Planning Commission Meeting   5/18/2021

We're ready.

Good evening.

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 forward slash community forward slash county dash calendar when available.

And so with that,

This is the Planning Commission, May 18th, 2021 at 601.

Yes, please.

Would you call the quorum now?

Yes, I will.

Ms.

Firehock?

Here.

Ms.

Moore.

Present.

Thank you.

We have a quorum, so I call the meeting to order.

Thank you.

Is there no items on our consent agenda?

Can we go first to SP 2021-02 St.

Yes, let me pull it up.

I don't see any trees unless it's at night.

Oh yes, there's a forest.

No.

Good evening commissioners.

My name is Mariah Gleason.

I'm a senior planner in the planning division of the community development department in Albemarle County.

Tonight, I'm going to be presenting for your consideration special use permit request SP 2021-00002 St.

John Family Life and Fitness Center.

The subject property for this proposal is located at 1569 St.

John Road on Tax Map Parcel 6678.

The property is located in the rural area about 0.6 miles south of the intersection of Gordon'sville Road and St.

John Road.

Parcels surrounding the property are generally used for residential and agricultural uses.

There are two existing buildings on the 6.1 acre parcel.

The larger building to the north is St.

John Baptist Church located directly behind the church is a small cemetery.

The second building on the property is a single story frame building that was a historic Rosenwald school.

The building was constructed around 1923 as a school for rural African-American students until 1954 when schools were desegregated.

The applicant is requesting to adaptively reuse the historic school building as a local community center.

The applicant's narrative states that they plan to use the renovated space to offer an exercise room, a display room with amenities that include a library, computer, and museum to share the building's history.

The renovated space will also offer multiple meeting areas for groups, classes, lectures, and workshops.

The building is approximately 1,500 square feet in size.

The applicant is not proposing extensive external changes to the site to accommodate the use.

That said, there will be some onsite improvements to make the proposed community center building handicap accessible.

During the review of this proposal, no outstanding concerns were identified by staff or members of the public, in which case I'll make my presentation brief.

Staff found a number of factors favorable to the proposal, including the restoration and preservation of historically and culturally significant local building that the proposed use would act as a publicly accessible educational resource and that the proposed use would provide services and support to rural area residents.

No unfavorable factors were identified.

To preserve the factors that were found favorable, staff recommends the following four conditions.

The applicant has indicated that they are agreeable to these conditions as well.

So this actually concludes staff's presentation.

The commission has the report.

Can you unshare for us, please?

I can see everybody.

I can share everyone.

Thank you.

Just for a second.

Other questions for Ms.

Leeson?

No, I just have one short one.

Did I see a historic marker in one of your slides?

Yes, there was.

There was a historic marker, I think, that was applied for and received, well, in 2016.

And that's about the school or is it about the church?

Maybe somebody can speak to that when we get there.

Maybe the applicant can speak to it.

Thank you, ma'am.

OK.

So since we have no other questions for Mariah, then we'll go and hear from the applicant.

Jody, is that you where you speak?

Becky, Ms.

Kenny is gonna start.

Okay.

Chair Bivins, thank you.

Okay.

Welcome, Ms.

Thank you, thank you, good evening.

Thank you for this opportunity to share with you our story and history of our nonprofit.

My name is Rebecca Kenny and I'm the board president and also president

is our vice president, Pastor Kevin Hawkins.

In addition to us, we have Jody LaHundra and also Kathy Gostin, both of Building Goodness team members.

Both are Building Goodness team members.

Thank you for this opportunity today.

With our mission, we will provide physical, educational,

and spiritual programs that will enhance the participants in living a better quality of life.

For purpose, we will be located in the renovated elementary school built in 1922 and identified as one of the 382 historical African-American Rosenwell schools in Virginia.

This is one of seven in Albemarle County

built and will be the only one available to the public once renovated.

Our goal is to preserve the history of this unique period in Southern African American education.

We will continue the legacy of education established in the past into the future with the education of mind, body, and soul.

Our first goal is to restore and preserve our former historical Rosenwald school, which is where education began for the Carpan community of African American students.

That would include me and my mother and my siblings.

And this is the story for so many of the alumnas that are still living in the community.

If they're not there,

Their legacy will carry on with their families that still live there.

This will be the home for our community center and our fitness center.

The programs offered will be available to anyone wishing to exercise, attend classes or workshops.

In addition, you will be able to spend time in our resource library or walk down memory lane in our museum and experience the environment of learning from the African American community during that time.

The chart that you have in front of you now is a slide of the building goodness of the two participants from our museum.

from the Center, a nonprofit, as well as all the people who are donating their precious skills and knowledge from the Building Goodness Foundation.

As you can see, this is a well thought out project with people who have skills and knowledge.

They have designed and constructed a team that has laid out plans

and designs for electrical work, for architect work, for plumbing work, for HVAC work, I think I said electric, but they're just a well laid out group that have our plans all laid out for us and we're grateful to them and they highly support us and we're thankful for them.

Since 2011, we have accomplished quite a bit.

Of course, we have our board of directors as well as committee members

We have a 501c status that was also achieved in 2011.

In 2016, as you mentioned, we have a highway marker.

In 2018, we completed a septic system with private funds from donors and also from the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation, which has been very supportive towards us with the Bama, Dave Matthews,

In 2019, we received a $75,000 grant from the federal government, and that was to stabilize the building.

In addition to that $75,000, we also received another $15,000 from CACF.

And that is complete now.

So we have completed the stabilization of the building deceptive system.

We also listed with the help of Niall Bates on the National Registry and also Department of Historical Resources.

In 2019, we received that achievement.

And then in 2020, we were blessed with the Building Goodness Foundation

to help us with the phase three of our renovation, which is the interior part of the renovation.

We also, for its funding, additional funding is required.

It is quite a large project.

In additional, we have submitted two other grants, another one to the federal government, which is this Africa American Civil Rights Grant.

We're requesting this time $108,000.

We will know the results of that request in June.

By the end of June, we should know whether we have that $108,000.

We also request another $10,000 from Family Works, and we'll know from them also in June.

And we look forward to hearing those results, and we're feeling very positive about that.

as far as when an additional funding is required.

And we will be working with private donors, fundraisers, additional grants to achieve that goal.

For as timeline is concerned, we project that if subject to availability of funds, that we can complete this project by the end of the summer and early fall.

I will just quickly go through a few images, Chair Bivins.

Ms.

And these are the early shots, photos of the school once it was completed.

The Rosenwald program and Tuskegee were very careful in recording the schools that were built.

and to talk a little bit more about the Rosenwald program.

This was a creation between Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee Institute and Julius Rosenwald, the president of Sears Roebuck, to fund

over 5,000 schools through the rural south for the education of African Americans from about 1912 to 1932.

And as Ms.

Kenny pointed out, there are seven constructed in Albemarle County.

Five of them still remain.

But of those, they are either residences or abandoned derelict buildings.

About a tenth of the 5,000 still remain in the country, and about a third of those built in Virginia remain.

are here.

Ms.

Gleason also talked about the few exterior changes we are making.

They're very small, a couple of sidewalks, a handicapped ramp, and then reopening one of the historic doors that was closed up during its conversion to a residence.

Inside, it was through my onsite research, I discovered that almost 85% of the interior finishes still remain underneath the renovations and added drywall put in by the house conversion.

and I was able to document the changes created by that house conversion.

For our proposed adaptive reuse, we are restoring the interiors, restoring the finishes, the doors, and we are constructing a new exterior ramp.

And then we are putting in new walls that will be complying with the Secretary's standards for rehabilitation.

Sorry about the helicopter.

It's Pegasus.

For rehabilitation and that, they will be obviously modern changes to the building.

And you can see an elevation of the ramp.

We are complying, we believe, with several comprehensive plan goals, objectives for the rural areas, objective one, objective three.

We believe we are complying with those.

And for the historic cultural scenic resources,

We believe we're complying with objective two, three, and four.

And I'm passing by 10 minutes, so I will stop.

Are there questions for the applicant?

Corey, and then Tim.

Jody, it's great to see you and the rest of the design team, my friend.

Just a quick question.

Frankly, I haven't even thought about that.

So I'm going to let Ms.

Kinney talk about that.

The only thing that comes to mind is that we are planning, and we haven't decided where it would be located, is a memorial patio.

And that has been since 2011 when we started the fundraiser of Bob Rick.

and these bricks are inscribed with a memory of people, you know, who you like to have in your memory and contribute to this memory of this project.

And what about signage for the fitness center, family fitness center itself?

The signs.

You know, we haven't thought about that yet.

That's what I thought.

Certainly fine.

I just wanted to put the question out there.

Sometimes on these projects you have, whether it's statues or the signage, maybe like at the battlefields, for example, that kind of sign into the post that might tell stories and so forth.

And so if that is part of future plans, just give some careful thought on where it might go on the site.

Yes.

Well, I just want to congratulate Ms.

Kenny and Pastor Hawkins.

I was fortunate to be at the 2016 dedication of the state marker and the celebration that you've all had.

Welcome to CINCI

into your community.

It was really a wonderful experience.

And I think the survey that the Preservation Virginia undertook of Rosenwald School starting in 2013, I'm going to put the link on for the commissioners to see all of the data for the state that Jody was referring to.

But this has been a great project.

You all had a vision from the beginning of what you wanted to do.

And it's really exciting for us.

Thank you.

Are there other questions for the applicant?

I have a question.

One of the conditions is that the days of operation will be from Monday to Saturday.

and so my question is, does St.

John's have a space that I would call sort of a church hall or a parish hall?

I need that space.

You will not need that space.

I just want to make sure because I know sometimes around when families come together or when there's a reunion sometimes there may be a need for space on a Sunday and I just want to just make sure that everybody was okay but this is a Monday through Saturday use of the space.

Madam, do we have anyone waiting to speak in the public?

Are you speaking to the applicants, Chair Bivins?

I don't.

Ms.

I would just like to thank you for taking the time to hear our presentation.

Thank you, ma'am.

So then on that note, I will bring you back to the committee and hear what perhaps we might have discussions.

Yeah, I didn't ask any questions because it was such a well-presented application.

I really want to commend you for your work.

That's really all I have to say.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Thank you.

I'm not hearing a lot of conversation.

This is interesting for us.

I don't have much to say.

I'm excited to see it actually come out, you know, be completed and be able to visit and learn more about the site and its history.

Well then, I will just, yes Corey.

I'll go last, Mr. Chairman.

I understand that.

So I would only say that I would encourage you to give some serious thought to being able to put some interpretive signs around the project when you do finish it.

And let me connect this to a reason why I will stress that with you.

Because recently, the Charlottesville Albemarle Tourist Bureau has said that one of the things that it's seriously considering is putting together sort of a route to lift up Black history in this area.

And so I would hope,

since you're the only, since you're the only Rosenwald school that would be open to the public, that you would be on that route.

And so the other interesting thing is that where you sit, you sit in an area that's got a number of wineries and it's got a cidery, so you have lots of people who will be in that area just doing the other things that people seem to be promoted for.

And how wonderful

that as they're driving down 231, they might take a right hand turn and learn something about the other part of our community that's been here for all these years.

Could I respond, Chair Bivins?

Sure.

Well, not really.

Oh, forgive me.

Thank you Mr. Chairman and I echo everything you said.

That was the reason for my question about the interpretive signage on the site.

It will just be amazing to be able to attract people even when it's not open to come by and read and learn and so forth while they're in the area.

And I would like to say also I'm just so proud that this is actually in my district

It's not too often where you get something that's not the run of the mill, right?

You can sit up here and smile and be like, yeah, I'm really proud of that.

And as a fellow architect, I can also sleep at night because I know Jody is on the project and I know is in really, really good hands.

And as an architect, I also would say these are the kinds of projects that breathe new life into the community.

And so with that, I'm prepared to give my enthusiastic support behind this project.

Mariah, are you kind enough to put the motion back up for us, please?

There we go.

Thank you.

I move to recommend approval of SP 2021-00002 St.

Is there a second?

Second.

Is that Karen?

Yes, sir.

Seconded by Karen, please.

Is there any discussion?

There is no discussion so Carolyn could you call the roll please and Mariah could you unshare us?

Mr. Clayborne?

Ms.

Moore?

Aye.

Ms.

Firehock?

Aye.

And Mr. Bailey.

Thank you.

So Ms.

Kenny, Mr. Leandro, and Pastor Hawkins, this has been approved by at least this part of the process, by the Planning Commission.

And it will be going forward with our recommendation to the Board of Supervisors, which I'm sure Ms.

Gleason will be working with you for that next date.

And I have to say to my colleagues, if you have not had the opportunity to go to this space, to this location, and just stand there,

I will say, and I never take these kinds of personal points of personal privilege.

But on this one, just indulge me for a second.

So all of us, I found out that my ancestors are from Danville, where there's also another host of these, the Rosenwald schools.

And you may or may not know the Black people in your lives, when they migrated to the North, they didn't talk a lot about what they left behind.

It was a new time.

And so to have the week this Sunday, to be able to stand in that space and to recognize that this is where black people were educated when they couldn't be educated anyplace else.

And particularly the sort of the history of Charlottesville and Albemarle being a place of resistance.

that I would just encourage you, as Jody has indicated, to tell your story and to tell the story of that place and the people who went through there and the lives that were shaped through that school because it is a story worth knowing and a story worth telling.

And I wish you great success as you continue with this process.

That's the end of my point of personal privilege.

Thank you for indulging me everyone and good night and have a good rest of your evening.

Thank you so much.

Okay, so we are now going to

We get to see someone who we don't get to see very often.

Karen Bivins?

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

So if you need to click it, and it'll take you to the website, and then we can hold on to it for later.

But thank you for that.

May we have the staff report for S.E.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Can you see the presentation?

I can see it.

Good to be seen, right?

Okay, this special exception request is to allow the disturbance of critical slopes on tax map parcel 5923G, which is the current location of the Christian Aid Mission and also the Regent School.

The purpose of the request is to allow for the construction of a new entrance onto Broomley Road.

The property is zoned CO commercial.

It also is within the entrance quarter overlay district and the steep slopes overlay district.

This area is actually within, although zoned for development, is in our rural area and is designated as rural area property.

Again, the proposal is to allow for an entrance onto Broomley Road.

A critical slope waiver request is required as per 18.423 of the ordinance.

The property is located

on Route 250 in Broomley Road is on the western boundary.

This is a look at the property vicinity map, which also shows the zoning for the area.

To the east of the property is commercial properties, a tractor dealership, and also

Church.

To the west is Ivy Nursery.

To the north are residential neighborhoods, Florida and part of Farmington.

And to the south is rural area uses and agricultural and open space area.

This is an aerial photo of the property.

The area that is being impacted is the area in the top center left side of the photo.

Route 250 to the south, Brumley Road to the left, and the building on the far left edge is Ivy Park Street.

This is a shot of the improvement area.

Also a cross section and a larger photo of the area highlighting the critical slope portions that will be impacted.

We have a larger picture of it.

We can come back to these as needed if you have questions or want to discuss these as we move forward.

to provide a little bit of history that's relevant to this proposal.

In 2014, a critical slope waiver request was submitted in conjunction with a special use permit, 2014-05.

That special permit was for the expansion of Regent School, and it was to allow access to Broomley Road.

In part, it was a way to address traffic concerns with that school expansion.

The Board of Supervisors denied that

Prior special exception, critical sub-waiver request noting the proposal would facilitate intensification of use of the property contrary to the comprehensive plan policies for preserving the rural area character of the area.

Again, this review was in conjunction with that special use permit expansion request for the private school.

As noted in the applicants narrative, some board members did note that the timing for the closure of the Broomey Road Bridge at that time for reconstruction was a concern that they had in approving that new entrance at that time.

To close the history on the special use permit, the special use permit was approved for the expansion of Regent School, but a sunset was placed on it.

at the time that said they would need to leave the site within three years.

That sunset was rescinded in 2017, so they could actually stay on that site indefinitely, but the school has purchased another property in the county and with the hopes of relocating in the future.

The specifics of this proposal.

A little bit less than 5,000 square feet of critical slopes would be impacted, not quite 1% of the 12-acre parcel.

The impacted slopes are mostly man-made and have been related over a number of years to the construction of Broome Road, an old access road adjacent to the railroad tracks, the railroad track itself, and the recent bridge upgrading had some

leftover fill area I think was deposited in this general area if I'm not mistaken.

There are no other critical slope or critical resources that are identified or located adjacent to these particular critical slope areas such as floodplain or stream buffer.

I will note though this entire area is in our South Fork Rivanna River watershed which is

an area of level of protection we want to make sure that we cover.

The access road on the site onto Broomley Road and the entrance itself is in a location where it can be County and VDOT design required.

In reviewing waiver requests, the county engineer reviews aspects of the proposal under the noted zoning ordinance section, and they look at the impacts to movement of soil and rock, excessive stormwater runoff, siltation, loss of static resources, and effluent.

The full engineers report is in the Planning Commission staff report, but their conclusion

was that there was no engineering concerns that would prohibit the disturbance of these critical slopes.

And Matt Whitland from our county engineer's office is here if you have questions regarding that or any issues related to the proposed construction to the extent that that's been evaluated at this time.

In making this,

In taking a decision, the commission on this proposal, the commission and the board have to consider their decision based on certain findings contained in this section of the ordinance.

And the waivers can be granted if there's no detrimental, if there is a finding that there is no detrimental impact to health, public safety, and welfare, or early development of the area, or to adjacent properties.

and that it would not be contrary to engineering practices.

Staff in the staff report has provided an assessment of those areas and the findings.

I don't know if I want to go through every bit of these in this presentation, but certainly can answer questions regarding them.

But the conclusion was that many of these slopes are manmade and been reconstructed areas and that

Granting of the waiver could better serve the public health, safety, and welfare by allowing for a safer alternative access to a signalized intersection, which would provide for safer development to the site.

That is in regards to finding A, which is a strict application but not for the purposes and intent of the ordinance or otherwise serve health, public safety, or welfare.

The finding B, the alternatives proposed by the developer would satisfy the ordinance, the intent of the ordinance to at least an equivalent degree.

There have been no alternatives provided that would have no impact to critical slopes.

There was another option for design that was looked at that would have greater impacts to critical slopes.

And it also should be noted that any location of any new entrance on the Broomley Road would impact some level of critical slopes since most of the abutting property has critical slopes related to it.

The findings and areas to evaluate in C and D, that there are unusual characteristics to the property that

or conditions that prohibiting the disturbance of the critical slopes would create an unreasonable ability to use the property.

That is not the case in this proposal.

And D, granting the modification waiver would serve the public purpose to a greater degree than strict application of these regulations.

Again, this disturbance would be necessary to allow for a safer access to intersection onto Route 250.

And all the points made under A would also be applicable to again, the public safety aspect of this proposal.

So the factors favorable.

The relatively small area of disturbed critical slopes is mostly man-made and not directly associated with other critical slope systems.

The county engineers identified no engineering concerns which would prohibit the disturbance of these critical slopes to allow for the entrance.

The disturbance of critical slopes would allow for the construction of an alternative access which would be better and more safely accommodate traffic generated by the uses on the site

and the proposed entrance location can meet both county and VDOT standards for construction.

The factors unfavorable is that the additional entrance would introduce additional traffic onto Broomley Road.

Again, should be noted that the 250 entrance, the existing entrance on 250 will be retained

which would mitigate that additional traffic impact.

So based on the findings contained in the report, staff has recommended approval of this special exception request with this condition which is reflecting an exhibit that just identifies the area that's proposed for construction.

I have motions for you when the time is right for those.

And I'll answer any questions that you might have.

If you'd like to go back to a plan, just let me know.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Other questions for David, folks?

David, would you share your screen for a second so I might see everyone, please?

Thank you.

Other questions for David?

So we have Karen.

Yes, Mr. Benesch, did the applicant, I know they talked about, we talked about the fact that the school had found another place and they need this new entrance for other uses, but do we know what those other uses are?

I guess I'm not clear, obviously there's some need generated for this new

The applicant is best to respond to that.

As far as I know, we have no specific proposal request or application for a different use on the site.

I believe the property is being marketed though.

The uses that can be anticipated are those that are permitted under that CO zoning.

Just a couple of questions.

I'm trying to decipher the plans a bit.

It's a mounded area there.

It kind of comes up the slope and it's mounded.

To get back to Broomley is

significant drop.

So is the plan to cut the road in and put some, I saw like it was just a step back.

Are they just stepping it back?

Yeah, again, I think the applicant will probably be best to explain that.

I don't believe there's any retaining walls proposed at this point in time.

Again, Matt Wentland from our county and

Yeah, and that would be a requirement of VDOT to meet the permitting requirement

And Adam Moore from VDOT is also here and available to answer those questions.

But yeah, they would have to have the site distance is roughly equivalent to that 10 times the posted speed limit.

So whatever that requirement is by VDOT, they will have to meet and there'll be site distance requirements in both directions.

Okay, and that's figured into how much of the critical scope so he Yes, it's my understanding that in county and engineers review of it, they did assess the feasibility of the access road so that, you know, we have a realistic proposal for what could be built and what that impact is on the critical slopes that 5,000 4950 square feet.

All right, thank you.

Mm hmm.

If Adam Moore is here, could we hear a little bit about that intersection there?

The existing entrance offer of Ivy Road, Route 250.

So ride in or ride out?

Right now, with the approval of

The regent school, they were required to put in channelization.

What that channelization does is restricts lefts out.

It allows lefts into the site, but not lefts out, which would be lefts towards the city.

Currently that traffic, if you're wanting to head towards the city, you have to make a right and do a U-turn at some location.

That's a requirement of the special use permit for the private school.

As David explained with the restricted movements at the one existing entrance, what you see is

Really a lack of opportunities for people heading east from the site to turn around.

You may remember that there has been public concerns in the past about people taking U-turns at unsafe locations.

Those complaints have died down somewhat, but the fact remains that there's no good place to make a U-turn anywhere immediately west of here.

The presence of this location would mean that people exiting this site could easily access the signal

Do you have accident data for that intersection?

I do.

Yes.

So I would describe this as pretty typical for a rural signalized two-lane intersection.

In the last five years, there's been approximately 13 crashes, the great majority of which are rear-end crashes, which is what we expect at traffic signals.

When you introduce a traffic signal, people not paying attention come up on a red light and hit the person right in front of them who stopped for the signal.

Very few of the crashes at the intersection are related to this site or the existing entrance.

You have

There's only been actually three of the 13 were not rear end.

Most were just property damage.

So minor crashes is another thing that we expect at signalized intersections, the crashes.

There's a lot of crashes, but oftentimes they're less severe because, you know, rear end crashes are just generally not as severe.

And then there's always, you know, a few crashes at every intersection that are

Does anyone have any other questions before we go to the applicant?

Where's the gentleman from the engineering?

What they provided is they were doing just an upgrading to get the road in.

I mean, I didn't see where they were knocking down a mound more than what they had to.

It was just to meet our slope requirements on the road itself.

Excuse me.

Daniel, is that OK?

Anyone else before we let the applicant come in for their time, for their comments to us?

May we hear from the applicant, please?

Good evening, Chair Bivins and members of the Planning Commission.

My name is Kelsey Schlein.

I'm a planner with SHMP Engineering.

I'm here tonight representing the property owner and applicant, Christian Aid Mission.

I'm just going to share my screen with you all.

Perfect.

OK, so thank you for the staff report, David.

So this is a

request for critical slip disturbance.

The 12 acre site is located at the intersection of Route 250 and Broomley Road, adjacent to Ivey Nursery.

Some site characteristics, the total site is 12 acres.

According to County GIS, the site area designated as critical slopes is approximately 3.03 acres, which is 25% of the site.

And the area of slopes requested to be disturbed with this request is just under 5000 square feet, which is approximately 3.7% of

total slopes on the site.

This map down here is showing in orange the critical slopes that are present on the site.

They kind of wrap around the developed areas of the property and extend along the entirety of Broomley Road here.

As Mr. Benesch alluded to, any entrance off of

Broomley Road would necessitate disturbance of critical slopes.

So the project proposal here, where the entrance spacing for the new entrance exceeds VDOT spacing standards of 440 feet for this entrance location,

And Matt already clarified this for you, Mr. Bailey, but there's no retaining walls proposed.

The goal here was really to

create an entrance to allow for a safer controlled out left movement at the intersection of Broomley and Route 250 and to minimize disturbance of critical slopes in order to achieve that traffic maneuver.

So there's

We're serving kind of just enough to get our entrance and travel way in there.

And later on in the presentation, I'll go through a few design iterations that we presented to the county that ultimately got us to the lowest critical slopes disturbance of forty nine fifty that were that we're requesting from you all tonight.

So this is just a cross section showing that the proposed construction is a cut instead of a fill.

So cutting into the slopes here, there's less likelihood for increased erosion when compared to placing fill on a slope here.

This is just a quick little doodle kind of showing approximately where the entrance will go off of Broomley Road extending up into the site.

And this little black hatched area is just approximately showing the area where the slopes exist that are proposed to be disturbed.

This is also a good image to speak to the fact that much of these slopes in this area

were disturbed in 2014-2015 during the reconstruction of the Broomley Bridge here.

You can see the silt fences along the property line here and along the access road back to the stormwater facility and you can see that there was some recent grading done just before this image was taken.

It's also

The site is nearby to the railroad and Broomley Bridge as well.

So these are just some images of the slopes as how they look today with just some arrows showing the approximate entrance location.

So kind of see it's not incredibly steep here.

I believe most of the slopes in this area just are mostly in the 25%

to 27, 28% range.

They're not incredibly steep in this area.

And additional, this is an image looking from the site, kind of at the top of the slope towards the bridge.

This is the Ivy Nursery entrance over here.

And this is just kind of in the slope, looking at the riprap channel that was constructed or reconstructed during

the reconstruction of Broome Libre Bridge.

This fence over here is along Ivy Nursery.

So going through a few design iterations that we presented, it was proposed to us by the county to consider placing an entrance location, perhaps where the existing access way to the stormwater facility is.

So we explored that option.

That resulted in a significant

A greater amount of critical slopes disturbance, almost 17,000 square feet compared to just under 5,000 that we're requesting.

Additionally, we were requesting approximately 5,500 square feet of disturbance.

We got a very helpful comment from engineering just to think through just how some water would run across the slope here in the future.

That prompted us to put in a curve along this side here.

That also allowed us to tighten up the grade even more, further reducing our critical slopes disturbance.

We really feel that the proposal that we're presenting to you tonight, we worked through County staff has reviewed several times and we're thankful for that because I think we've ultimately come up with a design that really limits critical slopes disturbance here.

And as David mentioned, the proposal was reviewed and I think some of you all even reviewed it back in 2014.

Some changes, the major changes since that 2014 request is the construction of the Brumley Road bridge.

It is noted in the board minutes that several of the board members had a little bit of heartburn about the premature nature of approving the disturbance of critical slopes.

to permit an entrance in a location that perhaps we wouldn't be happy with at some point down the road.

Additionally, the entrance location as proposed now meets VDOT standards.

With the construction of the Brumley Road bridge, we were able to move that entrance further down to the northern property line.

and meet VDOT standards.

It's also noted in the minutes that it was a great concern of neighbors to be pursuing that VDOT waiver in this location, especially just some concern about potential rear-end collisions from neighbors along Broomley Road for people turning in too closely to an entrance that was sited too closely to the intersection of Route 250 and Broomley.

We're meeting VDOT entrance spacing standards with this request.

So in conclusion, please consider the man-made nature of the majority of these slopes and that strict adherence to the requirements to not disturb the critical slopes would not, for the purpose of this chapter, serve the public health, safety, and welfare as there are no environmentally sensitive features that are in the vicinity of the project area that would

be negatively impacted by the disturbance of the slopes.

Branting of this waiver would better serve the health, safety, and general welfare by allowing for users exiting the site to make a controlled left out movement at the intersection of Route 250 and Baroomalee.

Thank you for the opportunity to present.

And I am available for any questions you may have.

Thank you.

Are there questions for Ms.

Slaune?

Yes.

Thank you for the question.

So we actually did receive a comment from VDOT early on just to consider if there would be any conflicting left movements.

So I think that the

The real conflict point that would happen from being located, having an entrance located across from IV Nursery would be somebody making a left out of IV Nursery and then also making a, like I say, would be, yes, making a left out of the Christian Aid Mission site.

And so the entrances are sited kind of outside of that conflict zone.

I think that was kind of

One of the initial concerns that was brought up and this design and spacing meets the requirements to avoid that situation.

And additionally, Commissioner Firehock, I'm sorry I didn't answer your question during my presentation.

So if I may just respond to the future user, that a future user has not been identified at this time.

Any buy-write user or future user on the property, I think, would much appreciate this entrance and the option to allow people who are utilizing the site to make that controlled left movement so that they can head back into town.

Thanks.

Other questions for

The applicant.

Ms.

Line, this is an in and out entrance.

Can you go back to the placement?

I know you shared some options and one was it disturbed more critical slopes as you, as been kind of historically, and you can confirm those slopes were previously disturbed for other purposes.

So they're not, you know, preserving per se.

I'm just, I just want to get a sense from yours and the discussion once again from VDOT and kind of coming back to what Commissioner Firehock was alluding to is like having a staggered

in and out with a busy nursery and the potential that may cause from people, like you said, turning right out of the nursery to get back to 250 and someone turning left across and not seeing them.

And you're not right across from them, you're staggered by some distance.

Just walk me through what the decision criteria was not to go with this iteration that you see here.

Was it mainly due to the critical slopes aspect and the amount of critical slopes

affected or was there a public safety or concern and how did that weigh?

Sure.

So it was mainly around the disturbance of critical slopes.

But additionally, that existing entrance is

just kind of like an access road to a stormwater facility and so there was some concern just about upgrading that to like a or a portion of that to like a full access entrance and just exactly how those would function together and so ultimately it was decided that ideally we keep these two items the access to the stormwater management facility and access to the site separate and

Yeah, this

the entrance location and kind of how these entrances interact with one another has been reviewed by VDOT.

And so at this phase and any entrance permit ultimately is gonna be granted by them.

I'll just add that we focused in on limiting the impacts and grading in water supply watershed.

And so the reduced area of grading was beneficial to us.

It's our understanding that the offset is conceivably acceptable under VDOT standards.

Adam can speak better to that.

I do know from some history that there has been some discussion that offset intersections may actually be just as

say for no more dangerous than aligned intersections because the same lack of visibility can occur when two people are not looking at each other, making a turn, when they're offset, there's actually margin for error for that activity to occur.

But that's something probably better for Adam to speak to.

Daniel, you're okay?

I reviewed the entrance location.

The entrance across the street is not a significant concern.

Carolyn, do we have anyone in the audience, in the public?

No, we do not.

Thank you.

So we'll bring it back to us for discussion.

Commissioners, what are your thoughts on this?

Rick and then whom else?

Rick and then Tim.

I am delighted to see this before us this evening because

When we last reviewed this as a planning commission in 2014, many of us were concerned from a safety standpoint of traffic going on to 250 from the site, especially because of the

exponential growth of the school and kudos to the school for that growth.

I'm delighted that they've found a larger facility.

I think I said at the time in 2014, I hope that as they continue to grow, they would be able to identify another campus in Albemarle County,

and they've done that and I'm very happy for the school that that's happened.

I'm also happy for the traffic flow on 250 as a result of that happening, therefore there will be fewer u-turns as a result of the future use of the site.

I do want to say that I think given the fact that the Broomley Bridge

Enhancement and redevelopment has occurred.

This is the appropriate and logical and really owed next step for this site.

Regardless of who uses the site from a public safety standpoint, this will be a major enhancement

of safety on this particular site.

So the fact that they've worked to go from almost 17,000 square feet of disturbance down to just under 5,000 square feet of disturbance is a really forward step because it's something that we did agonize over in 2014 of any impact to the critical slopes.

I served on the Planning Commission in that time with Rick, and he has done a very fine job of summarizing the situation.

As we saw, there was a lot of discussion and a lot of positive feeling about

moving traffic onto Broomley Road, but then the issues of the slopes came in and the supervisor swayed in.

I agree that this is the time to go forward with this, and I support it.

Anyone else want to feel like they'd like to come forward with a comment?

No one else.

I will simply say that I

I mean, Ivy Nursery is the nursery that I sort of am in and out a lot.

I know it's hard to believe that I'm a gardener, but yeah, I am in and out of Ivy Nursery a lot.

And the one thing I can say is that it makes sense when you come to that entrance there to just look slightly right and left

and that entrance would be that sort of, it would catch your eye.

It would catch one's eye as opposed to looking straight ahead.

Cause you're looking up, you're looking to see if something comes down.

So I also thought I wasn't on the planning commission, but I also thought having a good set offset actually works for the way I come to that entrance.

But one time I would say that it will be a little challenging there, but you know, that's no different.

It was around the Christmas holiday, because if any of you have witnessed how they move

vehicles through Ivory Nursery getting, I guess we can call them Christmas trees, getting Christmas trees through there.

It is quite a production, but that's also for the people coming down Brownlee too.

They have to deal with that.

So that would be the only time that I think you'd see the sort of level of traffic that I think a number of us might've been concerned with.

The other thing that I actually, speaking in support of this,

with Northridge becoming both sort of the Western clinics and also the rehabilitation hospital and also the cancer hospital there.

There's a lot of traffic that was there that probably wasn't there in 2014 when our two colleagues were reviewing this proposal.

So anything that would keep some of the

that would help to mitigate some of the traffic flow going directly onto 250.

I think this project does that and would be helpful in helping to bring a bit more sort of logic to the way people get in and out of that particular quadrant over there.

So I too, it's clearly my district, but I too would support this.

And Tim, if we do get to that point, I'd appreciate it if you would move that for us.

So people please, anyone else feel like they have?

I'll be brief.

So I have peppered with questions.

I'm very comfortable.

I just want to understand and hear the logic.

So as I already said, as long as, you know, anything to get off 250 is a win in my book to get some of the traffic off.

And so I really support this.

I just want to understand, make sure that what the decision was between

just how much critical slopes was versus other factors.

So thank you for that.

And you have every right to ask all the questions you want to also know that.

So you don't have to apologize to us.

Ask questions.

Anyone else?

Well, I guess, let's see.

David, could you put a, oh, there you go.

OK.

I move to recommend approval of SE 2020-000019 Christian Aid Mission Critical Slope Waiver for the reasons stated in the staff report with the following condition.

The area of land disturbance on critical slopes must be in general accord with the Critical Slopes Disturbance Section AA exhibit prepared by SHMP Engineering

PC dated October 26, 2020, revised April 22, 2021.

Seconded by Rick.

Thank you, Rick, and thank you, Tim.

Can you now take that away, sir?

Is there any further discussion?

I can't see.

Oh, there you are.

Is there any discussion?

Ms.

Sorry, unmuting.

Ms.

Moore.

Aye.

Aye.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Kelsey.

As you've heard, this is going forward.

We're recommending, are recommending that we're supporting this.

I'll go forward to the supervisors and I don't need to tell you, you know what to do from here to there.

Just make sure that you and Mr. Banish are connected on this.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Do we have any committee reports?

Yes.

Okay.

So we have a Tim and we have a Corey.

Oh, sorry.

I thought I was second.

Well, you did, but I put you first, because Tim had it instead of giving you a chance, because he didn't move his hand from his chin.

All right, no worries, Mr. Chairman.

So I attended the Places 29 CAC meeting on May the 13th.

And if you all recall, the RST project was on 29 North right near Ashwood Boulevard.

The developers went back and made some changes to that and so it'll be coming back before us.

Some of the changes is that they reduced the number of units from 370 to 340.

There's now two five-story buildings that kind of was the hub, if you will, of the project, but step backs on I think on the fifth floor and it was now they have three four-story buildings in the back to reduce the number of buildings.

they've increased the green space and buffers and so forth so it'll look a little different when it comes back but I think it was a relatively positive meeting.

I remember when we came before us last time I believe two HOAs came back in in pretty strong force in opposition and so there wasn't much

Opposition.

That's just, I gotta probably be careful how I say that.

There wasn't many opposing comments, if you will, at the CAC.

Doesn't mean people aren't holding back, but it was a much different flavor, if you will, than when it came before us.

MPOTech was quite interesting today and a lot of it, there were two presentations in particular that I'd like to share with you briefly.

The first one was a PhD student in engineering at UVA who for her master's work did an analysis of bicycle accidents in our area.

I think that a lot of us are interested in knowing more details

of the real story as opposed to all the anecdotal.

And I believe that that is going to be made available on her presentation.

It's going to be made available on the website.

Some interesting takeaways from that, that they're actually more

Let's see, there were different ratings, but there, I don't necessarily mean fatal, but there were more severe bicycle accidents involving alcohol with bicycles.

We think about alcohol with the drivers, but actually there's a significant percentage of accidents that are involved with the cyclists and alcohol.

So that was an interesting one.

And the Commonwealth doesn't have laws

against cyclists being inebriated the way it does for automobiles.

And there's maybe pluses and minuses to that that she went into.

So I just do that as kind of a tease to say there was interesting information.

It was from several years back.

It was old data.

And there are a number of people on MPO Tech, and I know CTAC from before, that would like to see a much more robust study done for our area to get into this.

It was a funding priority that was put forward by

MPO Tech that was not picked up by MPO, but there are some extra monies.

And so I would like to think that maybe something will come of that.

So again, this is more of a, go ahead, Rick.

No, you go ahead, Tim.

Okay.

I think that it would behoove us, maybe we should talk to Charles and Charles should talk to Kevin and we should invite this

individual to do the presentation.

There's enough meat to it that me trying to regurgitate wouldn't be useful at this point.

The second one is one that will be, the second major piece was about smart scale round five.

And of course that's going to be discussed by the supervisors tomorrow.

And I think it's kind of early to say, there seem to be,

agreement with city and county representatives that places that we can think of to the south of Charlottesville are important, but projects to the north are important to the county and maybe less important to the city for different reasons.

And there seem to be

More money that's coming forward, as we all know, with maybe finding some more money at the state level.

So maybe a lot of these things are going to be accomplished and there isn't going to be a trade-off.

But a lot of interesting and thoughtful planning action for 250 East is looking to be around the corner.

On Saturday, I was out on the roads of Matthew County.

and the Middle Peninsula with 600 plus other cyclists.

And Tim, I think it's really good that you brought this up.

My concern is going to be with legalization of marijuana, given the fact that we don't have many dedicated trails, Capitol Trail and a trail down near Blacksburg.

But outside of that,

Most cyclists have to use roads and we're going to have people smoking dope, we already have that right now, riding bikes, mixing that with alcohol and two absolutely critical things that I observed over the weekend.

Number one,

Everybody riding on public roads needs to have a blinking red light on the back of their bicycle to help identify themselves for motorists who oftentimes are distracted on their cell phone and not paying attention much to the road.

And secondly, having to observe this firsthand because I was the person coming the opposite direction.

Having a group of cyclists riding two or three abreast on a narrow road

leads to an impatient driver who then swings around and, you know, woe be you if you're coming the opposite direction on a bicycle.

And this chap missed me by several inches as I was going the opposite direction.

So, you know, cyclists have some responsibility here to know the

the laws of the road and also the rules of the road and to extend courtesy to drivers and drivers in turn to extend courtesy to bicyclists but I look forward to that study when you go ahead and release it.

I did have one correction I wanted to make and because I'm reading the minutes from last week it's even more

alarming to me is I gave you the wrong figure for Breezy Hill.

It will be 80 units that they are proposing, not 69 that I said, and therefore it's higher than the actual by right.

It kind of looks like it's by right.

You could look at it as super by right, but

and it still is 80 units, so we'll be talking more about that.

Thank you.

Anyone else have a committee report?

I can share that the Places 29 hydraulic community CAC met last night and we received

sort of a long report, informative report from the South Rivanna Reservoir to Ragged Mountain Reservoir Raw Water Line Project.

I don't know, I mean probably I don't remember us ever seeing that on the commission.

Maybe I'm wrong.

I'm looking for heads that were wiser than me on this instead of saying yes or no or maybe.

But it's the pipeline going from the South Rivanna over to Ragged Mountain.

And I don't know if we've ever seen it, but at some point it might be interesting just for our own knowledge to be able to have.

It's not interesting or we've never seen it.

We've never seen it.

Oh, it's neither.

Nor may I add in my knowledge, did the board see it in the

in the four years I was on the board.

What?

You're saying the supervisors haven't seen it either?

Oh, well, Mr. Rapp, perhaps in one of our conversations with Ms.

Firehock, we should talk about that.

I think it would be informative for the Planning Commission to at least know about the water supply.

There's really nothing in our purview there, except that it's something that we should know as we're looking at how they're sort of building out.

Because believe it or not, most of it's going down VDOT.

It's going down VDOT right-of-ways.

There's a few pieces there of private property and some institutional property, but most of this is going down VDOT right-of-ways.

So if we can put that on our discussion about possible

presentations, I think that would be helpful for us to do.

I was pleased to see it, but I will share just sort of basically I was kind of surprised at the magnitude of this project.

And particularly now, if you're telling me the supervisors have never seen that, I really am surprised by the magnitude of this project.

Correct.

Unless that the board has seen it in one year and five months that I was not part of the board, I can assure you that during the time period I was on the board, we never saw that.

Okay, well then I'm glad I brought it up.

So if we can discuss that.

And so that's, that's all I'd share from that meeting.

Anyone else?

Cool.

Look at this.

Look at us.

It's 726.

Jenny, don't you want to say anything?

Yes.

Chair Bivins, if I could have a moment to touch base on our schedule, upcoming schedule.

You're not on this agenda, so I don't know.

Well, I will say, I have work sessions kind of planned out for y'all for the next two to three months, just to let you know.

And then we've got this little thing called the comp plan coming our way that is going to consume our work sessions for quite a while.

But on that topic, our Crozet master plan team

They're planning to come to y'all in June 8th to talk about the implementation section and the overall draft of the whole plan.

Later this month, we plan to have another meeting out with the Crozet community, as well as a couple of pop-ups out there to engage them on the implementation components.

And then, like I said, it's time to wrap it all up into one final draft that we'd like to bring back to the commission in June.

Our June schedule tentatively had a work session on the 8th.

We have two open dates in June.

One is the 22nd and the 29th.

They have asked if possible, could we move that work session in June to the 22nd just to give them a little more time in between the outreach with the Crozet community and finalizing that chapter.

So I wanted to pose that to the commission and see if June 22nd worked instead of the 8th for next month with our work session.

Anyone have any objection to that?

OK, well, there you go.

Not at this time.

I know the board has the emergency ordinance on their agenda for tomorrow to discuss what, if any, changes are going to happen to that.

But as of now, no specific information.

OK.

Thank you.

So then I guess you can, if you chair with Rachel, that we're OK with that.

And I want us to just be aware that we actually have done two chapters in the comp plan.

We did the climate action one, which is going to be incorporated into the comp plan.

And we did the housing chapter, which we incorporated into the comp plan.

As everything else in Albemarle County, we're ahead of everybody.

So we're not going to stay there.

I recognize that.

But for right now, we're ahead of everybody.

So on that note, if anyone has nothing else to say, I will say at 7.29, we're out of here.

And we'll see you again on June the 1st at 6 o'clock.

Is that OK?

Okay, I'll be on vacation that week.

So you'll have to sit on the Outer Banks, you know, Outer Banks, not thinking about you all.

So will the picture behind you change then when you come back?

That's right, it'll, yeah, yeah, it'll, absolutely.

We will have a more... That'll be instead of taffy, instead of salt taffy, whatever, what's that stuff called?

Wait, do you have a vacation home there?

No, I'm renting it, I don't know.

All right.

Well, everyone, be safe until we see you on June 1.

And try and figure out when we wear a mask and when we don't wear a mask.

But in case you're in doubt, wear a mask.

If in doubt, wear a mask.

There we go.

OK.

Charles.

Well done.

Another one.