Board of Supervisors Regular Second Meeting   9/17/2025

I am pleased to call to order this meeting of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors on the 17th of September at 1 p.m.

in Lane Auditorium.

We do have an echo, don't we?

But I will carry on and hope that it's not too

We have at the dais Supervisor Ann Mallek of the White Hall District, Supervisor Ned Gallaway of the Rio District, Supervisor Diantha McKeel of the Jack Jouett District, Supervisor Bea LaPisto-Kirtley of the Rivanna District, Supervisor Mike Pruitt of the Scottsville District, and myself, Jim Andrews, representing the Samuel Miller District.

The quorum is present.

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

Claudette Borgeson, and our Senior Deputy Clerk, Travis Morris.

Also, let me please welcome Albemarle County Police Officers present, Officers Lester Clark and Bryce Owens.

Thank you.

We have it in front of us if anybody has any amendments.

Otherwise, I'm looking for a motion to adopt the final agenda.

So moved.

Second.

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

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Mr. Pruitt?

Aye.

Mr. Andrews?

Yes.

And board, next up is brief announcements by board members.

And our speaking order for today begins with Supervisor McKeel.

And I'll take a pass.

Thank you.

Yes, I would like to remind folks that early voting starts this Friday for our election.

As we know, there are several statewide offices.

Both the delegates who represent us in the General Assembly are up for re-election, although neither are facing

any official competition.

We also have contested races at the local level, including a contested school board race and a contested board of supervisors race in Samuel Miller.

And I previously mentioned all of those races, but I just realized that I've neglected to mention another contested race in Albemarle County, which is there is a contested race for Scottsville town council.

There are two candidates, Molly Angvine and current counselor Edward Payne.

Eddie Payne are going to be running against each other.

And there is going to be a listening table hosted by the League of Women Voters at the Scottsville Library on the 30th, which is a Tuesday at 6 p.m.

Thank you.

Yes, we had our

Charlottesville Albemarle Convention Visitors Bureau meeting and I'm just going to give you a couple quick stats that I think you may be interested in.

Direct visitor spending reached nearly 1 billion dollars in Charlottesville and Albemarle County in 2024.

This is the third year that we've reached almost 1 billion and we're hoping to reach 1 billion this year.

We had an increase in visitor spending, a 6.5 increase over 2023.

Tourism-supported jobs in the area totaled 7,172.

Tourism-related taxes were 27.7 in Albemarle County.

Food and beverage, i.e.

restaurants, is the highest spending area.

Lodging was a combined $214.8 million.

So that is doing very well.

And we also, at the EDA, Economic Development Authority, we are having a joint meeting with the Seville EDA on October 14.

But just to let you know, our FY25 target

was to conduct and complete 12 business retention and expansion visits with businesses in the county.

So the BRE visit is designed to offer an enhanced level of service that identifies key issues, increases communication, and delivers customized solutions to support the success of local businesses.

The result, we targeted 12.

We wanted to meet with 12.

We have conducted and completed 50 business retention visits.

So a shout out to the EDA.

And that's all I have.

Thank you.

Thank you very much and good afternoon everyone.

One week from today, the Rivanna River Basin Conference will be held 9.30am to 3pm at the center.

on Rio.

Continental breakfast will be available, and lunch will be served as well.

Topics include regional water planning, drought, and flood records, presented by Dave Hirschman, who was a county employee long ago, the water guy, and data center impacts on water quality and quantity, and the river update from the Rivanna Conservation Alliance.

RivannaRiverBasin.org has the agenda and the link to register.

and I hope to see lots of people there.

The Crozet Arts and Crafts Festival is back October 11 through 12 at Crozet Park, 10 to 5.

Tickets are available in advance online and volunteers get free admission to the festival and crozetfestival.com is the place to go for all that information.

Not on as happy a note, employment scans.

Some of you may have received these.

I've received two in the last week by text.

Also, people may have received weird delivery notices pretending to be FedEx or UPS.

And send us your information so we can track your package.

The reason I'm announcing this is that on Monday, the local news had a TV story about these and how they're really taking over in this area right now.

A quick Google search will take you to the FTC website, Federal Trade Commission, and they have options for reporting for saving yourself, et cetera.

Copy the message and forward it to 7726, which is spam on your text.

This helps your wireless provider spot and block similar messages in the future.

You can report it on the messaging app you use or report it directly to the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov.

And everybody, please be careful.

Thank you.

I didn't know there was a forwarding to spam.

It's good to know.

Just as I always do, remind people that the Rivanna Solid Waste is doing a lot of recycling for vault cleanup and tomorrow's commercial hazardous waste disposal for businesses and commercial establishments.

And then Friday and Saturday are the household hazardous waste for residents.

And then continuing the following weekend, the 27th is furniture.

October 4th appliances and October 11th, tires.

So this is an opportunity to clean up, as you will.

Also, just probably first a couple announcements about the Batesville Apple Butter Weekend, which is coming up October 11th and 12th.

Pre-orders for apple butter are already being taken.

I forgot, for the SWAC committee that both Chair Andrews and I both serve on, we wanted everyone to know that there's a new law, state law, that says any businesses, vendors, that have 20 or more of the same type of business are not allowed as of July 1st of this year to use Styrofoam for their takeout.

and it will be for all vendors July 1st of 2026 next year that they cannot use styrofoam for takeout.

This is really good news to help the environment because styrofoam does not degrade and so this is really good news.

And we will also be presenting coming before the board we each received a letter regarding

The Styrofoam use, how to publicize it.

And so that will come before the committee.

And Jim, what was the other item that was?

Oh, recycling.

Recycling and encouraging recycling amongst not only everyone but in developments also.

So we're working on that too.

We have no proclamations or recognitions today so the next up is public comment on matters previously considered or currently pending before the board other than scheduled public hearings.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

The red line 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.

Do not speak from your seat or out of turn.

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

Good afternoon.

My name is Brian McKay and I live in the White Hall district.

So, am I speaking now?

Honorable board members, two years ago this board approved a special exception to the Clean Earth Fill Code for the Kendrick Farm, removing the limits the code placed on the amount of earth fill, commonly known as dirt,

allowed to be dumped on agricultural land.

The stated purpose of the special exception was that the proposed fill activity would further agricultural use of the property and that it would allow for a more natural appearance of the site.

The point was to restore 250 acres of existing pasture by filling in gullies and re-contouring the dirt.

The conditions of the special exception focused on the operation of dump trucks, limiting operations to ten and a half hours a day, Monday through Saturday, with operations prohibited on Sunday.

That was it, 52 weeks a year, with no holidays, for five years, until August 31 of 2028.

There was no stated limit to the number of loads these trucks could haul in a day.

This has resulted, as residents have documented and reported, in 50, 60, 70, and sometimes over 100 loads a day.

You will hear from other residents the damage to our neighborhood.

But in asking you to reconsider this special exception, I would like to return to the reason it was granted in the first place.

We have never heard of any progress on the pasture restoration.

Indeed, there is no visible evidence of any such work being done.

Do you know how far along the project is?

Simple logic will conclude that many thousands of heavy dump truck loads delivered in the last two years will be more than enough to fill and contour 250 acres of pasture.

Will it take three more years to complete the job?

We know, and you know, that every one of these trucks is bringing in loads from construction sites.

Whatever that dirt is that is scraped up for building foundations and road grading, it is probably not the agriculturally rich soil envisioned in the proposed pasture renovation.

And we know that construction firms will pay some amount of money to dispose of each and every load of their construction waste.

It adds up.

For two plus years, so far, one individual has benefited from this operation.

I can't say what the county thinks it has gained, but our neighborhood of 192 homes has suffered the daily assault of these heavy dump trucks and never-ending demolition of our quality of life.

We are asking you, citizens of Albemarle County, that you represent and serve, to provide us an open hearing to reconsider the special exception you granted.

We've had more than two years to live the consequences.

Consequences I certainly hope you did not intend.

Thank you.

Linda Pierce.

And the next speaker is Susan Green.

If you want to come down and have a seat in the front row, make it a little bit faster to go through.

So, Linda, you're first.

And you need to pull down the microphone so that you can speak into it.

There you go.

That's great.

Thank you.

My name is Linda Pierce.

I live in Albemarle County in the White Hall District.

I am a resident of Earliesville Forest.

I am here to ask this Board of Supervisors to schedule an open hearing to address the Earliesville Forest neighborhood's request to rescind the special exception granted to Mr. Kendrick, who is not a resident of Earliesville Forest, allowing him to truck debris through our neighborhood

to his adjacent land.

This is the third time I have attended a Board of Supervisors meeting regarding this matter of excessive industrial dump truck traffic.

I should not be here to do this.

The Board of Supervisors should be standing with me and my neighbors at any of a number of places in Earliesville Forest or along the route of this industrial trucking operation leading into Earliesville Forest as I make this request.

You would then experience firsthand the fiasco created by this board by granting an exception for an industrial trucking operation of this magnitude.

Our group would need to step into the weeds and stop speaking due to the noise level.

As we wait out the passage of these trucks, we would also need to talk quickly before the next pack roared in to repeat the process.

Over the course of several years, you,

The members of the Board of Supervisors of all Albemarle County have chosen to hear our pleas to end this dangerous and manifestly unfair industrial trucking enterprise and then move on to whatever your next agenda item might be without taking any action on our request.

you have chosen to hold up the black and white print of the special exception granted by this board rather than see the true color of what is happening in Earliesville Forest.

This industrial trucking operation through our neighborhood is solely for the benefit of one individual residing outside the neighborhood while severely damaging our neighborhood's infrastructure and adversely affecting property rights.

This is aside from the very personal negative effects wrought upon the residents, as has been spelled out to you numerous times.

I ask you again, please give us the consideration due us as our representatives.

Without further procrastination, schedule this open hearing to rescind this exception.

If you refuse to schedule the hearing, it is our right to understand the true and valid reasons supporting that decision.

Good afternoon.

My name is Susan Green.

I am a resident of the White Hall District, and I have lived in Earliesville Forest in my current home for 38 and a half years.

I am totally in agreement with everything that's been said and that you will also undoubtedly hear more of concerning reviewing the exception, allowing that hearing.

I think we are due that courtesy given the amount of misery, and I would like to say a stronger word than misery, torture and worse, that we have experienced, especially those of us who live directly along that route.

but also many, many other people because the level of noise and the fumes and the road damage impacts all of us.

I am going to give you an opportunity to see some videos.

I wish you could smell the fumes so you can at least hear the noise, see the damage and see the threat that we feel and that we fear our children, our animals and our other neighbors are exposed to.

You will also see a video, or I'm sorry, a still photograph of when one of these trucks left the neighborhood, went off the road, hit a school bus stop sign, crossed the road, hit some mailboxes, and then ended up stopped when it came to rest on the tree, again on the opposite side of the road.

This happened right after it left the neighborhood.

It could have easily happened to one of us.

You'll see a video where it looked like it might happen to me.

I hope that you will take this seriously, that you will finally believe that the videos that I sent two years ago were actually true, and that you will act on that.

And I do appreciate that you're all here.

I also would like to say thank you to the staff that has supported me in getting this video ready for you because it wasn't easy.

So yes, I'm ready.

Thank you.

The measured decibel level is often over 90 decibels and that's on my deck.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Am I out of time?

You're out of time.

Sorry.

The next speaker is Sage Bradburn.

Maybe not here.

Sage Bradburn?

All right, Margaret Walter.

Hello.

My name is Margaret Walter.

I am a resident of the White Hall district.

In 2023, the Board of Supervisors declared that Earliesville Forest was no longer a residential neighborhood.

You did this by approving an unlimited number of dump truck trips six days a week, ten and a half hours a day, for almost six years to run on our streets.

From the records, you think you approved average daily loads of zero to 1.3 with one large average of 12.25.

Here are some real daily load tallies.

March 20th, 161 passes, about 80 loads, averaging one truck every 3.9 minutes.

May 3rd, 130 passes, 65 loads, one truck every 4.8 minutes.

September 5th, 68 passes, 34 loads, one truck every 9.2 minutes.

What has been the impact of dump trucks coursing through our neighborhood on a regular basis?

First, the destruction of our roads.

Pavement is buckling, bursting, cratering, and cracking.

We lost water when a pipe along the road ruptured under the pressure.

VDOT has just left large sections of the road cut out and graveled.

Second, the noise.

I have a video from Saturday morning around 8 when we were trying to have a coffee on our back deck.

The noise of a single truck is deafening.

You can just make out my husband yelling, this isn't even one of the loud ones.

There are plenty more effects.

This dictates when our kids can ride their bikes, when we plan birthday parties, when we can expect to simply enjoy being outside in our own yard.

I've had to call the cops and buy cameras.

and monitor a place I thought was relatively safe.

The list goes on.

Is this scale, this level of impact, acceptable?

Would you allow this in Glenmore?

Would you allow this in Dunlora?

When you approved this, not only did you ignore written statements from neighbors imploring you not to approve the exception, not only did you neglect to put a limit on the number of trucks that could come through every day, you also ignored how your own government was already using this road.

We ultimately had to spend months fighting with county schools about our official bus stop

They insisted that our children should walk alongside the dump trucks to get to their stop in a 35 mile an hour zone with no sidewalks because we live in a residential neighborhood.

While at the same time, no one can tell me what other residential neighborhoods in the county have this level of sustained and heavy truck traffic.

They finally agreed to move the stop when we publicly pointed out that they were running their own construction dirt through Earliesville Forest.

at once denying that our neighborhood had been turned into a throughway for dump trucks while benefiting from that very state of affairs.

When discussing another fill site in Woolen Mills recently, Supervisor Andrews is quoted as saying, we can do it.

Should we is really the question.

I'm so glad that you answered no.

But what is being done to address Earliesville, where our lives, as Supervisor Mallek has said, are turned upside down?

I'm asking you to say, should we have voted the way you did in 2023, and then look at what's happening here and stop this?

If you have any comments in writing, you can hand them to the clerk, if you weren't able to read them.

Hello everyone.

My name's Chuck Collins.

I'm here with my wife, Betsy, and we live at 1240 Earliesville Forest Drive, White Hall.

We've lived there, we've raised our three children, we considered our sanctuary and our forever home.

If you've read the letter sent by Ms.

Erskine,

I sincerely hope that you will.

It is res ipsa loquitur.

The thing speaks for itself.

I can't compete with the excellent job that's been done already to explain the negative impact that this situation has caused all of us.

I would simply ask you to do three things.

First, if you haven't already done so,

Please read Ms.

Erskine's letter.

Second, if you haven't already done so, please take a view.

Go to Earliesville Forest and see for yourself with your own eyes the impact that this situation has caused.

The damaged roads, the constant noise,

the impact on the people, the children, the walkers that are in our once beautiful, idyllic situation.

And third, I would ask you to put yourself in the position of one of our neighbors.

What would you do if you lived next door to the dumping site and the progress that has to go on every day?

Would you tolerate it?

I don't think you would.

I don't enjoy being here today, but I have to be here because I couldn't sleep tonight if I didn't.

Good afternoon.

I think most of you know me.

I'm Dave Norford.

I'm representing Albemarle Farm Bureau today to speak on the field ordinance revisions, and I want to make clear that what I'm discussing today

is only for the proposed agricultural exemption for limited scope and limited duration farm activities for fill.

Not a big project like the one that's been discussed here.

We have had a great relationship with county staff trying to work through these proposed regulations to come up with something that's workable

We looked at some of their proposals, tried to apply some real world practical knowledge to it, and we've come up with some, what we feel is a very workable agricultural exemption.

Again, only for smaller duration, smaller scope projects.

We do have a few issues we'd like you to consider in your work session.

One of them being the proposed regulation that

The fill could only be put on a farm that had access to a public road.

Many farms, as we all know, are served by private roads.

And the proposed regulation would say that if my farm is served by a private road that also serves another residence or another parcel, I would have to get the permission of all the owners on that road

in order to do my project, which we think would be almost unenforceable.

It would make it very difficult for the farmer to decide whether they needed to get permission from the other landowners.

And it would also make it hard for the other landowners to know whether they had any say over it or not.

So if the fill would come from my farm operation, I could put it anywhere I wanted.

But if I got it from somebody else, some other source,

I couldn't put it where I wanted.

So that's one of the things.

We ask that you just do away with that.

We think it's unenforceable and unworkable.

The other one is the project must be completed within 30 days from the time you start to the time you stop.

We would ask that we could extend it to 60 days, not to make the project, the scope of the project bigger, but because of weather.

Because if we get started on this and we hit some wet weather,

We're not going to be able to finish it up in 30 days.

We all know what water and dirt makes.

And you can't do much with that until it dries up.

So we'd like you to consider those two changes to the proposed.

Again, only the agricultural exemption, not big projects.

Short duration, small scope.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

As my now grown children were in elementary school, they learned the song Dirt Made My Lunch.

It extolled the import of soil to the agricultural community.

The course is quite catchy.

Dirt made my lunch, dirt made my lunch.

Thank you dirt.

Thanks a bunch for my salad, my sandwich, my milk, and my munch.

Because dirt you made my lunch.

This afternoon you will hold a work session regarding fill dirt regulations.

It's important to recognize these regulations don't apply to any activity that's being conducted under an existing county permit.

This means these regulations are really directed at farmers.

Further, these regulations, as written down, would prohibit the acceptance

of any fill material on any farm that does not have primary VDOT approved access on a collector or arterial roadway.

I credit staff for conveniently providing a list of collector and arterial roadways within the county.

It seems like quite a long list.

I believe a list of roads that are not qualified to be on there is much exponentially larger.

I might also surmise that the majority of Albemarle County farms do not have direct access to a collector or arterial road.

Therefore, you are discussing preventing a majority of Albemarle farmers access to topsoil for their fields.

As you all know, I'm not an attorney, but that seems like a violation to the Right to Farm Act.

To what benefit?

For years, the Free Enterprise Forum has highlighted the rural areas as not a park, but a collection of agricultural businesses whose vitality keep that space open and agriculturally productive.

Your own recently approved Economic Development Strategic Plan includes agriculture as one of your five primary goals.

It cites agribusiness as an economic strength, but many farms and producers are at a transition point.

Strategies to address zoning infrastructure, market access, rural tourism, to grow Albemarle's farming is what the goal states.

If you want to create strategies that address zoning, perhaps a good start is not putting forth new regulatory schemes that make farming harder.

Please consider the limited benefits of this misguided regulatory scheme and weigh whether they're worth losing farms.

As for me,

I say, thank you, Dirk.

The next speaker is James Cohorn.

I'm probably mispronouncing that, but maybe not here.

Justin Bailey?

There you go.

OK.

Hi.

You will need to pull the mic down a little bit for yourself.

Good afternoon.

My name is Justine Bailey.

I live in Albemarle County in the White Hall district.

Myself and my family are residents of Earliesville Forest.

These are my boys.

Brody here is eight, and Brooks here is five.

And I have them with me today so you all can see who is impacted by what is happening in our neighborhood.

My family and I moved here about two years ago.

We were drawn to the Earliesville Forest neighborhood because of how quiet and peaceful it seemed.

A really great place to raise our kids.

We moved in and we quickly realized that that wasn't the case.

The first thing that we noticed was the constant noise from the dump truck traffic.

And we're not even on the main route that it drives.

We can hear every truck from inside our home, and I can promise you with two young boys it's not quiet in our house, yet I can still hear every truck that is driving by.

And it's constant, from 7.30am to 5.30pm, six days a week.

In addition to the noise and the constant traffic, the biggest issue has been the safety concerns.

I had hoped that my boys would be able to ride their bikes through the neighborhood or walk down the street to the creek that's right near our house.

But that's just not possible because it's not safe.

Trucks are driving by while kids are getting on and off the school bus.

Trucks are driving by while we are out walking with our pets and our kids.

Trucks are literally ruining our roads.

We ask for your help in remedying the situation so that our neighborhood can get back to being the safe and peaceful place that our kids deserve.

Thank you.

And let me swing back.

Sage Bradburn.

Is Sage here?

No.

And then James Cahoon.

No.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I have not heard of any suggested amendments to the consent agenda, so I'm looking for a motion to approve the consent agenda.

So moved.

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

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Mr. Pruitt?

Aye.

Mr. Andrews?

Yes.

Board, our first item, action item, is 2026 legislative priorities.

And this is going to be led by Mr. Andy Garrett, our county attorney, with help from Ms.

Kilroy, director of economic development, and I believe David Blount is here.

from TJPDC.

I'm starting with Ms.

Kilroy.

So good afternoon, Mr. Chair, members of the board.

I'm Andy Herrick, the county attorney, and I'm going to be leading this presentation today with assistance from Ms.

Emily Kilroy, the county's director of economic development, and Mr. David Blount, who's our legislative liaison with the Thomas Jefferson Planning District,

He was here a moment ago.

I saw him step out momentarily.

It's my hope that he's back in time for his part of this presentation.

But this is, as the board may recall, this is the third of three presentations that we are having on the legislative program for 2026.

We came to the board initially with some ideas in July.

We followed up with a work session last month in which we tried to hone the county's legislative program and legislative positions.

And this is the meeting at which we hope to get final adoption of both the county's legislative priorities as well as its legislative positions.

Today's presentation is going to take place in three parts.

We go to the next slide.

The first of which is a presentation of the Thomas Jefferson Planning District's legislative program.

Mr. Blunt's going to discuss that briefly.

Then we'll talk about finalizing the documents for 2026 and we'll close with a preview of the legislative form and at that point we will take the board's comments and questions.

I thought I saw Mr. Blunt come back.

Oh, and here he is.

I know.

Good afternoon members of the board.

It's a pleasure to be here with you this afternoon and I have the pleasure of only having to speak to one slide this afternoon before turning it back over to your staff.

I did want to speak to you briefly about the development of the

Thomas Jefferson Planning District Regional Legislative Program.

I also wanted to just first remind you of the current program for 2025 that was developed last fall and the priorities that were part of that program.

I'll just run through those very briefly, the first being public education funding, a perennial position that has been in the regional program to encourage the state to

support localities and school boards in delivering K-12 education and to do so by recognizing a realistic standards of quality level of funding.

the second priority is really kind of an all-encompassing position related to local program funding deals with budgets funding really provides a statement in opposition to unfunded mandates to cost shifting that occurs to underfunded requirements

and also speaks to support for enhancing the revenue generating authority of localities.

And then the final priority in the 2025 program is related to land use authority and really stressing the preservation

of localities, existing land use authority that came in to play, I think, a lot this past General Assembly session, given the number of bills that we saw that we're trying to restrict, limit, or take away local land use authority, and I think will be very beneficial again this coming year.

I've been meeting with the other local governing bodies within the region to talk about the priorities from this past year and looking ahead to starting to draft a revised program here in the coming weeks to submit that to you all for your consideration and approval a little bit deeper into the fall.

The priorities from last year have been pretty well received.

as far as continuing those in the coming year.

I think doing so would well position us to be able to advocate as we head into the next General Assembly session where certainly the budget for the next biennium in fiscal years 27 and 28 will be a huge task for the General Assembly.

Given the uncertainty, I think that there will be surrounding the creation of that budget

depending on where we are in November and March when the budget is being finalized, again depending on what the state of our economy is and what the impacts may continue to be from activities that are going on in Washington.

So again, I appreciate the opportunity to be here with you today.

I'm glad to have been part of the previous discussions that you all have had

on your local priorities and principles and legislative positions.

And certainly those will be useful as I'm looking to revise the draft program to bring back to you.

Should be getting that out to you sometime the first part of October.

And I think what we have typically done is to have that on your agenda for consideration and hopefully approval in your first meeting in November.

So I'd be glad to take questions at the appropriate time or any feedback that you all may have

with regard to the priorities for the regional legislative program.

Thank you.

So if it please the board, we would just hold questions till the end if that's okay.

Or certainly if the chair wishes to have questions, Mr. Bullen, that's fine as well.

So transitioning to the county's legislative program, the meat of the presentation today really revolves around two documents that staff is putting before the board for consideration.

If we go on to the next slide.

The first of which is the legislative program, which is attachment A. And that consists of two parts, the legislative priorities as well as legislative principles.

So as far as legislative priorities, the proposed program and attachment A identifies four of them, three of which involve potential amendments to the Virginia code.

First, we're seeking as a priority enabling localities to enforce the Virginia Landlord Tenant Act.

That was something that the board had indicated at prior work sessions.

was important to the board.

in other parts of the locality, not just limiting them to school and construction zones.

And finally, we would be, again, advocating for a referendum on a local option, $0.01 sales tax for school division capital projects.

As the board is aware, this is an initiative that has been sought in prior years that's passed the assembly and been vetoed by the governor in the past two years.

But that would be continuing on as a proposed legislative priority for the coming assembly session.

We would also be seeking as a budget amendment state funding for the Biscuit Run Park, Monacan Indian Nation Tribute Park Connector Greenway Trail Project.

Ms.

Just a reminder that this is a similar but slightly re-scoped project to what we put in a budget amendment for last year.

So that summarizes what the priorities are on attachment A and then if we go to the next slide, the program also has legislative principles and this marks a change from last year where we had a series of policy statements and it was our suggestion that we presented at the prior work session

that we scale down and try to articulate what the county is seeking in the form of principles rather than a lengthier position statement.

And so we've reorganized the legislative principles in attachment A as high level statements on the eight points you see there, broadband and the internet, economic development, growth management, environmental protection, land use and transportation,

Health and Human Services, Housing, Local Government Finance, Public Safety.

And then given the importance that we've heard from the board about transportation, we've actually broken that out and made that a new legislative principle towards the end of attachment A. We also heard the board's hesitance about supporting the entirety of the VML and VACO programs.

So that was eliminated from the prior draft of the legislative principle documents.

And at this point, the principal's document articulates support of the TJPD's legislative program, but does not take a position formally endorsing the entirety of the VML and FACO programs.

So if we go on to the next slide.

And then we also heard from the board at the prior work session that the board does want us to retain a legislative position statement.

The prior version of it last year, I believe, was 49 positions.

It's been slimmed down this year to 28.

Staff has not made significant changes from the position statement that was brought to the board previously, but simply are bringing that before the board for proposed adoption.

And again, these position statements are organized largely along the same lines as the principal statements.

There are seven categories, rather than the eight that you see on the principals.

So with that, those are the two documents that at the end of the day we're recommending the board's adoption of attachments A and B, the legislative program and the legislative position, with any desired amendments that come out of today's discussion.

But looking ahead to the next step, which is the legislative program, Mr. James Douglas in our office is still working very hard to try to coordinate the schedules of the various

board members and our legislators.

And unfortunately, it's looking as though there's not a single date that will accommodate the entire legislative delegation.

We have one date, I understand, in mid-October that is looking the most promising, where we'll have two legislators available and perhaps representation from the third in the form of a legislative aide.

But I'm confident Mr. Douglas will continue to work to try to find the best date, and we will certainly let the board

We will confirm with the board what that date is once we're able to confirm the availability of the legislators.

So that work remains ongoing.

There's certainly room for engagement with the delegation both before and after the meeting.

It's not limited to the meeting itself.

But at the meeting there will be a presentation of legislative priorities similar to what we've just done in the last several work sessions.

There will be time for the board to share concerns on transportation funding because again we've heard that that's

have been a big concern of the board.

State funding, as has been noted, has been stable while the construction costs and needs have grown.

So basically the funding has not kept up with the demand and that action is needed.

And that's certainly something that can be empathized both by county staff and by board members themselves at the legislative meeting.

And there's also time at the forum, as in past years, for legislators to share some of their priorities heading into the session.

So that's a look ahead to what we plan on doing.

But again, what's before the board today are the two documents, attachments A and B, for proposed adoption.

Thank you.

I don't have any questions on the documents.

I'm supportive of what we have.

I do have a question though about last year.

The Virginia Residential Landlord Tenant Act, I think was in our packet last year.

Correct me, and this is what I'm trying to, thinking about, you know, I have a hard time remembering what I had for breakfast, much less what happened in the General Assembly last year.

Having said that, I thought the Governor vetoed this.

That's correct.

Okay, Mike says I'm correct.

So, he, in my memory of his veto was that he said we already had permission to do this.

Now, I could be wrong.

I may be confusing another bill.

And the only reason I bring it up is when we're thinking about how to approach the bill and to talk about it, it sometimes is helpful to know how it failed.

so that you can address that right up front as to why it's necessary, not that just we have a permission.

Right.

And let me speak in broad brush strokes because I want to be careful that I don't overstep what I'm aware of on that particular issue.

My understanding of the governor's veto is that he said that the localities had sufficient other remedies to get at the same end.

I don't think that he was saying that the counties had

exactly what was in that bill.

But his thought was that there were other tools that the county could use.

That's just helpful for me to know.

in thinking about how we go forward with this and the discussions.

And if anybody has anything, they're making comments to add to that.

But thank you very much.

Thank you.

Just as a clarifying point, are we only discussing the principles page, or are we talking about principles and positions?

Everything.

Everything.

Got it.

All right.

First, I just want to reflect, I know kind of our

our drafting approach on legislative principles.

Almost all of them are in the same form.

It's like, this is the priority.

We want funding and authority.

This is the priority.

We want funding and authority.

And that ask comes every time.

And there's once or twice where I pause, I'm like, is that actually the ask?

The example that I think really jumps off the page is broadband and the internet.

We want

It says we support legislation that promotes accessible and affordable broadband for all county residents, either through state funding or expanded enabling authority, which sounds nice.

I can support that.

But also, I'm just sitting here and being given calls to pause.

What expanded authority is even requested or relevant for this ask?

This feels almost entirely a request for funding, a request for accessibility funding to fill the federal stopgap that we've lost.

I don't know that this is urgent.

I would just reflect that to us.

I think we have a pattern of asking for the same thing, but it doesn't necessarily key into what the actual need there.

I don't know of any additional local authority that we lack in this space that we would be looking for or any that are coming forward.

It's really just a funding request.

And I like this document.

One kind of Snickelfritz edit, page three.

Yeah, that's been my word of the day for several days running.

I apologize.

I think we discussed this previously, but we moved the locality enforcement of the Landlord Tenant Act to a

a Schedule I priority.

I forget the word we always use for it.

But it's one of our big three, right?

Or our big four.

But it's also still included in this page.

I think for clarity, maybe it shouldn't be.

And that's how we've done it with others.

So I would just raise that.

I think that should be stricken.

And board, I'm sorry.

You've heard it before.

You've got to hear it again.

The rent stabilization piece, it's in there.

In the current language, it discusses supporting a state study.

I would just reflect to you, board, that I don't know that this accomplishes anything.

The legislative positions, they're basically equipping our lobbyists to have something to say when he goes into someone's office or into a work group or speaking when a bill is being discussed in front of a committee or for a final vote.

He can say, ah, Albemarle County supports this.

Albemarle County doesn't support this.

A study on rent stabilization is not being brought.

That is not coming forward.

That was briefly where some energy was when it was seen as dead in the water.

That hasn't been the case for at least two years.

This is never going to be brought up in this capacity, whether or not we support or deny a rent stabilization study.

What is coming forward and has come forward for the past three years is actual text for a rent stabilization enabling authority, something that would give us the authority to consider rent stabilization ordinance.

I think if we are going to say something on this, we need to say that we support

a rent stabilization enabling authority because otherwise it's not really empowering our lobbyists to do anything.

And you also know my position on this.

Again, it does not commit us to adopting rent stabilization.

We can have our own internal discussions and our own internal studies on whether or not it would be appropriate in Albemarle County.

But I think the expansion of our local authority here is prudent and appropriate because otherwise we're just going to be waiting longer.

If we ever do decide to do anything on it, it's just another year in the hopper.

Thank you.

I don't have any questions or comments.

The reaction to the other commissioners at the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission, Louisa, endorsed the idea of emphasizing the need for better transportation funding in the state.

Seemed like there were other heads nodding.

So I'm hopeful that that commission will find its way to maybe sending a joint letter from them to hit that.

I don't think, in terms of what I think in terms of the priority, that it's stressed here in this document.

But I don't think that, aside from putting one of those pop-out things where the fist hits you in the nose when you open the card, I don't know what else we could do to make it stand out more.

So I mean, it's just a matter of how we

Lobby, and maybe gathering support from other jurisdictions.

Thank you.

Yes, I support what we have, what we currently have.

And I'm ready to vote on it also.

And I'm keeping my fingers crossed that maybe we can get something over the finish line, once again, perhaps next year.

This year, frankly, that would be really nice.

But I do like our priorities, and I do support those.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I also support the priorities and the process that's gone on.

The only question I have is, is there any

Displacement, protection, anywhere implicit in any of these things that we're talking about?

Because that has certainly, whether it's trailer parks or apartment complexes or whatever, that's been something that has really caused disruption for hundreds of people.

So I just wanted to find out.

Thank you.

I am supportive, although I am very sympathetic to the idea of having enabling authority.

as a next step on rent controls, if you will, whether we use them or not, and also any additional possibilities with respect to displacement.

Separate from that, I wanted to raise a question for Mr. Blount.

And I was looking for it just now, but I've been reading in the news some significant concerns about our state budget.

There were a lot of good news coming out about our state budget.

in previous months, and then suddenly their projections of a big deficit.

Yes, sir.

I think you probably heard a report about a month ago from the governor in terms of the closing of the FY 25 books, some revenue surplus of about a half a billion dollars, some rollover of funding due to some vetoes that had occurred back in the spring, and some other transfers.

1.5, 1.6 billion, I think.

I think the other side of that coin is a couple of fold.

Looking ahead to the creation of the 27-28 budget, it is a K-12 re-benchmarking year, which also is that re-examination of costs associated with public education.

Based on data that's already two years old, it then becomes four years old by the time we get to the end of the next biennium.

Plus, there's always increases in required spending on Medicaid.

Those are the two biggest state budget drivers.

So I think that amount was also pegged at about a billion and a half anticipated at this point.

And then the other piece would be just some known cost or expenses that the state will have related to

Federal actions that have already occurred.

There's going to be additional costs related to the supplemental nutrition program.

There'll probably be some administrative costs related to Medicaid beyond just the usual driver piece.

And then I think what other pressures that there may be that the General Assembly feels, whether it be from nonprofits or other entities,

where grants have been lost or funding has been cut and how they choose to deal with doing some backfilling.

Thank you.

I appreciate the insights.

I would just say that the headline today was Virginia looking at a $1.75 billion loss to schools and Medicaid.

That was the headline today.

That was what I was referring to.

Thank you for finding it.

And on another happy note, is there, because I don't get the paper early enough to do that, any update after the Federal Impact Committee report last week about, they really focused a lot on the survival dollars for SNAP and things like that.

Yeah, there's both some administrative and some benefit, I think, impacts.

Right, huge in both cases.

And I think some of that's going to probably continue to evolve in terms of what they know.

I don't think there's been guidance in all of those areas that's been made available yet.

So their staffs are, I think, hyper-focused at the General Assembly and the money committees on this.

Well, I will hope that the federal government is operating the 1st of October.

That would be a great relief.

That's another uncertainty.

We don't know what's going to happen.

And I will just add, Jim, and I'm sorry I've jumped in twice now, but Mike's description of the rent stabilization.

So my concern with supporting that is that I don't know enough about it, which is why I wanted to study.

and it sounded like to me what the folks in the General Assembly have been talking about was actually having to build for rent stabilization, which is why I wanted to study because I don't know enough about it and I have a hard time supporting something that I don't understand at least the basic pros and cons.

I mean it would give, the bill as drafted in previous years is an enabling authority bill.

It does not impose it, right?

It gives us the opportunity to do it, which means we could have our own staff presentation weighing the pros and cons.

There's also, I mean,

And that's helpful.

Chair, do you think it would be helpful or prudent to put this to a vote?

I certainly want to know the consensus of the board.

And I rather than actually a vote, I mean, we went around.

And I think there are two of us that are interested in doing this.

You're talking about the rent stable.

I'm talking about the rent stable.

Same thing.

I just don't know enough about it to give a consensus one way or the other.

I just don't know.

I guess my view would be the study would be something we would follow after if the bill passed and gave us the enabling authority to think about it then the study might be appropriate from our local and have local stakeholders involved rather than having everything happen in Richmond.

My understanding is all we're doing is recommending to what the state to do.

It has no impact on what we're going to do right now.

To be perfectly frank, it's a political maneuvering.

But the idea of the study, it seems in the state of Virginia,

is that it at least pulls back from just the pure politics of it and forces people to deal with some substance and content.

I don't necessarily think that frees it up or makes it more politically viable.

I think for just the local politician in me, with the people that we partner with to try to achieve affordable housing have severe concerns about rent stabilization.

It scares them.

Just hearing that word, it's affiliated with rent control.

and more than a study or what I know about it.

I'm not too worried about that, but I'd rather step back and have, which you could do.

I mean, I can have that conversation with these local folks, but I haven't with the developers and folks that I think would panic when they hear this phrase or this word.

So I think a study by the state that has everybody in and all the players involved just turns maybe the temperature, the concerns down on that type of conversation.

So whether it's in here or not, I mean, I'm not going to vote to not put it in there.

But I'm not also advocating to put it in there.

Because I understand there's frankly other things that I think we can get accomplished for Albemarle right now.

And we have other tools to try to attack the affordable housing piece.

So that's just where I'm at on it.

And I will say the sad thing is that there's a stack of JLARC studies like this that over the last 10 years we've received those studies and they've never been acted on.

And I mean, I'm pointing that at our Democrats when I say it's not going anywhere.

So I'm not thinking of, I mean, there's just one side that I don't think will ever want to do it.

But if there are folks in the middle or in moderation, and those who are on the Democratic Party that would be against it, I think pulling back the political, just the political maneuvering, if you would, the study at least gives something there that they'll grapple with and maybe could change some minds.

So I think it's a smarter approach to get at it.

And I think that was our discussion the first time.

Yeah.

I mean, just because we have the enabling authority, I don't feel like that dictates to us how we want to do things.

I certainly would be supportive of the local control and be able to go through our own process.

That's why I wouldn't stand in the way of putting it in there.

But I'll be curious to hear what our, I assume and presume, that you will

I would not bring this up if the board did not vote to include this as a, I might separately, but not when we're in front of them together.

I don't think that would be appropriate.

Chair, I hate to do this.

I wanted to say one thing before you vote when you're ready for that.

Well, two things, actually.

The affordable housing

The sector is already regulated by the state and federal control numbers.

So I think for them to say this is the end of the world is probably not fair because they're already having all the guidelines that Stacey reports to us all the time about what one bedroom, two bedroom, and three bedroom

units shall cost if they're going to be called affordable, et cetera.

Second of all, perhaps consider two phases to this, one to have the study and the other to support enabling authority and send it all down the road.

As I mentioned, every single one of our priorities says, and further expanded look, enabling authority.

And also, I would just raise, as I mentioned before, if we did not have these more particularized priorities, I think our legislative principles housing goal would be in support of this, because it is expanded authority for preservation of affordable housing.

So absent the particularity of us not saying yes,

Yeah.

Mr. Chair, I would like to move that we, after the word study under rent stabilization, add the language and local enabling authority for, or rather, sorry, a state study of add

I'm sorry, could you repeat?

Following of and local enabling authority for.

Is everybody clear on that proposed notification?

Or are you making a motion?

OK, so we have a motion from Supervisor Pruitt, second from Supervisor Mallek.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Mr. Pruitt?

Aye.

Mr. Andrews?

Yes.

Okay, with the expectation understanding that we're not saying that we're going to use that authority if it's granted.

So Mr. Chair, what I understood this last motion was just amending attachment B. I think at this point the board would still need to adopt attachment A and then adopt attachment B as amended.

Two separate motions.

Thank you.

Then we're looking for a motion to adopt attachment A. So moved.

Second.

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

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley, Ms.

Mallek, Ms.

OK.

From the position statement, right.

So moved.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallet?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Mr. Pruitt?

Aye.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Board, this brings us to work session on zoning fill regulations.

And this is being led by Jody Filardo, Director of Community Development, and Amelia McCully, Special Projects Manager.

Good afternoon, Board of Supervisors.

Jody Filardo here, Community Development Director.

It's my pleasure to introduce our august team working on the fill ordinance today.

In November of 2023, I was before you with Bart Swoboda and we were talking about the status of where we were with Phil at that time and at that time you suggested to us it would be a great idea to go back and take a look at the Phil ordinance based on the experience that we've had.

Today, in front of you, we have some suggested new fill ordinance language.

This is a work session, though, so Amelia McCully, who is our special projects manager, and Bill Fritz, who is our development process manager.

Two of our best zoning folks are going to be making a presentation to you.

We're going to outline the research that has been done since you suggested we go take a look at this, the stakeholder outreach that has been done and the feedback on that.

and then we're going to go through some ordinance suggestions and some revision suggestions.

We're also going to talk about the possibility of an agriculture exemption and so we'll lay all of that out for you.

We have a couple questions for you as well that we'd like your consideration on.

So with that I'd like to turn it over to Amelia McCulley.

Actually I'm going to start.

So Bill Fritz, Community Development.

Amelia and I are going to do a presentation.

We've sort of divided this two ways.

Amelia's going to talk about the details of the ordinance.

And I'm going to sort of give a background of where we have been and where we're going and sort of how we got there and just sort of an overview of everything.

Part of that is because you may remember that in September 2016,

Prior to that actually, the board adopted new regulations and I worked on those to sort of close that loop of previous to now.

So the current ordinance was adopted back in 2020.

When those were adopted, the board asked for a review of the impact in their implementation.

In November of 23, staff provided a program update and the board agreed that staff should engage with interested parties and generate some recommendations for amendments.

And staff launched the project on Engage Albemarle.

We've also reached out to applicants for fill permits since 2024, adjoining localities and other interested organizations and individuals.

Just to give some back.

To give some background, moving dirt around the same property is not regulated as fill.

Bringing material in to construct anything that has been issued a building permit or has an approved site plan is not regulated as fill.

That's part of the construction activity.

So this fill and waste does not apply to those things.

The zoning ordinance regulates clean earth and inert waste fill coming in from a different property.

The Water Protection Ordinance regulates land disturbance of 10,000 square feet or more, including the filling of land.

Many agricultural activities, including those related to fill, are exempt from the Water Protection Ordinance.

I'd like to briefly describe how the ordinance is structured.

Clean Earth Fill is allowed by Wright and the RA, VR, and MHD Monticello Historic District.

Clean Earth Fill is basically soil, stone, and small percentage of roots and other woody material.

inert fill and clean earth fill is allowed in all the other zoning districts by right.

Inert waste can include clean earth fill as well as other materials that are uncontaminated and non-reactive such as concrete, broken bricks, and block.

All fill activity is subject to regulations.

Some activity is by right and some requires a special use permit.

The things that are subject to a special use permit are fill activities lasting more than one year, fill activity that does not have direct access to a collector or arterial road, and inert waste activity in the RA, VR, and MHD districts.

Agricultural activities are exempt from many regulations, but not all of them.

All of the regulations may be modified by the board through the special exception process,

And Amelia will be discussing more of the details of the actual ordinance later.

I was just trying to give you an overview of how the ordinance is structured and generally what it does.

So there are some unique impacts and features that are associated with fill activity.

Truck traffic is the most common complaint associated with fill activity.

Noise can also be a concern, but not always.

It is inevitable that some development will produce surplus fill material.

It is not necessarily a good use of the landfill for the placement of fill, and requiring that can increase development costs.

Farmers use fill for many agricultural purposes such as leveling fields, farm ponds, drainage, and contour farming.

There was stakeholder input that staff sought.

Staff reached out to a variety of interested parties to receive the input.

The input is provided.

You have some attachments.

3, 4, and 5 contain a lot of the public input.

And I believe you've also received emails directly.

In August of 24, we launched the project on Engage Albemarle.

We also sent an email to various community members to inform them of this project and provide a link to Engage Albemarle and background information.

We solicited input on their experience and lessons learned.

We informed UDA, RSWA, PEC, SELC, FEF, Farm Bureau, Cadre, Blue Ridge Home Builders Association, and residents who have reached out and expressed an interest in this work, and WPO applicants, that's Water Protection Ordinance applicants, fulfill since 2024, and that's about 62 individuals who are entities.

The project on Engage Albemarle included a survey to understand people's experience and ask them to share lessons learned.

In May of this year, via email, we shared background information and the initial draft of the revised regulations to those parties and those asked to be kept informed.

In addition, we shared the draft with TJPDC, the city of Charlottesville, and the counties of Orange, Nelson, Green, and Buckingham.

We've met several times with the Farm Bureau,

and have met with neighbors to the Kendrick special use exception.

I want to point out this is not about any particular application.

It is a zoning text amendment that would apply countywide.

At the end of August, we informed the same parties and all who asked to be kept informed of this project about this upcoming board session.

I just want to point out

I just want to point out that we've listed some of the stakeholders' input, some of their comments, and you've seen those up on the screen.

I just want to point out that the current draft does not remove asphalt as an inert waste material, and that inert waste is not permitted in the RA, VR, or MHD districts except by special use permit.

All right.

So we researched other localities to see what their trends and practices were, including neighboring jurisdictions.

A total of 23.

And of the 23, about half of them, 12, have fill regulations in their zoning ordinance.

So that means that 11, the other half, don't address it as a land use.

It's purely an engineering technical review, such as,

would be found in the water protection ordinance.

Now of those that do have zoning regulations about fill, about half of those six have performance standards as we do.

And then in terms of how the approval system kind of breaks out amongst those localities, three of them

Again, of the twelve, three of the twelve only allow fill through a legislative action from the governing body.

Three of them only allow fill for agricultural use.

Only agricultural and it's by right.

And then six, it's sort of a hybrid where some of the permission is by right, some of the permission is through a legislative action.

So of those localities that do limit fill activity, because we spend a lot of time trying to think about how to get our arms around limits to the scale or scope of fill, most of them use a maximum volume.

The exception is Prince William County, which is a locality that uses a regulation that's based on maximum truck trips per day or per year.

By right, if you stay under 15 trucks per day and under 300 trucks per year, it's a by right use.

If you go above that, it's special use for it.

And I should just note anecdotally, even though I'm just talking very broadly about research, that in talking with them, they said it's very difficult to enforce this.

So staff recommended updates include multiple things.

I'm going to just sort of breeze through those and focus on the main substantive questions for the board.

There's a lot of reorganization to put things together.

There's a couple of changes to the definition of clean earth fill to make it easier to enforce, clarifying roles between county engineer and zoning administrator, clarifying that these regulations don't apply when it's

Agricultural excavation material used on the same farm, clarifying that if there's a requirement through a special use permit, for example, or special exception for monitoring equipment, that the applicant is responsible for purchasing and it's subject to county approval for what and where it goes.

Now the more substantive questions, these revisions relate to

road type requirement for access to the fill activity, duration of the activity, and then the creation of an agricultural exemption for a short-term small fill operation.

So I'm going to talk a little bit about the difference between special exceptions, special use permits, and then we'll dive a little deeper into those main questions.

In terms of background, this board is very familiar and sees special exceptions and special use permits all the time.

Staff suggests that the technical requirements of an ordinance such as this should still be available to be varied or modified through special exception.

However, key requirements, such as the duration and the access to fill, things that can directly impact off-site properties,

should be subject to a special use permit.

We ask why.

And there are three reasons that I would recommend that those key requirements be subject to a special use permit.

One is it's a broader process with a community meeting and two public hearings than there is for special exception.

The other is that a special exception is limited to a technical review of that specific exception, while a special use permit is reviewed against much broader criteria.

And finally, through a special use permit, the board can place much broader conditions on the location and operation of the use to limit the impacts.

All right, the first focus issue is duration of fill activity.

A frequent comment from neighbors to a county long-term fill activity relates to the duration of the impacts on them.

This includes a recurring request in your attached input from stakeholders

that fill never be approved to extend beyond one year.

So what staff is suggesting for this topic is that a special use permit be required for fill activity that lasts longer than one year.

This is not an exempt activity.

We're going to talk about an agricultural exemption.

This is something that doesn't fit into an exemption.

So anything that would go longer than one year, special use permit, through the commission of board, broader conditions of approval.

Secondly, the restriction for fill activity access.

The most common comments from neighbors to a county long-term fill activity relates to the impacts of truck traffic through residential streets in their neighborhood.

These types of internal public roads are typically called local streets and they're at the lowest end of that diagram on the right-hand side.

There are requirements currently for the adequacy of that road

and for its entrance onto a public road, the access, the private access entrance onto a public road.

Staff is recommending with the draft that's before you that we limit by right fill activity to direct access by a public collector or arterial road based on a VDOT functional classification system.

It's both online in ArcGIS, and it's also available in a spreadsheet, which is one of your attachments.

So what that means is that fill activity access would not be allowed by right through internal residential subdivision streets or private access easements.

It would require a special use permit.

So some examples of arterials and collectors that would be

would meet the requirement are major roads such as route 620, 29, 250, route 810, route 692, and things like that.

OK, moving on to the next focused.

topic, which is the agricultural exemption.

To support agricultural use and balance it with community needs, staff is recommending carving out an exemption and modified regulations for a very short-term, clean earth fill activity when it's used to support agriculture.

And the support of agricultural activity would be as currently defined in the zoning ordinance.

things such as building farm ponds, leveling fields, and so forth.

But it would be subject to several requirements.

For example, the parcel and any adjoining parcels under the same ownership or management has to be an aggregate of 21 acres.

Secondly, access to the fill site must be either from a public road, a public road.

It doesn't, for the exemption, doesn't have to be an arterial or a collector.

or it could be from a private road if the owners on that private road give their approval.

And I'm going to circle back to that in just a second.

I want to talk to you about Farm Bureau comments.

OK, number three, the trucks that are involved in that fill operation would be limited.

And this is an intensity of use requirement, a maximum of 15 truck round trips to the site per day.

And then number four, a duration limit of 30 days.

So what you see before you is staff's recommendation.

I need to note that there are two of those four things on the screen that the Farm Bureau is concerned about.

Let's start with the first one, which is number two.

Many farms are on private roads.

It would be difficult to obtain all of the other owners' consent.

The Farm Bureau has asked that that requirement be deleted, that we let the requirement for the adequacy of the road physically stand on its own, but not require access approval from the other owners who have the right to use that private road.

OK, the second thing relates to number four, and that's the duration.

As you see on the board, staff recommended 30 days, and the Farm Bureau has asked for 60.

And I think that the consideration is that with weather and the ability to get clean fill, they want some flexibility to have a little more time to get the job done.

All right, so what exactly is the agricultural exemption exempt from?

The things that you see on the screen, setback, maximum fill area,

staking your limits of fill.

In terms of hours of operation, it adds a day.

The current regs are Monday through Friday for fill operations, 7 AM to 7 PM.

For the ag exemption, they are also allowed to do Saturday based on what staff has drafted.

The other exception would be the exception for the access directly to a collector or arterial.

the requirement for plan or narrative, and the requirement that fill greater than 10,000 square feet be subject to erosion and sediment control requirements.

So what does apply?

If that's what activity that fits into those four criteria is exempt from, what still applies?

What's left to apply?

Number one, only clean earth fill.

Number two, hours of operation, seven to seven, a.m.

to p.m.

Three, fill must be shaped to incorporate drainage.

Number four, maximum fill slope, three to one or 33%.

Number five, height of fill.

Number six, restriction, it can't be in a stream buffer, can't be in flood plain.

Number seven, support, lateral support to the ground.

for the fill activity.

Number eight, transporting the fill.

You've got to have a clean load bed.

Number nine, you've got to treat the road to reduce dust and debris.

And number 10, final engraving and stabilization of the site.

So those are the things that we would propose that this agricultural exemption be exempt from.

The things I've just read out, the 10, are the things that it would still be subject to.

So I'm going to move from there to the focus questions we have for you.

And of course, any general questions you might have.

There are two questions we'd like to focus on in today's work session.

The first one relates to that agricultural exemption.

Does the board support the specific proposed exemptions for this agricultural activity?

And again, note that Farm Bureau is asking for 60 days duration and no requirement for owner's consent on a private road.

Thank you.

Board, we should ask questions and the trustees, if possible.

But I think we'll have to go around more than once.

Yeah, I think we will, too.

And I'm going to start, Amelia, where you stopped, because I had a question before I forget.

Number two.

I jumped ahead to the next steps.

I'm confused, what did you just say?

Does it relate to our questions of you?

My question was, talk to me a little bit about the rationale or getting the approvals of the folks.

Can you talk to me a little bit about that?

Because in a way, that makes sense.

We do that with other things.

If we're going to put in a white street light, everybody on that area has to give approval.

The thinking was that if you're dealing with a privately maintained road and the fact that truck traffic can impact the condition of that road, the maintenance and the cost for others, that even though short-term duration activity to support agriculture could potentially impact others.

Honestly, it does with some of these roads and the difficulty in determining who is an owner and who has the legal right versus, you know, it's just been continuing open use of the road.

And I couldn't imagine it does get complicated.

Yes.

I mean it's complicated even in neighborhoods.

I don't drive to the back, and I don't want to pay for what I don't drive on.

I'm just saying.

So we consider ourselves to be an agricultural community.

I'm just making a comment.

And I've been told over the years that there is a shortage of places for fill to go.

And we have all of the University of Virginia construction happening right now and all of the other construction.

I mean, certainly developments are happening.

I guess I'm just brainstorming here out loud.

It's this conscious stream of thought.

Well, that is true and you'll note in one of the attachments from our stakeholder feedback, Rivanna, Solid Waste Authority commented that we need to find a way to responsibly dispose of surplus cut.

Everybody wants to balance your cut and fill.

It costs more to have to deal with surplus cut that you then have to truck off the site.

Let me look at my questions here.

So 30 versus 60 days.

and I hope we're in that questioning period right now, but 30 versus 60, I get weather.

So help me with some of what we're talking about with the 30 and the 60 and the travel on the roads.

Is all of this enforceable?

I guess the 30-day or the 60-day is more enforceable than some of the other parts of what we're doing.

Because it's either a 30-day, it's a month or two months.

And we looked at other options because within that

Span of time, whatever it is, 30 or 60.

There's at least one day a week that we're not allowing people to move fill.

And of course, weather and having fill at your disposal is also another thing.

So we've brainstormed about whether it could be 30 working days with the fill.

But we just find that that would be impossible to enforce.

You couldn't track that easily.

That makes sense.

So then the other option is to expand the timeline to give people a longer time.

Well, that was another question I had.

I had a question mark, rolling calendar.

OK, so if on January 1 of 2026

You utilize the agricultural exemption for fill for some agricultural purpose on your farm.

Then 30 days later, you've completed it, or 60 if that's what the board gives them.

And then a year later, you can do it again.

That's helpful.

And to be honest with you, my understanding is, because I'm not in construction, but I do understand that you can't move this dirt to fill when it's raining, if it's wet.

Which is what the concern about the weather is.

Is that correct?

Yes.

And I guess it makes sense.

Yes.

I'm going all over the place here with questions and I apologize.

So you said wet down the road, so I'm used to going in and taking a hose and wetting down a road to keep the dirt down.

The standard to keep down the dust and debris, yes.

Okay, I was going to say because I think that's a good idea.

Okay, I just made a few notes.

I'm questioning Saturdays.

So what's the rationale for six days a week and not five working days because, I mean, I think weekends are nice.

I'm just saying, so just help me with the rationale to get it done because I do, I am a big believer in letting VDOT work

at night.

You know what I'm saying.

Because the quicker he gets done, the better the construction.

So obviously, if you can't work on Saturday, that's two days rather than one day you're not working.

The current draft regs have Monday through Friday for the longer term fill activity.

In meeting with the Farm Bureau, many of these people have more than one job.

They're farming and they're working another job.

That makes sense.

I get that now.

That hadn't occurred to me.

Interesting.

One year is what we're talking about.

The rolling for that exemption.

For the bigger.

Yeah, okay.

I made a note on that.

Jim, I don't want to take up everybody's time.

Yeah, I want to begin by just engaging with question one and some of the Farm Bureau concerns.

I think 30 to 60 makes sense.

I get the concern there.

It does not seem to radically alter the legislative intent.

I want to kind of dig into, because I think I understand and appreciate the concerns on both sides of this with regard to privately owned roads, right?

Like I see how that can

I effectively rule out a tremendous amount of farms.

And I also have a very good friend who has a private road leading to her house that is shared by several people that is frequently significantly damaged by some of her neighbors that she has to maintain them, which is quite onerous.

And I imagine those are just residential traffic.

And I would also, you know, similar to Vice Chair McKeel, I want to reflect kind of an initial comment which is that I think here we see kind of a key friction that exists at the heart of how Albemarle County politically thinks about the rural area, which is we have two

We simultaneously think of it as serving two primary purposes that are actually incompatible and at odds with each other.

We think of it both as a residential district and we think of it as an agricultural district, which are incompatible uses.

And frankly, most concerns I have from residents out of the rural area are normally

frustrations over the friction that having these two somewhat incompatible uses immediately adjacent to each other are.

There's a turkey farm that I hear about a lot because there's some incompatibility there.

There's this issue that we hear about a lot because there's some incompatibility there.

And I just begin to say that because I think that's a public reckoning that we've really not engaged with, that there is a fundamental just tension

is under addressed or unaddressed in how we think about what the whole area is, because we're trying to have it do both.

We want it to do both, and it can't do both at the same time perfectly.

So with this, help me understand here.

So if they are unable to get their neighbors, the co

Servient Estates of an Eastman to agree.

But this would have it be a special use permit rather than a special exception with additional legislative oversight?

Right.

The special use permit applies not to the exemptions, for example, not to the agricultural exemption.

It applies to duration greater than one year or a road that is not an arterial or collector.

I realize this is unfairly putting you on the spot.

By code, I believe it's 90 days.

All right.

I really do understand the frustration here, but I'm also thinking there is a very tangible material cost for some neighbors that it's asking them to shoulder.

I mean, I guess while I can recognize the challenge of it, if you give that buy right use, there is kind of the element of being in a position where you can essentially compel a neighbor to shoulder a cost for your activity, where we might hope there's some kind of negotiation about those kinds of concerns or costs.

I will maybe withhold final judgment on this until I hear some further comments from my peers.

But I think I actually am currently leaning towards staying with the staff recommendation with regard to shared private roads.

So the private roads are governed by private maintenance agreements.

Some of them do.

Correct.

That's not something that the county's involved in.

But oftentimes, private road agreements will have

And Supervisor Pruitt, your thought was that having to do the sign off, if that's not in there, could somehow give them that recourse?

Supervisor Gallaway, can I clarify your question?

I guess I'm asking, here's my problem with getting permission from the other property owners.

We've tried to get permission to put sidewalks in, and we just had to use eminent domain.

We have the ability to do eminent domain.

And often in those times, we've offered to pay more.

It gets declined because they want even more yet.

And then there's a whole process.

And you'd like to think that they could just go along and say, yeah, put the sidewalk in and compensate me, and let's negotiate on the compensation amount.

The second piece is so subjective.

If I don't like you, and you live at the end of the road, there's no way I'm signing off on anything for you.

And it has nothing to do with what you're asking for permission about.

I see it in the HOAs, where it's just simply you've got to get your neighbor to sign off on putting a brick garden wall up, or building a fence, or putting your screen porch up.

Well, no, you don't put your trash can away soon enough, to my taste.

Or I don't like the way you look at me in the morning.

I mean, it's subjective.

And I think sometimes it's not even to that level.

It's just people just don't care because they just don't care.

And then inactivity goes there.

So I think it's somewhat unreasonable to have to ask for the permission.

Not somewhat.

I'll just say it.

I think it is unreasonable.

And if it's truly about

responsibility and concern for the upkeep of a road, that frankly, the responsibility has to go on that performance agreement amongst the private owners then.

And if it's not thought of or not put in there, then that's something they have to contend with, I think, as private owners.

So I mean, that's just a struggle I have.

I think it's unreasonable for one.

This thing keeps coming up.

It was in some of the surveys where I get uncomfortable.

You talked about some of the underlying political issues.

But this is a huge property rights issue.

And it's also a huge the one versus the many.

I mean, it was stated clearly in one of the surveys.

How can you put the rights of one person over the rights of a neighborhood?

Well, I haven't ever made a decision where the volume or the count

just because it was larger made it more important or they had more rights than the individual person.

I mean, think of how many rezonings we have to do where if we did it that way, I mean, it would be ridiculous.

So the democracy states that the volume of votes counts in a majority role.

But when we get into office, we have to think of the one versus.

I mean, think of if we just operated that way, how many few would be left out because, well, you're just not as many.

and I'm speaking, you know, I've got neighborhoods in the development area that have been dealing with impacts and such for 10 years, 12 years.

Trucks and, yeah, somebody mentioned Dunlora.

Since 08, they've been dealing with trucks and things coming through the neighborhood.

So would we allow it in Dunlora?

We've required it in Dunlora.

So, you know, this getting other people, now I'm ranting, aren't I?

The idea is that

I think a person's use of their property is important.

I think it's important that if they're doing it for reasons that are specific for agricultural purposes, as long as the material is clean, that they should be free to be able to use their property that way.

And I understand that impacts to other people is not to just be thrown out, but I think there's other reasonable ways to get at dealing with those impacts.

So the duration piece,

The 30 to 60 days, I agree because I don't want folks coming back and taking up staff time trying to get another 30 just because it's stormed more than it might have otherwise done.

That's a terrible use of our dollars when we have other priorities for those dollars to go to.

So I think it's reasonable to do the 60-day piece if we're to do an ag exemption.

I don't know if we'd, you know,

I almost wasn't even ready to say we need to do the change that we're considering.

But there are some pieces in the change from now to then that I think are reasonable.

So I don't want to throw out the whole piece for these two items, but I'm solely in it right now.

I need to be persuaded or convinced otherwise.

I agree with Mr. Norford's comments representing the Farm Bureau on those two items.

The tree piece in the ordinance that I don't think we're doing any change to

It said permitted uses in that.

What are the permitted uses outside?

Like we're talking fill activity.

This is the whole like a certain diameter tree can't be taken out, et cetera.

It says for permitted uses, I think it is allowed to do that.

You can take out any trees you want to build a driveway and put a house up.

So what was that speaking to?

You've always been able to cut trees in the rural area.

Say that again.

So what is that speaking to?

It may just be the existing ordinance.

It is.

I think that's all the Russian says.

Because I think you just copied over the existing regulations.

So is it stating that the fill piece is a permitted activity?

Is it just reaffirming that?

It's number, what is it under?

It's in section Borrow Cleaner Than Inert Waste Fill Activity, section 5128.

It's down on page whatever that attachment is, 8.

It's 5 of 9.

So number 8 says trees.

The following applies to fill activity related to trees, even if they conflict with section 4.3.

Except for properties within the rural area district, no full activity may occur.

So accepting the properties in the rural area.

So it doesn't really matter.

That language was specifically put in.

This gets back to the trying to not use the landfill to put inert waste.

This allows some limited tree cutting within the development areas to allow sites to be prepared for development by allowing them to accept fill material prior to the approval of the site plan.

I think there's, yeah, I mean, were we taking action on this today?

No action today.

I got it.

So I think there's more work to be done on number two.

I'm not ready to say yes to that.

It doesn't seem like any change is being made to the one year, and I'm sorry, your chart where it has the existing reg versus the draft reg.

It's the last attachment in the packet, A10.

Thank you very much.

I actually share many of the same views, if not all of the same views as Supervisor Galloway.

The first question, does the board support exemption for agricultural use?

Yes.

Regarding the specific proposed exemptions, I do have a problem with numbers and I think you had them one, two, three, four on page 12, was it?

You had one, two, three, four.

I have a problem with number two, which regarding the roads also.

And I do agree.

I know of someone who has a long road and serves also a couple other people that have been there for many, many, many, many years.

And once again, if they get in a fight or a spat or don't agree, then that

stops that person from being able to have fill in their agricultural.

Property.

So if we do value agriculture, which I think we do in the rural areas, I think we need to do something to make sure that that does continue.

Do I like messing up the roads?

Absolutely not.

But that does mean that they're going to have to work on something, maybe the people that live on the road, because I'm just

I don't think that's good to have that in there regarding the roads because I think they should be able to have access which also takes me to page 12

On the right hand side, the second to the last bullet, it talks about access is limited to direct access from a public road that is classified by VDOT as a collector or arterial.

Is that for, please help me out, is that for the ag or is that for regular?

That is not for the ag.

Not for the ag, okay.

And I have a question about that too because

What if there are no access points for development?

I mean, we want to have developments.

We want to have affordable housing.

Someone needs to get in there.

And what if you don't have direct access from one of those?

I mean, then they would apply for a special exception.

The way it's currently drafted, not for the ag exemption, for regular, longer-term fill activity,

If you don't have direct access to a public road that meets this classification, it would require special use permit.

And that's the feedback that we're seeking from the board.

Is that too stringent?

Should it be a lesser road standard?

Should it be a special exception, special use permit?

To the extent that we have been able, we've tried to share this information.

We would like to have more contact with, I guess, people who are truckers who haul dirt and also people who would be receiving dirt.

But to the extent that we had information and contact, we have

A list of over 60 people who've applied for fill through the Water Protection Ordinance Permit since 2024.

OK, so maybe you're continuing to get more input regarding that.

Because I just think they should be able to have some kind of access through some kind of a process.

Regarding the agriculture, once again,

if they're not able to because of road access or permission from neighbors or something.

If they're not able to fill in what they need for agriculture, then that clean fill and inert fill, that goes into the landfills, correct?

Which means it's going to use up the landfills and not support the agriculture, which is not a good thing.

Number four, for the exception of 30 to 60, I think going to 60 is a lot.

makes it better.

And I'll tell you why.

I've been asked the question, I said, well, what if you do 30 days, but within 60, two months?

And the response was, that's not really enforceable.

So it's not my objective to put additional pressure on staff to go out there and check every day and owe you up to 30 or not.

So I think it should be 60 days.

That's my opinion.

And please correct me.

asphalt.

Is that clean or not?

That is not clean earth fill.

definition, inert waste.

So it would not be allowed in a agricultural.

That's what I thought.

When you were talking, I just thought I heard something else.

So sorry.

OK, this was just their input.

This is not what you're suggesting.

OK, fine.

So if you go back to page 12, it answers that for me.

The next one, we have your questions.

I answered one.

I gave you my opinion on one.

I also have problems with number two because

Our roads in Albemarle, we go back to the 1700s, there are small collector's arterials all over the place.

I don't even know if we know them all, maybe we do, but I'm not sure if we know all these little roads.

So I would hate to get caught up where someone can't do something because

They don't fit the direct access.

So I know they can go for a, you said special exception or special use permit?

Special use permit.

Special use permit, which is time, you know.

Time costs money.

So I'm not really, I have a lot of problems with number two.

Those are my questions.

Thank you very much.

I apologize in advance for the disjointed level of this.

I think I'll do some questions first, if I may.

And that is, let's go back here.

One clarification, at the Ivy Solid Waste, what do we call it now?

The soil goes in a different place.

It is not taking up waste area in the landfill.

It is a separate place so that it can then be resold to somebody else who needs it in the future.

It may not be as inexpensive as taking it to a private person, but there is room there.

I'm quite sure there is room there.

The last presentation for the RSWA board, I thought that there was still space for that, and it also can then be used to further the activities at the landfill as well.

or the transfer station.

So I just wanted to clarify that.

Asphalt, I've been fighting with Mark Graham in all the years he was here because it is full of fossil fuels.

It decomposes.

It releases all of the same things that fossil fuels.

It's an oil-based material.

So stuff comes off of it anywhere where you've seen the black gook that's around any kind of asphalt depot.

So I beg you to please consider getting it out of there altogether.

There are commercial reprocessors for asphalt that can actually turn it back into something that's usable for paving.

But it is an unmitigated problem for asphalt.

Long-term environmental things.

And when someone, a new person, comes to a piece of property and digs a little bit to find a huge depot of asphalt, that is a monstrous expense to get it all removed for something where they wanted to have a garden, et cetera, to say nothing of the poison that's put into the land.

So that's my opinion on that.

I'm glad that we're not considering it.

I don't think people in the growth area should be having that under the place where their children play either.

So that's just one thought on that.

Okay, did that, did that.

Now, let's go down the list here.

Another disjointed note, special exceptions for the technical review.

When we had an earlier special exception, there was such incomplete information because of the narrowness of the special exception requirements.

We were not able to get any information about what it really meant to have a naturally appearing land or how much it would take to do a two acre, the 10,000 square foot, just a little over two acres of application.

Huge gaps in knowledge, and I think that's why the things have perhaps not been addressed as many of us anticipated they would be.

Adequacy of residential streets.

How does one address the adequacy?

Is there a process for that?

Other than VDOT saying, sure, sure, anything, any weight can go up there, that's no problem.

Because we've seen that that is what they said for Belizeville Forest and the road is falling apart.

At huge expense, $193,000 as of several months ago, for VDOT spent in the last few months out there in repairs.

So I have great concerns if we have any knowledge or process to

measure the adequacy of access roads, which is why I personally support the better designed, better constructed arterials and collectors suggestion that the board, that the staff has put forward.

There are many parcels that do not have access to a highly designed and maintained and built road, but that doesn't mean that they should then have the right to do all the things that people who have

paid more to get land that does have access to those better quality roads to do.

So it seems to me one shouldn't be changing the rules in order to do something where you don't have the right situation to carry it out.

I talked about that.

OK.

Supporting ag.

balancing agricultural use with community needs.

So this is what I understood was happening, that the Clean Earth Fill was used to support the agriculture in the short term.

And then the second application for the exception was taking it from the short term and making from one year to five years, basically.

So this, I think, shows the

There's a lack of protection from the rest of the community in the special exception process, in my opinion.

So I would have concerns about so many different things being able to have a special exception when, if it's a serious issue, it needs to be addressed in a true public broad approach with a special permit.

Twinwood Acres, number of trucks limited intensity views 15 round trips per day equals 30 passings in the terminology of the neighborhoods.

That is a huge improvement and very much mirrored in what the other counties are allowing, as opposed to, I mean, that would basically, the 200 cubic yards that Fauquier allows in a day is 15 trucks.

The 4,200 cubic yards in a year is 300 trucks, which has been delivered in three or four or five days in the current operation.

The board did not have sufficient information at the time to understand what was going to be happening.

I personally put a lot of stock in a chart that was in the public hearing documents that showed 12 or 30 or whatever over the whole application period, which turned out to just not have a basis in reality.

And I don't want to get back into that again in the future rules.

So getting more information is needed, I think, in order to have the decisions be valid.

I heard someone say ENS requirements over 10,000 square feet.

So that should be taking place now that there is 20,000 square feet already happening in the permit that we have in operation now.

That's an existing rule, I think.

So those are things that are happening.

Okay, page three of your staff report here.

I got a little confused when you were zooming through the hours and these I think on page three the A through J, I. So setbacks, maximum fill area, all those things you say are not required to be followed?

For the

Where are they?

Because it looks like this comment here says setback from field activity.

except for the driveway.

And I thought it was floodplains and 100 feet from streams and setbacks from property lines and neighboring houses, et cetera.

So in the draft that's before you, we made no changes to the setbacks, either from the access or the fill activity itself, except with this new proposed agricultural exemption

Staff is proposing that those setbacks don't apply because it's a very short-term, limited-scale activity.

But for anything else, the setbacks apply.

Yes.

Those apply all the time.

That's not exempt.

except it says it's exempted on this.

So that's where I'm going down the rabbit hole here.

This is page three of your staff report, the list A through I. So I'm just trying to make sure that I'm not missing something that turns out to be a whole lot more important, and I don't have my chance to ask later.

All right, now.

maximum fill area, limits of fill.

So these were all things that were included already, the two acres per parcel.

Only for the agricultural exemption.

None of those things are being changed, the fill area.

I guess I've been looking at this based upon

our current experience not something where the developer is going to be doing some putting in an apartment building in the growth area and that's a whole different level of experience that because they already have good roads they already have established operations whereas these are if all of these requirements are removed then

There is no protection for rural area neighbors anywhere in the county.

If someone wants to fill right up to the property line, it looks like it's required, it's allowed.

If there's no detail with these A through I, so I'm maybe alarmed about something.

OK.

And that's what I'm asking about.

For that 30 or 60 day period of an agricultural exemption, yes.

OK.

So the one limit that is there is the 30-day.

And that takes me to the next one, which I did not see in writing anywhere, but obviously must have missed it.

Yes.

That's what the draft proposes.

That just brings back everything all over again, especially when you've taken away, when the proposal takes away the setbacks and the limits of the activity and the performance bond and the narrative and

the ENS requirements.

So to me, there's one thing to have 30 days and 60 days, but that I can live with.

But all of these others have huge impacts on residential neighbors up and down the street.

I mean, there are impacts that are removed from the neighborhood impacts currently

where the trucks stack up in the road waiting for 7 AM.

And all the exhaust and everything is infiltrating the houses of all those people who live nearby.

This is not just a few neighbors.

This is the whole community.

And not to diminish those few neighbors, their impacts are

Severe, but I think now that I understand more clearly what is being proposed in this page three, it is taking away all of the things that I thought were supplying some protection to the property rights of other people.

They have a right to sit on their porch and not have to have the sound that we heard in this video today, all day long, 13 hours a day.

So I do not support all of these because in the special exception the two acres per parcel that was explained away in the current proposal because there are two parcels brought together right there and there's two acres on either side.

Supervisor Malek, let me try to answer a couple of your questions.

One is you asked whether the stream setbacks and the floodplain, you can't put fill in the floodplain and so forth, has changed in the current draft ordinance, and that has not changed at all.

And the other thing, just to clarify, that an operation such as Mr. Kindrich's would never fall in the agricultural exemption.

It's not intended to, it's not written that way.

So the other requirements, the requirements about setbacks to the fill activity, to the fill access, and all the other things that are within the current regs and the proposed regs, those apply to something that is not exempt.

for it to be exempt as an agricultural use.

Do you mind going back to that slide?

It's got to be short duration, 21 acres aggregate, rural area zoning, access, which we've been talking about, maximum trips to the site, and then what I'm hearing from the board, 60 days in a rolling calendar year.

But a larger or longer term operation would never fit within that exemption, and that is not designed

Except then all of the rules can be done as a special exception by the board, which is how we got into the situation we're in right now.

Except for the duration, the way it's written.

And I think I just heard you support that, because a special use permit is a much broader public engagement process.

with broader conditions of approval, our staff is proposing that anything with a duration greater than one year, which would be the project we're talking about, requires a special use permit.

Unless it's accepted by the board.

It's a special use permit either way.

The two things that staff is recommending in this draft become a special use permit and no longer be a special exception.

One is duration, longer than one year.

OK.

Well, that's where I started out, and then I went.

off the rolls.

I guess I would still put in my view that a short-term project is a short-term project and it shouldn't be able to do it all over again next year.

So I would prefer, my preference would be to not have it be called rolling.

Access.

One of the issues even on a public road has been the destruction of

the private property or the HOA property next to the roads.

Because when trucks are driving off four and five feet on a regular basis, they have, number one, destroyed the edge of the road.

And number two, the verges are totally torn up.

And no one is going to be holding anybody else accountable.

The HOA will have to, again, cover all of those expenses.

And these are transferable to anybody's neighborhood.

in any district in the county that would be liable for this.

Another thing that popped up from 8 feet to 15 feet in height, when did that happen?

So the current regulation is 8 feet across the property.

But if you think about that, that doesn't really make sense.

Because if there's an internal, very internal to the property with woods all around it, rail that you're trying to fill, or eroded area, then it's not going to impact off-site properties.

And what this tries to do is show you an example of property that is very rolling.

Sorry, it's a little too busy, but on each side,

in the kind of tan color are the setbacks.

No fill activity in the setbacks.

But if in the middle of that site you want to fill 15 feet to level it so you can have access from 325 to 500, then you can do it at 15 feet.

as opposed to on the other end where there's a rail and if you filled between 800 and 900 feet, that's going to start being visible to off-site property.

So no.

But the point isn't it didn't make sense from a practical perspective to say eight feet across the property.

I get that.

That makes sense as long as there's not a stream at the bottom of that hill.

Absolutely.

Because there's a reason why swales and reels happen.

It's because the water gathers there and takes all the dirt away down to the Chesapeake Bay.

Yes.

This is the whole problem I've had with this kind of filling thing as opposed to smoothing over grades and getting a heavy seeding going on.

OK.

So let me see.

Ask that question.

Is this a time when the board is considering about the noise of the trucking?

as far as monitoring decibel level and how, I mean, is that something that we're talking about today?

I believe that motor vehicle noise is handled in the county code

by the police department.

I was just going to try to quickly look it up.

So it's not addressed.

Zoning noise regs are land use based.

So the fill activity itself is subject to noise standards.

And the exhaust and pollution from the trucks, is anybody measuring that?

when you have all constant trucks going by.

OK.

I'm just asking good questions here, I think, because these have come from residents.

And why don't you ask those?

Let's see.

Forest Clearing, we did that.

OK.

Hold on.

Stockpiling and sold.

OK.

So is anything in our ordinance talking about stockpiling and reselling soil?

And this is coming after the Hanover in your chart.

You talked about conditional use permits.

And it looked like it was not being used for improvement on site, but for, although they have a CUP for ag as well.

And Hanover is certainly an agricultural county.

OK.

If you're selling it, Bill and I were just talking to be able to address your answer.

That is not fill-in waste.

Okay.

So there is no, with the ag exemption, there is no financial information period as far as having it income generating or not.

Normally people would purchase fill from John and Billy Clayton or somebody to improve their land.

I'm going to stop there and try to get myself organized.

OK, thank you.

Several questions and a clarification.

I apologize.

Some of this has been gone over.

But the 30 to 60 day issue, when you talk about 30 days beginning in a rolling calendar year, are you saying that if you start activity, you have 30 days to finish?

If you start

you have 30 days from start to complete.

And then what's rolling about that is that a year later from when you finished it, you could do it again.

OK.

I understand that.

I recognize the difficulty in enforcement, but I'm supportive of going to 60 days on this under those circumstances.

Let me make sure I understand exemption versus special use permit.

My understanding is that duration and road access were the triggers for a special use permit.

No, so for the ag exemption, and one of the questions, of course, for the board is related to the requirements for an ag exemption.

And the ag exemption, if it goes beyond the 30 or 60 days, and we're hearing, I think, a majority support for 60, that time period, then it could be extended by special exception.

For the road type,

For an ag exemption, I think we're hearing feedback that the private road could be used and there's concern about requiring the consent of others.

OK.

I just want to make sure I clarify that.

Which of these require, what triggers, I guess I'm looking at the list, it has a plan or narrative as one of the things that's exempted from agricultural activity.

There's no notice for the fill and waste activities, whether it's ag exempt or if it meets the requirements.

There would be a notice requirement if there were a special use permit.

OK.

But I mean, notice, does the county get involved?

Does CDE get involved if someone has an ag property and they start to do some fill that fits within the exemption?

Do they have to tell you we're doing this?

The way it's currently written, they would not need a planned narrative or permit.

And I think that more than likely the reality is that they wouldn't even know that they need one.

OK.

And I assume we charge fees for that.

And we could think about how those fees cover a certain amount of inspection, I would hope.

so that we could more actively put staff into looking at these if there are fees for it.

I want to just ask a couple questions about the road and private road business because my experience, and I may be wrong, on some of these private roads is that

They're not HOAs.

They're not even necessarily an agreement.

And if I understand the law, and it's dangerous for me to say that, so I'm looking at attorney.

In my understanding of the law on rural roads is, if you're just sharing the road and it's not VDOT maintained, that whoever doesn't like it better go pay for it to be fixed, because it's nobody's requirement to do anything to take care of the potholes.

Again, we get back to private maintenance agreements, and the more recent private roads typically have private maintenance agreements, but there may not be.

It's a case-by-case, road-by-road evaluation, one in which the county is not involved.

Again, I think the analogy to homeowner's covenants is apt, and that some neighborhoods have extensive covenants, others don't.

Right, which is why when I bring this up in the context of the ag exemption, which is, as I understand it, and I'm going to make sure I'm clear on this, any public road is good enough in ag cases, it's just in the non-ag cases, it has to be publicly classified as a collector or arterial.

And then the question becomes, what about private roads?

There are no guarantees of where the baseline is.

It's because of that that I'm really reluctant to allow this just to be done on private roads without an agreement by the neighbors because I don't think there are agreements in place that the person who does damage has to fix it.

That's fraud.

It's like private development roads on steroids, as far as the problems that are concerned.

Otherwise, to answer the questions, but bluntly, I support the exemption for agricultural use and the specific proposed exemptions.

That's the A through I.

I'm a little concerned about not having any setbacks but I realize these are 21 acre or larger parcels and they're used for agricultural purposes right up to the edge but that doesn't necessarily mean that you should be allowed to just go and do fill right up to the edge

and so those first A and B bother me.

But the others, I certainly am sympathetic to the need to work on Saturdays if you're in farming and that the areas are necessarily less well-defined.

With respect to the second question,

I support limiting it to direct access to public roads classified as collector or arterial.

These are non-AG uses, is my understanding, and there are processes by which someone could come before us and ask to use a different road.

OK.

Point of clarification, you mentioned on number one that you did support the 60 days, but this does not.

Yeah, I'm supportive of 60 days.

Okay, and what about the public roads?

Okay, thank you.

Could you restate, for the ag exemption, the question was whether, and we talked a lot about this, whether the other owners on that private road would have to give consent.

If it's a private road, then I would want for them to get consent.

Now, you're saying that if they didn't give consent, they still could come to the board?

As a special use permit or a special exemption under agriculture?

Exceptions.

Exceptions.

OK.

Chair, I did want to actually amend one position I had, and that's on number two that's on here.

This is about the triggering from the special exception to the special use permit if you don't have, if you're not served by one of the collectors or arterials.

I did not have a good sense of this because we have a list of collectors and arterials in here.

And it is incomprehensible to be generous.

And so I pulled up a mapping tool.

And it became pretty clear to me that there's about seven in my entire district.

And that feels quite onerous if you're not on any of those seven roads, which includes Avon, which would be incredibly disruptive.

Some of the ones that aren't.

included as permissible are actually quite disruptive to use and others that I think would be less disruptive would require a special use permit.