Planning Commission Regular Meeting   10/25/2022

The opportunities for the public to access and participate in the hybrid meeting are posted on the Albemarle County website, on the Planning Commission homepage, and on the Albemarle County calendar.

Participation will include the opportunity to comment on those matters for which comments from the public will be received.

Can you hear me?

Yes, ma'am.

Ms.

Firehock?

Here.

And Mr. Clayborne?

Yes, he's absent, he's out of town on business for his profession.

All right, so with that, we'll move forward into other matters not listed on the agenda from the public.

Is there anyone here to speak to a matter that is not on the formal agenda this evening?

Seeing no one rising, we will move on to the next item.

We have the consent agenda.

Let me just check what's on this.

Is there anything that commissioners would like to pull from the consent agenda?

It's just the approval of the draft session minutes and draft regular meeting minutes from September 27th, 2022.

So moved.

So moved to adopt.

So moved to adopt.

Is there a second?

Second.

All right.

Adopted and seconded.

Any discussion?

Yes, can you tell me who seconded?

I couldn't tell who it was.

Mr. Missel.

Okay, thank you.

Mr. Murray?

Aye.

Mr. Carrazana?

Aye.

Ms.

Firehock?

Aye.

Thank you.

The consent agenda passes unanimously.

We'll now move on to our first public hearing of the evening, SP202200018, St.

Paul's Ivy Preschool.

Yes, please.

Rebecca Ragsdale, a planning manager, and I'll be doing the staff presentation this evening once we get it up on the screen there.

Just a second.

So this is for St.

Ivey's, excuse me, St.

Paul's Ivey Priest Bull, and it is a special use permit request within an existing church building.

I'm going to orient everyone to the location.

It's at 851 Owensville Road and the property is also accessed from Neves Lane.

It is about 15 acres and is designated rural areas in the comprehensive plan but zoned village residential because it's in what used to be the

what we call villages in our older comprehensive plans.

So there's some nearby commercial uses like Dooners and Scott's Ivy and Ivy Exxon along 250.

It is near 250.

I mentioned it's the existing church building that will be used for the preschool.

The photo you saw earlier on the title slide was this portion of the building, the back of the building, where you see the drop-off is where

That will be.

So to orient you, this is Owensville Road and this is the Owensville Road and existing entrance entrance into the parking lot, which folks would then loop around here to drop off and then exit out onto Neves Lane.

And then the portion of the building that will be used for the preschool is the lower level.

There's some existing classrooms that will work well.

and then the playground area is over here.

There's also a cemetery and the edges are primarily buffered with trees and then beyond the trees on the north is some lower density residential.

This is just an overview slide of the proposal.

It's a

A proposal for only 24 students.

And as I mentioned, we went over what what would be used on the site, but this is their concept plan, which has some of the things labeled in terms of play areas and parking areas.

There's also plenty of parking available for staff to tuck their cars behind the building.

The hours would be from nine to 12, Monday through Friday with an extended day option to 2pm.

This has been reviewed by staff to consider the pickup and drop off and VDOT has reviewed it and didn't have any objections to the request.

We've analyzed it against the criteria in the ordinance for special use permits and don't believe there would be any detriment to abutting properties or any transportation safety concerns and did find it to be consistent with the comprehensive plan given the size and scale of the use.

And the comprehensive plan also mentions that there is a need for these types of services in the rural area.

So we think this would be a good location and is using only existing facilities and is pretty limited in size.

I will note we did have the community meeting and there were a few in attendance.

Many supportive of the school had a lot of questions about the school program and some were bringing up traffic in the area, which is not uncommon.

There was also an email that came through this week from one of the neighbors that had some concerns about Neves Lane primarily related to maintenance which we'll follow up with VDOT on that.

So the staff recommendation is for approval and we've gone over our conclusions related to our reasons why and we didn't have any concerns about this proposal.

So with the recommendation of approval, I'll pause for questions.

We have some conditions I can bring up on the screen with the conditions.

OK, does anyone have any questions for staff about this application?

Hearing none, thank you very much.

We'll now hear from the applicant.

So if you haven't testified to the County Planning Commission before, you'll see there's a set of lights on the podium there.

Green is go, yellow means you're running close to out of time, and red means stop.

So you'll have a chance to present, and then we'll ask you questions, then we will have the public to come up and speak if they would like to, and then we have a chance to call you back up if you want to add any additional clarification.

So with that, we'll go ahead and get you started.

Also, please state your name,

Good evening.

Thank you so much for this opportunity to talk a little bit about this project that we're very excited about.

I'm Dr. Allison Kretlow, one of the two directors for the proposed preschool, and this is Audie Barlow, the Director of Children's and Youth Ministries at St.

Paul's.

I'll primarily be speaking on behalf of the preschool, but Audie is here to answer any questions that might arise that are more related to the church as a whole.

And Melissa Kelly, the other co-director of the proposed preschool, is not here because she's feeling under the weather.

Our rector, Father Justin McIntosh, is also here with us tonight.

I know you had the opportunity to review the proposal, but if you would allow me just a moment to say a few words about our project that might be helpful in further understanding our goals, values, and intentions in starting this program.

Just a little bit of personal information.

My entire 19-year career has been focused on early childhood learning.

My undergrad, masters, and PhD are all in early elementary and special education, and I've taught preschool, elementary school, provided teacher development with local counties, and worked in early intervention.

When I became a mom of two young children, I decided to take a pause from full-time work in the field.

The pause uniquely allowed me to see firsthand the needs of the Western Albemarle County families with preschool aged children, because I am one of those families.

As the population growth in this part of the country or county has grown exponentially over the last 10 years, the preschool offerings have not really been able to keep up with the increased demand.

Almost all of the Christian and secular preschools in the area have extensive wait lists.

and families with children as young as a few months old feel pressure to secure a spot for their children who are two years away from actually attending school.

We had one such family email us before the community meeting to say, I don't have any problems with this, but I have a three month old, could we get started in your preschool?

That just gives you an idea of like, you know, the level of demand there is.

Through happenstance, I was never planning on being a preschool director.

Opening a preschool is never even part, never on my radar.

My co-director and dear friend of almost a decade, Melissa Kelly, and I both re-entered teaching in the last couple of years, both in preschool settings.

And that work inspired a curiosity about why our own church,

that we love so dearly and feel very connected to did not have a preschool even though we have the perfect space for it.

So we reached out to the church, eventually prepared a proposal, and last spring it was approved by the governing board, the vestry with much enthusiasm.

We then embarked on this special use permit process.

We see this preschool as a true extension of our church's existing ministry.

We did not embark on this adventure to create a profitable business, but rather a small Christian-based educational experience that prepares children for kindergarten.

We'll focus on Bible stories taught through the monastery curriculum, Godly Play, social-emotional learning, literacy, math, music, and art.

We're committed to providing evidence-based early childhood education experiences that include small staff to student ratios and regular opportunities for families to interact in the school and with us in the community.

If you have specific curriculum questions, I'm more than happy to answer them.

In closing, to paint a picture of the day-to-day, a maximum of 24 students across three classrooms, a total of four teachers, half-day program, nine to 12,

with an optional stay and play for lunch and additional childcare.

We estimate about 20% of families will opt to use the stay and play.

We hope to serve families in the hyperlocal area of Ivy and Crozet.

We're very excited about this possibility to contribute to our community in a meaningful and needed way.

Okay, if that concludes your presentation, do commissioners have questions for the applicant?

So there's a few reasons.

One being that the physical space that we have at St.

Paul's, some of it has to be kept separate for our Sunday school classrooms.

The godly play curriculum has a lot of materials and they're very expensive just to be like very upfront.

It takes a lot of effort to set those up and to run those programs and it would be extremely difficult for us to share that space on a daily basis.

But we do have two dedicated classrooms that can serve children that come two days a week, three days a week, and then five days a week.

The half day is really in accordance with what the literature says in terms of the attention span, activities that you can accomplish, and I think you will find in most preschools that the second half of the day is lunch, sleep, and play.

So we also want to have an environment that really encourages family involvement as well.

We're not looking for this to be a daycare.

We're not looking for it to really be, I mean, it is childcare, right?

Okay, I have another question.

Any other questions?

Okay, so it seems like we don't have any other questions for you at this time.

I did attend the community meeting it's a pretty straightforward application you already have space within the existing building.

You already have a circulation pattern for the traffic so this particular application is not truly complex.

And I think you made a good case at the community meeting that you mentioned a number of schools had closed in the area, preschool care, that even made the demand higher than it already was.

So with that, we'll give the public a chance to make any comments they would like, and then we'll invite you back up again.

Thank you.

Is there anyone from the public who would wish to comment on this application?

OK, seeing no one come forward, I'm closing the public portion of this.

All right.

And I'll take it back to the commission for, well, if you'd like to make another comment, even though the public has said nothing.

OK.

All right.

So with that, we'll just deliberate amongst ourselves.

Any comments or concerns about the applications?

We have a need.

We saw a group two weeks ago that was 35 near Crozet.

Now we're going 24 at Ivy Village, if I may use that language.

And while that's good,

It still doesn't seem like we're in that particular part of the county where we have a tremendous, if you look at some of the census stuff that came out, there's a need.

Well, I think the St.

Okay, well, that is not something we're asking you to do this evening.

All I'm seeing was a seal, okay.

All right, well, since this is in my district, I will go ahead and make the motion.

I move to recommend approval of SB 202200018 St.

Paul's Ivy Preschool with conditions as recommended in the staff report.

Is there a second?

Second.

All right, seconded by Lonnie.

Can we have any further discussion?

Seeing none, okay.

Yes.

Ms.

Firehock?

Aye.

Thank you.

OK, this motion passes unanimously.

The next step is you move on to the Board of Supervisors, who has the final say.

Our recommendation is just that, a recommendation for approval.

They will have the final decision.

Thank you very much for coming, and good luck.

All right, so the next one we have, another school.

SP2200019, Keswick School,

and the Magisterial District of Rivanna.

Good evening, Chair Firehock, members of the Planning Commission.

My name is Kevin McCollum.

I'm a Senior Planner with the Planning Division of Albemarle County.

Tonight, I'll be giving staff's presentation on Special Use Permit Application, SP-2219, the Keswick School.

This is a proposed Special Use Permit Amendment for a private boarding school in Keswick, Virginia.

The subject property is located at 4075 Keswick Road near the intersection of Keswick Road and Route 22, Louisa Road.

It is located just east of the city of Charlottesville.

The property is nearly 22 acres and is zoned rural areas.

Property has been home to a private boarding school known as the Keswick School since the 1960s.

The property has several buildings and structures associated with the school, including dormitories, classrooms, gym, pond, playfield offices, and associated parking.

The character of the surrounding area includes rural area uses, including low density residential, agricultural uses, farmlands, a blacksmith, and some nearby churches.

The most recent approved special use permit for the school was approved in 2007.

The school also has an approved site plan.

The maximum enrollment for the school is currently set at 35 students.

The applicant has requested an amendment to the Keswick School's existing special use permit to modify the conceptual plan to include a new arts center, a storage building, and a horse barn.

There is no increase in student enrollment proposed.

The applicant has indicated a need for these new structures as a result of a recent fire that destroyed one of the school's multipurpose buildings and to meet the needs of the student population.

The conceptual plan on the screen here provides an overview of the school's entire campus, including what is existing and also what's proposed.

The special use permit application was reviewed under the factors for consideration as outlined in the zoning ordinance.

Staff believes the proposed new buildings will not be detrimental to adjacent parcels, will not change the character of the nearby area, will keep the school in harmony with the rural area zoning district, and is consistent with the comprehensive plan.

So further, staff found that the positive aspects for this application are the use is consistent with the comp plan and rural area plan.

The proposal has no increase in student enrollment and there's no detrimental impacts to adjoining properties anticipated.

Staff did not identify any concerns associated with this application at this time.

Staff recommends approval with the conditions as recommended in the staff report.

And so that concludes my presentation.

Like Rebecca, I have motions on the next slide and also have the conditions there if we want to pull those up.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Any questions for staff on this application?

I do.

I have a question.

So good evening.

So I have this fundamental question.

Why do they even have to go through this?

Because it seems everything that they're coming for us tonight is the replacement of buildings from the 2001 fire.

And so my question is, if something burns down and I just want to replace the thing that burned down,

Why do I have to come back and go through this process?

I'm not saying I want to heal a path.

I'm saying I want to put back the barn which burned down and the art studio which burned down, according to the Stuart and Columbus letter.

Yeah, so there's kind of two parts of that.

There's what's shown on the conceptual plan and then what's shown on the approved site plan.

And one of the conditions of that previous special use permit was that the site had to be in accord with that conceptual plan.

Thank you.

Yes, as I emailed staff previously, the conceptual plan shows several sewage disposal areas within the stream buffer, the 100 feet of the stream.

And currently, the stream is not vegetated to the 100 foot buffer that we would normally have.

Understand that a lot of this is because it's probably before our water protection ordinance was in place.

Given my understanding is the size of the barn is going to be increased, correct?

So what are the mitigating factors?

What's the stocking rate of the horses that are going to be put in that area?

Sure, we shared those comments with the applicant.

I'm not sure if they can touch on it when they're up here, but we also talked about it with engineering.

They said a lot of animal waste associated with agricultural uses are kind of exempt from these water protection ordinances.

That's accurate, so also with the special use permit,

The water protection ordinance would apply to any of the new areas on this plan.

It would not be grandfathered, you know, the old areas would be grandfathered in.

It would not apply retroactively to previous facilities for other structures on the site.

Just pointing out in 2014, it would have applied before the ordinance was changed.

Okay.

Any other questions or comments?

All right.

Any other questions for staff at this time?

Okay.

So come on up.

Same rules as before.

You have a set time limit.

The green means go, yellow means you're just about to run out of time, and red means stop.

And you'll have a chance to come back up after we hear from the public if you want to add additional comments.

Please state your name or the record into the mic.

Is it not working yet?

Thank you so much.

It's all right.

This trips everyone up.

My name is Mark Columbus.

I'm the head of school at Keswick School.

I've been head of school for 30 years.

This is Donna Stewart from Abrahamson Company.

The actual depot.

there.

So we're happy with them and they are preferred.

They are our preferred contractor for this arts program.

So Keswick School is known as a therapeutic special education boarding school.

This year will be our 60th year of operation.

We have boys that come from all the United States and abroad.

We have boys that come from Hong Kong,

Norway, Sweden, Egypt, Peru, Egypt, and the continental United States were nationally recognized for the work that we do as a therapeutics publication boarding school.

Boys that come to us are between the ages of 9 to 15 upon admissions.

They don't usually graduate.

They're about two years length of stay.

Strong clinical program.

The boys may have diagnosis of ADHD, may have some anxiety or learning difficulties, could be on the spectrum, on the high end of the spectrum.

It's not uncommon for boys to have average to superior IQs, 150, 160.

So they're less sophisticated, sort of a little bit quirky.

We had a boy just graduate from UVA School of Engineering or Elon College down the road.

So the special use permit is really focusing on the replacement of a building that burnt down in March of 2021.

So if we look at that and see the fire is called at three o'clock in the morning, one of the older buildings, two story.

Again, the replacement is a one story building.

spread it out a little bit more.

It housed our art center, wood shop, art room, ceramics, a drama center, therapist's office, and some storage.

So, you know, when you're looking at, you know, trying to replace all those factors, it's a lot.

the boys some of their first experiences and successes have been in you know turning my first pin or my first bowl or I know you see a lot of boys on the spectrum that have a tendency to lean into acting because they all of a sudden they become someone different you know and they

They experienced those things.

So arts is very much a part of that.

The county helped us and Abraham's company helped us renovate a garage.

We added a section to it, a double garage at about 15 feet.

And we have a temporary shop in there.

Art is now temporarily done in the in the library.

So we're putting these pieces together, but again, it is for replacement and we're not increasing enrollment.

So there's the fire that night.

Pretty, pretty traumatic for staff.

We were all in there, administratively, we were all in there by three o'clock in the morning.

3.30, we got the call about three therapists were working with kids at the time in the dorms and

We were able to very quickly with Abraham sort of mitigate Albemarle County.

Chief Maddox came in and couldn't find the cause of the fire.

It's an older building, so we're not sure.

But it means a lot to the kids as far as an art center and programming and what they're able to do.

To answer some of your questions about the land and the facility, down in the left-hand corner, the lower left-hand corner, can I move around?

Right here was the building that burned down.

We're not building it there because it's in the floodplain.

I mean, I think we were paying for 10 feet of the building was in the floodplain, and I think we're ending up paying $20,000 a year for flood insurance.

I felt the pain of the people in Florida recently.

I just couldn't believe it.

But you know, the mortgage company wouldn't give us the mortgage without that.

So that's the reason that we're moving it back here.

It is out of the water protection ordinance.

buffer.

We made clear that we would do that.

It's all one story now.

Arts, we'll look at the floor plan real quickly.

This is an art center and then ceramics and arts, multi-purpose stem room, and then drama and assembly.

With that, when we lost the barn, we lost our storage area because right now the storage area

The garage right here was turned into a temporary shop.

So we're building Henrico County.

My daughter lives close there.

They have the green buildings in keeping and we'll do some plantings around it with two doors where we can have storage for residential equipment.

They do a lot of biking and canoeing and things like that.

So we would have that.

We are not planning on increasing enrollment.

We're going to keep it at 35.

It's just the quality of programming we got to get back in the facility.

We had drawings of the barn, which is located right there.

I think the footprint is only increased by just a few square feet.

If we were going to renovate that down the road, I think planners said this is the point time to put it in.

You asked about the special use permit.

And I think if we are a little bit more savvy than we were years ago, we would have put some of these things in there so we don't have to keep coming back.

But this was out of necessity because of the footprint of this building being different from the one here that was in the floodplain and burned down.

We only have seven horses.

It's an equine program for special needs kids.

The horses we lease out this field here.

and we lease out a field across 731 on a farm owned by Vicki and Mark Columns.

So the only time the horses are brought into riding is when it's time to ride and they come in through here and they come in through this gate and come around.

There's a dam right here and they come around to riding.

It's not a barn where the horses stay in the barn, the horses stay in the fields.

and so that mitigates, you know, horse manure.

You know, I mean, there's only going to be a couple times the horse may be pooing in the riding ring during riding, but it's not that massive sort of stall area or keeping area where they just keep the horses in there and keep it going.

I think

I think I'm certainly happy to answer any of your questions.

This is the profile of the building now that we're thinking about.

All one level, real simple, poured, should be pretty cheap by Abrahams to help us out.

Nothing cheap.

We started construction of the depot when all the prices tripled, you know, so I was having a heart attack.

But this is great.

The only comment I can have here is the cost of moving the southwest mountains on the other side of the facility was going to be the expensive part.

You can see the artist takes the artist's privilege in moving those mountains behind the building.

It doesn't look like that so I don't want to leave it with you.

And then the actual footprint itself, just recreating the woodshop, a multi-purpose stem usage in the middle, and then the art center, we have several boys that you know we can use it, the center one for music they play.

violin, cello, guitar, things of that nature, get our ceramic program back in the arts and then have our drama facility.

So really just replacement, not increasing that population.

Great boys, great school.

Just one curious curiosity.

What do you use the depot for?

East Rivanna Volunteer Fire Department owned Stokes of England, and they also owned the fire department as well, the depot.

And then, so they sold it to both Bob Wilson at the time, Bob and Libby Wilson, you own the school privately.

We've been a nonprofit now for six years.

And so at that point we bought it from Steve and we use it for a dining facility and meeting place.

But we had a donor for a little school like this to come in and give a huge donation.

Kevin had a chance to see it.

It is spectacular from front to back.

It's wonderful.

I can invite you all to come out and see it.

Got a chef from New York, too, that came in.

So everything from scratch.

So good stuff.

Thank you.

Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely, Fred.

You should come out and see it.

Thank you for answering my questions.

That answers my concerns.

Yeah, we do.

A couple of years ago, we had a 4-H club there, you know, helping the kids.

Yeah, there are.

Absolutely.

Especially for these kind of boys.

Are there any other questions for the applicant?

I'll just ask them to do one thing.

Mr. Stewart, before you take this to the supervisors, regardless of what happens here, if you would just make the date the correct date of the fire, please.

Yeah, you're correct.

You're correct.

March of 2020.

You said it.

You said it correctly.

Yeah, you did.

He's just referring to the document.

Okay.

Did I write that document?

You didn't write the document, your colleague.

You're expensive.

Well, she's working so hard that I won't speak to you.

We don't know when it works.

Okay.

All right.

Any other questions for the applicant?

Okay, well, we'll ask you to take your seat and then we will see if anyone from the public would like to speak and then you have another chance to come back up.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

All right, is there any members of the public who would like to speak to this application?

Is there anyone online, Carolyn, who wanted to speak to this?

No, ma'am, there sure isn't.

Okay.

All right, so not hearing any members of the public.

Is there anything else the applicant wishes to tell us?

Can't see you now.

No, okay.

All right, so the applicant doesn't need to tell us anything else on this.

So with that, we'll close the public hearing portion and then bring it back to the commission for any deliberation.

So this is in Commissioner Clayborne's district.

He's absent tonight due to a business commitment.

I just had one small comment, and this is in the conditions.

It mentions planting Leyland Cypress, and Leyland Cypress are notoriously disease-ridden trees.

You're exactly right on the Leyland Cypress.

Even Thuja Occidentalis would be.

Oh, sorry.

I mean, even Thuja Occidentalis would be.

Possibly good enough.

All right, any other comments on this particular application?

I'm happy to make a motion.

I move to recommend approval of SP 2022-00019, the Keswick School, with conditions as stated in the staff report.

All right.

It was motioned and seconded.

Is there any further discussion?

Yes, ma'am.

Ms.

Firehock?

Aye.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

So to the applicant, I can't see you.

This goes now to the Board of Supervisors.

Our role is to recommend, we have recommended approval.

They have the final say in the matter.

And sorry for your fire, but you did an excellent job in preparing your materials.

So it was very easy to understand.

So thank you for that and good luck.

All right, we're gonna move on now to the third item, third public hearing for this evening.

SP20220006, Crown Orchard Farm Worker Housing.

As a changing of the staff guard.

It's got a moment to settle in.

Thank you.

This is a special use request for a farmworker housing facility in the Cozeville area.

This is the location on the West 29 South.

Parcel in red there, 1097A, is across the road from the existing Crown Orchard apple packing facility that you can see on the right there, the larger structure.

And just to give you an idea of the context,

Here is the subject parcel adjacent to the Batesville Historic District, which is a historic district that reflects the history of the growth of Cozeville around the fruit growing and apple packing industries and the associated railroad and transportation improvements in the 19th century.

This is just a

Really poor aerial view of the current state of the property.

I apologize for the parcel lines being jagged there.

But the parcel in blue in this case is the subject parcel.

And you can see there's the entrance here.

There's a large field area and then an existing line of pine trees at the back.

As I'll show you in a moment, the new facility would be west or behind those pine trees from US 29.

And again, you can see the packing facility is directly across the road.

This shows the whole property, but from the other perspective, from the north is the only way we could get the whole view to show there.

But this trailer, which I believe has since been removed, is about where the new facility would go.

This is the entrance from US 29.

You can see there's also a line of trees along 29.

blocking the view of the interior of the property.

So what's being proposed is a Class B farmworker housing facility.

So this is a facility that hosts more than 10 people or has more than three structures.

In this case, it would be 50 workers and one onsite manager in two structures.

The reason it's two structures is that our ordinance is designed to ensure that

A farmworker housing facility does not shift over into being a regular dwelling unit for non-farm use.

So what we require is that their facilities be separated in some manner.

The way this particular applicant has chosen to do that is to have nearly all the facilities for sleeping, bathing, and all that in the dormitory structure, which is the larger one that I'll show you in a moment, and then a smaller structure for kitchen and dining so that we have that separations required in the ordinance.

The workers for this facility will arrive and depart by vans, not in individual vehicles, except for the onsite manager, of course.

So here is a zoom in view of the conceptual plan for the use.

Down here at the bottom right corner is that existing entrance that I showed you.

They would use that existing entrance.

And back behind this wooden area, which is labeled to remain, you've got the larger structure is about 130 feet long, which is the dormitory structure.

And then the separate 40 foot or so structure for the kitchen and dining area.

This boundary of the property closest to that structure is adjacent to the Batesville Historic District that I showed you on the map.

So we worked with the applicant to increase the screening.

There's a thin existing tree line there, but we've got a 20-foot addition of additional screening.

And of course, this wooded area here would remain to protect the view from US 29, the entrance corridor.

And I mentioned the augmented screening.

Harmony with the ordinance has been assured through a review of the supplemental regulations for this use, which is mentioned in your staff report.

Character of the area.

This is a large parcel agricultural area and a historic district.

We felt that farm worker housing was consistent with the longstanding agricultural uses in the area.

So two favorable factors.

One, that it supports agricultural end uses in the rural areas, and two, there are no significant safety concerns with the entrance that's already there.

The site is directly adjacent to Cozeville Historic District.

However, between screening and setbacks and color control, we felt that those impacts would be minimized.

Okay, go ahead.

Yeah, it seems to be a significant number of people.

VDH and the state regulatory bodies have very strict controls for

the standards for larger residential facilities like this.

That's not something that's really within the county regs because we know that there is higher level state regulation of how these facilities are handled.

So they'll have to get their permission from Virginia Department of Health.

before they can occupy that.

All right.

Can you go back to the site plan?

It's north up here.

I don't see it.

North is up.

So to the south of the North hour would be good to get in this.

And so where is the property?

So what is the line on the tree line?

That's a setback.

And that 75 feet is actually quite a bit.

That's from the farm worker housing regs.

That's actually quite a bit more than the standard.

Yeah, I see 50 foot setback and then 75 foot.

I just couldn't see that proper line.

Hard to see with that.

Yeah.

And perhaps the applicant could speak to this.

So I'm assuming that this is single-sex housing or same-sex housing.

I'll let the applicant speak to that.

OK, thank you.

Then the other thing that I have a question of,

Can you give me the rationale around four?

Colors of the exterior building materials on the structures must be muted earth tones that blend with the landscape and are subject to the county approval.

Why is that being put on a structure that is behind trees, that is so far off the road,

that the only place that can see it is a piece of property that's been given to the county.

I think that's that Walnut Creek.

It's that land across 29 that those two gentlemen gave to the county, yet another part that the county got as a gift.

I will be up front, Chair.

Well, that's a staff condition.

You don't have to accept all the staff- I'm saying the staff right now that I accept that.

And then the other thing that I- Well, do you want staff to respond?

Yeah, I'll be glad to.

We heard quite a bit from neighbors at the community meeting, folks that live across 29, and I believe the former owner of this property to the south in the historic district, that were very concerned about visibility of the new structures.

I understand.

people were asking for as much visual control as we could supply so that's what we attempted to do.

I appreciate that and I will go on my rant about the county's role to say what palette I can paint my house when having driven out there

There were some structures that I saw, some homes that were just offended my sensibility of color choices that I'd like to get the county to go look at.

But this isn't towards you, this is just how I get annoyed at these kinds of things.

So my other thing I was going to ask about, but thank you for that.

Basically the Holiday Inn colors.

The other thing that I would like to know a little bit about is about five.

I assume that's what that's for.

And that's just a note that wasn't something we asked for.

That's not something we asked now.

That's just something the applicants put that note on there.

I think between the 15 passenger vans that they will use and the on-site manager's vehicles, I doubt that there will be 14 there most of the time that the applicants can answer.

Our main concern was, which they addressed, was to put the parking both behind the trees

and behind the structure to minimize visibility.

That makes sense that I didn't understand what the rationale for saying that that people can only leave and come to the that workers or residents I should say can only come and leave the property if they're in shared shared transportation.

Why do we why do we care about that as a condition of them putting worker housing there?

Why does the county care about that?

The applicants had that in their original description of the use.

That's how they've operated other facilities in the past.

And they plan to continue.

And that was part of their rationale for why this was an approvable use, because they felt they had minimal traffic impacts.

Because we heard from neighbors and nearby residents that they were concerned about increased traffic, we went ahead and put that into the condition.

just to lock that in place to make sure that for the long term that motive operation would stay in place.

But that's typical for seasonal farmworker housing in that part of Albemarle and Nelson.

So I would appreciate that that's an operation decision by the owner of the business.

Again, I'm asking why is the county sort of entering into what is a business decision?

Because I would say, if anybody, we should have some vans, it should be to Potter's side array, where the cars coming off of that map will be leagues more than the few vehicles that are becoming off of that.

So I get that the owner of the business may say, my employees are going to take our van.

My question is, why is the government

saying that you, business owner, from now until eternity, have to have vans, have to have van traffic there.

I think that our perspective in the special use perimeter, as long as it's safe, as long as VDOT feels that it's safe,

That's all we need to know.

We're not necessarily wedded to what's changed.

I think it's six now.

I'm just pushing my- Sure, I understand.

Yeah, and we'll hear more from the applicant.

I have other questions, but they're more appropriate for the applicant.

Does anyone else have any other questions for staff?

OK.

All right.

So with that, thank you very much, Mr. Clark.

You just, I think you've heard my spiel already about the green yelling red lights.

We dispense with that.

Very good.

My name is Huff Childs.

This is my wife, Judy Childs.

Thank you all for hearing us this evening.

And our family owns and operates Crown Orchard.

We've been in the fruit business for over a hundred years in this county.

And the back in the day, um,

All the old timers worked on apple farms and in orchards and in different parts of ag.

Ag was a big part of this county, it still is.

But production ag, like fruit production like we do,

There were locals to do the work.

Now there are very few locals that want to participate in growing apples, all the work that has to be done all by hand, the picking, the thinning, and so forth and so on.

So we have a tremendous need for this building to accommodate our workers.

And my wife is going to speak just a little bit more, but we certainly appreciate you all listening.

Thank you.

Good evening.

I guess at our hearing that we had before the public input there's questions as to why Cozeville location.

One of the main reasons, well there are two main reasons.

One is we currently operate a farm worker housing that is located in Cozeville on a piece of property that we lease which is going to be ending here before long and we need a

Place where we can house our workers.

Cozeville is a good place for that.

It's right across from our packing and storage facility and also the proximity to several other orchard locations.

So it just makes sense to have it there.

It will be all same sex housing.

Currently it's all males that we employ.

We have to take advantage of the H2A program.

We do provide housing and transportation for the workers.

Without them and a place to house them, agriculture is

I hate to say kaput.

We've been doing this for a long time and have currently three generations of the child's family working in the operation.

Huff's father, ourselves, his sisters, and our children.

So we've been here for a long time.

I don't know, are y'all familiar with Crown Orchard?

Okay, great.

And you know, we operate Child's Peach Orchard, Carter Mountain Orchard, and you know, love to provide agritourism and teach

everyone along the way.

OK, if you remain up here for a moment, we might have some questions for you.

I'll ask a question.

I know that their main purpose in coming is to pick apples during the season, but I'm just curious about any outdoor space.

It just looks like there's a parking lot in a building.

I know they've been outside all day and they're probably hot and tired, but it just seems like I've noticed some of the motels in Charlottesville that end up with some of the migrant workers.

They end up outside barbecuing and hanging out outside.

Sure, I mean with this parcel there is room for that.

What we like to do is have a grassy area where they can play volleyball or a lot of people like to play soccer and so there is enough space there for that.

Okay.

Yeah, just just to add on to that I mean I'm, I'm less concerned about a lot of the things that were mentioned there about you know the color of the building and whatnot more about the quality of life for the workers.

and so certainly any of things that you can do to make that a more livable experience for them.

Certainly and we would be glad to and we you know we um you know take we have to provide transportation so we take the workers to town into laundromat into

you know to Walmart and wherever twice a week so they're getting out and about some but most of these gentlemen are here for a specific period of time but whether it be four months, six months, eight months but they want to work I mean they're here for one reason and one reason only is they want to make as much as they can to provide for their families that are at home but

Just to add to that, the facility will have washer dryer.

I mean, so they'll be able to do the laundry there or if they want to take it out when they go out, they can do that also.

Another thing is a lot of these workers have been coming year after year.

We weren't doing things right.

I don't think they've come back.

So a lot of them have.

And my employees are long-term employees.

We, you know, we'll leave in the golden rule, you know, treat others as you like to be treated yourself.

Okay.

I just wanted to follow up on the same vein of

More comments and questions but on the housing, we're not seeing a lot of information obviously on the site plan.

I'm assuming it's just a one story.

It's got a significant south facing to it, predominantly south, maybe not directly south.

Anything you can do there with a screen, a porch, something to create shade.

That would also help you with your energy use.

So there's some passive solar design that you can put into.

We used to build homes like that regularly.

just to save on energy.

We didn't have air conditioning at some point, right?

So think about that.

And I think it would help both with energy use and their comfort level and just having a front porch that extends out in the south face there will provide that shade.

Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. Strel.

So my comment, you heard my sort of challenging to our good staff, but I have to challenge them every now and then.

So my concern is, and it goes along with the quality of life, that you've got people who've been displaced from their home.

Yes, they come here for a better economic opportunity, but the whole idea is to give them a space that, in fact, while they're working, they go back, they recharge, they're ready to come and work again for you tomorrow.

That's one of the reasons why I was sort of put off by the putty colored holiday inn and hopefully the colors would be enlivened and would be something that people would feel when they came home after a hard day of doing good work for you.

That'd be a good place for them to be during that time.

So that's why I'm not supportive of that.

The other piece is that this item number five, in my opinion, it's your decision how you move people back and forth off of your property.

Right now you're using that visa, the foreign worker visa to get here.

We don't know if that's going to be the only way for people to come here in the future.

While I hope we don't live through another grape of wrath event, I pray that that doesn't happen to us.

There may be a moment where people need to work for you and they have their vehicle.

Again, that's your decision about what the economy looks like.

That doesn't feel appropriate for the government to tell you how you're going to move your staff on and off your property.

If that's what you and your spouse decide to do, bravo.

But that should be a business decision.

I certainly agree.

I'm sorry, I missed the last part of what you just said.

I agree with what he said, but I just wanted to, I guess, reiterate that that's just the way we had done it in the past.

No, not at all.

Not at all.

Thank you.

And to answer the other gentleman's question, the building will have solar.

We do have commitment once we get approval to build this building to power it with solar.

That's already in place.

Okay.

Any other questions for the applicant at this time?

Okay, we may ask you to come back up to answer a few more questions.

Thank you.

All right.

People in Coatesville.

So would anyone from the public like to speak to this matter?

Yes, sir.

Please come up.

Take your time.

All right.

When you get up, you just need to tell us your name for the record.

And you've probably heard you have green light means start, so don't start till the green light starts.

Just take two minutes.

My name is Sandy Tucker.

I'm, I guess, representing the village of Colesville here tonight.

I'm the oldest resident of Colesville, unless her father is older than me, possibly.

I'm not here to oppose this or speak for it.

I just sort of want to speak for the village of Colesville.

I've lived there for 60 years.

I've seen very little changes.

But from my house, which is directly across the road from this property, I look out every day at this property, all of it, all of it.

The solar panel, the logging operation on the mountain, and now this.

And I guess what I want to say is I want people to be aware of what possibly could happen here.

And I don't know what that is.

But Colesville is a rural community, a small, friendly village.

And I would like to keep it that way.

I can't say we because, like Fred, I'm the one here.

But I look at it every day.

And after this is said and done, if it's built, I don't know what I'll see.

But as I said before, I'm not opposed to property.

I understand where they're coming from.

They've got a business to run, and they've got to do it in the border to make

but I'm going to just conclude by saying I guess that I don't particularly want to look at this and I'm not sure based on what I've seen on the drawings that if it's screening I might not be able to see these buildings but

the neighbor directly south of this is right in their back door or actually this front door.

I can't speak for them either.

But let's be aware of what is going on in Coalfield.

And let's don't turn it into another pros day.

OK, thank you, sir.

Is there anyone else from the public who wishes to speak to this matter?

Okay, so with that, we'll end the public portion.

The applicant has a chance to come back up and address any comments.

Do you wish to do so?

Okay, that's fine.

All right, so I'll bring it back to the commission for deliberation.

All right, so we heard a comment.

I'm not sure if the comment we just heard really addressed the question of the muted colors, because I'm still not clear if the building is actually visible.

from that distance.

As far as I could tell, the building will not be visible from 29.

We haven't done a GIS analysis, but I don't believe it's visible.

It's possible if those pine trees were to burn down or something or die from beetles, that that would increase visibility, but there's still the deciduous trees along the highway.

However, a lot of the concern was not with the colors and all that was not as much from 29 where the facility is almost 800 feet back from the road, but the adjacent historic district.

So just trying to address the concern of visibility from there.

Okay.

It still seems fairly well screened.

The nearest house in the historic district of the South is, if I remember correctly, about 350 feet.

It's pretty far away.

All right.

So I just wanted to echo our colleague, um,

Commissioner Bivins, I think these are not appropriate items to put in as conditions.

First of all, earth tone colors and so the earth tone in my house is red.

I mean, it is a very red clay.

You know, it could be a red building.

I don't know if that's what they are looking for or not.

So I just think it's not appropriate because certainly the neighbors can have conversations and say, you know, maybe I like this color.

Maybe that's a way to deal with it, but I don't think it's appropriate for again, for the county to be imposing a particular color.

And certainly I don't think it's the role of us.

and I second the point on the transportation as well.

I don't think that's something that's going to be imposed there.

We impose it now, it's there, right?

And I was listening to you, I apologize.

I forgot my computer glasses, so I'm really having trouble.

I can see everyone brilliantly well.

Of course, I did review all the plans before coming this evening.

I can see.

All right.

So with that, it seems like there is support for this application, but several commissioners are not in support of conditions four and six.

Madam Chair, just to clarify, I noticed there's a discrepancy in the numbering of the conditions between the slide on the screen and the numbers of the conditions in the staff report.

It seems like number two on the slide on the screen is part of paragraph number one in the staff report.

Three and five in the staff report are the ones that have been up for discussion.

All right.

I think that's probably preferable.

Oh, and I see that Mr. Clark has fixed the numbering on the slide.

OK, awesome.

All right.

So with that, I'd like to make, unless there's any other discussion or objections, I'd like to make a motion in support of SP20220006 with the conditions of the staff report of 1, 2, and 4.

May I have a second?

Second.

seconded by Commissioner Bivins.

Any other further discussion on this application?

I actually just want to make a quick note too about it's very important to be able to provide safe, sanitary, and attractive housing for our migrant workers because we do not have other options for them in the rural area.

That is a problem that is something the county needs to own.

And when we have applications like this, it's because of the need.

Yes, ma'am.

Ms.

Firehock?

Aye.

All right, with that, the motion carries unanimously, and we recommend approval to the Board of Supervisors.

As I said repeatedly tonight, they have the final say, but we wish you good luck and a healthy apple harvest.

I probably jinxed you now.

All right, we will now, does anyone need, and the commission needs to take a break for any reason?

Okay, bring to a roll.

What?

Yes, no?

Okay, okay.

I'm fine.

All right, we're going to move on to the next item for this evening, which is SP2022, Medi Zeros 4, Scottsville Substation Expansion Project.

Is that you, Mr. Clark, again?

That is me.

Thank you.

This is a special use permit request for an existing substation.

This substation predates the zoning ordinance and so has been there for longer than we've had zoning.

And in order to expand, it needs to come into compliance with the ordinance.

So this is just to give you an idea of the location on James River Road west of Scottsville.

There are two parcels.

For those of you who are familiar with the area and with the substation, the southern of the two parcels is the actual current substation.

The second parcel to the north until recently was a separate residential parcel.

However, due to the need for space for current stormwater requirements from the state, the applicants and the utility has acquired that parcel to combine it into the existing substation facility.

An overview of the conceptual plan for the use.

Again, here in the southern portion, there's the substation itself where several pieces of equipment are being replaced due to their age.

And then we've got screening vegetation to the east and to the west that's being added.

And then these blue areas here are stormwater channeling that are then being carried

under the existing road here to the further facilities and then to address a site distance issue at the northeast corner here there is a new entrance so this will be the entrance for the substation facility that maintenance trucks and construction trucks will enter

However, this existing road that accesses the residential lots to the west will remain and will continue to be used by the residential, by the resident theory who have access to it.

This is just a closer view of the southern portion.

You can see the pad expands slightly, so there's some grading here and some additional screening vegetation that's being added there and here along the driveway and at the rear of the parcel where some existing vegetation would have to be removed for the channeling of the stormwater flow.

So other than the period of construction, we didn't feel that there was a real impact on the adjacent properties or on the character of the area.

And again, this is a facility that feeds all the uses in the area.

And it's long standing.

So we didn't feel there was any conflict with the comprehensive plan.

So in favor, we found that the proposed upgrade meets utilities need for upgrading without creating significant new impacts on the rural area.

We didn't find unfavorable factors for this proposal.

We're recommending approval with one condition, which is compliance with that substation conceptual plant you saw before, specifically referring to the new screening vegetation and the vegetated areas to remain.

as seen on that plan.

I'm happy to take any questions.

I assume there's a planting list for that as well and that that would include... I don't know if the applicants have done the final engineering for that area to that level of detail, but they could probably answer that better than I can.

My main concern with the vegetation for this one was the screening areas and the replacement in the areas where there's grading going on.

Yeah, and they've already worked quite a bit with Frank Paul, the county engineer, in reviewing this conceptual plan to make sure that

Mr. Missel has a question.

Thanks, Scott.

That was a really thorough report.

Thank you.

Yeah, quick question.

If you could go back to the site plan just for a minute.

I'm sorry, to which slide?

Site plan.

I'd like to see that again.

Right there.

One more back.

One more back.

Yes, right there.

So I don't know if there's room or not, but I'm just thinking about screening from the road.

Right, yeah.

The issue is that the substation facility is already very close to the road.

Right.

And there's quite a bit of bank there.

Just slope.

Slope, yeah.

Down from the

from the pad area to the road.

There's a short distance, quite a drop.

And so it was difficult to put screening in there that would be maintainable over time.

But the other real big issue for the applicants was safety.

Either with

The screening of vegetation or animals getting into the substation or with members of the public being able to climb through that vegetation or get it into the area.

Not to challenge what you're saying, just to help clarify a bit.

Sure, and then if you come down you see that, I can't tell what that is, LOD?

Oh, that's the limits of disturbance.

Okay, so within the limits of disturbance in between what is probably a chain link fence.

Right.

And we pointed that same thing out.

OK.

I'm not going to ask the applicant.

And any other questions for staff?

All right, if not, I think we're ready to hear from the applicant.

Thank you.

Way in the back there.

Come on down.

All right, there we go.

Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the Planning Commission.

My name is Daniel Fraser.

I'm with Power Engineers, an engineering and environmental consultant supporting Appalachian Power with the Scottsville Substation Expansion Project, SP2204.

I'm joined by Scott Markwell, a project manager from Appalachian Power and other members of the project team who should be able to answer all the questions this evening.

Thank you for this opportunity to present the plans for this expansion of the existing Appco Substation.

on James River Road.

Thank you to Mr. Clark for the time.

We have spent a lot of time back and forth working through these plans and some of these questions that you've already identified.

So as Mr. Clark described, I will cover briefly what the project involves expanding the existing Scottsville substation as

It also will relocate the access road to the substation to address some safety concerns and then constructing stormwater detention pond to manage water from the new access road and the existing substation site.

So I'll touch briefly on the why behind the project.

And I think there are three key drivers that we mentioned at the community meeting.

And also I'll touch on here.

Number one, it enhances reliability by replacing aging equipment that has reached the end of its useful life.

The substation has been on this property for at least the last 80 years.

And so by replacing the transformers and distribution banks from the 1950s,

with modern equipment that will result in a more reliable electric grid across the electric grid.

Even though the substation is located west of Scottsville, one weak link in the chain is not something we want.

So second, it accommodates future growth in Albemarle County.

There are customers served from that substation and we also will be increasing the capacity of the substation with this upgrade and expansion.

And thirdly, it improves safe access to the substation.

And this is something that's important to Appalachian Power for the employees that are servicing the substation, often in the worst weather conditions, you know, not the best times of year.

So I've got some photos here in a minute of the existing access road to the station.

And I think you'll see the reasoning behind the

the changes to the access road that we're proposing here.

We did work with VDOT and the county to address those safety concerns that Chimpower has with VDOT and their concerns with site distance and those items as well.

So moving now to the expansion plan that you can see in the aerial imagery here, the existing substation and in the graveled area on the property.

Multiple options were considered when this project was kicked off of different ways that the electrical need could be addressed and so Appalachian Power has worked or talked with multiple landowners in the area and looked at multiple different options and this is what has been determined as a feasible solution.

The entire substation expansion will be completed on the existing parcel that houses the substation.

There is an adjacent parcel, as Mr. Clark mentioned, to the north that is needed to address the access road modification as well as stormwater from the site.

There are two expansion areas that are shown in red on the graphic.

So those are the portions that will actually be included in the substation fence after the expansion is completed.

So on the east side, fronting James River Road,

There's about a 45 by 55 foot roughly expansion there that largely is taking up part of the existing driveway to the substation.

And then on the west hand side, away from the road, there's about a 40 by 180 foot expansion area on the west side there.

Within the expanded substation fence there will be three new transformers, new distribution bay, and then the control building which is the pink rectangle there on the east side of the station.

The access road, the second part of the application is this road shown in yellow.

So currently the access road comes into James River Road at an angle and in this intersection with Bryant Lane.

So that definitely poses a safety concern for as you're exiting the substation primarily, really an inability to see to the south here.

So traffic will enter the substation access road.

It's being shifted about 350 feet north and using this parcel we'll be able to have a 90 degree approach to James River Road and then have a 90 degree crossing of Bryant Lane to then enter the substation parcel.

The blue shaded area is the stormwater pond and then the blue lines are largely the stormwater drains and ditches to manage water from the site.

The dark green areas, largely along James River Road, those are vegetation areas that will not be touched, that will be protected during construction to remain.

That provides a lot of the buffer between the road and the substation currently and those will remain.

In addition, all of the bright green, those are vegetation that's proposed and we've worked with county staff to provide as much screening as possible in this type parcel.

I guess to the question about the portion of the southern portion of the parcel, I'll show a photo here.

This is a steep drop.

It's about a 10 foot elevation difference between the road.

and the substation pad.

Additionally, there's a grounding grid that surrounds the substation that extends outside of the substation fence, I think it's about three feet.

And then there needs to be a buffer so the animals don't gather right around the substation fence.

That obviously is a reliability concern.

If animals enter the substation.

So that is the reasoning that there is some lower vegetation there currently that should remain untouched and that will provide as much buffer as possible.

I'll go to the grading plan.

I think you've seen this already.

You can kind of see the contours here showing that elevation difference.

I think there was also a question about plantings around the stormwater pond and detail.

This is not a detailed design necessarily.

There are still some items that need to be worked out in the civil engineering for this pond.

The item that also has to come into consideration here is you can see the right-of-way that crosses over that pond.

So that is an electric line right there.

So planting within that right-of-way is another consideration that needs to be part of that detailed design.

So let me go to the pictures here.

This is the existing substation looking from the current access road.

So as you're approaching the substation up the road, that is the existing station.

So there will be a small expansion just to the left of the image here.

And then the majority of the expansion area is on the backside of the parcel.

This is the existing access road.

So in the foreground, this is Bryant Lane off to our right and the road coming in at an angle that is the existing access to the substation.

So that's the safety concern and that's what we want to address.

Following construction, that access road will be replanted.

That is part of the vegetation plan that we worked on was to fill that area in after construction is completed.

Just past the substation entrance, so this is currently the view of the substation from James River Road as we're looking right towards the substation.

You can see some of the seal behind the vegetation, but it is fairly well covered as you're looking south.

As you look north along James River Road, you can see the elevation grade there.

And that is the challenge to providing any screening along this hillside.

In addition to the transmission line above, we were having trouble finding a solution that we could plant here that really provided screening in this area.

Lastly, this picture is from Bryant Lane, so the substation is over to the right and James River Road is directly at the end of the gravel road here.

Again, with transmission lines coming in, that's where there's an opening, but this is the view from Bryant Lane and what the residences would have at the back of the property.

Lastly, a schedule of where we've been and where we're going.

Okay, thank you very much.

I just had one.

I don't know if it's a question.

I guess it's a question.

I'm hung up on that little stretch of road and I just don't understand why a low evergreen shrub, single bay of evergreen shrubs, couldn't be added at the top of that hillside between the limits of disturbance.

Can you say your name and come closer?

Yes, ma'am.

I'm Scott Markwell.

I'm the project manager on this project.

Yes, there's metal under the ground.

So that eliminates that first three feet.

And then we also need a maintenance buffer there then too.

And basically that's taken us near the top of that slope.

I see.

If we go to put anything on that slope, then we risk destabilizing that slope then too.

So that's got us kind of caught here.

and trying to say hey you know really what we've got there today you know we've still got some growth up that slope that's natural there anyway and if we go to disturb that we may disrupt that slope again and then we've still got the

Yeah, I understand.

It would be a walkable area where you could go out there.

Somebody may go out there and cut a hole in the fence, for example, and try to steal some copper.

OK, thanks.

Any other questions for the applicant?

All right, thank you, gentlemen.

We'll see if there's anyone from the public who would like to comment on this.

Are there any publics in the audience?

All right, I don't see anyone coming forward.

OK, there's no one from the public.

You have a chance to come back and make any other concluding remarks you like.

You don't have to.

Less is more.

Okay.

Yeah, I'll just note, I mean, it was kind of that picture you're looking at right now on the screen is my daily commute.

Yes, every that's my, my terrible commute, going from Howard School of Scottsville every day.

So I drive by this substation every day, and I can say that the way that the driveway is now, where it kind of comes out this weird angle, and you also saw this very steep and there's some erosion reels there, it's quite unsafe.

And I know during the ice storm, we had some trees down across the driveway, had to get right out there.

So it's actually just a messy area that should be closed off.

The access that they're proposing is much safer.

I mean, you also might've noticed that the current diagonal kind of comes out at the entrance to another farm.

Yes, there's potential for conflict, whereas our new entrance doesn't like come right into a driveway that tractors are coming out of.

So anyway, I think it's well done.

The slope also that you were just talking about is quite steep, too.

And one of the problems we have on that road is

You know, just volunteer trees that come in on a slope that's almost vertical, and then they invariably fall in the road, closing the road, making it less safe for power.

I didn't remember to ask this to the applicant, but maybe you could just nod at me.

Is this going to also affect Scottsville's power in terms of reliability?

Awesome.

I'm tired of buying surge protectors.

Yes, that's just a personal interest in running a technology firm that relies on power.

So you will help all of the downtown business district.

So with that, any other comments or questions or concerns about this?

I would be pleased to make that motion.

Are you going to put the sample motion up or I can figure it out probably?

Okay, great.

Second.

Any further discussion?

Yes, ma'am.

Ms.

Firehock?

Aye.

All right, here's to more reliable and attractive power.

All right, so with that, we'll move on to another substation expansion project.

and I'll have a changing of the guard here.

And we will now hear about SP202200021 Dominion Hollymede Substation Expansion Project.

Yes, we are continuing with the theme.

Rebecca Ragsdale, Planning Manager, and I'll be presenting this item.

This is the Hollymeade Substation expansion, different end of the county.

So this is the location map.

It is located off of Worth Crossing near the Forest Lake Commercial Area to the north

Northwest and then surrounding the rest of the property are either residential areas of Forest Lakes, excuse me, Forest Lakes North Clubhouse, and then the lake and trail amenity.

It's about a 6.72 acre parcel.

It has split zoning, but

Utilities are allowed in any zoning district and it is designated urban density residential, but we would expect utilities in any of our zoning districts.

So I mentioned the nearby properties.

This is just an aerial view of the existing conditions that shows you the proximity of one of the newer sections of forest lakes to the north and the east.

And then the lake and the trail amenity that goes around the lake.

There are significant wooded areas on the property right now that provide screening to the Forest Lakes area and then residents, but there is this area here that I'm pointing to that it is visible now.

There are visible impacts now.

It's an existing condition.

All right, so what the proposal is is to expand towards that lake and amenity area.

You'll see the existing facility is hatched and the existing entrance is off of Worth Crossing.

And then there would be stormwater management and a retaining wall that is necessary.

I mentioned it's about a 6.72 acre site.

The existing area is about 1.46 acres as far as the facility area.

With the expansion of about another 1.66 acres, it'll be about 2.28 acres and the expansion will

add some additional equipment that the technical team will tell you about, but it's necessary for the existing system.

It won't be expanding capacity, but will help the system run more efficiently.

and after the special use permit process, there would be a site development plan that would include the final details about landscaping and stormwater management.

Although I will say with stormwater management, our county engineers indicated that Virginia Dominion Power is their own program authority, so they won't be coming through the county for that review.

But that would be the next steps if this is approved, so those things would be covered

during that process.

We've looked at this as far as detriment to abutting properties.

Primarily, our concerns are with, as you talked about with the last one, the visibility and screening and then also what to expect as far as any sound impacts.

At the time we wrote the report, we didn't have as much information.

The applicant has provided us some additional information.

on what the existing facility sounds like and the expansion as well will have to meet the ordinance standards and decibel levels that we're comfortable with.

There was a community meeting and the folks that attended said that there haven't been any noise impacts from the existing facility.

They had some questions about what it would look like.

The applicant has some photo simulations they're going to go over.

That was shared at the community meeting.

So screening and noise were the primary discussion points at the community meeting, but also there are some nearby neighbors that need some additional information about the electronic, excuse me, the electric magnetic fields, because for personal reasons, as far as pacemaker, which didn't realize that was, sorry, I missed the last part.

A pacemaker.

So they're working directly with Dominion Power about that and have been since they moved there.

That's just sort of a little something we learned along the way in reviewing these.

And there are some specific regulations in the ordinance with regard to Section 5, which we went over in the staff report that we believe will be met.

And so we didn't have any concerns.

Like I said, the final details on both the screening and the noise will be taken care of prior to site plan approval.

or prior to installation of the new equipment.

And the proposed upgrade, as I mentioned, would improve electric transmission without creating any new impacts.

We think it will be worse than any visual impacts that are already there.

And we mentioned that we didn't have as much sound information as we'd like at the time of the report, but we have that now, so aren't comfortable with that.

So we've recommended approval.

And there are some, we have the motion slide and condition slide.

The conditions of approval are related to the sound study and also establishing the major elements, the location of where the improvements will be and where existing trees will remain.

Okay, questions for staff.

So there's some concerns expressed by the public about whether herbicides would be used to maintain the right-of-way.

They'll have to answer that.

I mean, we're going to look into that with a different division at the time of the community meeting.

It's just, it is close to a water, I mean, body.

So that understands maybe that's something that we look at.

There isn't an extreme buffer required around the lake.

Is not.

It's correct.

Right.

So it's itself a stormwater facility.

It's not a water of the United States.

Oh, I'm going to use that at some point.

Well, you enjoy yourself over there, Mr. Bivins.

All right.

I just had one question.

Maybe I'm missing something.

Got it.

I think in the details of the proposal and the staff report, it's mirroring

Unless I'm missing something, it's mirroring the previous Scottsville substation and has 1.2 acres and 5.2 acres.

All right.

I don't know if that matters, just as a heads up.

Highly unlikely.

Thank you for that correction.

Do we have any details on the, I think you mentioned a retaining wall that was going to be required for the expansion.

Are there any details on that at all?

The height of that wall or the expansion of that wall?

Is that all?

Anything else?

Yeah and the other is the level spreader.

So there's a lot of existing vegetation in that area of the site so during the flight plan process we'll be making sure that existing vegetation is still adequate and we'll look at the tree health and they'll supplement where necessary based on the ordinance standards with either

All the landscaping they can where they can like you heard from before.

Okay, perfect, thank you.

All right, if there's no other questions for staff at this time we're ready to hear from the applicant.

Blair Parks is presenting, Jenna Brown, but they're all coming.

Thank you for having us.

I'm Joe Leachman.

This is Craig Murphy.

We're with GAI Consultants and we're supporting Dominion.

We're civil engineers working on the project.

And we have several folks from the Dominion team here as well that can also help answer your questions.

As was discussed already, we're going to be adding equipment to the existing substation to improve its reliability.

These are essentially large copper coils that will regulate the current and help to produce reliable power as well as help the existing equipment last longer.

We're expanding on a property that Dominion currently owns.

Well, it's like talking to a slide.

So what you're seeing on your screen now is that we've been able to clean up

The design from the original information that was submitted.

So what you see on your screen is, you know, zoomed in area of the light gray is the existing pad area and then the dark gray is the proposed

like mentioned before in the existing partial is 6.72 acres.

So based on update survey information we have, so the existing gravel pad area and the access coming into the pad is 1.59 acres of existing graveled area.

The proposed expansion area of the gravel area is another 0.77 acres.

making the total pad area 2.35 acres of gravel area you see on the plan.

The design and the grading has all been done to make sure that it's stable, it's maintainable.

All the fill slopes along the outer edges of the pad are three to one, so they're mobile.

the extension of an existing retaining wall on the south side of the existing pad.

So what the expansion does is the proposed retaining wall comes along that southern boundary and extends that retaining wall there to prevent encroachment onto the neighboring parcel while maintaining a 10 foot setback off that parcel with the wall.

So based on this, our design, the project,

and results in no changes in access, so it'll utilize the existing access.

There's no increases in traffic to and from the site based on normal operation.

There's no new utility needs, so no new water or sewer demands based on the expansion.

There's no floodplain impacts and then there's no impacts to wildlife.

There was bad study completed and there's no impact to any endangered species as part of this expansion.

So next next slide.

So we've zoomed in on on this southern area.

It shows the existing storm from our detention system.

So with the existing pad, there's currently a

subsurface detention system there with a storm drain.

So what we're proposing to do is modify this system and extend it along the southern side of the pad to capture runoff.

And it'll be discharged through the existing outfall that's there now and along the existing drain engagement.

So there's no increase in flow.

It's at existing or probably below existing conditions now.

So we're actually improving.

Stormwater runoff from that point.

Runoff to the east will be captured by level spreaders and spread out at or below existing levels now.

So there will be no impact to the neighbor or the pond part of that plan.

So next slide.

So this here is similar to the slide that was in the package submitted.

So what we've tried to do here is highlight tree canopy coverage of the site.

So the existing parcel as a whole, there's 3.44 acres of existing tree canopy coverage on this parcel.

The proposed tree can't be covered after expansion is 2.92 acres, so we're removing roughly a half acre of trees on the site, which is highlighted in the yellow you can see on this slide.

We've tried to maintain a buffer between the property line and the expansion.

The area near the retaining wall we get within that setback that we have to clear to the property line.

I guess real quick before we get off of that slide to answer a couple of questions that you all had previously.

There are existing trees just off of Dominion's property as well and you know the depth of those

to our project is a minimum, I believe, of about 20 feet.

And I think somebody asked the question on the height of the retaining wall.

And, Corey, I missed if you said that or not, but it's about seven feet max on the proposed, which is similar to the existing retaining wall that's along the southern limit of the project.

Right, as was mentioned by Rebecca, there were some simulations done.

and those show some of the areas where the views were taken from.

This is the first, the top picture shows the conditions.

The bottom picture shows what those proposed reactors would look like.

There's an additional structure within the fencing.

You can see the fencing is a little closer in the view there under the proposed.

Simulation 2, again, that's showing it from a different view from across the lake.

And really, you don't see much difference between existing and proposed.

It's the, you know, the trees pretty much block the view from that side.

That's if you were able to see through the trees, that's that's what the substation would look like.

The gray is the existing with the green being the expansion.

And as we talked about somewhat already, we're working to minimize environmental impacts.

We'll comply with state standards on the erosion control and the stormwater.

And it was mentioned that that gets run through a Dominion like a third party reviewer.

Sound studies, you know, there's an existing sound study done.

Another study will be done after the system's online.

But, you know, right now all sound levels are within the ordinance limits.

And that's what's anticipated for the proposed project as well.

Craig mentioned wildlife and the bat survey that we've done indicated no impacts there.

Landscaping, we've worked and Dominion has to develop some concepts for landscaping and we'll continue to do that with input from the county as we move through the site approval process.

The project was approved by PJM in early 2022.

We began the process with the county here in the summer of 2022, continued through these public meetings this fall and winter with the anticipation of getting permits and approvals and beginning construction in the spring of 2023, wrap up with construction completion fall of 2023.

I'm sure I skipped something along the way.

Well, you didn't even get to yellow.

All right.

Yes.

So I'm James Young with Dominion Environmental.

So typically within the existing utility corridors, there would be generally mowing.

But if we were to do spraying, it's generally EPA approved spot spraying versus broadcast spraying.

And typically, we would also rotate the levels of spraying to try to reduce

the likelihood of the species that we're targeting to not be as reactive to it.

And then we also have agreed to within and around adjacent aquatic resources to use specific sprays in regards to some comments through the SEC associated with DEQ.

Any other questions for the applicant?

Can we get the time to be sure?

Tom will handle that one.

So we had the manufacturers of the Air Corps reactors go ahead and give us some plots for sound generation.

Oh, the sound will vary with the amount of current passing through the device.

So we got sound duration values associated with average loading on the device, day-to-day current peak, so the maximum amount of current we project the device to see in the next five years, and then max permissible as in the device's maximum continuous current capability.

So the plot you see above is associated with the average current.

So at the green line indicates 10 dB at that distance from the series of air core reactors and 20 dB, which at that distance, the distance from the substation where the residences are and people would be effectively silent.

The next would be the peak seasonal value we'd see was in the five-year projected calendar.

And we see the green line in case 35 dB.

And just to give you a sense, ambient noise is in the 40s to 50s typically.

So again, this would be less than ambient experience.

And we see IOB50DB still within the property boundary.

I was just opening the aerial to look at it again to see who was to the west.

That's more residences.

But there's, okay.

And it should be noted that the study done initially when we were looking at these found that, and I'll just quote them.

It said the noise associated with the substation will be below ambient noises for most of the sites analyzed.

And the noise modeling is indicated levels at the residences located to the North of the expansion.

Okay.

That's very helpful.

Thank you.

No problem.

Any other questions for the applicant?

All right, do we have anyone from the public who is just to speak on this matter?

I don't think there is any public here.

Is there anyone online?

No, ma'am, there sure isn't.

Thank you.

All right, with that, we'll end the public hearing portion.

Taking back permission for discussion.

Any discussion or points anyone wants to make?

All right, hearing none, pretty straightforward application, good materials, well organized.

So with that, is there someone who wants to make a motion that commissioner whose district this is, is not here this evening?

Second.

All right, any further discussion?

Ms.

Firehock?

Aye.

Forgot a five minute, okay.

Okay, I'm delirious now.

All right, congratulations.

You're on your way to the Board of Supervisors, woo.

All right, good luck with that.

All right, have a good evening.

We'll give you a second to clear the chamber, unless you want to hear exciting committee reports.

Nope, okay.

All right, do the commissioners have any committee reports this evening?

We'll go left to right.

No, I can handle it.

Pantops Community Advisory Committee meeting last night.

There's redistricting, so now part of that is in the Scottsville district.

And a 60 unit development was presented to the group that's located right behind the giant on Pantops.

It's adjacent to a stormwater pond.

It was designated by the comprehensive plan as open space and park.

There was very little detail.

It was essentially a strip of units and a strip of parking.

There was quite a bit of comment from the public.

There was a misunderstanding that

There was a belief that the previous owners, Dr. Hurt, had promised that or committed to maintain this as public parkland, but that was clarified that that was something that was in the

community in the comprehensive plan and not something that the applicant had put forward.

There was concern about access, concern about traffic, concern about the fact that they were taking away habitat from deer and eagles.

You're off to a big community meeting.

I was like, what?

I don't understand.

Where is he going?

OK.

Fine.

And we actually went on a bus tour.

Yes.

So that we could show, we have a number of individuals who have just joined the CAC.

and we've also had a reconfiguration of the CAC.

And so we took the time, the Supervisor McKeel took the time and John brought us a lovely bus and we went around and showed people sort of the basic outline of our CAC and sort of talked about some of the projects which were going on, which were coming forward in the CAC.

And we were joined by Kevin McDermott

That's right.

And he did a very nice job sort of identifying, talking to people about various traffic improvements like the roundabout that's hopefully at, or that's perhaps coming at District Avenue by Stonefield and the pedestrian bridge going over from Stonefield over into the city.

and then a number of improvements, sidewalk improvements that may be coming to our district, to that district.

So that was, I think people appreciated it because they got out of the Greer School and got to see some of the district, which most of them had not.

They don't know where they live.

That's great that you did that.

That's fantastic.

Yes, so we had a follow up on a previous question about the Montclair stream.

A consultant had been hired to make a stream determination and the determination has come back.

It is indeed a stream.

And for people who might be listening and might not know what you're talking about, just for the record, this was for a proposal up in the Crozet area.

Correct.

Correct.

And one of the issues in here was that originally the stream and its buffer were shown in the Crozet master plan and then were removed.

And so there's a lot of concern from the public that there was no public engagement about why or how that determination was made.

And so a lot of public interest in putting that stream and those buffers back on the map.

Not that I'm aware of officially, no.

So it either has been done or will be done.

That's my understanding.

And let me just caution that this matter is still technically pending before the Planning Commission.

Okay, thank you.

I appreciate you sending it to me because I did not get it before that.

About the stream?

Yeah.

Okay.

You said, I assume you received this report, blah, blah, blah.

We will not have a public meeting.

I would prefer not to receive that information.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

OK.

So with that, the next item, I don't have a report because I will report that for the fourth consecutive month, the Stark Preservation

Committee has not met quorum.

And I also personally lament that because I came to the county office building for that meeting and then enjoyed lounging about, reading emails for two hours, waiting for my turn to talk about zoning.

So I'm just saying that they had each time the staff thought they had quorum, it's a real problem.

So I don't know what's going on with that.

I'll leave it at that.

Thank you.

On the 5th, the board did approve the Scrooby cell tower that came before this commission as well.

Then on the 19th,

The board did endorse the framework for the phase one of the comprehensive plan that also came for the commission.

Okay, thank you very much, Mr. Rapp.

The next item we have is the Draft Planning Commission Rules of Procedure, which we've been stringing along, waiting to get quorums so that we could actually adopt them.

So is there any presentation we need to have?

Not really, ma'am.

I'm happy to just make some brief remarks to do this.

So again, Madam Chair, Andy Herrick with the County Attorney's Office and I had been drafting, as the Commission knows, some revised rules of procedure that update the remote participation policy to track recent changes to state law.

Those are reflected in new provisions in Rule 7 of the Rules of Procedure.

Again, there's not much substantively that's changed other than just tracking

to address some of the quorum

And as I mentioned previously, state law does not allow planning commissions to meet all virtually.

Individual members can participate remotely.

But again, the rules that you have before you are the maximum of what state law currently allows.

OK, I think we asked them the last time we had this.

Thank you.

All right, it's been motioned and seconded.

Any further discussion?

Yes.

Ms.

Firehock.

Aye.

Mr. Carrazana.

Sorry.

Don't feel bad, Carolyn.

I couldn't remember what county I was in when I started the meeting, so you're doing better than me.

I was like, where am I?

Okay, so thank you very much.

That passes and moving on to any old or new business.

That was the new business.

I need to discuss our upcoming dates, if possible.

When we were reviewing our dates, we realized that the first meeting in November falls on election night.

And we wanted to, we did have a couple of, I would say,

Public hearings, which will be highly attended.

We wanted to make sure that we didn't have any barriers to attendance on that.

So we have coordinated with the applicants on those and would recommend that we reschedule that to November 29th.

That will allow us to have enough time to run our advertisements and meet our requirements there.

So that would be the first order of business to see if the commission is willing to

That's good question.

There will not.

So would potentially just it would be a long meeting though.

Just to be clear, tonight was a bit stacked, but they were all pretty straightforward applications, whereas we do have some.

Correct, the 29th would be Old Ivy Residences, round two.

Staff held our time for the work sessions.

So will you have someone in the office take those off?

No, I confirmed today with our comp plan consultant.

Since we just got through the board, we're not really ready to dive right into phase two work yet.

The meeting would be on the 29th.

22nd.

And then we would have one on the 29th.

22nd and the 29th.

While we're doing schedules, I would also recommend that we cancel the December 27th meeting.

I know I've heard from two commissioners that will be out of town and that is between holidays.

So I say we ditch that one as well.

What is the first meeting in January?

It would be the second Tuesday.

I need to, I'll verify, I'll get this to, to the chair, but I'll be out of, I'll be out of the country from the 26th till right now is the ninth, which cuts it very close.

Since we're on the top, I'll be out of the country as well from the 22nd until New Year's day.

So procedurally what we would need is a motion to amend the calendar since the calendar is something that the Commission has previously approved and what I'm understanding Mr. Rafta suggests is that the calendar be amended to add a meeting on November 29th and to delete the meetings on November 8th and December 27th.

Is there a second?

Second.

All right, we'll let Lonnie have a second.

All right.

Any discussion of the calendar changes?

We've already discussed it.

All right.

Do we have to call the roll?

Yeah, OK.

Yes, ma'am.

I did.

I thought it was you, but I wasn't sure.

OK, thank you.

Got to expire.

Ms.

All right.

Awesome.

All right.

Any more old business or items for follow-up?

I say we just follow ourselves right out the door.

Okay.

So with that, I adjourn this meeting of the Albemarle County Planning Commission with the intention to reconvene on November 22nd.

Right.

Thank goodness.

Goodbye.