Planning Commission Meeting   10/19/2021

Folks, we would have been standing outside the big hall.

So that's how I sort of viewed all this.

We are lost.

Welcome to the Planning Commission meeting of October 19, 2021, beginning at 6.12.

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

Opportunities for the public to access and participate in the electronic meeting will be posted on the albemarle.org forward slash community forward slash community hyphen calendar when available.

Ms.

Present in Scottsville, Virginia.

Ms.

Mr. Clayborne?

Okay.

Are there any other matters not listed?

Thank you.

Commissioners, if you'd look on your sheets and see, we have a consent agenda item.

Is there a motion to, would anyone like to pull this item?

And if not, is there a motion to approve?

Moved by Mr. Keller.

Is it seconded?

Seconded by Daniel, by Mr. Bailey.

Is there any further discussion on this item?

Yes.

Ms.

Firehock?

Yes.

Thank you very much.

Could we go into our fourth item, the public hearing for CCP 2021-02, the Southern Albemarle Convenience Center.

That was interesting, CCP.

I know.

I'm very sorry.

I've got to get Charles to help me with lighting in my house.

Okay.

This is supposedly David Benesch who is the development process manager for the community development department and planning and I will improve on the lighting or my office the next time around.

Let me share my screen so I can get the presentation up.

Okay, good.

So this is a compliance with the comprehensive plan review for the Southern Albemarle Convenience Center as it is CCP 2021-2.

Let me begin the presentation by just outlining what a compliance review is and what it isn't.

Compliance with the comprehensive plan reviews are required by a state code revision, 15.2.22.32.

You'll often find these reviews referred to as a 22.32 review or a CCP review.

It considers whether the general location, character and extent of a proposed public facility is in substantial accord with the adopted comprehensive plan.

It is reviewed by the Planning Commission and the Commission's findings are forwarded to the Board of Supervisors, but there is no further action required by the Board.

The Commission's action is only related to the consistency of the use to the comprehensive plan and its provisions.

Oops, excuse me.

Everything's malfunctioning today.

So this proposal is for the construction of a solid waste convenience center for collection of household waste and recycled materials.

And it's to be operated by the Albemarle County Solid Waste Authority.

I've got outlined both in the staff report and the presentation here bullets about the components and scale of activity.

I believe the applicant will be touching on this.

I won't go into great detail here, but it is a daily service six days a week.

It is for household material collection, not commercial collection.

It's collection of trash and recyclable materials.

The trash is in 32 gallon bags or less.

And again, I'll leave that to the applicant to provide for further discussion during their presentation.

That is basically the facilities services being offered.

This is an image from our GIS showing the parcel and site for the facility, which is Tax Map 121-8282, properties owned by Albemarle County and has been owned since the 1989-90 timeframe.

It is located on Esmont Road, approximately 900 feet from its intersection with Route 20.

It's in the Keene Crossroads area and just south of the Keene Post Office.

In terms of comprehensive plan and zoning on the property, the property is located within the county's rural areas designated in our comprehensive plan and therefore it's recommended for rural use.

It is zoned rural areas in our zoning ordinance and

Public uses are permitted as a by-right use in all zoning districts, including the RA district.

However, when a public facility structure or facility is not explicitly identified on the land use plan or comprehensive plan, then such a compliance review is required even though it is a by-right use.

That is the circumstance.

The property is also located within the EC overlay district, the entrance quarter overlay district, or at least a portion of the property.

A portion of the property falls within the district.

This is about a seven acre site and less than half of it falls within the district.

There is no proposed development.

of the overlay district portion of this site.

So it actually, the development itself on the property falls outside the EC district.

The proposed maintenance of the wooded area on the east side and east and north side of the site wouldn't limit visibility from the entrance corridor, however, in any case.

Property is also located within the Southwest Mountain Historic District and National Register Historic District.

It should be noted that vacant parcels are not actually included on the National Register inventory, but vacant parcels are listed in the county database as contributing to the rural character of this district because of its undeveloped nature.

The Historic Resources Planner has reviewed early on this proposal and recommended the maintenance of the wooded area around the developed site, developed portion of the site and has recommended that sensitive landscape treatment across the frontage be installed to help maintain the rural character of the area.

And the Historic Resources and Entrance Corridor Planner has reviewed the initial site plan.

Just to go over some history of the property.

It's, I think, useful to know that the property, 1989, the Planning Commission did find that a transfer station was in compliance with the comprehensive plan.

That transfer station, a similar facility, actually is a little bit more intensive facility than this one.

was found in compliance on parcel 121-93, which is essentially the parcel across the street from the site.

In February of that year, the Board of Supervisors upheld PC's finding upon appeal by adjacent property owners.

In March of that year, the county engineer notified the planning director that the proposed transfer station would now be located essentially across the street from that original compliance review on this site, 121-8282.

The planning director at that time determined that no compliance review would be required.

the director informed the PC at that time of the determination and the PC concurred with that determination.

The site was subsequently not developed.

The staff report provides a little bit of background on that and we'll get into that history.

But if you have questions, I or the FES staff can hopefully answer those questions if you have questions about that history.

Community meetings are required to be held for CCPs, and the one for this proposal was held on September 30th virtually.

At that meeting, concerns were raised about the impact to adjacent properties, about impacts from noise, odor, runoff, and the generation of rodents to and from the site.

Traffic impacts to rural roads were expressed as a concern in the condition of Esmont Road, which serves the site in the condition of it.

There's also concern and comments that the location of such a facility should be closer to population centers.

There were write-in comments that were in support of the location and its location near to the King

King Crossroads where the post office and store are located and that the location could be useful during trips and commutes to Charlottesville and Scottsville combining those trips for drop off during those commutes.

A few renderings that I think the applicant will probably have also for you, but this shows a general layout or concept for the site.

The containers around the perimeter are for recyclables.

The compactors in red are for cardboard and for the trash disposal collection.

Rendering of the entrance to the site.

And the cycling, in case we need to refer to it again, the applicant may have a better version.

In terms of the compliance review for my presentation, I'm going to focus on just a couple of

More relevant recommendations of the comprehensive plan.

Here, the community facilities plan chapter has an objective to continue to provide for facilities and services in a fiscally responsible and equitable manner.

The nature of the public service delivery does orient and focus and encourage public facilities to be located in the development areas as opposed to rural areas.

However,

This guidance also recognizes that public facilities, as noted here in the highlighted bullet, public facilities are allowed in rural areas in cases where it's not possible to be located in a development area due to physical constraints or the nature of the facility and or the services being provided.

Again, the highlighted bullet recognizes the general desire to have facilities in the development area, but it does allow for them to be located in the rural areas to provide for unique service needs.

In this case, the goal of this facility

as reflected in the solid waste management plan for the county is to provide for a level of rural service in outlining portions of the county and consistent with that fourth bullet alternative.

In terms of

This strategy, which is to schedule funding of government facilities through the CIP based on needs identified, master plans, other chapters of the plan,

And again, emphasis added here, other documents, county approved documents.

We focus mostly here on the county's Long Range Solid Waste Solutions Advisory Final Report, which has been accepted and used as the county's plan for implementing solid waste management services.

And that study contains the following recommendations.

to foster rural services and carefully plan and establish recycling locations in more distant areas of the county.

Staff opinion is that this general location is convenient to rural residents and consistent with this recommended guidance from that final report.

The applicant also may have this in his presentation.

I'll touch on it briefly as it relates to the goals of the comp plan and this particular facility.

This map outlines the existing and future service facilities for solid waste convenience centers, noting the Ivy Materials Utility Center.

and the McIntyre Recycling Facility in blue which are existing facilities that along with the prevalence of private hauler service for trash and recycling pretty much adequately serve our urban areas at this point in time.

The green

Circles are the service areas for rural service centers, one to the south, this facility in the Keene area, and a potential future facility in the 29 North corridor.

This proposal is consistent with the community facilities section of the comprehensive plan and the long range solid waste solution advisory committee final report.

The location in the rural areas consistent with the comp plan and community facilities objectives, which allow for location of rural facilities in the rural areas to address unique service needs, in this case, providing convenient service to rural area residents.

And the location, this general location near

20 in the Keene area provides a central location to serve Southern Albemarle County.

Staff found no unfavorable factors as it relates to the proposal's consistency with the comp plan and again the long-range solid waste solutions advisory committee final report.

Staff recommends that the commission find the location character and extent of the Southern Albemarle Convenience Center

David, just really a question here about the level of detail

I know what our role is and what's before us this evening, but to your knowledge, has there been any statistical analysis of how this center is going to operate as a regional facility, i.e.

a inter-county facility?

If one looks at page five of the resident service area,

you have drawn, or the applicant has drawn concentric circles out from Keene.

And at 10 miles, one sees that that incorporates a fairly significant swath of one magisterial district in Fluvanna County.

And then also includes

the northern part of another, I think, two magisterial districts in Buckingham County.

And thirdly, I'm basing this question on my statistical awareness that there are a fair number of people who commute into Charlottesville, specifically University of Virginia Hospital and Martha Jefferson.

out of Buckingham County, that this facility, and they come up, by the way, Route 20, this facility would be welcome, I think, for some of those people, and I think that's terrific.

I think that's probably a question best answered by the FES director and the applicant for this proposal.

So I'm not aware of that and how they plan to provide for or restrict services from other localities.

David, just as a follow-up, I appreciate you telling me that.

The statistical analysis?

Yeah, just information about... Yeah, I'm not... I don't know that.

I think that's something that could be provided.

Again, I think

Mr. Stewart from FES who's been working on the capital project and the funding with the Board of Supervisors.

That information may have been provided.

OK.

I'll hold off on the even more specific questions till later.

Just a different question, David.

Will there be provided any kind of analysis from a public safety standpoint on Route 20 and that intersections with Coles, Rolling Road and profit as well as not profit, but Esmont and Plank coming in.

at that intersection in terms of the occurrence of accidents at that intersection.

It's something I was well aware of in a previous role with the county.

And I just would hope that, you know,

As the board looks at this, that kind of detailed information will also be available.

I know it's not germane to us this evening.

We did receive, unfortunately we didn't get it until several days ago I think, but there is an accident report that VDOT has generated for us.

It does provide for a three year period of time the types and number of accidents that occurred both on Esmont Road and Plank Road.

The general sense of the response or information provided

It does indicate that the accident rate is below what is typical for a rural road in the Culpeper district.

That's one of the ways that they measure it.

And there's an accident rate per million vehicle miles traveled.

It's sort of an abstract looking number, but the rating for both these roads is well below what that standard is.

And it does cover specific accidents that occurred over that period of time.

I believe it's six accidents on Plank Road and nine accidents on Esmont Road.

The majority of the accidents were caused by wet roads, fallen trees, deer and DUIs.

OK, terrific.

I'll just note later that there will be additional traffic now at this intersection as a result of this convenience center, which I support.

But I do think there is going to be a need for some steps taken to ensure that motorists slow down coming north and proceeding south on Scottsville Road, i.e.

Route 20.

to minimize any future accidents.

I'd also note, statistically, when you're measuring the Culpeper district, you factor in on rural roads.

A lot of roads that are even much more isolated and then roads that have much more traffic than this intersection up in the Culpeper and Warrenton area.

But for us, one fatal accident at this intersection is one fatal accident too many.

So I do want to talk about that when we swing back at the end after public comment.

after other people on the commission have an opportunity to follow up with any other additional questions.

Thank you, Rick.

Anyone else before we go?

Yes, I'm not sure.

I'll do that.

Thank you, Julian, for the direction.

Lance Stewart, I'm

Albemarle County's Director of the Department of Facilities and Environmental Services and I've had the lead on this project through past board discussions and public discussions.

And I'm glad to be here today.

Thank you for my 10 minutes.

I'm going to share my screen.

And the computer tells me you can see my screen.

So again, thank you for being willing to entertain this project today.

With me today on the call for questions, if necessary, are Phil McCalups.

He is with the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority.

He's the director of Solid Waste.

and would be responsible for management of this facility.

And also, E. Campbell Bolton.

Campbell is the project manager with Draper Aiden Associates, the engineering firm who's supporting us in this project.

So what is a convenience center?

I think that's a key question to answer.

It's a place to take fundamentally bagged or household trash.

And we're talking here about bagged household trash.

As David said, it's not commercial trash.

And as we envisioned it, and as it's working at the IB convenience center that was open last summer,

It would be a tag-a-bag program.

You can see Sam on the right is an average-sized person in a 32-gallon bag.

It's basically an industrial-sized bag of trash.

Those tags would be available from local merchants for $2 per bag, and that is considered cost-convenient if you're nearby.

compared to the average local hauler costs for curbside collection.

Of course, in the rural parts of the county, curbside access is hardly a guarantee.

I would say it's more rare than it is common for curbside hauler collection to be available.

And as we talked about solid waste and there have been concerns expressed about odors or leakage, I just wanted to show you all an image of the compactor that would be purchased for this.

There is a, if you can see my cursor, there's a feed chute in the front, but the compactor is entirely self-contained.

It does not leak.

And again, we would not accept any commercial waste and it really wouldn't fit in the chute for the compactor.

And we intend fully to make sure that this is removed at the end of every day that the facility is open to avoid any issues with owner building.

And of course, people who are more accustomed to the McIntyre Convention Center think about recyclables first and it is our mission as an organization to make sure that we divert as many materials from the landfill as possible.

So it will have a robust set of carefully streamed glass, plastics, paperboard, tin, and other metals.

We're lucky to have Rivanna Solid Waste Authority with us on this because they make sure that everything that they collect gets recycled, which is very different than the situation with most other alternatives.

And we also anticipate that as an IV we may in the future offer at this site special waste stream collection days.

And that would be really a question for the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority board to authorize in the county and city to co-fund.

Really, I want to focus on what a convenience center is other than what its function is.

and effectively it is a rural service.

This is a map of surrounding counties.

This was in the Long Range Solid Waste Solutions Advisory Committee recommendation from 2015.

I modified it slightly to make the convenience centers easier to see with the red stars and also added the IV convenience center that was open last year.

So this partially speaks to Mr. Randolph's question about neighbors using the convenience center, which would be approximately where my cursor is here.

I expect some of them would on their way to work, but I think you can see that they are not underserved.

In most counties, Greene County does not have one.

Fluvanna has just one.

But we can expect people to cross our borders just as our residents in Southern Albemarle have been crossing borders into other counties to meet their own needs.

And I pulled just today actually some information from 2020.

A survey of Albemarle County residents conducted for us by the Weldon Cooper Center recalled that there were specific questions about solid waste services in the county and recycling services.

These are the responses broken out by type of locality, so rural areas, small towns or villages.

suburban areas or urban areas and response to the question about the quality of solid waste services.

And this is an indication that folks in rural areas are less satisfied with their service.

This is poor and dark red moving to green and excellent to give an indication of where people stand.

And I'll say this is

I think was among the other services that were covered in that survey.

I believe this was ranked third worst.

Similarly, this is same question, same format here, rural, small towns, suburban and urban.

about satisfaction with the quality of recycling services being provided.

And I think this indicates a gap in urban versus rural service levels that we're all aware of.

But I think this also tells us that that gap is acknowledged and recognized by folks not in urban and suburban areas.

And finally, because I like graphs and charts, this was another question asking people to rate how important it is to support and invest in recycling services.

Again, the scale is green for positive all the way to red.

And you can see 79% of respondents in the rural areas said that it's either very important or important to invest in recycling services.

And again, this doesn't reflect the household trash portion of it.

But again, I think that

at least in terms of those who responded to this survey that the feeling on this was pretty clear from individuals in the rural area.

So Mr. Minish stole some of my thunder on the location of the site.

I'll just say that it is just six miles north of Scottsville near the post office as indicated.

and at a crossroads, the Kakeem Crossroads that is, will be very convenient to those people in the rural area that this is intended to serve.

Mr. Binnish also stole my map and I don't really have anything to add to that.

except to say that these big circles are people who would access those who are willing to make the trip.

I think a tighter circle here is the folks who will be more likely to use it frequently.

And if you go back really just a few more slides to take a look at this, I think you can see that the density in some counties of these is higher than what my map shows.

So our service levels still have some way to go, I believe, even under this scenario before we meet the service levels provided by other counties around us.

And I'll just point out a few things about the conceptual design.

I won't go into too much detail due to the limited time.

This is, of course, Esmont Road.

The post office is just up the road.

There's two lanes of traffic.

One is a bypass lane for people to be able to access the solid waste compactors here.

Cardboard compactors are very popular.

This would be this red one here.

And these larger ones are for metals and tin that really are quite large and are only pulled much less frequently than other types of containers.

Our initial intention was to just do one compactor, but we do think that given the rural nature of this area, it may be necessary

to have two.

And so our intention is to, if funding is available, to build out the entirety of the site and stub out electrical conduit and build a pad in the event that it's so popular that we create traffic flow issues if we need to bring another one.

And they are quite expensive, but we're prepared for that eventuality and the site plan submission

to reflect what we think ultimate traffic counts would be.

David also mentioned the hours of operation.

State reinforced a couple of things.

The facility would be closed on Thursdays.

That is intended to give the Rivanna staff to come in and pull the recyclables containers that may have built up over time.

This helps avoid

problems with interacting with vehicles and large trucks at the same time.

So other than the daily trip that would be made by a truck to pull the household waste container, the truck traffic generated from this would all be on a day when it would be closed for other purposes.

I didn't put a bullet here, but I'll mention that the hours will be adjusted seasonally.

There will be no sight lighting, so that won't be a problem for others in the area who might be disturbed by light.

And going back here on the same vein, we show a number of evergreen trees.

There's, of course, a lot of forest, but they're all deciduous trees.

So our intention, this is indicative, we actually will be looking very closely at adding more trees before the final site plan is approved and is part of the project.

all around the full facility.

And this is a privacy fence intended to keep people from dumping illegally and from animals from getting into the site.

There will be privacy screening on that to help cut down on the visual impact of the facility.

and that is the conclusion of my presentation.

I hope I made it under 10 minutes and I'm happy at this time to stop sharing my screen and answer any questions that you may have or pass them on to Phil McCaleb or Campbell Bolton.

Thank you.

I'm wondering, in light of some of the questions from the public that we've received, if there is going to be a well or water source on the site, if there's going to be any detention basin for washing down oil and gas that could accumulate on the paved surfaces as well as the, I think we all know the kind of odiferous juices that come from the compacted

materials when they're moved from that site to another.

I'm going to defer that question to Phil McCalups, who will be the operator for the facility.

Hi, this is Phil McCalups with the Ravenna-Thalit Race Authority.

The compact versus land set are self-contained.

So unlike

Other containers maybe you're familiar with or trash trucks that you've maybe driven, had the joy of driving behind.

These actually do contain all the liquid material that is put into them.

So when they're picked up, they don't leak until they get to the transfer station and are dumped out on the tipping floor.

So we don't expect to see

what we call leachate draining out of these things.

And if there are problems with an individual compactor, that's a maintenance issue and we'll attend to that immediately for a variety of reasons.

The second, as far as wash water, we've been operating the one at Ivy and at McIntyre for years and we really don't generate

a lot of wash water.

If there's a incidental oil spill servicing a contractor because a hydraulic line breaks or something like that, we'll use an oil dry type material and sweep that up and take it off site for disposal.

If we were to call in a washing company, we would contain the liquids.

That doesn't mean that it's going to be a paved parking area, so there will be some incidental

vehicle drips, drops, things like that as you have in any parking lot.

And my understanding is with the stormwater management, that'll have a chance to infiltrate and basically become biologically treated at the soil and not be a runoff issue.

So thank you.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Yes, we would, we really want to avoid doing that for that very reason.

We don't want to have a lot of water being used on site for any reason, because that creates wastewater to manage that later.

The restroom facilities for the staff will be serviced portable toilets as we've used elsewhere.

We use McIntyre as well.

So yeah, we would not have

Thank you.

I think this is probably a question for Philip as well.

It looks like on the site there's going to be source separation, glass, metal, etc.

And are you going to do such source separation even if there is no

National, local, or international market for that material.

My question is, you know,

Are we, on the site, if we have this sort of separation but there's no market for it, are we really helping educate the public as to what is, excuse me, what is recyclable and what is not?

And are we therefore increasing the cost of operation by just having a separate facility for, let's say, glass?

I'm going to pick on glass because I know

And at McIntyre, there is a company that utilizes the glass that is generated there.

But in other localities surrounding us, all of that glass is going basically design crossroads and being landfill.

So it's a question of environmental education and credibility.

So that was, since I've been director of solid waste, that's been one of the important, I won't say most important, safety is probably the most important thing that we're trying to manage here.

but with regard to recycling is that we are being careful to collect those materials that are recyclable.

So if you were familiar a couple of years ago, we quit collecting three through seven plastics because we were collecting them.

They were being bailed along with the one and two plastics sent to Raleigh, going through the sort facility

being sorted out of the material we sent them and then basically landfilled.

And we thought that that, as you just said, attacked our credibility and we didn't wanna be caught out or implying that all that material was being recycled.

All the rest of the material we collect, we do recycle.

I mean, there is some incidental loss.

I won't say that there isn't, you know, a bottle cap comes off,

there's stuff that's lost but I'm talking less than some portion of a percent of our material does not actually get recycled.

Now one thing as far as which do we collect all those different materials and do they all go to different recycling receiving companies?

No, right now because of cost our mixed paper for instance and our cardboard all go to the same

facility south, Sonoco facility, Paper Mill, south of Richmond.

But that's a convenience and we want to maintain that opportunity cost of handling them separately because sometimes cardboard then becomes very valuable instead of being $80 a ton, it's $200 a ton.

But we want to get that credit for doing that, for providing that material at that cost.

Even though it's going to the same place, they buy it at $200 a ton

instead of $80 a ton because that's what they want is their raw material.

So philosophically, I would like to continue to collect, to separate the source-separated material as best as we can, educate customers not to contaminate it, and then try and find the most lucrative markets that we can.

But if we end up at a time where one of our products isn't recyclable,

then that'll be one of the first things we look at is to either find a different market or to terminate collecting it because then we're just disposing of it ourselves.

Good.

Yeah, I didn't really ask many questions because I already participated in the community meeting.

But I just wanted to note, just for the public's benefit, I guess that people from other counties are not going to be able to dispose of their trash at this facility unless they go and buy a sticker.

And I also note that there are ample opportunities to dispose of your trash in facilities in Buckingham and Nelson County.

So it's sort of like there's no reason to come up to our facility and dispose of your trash.

The other point that I'll make is it would be, I'll just say quickly, it would be nice if there were other ways to get the stickers since you're not going to be selling them on site.

Besides mail order, I've seen in other communities where they'll have them available at the local

you know, general stores, you know, if you're like me and you can't get your act together and you forget, you know, you can stop at one of the local stores and get some stickers before you go to the facility.

And I just, for the planning commission, you know, just remember we're, it's fine to ask these questions, of course, but we're actually here tonight to find whether this use is in accordance with the comprehensive plan.

We're not doing a site plan review.

That's all I had.

Thank you for that, Lance, and for Phil.

At this point, since we don't have any questions coming out of your presentation, we're going to go to the public hearing and hear whether or not we have individuals who wish to speak.

And if so, then to cue them up and to get this part of our meeting going.

All right, right now, if there's anybody that would like to speak, please raise your hand.

I have Rex Linville.

Thank you very much.

Good evening.

My name is Rex Linville with the Piedmont Environmental Council, and I live in the Samuel A. Miller district of Albemarle County.

I'd like to briefly share two thoughts that the PEC has regarding the proposed Southern Albemarle Convenience Center.

As you all know, it's a long-held and central tenet of the county's growth management policy that the location of new public facilities should be within the county's development area.

That said, the staff report provides a compelling argument that this particular service falls into the category of public facilities that may be allowed in the rural area due to the nature of the facility or the nature of the service being provided.

I think it's important to point this out

merely to distinguish the proposed use from other public services and infrastructure improvements that could become the camel's nose under the tent and lead to the provision of additional services outside the development area.

More importantly, the proposed site is within the Southern Albemarle Rural Historic District and is proximal to thousands of acres of private land that has been permanently protected with conservation easements.

If not done well, the facility could have a negative impact on the resources

that were acknowledged as special and important in the historic district and that have been permanently protected by private, county, and statewide conservation agencies in the acceptance of those conservation easements.

Specifically, the nomination for the rural historic district describes the region as, quote, physically characterized by its Piedmont landscape, including mountainous woodlands, rolling pastures, and low-lying flood plains of the James River, the barge farms, historic villages, and crossroads communities interspersed throughout

Mr. Lindel, this is the chair.

We missed about three seconds of your comments.

Thank you, sir.

While the property itself does not contain a contributing structure, the undeveloped land does, in fact, add to the general character of the district.

Further, important resources contributing to the district such as Enniscorthy, Plaindealing, and Astuteville are all within the immediate vicinity of the facility.

We were surprised that the historic district was not mentioned in the staff report, although the staff did mention it in the presentation this evening, and believe that the county staff in this commission should give greater attention to the negative impact this facility could have on these important conservation resources and require the applicant to develop a mitigation plan to address those impacts.

For example, the conceptual design and site plan show a cleared road frontage with a few conifers planted as a visual screen.

This site and its surroundings deserve better.

By formally acknowledging the potential impact of the facility on the historic district and the protected landscape as a factor unfavorable, it is our hope that the applicant would be required to provide a more robust screening and landscape management plan geared toward protection of the scenic and historic resources that make this part of Albemarle County such a special place that is worthy of national recognition and distinction.

Thank you.

Sure.

If there's anybody else who would like to speak at this time, please raise your hand so that we can give you that opportunity.

Thank you.

Then we'll close the public hearing and bring it back to Lance.

I'll just say that Mr. Linville's comments are well noted and I

I look forward to reaching out to him to get some suggestions from him on that or taking any direction from the Planning Commission, of course, that he would like to make.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Others?

Thanks.

I want to make a few comments on this.

in particular proposal.

In addition to the staff reasons for this being recommended to be found compliant with the comprehensive plan, I also want to note that the climate action plan that the county adopted recently also calls for a reduction in vehicle miles traveled.

And so I think that for those of us who live, I live on the very, very tip of the county.

and almost the most southernmost house in the county with one exception.

There's one other resident that's more southern than me.

And my drive to the Ivy Materials Center from where I live in the Sam Miller District is 58.5 miles round trip.

The distance if I were to drive from my house to this new center is 27 miles round trip.

And if I were to combo that drive from my office it would be 12.3 miles round trip.

So, I mean, I'm just one example, but one of the things I also want to note is that if you, we just heard from Mr. Linville about the historic nature.

And I think that the staff took that to heart and will do their best to provide adequate screening of this facility.

It is only taking up a two acre footprint of seven acres of wooded cover around it.

But if you spend some time on that road as I did today, and I often do because I live down there, as do another Commissioner on this call, there's trash.

along that road.

And one of the things that we learned at the community meeting was the data that show reduction in roadside dumping and trash.

People are more likely to avail themselves of this facility rather than dumping in the woods.

And I honestly could pledge I will personally do a trash cleanup along that road.

to help once that facility goes in.

But I think that the damage to the look and feel of our historic district is much greater by all the dumping that we are experiencing in southern Albemarle versus what it will look like once there is a clean and safe facility to take our trash to.

I also will note that

if you've been to the facilities in Nelson County, they are clean as a whistle, well-maintained.

I think this facility will be like that.

And the facility that is now currently operated for recycling at the Ivy's Materials Center is also kept extremely neat and tidy.

So, and I have to say much more so than the Charlottesville facility.

So, we heard some of the comments about people's property values being damaged.

in the public comments, but I don't believe that will be the case.

I think this would be a well-run facility.

It's in a convenient location.

People can combo with trips to the post office.

The roads are in pretty good shape for Southern Albemarle.

in terms of if you really want to see some bad roads, I can point them out to you.

But these roads leading to this facility are actually all in pretty good shape.

We also heard in the public meeting comments about bicyclists using that road and others.

I can tell you that when I drive to the IV center, I see at least five to eight bicyclists on the way coming and going.

And I don't see any bicyclists around this facility.

So it's like there are bicyclists riding our rural roads

all across the county.

That's a wonderful thing, but I don't think there's any greater impact of bicyclists in this location.

And I do think that the people in Southern Albemarle deserve a place to take their trash.

And last thing I'll say is just that people also assume that there are lots of choices for trash pickup.

And I can tell you in the Sandmiller District, there simply are not.

We don't have the ability to have affordable

trash pickup, and an almost 60 mile round tip to take recycling is frankly, I think unacceptable to those of us who care about the environment.

So I'll leave it at that, but I just wanted to kind of give you my perspective on this facility.

Now, of course, it literally is on the line between my district and Rick's district.

Thank you.

Rick?

I would just note that most cyclists are not going to be using Esmont Road, because of its twisting nature and the hills that are there with vehicles could be extremely dangerous.

that most cyclists are, if they're going east-west into this corridor, they're coming across Plank Road.

I will also note as a cyclist, about 10 days ago on a Saturday, I was on the Tour de Green, which dipped down into northern

Northwestern Albemarle County, Advance Mills, Dyke, that area.

And the level of trash that I saw along the sides of the road was just really disappointing.

I will say to Karen, I hope you're right that having a convenience center is going to be the panacea, the kind of the silver bullet to clean up the disposal of trash along our roads.

I'm going to express some skepticism that the convenience center alone is going to solve that problem.

I know annually, if not biannually, VDOT has had to clean up Route 20, essentially just south of PVCC all the way down to Scottsville.

because of the quantity of trash that gets generated.

And if you do a content analysis, you find the number one problem is we don't have a bottle bill in this state.

And so beer cans, beer bottles,

et cetera, all get disposed day and night along the road.

And then the second major thing that I picked up on 10 days ago was the amount of paper goods from fast food stores that just gets thrown out the door.

So easy in the window after you pay.

and then easy out the window after you've finished eating.

So Karen, I hope you're right about it.

Let's see in five years if Route 20 is cleaner year round as a result of having the convenience center there.

I suspect it will improve somewhat, but I'm afraid unless we get to a point of really making people that use the roads aware that we're all in this together,

that we need to share the roads being clean.

That's the problem I have with the message to motorists is you're meant to yield to the cyclists.

And the message in France

is we're all in this together.

So cyclists and motorists need to be aware of one another.

Well, somehow or other, we've got to get to a notion of a collective responsibility, all of us together, to keep our roads and highways as beautiful as they can be.

I'm interested to hear what Rick is going to suggest, but just a couple of things.

I'd like to respond to Mr. Linbell's point, because I think it's well taken.

We have a number of rural historic districts.

And as somebody who's been involved in author, co-authored the bulletin on rural historic districts that led to a lot of the guidelines that are used around the country today, back in the 80s.

There are a lot of things that just as Black Lives Matter has shown us,

that there are a lot of things that have been missed.

There are a lot of things that were missed in rural historic districts that a lot of us hoped could start coming in and are now we're taking a relook.

So actually the rural historic districts around the country and around the county are actually being looked at for additions for things that were omitted.

But Mr. Linville talked, when he talked about the land, he also talked about a number of things.

And one of those were the crossroads communities.

and I think that a crossroads community like this is the proper location for a facility like the Convenience Center.

Rural historic districts and history tell us the story over time and there's a newer facility of a post office but it's a very significant component of that crossroads community and I see this Convenience Center as serving an important element

today for a number of functions.

And it continues to tell that evolving story of that.

And by doing that, it keeps it so that we're not having a really incompatible use along Route 20, where we do have the fields and the woods, wooded areas, and then all of a sudden a convenience center.

This is much more logically in the location where it is.

So I'm bringing this up.

because I'm taking Karen's point, consistency with the comp plan.

I think that this is actually consistent with the comp plan and the rural historic district component of that by being located where it is as opposed to out in the middle of nowhere.

As we all know, many of these convenience centers are in rural areas.

So there will be eyes on the street, if you will,

because of this.

And I think that that's really important.

Besides the fencing, the gate, and the person servicing, it's good to be where there are more activities occurring.

Proximity to the post office I think is important.

Before we go back to Rick, is there anyone else before we go to Rick?

Tim, thank you for the lead out there, appreciate it.

I have talked with Supervisor Price about this issue, and it's certainly something I've thought about for a number of years because of the complaints from people living

and working at the crossroads of Plank Road, Esmont and Route 20.

But I do feel that VDOT is going to need to step up here by providing flashing lights warning that this is a dangerous intersection.

And we probably need to have equal warning

and Dave Benish from both Esmont Road and also Coles Rolling Road for people to be aware of what they're coming into at Route 20, given now our expectation that there should be more traffic

accumulating immediately in that area as people utilized the convenience center.

So I think that's the best we're going to be able to do.

Probably in 50 years, there will be a traffic light at that intersection.

But as Supervisor McKeel often says, at that point, probably all of us are going to be pushing up daisies, and it would be another planning commission to worry about.

But I do feel we just need to be prudent and cautious

and knowing that there's going to be increased traffic and people can be impatient, waiting in line, if in fact lines do arise, Lance, on this facility as people drop off trash and they're a little behind schedule to get to a meeting in Charlottesville that they're going to want to speed up 20.

So we need to do everything possible to just remind them to be cautious about that intersection.

So that's all I have.

I do think it is germane to the discussion.

I just wanted to make a point to Mr. Randolph and others that I did not say that the recycling and trash disposal center would be a panacea for all trash on the roads of Albemarle County.

I was citing the staff's presentation at the community meeting where they used actual studies that showed that the proximity of a recycling slash trash station was a predictor for reduced roadside garbage.

So you can take that up with them if you'd like to see their studies.

There's also multiple studies that have been done and have the articles in my possession that talk about the fact that when people see trash, they're more likely to throw it.

Done all kinds of interesting behavioral studies with picking up trash and then finding less trash was thrown as a result.

So, you know, it's the broken window theory.

I'm sure everyone has heard that and is involved with planning.

If you have a broken window, you tend to have more broken windows.

If you do the repairs, the cleanup, you tend not to have as many problems.

So that's all out there.

There's also articles on

the fact that if you have pay-as-you-go trash, you also tend to have an uptick in recycling.

So I sent Rick that article for his thrilling reading later on, but just to say that I'm actually prepared to make a motion.

I don't know if we want to have more discussion about this.

Can we pause for a second to see if any of our colleagues wish to say something at this time?

Absolutely.

Seeing no one jumping in there, Karen, please go forward with what you suggested.

Oh, thank you.

There's the man behind the shadow.

He's a very efficient guy.

All right.

Is there a second?

Seconded by Rick.

Is there any discussion?

Madam, are you coming on for discussion?

I see you unmuted yourself.

No, I was getting ready to go ahead and say aye.

You're welcome.

Hold your eye.

Just hold your eyes there.

Yes.

Ms.

Firehock?

Aye.

Thank you very much.

So where is the, there's David.

So David and Lance, thank you very much.

So you heard from the commission on that we in fact in funding a substantial accord and that, you know, I assume you got the various bits of advice and support that allow you to go forward with this plan as, and hopefully not have it happen like in the nineties where we got, we had a yes.

and then it didn't go anywhere.

So let's hope it doesn't sit in a file for another X period, but that we actually get a convenience center down in that crossword area.

And I know this is a small thing, but seeing CCP, that just took me back to the

something other than CCP.

And don't do it, Rick.

Don't do it.

Don't do it.

But that would be cool.

But thank you for your time tonight.

I knew it.

Committee reports.

Who has committee reports for today?

No committee reports for the day.

Well, I will share the last, today's Tuesday, right?

I mean it is fuzzy it was in your CAC you know but in the magisterial Rio district but it's a rezoning request as a community meeting for a rezoning request for

Roughly about eight acres, just under eight acres, in front of the rehab facility off of Royal Road.

So just down from the garden spot, if you like the garden, going towards Albemarle High School from 29, just past the garden spot and before the Four Seasons neighborhood.

There's, I think, was it five parcels in total?

They owned one, so five in total.

No date has been set right now.

The rezoning is to move from an R6 to up to 250 townhome complex with a 15% affordable housing proffer on the 200 bonus, which would come in to about 30

I think it's good to have housing like that.

We'll wait for it to kind of move through the system before it is, but if you'd like to learn more about it, I'm sure the staff would be willing to share any additional

I think it's probably going to be a little bit higher because of our new affordable housing policy.

I think it's probably going to be higher on that.

My piece on it is I just wish it wasn't called the heritage on Rio.

That's the only thing that I will ask staff to perhaps have a conversation that it doesn't need to be called the heritage.

but other than that, you know, it's three stories and then four story apartment buildings.

I think there's sort of like five or six, six, six pods, six, six units.

It'll be interesting to see how it moves through.

But the nice thing about it is you can walk to a whole host of things from there and we're still going to still maintain some of the green area around it.

Yeah.

Yeah, I agree with that.

So that's the only one that the two of us had together.

And does anybody else have anything that they want to mention?

OK.

Old business.

What you saw on your plan, we have some new business.

That's the appointment of a Planning Commission member to the Charlottesville Albemarle Metropolitan Planning Organizations, Rana River Bicycle and Pedestrian Bridge Advisory Group for smart scale 2020 application process.

Jessica joined us a few months ago.

I think this is the first time she's had the opportunity to compete before the commission here.

So she is our principal planner, transportation, feeling Kevin McDermott, she's from where he was promoted from.

And I think you heard the conversation about the crossroads tonight.

I think I saw you there.

Did I not?

I did.

And I will pass things along.

So we'll duly welcome on behalf of the committee to your first presentation on this side of the coin and this side of the realm.

Great.

So as you know from the memo in your packet, I'm here to request that you guys appoint one of your members to a stakeholder advisory committee looking at a potential project, the Rivanna River Bike and Pedestrian Bridge.

And this is a bridge to connect a multimodal connection between the Woolen Mills area and the Pantops area.

So the reason we're making this request is because actually the Charlottesville Albemarle MPO has

created a new process for their SmartScale applications.

They have worked with their committees, including their policy board, to identify four projects that they want to submit for round five of SmartScale, which will be in 2022.

Of those four projects that they've already chosen, one of those is the Rivanna River Bike and Pedestrian Bridge.

So this is, like I said, a needed multimodal connection.

It's been identified in a couple of different plans, including the Pantops Master Plan.

Just to give you a little bit more background, VDOT has been involved in this project for a little while.

They hired consultants and those consultants have identified two potential alignments for the bridge.

One just a little bit further north going from city to county and another one further south going from actually county to county.

A member of one of the TJPDC's committees also identified a third alignment.

So this project has had a little bit of public engagement through the TJPDC, but as part of before they feel ready, before the MPO feels ready to submit the project as a smart scale application, they'd like to do additional public engagement, including many stakeholders from both the county and the city.

This committee, and I'm going to quote from Sandy Shackelford from the MPO, the purpose of the committee would be to evaluate and prioritize a number of factors that need to be considered as the alignment is determined and additional design considerations are discussed to inform the final application.

Whoever joins this committee will be joining representatives from the Charlottesville Planning Commission, from the Pantop CAC, as well as staff from Charlottesville and Albemarle, from our community development, and also from Parks and Rec, among others.

So Jessica, let me ask a question.

He's going to wiggle now when I say this.

How much of this does it line up with the Citizens Transportation Advisory Committee Liaison?

Great question.

I believe that they were expecting that that would be a separate individual.

OK.

OK.

Oh, does he?

Oh, OK.

And let me ask a question about the other one, about the MPO tech.

How, what's their, having served on that now, Tim serves on that.

Let me pull up a document while I'm talking to you.

I don't believe that they have a representative on this stakeholder committee, although they will be like the entire citizens transportation advisory committee.

They'll be informed of how this process is going throughout.

So one thing that I neglected to mention is that this committee will meet monthly under the direction of the MPO, and they will meet monthly starting in November and going all the way up until pre-applications are submitted in April.

I believe I wrote that incorrectly in your memo.

I said May, but it's actually one month shorter.

Thank you.

Discussion, folks.

Well, first, welcome, Jessica.

I think it's our game that you're with Albemarle County.

So it's great to see you in this view.

My sense is that there's been, and Daniel, correct me if I'm wrong about how much involvement there's been from the CTAC, but the MPOTAC had a great deal of involvement in suggesting who would be on the committee.

and certainly in reviewing SmartScale.

So I guess because we don't want, Jessica, you might be seeing it from a different perspective than us, but we like to double up wherever we can double up because it means that we have people who have the knowledge and they can, well, we have less meetings that we have to go to because we have, I guess Charles could tell you how many meetings we have, representations, but it must be over a dozen.

So I would suggest

that we appoint in the next year, because there'll be some changes on the commission.

I, for one, will not be there.

And I'm MPO Tech now that either that or C-TAC, that individual, one of those two individuals does this as well.

I agree with that sentiment.

We have spoken about it on SeaTac a couple of times here and most recently putting together who reach out.

One mission that was on it that we added suggested was the, you know, Rivanna trail group was not on the original list.

And so I'm with you.

I don't want to say indifferent,

Mr. Keller, but I'm always happy to take less meetings, given my busy meeting schedule, but happy to serve, because I think it doesn't make sense for either MPO tech or C tech liaison to sit on this commission, but I don't want to unless someone else within the commission is jumping up and down to be representative.

Corey's like in this frozen mode.

He's like gone into broadband freeze there.

It's like, I'm not moving.

I'm not going to shift on this one.

Nobody's going to confuse my movement for a nod.

Rick.

Yes.

Corey has two reasons.

Oh, correct.

Yeah.

All right, well, we just had our colleague with all of the secret spy maps step forward so that that would probably be helpful for him to look at be able to sort of cast one of his satellites over the Rivanna to see if this is really working right.

If you want a satellite test, I'll push a button right here.

See, look, see, see, see, see?

I'm telling you, it's incredible the sort of the expertise we have on our commission.

It's amazing.

So, well then, I guess it's my role, counselor, I can close the nominations, can I?

OK.

Everyone sort of, do I have to vote?

Do I have to vote for closing the nomination?

Is there, can I have a, I'm moving it, so can I have a second there to close the nomination?

So moved.

Some move, some move by Karen.

Is there any discussion?

Can we vote quickly on this, Madam, on just closing the nomination?

Thank you, counselor.

Thank you for helping us to get out of here before eight o'clock.

I would make that adjustment.

And Karen, would you do that?

Fine.

The nominee is Daniel Bailey, Commissioner Daniel Bailey from the Rio district.

Yes.

Ms.

Firehock?

Aye.

Do I have to vote for myself?

We would like you to.

You don't have to.

You can abstain, but we would prefer that you voted in the affirmative.

So thank you.

Thank you that, Kerry.

Daniel, thank you for doing this.

And I think having you there will be helpful for all of us and also helpful for this project.

So thank you for agreeing to do that.

And Jessica, is that what you need?

Good.

She's smiling.

She said, oh, that was nice.

I get to come, I get to lose pieces of paper.

This is the one thing I do miss about, I miss about being able to give you all a hard time.

But I'm working in a space that's like this big, so I'm constantly throwing pieces of paper on the floor and picking pieces of paper up.

So Mr. Chair, we also need to get an appointment for the CIP advisory committee.

Mr. Firehock has been doing that, but I think we're about ready to start planning our CIP budget process in the next few months.

So that's going to run out of our normal assignments, which we typically do in January.

Because right now we have Karen Firehock as our designee.

Oh, right.

Well, if anyone wants to know, I did apply to be reappointed because I actually got weirdly excited about the comprehensive plan update and the zoning update.

So that just shows I'm truly a nerd.

But the other thing to know is that the supervisor for whom I would be serving is running unopposed.

So it would be very strange if he lost the election running all by himself.

So if I'm reappointed, I would be happy to continue on the CIP.

I also strangely enjoy that.

I find it a lot of fun.

Do we have anyone who would like to throw his or her hat, since Jenny's not here, his hat into the ring on the CIP?

Been counsel.

I think I'm allowed to close the nomination and move forward, Ms.

I would like to move that we close the nomination and that we move forward with Karen Firehock as our nominee and appointment to the CIP Advisory Committee.

Is there a second?

Second by Rick.

Is there any further discussion?

Yes.

Mr. Clayborne.

Aye Mr. Bivins Aye Mr. Randolph Aye Ms.

I didn't say no one else wanted to be the Sam Miller Planning District Commissioner.

I have no knowledge of that.

Thousands out there.

We had October 6th.

There was a work session with the board on the comprehensive plan to try and wrap up that draft scope.

And we will be back with the board in early

November to talk about our engagement plan and then working with Ms.

Falkenstein to come back to this PC and give y'all an update and also get some feedback on some of your thoughts and ideas on the zoning ordinance updates, comp plan, and just kind of have an opportunity to share some thoughts and give some guidance and ideas.

The sixth, we also had a public hearing for the zoning map amendment for Breezy Hill, which was approved by the Board of Supervisors.

and then we had another work session just last Wednesday on the Rio Road Corridor Study, also managed by Mr. Benesch and our consultant team with Lime Plus Grade and a few other county staff members and we will be bringing some of that information as we continue making progress on that back to this commission for some feedback as well from you all.

So I think we are due to see each other after the night in this format on November the 9th.

In November, as of now, we have a couple of public hearings on November 9th, and we have a work session on the CIP with Andy Benman from the Office of Management and Budget.

He's asked for some time with the Commission to talk about projects in our CIP process.

and then we don't have anything scheduled yet for the second week, November 23rd.

December is pretty light so far.

We do have a public hearing for a special use permit for December 7th meeting, but that's all we have full now.

As your travel plans or your time away from our Zoom gatherings arise, if you would just send that information to Charles and to me, that would be helpful.

Appreciate it.

And Carolyn.

So Carolyn, Charles, and Nick would be very helpful.

Anything else for the good of the cause?

No, you voted.

And if you haven't voted, no, you're going to vote.

And until then, stay safe.

And at some point, I want to hear who's gotten their second or their third doses, or if you're like me, a J&J person, a second dose.

Perhaps when we come back together, I'd just like to hear how that's all going.

That's my push that you should go get them.

In any event, have a good night and see you in a couple of weeks, folks.

Bye-bye.

There we go.

It's okay.