Planning Commission Regular Meeting   1/24/2023

So one, and I will call the meeting of the Planning Commission for January 24, 2023 to order.

Let's establish the quorum.

Yes.

Yes, ma'am.

Yes.

Ms.

Firehock.

Present.

Great, now that we have a quorum, we'll go to other matters not listed on the agenda from the public.

Are there any matters that the public would like to speak to that are not listed on the agenda tonight?

Great, thank you.

All right, we'll move on to the consent agenda.

Are there any commissioners who would like to call or take any of the items off the consent agenda?

So moved.

Second.

Great, thanks.

Yes.

Ms.

Firehock?

Aye, Mr. Missel?

Aye.

Great.

Thank you, Carolyn.

All right.

With that, we will move into the public hearings.

And we will start with CCP 2022-2 Albemarle County Public Safety Operations Center, Fashion Square Mall.

with the Community Development Department.

And this is a proposal to locate a public safety operations center at Bastion Square Mall and a portion of the old JCPenney building.

The facility would provide office space and supporting storage and vehicle maintenance services to the county police and fire rescue departments.

These are considered back of the house uses, if you're familiar with that term.

And there'll be no public accessible services provided at the site at this point in time.

Just real quickly for the public that might be here or listening, I want to go over quickly what a compliance review process is, since it is a little bit different than what is typically reviewed here.

Public uses are permitted by right and all zoning districts, but if the use is not specifically identified in the comprehensive plan, this compliance with the comprehensive plan review is required.

It is a state code requirement, 15-22-32.

A compliance review such as this determines whether the general location, character, and extent of a facility is in substantial accord with the comprehensive plan.

County staff reviews the proposal and makes recommendations to the commission.

The commission acts on the proposal and makes the finding of whether it's in substantial record or not.

The commission's action relates only to the consistency of the proposal to the location and use with the comprehensive plan.

It is not a recommendation of whether the facility should be constructed or not.

and it's on a detailed evaluation of the development concepts.

No action is required by the Board of Supervisors, but the board is informed of your action.

They do have the option to appeal or make a different binding than you, but that is not a requirement of this process.

Okay, so this is the location of the facility.

As you can see, this is Bastion Square Mall in the old J.C.

Penney's building.

This is an aerial review of the site.

Again, you can see the surrounding development, which includes residential development, which is what used to be called Squire Hills.

I think it still may be Squire Hills and Glenwood Station are these two buildings here.

Those are the closest residential.

This is a hotel.

This is a look at the building where the improvements will be installed.

The photo of the left obviously is the east side of the building and the south side of the building is the photo on the right and you can see on the south side of the building the white colored boxes are the former location of the tire sale shop that was part of JCPenney a number of years ago.

An overview of the proposal.

The county has entered into a 10-year lease for a portion of the building, approximately 32,000 square feet of a 96,000 square foot building space.

The remaining or existing retail space within the building is not impacted by this proposal and will remain available for lease by other businesses or entities.

Within the structure, and you can see from the photo here where the improvements are going to be.

For police, there will be offices for the traffic unit, special operations and community support, canine unit, animal protection, mental health support, and then also storage for files, materials, and motorcycles.

For fire rescue, there will be offices, supply storage, and fleet maintenance entirely within the building.

Again, general public access is not anticipated to the site.

There are no changes to the site itself and no major changes to the exterior of the building except for removal of a planter box and installation of a new garage bay and the reinstallation of one or more of the tire shop bays.

Again, take another look at the building and that area right there, that is the planter box being removed and the bay will be located there.

And again, another picture, once again, of the old tire shop.

The applicant can answer questions about any more specifics about these improvements.

Related to the land use plan, the small area plan really governs this area in terms of land use recommendations and the Rio area, excuse me, the Rio 29 small area plan encourages a mix of uses and recommends and allows a broad variety of uses and that was done to provide flexibility for development to address market conditions.

and Dr. Robert B. Williams.

Staff believes that the uses proposed for the operation center are consistent with the uses recommended and allowed within the flex plate place type area, which is what this area is designated in the Rhino 29 plan.

Again, here is the language that indicates the uses that are permitted, which includes institutional light industrial manufacturing, storage and distribution.

There is a specific reference to auto sales and service that says it may be appropriate when the applicant can demonstrate minimal impacts of such a use to surrounding uses, especially residential uses in the public realm.

Staff believes that the vehicle service activity will have minimal impact on the residential area given the distance between the residential areas and the actual service activity.

and based on the existing vegetative buffers that are there and given the service activity will be entirely within the building.

The character and the extent of proposed activity we believe is compatible with the site and surrounding uses.

Additionally, this project also fosters some reuse of an existing vacant building and reintroduces activities into an increasingly vacant commercial center.

Once again, quick picture of the vegetated area that you see.

The apartments are here and Glenwood Station is here.

Again, the location by Ariel, there are the apartments behind the buffer and then there is Glenwood Station kind of across from the Belks building.

So in summary, staff finds the location, character, and extent of the proposed public use consistent with the county's comprehensive plans, specifically the RIO 29 small area plan and use recommendations.

The facility provides space needed for essential support functions for the public safety agencies and in a location that is central to the development areas in the county.

And again, it fosters a reuse of an existing vacant building.

provides for additional activities in that center.

Staff found no unfavorable factors as it relates to the proposal's consistency with the comp plan.

I will say that the Rio 29 small area plan focuses a lot on connectivity and character improvements, but because of the conditions of a leased facility and being used within an entire building, there are really no physical improvements that can be measured against what's the recommendation in the Rio 29 plan.

So we're silent to those issues not being addressed because there is no opportunity to address it within this proposal.

Staff recommends that the commission find the location, character, and extent of the Albemarle County Public Safety Facility Operations Center to be in substantial accord with the comprehensive plan for the reasons we've just identified here and in the staff report.

Great.

Thanks, Mr. Benesch.

Appreciate it.

So why would a governmental activity have to go through this?

Well, I guess, and Andy can correct me if I misspeak or do too much of a gross generalization, but the state code really calls for specificity in the conference of plan to identify that location, character and extent.

So the Rio 29 or

Small area plan really makes no reference to any public facility here.

So because of that, we have to go through this process to ensure that the commission agrees with staff and the agencies finding that it's not in compliance.

And so to that, Mr. Bivins, I would just add that, well, do I appreciate your willingness to defer to the county government on those issues?

So thank you.

So perhaps, Chair, when we go into that,

Mr. McDermott, we can actually have a broader look at that because this seems like this is one of those functions that should just take place because if we don't like it, you can vote the supervisors out.

Well, in an ideal world, all public facilities would already be shown on the comprehensive plan.

Corey, do you have a question?

Oh, I was just going to make the comment that in some ways it's good for these sorts of things to come before us because there's been criticisms in the past, particularly as regards to other requirements like critical slopes and stream buffers that localities aren't following their own requirements.

I would be willing to sort of stand alongside that, but that's not what we're doing here.

We're simply saying whether or not this function in this particular location, if the comp plan had been written at a particular date, or if we did the.

We've had foresight to say we should have a governmental agency here.

This isn't about slopes.

This isn't about the disturbance of land.

This is about whether or not a function meets with our comp plan and those kinds of functions.

I would feel very comfortable with giving a great deal of leeway.

The slope idea, I understand we can have a rigorous conversation about

the value of slopes when this was in some areas of our county which appeared to have been more created in the 1800s and somehow been preserved into history as opposed to created when the earth was warm.

And so we can have that conversation later on.

But for these kinds of things, this is comp plan specific.

Is this a function that should be in the comp plan?

And we would be moving on to

All right.

Any other questions from the commission or staff?

All right.

Thank you.

I will open the public hearing and I'll call for the applicant's report.

Is there an applicant?

Yes, sir.

You don't, but David had to remind me.

Good evening Planning Commission, Lance Stewart.

I'm Director of the Department of Facilities and Environmental Services with Albemarle County.

And I've got a presentation that I'm going to be skipping through a lot of because David covered it pretty well.

So I'll try to be brief.

So just to some background, we have known, the county has known for 15 or 20 years that there were acute space needs for the police department and growing it really snowball rolling downhill pace for the fire rescue department.

as they have to assume additional responsibilities for the volunteer stations.

There have been past submissions for new capital requests for new facilities that were unfunded.

We spent several years looking for any kind of industrial space within the development area that was centrally located.

without much luck until we thought of pennies.

So I'll walk through that just a little bit more.

I'll go through the lease terms, just a little bit about the scope, not much really there, and try to skip past what Mr. Banish covered.

So one of the driving forces behind this is sort of a new function that the fire rescue department has taken on in recent years.

It's not well known that the county actually purchases all of the major apparatus for the volunteer stations and has assumed responsibility for maintenance of those.

And so at this point, you know, they have to go out to each of the county stations.

or the volunteer stations perform what maintenance they can do there.

Often the facilities aren't right for that.

Sometimes they have to work outdoors, sometimes in winter.

And if they need a part, just a small thing, you know, it's turn around, go back to central offices and go back.

So they've really needed this for a while.

And police has acute storage needs.

and Fire Rescue has also outgrown their offices on the second floor of the county office building.

And they have a lot of their quartermaster functions up there.

So this helps us to backfill that space to meet their growing administrative space needs.

So David listed some of the things that we are intending to put in the existing office spaces that serve the Penny's management and support team.

And we'll go through that again.

I've kind of talked about, obviously it's a very central location.

It's easy to access compared to most locations.

It's got a huge mezzanine area for storage behind the tower shop, two story, very secure space and a large warehouse.

I'll just show you a picture of that real quick in a second.

And it was available.

Again, going back to being able to find something.

And I'll say for a long term planning, you know, this is a 10 year lease.

We do have some options to renew.

But, you know, our intent is to identify a permanent space and a permanent home.

to serve these functions over time.

But it's a multimillion dollar investment to do that.

And we had acute needs that we felt we needed to address sooner rather than later.

You've seen this picture, but not these.

The top right picture there is the second level of the mezzanine storage.

It's much deeper than it looks there.

And the bottom picture shows about a half of the warehouse space.

Towards the end of that is access to a loading dock and a trash facility on the north side of the property.

and I'm covered that so I'll just walk you through just clarifying David pointed out where the where he thought the planter was that would need to be replaced but it's actually to the right.

There are some structural members that we have to avoid and to the right of the where you see the

The truck going in is actually some electrical and mechanical rooms that we can't disturb.

So this was really the only place we could get that in.

So it does mean that the planters need to go and I'll show you a little bit better of an angle.

You can see here that we actually do have to cut into that surround of the door assemblies and rebuild that to match as close as we can and also adding a similar architectural band around the

you know, very large roll up door that will be going in there.

And with that, I've managed to keep this under five minutes by a hair, despite my stumbling.

Great.

Thank you very much.

All right.

Great.

Getting things backwards is a daily occurrence with me.

Pardon me?

So let me, I'll open up the, if there are any comments from the, from the public that are attending in person on this issue.

Seeing none.

No, sir.

All right, sounds good.

I will close the public hearing and open it up to any discussion.

I do have a compromise for my colleague.

Perhaps there's a way for us to do some of these under a consent agenda.

and that if someone wants to pull it, they can pull it.

I'm looking at counsel over here to see if he's good.

He's probably looking at something quickly.

We actually discussed doing this one as a consent agenda.

We actually wanted to consult.

I wanted to consult with you first on that.

We used to do them years ago, depending on the complexity of them by consent agenda.

The Planning Commission can pull them if they feel like they need further discussion and be rescheduled.

So we're happy to do that.

So I think it's within the realm of possibilities as long as the Board of Supervisors doesn't direct that the Planning Commission hold a public hearing.

In looking at the statute, which is what I was looking for, it says that the Commission may, and at the direction of the governing body, shall hold a public hearing.

I think you're going to see different scales of activity.

Yeah, I think it would depend on the application.

So we could make that determination.

Here we are.

We're here.

All right.

Sounds like we're finished with discussions.

We're good.

All right.

Does anybody want to make a motion?

I would be willing to move.

And it's drafted like a motion.

Thank you.

We have a motion, and we have a second.

Any further discussion?

All right.

Yes, I will.

Ms.

Firehock?

Aye.

Great.

Thanks, everyone.

Alright, we'll move on to the second item, Wakefield Kennel, S.P.

2022-27, S.E.

2022-56, and S.E.

2022-57.

Good evening, commissions.

My name is Kevin McCollum.

I'm a senior planner with the planning division of Albemarle County Community Development, and tonight I'll be giving staff's presentation on special use permit application, SP-2022-27 Wakefield Kennel.

This is a proposed special use permit amendment for a commercial kennel.

The subject property is located at 790 Wakefield Farm in Earliesville, Virginia, just west of the Charlottesville Albemarle Airport.

The property is 4.63 acres in its own rural areas.

The existing conditions of the site include an existing commercial kennel that has been in operation since the mid 1950s.

It obtained a special use permit in July of 1976 and was expanded at that time.

The facility has operated since then until present day without any additional significant changes.

The kennel has an 8,000 square foot building with associated parking and 10,500 square feet of outdoor runs for the animals.

Majority of the surrounding properties are low density residential, ranging from half to two acres in size.

There are also nearby rural area uses, including a large farm to the east along Wakefield Farm.

The applicant has requested a special use permit for replacement of the existing kennel facility with a new and expanded facility to be built adjacent to the existing kennel.

The existing facility will remain operational until the new kennel is completed.

The proposed kennel is larger with 11,650 square feet and 100 kennels, but as a slightly smaller area for outdoor runs.

On the screen is a conceptual plan that provides an overview of what the facility will look like once construction has been completed.

In addition to the special use permit request, the applicant has requested two special exceptions.

The first to reduce the 500-foot required setback to any agricultural or residential lot line.

And the second is a reduction in the required number of parking spaces.

I'd like to quickly point out two small typos in the staff report.

For the setback special exception on page four, section 511B should be corrected to 511A as shown on the screen here.

And for the parking, special exception at the top of page five, there are 12 existing parking spaces adjacent to the existing facility, not nine.

The special use permit in 1976 required nine spaces, but they actually provided 12.

Staff evaluated these special exceptions based on what was submitted with the applicant's narratives, which did cite the appropriate zoning ordinance sections and the number of existing parking spaces.

Staff just made a slight error in the staff report.

For factors and findings, the special use permit application was reviewed under the factors for consideration as outlined in the zoning ordinance.

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

And with that, staff recommends approval of SB 2022-27 Wakefield Kennel for the reasons and what the conditions as recommended in the staff report.

And with that, are there any questions?

I do also have motions on the next slide.

Great.

Thanks very much.

Yeah maybe something we can revisit in the zoning ordinance update.

We ran into a similar situation with another kennel I looked at for another jurisdiction.

It was similar where the dogs are being dropped off and then they we gave them an exception because it was

Really ridiculous.

They're not parking and staying and waiting for Fluffy.

They're

leaving Fluffy or Rod or whatever.

All right, I also enjoyed the image from the applicant of what people expect to see in a kennel site.

I will be curious here from the applicant if that's the actual suite they're proposing or just giving us an example of what the modern day dog owner hopes to have in a kennel, anyway.

Thank you.

A couple quick questions.

Yep, it'll be completely removed.

They're planning on phasing it during the site plan stage, so the intent's to keep the kennel active while they're building the new one.

The existing building?

I'd have to measure on my computer if we can come back to that.

We can get those measures.

Okay, great.

Any other questions from the commission?

I just had one quick question.

The surface for the parking is that I didn't see it anywhere on the drawings but is that anticipated to be asphalt?

Do you know?

You can ask the applicant to.

I'm not sure.

Okay.

Alright, sounds good.

All right, I will open the public hearing and ask the applicant for their report.

I think you know the process, but you have 10 minutes.

Thanks.

There we go.

Okay.

Good evening.

Um, my name is Kendra Moon.

I'm a civil engineer with Lion & Grade here representing Wakefield Kennel.

I'm also joined by the Dauphlemeyer family, um, the owners of Wakefield Kennel.

So Kevin has covered a lot of this, but Wakefield Kennel is an existing commercial kennel in northern Albemarle.

We're requesting a special use permit or an amendment to an existing special use permit, which allowed the expansion of the current kennel.

We're requesting to demolish and replace it on site, both because of the age of the existing facility, but also because of an increase in demands for

larger pet suites.

So Karen, to answer your question, that there will be some larger pet suites and some smaller, more traditional kennels kind of offering more of a variety for consumers or customers.

And so this new facility will help this family business to continue to meet their customer needs

As mentioned, this is in the rural areas and surrounded by residential uses.

All right, so we've already covered a lot of this.

The building was built in the mid 1950s.

The general layout of the site is existing parking adjacent to the building with a fenced in area surrounding and this large turf field next to the building.

Roughly half the site is wooded.

The dogs are currently able to enter and exit the building freely between the hours of approximately 6.30 a.m.

and 6 p.m.

when staff are present.

Their indoor kennels are connected to these outdoor areas with an open door so they're able to enter and exit freely.

Currently there are up to six employees at any given time and 12 parking spaces.

This project will be phased so that the existing building can remain while they're building the new site.

And this is largely because it's a small family business.

This parking area will be asphalt.

It's proposed in roughly the same location of the existing building.

There will be a sound dampening fence surrounding the facility and indoor suites with some more space for the dogs.

See, this is the image Karen was talking about.

This is from Pet Paradise, but it's a similar model.

They're also commercial kennel.

And this is an image of the Acousti-Fence sound dampening fence material.

It doesn't have to be foliage like that.

It could just be a black fence material, but this is just to give you an idea.

And then in the lower left corner is a Morton building.

This is very similar to what the building will look like.

There will be the same hours of operation and same employees increase in parking spaces and there will be a slightly different approach with the dog's playtime.

So instead of an open door that lets them in and out whenever they please, there will be designated times where a few dogs at a time are taken out during the day.

So they'll be out still the same times of the day, but just limited dogs at a time.

For a little bit more detail, an increase in nine kennels proposed.

Slightly larger building, but a reduced outdoor area, so the overall gross floor area is slightly smaller.

Slightly more trips per day just because of the number of kennels.

And then to answer your question, Luis, Luis,

The closest property line is going to be 17 feet closer now, and the nearest residence will be 32 feet closer than previous, but still relatively low difference.

This use is largely supporting the local community.

It adds an amenity to the community and there was very positive feedback in the community meeting.

Honestly, the most feedback that we got was

that neighbors would be disappointed they could no longer see the dogs with the sound dampening fence.

We were asked if we could provide a little cut out in the fence for them to see the dogs.

So and a lot of these neighbors, I mean, this has been here almost 70 years.

So these people moved in knowing that there was a kennel next door.

Also, we're sensitive to tree preservation on site, the building footprint will be in the area of existing turf.

So

Very limited number of trees will need to be taken down.

As for the special exceptions, it's worth noting that the existing kennel was in place before the adoption of the ordinance.

So the existing kennel does not meet this setback requirement.

And the proposed kennel would not either.

There's a 500 foot setback from the building to from

any adjacent agricultural or residential property.

And since this is surrounded by residential property, the parcel would have to be 29 acres to meet this 500 foot setback in all directions.

And it's a 4.63 acre parcel.

So that blue box is showing a 29, that's showing what the parcel would have to be in order to meet the setback.

and for the parking.

So I think the problem with the zoning ordinance requirements for parking here is it includes the outdoor area for the pets.

It's any area where the dogs

are occupying pretty much.

So we have to include the outdoor run area in the parking calculation, which requires 51 parking spaces.

So the existing use itself would require 52 parking spaces, but they only have 12.

So obviously the extra 40 spaces aren't needed.

We are requesting or proposing an additional eight parking spaces though.

for a total of 20 to help alleviate peak drop-off times, especially during holidays.

Great.

Thanks very much.

I just have one.

So on your plan, you have

that when you put in the pond, the sort of retention pond, and you say that's going to be a swim area, how will it be a swim area when it's dry here in the summer?

No, it's not an amenity.

Sorry if it came off that.

It was not meant to look.

Part of the suite, you get that with the larger suite, right?

I might get left there.

Any other questions?

I just had one quick question.

You mentioned there are six current employees and there are three employee parking spaces.

Yeah.

So the three employee parking spaces, that is not meant to mean that that's the only employee parking, but that's kind of in the back.

That's more like maintenance.

There's a pole barn located back there.

So that would be, um, really more for like kind of maintenance or just it's an, it's an existing area.

And I think it's probably used as informal parking when

You know, they just pull up to the pole barn.

So that's just the three employee parking spaces that are meant to just formalize and acknowledge that it's used sometimes.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you.

Thanks very much.

Are there any comments from the public that are currently present?

All right, great.

Yes, I attended a community meeting that was held.

And as the applicant said, it seemed that they've been a great neighbor and that many neighbors came out in support of the project.

If they hadn't mentioned it, I was going to mention the thing about the neighbors, sad that they couldn't see the dogs anymore.

I'll just mention, it seems like an improvement with the soundproofing of the building.

The soundproof, or not soundproof, but sound ameliorating fence was

Impressive.

And also there are attempts to not just let the dogs run around whenever, but to start to control how many are out there being rambunctious at once.

So I thought, I think it's, I think it actually improves the site over present conditions and I'm definitely in support of it.

And I also just want to commend the presentation and the level of thoroughness.

I mean,

Small project that's not very large.

Obviously, it's a small family business, and they did a very thorough presentation.

Stormwater is addressed, which a lot of times we get larger companies that come to us and they don't have a stormwater management plan.

So obviously, they're probably adding some impervious here, but they're dealing with it.

For those who may not have

Dogs, I will let you know that this particular company has an absolutely brilliant reputation as a kennel in our community.

And so to see that they're upgrading their facilities, I think will be well received by those who need those kinds of facilities.

I would also like, if possible, if staff could just share with the Misty Mountain applicants, this Acousti block fence,

because that fence may in fact help that particular applicant.

As you know, we wrestled with, we didn't wrestle with it, but some of their neighbors wrestled with the sense of noise and vulnerability.

And perhaps that could be suggested to them as an option to help them as they go forward with their project.

I will say that this is just a bit of, this doesn't mean anything, but I will say that at one point we were doing something at our house

and we had an inspector come and they thought we were doing a private or we were in the kennel business.

which we weren't and that's another story of why they thought we were in the kennel business.

And they referenced this kennel about, you know, are we sure that this is something that we want to do given Wakefield site?

That was very nice of you to reference them.

That's not what we're doing here.

So clearly somebody appreciates in the county office the good work that they're doing out there.

Great, I echo everything the commissioners have said and also commend the applicant for a great job.

Anybody like to make a motion?

Well, if you could put the motion in front of me.

I move to recommend approval of SP202200027 Wakefield-Kennel with conditions as recommended in the staff report.

Great.

Thanks.

Any further discussion?

All right.

Yes, sir.

Ms.

Firehock?

Thank you.

Thanks very much.

Alright, we will move on to the next item.

SP 2022 dash 28.

Uh 2240 slash 2241 Gobblers Ridge Development.

Rebecca Ragsdale with the Planning Division and I'll be presenting the Gobblers Ridge Development Rights Request for you this evening.

First, we'd like to orient you to the property.

It is a little over 4 acres, 4.82 acres and it's located along Route 53 or the Thomas Jefferson Parkway and it is

It does include two existing parcels at the corner of 53 and then Gobblers Ridge goes across the existing parcel and then on back to serve the other lots.

This is an aerial view that shows you there are two dwellings existing located on the left side and then or the west side and the east side of the existing Gobblers Ridge.

This is an existing physical survey of the parcel.

We outlined the subdivision history in the staff report that led us to this point, which did include an error in terms of the number of development rights that were assigned to this parcel.

Although there are two existing dwellings on this 4.8 or so acre parcel, the development rights note that said it had two development rights, which the current owner relied on was incorrect.

There was some subdivision history that included the parent parcel 36

that led to the current configuration of 36E.

So this is really to grant the parcel the additional development right for the existing dwellings so that there is the potential to subdivide in the future.

Without the development right, the county could not create further nonconforming situations.

So that's the request this evening.

We analyzed this special use permit against the criteria that we typically do.

It's something we don't see very often in terms of existing conditions.

We didn't see any impacts or detriment that we needed to address with recommended conditions of approval.

If they do choose to subdivide in the future, then those

Regulations in the subdivision ordinance would be applicable.

So the character wouldn't really change.

And this would correct the prior error.

Excuse me.

We don't typically support additional development rights in the rural areas, but this is a unique circumstance.

So we did recommend approval of this without any necessary conditions.

Thanks very much.

Yes, we do have some additional measures in place.

Thank you.

I guess it's just my question is along the same lines.

And I'm not saying you personally made this mistake back when, but so it is to make sure I understand the county made a mistake and how, and then represented that mistake to the landowner who then made various decisions based on that mistake.

So we're trying to, we've made a mistake.

It's a bit late.

We have the option now to correct it.

I really do like complex math, so I need to just put that out there.

I really, really like differential equations.

But could you go back, please, to the plot?

I will have to say, I know this is a really simple item, but I really struggled with this.

I couldn't figure out what we were doing to what piece of land.

Right, so this is the existing condition survey.

So there isn't a proposed lot configuration for this one yet.

So all we're simply saying is that where we see the 27 by the 26, 27 by 37, that will be its own plat on the bottom.

Right, so there's the two existing dwellings and the lots would be configured to meet the minimum of two acre lots.

And then, you know, those drain fields and well would have to be located on the same parcel as the dwelling.

So that may, you know, with Gobbler's Ridge going through it, you know, it may involve

So we're not looking, by the correction we're making this evening, or perhaps we're moving towards making this evening, we are not enabling a new dwelling

and that we're still only dealing with number 2241 and number 2240.

Yes, that's correct.

And we are not dealing with up at the end here where it says the Frostburgs, which there was some confusion because some of the names were sort of on both pieces of property.

But that's 2325 address.

Right, that's correct.

So there's nothing that prohibits an access easement from bisecting a property as it does now.

But basically, we're not seeing an image of what they propose for subdivision right now.

Right, we're seeing the existing conditions in this.

I think that's what was confusing me.

I'm trying to wrap my head around this thing.

I mean, it's still a proposal for a subdivision, right?

But this doesn't have the actual subdivision.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Luis.

Yeah, this doesn't represent that, right?

Yeah.

I was trying to make it work.

Yeah.

I'm good.

Any other questions for staff?

OK, great.

Thank you.

With that, I'll open the public hearing.

And is the applicant here?

How are y'all doing?

Good, thanks.

I think you know the drill.

Okay, sure.

OK.

So she pretty much covered most everything.

Oh, sorry.

Thank you.

And address.

Leighton Poffenberger, like physical address or the address of the property?

Physical address.

OK.

So the proposal is to, in order to try to regain that additional development right that was

thought to be on the plat upon purchase.

They were two separate dwellings on separate parcels until 91.

We did some due diligence and on the plat in 03, it stated there were two development rights remaining, kind of went on that in regards to the property.

So when we purchased the property, the dwellings existed.

and nothing has really changed.

The houses are there.

In regards to

A couple of y'all's questions you had, that doesn't necessarily include the proposed division.

It's just trying to regain that development right to propose a division later on possibly and have that opportunity if that's the course we choose.

There would be no additional dwellings allowed by y'all's rules, I believe, just because two developments with two houses.

So that is all we're trying to do is just

you know, bring it all up to the paperwork up to what it was in a sense.

So I'd be happy to answer any other questions that y'all have, or I could help you with an understanding better.

All right.

Thank you.

I'm afraid if I ask more questions, I'll lose my current understanding.

So I'm just going to stay where I'm at in this game.

I'll stop.

Great.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Are there any comments from the public that is present or that are present?

All right.

Thank you.

So with that, I'll close the public hearing and open it up to discussion.

I'm good now.

I understand.

All right.

We're rolling.

It's your district, sir.

Sounds good.

Would anybody like to make a motion?

All right, I would like to move to recommend approval of SP 2022-28 to grant one additional development right for the reasons stated in the staff report.

I will only say that I was surprised at the Thomas Jefferson Parkway.

made itself over there.

That was interesting to see that the Thomas Jefferson Parkway continues on the other side of the house.

But it does and whatever.

All right.

No, thanks, Carolyn.

Yes.

Mr. Murray?

Aye.

Ms.

Firehock.

Aye.

Thank you.

Alright, with that, we'll move on to the next item, SP 2022-30, Spring Hill Farm Development Rights Request.

Thank you.

I'll also be presenting this item, Rebecca Ragsdale and the Planner with Community Development.

This also has a history where you must follow the math a little bit.

The current parcel is 442.42 acres in size and goes back to some 1981 special use permits.

Then we'll go over that history in a minute, but it is a large parcel that has frontage on Dickwoods Road, Grassmere, Ivy Depot, to name a few.

So there were a fair number of public notice signs that were posted and all of the abutting owners notified.

We didn't have any objections to this one or the other one I should have mentioned.

Zooming in, you know, we indicated the portion of the property where the lots would be proposed, and that's from Dick Woods Road.

Let me get my pointer because I realize you can't see my pointer.

But the access will be from Dick Woods Road, where there is an existing entrance.

The parcel does have some significant resources that we mentioned in terms of Ivy Creek and the floodplain along Dick Woods Road and some streams that are

along the parcel in this area and kind of naturally segments this portion of the property from the remainder of it.

And as we said in the report, the original subdivision was approved in 1981 under a provision of the ordinance that allowed you to utilize your development rights, which allow you to create a minimum of two acre lots, but also utilize what you could

The residential development that you could achieve with your 21-acre lots, it allows you to basically cluster it and do smaller lots than 21 acres in size.

So when this was originally approved, they utilized all but seven of the rights that they had.

So in order to utilize any of the additional development potential, then a special use permit amendment is necessary.

So there was a history along the way of the proposal for a hundred and some acre parcel to be accessed off of Dickwood Road, which is the same area that we've been talking about with this current proposal.

The prior proposal also included a stream crossing and fill in the floodplain, which is not necessary in this case.

So that brings us to present day.

and sort of the history of this parcel, those lots that were created are primarily in an area where the former village of Ivy was designated.

But we do feel like this is, again, I said with the prior one, somewhat of a unique circumstance, whereas this parcel, this residue was left primarily for conservation and agricultural uses.

So the proposal includes approximately a 28 acre lot and then a 64.52 acre lot.

Over the course of the review, the applicant has corrected the acreage, but some of the elements of the proposal include access for the two lots from the existing entrance off of Dick Woods Road, which was established prior logging.

activity and then lot one for one residence and then lot two for another residence.

There are conservation areas that are identified and then also a commitment to preserve the stream buffer areas.

So the applicant is still approaching this very much from a conservation standpoint and is agreeable to additional conditions consistent with some of those in the history of the parcel that limit clearing and also additional water protection provisions because it does have all of those critical resources and is in a water supply protection area.

Primarily with this request, we didn't

The residential lot layout is not inconsistent with what you see in that part of the county in Ivy and along Dick Woods Road in terms of the residential lots.

So we didn't feel like there would be any detriment to any abutting parcels or the character changing with regard to the residential pattern.

And then we've proposed conditions that still retain the agricultural and conservation and values of the property.

So we feel like those conditions and

features of the proposal with the elements of the plan provide that consistency with the comprehensive plan.

Now, this is one where the conditions in the staff report intend to get at those goals.

The staff report you received

Since the staff report you received, we have updated the conditions of approval, which we feel like are more enforceable and in line with the current ordinance and condition language, so they're not

and the changes based on some of the feedback from the applicant.

So in terms of what the changes are to the conditions, we gave you a printed sheet of those conditions.

Some of them are just simply clarifications.

The first condition is

making sure that the residue of the parcel could not be further subdivided without another special use permit and that no further division or lot one or two is permitted so they would each have just one residential unit allowed.

The typical condition that you see nowadays with regard to general accord with the proposed lot layout, so that identifies the conservation areas and the access to lots

Excuse me.

We mentioned one dwelling unit per lot.

Now condition five is the one that has primarily changed.

There was the notion or prior thought with the condition that the requirement would be that the applicant would obtain a riparian easement.

And we feel like it's better to have the enforceable standards as a special use permit condition instead of relying on a future easement and future easement holder and

We thought that that would be a more appropriate approach and so what it addresses is the designation and management of the stream buffers

A tree planting plan that would include replanting those areas that have been disturbed for the existing access road.

And then also a best management practices plan that gets at agricultural activities and those regulations regarding if they do have livestock, nutrient management plans, fencing, and then ensuring

Native plants in the riparian buffers.

So we have reviewed this with the county engineer and the applicant and staff are comfortable with these conditions.

Granted that, you know, we have your input this evening before they're finalized to the board.

And also condition six was amended just to clarify that the clearing of land for residential uses is limited to two acres.

And then that does not include any of the agricultural and forestal

activities or farm buildings that might be associated with the property.

So we are recommending approval with the updated conditions.

As I mentioned, there's the continuation of preservation of the sensitive areas on the site and then

We do have to mention that additional residential development is not consistent with the goals of the comprehensive plan, but we feel like with these updated conditions, we've addressed the concerns that we previously had regarding not clarifying conservation areas and preservation regulations on the parcel.

If the forestry road had not been there, would staff have recommended that the road go there?

It's, we're okay with the location.

It avoids impacts to the floodplain under, you know, which is an improvement from prior plans.

Engineering has reviewed it and they don't have any concerns.

It's adequate for two lots.

So, you know, I don't think that there is, I think it's probably the best spot given the characteristics of the property.

Unless there is a spot where the stream impacts could have been avoided, but the impacts are already

There's a big difference between short term impacts and long term impacts.

And from my experience, the long term impacts of having a stream, a road through a stream buffer are worse than the short term impacts of making a new road.

So it's a future matter for policy when we look at our future policy.

Great, thank you.

I'll just make a comment on what you just said.

I guess, you know, one of the things to keep in mind, I've done a lot of research and literature reviews on logging road impacts, and you'd be surprised how long, if you've driven a heavy truck over a road over multiple years, it does create a sort of permanent impression.

So it's not really a temporary

impact.

That road has already made an impact on the landscape and it's not something that you'll probably come back in 20 years and still be able to tell where the logging road was even if not one more truck crosses it.

So I don't necessarily agree that it's sort of a temporary or not impacted area.

Anyway, I'll just leave it at that.

That's my only comment.

I do like the conditions the staff develop though.

Great, thank you.

Any other questions?

So if we can look at condition number six, and if you can go back to the platte or the proposed platte, please.

So this is the access that is existing that would serve lot one and then the driveway would continue to serve lot two.

So that was one of the changes that was made since the initial submittal.

So here's the opt-out clause on this.

So it says that you can only do two acres of, you can only clear two acres in lot one and lot two.

However, in condition six, land is allowed to be cleared in 5895 if it can be characterized, if the clearing can be characterized as either falling under agricultural and forestry use.

And I don't know how easy or difficult that is to do in the county.

I'm not sort of casting dispersion.

All I'm simply saying is that it's going to be possible to clear additional acreage in that land under condition six when we prohibit clearing up in the big lot.

And so it seems that there's an inconsistency there, for me at least.

Now, it may be that this is a small trivial item, but it does look like that if we can characterize something as

Mr. Bivins, if I could correct maybe a misconception there that condition six actually applies to the entire subdivision.

And we're saying that in lots one and two you're only allowed to clear two acres for dwellings and

schools and volleyball and pickle court and all that foolishness but that at the bottom of all of that in the area that since since lot one and two are have 58 95 plot 58 95 as included in their parcel

So the same rule applies to all three parcels?

I understand that, but what I'm getting at is that while there's a prohibition of clearing two acres in the main plot one and two, there's a permissible clearing down the bottom.

So I don't know what I'm coming to.

And some of it is clearing for view.

There's a fairly permissive, as you probably know, there's a fairly permissive allowance for converting, for example, forest land to agricultural land.

So then you can

clear as much as you like under agriculture and our stream buffer ordinance does not actually prohibit clearing.

And just to add something to that, typically fencing for livestock is only about 35 feet, if that.

And then, and that should, we should spell out what that buffer should be.

If livestock are going to be fenced out and that's going to be a condition, there should be a width associated with that.

And then for row crops, we have no buffer in the county.

The purpose of the condition, the impacts that we're seeing are from the residential development.

So we wanted to put a limit on how much of the parcel is developed for residential development.

And then we thought that condition five

went beyond the ordinance and covered additional impacts to streams.

We wanted to make sure there wasn't a circumstance where these standards didn't apply.

There might be a case where there is disturbance where the stream buffer ordinance wouldn't apply.

So it is, you know, additional measures in place for the property.

So that was the thought process.

We didn't want to further restrict the agricultural or forest activities.

I think you've done as much as you can under existing law.

I guess the distinction, at least in my mind, is the residential use.

So you're only restricting that.

The rest is falling on the agriculture, which... Could be clear.

Yeah, that's the case in any... Yeah, okay.

I'm good.

Then if I can ask another question, maybe you'll defer this to the applicant.

But on page four of their report, it says,

The revised plan sets a size 14.9 acres of the southern portion of Spring Hill Farm for a permanent conservation, I guess, easement.

And so I don't understand how this project, how, I don't understand if that's what we're doing here, if that's just, was for our information only, which it could have been just for our information, but I don't know how we're talking about these two lots.

And that has to do with the, well, we can't see, I wrote it down somewhere.

And that has to do with the, oh, there's a farm.

I can't see that.

You need to have like a 20 year old on this one here.

Yeah, the one up at the very top where I think it's like 20, 56, 95.

Right.

So there are these areas that the applicants use the terminology conservation area.

And that's where through this process back and forth, we were trying to define what the intention was and how we would administer that with a special use permit.

But we're not settling that tonight.

because there's nothing in any of these conditions that talk about the conservation on the farm, on the existing, on the pre-existing farm.

And I'm fine with that.

So the conservation areas are an element of the proposed lot layout so there wouldn't be any residential activity in those areas.

Okay.

But how does that differ from a normal subdivision?

It seems like that that's already true.

According to our Water Protection Ordinance, residential development wouldn't be within that 100-foot buffer.

They should be required to maintain that 100-foot buffer.

I believe the Conservation Area B is actually wider than the stream buffer.

All right.

Any other questions for staff?

We'll probably hit a lot of this in discussion too.

Yeah.

So, with that, I'll open the public hearing.

Are there comments or presentation from the applicant?

Please state your name and address for the record.

Sorry, sir.

My address?

Yes.

2247 Garth Road,

I'm before you tonight in support of the amendment to the special permits covering the Spring Hill Farm property in Ivy, which is owned by my wife, Diane Edgerton Miller, who's sitting up here, and myself and our company, Blue Springs Land Corporation.

Originally, the Spring Hill Farm property was 695 acres.

It was owned by my wife's grandmother, Nettie Marie Jones, who was a longtime resident of Albemarle County.

In 1981,

Mrs. Jones applied for, in order to develop this property, applied for and granted two special use permits, SP 81-1 and 81-55.

And that divided the property, that's 695 acres, into a total of 33 lots containing approximately 153 acres plus 10 acres of roads.

and a residue parcel approximately 531 acres.

So the total was about 34 total parcels.

Under the zoning ordinance as exists then and existed now, if you look at the number of rights that this property could have been divided by right, they come up with either 41 or 42.

The difference tonight is not really relevant because

Today there are 34 parcels.

If this proposal is approved, there'll be 36.

So in any case, there are less than the 41 that could have been developed by right under the ordinance then and under the ordinance now.

In any case, as Ms.

Ragsdale points out, there was a lot of discussion about why the special use permit process was used in 1981, that's 42 years ago, that some of the property was in fact in the

I think it was the village residential at that time.

But in any case, the, the.

Essentially the key is that, that the use of the special use permit processes I understand it.

was due to the size of the parcels, not the number.

And the effect of the permits was to cluster the lots, which was deemed to be a good kind of, excuse me, good way to develop the property.

If the 33 lots had been developed strictly by right, they would have consumed 503 acres of the property rather than only about 180, whatever it is.

My wife and I acquired the property after my wife's grandmother died in 1991.

and we've owned it for about 30 years.

And in the 42 years since the approval of these two special permits, although there were a couple, about 20 years ago, there was an attempt to divide one of the lots.

In fact, there have been no further divisions in the 42 years since those two permits were approved.

Currently,

I don't know how to do it.

I don't want to touch it here.

Oh, this?

What do I do here?

I'm not touching it.

Hold the phone here.

No, I don't know if we have the pointer on this.

I don't know why.

I don't usually present from here.

Here we go.

Where is Nicole?

And we need her.

Yes, we just want to scroll down a little bit.

No, I see now.

Okay, all right, so this is a map of the entire property.

If you can take, I don't know if you can you see it on your screens?

Okay, fine.

All right.

So the original, as you can see, the original lots were in this area, the 33 lots.

This is the old farmhouse, which still exists, which we expanded.

I think we added, initially, lots five and six, excuse me, 15 and 16 were the

original farm, Spring Hill Farm property with the old farmhouse, this area here, which is still used as a farm now.

Here are the phase two lots, phase one lots.

So this area now is the current residue, the 442 acres, and here are the

the two lots that we're proposing.

There was some confusion, understandably, because the plat changed.

In fact, this area, which was called Conservation B, was at one time going to be part of the residue, but we've changed that for various reasons.

And now it's all a part of lot one.

So I think a gentleman's question was something about this is in fact part of lot one now.

Anyway, and this little piece of it is part of lot two.

And then this area here will be part of the residue, but it will be subject to conservation in order to protect the streams.

This is the stream right here.

This is the northern tributary stream.

This is the southern tributary stream.

This is Ivy Creek.

As it goes, it'll continue this way and heads off that way.

So there's a substantial part.

Ivy Creek goes all the way up here, I think, somewhere like that.

to the bridge.

Okay, anyway, we'll move on.

I wanted you to have a sense of the whole property.

So what we've done here is to take essentially what is, and Ms.

Ragsdale was correct,

This piece of the property is effectively segregated from the rest by reason of topography.

It's so steep in here that there's really no way to access the southern part of the property from the northern piece.

And so we thought this was a reasonable way to deal with the property after owning it for 30 years.

Let's subdivide this off and the rest of the farm can be accessed from this northern area, but this will be segregated off.

and the entrance will be down here.

There's a question about, I think over here, about why the entrance is there, which I'll address in a second.

But in any case, I'll just finish.

So what we've done here is we've taken approximately, what do I have here, 93 acres

here, 93 acres total.

And we have two lots, 64 acres and 28 acres.

And then this area, which is going to be conserved, I think it's about 14 acres, which will be part of the residue, but it will be conserved.

There'll be no additional development and it will be subject to the riparian buffers.

Okay.

And I want to address one other thing, and then I can address the issues that the commission talked about.

The Albemarle County Comprehensive Plan and Zoning Ordinance in the rural area presents as one of its major goals, two major goals.

One is to preserve the agricultural and forestal use of the properties in rural area, and the other is watershed protection.

And I think that when we get done with this, I think this project, this proposal does both things.

The restriction that the staff has proposed that we've agreed to is that

Only two acres of these new parcels will be used for, will be allowed to be cleared for residential purposes.

And what that means is if we have approximately 107 acres, including that, we have 93 acres in the two lots, another 14 acres, that'll be conserved as 107 acres.

What we're saying is that only four of those acres, four of the 107 acres will be converted from agriculture and forest use to residential use or essentially 93% or something like that.

So in terms of promoting that particular goal, I think this does a good job of that.

Similarly, although it's not before you tonight, if in the future when the Planning Commission sees a possible division of the rest of it, if you use the same kind of restriction, then of the 349 acres, only 10 or 12 acres

will be used for residential purposes.

The rest will remain in forestal and agricultural purposes.

In addition, I think that as you folks undoubtedly know, there is a tremendous incentive, financial incentive for owners of parcels of this size to keep them in forestal agriculture use.

And that's the land use taxation program, which substantially reduces the real estate taxes.

And I think that

Finally, we talked about watershed protection.

That's a very significant part that Spring Hill property is located in the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir Watershed.

Ivy Creek, which is a major contributor to the reservoir, runs on the eastern portion of the property.

And what we've done here is make fairly significant protection to the watershed, which again, promotes the, which is the goal of the ordinance.

I'll address, if you guys want, the issue that I'm finished with this.

Do the size restriction and the size of these lots, there is, I think as correctly pointed out, there is no particular impact on the adjoining properties.

It's all consistent with

Excuse me, the rural area and that the imposition of the repairing stream buffers on Ivy Creek and stream tributaries will be on balance a major benefit to the community in the form of public water ship protection.

I'm happy to address the, if the commission members want, this seeming inconsistency between

the clearing issue that you can clear for, that we've restricted clearing for residential uses, but land clearing is obviously possible for agricultural and forestal uses.

I'm happy to address that.

I think it is, in fact, it is an inconsistency because if you look at the issue of forestry, so the goal is we're going to protect forestry.

What is forestry?

Forestry is the periodic

cutting of forests and selling timber.

That's what it is.

And if you're going to encourage forestry, then you're going to encourage land clearing.

Similarly, if you're going to encourage agriculture, as the gentleman here mentioned, there's no prohibition upon taking a forest and turning it into a field.

That's simply going from agricultural to a forest or you can go the reverse.

Again, this is your ordinance and I'm not saying it's a bad ordinance, but it is in fact seemingly inconsistent.

But in any case, we can address that some more.

Thank you.

If you could just hold on for one minute, we'll see.

Mr. Miller, since you're on this right now, could you extend to the completion of your idea?

Because for me, that actually is the tension here.

And I think I've thought about this a great deal, and I think I have, effectively, an answer based on my experiences.

So we have the Spring Hill phase two lots right here.

There was a substantial

amount of, this originally had been planted by one of the prior owners, I don't know, 50, 60 years ago or more in pine, a crop of loblolly pine.

And at the point at which this property gets, the SP gets approved, it's time the trees are mature and so much of what was done in terms of clearing for phase two is simply harvesting the pine crop.

However, my recollection is about 20 years ago, if that's the right answer, we had an infestation of pine beetles in Albemarle, Canada.

I don't know if you folks remember that, but in any case, and large sections, 20, 30 acres of the pine forest were dead.

and therefore needed to be clear cut.

And so that's what we did in order to get rid of them and then replant.

Well, there was enormous way and cry from the phase two lot owners of what have you done?

You've clear cut these trees.

And when I tried to say, well, this is forest real use and you have a residential lots that are next to far so use, you can expect that we have commercial forestry.

And then we hired a commercial forester from somewhere who came in with these enormous hydraulic saws.

If you've ever seen them, I just wiped everything out.

and we start again.

So when you say to a homeowner, well, don't worry, this is in forestry and in 10 to 20 years, the forest will come back.

Let's, you know, most homeowners don't have a 10 to 20 year time horizon to say, okay, I guess I'll wait.

And usually they say, gee, I bought this house because I thought it was next to this beautiful forest and now you've cut it all down.

Well, okay.

So let's go back to farm use.

So the current owner, nice man, Mr. Hedges, he has the Spring Hill house lot 15 and 16.

And he actually has the audacity to try to actually have a farm.

And so then apparently what he did at one point, he told me, was he decided to put chicken litter as fertilizer, which I guess is commonly used, which you get very cheaply.

And of course, then you have the residents screaming that this place stinks.

Don't do that anymore.

And so here we have a farm use.

arguably commercial farming, which we're trying to encourage.

And yet the homeowners, they really don't want to live next to commercial farms.

They want to live next to pretty little horse farms, but not real farms.

So what's the answer?

Well, I have two thoughts.

One involves essentially a change in zoning, which is outside of the purview of tonight, to say, well, there's some areas of Albemarle County which we designate as rural, which really

50 years later, 40 years later, you know, they're not that rural anymore.

And if you look at this area of South Ivy, it's really not what it was 50 years ago.

So maybe we ought to change the concept, but again, that's outside of what we're doing tonight, but that we really don't want

Commercial forestry or real live commercial farms in proximity to these folks and their houses because they really don't want them.

But I'll leave that for another day.

The other issue, which I think is which I actually based on the thought of the

My experience with forestry such as it is, what I've learned is that commercial forests, number one, they're not 350 acres or 400 acres.

Real live commercial farms are tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of acres, enormous pieces.

I've had some experience dealing with

Large company International Paper in Louisiana, which has 72,000 acre pine farm.

So that's a real commercial farm where they have, you know, 25 year cycles and they use the pulp for paper.

So what do we have here?

Well, this is mostly hardwood.

And so the life cycle of hardwoods can be 50, 60, 70 years.

But at the end of this work, this is really treated as commercial forest.

Then we hire a commercial forester.

He comes in and he clear cuts the whole place and replants the stuff.

And lo and behold, 50 or 60 years from now, it'll be back to where it is today.

Again, that doesn't make the residents feel very good.

But what I found is this.

that actually smaller parcels such as the 68-acre parcel here we're talking about or the 28-acre parcel that are owned by the people who live there, they will be selectively cut, not clear cut.

In fact, what we did prior to this, we were doing some logging and because we had in mind that we would subdivide it for lots in the future, we didn't clear cut, we selectively cut.

And so when you selectively cut, you leave lots of stuff and you take out a portion of it.

And I think that that's, if in fact, that it is more likely that the nice people, the easters who are gonna buy lot one, they're not gonna clear cut the property, they'll selectively cut the forest, but they're not gonna clear cut it because it's their residence.

So if you look at the impact of small parcel,

as opposed to large parcel.

I think small parcel forestry, which is managed by the owners who live there, is going to be much better neighbors to everybody else than, in fact, commercial forestry would be.

We can extend this conversation.

Thank you for that.

Basically what we're saying is at the discretion of the owner.

And so if you've got an owner who has a symbiotic relationship with her forest, then they probably won't touch it.

But as we know, property changes hands.

And so I don't know what the owner will be.

I don't even know what the kids will be.

Suppose this family, the Easters have kids.

So we don't know.

The kids come in.

Mom and Dad have decided they're going to live in St.

Bart's.

And so

We're taking the, they gave us the land to live on, so they're going to take the trees down.

All I'm saying is that I get where you're coming from.

I understood what you did in phase two, how you sort of had to come in and deal with an unusual natural occurrence of an infestation.

My concern is, and my concern, I'm sharing this, and I agree, you can't do anything about this.

What I'm sharing with my colleagues is that we still have an out to have a clear field.

I'm sorry, sir, I didn't understand what you just said.

I'm not sure I understand.

No, I think there may be a misunderstanding here.

This bottom piece is going to be owned by these people.

It's not going to be owned by the residents.

It's gonna be owned by these, but this is a change.

Initially, this piece was gonna be retained as part of the residue, but not anymore because of various issues that came up.

This entire piece, this whole thing is owned by the guy in lot one, not the residue.

This whole piece here is owned by lot two, not the residue.

So when it gets converted to lot one and lot two, will it lose the ag forest designation?

No.

No.

Well, then again, and this isn't a debate.

I'm not sure I understand your point.

Even if it becomes a residential piece of property in lot one, the piece that still has the ag forestal, depending on what the owner of lot one, they can change, they could cut it because it's forestal or they could convert it.

So basically, even though there's a prohibited

Well, even if we clear two acres, they still have the ability to clear additional acres if they say it's forest all over, it's ag.

And that's fine.

You're absolutely right, but this is forest.

I understand that.

All right.

So that might come back to my original conversation.

Why if this is if they can do whatever they want to do on this piece of property, why are we holding it to two acres?

Well, the difference is if they were clearing it for agriculture or forestry, that implication is that land could regenerate itself.

If they put a giant swimming pool on top of it, then that's a permanent change.

That's what we have.

I was just going to point out, it's not the forestry of this issue, because with forestry when you clear and you're bringing it down to stumps, you leave the stumps and then you replant.

It's the conversion to the pasture that I think is causing the heartburn.

I'm not sure that I hear what you're saying.

I don't know the answer to that.

Would that simply have to be proffered by the applicant as opposed to, it doesn't seem to me it could be a condition imposed by the

by the commission, given that the comprehensive plan is in favor of agriculture and forestry.

No, you're right.

No, he's right.

I think as a practical matter, I will say this, as a practical matter,

Again, I understand the theoretical issues.

As a practical matter, when you look at the topography, you had the topo up there earlier.

No, there's the one that, Kirk, it's the plat, that's it.

So realistically, the property is fairly steep.

as you can see.

And realistically, in terms of what is actually going to happen, what's actually going to happen is, you know, again, probability is it's going to stay in forest.

I cannot see a residential user clearing those forests and using, I mean, it's always possible, but based on the topography and, you know, it's not something that is likely.

Now that doesn't answer the issue as, you know, globally, but I think as to this property,

It's likely that what's in agriculture now, which is the floodplain, will stay in agriculture.

And what's in forest will stay in forest.

So even though I know you're concerned, there's nothing that requires that to happen.

I think as a practical matter, it's likely that's what's going to happen.

Thank you.

With that, I'll open it up to any public that are currently present for comments.

All right, great, thanks.

So I'm curious, you know, this is an unusual case for sure.

I mean, it seems strange that we would be able to put a condition on this that would require fencing livestock out of streams or installing watering systems or planting or following best management practices.

The applicant has put on their plan, if I read it, that they propose to protect the stream buffer that's on their application.

That's right.

So it's saying, yes, good job.

I mean, it's also worth noting this has been through the Board of Supervisors multiple times.

And each time it's come back to them, they've said, no, really, this is the way that we wanted it.

We can't guess what the Board of Supervisors would do this time.

Although this is a different access than what was before them before.

But presumably that access, if it really is as old as they say it was, that access was there

during some of the past times when it was reviewed by the board of supervisors.

Theoretically, but the board is not in the position on the dais to negotiate site design with the applicant.

So that's the tricky thing.

We kind of react to what's proposed to us as part of law.

So I, you know, I still say the conditions were fairly good and I think we've gone around the weekend as some would say, if you catch that reference to Scotland.

But the point is that, you know, I think we've got a pretty good set of conditions here.

I think we just wanted to be clear what we are and are not able to control and what we are and are not doing with this site.

Well, and the other thing I would say too is just the issue of issuing a development rate in this circumstance.

I mean, if we had an active transfer development rights program in Albemarle County, which I hope we will pursue, then this could be easily settled by someone, you know, purchasing or selling a development rate, but we don't.

Well, we could have another conversation about transfer development rights, but they don't work because there's abundant development opportunities in our surrounding localities.

There's also the fact that they are still with, they are under their given development rights.

They're doing less than what could have been done.

Somewhere around 10 or so.

Anyway.

I guess I have a question or maybe I should just leave it.

I think I'm just going to leave it alone.

I'll just say that for discussion purposes, it was around the fact that the conditions have brought up this issue of the Ag Forestal District still remaining and not being impacted by the two acre.

Clearing.

And I wonder why that was even brought up.

Because they could still, I mean, we could say that we're limiting clearing for residential to two acres, period.

And then the agricultural, forestal piece is just a given.

And we probably wouldn't have had a lot of this conversation if that had been the case.

I think what the conditions are doing is clarifying that it doesn't apply to those agricultural and forestal.

And that might just have been something that the applicant had wanted to help

Clarify that two-acre clearing.

But in reality, it doesn't really change the availability of that right to the landowner.

Right.

But I was trying to get to the point that where I think the applicant went at the beginning of his conversation when he was trying to unpack his reasoning is that the county has property now that is zoned one way.

But life has occurred, and there's this tension between, as we've seen in a number of places, there's this tension between what the lived action or the lived way in a particular part of our county and what a zoned way is in our particular county.

And so as we sort of think through some of this, that we spend some time as staff to spend some time looking at those places where we have that natural conflict.

Now, I want to be very clear that I am not trying to do, I am not saying in a sort of quiet or backdoor way that we should expand the development, although everybody pretty much knows what I think about that.

In case you're wondering, you can just look at the smile on my face as I say that.

But I am saying that as we are trying to live into the future of Albemarle County, we've got some interesting tensions about what we've become and what we're trying to hold on to.

And how do we shape the map?

How do we shape our life to be able to do that?

Some of us are seeing one of our, we're seeing a lot of conversation about something happening in one of our crossroad communities down Route 29.

and which is interesting about that because there again you have this huge legacy farm that was developed.

Yeah, the only thing I'd add to that, which I totally agree with, is that it also impacts infrastructure.

So you're seeing that with the traffic and intersections and so on.

I guess the intersections that aren't appropriate anymore.

All right, any further discussion?

If not, do I hear a motion?

No, did you want to make it?

I can make it.

So Ms.

Firehock, it would actually be the language because it's not what was in the staff report.

Exactly.

Oh, sorry.

All right.

I will remake my motion.

Presented this evening is fine.

This evening.

Great.

Do I hear a second?

Awesome.

Is there any further discussion?

All right.

Yes.

Ms.

Firehock?

Aye.

Great, thank you.

There she is.

Awesome.

We are recording.

You're ready.

Great.

Thanks very much.

All right.

We are back together, and we will move to committee reports.

Anybody have committee reports starting down here?

No, Mr. Bivins?

Well, actually, I was wondering if Mr. McDermott would give a report on the, because we did have last week the MPO tech.

I could not make it.

Thanks.

Yes, the Crozet CAC discussed the mobile home park over by the Crozet Park.

And it was a very refreshing conversation.

They had a lot of residents that came out from the mobile home park out there and talked about how important it was to them for having affordable housing.

And it was also refreshing to see a lot of my

fellow residents of my district, be very supportive of that and supportive of the expansion.

And a lot of the discussion revolved actually around how can we make sure that this stays a mobile home park and isn't converted to some other use, which would displace the residents.

And so it was a very fascinating discussion.

The Historic Preservation Committee continues to not meet due to lack of quorum.

So once again, we did not meet this week.

And I missed my CAC because I was on a business trip in South Carolina.

The 5th Street?

Yes.

Thank you for that segue.

It's perfect.

So I did attend the 5th and Avon first meeting.

of the year and there was not a quorum.

So there was no vote for officers or approval of minutes but that said there was still an hour and a half worth of discussion, which I thought was really interesting.

And thanks to our community connector, Allison, who shared a lot of really great links that were follow ups to the questions that were received during the CAC meeting and those were really focused on smart scale.

and I'm happy to send these around, but there were some really interesting links here to the VDOT's live YouTube channel, some of the Commonwealth Transportation Board meeting, smart scale website, et cetera.

And so that was the majority of the discussion during that CAC.

Was that any other reports?

Thank you, Commissioner Missel.

I was not at the meeting, but I have gotten an update on the items that were covered.

I will say that we had a presentation from the consultant early on and the Charlottesville area transit director on the new microtransit program that we're working on.

We received a demonstration grant from the state to start that in two areas, both in Pantops and in

The place is 29 north, so basically north of the river.

It does extend down to Riah Road in that area, also along Riah Road.

The outcome of that is essentially that we are looking to put together a request for proposals for a company to come in and operate that microtransit program.

And microtransit, in case you don't recall, is this almost like an Uber or Lyft type service, but it's public transit.

So it's less expensive, not as fluctuating in the cost, and also addresses accessibility.

So that was a presentation earlier in the day.

And then for public hearings, the board heard the St.

Paul's Ivy Church, which this commission also dealt with.

And that went through without really any significant issues.

The board of supervisors approved that special use permit.

for the preschool, and then also the Keswick School, if you recall that one, another special use permit to add some additional facilities out at the Keswick School.

Once again, that was approved unanimously.

Rebecca was there for these.

If you have any other questions,

There was one other item on there, which was the Holly Mead substation expansion special use permit as well.

And that also got approved unanimously by the board of supervisors.

Great.

Thank you.

Great report for not being in the country.

Any other questions?

Please.

Not for you, Mr. McDermott, but for our council.

So I have this memory, and it might just be something I dreamed.

Not just of Albemarle County.

I think that one of the county's legislative priorities, and honestly, I'm not sure what the status of this request is, but to allow local bodies to meet all virtually, because as you may recall, there are five local bodies that are singled out in the state legislation who are specifically not allowed to meet all virtually.

And I think that one of the county's legislative priorities was to request that those five local bodies not be prohibited.

So the Historic Preservation Committee actually is one of those committees that is allowed to meet all virtually.

I think that the hurdle that that committee needs to get over is meeting in person to adopt an all virtual meeting policy.

So you've got to gather in person at least one more time in order to adopt the rule that says you can meet all virtually.

Commissioner Firehock, I'll just say that we are working to address that issue with the commissioner of, or I'm sorry, the chair of that committee and supervisors and county executives.

Right, yeah, so I still, anyway, it's really, it's at least six months we haven't met.

I mean, we're getting ready to do the comp plan.

There are important conversations that should be had by that body.

Just to add to the comment.

So there is a bill, I think it's a House sponsored bill at this point, to address that.

And we read it, we came through, it's not really affecting UVA just because the way the board is set up.

But I didn't see a substantial difference from the policy now that we currently have.

I mean, it's very similar to it.

Yeah.

All right.

Thanks.

Okay.

Seeing none.

Are there any items to follow up?

All right, if not, I will adjourn the meeting at 8.15.