Planning Commission Meeting   7/6/2021

that voice from another place.

We'd like to welcome you all to this evening's Planning Commission, the July 6, 2021, 6 o'clock or 601 Planning Commission meeting.

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

will be posted on the www.albemarle.org community county calendar when available.

Yes, I'll be glad to.

Present.

Ms.

Firehock is absent.

Mr. Carrazana is absent.

Ms.

Moore?

Present.

So with that, welcome everyone.

With that, we have a quorum.

I assume, colleagues, that you've seen the items on the consent agenda.

Would anyone care to pull anything?

Mr. Chair, just to point out, there are two items on the agenda, not just the minutes, but the approval of the agenda.

Thank you, sir.

So is there a motion to approve the consent agenda?

It's I see being moved by Tim.

Is there a second?

I see it being moved, seconded by Corey.

Is there any discussion?

Yes.

Mr. Clayborne?

Aye Ms.

It's moved that it's been seconded and voted on and it's passed.

Thank you very much.

Let's move on to our first public hearing.

NSP 2021-09 Natural Burial Ground at Panorama Farms.

May we have, oh there she is, may we have the staff report, Ms.

Do you see trees?

Yes we see trees.

Great.

Good evening commissioners.

My name is Mariah Gleason.

I'm a senior planner 2 in the planning division of the community development department.

Tonight I'm going to be presenting special use permit request SP 2021-0009 natural burial ground at Panorama Farms for your consideration.

The subject property for this special use permit is a 20 acre portion of Tax Map Parcel 45-1, which is a 706.4 acre parcel in total.

The 20 acre portion is identified here by the yellow star.

Tax Map Parcel 45-1 is located in the rural areas west of Charlottesville, Albemarle Airport, southwest of Earliesville Business Park, and north of the South Fork Rivanna River Reservoir.

As you can see, the 20-acre portion of the property, highlighted here in light yellow, is located off of Race 4th Lane at 3550 Race 4th Lane, which is about half a mile from the intersection of Race 4 Road.

Other properties located off of Race 4th Lane are primarily rural area residences.

The applicant is requesting a special use permit for cemetery uses.

The applicant is specifically seeking to establish a green cemetery.

Green cemetery is defined as a cemetery in which everything in the ground is biodegradable.

Unlike a conventional cemetery, there's no embalming, no metal caskets, and no concrete vaults.

Above the ground, green interment sites are usually marked with flat natural field stones or native plantings, so no plastic memorials are permitted.

Development associated with this use includes designated parking areas, two entrances, one of which exists currently, and a potential future pavilion.

Staff reviewed the special use permit request, and the proposal is in compliance with the Virginia State Code requirements, which generally guides the establishment and operation of cemeteries, including perpetual maintenance and Albemarle County Code.

The one area of concern for surrounding community members and staff to some degree was regarding the use of Ray's Ford Lane, in which case I'll focus my presentation on that aspect of the review.

Ray's Ford Lane is approximately one mile in length with the proposed use located towards the midpoint.

The roadway is an unimproved gravel and dirt road that serves 19 residences, five of which are located past the proposed entrances to the subject property.

There are four locations along the road where the travelway width is less than 20 feet.

I'd like to acknowledge here that that is a correction to the staff report, which stated that there were two areas that were less than 20 feet.

That's not correct.

There were four.

Concerns regarding the use of race for lane were primarily around the quality and maintenance of the road and potential traffic.

But as a public road, Braceford Lane is maintained by VDOT.

VDOT in their review did not note any necessary improvements.

However, should there be a need for improvements along this roadway, the county is able to work with VDOT to have those improvements made.

Fire Rescue also reviewed the proposal and had no concerns about the ability to continue providing emergency services to the properties as well as the proposed use.

Our transportation planning staff also reviewed the proposal and thought that the projection information we have regarding traffic does not have data on the attendance rate of green cemeteries specifically, only conventional cemeteries that are much larger than 20 acres.

So it's likely that estimates provided by staff will be higher than what may be seen by this proposal.

in actuation.

I'd like to also note here that traffic associated with this use will be gradual in nature.

It's not like a commercial development where everything comes on online at once.

Burials will occur over time and not all at once.

Lastly, the previous special use permit

SP 2011-0027 for special events, which was approved on this subject property and is located just south of the proposed cemetery, approved the use of Ray Ford Lane for 24 events a year for up to 200 people each.

So using that information as a basis and that the roadway has already been deemed fit for 200 person events, staff concluded that the traffic impact of this use would not be substantially detrimental, but included condition number three, which essentially limits the special events and barrier uses from happening simultaneously.

What we ended up proving was that, or deducing was that it was all right for 200 people, but maybe not 400 people.

There will be additional opportunities to evaluate traffic associated with this use in the future.

One of which will be with the potential future pavilion development is that would require a site plan, which would allow VDOT and fire rescue to review actual traffic data that the cemetery has collected up to that point.

Another opportunity would be if the proposed use should ever grow beyond 200 acres, I'm sorry, 20 acres, not 200, I'm sorry.

In summary, staff found a number of factors favorable to the proposal, including that the proposed use will offer a service that is not currently available in Albemarle County and also that the income from this use will help support the preservation of farm and agricultural property.

One unfavorable factor that was identified was that the proposed use will generate additional traffic on Lewisport Lane.

So to preserve the factors that were found favorable, staff recommends the following conditions.

There was one typo here.

The reference to feet in Condition 1 should be changed to yards to align with the Virginia State Code.

That change is identified here in red.

This concludes staff's presentation.

The Commission has a staff report.

Thank you very much.

Are there questions for Ms.

Gleason?

Thank you.

Are there questions for Ms.

Gleason?

It's good to see you this evening, Ms.

Gleason.

We haven't seen you in a while.

It was mentioned in the staff report about the special use event.

I was curious if there was any, or you could help provide or shed any light on the current use for the property for

Yes, so that special use permit approved two camps running during the summer months.

One camp is approved for one one-week session and one two-week session.

The other camp is approved for two two-week sessions.

Both of those camps are accessed through Ray Ford Lane.

We'll wait, we'll wait, we'll wait.

Great, thank you.

Rick?

Mariah, did staff have any discussion about potentially putting a limit on the number of years that we would go ahead and essentially authorize this project with the assumption that's in there about the amount of traffic on Reese Ford Lane?

The reason why I ask it is the pavilion site plan is not submitted yet.

and there is discussion of that being a future project.

And I wondered if there was not potentially some discussion by staff of the thought that the county would revisit the whole traffic volume and intensity issue on Reese Ford Lane either

at the end of five years or when the site plan was submitted for the pavilion, whichever came first.

Basically, just as a way of checking in to see about the overall volume of traffic that this project actually generates.

There's a lot of speculation in here

that I find in the report, and that's why I'm raising that.

We had talked about what might be triggering mechanisms to reevaluate the traffic.

We had not thought about that sunsetting clause.

I'm not

I'm not sure how actually zoning would do that if we've done it before.

Mr. Randolph, if I might, it is allowable to have a limit of time, but I just question whether that would be advisable in a case because

it would require one to come back and take a look at something and supposing it didn't work out within the County Revoke, a special use permit on account of traffic, I think it would be difficult to enforce.

So it's allowable.

Okay, well, thank you for that.

I just wanted to bring that up as a point of discussion.

What I wanted to also note, if we look at page 6 of 10 of the staff report, I'm struck by the fact that in the next to last paragraph, the last sentence says, Drivers assessing the use will likely not contribute to endangering the use of the road by others.

What I'm just noting here is that the county is in the business of speculating.

There's no probability analysis here.

there's no empirical data here.

It's our saying that drivers assessing the use will likely not.

And I'm just, I'm a little concerned about that because the fact is here, this is really one of the letters indicated this was the third special use of permit request or request to the county for

increased traffic on Reese Ford Lane.

I actually count this as the fourth project.

So there has been over time an intensification by this applicant of the use of a public road, which primarily accrues to the benefit of this applicant, not to the neighbors and the contiguous property owners.

So I just caution that I really advise

strongly the county to be careful unless you can quantify it and back it up empirically, making suggestions that there's a probability.

I think it's something that just perhaps may look to be unsound, especially as neighbors look at it.

That also cropped up again on page seven of 10 in terms of staff, where the second sentence in under staff

under sound.

It says staff does not anticipate the regular use of sound amplification devices during burials.

Staff really has no idea here what people may do at a funeral in terms of bringing in any sound equipment and

You know, what I just want to point out is a Tesla today has enough electricity in it that you can basically run the equivalent of the electronics that were at Woodstock in 1970, in terms of the, or 1969, the overall volume of sound that could be generated from one single Tesla.

So again,

we're playing probabilities here.

And I just, I'm a little bit nervous about that when we come out and we say that.

When we go on to the recommended actions on page nine of 10 under number two, the condition is maintenance and operation including the digging of graves of the cemetery is restricted to daylight hours only.

As we all know, because we've just come out of the summer solstice, daylight during the summer can be almost 16 hours of sunlight.

So I would really strongly recommend that we year-round, because it's a little loose here, that you could have people digging to 8.30, 9 o'clock at night in the summertime.

Then under number five, no plastic memorials are permitted.

Would it be all right to use a rubber memorial?

Concrete, steel?

I think one of the things what the county was trying to get at was to say no non-natural human-made, which means manufactured, memorials are permitted.

I hate to be biased against plastics, especially because of the advice that was given Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate for him to really look at plastics as an opportunity to explore.

But again here, I think we've limited ourselves very restrictively when I think more broadly what we're trying to get at is something much more strategic and environmentally sustainable.

I guess going back to Rick's first comment about the idea of like a sunset clause, I'm not sure what I think about that, but I was wondering, I just wanted clarification when I read through the material that sounded like

There could be the potential in the future for there to be an expansion of the youth.

And I think I read that maybe at that point, they might pursue an alternate another additional third access.

There is, if the use is successful, an idea to perhaps expand.

Okay, I thought I read somewhere where maybe it was talking about improvements of the entrances or I thought there was a potential exploration of an alternate entrance.

I guess just for clarification, when you were talking about things that might trigger further analysis down the road, would that be one if it was successful and they wanted to expand?

Okay.

And my other question was the current approval for events is 24 a year.

Is that correct?

And then you're saying those two things couldn't coincide.

and I wonder and I don't want to go on and on about this because the applicant might answer some of this but I was looking at the projections of how many people tend to attend these things and I would like to learn a little bit more about that but I wondered in the event that they would know that they're going to have a larger group

than normal, is it possible to consider building in something like during these events that are already approved?

Is there some signs to let neighbors know that these certain events are going to happen so they can just be prepared that

On that particular day, there'll be some extra traffic.

I'm not sure what sort of things we have built in to help neighbors understand where there might be something that's larger than normal.

And so if they knew that dealing with a family that they were going to have a much larger turnout, which it sounds like wouldn't be the usual or the standard, but that there could be some mechanism to help facilitate traffic in the event that you do have that many people showing up or

or notification or those type of things.

Right, and I don't want to ... It's not meant to saddle people with extra stuff, but I think we've learned from some of the other event things the more communication

There are with the surrounding property owners, the better things seem to go and people don't feel shocked by finding out there is a larger than normal event on that particular day.

So there's two things before we move to the applicant.

On attachment three, you show, or there are shown two entrances there that sort of form that triangle there.

Is that simply to move people in and out of the property, or is that going to actually provide some sort of traffic, some sort of circulation, or will the confidence be to that?

I just didn't understand why we, I understood from the letters why that was helpful.

The current site entrance might not be enough or how many people would be accessing the site.

It also provides a way to introduce a traffic circulation pattern that would allow for smooth entry and exit.

Thank you.

And then while we're moving forward, do we have any sense, and I guess this is from Bart, do we have any sense on whether the other cemeteries which are in the county have restrictions on them on when they can open and close graves?

They'll need to know that now, but when we come back to discuss that later.

Because I wouldn't imagine, I don't know the answer to that,

to be helpful to know whether or not there's a custom in the county that we put those kinds of conditions on cemeteries.

Just as staff often works with the applicant after the specialty use permit has been approved by

and supervisors.

In this case, do you envision further design work being shared with you for approval?

This seems to be a very conceptual plan without a lot of the elements that seem to be, I mean, they're spoken about, but they're not shown to us that are elements within a natural cemetery.

Thank you, Tim.

I'm not quite sure if my answer is really going to

be sufficient.

But when we take in proposals, we are only able to review what is put in front of us.

This being kind of more of a land use rather than any construction oriented special use permit, we wouldn't really be anticipating construction to come on the heels of this.

There is some

unlike other other developments that are very much building dependent.

This is not so.

In some ways, there's only so much we can hope to have at this stage, if particularly if the applicant doesn't have a proposed building in mind.

So

In some regard, it didn't strike me as odd that we were seeing kind of more bubble outlines.

We have approved developments in the past that are more, if you can say, bubbly in nature.

We've had large residential developments that have been approved without buildings nailed down.

I think primarily the only issue that I can think of, maybe the applicant can speak to this, is if we have a high groundwater area so that there would be places that wouldn't be appropriate for burials because it might become a weed, no pun intended, when it's excavated, even for a shallow grave.

and then there's the issues of things like the stone walls, many of the ones that we've all looked at and seen around the country, around the world have like a memorial wall or field stones or the idea of planting a memorial tree, your grave, those sorts of things that I guess I would think would be somewhat comparable to landscape features when you all think about

and those sorts of things in a more urban environment.

Great comment.

We had talked to the zoning staff on the project and kind of had agreed that this is a new use that we haven't seen before and what conditions can we use to kind of hone in on that green aspect.

And I should say that the proposal was also reviewed by the Virginia Health Department.

They did not make comments on the on the water table so

Are there others?

May we hear from the applicant, please?

My name is Christopher Murray.

I'm one of the eight shareholders, sons of Jim and Bunny Murray.

and owner of Panorama Farms and one of the owners of Panorama Farms in Charlottesville.

My address is 1217 Hazel Street, Charlottesville, 22902.

My recommendation would be that you speak to the application and leave some time.

You've got 13 minutes, so let's let you do what you want to do and then at the end of

Okay.

You have seen from the staff report and you've seen in the application the major features, so I won't bore you with them, but I would like to speak to green cemeteries in general.

There seems to be some unknowns about them.

But first, the context of natural burial grounds, this is nothing new.

It's done all over the world.

It's their current practice for the rest of the world.

The Jewish communities, Muslim communities, Native American communities, all these practices is normal to them.

But having said that, it's not common.

I mean, as of 2020,

as of April 2020, there were only 244 green cemeteries in the United States.

Until now, there really have been only two options for handling the dead.

And that is a conventional burial, which we all know, conventional funeral and burial and cremation.

A natural burial adds a third alternative

that up until now has been very rare.

Having said that, it's not for everyone.

Natural burial puts the family much closer to the process.

It desanitizes death and many report that it has had a profound effect on them and their ability to let go of a loved one.

The services, first of all, let me say, it is not necessarily, a funeral and a burial are not the same thing.

So it's important to know that many funerals, attendees at funerals often don't go to the burial.

Some only attend the burial.

In any case, they are generally smaller, the services are simpler, they're more intimate, fewer attendees than conventional interments.

The big question is why green?

Why in Albemarle County?

Why on our farms?

Why here?

Why now?

For the biggest picture, why is it good for the planet?

In the application, I cited scientific American studies about the quantity of embalming fluid, exotic wood, caskets, concrete.

The numbers of those polluting elements that go into the ground every year are just mind boggling.

mind bogglingly huge.

With a green burial, everything is biodegradable.

In most cases, it's just a linen shroud that goes into the ground with the body, of course.

So it's often thought that a cremation is the alternative.

But in terms of its effect on the planet, a cremation equals approximately 500, a car driving approximately 500 miles in its energy use.

and conventional cemeteries are generally well manicured.

This means mowing with a heavy equipment in the summertime once a week, once every two weeks at best.

Use the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides to keep the lawn pristine.

Green cemeteries generally have native grasses that are mowed only enough to keep the weeds down.

And the other point, this is a

It's hard to be specific here, but the success of a green cemetery in environmental terms and visual terms, the success is based on how little you notice it.

The whole idea is that it be a natural or remain a natural area.

So how does it benefit Albemarle County?

There are only four in Virginia.

This would be the first one in Albemarle County.

And it's a service to the public that is not available within about a hundred miles.

And it would enjoy for Albemarle County the same environmental benefits that I cited for the planet.

And obviously it's in line with uses recommended for the rural area.

and with comprehensive plan goals, excuse me a sec.

And why is it good for Panorama Farms?

How does it continue the stewardship of the land that my family has been entrusted with?

I bore you with a short story.

My parents moved to the farm in 1953.

Farming was as difficult back then as it is now.

and I think it broke their heart in the mid 80s when they had to sell what is now Graymont subdivision in order to educate their eight children.

They continued farming until 1997 when it became apparent that farming was no longer sustainable.

So we pivoted to a compost operation as you know.

We added bike trails, we added cross country running.

The farm became a people resource as it is today

and we're proud that it remains an open space.

The fourth generation is now on the farm and we hope for 40 more.

But to sum it up, we want to continue the family's legacy of environmental stewardship.

And we hopefully, we hope this offers a way to pay for that stewardship and for it to remain an open space.

The alternative, I hate to say it, but it has to be said, the alternative is essentially another Graymont subdivision, is residential division.

This may not be the time, but I would like to address, ask for a change in the conditions that are in the report.

We could do that now, but why don't I suggest you answer the few questions that you have before you, and then let's go to the public and then after that.

Let's not do that right now.

Okay.

Okay.

The exact numbers of children at the day camps

I can't cite that exactly.

My impression is that it's about 30 children per session.

It only occurs in the month of June though.

And it's, they are, I think four hour, you know, they're morning sessions, they're afternoon sessions.

So my understanding is it's approximately 30 children could be as few as 12.

If I can ask one final question to that, just so we have a full picture.

How's transportation of those

The children are generally brought in by their parents.

They use the race board road.

Parenthetically, there is no way without a robust four-wheel drive vehicle, it's impossible to get from the

east side of the farm, the early spill road side of the farm, through the farm to this area.

Those are the two questions.

Why don't we, did you have, have you jotted down another question?

The issue of speculation, absolutely.

You know, these are, I interviewed, I have visited four cemeteries.

I've interviewed the owners, the operators of 10 of them in the Southeast.

And that is, I think it's, it is attachment number eight, I believe.

These are interviews.

Those are my notes.

I have the operators' names, phone numbers,

and I would welcome you to follow that up.

But so there are only 244 in the country.

And so, and this is a new, this is relatively new concept.

So much of it is speculation.

What I can say with certainty though, is that these, that they are more intimate, they're smaller and they're more, and they're fewer of them than your conventional service.

As far as sound is concerned, you'd be delighted to prohibit any sound system.

These are small, intimate ceremonies.

The thought of one of them being amplified is quite laughable, but almost.

The hours of operation, we'd be fine with, I don't know, 835 or whatever would be appropriate.

I get your point about, you know, there being light at nine o'clock at night in July.

But if it means that we would reduce our hours to working hours, nine to five, 830 to four, we'd have no trouble with that.

As for memorials, the concept, of course, is non-natural upright memorials.

I suppose included in that would be pink granite.

We do not want and we will not have plastic flowers, for example.

The memorials would be natural, whether they're stones that have been engraved

or whether they're natural planting daffodils, small shrubs.

Not sure whether the white oak tree would be acceptable in an open field, but the point behind the memorials is that they'd be natural.

Looked like they grew there, in fact.

As for expansion,

and I'll address this in the condition is that we would certainly agree with a limit of 20 acres, period.

We may have questions for you.

So why don't you see if any of the commissioners have questions for you.

Could I add just one thing, though?

And I think that this is important.

The areas that we have designated are appropriate areas.

They're outside of stream buffers.

They are, in no way, would they affect the water table

The soils, we've checked the soils.

Mr. Murray, on page four of your own submission,

Special Use Permit Request to Natural Burial Ground at Panorama Farm.

That's the attachment two that I'm referencing.

Under letter G with the Virginia Department of Health, the last sentence indicates all required 100 foot stream buffers will be observed.

No burials would occur on steep slopes from questionable soils.

Can you explain what you mean by questionable soils and how are you going to verify which soils lend themselves to burial and which are not?

Are you using a US government soil map here on this site and therefore are you marking out ahead of time?

That's correct.

First of all, we're using the Virginia, or we've based this on the Virginia geologic service maps that identify large blocks of land.

With that in mind, we got in touch with, I won't name him, but one of the best or the better known soil people in the county.

And he said that the limit, this is informal, so I can't,

I don't have it in writing, but the limit is diggability, quote, that if you can put a grave, if you can dig deep enough, it works.

And so the areas that we have laid out have very little areas that are theoretically undiggable.

That includes rocks.

Thank you for that.

I figured that was the case, but I just wanted you to put it in the public record that that was the basis of your determination of where the soils might be questionable.

On page five under parking, you talked about an appropriate scale for the average attendance at a green burial service for about six to eight persons.

What happens if

President Ryan of the University of Virginia decides to take advantage of your services and dies prematurely, not something any of us in this group want to be projecting, but I'm talking about a very highly visible member of our community who has agreed to be buried.

We would be looking at a much larger

and I raised that concern because on attachment 8 that you referenced earlier, the natural burial ground of Panorama Farms traffic and attendee data, and I appreciated you providing the comparative analysis, but Green Hills Cemetery, which is a corporation that owns cemeteries not only in Asheville, but in Raleigh, North Carolina,

and other localities in North Carolina.

They are setting aside sections of each of their cemeteries to engage in natural burial grounds.

They cite that they can actually have 50 to 100 cars per conventional service.

I just think it's important that we be clear as a planning commission from the outset

that the numbers potentially on this locality with this use can be a dramatic intensification of traffic on this small road.

I just wanted to make that observation.

And I do appreciate you providing all this data.

And I will say, finally, I'm someone who's very supportive of your concept.

I'm enthusiastic about it.

and I'm very supportive of it, but I do just want to try to, for the public record, make clear here that making assumptions that each service will be six to eight persons may be unrealistic, not that the norm will be 100, 200, 300 cars, but

There's no question about that.

And there's no practical way to limit it.

The thought of a prominent person

dying and being buried there and having to stand at the gate and say, whoop, 200, you can't, that as a practical matter is not possible.

So what we've done is we're looking at a parking area for what we see to be for 10 cars, which would be sort of a normal one.

We have overflow parking for

designated for another 25, I believe it is.

And then along the road that bisects the property, the field is flat.

And so we can accommodate, I haven't done the measurements, but we could accommodate easily another 50 to 100 cars.

And then beyond that, on what would be our private property, the wedding event barn,

has another area that's designated and they've had 60 to 100 cars there.

So there's plenty of room formally and informally for overflow parking.

One of the cemetery operators I spoke with in Tennessee said that, he quoted me the norms and I've put them in the spreadsheet, but he also said that

and every now and then you've got a law enforcement officer killed in the line of duty or a teenager is tragically killed in a car wreck.

You just simply cannot predict that.

But he was very quick to say those are outliers.

Thank you.

Are you calling me, Julian?

You're on mute.

Great.

Just switching, I have one follow-up question I didn't ask, and just so I can get a picture of density and potential traffic, and I'm not in the cemetery business.

So a 20-acre cemetery, I'm more familiar with the traditional, and as you said, the screen cemetery concept is very new.

There's not a queue.

How does that plotting work out?

How many burial sites would a 20-acre parcel accommodate under this diagram?

There is a national organization sort of self-appointed, but it's called the Green Burial Council.

And what they recommend is somewhere between 300 and 400 burials per acre.

In contrast to a cemetery in the middle of Brooklyn might have 2,800.

of aerials per acre.

A normal, normal.

A conventional cemetery would probably be around 1500 to 1800.

And given the kind of rough project plan you have, you have a 20 acre parcel, but you have a number of setbacks in a different area.

That's hard to say because we would start the business as close to Ray's Ford Lane as we can.

What has to be in our mind is that because this is in perpetuity, we have to not count on it, but we have to figure that what if it goes south?

What if it fails and we've got 12 burials?

What we couldn't afford to do would be to have one burial here and another one 200 yards away and another one in the woods that simply, we simply couldn't allow that to happen.

So internally in our business model, we would have to have a sort of trigger point where if we reach certain projections at a certain point, we would say, let's go for it or no, we can't because whatever we've done, if there are any burials on the site,

we are, by law, we're mandated to maintain those graves in perpetuity.

So would that be on that kind of one nine-acre parcel?

I'm trying to get the sense.

Yes, we would start on the west in that parcel.

Those are operational decisions, though.

I understand.

Switching a little bit similar in the operational, just trying to understand the way this works.

Because it was a condition, I think, staff had suggested was that special events would not happen

It's a good question they are two separate entities and the

Were we to continue with the wedding events that we haven't had since October 2018, a year prior to the pandemic?

Were we to continue with that?

There is clearly a potential for conflict, although their hours are weekend hours, starting at I think 11 o'clock in the morning, ending at 1030 at night.

We would not operate on the weekends.

So the chances of there being a conflict with any wedding event

are very unlikely.

In the case of the day camp in June, we would have to work that out.

I can't exactly say how we would, but we can certainly, in June, we would possibly not have burials until after the children have left.

But this is an issue that we would have to work out.

But we're fine with

Is there anyone else?

Yes, right now I have

Two people.

All right.

We can have Valerie Funk first.

I think Spectrum's gonna move them over for me.

Okay.

Valerie, please state your name and address and if you're associated with any group or organization.

Good evening to the members of the planning board and to all in attendance tonight.

My name is Patrick Funk and my wife is Valerie.

We are the owners of the property at 3828 Reese Ford Lane.

Echoing many of the written submissions from fellow residents along Reese Ford Lane, I do not, in principle, object to Mr. Murray's request to redesignate a portion of his property for the establishment of a natural cemetery.

His needs are obviously to identify methods of revenue generation for his family and the preservation of panorama farms.

And he and his family have, in the past, largely made requests and been approved for projects that are for the betterment of the community.

and maintenance of much of the beauty of the natural landscape.

What concerns me with this proposal is that Mr. Murray seeks to establish a commercial enterprise for revenue generation absent the burden for the impact of the project on the community, namely from the increase in vehicular traffic required to access the proposed site.

As my neighbor Mr. Fisher pointed out in his letter, as part of the package, access to the site could be made with relatively little expense from the already paved and substantially better infrastructure of Panorama Road off of Earliesville Road.

However, it appears that we are rejecting this as a proposal because utilizing the existing access from Reese Ford Lane is fast, inexpensive, and allows, for lack of a better term, the family to piggyback on an existing special use permit for the event form.

Further, I reject VDOT's assessment of Reese Ford Lane.

My property abuts the lane along one of the areas noted as less than 20 feet in width

but quote, adjacent to a grass or low foliage area on at least one side, potentially allowing for one vehicle to pull to the side, unquote.

The unrealized issue with this declaration is that these grass low foliage areas largely fall on private property and any number of cars have used the grass area in front of my home to allow for passage.

Generally low impact, however, when the ground is wet, this routinely leaves ruts in the grass area, placing the burden upon me as the homeowner to repair.

Again, a burden for which Mr. Murray is spared due to the convenience of proposed access from Reese Ford Lane.

As has also already been noted, the increase in non-residential vehicle traffic comes with it a complete lack of regard for recommended speed limits and or awareness of the limited sight lines present on the road.

The risk to the not insignificant volume of pedestrian traffic seeking respite from the shoulderless Reese Ford Road.

And finally, the amount of dust resulting from traffic along the lane.

Routinely passing traffic

largely non-local, far exceeds the recommended 15 mile per hour posting and with that comes a cloud of dust when dry which at times lands beyond my house which sits nearly 70 feet from the road.

Increasing traffic along the lane designated for rural residential without infrastructure improvement is a burden upon the residents of Reese Ford Lane and not Mr. Murray.

Since the majority of the proposal and staff recommendations function upon unwritten future considerations, I too will make an assumption that cannot be disproved and that future homeowners seeking a rural residential existence will take the increased vehicular traffic should this proposal be accepted into consideration when making purchasing decisions potentially disadvantaging current home- Your time is up.

Next we have Jeff Fleisch.

Jeff, if you'll please, I'm sorry.

My name is Jeff Fleisch, and I reside at 3825 Phase 4 Lane.

The gentleman before me did state many of my same concerns.

I did have issue with the report, which started out with two sections that are less than 20 feet apart, which expanded to four sections that are 20 feet apart.

But it doesn't include the fact that those sections can run for anywhere from 20 to 50 or more feet in length.

So my concern is a funeral procession now

They're saying that right now it's going to be very few and far between.

But as this type of thing gains familiarity and acceptance, that's going to increase.

And before you know it, you have 10 cars at a time, 12 cars at a time.

And we're talking about bereaved people, not FedEx drivers or UPS drivers that regularly use these roads.

So it's a dangerous situation, many blind spots.

many narrow roads plus all the dust as the gentleman before me had mentioned.

Now, right now they have the event barn working and from time to time there's some traffic it's intermittent and it's something we've accepted on the road but something like this with the potential for infinitely bigger amount, a larger amount of traffic

is definitely something that I'd be concerned about.

And also, like the gentleman said earlier, all this is based on a lot of assumptions.

I mean, my assumption is there's gonna be accidents on Ray's Ford Lane because people are gonna be driving on a dirt road, a gravel road with no, with not enough space to pass.

And then what happens?

Then later on, you know, we're gonna need to widen the road and pave the road.

And before you know it,

It's just out of control.

As a resident and homeowner, I support his cause and I support his idea.

I think it's a great one, but something should be done to access this from Earliesville Road.

I thank you very much for your time.

At this time, I do not have

Next is Lisa Rollins.

Lisa, please state your name and address if you're associated with an organization or group.

Yes.

Hello, everybody.

My name is Lisa Rollins.

I also live on Raysford Lane.

My address is 3855 Raysford Lane.

I have to say I found the description of the impact of this in the report sorely lacking from the perspective of the residents.

I too can totally appreciate the desire to maintain open land.

I'm very supportive of that idea and trying to find creative ways to do it.

However, I think the impact on the residents on this road

has the potential to be significant.

And I appreciate what the board member noted about the intensity of the requests from Panorama Farms that the intensity is indeed increasing.

So we've gone from the camp, which will I gather be running again in the summer to having the possibility of 24 events per year

at the Pavilion to the idea of having these burials.

And in looking at the green cemetery attendee data that was provided, I did some computations with this to see what it actually came out to with this data.

And it ranged with the examples that were given from 100 per year to attendees, 100 attendees per year to 1,200 attendees per year.

And if you average this out and just take a mean, it averages out to about 50 people per month.

So this is an additional 50 people per month in addition to the 24 events and the day camp.

And I guess my comment is that this is really significantly, has the potential to significantly add to the traffic.

People walk on this lane.

I walk my dogs on this lane.

People jog on this lane from across the road from Mallard Lake.

And while again, I can appreciate what Panorama is trying to do, the impact on the neighborhood and the individuals who live in the neighborhood, I think it has the potential to be significant.

Thank you.

If there's anybody else who would like to make comments, please raise your hand so that you can be put in the queue.

All right.

At this time, there is no one else.

Give them a couple minutes, couple seconds.

I'm closed for public hearing.

Mr. Murray, you have five minutes to respond, if you care to, to your closing statements.

The road is owned by VDOT and controlled and maintained by VDOT.

And there is a process, it seems to me, for citizens to hold them to account.

This is not within our control.

I'm sensitive to people walking and wanting to use the road for nonvehicular purposes.

I put out as a suggestion in one of the things I've mentioned that we have, there is a right of way on our property that has a gas line easement and our being able or offering that to

to people who want to, you know, to walk off the road along our property.

You know, we are open to discussing that.

I have to say, though, the gas line easement goes from our property to Greymont, and that is not, we have no control over that.

To reiterate, you can barely get a tractor from the Earlysville roadside of the farm to this side.

utterly impossible.

You're crossing two streams, one dam that's only 10 feet wide.

It is impossible to put a road from the early road side across the farm.

I just want to remind you that we have events.

Up until now, we've had wedding events with up to 200 people.

One of the comments said that that seemed to be okay.

That is two, three, four times the number that we expect to have, not for outlier events, but for the normal service.

Anyway, it is a VDOT issue and not one that is in our control.

So I will go on to closing remarks.

We appreciate your time.

Thank you very much.

I would like to revisit one of the conditions to see if we could work out something.

And that is condition number one, bullet point number four requires quote, a 250 yard setback of the burial areas from the dwelling unit on the adjoining property.

We'd like to suggest adding wording that

that mirrors or brings it into, you know, this identical to the state mandated 250 yard setback that adds, unless with the consent of the owner of that residence next door.

There are two problems with it.

The way it's written, this essentially puts those, the nine acres in that setback, it puts it off limits for good for any use.

whatever the circumstances.

So I mean, for example, if 10 years from now we were to buy that property, we still couldn't use it.

So I'd like to bring this, make it mirror the state mandate.

And more importantly, if the cemetery were to fail and we have to keep this in mind,

if it were in that, the more that it's in that corner, the less it isolates a piece of the farm.

So from a land use perspective and a practical one, it makes more sense to be up in that corner of the property.

And what I suggest is that we add a condition that the cemetery be limited to 20 acres, period.

And with no net gain in cemetery area so that we would basically swap

any that we might be able to use in the setback, we would swap for that which we have shown in the existing footprint.

And yeah, so any future expansion would require a new application.

And I would like to just plant this, that if this were to occur, if we were able to use any of that setback prior to

building the pavilion and committing to that spot, we would like to revisit that location.

Again, I wish I could be more specific, but at this moment I can't, but I'd just like to plant that maybe it might be a better location to move it closer to that corner.

So in conclusion, thanks very much for your time.

This is sometimes a thankless job that you have,

and I just want you to know that I appreciate it.

And I hope that I appreciate your recommending this to the Board of Supervisors with this one condition that I mentioned.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Murray.

So bringing it back for us commissioners.

So we have a couple of things that Mr. Murray has put before us.

One is the limit, the condition is the limit to 20 acres, so I'll let our

Mr. Bivins, would you like me to address that now?

Please, sir.

So the state code does require that it says, nor shall any cemetery be established within 250 yards of any residents without the consent of the owner of legal and equitable title of the residence.

So that's a provision of state law that's already self-executing.

And so it's not really necessary to have that particular part of a special use permit, because again, the state law would prohibit the establishment of that within 250 yards of a residence without the owner's consent.

So that last bullet point of the special use permit doesn't need to be in the special use permit.

Now whether we take it one step further in terms of eliminating all the other conditions of Condition 1, I would defer to Ms.

Thank you, sir, as always.

Other questions?

Sure.

So the primary use of Condition 1 is one that we typically use in all of our special use permits.

It defines where the approved area is located.

So we usually tie it to a

an exhibit of some sort.

It's usually a map.

In this particular condition, what I did was reference the two different conceptual plans that showed the areas of the burial

and also the associated development with it.

So the parking areas and the proposed pavilion, that kind of layout is what was reviewed for those parking areas and the pavilion and the burial areas.

So those were identified by the bullet points.

The 250 yard setback was a setback that was not identified on the conceptual plan.

So I had put it in there to essentially identify why the shape of the burial area was as it was shown in the conceptual plan, because it was the only setback that was not identified in that conceptual plan.

So it just kind of established a measurement that then could be enforceable by our zoning division and staff.

I'm fine.

Let me just backtrack just a little bit and clarify that 50 yards from the property line with the consent of the owner, that's what's necessary for compliance with state law.

If there are planning reasons why it should not be 250 yards from the property line,

Regardless of whether the neighbor consents or not, Ms.

Gleason would be better able to address those.

Understood.

And that's what I was going to ask her.

So we're talking about there's a statute piece of it and then there's a planning piece of it.

And there's a question of are you all right with the statute directing or guiding the use of the planning use of it?

Or are you looking at bullet point four

No, thank you for the clarification.

Okay, so that we could remove that.

If we move forward, we can remove that, that bullet.

Yes.

Sorry, okay.

Commissions question.

The state code section is going to be enforced by the health department.

It wouldn't be enforced by us if we received a complaint, for instance, about something that would happen.

So that means that we can, in fact, as a condition, permit to 5 or 830 to 430.

We actually can do that.

Mr. Chair, just so that we are clear here, because we've made reference this evening to a 250-foot setback and a 250-yard setback.

Just to establish for the record, we're talking about a 250-foot setback.

Correct.

Amelia, did you want to come in?

So just to clarify, the state code, the correct reference in the state code is 250 yards.

So 750 feet, the initial staff report saying 250 feet.

was incorrect.

The correct figure is in fact 250 yards and that's what was stated in Ms.

Yeah, thank you for the clarification because I'm looking at the printed page at 250 feet and I'm hearing 250 yards.

We're all clear that it's 250 yards but at this point we're talking about exercising the point and going with

Tim.

Well, I'd like to applaud the applicant for this project.

And I guess I would have a couple of things that I would address to Mr. Murray.

I knew his parents and I know their concern for the environment, cultural resources and for the little lesser

Well folks in our community.

So my first comment would be that I think that we need to start a project knowing that this is the area of the Monacans and acknowledging that this is Monacan land.

And if there's going to be ground disturbance, in the name of burials for the contemporary folks, that we might want to think about something that would deal with possible archaeology on this site, at least

The second one is that I think we all know that possibility of cemeteries like this in burials might be expensive, and so I wonder about thinking about an affordability component to this.

Again, this isn't something that

at this level but maybe before the presentation to the Board of Supervisors to think about whether there might be some provision for folks who want this kind of burial but couldn't afford it.

And my other point is in terms of the traffic and the concerns of the traffic, of the neighbors.

Many rural cemeteries don't have much action except for when there's a burial.

and that there's kind of a special event that's involved with that.

And I think this is going to fit into that rural cemetery component.

Panorama Farms has served a real purpose in terms of open space and what that stands for in this whole region for a number of decades and for many children in our community who have had the opportunity to have the natural environment

presented to them through experiences in their summer camps.

I see it as a very positive continuation of keeping this rural area rural.

And I would just say that if we saw this area developed to the density that we see around it, there would be a heck of a lot more traffic issues.

in the future than what are being proposed in the worst case scenarios.

So I am supportive of it, and I hope that the Murray family will think about some of the issues that I've just raised.

Julian, I just want to make sure that when it comes time to make a motion on this that we're

here about condition number two would be slightly revised.

Mr. Murray has agreed that we start, he said 8.30 to five.

I'm trying to give him nine hours to work with.

Ballet Barton might want nine to five, but I'm giving him eight to five here.

And on number five, just trying to maybe move beyond just plastic memorials,

any non-natural human-made memorials would not be permitted on the site.

Well noted.

Are there other other other other conversations?

Corey.

I'm sorry, I'm trying to come off the mute.

Thanks.

Out of respect for Mr. Randolph, I understand what he's trying to do with the hours operation, but I just want us to maybe just pause for a second because I remember that this project is gated.

I think I read that.

So does that mean that after work someone is not able to come visit if they don't make it in by 5?

I personally didn't have much heartburn about the way it was originally proposed.

This is something to think about.

Is that an unnecessary burden that we're replacing by having it closed at 5 o'clock?

Daniel?

I'm trying to, you know, this is obviously the first time I've seen a green proposal.

And by frankly, first time I've seen any proposal for a special use permit for a cemetery.

I know, you know, so I'm trying to, you know, try to, in one sense, I'm very supportive.

And I think the concept is amazing.

But I'm trying to make the sense of maybe disambiguate the sense of the green nature of it and the

the backstory of the farm and some of the stuff against from how we might look at a commercial enterprise that is a revenue producing and how developers make different proffers for improving streets or different things of that nature or what other cemeteries that would be selling off parts of land to have a business model to make money.

And so I guess what I'm trying to say and trying to understand, there was some comments made about like, well, it's a VDOT street, so it's VDOT.

I'm relatively new to the Planning Commission, but I have seen enough proposals to know that often an applicant makes suggestions on how they could improve if they are trying to get their project through that isn't a business enterprise.

And so I guess what I'm trying to ask the staff for some understanding about how this falls in and especially is permitted and how if this was a regular old cemetery like you see up on 29, how would

How would it be judged for its entrance and exits off of 29 to ensure that people can enter and exit the safe, the proper, you know, the property safely and some of the what's going on at Reesport Lane.

So I guess that's one question that I don't, it seems like I'm a bit of an oratory, but there is some uncertainty there about precedent as was said about how these applications should be judged that are commercial in nature.

even though they're on a traditionally long-standing and a farm and rural basis.

The other aspect that I'm in conflict with is this concept that it's a rural cemetery.

In some sense, it depends on how it's marketed because it is, while new, I think has attraction and appeal to others.

And so, as Mr. Randolph said,

a prominent figure where it's decided to do it, come in vogue, and then it's not rural.

It's not serving a rural cemetery to me by nature, serving the communities of that surrounding area.

If this is marketed broader, this is not necessarily a rural cemetery.

It's a cemetery that has an appeal given its alternative state of how you go.

So in one sense, I'm very, very supportive.

I think the concept is amazing.

I'm just conflicted by the traffic and

where the responsibility lies for improvement and what, you know, is it, should we be looking at it as, well, it's a VDOT state, so it's really VDOT's problem, and, you know, this is another enterprise, versus looking at it as, this is an applicant, it's a developer who wants to do some of the land, who's really not developing the land, which is the weird part, you know, in improving the land to get other things, is using it for use, but that use does have the monetary value associated with it, given the number of sites and what,

I don't even know what the site would go for, but I know a traditional site isn't cheap.

And so I don't know how to equate all that.

So let me do two things.

Let me do the first thing and have Mr. McDermott talk to you about the road.

Because it is a rural road, and it is a road that right now is being managed by, that is VDOT's responsibility as a public road.

And there are perhaps some options, but I'm not aware, and perhaps he will share with us how

And then on the business model, I would offer

that's not really our purview in the same way that I wouldn't ask the question of whether or not someone's going to run Hereford or they're going to run Guernsey.

That's their decision on what they use on their land, our decision on whether or not that use complies with the special use permit.

And so I might ask us, well, that's something that we might want.

I think it's been asked in transparency about how the pricing mechanism is.

I don't know necessarily, but that would be a piece that the commission would weigh in on, but certainly the transportation piece.

Sure, thank you.

And Daniel, to get to your question here, it would be, you know, typically we do have an applicant that's proposing some sort of new use, evaluate what type of road improvements would

would allow that use to occur or might be required to allow that use to occur.

And so we'll have an assessment of those and oftentimes we do condition and or proffer or have applicants proffer those improvements to be made.

It's always a possibility that you could do that in this case.

But if we needed to get improvements done, as you say, it is a VDOT-maintained road, it is an unpaved road, and an unpaved road could handle significantly more traffic than

this site could generate, but it would require more regular maintenance.

And so VDOT is going to have to get out there more often and fill in potholes with this use or any other intensification of uses on that road.

There is always an option to pave rural roads in the county under the Rural Rustic Road Program.

Typically, we have to agree that there's no development that's going to occur on that property or any properties accessed off that road that would significantly increase traffic on that road.

So I'm not sure if this actually qualifies for that.

I'd probably say it wouldn't if the levels of traffic that we're seeing

I don't think we have any other way of judging how much traffic a use like this may generate.

So going by that, going by the numbers that the applicant provided, I don't see this as a significant increase.

In traffic, but it is an increase in traffic and there is a likelihood that some additional maintenance will be required on the road and we'd have to request that from VDOT when we see problems and or eventually get

permission from the board to pave that road under one of the rural rustic programs.

At this point, really the only thing that we're looking at for this particular site is that the differences meet the low volume commercial entrance standards that VDOT has for this road and that's all we're requiring.

Another interesting thing about the

If it were proffered or conditioned it would have to be something that they could reasonably do and that means they would have to have agreements for the necessary right of way all along that road if they were going to make any improvements and I'm not sure if that's a possibility.

I'm not sure if the neighbors really wanted.

I heard comments tonight about people enjoying the the rural nature of the road so

I'm not sure if that's something that they would want to see.

So there are options that we can reach out to VDOT to try and do.

The applicant at this point is only required to make sure that his entrances from Ray's Ford Road meet that low volume commercial standard.

which, you know, we do that for, like you said, other uses that we see anywhere else.

Of course, the standard's different for if you're getting onto a local road versus a collector road versus an arterial like on 29, but that is the case and they will have to meet that with any site development plan.

Yes, very much so.

Julian may have a follow-up, but that's what I was trying to understand with regards to that and the proffers and some of the other elements.

So the entrance is typically onto those roads, and there's different standards based on the type of road and the transportation planning standpoint.

So my question on that is, and how would we monitor that?

As far as necessary maintenance?

I mean VDOT drives the roads occasionally, but the best way to do that is through the complaint driven process.

Okay.

I did have a, it's slightly changing.

It was back to the, one of the other questions about the enforceability of one of the provisions about our potential discussion around the provision that there won't be the burials during special event days.

And there's some loosely that one works on the weekend and this will be during the week.

But the, you know, one, is that a provision and two, is it enforceable?

So the question is, would that be a condition that would be put into, if we got a follow-up, would that be an enforceable condition?

Correct.

Yes, it would be enforceable.

I'm not aware of any conditions in the other special use permit.

So in a way, the use of the other property would take precedence in that the holder of this special use permit, if that condition were to remain, would need to coordinate and make sure that

that any activity didn't conflict with the activity on the other property.

So within the state code that's required already.

Generally, I believe, with kind of the purchase of a plot.

then there's an agreement in there already that talks about visiting hours.

So that's part of sort of the package of when it's open.

You've seen some of them are sunrise to sunset.

Some of the older cemeteries that we have in rural areas actually post that sign.

But it's not, you can't prohibit it under the state code.

And Corey, I think what,

when the equipment, when the graves could be open, not when people could bury.

So here we are folks.

We've had some, we've had a great deal of discussion on this matter.

It's been exercised

and I'm looking to see what we're going to do.

Jenny, I didn't hear you say anything.

I don't want to leave you out on this if you have something to say.

Okay, gotcha.

I got you already.

So where are we?

Daniel?

Corey?

Daniel, would you like to make a motion or would you like somebody else to do?

And Mr. Chair, I raised my hand not for the purpose of making a motion, but I realize that.

I've heard discussion around three different conditions this evening, and I'm not presuming consensus on any of the conditions, but I have been taking notes.

I wonder if it might be helpful if I were to do a screen share to show what I've taken in terms of discussions on the conditions.

Would that be helpful to further the discussion before a motion were made?

I think that would be not only helpful, but it would be appreciated.

So again, the three conditions that I've heard suggested for potential modification were condition one, doing away with a 250 yard setback.

I've heard discussion about potentially modifying the hours rather than daylight hours to being fixed hours.

And I heard an eight to five mentioned specifically.

And then there was some discussion also about not making the memorials plastic, but some other term.

These are just what I've heard and suggested terms.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for leaving me there.

So I think we're

Let me scroll because I can do.

Let me just let everybody take a look at that so that they can look at those three items, the three items in red that you have.

And now why don't you unshare them for us.

Okay, everyone saw, does anyone need any more time on the proposed, on what our council captured for us?

Are we okay going forward with a consideration if someone would make a motion with those particular changes?

I see some thumbs, I see some nodding.

Okay.

I will.

Daniel's ready to step up.

Daniel's ready to step up.

Go for it.

Yeah, sorry.

I was waiting for the council to put it down.

Yeah, I'm ready to make a motion probably after, I guess, the... Council, could you put it up again, please?

Well, yeah, it's not either.

It's coming.

It's okay.

You're cool.

You're cool.

And I think there's a first part.

Let's see if I can get to the staff report.

So based on the findings, I'd like to move for approval of, I guess, based on the findings contained in the staff report for the approval of SP 2021-100-0009 with the following conditions as noted in

this word document.

I see a second.

Seconded.

Seconded.

Jenny?

Jenny, did you raise your hand?

Jenny, seconded.

Is there further discussion?

Hearing none, could we have a roll call or seeing none?

Yes.

Ms.

Moore?

Aye.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you, colleagues.

So Mr. Murray, you don't have to unmute yourself.

You heard what I think was actually a robust discussion around this project.

So hopefully you will, you will, you will take that and sit perhaps with Ms.

Gleason and have a conversation about how do you sort of incorporate some of those ideas to go forward before the supervisors.

Thank you.

And then perhaps if there's a moment to reach out again to your

to your Reyes Ford Lane neighbors and sort of let them know how you're moving forward before your visit to the supervisor.

But hearing nothing else from us, then we will thank you for the time.

Thank you for your idea.

And we look forward to hearing how your project moves forward.

I think Tim has a comment he'd like to share with you before we sign you off.

No, actually.

Yes.

So on that note, thank you, Mr. Murray, and we'll go on from here.

Thank you all.

Thank you very much to staff on this all the way around.

Whenever we have something that's new like this, it's interesting to have

and the full range of staff for comments and very much appreciate it.

While we still might have Kevin around, I have this question for you and the Commission.

Rural roads come up often.

I am not a proponent of the Commonwealth of Virginia's way of doing rural roads and paving roads the way we do.

I wonder when Kevin is due to bring

And also hopefully have someone can lead out here to sort of stand with him.

Kevin's got a bit of broad, he's got a broader portfolio now.

So while we look at him as our road guy, he really is

He really is sort of slipping out of that role a little bit.

Yes, I am.

Absolutely.

And so Charles, you've noted that.

We'll sit and talk about what's the best way to make that happen because it is time for that new series of updates for us.

Yes.

Just a quick question.

That would be really interesting piggybacking off of what Tom said.

As a county, we have a lot of these intermittent spiky event venues popping up all over the place that all use rural roads.

But I don't know if there's a map that

shows where these things are located and their transportation to understand that ramification on the rural road from the transportation planning.

Okay, so those are two things.

I think I see Kevin taking notes.

Are you noting that, Kevin?

And I see Charles Smiley, the Charles Smile.

Okay.

Well, then, as I said earlier, it's our pleasure.

Certainly, it's my pleasure.

to have our Director of Community Development come and share with us.

Now remembering folks, she's got a huge portfolio that we only see this much.

We see the Charles Rapp part of the portfolio.

And so we asked, Jody and I have talked and she's gonna spend some time updating us and giving us a sense of where we may be going over this coming year.

I thank you, Chair Bivins.

I am going to, in true CDD fashion, share my screen.

Yay.

Okey dokey.

Well, good evening, Chair Bivens and members of the Commission.

My name is Jodi Filardo, Community Development Director.

I'm joined by Amelia McCulley, the Community Development Deputy Director.

We'll be presenting our department work program that the board endorsed on May 5.

It's our pleasure to be with you tonight.

The work of community development aligns with the county's mission statement seeking to enhance the well-being and quality of life for all.

Our primary focus day in and day out is on land use and the building of homes and commercial properties which directly impact lifestyles, where you live, work, and play, and how you get there.

are all areas we think about and plan for every day.

We also have different teams providing administration, inspections and code compliance, engineering and zoning guidance, geographical information and overall planning to ensure the projects built in our county improve the well-being of our entire community.

Tonight, I'll be sharing highlights of the work performed since last September, and then Amelia will talk through the work plan for fiscal year 22.

Community development has been hard at work on a wide array of projects.

Case in point, this photo is from a Southwood tour hosted by Dan Rosenzweig of Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville, with the county as represented by Deputy County Executive Doug Walker,

and Chief Richard Branham of the Monacan Tribal Nation.

Dr. Stacey Pethia, Housing Policy Manager, was also able to attend.

The tour was undertaken as the first step in establishing meaningful connections between the Monacan Tribal Nation and the team working on Southwood.

It's just one example of the varied work that took place despite the pandemic.

Tonight I'm eager to share some facts and figures on the development and we'll then set the stage for our fiscal year 22 discussion.

Emilia will share more detail on the individual projects ahead.

If possible, it's our hope to work our way through our slides in one pass while leaving time at the end for your questions.

Over the last year, our staff size dropped by 10.7%.

due to retirements, resignations, and transfers.

In support of the entire county organization during the pandemic, we held seven positions frozen until recently.

While we started out fiscal 21 with approximately 47% of our staff working either in the office or the field, that number has increased to about 60% with the remainder of our staff teleworking.

As the county moves to our new normal, we are continuing to offer teleworking positions, especially in our planning division.

We're also shifting to certain types of in-person customer service by appointment, such as with our inquiry planning.

Despite the decline in our staffing, our team prevailed.

Our staffing situation is now improving.

In June, we welcomed a permit technician,

and an additional zoning code compliance officer.

In July, we are expecting a new residential combination inspector and intake specialist and a new senior planner as well.

We are recruiting for a deputy county engineer, a planner, and will soon be recruiting for an erosion control enforcement officer.

While we are thankful for the additional staff, which brings us back to full staff levels, training lead times vary greatly by position, with some positions becoming fully effective about two years or more following their hiring.

Changes in how we work have spurred innovations in our work.

Michael Dellinger, our building official, spearheaded the take-home vehicle pilot project for our building inspectors.

The pilot from April 1 until July 1, 2021, has just ended.

We believe enabling inspectors to start their days from home, allowing inspections to take place early in the day, provides better customer service to our building community.

Initial results look promising.

We are evaluating data to determine whether to continue the program and or to expand it for use by our other inspection teams.

In concert with that program, we've also adjusted two other processes, the request and inspection process and the Admiral County Service Authority permit reviews.

We move the deadline for request for inspections from 4pm back to noon on the day before the inspection is needed.

This enables us to print out and assign inspections to staff the day before.

It also enables our building inspectors to reach out to the requester to confirm inspection times and readiness and to provide more certainty for our building community.

Collaborating with ACSA, we now have builders obtain approvals directly from them before submitting applications to us.

This has reduced cycle time in our process as we no longer need to send applications out for ACSA review and stop our review process while we await the feedback.

Instead, the builders and developers now have direct communication with ACSA to resolve any questions or concerns without us being in the middle.

Thus far this process changes yielding good results with initial results indicating reduction in review times with ACSA from over two weeks to less than half a day.

The department continues to be driven by day in day out delivery of an array of new applications we process on behalf of the community.

All divisions are involved in that work and much of that work results in presentations to various boards and committees, including the Planning Commission and the board.

Most of that work has timelines that are mandated by local or state committees.

This chart compares the volume of various applications over the past year to the prior year.

You can see that numbers for new subdivisions increased, while zoning clearances for new businesses in commercial locations and home applications for new businesses in the home have decreased.

Despite building material shortages, building permit activity in Albemarle remains high.

Permit volumes are increasing as COVID restrictions ease.

While our number of permits is increasing, the overall value of the jobs is decreasing.

We are experiencing higher volume, smaller jobs today.

Looking forward from last September, we experienced delays in our estimated completion dates due in large part to pandemic impacts on community engagement.

In examining our estimates, we recognize our need for better resource estimates.

We are an internally optimistic team and we're realizing this as we compare estimates to actuals.

Due to the complexity of our projects and the number of stakeholders, agencies, and other county departments within the interface, plus the number of guiding codes and master plans, assuring we do a careful and thorough job reviewing applications is a significant undertaking.

To support our estimating into the future, we are working with the project management office to enable better project level resource tracking.

The board has asked me for resource estimates on our projects and we're working on getting more definitive data on exactly what it takes to complete a project in CDB.

For now, though, we've put together some estimates for you.

We asked our project leads and managers to share some estimates of work hours spent on projects completed or nearly complete.

The first three of these smaller projects were more easily slotted in for work as staff became available.

Each of them also required limited public engagement processes.

Fill-in waste took approximately 300 hours, recycling uses 10,

rural area landscape contractors by SP about 73 hours and stream health in the development areas about 72 hours.

This slide shows several medium or large projects that are underway.

Most of these projects have been ongoing for the past couple years.

and we're pleased to be bringing the projects to fruition.

With several of these, there will likely be related follow up projects and or zoning ordinance updates driven by the policy changes coming forward for consideration in the future.

Thus far, these projects are consuming significant resources.

In addition, due to staff knowledge, skills, and abilities, delays in these projects also cause delays in future projects depending on limited resources.

As with the completed work, we've asked our managers to estimate the ongoing efforts of these projects underway.

We selected a few projects to highlight the hours of staff time expended thus far on some of these projects, and these projections are accurate as of the end of March.

For example, the housing policy comprehensive plan amendment has taken over 1930 hours.

The section 33 ZTA for legislative process revision has taken over 310 hours.

Form-based code in excess of 4,500 hours.

Rivanna River corridor plan in excess of 598 hours.

And that's significant because we are not even the lead agency on that plan.

The Crozet Master Plan has taken over 5,400 hours and that was only through March of 2021 and the Esri Enterprise License Agreement implementation has taken over 7,000 hours.

Although not yet started, the wireless facilities policy and ordinance work will be accomplished with management from staff, coupled with the help of external resources.

The project duration is estimated between 12 to 15 months.

As before, with the first wireless facilities policy and ordinance, staff time up front prepares for consultant work, and then staff time follows the consultant's work to amend codes consistent with the policy.

As you're aware, the Stream Health Project is ongoing.

You can anticipate more discussion coming to you as the staff work evolves.

Now we're going to lay out the approach for the work program for fiscal year 2022.

Beyond the medium to large size project work underway based on the previous slide, we want to share three other categories of work we're undertaking in fiscal year 22.

Investing capacity, modernized zoning, and comprehensive plan updates in concert with zoning updates.

We're showing all this information on one slide, acknowledging it's very busy.

The slide is intended to depict both the duration and the variety of the multifaceted work ahead of the Department this fiscal year.

Each of these categories of projects is captured in the swim lane with the approximate timetables across the top.

As I covered the work in the first swim lane in the previous slide, I'd like to spend a few minutes discussing a new category of work with you, a category we're describing as invest in capacity shown here in the second swim lane.

We also consider this the right work to accomplish for long-term sustained process improvements for our customers and the county.

As the county is now increasingly urban, you and the community we support are asking for faster and more efficient services from community development.

To be responsive and true to our public service covenant, we are pursuing modernization efforts in four categories, systems, performance,

Technology and Outreach in collaboration with other county departments, IT, Finance and Budget, CAPE, the Office of Equity and Inclusion, and the Project Management Office to name a few.

We believe this work will result in long-term benefits to the entire organization and our customers.

So let's review each one briefly.

This year we are deploying new intake application software, enabling more understandable, easy to use front end on our applications submission process.

We're using this change to also update and streamline our processes as we do this work.

We are starting with the five most frequently used and complicated application processes and then adding in additional applications until the entire application process is fully integrated into the same approach.

The purpose of this work is twofold.

We're improving the usability of our customer case and processes, and we're preparing the department for the re-engineering of processes toward the eventual selection of a replacement for CountyView, our permit tracking software.

That replacement is anticipated as part of the countywide core systems modernization effort, newly underway.

With both our front end project and the county replacement, we are fortunate to have the support of the county's project management office in supporting the construction and implementation of the project approach and plan and the IT department in figuring out systems integration.

We also appreciate the support of finance and budget in funding this effort.

To get a better handle on our resource needs, we are also collaborating with the project management office to evaluate and implement project level tracking.

The PMO will assist us in identifying and implementing solutions in a way that incorporates the change management necessary to affect this successfully.

We're also standardizing the software tools used by staff who review plans,

so that they can provide comments on the electronic submissions directly and we're installing larger monitors to enable more efficient reviews of those points.

Additionally, we will work with both the Community and Public Engagement Office and the Office of Equity and Inclusion on right sizing public engagement and outreach

to better align with the complexities of our projects.

We hope to increase the predictability of our engagement process and ensure the inclusion of as many diverse community voices as possible.

And finally, last September, we shared the notion that updating the comprehensive plan and performing the related zoning ordinance work was the right work to do to build capacity

As the initial scope came forward to the board, we heard their desire to get results delivered faster and also of their interest in addressing long overdue zoning modifications.

We listened and are responding to those concerns in the following slides.

Up next, Deputy Director Malina McCauley is going to share our approach on zoning modernization and on the combination comprehensive plan and zoning

Thank you, Jody.

By the way, this picture is taken at our very own Toadier Creek Park just outside of Scottsville while kayaking.

One of our members of the group took this picture.

We have so many wonderful parks.

In this next section, we're going to go over the department work program in greater detail.

and keep in mind that these projects are separate and in addition to the mandated work such as that which is related to permits and applications, the review, the inspection, the enforcement.

We typically have the work program approved in the spring and check back with the board on updates in the fall.

This work program includes initiatives such as the comp plan, including master plans, ordinance amendments, actions to implement the strategic plan and other substantive and important efforts such as

Housing Policy.

We went to the board with our work program on May 5, and they endorsed our recommended approach.

And in the following slides, I'm going to talk through this work.

Next slide, please.

Jodie shared work program projects that are underway, as well as those that build capacity.

And I'm going to talk through some of the other details of the work program and the categories of first modernizing the zoning ordinance.

Second, the comp plan and related zoning ordinance work, and then third, the list of initiatives not currently resourced.

I want to share some of the foundational work that we did to formulate the work program and briefly touch back to the swim lane entitled Invest in Capacity.

This is a new component to our work program formulation, and it's one of the many things that Jody's brought our team

And that's a perspective that considers and accounts for how you get done, what you need to get done, not just getting done what you need to get done.

Things such as process improvement, investment in tools such as technology and staff resources, such as training.

This is all really important and previously was absent from our work program.

The second change to our work program approach is that it's based on the fiscal year, not the calendar year.

This recognizes the very important linkage to funding that's relevant to accomplishing many of the projects.

Additional analysis served as a foundation to the work program.

We actually went position by position to determine how much discretionary time each position had available for work program items outside of mandated work.

And we knew that the board wanted us and we also wanted to provide better information about resource demands

Previously, when it was in a simple list, it appeared that each project involved the same amount of staff resources as each other item in the list.

So to get some perspective, we asked staff to estimate how much time they had spent on completed projects so that information can inform and illustrate, provide perspective context to staff resource needs.

We also worked together to provide our best estimations of resource demands in three categories.

on size of initiatives not currently resourced, and I'm going to go over that in some of the upcoming slides.

So our first approach to identifying projects was let's finish what we've started.

Finish previously completed and, sorry, committed projects.

This includes the list of work underway.

We also need to schedule work not yet begun, but that the board had funded, such as the wireless policy, which Jody mentioned.

The comp plan work is a high priority and will occur incrementally in phases.

We identified zoning ordinance work that corresponds with the policy work in the comp plan so those intersecting efforts will align and be scheduled accordingly with work products in each phase.

A long standing goal of the county attorney's office end of hours is a modernization of our relic of a zoning ordinance which serves us well in many ways

but needs a major overhaul.

We also heard from the board that this work should be prioritized.

The work program prioritizes beginning with that work as the right work rather than continuing to defer it for other work.

I will share some of the details of the modernization work in the next slide.

Next slide, thanks.

We've developed a prioritized zoning modernization list in collaboration with the County Attorney's Office.

We also sought opportunities to provide efficiencies of effort with projects that serve more than one purpose.

For example, modernization and comp plan policy work.

The first of the listed zoning ordinance modernization projects is to clean up outdated language relating to special exceptions, waivers, and variations.

This will include clarifying the process, for example, whether an application requires a Planning Commission waiver or a board special exception based on Virginia code and case law.

The second project I'm very excited about because it's a large and substantially impactful modernization effort.

It's one that will immediately update our regulations and make them easier for all, including the lay public to understand.

where we have outdated terms and very specific uses such as food and grocery stores, including such specialty shops as bakery, candy, milk dispensary, and wine and cheese shops.

We will use instead very broad use categories and place them into a table for easy reference.

The current ordinance reflects a much

And with this modernization project, we will join others utilizing the best practice of broad zoning use categories with tables of those uses.

This project will result in an immediately visible positive update and improvement to zoning regulation and Albemarle.

I can't say enough how important this work is.

is setback simplification, and that will better allow anyone to understand the setbacks on any particular property.

Currently, we can't give an immediate straight answer as to what the setbacks are on a particular property.

Current requirement is overly complex.

It requires someone to first assess properties in 500 feet in both directions, measure existing setbacks.

Based on that assessment, then it's either one answer is in-ville or a different answer is non-in-ville.

This work will tie into the implementation of the application intake software, which was listed under Invest in Capacity, and it will better allow self-service for filling out a complete application.

Number four in the list is an example of one of those intersections that provides an efficiency of effort.

Our density bonus requirements are outdated and inconsistent between zoning districts.

They're intended to provide a bonus for measures and improvements above and beyond ordinance requirements.

One of the current bonuses is in fact an ordinance requirement.

We're currently scoping this work on density bonuses and expect a second phase that will incorporate density bonuses for the provision of affordable housing.

Next slide, please.

Next, we'll talk about concurrent work on the comp plan and related zoning ordinance amendments.

And this is important work that will align our zoning ordinance with our comp plan policies.

This slide might look familiar to you because we borrowed a slide from a prior presentation to the commission on the four project phases of the comp plan work.

Each phase will include distinct and parallel updates to the comp plan and the zoning ordinance.

Each phase will conclude with updated portions

of the comp plan document, and we will apply the lenses of equity and climate action planning to each project phase.

As a commission is aware, there's a list of additional projects that we share with the work program, and projects make it into these lists if one or more board members indicate an interest in them.

In the following three slides, we group projects based on staff resource demands in three categories.

Small is less than 500 staff hours,

Medium is 501 to 2500 staff hours and then large is over 2501 hours.

This is our best estimate of resource needs.

Better estimates require scoping and development of a public engagement plan.

We also sought alignment between our understanding of these projects and the comp plan zoning ordinance modernization phases for efficiencies and effectiveness of efforts.

Of course, as projects complete, we will deploy any available resources on this work.

Before we get into the specific items of these lists, I have a few things I ask you to keep in mind.

First, this is our best guess for staff resources needed for each project.

As you know, we've set schedules for various reasons.

We find that it's hard to meet those schedules as intended and or staff resource needs are higher than we'd estimated.

Second, the scope and public engagement for each project drive the timeline and resource requirements in large part for that project.

The number of stakeholders, especially if they have competing priorities, also drives up the time and resource needs.

Third, one of the tools that is listed under the Investing Capacity category will be important as we undertake these projects, and that's completion of a template for engagement based on various project characteristics.

and that's a template that will incorporate an equity lens.

Next slide.

This is a list of projects that we categorize as small resource demands, again, less than 500 hours.

Completed examples in this resource category are fill and waste, which were 330 hours, rural area landscape contractor by special permit, 73 hours.

Next slide.

This is a list of initiatives, not currently resourced, that we estimate to use a medium amount of staff time.

We've suggested in this list pairings with comp plan work where relevant.

An example of this is the comp plan and zoning ordinance work to support the Rivanna station.

It's listed on this slide as defense production overlay.

The COP plan work can be folded into the land uses discussion of the COP plan and then implemented into the zoning ordinance and zoning map if that's the direction it takes.

Next slide.

This final category involves the largest amount of staff resource demands.

An example is form-based code at 4,500 staff hours.

As you know, this project that is form-based code involved many staff from our department, CAPE, and the county attorney's office.

In terms of new projects, we recommend moving forward with the comp plan work as previously identified and prioritizing zoning ordinance modernization to begin next with the four identified projects as leads.

Then we recommend moving forward and folding in the identified initiatives that intersect with the comp plan work.

On May 5th, the board endorsed the recommended work program.

They also agreed to parking lot, which I'm using sort of as a verb,

Everything that's not in the work program, but that's important to them that comes up.

So that would include the three lists of initiatives, not resource that we've just gone through.

Next slide.

To summarize, we believe we're continuing to target the right new work.

We're completing what we started.

We're investing in tools to improve our capacity and customer service capabilities.

We intend to no longer defer, but instead begin work on modernizing aspects of the zoning ordinance that can be addressed before comprehensive plan updates.

We're tackling the longstanding need for zoning modernization, which has been repeatedly deferred.

We're phasing the comprehensive plan and zoning work together and incorporating those items from the initiatives, the list that we're not currently resourced, where we can.

As usual, we're going to come back before the board midway through the fiscal year to report on progress.

and talk about any additional capacity we find.

We believe that our resources are fully deployed with this plan.

We believe the work of this plan is important and is consistent with what we've heard as interests of the board.

First of all, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Before we go for Corey, what would you, Corey, and then I'm looking for other hands here.

Sure, sure.

Thank you for the presentation.

It's always awesome to see the amount of work that's being done for the community, so thank you for that.

I understand that consultants also require project management, but I saw in that last slide things that seem to be pending priority, I guess, based off of the Virginia General Assembly.

Was there any discussion that's curious about a consultant's maybe help with those if they're not currently funded from a staff hours perspective, but they may need to get done sooner than later?

I'll be happy to take that one to start with.

We are treading lightly, Commissioner Clayborne, in the use of consultants.

This work program is really the second foray into a year of using consultants, and we have some deliverables coming forward by the end of this calendar year with those consultants.

The board has been cautious

in their use of consultants, we are hoping to demonstrate our ability to carefully and strategically utilize consultants and manage their output successfully.

Well, I have a question and I'm not really pointing at anything, but a number of pieces there look like there's an initial, a significant investment in technology.

And I am hopeful that you have good tech partners or that there will be emerging at the county partners who can help you not only integrate, because integration is not an easy thing.

but a lot of what I saw depends on those systems getting in place, being exercised, being rode hard, and then actually being turned over to people and then obviously being maintained.

And so I'm hoping that the, and I believe there's been some significant changes in the leadership in technology, I hope your new people who come into technology understand their role as partners and also being a bit

forward than the users in bringing solutions to you.

Otherwise, a lot of, a number of the things I will suggest, a number of those good ideas are not, they won't happen because you don't have parallel technology to keep you going forward.

So that would be sort of a place where I would be concerned on your behalf that you have good technology partners in house

Tim.

This is wonderfully presented by both of you.

And so many of the things that Amelia knows that we've been talking about for the almost eight years that I've been on the Planning Commission are

showing up in one form or another, everything from the reworking the code to specific projects.

So the comprehensive nature of what you've put forward and the clarity in which you've done it is very much appreciated.

I know that both of you are numbers people as well, and we all know from Charles and from what you've presented about the staff shortages that affected the

planning side annual report so that it became more of a summary than a complete report.

And I'm wondering how you're thinking and how you're projecting the data that will be collected through the new systems will just automatically be able to be mined because of the way you're setting them up.

We'll be able to be useful in generating the kinds of reports that we're

that we're needing and that would actually help the public better understand.

And just for instance, with all of the discussion of housing that we all are so aware is acutely needed, there's an economic development component.

And at some point, the lack of infrastructure in certain areas where the housing development is occurring is adding additional cost burdens to the county and economic development and being able to place

places of work close to where people live to take advantage of the lower cost, either mass transit, walking, whatever.

So I just wonder what your thoughts are of how far out we are from being able to, when future commissioners or supervisors ask staff, what are the impacts that you'll be able to address that?

And another sidebar to that is,

Well, if you would,

a number of us, plus I think the community would be helpful, would be greatly helpful, particularly on that first piece.

And then how we engage with the legislature, you know, we've always been thinking, how do we fund this?

How do we fund the things that simply for us that we, that'd be helpful to get done that in these times, what are the limits?

We have limited budgets.

I mean, coming out of this period, we'll once again have very limited budgets.

I will give it a stab and Commissioner Keller, if I miss something, please chime in to get me on target.

One of the questions you raised is about data and the fact that we are numbers oriented people and we really need some good numbers to be able to drive decision making.

Our whole management team in CDB is starved for good numbers.

and we are taking the first step in getting good numbers with our Camino Project implementation.

Now, mind you, that just gives us great numbers and great reporting abilities on simply the very front end of the system, but that's only a part of the story.

The other piece of good news that plays into this is that in this budget cycle, the board has seen fit to put forward over $600,000, well, actually it's more than that, it's over $2 million in business process orientation and BPO money to support modernization of the county systems overall.

One of the things we as the organization leadership team recognize and acknowledge, we are an urbanized county now.

Yes, we have 95% of our county is as rural, but the demand for services from our county community really is at a level that is similar to a fully urbanized county.

And in order to accommodate

that need for information and the data that we need to be able to make good decisions, we must have much better systems.

For example, as you know, because you've heard me say this before, our county use system wasn't implemented 20 years ago.

Well, in a world where technology changes about every 18 months, 20 years is a lifetime.

and while our IT team has done a valiant job of trying to keep that as together as possible, because we have a highly customized system, our system hasn't kept pace with overall changes in the marketplace.

So we're using the Camino project as a front end, dipping our toe in the water project.

to teach process re-engineering and a systems view.

It's only the first step.

It's going to be several years out, I'm sorry to say, I believe, before we have a fully implemented and integrated new set of data.

And I would be thrilled and very happy if that happens faster, but right now I'm not anticipating that.

So I believe that we're still a little ways away, but the great news is

The board is on board and funding our moves forward in that arena, not just in community development, but throughout the county.

So I think this is very encouraging for the future and sustainability of the county.

Did I cover everything you had questions about Commissioner Kilmer?

I will sort of help and there was a whole piece about impact fees and how do we sort of leverage

some of the negative things that we've spoken about.

I'm familiar with development impact fees from other markets, from places I've been before.

And I have to say they were much less confusing than the proper environment in which we live here in Amar County.

So while I have no direct input myself or impact myself on the ability to drive impact fees down in Richmond, I think that would be much more simple for us to adjudicate and simpler for developers to understand, frankly, as well.

Talk to all of your elected officials.

As you probably heard, because I know sometimes you peek in on what we're doing, one of the things that we meet on perhaps every project basis is the whole idea of schools and this school's overcrowded and that school's overcrowded and what are we going to do for this and how do we do that and the whole idea that where we sit, we don't have any direct

input into what the school board is suggesting it will do vis-a-vis building new buildings or adding capacity for the school.

Plus, if you look long term, the real question is,

an older demographic than what we perhaps have been being driven for years before.

But that still becomes an issue for a number of people.

And I think another piece, and I saw it there, another piece that the commission tends to think a lot about and has questioned about.

And so what are we doing vis-a-vis infill, particularly in the development area as we start this?

So how are we actually going to sort of use that land that's still available to us in ways that allows us to sort of live into, I think, the spree and the vision

would like to promote for the county.

And then there's the whole idea of whether or not we're net density or gross density and how do we move in a space that developers can make easy decisions in that the commission doesn't necessarily have to wrestle with some developers on where the trees will or will not be on a particular

and Lisa to move forward that I was pleased to see was listed as key concerns for the work plan.

But I will go back again.

If technology is the hanger on this one, it's got to be right.

And it's got to be people that don't view county work the way county work was, the county work environment as it was even five years ago.

It's got to be people who are looking at how technology is

and then creating this community for us to work in the future.

And that's a different kind of technologist.

You know, that's somebody like Daniel, who's looking towards the future and not thinking about, oh, well, you know, we used to have laptops that did this and we used to have desktop that did that.

It is a very different world out there now.

Other questions, other comments?

That'd be lovely.

Thank you.

Anywhere else where I think

Thank our director for coming and spending some time with us this evening and for our deputy director for being here too.

Thank you very much.

So folks, do we have any committee reports?

No committee reports?

Okay.

Is there any old business?

Well, it looks like we're going to be adjourning at 2030 and coming back at 830 and coming back next week for a work session on Southwood phase one update.

Charles.

Thank you, Chair Bivins.

The development team with Habitat is eager to get back before this planning commission and eventually the board and just give updates on the progress they've made from phase one so far, how the plans kind of evolved.

You know, it's been

So do you think they'll tell us a little bit about the transfer of property from them to

What is it?

Piedmont Housing, PHA or something like that?

Well, we hear something like that because that was a big piece when they came before us.

What were those new units going to be like and who was going to be responsible for them?

They can speak to the developers they have partnered with and the percentage of units, even where those units are.

I think

Thank you so very much.

Thank you.

So that's what we're doing next week, folks.

If no one has any objections, then we stand adjourned until next week.

Is that okay?

All right.

See you next week.

Glad to see everybody has their fingers and didn't do anything unfortunate yesterday.

Thank you for doing that.

All right.