Planning Commission Meeting   5/11/2021

This meeting is being held pursuant to and in compliance with ordinance number 20-A-16, an ordinance to ensure the continuity of government during the COVID-19 disaster.

Opportunities for the public to access and participate in the electronic meeting will be posted on the www.albemarle.org community county website when available.

And with that, we will call, there's Jenny.

Ms.

Firehock.

Ms.

Moore.

Present.

And Mr. Carrazana.

He's not here either.

I am struggling right now.

We're trying to find tonight's agenda.

But I know we have a consent item on the agenda tonight.

Would anyone care to pull it?

And if not, will somebody move?

I don't have to do it since it's a consent agenda.

too.

Removing acceptance?

Yes.

Okay.

Is there a second?

Seconded by Daniel.

Can we have the vote, please?

Mr. Clayborne?

Ms.

Moore?

Aye.

Aye.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Carolyn, are there matters from the public which are not on the agenda?

OK, thank you.

Then we will move into our presentation

and I need a tiny bit of help because I don't have the proper numbers.

So if someone could give me the proper numbers for tonight's action, otherwise I will just say a review of the Crozet master plan, the transportation and conservation chapters.

If that will suit.

Chair Bivins, it is,

Good evening.

I will share my screen here so bear with me while I push buttons.

I am Rachel Falkenstein.

I am planning manager and I am joined this evening by my colleague Tori Kanalopoulos and also Kevin McDermott is here.

He will not be formally presenting, but he has agreed to attend to help us answer technical transportation questions.

So our agenda for this evening is a quick land use update.

This is an informational item.

We have some changes we wanted to share since you all last reviewed this content.

But the bulk of the meeting will be focused on transportation.

We've changed from calling it connectivity.

That's just an update because it's a little clearer.

And then conservation.

So we'll have two presentations.

And after the transportation presentation, we'll pause for discussion.

And then we'll do the same after the conservation content.

And then we'll wrap up with next steps.

So the purpose of this evening's work session is to receive your feedback on the transportation and conservation chapters that we've provided.

And we have two questions.

Is the content consistent with the county's comprehensive plan?

And do you have any feedback or suggested changes to the draft content?

Before getting into those two chapters, I want to talk a little bit about the plan organization and how the chapters relate to each other.

So our master plan will have five chapters.

This is similar to the Pantops master plan that we did.

The first chapter will be introduction, and then we'll have three main body chapters, land use, transportation, and conservation, and then a fifth implementation chapter that will take all the recommendations together and provide some direction on prioritization.

The three main body chapters do interrelate quite a bit to each other.

So I just want to take a moment to share each of the main maps from each of the chapters so you can see how they build upon each other and how the networks relate to each other.

So first is the land use plan.

You've already seen this, but I just want to show it again.

Our land use chapter has a future land use plan which establishes the 20 year vision for the community.

And you can see areas of concentrated growth are in our darker colors, our brown and our red and purple.

And they're surrounded by residential land uses, which are yellow and orange, and then a green network, which are the green colors on the plan.

And this green network relates very closely to the content within our transportation chapter, and that is the future bicycle and pedestrian network.

And so this map, which is within the transportation chapter, sorry, it shows both on-street facilities, so bike lanes, sidewalks, and shared-use paths that run along streets, but it also shows off-street facilities, which are trails and other shared-use paths that don't necessarily follow a road network.

And we showed them all on one map because they're both, you know, integral parts of a transportation network.

But the transportation chapter itself really focuses on those on-street facilities and our conservation chapter focuses on those off-street facilities, but they're important to look at together because they provide a complete network when shown together.

So our conservation plan, one of the maps within that is our Parks and Green Systems plan.

And this pulls those off street facilities, the trails and paths, and shows how they relate to our parks and green systems and our environmental features.

Environmental features are those protected resources such as floodplains and stream buffers and critical slopes.

And then lastly, I'll show this map.

This is more informational.

It's not within the plan, but it's a map we use quite a bit in our planning processes and pulling together recommendations, especially related to green systems.

We pulled that green layer from the land use plan that shows open spaces and protect environmental features in the green network on our land use.

and overlaid that with our parks and our trails and environmental resources.

And this helps us show important networks and connections.

So I just wanted to share that all of this content relates to each other and it builds upon each chapter kind of builds upon the next one.

So now I'm gonna talk a little bit about the land use plan and some of the updates that we've done to this content since you all last saw it.

The purpose today of land use, like I said, is just a summary and you all had quite a bit of time to talk about and discuss and provide feedback on this content.

And based on your feedback and some of the feedback we heard from the community, we've made some revisions to the content.

that are incorporated in the chapter that we attached to the staff report.

I'll go through some of the major topics.

You should sound familiar to you.

The downtown neighborhoods topic.

We previously had a downtown neighborhoods overlay within the draft plan that we shared with you all.

Based on your feedback and community feedback, we've removed the overlay.

and instead incorporated recommendation for a downtown neighborhoods cultural resources study.

And this we hope will provide the baseline for future regulatory tools.

that can help preserve historic resources.

It could look like a historic zoning overlay if there's community support for that, or there could be other zoning changes such as allowing appropriate scale infill or accessory dwellings.

So there's some narrative about that as well.

We've also included some narrative about use of downtown itself.

There was a market study done

about what the retail market is for downtown Crozet and based on that information we've added some narrative that single-use residential may be appropriate on the periphery of downtown just given what the market has shown it could support currently.

So we've added that narrative.

For the middle density residential category that you all discussed and provide feedback on, we've reduced the density from 24 units an acre down to 18 units per acre and we've provided some more definitions and specificity about housing types that we're recommending.

in that land use category.

And related to that, we've changed our urban density residential category to have a density of 12 to 34 dwelling units per acre.

This is only applied in Crozet in the old trail where the apartments are currently being built.

Additional updates relate to green space parcels.

We've improved the alignment with the environmental features of where green space is shown on the map.

And we've also revised the names to the land use designations to provide some clarity.

We now have a green systems designation and then a designation called public lands.

That's to my clarity that not all lands owned by the public are meant to be parks.

Previously, it was called parks and green systems.

For Old Trail, changes include the development area boundary adjustment that we had discussed, and then a change to Block 19 where we've changed that land use to be a hatched land use to allow both institutional and residential land uses.

And here's the updated map.

Not many map changes since you all last saw it, except this is that Block 19 in Old Trail that I discussed.

The boundary here just skirts the clubhouse.

It previously cut right through it.

And this is better aligned with where the jurisdictional area is for public water and sewer.

And then the green systems changes.

That's just a name change to the darker green being public lands and the lighter green being our green systems.

And then lastly, we've added a little bit of narrative about housing choice.

This is some clarifying language about the importance of housing choice.

We've always had that in our guiding principle.

Based on some feedback we had at a board work session, they really wanted to understand how affordable housing fits in with Crozet.

So we've added that we're still working through some of their feedback as well.

And then the middle density guidance that's within the appendix of the master plan will be at the very end.

And that's just definitions of housing types and a little bit of

Some visuals and some 3D modeling showing what the expectations are for these housing types with middle density category.

So that wraps up the land use changes and now we'll move on into transportation and I'm going to give a chapter overview.

It'll be pretty high level just summarizing what's in the chapter, but we'd be happy to dive in deeper on any of these topics if you'd like us to during the discussion and question and answer.

So really quickly, our master plan process has been broken into four phases.

We've started high level and gotten more specific as we've gone along.

The first phase was visioning, and that started in the fall of 2019.

And the outcome of that phase was our draft guiding principles and goals.

And then we moved on to more focused topics where we did quite a bit of engagement and analysis.

We started a parking study and a transportation analysis in phase two.

I will note that both of those studies use pre-COVID data to make sure that we were capturing accurate counts.

We did workshops with the community on more focused transportation topics, such as bicycle and pedestrian connectivity and roadways and transit.

And out of that, we had some refined goals and some more firm concepts.

And then we moved into phase three, where we were drafting maps and recommendations

Had a good bit of feedback online and working with the CAC and their virtual meetings and had a good set of draft recommendations based on that feedback.

And then here we are in phase four, where we have a draft chapter on the transportation content.

We have had an opportunity to bring this draft out to the CAC and had a workshop on that last month.

And we've had an online feedback opportunity.

We haven't had a ton of feedback, but we have had some comments that we've tried to incorporate from both the CAC and online participants on the public input site that we have.

And much of the feedback we're finding will relate to the next topic we'll bring out for feedback, and that's implementation.

So we'll start to prioritize these topics and people really wanting to see us to really focus on a couple of key areas.

After the implementation workshop and prioritization, we'll probably go back and do another round of revisions to the chapter to highlight what the community wants to see as their priorities.

So chapter overview, this provides a summary of kind of the content in order in the chapter.

And I'm going to go through each of these topics briefly and give a high level overview of what's in each of these kind of topics and categories.

So we'll start with our guiding principle, and that is to create a multimodal transportation network.

that is safe and accessible for all community members regardless of age, race, income, and ability.

Building on that, the plan starts off on the topic of bicycle and pedestrian connectivity.

We started here because we heard that's a priority for the community, I think maybe even more so than

than vehicular transportation.

So we have recommendations related to sidewalks and shared use paths.

And what we heard from the community on these topics was that downtown should be a focus for new sidewalks or several older neighborhoods surrounding downtown that streets were built before we have our current standards, they don't have sidewalks.

So we should focus on that area providing connectivity

with the neighborhoods near downtown to and from those neighborhoods to downtown.

There are some shared use paths recommendations within the transportation chapter, and these are the ones that parallel roadways.

And one of the priorities of the community was Three Notched Road, the eastern portion of Three Notched Road connecting some of those neighborhoods in eastern Crozet to points west, such as downtown.

There are no sidewalks on that road now, so they have trouble getting anywhere on foot or by bike.

So a shared use path there is recommended.

And then as I said, we'll further prioritize these projects in relation to the larger recommendations in the master plan as we move into implementation.

We also have recommendations related to bicycle lanes, and we're calling rural shared roads.

This is a new concept for us in the county, but something that we've

We've seen in our regional planning efforts.

So bike lanes are those facilities that are striped bicycle facilities along a road and we're proposing those on several roadways, mostly our avenues, which I'll talk about briefly in the next section.

And rural shared roads are those that are designed with respect for the surrounding rural environment.

They're typically the roadways that don't have curb and gutter.

They don't have sidewalk.

They're not in urban areas.

Most of them are in the periphery of the development area.

And the recommendation there is that for bicycle facilities on these roads, ideally would be a wider shoulder so that bikes could ride separate from traffic.

But where there's not space for a wider shoulder, it would be pavement markings or signage.

So this shows our bicycle and pedestrian network that's recommended.

The dotted lines are recommended future facilities.

and the Solid Lines, our existing facilities.

You can see we tried to create a connected network of these facilities where they don't exist already.

We tried to provide some of those important connections.

We can come back to this if you have questions on specific areas when we get into the discussion portion.

The next section of the transportation chapter is the street types and our street network.

So we have three street types recommended for Crozet and their local streets, avenues, and arterials.

And these are based on the function of the street as well as the capacity.

So our local streets would have the lowest amount of traffic and mostly serving just neighborhood traffic, but it's also the majority of the street network.

They have low speeds and are within neighborhoods, so a couple of examples are listed.

Avenues are streets that have two travel lanes, but they're designed to carry a bit higher volume of traffic, both automobile and bicycle and pedestrian traffic.

We would expect to have dedicated bike lanes on avenues because of the higher traffic volume.

You want to keep the cyclists separate from the

Automobile traffic.

An example of an avenue is Dartmouth Scaff, which is pictured here.

And then lastly, we have the arterials, which in Crozet, the only arterial is Route 250.

And these are high capacity roadways that typically connect different towns and cities and can traverse the entire state.

And so here is our future street network.

And you can see the different street types are identified based on colors here.

So local streets are

in the red, avenues are blue, and the arterial route 250 is fellow.

A couple of street connections are also identified.

Eastern Avenue is one of them, in the dotted line where that connection doesn't exist already.

So there are a couple of those on the street network as well.

So the next topic in the chapter are intersection improvements.

And much of the recommendations in this section are based off of transportation analysis that was completed by a local firm, EPR, where they did traffic counts.

They used existing traffic counts, not during COVID, pre-COVID data, and then did projections based on a study year 2045.

using our projected land use, so what traffic they expect in the year 2045 based on the land use.

And they found two trouble areas, and this was not surprising to us because it matched really closely what we heard from the community was that downtown and Route 250 are the trouble areas.

There are starting to be trouble currently, and we'll just continue to get worse over time.

So there are some recommended intersection improvement to address those trouble areas.

Within downtown, there's a recommendation for a quadrant intersection, and I'll show an image of that shortly, at Thursday Avenue, Jarman's Gap, and Library.

There's new street connections provided from downtown to High Street, and then from Dunvegan Lane to Park Road, and a study for a potential railroad crossing because they found that

Well, they don't have a location identified that would help relieve some of the traffic, especially on the Crozet Avenue, three notch road intersection.

But again, that requires more study because we have to work with the railroad on that.

For Route 250, they're recommending roundabouts, three roundabouts along that stretch of Route 250 at Old Trail Drive and the high school and then at Henley and Brownsville entrance and at Crozet Avenue and Miller School Road.

So for the downtown improvements, this aerial just gives you an idea of what's being recommended within downtown.

And so this is that quadrant intersection that I mentioned.

So currently there's no connection here between Crozet Avenue, and this is Carter Street, and this is Jarman's Gap.

So they're recommending adding a connection between Carter and Crozet Avenue, and around about here.

and then a traffic movement that would restrict left turns and that would clear up a lot of the congestion issues, especially there's a queuing issue here on German's Gap for left turns.

So instead of making a left turn, you would go around the quadrant is what they're calling it.

And then other connections I mentioned would be a connection from High Street, if I can get my cursor there,

to downtown.

And then off the screen, it's not shown, but the next parallel street south of, this is Tabor, would be Dunvegan and there'd be a recommended connection there.

And this is a just street level perspective of what that roundabout at Library Avenue in Crozet would look like.

You can see it still prioritizes and accommodates bicycle and pedestrian

Movement in this area because that's really important, especially in downtown.

The last section of our transportation chapter covers transit and downtown parking.

And right now in Crozet, there is existing jaunt service that provides commuter service to Charlottesville.

But it's an informal service.

I'll say that because there's still

They don't have formalized infrastructure at their stops.

Most of them are either nothing or a little sign that says there's a stop here.

So some formal planning to figure out if those are the permanent stop locations or where those are is a recommendation because that's been, at least pre-COVID, it was extremely popular and I imagine it will continue to be.

So there's recommendations that commuter service continue to be formalized and additional planning to do that.

And then there's recommendations for transit internal to Crozet.

So there is no existing permanent transit service currently.

And so there are recommendations about exploring that and opportunities for transit internal to Crozet.

And then lastly, I mentioned we did a parking study.

So they looked at downtown specifically,

and what the needs are for parking currently and in the future.

So what they found with the parking study was that there currently is quite a bit of open parking downtown, but most of it is in private lots.

So there are recommendations based on kind of the current status of downtown and then future.

So right now, the recommendations are kind of for the short term to look at shared parking with some of those vacant lots.

However, that will change as downtown redevelops, a lot of that parking supply will go away.

And so there are longer term solutions as well, such as shuttle service or possibly additional parking provided in future phases of the downtown development.

And the last slide I'll show is about our comprehensive plan and how this chapter relates to our comp plan.

I do have a question for you all on that tonight.

So I wanted to touch on it briefly.

As you know, the comp plan is high level and it has recommendations related to quite a few topics.

But the topic of transportation really touches on three chapters in the comprehensive plan.

That's a development area chapter and specifically thinking about our neighborhood model and the importance of connectivity within our neighborhood model.

So we tried to be consistent with those recommendations.

And then as far as the transportation chapter, it does focus on bike ped and multimodal accessibility.

So we've tried to be in line with those recommendations.

And transportation also really points us to the master plans as to how we plan the specific recommendations.

So we're trying to do that with this process.

And then lastly, Parks and Greenways guides us to think about connections between parks, schools, and other centers of activity when we plan trails.

So we try to do our best with those high level recommendations from our comprehensive plan.

So I will conclude my presentation by putting up the two questions for you all this evening.

The first is, is the draft content consistent with the county's comprehensive plan?

And the second is, do you have any feedback or suggested changes to the draft content?

Thank you, Rachel.

And so this evening, folks, what we're going to do is lay out a little different sort of process here.

We're going to engage with, oh, Jenny, coming back to you.

Can you come back to us?

Or do you need something?

Do you need something?

We're going to talk, and then at the end of both chapters, then we're going to open it up for public comment.

But for right now, this is about us, since there's been a rigorous public involvement.

And so for this time, Rachel and your team, Rachel, Tori, and Charles, we're going to talk about this among ourselves.

Jenny, are you OK?

Yeah, I'm okay.

That's all right.

Yes.

So I guess to answer the questions, I do think it's consistent with the comprehensive plan.

And I really think it's great to how much you guys have incorporated bike and ped stuff in this chapter.

And I know that I think the community's anxious to get into something that probably is what will happen in the implementation parts where

they'll see some rough dates about when to expect some of these projects and ranking and I understand that's not the purpose of this chapter so really the only other than just saying I think it's you guys have done a great job I just had one suggestion and it's a little bit nitpicky but in the goal number two

And A, it has a statement about sidewalk connections.

And I think it's like a general statement, but it does say Park Road, Hilltop, High Street.

And it has something like missing segments of these particular roads.

And I guess I would say, I'm not really sure where the missing segments are.

I think it's just missing on Park Road and High Street.

I'm not aware of any sidewalks at all.

So I just, I don't know if it's a worrying thing, but, and then Hilltop, it's really more of a sidewalk improvement.

There's an existing sidewalk there that's in tough shape.

And this one stood out to me mainly because the conversations we've had around the park and because of its central location and because it is something that a lot of people walk to.

and bike too.

It'd be great to see bike lanes on some of these roads too, but that jumped out at me.

Missing segments just seems like a strange way to word it.

Okay, thank you.

Who else would like to... Thank you.

Who else has got... Tim and then Tim and then... Well, Tim and then Rick.

You know, I like to do pairs.

Okay.

Well,

I appreciate all the work and the tweaks that have happened, the clarity of each of these chapters.

When it's all said and done, I imagine you're going to go back and think about the language about the community involvement.

I understand why it's really important right now to have that piece up there, but it almost has a kind of a defensive tone to me.

And I think that as a longer range document, I think you want to

hit all the points, but just look at the wording for it, because I don't think it's necessary.

You've done a great deal in these times to try to engage, and I think that you've been remarkably successful, given the challenge.

Even if you didn't have the challenges, I think you've been quite successful.

So I have one point that's kind of a pair within this one, the same thing under conservation.

Well, I mean different one, but one point.

So I'll just speak to this one, and that is

And I know that you're trying to break all of these pieces out, but it seems to me that there is a recreational destination component for people who are interested in sort of environmental vacations, if you will, to Western Albemarle.

And it seems to me that the piece that's kind of missing here

with all of the trailway system, which is quite interesting, is that we don't have like a transportation hub for bicyclers and recreational folks like transit centers have in other places.

But here I'm thinking, and Rick has been to some of these as a cyclist, where I've been as a vacationer to places like Jackson Hole, places in Wyoming, Colorado, West Virginia,

Montana, where in that greater downtown, there's kind of a point where you can get oriented for these various trips that you might do.

So for instance, going to the visitor that might actually want to cycle to Mint Springs and spend a day at Mint Springs or Beaver Creek or whatever.

But Crozet is the hub of this or potential hub of an economic development component

that would be based on recreation, it seems to me.

It could be a trailhead for alternative ways to get to the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Skyline Drive since it's so close to the beginning of both of those or the ends, depending on how one thinks about it.

So I'd encourage you to think about that.

And then when we have Rachel, I know that you're quite a cyclist or have been in the day and Rick as well, maybe others of you, but I know you two are.

And then we have Kevin here

And the critique that I hear consistently from my cyclist family members and friends are that we haven't thought enough about separated bicycle areas to at least get people started.

So might there be, since this is kind of future planning and we're laying out groundwork for the future, might there be some more thought to the pieces within

the development area of Crozet that are then going to lead out to the rural areas where there may be, may not be that separation, that there could be more separation for the destination tourist recreation, recreationist, and that that at the same time would benefit the local community as a separated space for them to use in

and maybe even commuting from neighborhoods to the downtown or to where John or some future transportation system circulates to the greater area.

So those are my thoughts on it.

And they're just additive and positive in nature.

And my overall feeling is quite positive to what you've done.

So let me ask you a question, Tim.

So I know in the report, there was some conversation of perhaps taking Route 676, which is the biking route, and perhaps redirecting it downtown.

Yes.

I'm suggesting that we think about really formalizing that and going kind of full bore.

Could this be a transportation

departure center that serves this other constituency, which may be addressed and talked about under economic development, but I think that this under transportation

Because Jenny's told me about that bike shop that's sort of squatting in what will perhaps become the downtown, the new downtown.

And as you were speaking, I'm saying, wouldn't that be interesting if that, in fact, became the sort of rallying point, much like

And of course the outdoor store at the other end of the tunnel on Waynesboro side.

That's right.

So the access to Beaver Creek as well as Mint Springs, the access to Afton, something that is a center that is saying all of these things

Thanks, it's very clever.

Tim, those are some really good thoughts.

The first thing I would say is, generally speaking, in communities I've visited,

as a cyclist.

You really depend on the local bike shop to provide the maps, that kind of information.

You go there to get them.

And of course Crozet offers the opportunity for road cycling and mountain biking simultaneously.

Both of those sports facilities are there to lend themselves to that.

So

I think the bike shop will be a critical aspect.

In terms of separated bike areas, my comment would be that the most important thing we could think about longer term to accomplish that is to have a dedicated bike ped trail.

The key to the success of Summit County in Colorado, which is the county where Breckenridge and other

skiing communities are based, Silverthorne, Frisco, et cetera, is that they really committed themselves to building a dedicated trail so people can walk on them, run on them and cycle on them.

And really it's been a godsend recreationally.

I don't know what it does as an economic stimulus for the county, but I'm sure it is high multiples of millions

that get generated during what used to be a very quiet time in the mountains, where if you didn't play golf or tennis, there was no real appeal to be there.

And I would say about Route 76, an organization I'm part of called Adventurous Cycling out of Missoula,

They're really committed to building that infrastructure of more bike paths nationwide.

So it would be good for us to link in with them if we were considering relocating Route 76.

And I applaud the idea of moving it to downtown

and adjacent to downtown Crozet because it's a natural then for people to plan maybe to spend a night in Crozet but definitely to have a meal in Crozet before you either go over the Blue Ridge Mountains and head into the valley or before you head east into Charlottesville.

So I think, Tim, you've made some really good suggestions.

If I may, I want to come back to Rachel's first question.

Are your recommendations consistent with the comprehensive plan?

I would say overwhelmingly, yes.

However, I have one proviso and I apologize for taking more time than I'm really comfortable with taking.

But the first thing I would say in your

Draft transportation chapter and I'm going to come back to cycling.

I think there's a need for a cycling facilities organization in Crozet similar to the Crozet trails crew, Rachel, that you identify in your report.

You need a local group there to take on some ownership as cyclists to implement some of the changes that are spelled out in here, the potential changes.

And there's so many organizations, Crozet, where citizens feel ownership.

And this would be a great way to get them involved in planning out.

on a local level, how to interface with adventure cycling, national organizations, the League of American Wheelmen, all these different organizations that date from two centuries ago that in some cases that are really interested in cycling.

Because I do agree with Tim, I think we have a treasure there that recreationally can be built upon and expanded.

So the only other note I would make

I just found it unfortunate on page 11 where you show the potential high street connection.

That picture there, you have a cyclist visible in the road.

There's no bike lane there and they're just riding down the road.

Maybe the picture was taken hypothetically when the rear red light was not beeping, but you can barely see them in the picture.

They're visible.

One of the things we need to do to make people feel comfortable in using roadways to cycle is to have paths along the side of the road or a dedicated path separate from the road.

But we don't show either in that picture.

That's just kind of unfortunate.

Maybe it can't be incorporated.

I know, but I was just struck by that at the time.

I want to come to the draft future land use chapter.

And I heard this week that the median US house cost for a single family home has now jumped up to $330,000.

In my last recollection, it was around 240, back maybe when I was previously on the planning commission.

And so what I did is I jumped online and I looked at all the sources I could find for the median Albemarle County housing costs.

What's interesting, it went from anywhere in a range of Zillow at $403,381

through 410-50 for Long and Foster, 439-600 on another website, and Rocket Homes,

which is not necessarily a place I would want to go to get a home, a rocket home.

Anyhow, they came in at $449,548.

The point is housing costs in Albemarle County are way beyond the median US housing costs.

And now I'm going to channel my inner

Neal Williamson.

And I'm going to come to actually the opening page on land use and where the goal states support and strengthen Crozet's history as a self-sustaining town while ensuring that new and infill development is compatible in scale and design and provides housing choice for all Albemarle County

community members.

We have to be thinking that Crozet is part of Albemarle County.

And we want to ensure that we're looking at housing choices that work for the whole county, not just for one single community.

And I think some of you know where I'm going based on last week.

So I'm going to come back to the topology.

I compared these very closely, Rachel, to what was generated before.

And I, of course, immediately picked up on middle density residential.

And we went down from 24 units per acre down to 12 units.

But in the building types and form guidance for both middle density residential and urban density residential, there is no mention of apartments.

None whatsoever.

Now, Neil and I may not agree on a lot of things and we differed.

And this goes back long period of time, back when I was last on the planning commission, where he maintained that it was really critical that we provide rentable housing in Albemarle County.

And I came back and argued we should try to provide housing where there can be ownership

I think based on these housing differentials between the median cost in Albemarle County and the median cost nationwide and put together with the effects of the pandemic on millennials and Generation Z, where capital accumulation is going to be even harder, the reality is that there's going to be some real demand for apartment living.

as people can put together capital to be able to buy a home.

And the gap between being able to buy a home today if you're in the 20s and actually accomplishing that compared to 20 years ago, compared to 40 years ago, or for this dinosaur,

50 years ago is considerable.

And we have to be sensitive to that.

So, you know, I will resist the urge to say, now remember everybody, we're talking about the transportation and the conservation chapter because my esteemed colleague was very skillful in how he tied it into the comp plan.

And I'm also happy that my esteemed colleague, Rick, has picked up on my comments about not everybody's going to have the ability to own a home.

and how do we accommodate and welcome those individuals into our community no matter where they are.

I can imagine a whole lot of people would like to take advantage of all the green space in Crozet and how do we let that happen?

How do we let that happen?

Um, yeah, I, um, sorry, I'm at a disadvantage because I got kicked out of zoom.

So I missed some of that, but I caught the end and I appreciate the comments that that's not what I thought we were asked to discuss tonight.

So I on purpose don't have comments about that, but I would like to say based on the last part that I heard.

that my impression of what we've talked about with land use in the drafts with the county staff is not to say that apartments can't happen.

And I'm not saying that it's enough, but we do have I think it's 190 some apartments.

Maybe that's a little high over at the summit and Old Trail and 126 apartments available at the view.

I actually think there's 20 rented since September.

20 some rented but I would like to point that out that that's a need that we've had and with these two developments it's making a dent in things even though it certainly doesn't it's not to say that that's all that there should be.

Downtown area which does allow for density that would and it would be apartments.

That has always been where I think the understanding for apartments would take place and that is a very central location and I won't go on and on about that.

The last thing I'd like to point out is that per our conversation last week and the mention of apartments that we've had a recent application where people didn't seem that friendly and I'm not saying it was because of apartments but

Sometimes it seems to me that sometimes the things that come along with apartments are also things that some commissioners had issue with.

So I think that should be part of the bigger discussion when we are talking about land use and affordable housing and apartments is that, you know, we have to also be okay with the things that, what it means to have apartments and the parking and the green space and the things like that.

So that's a comment that I've actually wanted to make for a while now.

So I'll make it now.

And that's all I have to say.

Thank you.

Who would like to go after who's up next?

So Daniel, then Corey by default, it's you.

Let me briefly, I really appreciate the comments by Commissioner Keller and Commissioner Randolph.

I agree on that and make sure we have accessibility and a centralized

opportunity to make available all the natural sites that Crozet has to offer.

I would

I'll just make one comment on that as we expand upon what Commissioner Keller said as we think about, I know there's existing John, but not just a place where people come and they can go do recreational activities, but also understanding where the John stops happens and where people may be coming from the outer areas of the affordable housing to get to a place so they can have connectivity into Charlottesville through John and others.

And I would say that there is a mention of enhanced transit stops

or enhanced transit facilities in there.

I would, you know, I'm not saying that it has to change, but it would be good to kind of identify how that multimodal system works in concert with that of where do people, if they're coming on their bikes, where do they put their bikes?

It mentions that they have sheltered waiting areas, benches and wayfinding storage signage, but it doesn't have any type of

storage facilities centralized or anything like that if they want to get on John come in to Charlottesville for their occupation or something of that nature.

So I'm not saying it's a huge request to change but something to think about of how does the multimodal system work and how is that provided for people that may not have a car that would be coming to get into that connectivity.

And I think the last question or just comment I would have

because I'm kind of the map guy.

In the transit plan, I think it's on page 11.

And I think it was kind of what Jenny was saying.

Sorry, I'm trying to find it.

Yeah.

So it's where the existing sidewalks.

So it's, I guess, page 6 on the map.

It looks like there's a dotted red line around that same area.

Is that dotted red line like hilltop and that area?

It's not on the ledge and also goes on park.

It doesn't have a dotted red line in the legend of the map.

Is that dotted red line supposed to indicate future sidewalks or

Sidewalks that need repairing or I'm making an extrapolation that since existing sidewalks are red that a dotted red line has some changed meaning from an existing sidewalk.

That's correct.

It's future sidewalks and that was a last minute addition that we failed to get into the legend.

No, those are planned.

Yeah, those are planned.

Okay.

Thanks.

Sorry.

Sorry.

Yeah.

Sorry for the nitpick.

I mean, that's helpful.

That's helpful.

Well, this has come a really long way.

So thank you for the great work.

I just have two questions.

One is more of a question of confirmation in terms of the process.

So when you're looking at the transportation component, for example, let's take, for example, pedestrian and bike.

Did we take into account the demographics of the community and where they might live?

So in other words, if there's an area of town that has individuals of more senior in age, maybe it warrants more sidewalks since they're probably not inclined to bike on the street, or if there's an area where there's more families, there's maybe more bicycle paths.

We did not do a super nuanced analysis looking at demographics and transportation, but it was more anecdotal.

So there are some areas in eastern Crozet that are larger single family homes that, you know, the folks we've heard from, a lot of families live there and they want to be able to bike with their kids to downtown.

So we focused on off-street connections, shared-use paths to get folks in those neighborhoods west toward downtown.

There's another community, The Meadows, which is on Crozet Avenue.

And that's a retirement community, a senior community.

And we talked to some folks there who really want to be able to get around, and many of them can't drive.

So we looked at recommendations, again,

Off-road shared use pass facilities for them to get downtown and Old Trail, which is not very far away, but there's no really direct connection right now.

And thanks for the response.

And the second question, I'm not sure if this is appropriate or not, but should we be talking about any kind of lighting in terms of transportation as we talk about safe transportation, increased pedestrian and bike traffic?

I think that's something we can incorporate in this chapter.

We in land use have some language about

So the community doesn't want a lot of lighting, but there are measures that can be done for safety and having light types that are full cut off and have automatic turn offs if there's no motion, it can be motion detected.

Anyone else?

So I've got a couple of questions.

Well, I've got a couple just trying to understand some things for clarity.

And the first one's for Kevin.

So I understood from looking at some of the roundabout work that we've been doing, particularly for hydraulic and places like that, that the idea of having a roundabout at Old Trail and then one at the elementary schools might be too close.

Or how would you figure that out, given that you've got people

on an artillery coming through at a reasonable speed?

And do we think that that's something that will actually happen?

We had a transportation engineer, the EPR, do that evaluation for us.

and their recommendation, and they've actually looked at it a couple of times now, their recommendation does include those dual roundabouts, one at the Henley and one out there.

And they had actually modeled that through a transportation modeling program and found that it worked well.

So my assumption with that is that they determined that they were far enough apart that they could operate.

Anytime we move further along in that, it'll continue to be evaluated to make sure it'll work, but I think we got enough spacing there.

And so I too will add my voice to my colleagues about how this feels, actually it was an enjoyable read.

it was actually something that I actually sat down and said this is you know I'm having a good time reading this now I don't know if you had a good time writing it but I had a good time reading it and so you should you know appreciate that for what it is I will say the thing that struck me and so I'm not trying to be I'm not trying to be difficult

But some of this feels like it is a struggle with the connectivity feels like it's something that happened because when I look at your map on page six, it's the future bicycle and pedestrian network.

I am struck by how isolated the various communities are from each other.

That is just absolutely amazing to me.

And that even within some of the communities, they're isolated from each other.

And I don't think that's done by income, you know, like the people with the big house over here.

They don't have anything to do with the bungalow over here.

Maybe that's what happens when I've driven through those communities.

I didn't notice that disparity in housing types, except in Old Town and not Old Town.

that's Alexandria, in Old Trails.

And Old Trails, it's apparent that the people, the houses that are up on the hill are clearly more expensive than the houses which aren't on the hill.

And so I get that.

And so there's a piece of me that struggled with what you were writing, what I was reading with Rachel and Tori, that some of this is the way communities have grown up.

Because you're not adding a lot of roads.

You're talking about multimodal and connectivity and bike ped.

And some of that could have been dealt with if all these cul-de-sacs didn't exist.

And so as we move to our next comp plan, I hope we are really clear about cul-de-sacs are not the way that you create communities.

cul-de-sacs are not the way that you create the ability to move from one part of town to the other part of town.

Because when I was thinking about the, let's see, that's the North South.

Nope, that's not North South, East West.

When I was trying to think about how would I get from, is it Wickham Pond?

How would I get to Wickham Pond to say just to

the western part.

Well there would have been a nice easy way to do that if there had been more connectivity between those communities that were established.

And now we're having to do this sort of retrofit of multimodal when it would have been really nice to have it baked into the process as we were going forward.

And so as we start thinking about Enfield and as we think about other parts of the county, I hope that

the people who come after us and as you're sort of maturing in your roles here that the ability to cut off a street because the people on this side of the street don't want to go to that side of the street has to be dealt with because what we're doing now feels as if we're solving a problem that could have been baked in at the beginning as opposed to having to retrofit it now.

and that is going to be problematic because one of the things that was struck to me, what's going to happen to the older communities?

How are they going to be connected?

What's going to happen to the older developments?

How are they going to be connected so that you have this unifying flow among the communities?

That's something that I think we're going to struggle with because I don't believe, I'll ask the question this way,

Are there possibilities for easements and is it possible to cut some of the chains between the bollards so that people can walk between them or they can bite between them?

How are we going to get to that part?

Because a lot of this just looks like a lot of what I see, particularly on that map, is just that they decided they wanted to be self-sufficient communities and now they're saying that they want something different from that and the county's having to step forward.

I'm struggling with that.

I just need to say that I'm struggling with that.

Sure, Tim.

And then Rachel's.

While Rachel's coming.

I don't have much to add.

We didn't look at, especially within existing neighborhoods that have called us actually didn't spend a lot of time there.

Because it's not something that we heard much from the community, but we have identified some areas that aren't fully built out that have potential for future connectivity.

And we haven't gotten the map together yet.

That's where we're still

Still doing, but on page 11 of the draft chapter, we've identified some street connections, difficult to show on the map at the current scale.

So we're going to do a couple of inset maps showing where those are.

This is not every single cul-de-sac in Crozet, but it's areas where some future infill development could occur.

And when that development occurs, we would expect connectivity

I appreciate that, Rachel, and so my concern is

If we're waiting for the development, that doesn't help to advance.

And this isn't about me.

I think that doesn't help to advance a solution.

And I think we probably do have some solutions, even if it's with some of the trail people, because I noticed you had us in the other one.

This is the one we're going to talk about.

Somebody put a nice bridge across a stream.

Well, that can get a bed and that can get a bike across the street.

And I think, if possible, one of the things that I would ask is to challenge the community to say, how can we come up with solutions from these existing neighborhoods?

How can we connect across the neighborhoods which are already there as opposed to having to wait until someone develops a piece of land?

Just quickly on that one, I would just like to say that for my almost eight years on this body, staff has been really bold in encouraging

connectivity in and amongst different neighborhoods, new neighborhoods and old neighborhoods.

They've really worked on that.

That's something that's been pointed out in the staff reports consistently.

And often it has been the existing adjacent community that has it that has been resistant to those connections.

But staff has really worked tirelessly on this topic.

Maybe something for Andy to think about and chew on.

But as we're looking at covenants and read that HOA fees and HOAs today, you know, maybe there is a component of discrimination that maybe is still inherent.

And we, with state legislation, maybe even federal, we could think about going to some of these HOAs and saying, can we find an easement in logical places, at least for the kind of connectivity that you were talking about, Julian?

Just food for thought for the future as certainly Geordie Yeager has made us all think about covenants in a different way in the greater Charlottesville, Albemarle area.

But I just wanted to bring one last thing up on the transportation since that's the topic.

I think that there is an obvious one that is referred to in a negative way, which is rail.

How are we going to get people across the rail, whatever, but is this a potential positive?

Where are we going with rail?

And where will we be if we are successful in having a major infrastructure bill?

Will there be some in return for some of those improvements that the few large remaining train companies have that would allow for local train traffic?

And do we want to think about that for Crozet?

Do we want to think about an Amtrak stop since Amtrak comes through several times a day?

I know these are really

controversial in future, but isn't that the kind of thing that we do throw out in kind of future ideas at the end of most of these plans?

There's kind of what in 50 years might we see?

What in 25 years?

So I would encourage staff to think about how that rail line can be a positive.

I know at one point

that was thought of it being a positive in terms of economic development in a brewery there or a cidery and being able to ship their product by rail.

So that's another spin on that.

So I encourage you to think about it.

Can I come back to ask you a couple other questions then?

You mentioned in there that the AVNU

isn't going on right now.

I think that's that autonomous thing.

Do you have any sense of is it possible or were the results such that it's not feasible?

Yeah, I think it's very possible.

The trial period that we had with that was

managed with Perrone.

And if we wanted to continue working with something like that, the county actually does own the vehicle itself, but we didn't purchase the software or anything.

So we'd have to get the software going.

We also had to work on contracts with who would be the operator of that service, but it's very possible that it's something that we could look into doing in the future again.

So that might be one of the tasks that we put in the goal to try and come up with a more permanent solution for that technology.

Rachel.

Okay.

The other thing I had, and you know, Tim, to your question, my spouse's family member used to live, well, they owned a big piece of property in Crozet, and he took the train to UVA every day as a student.

These are people obviously with some means, but as a student, he commuted from Crozet to UVA and back every day to go to classes.

And that was the case all over the county.

People used to go from Campbell in the Kenswick area.

That's right.

All the time, daily.

So just maybe we're coming back to something that we knew.

On the conservation chapter on goal 4E on page 25,

You speak to something that I thought was quite interesting.

We're wondering how that might impact the transportation center.

That says, update residential zoning requirements to eliminate cluster and bonus cluster lot size and frontage requirements to allow for more open space, tree canopy, and tree buffer, obviously.

But the first part of that, update the residential zoning requirements to eliminate cluster and bonus cluster lot size and frontage requirements.

So I think about bungalow courts or cottage courts with this one that allows smaller lots or maybe

You don't even have to have individual locks.

Maybe they're condominiums and you can cluster around a central amenity space.

And then parking can be off to the side or in a little garage or wherever.

It doesn't have to be on the street necessarily or, you know, driveways, individual driveways for homes.

OK.

I was just wondering, because I know that some of the conversation in the city has been, we want to put more density in the lots, but we're not creating any more parking.

So all of a sudden, we're going to have more cars on the streets.

And they already have, I understand in some parts of the city, they already have a lack of parking.

and so are we, I don't want us to back into this or I would not like us to back into a similar situation in a place where on-street parking may be challenging.

But I like where you're going with that, Rachel, so thank you.

Do we have anyone else who wants to speak on this?

So basically I'm seeing we all think that this aligns with our comp plan.

particularly being sensitive to the fact that the median house, as we heard from last week, and in particular this part of the county, is way above what the

the more frequently hired salary is able to afford in our community.

And so making sure that there isn't an exclusion of people by not figuring out having different housing types, if I'm paraphrasing my colleague there.

So I'm seeing Dorsey heads nodding that we are in agreement that yes, this does align with the comp plan.

Jenny, did I see you're hitting?

Okay, and then my head's moving too.

And Barth says he's nodding too.

All right, fine.

So can we move to the next one?

And then after we're finished, we'll open it for public comment.

Thanks.

Just take a moment to share my screen.

Hopefully everyone can see that okay.

So good evening.

My name is Tori Kennelopoulos and I'll be presenting on the draft conservation chapter.

So the engagement process was really similar for transportation.

So I'll just briefly recap that.

So in phase one, we had three community workshops in the fall of 2019 to do the visioning for the overarching guiding principle and goals for this chapter.

So that helped inform phase two, which were the focus areas and design strategies.

So after getting back into things and adjusting to the virtual world with COVID, we had a virtual workshop in August, 2020.

And with that, we had the outcomes of refined goals, concepts, and strategies.

So then with phase three, we had a review of these draft recommendations with the Crozet CAC in February of this year.

And there was an associated feedback form on public input for everyone to go ahead and provide additional feedback that was open February to March.

And with that, we had more refined draft recommendations to build the draft chapter with phase four.

So we also had a work session with the CAC in April last month to talk about the draft chapter.

There was an online feedback form open from March to April as well.

So again, pretty similar level of attendance and comments in this phase.

But some of the things that we've heard more recently are the importance of preserving existing tree canopy and planting new trees.

So we did add some more specific recommendations about that, distinguishing between county owned property and then possible opportunities to collaborate on privately owned property, trail connections and creating as strong of a network as possible.

And then we heard the need to include some kind of recommendation for lighting and protection of dark skies.

So we did that with the land use chapter since it's really more related to an ordinance update for zoning.

And so these are the main sections of this chapter.

So in the overview and background talking about some of the unique environmental features in Crozet.

There's a lot more stream buffers than other areas of the county since it's in a water supply watershed.

There's the Parks and Green Systems plan that brings the trail and environmental features and parks recommendations all together, the park and trail typologies that are used to inform specific recommendations for activities and uses throughout Crozet, other county-owned properties like the stormwater management facility off of Crozet Avenue, biodiversity, natural resources, and green systems, which includes the tree canopy and water quality,

cultural and scenic resources, which includes connections to the rural area, and then the guiding principle goals, and then the recommendations to implement this chapter.

And so this is the guiding principle for conservation to enhance Crozet's natural beauty, existing environmental resources, and the surrounding rural areas with an integrated network of parks and gathering spaces, trails, and natural areas that offer increased opportunities for outdoor recreation and protect natural resources.

So there are two trail typologies that we've identified.

The first is a typical nature trail, usually about five feet wide.

It's a more natural surface.

And then a shared use path, which is more accessible and has space for both pedestrians and cyclists.

It's usually about 10 feet wide and usually paved.

So a specific recommendation, that's one that we've talked a lot about with the communities, extending and upgrading the Crozet Connector Trail and making it more

So putting those two typologies together, we have the trails and shared use path map with feature connections shown dotted.

And then the Crozet connector trail is existing as a trail, but the dots show the recommended upgrade in the future.

So then for the park types, we have three natural areas are really intended to be less intensive uses where people are walking and observing nature, things like that.

A plaza would be a central amenity space that has a outdoor civic space that could host events.

And so in Crozet, this would be the plaza and the square, which is also the center of the town center on the future land use plan.

And then for recreational parks, providing a variety of spaces for more intensive recreation and formal activities.

And so Western Park is an example of both of those typologies.

So on the Western side, you have more of the intensive recreation uses, and then on the Eastern side, the natural area.

And of course, this is a priority that we've heard about from the community.

And so there's a specific recommendation to implement the Western Park Master Plan in this chapter.

And then Licking Hole Basin is unique as it has a variety of uses and purposes.

So there's multiple recommendations regarding the basin.

It's a natural area with a variety of wildlife, but also has trails and also serves as a sediment basin for stormwater management.

And so putting all those recommendations together, we have the Parks and Green Systems Plan.

And so this shows the trails connectivity, getting to the different parks, the school recreation areas,

and all the important environmental features to preserve.

And so in the biodiversity and natural resources section, the chapter talks about the Department of Environmental Quality and the total maximum daily load study regarding the impaired streams in Crozet.

And so that study will provide more specific recommendations to address pollution there.

But we also have recommendations about enhancing stream buffers where needed,

and studying opportunities to better protect those.

And then protecting steep slopes, especially along waterways to prevent erosion.

Having more natural drainage processes with stormwater management and enhancing the county owned facility, which is next to the vet clinic on Crozet Avenue.

And then multiple recommendations for enhancing tree canopy, which is also connected to the biodiversity action plan and the climate action plan.

and of course contributes to water quality and better stream buffers.

And so this map shows the important features all together and the purple shows those impaired streams.

So we have a parabranch tributary and then Lickinghole Creek and Slabtown Branch.

And it also shows a forest block, which was identified in the biodiversity action plan.

Also identified as a priority site and there's over 200 species of birds there in the bald eagle's nest.

So then we also have rural and regional connections.

We heard from the community that it's really important to try to connect to these rural area parks, especially Mint Springs and Beaver Creek.

So as we've talked about, there's recommendations in the transportation plan for rural shared roads, but there are some recommendations in this chapter as well.

More long-term to see if there's other trails and off-road connections that could be made.

And then of course, the opportunities that we talked about with bike route 76.

And if that could be rerouted through downtown or at least wayfinding signage so people know they can stop there.

And these are the connections, some of them to the comprehensive plan.

So the development areas chapter talks about developing parks in accordance with the development area master plans and then preserving those important environmental features.

The natural resources chapter talks about air and water quality and then improving tree canopy, especially along waterways.

The parks and greenways chapter talks about those bike and ped connections to parks and centers of activity.

And so those are of course included in the land use chapter.

So making sure that they connect to the centers and districts, preserving parks and important natural areas, and then providing those parks and amenities that have a variety of uses.

So that's consistent with the park typologies

Expanding the Greenway and Trails Network.

And then of course, relevant recommendations with transportation for bike and pedestrian projects.

And so these are our two questions again for this chapter.

Thank you.

Thank you, Tori.

And as usual, it continues to flow.

Who would like to question or comment?

I was hoping to not go first this time, but it looks like I'm the one.

Again, I don't have too many detailed comments.

I wanted to bring up one thing that I thought was interesting.

And I understand it's more complex than just throwing it out in this work session.

But during the meeting where we talked about this with the community, the idea came up.

And I know we had an email about this.

And I think the person who sent that email is actually an attendee.

wishes to speak at some point, but the idea that maybe the county could be more proactive in acquiring land or parks and for other purposes.

But the idea that came up in the community meetings was specific to the older neighborhoods that are around downtown where we didn't require people to build parks when they made these neighborhoods.

and specifically the older section that's where St.

George Avenue is in that area.

There are people there and I walk around over there so I'm familiar.

As well, there's really nowhere, no playground, no park area when we're talking about pocket parks and things like that for people to use.

And we do know that, or we suspect that pressure to do infill in those areas as the development area fills up

will be greater.

And so we may see that there's some infill and little parks might spring up as a result of some infill projects, because there are some parcels available, not tons, but some.

But one thought I've had about that that's interesting is, or somewhat disturbing too, is that kind of like Julian, your observation about the lack of connectivity as neighborhoods have developed

and certainly I know that there's neighbors who probably wish they weren't connected with other neighborhoods and that really is unfortunate.

But I also think some of that's happened where developers have been allowed to develop in those ways and make these, you know, people, you know, we tear ourselves in the foot later when we can't create those connections.

And the same thing when we can't have it that these little neighborhood parks are only

are built on the backs of developers when, for example, in my neighborhood, which is also an older neighborhood around downtown, we are fortunate enough to be able to walk to neighborhoods that allowed us to use their parks.

And one of the newest developments in my neighborhood is excluding anyone who doesn't live in that neighborhood by way of signage from using their neighborhood park.

So if that, I'm not aware of anywhere else in Crozet that does that and I certainly hope that isn't the way most people would choose to behave.

But all the older neighborhoods can't take their children to play on these nicer, I mean newer neighborhoods if that happens.

And that's the only time I've ever seen it happen.

It's actually shocking, but I wanted to get off the page.

It has had me thinking a lot more about particularly that side of the downtown neighborhood area and the lack of access to, you know, not a huge community park, but a neighborhood park.

And if there's a role that the county could play in having something like that, and that, you know, not just in Crozet, but all over the place, like as things fill up, maybe we should be thinking about that instead of just

assuming that it'll come along with the development community's responsibility, particularly if HOAs can say only certain people can come here.

If that's okay to say, and apparently it is in this case that it's happening in our neighborhood, that's really too bad because then it doesn't create a resource for everyone.

And then neighbors are patrolling to see who lives where and who's playing at parks.

And maybe there's a different way the county could approach that.

That's pretty much the main point I wanted to make.

I think you guys have done a great job.

I mean, I really, I know a lot of people really like seeing the Western Park, you know, push forward in this plan as it should be.

And I did want to point out, I think some commissioners were around when we redid the master plan for that park.

And I wanted to point out again that I think that park is unique because it will create a more passive

recreation opportunity and the conversations about the future of Crozet Park.

I think it's important that we recognize that not only do we have Mint Springs and these other parks and we're trying to create those connections, but that in Old Trail there will be a park that is much more rural in nature and has more walking trails and that sort of thing.

So we can balance that with choices we make as we move forward with other needs.

Thanks.

Okay, are there others?

Okay, I'm gonna do like Rick and make a connection.

And expand.

With the land use and the conservation.

First of all, I think in terms of the natural resources, it's excellent and given what you're working with.

I mean, I think there were interesting comments from the public about whether we're under parked

or the amount of people that there are.

And then Julian's point about when we look up in the Northwest corner, you know, is there there and other places, should there be more parks?

And that gets to county responsibility for infrastructure.

And, you know, that's that's we're not going to divert there today.

But I would encourage consider thinking of conservation in the more European British manner.

and that it would have a cultural resource component in it as well as natural resource and that you move the recommendation from land use about the cultural resource study that the cultural resource study should be done for the whole of the area of Crozet

Now with the national register or anything, you know, we use a 50 year cutoff.

There are a lot of houses that were built in the sixties that may indeed and neighborhoods that are pretty, pretty tight fabric that would qualify.

So I think that in the conservation area, I would have a component that's talking about the historic resources and doing the study that would allow for this recommendations and interpretations.

And then in the land use,

I would be so bold.

This is me, of course.

You all have heard me on this many times.

Remember, Scottsville has a historic district with local ARB, so it's not unheard of within the greater area of Albemarle County.

to have a historic district.

I think we need a historic district for the greater downtown area with ARB and ARB controls.

Last night, I don't know how many of you watched the Seville plans together, but it was really interesting how the consultants talked about the importance of the ARB as a way to deal with urban form, the urban form of the older areas with new construction coming in.

My concern is that downtown

greater downtown, the residential and the commercial areas of Crozet are going to go the way of Fifeville and 10th and Page and Charlottesville, that they're not going to be a place where regular folks can afford to be and live.

And I don't think that the middle area or the downtown overlay that was discussed without, I think conceptually, it was an interesting idea and one that if it had in partnership in AR,

Local Historic District and an ARB in place might have some degree of success.

But otherwise, I think we're just writing those areas off for low hanging fruit for development.

Next.

Corey, did I see your hand going?

No, I'm good on this one.

You're good on this one?

Completely good on this one.

All right.

I see Daniel looking at the map.

I would echo.

I mean, it was mentioned in the document that there was an opportunity to explore a pocket park in the Crozet Elementary, the old Crozet Elementary School north there.

kind of echo that I think this is good and consistent with comprehensive plan.

It's a tight CIP every year.

That's all you'll say?

OK, that's cool.

All right, that's cool.

I've got more questions, Tori.

So I'm going down Daniel's lane to edit something.

So on page 22, there's a

The image that's referenced on page 18 for page 22, I couldn't find an image.

So when you get to that point, I just couldn't find.

Yes, we have a placeholder for that.

It also may be, I have to go back

Okay.

So, you know, if we're reading this, oh, I'm going to page 22.

Oh, there's nothing there.

Okay, fine.

I'll have to ask about that.

Okay, cool.

On page 14, the lime green is hard to see compared to the lime green on page six.

Remember, everybody doesn't have young eyes like the three of you, like you, Michaela, and Rachel.

Some of us have a little bit older eyes, so you want to make it a little easy for us to see the future lime green thing, okay?

That's a little hard there.

I've got a couple of questions.

On page 16, you say something's impaired, that the water's in, not you, the, what is it called?

The, our water people enriching.

Hold on, page 16.

There it is.

We say that something is impaired.

The DEQ says, identified the former of following waterways as impaired in Crozet, Licking Hole, Slabtown, and some unnamed branch of Parrot Branch.

What does that mean that it's impaired and then who or whom is responsible for being impaired?

Sure, well I can do my best to answer that question and Rachel you can help fill me in if I miss anything.

We did work with our natural resources team on this, so they are the true experts in answering this question.

But my recollection and understanding is that DEQ assesses the waters for pollution if there's things that are harmful to the aquatic life or things that would be harmful to people if they're out there recreating.

And if the levels of pollutants like nitrogen are above a certain level,

then they designate the waterway as impaired and then in their report identify ways to improve those waterways.

So are we talking about cattle being in water?

That's a good question.

We looked more focused on the development area, but without pollution from the rural area, I think some of it's probably related to, you know, some stormwater management runoff, so trying to address that better.

So it's a good priority.

And then it did appear that there may be some older septic systems that may, you know,

OK, so like E. coli or something like that.

If they're coming from septic systems, you might see an E. coli.

OK, so you might see an E. coli.

OK, I just think it would be helpful to be able to have your people be able to give you a footnote so that you, because you know there's that, the wrestling with, do we have cattle sitting in streams upstream as the water comes into the development area?

or are we having fertilizers flowing from the vineyards flowing into the water that's coming into the development area?

And if so, who's responsible for correcting it?

Because I think given Rick's comment about the CIP, I don't know necessarily that the supervisors are going to feel like they should correct something that can be altered upstream before it hits the development area.

Yes, Rick?

I was just going to jump in to say that the Rivanna Conservation Society does testing on a, I think it's a biannual basis, and they help the county also evaluate the condition of streams and

I will just let you know that

Living in Glenmore, it's often cited that the golf course is the source of most of the major pollution.

And I've had active conversations with Don Franco, who worked with Real Estate 3 in the community.

and he had pointed out to me when we served together on the planning commission that the reality is that the golf course contributes very little in terms of runoff.

Most of the runoff until recently as we've segued into low potassium there is however still a lot of nitrogen that flows in

mainly from lawn fertilizer.

So it's certainly the board should not be in a position of trying to address an issue which can be handled on an individual basis by homeowners trying to mitigate the amount of fertilizer they use and moving into a much more of a

let us say traditional lawn emphasis rather than trying to emulate Churchill Downs by having Kentucky bluegrass in the front yard, in the backyard and all around.

So my piece on that, thank you Rick.

My piece on that is if we're trying to look at are these resources which we're going to have people coming to for recreation that we wanna make sure that we understand who's responsibility it might be.

to try and improve the condition of that resource.

And if we're going to have children swimming in streams and rivers as children are wanting to do, that we're also being cautious and being aware of what the conditions of those streams and who's responsible for the mitigation of those conditions.

That's why I was bringing that up.

That's why I brought it up to you.

And I only have two other things.

So my other thing is on page 18, you talk about fragmentation of the mature trees.

Yeah, it's difficult since we don't have anything in the ordinance for development that would prohibit people from doing that type of clear cutting.

So I think that is what typically happens with development unless the developer chooses to try to preserve those trees.

We do have standards for tree canopies with residential development for a percentage and then street trees and things like that.

Well, perhaps as we think of

of our zoning ordinances, perhaps there's a way to sort of think about how do we encourage that kind of discouraged clear cutting and encourage sort of the maintenance of mature trees and sort of forest stands of trees, if that's possible.

Because we're getting wet, as we all know, our ashes are being wiped out.

And I just read something about another tree in the northern part of the state that might be under threat too.

So let's preserve what we have if it's possible to do that.

These things can all go together with water quality also.

So the more you clear cut, the more quantity and quality regs are implemented.

Some of the impaired streams, it's based on the maximum daily loads that come from runoff that hasn't been regulated in the past.

As we're thinking about some of that, perhaps we'll focus on how to preserve these stands so you don't have this fragmentation.

That might have been my Karen, sort of bringing Karen into this, and she tends to think about those kinds of things.

And the last thing that I will just mention is on page 21.

I need to share with you, and I struggled greatly with a full paragraph on vineyards

and Breweries under Cultural and Scenic Resources.

And only one line, three words, four words on pick your own foods.

And if I think about this, when I hear about the people they talk about that area, it's about the ag business.

And while I understand, and I'm sure people will say in some treatment,

Commissioner Bivins doesn't like wineries, you need to see my seller and then we can have a conversation about whether or not I like wine or not.

But my real conversation is about in this area ag businesses typically were, and if I think about cultural resources, they were farms, they were orchards.

In fact, Jenny can speak eloquently about the role of orchards in Crozet.

And I'm uncomfortable, I should just say,

with two businesses which have little or nothing to do with the cultural resources of Crozet giving a full paragraph.

And so my comment to you would be please either balance it out so that we hear about livestock, we hear about orchards, we hear about family farming, we hear about those kinds of things, and that we minimize the Star Hill Brewery

the Monticello ABA, which is actually not that old.

It's less than a decade old that they even have that designation.

And so let's go back to the things that make that really an agriculturally based and world-based community and blend that in with these things, which are really discretionary income tourism.

So that's my annoyance.

You just heard my annoyance over something.

And otherwise I thought it was a really wonderful

wonderful section together.

I was just enjoying the two of them until I got to that and said, huh?

Why did I get a full paragraph?

And the other ones only get three words.

That doesn't work for me.

You can think about Mr. Henley, who used to be a supervisor.

He was a supervisor.

And he got chills.

I mean, you got just a whole host of, and you have the whaling orchard.

You've got a history.

If I want to talk about culture, there's culture in those things.

I'm just going to reel it back in there and be quiet because I'm sure somebody else has to say something.

Nobody's saying anything?

Okay, well I'm still going to be quiet.

Any other?

So I think what we're saying is yes, it's still in keeping with it.

In fact, it advances our complaint.

It's squarely in our complaint.

Am I seeing heads that nod?

One hand, I see Jenny.

I see thumbs up.

I saw a head OK.

And I see Rick is smiling.

He's giving me a parallel shake.

It's like this.

And Tim, good?

OK.

So you got that, and you got our comments there.

Do you need additional comments from us?

No?

OK.

Yes, I have two people.

First is Sandra Hausman.

Ms.

Hausman, please state your name and address.

Unmute yourself.

If you're with an association or an organization, please state that as well.

OK, I'm Sandy Hausman from Parkside Village, 5577 Hilltop.

And I want to praise the county for its overall concept of concentrating population in Crozet in order to protect the scenic resources around it.

But I think that that whole approach was seriously flawed in a couple of ways.

First of all, we didn't have anything on the books to protect our trees.

And as we've said, we've lost many thousands of trees in this age of climate change, and it's very distressing to me.

Second of all, the county did not, in my opinion, has not acquired enough new public land in the development area to meet the community's recreational needs.

And I don't see the plan, the master plan being put forward to encourage that to happen.

I mean, we're already seeing controversy over construction of a fairly large recreation center at Crozet Park and the addition of 115 parking spaces there.

The neighbors are pointing out that access would be

via a fairly narrow residential street with no really usable sidewalk.

And they object to covering the green space that is there with impermeable pavement.

And that is an action that is bound to make the quality of our streams worse.

The National Recreation Association suggests community parks be 25 to 50 acres.

I suppose that varies with the size of the community, but the reality is that Crozet Park is 22 acres, which makes it on the small side, and it raises the question of whether a large new structure even belongs at that location.

There's general agreement among planners that 30 to 50 percent of parkland should be set aside for active recreation.

Crozet is devoting less than 12 percent of its parkland to active recreation, and I'm not counting Beaver Lake or Lickinghole Creek in that calculus, so actually the number could be even smaller.

Since Landon Crozet's development area is now very limited and very expensive, what I would like to see is some encouragement in the master plan for the county to acquire additional acreage outside of the development zone to supplement the existing sites for designated recreation, to make some property available for construction of a new recreation center

but also to reserve some land for ball fields, pickleball, tennis courts, all that stuff, the arts and crafts show because right now I live on the border of Crozet Park and that place is just crammed.

I mean it is overused and I think that the comprehensive plan really doesn't make allowance for the county to get involved with acquisition of additional land.

I'm guessing staff might have some ideas of properties that could be acquired.

I just wandering around have wondered about farmland behind Crozet School, about the wooded property above Mint Springs, which is now in danger of being clear cut.

The county could also designate the old Crozet School for recreational use and not for housing or school related needs as the master plan is now suggesting.

and since it was the county's decision to create residential density in Crozet, I feel that the county really owes residents additional open space.

Sorry, if the CIP is the problem, please raise our taxes.

Next, we have Neal Williamson.

Neal, please state your name, who you're associated with.

Good evening.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Thank you.

Neil Williamson with the Free Enterprise Forum.

And I want to thank you all for a very vibrant discussion this evening.

I have a couple of clarifications and then three very pointed questions that I hope you guys will delve into as you move forward in this process.

Number one to the chair, Mr. Bivins, as you know, I've done some work in the Virginia wine industry for some time.

The Monticello AVA was actually designated in 1984, which is much more than a decade ago.

We are very proud of the work that we've done in the Monticello AVA and not discounting any other agricultural use, equalize all the paragraphs, but I thought it was worthwhile to mention we've been around a while.

Back to Thomas Jefferson trying to grow grapes at Monticello, unsuccessfully.

Number two, clarification, cul-de-sacs have been often required by Albemarle County in order to maintain the integrity of the site and the topography.

Cul-de-sacs are a great place to collect the dirt in order to make the site work.

There was another conversation about loss of trees.

The mass grading required by interconnectivity requirements is important to recognize.

These are engineering things, they're not opinion.

Now, headed to opinion.

Number one, when does the missing middle land use density become so reduced as to become simply missing?

Number two, how does question number one square with Albemarle County's new equity lens?

And question number three,

Is Crozet under park?

Given the challenges that have been raised about the CIP and operating expenses of various parks, I'm not certain that the parks can support the things they have.

Is Crozet as a development area community under park?

I think that's a fair question for you guys to answer.

and I'm thankful for this very frank conversation and I sincerely appreciate all of your perspectives on this.

I will wait a second.

Close the public hearing.

So I will thank Mr. Williamson for correcting 18 for 1984.

Appreciate that.

The record can show that the chair misspoke about the establishment of that area.

Thank you for that correction.

Are there other comments before we move on here from our colleagues?

I think your remarks are, they stand, they can stand on their own.

Okay.

Well, I wanted to share that our next step as we hinted at is community engagement opportunities on the implementation, which will be our last chapter of the master plan.

And then we will be coming back to you all hopefully next month in June with a full draft, including that implementation chapter,

for another work session.

Then we'll move on to the board for a work session and then wrap it up with public hearings, hopefully towards the end of the summer, early fall.

So if you have any questions on that, feel free to reach out tonight or later on.

Anything else for Rachel and Tori?

No.

Thank you both very much.

It was a joy to read.

And hopefully, you were well informed by our comments and the comments from the community this evening.

Thank you, and look forward to seeing you soon.

Committee reports.

Everyone's not going to raise their hand and once there.

So there are no committee reports.

OK.

The village of Rivanna CAC met last night, and we took a look at the application of Daisy Hill, which I alluded to, not fully accurately, last

This week, as I tried to summarize it and be as less time consuming as possible.

They are proposing R1 status on the CMA, which works out.

using a net density measure to, I believe it's 1.34 units per acre.

The developer submits that he should be able to use gross density in determining what is the appropriate number of units.

No, no, I just thought that was public comment.

He made his comment.

Anyhow, but we will see.

We will have an opportunity to examine this and go into depth on it.

Any other committee reports?

Thank you.

Sure.

Thanks for everyone's comments this evening.

Very productive as usual.

We had a board meeting last Wednesday.

There was a work session on private streets discussing some of the history behind that and some ways to help potentially address some of those concerns in the future.

And we also had a work session on the Community Development Department's work plan for the next year.

So a lot of busy projects headed our way, as you all know, primarily with the comp plan with this commission.

So

As we wrap up this Crozet master plan, we'll switch gears towards the comp plan.

There were no public hearings for development applications that evening, though.

I'll issue a very polite and hopeful request to Jody to come and present that to us.

Certainly.

OK.

Anything else?

Any old business or new business?

Items for follow-up.

If not, oh, did I see a hand going?

If not, we'll see each other on May the 18th for what?

OK, so we have a public hearing and critical slope waiver, and so we'll see each other on the 18th.

Until then, thank you, everyone, and enjoy going outside.

A quick question for Charles because of a potential conflict with another committee.

There is, uh, it looks like it's the last kind of set it up.

So usually it's the last week of each month.

So it's the June 22nd meeting.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Anything else?

So, you know, my admiration, I'm out every week.

So I can tell you, since we've met, I've been bitten by four ticks.

So just be aware.

I've had to deal with four ticks.

So, you know, just be aware it's happening in the little ones and the big ones, okay?

So be safe, wear your bug spray.

I know everyone has been vaccinated, so I'm really happy for that, but still wear your mask.

All right, bye-bye.

See you next week.

Bye-bye.

And thank you all.

Thank you.

This was good.