Board of Supervisors Regular Second Meeting   6/18/2025

Good afternoon.

I'm pleased to call to order this meeting of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, the 18th of June, 1 p.m.

in Lane Auditorium.

I'd like to note that today we have Supervisor Ann Mallek of the White Hall District, Supervisor Bea LaPisto-Kirtley of the Rivanna District, Supervisor Mike Pruitt of the Scottsville District,

and Supervisor Diantha McKeel of the Jack Jouett District and Supervisor Ned Gallaway of the Rio District, myself, Jim Andrews representing the Samuel Miller District.

A quorum is present.

We're also joined by our County Executive, Mr. Jeff Richardson and our County Attorney, Mr. Andy Herrick, our Clerk, Ms.

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

Welcome.

Please let me also welcome Albemarle County police officers present, Lieutenant Angela Jamerson and Sergeant Matthew Riley.

If all present could now stand as you are able and join us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Thank you.

Board, as our first item, of course, is adoption of the final agenda.

Before doing so, I'd like to note the removal of item 12 or review of the 2025 legislative priorities and initial discussion of 2026 legislative priorities, which will be postponed to a later date.

and adding a discussion regarding the hardware river possible designation as a scenic river and the appointment of Supervisor Ned Gallaway as a voting delegate to the 2025 National Association of Counties annual conference as part of item 24 matters from the board later this evening.

With those amendments, do we have a motion to accept the final agenda?

So moved.

Second.

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

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley.

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek.

Yes.

Ms.

Thank you very much and it is Independence weekend time, a week I guess, this time in July and a time for people of all perspectives to come together in support of our country and its history.

There are three parades in the White Hall district and I would just like to invite people to attend if you can.

Let's see, they're all mixed up in order this year.

The first one is free union starting at 4 p.m.

Church of the Brethren on

June 29th.

They have theirs the Sunday before the 4th of July.

The 29th edition of the Earliesville parade is July 4th at 10 a.m.

right in the center.

And the July 5th parade in Crozet is the day after the 4th, 5 p.m.

from Crozet Elementary to Crozet Park with fireworks

at King Family.

And great collections of people.

I see them only at parades and never see them any other time.

And so I'm really looking forward to lots of people showing up, having conversations.

Hot dogs at Buck Mountain Church after the Earliesville parade is always a popular place to be.

Thank you.

Yes, thank you very much.

I attended the opening of the grand reopening of the giant store on Pan Tops because they've redone everything.

It was frankly beautiful and there was a $5,000 donation to the Blue Ridge Food Bank and they've given something like seven, I think it was 72 tons

of food and everything.

So the giant really participates in giving food to our food banks.

So I really, really appreciate that.

And I attended a scout presentation yesterday for one of our Eagle Scouts in the Rivanna District, who, Elise Buyaki, who achieved her Eagle Scout honor with distinction.

And she had so many

of the little badges and everything that I mean beyond, I couldn't even count them all.

But she did a really great job.

So that's all I have.

Thank you.

No announcements today.

Thank you.

Yes, first I would like to, in a similar vein as Supervisor Mallek, remind folks that the Scottsville Fourth of July Parade down Valley Street in downtown Scottsville will be on 9 a.m.

on the Fourth of July and there are also fireworks later in the evening.

It is a big event.

We draw from several surrounding counties.

It is one of my favorite events every year.

It's the thing I tell people always, that if there's one thing you need to be involved in your local community in the Albemarle region, it's the Scottsville Fourth of July Parade.

It is truly a fabulous cross-section of the community that we have here in Central Virginia.

I would also like to remind the public that we have had a primary election yesterday, which means we now know who all the candidates who are going to be in state, local, and statewide offices.

That means we should also now be, of course, getting ready to think about when we're going to vote and how we're going to vote and making sure our registrations are updated for the 2025 elections.

And I have to admit, I did not pull this up on time because it was getting blocked on our local network.

I had to pull it up on my phone.

But yes, you will need to register to update.

You will need to make sure your registration is updated by September the 2nd.

Early in person voting begins July 25th and runs through September 6th.

For the November election, it's that early?

That does seem early.

I'm looking at the wrong thing.

I apologize.

Oh, goodness.

This is why I needed more time to pull it up.

I appreciate you.

I appreciate you.

That was for the 11th District House Special Election.

Ignore that.

It doesn't apply.

It doesn't apply.

It doesn't apply.

Register by October 14th.

Early in-person voting starts September 19th and runs through the 1st of November, which makes a lot more sense.

And of course, even if you have not updated your registration, you can always in-person, even past the registration deadline, show up.

Just to follow up quickly on the topic that Mike introduced, there was a Democratic primary in the Jack Jouett Magisterial District.

and I want to thank all of the residents of the Jack Jouett district that came out to vote and I really appreciate the politeness and how well they respected each other both sides of the primary and it was just a really wonderful day.

The weather was a little hot in the afternoon.

Thank you.

I have an update on the Blue Ridge area food bank regarding Albemarle.

They gave 10.1 million pounds of food was distributed by the food bank in Albemarle last year.

One in seven of our seniors are, I guess,

Pardon?

Food Challenge.

Thank you very much.

And one in three children in Albemarle are food challenged.

So, and the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank partners with 16 other agencies in Albemarle.

So a big shout out to Giant on Pantops and also the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank.

Board, there are no proclamations or recognitions on our agenda today so the next item is public comment on matters previously considered or currently pending before the board other than scheduled public hearings.

I believe we have someone signed up.

We have two individuals that have signed up and with that I will read the rules.

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 on matters that are pending before the board other than items listed on the agenda for public hearing.

Individuals are allowed one opportunity of up to three minutes to speak at each board meeting.

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

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

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

The yellow light indicates you have one minute to finish speaking, and the red light indicates your time has expired and you will be asked to end your comments.

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 material may be given to the clerk.

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

Speakers may not share any unused time with another speaker.

Back and forth debate is not permitted.

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

Gary Grant, Rio District.

It is my opinion that an additional condition needs to be included in the revisions to your open burning ordinance.

That being that all adjoining or contiguous property owners to the address of a permissible open burn receive a confirmed notification

of the impending burn 48 hours in advance of the start of the burn.

Residents on adjoining or contiguous properties to a permissible open burn do need time to protect themselves, their family members, their property, and their belongings from the health, safety, and quality of life hazards that can be caused by open burning.

In other Albemarle County government news, thank you to the Rivanna supervisor for her more than $400 personal check to reimburse county taxpayers for the free snow cones handed out in 2024.

Meanwhile, taxpayers still have no FOIA proof from the Rio supervisor that he has made good on his April 10th promise to move county government's snow cone expenditures to a new location in the budget.

On a personal note, I have paid my first half personal property and real estate taxes to county government.

The $60 per month increase in my real estate taxes is equal to what it cost me in gas to visit my two elementary school six and five year old grandchildren twice per month.

Three times more than a Slutsky pizza and beer per month.

After fighting county government for five months since February of this year and defeating an attempt to turn the Bleak House Road gravel into a paved racetrack, the Bleak House Road gravel has gone unmaintained since February.

No surprise to those of us who battled and beat Albemarle County on this.

We wonder if the lack of paving is retribution.

Finally, Albemarle County is not a democracy, but rather a representative local government.

If it were a democracy, the tens of thousands of adults living here could be in attendance to discuss and vote right along with the six of you on every agenda item at every meeting.

Thank you.

Good afternoon and thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

I'm Randy Fleetman from the Scottsville District.

Before we moved here, I was a Foreign Service Officer and I helped prepare embassy plans against terrorist attacks.

After we joined Congregation Beth Israel, I joined the Security Committee to protect our community.

In today's climate of heightened political division and global unrest, the safety of Jewish families and in particular students in Charlottesville and Albemarle County is a concern.

We are witnessing a nationwide spike in anti-Semitic incidents, including here at home, in our schools, college campuses, and our community spaces.

We cannot talk about anti-Semitism in this region without acknowledging the trauma of the 2017 Unite the Right rally.

That weekend, white supremacists marched through the streets of Charlottesville, chanting, Jews will not replace us.

Weeks before, we watched a KKK rally in front of the courthouse, right outside our synagogue windows.

On August 12, 2017, we carried our sacred text out of the building, in fear that they would be burned.

That rally wasn't just a national headline.

It was a lived reality for the Jewish families in Charlottesville.

And since then, the danger has not disappeared.

CBI is the only synagogue in central Virginia.

We were forced to install a tall iron fence around our playground.

And this is not cosmetic.

It was a defensive necessity because cars have been driven towards Jewish spaces.

Threats have been made.

Our children cannot play without barriers protecting them from potential harm.

My own grandchildren go to a Jewish preschool in town.

Since the pandemic, the synagogue preschool has been renting spaces outside the synagogue walls.

And while our main focus was to operate safely during the pandemic, what we didn't realize is how much safer we would feel when our location was outside the synagogue building.

This has allowed families to send our children to school with less fear to grow in an environment designed for their safety.

However, in each location, we still must put in place extensive security measures because this is what it means to be Jewish in this world.

This vision aligns directly with Albemarle County's own comprehensive plan.

The county's equity and inclusion goals commit to eliminating disparities and ensuring every resident has the opportunity to flourish.

The public safety goals prioritize proactive measures to prevent, arm and foster community trust.

And the resiliency goals call for long-term strategies that enable communities to adapt, recover and thrive in the face of adversity.

Board, we'll now turn to the consent agenda.

With respect to item 8.2, appointing Battalion Chief Sean Maddox as fire marshal has been updated with a copy at your place to correct a titling error.

I have not heard of any items otherwise being pulled from the consent agenda.

If so, then we're looking for a motion to adopt the consent agenda as corrected.

The motion from Supervisor Malek, second from Supervisor McKeel.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley.

Aye.

Ms.

Malek.

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel.

This brings us to our first action items for the afternoon.

The first being SC 2025-9 4158 Millington Road Homestay.

And this is being presented by Liam Brogenfeld, Senior Planner 2.

Good afternoon members of the board and Chair Andrews.

To get this pulled up, we have today before you, special exception 2025-09, 4158 Millington Road, Homestay.

This special exception request is for a resident managing agent for a property owned by EFG3 Holding LLC.

The property is a six acre rural areas property in the free union area.

surrounded by agricultural, forestal, and residential parcels.

And as the homestay regulations require at least one individual owner reside in the parcel of a homestay, the applicant, Mr. Galvin, who owns EFG3 holding LLC, is requesting authorization to serve as the resident managing agent for his LLC.

So by right, a rural area's parcel of five acres or more is permitted to have a home stay with up to five guest sleeping spaces within a single-family dwelling or an accessory structure built before August 7, 2019.

And it may have unhosted stays for up to seven days a month, 45 days per year.

By special exception, a homestay may request an individual not listed as the property owner reside on the property in place of the owner to fulfill the owner occupancy requirement.

So this is the special exception before you today.

Here you can see the location of the subject's six-acre parcel in relation to its neighboring parcels on Millington Road.

The subject homestay parcel marked on this slide with a red star is the site of a 1,568 square foot manufactured home and contains fields used for horses.

Immediately to the right of the parcel, shown in this image in the center, is another parcel owned by Mr. Galvin with a 1,100 square foot single family home with an address of 4184 Millington Road.

And the property also contains a horse barn.

To the right of that parcel, marked with the green star, is another parcel owned by Mr. Galvin listed as the mailing address for the ownership of all three of the aforementioned parcels and which was the primary dwelling of Mr. Galvin and his wife.

That parcel contains a 2,720 square foot single-family home with an address of 4196 Millington Road.

However, Mr. Galvin has indicated he has moved his residence to the subject parcel marked with the red star two doors down at 4184 Millington.

So this image, apologies for the skewed angle, shows the view from the Homestay site towards the two other parcels owned by Mr. Galvin

and in summary, this is a request for the resident managing agent to fulfill occupancy requirements for a homestay at a three bedroom manufactured home homestay.

If the special exception is approved, at the time of a homestay clearance application, staff would confirm fire safety and occupancy requirements through inspection of the property and inspection of the required legal documents.

The standard documents for verification of residency as listed in the ordinance are a driver's license and voter registration or other similar documents as approved by the zoning administrator.

As Mr. Calvin has indicated he already resides at the homestay location and he has already obtained the necessary legal documentation of changing voter registration and the residence on his driver's license.

Staff does not believe this homestay would create any adverse impacts to the surrounding neighborhood or general public health safety or welfare.

The home store use itself is a by right accessory used to the primary dwelling on the parcel and would be consistent with the comprehensive plan as the dwelling is already in existence.

Staff has analyzed the use itself based on the property and the evidence presented and based on this, staff recommends approval.

Thank you.

I have no questions.

No questions.

Supervisor Galloway.

I have no questions.

Supervisor Pruitt.

Nothing.

Thank you.

No questions.

Thank you.

I have no questions as well, I guess, except that this wasn't on consent.

I guess we're not yet putting any of the, some of these are on consent, but not this one.

It seems straightforward.

Thank you.

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

Mr. Pruitt?

Aye.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Malek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Thank you.

Board, this brings us to our next action item, SE 2025-16, Old Dominion Village Gas Easement Relocation.

And Sid Shoaf, Senior Planner 2, will present.

Did you already announce that that passed, so it's approved?

Yes.

OK, good.

Just want to make sure that everybody was aware that it had been approved.

OK, thank you.

Hi, good afternoon.

My name is Sid Shuff.

I'm a senior planner with the planning division of Albemarle County's Community Development Department.

I'm bringing before the board special exception request SE-2025-16 Old Dominion Village gas easement relocation.

This is a special exception request for land disturbance within a conservation area.

on the approved application plan and code of development for Old Dominion Village.

The Old Dominion Village development is approximately 23.72 acres zoned neighborhood model development and located within the White Hall Magisterial District.

Unfortunately, as you all know, our county GIS system is down, so I cannot get a proper photo of the map for you.

But across the northern portion, which is the top of this screen, there are portions of the property that are water protection ordinance buffer

and Flood Hazard Overlay Zone associated with the Parrot Branch and Tributary.

As I mentioned in the previous slide, this development is zoned neighborhood model development and has an approved coded development and application plan that were approved by the board under ZMA 2020-5 in August 2022.

The development is a mixed-use development that allows up to 110 residential units and veterinary clinic uses.

In November 2024, an initial site plan for this development was approved by staff.

This is a screenshot of the approved application plan associated with ZMA 2020-5 that was approved in August 2022.

Highlighted in yellow on the screen is the existing 50-foot gas easement in relation to the approved development.

The screenshot also depicts Green Space 1, which is 5.74 acres.

This area is within the highlighted green area, and this area includes the WPO buffer, which is highlighted as green, a conservation area that is to be dedicated to the county for public use, and a future greenway amenity.

A portion of the existing gas easement is within the green space one area.

However, the remainder of the 50 foot gas easement is outside of the stream buffer.

During the rezoning review process, staff identified the existing 50 foot gas easement as a concern with future infrastructure.

However, at the time, the applicant let staff know that the proposed development would not have conflicts with the future infrastructure.

This is a screenshot of the approved initial site plan that was approved in November 2024.

This has the more detailed proposal for this development.

In this screenshot, you can see the initial site plan is consistent with the approved application plan from the rezoning.

The proposed units and infrastructure do not have a conflict with the existing 50-foot gas easement on the site.

And during the initial site plan review process, there were not any issues identified by both internal and external staff with this proposal.

And this is the applicant's proposal that's brought forth with you today.

The applicant requests to relocate a portion of the existing 50-foot gas easement, shown in yellow, to the area in blue, which is within Green Space 1, which is a conservation area.

So these are the factors, or this is under section 18-8.55.3a6.

The board may grant a minor variation to an approved plan, code, or standard for minor changes to design and location of stormwater management facilities, minor land disturbance including disturbance within conservation areas, and mitigation, all subject to recommendation for approval by the county engineer.

And further factors for consideration are outlined on this slide.

One, the board may grant a variation from the code of development upon the determination that the variation is one, consistent with the goals and objectives of the comprehensive plan, does not increase the approved development density or intensity of the development, does not adversely affect the timing and phasing of the development of any other development in the zoning district, does not require a special use permit,

and is in general accord with the purpose and intent of the approved application.

After staff review, we found the following findings.

First, this would be inconsistent with the goals and objectives of the comprehensive plan.

Approximately 13,470 square feet of the easement would be within the WPO buffer.

Additionally, the area is highlighted in the Crozet master plan as green systems, which calls for preservation of areas providing ecosystem,

and Cultural Services, critical environmental resources, and areas held in common ownership.

The applicant did not provide a tree study or mitigation plan that would illustrate the areas of disturbance, preservation, and restoration.

Additionally, the parrot branch directly flows into the Beaver Creek Reservoir water supply watershed.

Next, although the density of a development would not increase, staff did find the proposal would increase the intensity of the development if this were to be permitted in the WPO buffer.

Staff also found that this would not be in general accord with the purpose and intent of the approved application plan.

During the rezoning process, staff specifically cited dedication of wooded lands and their protection as important natural resource and a factor in recommending approval.

Green spaces were intentionally identified in both the approved application plan and code of development.

These documents establish a conservation area that protected the WPO buffer from disturbance.

The intent of the approved plans was to establish a development that was outside of the WPO buffer area.

Lastly, the county engineer reviewed this application and believes the findings are not met by the applicant and the request is not minor in nature.

Staff recommends that the board deny the variation to allow land disturbance for the proposed 50-foot gas easement within the conservation area in the approved application plan and code of development.

The county engineer also believes the findings are not met and the request is not minor in nature.

And this is the recommended action by staff.

I'm happy to answer any questions from the board.

Thank you.

I don't have any questions, but I thank you for the thoroughness of the presentation because it makes my job easier.

I'm very glad not to be having to make these arguments by myself, but this is a highly densely constructed residential area and they need every square inch of space that they can get, so I appreciate it.

The applicant was claiming that this was for safety.

One of the reasons was for safety purposes.

But the distance where it currently is to where they're proposing seems to be pretty similar.

I'm not sure what the rationale is from the applicant.

Oh, the chair would have to allow that.

Open the public hearing.

It's not a public hearing.

Not a public hearing.

We can get questions answered if we so choose.

That's typically not done, but that's at the discretion of the board if the board wishes to ask questions of an applicant.

We'll allow it.

I mean, we've done it before.

If I don't see any objection, I'll just go on.

If the applicant's here, I'd like to know.

In the applicant materials and their attachment, it says in regards to section 8553, we offer the following responses.

Consistent with goals and objectives of the comprehensive plan, the relocated gas easement will provide a safer location for the new homes.

That in and of itself does not give me what I'm looking for.

Is it proximity to the new homes?

Because the new location seems to be in similar distance to the current.

Eastman.

Is there someone from the applicant again?

Good afternoon.

I'm Katora Rowell, the applicant, in response to the new location.

So the gas company actually requested this because

they will have to replace the old existing line that has been there for 50 years sometime in the next 20 years and they felt like if they tried to re-bore underneath all the existing new utilities that are being installed for the development that relocating it behind and existing the new units would be a much safer aspect.

Additionally while they

replace that line, one they will bore it.

And if you'll go back to the map that shows the old location, the old location.

One more.

So you see in yellow how it continues all the way down the stream, through the buffer,

and where it's been for years and when it was originally put in some 50, 70 years ago.

And then the next slide showing the relocation.

Again, that new area would be boarded, puts it well behind any units and additionally a much safer area for future residents.

Again, that will be a board line so it will not disturb anything on the surface.

My proffer number three states that the developer may install or provide easements within the buffer at his discretion.

Your county ordinances also state that gas, VDOT, and other utilities are exempt from the buffer.

State law also states that these companies are exempt from buffer regulations.

So again, I would ask the county attorney if

There's any bearing on that and otherwise we're looking to put it in a safer place for the future residents of the community.

That was my question.

You answered it.

I want to make sure I'm understanding this correctly.

The central reason that the staff recommendation is against is because this is not minor in nature, which is a finding, a series of findings that has to be made for something within a conservation area and a plan.

This is in a conservation area of a plan.

that the developer has submitted, as in this is not something that is in a conservation easement.

This is not some kind of natural heritage that we as a board have independently identified.

This is something that the developer has set aside as the green space they're preserving in their plan.

That is correct.

Can you help me understand if the board does not

allow this to be treated as minor and therefore to be approved administratively.

What is the alternative for the developer?

They may need, depending on what their proposal would be after this, it may constitute another zoning map amendment application.

If it is something that is in general accord with the current

rezoning application and code of development, and maybe be able to work out with staff without going to the rezoning process.

OK.

This is actually maybe more of a legal question, but the variation requires the meeting of findings, right?

So in order to approve this, the board would need to affirmatively make the five findings that are on the screen.

Staff had determined that this proposal failed to meet at least three of them and the draft resolution that you have in your staff packet makes those findings that in fact it fails to meet three of the five.

Understood.

The board would need to come to a place where it felt comfortable making the five findings that are on the screen.

Thank you.

I'm probably going to be asking something again, but I see Frank Pohl back there.

I have one for him too.

I think several of us probably.

Hey Frank, thank you for coming down.

Thank you.

Would you help me, would you address what we are hearing and understanding and I guess specifically I understand the comp plan and what we have here and the development and the variations and all, but help us understand what you reviewed and the reality of a situation where you have a very aging gas line.

I don't want to keep talking.

Sure.

So this project, if it had come in with the rezoning relocating something into the buffer, we would have asked to avoid the buffer.

So with that in mind, I didn't feel comfortable making the decision administratively to allow this, because I think it maybe would have affected

the board's decision to rezone the property.

Regarding the aging, I don't doubt that it's aging.

We discussed putting in maybe a ductile iron pipe to allow future installation of a new gas line.

I think the gas company, we were told, did not like that idea.

I guess it does, although I'm questioning why the... To be honest with you, it's beyond my expertise to understand why the gas company said no.

I understand that Ann is saying money.

I'm not always sure of it.

I don't know.

It's just financial.

You can see in that photo all of the proposed improvements within the gas easement.

I don't know the answer, though, because I've not been in contact with the gas company.

Certainly hearing about a lot of old gas lines blowing up these days, having said that,

Do you have anything else you want to, while you're here, anything else you want to share with us about this?

I was just thinking after what we heard I wondered if you had anything else.

Thank you.

So I just want to explore a little bit because I know that there are three things here and they seem to mostly have to do with the buffer and reduced green space as reasons why these conditions aren't met.

There was this conversation, I know that there was a

This is Greg Kristiniak, a civil engineer tour reviewer.

The difference between, there's two methods of putting in utilities, open trenching, we actually have an excavator and then there's the trenchless model here is what they're referring to when they use the word bore.

So they'll have an entry point at one side that will disturb the surface and it'll be directional drilled or bored underneath the ground and then pop up at a different location wherever they direct it under the ground.

15 years from now, you may have 12 citizens call up saying, you know, the gas company would have the right to come in.

They may not want to clear cut it now, but some decision might be made by the gas maintenance company division to come in and clear cut that section of the easement at their discretion because they have that right, because they've had that easement applied to that area.

Okay.

And then there's also a reference made to a lack of a mitigation or plan of mitigation.

Yeah, like Greg said, it would help us identify what vegetation is located within the easement area, which vegetation would be slated to be removed and how the restoration would look like if something were needed to be removed.

It would help give us an understanding of what

Since I went first, I'm very glad to follow up on what others have raised.

In one of the emails, perhaps, it said, boring if feasible, which means to me that if someone hits a rock or whatever, then they're going to pop right out.

And then that would be the end of the buffer.

If any of you have driven down Berkmar, you will see how a bulldozer had to clear the forest line to the south of the river in order for the boring machine to get into location.

I don't think these, that's my only experience with that and it's not innocent looking as far as the damage to the surrounding area.

I got a lot of phone calls about what's going on over there, which the RWSA was able to explain.

But the, I think that if one remembers the process for this application, the community meeting, the planning commission meeting, the board meeting,

all were very concerned about the stream.

It directly goes to Beaver Creek Reservoir, which provides the water to 14,000 people in Crozet.

Everybody's very protective of the water there and the effort that the rate payers already have to undergo to make sure that it's treated, filtered, et cetera.

So that's, to me, why we have the buffers.

And any time you disturb the canopy, period,

It does have an impact with the velocity of the rains that we're having now, a lot more impact than it used to be.

So I think it really would overturn the, certainly the promises made by the applicant during the public hearing legislative process that that land was going to be protected and set aside.

And yes, there was a whole lot of residential next door, but it was squished together on the uphill so that they could protect the easement and now

I see all of that being almost backdoor erased or attempting to take that away in a backdoor without redoing the whole public hearing.

And I just don't think it's right to come in the backdoor and try to do this.

These things should have been included in the application to begin with.

And I think it has an impact on that.

And I certainly appreciate, as I said before, the work that the engineers did to analyze this carefully.

I have some follow-on questions.

When we're talking about the type of trenched versus trenchless line laying, we're talking about trenchless because in its current location it would have to be trenchless because it's running under existing properties.

My understanding is the proposed change, though,

of the gas company and their method and what they, I don't know what their discussions have been.

We just read that they would, they mentioned that they would do trenchless.

I don't know what their logic was for that.

And if that was part of their discussions with the applicant to agree to do that.

I think the intent perhaps is that they were trying to say that they could save or avoid impacts to the buffer.

I'm assuming that's what they were intending, but I can't, until the gas company was present or able to answer that question.

I have one other question that is going to speak a little bit to my ignorance and also might be challenging because it's not as directly on point.

But I'm a little surprised, I guess, to realize that our WPO actually can even entertain a gas line in a buffer area.

That seems surprising to me.

Right?

And it seems like necessarily we're contemplating that, either through this process or through potentially a follow on ZMA.

We're entertaining a gas line in a water protection buffer, which regardless of the disturbance it creates, even if it creates no disturbance, that to me sounds alarming because that, I mean, gas lines degrade, they leach before they're replaced.

It is a thing they do.

Yes.

Frank Pohl, county engineer again.

This is a natural gas line also.

So it's not a liquid gas line.

It's not a what?

Not liquid.

I guess when it's under pressure, it could be seen as liquid.

But it's a natural gas line.

The state allows it.

So we follow state.

on that allowance through buffers.

Typically, we see crossings perpendicular to buffers, not always running parallel.

It's like one of those little Facebook game ads where they're like, here's six points, connect all three of them without any of the lines crossing.

You can't do it.

And that's the whole joke.

If anyone is familiar with the specific kind of spam I'm talking about, I appreciate the point.

And your point also being that running parallel is less common, I imagine, in part because it increases the exposure to any concerns around the line.

OK.

Thank you.

I learned so much today.

Are there any other comments or comments or questions?

I'm going to ask one other question.

I'm still concerned.

I'm not understanding I guess.

the safety issue.

Not doing this does it pose more of a safety risk for the residents currently living there or the future residents.

I'm not sure if this is just to increase density to do this or if the gas company has a real concern.

Hi, I'm Rebecca Ragsdale, Planning Manager and I reviewed this with Sid and I'm part of the review team.

So I guess, you know, just want to clarify that the residential units are not there.

They do not have the rights to build them yet.

They have not gotten final approvals for that.

I mean, they've discovered this gas line conflict

and that's why Sid outlined the timeline that we had gone down this path of showing residential units over a gas line and there's a conflict.

The residential units are driving this conflict.

The property has only the vet clinic there now.

what's before you does not explore these other alternatives in terms of could they shift it another way?

Could they develop it differently?

They have flexibility to a certain extent in how they could rearrange their development, their neighborhood model development and pursue another type of variation between the different blocks of the development.

I think they pursued an option that impacts a green space area and we don't believe it meets those criteria.

We don't have a detailed plan before us that makes every effort to avoid the green space and I think that we have alluded to what they may come back with to us in terms of an alternative plan that we could then review through the correct process that may have the mitigation measures, may

have the exact details in terms of how the gas line would be replaced in the future.

But the proposed development and these residential units that aren't there yet are creating this conflict.

This is not an issue

currently.

And there was a late email that hopefully you received directly from the gas company that basically expresses that.

But I just wanted to clarify that.

All right.

Did the applicant want to say anything regarding that, if that's OK?

That way we get both sides of the issue, that issue.

And that puts it

I forwarded a letter from the gas company specifically to

planner and to the board clerk.

They're the ones requesting this for the future when they plan to replace the line no matter what.

And this is a main 60 pound pressure line.

They just felt it would be safer to put it to the left.

As I pointed out, the entire rest of the line goes through the buffer when it was originally put in.

and to bore this to the left of the future units in their mind was simply for safety purposes.

Again the trench.

to get to the bore would be up above the buffer on our property.

And again, within the easement of the existing gas line where the receiving end would be met.

So it would minimize the disturbance.

But it's the gas company's request.

It's not something I dreamed up, but what they would like to see.

and they felt they have the right to do so.

But we're here before you for your understanding and approval.

Thank you.

You've seen a letter or not, I don't know.

There are no other questions or additional comments.

Motion up there, thank you.

I will just say I think that the gas line was put in before the buffers were established and it's not like you're, it's not the same thing as going in and putting something in afterwards.

And I really appreciate Rebecca's explanation about the process and as I said, the work that Frank and Sitzstein did as well.

Mr. Pruitt, Mr. Andrews, Mr. Galloway, Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley, Ms.

Mallek, Ms.

McKeel,

Board, we're actually scheduled for a recess, but if it's okay, I think we'll jump and take the recess just a little bit later.

If we're ready for the work session on the open burning ordinance update, Emily Alicia is here, I see.

Deputy Chief of Fire and Rescue, welcome.

I wanted to thank you all for adopting the consent agenda and approving.

Sean, you all know Battalion Chief Maddox was moved back into the fire marshal's office on Monday and will be permanently replacing Howard Lagomarsino.

I did also want to publicly thank Micaiah Ledford.

who has done an amazing job in the last three months in an interim capacity filling a gap that was needed.

And he worked on this as well, so he's here in case some of the questions come up that he specifically worked on.

All right, so we're here to talk about the open burning ordinance update.

Just as a little background, I wanted to go back through a little bit.

In December of 23, we were asked to start looking at, and we had already

began thinking about what it would take to update our current open burning ordinance.

And so we began this research process and we looked at all the localities in the Commonwealth initially, narrowed it down to these 15, mostly because of their comparison for two reasons.

They have an established fire marshal's office similar to us and they have similar,

either geographic or demographic issues or elements as compared to Albemarle County.

So these were the 15 that we specifically looked at.

Opening up a little broader in terms of background, you know in August I came before you guys and talked about

a more comprehensive approach to wildland fire prevention strategies and including this idea of fire adapted communities, developing a comprehensive plan for that, which would include developing and implementing an enhanced wildfire training program.

and working with Department of Forestry.

And then finally, as part of that, one of the elements was updating our burn ordinance, open burning ordinance.

So that's what we're here to talk about.

Fire adapted communities, just as a reminder, is a pretty comprehensive concept that includes all these various elements.

And I really just included that to contextualize kind of where we are with some of the work that's going on.

We have been looking at some of the recovery work.

There's been some work in that arena, some collaborative work with some other departments.

We've certainly been trying to enhance our capacity in terms of our incident management team internally at the county.

as well as working with the community.

We've done a couple of neighborhood assessments as requested by some communities in terms of fire wise.

And finally, looking at landscape treatments, there are some groups that are doing some pretty cool stuff in the area and we've been working with them to look at how they do some of those prescribed fires and thinning of ground covering.

So, but to fully achieve a fire adapted communities would require a long term, very collaborative process to really implement and it would take, it's a long range plan.

So, but that's not what we're here.

Here today, we're talking about the burn ordinance update that we've done, the work we've done.

So we did this gap analysis.

We did the comparative analysis first to the other localities.

Then we did kind of a gap analysis looking at where

We've seen issues with our own existing ordinance and the big things that we've identified on our end as problematic were, it's confusing to the average citizen, like what applies to me.

Whether or not they need a burn ban is confusing.

which category, and then questions about impact of open burning.

And so looking at all of that, I wish I could say that we were able to streamline it and get it down to one or two pages, but as you see, we were not able to do that.

In fact, that clarity work resulted in a longer document overall, I think, but I do think that we've,

the recommended revisions that we're putting in front of you do help to clarify some of that.

And so these are sort of the four bucket areas of specific work that we did to provide some recommendations for you all to consider.

And I'm gonna have Chief Maddox come up in a minute here, but to run through them, he'll give more detail.

The first one is to clarify the categories of burning and to make it easier to understand.

overall, those categories.

The second area of focus for us was adding language definitions to help further clarify what's permissible versus non-permissible open burning.

The third area of revision was enhancing some of the enforcement capabilities.

We looked at where do we struggle to

to enforce this or to carry out this ordinance and there are some small areas there.

And then finally increasing the penalties and adding some restitution capability.

And that work we did in, we met with the Commonwealth Attorney to make sure we weren't going a little further than we should, but that's,

that will help address some of the repeat offenses that we see.

Yeah, so we can go into those a little bit.

We just have a slide for each of those and then one wrap up slide.

Thank you.

Good afternoon members of the board, Chairman Andrews.

Just wanted to go through the four categories, kind of the more technical part of these changes and recommendations that we've made.

We've adopted some of the state language from the fire prevention code to define a bonfire.

We've also aligned these definitions more so with what is permissible open air burning in accordance with the Virginia air quality and the pollution guidelines, air quality management, and

We've laid out the three categories of open-air burning.

This is likely probably the most popular question that our office or the on-duty fire marshals entertain.

Where do I fall in your ordinance?

How can I burn?

Or how is my neighbor allowed to burn?

And so the land clearing, the property maintenance, the first bulleted item, that is the large permitted open-air burning that you might see from a development that has the most stringent requirements, distance, time of day, when they're allowed to burn, who can burn.

The recreational is just that.

That's the neighborhood campfire.

That's the bonfire for an event.

It's something that is used as a community kind of gathering place.

and then residential is a person who may be cleaning up from the storm, property maintenance just on their land, burning stuff from their property that meets that 300-foot distance from a neighbor or from a structure they don't own.

We wanted to also clarify the permissible versus non-permissible burning.

Friends and partners at the Department of Forestry, they conduct operations inside of the county and all over the state on a frequent basis through prescribed burn, land management programs, wildlife habitat preservation programs.

So we wanted to make sure that those were included in the new language.

It also kind of lays out more so that permit requirement inside of the county when you have to have one when you don't.

And while it seems logical, we went ahead and codified the fact that you have to stay with your open-air fire.

We would often encounter times where people would ignite an open-air fire and then they would leave to go into their home to do something else.

And that just doesn't work.

It's not safe.

And we've also added that they have to have a means of extinguishment.

Previously that wasn't clear, now it is.

We don't make you go out and buy a fire extinguisher, but maybe it's a garden hose, maybe it's the ability to cover the hole with dirt some way that the person can extinguish the fire that they were responsible for.

So that puts it in there, but very clearly lays it out for people.

Enforcement capabilities, we're responding to questions we've gotten from community and other members.

And local government gives us a little bit more of that ability to shut down open-air burning in the county when we have a locally geographically impacted event that makes air quality in the county different perhaps than it is say in the valley at the moment or closer to tidewater.

We can take local environmental impacts into accord when we issue an open-air burn ban.

It also allows our on-duty fire marshal to work with the property owner or the applicant and increase setback distances so that we have less impact on neighbors and the adjoining property owners.

It gives us that bit of discretion to move the pile away from neighbors or structures so that we can mitigate the impacts to their neighbors.

and it strengthens, we already have the ability, but it strengthens our ability to extinguish the fire while we're there, make them put it out to make sure that it's taken care of before we leave the scene or when we're done with our interaction.

And increased penalties, some of you have been involved in repeat offenders.

We would find ourselves criminally charging the same people for the same offense

and we would find ourselves with a not associated increase in fine or punishment.

So this specifically lays out if you're a second time offender, a third time offender and it increases the civil penalty associated with that conviction in a hope to change the behavior if our education didn't work with that landowner or the person conducting the burn.

It's already a class one misdemeanor.

It just aligns it with the language in the current code.

And it does add, much like we have now already through some forestry code language, it adds it to the county code language that the county can recoup the cost of fire suppression, which can be quite expensive when this fire gets away from somebody and crosses a property line and damages property.

I'll jump back in so next steps with this is

obviously this work session and then hopefully get feedback from you guys what you'd like to see and then make some additional changes if needed back to legal and another public hearing for final revised ordinance approval.

And once that's done, we'll have to send this through the state air pollution control board for approval, which my understanding is that's typically pretty

and then adopt the revised ordinance.

It's worth noting that a priority before we roll this out will be creating marketing materials such as a quick reference guide for the community and also for our fire marshals.

It is complicated.

We recognize the different types can get confusing just to have some tools available to assist the community in interpreting.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

Thank you very much and thank you to all of you for all of your year's worth of effort on this issue.

Alright, so I've got notes here.

I guess one of the hardest things for all of you to deal with is what's called recreational

and so one of the things that I think we talked about 18 months ago was something you all raised about other counties having no recreational backyard stuff before 4 p.m.

year round because of the

Spike just before the burn ban and just after the burn ban that seemed to cause a lot more staff time engagement with citizens because of the confusion.

So I would just ask you if there's any update on that or if not yet, then ask you to consider putting that back on the table for some further consideration because having eight hours of knowing that one could go to town with windows open and come home without

having your house full of smoke because you didn't know that somebody was going to be burning something at 10 o'clock in the morning right across the line from your house is a tremendous peace of mind aspect.

There are people who have respiratory challenges already and this has been a real misery for some, both in Crozet and Ballard Road, you all remember.

Sure, and it's my understanding there aren't any localities actually currently doing that.

Oh, well that's a misapprehension on my part that I was counting on.

Okay, too bad for me.

So is for recreational burn, is this considered recreational if somebody does it every day?

Or a piece of dirt?

I'll do my best.

I'm not sure how the ordinance could address the frequency of burning because we see some businesses that have a fire pit.

So they burn wood.

That's like a campfire that would operate every day.

And if we attempt to regulate that, we may find ourselves regulating anyone in a neighborhood that purchases a commercially available fire pit and wants to have something

on a weekend basis.

They burn every weekend after work while they sip wine or their favorite beverage and hang out at home.

So I haven't seen anything in my experience that regulates the frequency and I would hate to regulate a business owner that uses it every day they're open during the fall season in an attempt to regulate

frequent burner that we may have encountered in our past.

And for things like cut off treated timber slabs and things like that, those are already prohibited.

Yes, the permissible materials haven't changed.

And the last time we changed the burn ordinance a few years ago, our enforcement has up ticked.

We educate first, enforce second.

But yeah, if people were burning illegal stuff, we're already addressing that through enforcement.

And if we do need to witness the crime occurring,

So if we arrive and there is debris, trash, household waste, treated lumber, that's easy to deal with.

And if we have frequent calls for service at an address and we speak with a neighbor or an adjoining property owner, we will ask them if they can safely provide a picture or other, if they're willing to provide a statement

Right.

And 300 foot setback, which I think is for the brush pile, the leaves.

Does that also apply to the backyard?

from your neighbor's house, not yours, if you want to burn your own house up, I guess that's your right.

On technicalities, if it is in a

commercially available burn pit with a spark arrestor.

So think the mesh screen that you set on it wherever you buy your burn pit from.

That is not subject to the 300 foot distance requirement because it's a recreational, we'll call it a campfire or a recreational fire.

So that's only subject to the 25 feet off of a combustible construction.

So this,

This allows the person in the more dense neighborhood to have a commercially available fire pit that will prevent sparks and embers and ash from going to their neighbor.

But if I am cleaning up limbs, leaves, and sticks from the storm, and I create a pile in my backyard, that now triggers the 300 foot distance from my neighbor, from a structure that I don't own.

So again, confusing but not.

So think contained.

And it can be a landscape, a hard-scaped fire pit.

Rocks or something.

Rocks in a circle, concrete, any of the things that we see throughout the county.

That's small.

A lot of times the landscape contractor or the installer will provide a cover so it's that spark arrestor that keeps it from being as dangerous to neighbors that allows you to not have the 300 feet.

But if you're just cleaning up, raking it into a pile in your backyard, you have to have that 300 feet.

That's kind of the difference in activity.

We're trying to regulate

process, not a thing.

Makes sense, yeah.

So recreational fire, small.

Chief Felicia and I are having some friends over.

It's less than the size of this podium.

It's contained perhaps with a cover.

That's a recreational fire.

I've gotta have a way to put it out and just be 25 feet from something I can catch on fire.

Whereas I cleaned up after last week's storm.

and I moved everything into one of my fields.

And now I'm delving into agriculture, but my yard, I have to have 300 feet from that pile to something that I don't own or a structure that's not mine.

Because yes, legally you can burn your own stuff down accidentally, right?

But it can't impact your neighbors or go off your property.

I think that helps.

Now I may click again when I go, when other people ask other questions.

Okay.

So the 401-977-9041.

Okay.

And

that is really, really helpful because then when some neighbor sees smoke, they can call and find out and you can say, yes, they've already called in, they're doing something rather as opposed to my neighbor calling me 20 years ago and saying, is your house on fire?

Because we see something going on.

It really scared her.

And it also provides responders through the ordinance, the name of who's responsible and a phone number.

So if we do show up and the person has left, or we're trying to figure out who belongs to the fire, when they reported it, they should have given us contact information.

So that should take care of most of our frequent flyers we've had.

Assuming they choose to follow the rules.

Yes.

Until we get a, at that point it would be enforcement, right?

They didn't follow the established ordinance.

We receive a call for service.

We send someone out.

If they're breaking any of the rules, it's either education or enforcement, depending on who.

Okay, so you've answered my 300-foot question.

Notice provisions to neighbors, was that something else that you had considered?

I'm sorry.

When there's this

There was a request earlier today that when we're talking about this this afternoon that we ask about notice to neighbors when something is planned.

So you're now gonna require me if I have brush or something to call up and say, I'd like to burn this this afternoon.

Is the weather suitable?

Which is always my first question is, is it safe for me to do this today?

And somebody smarter than me will figure that out.

Is there any feedback to neighbors

Do they have a list or something if people want to be notified?

Could they supply their email to you?

I think what we're describing is there may be a technological solution and

That's been brought up as an idea.

Expand, perhaps, the ability of the MOBI report that you all receive for community members to be able to see that.

Oh, I assumed it was.

I didn't know it was secret.

Well, it's not a secret.

It's not on a public platform, per se.

and honestly right now talking to IT about creating a, I didn't go there yet.

We won't rat you out, it's all right.

We can, as far as adjoining property owner notification, likely the easiest place to insert that in the ordinance update would be the land clearing, the commercial open air burning where they have to require, where they apply for a permit.

So we could,

In theory, add that to the ordinance as a condition of the permit that they have to provide, much like some community development processes where you have to notify adjoining property owners.

That could be a requirement for the larger land clearing burn permits.

It would be a little challenging on the property owners, like the personal, the small 300 foot burns.

because that person may just decide on Friday that weather conditions on Saturday are good to burn.

But we'd have discussed making movie outward facing so people could get online and look at their part of the county and see, yes, they're

There are six people who reported open-air buyers in Crozet.

And this is where they are.

And those calls aren't even on there right now.

Because right now, all I see anyway is the orchards and the big stuff.

They pop on and pop off so quickly because people call in, I'm going to burn today at 4 o'clock.

They burn, and they say they're going to end at midnight.

so it drops off of Mobi the next day.

So you may not even, if you look at Mobi now, there's a fire icon without a check and there's a fire icon with a check.

And I don't have it in front of me.

One of those is they have a permit.

With a check has a permit.

That's the large Monday through Friday, eight to eight, all the regulations.

Without the check is I called in to say I'm burning

at my mom's house in Esmont, and it shows up for today, but then it drops off tomorrow, right?

And then people call in and say, we're done, we're safe, it's out.

It also, they ask them, when will you be done?

Give us an approximate time.

So if they forget to call, we're not left with

I get it.

Or a week.

I mean it probably wouldn't take long to fill up the map.

I do appreciate the value of contacting the neighbors for these larger ones.

That has been very beneficial for community building and helping people understand what's going on.

I really appreciate and wish you good luck with the changes in the enforcement classes because I know zoning has had a hard time getting to that magical $20,000 to shift it into a higher level.

And I don't know where the fire thing is.

So in this case of the ordinance revision, it's the second time I come back and charge you, it's a minimum $1,000.

as opposed to currently it's zero to $2,500 based on the judge's ruling.

So the first offense will be whatever you get from that class one misdemeanor.

The second offense for the same charge will be $1,000.

There are legal actions that can be taken.

We've had some ethical conversations as the on-duty fire marshal.

This isn't a jailable offense.

You know, we don't, class one misdemeanor can end up in jail time, but we do not

physically detain you and pull you to the magistrate's office or jail for an open-air burning.

So it seems a little off internally to say we're going to issue a capias for someone who doesn't show up and arrest you for an offense that we wouldn't have arrested you for initially.

But perhaps long-term there can be... It depends on the history, in other words.

There's history, there's other things they may have in their background.

The fines stay on the books.

Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley.

Yes, I have several questions.

I'm really excited about, you talked about the MOBE system and if that could be incorporated, if and when it becomes publicly available.

To me that's the best way to notify neighbors because otherwise we're, if we're sending out

letters, or if we're sending out emails, if someone misses it, then we can be liable for non-notification.

But if we put the onus on the neighbors to call in to see if this is proper or not, and they can see where burns are happening, that would be fantastic if that could happen.

I did want to ask

Okay, so that's the only permit that's required.

All right.

It's from a structure that the person doing the burning doesn't own.

So if I put a fire in my backyard, I basically drop a pin in the middle of the fire, and I go out 300 feet.

And do I get a shed, a barn, a house, a fence?

We would likely move, we would try to work with them to move it away from.

Okay, anything they do not own.

Okay, that was beneficial.

Thank you.

I know you talked about, under definitions, automobile, graveyard.

Would that also include, let's say, semi-cabs and trucks and such?

Vehicles, okay, because it says automobiles.

If it's vehicles of any kind, I think that's helpful.

On page 3 of 10, item 16, it says junkyard.

The term junkyard means an establishment or place of business.

I may have to look into that one.

I'm talking about a junkyard in someone's home, you know, like their front yard.

They're using it as a junkyard.

I mean, I've had that problem.

And on page 6 of 10 says the burning must be constantly attended by a competent adult 18 years or older and the burning must be conducted so as to minimize any inconvenience or nuisance to neighbors.

I'm concerned about that because I could have a nice little bonfire and I'm roasting some marshmallows, whatever, and I've got a neighbor that is constantly calling, you know, complaining that there's smoke coming.

So I think that

I think you should look at that because when you say minimize any inconvenience or nuisance to neighbors, you might be getting a lot of calls there.

And I think that's something that maybe you can work through your attorneys, whatever, to reword that.

Because you get constant complainers and you get constant burners, so trying to help you out there.

On page eight of 10,

Number 13.

Okay, this is a good one.

The burning must be conducted only when the prevailing winds blow away from any city, town, or built up area.

That's everywhere.

the winds are any, if there's any wind at all and if it blows in any direction it's gonna be toward the city town or built up area.

That I think you should look at very carefully.

I mean I can understand about winds and I can understand you notifying people that hey, it's too windy, this is not a good time to burn, you should not be doing this.

You're leaving yourselves wide open because anyone can say anything when you use that kind of verbiage.

And those are all my questions.

Thank you.

Good document, by the way.

Thank you both.

It sounds like you started to get at this earlier in a response to a different question, but anywhere

I'm looking at section 646A and B, which is primarily 6 and 7.

But they do require, the places where it requires notification to you all.

But it sounds like there's no, I guess earlier you'd mentioned, well the weather changed, so now things are favorable.

Where maybe on Tuesday, if I'm trying to figure out if burning Saturday is gonna work, I may not know on Tuesday, but by Friday or Saturday I know, so then I can

put in my permit, go online, et cetera.

So recreational and private property burning, there's no permit.

So they can make that phone call at three o'clock in the morning to notify the communication center that they're gonna burn at 7 a.m.

if it's allowed.

The land clearing folks that have to apply for a permit

They're strictly regulated and you cannot apply on Monday and expect to burn on Tuesday.

There's a review, it takes a while.

But if you're going to have a recreational fire or just do something in your yard as a land you're cleaning up, you can call us at 5 o'clock p.m.

and be burning at 6.

Well, I guess what I'm getting at, understood on the land development piece, you know, I don't know how you get at it with backyard campfire type things, but it seems like the ones with the 300-foot barrier, they seem to be larger in scale, obviously, in my mind, if you've got a large leaf, branches, that sort of stuff.

But since the notification must be made, understood that they're not doing a permit in that case, I'm just trying to get at

the rationale behind not having a requirement, a 24 hour or 48 hour or whatever, seems to be because there's a lenience given towards weather conditions.

Just like there would be if you did require a three day notice and then it rains on Saturday, well it's immaterial because there's a big storm happening.

And I guess you could burn technically, but I think though since there's not that requirement,

that it would help me to endorse the idea of MOBI going public.

I know that when we created that, at least if a constituent reached out to a supervisor, it gave us a method as a supervisor to go in and go, okay, yeah, we've got a notification that there's a burn happening there.

Beyond doing that, I'm not entirely sure without having a required timeframe ahead of time of how to require notice for these smaller type of things,

I mean, residential burns, if I want to go out into my backyard and enjoy a campfire on one night, I think it's unreasonable to ask for a 20, you know, HOAs may be able to get at that, you know, there's a neighborliness.

It's no different than if I'm gonna have a party and there's gonna be 14 cars outside my house, can't require you to notify your neighbors, but it's, by God, it's neighborly to be able to let them know ahead of time that there's gonna be a party happening.

But for the things that seem more manageable, like,

the sticks, the big yard things where it requires a further setback.

I think that notification does become important because it seems like the impacts could be larger to surrounding folks.

And at least having access to that I think could give some people the ability to know at least they've notified the fire department and can go from there.

But I mean, at the end of the day, how do you notify everybody?

I mean, you couldn't do it by mail.

I mean, we'd have to require a six month in advance based on the way the postal service delivers.

We don't keep emails on every single person in the county.

So we'd have to provide some sort of way for them to check us, which I think Moby could get at.

Yeah, and one of the things we sort of envision, but again, this is a heavy technological lift that we haven't gone there yet, but have the Moby the map that you're able to search and look at more closely, but also

almost kind of, I hate to say dashboard, but dashboard-ish where it also has conditions that are updated so that people know, can come to our site and say, oh, it is a good day to burn, or oh, no, it's not a good day to burn.

So to have that information readily available for the public from our office saying, we don't recommend you burn today.

it might not meet the conditions for us to put a ban on burning, right?

But this isn't a great day to burn, right?

Am I correct in the

prior to this edit, and I guess, well, currently, because the edit is not official, the fire ordinance does not contemplate for the possibility of recreational fires.

It allows for recreational fires, but it's very vague, and we have people who know how to say, this is my recreational fire that's significantly bigger than what a recreational fire should be.

So we find people trying to use the recreational category creatively.

So this just kind of defines it clearly.

I have kind of a few, some kind of extensive and very technical notes on the recreational subsection B, 406B, and kind of just

The hierarchy of definitions that are being used, because I think there's some work that needs to be done in this section.

So it looks like there's kind of three categories.

There's recreational fires, which you define in the definitions as being less than nine square feet.

There's bonfires, which are bigger, as greater than nine square feet and two feet in height, which I would point out creates a universe of something that is not defined, right?

If you have something that's greater than nine square feet and lower than two feet, it is not defined in the code.

So that right there is a problem.

and then the term bonfire ends up not being relevant in the actual section B because the actual policy distinction that's made is for what is called large recreational open burning such as bonfires which is even bigger than the default for bonfires because that is 25 square feet and five feet in height.

So we have three criteria.

I don't think we're using three criteria.

I think we're using two criteria.

and further, Section B is not structured in a way that lends itself to be interpreted correctly.

Because what you say is, and the following are allowed without a permit from the fire official.

The things that follow are not then types of fires that are allowed.

It's actually just a set of additional thoughts about this category.

And it is in that list that, for example, we have

large recreational open burnings, which are explicitly not ones that are allowed without notification to the fire official.

What we're asking for is small recreational fires, big recreational fires, two categories.

They should be separate sections and they should highlight where that distinction happens and that's not what's happening.

I did not understand this until I was reading for conflicts and I don't think you could expect the public to understand this.

No, we've gone round and round with language to try to clarify and we've actually worked with legal to some extent.

That's why I feel like there's going to need to be an accompanying user guide or quick reference chart that shows this is the type, this is what the parameters are.

whether or not you have to get a permit, whether or not you have to make a notification.

I envision a chart with columns to delineate that.

But yes, I'm sure there's ways in which this could be further clarified.

Thank you.

That was honestly the main thing I had concern with, because I didn't think it read in a way that was coherent.

And it contradicted its own statements once or twice.

There were a few other things I had.

One quick little flag.

This is probably a nothing burger.

A tingle goes down my neck every time I read ceremonial purposes or religious purposes in a law.

I'm like, oh, are we good on 1A?

Are we good on Raupa?

Are we good on 1A?

Are we good on Raupa?

I don't actually see why it would be a problem.

Good.

OK.

I have a similar reaction.

Good.

I actually also share the concern on what subsection 406 C13, the burning shell, I think that needs to be defined more clearly because that could be interpreted really liberally in a way that is not clear what it even is asking me to do.

I might not have support on this board but I like the idea you have of the escalating fine of kind of starting with the class misdemeanor than having a fee that escalates each time.

What I don't like and like this is

personal policy beliefs a mandatory fine.

I would much prefer that being something that we can apply discretionarily, something that you can apply discretionarily and I do not vote for things that say mandatory minimum, full stop.

So that would be something I'd share to the rest of the board.

I would very much prefer that be a discretionary thing and I would withhold a vote on this over that.

It might be a symbolic vote, but I would rather that be discretionary.

And I think I had one other thing, but I'm forgetting where it was.

Oh, I think we're probably consolidating on this, but it seems I can't think of a way, in the case of large recreational fires, which do not require permitting, but do require notice.

I can't think of a way, as Supervisor Gallaway was saying, to coherently,

and in any manageable way notify surrounding areas, even though I think that is a normatively good thing to notify surrounding areas.

So if there was a way to make MOBE available in a way that was frankly not intrusive to the county, not costing us a lot more to make some kind of public platform, I would be supportive of that as a way to kind of deliver on that message.

Thank you.

Supervisor McKeel.

Thank you for your work on this.

And it's amazing how you think something should be kind of simple and it really, counter to it, it's all good.

I wanna just get back, I wasn't gonna, Mike just brought up an interesting point.

So he's talking about discretionary fines, I believe.

So I have concerns when I hear that.

because we try really hard not to, in many cases, we want to make sure that people are being fined, everybody's being fined the same for the same situations, right?

So that worries me a little bit, but just your thought on that when, because I don't think you said anything, you had a chance to say anything when Mike was talking about the discretionary.

Well, I'll take a stab at it.

Historically, we get a low amount that doesn't

Yeah.

And so ultimately, the Commonwealth Attorney's Office is going to be the one making that determination.

When we go forth, they're the ones representing us when we go to court with someone.

And so they specifically reviewed that section and actually

felt like we should call out a second offense raises that to a certain threshold.

A third he raises to another threshold.

Currently it's a class one misdemeanor punishable by up to $2,500 and or 12 months in jail.

So it's already discretionary for the judge.

He or she are the ones that set the fine.

So we've seen them as low as $25 or as high as a few hundred.

$25 doesn't divert anybody from anything.

So I fully appreciate the mandatory is a little bit concerning and heavy-handed.

I do believe we needed to meet somewhere in the middle with

And we have other situations in the county with

that very problem, right?

What we can get and find isn't anywhere near.

But I really appreciate that lens.

That helps me a lot because I would be very concerned, and maybe I was just a little confused, but I'd be very concerned if the discretion was up to you all and the community was thinking, okay, and that would be putting you and the Board of

And I don't want to go there.

There you go.

That's right.

So that's very helpful.

Thank you.

And I'm just curious about this.

I don't want to, well, I guess if I say it, I'm opening a can of worms, but I don't want to go down in a rabbit hole too much.

But most of the time when we are looking at

Ordinances perhaps like this.

Not always, but because of our land use, we're looking at perhaps rural areas, urban areas, development area.

You all didn't do that at all in this ordinance.

My understanding is this is just where it is.

It is what it is, everywhere.

Right.

Yeah, we talked about, you know, does it make sense for us to go down the path of creating two separate, you know, for developed versus rural.

Yeah.

We feel like it's already pretty complicated.

Yeah.

And I'm hopeful we can strike a balance that can apply to both.

Yeah.

Because to have another layer of, you know, making sure people know.

I think if I could just interject.

The setbacks that we've put the 300 feet, the 2,000 feet, whether we call it rural or urban, that has, in effect, delineated the ability to burn, right?

300 feet in Schuyler is different than 300 feet in the middle of Crozet proper, right?

somewhat regulated burning in the urban area by setback distances, where we've allowed people that live in the rural areas can still burn because you likely have 300 feet or more from a neighbor.

So it would be remarkably complicated for us to say, oh, I'm going to Schuyler, so I need to apply this playbook.

And if I live in Schuyler and I move to Crozet or to Earliesville or to somewhere else,

Now I have to learn a whole new set of rules.

And I'll just add in my three years here I've seen us have to work with a homeowner or landowner to move a long-standing pile where they burned because of

That's new.

That's new.

Yeah.

So it's actively working is my point.

Yeah, and I appreciate that, and I just wanted to make sure that everybody that was listening or following this understood, because, and I appreciate your thought on that, because I don't want to go there with the development area and Roy, I understand that.

Having said that, having experienced, and I never want to create ordinances or laws because of one off.

That is not where we go.

The General Assembly does that all the time and it really leads us into messes, right?

But we did have a situation in my neighborhood where someone was using a swimming pool as a fire pit.

And by the time they threw the accelerant into it,

the neighbors on either side were just about beside themselves.

Now, that's a one-off.

So we can't create an ordinance against that and they'll probably never do that again.

But that was what led me to small lots, you know, urban areas, neighborhoods, and just asking about the, so I appreciate the discussion and I really am very appreciative of the fact that this is a piece of your work.

This is not the entirety of what we're gonna be doing.

You're gonna be upgrading the website, offering different things on the website for folks.

I always like opt-in better than when we're talking, works better than when you're creating situations like that.

But I think this is a good part of what you all are gonna be doing in the future around fire and hardening perhaps some of our landscaping and all of the, that we've heard in the past that will be coming different parts of the,

of the Fire Prevention Ordinance.

So thank you very much with that.

Thank you.

I hope I don't go on too long, but I have a lot of things I'm still confused about.

So in the, I'm gonna start just here.

There's this 6405 Exemptions B says, open burning for campfires or other fires that are used solely for recreational purposes, for ceremonial occasions, for outdoor commercial preparation of food, and, and, not or, for warming of outdoor workers.

It's odd that it doesn't sort of,

or for all those different ones.

But then 6406 has essentially four categories of burning.

Setting aside the last one, which is on landfills, it appeared to me 406B is for recreational burning, where there's no notice required and there's shorter distances.

So I'm not sure whether the exemption applies or the 460B applies for that because of those two provisions and how they might play in.

Then A is then for residential open burning which is the 300 feet and requires notification.

And then C of course is the 2,000 feet property maintenance and or land clearing which requires a permit.

If I'm right about that, the first question is, is that exemption relevant to be, since it's in the list of exemptions?

Then the second exemption is, and I've brought this up before,

6405B says open burning for forest management and agricultural practices approved by the State Air Pollution Control Board.

So I want to make sure I understand.

I'm reading this as to say that that state statute controls those activities

Are they not impacted by this ordinance?

If you have agricultural practice, and you specifically mentioned just a minute ago, a farm owner wanted to move their pile because of the location.

Well a farm owner, a lot of farms routinely have a little pile that they keep to get debris and put it in and eventually they're going to burn it.

Is that an agricultural burn under the exemption?

Is that a permit required burn?

Is that a notice required burn?

It is.

It's confusing.

Agricultural burning is exempt by the state.

That's right.

OK.

So essentially, Dillard Rule, we are not really regular.

That's sort of like one people go after the top, right?

Right.

And the current ordinance language, agricultural burning, is kind of pulled in.

Vaguely gray area.

So the farm owner that Chief Felicia was referring to, there currently is a mention in the state code about a distance for farm agricultural practices.

So if you read the state air quality folks, their language,

It puts an agricultural burn a thousand feet from a person, a structure.

So this landowner that we worked with, they had been encroached upon by development because they're on the edge of the development area.

So they had to shift back a little bit to get away the thousand feet.

With this rewrite, the decision was made to kind of let that state code control agricultural practices because

I think, I believe there are seven of them, don't quote me.

I don't have it in front of me.

There's six or seven that are exempt from any of this.

So it could be that you had an invasive, I just had a beekeeper friend of mine get an invasive bug.

So they had to burn all of their hives and equipment because the state apiary folks said it had to be destroyed.

So that is managed by that state code section.

So there was no need for a permit.

They were a couple thousand feet from a neighbor, so they didn't have to interact with the local fire marshal.

So we're trying to remove that agricultural confusion for landowners.

And we interact frequently with the Farm Bureau.

Captain Ledford meets with them to discuss agricultural practices.

So yes, the 6405 exceptions,

And typically we encounter that the folks doing those type of burns, they do notify neighbors if something's happening or they know each other through a network and there is notification prior.

And a lot of them call.

Some of you that have been around for a while may remember we used to have a certified open burner program.

And we would give you a red card

saying you had attended training from fire rescue, you were good for another year.

So they still call in regardless of the requirement to do so.

Thank you.

So looking to just the 6406 permissible burns in the different categories, you mentioned in connection with B, the recreational, that there are businesses that routinely have, you know,

as part of the ambiance, if you will, and therefore there's no limitation on how many times they can do this.

When they're open for business, they're going to have this going.

Is there a similar logic that could explain why there's apparently no

limit on the number of days you can do other residential open burning under A or property maintenance burning.

I guess I do worry sometimes that some of these activities can go on for weeks and weeks and weeks of what's clearly not part of their business.

Well, I was just going to add, part of adding the language around attendance was to try to prevent setting and leaving it going overnight or for days.

Frankly, I don't remember seeing in any of the 15 comparison localities any

limit on frequency of burning.

So now we limit the land clearing, 30 days they have to be done, but we've never delved into the, you can only burn 13 days a month or something on your parcel.

The fact that there's a limit on the number of days you can do the land clearing is already a helpful reminder for that.

Thank you.

You mentioned the MOBE system and I didn't realize that that isn't generally available to people to see where it is and I do think that that would be a good idea.

Also, sort of in the same vein,

I think I've identified, for me at least, it's complicated enough that it would be helpful if we knew that when the calls come in, that the person who's taking the call is able to identify, well, which kind of burning are you doing?

Do you fall under C?

I would hate to have somebody think they're calling in for one type, agriculture or whatever, and then find out, oh no, no, you needed a permit to do what you're doing.

Make sure they clarify what type of burning.

Okay, I appreciate that.

And I guess just a feedback on some comments that were made in 406.

13 under C, there was a question about this being conducted only when the prevailing winds blow away and all that.

To some extent, again, I would hope that if they have to call, if they have to get a permit, they have to call in to tell people, then I think it's a great idea to

We'll be able to let people know when it's good to burn, when it's not.

To the extent I have farm property and we have burned, we look for that snow.

We see that snow is coming and quickly go out, cover what we're going to cover, and then as soon as the snow hits, uncover it and then deal with it.

and I guess under the issue of fines and second offenses I just want to make sure I understand that 408B says each separate incident constitutes a new violation and I don't want to have that somehow treat

something where there's a separate incident but it's really part of the same person's activity as suddenly triggering conviction of a second offense.

I guess if they previously be convicted and then they do it, then that's a second offense.

But if they've just done it and now they're being treated as two separate violations, you can't have a second offense until you've actually had them.

convicted of the first, I guess, is what I want to make sure I think that's the way it should work.

We're not suggesting that we've just gone out there.

Okay.

And one edit that I don't think you all have is the Commonwealth Attorney recommended increasing the third offense to three year period.

Yeah, I mean, if you get to the third offense then, yeah, just waiting a couple of years and doing it again seems, yeah, they should know better.

Appreciate that.

I have nothing further at this point.

I really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Just, oops, wrong way.

I know that you wanted to be streamlined, but I love the idea someone else made, or you did, Emily, about charts.

Somehow, whatever the first question is, boom, boom, boom.

Even if you have to repeat the text in the different columns, then people can't get lost and can really stay in their lane as far as, yes, it's this size fire, and here are my rules.

I think that is a fabulous idea.

And as others have said, I really would like to have

I don't have the same concern about the mandatory because I think people need to know ahead of time.

I'm not just going to get to skate on this.

Somebody's going to hold me to the fire.

actually rely upon the strength of the ordinance when they're making these decisions?

No, I think it's just a side effect of the juvenile, the justice system.

We charge them.

It's a class one misdemeanor.

Sometimes the Commonwealth Attorney, we have to get there early, kind of brief them on why we're here.

And it's situational, it's always, this is a first-time offender, they didn't know, they were apologetic, they were compliant, all of the things.

Or we speak to the Commonwealth, this is a repeat offender, they did not want to cooperate.

We would ask that the fines be a little bit more

But again, at the end of the day, it's not up to Sean as to what the fine is going to be.

It is up to the judge rendering the verdict.

I think the ordinance will help us.

Thank you.

And I also really appreciate the county-wide approach because people in the country have felt like second-class citizens for years and years because the folks in the growth area did have a whole lot of protections that they didn't, even in rural neighborhoods where their houses were close together.

So that's a big, big step forward.

And the other really important thing, no importing of materials.

After the thing in Glenbrook where they were trucking in

tractor trailer loads of logs to burn in that lot over there that ended up getting away and almost burning somebody's house down.

So bad experiences end up getting us good things.

But I also, it struck me what you were saying about people in neighborhoods because there are fire pits all over Old Trail and they're very successfully done and I've never had a complaint about that.

So that's a different element than these other ones that you've heard so much about.

Thank you.

I wanted to clarify something that Chair Andrews brought up which was number 13 the burning must be conducted only when prevailing winds blow away from the city town area.

My point and probably not the same thing but definitely winds and you have a big construction site

and you don't want fires with prevailing wind, a lot of wind.

My concern with this phrase and maybe you can clarify for me is that you have two neighbors, okay?

I do a little bonfire or a little cookout or something and maybe the smoke doesn't even waif into the neighbors but the smell does.

Would you be getting a call saying, hey,

folks coming over here.

If I can, I'll just kind of speak to 13 since it seems to be popular at the moment.

That applies only to the permit holders for the land clearing.

They call in and ask permission to ignite their massive pile from clearing for their subdivision.

And we say, no, the wind prediction is it's going to blow directly into Pantops.

Thank you.

But to answer your question, we do get complaints occasionally about my neighbor's fire pit is blowing smoke into my house.

Yeah, we did.

And I meant to mention, just to contextualize and sort of characterize the extent of this problem, we did verify that we're receiving about one to two calls a week on average about the ordinance.

But those aren't necessarily complaints.

Those are like, can you clarify this point?

Can you clarify, do I need a permit or not?

They're pretty wide ranging.

Occasionally we get a complaint about once a month is when we're getting them.

We'll go through sometimes periods where we'll get more.

And then in terms of the impact on actual incidents, overall from 2023 to 2024, we saw a 5.4% increase in overall fire incidents.

That's of all types.

All types of fire incidents.

outdoor burning or outdoor type fires, fires that take place on outside, not in a structure.

We saw less of an increase last year.

So 3.6% increase, still an increase, but not as much overall.

So it was an increase from 300 calls to 327 calls.

So 27 additional calls last year.

Thank you.

I had two things.

First off, this is a small one, but throughout the term, structures and buildings are both thrown around as things that establish standoff distances that are required.

Those aren't defined, and I could see that potentially being relevant or even contentious.

We just talked at some length about the fire regulations.

in a campground that was going to have consistent tents set up.

I don't know if a tent is a structure.

I don't know if an awning or a camp structure is a structure.

And I could see that being relevant and worth defining.

This is going to be an awkward question.

When you say you worked with the CA's office, are you working with the CA actual, or are you working with someone in the CA's office?

Directly with Mr. Hinchley.

OK.

So I'm struck, because we have personally had Mr. Hingely come in here, because he realized at the 11th hour that something created, that we were about to vote on, created a mandatory minimum that he would be asked to assess.

And he said, I am categorically opposed to mandatory minimums, and I therefore oppose this policy.

And we did not vote for it for that reason, among others, right?

That was a thing that happened.

So I guess I just want to get clarity on that because I'm surprised.

But the other thing is I want to make one final pitch for the argument here because I know that my peers aren't on board, but I need to make the pitch for it.

Whenever we have mandatory standards, I think we need to consider what the most far-fetched or absurd possibility is and make sure that we are morally committed to that.

are the most extreme case, right?

So I'm thinking, okay, there are, I have two encampments of constituents who are homeless right by Wegmans, right?

One on top of the hill, one at the bottom of the hill.

These constituents during certain times of the year burn things.

They have an ongoing campfire.

Wegmans hates it because it's visible and they don't like them being next door because they bother their customers.

Those campfires are mostly for warmth.

They also use them to dispose their trash.

It is very reasonable that Wegmans would call the police on them, call the fire department on them.

Maybe this happens.

I could very likely see that resulting sometimes in a violation.

Right.

Yeah.

They're going to keep burning their stuff, right?

And it's shitty, and it's true, but we're condemning that person to eternal homelessness.

I was just picking out something that would move it from category B that they don't require a permit to category C where they require a permit.

That was the example I threw out for that reason, as in it would necessarily make it so that it is a violation of the fire protection ordinance.

If they're disposing their trash in it, it's a violation of the fire protection ordinance.

Richard Delorey, I'm with the County Attorney's Office.

One suggestion I might make is that we strike the term mandatory.

It would still include a minimum of, say, $1,000 fund.

Under that structure, a judge is able to suspend a portion of that.

So you'll see that in other criminal statutes where there's a minimum fine, but judges, based on certain circumstances, suspend a portion of it.

So in your case, you could have a second offender come in.

Judge would impose a $1,000 fine, could suspend all of it or a portion of it.

Thank you.

Is that?

Yep.

And I think we may, I'll speak with our team and we'll probably take that approach.

Concerns about that or other concerns?

Go ahead.

I would be concerned about what they're burning.

I mean, you're saying they're burning trash, but are there other things in there, plastic, other things that are gonna, you know, pollute the air and such.

There was a pretty good explanation that staff had made about how they were using it.

So I don't know if you want to go over that again or not.

So we deal with this actually every year.

If it's a warming fire, small, contained, natural materials, and they're just cooking or warming,

There's no enforcement action.

We make sure they're safe.

Are they away from the tent?

Are they away from the folks that cohabitate with them?

Is it safe?

If we show up and they're actively burning trash, we're going to put it out.

Say, hey, we've talked about you can have a warming fire.

It's never OK to burn trash.

Here are some ways you can dispose of it.

Not saying we would never charge them,

because sometimes we have to charge them if they're not compliant.

But yes, burning trash, we changed that a long time ago.

That's never OK.

We're going to put it out, and they may or may not be charged depending on the circumstances.

The reason this thing is still this many pages long is to give my folks that are out there seven days a week in the middle of the night interacting with a variety of open-air burning complaints

some latitude for grace and understanding while also being able to enforce when we need to to correct behavior.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

I just have a quick one and I appreciate what you all just said and thank you very much.

We can go down into a lot of rabbit holes here.

Do you have the number, I'm just curious about a data point.

I see an awful lot of responses to, and I talk about this a lot, fires started by cigarette butts being tossed out of windows.

Yeah, the mulch fires or even the grass fires.

Yeah, we actually plotted it last summer, not this past one, but the summer before.

We saw a surge in these calls on 29 in the median, and that was an area, and it's sometimes very hard to determine exactly what caused it,

we actually passed along that information to VDOT in thinking that it had something to do with the type of mulch and or the how fresh it was because it it happened in a you know in a concentrated time mm-hmm well it's probably really dry in a concentrated stretch and I well we're spending you all are spending an awful lot of time and we're spending a lot of money responding to those mulch fires yeah the other thing that's that's changed

Well, I'm just suggesting as we go forward and think about some of these situations, and this might be something that you might be able to impact through, not here, but in some of the other thoughts we're doing, if you would keep that in mind because those responses are really creating a problem.

And while it's not always, and it may be unusual, they do get out of control occasionally.

and cause huge problems.

I think that's a problem.

I think they need to be interested.

I don't care what corporate tells them it needs to look like.

They need to make it safe for our community.

Enough said.

Thank you.

No.

Thank you.

And we should come back and do the 9b3 validation process.

Are you excited?

Peter, are you ready?

Welcome back.

Board, our next item is a presentation on the calendar year 2026, land use revalidation process introduction.

Thank you, Chair Andrews and honorable board of supervisor members.

allowing me some time to present this topic today.

So it's basically the 2026 land use revalidation, but the work we go through to collect the data happens in 2025, so it's kind of the year before.

What we're gonna talk about today in overview, it'll be what is the land use program.

what's the legal framework for the program, why is a revalidation important, and what is the revalidation process?

So the land use program consists of agriculture, horticulture, forestry, and open space.

Basically the difference between agriculture and horticulture is the timing of how long the plant lives, I think, generally.

So it's like an annual versus a perennial plant.

Agriculture is the short term and horticulture is like a tree that has apples and you harvest the apples each year.

Either of those programs, whether it's agriculture or horticulture, require a minimum of five acres in use and it has to be a commercial production of agriculture.

Forestry requires 20 acres minimum.

While you might not harvest trees in any specific year, the program requires that it is a commercial crop of trees and that you are legally allowed to cut the trees.

Open space generally requires, and we've had conversations about this in the ag forest district meetings that we've had, that open space requires either inclusion in an ag forest district or the property be under an open space use agreement.

So the legal authority, like just about everything for us, comes from the Code of Virginia.

It allows localities to adopt these programs.

You can adopt any one of or all of those four programs in Albemarle County.

We've adopted all four.

It also gives kind of general rules about how the program works for each of the four categories.

but generally the Virginia Administrative Code gives more detail on the qualification and how a property should qualify under any one of those four.

And the Virginia Administrative Code is actually written by the departments that regulate those in this case.

The State Land Evaluation Advisory Council, or SLEAC, I've mentioned that before in presentations to you.

It was created by state law and that body will create values for all jurisdictions in Virginia.

for their the land use or use values that should be considered by the jurisdiction to be used for valuation under the program.

The law only requires that we consider it but in Albemarle County we use the values that are established by SLEAC.

Now there's a SLEAC manual and the manual basically is a, it just includes all of the state law, the Code of Virginia sections and the Virginia Administrative Code sections along with a body of Attorney General's opinions that would apply to the administration of the land use program.

And then of course Albemarle County Code.

That's where your body has set the rules in which we will follow.

When I say rules, at least the fact that we do a revalidation, the dates that applications are due, and what programs we include in Albemarle County.

So why conduct a revalidation?

Inclusion in a land use program is not permanent.

So just because a property owner applies for land use doesn't mean that that property, and it's accepted in the program, doesn't mean that it's automatically just gonna be there forever.

The uses of these properties can change over time, they can stop, and quite often in the past we have not been aware that they have stopped.

So the revalidation gives us information to keep up with properties better.

Because those properties must continue to have that qualified use with the alternative of rollback taxes being assessed for them.

A misconception that rollback taxes really only apply to developers when they get a property and they're going to redevelop it from agriculture to housing development or something like that.

That's kind of the common idea of what a rollback would apply to.

But the actual most common time a rollback is done is if

on an already qualified area, somebody builds a house and we would roll back that two acre home site that applies or supports that house.

That's really the most common event.

But also it can apply to just a farmer or a property owner stopping or halting the qualified use that they had in the past.

It could have to do with forested areas being harvested and that use not continuing.

Because if you harvest trees in a forested area, that doesn't stop your use as long as you regenerate the forest or you replant and take certain steps to continue it at that point.

So prior to the first revalidation, some properties remained in the land use program after seizing the qualified activities.

And I will show, the next slide will kind of give some support to that sentence.

So in 2009, this is when we first started the revalidation process.

There were 4,898 parcels in the program, 2.5, more than $2.5 billion in deferred value

resulting in $18.7 million in deferred taxes.

So that would have been, unless some of that got rolled back, that would have been the reduction in taxes for that year.

The first revalidation happened in 2010, and then every two years since then,

and we have brought that number of parcels in the land use program down almost 25% number of parcel wise.

The deferred value, now deferred value is hard to compare because the deferred value

being the difference between the land use value that is pretty static and very low compared to the ever-increasing market value of properties.

That's the deferred value is the difference between those two.

would have continued to grow through the years since 2009.

So even the 3,736 parcels that are currently a $1.75 billion in deferred value would have had a much lower value in 2009, the deferred value for that group of parcels.

Now, I estimate had we not reined this in through a revalidation in 2009, we could easily have $3 to $3.5 billion in deferred value at this point.

If the program had continued to grow the way it would, the trajectory it was on prior to 2009, when I look back at the land books and the numbers that we had at that time.

and that could have been a deferred amount of double of what it is now, almost $30 million.

So the importance of this program cannot be overestimated.

Of course, the revalidation is only half of the improvements that we've made in this program.

The fact that we now have a land use program administrator who is dedicated, is knowledgeable about not just the land use program, but the land uses themselves, farming and forestry.

having that dedicated person focused on this program has been also key to being able to use the information that we gather during the revalidation.

So the revalidation is data gathering and then it's followed up by the actual enforcement and verification process.

So the revalidation process itself,

So the way a revalidation looks for any individual property owner is based on what they qualify their property as.

So if their property is open space, first of all, there's an LU2 form that everybody, no matter what program they're under, has to fill out.

That's a requirement of the state.

And on top of that,

anyone in OpenSpace would also fill out a Form D. So they would simply receive and we've tailored this revalidation to make it easier so that anyone in OpenSpace would receive only the LU2 and the Form D along with a cover letter with the explanation of what to do.

Forestry, LU2 and the Form C.

The agriculture and horticulture is a little more complicated because it requires, in some cases, the submission of tax return information or receipts, so there's a little more to it to show that production has happened on a property.

it will be the LU2 and either Form A or Form B. Form A or Form B means Form A is the owner does the farming.

Form B means somebody else does the farming.

It's usually a professional farmer.

So important dates for this process.

We are looking to mail the forms sometime before the end of June.

That will be the kickoff of the program.

So as soon as they're mailed, the property owners can return those forms and we will process them.

September 1st is the first important deadline.

The revalidation process is absolutely free in Albemarle County.

as long as we receive a complete application and we verify that it's complete prior to or as of September 1st, then the process is free and it's completed for that person.

If we receive those applications or they're completed, because it could have been turned in earlier and they're not completed until after the 1st, if it's between September 2nd and 5th, it requires $125 late fee for revalidation.

and of course, December 5th, which is the final deadline.

Parcels after that date that have not revalidated are removed from the program going forward.

And then I believe, okay, before questions, the executive summary you probably noticed, I had something in there about a online version of the forms.

So,

We have not been able to completely test that program at this point.

So we are not gonna be able to go live with that this year.

So this revalidation will be all in paper like it has been in the past.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

Thank you for all of the work you do, and Eric as well, meeting with people.

It's, I know, really challenging and complicated as so many things are unchanged over time.

So, hold on, I did have some homework for my homework.

So, I have a question about timing of community development, what it means.

Paragraph seven, oh dear, I didn't have a page.

Assisting in the shaping of character direction and timing of community development or for the public interest and consistent with local land use plan, this is a way to qualify for open space.

This was in the homework, the packet, the board packet.

And I'd like to know what that means and I can go dig it up probably if I can, if I need a paragraph because

if it's, that worries me unless I don't understand what it means.

So my understanding of that part of the code is that the land use program can be used by the board to control and direct development in the rural areas.

So my concern was raised because of the perception that there are developers who sit on rural property in open space until 20 years from now, having spent a whole $20,000 in taxes over all that time to then develop it.

And Frays Grant is a perfect example.

1,500 acres, that was all in land use for all those years, for 25 years before it was popped.

So it is possible that a developer could hold onto land like that.

That if it's rural area, it's even possible that properties that were kind of grandfathered into the program back when the zoning was

zoning ordinance was passed originally.

There could be R1 land that's in the land use program.

A parcel with that zoning would not be allowed now because it has to be RA zoning.

But there are a few that could still be in the program because they were in prior to that zoning ordinance.

That's my understanding.

So it is possible that a developer could own a parcel

that would then be developed in 20 years in the future.

OK, then I will let that one go for now.

Where do bees fall?

I didn't see it in there, so I wanted to ask that.

And another thing that I know you and I have talked about over the years for, this is flipping back to open space again, when there's a qualifying program for them under the Soil and Water Conservation District,

in the staff report, it sounds like that's a way to qualify.

Meeting the requirements and qualification for payments pursuant to soil and water conservation programs under agreement with an agency of the state, blah, blah, blah.

Does that mean that the board could consider including soil and water conservation programs as a way to get better stewardship on open space, either as a requirement,

or because the agency is going to be doing all the inspections so we don't have a staff burden to inspect these.

But I've always grumbled for many years about the fact that open space was just nobody did anything to protect anything or cared about the buffers or did anything and they just left it alone.

and so I would like to find out if that, again, am I interpreting this incorrectly?

Is it something, a program you can use to help people stay in a program and not, what's been told to me is that there's such a misunderstanding out there.

People say I'm not gonna go in for the pollinator program where I could get all this help from the Soil and Water Conservation District because if I stop growing hay or corn or whatever it is, then I'll come out of land use.

So I don't have it in front of me, obviously, but my understanding is that section you're referring to is part of the agricultural program because it really applies to, if you have a farm and you have, this is kind of typical, if you have your farm and you have part of your farm that you're either getting payments from the federal government or the state not to plant or

Gray's Cattle on that section or something like that.

That's the part it's referring to so that the assessor doesn't say, well, you're not doing anything with this part of your property, so we're not gonna allow it in the program.

That makes perfect sense.

Excellent.

Now, please think about whether staff would recommend

including a requirement instead of an option for open space that there be a conservation contract, the county contract, which is an option right now.

And if we have the authority to do that, maybe Andy will tell me we don't, I don't know.

So that's something else that I'm not asking for an answer right now, but I would like you to think about it anyway, because I would like to think that we can up the stewardship again on these kinds of things.

Thank you.

Right.

I see that you're asking everyone to have an email address so that you can communicate with them.

Compelled?

No.

No.

Okay.

It helps with our communication, especially when I mentioned earlier if we receive your application and it's not complete,

and it can actually push you over into needing to pay a fee.

Our being able to contact the person whether it's a phone number or an email address is key for us to let them know that their application is not complete because a lot of these applications we get in the mail.

I applaud everything going online and them being able to find out whether or not their application is complete by going online and everything or in person.

Thank you.

I understand this won't be implemented.

Oh, okay.

After this revalidation is over in December, we will start, we will go back to testing the online version and the connecting system and get that working for the next revalidation.

That's what I wanted to clarify.

Thank you.

Thank you, Peter.

No questions.

I don't believe I have a question.

I might have missed this, but I want to just confirm we talked at some length about the open space category.

My understanding had previously been that the open space category is not a land use criteria that is available unless you are in an ag forest or district.

That's correct.

Is that also why in the sample that is shown to us

That is correct.

We tried to simplify the LU2 form because it includes all the options.

So if you're qualified under agriculture we X out open space and forestry.

That's what I thought, and I apologize if you've already explained that.

I just wanted to make sure I had that concrete understanding.

Okay, thank you.

Supervisor McKeel?

Thank you, Peter.

Okay, thank you very much.

Thank you.

You asked my question about the crossing off of the open space on the LU2.

The LU2 also has a place for the owners to sign but doesn't really contemplate that the owner might be an entity.

We have not had a problem with that in the past.

As the owner, even?

As the owner, correct.