transform how we talk about and perceive aging,

celebrating older adults' profound impact on our local community, empowered by social connections, health resources, and support for older adults.

And be it further proclaimed that we, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, hereby proclaim May 2025 to be Older Americans Month, signing this 21st day of May, 2025, Jim Andrews Chair.

Thank you.

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

Ms.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek?

Thank you.

And I believe Ms.

Christina Evans is here.

Yes?

Maybe not.

Someone on behalf of Java?

We'll get it to them.

And I think we'll move on.

OK.

Thank you.

They're currently pending before the board, other than scheduled for public hearings.

You have a list?

Yes.

She's getting it.

She thought we had some time.

Yeah, custom.

Are they all in person?

Yes.

All right, so everyone is in person today.

So let me read the directions.

Matters on the agenda but not listed for public hearing.

During the time set aside for public comment on matters previously considered or currently pending before the board, individuals may address the Board of Supervisors concerning matters previously considered by the board or 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.

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

In order 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 materials may be given to the clerk.

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

Back and forth debate is not permitted.

And I skipped over, but I will say 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.

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

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

And with that, let me just get the list

Welcome.

Some of us can't see people because of the screen so I was looking.

Welcome.

Good afternoon, supervisors, and thank you for the opportunity to speak.

My name is Mona El-Kafif, and I'm here today as a member of the Albemarle County Natural Heritage Committee, a faculty at UVA School of Architecture, and a resident of the Scottsville District.

I'm joined by Christine Putnam and JD Brown as well as Robert McGinnis and ask the board to consider a resolution to have Albemarle County join the Biophilic Cities Network.

As you could read in the letter from our chair, this partnership proposes a truly exciting regional initiative.

Today I would like to highlight why this moment matters.

As you might know, the Biophilic Cities Network was born here at UVA under the leadership of Professor Tim Beatley and JD Brown.

Since then, cities like San Francisco and Singapore, but also Richmond, Norfolk, Arlington, Reston, and DC have joined and are embedding nature into the city's fabric.

Albemarle County, rich in biodiversity, cultural heritage, and forward-thinking planning is uniquely positioned to help initiate a next evolution, the biophilic region that crosses political boundaries to support our rich environments.

Together with the city, which passed its resolution last month, Charlottesville and our county could become the world's first designated biophilic region.

At its heart, this initiative is about recognizing and strengthening the connections between people and nature.

It's about building health, resilience, and identity through the assets we already have and which makes Albemarle unique.

It is not about constraints.

It's about strengthening commitments we already made, protecting biodiversity, investing into healthy, livable communities,

and planning for resilience in the face of climate change.

Joining the network gives us a framework to celebrate and connect existing efforts from the biodiversity action plan and the Rivanna River partnerships to the AC44 goals and nature-based tourism.

UVA, and specifically the program that I'm directing, is fully behind this effort.

My students and I conducted a biophilic asset analysis of the region, and we are currently preparing an exhibition that will open September 12th at the school.

I'm also planning to apply for another Jefferson grant this fall to help pilot the collaboration.

With your support, we could take the next step and formally apply to the biophilic cities network.

The process is modest and highlighted in our letter.

The benefits are significant, regional alignment with the city and UVA, an international platform that allows us to learn from other cities and feature our achievements, and a boost to nature-based economic development, education, and tourism.

This initiative gives us a really positive and proactive opportunity to tell a story, one that reflects of who we are, strengthening our identity, and a story who we aspire to be in the future.

Just imagine the headlines in the New York Times.

Good afternoon.

Kim Bazzioli with the Piedmont Environmental Council.

My comments today are about the cost of community services study.

First, we appreciated the recent presentation on the county's conservation programs on February 19th, which highlighted the many public benefits of land conservation.

One of the most impactful of those public benefits is minimization of residential sprawl in the rural area, which has tremendous fiscal impacts.

The cost of community services study we'll hear about today underscores those impacts.

Cost of community services studies matter because localities provide essential services that residents depend on, and those public services require revenue.

While it's tempting to look to greenfield development as a source of economic activity in the short term, and as a way to increase the residential tax base to cover future services, these studies show that it actually generates new costs that quickly overwhelm any fiscal benefit.

According to this study, in FY22, residential land uses generated a deficit of $82 million, while commercial and industrial and agriculture and open space land uses generated estimated surpluses of $70 million and $4 million, respectively.

So one key takeaway is that residential land uses do not generate sufficient revenue to support the cost of services while these other land uses do.

The study also recognizes the importance of managing growth and avoiding sprawl, stating that the county's rapid population growth has focused attention on the potential loss of prime farmland, forest, and open space to development.

Increases in sprawling and low-density residential development could have negative fiscal impacts that result in excessive demand for existing public services and infrastructure or increased tax rates.

SPRAW will not solve the county's fiscal challenges and will further compound the non-monetary costs to our community, including loss of air and water quality and loss of resiliency.

Instead, we encourage thoughtful and intentional planning for smart growth that incentivizes density and redevelopment within the development area where affordable transportation and services already exist.

This strategy will also help protect and conserve the rural area, its resources, and the public health and quality of life for our community members.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Afternoon.

I'm James Walker with the Scottsville Community Chamber of Commerce.

I saw you all in Scottsville last week.

Wanted to say thank you for coming.

It was good to see you there.

And the presentations were excellent.

I do want to say that I'll make a suggestion next meeting, next time.

I think it's once a year that you come down.

If there is any way to work in public comment or an opportunity for us to ask questions to the counselors, it would be appreciated.

General feeling for everybody that I talk to was a little bit of

The big brother came down to tell us how it is without much collaboration.

The other reason I've come to speak today is to speak on behalf of the Volunteer Fire Department.

As you saw during the meeting, two volunteers had to leave the meeting to go cut the pumps on on schedule and at that time.

The Volunteer Fire Department presented everything that they do outside of running calls to keep the levees in shape and keep the water out of our town.

It's a very important organization to keep our community safe and I don't think it's a financially

sense making to have that be paid positions.

I think it makes sense to keep it in the hands of the volunteers, the people that are going to be able to react at three o'clock in the morning when they see the flood stage is unexpectedly risen and get down there in a timely fashion to do it for next to nothing of cost to the county anyway.

Right now it's nothing of cost to the county to keep those pumps running as far as the man hours that go.

The current placement of the engine that has come to Scottsville is viewed in general as beginnings of a hostile takeover.

The fact that it's a half mile from the current volunteer fire station shrinks the, they were told, will shrink their response area by over half.

There was mention of collaboration as to

This project, they were notified that this was the way it was going to be two days before the engine was acquired by Albemarle County.

And then not being able to have any communication back and forth about it.

Scottsville volunteers are open to working with the county.

They work well with the paid firefighters.

They appreciate the help, but they do want more collaboration.

which is why I'm here.

I'm asking for more communication.

I've already reached out to Dan Eggleston.

I plan to keep on reaching out to him.

There is no reason it needs to be viewed negatively.

Y'all are trying to help.

I recognize that.

But best efforts without communication can be perceived otherwise.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

I am Keisha Washington.

I'm the Associate Director of Special Relationships and Initiatives at Habitat for Humanity.

I am here today to give some recommendations towards the Affordable Housing Investment Fund.

I hope you see this as me asking for choice for future affordable housing opportunities for families.

I want to highlight two sections.

First, section three, the funding priorities.

I ask that we consider the current language.

The current language gives preference to applications that ensure 90-year affordability terms.

In practice, the only type of project capable of meeting this requirement is a community land trust.

While land trusts play a valuable role, this preference significantly narrows the pool of potential housing providers and restricts affordable home ownership models to one form, namely one that limits homeowner equity.

This is particularly problematic for communities of color who have historically been excluded from home ownership opportunities.

As a result, we now see a 10 to 1 ratio or racial wealth gap in the greater Charlottesville region.

Policies that prioritize such restrictive models risk perpetuating this inequity by limiting pathways to wealth building through home ownership.

Also, section 9C.

the affordable for sale housing.

The requirement that homes sold as affordable must remain occupied by a low-income owner for 40 years needs to be more flexible.

While the goal of maintaining long-term affordability is important,

There are legitimate reasons why a home may need to be sold on the open market.

A more balanced and flexible approach would be to grant a 40-year right of first refusal to the original builder or seller.

This would allow them to repurchase the home, either reselling it affordably or reinvesting the proceeds into new affordable housing development within the county.

So in conclusion, I ask that we support, or I want you to know that we do support the county's goal of expanding permanently affordable housing, but we must also recognize the importance of wealth building through home ownership.

The current policy proposals lean too heavily towards permanent affordability at the expense of homeowner equity.

We urge the county to adopt a more balanced approach that activates the full range of tools available to address the region's housing needs.

Welcome.

My name is Richard Tremblay.

I'm a resident of the Samuel Miller District.

I'm a volunteer with Habitat interested in affordable housing and speaking today as a supporter of Habitat and its mission of providing affordable homes in this area.

I have three concerns on the draft guidelines for the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, which you'll hear more about from the staff this afternoon.

These particular provisions that I'm going to touch on don't treat Habitat fairly in the competition for this fund, and it should be treated fairly.

I have three concerns on the draft guidelines.

But first of all, let me thank the county for establishing this fund and appropriating the initial money for it.

My first concern is on the priorities that are set out in the draft, which gives top priority and in fact sole priority to land trust model projects with a 90-year affordability period.

Habitat does not operate as a land trust.

Charlottesville Habitat does not.

But it does provide for long-term affordability, 40-year term of affordability with its right of first refusal and has a long record of providing families with the opportunity to grow well through the appreciation sharing.

So my question is why shrink the potential number of providers to just a single form of home ownership when others like Habitat can help the county achieve its housing production goals?

Secondly, the distribution of units.

The provision that for sale homes be the same square footage

the same number of bedrooms and style as the mix of market rate homes in a mixed income neighborhood is really not practical or advisable, not in all cases at least.

For example, at Southwood habitat homes, although they're mixed throughout the community, do have less square footage and sometimes less number of bedrooms than the comparable southern development in Atlantic builders' homes.

This helps Habitat with construction costs and it's working well for the families at Southwood and the community at large.

And finally the affordable for sale compliance period.

There should be some more openness to how this 40 year low income residency provision can be satisfied.

Habitat homes do go on the market and in those cases Habitat either buys the unit back

and resells it to another qualifying family or uses the proceeds to build another affordable unit in the county.

Either way, the long-term objective is met.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Neil Williamson.

Good afternoon.

My name is Neil Williamson.

I serve as president of the Free Enterprise Forum, a nonpartisan public policy organization focused on local governments in central Virginia.

Details matter.

Often such details are not terribly exciting, but as staff attempts to prepare policy documents that meet the Board of Supervisors' intent, things may be lost in the translation.

This afternoon you'll be discussing your affordable housing investment fund.

This document outlines your goals and purposes well, yet it forgets a key part of the purpose as it describes the grant funding and loan process.

I quote, 40% of the annual AHIF balance will be reserved for nonprofit housing providers.

These funds will be provided as grants and projects will be selected through a competitive application process with submitted applications assessed against the set of evaluation criteria outlined in section X below.

Grant funding may also be provided to for-profit developers if a project is comprised of 100% affordable housing.

In addition to being unclear and conflicted within itself, it's misguided.

Albemarle County desires to have affordable housing product integrated with market product.

This policy effectively prevents for-profit developers from making that dream a reality.

To be clear, the nonprofit could have market rate product in their proposal and even commercial, as we see in Southwood, but the for-profit could not.

and to receive

I know it's deep in the weeds, but the bottom line is this creates an uneven playing field where nonprofit developers who compete in the same market as the for-profit brethren gain an unfair advantage.

If increased affordable housing stock is the goal, why does Albemarle favor one developer corporate structure over another?

The Free Enterprise Forum believes more housing is good for our community.

We also believe in equity.

Equity for buyers and equity for builders.

The AHIF rules for all enterprises should be the same.

Thank you.

A little bit down?

Yeah, a little bit.

Good afternoon.

My name is Christine Robertson.

I am with Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville.

I'm the director of grants and grant compliance.

Prior to starting with Habitat two years ago, I've spent three decades in the affordable housing industry working on both for sale and affordable rental development.

And as you might guess, I'm here to talk on behalf of the Affordable Housing Investment Fund.

I wanted to comment specifically on page 7, section C, where it indicates a sale price limit.

That sale price limit is 65% of the current

HUD home limit.

That home limit is already 95% of the median sale price in the community.

Before coming to this meeting, I looked up what is for sale in Albemarle County that fits that limit, which is $247,000 today.

There are 780 properties for sale.

4% of them, 29 properties, fit into that category.

So first of all, we think that limit is not realistic in terms of producing something with the fund.

Second of all, we have concerns about what that drives developers to do in terms of selling homes in communities.

Think if you're in the neighborhood where the average sale price is $500,000 and somebody comes in and wants to build an affordable unit next to you and they're going to sell it for $247,000.

How are you going to feel about how that affects your property value?

So we feel like there are other ways to get to maybe the objectives that the fund has in a different way.

perhaps limiting the per unit subsidy limits, using restrictive cabinets.

But we suggest, and what works well for Habitat at places like Southwood, the reasons we've been invited into mixed income communities to build alongside other

Market Rate Developers is because we sell at the value, fair full value of the house as it's built instead of driving the price down.

And so that's why we would like for you all to reconsider that guideline and come up with alternatives that get to your objectives but don't cause what we see as maybe driving those units into areas of concentration which I think we all

Beale is not the right way to go for affordable housing.

Hello, my name is Christine Putnam and I live in the Scottsville District and I serve on the Natural Heritage Committee.

First of all, I'd like to thank you for the additional funding in the 2026 budget for climate action program.

I appreciate your leadership and support of this program in a tight budget year and I look forward to seeing the program fully staffed soon.

But today I would like to ask you for your support for something that will require little in terms of money or staff that can pay big dividends for our community, including to help build green or support green infrastructure to build climate resilience.

So please consider a resolution to join the Biophilic Cities Network.

You've heard from my NHC colleague already about the program and we've sent a letter to you just yesterday providing background, justification, benefits, and what would be required from the county to participate.

But I would like to take this time to specifically highlight some of the many benefits of joining

With more than half of Albemarle County's population living in the development areas, working together with the city to advance elements of biophilic urbanism can improve the health and well-being of all Albemarle County citizens.

Albemarle County has already committed to protecting biodiversity and natural resources through many of our planning documents including the AC44 and joining the city will help to promote those actions and to work across administrative boundaries to realize those goals.

Joining the network could produce economic opportunities while making the county a more attractive place to live and work.

Tourism, including outdoor recreation, agritourism, and nature education could further benefit from the biophilic city's network identity.

We can more effectively capitalize on many of our biophilic assets already identified in and around the county, including the Rivanna River Corridor, the Shenandoah National Park, and our many county parks.

Joining the network could provide another opportunity for Albemarle County to work with the city and UVA on a shared vision.

And it provides an opportunity to connect, share, and learn from other communities in the biophilic city's network, both in Virginia and around the world.

And perhaps to solve some of the pressing problems that we have, including

affordable housing and how we protect our natural resources.

So again, I will hope you will consider this to join the other communities in Virginia who are already part of the network as a way to celebrate and capitalize on the great things we are already doing.

The next speaker, and I'm going to apologize, I can't tell if this is JD or JB Brown.

JD.

Thank you.

So just to follow up on our last speaker, I'm JD Brown.

I'm the program director for Biophilic Cities.

I'm a resident of the city of Charlottesville.

So we are located at the University of Virginia in the School of Architecture and we get a lot of questions regarding what's the purpose and intent of the network and what are the various activities that are involved with participating in the network.

So I just want to offer myself as a potential point of contact if staff wants to pursue this and move forward with this.

There's three parts to the application.

It's really setting out where the county is today in terms of its natural resource planning, what are the elements that it has in terms of parks and trails.

all of the different aspects that make up what we think of as a city or a county that's rich in nature at your doorstep and all the benefits that that provides.

So the network is really just a resource.

It's not a certification.

It's not a fee-based entity.

It's merely an opportunity to work and share with other cities

in the Commonwealth, so Richmond, the county of Arlington.

Norfolk, as well as Reston, Virginia are already part of this network.

It's about 50% cities in the United States, 50% of cities globally, of all sorts of different sizes, so as large as places like Singapore, but also Curitabat, Costa Rica, which is 30,000 people, but very focused on how do you use kind of natural resource planning as a means to meet all sorts of different

social priorities and goals, economic goals for the city.

So you've heard that the city is moving forward with creating their own application.

So this would be a first opportunity for there to be

a regional collaboration.

So we have Miami-Dade County as part of the network as well as Arlington, but this would be across jurisdictions.

So the city and the county working together to prioritize things like natural resource planning, resilience planning, thinking about biodiversity support and how that's incorporated into the urban landscapes.

So all sorts of different concepts and ideas, but please use me as a resource, share questions, and we're happy to support this application.

Thank you.

Hi, good afternoon.

I'm Peggy Gilgus.

I live in the Jack Jouett district.

I would like to see Albemarle County join the city as biophilic region.

But I'm here today as a member of the Solid Waste Alternatives Advisory Committee, a committee appointed by this board to provide information and recommendations about sustainable materials management policies.

I wish to thank the board for its support, especially our board liaisons.

Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley and Supervisor Andrews for steadfastly attending all of our meetings, listening, and participating in our discussions.

Over the past 10 years, the county and Rivanna Solid Waste Authority have implemented recommendations to improve our waste disposal and recycling services and to divert waste from landfills.

Our progress on this is important, as Rivanna has warned that at current rates of disposal,

Virginia landfills will reach capacity within 20 years.

As with energy efficiency, efficient management of the materials we use saves us money.

conserves natural resources, reduces pollution, and reduces greenhouse gas emissions, all of which benefit human and environmental health and well-being over the long term.

The SWAC has recently sent the board two recommendations.

Among the legislative actions likely to come before our state representatives in 2026,

We've asked that the county express its support for extended producer responsibility policies, which would make producers responsible for the end of life stages of their products.

These policies prolong the life of landfills and reduce waste expenses for localities.

We also strongly recommend support for a beverage container deposit system in Virginia, which would significantly improve recycling rates while also reducing litter.

There are potentially other waste reduction measures on legislative docket which we have recommended and look to you to endorse.

Our second recommendation is for the county to implement permitting and reporting guidelines for waste haulers handling municipal solid waste.

recyclables, organic waste, and construction and demolition materials collected within Albemarle County.

While many residents use Rivanna facilities to dispose of waste, recycle, or compost, we don't have statistics on waste and recycling by companies that contract directly with county residents or businesses.

In other words, we don't really know how much waste or recycling we're producing.

And as the saying goes, to manage it, you have to measure it.

Board, our next item is approval of the consent agenda.

I have not heard of any suggestions of any amendments.

So we're looking for a motion to approve the consent agenda.

So moved.

Second.

Motion from Supervisor Malek, second from Supervisor McKeel.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Mr. Andrews?

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Malek?

On to our first presentation.

And this is on the cost of community services study.

And this will be led by our own deputy county executive, Ann Law, with Terrence Repan, a regional economist from Weldon Cooper Center Public Service.

Hello Chair and members of the board.

Nice to meet you.

My name is Terry Repan and I'm a regional economist at the Wilden Cooper Center at UVA.

and I'm sure you're familiar with the Weldon Cooper Center and I know some of you from presentations on other topics related to Albemarle County, so it's good to see you again.

This study was published actually back in the end of 2023, it seems like ancient history, doesn't it?

and it was produced for Scott Clark who was, he's the conservation program officer for the county in community development and he was involved in the process of updating the comprehensive plan and he wanted a background document to help assist in sort of

that effort to inform it.

And at the Cooper Center we've actually done several of these studies and so we've done one for Fauquier County, the next one we did for Clark, you're the third one.

We actually have another one up in Northern Virginia that we're going to be doing and so we have some experience doing these things now and some credibility and a lot of folks knocking on our door now to do these.

But I want to provide you a little bit more background on the study, the methodology, the history, and show you the warts in everything, the good aspects of these studies and some of the limitations of them.

We're not an advocacy organization.

Actually, the organization that started doing these, the American Farmland Trust, is an advocacy for land preservation for farm

Agricultural uses.

We're a general public policy shop.

We work with a lot of local governments and obviously the state government and do some federal work, too.

So my outline, first of all, I want to talk about the purpose of the study.

And it's really conceptually pretty simple.

And then get into some of the history, the methodology, the limitations, and the data collection process, and then dive into the results.

So the purpose of the study obviously was to provide some background information for the comp plan.

And in the process of doing this, we compute a ratio that indicates whether a particular land use and we divide it into three categories.

is sort of a net burden or a net surplus to the community in terms of fiscal surplus.

So we look at revenues and expenditures and we assign them to one of the land uses based on what the demand is, the source of demand for that particular category of expenditure, who's generating the revenue.

And then we compute these ratios, and if it's greater than one then you say, well, it's a net burden.

If it's less than one, then it's a net contributor.

Okay, so as I mentioned, it was developed by the American Farmland Trust in the 1980s and its motivation was, well, there's all this urban sprawl occurring and farmland was being lost in these large metropolitan areas like Northern Virginia, the Washington, D.C.

area.

And they did

Approximately a hundred studies and then they sort of went out of the business Back around 2004-2005 and that's when our telephone started ringing and Since then a lot of universities and private consultants have done these sort of studies Actually spoke to an AFT representative the other day and

Since their federal funding has been cut off in a lot of different areas, they're thinking about getting back into this business to generate some revenue.

But as I mentioned, the methodology is fairly simple.

You assign revenue and expenditures to particular land uses and you compute that ratio.

This category of study comes out of a sort of a family of category studies called fiscal impact analyses.

And I used to serve on the fiscal impact advisory committee.

Is that still in existence?

It gave recommendations to the board on particular housing developments and proffers, things of that nature.

And I remember the time at Steve Al's house, he shepherded that committee through the meetings.

And so now onto the limitations of these studies.

First of all, there's some sensitivity to the methodological choices made in the studies.

We have by and large adopted the American Farmland Trust methodology.

We depart in a few ways that we document in the appendix, methodological appendix to this study.

But as you go, states are organized in different ways.

They have different revenue sources, different jurisdictions.

In some states, educational districts are subordinate to the county, overlap them.

Some, they're incorporated, they're multiple educational districts.

In some places, they cover multiple counties.

That can make a difference in some results that you get as well as the land use definitions.

And why is that important?

Because K-12 is a lot of what you do, right?

And if those boundaries differ, then you can get wildly different.

If you don't consider K-12 expenditures, then your results are going to look vastly different.

The other thing to recognize about these types of studies is at one point in time you're looking at things in a static way, not at the margin.

So we're not looking at a new subdivision that's being proposed, for instance.

We're not saying all housing is going to be a fiscal deficit for you.

There could be ones that are very good in terms of generating more revenue than expenditures.

And it depends on the community too, because if you're a community at capacity, where you've got to build lots of new infrastructure, then the average cost of services is not going to be a good representation of what the cost of those services are.

It's going to be higher.

On the other hand, if you're a lagging

you're losing population, then you may not have any cost at all to providing those services, just keeping the schools open, the lights on, the cost of shutting those facilities down, so it matters the type of community that you are.

Another thing to be cognizant of is market failures and tax incidents, and I don't want to get into, this is economist jargon and theoretical stuff, but

Just because somebody is charged the tax doesn't mean that that entity bears the tax.

So the incidence of the tax could, even though a business is paying it, it could be borne partly by residences and ag and vice versa.

So an important distinction we make in economics that that can happen.

And there are also things called public goods like police service, right?

that benefits everyone.

It may be for the general public, it may be for an event, a commercial event, but it's protecting everybody in the community, farmers and everyone.

assigning that to a particular land use.

Well, somebody could take an issue with that.

And lastly, there are various metrics of community welfare.

Other than this sort of cost community approach, there's also economic impact analysis, there's social cost benefit analysis, and you could actually

do these different methods and come up with contrary answers or contradictory answers.

So this is one piece of information that you have to digest in combination with all kinds of different things.

But we're presenting this for your decision-making process and for your comp plan so that you're aware of this particular dimension of the problem.

Okay, so in looking at Albemarle County, how is it different and how might this influence the results of the cost communities services study?

Well, first of all, you get a relatively high percentage of your tax revenue from ag land uses.

I don't know if you realize this.

And this is an old study, Virginia local tax rates 2019.

It's a survey that we do.

We actually revived it after five years absence, but we don't ask the land use

tax question anymore, so I'm relying on 2019 data here.

So you actually get comparatively a lot of revenue from ag.

You also are unique, well not unique, but you're a community in central Virginia that has conservation easement program.

Most counties don't have them, so you're different in that respect as well.

The land use categories that we use we got from the county assessor and this is a state legislated you know what all communities are supposed to use and we used that and aggregated them into the three land use categories of residential, commercial, industrial, and agricultural open space.

There's obviously a residual category there.

You'll say, well, where's UVA?

Well, it's in that government religious charitable.

Don't ask me any questions about UVA.

They are not in this.

So anything government, nonprofit, university, it's basically thrown out.

We're just looking at those sort of private land use categories.

Okay, so the steps.

We've defined the land use categories.

We collect a bunch of revenue and expenditure data.

It actually comes from your annual

comprehensive financial report from all those statements at the back of the report that have all the numbers in them, revenues and expenditures schedule and so forth.

And then we collect information to help us to assign those revenues and expenditures to particular land uses.

And we got a lot of that information from individual departments like the police department, like the fire department, like community development.

And then we allocate those expenditures from revenues to land uses and calculate that ratio.

OK, so here are some of the sources that we used.

It's the annual comprehensive financial report now.

A bit of a typo there.

The county assessor provided a lot of the information that we used.

And the public safety incident reporting systems, the fire and police.

We used information caseload stats from circuit and district courts and additional information from county staff.

We leaned on the budget office to provide us a lot more budget detail than was available in the annual financial report because we needed more granular descriptions of particular items to assign them to one of the land use categories.

In some instances we had a tough time making a decision about these things like general administrative stuff like

County Administrator, what do we assign him to?

Well, we use a fallback ratio, and that's basically the property taxes by land use.

We say, well, we don't know where to put it, let's just use this general ratio based on property taxes.

And that standard

AFT approach, so we're not varying from that.

Sometimes we use hybrid methods, a combination of administrative records and fallback ratio, and sometimes we, though I don't think we did this time, rely on professional guesstimates provided by staff, however we have in previous studies.

So here's

Here's sort of the bottom line when we made those assignments and you see the breakout here in the different land uses and so you see that gap and one of the speakers earlier referenced the 82 million dollar gap there at the back for residential and then the surplus for commercial, industrial and ag open space and so

That's the breakdown.

And then when you start computing the ratios, obviously I said one over one is bad.

Less than one is good from the perspective of generating revenue surpluses.

And so this table shows a couple of different things.

One is the ratio, just a pure ratio based on your budget.

Your actual numbers for FY22.

and then we make an adjustment to make it a balanced budget so obviously if you are engaged in a lot of deficit spending that year then your expenditures are going to tend to be higher than your revenues and so you must have been dipping into your surplus fund in FY22 so the balanced budget ratio goes down for residential a bit for all three categories

And then we did a series of thought experiments, sort of a sensitivity analysis, just to say, well, if we varied some of these assumptions, what would it look like?

So we removed federal and state revenues and expenditures, which tend to be more oriented toward residential.

They get assigned to residential, and you can see the impact it has there, a fairly negligible impact.

We remove use value assessment, meaning we take it away from ag and make them pay that extra tax so they're contributing more and that brings their ratio down.

and then we make an adjustment for public safety because one of the things I noticed and I'm gonna show you a slide here in a second that benchmarks your results versus other communities in Virginia and other studies and you're gonna see that you're a little bit high so you might ask why that is and as I well first of all you have a conservation easement program so a little bit but mostly it was because of the public safety data the way it was geocoded

And so I wanted to say, well, what if it looked like the other communities that we've done studies for in Fauquier and Clark?

And let's say that data quality wasn't very good, then it would have brought it down to 0.359 for ag.

And then we add dwellings to open the farm dwellings that people live in to add open space but didn't add in the service demand to them and that brought it down too.

So these are just things to show that you can do things to bring it down, you can do things to pump it up.

And here's a benchmark comparison to other studies.

You see your numbers there for AgOpenSpace residential compared to the American Farmland Trust, the 125 studies that they reported on in a study about

10-15 years ago.

And then Virginia 8 studies of which two of them are our studies.

I think five are American Farmland Trust and one is another nonprofit conservation organization had done a study.

and so that's how you compare to that.

But it is within the range of what you see in these types of studies.

And so I just wanted to give you a deeper dive and a greater understanding and also an understanding of some of the limitations.

Obviously you've got to balance a lot of different considerations and this is just one piece of information that you have to consider.

Thank you very much.

And if you remain, we'll have questions, I'm sure.

We have an order in which we go through.

Thank you for the presentation.

So bottom line, to cull all this down, I understand.

My understanding is it's about $1.30

or 1.30 for residential land use.

So that means from the taxes, real estate taxes we receive, it costs for every dollar that the county spends on services, it actually costs us $1.30 from the residential.

So residential costs more to serve.

And if we spend a dollar that we collect from commercial, that only costs us 32 cents in services.

And if we collect a dollar from agricultural,

Ag Open Space Land Use, it costs us about 50 cents for services.

So clearly, it costs a lot more from real estate taxes.

That's a big demand on us.

But that's something I think we're probably looking into.

Yes.

Spot on.

You explained it better than me, actually.

OK, so I think that it lets everybody know how things cost, because people will say, well, build more houses.

OK, that's good.

We do need more housing.

But then that also costs us more in services.

So people just need to understand that.

So where we're really getting the best bang for our buck, so to speak, is commercial industrial.

Because they don't require necessarily police, fire, schools, parks and recs, things like that.

Right.

Now, we did assign public safety.

I mean, if there was a fire call, if there was a police call to a commercial enterprise, then we did assign that as a cost.

The biggest factor is K-12.

That goes entirely, I think almost entirely to residential category.

Parks and Rec, yes.

Right.

And there are also services that we assign to commercial, industrial, and ag.

I mean, obviously, conservation easement.

And there were some ag programs for cooperative extension, for instance, and soil conservation.

You fund a small part of that, so we assign some of those to ag uses.

And economic development, I think we assign to the business community.

and there were maybe some infrastructure projects, some streetscape, commercial streetscape projects and some things.

So there are expenditures associated with them, but when you consider the revenues that they generate, there's a considerable surplus there.

And one last thing.

I understand that 24% of our land is under a permanent conservation easement.

which helps protect the agriculture, basically Albemarle.

And then 40% is farmland.

I thought that was interesting.

So we have a robust thing there.

Thank you.

Thank you.

As a point of clarification when we're looking at land that is under conservation easement, and we still tax some of it, right?

I believe so, yeah.

Yeah, if it's under easement, and there's some, is it five acres?

There's some minimum for you to be eligible even for that.

I believe the lower boundary of ag was

I'd have to look at that, make sure that they completely overlap.

Well, actually, classification, I mean, some of that could actually be in the residential category.

I think ag is 20 and above, according to land use categories here.

So if it was less than that, then it would have fallen in the residential.

A comparable kind of question.

It is not common because it's unprudent, but sometimes people make mistakes or don't know about programs that are available to them.

When we're looking at folks who own substantial tracts of land in the rural area that aren't

used for residential purposes and that also aren't being productively farmed, right?

They're still paying taxes on those and they're paying taxes at a higher rate if they're not under any other kind of land use.

That's a good question.

I can't say I don't have enough familiarity with the

I basically take the computer file and process it, I'm afraid.

I understand.

You had alluded that our public safety allocation is statistically anomalous compared to some of our peers, and I was expecting a slide on that.

of how your results were different from the other communities.

So the number, the ratio, and we're focusing on the Ag result, is that the one?

I can go back and pull that slide up.

So that's the slide you're interested in here.

I'm asking you for clarification.

You had said that we had an unusual distribution related to public safety that made some of our results unusual compared to our peers in the Commonwealth.

I think you said made our residential numbers higher, but I might have misheard.

And I guess I don't know what you're talking about.

Yes, I was focusing on the ag open space since that's sort of the focus of the Cost Community Service study and the 0.537.

Why is that relatively high?

Well, it's not relatively high to the American Farmland Trust's 125 studies of 0.50.

It's pretty close to that.

The Virginia 8 studies that have been done is a little bit high compared to that.

And since I've done two of those, when I look back and saw the reason for the discrepancy from those is the public safety side, that there is a lot more assignment of the incident reports to these sort of rural areas.

I don't think that's wineries, people getting out of hand or anything like that.

Just to let you know, I think it's like road accidents and things that we weren't able to maybe accurately

categorized.

I don't want to put you too much on the spot, but when we're looking at this as a comparator point to peers in the Commonwealth, I know you probably can't sum it up, the comparison universe for all eight of these, but you mentioned you worked on two of them.

Who are our comparators in that Virginia study?

Is it the whole Commonwealth?

Yeah, the folks doing these studies are places under urbanization pressures, right?

So I mentioned Fauquier, and they're right on the edge, the ex-urban area, metro area, and Clark.

They're this oasis right in the middle of all of it.

And the rest of them are

It's like Loudon.

One county that's atypical, I think, is Acomac County is one of the counties.

I think Frederick County is one.

Maybe Page, which is a little unusual, too.

So there are a few rural places.

I guess I would just observe that I think we're all very familiar with what the high level takeaway of this is.

It costs more to build houses in the long run than it does to build anything else.

I would say it is an interesting kind of tertiary takeaway that it seems like compared to our peers, we spend more dollars to donuts on providing public safety to our rural communities.

That is what I'm hearing is a not unreasonable takeaway.

We invest more deeply in rural public safety compared to our peers.

Thank you.

Supervisor McKeel.

Thank you for coming.

I appreciate it and for the report.

I guess I'm thinking about, well, in my world, everything is a balance.

you have to balance everything in relation to everything else.

And so if you skew either way too far, there's often consequences and often negative consequences.

But we're talking a lot right now about, maybe I would ask Jeff to jump in a little bit on this as well.

But we talk a lot right now about how

Real estate properties are really very high, obviously.

And because we have so much of the real estate property, our revenues coming from the real estate properties, trying to explain this in the correct way.

Our commercial is only at about 11% of our revenues.

And our real estate properties are about 70%.

which is really a challenge for us right now because of our community finding us very unaffordable because of the real estate.

I'm just trying to tie this in because we're trying desperately right now to diversify our tax base, which I think gets to some of the questions, well not questions, but some of what we're seeing in this study as well.

And I don't know, Jeff, do you want to say anything?

Dr. Rippon, thank you for being here today.

We really appreciate you being here from the staff level.

We were excited to get you before the board.

A couple of comments I'd make, Supervisor McKeel.

First of all, I think that we are out in the community a lot.

and have been during the budget process.

Understandably, I think at one point I heard the board quote that we've been in front of the community about 33 hours in total with our work sessions, our community meetings, our budget town halls and such related to this past year's budget.

And one of our most common comments from the community that I truly understand

that intuitively the community believes is when they see residential housing going up, they see that as a revenue cash flow for local government that's going to help to solve problems and issues.

And I think you being here today, it's very helpful to show that with 125 studies, if I'm understanding you correctly,

Eight studies in Virginia that you focus on.

And then, of course, Albemarle County.

In any of those, you see that it costs more to serve in residential communities that are built, overall aggregate, than for the revenues that we receive.

And then I heard you hone in on schools.

And in fact, you said it's about 50% of your budget, public schools.

And our funding of public schools, it is about 50% of our budget.

And so I think that's very helpful for us to be grounded with this study on what some of the drivers are.

I think what Ms.

McKeel is pointing to is the fact that when we look, and you probably know this, at looking across at the three categories, residential, as Ms.

McKeel said, is about 72%.

of our tax base.

Commercial and industry, industrial is about 11.3 and agriculture is about 15.

And you probably know that we're an outlier with the 95 counties in Virginia.

We have a market higher level of agriculture and open space.

and we hope in the diversification of our revenues that we're able to drive that 11.3% commercial and industry.

I'd like to see that as county executive be at least in the 15 to 17% range and I believe at least one of our board members have reached back and said

in 05, 06, 07, that we were in the 15% to 17% range.

And I would tell you, sir, that we've not lost commercial industry per se as much as the residential growth and assessment growth has overtaken in terms of that growth percentage versus commercial and industrial.

And so we've lost in an aggregate level.

And so that's one of the reasons it's so important

Yes, I was looking at that slide.

Right, yep.

And that's wonderful.

I appreciate that.

And Ms.

McKeel, I'm trying not to interrupt the board again, but I think that the point I would make is Mike was trying, or Supervisor Pruitt was trying to really say, what's our high-level takeaways from here?

And he attached to public safety in the rural area.

I thought that you were talking about the fact that with

without in the rural areas with the open space.

We do have a lot of emergency response calls in the rural area and a lot of traffic accidents and such.

And that may be some of the cost drivers associated.

I believe you showed that we're at about 0.53, but the average was about 0.5.

and so I don't see a market increase there.

I think what I'm much more interested in if we went back to the residential board is that out of 125 studies it was 1.18 and we're 1.32 and the cost driver is schools.

I'd be curious to know out of those 125 other communities what their per pupil funding is because ours is one of the highest in the state and that's the cost driver

on that residential side, so I think it puts us in a very advantageous position when we look at how we're funding schools compared to those other 125 communities because we're at 1.32, they're at 1.18.

That's about a 13, 14 percent increase.

It's not alarming to me, but I think it really speaks to the county's commitment to public schools.

When you look at the per-putal funding, just talking about education.

You said that UVA was completely taken out of this study.

Help me a little bit with that because we are really struggling right now with the University of Virginia.

Well, that's true, but I'm just trying to figure out because we really have, we're losing a lot of acreage and continue to lose a lot of acreage to the University of Virginia as a state agency, right?

Not to put you on the spot, but... Well, first of all, I did adhere to the methodology that typically every study I've seen has thrown that sector out.

And actually, you do have incident reports, I mean, like, of all places, prisons or jails, right, and courthouses.

You go and you see there's a cluster of all these incidents, and they're not counted or assigned to any land use either.

So there's a reason that we don't consider it.

So then the question is, what do I think it would be?

And what do we know?

And I know you've digested some numbers on the revenues.

are contributed by the university directly.

And they're primarily foundation.

You get a little bit from the university physicians group, about 38,000.

You get a little bit from this category of faculty housing that, according to the Virginia statute, they have to pay half of the real property tax on that.

So it comes out to a few million dollars and the whole assessed value of the property is pretty vast, right?

I don't even know with a rotunda what that would be appraised at.

A billion dollars?

It's irreplaceable, right?

So, on the other hand, it does provide some of its own services.

It does provide campus police services.

I don't know that anyone has ever compared the service use of college faculty to

to the general resident.

I don't know if they're a huge user of rec facilities, cultural facilities, et cetera.

Maybe they use them more.

So there's no objective data, really, to look at these other things.

It does create a local amenity.

I mean, obviously, UVA is a class.

It's a public ivy.

are in Albemarle County retire here because of their connections to the university.

So it's one of the things that drives up your

Housing costs makes housing less affordable.

But it also contributes more.

I mean, there's this indirect effect of contributing to the real property tax base through this sort of amenity effect.

So you get some surplus from the presidency university.

Then imagine a world with and without the university.

Let's just say we take it out of the community tomorrow.

Well, what's going to happen?

to the commercial businesses that are supported by the students.

And so these indirect spin-off effects, these tax revenues that are contributed, faculty, staff, students supporting spin-off businesses that come out of the licensing ventures group, et cetera, wouldn't be there anymore, and so forth.

And as I understand, there's actually one spin-off that employs 200 people, some sort of a waste product company.

I was told that they're generating

So do I have any recommendation for what kind of a payment in lieu of taxes you should be charged?

It's a really complicated issue.

I wouldn't want to say whether they should pay or shouldn't pay.

It is interesting because when you were just talking, I was remembering back, and I hadn't thought about this for a while, but I was remembering back because, of course, you have all these little items that impact.

But I remember what we were doing a few years ago, the work on the court renovation.

And I remember several of the judges saying to us that over there, judgeships

They were seeing indefinitely an increase in their court proceedings with students from the University of Virginia.

They were seeing a lot more students in court.

It was just kind of interesting, and that stuck with me.

Yeah, and they were talking about it specifically that we have all the parents coming to town because their children are in court.

and they were trying to find the courts in their downtown.

And neither here nor there.

And it was about wayfaring, which I'm going way down into the weeds here.

But I thought it was interesting that the UVA students are increasingly challenging our courts.

And maybe that's a natural as they get bigger.

But anyway, just a comment.

But I really thank you.

And I really appreciate Jeff speaking to this.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you so much for being here again and helping us understand this.

And I have appreciated the answers to the other's questions, and I just have a couple to add.

So could you go into a little more detail on, say, agricultural land, but there is a house and children.

Okay, great.

That's terrific.

Back in the 80s, when there was a challenge early on to our

Agricultural Use Taxation.

And I came to the board and said, my cows don't go to school.

So it does not have the same impact on the budget.

And I still believe that.

I mean, they haven't told me that they're coming to school.

So the question you talked about public safety at first being higher, is that because of the distances for these public safety things in the rural area?

I know that the highest incidence of all of our public safety fire stations is station 8, right in the middle of 29 North.

And often, the rural stations have to come in to backfill in the urban area.

So I don't know how the data is based.

And I should be asking Dan, I guess.

Is it based upon the station of origin?

So if Earliesville station goes in to back up station 8 at Seminole then, because they're busy with all the accidents that happen on 29, where does that data fall?

Yeah, that'd be a great question for the fire department.

They were very helpful in providing.

And GIS actually then processed the data for me.

Fantastic.

But I guess I still am troubled by someone else's takeaway that we're spending more public safety dollars in the country.

And maybe it's because of the geography,

Yeah, it's relative to the revenue contribution, I guess, is a comparison, and so it's a minority, the revenue contribution, right?

So, I'm just saying it's disproportionately high compared to these other studies.

that have been done, and just trying to describe the reason for that anomaly, that difference.

And I'm not saying it's an error, I'm just trying to understand.

But it begins to make more sense now when you're talking about the part of the fraction is the value of the asset, the building real estate value in the growth area versus the scattered houses in the rural area.

And that is all the questions I have.

Oh, I'm glad you brought up, even though you didn't want to, in lieu of taxes, because this is something that makes me grind my teeth a lot, and that is,

My husband was a dentist for 40 years, and he had his dental office in a privately owned business and paid taxes and everything else.

And the same dental office medical people over at Fontaine are always trying not to.

And that is something we have not fixed yet, and I hope that we will all continue to fix it, because we're being taken advantage of, and I'm not appreciative.

Thank you.

I guess I want to start by making the comment that it does seem like there's a lot of caveats in here.

It's descriptive, not prescriptive.

It's an average, not a marginal.

And that's important to keep in mind.

And I know that when we start talking about commercial and industrial, that most of the commercial industrial that we'd be interested in has employees.

and those employees have to live somewhere and we would hope that they would live here and this would cause people to commute from far away.

But that brings me to a broader question that you may not be able to give any insights to this in a way that asks

Do you see in studying this kind of phenomenon everywhere, not just here, certain trends that you can take away in terms of, well our county executive mentioned high cost per pupil school expenditures that they tend to drive

the relative ratios differently.

Are there scale effects?

Do you see that, you know, well, the smaller the locality, either geographically or in terms of population, or the more distributed urban-rural mix, I'm asking a lot of questions at once to see if there's any sort of

trends that you might be able to point to, even demographic ones.

Because obviously, when we talk about cows going to school, well, the elderly don't go to school either.

But there are other services that are required.

And I don't know whether there are demographic effects that are part of this as well, being a bedroom community versus not a bedroom community.

I don't expect a question.

That's a great question and actually it's not research that I've done but I provided a couple of references of some studies where university researchers have taken all of these studies nationwide and characterized them, categorized them in different ways and done analyses, statistical analyses to try to differentiate or explain

why they get different results.

And indeed, K-12, the portion of the budget you dedicate to K-12 is a driver of that residential result.

And there are other features of the locality, the sort of fiscal position.

and the jurisdictional makeup, the different types of educational districts and waste districts.

Those things have some bearing on it, too, and the intergovernmental relations.

and methodological aspects of the study.

There's all these different things that affect the results, but yes, you're correct that there are these patterns that you can see in the results.

Off the top of my head, I can't tell you

What those studies said, but the references are provided.

Actually, one of the researchers is a former UVA grad from the econ department.

His name's Chris Clapp, I think.

You'll see him in the references there.

He did one of those studies.

I may do a deeper dive on this interesting stuff.

Good question.

Thank you.

Yes, I'm going to take the right of first speaker, which means I get to ask another question.

This is what I want to clarify, and I have said it before, that the cost, once again, for residential taxes

Cost the county $1.30 for every dollar they give.

Commercial industrial costs the county $0.32 for every dollar they give.

Agricultural open space costs the county $0.53 for every dollar they give.

It seems to me that

This is not a good road to go down regarding residential taxes.

And it would seem to me that this board, and I'm glad for this study because it's a cost of community services study, and this study has made it clear that we need to invest more in commercial, industrial.

That's where we get the best bang for our buck, which would then hopefully be able to reduce

residential taxes, which is, I think, our goal.

That's the reason why Supervisor McKeel mentioned about diversifying our taxes.

OK.

Yeah, that's a conclusion.

I mean, you're perfectly justified in drawing that

from the study.

I mean, I pepper my remarks with so many caveats that I tie myself up in the knots.

On the one hand, on the other hand, economists are.

Understood.

Those are all my comments.

Just one that brought to mind one last thing, and that is this math that we're all struggling with of the 88, 13, 11, whatever it is, is that as long as, for 30 years, we were growing it 1 to 1.2%,

population.

And now it's jumped up to four to five.

So 15,000 more people in the last four years.

I mean, that is unsustainable big time.

But it also totally precludes our ability to rebalance anything if we have continual increase, monstrous increase, in the expenses to cover the residential services.

So we can't do only one segment.

Everything's got to come in balance.

The other two that are generating some surplus are never going to be able to offset if we continue to grow it 4% a year in the residential side.

That's what all I've come up with.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for the presentation and information.

It's certainly fascinating.

And that brings us to our next item, which is a work session on economic development strategic plan.

And this will be led by Ms.

Emily Kittle, our director of economic development.

Good afternoon.

Hello.

Emily Kilroy, Director of Economic Development.

Thank you all so much for the discussion.

It's a good lead-in, the previous discussion into this discussion.

And I think the item after this is also another good discussion point in the full frame of the work that we're doing.

So today we're going to have a work session on the Economic Development Strategic Plan.

I am virtually joined by our consultant team.

So Stephen Patigo will lead us through a presentation that his team at Residence has put together.

This is the culmination of a lot of data analysis and also a lot of conversations in the community with stakeholders, business owners.

people working in the workforce development space, education partners, even some of our regional partners.

I had a really wonderful conversation on Friday with some of the folks who work at the state agency on some of the findings that we're looking at and some of the work that we could do in the years ahead.

So a lot of really positive work going into this point.

Just to sort of lay out where we are in the process,

We started this process in January with again a lot of desktop data analysis work and then February through April has been a lot of conversations one-on-one and then roundtables on some online conversations as well.

Today is a draft framework for a strategy and so Stephen will walk through a draft vision statement and some goals and the start of some strategies

and so this is a really wonderful check-in point with the Board of Supervisors to hear from you all if we're on the right path and the goal would be that you have on your calendar a meeting with the, a joint meeting with the EDA in August and that would be a point at which the board would be in a position to take an action to approve the new plan.

If you're ready to do so at that time.

We had a work session with the EDA yesterday on this topic.

Got some really wonderful conversation and some good feedback from them.

Internally, we also were able to spend some time with residents last week.

We had conversations with you all last week as well.

And so we're excited for this next step in the process to really reflect on where we are and make sure that we're heading in a good direction as we try to work towards fleshing this out more fully and wrapping this process this summer.

OK, friends.

Can you hear us?

All good there?

Yes.

Well, it's good to be with you this afternoon.

I can't see your faces right now, just because I think we've got the slides up, and you can see me kind of talking as a big Dr. Oz head, maybe.

But what I'll do today is hopefully just spend about 15 minutes walking through the economic development strategy and sharing a little bit about what we've done and the strategic plan, and then look forward to our questions and discussions.

I will say that as part of this plan, we have done a lot of engagement work.

have had an opportunity to meet with many people in the community, meet with you all in our two by twos, as well as do a lot of data analytics to support the plan.

But I thought before we started, I think one of the things that I wanted to really hint at is that as the county starts to think about its economic development plan, I think one of the great things that we're excited about with our team is that we're really starting at a point of strength, right?

We're not working on an economic development plan for a community that's in decline.

We're not even working on an economic development plan for a community that's really stagnated.

There is a lot of momentum happening in the county that really sets us up to do really outstanding work together.

First, that starts I think with you all as the Board of Supervisors, the EDA being committed to this work, as well as the staff and the community partners who we all met with wanting to think about how we build out an economic development strategy that drives with innovation.

We're really lucky as a community to have good anchor institutions in the University of Virginia and PBC to really help drive our research and entrepreneurship, be that catalyst for our local economy.

We start with a really great location.

We've made big investments in Rivanna Futures.

We, meaning the county, have made up big investments in innovation supported in Rivanna Futures and thinking about the opportunity there.

And then, you know, what a great place to live.

The county is obviously a really beautiful place.

It's got a lot of amenities, access to outdoors, wineries, all those things that make quality of place really wonderful.

And then

Every day, there are people moving to the county, so it's highly educated in terms of the residents.

About seven in 10 of our residents actually have a college degree or higher.

So I say that to say, as we talk about an economic development strategy, still level the field, the playing field, and the foundation to say, we are starting in a good place, and that is always a good place to be in terms of building a strategy.

As Emily mentioned, before we get to the strategy, I do want to talk a little bit about process, because I think process is important in these planning processes.

You know, doing economic development strategy consulting is kind of like mental health and mental therapy for communities sometimes.

You get to meet with a lot of stakeholders, look at a lot of data, and use that to drive a path forward.

To support the work that we've done here, just to remind you of the things that we've done, we did a deep dive into the county's assets and challenges looking across communities.

more than 50 indicators or so.

We did a really detailed cluster analytics, so to really understand what was driving the economy.

And I think this is actually one of the first times this has actually been done for the county is to say, let's dive into the economic landscape, understand what are those sectors that are investment ready and that we should be focusing on and really be, so to speak, in our storefront window as it relates to our economic development strategy.

We did a lot of stakeholder engagement.

Emily and team did a survey, community survey.

We met with over 100 folks as we went throughout this process via roundtable discussions and 101s.

We met with you all on the EDA board.

And then there's been a lot of just deeper stakeholder engagement with our stakeholder committee, which is this committee that's going to be really important with our partners.

You know, workforce economic development partners, our institutions, our key companies, as they will be really important partners as we're implementing that work and they've been deeply engaged in this work.

And then finally, we've had a really fun time just engaging with your staff, Emily and the team, and Jeff and others, just to really be supportive of the work.

And it's been a robust process as we've done this process.

So today, as Emily mentioned, we've been asked to present on the strategy.

And the part that we're really going to spend time on today is really our vision statement, offering a foundation for what we need to be our preferred future.

What are we going to be working towards as we achieve this strategy?

We're going to talk about the goals.

and what are those desired outcomes.

I like to think about this as if constituents and residents and business owners were saying, well, what's the county doing as it relates to economic development?

That our goals should be those high-level we statements that are our elevator pitch about what we're trying to achieve out of our plan.

And then finally, we'll talk about strategies.

And then in the coming weeks, we're going to be working with Emily and team

and the economic development team on a robust implementation plan.

So what are the things that would be first?

What are the things that would be kind of middle of the plan?

What are those resources that are needed and what are those partners that are needed?

All of that to say, again, that will drive how this plan gets implemented over time as we move forward in putting the plan into action.

So again, as I said before, just to hit on a couple of key points, we believe this strategy is really grounded in what we heard, kind of what we measured, and really what we collectively imagined together as a team and as a group working on this work.

We aren't presenting the insights today, but just to recap again,

You know, the county is growing, the economy is evolving, and there's a lot of momentum.

And so the challenge that we face with this strategy is how do we take all of that momentum together, all that energy together, and really put it together in a process and a strategy that brings clarity and commitment and the action steps to move that forward.

So we're going to present a vision statement today, as I mentioned, and those five goals all rooted in

you know, community priorities that have been shaped by the data and what we think really kind of reflects some of the values that we heard as we go throughout this work.

So I look forward to your feedback as we move into it.

So in terms of a vision statement, our vision statement as it relates to this plan is that Albemarle County, we are rooted in innovation and we're open for investment.

So we are going to be a destination for entrepreneurs, makers and growers and thinkers

really centered as a place where bold ideas take root, businesses scale, partnerships thrive, leading the way in Virginia's next innovation economy.

So let me just repeat that really one more time just to really set the stage for us.

So Albemarle County, we're rooted in innovation.

We are open for investment.

We are a destination for entrepreneurs, makers, growers, and thinkers.

where bold ideas take root, businesses scale, and partnerships thrive, all with the idea that we are going to lead the way in Virginia's next innovation economy, and we'll talk a bit about how we're going to do that.

To achieve that, we are building our strategy really centered around five goals.

So goal one is leading what's next.

So we will lead Virginia's intelligence and national security innovation economy, so really centering in on the investments that the county has made to support the innovation-based work around national security and defense innovation.

Goal two is supporting our biotechnology sector, our life sciences sector, so we will grow into the Mid-Atlantic's premier destination for our biotechnology life sciences innovation.

Again, great thing is there's a lot of this happening already.

It's just about scaling and providing the support services around that to be successful.

Goal three is really leaning into the fact that we, as a county, have a real legacy in agriculture.

And the question for us is, how do we transform that into a modern-day agricultural business economy?

So we'll transform the county's agricultural legacy into a modern-day agribusiness economy.

Goal four is really centered around our place making, making sure this is a, we are a community where people and entrepreneurs kind of want to stay, stay, stick and succeed, meaning that we are holding on to the talent that we're developing

and then goal five is really centered on to do that we got to compete for what's next meaning that we've got to ensure that the county is positioned for investment so we will position Albemarle County as Virginia's most investment ready county ready to compete build and lead those are our five goals we're going to walk through each of those one by one in just a second.

So I like to ask the question at the beginning of this.

So if we implement this strategy, how do we start to know that we're winning?

And so as part of the work, you'll see that we've outlined some KPI metrics and some metrics to measure our success.

enough metrics to gauge progress, but also not too many metrics in a sense to paralyze the process that we're doing.

So if I'm thinking about this strategy and wanting to understand if we're having success in the 18 months, three months, to the five-year range, how do we think about that?

Well, first and foremost, we should be looking at business expansion, so growing jobs in companies, expanding our innovation-based economy.

One thing that I heard from the stakeholders as well as I think we heard from you all individually as well is the need really to expand our private sector investment in our county in terms of really utilizing our institutional assets to scale the opportunity that the private sector is doing in innovation.

And so that business expansion metric should be something that we're really thinking about.

Secondly, holding on to the talent.

We are lucky as a community, as I mentioned before, to have two strong anchors, but the need to really hold on to that talent, particularly that talent that is in that 25 to 44 year old range.

is really important.

So measuring that talent and keeping tracks on how we are doing in that space.

And then finally, the thing that we've heard from you all, we heard from our stakeholder groups, we heard in almost every round table is being really sure that we're kind of focusing in on this growth of our commercial share of our property tax base.

So looking about trying to bring some resiliency to the way that we are thinking about our tax base where we're not so overly heavily reliant

on residential taxes.

So by measuring these three areas, business expansion, talent, and our commercial tax base, that's a really good sense of understanding how we'll understand if we're having some success as it relates to this plan.

So goal one, leading Virginia's intelligence and national security innovation.

Why this?

Well, first and foremost, you all have made a big investment in this space with the Rivanna Futures.

We have made a real effort to position the county as a place for intelligence and national security innovation.

We're not doing this alone, by the way.

We're doing this with our regional partners.

And we've got a lot of research that's coming out of the university to catalyze that ecosystem.

So it's important that we're doing that.

Now, the challenge we face is that we've got to ensure that we are thinking equitably about this, meaning that we want to be sure that we're thinking about how do we create the career pathways?

How do we ensure that we are creating the opportunities for folks to come into this sector, think about what the next job is, what the next job, and what are the skills to wrap around that as well?

So there is some workforce development work that has to happen as it relates to this goal as well.

How do we achieve this?

So we've outlined five strategies to do this.

First and foremost is

is activating Rivanna Futures as a next generation innovation district.

So we've made the purchase of the land.

We've got targeted land use planning that is in process or in moving forward.

We also have to think about the business plan for that, meaning what is the infrastructure?

What's the strategy around that to ensure that we're really commercializing and leveraging into that space?

Good innovation districts, by the way, do three things.

They pull together all the economic assets, they think about the placemaking physicality piece, but they also do some of the programming work as well, meaning they're connecting communities together.

Secondly, we really want to lean into our regional partnerships around the Central Virginia Innovation Quarters, particularly in the national security space.

That partnership is always much better.

Remember, you know, regional work, labor shed decisions are also a lot of times made regionally.

They're not made hyper locally.

So that regional connection and leveraging those assets and there's a lot of work already happening in that space with our regional partners.

as well as the University of Virginia.

And I believe there's actually even a study going on to look at this commercialization out of the University of Virginia and how that connects into this sector as well.

1.3 is we want to think about those pathways, as I mentioned before, workforce development, the connection of workforce development with our educational partners, UVA, PBC, K through 12, that alignment is really, really important.

And what's great about that is if we are engaging in what 1.4 suggests, which is our sector partnerships.

Sector partnerships is, I think, a refined way to think about economic development.

A lot of times in economic development, we think about meeting with companies one on one.

We go out and do our business visits and those types of things.

Sector partnership says, bring those companies together.

Bring those companies together with the workforce providers, the economic development officials,

and really start to address collectively what the sector needs to grow.

So the sector partnership worked there.

And I know Emily and team are already leading in this space and it will be great to see that.

And then 1.5 is really about telling the story.

So economic development is about storytelling.

It is about how you market and how you tell a story about who your community is.

So we really wanna be telling a really clear story as it relates to what is going on in our innovation space, in our national security space.

So for instance, there was a great

quote in our stakeholder engagement work where someone says when you think about Fort Meade and others, there's a real clear story about what they're doing as it relates to economic development.

We want to make sure that we're achieving and doing the same thing as it relates to our plan.

Goal two is really about throwing our community into a premier destination as it relates to biotechnology and life sciences.

This is really centered on scaling.

There's so much opportunity here as it relates to this sector.

You look at the sector overall, it's about 76% more concentrated than the US average.

We know that Seaville Bio has done a really great job of helping to position early stage capital.

So when you look across the country, the county and the region, I think ranked seventh in the country as relates to VC dollars, early stage VC dollars for medical devices.

So there's this need to scale, this need to create the space and create opportunity to do that.

So to do that, you know, we see sort of five, again, five kind of ideas here.

One is how do we think about that space that's really needed?

So, you know, lab space, wet labs, small scale manufacturing space to really kind of build into this.

By the way, if you care about workforce development, life sciences is actually a really great sector to do that because a lot of the downstream work that comes in the scaling of those businesses can create family wage creating, supporting jobs.

if we can create the space where those products and services can be made locally.

Two, we want to be leading and thinking about how, again, we capitalize on the regional partnerships that are happening with our corridor partners.

We want to leverage the great work that Seabell Bio does in 2.3 around our workforce and sector partnership work.

Again, that sector partnership work is really critical.

2.4, there's an absolute opportunity around targeted attraction in this space, and so attending the right types of trade shows in the economic development space, meeting with the right types of economic development officials, and even going so far down the road to, at some point, to do a really sophisticated analytics around what's the opportunity around FDI investment in this space.

And then finally,

Just partnering largely to think about how we get to the growth capital.

Not the early stage capital, but the growth capital.

So a coordinated effort with our

Seavell BioPartners, our other partners in the area to think about how we grow the growth stage capital to help companies scale.

So goal two is about supporting life sciences, but much of it's about scaling the opportunity that we have to create those jobs and really capitalize on the R&D and the investment that's being made here early stage, using that to really be an accelerator and catalyst for job creation here in the county.

So goal three is about transferring our agriculture legacy into modern day business economy.

Again, strong legacy when you look at the food economy here, about two and a half times the US average in terms of our assets.

We've got traditional farms, we've got emerging entrepreneurs doing some really great stuff.

I've joked before that what's been fun about this county is to do very high life science, high discussions around national security, but also then having to have opportunity with some of your farmers and food entrepreneurs in this space.

It's quite interesting to see the innovation that's actually happening in that space.

We are making an argument that the county can really lean into that in goal three.

So how do we do it?

We want to, first and foremost, think about modernizing some of our land use and zoning policies to support flexible agricultural businesses, value-added production, and new technologies.

I think one of the things that stood out to us as a research and engagement team at this work is how much innovation is happening in this space.

how much more flexibility agricultural businesses need to support this.

So for instance, I'll give you an example.

We heard a lot about turkey farming, for instance.

Turkey farming was a high-technology business.

It requires incubation.

It requires sensors that are sensors.

It requires better broadband, frankly, to manage those sensors.

So the technology and the innovation space that's needed

You know, 3.2 is really helping to deliver critical infrastructure, cold storage, food processing, broadband, the manufacturing capability to really scale these businesses.

So again, a lot of smaller opportunities to think about how we grow and scale.

3.3 is thinking about the work as it relates to the resource hub.

So a lot of small business opportunity support services in the county.

That is a great thing.

We're not asking to actually recreate the wheel there.

What we want to do is just make sure that those resources are being connected to our rural and agricultural businesses.

Succession planning will be a big thing for many of these places.

Thinking about financial planning to create that opportunity for scale.

3.4 is rather than doing, you know, there's a lot of opportunity that's happening already in buy local, but let's think broader.

Let's think about opportunity to scale in the wholesale space.

So connecting local producers to wholesale and regional distributors as it relates to our practice around economic development, the attraction efforts.

supporting all of these folks to come together in that partnership piece that we talked about earlier with the other two sectors and doing that in a way to address the issues that are necessary.

And then 3.6 is about continuing to do the work with the Convention and Visitor Bureau around supporting agriculture through agritourism.

I think a lot of the efforts around agriculture in the county has been either, one,

from a protection of a kind of a lifestyle and legacy standpoint or to utilizing it as a really important part of your tourism economy.

Those are good things, but we're leaving a lot on the playing field, so to speak, as it relates to business development opportunities if we can get the right support structure and infrastructure around these businesses to grow and scale to really kind of move the economy forward.

So goal four is about making the county the place where talented entrepreneurs want to stay, scale, and succeed.

Again, one of the greatest exports that we have right now in the county is a lot of our young people that are leaving the university.

And so one of the challenges that we face is trying to hold on to some of that, but then also thinking about how we really focus in on that 25 to 44 range as well as create opportunity for folks who may be getting left behind as it relates to workforce training and skilling.

And so our goal four is really about making sure that we're thinking about people and putting people at the center of the economic development strategy.

So how do we do that?

One is to partner maybe with our university and our community college at PBC to think about how do we get a talent initiative that connects our graduates to local jobs and careers.

Again, that connection is really important.

collaborating with the region already has a young professional group but continuing to utilize that as a platform for civic engagement.

I think one of the things that's really important to remember when you think about economic development is that yes, we can create all the economic opportunities, but the opportunity and the work that we do around social

capitalism and the creation of community is really important because that is why ultimately individuals decide to stay and stick in a community so if we can make people sticky they're less likely to leave, they're more likely to be invested in our community and that's the idea of 4.1 and 4.2.

We want to continue to do all the destination development work that Emily is doing around retail and entertainment and experiences utilizing that in a very

We want to be sure that we align economic development and workforce development together.

This is why those sector partnerships and making sure that economic development and workforce development are brought to the table at the forefront together is really important and doing that

around target sectors.

I will say one of the most robust conversations that we had with stakeholders was really in the workforce development space.

It was highly attended.

But I will say it was highly attended, but there was a lot of folks still not sure what the partner next to them was doing.

So there's a need for us to think about alignment.

And ensuring that all of our workforce development partners are on the same page as it relates to our target sectors.

4.5 is about just going through and coordinating around our small business ecosystem, getting it into a way that folks can sort through.

The county is not at disadvantage for having not enough

small business support services.

There's plenty.

It's just about ensuring that we can create the right type of mapping service to ensure that we can figure out how to connect the entrepreneurs and business owners to those resources.

4.6 is about supporting the efforts that the county's doing around

housing and possible childcare initiatives, again, knowing that housing and childcare are both economic development and workforce development issues.

Again, not center focuses of this plan, this plan is centered around how we think about supporting business development and talent development, but knowing that as a economic development strategy, we really do have to be centrally focused on the work that you all are already smartly doing around housing and the work that we can even do more of around childcare initiatives, for instance.

And then finally gets us to goal five.

And I'll wrap up pretty quickly.

We can open it for discussion.

Goal five is an important goal.

And this is the goal where to do all the things that we want to do in goals one through four, we as a county governing body, community, have to make a commitment to ensuring that we're investment ready to compete and build and really lead in this space.

One of the things that we heard over and over was limited commercial availability, some of our development processes taking a little bit longer than in other places, and sometimes seeing barriers to investment.

And so one of the things we have to think through, and you'll see in the strategies in this plan, is about addressing what those barriers are and trying to make us a position to really lead in this space.

So to do that, we've got a lot of things that we want to do.

We want to look at modernizing our permitting and development process.

Let's just go through, really think about how we can do this and review this process.

And by the way, there are a lot of counties in Virginia in the Commonwealth that have done this.

Arlington County has done this.

Fairfax County has done this.

Loudoun County has done this work.

Just recently, Montgomery County, Maryland has done this work because they understand the importance of understanding how you get people through the development process if you're really wanting to be investment ready.

Two is bring all the developers together quarterly to talk with us about what challenges they see and how we can work together in a public-private way to ensure that we're being market ready to accelerate the growth.

5.3 is continuing to do our business expansion efforts that the county is already doing.

Emily and team are already meeting with employers.

We want to continue to do that.

We want to leverage the EDA.

As Emily mentioned, the EDA is really excited about this plan and thinking about how they will work with us to drive public-private partnerships around the strategic investments that are needed as we get to the implementation of this plan.

We want to make sure that we're maintaining a pipeline of sites that are needed in the region and in the county.

Just having a clear understanding of what inventory is available is a starting point.

Partnering with our utilities to make sure that we're really ready to go when there's utility needs that are needed.

And then finally, just broadly speaking, coming back to this idea of storytelling, that economic development is storytelling and marketing.

And so ensuring that we're investing in a comprehensive marketing strategy around business development, talent development, but also just the site selection and the business attraction efforts that are also needed to support this plan as well.

So with that, again, I'll just hit the five goals again.

Leading in the innovation-based national security economy is goal one.

Growing our life sciences and biotechnology sector is goal two.

Goal three is about modernizing our agricultural legacy into a modern day business economy.

Goal four is about ensuring that we are a place where talented entrepreneurs want to stay around and scale and stick and be very successful.

And then goal five is ensuring that the county is ready and positioned for investment.

So with that, I'll stop.

I do want to acknowledge my colleague, Brandon McComas, who's on the call with us too.

He did a lot of work on this plan as well.

This has been not just a Stephen Petticoat show at Residence.

It's been a collective effort of our team, Brandon and his research channels.

And they've done a lot of really great work to support the plan.

So with that, I'll stop.

Thank you.

I appreciate this.

We will go through our order with questions.

Hi, Stephen.

How are you?

Hi, how are you?

Delayed reaction.

No, that's fine.

I thought Emily was going to tell me when I could speak.

Yes, so can we go back to the last slide that we just showed?

Yeah, of course we can.

Thank you.

Goal one, I agree with.

Do you want us to go around, Supervisor Andrews, to just make comments on each one of these?

Discover what's next, I think the Biotechnology, Life Sciences, Innovation Corridor, up 29 North, I think that's

that will be very important for us as we grow.

Three, I do believe in transforming the agricultural legacy into a modern agribusiness if they are going to survive.

I know James King is also on this committee and I've spoken with him and they are concerned in the future and the future of things not going well for the vineyards, for the wineries and they bring in a lot of

dollars, not only just they themselves, but also the tourism dollars.

We're getting multimillions of dollars from the tourism industry.

So this is something that's very important.

And I think we need to be flexible, and maybe in certain circumstances, for maybe using a special use permit.

But being able to get restaurants into a couple,

of these wineries.

Everyone's heard me on that before.

That's because it will bring in millions of dollars.

And is it going to be for everybody?

No.

Is it going to be throughout the county?

No.

But in certain circumstances, I think we should have an open mind and have the flexibility to be able to do something like that to bring in more commercial revenue.

Goal four.

If we want talent, entrepreneurs, if we want people to stay, there's a few things.

Our 24, I think it's 24 to 45 age group.

There's really nothing, there's not a lot for them to do.

If you read the report, there's

like I think it was four items that they could basically do compared to other districts, other counties that have a lot more.

The young people, I mean, they go to the corner near UVA.

We don't have anything in Albemarle corner that attracts young people.

We don't have, believe it or not, a wall climbing.

Business, young people like that.

But there's no place, there's no reason for them to stay.

So they go out, they make their money, and then they come back when it's time to retire or raise their family.

Speaking of raising families, it would be very important.

I think daycare is extremely important.

Childcare centers, that attracts young people to stay because they know they can work and then have some place for their children.

Those are my comments.

Thank you.

I have several specific things.

But first, I want to do two initial overview questions.

And the first is going to be somewhat pointed, so I apologize.

But I was trying to follow along in our documents, and this document is not, of course, with us currently, which also means it's not with the public.

a trend that I find somewhat frustrating that we produce a lot of kind of important guiding documents about county policy that don't have a clear public place to live.

I recognize that this is a draft, but in the same way that we have public drafts that have very public places to live for the AC44 plan, I think that would be prudent for other key county documents and especially generalized drafts, which I don't think are

Discoverable in ways that are consistent and coherent for the county as a very brief anecdote before I continue this point.

After I was elected before I joined the board, there was a concern about what the policies for gatherings on county buildings are and in front of county buildings are related to teachers union.

It took

myself, Supervisor Price, everyone in the teachers union quite a few days to actually find where that policy was articulated because it lived in the agenda and in the minutes of a specific decision.

Can I just address that about this plan for a second?

Yes, please.

I appreciate that comment and duly noted.

One of the things I think Emily may share with you all at the conclusion of this is that we actually are planning to do a public open house about this plan and I'm really excited about that to address these questions.

So that public open house is scheduled, I believe, to be the first Friday of the month.

I think we're doing a brown bag session where we're going to present this plan and open it up for feedback to the county.

I think the idea was to present this for you all today, get feedback, make any adjustments that we needed, and then have it uploaded for the public to have an opportunity to review before we do that lunch and learn.

I highly believe that engagement's important.

It's central to what we do.

It's how we think about the work at residence.

And we're planning to hopefully address some of your concern with that.

Yeah, thank you, Steven.

And this document, actually an expanded version of this document that we went over today, will be uploaded onto the Engage page for this plan today, as well as a feedback form for folks to provide input.

And we did that at the start of the process as well.

So we're continuing to keep that page updated so that folks can have that as sort of their central hub.

I realize I got you on launch day, so you're a little bit caught out.

But I want to take the opportunity to make a broader point.

The one other kind of, I guess, top level point I would make, and I apologize, Emily and Diantha, you've heard a lot of the comments I'm going to make previously during our two on twos.

But I think as a kind of overall principle, I think it's important for us to think about what

when we're talking about economic development, what the demographic effects that we're expecting to come out of that are, what the direction of the flow of benefits and capital would be from some of our proposed developments.

And I say this because we are government.

We are political actors.

I think we should have a normative vision for what those outcomes should be.

I would not entirely be supportive of an economic development plan that would heavily focus on capital benefits that flow either out of our community or to a particular tier of our community at the very top, as opposed to things that provide significant opportunities across income levels and that also bring benefits, bring permanent capital reinvestment into our community.

So I would say that needs to be kind of an essential part of how we view all of this.

And that is certainly the lens through which I view all of this.

Can we go to the one for goal one?

As we're navigating there, I'm going to begin by saying I think it's interesting as we compare and contrast kind of how we think about goals one and two.

These are both very technologically dependent, very high tech kind of industries.

But it seems like the shape of them, at least how they're manifesting in the county, is quite different.

When we look at two, this is very much increasingly a boutique industry that we're trying to develop out.

It's coming to us in the form of either small, small industries or startups.

Whereas one, we're already doing quite well, and I think we want to continue doing well with what I would call a big box enterprise.

Your Raytheons, your Knothrop Gremlins.

And that's kind of where that emphasis is.

and I think that is fair in that it reflects the market but I think it would when we look at goal one it would be prudent for us to think about well there is such a thing as defense startups there is such a thing as intelligent startups and in the same way that we are being thoughtful about how we're creating opportunities for startups in the biotechnology sector and grow those kind of from the ground up

I would be interested to kind of get a sense of what it means to create opportunities and help develop out defense startups.

Because I do see the startup model, I mean it's more challenging, but potentially something that can scale in a way that aligns with that first point I made, right?

Something that benefits derived primarily and flow into our own community and stay there.

And I think we see with Afton that this can be something that does have actually really the kind of demographic outcomes that we want, the kind of effect on our community that we want, by which I'm, of course, for the public, referring to the fact that Afton

overwhelmingly is employing quite a lot of high quality career wage jobs that are interable at kind of a new collar level, right?

Moving into two kind of- Can I address that point just a little bit for a second?

Yes, please.

Absolutely agree with you.

I appreciate the comment.

I think one of the things that I would say is that, as it relates to the plan, one of the reasons that we're saying in Strategy 1.1, Supervisor, is that we don't want to just think about the re-invented futures as just a sort of land use development piece.

We do want to tie that back to the innovation district piece, which means

As we think about the innovation district and just looking at innovation-based innovation district strategy, it is asking those same questions that you're presenting, which is

how do we leverage the large-scale anchor firms that we have already in this space as well as frankly the large-scale public sector investments to spur new innovation and to think about how new innovation can be connected to this sector.

I will say that when we met with many of the stakeholders as it relates when we pulled this group together, a lot of the firms that we were meeting with that Emily put together and did a really nice job of curating

were smaller firms, were firms that were not the large-scale Raytheon's or the Deloitte's or the professional, the Booz Allen's of the world.

They were smaller firms that were offering a particular, almost boutique service, so to speak, to the national intelligence installations that they were serving.

I think your point, we can maybe articulate that a little bit better to say we want to do this innovation district to ensure that we're connecting business development and entrepreneurial growth strategies to that.

Great.

I'm realizing also, while I have this slide up, that there's one other thing that kind of caught my attention.

So 1.4 kind of rhymes with 5.2, which that's the development process goal, in that both of these seem to be directing the formation of a stakeholder convening, a recurring stakeholder convening.

I know we have existing stakeholder convenings with these sectors.

I know I'm going to make some people slightly.

I saw Michael and Jody give each other this little look when they heard 5.2 about their quarterly stakeholder meetings for business development and land use process, right?

I guess I want to make sure that with these goals what we're committing ourselves to as a county is a

is that we're going to lean into the intentionality of that purpose, but not necessarily create new procedure.

What is the process versus what is the procedure?

I want to make sure that the outcome isn't, we've created another working group.

It's the same stakeholders as are in this working group, and they just meet on a slightly different periodicity.

Let's cut to three.

And so I'm sure we're going to get into this, but three is actually like

Three is actually hairy.

It's a little politically hairy, especially when we look at 3.1 and 3.2.

Yes, that is what it takes to make a successful agricultural industry.

We need things like processing.

We need things like infrastructure.

We need these kind of intermediary processes, warehousing, poultry processing.

Poultry processing, that makes people's hair stand up.

That is what 3.1 is about, or at least that's what I read 3.1 is about, and I don't think that's unfair.

Because I think when our stakeholders in the industry come and say, we want more robust land use for, I forget the language of the comprehensive plan used, but you used the phrase intermediary processes.

And co-packing.

Sure.

I guess what I'm saying is I'm looking at the faces of my peers, right?

I think this is a bigger conversation than we're going to have today because those are really challenging asks for this community and how we've construed and I think historically understood what agriculture means.

We already have people who live next door to farms on farms but on their personal estates and they live up next to productive farms and are

disturbed and distressed by the existing land use that we understand in what I would think of as low intensity farming.

I think when we start to expand our understanding of what agricultural land use and what agriculture means in our rural area into what are disruptive land uses for surrounding neighbors, it is going to be jarring for this community.

I'm not saying it's not appropriate.

But I think we need to have a really significant conversation that exceeds what we have on the docket for today around this, because this is going to be challenging for the community.

And I think it's going to be a significant reckoning that I don't know that we have the space for.

If you think I've mischaracterized anything, Steven, here, let me know, or Emily.

Yeah, yeah.

And I think for the purposes of this plan and where we are in the plan process, if there's something in here that you feel like is a hard no, that's good feedback for us to hear.

The plan itself is not going to deliver a solution to any of these items.

This is really setting up the list of things that over the next few years would be areas where we would be working to advance things.

And so if there's anything on here where you say, not interested, take it off the list, that's really good feedback.

I see this as a major public engagement topic.

I want to hear.

I need to hear what the horse estates think about this.

I need to hear what the Farm Bureau thinks about this.

And I don't know that they're blowing up my phone yet, because I'm not sure it's on their radar.

And I would expect that this would be a really substantial and, frankly, time-consuming public engagement process.

If you're saying this is step one in that process, then great.

Whatever it takes to tee up that kind of conversation, because this is a conversation we need to have as a community.

What does agriculture mean to you?

Write an essay question on it.

What does agriculture mean to me?

Anyway, 3.4 through 3.6, that, great.

That is, I think, very consistent.

with what this community already understands agriculture to mean.

And I think what this community would celebrate as being very conducive and like.

coherent with the other goals that we're trying to execute.

We look at our goals under four about livability.

I think that is only further enhanced by some of these goals if we're trying to incentivize the availability of local produce in our markets.

If we're trying to incentivize our tourism, those are downstream things that are also going to improve livability.

So great.

Let's turn to four.

It's interesting that you identified 3.3 through 3.6 as kind of no brainers.

And I agree with you.

Those are, you know, you want to connect businesses in a particular sector with the right types of services to scale.

You want to make sure that we bring them together, continue to kind of support them in the way that we would do it.

The one thing I would say, and I hear you about the idea about needing to do more

You know, more engagement, more thinking about this.

We're not asking, obviously, for critical decisions to be made today.

So maybe the language of 3.1 and 3.2 could be softened a bit.

However to that, I would say that we heard over and over throughout the engagement, particularly from the folks that participated around this sector partnership, was in order to be able to do the things like scale to market, to be able to think about accessing additional growth capital, to think about how we expand businesses,

The infrastructure piece and the way we think about how we have got some of our land use constraints around them is really important to think about.

And it's necessary, I think, to have that as part of the plan, at least the opportunity to have a conversation because without engaging in that conversation about do we allow a restaurant on a winery or do we think about how we scale broadband, et cetera, we're actually limiting

from the start for many of these businesses that are in this sector actually to be able to think about growth, to think about how they access capital.

Some of this modern support structure is just needed, will be needed as well.

So I guess what I'm trying to get at in the comments back to you is that I understand more engagement.

But I would also say, let's not take it completely off the list.

Let's leave it as a conversation point.

That would be my advice as your advisor.

to say it is worth a conversation about what do we want this agricultural legacy to be.

I don't question that 3.1 and 3.2 are essential components of scaling agribusiness.

I think that's true.

What I'm saying is that

I and everyone else on this board stands for election.

And I'm not sure 50% or more of our voter base cares.

So I mean, to put it very pointedly, they might, but I think we need to do the engagement to see.

So yes, so sorry, four is my favorite.

I think that the message that I knocked doors with was,

We don't currently have a place where someone who turns 19 wants to go from high school to PVCC to get a certificate in welding and marry his high school sweetheart and have a home.

That person does not get to live in Albemarle County.

That person has to move somewhere else and, frankly, not get their welding certificate, not do any of the things that we want, not build that kind of stickiness.

Right?

So I am thrilled by seeing this kind of realized as county policy.

And I also find 4.3 to be surprisingly insightful, because I think this is a very well-put point.

And the way I articulated it for others is someone who is kind of sitting on this edge and as a person who is an old person in law school.

right, as an old for law school.

We are a great community to be a 30-something in, having your first kids, because we have all these mid-tier career opportunities, and we have great schools.

We are a bad community to be a 20-something in, because we do not have mingling singles.

We do not have nightlife.

We do not have the kinds of things that 20-somethings want to spend their time with.

They feel isolated here.

I had a great time living here.

And my peers in law school had a great time living at law school, but not in Charlottesville, not in Albemarle County.

And so I think this is a very insightful point.

And it will be interesting to think how we solve for this under the restrictions that Virginia already has.

We talk about nightlife well.

Virginia kind of says, on nightlife, how do we solve for that?

But I appreciate the point.

And I realize I've been yakking for a long time.

I've already talked about 5.2.

And so I will go to the next speaker.

Thank you.

Supervisor McKeel.

Oh, sorry.

Sure, in an effort to keep us on time, I will say I would like to thank Mike for some of the comments he made because I think they're really good points.

Having said that, for me, just broad picture, I really like the measurements you're talking about.

that we're going to go back and look at and measure what we're trying to do.

I think that is really critical.

You're talking about business expansion, talent and commercial, tax-based growth, so measuring all those points I think is really critical.

It's interesting because I was watching, we had some different people in the audience earlier

And we were talking about diversifying our tax base in economic development.

And I was watching some of the faces in the audience who had real concerns.

You could tell by their expression.

And I see those same concerns when I go out into the public and talk about economic development and diversifying our tax base.

And I think it's really going to be important for us to talk about why this is important.

why economic development is important.

I think they don't always connect, because for many people in our community, they're very satisfied.

They're very happy.

They don't see any need to change.

And I think there are many other people in our community who aren't able to live in our community.

And so it's really going to be important for us to tell the story about why it's important.

Because we all know that we have teachers and firemen and police officers living in the hinterlands and other communities and driving in.

And some of those same people that are concerned about the thought of economic development

and Diversifying are also folks who are very concerned about the environment and they don't like to see

diesel fumes or car fumes or you know what I'm saying.

So to have somehow or another to marry those ideas together I think is going to be important.

And that's kind of aside from this but I do think when we're talking about economic development it's worthy of consideration because I see lots of frowning faces when we talk about economic development.

Doesn't mean we shouldn't do it because I'm all in favor of it and we have to do it but we have to get our community to understand why it's important.

I would just, and a couple of other quick comments, 1.3 on page 10 automatically go in my brain and we don't have to spend a lot of time on it, but we're talking about workforce development and again partnering with the schools, even with economic development.

around careers and non-college careers.

They're looking at that.

We're looking at it from multiple lenses.

Yeah, exactly.

You know me and education.

I definitely think that we need to really carefully consider 4.6 on page 16, which is child care.

Child care is really holding us back a lot because when you have two children and you're spending

25,000 and 30,000 a year for child care to keep a job or even have a job or move into this area and think you can get it, it's crazy world.

I mean, that is what I could do.

So we've got to figure this out.

And enough said about that.

I have a note here about page 14, which I think was agribusiness economy, and I agree with much of what Mike said.

Although I kind of view what you all had on that list, and again, this is really big picture, but to some of Mike's points, I would say we talk about data centers.

And when we talk about data centers, you can talk about mega data centers that take acres and acres and acres of land and lots of water, but you can also talk about data centers that are not that invasive, that are not that.

So thinking about what your comments were, Mike,

I go back to what I said earlier, it's all about balance.

You can do some of these things without a chicken poultry plant that is that huge, what I think most of our community would not want.

So just to think about the balance and how there are options that I think would be acceptable.

Tourism is interesting right now because

We certainly have a very robust tourism sector.

And I have said before we need to be very careful about eggs in that basket.

I don't think we should move away from it.

I think that it's a good thing to have, but again it's a balance because I see tourism falling off all over this country right now.

We have nine

I just saw the data yesterday that right now business travelers from overseas coming into the United States has dropped by 9%.

Now that's business.

but we're seeing, and I don't think that that is just going to be this year.

I think that has a tail and it's going to last for a while.

So when we look at tourism supporting some of what Bea has talked about, about allowing our vineyards to have more restaurants and marrying our tourism as best we can to the ag business

in supporting, I think, for the local community is really going to be important and not just looking at it through the lens of tourism, people that are coming here.

Tourists from Canada are way down too, I mean, and they're selling their houses.

not here necessarily, but they are selling their houses in Florida.

So it's really something to look at through that lens of how do we support those locals and make them more successful.

And I guess, Jim, in the effort of time, I'm going to stop.

Thank you very much.

I've learned a lot and appreciate both the presentation and the questions that others have already asked, so I will not repeat them.

But, let me zoom back to the beginning here, sorry.

Alright, here we go.

So, these are all out of order, sorry, but that's the way the notes went.

Modernized ag economy.

What does that mean?

Because if some of this is too much for now, then that's OK.

So I think what we're talking about there is getting back to Mr. Pruitt's conversation that some of the ag businesses described when we were sitting down with them at a roundtable.

for them to be able

from their mind there's some challenges for being able to grow their business further when you think about the resources that are available and then there's other examples getting back to the co-packing idea that businesses have to drive

They have to commit to a large capital investment to do something for themselves at their own facility or there's not many co-packing facilities in our region and so they're having to drive five or six hours every couple of weeks to be able to package their product in a way that they can access.

Wholesale Markets and so that creates just a barrier for them to be able to scale their business when that's kind of the world that they're navigating and so I think it's a combination of policy and also access to particular assets.

So maybe if there are minutes from the stakeholder groups and we can catch up on the background and understand it better that way.

Because I mean, Ally Hill spent years developing her cannery down in Farmell, so it's an hour away, yes.

But the jam people and everything else go down there and use it.

But the fellow at Red Hill doesn't transport his tomatoes and stuff like that.

They somehow have figured that out.

and they're selling at Whole Foods and everywhere else all up and down the East Coast.

So I guess I would love to be able to know more and be perhaps more receptive to what comes off as gimme, gimme, gimme.

and I don't want to do the work.

So I would like to learn more to make sure that this is, because we're talking about, I mean if we're talking about dollars, which is the whole point of this whole organization to figure out where to invest, then we have to have more information as it becomes available later on.

I think the whole process that we're doing right now is really important and will help to organize my brain for sure.

Let me zoom down here now.

So I brought my sign from the Monticello Horizon Trail.

We were the first one in the state.

And I just banged the microphone twice.

Sorry.

Sorry to blow out everybody's ears.

Founded in 2010, JT Newberry was the CDD person in charge

of helping all the local business people to get their licenses and all that kind of thing to sell.

And the state sort of dropped this, but Nelson County has never stopped.

So we had 150-some participants and the brochures and all that stuff and a very robust website that helped people plan their trips when they came here and they could make itineraries.

Also, our local artisans could sell through the marketplace there directly.

really, really helped people, especially during COVID.

The leftovers of this were still going during COVID.

And the ability to sell direct without having to go to Chicago to the Arts and Crafts Fair and sit there for three days while the tire kickers came by your table was a tremendous asset for them.

So just as we've talked in the past about supporting our local studio tour and those kinds of things that bring in thousands of people from other areas for those weekends during the year,

This is of a scale that benefits directly our local producers.

So the size and scale that was mentioned by others, I will not be supporting a 10,000 bird CAFO in Albemarle.

It's just if Rockingham chooses to do that, and they have the flat confined animal feeding operation.

to talk about regulation, what the DEQ has to go through for those and the water quality issues that have to be dealt with are, as the folks in the Scottsville district, are well aware.

But Kelly's Turkeys, up on the mountainside in the forest in Greenwood, or the western part of, yeah, it is Greenwood by then, completely appropriate.

Four or five hundred birds, top dollar selling around the world.

it is scaled right for what the family can do.

So to me, scale does not always mean big.

And I will tell you a little story.

And that is when Jeff and Michelle Sanders founded Glass House Winery after they had, or yes, and vineyards after they lived in Central America and all over the place, they built the winery into a rock.

And the reason was to prevent them from ever wanting to double it or to make it bigger, because they could grow enough

mostly on their own to have 3,000 cases of wine.

Between 3,000 cases and 10,000 cases, there is no more profit.

You have to be bigger than king to be able to really say, aha, I finally made it again after that long, dry period.

So this is always something in my mind.

And when you're bigger, and then you have to be, instead of beef selling for $10 a pound direct to a customer,

You go to the grocery store and they pay you $2 a pound.

How is that beneficial to our local growers?

There is a whole different level of finance that has to be thought about for all of these types of things.

I will say that I'm grateful that there seems to be a resurgence of young people interested in agriculture.

And I'm very proud of Darby Lowrie, who has founded a certified Future Farmers of America chapter.

It was.

She's a senior this year and going off to NC State.

Very cool thing I think that sometimes you start with children who grew up on the farm and sometimes it's people who just fell in love with the idea and have learned as they did through the Environmental Sciences Academy which really helped a lot of people without farm experience to learn that there was a whole new world out there for them while that was operating.

Can I make one note about Darby's Turkeys because I'm so glad that you brought that up because that is a prime example of I think what we're trying to get at in this plan and that is Darby's Turkeys was part of our roundtable discussions.

We met with the entrepreneur there.

And she made a very good point about how some of the needs around infrastructure to support agriculture businesses are limiting.

So for instance, they need some additional utility access on their facility to ensure they've got the right types of broadband access to monitor all the turkey hatchery type of things was a really good example.

The idea that when you look at her farm, there's limitations about STRs and there's a limitation about the types of other sort of enterprise use on her land that she could have when she was suggesting that

An opportunity around even thinking about some hospitality space on her land would allow her to diversify her business line to make sure that the Turkey project, by the way, her Turkey enterprise could be more successful and could be more resilient.

So I think what I'm trying to get at in that comment is to say

completely hear you.

I don't think one of the things that we're suggesting by any means is poultry slaughtering plants or large-scale animal production processing.

It is about just making some tweaks around the infrastructure support to allow some of your micro-scale businesses

to actually grow and be resilient and have an opportunity to scale just at the margins because that even her turkey business right now is so thin at the margin she described how her husband's still having to have a full-time job and all of that types of things so there's just a need I think around ensuring that the that we give these

We gather those businesses back together.

I think that's really important to hear about the needs.

And I think that will influence some of the conversations that we can have around this space.

Great.

Well, I know that they've had a problem with not being able to get three-phase power for their chiller.

And that's been five years.

We've been working with Dominion about that.

So that's another meeting coming up for me in the next week or so, trying to solve that issue.

And I didn't know that they had even applied for any hospitality things, which would certainly be.

As an active farm, they have all sorts of opportunities to do that.

And maybe they're not aware.

So that's good.

Let me run down my list here quickly.

Thank you.

Just some comments of others that I thought were particularly poignant.

The demographic impacts and benefits of all of the economic development.

Someone during one of these discussions several years ago talked about for every PhD you add four to six

certificate level and undergraduate level, as I was working in Harvard Medical School, jobs are created and incredibly essential for the success of the lab.

So those are the kinds of jobs that I think all of our high school graduates, PVCC graduates would be able to jump into, especially

if they've had the opportunity as I did during summer in high school and college to be able to have local lab experience using our local assets.

Because that helps on your resume when you go to get some big time job as a college graduate.

Well, she's already worked in labs and knows how to do all this stuff.

So that is, I think, helpful.

I guess with my previous farming question, and someone can get back to me later about this,

So the zoning issue questions were not about the agriculture.

It was about the ancillary projects.

OK, never mind on that.

I will do that.

We talked about that.

We take scale, talked about that.

One of the things, in addition to the artisan trail back in 2010, there was a tremendous push to make it easier for farmers markets to assemble on previously

Any operating commercial spot in the countryside that already had a parking lot could be used with minimal or zero processes.

Zoning clearance, I suspect, is all.

And that really helped to make the kinds of connections that residential or urban neighborhood people, but also rural people can go to buy from.

their neighbors.

So I get my sausage from somebody who is in Jim's district, who brings her stuff to the farmer's market in Charlottesville, which is great.

We had the second highest number of farmer's markets come to Fairfax back in 2013 or 2012.

So I think they've fallen off a little bit now, but that's certainly something where during COVID, we all learned that the only food available was local food that was grown right here because the grocery stores didn't really have a chance to get stuff in, and all the local growers

sold out very quickly.

My freezers were empty back then because everybody was calling and saying, I really want some beef and I can't find any.

Well, sorry, I'm sold out.

So that's good.

Let's see.

Talked about that, talked about that, talked about that.

Sorry I'm taking so long.

I think that I agree that

improving the job opportunities up and down all of those career ladder spots.

I've got three grandchildren and I would dearly love to have them be able to put down roots somewhere around here because I grew up in a three generation household and have a three generation household right now and I would really like that to continue to be possible for them and for others as well.

One of the issues that I came to in doing my homework for tonight was one of the great attributes the county has is the natural beauty and the scenery, and this is why people want to come here and live here.

But then the other side is, but the rules get in the way, and so I want to do what I want to do.

And the reason the scenery looks the way it is is because of the rules that our predecessors created and we have so far upheld.

So let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater here, I guess is what I'm asking people to consider.

The career pathways comments were really excellent, but I will encourage Amell County Public Schools to join in because they're the only one in the whole central region here who is not participating in the workforce efforts.

with Workforce Center.

We had wonderful participation from folks from the ACPS workforce.

They had someone at every stakeholder group to be able to listen and begin to build those relationships.

OK, good.

I've been trying to get them together with Sarah for six months, and now we can't do it.

So anyway, I'm glad to know that.

Thank you for convening that, because that made that happen.

And I'll stop there.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We're running about an hour late, so I'm going to try to be very generic, I guess, because I agree with a lot of the comments and I think there's a lot to like here.

At the same time, I look at the vision and it doesn't really seem like it drives Albemarle County.

It looks like a generic vision of what a lot of places would want.

And I recognize that we've been talking about in the goals things that are really tied to what we think our priorities are as a county.

But I want to ask if we're talking about economic development, we're talking about where we're going to put public money.

to benefit the county.

And I would say that that's where we are looking at return on investment.

And that means that we take advantage of opportunities like Home Depot maybe at times, which aren't really reflected in here at all.

And so I feel like this is a nice roadmap, but there are ways in which I think that we're not really being honest about why we

Why we're going to put tax dollars into economic development.

So we've talked a lot about, but it's not really in the document, about tax diversifying our revenue sources.

And I don't know if we're fully being honest there when we put the document together to talk about building these different things without recognizing that's what we're trying to do.

It is in the document, by the way.

So just a point of reference.

So what you saw today was just the framework piece.

I'd encourage you to go back and look at the full strategy.

There's about 13 insights that are written in pretty detailed work.

And we do acknowledge that part of this big goal of this plan is to diversify the tax base.

It's actually, it's referenced actually multiple times in the plan.

It's in the insight piece.

So hopefully you'll get a chance to take a look at that.

And if we haven't addressed it strongly enough.

OK.

And I did read the whole document.

I also read the large set of papers, sort of data analysis.

And I have some issues there, because there's a lot of data in there that I don't understand at all.

It says there are only 1,000 people in international security and intelligence, yet we say there are 3,000 at Rivanna.

It has a lot of numbers in here that don't make sense to me.

categories dropping by 99% in the past five years.

So the data that's coming, so national security is a really interesting one.

I'm glad you brought that up.

What the cluster analytics is looking at is looking at private sector investment in that area.

So it's looking at private employment.

It's not looking at public employment.

when we do those analytics.

So when we talk about Rivanna Futures having a larger employment number, much of that is because that is capturing public employment numbers.

What we did in the analytics was to go back and say, as we think about the clusters that are in the county, what does the private sector investment around that economy look at?

And that's really what the work is doing.

There's a ton of work we can talk about.

I'll just give you another quick example.

Business and Financial Services lists 1,065 jobs and 477 are in Landscaping Services.

Well, that's not what I thought we were talking about when we got into that, so there's some data in here that I'd like to parse better.

I'm just going to make one more comment, which is that another thing I think is kind of missing, it's been alluded to a couple of times, is the recognition of resilience and sustainability, and perhaps realizing that we also want to lead with our climate action plan in developing green businesses.

Thank you.

Chair, could I have, I promise it will be so short, because I recognize the time.

But I admit to mention this, and everyone else touched on 4.6, child care, the importance of child care.

We've said from this board frequently the importance of child care.

And kind of to your previous point, Chair,

I am concerned that sometimes this is something where we're not being honest with ourselves because I don't know that the rubber has ever hit the road with that as a priority in that things become policy rather than beliefs when they're backed up by action and dollars and I am not aware of any

investment by the county in child care other than the ways in which we are custodian for federal pass-through money.

So if this board continues to say that, and if we're going to include in this action plan, I would just raise that as a thing I don't think we're doing at all.

We could also ask private industry to come in and provide

I just wanted to touch, I'm glad we hit on the turkey farm because I think too many people on this board thought that we were going to have chicken farms all over the place like in Arkansas and such and that's not what this was all about.

This was specific regarding this turkey farm.

You know how much those turkeys bring in?

I learned this yesterday at the EDA meeting.

Two hundred dollars a turkey.

So that's a lot of gobble.

and I think it's important that we make sure that something like this doesn't go out of business because we do have businesses that are on the verge, they can decline, they can go out of business.

We need to support them.

Steve, you made a very important statement.

You said we need to gather the businesses and we need to hear from the businesses what they need to succeed and that's something I think

I don't know, hopefully we're doing or we will because I think that's extremely important.

We don't have all the answers.

The businesses need to let us know also.

Thank you very much for the presentation and for the discussion.

We are over an hour behind schedule, but I believe it's time for us to take a recess.

Welcome back.

Board, our next item is discussion of presentation about the Affordable Housing Trust Fund.

Dr. Staci Peffia, Assistant Director of Housing and CACIdemic Chief of Human Services.

Good afternoon.

I am Staci Peffia, Assistant Director of Housing.

We are also joined by CACIdemic Chief Human Services Officer and Andy Bowman

Assistant Chief Financial Officer.

Yes, got that right.

And we are here to talk a little bit about affordable housing trust funds.

And so I was really going to look at three different things this afternoon.

First is just a really big overview of what makes a housing fund a trust fund.

Provide a few examples from across the state and the country and then a proposed structure for an affordable housing trust fund for Albemarle County.

It's important to stress right at this point that the proposed structure that is in your agenda packet is just that.

It's proposed.

It is open to all kinds of changes.