Board of Supervisors Regular First Meeting   10/1/2025

I'm pleased to call to order the meeting of the Ann LaMalle County Board of Supervisors on the 1st of October at 1 p.m.

Lane Auditorium, McIntyre County Office Building.

I'd like to note at the dais we have Supervisor Ann Mallek of the White Hall District, Supervisor Ned Galloway of the Rio District, Supervisor Diantha McKeel of the Jack Jouett District, Supervisor Mike Pruitt of the Scottsville District, and myself, Jim Andrews, representing the Samuel Miller District.

Quorum is present.

Supervisor Bea LaPisto-Kirtley of the Rivanna District has requested to participate remotely in accordance with applicable board rules of procedure, rule number 8B1D, enacted pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act.

Good afternoon.

Afternoon there, but morning here.

OK, I'm looking for a motion to admit Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley to the meeting.

Is that moved?

Second.

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

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Mr. Pruitt?

Aye.

Yes.

Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley, you are admitted.

Thank you.

We are also joined here by our Deputy County Executive, Mr. Trevor Henry, our County Attorney, Mr. Andy Herrick, our Clerk, Ms.

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

Also, please let me welcome Albemarle County Police Officers present, Officer Hunter Harmon and Kayden Painter.

Thank you.

And if you would now please join us in a moment of silence.

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

Oh, the consent.

That's right.

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

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Aye.

Board, our first item then is brief announcements by board members and we'll start with Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley.

You're back on.

Okay, thank you very much.

I am so lucky to be first.

I can't tell you how much I appreciate that.

I wanted to let everyone know that this morning on the Today Show, we were featured regarding fall foliage.

They talked about Charlottesville, Albemarle County, the Monticello wine trail.

the fact that we have 70 wineries, a downtown Seville, UVA and hotels, and the CACVB, our visitor's bureau, assisted with the producers last week to source imagery and talking points.

So pretty proud of all that.

So I watched the segment and it was very nice if you get a chance to watch it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

On a similar note, you know, earlier this weekend, I had the honor and privilege of joining two of my elected counterparts in the city and a huge group of other members of our regional community to run the Loop Deville, celebrating the Rivanna Trail Foundation.

And it is a great reminder, along with the incredible weather we have coming in to work today, that this truly is the peak season for our region for outdoor activities that really drive our economy and drive our culture.

I hope everyone gets out there and enjoys the best that Charlottesville has to offer and also continues to be safe if you're out there on any of our trails.

It is also currently early voting.

You can vote literally right now if you go to the Fifth Street County offices.

There are several contested local offices and there are three different very important contested state offices that are all going to be on your ballot.

This includes making sure you have a voice on the people who are going to be up here.

It's important.

So please get out there for early voting.

If you are not registered or you've recently moved and you're like, oh, well, I need to go to the DMV to do that.

That's not correct anymore.

You can actually just do it there on the day of.

You can register in person.

Go vote, y'all.

It's a good time.

And finally, I would be remiss if I did not mention this.

Our counterparts on the school board do a lot of work.

I have a friend who serves on the school board, Allison Spillman, who made a somewhat controversial statement on her personal Facebook recently.

And over the last 24 hours, she has received thousands of to her personal cell phone on her personal email threats, harassing texts, statements threatening her children.

It is a monstrous reminder of the way that the kind of current moment of intense vitriol in our politics can leech into people's personal lives and the ways that it can

deeply chill and affect our ability to do our jobs at the local level, right?

This is grassroots, right?

Local, us doing the simple work of caring for our communities and the fact that that can be something that is coming from national level Twitter hate mongers is really disgusting.

So I continue to hold out her and her family in my prayers for care and continue to be disturbed by

Supervisor McKeel.

I just have one thing I wanted to chat with this morning.

Ann and I both attended recently.

Albemarle County Public Schools had an event to recognize and celebrate their new Scholar Studio.

Ready.

Yeah, you have your notes there as well, Ann.

So I won't say, I'll give you plenty of chances here, but it was really wonderful.

There were all sorts of people from the community, including the Chamber and business members.

And we broke up into groups based on the studio that we were interested in.

And I joined the Entrepreneur Business and Innovation Group to talk about the work through Albemarle County Public Schools in that area.

And it was just a great event to find out more about what the scholars' studios are all about.

and to give input from the community to the Almore County Public School System.

But I really want to send a shout out because Emily Kilroy was one of, you know, our director of economic development, was one of the keynotes kicking off the event and Emily did a great job with us.

They called it a sector spotlight.

and she talked to the folks in the room about our workforce development and what we are doing in Albemarle County around workforce development.

So it was really, thank you, Emily, if you're here, I'm not sure if you are, but anyway, she did a great job and I'll let Ann talk about it a little bit more in detail.

Supervisor Malek.

Thank you very much.

I'll go to that one first because it's right in everybody's mind.

It was a wonderful learning experience.

As someone who was very attached to the Environmental Sciences Academy and having known the children who had gone through the whole four years there, I was delighted to learn the enthusiasm of the students who were

entering and also the variety of the options that students will have now to not have to be in for a whole four years, but to pop in and pop out and really have that more liberal arts focus rather than getting in a tunnel and then not being able to do a U-turn.

I was really appreciative of the planning, the faculty who were there, the students.

I was sitting at a Terra table, that's the sort of environmental land side,

and next to us was the Nexus table which was the computer programming and the GIS kids are going to be working with the Terra students on farm analysis using drones in Nelson County to assess the fertility of soil.

Wow.

So anyway, that's all something that is available to students in high school.

And that's pretty outstanding considering what I remember when we were studying high school at Albemarle High School in 1960s.

So that was a wonderful experience and I wish them all the luck in the world.

You've heard me talk about the upcoming Rivanna River Basin Conference.

Well, we had it and it was a great success.

There were a hundred plus people who came.

We had speakers.

Dave Hirschman talked about the water crisis in 1995 and the huge flood in the impacts of the Mormons River.

followed immediately five years later by the drought of record and the impacts to the water system from that.

So that brought back many, many memories, some painful, some not, but his presentation.

And he's a former water resource person here in Amel County.

So that was like coming home for us.

Great fun.

also speakers from the Rivanna Water and Sewer talked about the state planning and also a lovely young woman from our DEQ talked about the state regional water planning and the progress that they're making with that so I learned tremendous amount with that there were speakers from Rivanna Conservation Alliance and PEC talking about conservation and also some updates on data centers and I think everyone really felt like they got a lot out of it

So hopefully next year when you hear that this is coming, please consider joining.

It is time to collect walnuts.

Department of Forestry is collecting walnuts this year to grow in their nursery over in the valley.

And I only found this out by accident because we have walnuts everywhere and you can hardly walk in our yard without falling down.

So I contacted Dave Powell and asked him if they wanted them.

And he said, yes, please.

There is a bucket or a box at the back door.

of the Forestry Department over on Fontaine Natural Resources Drive at the Fontaine Research Park.

And I think they'd be happy to have oak tree acorns as well, although we have very few acorns in our house, our yard this year.

The squirrels, I guess, are eating them all.

So that's that.

And also I was

Very excited to attend in a lovely drizzly rain because I think rain is a good omen.

The Southwood dedication and Mike I'm sure we'll talk about this more but I won't say it in just a second.

The 25 families who moved into their new homes and also the dedication of the Monacan Tribute Park and the presence of the tribal leaders who were there was very very meaningful for everyone who attended.

Last, the Shenandoah Augusta-Waynesboro MPO and the Thomas Jefferson Planning District MPO met together yesterday and I have shared with you some packets because the programming was so incredible and the slide decks that are in the packets I think will be very informative to lots of projects that are going on and I'll leave the nitty gritty details to Ned.

Thank you very much.

Nitty gritty details.

Well, I can report on that during the committee time, I suppose.

OK, thank you.

I'll just add to Supervisor Mallek.

She and I both attended the groundbreaking for Afton Scientific on Monday, which was attended also by the governor and lieutenant governor.

And I bring a special mention because there was a shout out by Mr. Thorpe from Afton to our community development department for their excellent work in helping with the planning and process permit, all that.

It goes into that, and it was a good moment.

Also, of course, as I've been doing lately, reminding everybody that the Rivanna Solid Waste and Recycling Center is in the process of the fall cleanup, and that means that this Saturday they're collecting appliances, and next Saturday, October 11th, they're collecting tires.

Also, October 11th and October 12th is the Batesville Apple Butter Weekend, which is always a lot of fun.

I look forward to that.

And that is all.

And we will turn next to Proclamations and Recognitions.

And first up, we're very pleased to have recognition from VACO Achievement Award of the Albemarle County Pharmacy Project.

And this is introduced by Greg Harter, Director of Communications, Virginia Association of Counties.

Welcome, Mr. Harter.

Thank you, Chair Andrews, Members of the Board.

My name is Gage Harter with the Virginia Association of Counties.

My distinct pleasure today to present the VACO Achievement Awards.

For the benefit of your constituents who aren't familiar with the Virginia Association of Counties, VACO has existed since 1934.

to serve and support your efforts as county officials.

We support counties in many ways.

First and foremost is through our advocacy efforts with the state legislature and at the federal level.

We also serve counties through educational programs, member services, and communications.

In 2003, we established our Achievement Award program, recognizing counties that have adopted innovative approaches to providing public services and identifying programs that could serve as models for other counties to emulate.

Today I'm proud to present Albemarle with an Achievement Award.

Just a few notes.

This is our 23rd year of the program.

We received 155 entries.

That broke the record of 145, which was set last year.

We selected 57 of those entries as winners from 33 counties.

So it remained pretty competitive as only 36% of entries

were selected as winners.

Albemarle County has won 10 Achievement Awards since 2003.

You've done your heavy lifting in the last five years.

You've won four of the last five years.

So you're turning up.

I am going to turn it over to Fire Chief Eggleston to talk about the Pharmacy Project.

Good afternoon, Board.

Dan Eggleston, Chief of Fire Rescue.

Yeah, we really appreciate this.

I want to say, first of all, I'm here standing in today for Deputy Chief Puckett, who really was the person who notified us that, hey, this is coming and we should get ahead of it very quickly.

As you all know, med administration is a cornerstone to our EMS system.

Without that, you know, it would cripple us.

We run about 20,000

calls a year, most of those are being EMS.

So it was important for us to not only maintain that system, but also look at this as an opportunity to try to re-engineer some activities that we could do.

So I'm very appreciative of Chief Puckett to notify us.

And really, even he had some designs going into this what he thought would be really good for our system.

You know, the power of this project really resulted in the collaboration that we had led by our PSNP because it involved finance, procurement, legal, FES, because we had to construct rooms and distribution process.

We had to procure some very expensive machines.

We had to come up with policies and procedures to ensure that we not only procured the medication, but also found a way to

make sure we manage it because many of these things that we carry are controlled substance.

So we're very lucky.

In fact, we have on staff firefighter Shawn here in our audience who's a well seasoned firefighter paramedic who stepped up and agreed to help us manage this project.

And I will tell you,

It's working very well.

We had a few small kinks, but we didn't miss a beat.

And I'm really appreciative of everyone's leadership in this.

To me, this is a great showcase of how we can come together and solve a rather difficult problem in a short period of time.

I'm also grateful for VACO too.

What a wonderful association to, I think, taking their time out to come out and thank us and recognize this is really appreciative.

Be careful.

It's heavy.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate that.

Thank you.

At the moment, let's ask if the supervisors have comments.

We'll start with Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley.

Available?

You're here now.

Okay, yes, I had to get my mic back on.

What an honor for a police chief and for our county as a whole.

I'm just so proud of the award from BACO.

Thank you for the recognition.

And what a great organization.

We really appreciate the honor and I think it's not lost on anyone here the incredible work and the incredible talent that we have in our public safety team.

Thank you for coming and presenting this in person.

We really appreciate it and I just want to say that once again our staff has made us look really good.

So thank you very much, Dian and everybody on the team.

We really appreciate it very much.

Yes, that's pretty cool for our citizens.

It's a benefit for our citizens.

All these awards represent programs that benefit our citizens.

Thank you very much.

In the rollout to the changes in the drug box laws at the state level, what I heard at VACO board meetings was the terrible burden that's placed on smaller communities who did not have a capable staff and communication among departments able to jump in and do this in a very, very short period of time.

So I'm so grateful for all of your work and thank you for the recognition.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you for being here, Dawn, to present the award and also to, you know, my

Word of appreciation to Chief Eccleston and all those who he represented today.

Sometimes, obviously, local government.

It may be fair to say we don't turn things around quickly, but the fact that there are times when we do, and we recognize a problem, we were able to pull that off.

So that's a credit to our staff.

And let's add my appreciation for your being here and for the staff and all this great work.

And yes, to do something quickly, efficiently, that's especially gratifying.

So thank you very much.

Enjoy your lunch.

Board, this brings us to a second proclamation.

This one recognizing National 4-H Week.

Thank you, and I see lots of 4-H'ers in the audience, so I'm very glad they have come.

I move adoption of this proclamation recognizing National 4-H Week, whereas October 5-11, 2025 is National 4-H Week in the United States, and more than 1,800 students age 5-19

are involved in 4-H in Albemarle County and the city of Charlottesville.

Whereas Virginia Cooperative Extension System conducts 4-H programs throughout the state land-grant universities, Virginia Tech, Virginia State, with the mission to help young people acquire knowledge, develop skills, form attitudes which will help them become self-directed, productive members of society.

and whereas 4-H addresses issues facing youth wherever they live in inner cities, suburbs, rural communities, helps break barriers by focusing on learning by doing, building self-esteem, leadership and citizenship skills and focuses on critical issues such as protecting the environment and provides programs on food and nutrition, science and technology, natural resources, substance abuse prevention, animal and plant sciences, career education, community pride, citizenship and leadership.

Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that we, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, do hereby recognize Sunday, October 5th through Saturday, October 11th, 2025 as National 4-H Week and encourage community youth and families to participate fully in the wide range of available programs and activities Albemarle, Charlottesville 4-H provides.

Signed this first day of October, 2025, Jim Andrews, Chair.

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

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Thank you.

Welcome.

And I understand that we have Mr. Sam Leach, an extension agent for youth development of the Albemarle, Charlottesville, Virginia Cooperative Extension here to accept this.

I'm Sam and this is Sarah Brown.

She also works with us here in 4-H here in Albemarle County.

Welcome.

And we're super happy to be here today with you all.

And would you adjust your mic so we can hear you really clearly?

Good afternoon, Chair and members of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors.

On behalf of Albemarle County 4-H, we want to thank you for your continued support of youth in our community.

Because of your investment, our 4-H'ers are not only ready for life, they are beyond ready to lead, to serve, and to thrive.

This past year, Albemarle Charlottesville 4-H continues to experience growth.

We had an increase of 26% in our enrollment in our year-round 4-H clubs and a 60% increase in our summer 4-H camp program.

4-H is gaining momentum in Albemarle County.

We've expanded our embryology program, that's hatching baby chicks, to more schools and introducing new programs like a livestock leadership educational program and financial literacy programs.

What sets 4-H apart is our blend of hands-on learning, mentorship, community connection, and the university connections of Virginia Tech and Virginia State University.

Youth do not just study leadership, science, and agriculture, they live it, applying their skills to real-world challenges with the support of caring adult mentors.

Our community partners help us make this possible.

We work closely with Charlottesville City Schools, Albemarle County Public Schools, private schools, Extension Master Gardener programs, and Extension Master Naturalists, Virginia Career Works, and James Monroe Highland, just to name a few.

Together, these partners provide opportunities for youth to serve, grow, and lead.

In a time when so many young people feel uncertain about the future, 4-H provides a place where it's fun to try, it's safe to fail, and it's possible to grow.

With your continued support, we're building a generation that's not just ready for tomorrow, but beyond ready to shape it.

Thank you very much.

I'm sure supervisors will have comments.

We'll start with Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley.

Thank you.

I'm here.

Okay.

It's such an honor to be able to give out this proclamation because I know the Rivanna 4-H Club.

I've attended several of their events at Grace Church where my favorite part was the rabbit obstacle course race.

That's something to watch if you haven't seen it.

And also at the Albemarle County Fair with all the animals there and all the children, the 4-H members taking care of those animals, showing them what an opportunity to learn and to grow.

We have a large agricultural community

here in Albemarle.

And it's great to see that we are encouraging young people to continue to pursue this advocacy or to continue to pursue this on behalf of

all the other farmers that are working hard because they want to see the young people grow up and become part of the farm community.

So thank you very much and congratulations.

You deserve it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You know, I love to share a story when I think it's relevant.

And my first interaction with 4-H in Albemarle County was when I was, you know, I was doing some political tabling at the Albemarle County Fair.

And it was very early in the morning and a woman came up with her daughter, maybe mid-teens, and she said, hey, I have to go.

My daughter has an allergic condition and we need someone, a trusted adult here and I don't know anyone.

And you're a politician, so you have to be trustworthy.

I just had a young woman who was there showing ducks, kind of attached at my hip for several hours because she had been assigned to me.

And I learned so much about the way that this had shaped her life and her childhood and her extracurricular experience.

I learned a lot about ducks, got to pet one, which is surprisingly soft and pleasant to pet.

Would have never guessed.

Became a big duck fan that day.

But the thing that struck me most was just the way that 4-H really helped shape people's lives, right?

As a young person,

especially a young person like growing up country like a lot of people in Albemarle County do.

The thing you need is just something to be part of your life, right?

You don't want to be sitting at home.

You don't want to be going to school and then that's the end of your day.

4-H gives people some structure, some outlets for their energy, a way to be a nerd in a different way, a nerd about ducks, a nerd about rabbits.

And I just think that's a really rich thing to provide in people's lives.

Supervisor McKeel.

Great story, Mike.

And I'm just thrilled that you found someone who finds politicians trustworthy.

That is refreshing.

I think we're all trustworthy, but it's refreshing to hear someone from the public say that.

And congratulations.

I'm really thrilled that the 4-H clubs are building momentum in this community.

As a former school board member, I remember watching the interest

sort of go away to some degree.

And it's really great over the last decade that you all are getting back to that.

I would encourage you to take a look in October after we approve AC 44, our comp plan, because there's lots in the comp plan right now about agriculture and where we hope this community will go with agriculture, farming.

So it might be of interest for you all to take a look at that chapter.

But in the meantime, it's great to see all those kids.

Would you raise your hand for everybody?

The 4-H.

There you go.

That's great.

Lots of green shirts and folks.

We love it when young people come to our meetings.

Sure.

Supervisor Mallek?

Thank you, and hopefully this counts for a citizenship program too.

When my elder daughter was nine, she was part, her Heifer, Poldorford Heifer was at State Fair with part of a get-of-sire class.

And you're absolutely right that nothing grounds you more during times of stress than

having to do chores whether it's five degrees or a hundred degrees and I always feel like quite a survivor when I've been out there taking care of my animals regardless of the weather and during COVID and whatever I think people who had those responsibilities were able to sort their brains out a whole lot easier than folks who had lots more time on their hands let's put it that way and more time to worry

I love the fun to try, safe to fail because that's farming.

Every year is different.

Even if you think you know what to do after 50 years, this year is different than last year and we all have to be nimble and figure out how to change our processes.

So I think it's really important.

The Envirothon is something I'm also really thrilled about being a science teacher for elementary kids for years and years.

And the financial literacy, if you're going to raise any kind of livestock for the fair process and sell it, you've got to learn all about the finances and how to pay for the feed and how to do all those other things in hopes of having a nickel at the end.

So thank you for your leadership with all these young people.

I appreciate what stood out to me in the proclamation was learning by doing and then followed immediately to building self-esteem.

You know, learning by doing, we just think of hands-on things, but we're applying abstract thought and a lot of logic and knowledge that's happening from an academic realm to that hands-on piece.

And there's nothing that builds self-esteem better.

then failing and making mistakes and learning that that's part of the learning process so the fact that you all are providing a safe place to fail and reinforcing to building or creating or what's the word I'm forming self-esteem that yeah mistakes are part of this process and I mean how boring would it be if we didn't make mistakes or we didn't fail at some things as we as we were learning to do things so

Really appreciate that that's part of the focus that you all are there and appreciate that these kids are probably more engaged in the program because that's part of the process.

And I'll add my gratitude for the program.

My wife grew up on a farm and tells the story of her pet bowl that she raised until it got a little too big for her and all the other animals that were part of the program.

And to learn that their enrollment's up, more people are involved is really good news.

So thank you.

And I believe Supervisor Mallek has the proclamation to present.

Board, this brings us to item seven, public comment on matters previously considered or currently pending before the board, other than scheduled public hearings.

All right.

The rules first.

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 to speak, which begins your allotted time.

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

The red light indicates your time has expired and you'll 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, please 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 and do not speak from your seat or out of turn.

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

And with that, we have 10 speakers signed up and our first speaker is Tom Olivier.

And Tom Loach, you're going to be the next speaker.

If you want to come down front, we'll just try to keep it moving a little bit.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

I'm Tom Olivier.

I'm a resident of the Samuel Miller district.

I'm here to speak about revisions to the county's data center ordinance.

We should be concerned about the number of and spread of data centers in Virginia.

Data centers make noise and emit gases that reduce the quality of life in adjacent residential neighborhoods.

The AI bubble may burst.

Quantum computing may make them obsolete.

Data centers also consume vast quantities of energy.

Dominion Energy's peak summer energy demand is projected to double by 2045.

According to the PEC, most of the increase will be driven by new data centers.

And guess what?

Ratepayers will foot the bill for the electricity grid updates required for these new data centers.

Most importantly, much of the new needed electricity generation will be provided by burning fossil fuels.

Already, climate change is a threat to humanity and the rest of the biosphere.

Data center growth in Virginia will undermine our efforts to become carbon neutral and worsen climate change.

Given the many negative consequences and risks surrounding data centers,

Caution in any new ordinance seems required.

Surely allowing large data centers by right in the county is reckless.

At least a special use permit should be required for any proposed large data center coupled with an analysis of the climate and other environmental impacts.

For a moment, I'd like to consider the development of this ordinance in a broader perspective.

At the recent work session on the county climate program,

Some of you expressed concern that members of the public doubted the county's commitment to climate action.

Let me explain why.

The Rivanna Futures Project was hatched and approved by the county seemingly without any consideration of its likely large climate impacts.

Ditto for the eight-mile military industrial complex you're promoting on 29 North.

And this data center ordinance was brought forward with no analysis of its climate consequences.

If you want us to regard the county as committed to effective climate action,

require analysis and weighting of climate impacts in development related decisions.

Thank you.

Thank you, Tom.

Good afternoon, Tom Lowes, President Crozet.

With regard to AC44, the question I would like to ask is why did the county feel it necessary to employ an outside consulting firm to complete a land use review when a similar review was completed in 2022?

I'd like to also point out from the report that the consultants use the value of 58% in three instances representing the total number of approved percentage of the maximum number of units allowed and recommended in the comp plan.

If this is true, didn't we recently find that when all factors are considered the percentage is actually 70%?

This being the case that the consultants use erroneous data in their decision-making process and conclusions.

There is one area in the consultant's report that I do agree with, and that's the data relating to rural development.

I have already presented data to the board regarding the county's land use subsidy program and the fact that since 1991, it has cost residents approximately a quarter of a billion dollars with at least $65 million over the last five years.

Yet there is not one word about this program anywhere in either the consultant's report or the entire AC44 document.

It's not that I don't support rural preservation, I do.

It's not that I'm willing to pay for rural preservation, I am.

Unfortunately, the fact is the consultant report shows that an average of 17% of development is occurring in the rural area each year.

When any of you invest your money in a stock with an annual 17% loss rate, the simple truth is land use is not protective, but equates to a very expensive land rental program for rural residents.

Make no mistake if this issue is not debated within the board during the AC44 deliberations, that it must be construed to the public to be a sign of acceptance by the board of the program at a continuing cost of millions of dollars to the taxpayers.

In a recent podcast, Ron Tubbs reported that a total of 400 convents were submitted regarding AC44, this from a population of 112,000 residents in Albemarle County.

What should have been done to ensure adequate input and statistical relevance on important AC44 topics was for the county to employ the UVA Center for Research and to conduct a series of questionnaires sent to each household to ensure adequate input.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Neil Williamson is our next speaker, followed by Christina Libre Essel.

Good afternoon.

Neil Williamson.

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

Last night, I gave the planning commission our thoughts on AC44, and there are several areas that I think the document fails.

I'll leave those for your review later.

One area that I think is worthy of note is an opportunity for you.

The staff presented and the board endorsed and the Planning Commission subsequently followed your lead to not make any significant changes to your future land use map.

They consolidated some topics and changed some colors but didn't change the uses, didn't change any of the comp plan designations really of any significance.

keeping what was in place in 2015.

Had a discussion with someone yesterday evening about this and they said, the board can do that anytime.

They don't have to wait five years.

I wonder, could you?

Could you think about the future land use map and does 2015 accurately represent what you want to do now?

There's nothing that says you can't consider it.

and perhaps taken out of the comp plan discussion, that discussion would be clearer.

I know you've got a lot of choices and decisions here.

When we talk about data centers, when we talk with all of these choices and decisions, staff does a very good job providing the balance of things.

And I'm hopeful that you could take the flam out of the comp plan process and simply look at the map.

Work with your planning commission and get it done in 24 months.

Your planning commission and staff took, I believe, four plus years on the last comp plan.

Well, obviously, that's too big a bite.

Let's focus in.

Do the phlegm now.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Christina, and I apologize.

I thought that was part of your name.

Good afternoon members of the Board of Supervisors.

My name is Christina Libre and I'm an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center.

I appreciate the opportunity to provide these brief comments regarding phase two of the data center regulations.

Thank you and county staff for your leadership and engagement with the public through this process.

We wish to again express our strong support for the current requirement

that data centers over 40,000 square feet go through the special use permit process.

Data centers threaten significant disruption to communities and harm to the environment.

An SUP requirement ensures that the public has the opportunity to weigh in on these uniquely impactful projects.

It ensures that you and your colleagues have the opportunity to review proposals on a case-by-case basis and approve only those that adequately minimize harms to residents and the environment.

And it ensures that you are able to maintain oversight of aggregate impacts from these projects.

Should the county decide to pause consideration of the currently proposed data center amendments, we urge that any future reconsideration only include adding performance standards.

Further, we urge that the current SUP requirement for data centers over 40,000 square feet be maintained indefinitely.

Thank you.

Our next two speakers are Doug Holliday and then Dick Payne, if you'll also come down.

Welcome.

Good afternoon.

My name is Doug Holliday.

I live in the Samuel Miller district.

I'm here today with my friend and partner, Dick Payne.

Together we are owners of Sweet Spot of Albemarle LLC, which is in the Sam Miller District.

We are addressing Parcel 7548 that is located southwest of the interchange of US-64 and US-29.

It borders the Sieg property, which is to the east, and the future Hedge Row parkland, which is to the west.

We are here to ask you to consider an adjustment to the parcel's designation from Industrial Purple

to community mixed use pink on the AC44 future land use map.

We think this adjustment to a less intensive designation is consistent with the county's vision for a variety of desired uses.

Community mixed use is more appropriate for this area than uses supported by the current more intensive industrial designation.

By way of background, in 2015, Deschutes Brewery of Bend, Oregon had an interest in purchasing property to build an east coast brewery.

At the time, there was a shortage of industrial land.

The land use map required adjustment of our property.

We agreed with the county's request

for an industrial designation on the land use map.

As events unfolded, the chutes did not come to Albemarle County, but our parcel is still designated for industrial use on the comprehensive map plan.

For the last 10 years, there has not been one indication of interest for industrial use for this property.

However, there has been and continues to be

developing use interest for this property for other uses.

We are not asking for rezoning of the property, but for an adjustment to the future land use map.

This modification would support a future zoning application for a mixed-use community.

Adjusting the parcel's designation as part of AC44 advances the county's goals and avoids unnecessary delay.

It also preserves opportunity for public engagement on the details on how the property would be developed during a future zoning application.

I'll now let my partner Dick address a rationale for the adjustment.

Thank you.

Thank you, Doug.

I'm Dick Payne.

And I want to first thank Chairman Andrews as well as all the members of the Board of Supervisors for your time today.

I'm going to briefly summarize the reasons we believe our suggested adjustment in the future land use map makes sense.

We do want to emphasize, as Doug did, but again, we are not asking for a zoning change.

But our property, we are only asking for industrial to community use adjustment on the future land use map.

The adjustment from industrial to community mixed use makes sense for the following reasons.

First, the industrial designation is outdated.

Our land was first designated industrial in 2015 in an effort to attract Deschutes Brewery, which went to Roanoke, as Doug mentioned.

There has been no interest from industrial sources since 2015.

Second, the supply of industrially designated land on the future land use map has increased substantially since 2015 to include large tracts of acreage at North Fork, Rivanna Futures, and other locations.

Our parcel is not competitive with these other locations, which are larger, have flatter land, and easier access to existing roads and utilities.

Third, there is a community benefit to our land being designated community mixed use.

This designation supports a wide variety of uses including commercial, office, retail, light industrial, R&D, residential, and institutional.

In other words, everything except heavy industrial for which it's designated.

Fourth, this adjustment would make our land compatible with the seek properties proposed community mixed use development project, which is contiguous to our parcel.

Fifth, there are locational advantages to a designation adjustment.

Community mixed use is more appropriate than industrial at the edge of the development area.

Mixed use at our location could also provide opportunities to integrate with seats, sidewalks, trail networks, shops, and employment centers.

Finally, this map adjustment as part of AC44 supports the county's goals of efficient future development and a diversified tax base.

Importantly, it allows for active public engagement during any future rezoning application.

At last night's Planning Commission meeting, there seemed to be some support for this adjustment.

We are hopeful the board will also see the merits of this proposal.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Thank you for allowing me to speak to you for a minute.

My name is Brian Carlton.

I'm just a resident of the county.

I came from Lynchburg about eight and a half years ago.

I love this county.

It's wonderful.

The trails, the trees, the forest.

I love running on the trails and biking on the trails.

When I think about the data centers that possibly could come to our county, it really does concern me.

So I thank you for pausing the proposal, which would require buildings larger than 40,000 square feet to be reviewed, a special review of those types of buildings.

So I fully support that.

And I hope possibly you can make that permanent for the future.

because recently I flew out of Dulles Airport and over Loudoun County and I see tons of large white buildings.

I know they're using up a lot of water, a lot of electricity, and I would like to see our county, I mean, I'm not against development, but I think we really have to look at these case by case and see how they're going to affect our county.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Good afternoon.

My name is Emily Smith.

I'm a housing attorney with the Legal Aid Justice Center.

I was here to make a statement about the AC44 process and specifically about affordable housing.

Affordable housing is an urgent issue that's impacting residents' health and safety.

As I'm sure you know, rents continue to rise in the county causing homelessness and displacement.

Over the past six years, rents have risen over 35%.

The economic impact on lower-income communities is often dire.

Supportive services are decreasing, food benefits have been cut, and many families are losing health coverage.

Affordable housing, preservation, and expansion are the best tools available to prevent a crisis.

We need AC44's housing strategies to be as ambitious as possible.

We encourage you to adopt the points that we've separately submitted in an email that include implement strategies to support low-income homebuyers with the support of community partners, a mandatory inclusionary zoning policy, a increased buy-write density allowance for the inclusion of affordable housing.

And as we all know, a barrier to affordable housing solutions is voice funding.

In addition to your work on AC44, we commend your significant progress in this area, including the dedicated revenue stream.

And we're looking forward to hearing if the percentage of tax dollars can be increased in the coming budget year.

Thank you.

And our next two speakers, Saive of Flynn and Randy.

And I think this is Fetterman.

There you go.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Hi, Sibyl Flynn.

I'm a climate justice policy manager with the Community Climate Collaborative.

The Community Climate Collaborative is very glad to see the staff recommending a pause in the development of the data center ordinance.

As Bill Fritz accurately points out in today's letter addressed to supervisors that was attached to the agenda, there is no one standard set of requirements that would address every buy-write application of data centers which have drastically differing resource needs depending on the use case.

We already know that data center development is directly responsible for proposals to build out 15 gigawatts of new gas-fired power plants across Virginia, which is the data center capital of the world.

As I wrote to the supervisors on Monday, that data center-driven gas infrastructure build-out is threatening Albemarle residents even as we speak.

Just over the county line with Fluvanna, right by Scottsville, an enormous 1.5 gigawatt gas-fired power plant has been proposed by the Nebraska-based Chanaska in Fluvanna.

This plant would more than double the existing one gigawatt gas plant that's been operating there for about 20 years.

If built, it will further lock a region into decades of additional fossil fuel pollution with impacts on air quality, water resources, climate goals and public health that directly affect Albemarle residents.

The Southern Environmental Law Center estimates that the health impact costs from the proposed plant would be $13.6 million annually, rising to $21.1 million annually by 2040, for a cumulative cost of $270 million by 2040.

That will unavoidably include Albemarle County residents whose Board of Supervisors is not being included in this decision-making process.

At a town hall in Fluvanna County last night, residents nearby the existing gas plant reported increased rates of cancers, asthma, unmitigated noise and disregard by this multi-billion dollar, privately held company, Tonaska.

C3 understands that our Board of Supervisors is not involved in approving this enormous gas plant, but we do ask that you consider reaching out to your peers in Fluvanna County Board of Supervisors

before next week's October 7th Planning Commission meeting to express your alarm on behalf of your constituents who will unavoidably be impacted by this if it goes ahead.

Across the Commonwealth, the health of small communities is being directly threatened by the fossil fuel buildout merely to support data centre growth.

Thank you.

Randy?

There you are.

Okay.

Last but not least.

Good afternoon and thank you for letting me speak.

My name is Randy Fleetman.

I live in the Scottsville district.

For 33 years I was a foreign service officer.

Environment, science, technology, and health was one of my areas and economic development was another.

Thank you very much for pausing the consideration of the data center ordinance.

I strongly oppose the idea of allowing larger centers to get by without a special use permit.

My colleagues have already described most of the problems, but I want to focus on something else indeed.

These centers all have huge diesel generators as backups.

These generators have to be tested on a regular basis, because what good is a backup that doesn't work when you need it?

The neighbors get to hear these things clattering away and they get to smell the fumes from these as well.

These centers do not create jobs.

They are not an economic development.

There's some construction jobs and then a few people are left on staff.

The claims that these things boost the economy are wrong.

What they do do is increase the demand for electricity and our bills as we pay for the infrastructure.

And as one of my colleagues pointed out, you can't even trust these things to go up.

There's a lot of assumptions being done.

Some of these are being proposed by real estate companies who want to get in on it.

And if their proposal fails and Dominion has already spent the money to build the infrastructure, we get the bills.

So I strongly continue to think that the special use permit is a good way to have us consider all the implications of any data center being based here in Albemarle.

When I lived in Fairfax County, I biked along the Washington Old Dominion Rail Trail for 40 years, and I got to watch the growth of the data centers, which now outnumber the horse farms.

That is not the character I want for Albemarle County, and I hope it's not what you want either.

Appreciate the comments.

Board, this brings us to item 8, which is the consent agenda.

I understand we're calling the January 15th, 2025 minutes.

Are there any other proposed changes to the consent agenda?

If not, then I'm looking for a motion to approve the consent agenda as amended.

So moved.

Second.

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

Ms.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Aye.

And this brings us to our first presentation for the afternoon, the VDOT quarterly report presented by Kerry Shepherd, Charlottesville residency administrator.

Welcome.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the board.

Not really sure how to check.

How would you do that?

Let's see this.

Is it this?

It is that.

Yes.

OK, let's see if we can yank this up.

There we go on that.

Here we are.

Oh, that should work, right?

A little sideways, but otherwise, it's good.

OK, all right.

So good afternoon.

Carrie, you're self-spoken.

So my first slide, of course, outlines preliminary engineering updates.

A couple I'd like to point out on this slide are the Route 29 shared juice path.

We put that out for advertisement, but we received bids that were too high.

That is going back out for advertisement on November 12th.

So we're hoping to get bids that are more in line with our estimates after we get those bids back in early next year.

For the exit 107 park and ride project, that advertisement is currently out.

We hope to have bid openings in December.

And then our couple other projects are still in progress.

The 5th Street hub and trails, the 250-20 intersection and improvements along the Pantops corridor.

Our advertisement dates are spring 2026.

And then jumping down to our route 702,

Fontaine Avenue replacement bridge over Maury Creek.

That project is going to construction.

It is starting October 7th and expected to be complete spring of 2027.

During that time, it will be a single lane with temporary traffic signals on either side.

Moving on to our design-build bundles.

The last element for our hydraulic bundle is that pedestrian bridge.

We expect completion October 31st and we are currently planning a ribbon cutting on November 13th.

So that's a pretty big milestone in that project.

Our next bundle is the four roundabouts in the Belvedere Green Tea.

Currently, the 240-250 roundabout is under construction.

The Old Lynchburg 5th Street roundabout is under review and right-of-way plans.

And with the remaining elements, the limited access control chains that I mentioned at the last meeting for the John Warner Parkway-Rire Road roundabout was approved by the CTB, and that was just a minor shift of alignment.

That was not a major change.

And then last, our final bundle, which includes the hydraulic District Avenue roundabout, the Fontaine Avenue interchange improvements.

including the Fontaine Street scaping that goes into the city of Charlottesville.

We had the public hearing on March 22nd.

Design bill request for proposals is issued to the short listers.

That was issued on June 27th.

Technical proposals are due today and price proposals are due November 3rd.

The CTP award is still anticipated for December of this year.

As far as our rural rustic,

Projects.

Made a lot of progress this year.

Glendale Road phase one and two is complete.

Sutherland Road is complete.

Stony Point Pass is complete.

And Starlight Road is under construction and we hope to have that surface down before the end of the season.

So that one will soon also be complete.

On to our construction activities.

I'm going to skip the first one for a moment and just jump to the second one.

Route 712 Plank Road.

That was reconstruction of a headwall.

That project is complete.

It ran a little late past the August 28th deadline, but that project is also now complete.

And then back up to our 601 Old Ivy Road bridge project.

As I'm sure everybody is aware, that bridge was hit on Monday.

We had to close the bypass shortly after noon and we were luckily able to reopen the bypass around 645 that evening.

The bypass does remain open.

However, Old Ivy Road is still closed because the bridge did suffer considerable damage and we don't know if we can allow or what we can allow to drive across it at this point in time.

So we're still doing a lot of investigation.

We're going to have to probably do load rating analysis with all of our pairs to determine when we can open that back up.

We have put out a lot of signage to help motorists understand that Old Ivy is closed.

There was additional signage put out just last night because I think there was some confusion from citizens or parents and teachers and students coming from STAB and not realizing that Old Ivy was closed and it caused a bit of a nightmare over there.

So we did add more signage to help with that.

We've also been communicating with

As many business partners as we can in the area, we've talked to, we have talked to STAB, we've reached out to UVA, so we're trying to figure out a good plan moving forward while this bridge is shut down completely before we can get a lane back open.

And of course, we are continuing.

I've taken the slide out at this point in time, but we continue to respond to citizen requests and calls that come in through our office and through board members.

Thank you.

We'll go through our order.

Yes, thank you very much for your report.

I always look forward to it, and a special thank you for completing Stony Point Pass, especially the extra 0.2 miles.

Really appreciate it, and all of our roads are looking good, and you all are really doing a good job.

I will say personally,

You and your staff are very responsive to when I make any kind of an inquiry or ask questions, you're very responsive.

So I thank you very much for that.

Thank you.

I just, I'm sure I speak for a lot of people in saying that I really appreciate Gail's really quick response on oil diving, right?

That is a

Major intersection point for a lot of people and it was a deeply confusing period and y'all have been handling it with a lot of speed and grace for a state level agency that I know gets pulled in a lot of different directions.

I also, and this is almost more of a kudos, it's both a kudos on the VDOT team, but also a kudos on this board's team, this board, because I think it is a good indication that the process we have is working.

The amount of feedback I've received since Glenn Dower finished getting paved, day one I was getting like pictures in my inbox of that pavement hitting the streets and people are ecstatic and I already have another rural rustic that I've had a whole stack of

Point being, our approach of having this resident feedback driven process

where we have a requirement that local residents actually have that petition, I think is actually delivering what we want it to be, which is making sure that these projects go to people who really want them and who are really excited to see these rural rustics getting paved.

And so I also appreciate VDOT for once we actually had that decision point actually getting asphalt on the ground quicker.

And as a kind of closing thing, I would mention, I've heard,

I have a constituent who moved into an adjacent property at one of the roundabouts that's being constructed after some of the initial community outreach that had been done.

There was a whole postering session where a lot of, frankly, local landowners came out and expressed some concern about the way their easements were going to be affected.

He acquired it after that.

Maybe there's a realtor something happening.

Maybe there's some due diligence something happening, but was not aware of this process.

I'm trying to decide if it's worth, I think he would not mind this.

It's, so we're looking at the one on 20, the 2050-53, do I have the right number?

Okay.

Yeah, so that one is going to be the last element that we do because of the events that are going on at Monticello.

Okay thank you.

Thank you, Kerry.

Probably good timing for you to be here today because certainly we had a lot of angst in the community over the Ivy Road Bridge.

And you all did a yeoman's job, I must say.

And I also want to send a shout out to

our fire and rescue and police officers who obviously had their world turned upside down as well as our constituents and residents who were involved in it.

I know many people sat for hours in their cars trying to move to wherever they were going.

I do find it concerning that there have been three incidences in central Virginia of trucks hitting bridges over the last several weeks.

I mean, 81 is what I'm talking about.

And I recognize that not only is that disruptive for people traveling, but it's also expensive for VDOT.

and it causes a lot of angst for everyone.

I don't know if anything can be done about that but it does seem like these big trucks are not paying very much attention to the height of their loads and I don't know if that that probably involves police and monitoring on the on the interstates and these roads but it is concerning.

Three incidents is pretty much within ten days of each other.

and I'll just let that stand but I do really appreciate the efforts.

Is there any, Carrie, just thinking about and knowing that whole area of Ivy Road and Old Ivy Road, certainly the businesses along Ivy Road are really struggling now because of the

Is there any outreach to St.

Ann's-Belfield in trying to alternate times of those schools dismissing that might help?

I'm just thinking about it through the lens of trying to address something short-term

that might actually help.

Just something to think about.

They did promise us at one time that they would stagger their start and stop times, and maybe getting back to something like that could help relieve at least some of the traffic if possible.

And I really haven't taken time to think it through from my viewpoint, but just an observation that might help is outreach to St.

Ann's Battlefield.

Their parents are stuck in that traffic too.

So just saying that.

And to change the subject completely, the hydraulic 29 package we're completing, which is great, pedestrian bridge, the roundabout.

So we're working our way through all those projects.

A project that was not, we didn't pursue the project because the bids came in so high on everything.

We had to drop the work that we were going to do around Angus Road.

and the city.

Well, that part of the package, that VDOT would be taking a look at how to get back to that area and come up with another plan.

So that's part of the STAR study of that corridor and we did just have a meeting, I think it was last Friday, to talk about the interchange and that section in particular.

So right now it's conversations presenting the concepts that the engineers have come up with and talking through those to just get different

Stakeholders opinions on what might work, what could work.

Just brainstorming essentially based on these concepts.

Then the consultant's going to go back and refine those and then come back and we're going to have another meeting about it.

That's wonderful.

Just to know that it's in conversation right now and some design work is being done and I'm sure that public process will be included in all those neighborhoods.

I get all that.

I just had lost track of it in my mind and it's really critical.

I just wanted to know where we stood on it.

So thank you very much.

And I really appreciate all your hard work around the latest incident with our traffic fiasco.

I thought that he was right there.

Thank you very much.

So I have a couple of questions for you to get back to me when you can because it's probably outside.

Someone texted me today to say, can you find out what the status is of sign removal on Ridge Road?

So that's one question because I know we've been going back and forth and I thought the agreement was to take down the ones which were there.

Secondly, last night at a business people's meeting about the square and plaza in Crozet, there was, again, a question raised about moving the light, which is currently at the square in Crozet Avenue, down to Library Avenue, which has been discussed for about 15 years.

And I think once the square work was done and the write-in write-out was in effect, as it is now, that that would happen.

So that will be crossing your desk at some point, and I'd love to know what the deal is with that, too.

Lots of commendations about the work at the 680, 240, 250.

I think everyone's so excited that something is happening.

And actually, the way that traffic is diverted now is such an improvement about being able to see, to get out, that it's really working very, very well.

So that's just grand.

After many years of getting what Sean Nelson called it a legacy project going yesterday at the MPO, that was fun.

After many years of hearing about the Fontaine streetscape, this Fontaine interchange business, this is the, I guess it's just filtering into my brain that somehow now this is linked with a city streetscape project?

Yes.

That was theirs.

And is that impacting the budget and the ability to go forward with the highway part?

No, it is not.

Separate money.

Okay.

Very good.

That's important.

And

Many with the chicken row issue that's already been raised, I think many people over the years have said this would be such a great place for a parallel access road where if you want to be in that section, you get off at the Texaco and you go on down and because everybody who is concerned about safety, including myself, goes to the far left lane and put puts down there to avoid all the people jumping in and out in front of each other because it is truly scary.

But that's all I had.

Thank you.

Good to see you, Carrie.

Thank you.

Somebody called it the chicken strip the other day.

I thought, oh, that's a great pun.

But I mean, I thought we said chicken row too.

I realized the last time you were here for the quarterly update, I was like, well, where are my updates?

But I found it in my draft folder that I never actually sent to you.

So I was like, well, that's probably why I didn't get any updates because I didn't ask.

But I have two that it's been some time, so you probably could guess.

The Hillsdale Drive, the modular roundabout.

I do.

So at this point in time, so we don't think we have enough time to get this done by the end of this year.

So what we're looking at is planning to implement it in the construction year next year in spring.

So we're going to do the rest of our planning and prep work over the winter so that we're ready to go.

It's essentially going to be pavement markings, delineators, new signage, and the last element that we are still determining is what we're actually going to use in the center.

Great.

And I don't know that I knew that this end of this year was even a possibility.

So I knew the funding was waiting until July 1.

So I'm glad to hear just a schedule and that that's going to move forward.

And the only other one, and if this one you need to get back to me on that is great.

It's just the Penn Park Road, the speed limit.

The 35 to the 25 with all the curbs.

I think at this point, while my concern was there with the opening now of Rio Point and 300 plus units coming online there, I suspect the pedestrian activity going into Penn Park is about to increase.

And that's been a place where sidewalk requests have come in, but we don't have a sidewalk that goes all the way into Penn Park.

So the speed limit is going to become of a greater concern to me because of the, what we'll probably see an increase in Penn walking, you know, going into that park.

And also, I express my gratitude.

You've been inundated with questions from me and requests and always been very responsive.

And I appreciate the communication that's gone on with respect to Old Ivy Road.

You mentioned the Fontaine, Maury Creek.

You said there's going to be a light there.

Is that a detector so that it tells whether somebody's waiting or not and decides who gets through because there's

Okay, okay, good.

Thank you.

Of course, the hitting the bridge alerted us all to critical infrastructure and the fact that

And I believe Mr. Henry has a comment or... Thanks, Chair Andrews and the board members that have commented.

Ms.

Shepherd, just wanted to publicly thank you for your staff and the response.

It included representation at a command post that we had a police had the county police.

We had city representation there, emergency management, fire rescue.

So that level of coordination was critical.

And then just more broadly on infrastructure, we have a regional emergency communication center.

We have a CAD system that really is what is the routing of responses.

And ECC really had to lean in to be updating that system throughout the day, not just because of the closure, but because of the traffic.

So we were able to identify the most

reachable units for any other issues that occurred.

So I know it was incredibly disruptive to the community, folks passing through, but I just wanted to publicly thank VDOT and our public safety folks and ECC for all that they did just to manage us through that that afternoon and evening.

Thank you.

I'm not sure whether there will be sort of a rehash at some point to see if there are any lessons learned or future actions, but I know that will happen and I appreciate your efforts.

Thank you.

Is there anything further?

Thank you.

Okay.

This brings us to our next item for information.

The Data Center Phase 2 Zoning Text and Zoning Map Amendment Update Presentation led by Mr. Bill Fritz, Development Process Manager.

Hello and thank you.

I'm Bill Fritz with the Community Development Office.

I'm going to save you from our PowerPoint presentation today.

I wanted to give you an update following the August work session that the board had on data centers.

Just to remind you where we are, in April of this year, the Board of Supervisors adopted what we were at that time calling phase one of the data center regulations.

And what those regulations did or what that ordinance did was to allow data centers up to 40,000 square feet by right in the industrial districts, over 40,000 square feet in the industrial districts by special use permit and of any size in commercial districts by special use permit.

and there were some regulations also associated with accessory data centers, closed loop systems, cooling systems and generators.

What we're doing now, what we're presenting to you today is a recommendation that the county pause its work on the map and text amendments and to just retain the existing regulations.

And I want to go in a little bit to what led to that conclusion or that recommendation and what that means and what we'll be doing.

After considering the guidance given by the Board of Supervisors in August, we determined that the districts that we were considering for the overlay districts

for large data centers by right were not for the most part viable.

We've been unable to develop standardized system, standardized regulations or system to allow for administrative review of the environmental impacts and the mitigation of those impacts.

We just can't come up with a standardized set of conditions that will take into account all by right applications.

As we've continued to do research,

Data centers and data center design and operations are evolving.

We're concerned that any ordinance that we adopt now risks becoming out of date or that as data centers evolve, we may not have regulations that address those new impacts that they may cause.

So what we're doing is we're recommending allowing those regulations, the regulatory environment to develop.

We'll continue to follow the best practices of other jurisdictions.

At this time, we don't know what the General Assembly might do in the upcoming legislative session.

We'll monitor that and update the board with any regulations that we may need to adopt or talk about to address any legislation that the General Assembly may enact.

I want to point out that the existing ordinance would, for anything over 40,000 square feet, and in commercial districts any, would be a special use permit.

And that allows for a public input.

It's a public process.

And it allows for the review to be based on the most up-to-date information, both by the applicant, what the regulatory environment, best technologies that would be available at the time any application comes forward.

and if any application were approved by the Board of Supervisors, you could impose conditions that would address any of those potential impacts.

Taking all that together, we just believe that right now it would be best to pause work on this and wait and see what happens.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Fritz.

I really appreciate that and I thank staff for listening to the board and monitoring of best practices regarding this, regarding data centers.

The science of this changes a lot and the fact that we're keeping on top of it and monitoring it

is a good thing.

But I do believe, I totally agree that we do need to take a pause and to see what happens in the future and what we will, what we may or may not do in the future.

But I'm very confident with the approach staff has suggested.

Thank you.

I would also really want to commend staff for taking a very sober look at this problem set for trying their damnedest to get as much actual concrete data in what I know is a heavily morally emotively inflected topic, trying as hard as you can to get concrete data.

And I think it

bears mention, something that maybe you're not in a position to say, but I am, that a big part of why we don't have the data to make these kinds of decisions, in addition to the fact that it's a moving target, is also that there's just really striking lack of transparency from some of these firms that we're working with.

And I think that is something that's important to communicate to the public.

and I know we've moved past this decision point but I love picking at a scab.

I continue to think with our interim ordinance that is now our final ordinance that it may have perhaps been more prudent to have a lower threshold just because we do have a lower threshold for the buy-write approval than the 40,000 square feet.

because we do have, as a board, not much working proficiency with these developments.

And this would give us the opportunity to actually review them, to actually see the, to peel away a few layers of skin and see what's going on inside them.

And it would also frankly give us an opportunity to

to have some serious conversations about community exchange and what the impacts of those are going to be.

I think it's worth noting for the public that the university is currently building a considerable sized data center, about 35,000 square feet, just under the buy-write limit that we have.

We're not gonna get a cent of those tax dollars and we're not gonna have any input on what it looks like.

I think the board might have been able to

You know, we normally don't have a card to play with payment in lieu of taxes.

I think this could have given us a card to play if we had had a lower threshold.

And it certainly would have let us understand these a little bit more.

Thank you.

Yes, I want to thank

Bill and Amelia for bringing this forward and for all the staff and all the work and time.

I know that it's, or at least it appears to me from the emails that I've been getting, that people are concerned about the terminology by right.

And I'm trying to separate this out right now because

I think we're doing exactly the right thing.

I appreciate what you're doing.

But if we separate out the way we've been discussing this, and I think this goes to other proposals, not just data centers, when we use the word buy right,

People think it's by right and there's no performance standards.

I just heard Southern Environmental Law Center say, well, you need performance standards.

When something is by right, there are performance standards.

Can you speak a little bit to this, Bill?

Because I think there is a misunderstanding in the greater community.

Because it's very confusing.

It sounds like you don't have any control over what is done.

So let's just talk about that for a few minutes.

And I want to put data centers aside because I'm not trying to make a case for data centers.

Thank you, and I appreciate that.

So I'm going to go down the list as I had written them.

So we have accessory data centers.

They're by right.

They're permitted provided that they meet the requirements of the ordinance.

They have to be accessory to a primary use.

They have to be within that primary use.

They need to be for that individual

We've used this building as an example.

We operate servers that we have that would qualify as a data center, but it is within this building and it provides only county services.

That's what it's doing.

and we have its limit as to percentage of the building that can be occupied by those servers.

We also have that data centers have to be on public water and sewer.

If they have a water-cooled system, they're not required to have a water-cooled system, but if they have a water-cooled system, that needs to be in a closed loop.

On the generator side, we have a requirement that limits the hours of operation for their routine maintenance.

That's the running of the generators to make sure they operate and sound requirements, the sound dampening that they're required to have.

It's the highest standard that's available.

and I believe, oh and and setbacks.

They have increased setbacks greater than any other industrial uses might have.

They're 200 feet from all lot lines

Industrial districts are 50 or 100 depending on whether it's industrial heavy or light industrial and 500 feet from rural area zoning and the industrial districts do not have a differentiation between rural and residential.

And just to tag on to that, uses of an industrial character, which include data centers and other industrial uses, have an entire section of performance standards within the zoning ordinance.

And it generates the need for an engineer's report that goes to our county engineer.

And it addresses things like noise, vibration, air pollution, and things like that that you think about as

Potential byproducts or concerns impacts from an industrial use.

And then also any data center application that came in for construction of a new data center would have to go through the normal site plan review process, which is going to pick up all the stormwater, the setbacks, the landscaping, and if it's in the entrance corridor district, the architectural review board.

So thank you, but I'm going to push back because the word by right does not indicate all of that.

People think it's the wild, wild west.

I'm not blaming you all.

And it's probably in state code or something, I don't know the terminology, but we need to figure out how to be better, more descriptive for our community because we weren't just opening it up for any data center company that wanted to come in and put a data center regardless, but that's what my right sounds like.

Agreed.

And we are, our staff, you are thoughtful.

Albemarle County is very environmentally conscious.

We are always trying to do the best work we can to protect our community and what's important to our community.

And when we say something's by right, the community says, what are you talking about?

So we're doing ourselves a disservice and the community a disservice and I would say similarly for performance standards.

When I hear performance standards I think okay you're going to be judging something after it's done and making sure that its performance meets standards.

That's not what we mean by performance standards.

Talk about performance standards.

That's right.

So the performance standard we require that the, just to talk about the generators for example, the performance standard is that they have a limited hours of operation that they can run their generators for the routine maintenance.

That's an ongoing performance standard.

So that's really post-development.

Pre-development performance standard is you have to be 500 feet from a rural lot line, rural zoning lot line.

So that would be something that we look at during the site plan stage to measure it and make sure that your building is not closer than 500 feet.

So a better terminology for performance standards.

I'm not trying to change the way you all are working, but I'm just saying that we have to get out there with language that the community understands.

Because it took me a while as a board of supervisors member to understand what you meant when you said buy right and performance standards.

We're talking about design or development regulations.

People understand that.

They get regulations.

But the broad consensus of people that are emailing me, they don't realize that we're talking about regulating anything.

I'm just saying.

And I think it is critical going forward.

Data centers aside, because we use this language with a lot of what we do.

and trying to figure out how to get that more clear to our public to decrease the angst that they might have.

Now, they still might not like data centers, I get that, but we at least should be descriptive of what we're doing and what the terminology means.

And with that, I really thank you for your work.

Supervisor Malek.

Thank you so much.

And I would agree that all of the work that's been done is a benefit.

None of it was wasted because what we have learned so far will prepare us, whether it's this particular sector or some other on how to engage when things evolve and when things pop up.

The terminology question is certainly a good one that I was going to ask similar questions.

So I'm very glad for that.

But another example, water-cooled system doesn't mean this closed-loop term still is consuming water.

It may not be as much, but this is the kind of things that people find out and then they're not as reassured as I might have been when I heard it from the staff report at the first time.

So all the extra detail that we can learn and is presented to the public is helpful because

You know, they're going to find out, as I used to tell my teenagers, when something happens, you better tell me because I will find out and then I'll really be mad if you don't tell me yourself.

So we need to continue to do the very best job we can.

There was a lot of concern about diesel generators, period, due to the particulates.

And this is the thing where the federal government is not stepping up to protect citizens now.

And so this is something that falls to local regulation to try to make it keep an environment that is as safe as possible for the breathing.

The whole particulate sizes business is something cumulative impacts is something that other counties in Virginia for 10 years have been warring with themselves.

about the impacts that they're seeing.

And I'm personally very grateful that we're taking the, I very much support your recommendation because I don't want to see us gallop into something where we're going to be boring with ourselves for the next 10 years.

So this is an excellent choice.

Thank you very much.

Yeah, thank you both.

If the pause wasn't recommended at the last time we had a discussion about data centers, there were questions and some things you were all going to go do, and then we would have anticipated that coming back to us.

So to build a little bit on Supervisor Mallek's point, I don't know what would be appropriate to ask for, but some sort of summary wrap up of where we're at with that remaining info that we would have received had we not taken this step.

I know you all went out and did some other work, did some other research.

I still am interested in having that information.

So, you know, I don't know if that's a memo.

I'm thinking like something like that, a white paper or something like that that could come to us to kind of capture where we're at moment in time, what we know I think would be useful and relevant.

I think as part of that, given what we did in phase one,

It may just be useful to remind us why we chose the 40,000 square.

We immediately started talking about all these other square footages.

You know, Supervisor Pruitt mentioned, I mean, it's part of UVA, so it's an ongoing organization, but it's a new entity that doesn't currently exist that's going to be bringing that one on.

My focus, I would be concerned about existing businesses that also have them.

You know, I can't imagine we have others that reach or strive to get to 40,000 square foot, but I don't know.

And just like I would be in other areas when existing businesses, if they, as we say, we want them to thrive and grow and expand in our county,

If that is a need that they need for their internal operations, I want to understand what we're doing.

The 40,000 square foot piece is more about these new things coming in and being unregulated.

But what about the things that already exist here or thrive here and need to continue to do so?

I don't want to be adding extra burden onto them or process onto them to be able to continue and be a successful business in our area.

But I say that without knowing.

if we have any that even reach that level.

So it may be that we're so far above it at 40 that 40 is fine.

But if we've got some that might wanna expand and go beyond 40, this is gonna require them to come through a special use permit process.

And that's the place that I'd like to focus in on and think it's worthy of some more discussion because I can't imagine local businesses growing out to the sizes that really freak people out.

Thank you.

I'm also supportive of the pause, which I think is unanimous at this point.

I don't know if we need a motion on that.

But with that, I would also note that there have been some caveats, and I very much appreciate Supervisor McKeel's point that

There's been a lot of confusion on the part of the public as to what we mean when we say performance standards and by right.

The fact that there are you know pre and post development location standards as well as other regulations I think we've lost a lot of people.

You may have looked at performance standards that would apply

to those data centers that might be proposed under the 40,000 cap and I would like to also hear what those performance standards might be and how they would differ from the ones that are currently in place because if we need to

At additional performance standards, I'd like the opportunity to do so.

Sure.

Exactly.

Because people don't understand performance standards.

That's right.

You're asking for regulations.

And I want to say that I keep hearing everyone say case by case.

Even if when we're talking about something that is by right, staff is still looking at these applications case by case.

Can you talk about that a minute?

Thank you.

So what I was trying to talk about with putting the pause is the regulations we were looking to try to adopt would be those that apply in every case.

So on the by right, the permitted applications, those are administratively reviewed.

And we go through, as you said, case by case, every single one of them, we go down a checklist to make sure that it is meeting all of the requirements

for that particular use on that particular property in that particular zoning district with whatever regulations there might be.

And then you have things that are by special use permit and those are discretionary, they have to kind before you and it's a discretionary.

whereas the administrative, if we go down that checkbox and everything gets checked, they get their approval.

If we go down and there's one thing missing, they don't get their approval until they fix it.

But in either case, you are there being looked at case by case, whether it's by staff and you're looking at regulations

to make sure that they are following the regulations that we have established.

And I guess I would add that if you think of the scenario in which a data center, either freestanding, independent, or accessory is built, you're going to have a site plan review and all of the staff and all of the regulations associated with that, design and otherwise, you're going to have

a building permit and all the building code requirements and staff review associated with that.

Right.

So it's not as if it's a free-for-all pass, pass go and keep moving, right?

Or pass stop and keep moving, I guess I should have said.

And this is the McKeel theory.

And McKeel has a lot of theories, but I'll share a theory with you.

Our community is concerned about these huge data centers that we see in a lot of these communities, and they're popping up all over the state.

No one is going to be able to afford to build one of those really huge mega centers in Albemarle County because they will not be able to afford the land.

And that's why they're going to counties where land is cheap.

I'm not saying that I agree with that.

I'm just saying that

People are so angst about these huge data centers that they're seeing, and I just don't think they're even realistic in Albemarle County given the cost of our land.

But again, I qualify that by saying that's the McKeel theory, and we could have one that pops up, but I just don't think so.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

I will only add in just piling on to what Supervisor Pruitt mentioned, dialing back to our original discussion, I was very much interested in the smaller starting square footage.

And so when there is a further discussion about that, I'm very interested in looking at that again because

I know in my mind what 4,000 looks like and what 40,000 looks like and so I'm interested to learn.

And I really appreciate all this discussion about terminology because permitted if all requirements are met is a phrase that I think applies to one of these terms and the way I try to explain it to people when they ask.

and I will, the last thing I will say is in Loudoun and Prince William, $4 million an acre is what people, and these venture capital things for these standalone commercial things, money is no object to that.

And I don't disagree, Ann, but they are moving into a lot of places where the land is really changed.

Absolutely, they are.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And welcome to our County Executive, Mr. Jeff Richardson, here.

And our next item is final.

Do we believe that?

Draft work session?

Fingers crossed.

Led by Tanya Swartzendruber, planning manager, and Michael Barnes, planning.

Welcome.

On the screen.

Not yet.

There we go.

So I'm Tanya Swartzendruber, community development department planning manager, and myself and team are here to talk about AC44.

So this agenda for this presentation is pretty short and sweet.

We'll go through the schedule, go through any notable updates that have happened since the last draft in this one, and then we'll go through the PC resolution and feedback that we heard yesterday and open it up to discussion.

So we kicked off phase four with a public input open house on August 21st and then came to you all and PC late August and of course September 10th.

We didn't quite finish everything on September 10th so that's why we're here before you today to hear those last comments before we come to you for our public meeting on October 15th.

So PC did have their public hearing last night and you have in front of you the resolution that they passed as well as the comments that they would like to weigh in on.

We'll talk about those in a little bit.

A few notable changes that occurred between the last draft and this one is, of course, we did do a general edit for consistency and tone.

We are doing another edit to make sure all of that follows all the way through.

We updated all the references to the land use build-out analysis and included the data from 2025.

We clarified that title for the table for the criteria of the assessing the adequacy of land in the development areas and you'll see that PC recommended a further title just change small change.

We also added some enlarged future land use maps.

We removed the rural-interstate interchange content per your request, as well as the action that was later in that chapter.

We added an action to address lack of childcare in the Thriving Economy chapter.

We also added actions to promote awareness of affordable housing options and supporting aging in place in the housing chapter.

And then in the Parks and Rec chapter, we updated the chart for existing parks and facilities to include the equestrian trails and biking trails, as well as if the park was accessible by transit.

For cultural resources, we added a call-out box to clarify what historic resources are.

And then finally, in implementation, we revised the seventh big move just slightly to strengthen social connection and community well-being.

So like I said, you have the PC resolution in front of you.

They voted six to zero to recommend approval with the following amendments.

And I paraphrased here on the slide, but if you look on that second page of the resolution, you have the exact language and in detail to what those amendments are.

So in part two for growth management, they suggested some adjusted language regarding the boundary revisions, which is what I referred to earlier.

Actually, it's the second one on page 12, they suggested we revise the title.

Then in part three for environmental stewardship, they suggested that we add an action that requires planting of 80% locally native species.

In the development area land use chapter, they suggest that we add a sentence to address water quality.

And in the community facilities similarly added an action about opportunities to add stormwater best practices.

There was a little bit of feedback from the PC on some comments that we received over the preceding days.

And the PC decided to bring forward these two items.

They generally agreed with the housing comments that were received on 9-25 from Legal Aid.

You also have a copy of that that we just handed out as well.

So you'll see what those comments were specifically.

as well as they generally agreed with the intent of the sweet spot request, though they felt like they didn't get to benefit from the full analysis from staff as well as public input.

So again, you'll see in that packet that we just handed out a little bit more detail on that request that was received from the requestor.

With that, I'm going to turn it over for discussion.

We're looking for any edits that you might have for this draft.

The small ones, the small edits, the scriveners, if you'd like, please feel free to send those to us.

And we can adjust those as we go through this last time.

Thank you.

This is a moment where I want to look to the board and Supervisor Albemarle also can weigh in, I guess, as to how you'd like to take this, whether we go person by person with all the edits or just section by section.

At some point, I think we may initially want to take them by section and ask, go around in our order.

But once we've gone through a few chapters, we get a little further later in the document, I might just look to each chapter and ask,

Are there any suggested edits on that from anyone rather than opening it up?

And again, I would like to say sort of a serenity prayer here for a moment that we're looking to see what people feel needs to be added or supported.

I very much appreciate all the effort that's gone into making changes so far.

So that's what our round will be.

So we're going to go through each chapter.

Well, maybe we can take it in some chunks just to make sure that we're not looking at the whole document all at once because I'm sure there are

Yeah, it may be a lot.

So with that, if we might focus on, let's see what happens if we go a couple at a time, policy and the growth management section to see if there are any specific requests for changes, additions, subtractions to those sections at this point.

also recognizing that we have these amendments that have been suggested by the Planning Commission and if there are any concerns about those amendments this is the time to express them otherwise I would treat them as being supported if there aren't any other concerns okay

Okay, thank you very much.

Chair Andrews.

I'm a little bit at a disadvantage because I see myself on the screen.

On my phone, things don't show up very well.

I would like to, if possible, not to prolong everything, but I agree with what you said.

If we could take it, or Tanya could take it section by section to show us what was

Substantively change.

I know I've made a little minor tweaks myself, and I've already mentioned that to her.

But if we could go through the changes that she mentioned regarding the pages, and then also discuss what the PC is recommending.

to bring that up or to show... We have those in our attachment A, we have the summary of the changes.

No, right, right.

I see that.

It's because normally I get the law, I get the paper pack and that's larger.

I'm just, I don't want to, I mean, I like the changes that have been made.

I have no problem with that.

I'll probably have comments maybe as we go through it, or maybe I should just defer and go to the back of the line, so to speak, and let everyone speak first.

That would be helpful.

I wish I had everything frankly in front of me.

I know what you're saying regarding, and I did receive the resolutions, but it's nice to see the language with what we're

Dewey.

So that's not making a lot of sense.

I apologize.

And our order, of course, is just to get us started.

We have comments on it.

That's fine.

For the policy and growth management section, I think I don't have any issues with the planning commissions to requested revisions.

They seem pretty innocuous.

I would be curious what

Criteria, they were thinking of adding to the removal, but I don't know that we need to entertain that.

It just gives us, I think, a legislatively freer hand, which I'm fine with.

And I have no further of my own.

I don't think I even had many initial edits on this section.

OK.

Sure.

Well, I was thinking about the Planning Commission.

The Planning Commission's five recommendations.

Oh, sure.

Having said that, you probably don't have to put it up, because I was going to say I don't have any problem with them.

But I thought it might be helpful to have them on the screen.

Mike just referenced them, and I'm sorry, and you're, I've caught you by surprise.

I didn't know what that, yeah.

Just the amendments that are on it.

Yeah.

I have it over here, but I just thought it'd be helpful to have it on the screen, but that's okay.

I've got it.

Is that big enough?

Just so the public can hear, to be honest, what you were talking about and could see.

I have no problem at all with the Planning Commission amendments.

I think they were appropriate and I think the language is fine.

Going through the first chapter, I guess we're kind of all over the place, Jim, but on page 22,

I am so impressed because I will tell you that I sat at the kitchen table, the previous one and the current one, and went page by page through the whole thing comparing, and I found one edit I was gonna suggest.

Which is pretty impressive.

On page 22, it says in the one, two, third paragraph down, it says, jurisdictional area remains in place and has been amended time.

I think you mean overtime, right?

That's the only edit I would suggest in the whole document.

I may have missed some, but I was pretty impressed that that was the only one I found.

Yes, and then I do have a couple of questions if Jim doesn't mind.

I noticed on page 23, neighborhoods one through seven, we talked about actually qualifying or quantifying, whichever the right word is,

what those neighborhoods are.

I saw them in the back of the...

It would seem like to me that if we're not putting them where we first talk about them, if they're in the back, can you put some connection as to where somebody could find the information for what those neighborhoods are?

Of course.

I think we can put a map on this page.

Yeah, that would be great.

That was one.

Because I remember we kind of talked about that.

And I did find them in the very back.

And then

I just wanted to thank you because actually multiple of my suggestions made it in.

I would go, yay!

They mentioned transit here, yay!

Thank you very much.

So it was really great to see and skinning down the document while I realized that

This final version that you gave us, which is probably not really the final, but this latest draft has more pages than the one I was working off of.

You added some pages, they were good additions, but compared to the last version, this is much more readable and much more succinct, so I appreciate that.

Another question, LLC master plan, I didn't see it referenced or mentioned.

and I'm like a dog with a bone about that Lamb's Lane campus master plan.

You said you were going to link it somewhere.

Help me.

I see he's looking for it now.

It's in the community facilities chapter.

I couldn't find it.

Yeah, no, that's fine.

I'm happy to point it out.

It is on page six of community facilities.

And let's see here.

We mentioned it in the last sentence of the first paragraph.

Campus Master Plans such as the Lambs Lane Campus Master Plan should be used to plan facility amendments such as sidewalks and trail connections.

That's okay.

And just to be clear I think we talked about this but you know it's like we don't want to confuse what's going on a school site or you know school campus or maybe we're

They spent some time on it.

They spent time on it.

So I appreciate it being in there.

If I just do one more thing, we did add it to the reference document list.

I'm not sure if I looked at all the references, but anyway, I think by the time I went through these one by one, I was so tired.

I said, I'm done.

But anyway, I think those are all of the comments I have right now for this document.

I would like to have a discussion, or at least put on the table, sweet spot.

But I'm happy to do that a little bit later.

I think that would be appropriate under the development area.

Sure, that's fine.

So that works.

I just wanted to say that I'd like to have that discussion.

Thank you.

And thank you for incorporating many of the things I was going to ask about today already regarding the list from the Planning Commission.

Yes, for one and two.

Got to catch up now.

So we talked about 12 and that's in the header.

And also on page 13,

the same header.

I had originally scribbled in initial in the corner, but I think the Planning Commission's word of potential is very clear, potential criteria, processing adequacy of land, the same thing that, same idea as on page 12, but on page 13, adding that as well.

Definitely the native species and the waters and where

because now I can't remember which chapter it is.

This discussion of swaps that I saw the word once, but now I can't find it.

All right.

Because that is another topic which I'm hearing a lot of concern about because of its lack of detail and understanding and somewhere in here,

There's language about, as a future objective, it was in response to the transfer of development rights topic.

And so the similar language for the swap that was already in the document for the transfer of development rights, I think would be appropriate, which says, we're going to think about this.

We know we're not ready for it right now, but we would put this on the think about list.

So does that make sense to you and do you have?

I'm going to try to find.

And I'm confused about what you're saying, what you're asking for.

Well, there was one, there was, have been discussion about the, the idea that was thrown out about swapping territory, but little criteria to make it ready, in my opinion, for being included.

And I was suggesting that the same type of language that had been used for the transfer of development right topic, which is in a similar level of

non-development that would be appropriate for consideration of swapping land, rural area to growth area.

So that's what I was asking where that was.

And she told me it was in page 12.

Well, must be 13.

But that's not where the

As I said, there was one place where it was talking about swapping land, and it never really got a firm.

I think, Ann, that the stuff about the swapping was in this second part of the Growth Management Policy section, page 12.

It's now on the screen.

I just want to make sure that the TDR thing was a proposal that came up through our discussions with you all as something that maybe we would look at at some point in the future.

I think the stuff that's in this chapter here is intended to give us some sort of guidepost as we move forward if there is ever a proposal for removing land from the development area.

And it is a bit broad, yes, and I think partly it is that way by necessity because I think either A, we'll find the individual circumstances will dictate what we should be talking about with that parcel, and B,

I mean, it's something that, you know, we're still, I think we will work our way into, but you were responding to something you all were talking about at one point about certain portions of the development area may not be something that is going to develop for a host of reasons.

And maybe you wanted to consider at some point taking them out.

Well, there was one person who asked it, but unfortunately we didn't have a full fledged, full throated debate at that time.

And this is what happens when,

when we don't is that then something gets legs that is great concern in the general public, that this is just a way to expand things.

I mean, when a potential, where'd it go?

I think Supervisor Andrews had suggested a couple of times ago about changing the original language, assessing underperforming areas in the development areas, and what should we be doing to improve those

The performance in the development area and instead of doing that we jump to gobbling up some other land from somewhere else and taking something that supposedly even has amenities already on it like water and sewer and sticking it in the rural area where it's not conforming.

So that's the sort of level of lack of definition that I think

makes this deserve to be in the future think about as opposed to something that has a whole page dedicated to itself.

And I think the other thing where the board is justifiably concerned about opening a box that then is going to saddle staff with endless applications from people who come out and say, well, I've got this 20 acres here and I want to stick it over here.

We're going to be chasing our tails a long time.

And the future boards, when I'm not here, are going to be doing that as well, when we haven't done the homework first to really improve the performance in the areas we have now before taking picking on anything else.

So I'm going to stop going on that.

And are we going through this?

Because this is the first time I've seen this.

It just showed up on the desk a half an hour ago.

So I'm not ready to say anything about these.

Okay.

Then I'm going to stop right now for now and put this away.

But the, so adding that extra one on page 13, the similar to what the planning commission has on page 12 would get me caught up on their, on their list.

I apologize because I missed the work session where you all worked through a lot of this.

So I have not had that pass.

So I'm going to make some comments today.

And if you all feel like too bad sucker, then you can say that too.

I do want to point out that the information for Ms.

Dreyfus was sent to the board on September 10th by email.

And I regret that I was missed that meeting because I was going to address that email at that meeting.

I think the piece here that I'm going to, I really only have one note.

I don't think I have any on the, I'm working kind of on the attachments.

So you're working on attachment B, which is policy.

I don't have really any remarks there.

On attachment B, I guess it would be C. Make sure I'm aligning my notes to that's development area.

I guess that I would be remiss if I feel like this is going to come out more in our budget conversation.

I'm just feeling the tension between, in the policy language, we keep talking about how service delivery is not expected or isn't to be delivered in the same manner in the rural area as the development area.

But the reality is when it comes to police, fire, and safety, that the expectation is the same.

It is the same.

I mean, 50-plus positions of our 90-some went to backfill the volunteer loss that's happening in the rural area.

And I'm not going to sit here and say we shouldn't have provided those buyer services to the rural area.

We have to provide that service out there.

So I'm worried about that tension between we keep stating, oh, well, it's in the rural area.

We don't need to provide the services because the expectation is less.

But is it?

Okay, time to respond and all of that.

We can get into the nuances of it, but it's not, well, if the volunteer, if volunteer loss is there, we have to take over the operations for that day.

And that is a, you know, that, that isn't dealing with response times.

That's a major resource draw.

So I think

I'm calling it out.

Not that I necessarily have any, I guess, change in wording, but if we start dealing with this in budget, this document reads that prioritization should be given to where the density is in terms of providing resources and services to delivery.

And I don't know that we've ever really, really approached it that way in budget.

So I'm calling it out that that's going to be on my mind during the upcoming budget cycle because we're basically endorsing that notion in the comp plan.

That's all I have on and we almost even, I put here, but expectations are different.

It's between page four and page six.

It's almost like we're trying to have both

We have to contend with that in some manner as it comes to the fact that we're dealing with limited resources for all of this delivery in face of what we've started last year with the tax increase.

Okay, thank you.

I have limited comments.

I'm not sure, kind of late for some of them, but I'm going to bring them up anyway.

There's, first of all, thank you for the bar graphs on page 26 of the policy section, because they now help illustrate that even though there have been changes to our development area, there also have been densification of the development area.

But my comment would really go to the growth management on page, let's see,

Page 6, and this comment may apply elsewhere as a better location, but I thought that it might be appropriate for us to make some comment somewhere about the extent to which development has already occurred in the rural area.

Now that may be for the rural chapter, but maybe on the section where we're talking about growth management update, we're talking about how much is

The fact that I've seen statistics saying how much the rural area has already been developed and that's not referenced.

The biggest issue I guess that people had is the future development area boundaries and I really appreciated Commissioner Murray's listing of many more criteria that might have been considered but in light of the

lack of opportunities to really review those in detail making sure that this has potential criteria including but not limited to suggestive at least that there are a lot of other criteria that need to be considered and I'm sad that we're not

trying a little harder on that.

And I agreed with his comment that the first bullet, there are locations that do not meet the objectives, is kind of a vague criteria that doesn't really give me a sense of what we're looking for when we start to look at the criteria.

But unlike some of my comments to come, those are not particularly wordsmithing.

But I hope that, you know,

If you have a chance to go through again, I recognize that particularly this page 12, that I think it's inadequate for the task at this point.

And I appreciate that it's being adjusted to make it apparent to the reader that it's not really up to the task.

Well, that's one way to solve that issue.

So that was all I had.

Yes, thank you.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Yes.

I'm trying to manage two cell phones and plus my computer and not easy, but anyway, I can do it.

On page 12, that's what I was also focusing on.

I appreciate the language in there for being able to be, you've heard this before, I'm always using the flexible word.

trying to be flexible because as Supervisor Galloway said there may be areas that we in the development area that we do not want to develop that aren't developable and we may and there may be some areas bordering the development area that are in the rural area that would make sense.

My understanding of a land swap is not

acre per acre.

It could be, for example, two acre, let's say five acres of development land is swapped for maybe one acre of rural land.

I don't know what will happen, but I do like the flexibility because our county is changing.

We did say we don't want to go

moved the development boundaries.

However, I think we need to keep an open mind for the future because we know it's not going to happen now, but keeping an open mind in the future, not to hamstring ourselves, should something come up that makes sense.

Now addressing Supervisor Malek's concerns, I'm not sure how we label that or how we actually word that

I think we put in the word potential, is that what I heard?

Potential criteria for removing, is that correct?

Assessing, not removing.

Potential criteria for assessing.

That hasn't been fixed in the document.

Including but not limited to.

Right, and I could live with that.

I could live with that.

So those are all my comments regarding growth management plan for this section.

OK.

Supervisor Galloway.

I'm sorry.

I just didn't go through those two.

I don't have concerns about it.

I mean, I don't really.

I'd love to understand.

Well, okay, but good grief.

I'm not going to, we don't need to waste time on it if I'm okay with it being in there.

But this point on number two about the potential for assessing

First off, it's stated on page 11.

The criteria on the following page provide a starting point for the consideration of potential revisions.

It's already stated before the lead-in.

And this is that piece where we think redundancy equates to importance or power.

When I read that, that's the potential criteria for assessing.

It's very wishy-washy.

And if it's already stated and we're restating it just to the, I mean, if we're just doing that to appease fears, then we can state that and I won't stand in the way of doing it.

Exactly.

I will add one thing if I may and that is what you just said is the core of why people are concerned because on page 11 it says starting point and then after that's the end of any starting point mentioned everything on page 12 on except without these changes that the Planning Commission talked about looks like it's written in stone so I think that actually what page 11 and 12 without the either initial or or potential

If that appeases some sort of fear, like I said, I'm not going to stand in the way of it.

But the word potential shows up so many times on page 11 to speak to the different processes of how this will go about.

Okay, thank you very much.

I think we're in the jump in portion, I hope.

I also, please forgive me for not picking up on that when I was talking before, but I do not like the word robust community engagement.

We all want community engagement, and we get that.

I mean, frankly, we get that through emails, through calls, through people coming before the public, which is great.

But robust almost tells me that you didn't get enough.

It leaves it open for someone to say, well, you didn't do enough.

Yes, you held five meetings.

Yes, we sent in 500 emails.

That's not enough.

We need more.

That's my problem.

It almost seems, and I would like to ask the other Board of Supervisors members, frankly, are we putting in other words, for example, potential robust and everything to delay things, to make sure that we really don't get anywhere, that we don't have the flexibility for being able to do something in the future?

I'm going to say no for myself.

I think that

No, that's not the word.

Take the word robust out or whatever.

Yeah, take the word robust out.

But, you know, sort of trying to push other people aside because you don't like a particular word is not really helpful.

I was just going to add, I think I agree with the points that are made and also like,

I don't see either of these changes, whether or not they're incorporated, as impacting the way a single county employee does changes a single thing that they're going to do in executing these.

I have, forgive me for saying it, I have a hard time bringing myself to care about either of these changes.

I'm willing to support them.

I'm willing to not support them.

Okay.

We have a very extensive community engagement process and we always have.

Yes.

And at times it has been such a laborious process.

I will say it over years and years and years.

that it has actually impeded our ability to get the work done that we need to get done.

And I'm not against community engagement, but we are, I think our consultant talked about the redundancy in our documents over and over again, the consultant for the economic development strategic plan.

And I see our community

expectation of community engagement much greater than any other community that I've ever dealt with or I've ever followed or I've ever worked with.

Certainly I've not worked with communities like I have here, but I just think that we have to be careful in not using community engagement as a tactic to delay

That's certainly what we had that happened when we first started talking about our Economic Development Office and MOU.

So I'm just saying right now, I think robust is not necessary.

I think we have a lot of redundancy and our community engagement is certainly,

Does Jody want to come up?

I saw her move, I'm sorry.

Don't move.

These are the recommendations that came from the Planning Commission.

If we want to move the word robust, I'm fine with that.

And I see a nod.

But otherwise, I'd like to continue to work with the recommendations from the Planning Commission on that.

I have one last little question that came up in the Planning Commission.

I just want to double check it.

On page 13, help me with this, because this came from Commissioner Bivens, and I really wasn't following.

He said on page 13, and it's on, well, it carries over, but 13, if you scroll one, it says criteria for assessing adequacy of land, and then it says factors.

I took a distinction between all these factors we should consider or criteria we should consider.

I happen to be on my phone looking up both definitions while I was talking.

I think criteria sort of give you sort of the rules and things that you want to look at before you make a decision.

I just wanted to make sure that there was something there that I missed.

Everybody had a chance to respond to that.

Thank you, Board.

Jody Filardo, Community Development Director.

I have my charge now from the team.

I think one of the things that is particularly of concern today is we want to make sure we get through this document.

And so I think what we'd like to do, if we could process like we did the last work session with you all, where we listen to all of you

and then at the end of say this policy and growth management plan section, we recount back to you what we hope is the majority opinion.

We're not going to obviously take a vote.

That would be really helpful because I think we can have lots of conversation and debate over particular word use.

But I'm very concerned that we've got a lot of lifting to do today.

Thank you.

Yep, you bet.

There are.

I'm sorry.

OK.

There's two points that I'll make.

I don't, you calling out that page 13, it's not the Commissioner Bibbin's point or what you just raised, but that was one that I wrote down.

When I read the criteria for assessing the adequacy of land in the development areas and then read the factors and the criteria, it talks about land in the rural area.

So I don't understand why it says in the development areas.

It just seems to me to be criteria for assessing the adequacy of county land.

And then depending on which category that land is in, then it's in the development area or in the rural area.

So ability to be served by public water and sewer.

I mean, that somewhat defines pretty clearly what is or isn't.

Now we have properties in the development area that aren't

connected these old neighborhoods but need to be.

But we're not assessing, we would say, well, right, that's appropriate.

We wouldn't pull those neighborhoods out.

They would be connected to the stormwater.

But if you had a piece of property in the rural land that was similar, maybe it had a connection to the piece of it, you'd still just work on the adequacy of the land, not

It seems like we're only assessing the adequacy of land in the development areas, when we're assessing the adequacy of land pretty much everywhere.

Assessment of adequacy of service provision for community facilities, services and infrastructure, including fire rescue and police.

Well, where it speaks to some of that in a way, it speaks to that assessment of adequacy one way for the development area and another way for the rural area.

So it just- You have specific language you'd like- I just cut in the development areas, criteria for assessing the adequacy of land.

It seems to me that it's determined based on the category it's in already.

If it's rural area, you know, you're saying, well, yeah, is it appropriate and suggestive for rural area?

Yeah.

I just don't understand, because if you're only going to correct, well, yeah, because it doesn't say anything, but it speaks to things that I'm like, well,

adequacy of service provision for community facilities, services and infrastructure, including fire rescue in place.

Well, is that speaking to development area?